I love you, I love you too Now I'm dreaming with you tonight Till tomorrow and for all of my life And there's nowhere in the world I'd rather breathe Than here in my room Dreaming with you Can I dream With you tonight I'll be holding you tight And there's nowhere in the world I'd better be Here in my room Can I be dreaming Amen, I'll be holding you tight. Amen, we're still tonight. Don't want to be distracted by that. And if you do have to take a call, please do so outside. I'd like to ask everyone that is going to be speaking today to stand up and raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth? I do, Mr. President. Thank you. You can be seated. Before I read the agenda, a couple items. Number one, Mr. Emmons, are there any withdrawals? Or postponements? No, sir. There are no withdrawals that the staff is aware of. I do believe that there is one withdrawal request from an applicant here in the audience. I don't know if there are more. Is there an applicant that wants to withdraw a case today? I meant postpone. I apologize. Postpone? Would you please step up to the mic and state your name for the record and tell us who you are? My name is Seth McNeil. I work for the sign company Sinetronics with the last case, 2015-6. I'd like to postpone it. Dash 6. Sinetronics? I'm sorry? Sinetronics? The reason for postponing, I have a lawyer who's dealing with the actual wording. It seems unclear with the way the code is written, and so I don't have a lawyer working, so I can have a little bit more information to be able to present to the board if we could postpone it. Is there anyone that was in opposition to this request? Mr. Chairman, this particular appeal is a result of a zoning enforcement action case. I believe Mr. Marks might want to say something about the request for postponement. Mr. Marks this appeal relates to a notice of violation that was actually issued quite a while ago December 4th I think is the date we have several pending enforcement cases that are on hold pending the results of this appeal I mean if you choose to postpone that's fine we can we can live that but we would be much more comfortable given what's at stake with other cases to go ahead and hear this I'd like to ask the board if they have any questions of the applicant or Mr. Marks. Mr. Marks are there other similar cases to this that are hinging on this outcome? Yes there are. Okay. There's not a it's probably you know two or three. Thank you. Mr. Emmons do we need to vote on on whether or not we're going to postpone this? Yes sir I do believe that would be the Well, first of all, if there is a motion to postpone, if nobody makes a motion to postpone this item, it would remain on the table. Is there a motion to postpone item number 8, 2015-6, for 30 days? Mr. Chairman, I move to postpone it 30 days. Is there a second? A second. Ms. Whitman, seconds. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ms. Meyer opposed? you've got your postponement for 30 days. We'll see you then. Thank you. The board, yes, ma'am. Yes, I'm here representing the Whipple case, 2015-5, and the client would like to request 30 days postponement since the comments from staff have basically created a redesign of the parking lot project, and we're still working with staff on that. We just need a bit more time to come up with a brand new design, which is basically what's been requested. That's the first item, Big Blue Rentals, is that correct? Yes, they're asking for a 30-day postponement. I was going to say, for the record, it's on page one of the agenda. It's item V2015-5, Big Blue Rentals, LLC. It's for a variant at 178 Leader Avenue. Is there a motion to postpone? Mr. Chair? Yes. I'd just like to be sure there's no one in the audience that has a problem with this postponement. Is there anyone in the audience that's opposed to a postponement for 30 days? Then I move. We postpone. Mr. Griggs makes a motion to postpone for 30 days. Is there a second? I second that motion. Mr. Forrester, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Very good. We'll see you at our February meeting. I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to read the agenda and ask if the applicant's present. If there's no opposition, we are going to hear those cases first. And if there is opposition, we ask that the applicant and the opposition go out in the hallway and see if they can't resolve their issues. I believe our first item is item 2015, D.B. Holmes. Is the applicant here? Is there any opposition? The next item is Remnant Community Church. Item 2014, is the applicant here? The applicant is in the back. Is there any opposition to Remnant Community Church? Any opposition? Okay. The third is Mohamed Salash, the Islamic Center of Lexington. Is the applicant here? Very good. Is there any opposition to this case? Very good. We'll hear that. The Sikh Association of the Bluegrass, is the applicant here? Yes, sir. Very good. Is there any opposition to the Sikh Association of the Bluegrass, item 2015? No opposition. The next item is Turning Point Church, item 2015. The applicant is here. Is there any opposition to that case? No opposition to Turning Point Church. the next item is the administrative review which we will hear is the applicant here? very good, is there any opposition? and we'll be hearing since it's an administrative appeal we'll be hearing that case last I believe the first item of business with no opposition is is DB Holmes Oh, the approval of minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moore. We do have the December 12th minutes that were sent to us by email, and then you also have a copy in your packet. I think the board has had an opportunity to read the December minutes. Are there any additions or corrections? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. I move we accept the December 12th minutes. Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Forrester. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Very good. We'll move on to our first item with no opposition. D.B. Holmes appeals for a variance to reduce the required side yard from 25 to 22 feet. Is the applicant here? Please step forward to the podium and state your name for the record. Drew Brestor with D.B. Holmes. Mr. Brestor, the staff has recommended approval. subject to two recommendations and conditions. Do you agree to abide by those two? I do. Is there any questions from any members of the board or staff? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move that V2015-7 DB Homes LLC's appeal for a variance to reduce the required side yard from 25 feet to 22 feet to construct a new residence in agricultural rural zone at 3821 Winchester Road be approved for the reasons recommended by the staff and subject to the two conditions recommended by the staff. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Is there a second? I second the motion. Ms. Whitman, second. So all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Good luck to you. Thank you. The next item is Remnant Community Church. Would the applicant please step forward to the podium and state your name for the record. Hello. Josh Brown with Remnant Community Church. Mr. Brown, thank you so much. The staff has recommended approval to your request subject to three conditions. Have you read those conditions and do you abide by them? Yes. Very good. Any questions from any member of the board? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move we approve CV 2014-75 Remnant Community Church's appeal for a conditional use permit to establish a church and a variance to eliminate the perimeter, landscape requirement, and a wholesale and warehouse business B4 zone at 1125 Commercial Drive as recommended by staff and subject to the three conditions outlined by staff. Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Is there a second? I second the motion. Mr. Forster seconds, I'll signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you. The next item with no opposition is the SEEK Association of Bluegrass with the applicant. Please come forward. State your name for the record, please. Good afternoon, Mr. Commissioner. John Romph here on behalf of the applicant. Thank you, sir. The stat is recommended approval subject to seven conditions. Does your client agree to abide by those? Yes, sir. Does the board have any questions? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move that C-2015-3 seek association of Bluegrass Inc.'s appeal for conditional use permit to occupy the property for religious purposes in a single family residential and agricultural rural zone at 257-259 Swigert Avenue be approved for the reasons recommended by the staff and subject to the seven conditions recommended by the staff. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Is there a second? I'll second. Mr. Griggs, second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you. Turning Point Church, state your name for the record. Will Johnson, Turning Point Church. Thank you, sir. The staff has recommended approval subject to the following two conditions. Have you agreed to abide by those conditions? Any questions from any members of the Board of Adjustment? If not, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move on C. 2015-4 Turning Point Church Appeal for a conditional use permit to expand an existing church use in a light industrial zone at 133 Trade Street be approved for the reasons stated by staff. I'm subject to the two conditions listed. Thank you, Mr. Glover. We've got a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Myers seconds. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thanks very much. Good luck. Thank you. I believe that's all. Without opposition, I'm sure our next case will go as quickly as the previous four did. I'd like to ask that Mr. Salash and the Islamic Center, the applicant here, please come forward and state your name for the record. Hello. My name is Chris McCoy. I'm with McCoy Architects here in Lexington. Mr. Salash cannot be here at this time. He'll be here later. I'm sorry, sir. What's your name? Chris McCoy. Thank you, Mr. McCoy. I'm the architect for the application. Do you want me to present the facility? No, what I'd like to do is this. The staff has recommended approval subject to 10 conditions. And obviously with the support and the opposition here, what we'd like to do, and staff has put in a great deal of time, we're going to set some parameters for this case. I'd like to limit the staff to a 15-minute presentation. I know that traffic also has a small report and would like to limit the opposition to 15 minutes, the applicant to 15 minutes. And what we'd like to do afterwards, obviously because of due process, anyone that would like to speak can speak. But I will say this, that in many of our cases that have either a lot of support or a lot of opposition, one of the things that we're very concerned with and challenging is we want to make sure that we don't have speakers coming up here repeating what somebody else said. If you have something new to say, we'll let you speak. But if it's we're not going to be having speakers up here that are going to be repeating what the previous speaker said. And so I had talked to one of the members earlier of the opposition, and I know that they also have three people that want to speak on their behalf regarding their presentation. And we had talked about five minutes for each of those three speakers. And we will give the opposition and the applicant an opportunity to make any rebuttal. But what we do want to do is we are going to limit that to a couple-minute response. So I want to make that very clear before we get this case underway. And also, I want to make sure that something like this, some issues like this can be very, very sensitive. And I want to make sure that we stay focused on the conditional use permit and applicants' comments as well as opposition. This is not about religious beliefs. religious beliefs are irrelevant and i want to make that perfectly clear and if i hear any any uh uh... uh... any comment to that effect uh... uh... you will be asked to stand down uh... so i want to stick to the merits of the case we're going to give the staff an opportunity we're going to give the applicant an opportunity and we're going to give the opposition an opportunity uh... to address this and uh... we will be fair so As we begin, Mr. McCoy, I'd like to first hear from the staff and hear their staff reports on Mr. Emmons and then from KC and traffic. I understand that. So, Mr. Emmons, I'll ask you to come down to the lectern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Before I get started on our presentation, I do have a lot to say. So my presentation is very broad and has a lot of things. There is a lot of information in our written staff report. Obviously, at the end of the presentation, if you have any further questions for me, we'll try to do that. But I'm going to frame the issues, let you know kind of where things are at. Before I do that, I do have a bit of housekeeping. On the back table, in case the audience is interested, we do have additional copies of the staff report on this case. We have a handout that the staff prepared that has four options. It says option A, B, C, and D at the bottom. We have copies of that also. We will be referring to that. There is also a rendition that has a tree and a circle on it. That was a staff exhibit that I'll go over. There was also an exhibit that was submitted by the applicant that shows the height of the building. That's also on the back table. Located also at the board's handout, we have received several letters on this. We have passed out copies to each of you, so you each have all of the letters. There is one letter in support from Mr. Tim Gregg, or Greg, and then there are, I believe, 11 letters of opposition following that. I am primarily going to speak from my prepared PowerPoint presentation that has a lot of pictures. We'll bring the lights down, and hopefully that will also help keep me on track during this presentation. I think we've already mentioned it. This is case C 2015-2. It is for Mahmoud Salash Islamic Center of Lexington at 1240 Armstrong Mill. It is a conditional use request in an AU zone, which is an agricultural urban zone on this property. the property itself, is just over nine acres. I believe it's 9.4 acres. We have the several site plan options for you today, and that that's probably going to be the bulk of the discussion. So to start things off, the original submittal, which is also known as option A, is the plan as it was originally submitted with this application. In response to the staff report, the applicant on September 26 filed a revised site plan that mirrors the recommendations in staff option D as we go throughout there. As I continue on, this might make a little bit more sense. utilizing all i did on this whenever you see the site plan in color all we did is we took the applicant site plan and applied colors to it for today's presentation to start off with a base map of the area the subject property is in the center of this photo the 9.4 acres some of the major streets in this area this parcel does have frontage on armstrong Mill, which is a minor arterial that serves this area. There are two collector streets, Appian Way to the west and Crosby Drive to the east, and there are two local streets that stub into the subject property, Accord Drive from the west and Merman Drive from the east. To look at the overall zoning, the subject property, as I mentioned earlier, is zoned AU, that's Agricultural Urban. Just to the south is the Mill Creek Elementary School, which actually is accessed off of Appian Crossing Way through a small local street called Reva Ridge Drive. The rest of the surrounding properties are residential zoning of one sort or another. There's a combination of R1C, R1T, R2, R1D, but they're all residential zones that surround this property. with the exception of the school to the south. Also, to keep orienting you to the property, some of the site characteristics, this property very much has a rolling hill, as described in the staff report. The location of where the Family Life Center is being proposed is essentially on the high point of this nine-acre property. And the property and all of the water generally flows towards the southwest corner and towards the parking lot of the Mill Creek Elementary School and to the backyards of the townhouses on Appian Way. I want to run you through some site pictures very quickly. This is looking from Armstrong Mill at the single-family home that is on the property. Other than farming, this is the only use on the subject property currently. It's served by a detached garage, which you can see to the left. And there is also a shed in the way. This is kind of standing behind that detached garage, looking at the Merman Drive, Stub Street in the residential subdivision. I believe it's Melody Village on there. You can see that there are a lot of perimeter trees around this entire property. Looking at this, we're standing and looking directly behind the single-family home at the high spot. This is essentially the area where the Family Life Center building is proposed. And as you can see on this, there's a lot of topography. If you look over the green, you can see in the back part of the picture the field and the cut grass there as it goes down. This is standing in that grassy area, kind of in that low part. The trees that you see are primarily, the trees on the left side of the picture are along the Melody Village residential subdivision. And you can see the top in the right-hand side of this picture. You can see the top of the Mill Creek Elementary School building. Just turning the camera a little bit more, you can see looking at the low area on the property where all of the water naturally drains to. And you can see the back of the townhouses that I mentioned earlier that are face Appian Way. And this is looking back, standing within the property and looking toward Armstrong Mill. And you can see it goes up the hill, and you can't even see Armstrong Mill Road from this vantage point. And you can see, you know, you're pretty far back away from it at that point. And there is a nice topography feature there. This is standing very near the, this is outside of the subject property. The subject property is on the left-hand side of the picture, and the backs of the townhouses and duplexes on Appian Way is in the foreground. This is the sub-street of Accord Drive, a local street that comes from Appian Way. It is a very short local street. It essentially serves just two homes. And then it stubs directly into the subject property. Coming back around, this is a shot on Armstrong Mill standing. The fence that you see is a daycare that is located at the corner of Armstrong Mill and Appian Way. And then there is a veterinary clinic, which you can see their sign. And then the next driveway down is the applicant's driveway. Moving to the position of the existing driveway for the single-family home, I wanted to show this picture here because one of the major issues for the board to decide today, should you approve this application, is whether or not to allow access to Armstrong Mill Road. So this is standing in the location of the existing driveway looking toward Appian Way, which does have a signalized intersection, and then standing in the same location looking down Armstrong Mill toward Crosby Drive. And you can see there is a problem with the Armstrong Mill Road has a lot of vertical changes in it, so it goes up and down a lot. And it does affect the visual sight distance along Armstrong Mill. To get back to the subject property, the next slides here, the staff just did a composite photo of the applicant's proposed site plan. This would be option D as submitted on the aerial photographs so that you can see how this proposed plan will fit in with the surrounding neighborhood. And then finally, to kind of go through the plans, I want to hit real quickly some of the things on the, before I get into that, let me get back to this one. As I mentioned earlier when you saw the contours, all of the stormwater on this property is naturally draining toward the southwest corner. In that area, the applicant is proposing a detention basin, and as you can see, there is a significant amount of open space for the subject property in that area. The staff has recommended and the applicant has agreed to provide an additional 10% stormwater capacity over what just their site produces. So it would be the amount of stormwater that their proposed development would produce, plus an additional 10% in order to handle any existing stormwater problems. So there will still be water that goes into the system. And later, if there are any specific questions about stormwater, our Division of Engineering has already looked into this, and they might be able to answer any specific questions. The looking at the options that are spelled out in the staff report, it came apparent as we were reviewing this plan that the overall this site is is a is a good use. I mean, the use that is proposed overall is a use that is appropriate for this nine acre site. Over two-thirds, about two-thirds of this overall site will be left in open space. There are, there's adequate access through two local stub streets and a minor arterial. They are proposing a facility that would be about 33,000 square feet in total, but all in, with about a 14,000 square foot footprint. All of the religious uses would be on that first floor, 14,000 square feet, with a gymnasium on the second floor. And the third floor would be a mezzanine walking track around the top of the gymnasium. This site can adequately handle that. It can handle the stormwater. The trees that are on the site can be preserved. and so it became apparent to the staff that how the traffic is handled is obviously the number one issue in reviewing this application. In this particular instance, we found that there were multiple options that would be before you today, and we've labeled those for discussion purposes options A, B, C, and D. and all of these options are conceptual options. It hits the major points, and with that, each of those, should the board choose one option over another, keep in mind that the individual revisions to that option would have to occur, you know, afterwards during the permitting. For instance, you don't know if it's going to be 110 feet or 100 feet on the distance of that, but to know that you're going to have access to Armstrong Mill with a turn lane would be the type of decision that we're talking about. So option A is obviously approve the plan as it was originally submitted by the applicant. Considering that the applicant has now revised their site plan to mirror option D and is in agreement with the staff recommendation, I believe option A is essentially off the table. There's no reason to recommend approval of that. Option B would be to not allow access to Armstrong Mill Road, allowing the existing residents to retain their driveway and to connect Accord Drive and Merman Drive, presumably with a public street. And then the applicant would, with the amount of space that there is on the property, the applicant would have the ability still to provide the parking and the facilities that they want. All of the staff exhibits that you see and where we've made changes to illustrative changes, we've done it in such a way that we think has the least amount of changes to the applicant's proposal for discussion today. Option C essentially would be to have a single street connection, and that would be to Accord Drive. So in that case, it would funnel all of the traffic for the subject use onto Accord Drive and onto Appian Way. In this particular instance, the staff is recommending that there be an emergency access with a gate from the residential driveway back to the subject property. and that's at the request of the fire department who requested that in looking at the overall scheme of things, that at least two out of the three, that there be at least two ways in and out of this site. Option D is the preferred option from the Division of Planning staff's perspective. This one, we believe, strikes the greatest balance between access to the property and distribution of that traffic while offering safe access and not having any problems with that. In this instance, staff is proposing a relocated access drive to Armstrong Mill with a turn lane, a right turn lane improvement from Armstrong Mill into the subject property. We are proposing pedestrian access from Merman Drive through the property to Accord Drive and the public sidewalk on the other side in lieu of a public street connection, but a public passageway for pedestrians through there. And, yes, I did practice public passageway for pedestrians. Very good. And in this particular instance, there would not be any vehicular access to Merman Drive. From the Division of Planning standpoint, and we went into this in detail in our staff report, where Merman Drive currently connects into Neal Road, that particular instance, it's not a T. I'm thinking Niles Drive. That's not a T, but more of a Y intersection. It's not a typical intersection. and we did not see that it would be a good thing to funnel the traffic through that subdivision and through the subject property without a public street and without possible off-site improvements. There was one last thing that was mentioned in the staff report about the trees, and one tree in particular, in our staff report we talked about it saying that there was a significant tree. It's on the south, the eastern property line, very near the entrance. The original site plan would have destroyed this particular tree. Our urban forester was able to go out and look at this, and he determined that it's actually a 300-plus-year-old burr oak and that it is very healthy and that it has a very good lifespan, and it's a very good specimen of a burr oak, and he is recommending that it be protected. As such, the staff has made one minor revision to the option D since we got his recommendation, and utilizing Google Map imagery, because that's where we had a map that the full canopy was leafed out. the city's aerial photographs were taken during the winter, and so there were no leaves. So it was hard to see what the actual drip line was. But whenever we did this and we applied it to the subject property, that's where we have option D, which I am calling the bur oak revision to option D. And that's because there is a much larger drip line to that bur oak than is shown on the applicant's plan. And we are proposing that they move that access to Armstrong Mill over. Unfortunately, it does look like it would go through the existing detached garage of the existing residents. But we do believe that that is the best location for both safety, overall access, and to be able to save the burrow. With that being said, the staff is recommending approval of the requested religious assembly use for the reasons that are listed in the staff report, subject to 10 conditions that are all listed on your staff report. And the only thing that I would say at this point is that we are, our staff report says that we recommend option D. And the staff would like to clarify that when we mean that, we mean option D with the Burr Oak revision. If there are any other questions for that, I'd be happy to answer them. I'd like to ask if any members of the board have any questions. For Mr. Emmons at this time, I understand traffic would like to respond. Do you have anything, Ms. Kautcher, you'd like to add to your? I don't have anything, you know, at this time that I would want to present. I can address kind of why traffic's viewpoint on the, I guess, where we differ a little is on the access to Armstrong Mill. traffic is you know we've worked with planning and evaluating the site the access to armstrong mill traffic sees there being concerns with the spacing of that access point to the adjacent signal at appian way so that's a concern and then the minimum site distance at that location I think that the site can function as the applicant is, as the site plan, as he's applying for it, how traffic would prefer the access to come from the local street instead of the minor arterial, which is Armstrong Mill. Traffic also favors connecting streets. The two streets, Accord and Merman, are local streets. And so we would support connection of those streets and with the proposed site plans that would be prevented. So traffic's option would be to eliminate the Armstrong Mill access and then to connect the local streets and the applicant's site to access one of those local streets. and then they would feed on to the collector Appian and then out to the signal at Armstrong Mill. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for either? Mr. Griggs? It seems like there's a lot of right-of-way on Armstrong Mill. Do you know what the forecast is for widening that street? I don't think it's anywhere in the future. Jimmy and I have discussed that, and he had seen it pop up on a, like, six-year plan. but I don't think that that's any time in the future. Would having this church located there change the priority of widening Armstrong Mill? No. What does set the priority for widening a road if it's not additional traffic? Right. We look at it on a collision basis, and usually when our funds are allocated, We kind of prioritize the roadways. And since it's currently not on a list, and I know there's already existing roadways, I don't see it being in the... You're saying widening is not based on traffic count? It's based on collisions? I'm saying it's based on both, but if it's currently not on our radar for improvements, then it's not going to be in the near future to improve Armstrong Mail. Thank you. Ms. Glover? Jimmy, I agree with part of what traffic said, and I wanted to ask you, it was in my notes anyway, why are you recommending or why is the staff recommending not having traffic access from Merman? As we look at the subject property, we believe it would create an unnecessary cut-through through the subject property, a cut-through for the neighborhoods going through the private development of the parking lot of the church. Typically, there are other places where that has occurred, and the church has had to put up gates to cut down on the cut-through traffic. In this particular instance, we looked at the question of whether or not we should recommend access to Armstrong Mill. once we did that, it seemed to cause more problems to come through Merman Drive also than it would solve. And as I said earlier, the staff recommendation of option D is really what we see as the best balance between getting traffic in and out of this site but not causing any problems. And we see that the most problems would be coming traffic through Merman Drive. It is not often that the Division of Planning will ever recommend that a street not be continued into a property, and we don't do that lightly. We really did look at all of the different possibilities, and we felt that this was the best balance of controlling traffic and allowing access to the subject property. Well, that gives only, this is 9.4 acres that gives, and how many cars allotted for in the parking area? There are about 200 parking spaces with the ability to add an additional 140 if the need should arise. Our traffic counts for that first floor of religious assembly use is about 14,000 square feet. And based on the formulas in the ITE manual, that would result in about 250 trips during the peak hour for this use. The staff will caution as far as the over-reliance on that particular. The ITE manuals even made note of this, that that was based off of the observations of one mosque. And so they had a sample size of one as they were doing their counts. But it is, you know, it is information to go from. So that's looking at about 250 trips. On the other side of Armstrong Mill is a road called Calder, Calder Road. That doesn't run through Armstrong Mill, does it? Doesn't that T into Armstrong Mill? I believe it T's. Okay. Yes. All right. I'm just trying to understand where the traffic is going to be coming and going. And I understand the optimum occupancy is about 300 people. That's what the applicant has indicated. And part of staff's plan is to have a slow-down lane on the right-hand side. Yes, a right-turn lane. So that is a road improvement that the planning staff is recommending. Is that going to be the applicant's responsibility? Yes, it would be. And also, I just want to say for the board and everyone, the Division of Traffic Engineering and Planning are not at odds. We have different, we came to, we looked at all of the facts, we came to different recommendations. The Traffic Engineering's recommendations would be best summed up in options B and C, and the Division of Planning's recommendations is in D. any of those three options are viable options should you wish to approve this. Each one has its own benefits and consequences. Can I just ask Traffic one question? Are you concerned about safety if we were to go with option D? I realize you think that B or C are better. Do you think there are serious safety concerns with D? that is why traffic chose um the option b and c the safety concerns are the site distance um i think if you go if you know if we go with d there is um i think it's within the right-of-way of armstrong mill there's like brush trees that would definitely need to go in there and be removed to open up those sight lines and improve it. Those were traffic's concerns with the Armstrong Mill entrance. So are those brush trees on this property so that this owner could take them off, or are they on other property? They are on the adjacent property. I think it's questionable on whether they're in the right-of-way or whether they're on the adjacent property. It's close. I'm not for sure. Any other questions from the staff? For the staff? Thank you, Mr. Emmons. Thank you. What I'd like to do is I'd like to ask for the opposition to make their presentation. You've heard from the staff who has recommended approval. I know I was told that you had three speakers and a PowerPoint presentation to make. And again, I let Mr. Emmons go over two minutes on his presentation, but I think it's very important that we don't limit the discussion, though I do feel that we need parameters to stick by. So we'd like to hear from the opposition, and then we're going to hear from the applicant and allow them to respond. And then we'll entertain questions from the Board of Adjustment and allow both the opposition and the applicant and staff to respond. So with that, state your name for the record, please. My name is Mark Jeffers. I'm an officer with the River Park Neighborhood Association. And a short presentation here. We have three speakers going through parts of it, and we'll be about five minutes each. That'd be great. Some of the stuff Mr. Images just went over, so we'll not address that so much. How does this work? Oh, is this there? Oh, okay. There we are. Yeah, we have our own little site map here. It's a little more of a three-dimensional area map of the site, and I can see it too. This is right here at the major intersection of Armstrong, Mill, and Appian. And again, to review the site plan, this is the one we received last Sunday. It looks like it was submitted on the 24th. The main focus that we would like to address is the entrance on Armstrong Mill and Accord Drive. And this is just another 3D area map. Okay, as far as the size of the building, 14,000 square feet. The typical home in this area, these R1, R2 homes, these are all built in the 1970s. there, typically about 1,000 square foot footprint. So this new building footprint is the equivalent of 14 homes in the area, overall 33,000 square feet, so that takes us up to about 33, this equivalent of 33 homes in the area. So the scale of this, I think, is lost on the size of the property. And then we know the parking spaces. We intend to have 201 parking spaces to begin with, but then on the, I'm not sure if it was on the most recent submitted plan, but on the first one we saw that they do intend, and Mr. Emmons hasn't addressed this, they do intend to expand. They want to build a second, larger building in front of the first building. And, of course, that wouldn't necessitate additional parking. And I think that's why the 140 planned parking places is included, expansion is included in the plan. So next one. And now this gets to the line of sight and the distance from the intersection. I think if you look in the case study, in the case review, on page 4, it says traffic recommends between 400 and 500 feet from the center line of the intersection there, Appian and Armstrong Mill, for an entrance or an exit. You can see that neither option really meets that. 383 feet is what we measured on the GIS that was available to us online. and that was not really from the center, but it looks like you've moved the entrance down anyway per your recommendation, so I'd say that's fairly close, but that's a little bit less than what you would want. What we did, too, we lined up a bunch of cars here to see how much traffic could hold, and what we did was we took that car out in the intersection there, which was on the original picture, and we just duplicated it. It looks like a smaller car, maybe about the Honda Accord size, so we were generous in using smaller cars here, But, you know, we line them up, and if this is a busy time and the Armstrong Mill Light is stopping traffic, the most you could have queued up there before the entrance is about 15 cars on the Armstrong Mill side. And then on the Appian Way, which is, you know, one of the plans there, I forget your letters, but, you know, using Appian as the only entrance and exit, that even seems more problematic to us because at most you can get 11 cars or maybe five or six more if they're using the attorney lane, if they're exiting towards the, which way is that? East, west, north, exiting towards the north. And the other problem we see, too, is right there at the, I forget the name of that street, but the next one down that tees into it, that, not Crosby, Mr. Glover mentioned a minute ago. Culver, yeah. There's a rise right there, and let me go to the next slide here. As you can see, if you look at the lead car there, probably the streetlight right in front of the lead car going away from us here. This is from the corner of Armstrong, Mill, and Appian looking back towards the east. That's about where that entrance would be. And you see there's a rise right there. And I calculated that distance. It's roughly 300 to 400 feet. And if a car is traveling at the speed limit, 45 miles an hour, that's about 66 feet a second. That gives you, you know, roll the dice because you don't see anybody coming, but they could top the hill just as soon as you look away. That gives you about four seconds of traveling time. So it's 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000, 4-1000. You have that much time if there's a car just topping the hill as you take out to be out in the lane and up to speed. So that's, you know, as the traffic said, line of sight is an issue. No matter whether there's brush there or not, you can't see any farther than the rise of that hill. and there was a recent study done just on the 24th and 25th and they find that most of the traffic on this road surprisingly doesn't observe the speed limit so in best case you've got four seconds and if someone's driving normal a little less than that so that's on the east side on the west side I think Mr. Emmons had a slide to show you too there's a similar blind spot right there at the intersection of Appian and Armstrong Mill So you can only see 400 or 500 feet in either direction there. So Armstrong, I can understand why traffic would not want that entrance and exit on Armstrong Mill Road. It's very problematic, and I think it would be very accident-prone. And to go back again, the capacity on the Accord side is very limited. It would force people to at least head out towards Taste Creek Road or not. Let's see. Let me move on here because I don't have a lot of time. Just the last official study done on this road as far as traffic in 2012, there's roughly 3.1 million cars across this road every year. We had a brief survey done on the 22nd to 24th of this month. They clocked 9,517 cars across this road every day. If you extrapolate that forward, that's about 3.4 million a year. So this is very heavily traveled on the Armstrong Mill side. Then there was the cut-through and all that that Mr. Emmons mentioned. If there is a big construction project on here, we do wonder how the construction traffic will affect flat traffic flow on Armstrong Mill or Appian. These are both very limited in and out, and if you have big equipment coming in and out and blocking that up for times, that's going to take a situation that's already, like you said, overburdened. What drives that accident? Maybe we will get this expanded after all. But, you know, I hate for it to be at that kind of a cost. But, you know, we worry about the construction traffic and the noise and the disruption that will cause to the neighborhood. Rush hour traffic, safety impact on students walking to and from Mill Creek, which is just below there, during this construction phase. And there's road widening, of course, we think is needed, but, you know, as traffic says, it's nowhere on the horizon. Our other big concern here is drainage and runoff. Let me see if I can forward here. oops this one I use this slide right here if you can see below there you see Mill Creek Elementary and just below Mill Creek there there's a low spot it backs up between Tates Brook and the lower side of Tates Creek Tates Brook Drive I went over and talked to the residents over there again this morning because I want to get their story straight I heard it first about a year ago when it was over there in the area they're on page and one of the things here may just be because you're new to the situation and you have limited time to do your study, but it says the Division of Planning is unaware of any reported problems as far as drainage in that area. Well, I would like to let you know now for the first time since it hasn't been known apparently until now, even though we've been complaining about it for years, there's a major drainage problem down there at the basin of the backside of Tracebrook and the lower side of Mill Creek Elementary. When we have massive water runoff in the summertime, we'd have a little stream down there that's about this wide, about three feet wide. In the summertime, when we get a big rain, that becomes the width of a football field. It's like a little lake running through there. You know, it's a running lake. That is an existing problem that has not been solved. And, you know, we've talked to the Fayette County Public Schools. We've talked to the Division of Wildlife. We've talked to the Water Board in Kentucky State. No one really wants to take credit for this project they've fixed back here. But, you know, we have not been able to get anything done. We even had councilman Myers come out stand on the back porch and observe these things so he knows it exists I don't know you know I was involved in the process but it should be known down here so you know if we do put a retention base in the corner of the property appear where it's indicated on the plan here that water has to go somewhere and you know I will seek its lowest level they're not lowest level is that the valley there at the base of Taysbrook Drive so I think no matter what you do here to alleviate the problem of water runoff here, it's still going to end up down in that basin down there where there's already existing problems. I think this will make a problem that exists even worse. And I think that concludes my section of the presentation. Does anybody have any questions before you leave the lectern? Does anybody have any questions for this gentleman? All right. Thank you. Hello. My name is Kasha Miller. I'm a resident and speaking for the River Park Neighborhood Association. And before I go on to my part, I would like to make clear that the Neighborhood Association did not receive Site B, the B proposal, where they're connecting Merman Drive to Accord. We only received D before the borough revision. so when we're making our arguments we are not supporting any particular proposal we are opposing all of them okay we don't want the merman drive connected we don't want the access to armstrong mill we don't want this facility on any of those proposals so i just wanted to make it clear that we may be talking about particular proposals, the River Park Association only received the original and D before the Baroque revision, and that's it. So we are not supporting option B just because it hasn't been addressed specifically. Okay? The other issue I really want to bring into focus is bringing us back to the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government 2013 comprehensive plan. I know everybody here is aware of that, that's supposed to be our basis, our guiding principle for strategic development in our neighborhoods and our communities. Theme A of that comprehensive plan talks specifically about growing successful neighborhoods, expanding housing, supporting infill as a strategic component of growth, providing well-designed neighborhood and communities as a basic for strategic growth. This proposal does not do any of those. As part of the comprehensive plan, an Armstrong Mill West small area plan was created and conceived and started having meetings in September 2014. This area we are talking about was deemed extremely important, important enough to create a small area plan group because it has severe issues. It has food access issues, suburban poverty, transportation issues, public transportation issues. It has inadequate commercial and has no neighborhood identity. These issues were specified as part of the purpose for the small area plan, whose goals were to guide growth for the development of the neighborhood, promote the neighborhood stabilization, and promote neighborhood revitalization. This group just started in September. They've had meetings with the community. They've had meetings and consulting with Lexington Fayette Urban County Government Division of Planning. and they hired the EHI consultants. We've spent money on this, whose purpose was to develop a plan for this neighborhood that would help revitalize it and stabilize it because there's a very designated need. As part of those plans, the Armstrong Mill Corridor became a very prominent focus. There are safety issues. There are traffic issues. This is a big deal. And this plan, this small area plan group, needs time to finish their work, needs time to publish their results, so that they can say, based on all their collective data and consultation that we have paid for as taxpayers, what should go in this area. This property we're talking about, 1240 Armstrong Mill, is one of the last infill areas in the neighborhood. This neighborhood's been around a long time. It's developed. It's got older homes. And this is one of the last areas where we actually have an opportunity to put something in that will help revitalize and stabilize this neighborhood. This proposal does not. Things that might work, if you want alternative suggestions, veterans' residences, nationwide need. A community farmer's market, community garden would help assess some of the food issues that we have in this particular neighborhood. Even something as simple as affordable single family residences would be beneficial in this area. All of these would be revenue positive, would produce less vehicular traffic, would have less impact on drainage issues, and all would be a better fit for the neighborhood. Let's talk about fit for the neighborhood. The Lexington Comprehensive 2013 Comprehensive Plan defines a project is considered context-sensitive when its physical design maintains connectivity to the scale, density, and exterior architectural features that reflect, relate to, and are in proportion to the surrounding neighborhood. So let's talk about our neighborhood again. We have one and two-story residences. That's it. Most of them have a square footprint of about 1,000 feet. These are older homes. This is a low-mid-income residential area. It's a very dense neighborhood. We have the entire Tates Creek School Hub there, plus the Mill Creek Elementary School. That's surrounding this particular infill property. There's a one-story vet clinic, a one-story child care center. There's a two-lane, Armstrong Mills, only two-lane road with obviously no plans for expanding in the near future. Appian Way is only a two-lane road. If somebody came to me and said we're proposing a 33,000-square-foot, three-story building with 200 parking places with plans to double that and add an additional 150 parking places, whether it was a medical facility, Whether it was a medical facility, whether it was a retail outlet, or whether it was a church of some form. If somebody came to me and said, we're going to build something that's 33,000 square feet, 200 parking places, with future plans to almost double that size, I would expect to see that proposal on New Circle Road, Man of War. Hamburg, places where there are major thoroughfares, major arteries that can handle the traffic load, that have already large structures surrounding it, and it would be perfect. This is being proposed on a minor artery in the middle of an already existing neighborhood. It is completely out of scale with the neighborhood. It does not meet any of the conditions. The small area plan has for goals. It doesn't meet any of the conditions of the 2013 comprehensive plan. This is wrong for our neighborhood. Let's go back to that comprehensive plan and sum up things. Goal one for the growing successful neighborhoods, expanding housing. This doesn't. This would be the equivalent of adding 33 residential homes. If somebody brought that proposal to this board to put 33 residential homes on that, you would say it was too much. And they're planning on doubling the facility at a later point in time, potentially up to 66 homes. We wouldn't think twice. The property can't handle that. But we're going to say it's okay with a three-story building. Support infill redevelopment throughout the urban service area's strategic component of growth. Goal 2 of theme A of the comprehensive plan. This is no tax revenue. There is no economic benefit to this proposal. This is not going to help economically revitalize our county or our neighborhood. Plus, it adds a vehicular burden that isn't necessary. If we only put 33 residences on there, you're looking at 66 additional cars tops, and that's assuming two cars per house. That's nowhere near the proposed 200 max capacity or 350 max capacity on the extended larger facility at a later point in time. Goal three, provide a well-designed neighborhood and community. This proposal is not a contextual fit for this neighborhood in any way, shape, or form. It doesn't fit. So again, we're not supporting any of the options. We are opposing the entire concept, not because of what it is, not because of who it's for, but because it doesn't fit with our own Lexington, Fayette, Urban County Government 2013 Comprehensive Plan, and it does not fit, because they haven't had time to publish, the Armstrong-Mill West Small Area Plan. It doesn't fit. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Miller. Thank you. My name is Charles Payne. I'm the president of the River Park Neighborhood Association. And I would like to speak a little bit to the historical data. I've had an opportunity to review everything that zoning and planning has online. It goes all the way back to the 1960s when Mr. Gregg first built out there. historically based on the information that your department has published it has always been it appears the intention of zoning and planning that that be developed as a residential community I can find nowhere in the last 50 years of data that I've been able to bring to light anything that would indicate anything of this scale and magnitude for that area out there. With that in mind, I have a petition that has 279 signatures on it right now, and I'd like to take a moment to read that petition to you. We, the members of the Ace District Neighborhood Associations, the homeowners, residents, and others in the surrounding area, are opposed to any plans for development of the property located at 1240 Armstrong Mill that fall under conditional uses of the Agricultural Urban Zoning Code. I believe it's 8-4D of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Zoning Ordinance. We desire to preserve the present agricultural environment and maintain neighborhood structural consistency and community character in accordance to the LFUCG 2013 Comprehensive Plan. And I have seven copies of that. for each one of y'all. I would like to go on and say that in the 2007 comprehensive plan, zoning's recommendation was that this be developed residential to stay consistent with the surrounding development. So if there has to be a decision made on this, Our recommendation is that you deny the appeal for conditional use for this specific purpose and for any other purpose that falls under conditional use based on our petition. Thank you, Mr. Payne. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Payne? Very good. We've heard from staff and heard from the opposition. We'd like to hear from you, Mr. McCoy. Do you want to come up and state your case? We don't have a lot of people here in support for one, well, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, we don't want to repeat testimony. Also, as you may be aware in some of the documents, the meeting time for the mosque is Fridays at 1.30. So a lot of people can't be here at this time for religious services. However, we do have a couple of people that we would like to speak in support of it. And then I was going to let them speak first and then go through some points that maybe haven't been discussed from the applicant's side, if that's okay. Very good. So at this time, Jamie, you want to talk? Then I'll come back up and hit the points. My name is Jamie Schrader. I am with Schrader Commercial Properties, and we are the listing agent that has been marketing this piece of property since October of 2013. And I would like to make a couple of comments related to our efforts to market the property and the type of interest that has been expressed in the property. Whenever we market a piece of property that is suitable for development purposes, one of the key issues is what is the highest and best use for the property. Even if someone has a particular use in mind, if there's not a ready, willing, and able buyer that wants to employ the property for that use, there's no market for that. Okay? The second thing we want to look at is, is the use appropriate? That's what we're here to discuss today. When we started marketing the property, I can tell you that no one has called me and expressed interest in buying the property and using it as a single family home in this particular area, first of all. The second thing that I can tell you is we initially contacted the Fayette County Public Schools to see if they would be interested in expanding or adding a new school there. They had no interest in the property for their purposes. The idea of a retail use there would probably, in my opinion, be more problematic from a traffic standpoint and aesthetics to the surrounding neighbors than the proposed use. And also, I think it's problematic related to the comprehensive plan that has been previously discussed. There's been no calls from a farmer's market that has expressed interest in buying the property. so that the market has determined that the use for this property is primarily for a worship center at this location. We did have some people that expressed possible interest, but not enough interest to make an offer and follow through with it, for some type of medium-density residential or townhouse units. Okay. Now, my point on a townhouse unit is if it is developed for townhouse units, they're going to want to maximize the land value. They're going to cover as much as they can by code. Okay. And if you have a residential development there, typically you use a multiplier of 10 trips per day. And I think from the standpoint of traffic, if that whole area is fully developed with townhouse units or affordable housing, the traffic impact is going to be greater than the proposed use that we're discussing today. So keep that in mind. I don't know where they came up with 33 units, but I believe if you look at the code and you look at medium density residential and what could potentially be on there, it could be with townhouses significantly more than 33 units that could be developed. at that location. The other thing I wanted to talk about a little bit is the general area, the Armstrong Mill area from Taste Creek Road all the way to Manowar. Okay. First of all, let me say that since we've marketed the property starting in October 2013, we've received no phone calls from anybody at the city, from anybody that's involved in the small area development plan. No one's asked what the intended use was. No one's asked if it's under contract. No one's asked anything related to this key piece of property in the Armstrong Mill corridor that is related to the Armstrong Mill small area plan of either me or the owner. The other thing I want to talk about when you look at the general area, there is a precedent for what we're proposing on the site. Starting on Tate Creek Road, you have two worship centers on the corner of Tate Creek Road and Armstrong Mill Road. Coming toward the subject site from Tate's Creek Road, you have the fox and hound apartments or condominium development. Then you have a worship center at Green Tree Road and Armstrong Mill Road. I think there's one other worship center in that general area. And then, of course, you have a church on the corner, a man-of-war in Armstrong Mill Road. So there is a precedent for worship centers in that general area. Also, when you look at Armstrong Mill Road, most of the houses are backing up to Armstrong Mill Road, with the exception of the area between Green Tree Road and Appian Way. Those do front with their front doors on Armstrong Mill, but they have a service road. You might recall seeing a stub road on each side that gives them a little bit of a buffer. I believe, I may be wrong, there might be one other house, But I believe this is the only house that is actually oriented toward Armstrong Mill Road, except for that area in the Green Tree to Appian Way where there is that side road. Okay? So when you look at that total development area, you'll see some residential, but you'll also see a daycare center, a veterinary clinic, and a lot of other churches. Okay? We'd be happy to sell the property for any number of uses if it was economically viable and someone called us and said that that's what they wanted to use the property for. So I can certainly appreciate the neighbors' concerns. We've tried to conform to as many planning issues as possible so that we're trying to meet the general requirements of access, maintaining trees, maintaining initially the original residence to make it appropriate for the area. but it does meet the comprehensive plan requirements. AU does allow for conditional use for a church. There's a precedent in this area, and the use that is under consideration is appropriate. And we believe that it should proceed forward and appreciate your time and consideration. Thank you, Mr. Schrader. Does anybody have any questions? Mr. McCoy, you said you had someone else that wanted to speak. My name is Timothy Gregg, and I have to say that it's interesting to hear all this discussion about the property where I grew up and where my families lived for 60 years. My parents bought 20 acres there in 1953 when I was two years old. So I grew up out on that property. Long before River Park or Melody Village or Mill Creek, it was all farmland. And it was a great place to grow up. So, my father, over about 50 years, planted all the ornamental trees on that property, trees and shrubs. I helped him plant many of them. My children helped him plant even more. my parents watched over the years as all those surrounding farms were picked off by developers and turned into streets and houses my parents turned down many opportunities to sell their property because they wanted to live there as it was until they died and they did my parents said many times over the years that they thought the best use of their property would be a school or a church. And after they died, I moved back in there five years ago and started looking for buyers. And quite honestly, preferably buyers who would not just fill it up with more streets and more houses. Now we have a buyer who has a plan that calls for a minimal use impact, acres of green space, and saves my dad's trees. Quite honestly, I don't know what this is all about. This is a good plan. And I really hope that you vote to approve it today. That's all. Thank you, Mr. Gregg. I'd like to ask staff to take down the speaker timer that's on the screen. I've allowed the opposition a couple extra minutes, and I wanted to allow the applicants the same. Everybody has been very gracious about that, but if we were going to start the timing, It should have been started at the beginning of the meeting, not halfway through the hearing. So I think this is a very important issue. And again, we want due process to continue, but we also want to make sure that we're efficient and we're giving a fair and equitable time. And sometimes that might mean an extra minute or two. And I'm giving you the leeway, but again, setting parameters for this meeting for all of us, including this board and the staff and the applicant and the opposition. Mr. McCoy. Thank you. But you turned off my timer, and now I'm worried about how long I'll go on. I actually have been keeping time myself. I've been writing down your starting and finishing time. So I'm the official timekeeper on this. I'm going to flip through my notes here. Some of these things have already been said. I'm not going to repeat some testimony that you've heard before. This facility is really needed for the Muslim community in particular. who live nearby. There are many families that live in the area. There's been efforts for a long time looking for property that would fill the need. There are a couple of other mosques in town. They are run by different organizations, but all of them are at capacity or need more capacity. There are just very few facilities. The one thing that does not exist in this town, in the Muslim community is a recreational center. This project does stem from the need to have more prayer space. It is a religious use, but what is sorely missing is a recreational component, a place to have dinners, a place to have banquets, a place to play basketball, a place to exercise. In fact, many members use other facilities that are religiously owned and enjoy that and just want to have one of their own. That's where this comes from. I wanted to take just a minute to explain why the building is as big as it is. You've seen some pictures from the opposition of what it would look like. That is not what it would look like at all. But it does have the capacity for 300 people. That is the target capacity. That does not take up. The majority of the building would be located on the ground level. The bulk of the lower level would actually be a multipurpose banquet hall, And a space for those 300 people takes twice the amount of area for a banquet hall to serve those same people. If you attended a service, had a potluck meal afterwards, it takes, therefore, three times the amount of space that you would need just to pray in. So that's part of the reason for the footprint size. And then upstairs is a gymnasium, which is a large footprint, but not a particularly dense use. And then above that, the only reason we say it's predominantly a two-story structure, but because the gym is on the upper level, we would like to have a running track around the top. So there is technically a third level. And if you look at the square footage calculations, there's not much square footage on that upper level. So that stems from having a gym. And we've located the building on a slope. So from the Armstrong Mill side, you would only see two of those stories, basically the gym. It would be the height of a gym from the front. And then taking advantage of the slope, we're proposing a walkout building for the prayer space and the multipurpose space down on the backside on the lower level. So that's, and we, there's a submitted drawing to that effect. I hope that is clear. Let me know if you have any questions. We've actually proposed considerably more parking spaces than are required. The 201 greatly exceeds the 60 that is required for 300 people at the 1 to 5 ratio. And that's because we know that it's going to need more than 60 to hold for 300 people. The expansion area is just if we need it. It's not in the specific plan. Quite frankly, we don't want to build any bigger parking lot than we have to. But we want to be able to accommodate our community on the property. And that's where that comes from. in the preliminary discussions with staff. He knew that we were thinking about, you know, most places that I've been, religious uses, need all the parking that they can get. This is a large piece of property, so we wanted to let you know where that would be in the future should we pursue that. And that's part of the comment about the larger building up front. There are no plans before you to review for that or consider that, but that is why the front yard has been preserved. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that we want to preserve the existing house on Armstrong Road. For now, it's a perfectly fine house. It's got a perfectly nice garage. There's no reason. It's a lot of property. We can accommodate our use back towards the middle or the interior of the property just fine, and all of that can coexist. It's a large property. I want to explain a little bit about what we've done since we initially applied. We have met with the River Park Neighborhood Association on January 13th. There were a couple things that came up, most notably cross traffic, which you might imagine, and the preservation of mature trees, and we've adjusted our plan accordingly to help accommodate that. We've not had any follow-up correspondence from the Neighborhood Association, but we have reached out to them a couple of times and made sure that they see our plans, and particularly Option D. Like some of the opposition said, we actually just saw the plans for Scheme B and C and D revised today at the meeting. So if you proceed down one of those other options, we would really like to talk about that because we're very concerned about that, particularly option B, but I will get into that. I want to talk a little bit about when traffic will occur. We've written a description to you. Services are always Friday at 1.30. That is the weekly congregational prayer. They start at 1.30. Most people take a late lunch on Fridays and come in between 1.15 or as late as 1.45. Yes, many people are late. That happens. The service is usually done a little after 2, so I said 2.15 to be safe, and most everyone is gone by 2.30, quite frankly, trying to get back to work because it is Friday on a weekday, and that's been going on since the dawn of time that I can remember here in Lexington. There is, of course, you know, anticipated usage on the weekends. It's a recreation, it's a community center. So, you know, there'll be basketball games, banquet facilities, you know, weddings, dinners, things like that. But the weekly congregational prayer, when everybody shows up in mass and you have the most dense amount of traffic at one distinct time, occurs on Friday during the workday, actually before the kids get out of school. there is one time of the year for about a month that there is increased usage in the evenings if you need clarification I can clarify that for a religious festival it occurs at a slightly different time each year but the building will not necessarily be at capacity at that it's just a time of increased usage so I want to be clear about that we obviously do not agree with option B that is before you because it bisects the property. Actually, us responding to neighbors' concerns, and it became our concern too. As we met with the neighbors, the initial approach, option A, was to facilitate our traffic getting out. People tend to arrive kind of not gradually but sort of in a wave, and then everybody leaves at once. And we were thinking about egress and people getting out. So that's where the notion of having three exits came from. But it was a very good suggestion. What about cross traffic? That would then encourage people to cross our property, possibly minor vandalism or something like that, or just people being on the property. So we happily removed the connection to Merman and agreed with staff's recommendations that it made a lot of sense to just keep the two accesses. We knew that the fire department wanted us to have two accesses, so we kept Armstrong Mill and Accord Way. Personally, I actually think most of the community will use Accordway, but I do think Armstrong Mill Road will be used some. I can't sit here and tell you where everybody's going to be coming from to the property, but if we lose access to Armstrong Mill in Scheme C, that's our address. That's where people will come to. If people are coming from Man of War, they will not have a way to get to our property. So we very much want to retain one access to Armstrong Mill Road. When we made the revision, actually our first approach was to move the entrance as far away from the light at Appian Way as possible because we knew that was going to be a concern about traffic. But in order to save the tree, we actually moved it closer to the center of the property. The only real minor difference that we have with planning's recommendation is exactly where that entrance is. I think the intent is the same, to save the tree. We want to save the tree, too. It's a wonderful tree. But we want to preserve access as far away as possible from the intersection with Appian Way and Armstrong Mill, but not get too close to that tree. So actually, I think we can figure that out, exactly where the best place is, while still giving the most stack space towards Appian Way. I don't anticipate a lot of our traffic turning left out of the property to go that way. They would much more likely go via Accord Way to Appian Way, where they can then have two choices to spread out. Some of this stuff has been said. We have increased the size or what would be the design capacity of the detention basin to accommodate additional runoff. We're trying to respond to those concerns. We don't have a detention plan drafted up by a civil engineer to accommodate that for you, but we think a design solution could present one possible option to improve this situation. In this instance, I think some development could possibly help the water runoff. there were some questions that came up this week that we did not get into our submittal. There was a question if we ever proposed to have a cemetery. We do not. It's not on the application. It's not before you today. We want to be clear about that. We would prefer to have sidewalks along Armstrong Mill Road rather than across the middle of our property, but Armstrong Mill Road is not improved. They're not sidewalks now. We, of course, would be supportive of that. so therefore we are accepting of planning's recommendation to have sidewalks to connect to merman if that's important for the city planning then we will accommodate that it's not necessarily something that we would choose but we certainly see the need and are trying to be responsive to that and that ends i didn't have a timer on mine direct presentation i'm here if you have any questions. Yes, I'd like to ask any members of the board. Has a question for Mr. McCoy. Mr. McCoy, in your discussions with the folks in the neighborhood, have you all talked about their possible use of this facility to take advantage of the walking track that might be there? Well, our conversations with the neighborhood neighborhood have been mostly one way. We were there at the neighborhood association meeting and we presented the plan and we took some questions. Yes, that did not come up in the course of those questions. Since then, I've not received any requests to attend additional meetings or anything like that. And we gave out business cards and asked and sent out our contact information, but I think they've been talking amongst themselves. I will tell you that we are receptive to that. The model for this facility is much like what you might imagine many other religious centers have where anyone can come to this facility and exercise. And, of course, it will need to be tailored to suit our needs. The intent is to be an open community center, absolutely. Yes, we'd like to accommodate the neighbors. We'd like to accommodate people that want to exercise. Absolutely. That's the whole intent of this facility. Yes. Do you have any conceptual drawings that folks can see to see how it would look on the property? I mean, we've seen the box that the opposition has shown us, but do you have anything that, you know, we could... I don't have anything to present to you, but I can describe it for you. It is predominantly, what you would see from Armstrong Mill is predominantly a gymnasium. It will be mostly a rectangular structure. I think from the backside, because that's where our primary interests will be, you'll have more architectural detail, and I don't know exactly what that looks like for you today. This conditional use site plan is pre-sale of the property. So the community has not invested lots of time and resources and money to have it designed architecturally, although I have designed a lot of mosques before, and I can describe it to you, but I can't show it to you, so I don't want to try to give too much testimony. But it's fundamentally a gym, so it's a rectangular space that will have likely a pitched roof, not this large box that you saw. And do you have the handout where we cut the building section through it? That is the tallest it could be. I anticipate it being smaller than that because the gym will not occupy the entire upper level. There will be walkways around it and things like that. I anticipate it being smaller than what you have seen. And we have, you've noticed the area calculations for the building, while we think are fairly accurate, are rounded up to give us the latitude to design it. And I think it'll be smaller than that. I can't tell you exactly what size it was. The community hasn't gone through an in-depth programming analysis to see, Do we have one office or two that runs it? How wide are the hallways that go around it? Well, we've listed the major spaces. We have calculated how big they would be and rounded up accordingly to give ourselves latitude to be able to design the building. Without being excessive, it'll be almost that size. But I don't anticipate the whole building being that full height. That'll just be at the gym. That's where the extra height is needed. And likely only at the ridge. it will likely be 20 feet from the Armstrong Mill Road side, maybe 22 on that side. On the section, we gave you the maximum that we think it could be because the floor-to-floor has not been set. Hopefully it will look nice. Hopefully it will be pleasing. But I think it will be smaller than what you see here. Thank you for putting that slide up. Thank you. Does anybody else have a question? Mr. Glover? Mr. McCoy, are we in agreement that this is the site plan that's under consideration? Option D, yes. It is the first time that we have seen that option where staff drew the red lines, where it goes through the garage. We went out and field measured the tree, and they used, I'm sorry, who did you use, Jimmy? We used Google Maps. We used Google Maps, but was it an arborist? Who was the tree person? Oh, our urban forester. urban forester, which we didn't have the information that they have. Our intent is the same, and that is to save the tree. But we went out and took field measurements of where the drip line was, where we thought it was, and did our best to accommodate that. The real question is whether or not we shift the driveway enough that it hits the garage or not. We'd like to preserve the garage if we can. For us, it's not a deal breaker. We'd just like to save the garage if we can because we want to keep the house in the garage the way that it is. But we absolutely want to dodge the tree and preserve the tree. We went to preserve the tree as well. and where that needs to go is where that needs to go. Which is more important, the tree or the garage? The tree. The only changes that I see from the Plan D and this larger drawing are the three things that have already been mentioned. That's protecting the drip line for the tree, the increase in the detention basin and storm management system. That's on that plan, yes. Right. And the access to Merman Drive only to pedestrian traffic. Correct. That's the only difference that I see. That is correct. All right. That's all. Anybody else have any other questions for Mr. McCoy? Mr. McCoy, I'd like to ask if there is anybody else and part of the applicant process that would like to speak. Again, that is something in support that has not already been discussed. We did have some people stream in late for that reason, so I would appreciate that. And we'll give the opposition an opportunity to respond as well. So if you have someone else, do you have anyone else that would like to speak on behalf of the applicant? I don't think so at this time. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Very good. We'd like to go ahead then, and if there is somebody else that would like to speak that is opposed to the applicant, please come forward, state your name, and again, bring us something new that we haven't heard. I'm going to be very brief. My name is Diana Rast, and I'm president of the Gainesway Neighborhood Association. And we have collaborated with River Park not only on the small area plan, which we're all very excited about, but also on this particular issue. And we would like to lend our support to River Park in terms of their application. I don't want to repeat everything that's been said because you all are familiar with it, But we really do feel great concern about this particular project. And as a fit, we agree with River Park that it really isn't a fit. And so we beg your favorable consideration. Okay. Noted and part of the record. Thank you. Anybody else? Anybody else from the opposition? Can you stand up again? As long as you have something, Ms. Miller, that you haven't already stated. I'd like to address the issue of the time. And they have said that most people, the service should end by 2.15. And so in theory, most people should be off the property by 2.30 for their Friday afternoon service. our concern, and we don't have data one way or the other, but our concern is that property, as we've already stated, is between two elementary schools, and elementary schools dismiss at 235, which means parent vehicles and buses are en route by 215, which would be the possible exit time for the Friday service. So again, just exasperating vehicular issues. and safety issues for our school children. Also, the 33 homes, since this was questioned, came from the fact that the average square foot footprint of a residential house is 1,000 square foot, and this is a 14,000 square foot footprint in a 33,000 square foot structure, hence 33,000 divided by 1,000 is 33. That's where the number is coming from. When we said possible infill, we were talking about single-family residences, not medium-density residences as a preference. And no one in the neighborhood association or living in the community has any profit or money at stake at this, which can't be said for others. Thank you, Ms. Miller. I'd like to ask the board if they have any questions of the staff, the applicant, any other opposition. I have a couple of questions for staff. I can't imagine that they've gotten it wrong, but is the speed limit 45 on Armstrong Mill? I had a thought that it was 35. You are correct. The speed limit is 35 on Armstrong Mill. So those long site distances, 350 or 400 feet at 35 miles an hour, it's not as bad as if it was 45. Yes. One other thing, we're talking about the site obstructions with the brush, but there's enough room for them to put a right-turn lane in the right-of-way that exists. So it seems that if the city cut back the brush to the right-of-way line and there's enough room for a turn lane there, there's going to be plenty of room to see all the way down that road. but I don't see how brush on the property would affect sight distances. Right. The turn lane would be on the, I'm not sure of our north, but it would be toward the signalized intersection at Appian Way, and the brush I was referring to is on the opposite side of the proposed entrance. Well, my point is that the right-of-way is so huge on Armstrong Mill that if you trim the brush back, you're going to be able to see both directions to the horizon. There's also curvature to the roadway that also comes into play. You mean vertical curvature? Yes, sir. Right. The last thought I had was about the detention basin. I'm just not sure I understand how those work. if you have so much water, like a river of water going into a detention basin, it would overflow the detention basin. It seems like all the capturing ability of it would be gone. Can you have so much water that a detention basin becomes functionless? I'm going to let our engineering staff answer that. Thank you. Based on our design criteria in the stormwater manual, there are certain historical storms they have to design the basin to. basically there are four storms and some of those have occurred you know in the last 15-20 years they will design it to hold that volume of water and release it at the the rate at which it came off the property before it was developed so if a certain amount of water is coming off now the detention basin would release that same amount of water now obviously there's going to be more water but it's going to be over an extended period of time now in the event that the basin is inundated with water, they have to design an emergency spillway that allows that water to get out of the basin. The good thing about this location is there is a public tie-in point where their basin would basically discharge. And it's a headwall that goes on the property line between 3601 and 3605 Appian Way, I believe is the address. But basically the rate of flow is going to be equal to or less than what comes off the property now. So if they are over detaining by 10%, that should obviously help the downstream issue. But as far as the basin not being functional, no, unless the basin were clogged up, for example, and it wasn't allowing the water to get out, but they will design it to meet our criteria. I heard everything you said, but do you mean that even in a torrential rain, one of these big storms, that adding this impermeable material, the parking lot and the roof of this building, even then, under one of these storm conditions, the outflow from this property will be improved for the downstream neighborhoods? You can't say that for a really historical storm. I mean, obviously, they're designed to meet certain criteria. They're not designed to meet, you know, a thousand-year storm, one that we see. So 90% of the time, it'll be improved downstream? I can't give you a number, but yeah. I mean, it's going to improve the situation that's there now. But we are adding impermeable surfaces, and if it's overrun, then you've got less groundwater, less water absorbed into the ground. Absolutely. Although that might be saturated and have no effect at some point. Thank you. Glover? I want to echo the concern of some of the other people that have spoken. I drive Armstrong Mill occasionally, and what classification of a road is it? It's classified as a minor arterial. Well, I think it's misclassified. I think it is a major arterial, and it's long overdue for improvements both in width and vertically as well, because as that area has grown, residentially and otherwise, the traffic has increased, And it's a pretty good route between Tate's Creek and Manowar. And the drivability of it is made more dangerous by the fact that there are hills throughout the length of that road. I would like to, I guess, recommend to traffic, and traffic and I have spoken several times about my own personal proclivities, about how streets and traffic signals and lanes should be designed, but I'm not an engineer. But I'd like to recommend to traffic that they take a good look at Armstrong Mill Road, put it in their sights, and put it on their future plan because it's an area that's sorely in need of modern planning and such. I know Leastown Road has gotten the bulk of the improvements over the past few years out towards the park out there, but I think this area has been long neglected, and I'll be glad to call whoever I need to call to get something moving on getting this area, getting this major arterial suitable to suit the area. Thanks. That's all I got. Thank you, Mr. Glover. Duly noted. I'd like to... Yes, sir? Would you have... If you need to say something, sir, please come up to the lectern and tell us who you are. Oh, thank you. Sir, my name is Brian Schlifke. I'm a resident of the area. 23 years. When this all started, I contacted traffic and got the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet figures from a 2012 study, which was referenced on the total of over 3 million cars. That came to 8,613 cars a day. I don't know, it looks like Mr. Glover. To Mr. Glover, we asked and have had a traffic report done, 129.15. I would like to have this copied. It's the only copy I have. But the daily traffic right now from the neighborhood traffic management is 9,517. We've seen an increase of 900 cars per day from basically two years. And this was a huge issue, so I simply want to give you as a retired manufacturing engineer facts, like Dilbert. can someone copy this and hand it back to me or can I stay later and somebody make a copy sure we can certainly accommodate that thank you sir thank you so much I appreciate the time I'd like to ask if any members of the board have any other questions for the applicant or anyone from opposition or anyone from staff we've given the uh the applicants and and the opera and the opposition an opportunity to speak um i want to ask one last time does anybody have anything to add either for the applicant or in opposition that we've not already heard today because i think we've had a very uh informative hearing on this matter but i again because of due process if someone wants to add anything we're going to give you that opportunity. I'd like to ask the Board of Adjustment. We've heard, again, from staff and heard from the applicant and the opposition, and it's a very, very difficult case. And I know many of you know that we are a volunteer body up here, the Board of Adjustment, And we receive some cases that are very emotionally charged and an interpretation of our planning and zoning. And we try to get input from all sides. And I've stated this before. I think that we're, I hope that we're fair and I think we're equitable in our decision making. Sometimes the decisions can be very difficult for the applicant, for the opposition, and for the staff as well. because we don't always rubber stamp what the staff ask us to do. We like to hear from the applicant, and we like to hear from the opposition and try to make a fair and balanced decision based upon the facts that we do hear and what planning and zoning laws adhere to. So with that said, I'd like to ask the board your pleasure. and as we've come to the, I think that we've come to the decision moment and the chair will entertain a motion unless someone has anything else to add. Mr. Chairman, I have just one question. Are we making a motion for all four of these options or one of the four? No, sir. It's my understanding that if the board does decide to approve that they would include what option, that would be A, B, C, or D. Is that correct, Mr. Emmons? Yes, sir. That was the intention. Mr. Glover. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve C-2015-2 Mahmoud Salash Islamic Center of Lexington Appeal for a conditional use permit to construct a place of worship in an agricultural urban zone at 1240 Armstrong Mill Road for the reasons cited by staff and the applicant and subject to the 10 conditions listed in the staff report. And I understand, and I ask specifically that for that particular reason that this is the site plan we're approving. It's not D. It's whatever. it's the modification of D that we were under consideration. That's part of my motion. We've got a motion to approve. Is there a second? I second that motion. I think this is the option D with the Burr Oak revision, and if that's what we're considering, I would second that motion. Is that your indication? A motion to approve with option D with the Burr Oak inception. We have a motion to approve. We've got a second by Mr. Griggs. All in favor, sign by by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. Please note Ms. Meyer is opposed and I vote yes. We have approved the conditional use permit, and we wish both the neighborhood and the applicant, Mr. Slash, and hope that good neighbors prevail. And thank you all very much for your time and your patience in being here today. Okay. The board would like to take a five-minute break before we hear our last case. The applicant is here. Okay. We will hear from you in just a minute, and we'd like to go ahead and start your appeal to change two legal nonconforming uses to two new nonconforming uses. Obviously, the staff is reviewed, and we would love to hear from staff. And before we do, Mr. Forster has a comment. Yes, I need to recuse myself from this vote, so I just want to make sure that's part of the minutes, and I'll step outside. Unless you need me after this, I can wait on the vote and come back in. Well, hopefully the only thing we would need you back for is to adjourn this meeting, So I think that you can probably start enjoying your Friday evening if you'd like, Mr. Forster. I can suffer with everybody else. I'm waiting for you. It's time for me. Very good. Also, we are also asked to sign a conflict of interest form that is part of the record that is also given to Ms. McMullen. I understand that that's been done as well. Thank you very much. Mr. Emmons. Thank you, sir. this case is as you mentioned a 2015-1 this is an administrative appeal to the to the Board of Adjustment in order to change to legal nonconforming uses to two new legal nonconforming uses the two uses that were previously on this property that they are requesting to change was a grocery store in a garage for auto repair. The two uses that they are proposing are an animal adoption rescue and a truck terminal. The staff report goes into great detail. You can see unusually the first page and a half, almost two pages of this document, is copying definitions from the zoning ordinance and different legal requirements of the zoning ordinance. And as is often the case with legal nonconformities, those sections, there are a lot of different sections that apply. I can go through those, but first I'd like to show you some photos of the subject property. The first is using our LFUCG aerial pictometry photos. This is looking at the old Richmond Road corridor. The subject property is roughly in the middle. I'll zoom in on it. It's located on the south end of town. The property is currently zoned AR, agricultural rural. It's just north of the intersection of I-75 and the exit ramp for that. It's north of the Boone Creek application, if you're familiar with that one, that it would be north of that. To look at the subject property, you can see that there are primarily a number of uses on the subject property right now. To kind of orient everyone, the white building in the center, that's the previous grocery store building, and that's the one that is primarily being used by the animal rescue operation. Behind that, you can see the garage area, which had historically been used to repair cars. Then you can see also a house on the subject property that's located there. Here's some pictures of what you were just seeing. This is standing on the subject property looking at the grocery store building, and you can see that there are several parked cars, all of them, and some amount of disrepair on the subject property. When I was there taking these pictures, there was not any truck that was there, but to go back, you can even see in this aerial photograph that there was a tractor-trailer pulling vehicles in part on the subject property. It's the trucks and the tractor trailers with all of the cars coming onto the property that actually qualifies the current use as a truck terminal use, according to our definitions in the zoning ordinance. The vast majority of this property has got either old pavement or gravel on the subject property. and as it goes on through there. This is a picture looking at the single-family home that's to the rear. And looking down Old Richmond Road, you can see that it's pretty much a wide open expanse out to the road. There's not a defined entrance from the subject property. I'm guessing that based on the fact that it used to be an old grocery store, probably never had a defined entrance like you would have on a current use. So I'm going to turn the lights back up, but I'll leave that aerial photograph up of the subject property. Our staff report, as we do with all nonconforming use requests, we looked into the history of the existing uses, And we found that it was well documented, the grocery store use on this property. Looking at our first city directory that we have available to us in our library is the 1959. And at that point, there was a grocery store on the subject property. We also, and we found that consistently that there was a grocery store on this property from 1959 until the 2004 city directory is the last time that we found any reference to the grocery store use on the property. So there is a long established use at that property. Also, in looking into the record, diving deep into the building inspection records is where we had found that in 1996, the Division of Building Inspection had issued what is the equivalent to a zoning compliance letter allowing a garage use on the subject property for the repair of cars. There was no particular indication of whether that they were going to allow major automobile repair or minor automobile repair, as we now define them in the zoning ordinance. And just minor is like changing tires, changing oil, doing those types of things. major auto repairs whenever you're pulling engines, changing out transmissions, and those kinds of things, just if you needed a quick clarification on those two. This particular one, it did not specifically say whether they would allow minor auto repair or major auto repair. It was all based off of the property owner's letter and documentation that they had been doing auto repairs in that back garage area for over 25 years prior to the 1996 determination from building inspection, and they did allow that. They did stipulate that there be no jumped vehicles, and I want to make sure I get that. It is no junk cars or cars without engines can be stored on the property. In addition, the garage cannot be expanded or enlarged from its present size. That was a stipulation from that 1996 approval. From 2004 until now, 2015, the staff had a very hard time finding any written documentation of any uses on the subject property. There's just a devoid of paperwork, either in our building inspection files or in the city directories. And so there is a lack of information for us to base any decisions off of. However, it's our understanding that the current uses, the truck terminal uses that are going on, have been, we learned this through our investigation, that they had been going on for approximately three years on this site, the past three years. So there's still a time gap from 2004 to 2012 that I just cannot tell you what the status of the legal nonconforming use on this subject property is. As we looked into it further, we did have some questions also on the animal rescue mission itself. we do not know there's a there's a bit of a distinction on whether this would be a commercial kennel or an animal rescue adoption and a lot of that tends to be you know on whether it's a non-profit adoption organization or whether they are commercially selling dogs our zoning ordinance has a even though you've still got dogs on the property our zoning ordinance would allow the rescue mission in a less intense zone than the commercial kennel. So that piece of information is also missing from this application. We have contacted the Humane Society, and we do know that they are, that they have, that the applicant has applied for a commercial kennel license, but that doesn't mean that she's not a nonprofit adoption agency. So even those from the, it's my understanding from the animal control rules that whether they're a nonprofit adoption organization or a for-profit kennel, they still need to get their kennel license for handling the number of dogs that they wish to handle. So with those things being said, as the staff was reviewing it, the very first thing that we looked at was, and likely one of the most important aspects of this particular case, is have they lost the legal nonconforming use on this subject property? The AR zone, the two principal permitted uses are single-family homes and parking, truck terminals, junk yards, commercial kennels, animal rescue operations, grocery stores. All of these things are not permitted in the AR zone. So the linchpin of being able to say yes is establishing that history and that chain of legal nonconforming uses for which the board would then be able to make a decision on whether the new proposed uses are appropriate to change one nonconforming use to another. So that was a very important, that lack of information that we can find establishing the validity of the nonconforming use on this property is kind of tempered everything that we looked at. But then we stepped back and said, okay, even if that history, even if that chain can be established and that there is clearly a legal nonconforming use for which you to make a decision on, is it appropriate to change from a grocery store in a garage to an animal rescue and a truck terminal? I think for the truck terminal, to separate out the two, the truck terminal, we found that it is a resounding no. So even if you can establish that chain, we would still recommend disapproval of the truck terminal use on the subject property because the truck terminal is more intense than either of the uses that had been there before. Part of the reason why I kind of got into the fact on the major and minor auto repairs because minor auto repair is allowed in a more of a retail zone, whereas the major auto repair, you need to get into those B4 and those more industrial type uses. Those are the types of zones that you would need for a truck terminal also. So the, but arguably, even though the sizes of the buildings have not increased with this use, the scope of the operation of the use has definitely increased over the historic use of the subject property. My main point on that is whenever you look at this site that is mostly gravel and parking lot, that parking lot when it was a grocery store, the parking lot was clearly accessory to the grocery store. That was the reason why you had a parking lot there. Now whenever it transforms into the truck terminal use, that parking lot ceases to be accessory to the grocery store, and it becomes its own use. It takes up that principal use, takes up that entire paved area, and that is an expansion of the scope of that use. Also, when we were doing our typical environmental review and going through our checklist and all of that, we found that our GIS information has a large sinkhole on the property. That sinkhole, according to our mapped information, is roughly located between the garage and the grocery store. Our contours do not have a closed contour around that sinkhole, and when I was on the property myself, I did not see any of the telltale signs of a sinkhole. However, it is at least enough to be concerned that even if you did have a sinkhole there in the gravel parking lot, essentially what you're creating is a direct conduit for bringing in cars that are in disrepair that might be leaking fluids. You're creating a direct conduit of that contamination into the groundwater supply. So that's another, you know, just kind of another reason why that this would be an inappropriate use to change this property into. Finally, on the truck terminal, the entire purpose, it's logical that the entire purpose of bringing in the trucks and the cars is to store the damaged vehicles on this property and do what they're doing with that. that this site has been, through a separate action, has already been cited through a zoning enforcement violation for a junkyard, and they have been ordered to cease that operation. And so if the junkyard use is tied to the truck terminal use too, There's not a motivation there to continue on with the truck terminal use in this operation either. Or if you said yes to the truck terminal use, then it might also help draw the, make it a little bit fuzzier line between the junkyard use, which they have been cited for, and the truck terminal use. Finally, as far as the animal rescue mission goes, it is the two things on that that are most important is establishing the history and also finding out whether it's a nonprofit animal rescue mission or a commercial kennel. That's really very important in ordering and able to determine the intensity of the proposed uses. The staff is recommending disapproval of the subject of the property, disapproval of the request to change uses on the subject property for the reasons that we list in the staff report. And I've primarily gone over those in my report. I don't need to reread them to you. If you have any questions for me, I would be happy to try and answer them. Any questions for Mr. Emmons? Thank you, Mr. Emens. Thank you. I'd like to go ahead and hear from the applicant from Olympic Construction. Would you come forward and state your name for the record? Come up to the lectern, please. My name is Victor Kunica, and I'm the owner of Olympic Construction. First of all, there's a lot of misleading information and untrue information, what has been said in this report. I don't know why staff went to that extent to prove it. I have witnesses and the people who lived on the property or by the property for as far as 50 over the years. And this property goes back to early 50s, maybe even 40s. And the gentleman will tell you what the use of the property and what extent it was. And even in the picture you saw this property, I understand it's agriculture, but there is nothing agriculture. When I bought this property in 2005, it was a business, yes. It was a grocery store, and she had a license until 2005, end of 2005 or 2006, and I didn't renew the lease with her because I bought the property for, I was thinking for my own purpose. You know, I'm in the construction. I was working in Madison County in that property. I was going to use it for, and also the garage was used as a repair garage in Pace Creek Paving, if any of you know, here in Lexington. They've been there over 10 years. They parked their equipment. They parked the trucks there. It's always been used. We're not using it at this moment any more than has been used. It's been used during the years a lot more than we are using right now. The rescue mission, people never come there. She comes in there, take care of the dogs. There's no traffic. The guys who bring the trucks in, there's three trucks, truck haulers. They use from west to east coast. They pick up the cars right here at the auction on exit 104. What they do, they live here, most of them, truck drivers. So what they do, when they go to west coast, Seattle, let's say New York, they come in, pick up the trucks, you know, and haul the cars. So what they do, when they come back home, they park the truck for two, three, four days, rest, and then go back. There is no junkyard. I never had the junkyard there. Yeah, I had a couple of cars parked, which I have five kids. I bought the cars for my kids, you know, fixed it. And, yeah, if they said that's illegal, I'd move the cars out. There is no junkyard. I don't know why they come. There is no sinkhole on the property. I don't know where all this information is coming from. You know, so there's a lot of misleading information here. I don't know how you're going to react to all this, and, you know, I'm lost for words here. There has to be, you know, something, you know, adequate about all this. Anyway, if you wanted to listen to the people here, that, you know, this is the lady, she have the business, the rescue mission. and this gentleman, he's a right-next-door neighbor. He's been there around that property. He knows everything about that property, so you can ask him a question at this moment. Let me ask you a question. What is the current scope of the property? Obviously, the grocery store hasn't been around since 2004. 2006. 2006, so obviously there's not been a clear history of legal nonconforming uses on the property for, gosh, nine years then. Well, as far as the garage, it always has been there. When I moved in there. Is the garage used for retail purposes? What is the garage? No, the garage is never used for retail purposes. I mean, we never used for it. As far as the business, you mean? What is it used for? I'm asking, what is the scope of the property? What are you doing? Okay, well, I just explained to you, on the truck, the truck cars, I call them car haulers. It's a semi-truck with a trailer. You saw it in the picture. What they do, they pull the cars, pick up at the places, and then deliver to the other places. And this is just for them. There is no business going on as far as the, like, a tractor. Well, maybe it is. I don't know how is it right. Basically, when they park the trucks on the property, sometimes they reload the cars. when, let's say, they pick the truck at the auction at Lexington, right? And they pick five cars. So what they need to do, they go into, let's say, New York, and there's the car which they load it, put it on the front, needs to go first. So what they do, come to the property, they take the cars out and put the cars which have to go first, put it on the back. Basically, that's the way they do the business. So yeah, sometimes there's a few cars, but they pull it out, but they put it back the same day or the next day. There's no junk cars without the engine or the, you know, transmission or oil spilling or whatever, like the staff said that there's a junkyard on the property. And as far as the rescue mission, the reason I didn't renew the lease, I put a great amount of money in this place. I bought at this place when the economy was high. I paid a lot of money. I lost a lot of money on this property. I fixed the building. It was unsafe to me, so that's why I didn't renew the lease. I put $20,000 in, and I fixed it up. Ever seen, and basically, the building, this race commission, when I was in, And, you know, I listed, you know, to the, you know, she said she have a license. I really didn't figure that it's going to be against any rules since the property always been. In my knowledge, it's a business property. It's not the agricultural property. And you can see it, like I said, clearly in the picture. Most of the property paved and then traveled. and has been business since 40s, before even any audiences or the zoning was in place. What is the shop? You've labeled the shop or the garage. What's that used for? Basically, they use it when they come in sometimes on the trucks, what they, you know, some light worker, whatever they have to do. You know, I don't know what kind of the, check the oils. You know, maybe sometimes they do change the brake on the truck. Some light service, you know, they provided in the garage for their trucks. We're talking about the car haulers that are coming in there, those trucks that they're servicing in there. Does anybody have any questions, any other questions for Mr. Knista? Well, it sounded like you were describing a parking lot for trucks or a transition period or, as it's stated in your application, a truck terminal. I'm not sure I know what a, other than what's in the report, a truck terminal, but it seems to be the closest thing, Jimmy, is what I understand you to describe. from what he described to you was what he wanted to do. That's what you found in the ordinances. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. That's all I just wanted to clarify on that. Thank you. Any other questions? And I put a tree truck. That's what they have. They have tree trucks. It's never parked, they're tree trucks, at the same time. But like, let's say, on the holidays or, you know, before the New Year or after that period of time, they could have been, you know, maybe for two weeks they parked. But usually there's no truck parks. It could be one, you know, comes in and then the next day comes in or, you know, that's. But, you know, they have a tree truck, so that's why I put a tree so that there would not be, you know, any more than they have. Okay. Thank you. You can have a seat. Any other questions for Jimmy or Mr. Kniesa? Anyone from the audience would like to speak? I know. I'm asking. I've heard, we've heard, sir, speaking on behalf of the applicant, and then we're going to give the opposition an opportunity. Would you go ahead and state your name for the record? James England. I've lived, well, not that picture, but just to the right of it, looking that way. My parents bought the property in 59 that I live on. And this property in question, okay, the bottom right corner is my driveway. In 59, when we moved there, that was a large booming truck stop and used car lot. The building top left was the restaurant. It's separate property. Now, the small building was for the gas pumps, diesel fuel pumps. And the garage was built in the early 60s for work that was on the trucks and whatever came in there. As far as the sinkhole, I have never seen one there. I've been there since 59. Well, I moved away in 65 for a few years. Now the trucks come in. Sometimes they'll unload them, shift them around, leave a car sitting a day or two, load them up, and they're gone. The same vehicles don't stay there over two or three days at the most. The picture's kind of old. And as far as the dog kennel, that's no problem with me. I hear them if I'm outside. But when I'm inside, I don't hear them. They're no problem, no complaints. i've met victor a few times i don't know him personally he don't run that he's got it rented out i know the people that does i've met them i i mow the grass farm they help me out they're good neighbors i have no problem whatsoever with what they do there thank you mr england does anybody have any questions can i ask so So my question, you said that you know that it was used as a truck stop in the 50s and the 60s. And then Mr. Emmons said that in the 90s it was used as a restaurant. Has it been used consistently for trucks for all these years? Basically, when it was a, he said grocery store in 59. No, there was no grocery store there in 59. And the grocery store came in in the 80s. It was closed as a truck stop, basically. A man put an oil company, he called it, in there. He transported oil and tankers and cases of oil and stuff. And then it changed to a grocery store in the 80s. stayed that until Victor bought it. But it was not a grocery store until the 80s. But when it was a grocery store it wasn't a truck stop. Well, they fixed sandwiches. Those the rock quarry is a couple miles up the road. All those big rock trucks pulled in there. I shouldn't say all. a lot of them pulled in and ate lunch there, or not necessarily lunchtime, whenever they could get time to get a sandwich. They'd stop and get a sandwich, something to drink, and go on. It has basically been used for trucks since I can remember. When did the grocery store close? I forgot what year he said. 2006. So after it closed, then what was going on there in 2007 and 2008? Basically nothing. Okay, that's what I was wondering. And the truck stop or the building that you call a shop, was it used continuously? Yes. Even when it was a grocery store, the lady that owned it rented that part out to people. well, Tate's Creek Paving. Maybe I shouldn't use names, but they parked their trucks there. They worked on their trucks and paving equipment. And when were they doing that? That was in the early 90s. And when did they stop? When he bought it. In 96. I mean, 2006. They was there for several years. basically that garage has never been used commercially for people to just stop in and have work done it was somebody like the Tates Creek people was working on their own equipment and the truckers now that's using it they work on their own equipment it's not a commercial. Were you the landlord for all of these uses? No, no. I'm just, I worked there when I was a teenager in the truck stop and I live next door. I'm kind of nosy. I keep up with what's going on. So you've never owned this property yourself. I thought I misunderstood. No, I didn't own it. No. Thank you. Any other questions? Ma'am, did you Want to add anything? Well, my name is Lisa Algram, and I run the animal shelter, and we do have a kennel license. We were inspected in June, but we're not exactly an adoption center. We hold the animals that have some place to go, like either adoption up in the northeast or another rescue, to help the overcrowding Kentucky shelters. So we're not, like, open to the public to where they can come in and adopt most of our animals. Like, at present, we have five dogs right now. But on Monday night, four of them are being picked up for a transport. We basically hold them, you know, because the shelter is out of space. Do you have a contract with the Humane Society, or where are the dogs placed? uh well like uh we do send we do send some puppies after we keep them for two weeks and make sure they're healthy we we do take some to lexington but we send them all over to different rescues like usually out of um we got a lot that go up in ohio and um towards the northeast because their their shelters and rescues are not as crowded as the kentucky shelters are So we help by taking the ones that they're getting ready to euthanize but just need somewhere to go. So they'll come to us, and then we hold them until they get on a transport to go where they're supposed to go. Thank you. Can I ask a quick question? Are these animals sold or are they given away? No. If they're adopted in the Northeast, there is an adoption fee, but usually none of them are sold to rescues. We hold them like they might not be old enough. Like a puppy legally has to be eight weeks to travel, and they might not be eight weeks. So we'll hold them until appropriate age and send them to the appropriate rescue. But no, they come from the animal shelters in Kentucky, so we don't charge for them. How do you get compensated for your expenses and your time? Well, we're not. We just were volunteers helping the animals. It's Mandy's mission and Rescue Me, and Mandy's mission is a nonprofit. So you aren't getting paid for any of the work that you do out there? Mm-mm. Wow. Thank you. We're just helping the dogs, you know, just helping them. Thank you. anybody else have any other miss women I just have one question ma'am would you come back up here for just a sec you said you had a license we were inspected by the Lexington animal control comes out once a year and it's the animal control and the health department and the building inspector so we just had our inspection in June okay and who issued I mean do you actually have a license seems like that's one point that jimmy had brought up well i think that um they're just if if you contact officer evans uh our permit we have passed our inspection but they have just lost the permit but there's um we do have a copy of when they came and gave our inspection so you have a permit to operate for the kennel right okay all right thank you how long have you been doing this We've been in this building four years, but we've been doing it probably ten years. Any other questions? Okay, you can have a seat. Thank you. I know we have some, anybody else, any other comment? We have opposition. Would you like to step forward and state your name for the record, please? Mr. Chairman, as he's coming to the microphone, while I was looking through the file for something else, I realized that there was one letter in opposition that the staff did receive. We thought it was a returned letter, so I apologize for not passing that out at the beginning, but I will now. Okay, thank you. Yes. I'm listening. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. I'm Charles Martin. I live at 7416 Grimes Mill Road. I'm a neighbor, actually. I don't abut this property, but just behind it, just a few hundred yards. And we've been there since 1976. I'm representing the neighbors and two sets who were coming but not. One's in the emergency room with his wife and one is trying to keep his business open because he found no one else to do it. Both of these neighbors, and you can just show those two photos. Tim Means. This is Al Welling's house. If anybody remembers Al Welling's, it was worked for the city for 30 years. And he's lived there since I think 03, perhaps 05. And he, I think his letter, and he was going to actually send an affidavit that he's been there since that time, and there has not been activity in the grocery store. It's not been a grocery store. It's not been a garage. There's never been a filling station. There's never been a sign out front. It's never been obviously open as a garage. And then the other building, these are from the PBA records. John Hadlock has been there from 2002, and he's put a lot of time and money into this house and into a garage in the back. And he also says there's not been any grocery store there. He used to go over there and eat all the time, and he's sorry that it's gone. But it hasn't been there for many, many years. Next one. I think that you can see that this property and this whole area is transitioning from what was a business when 25 was a great highway, and it's transitioning back to a rural and actually a nice residential area. There are a half dozen really nice homes that have come along there during the past 10 years. All of this property is AR, and there's no business owning there, and there has not been. The only real business there, as you can see on the next one, is the grocery store, and the hilltop is long gone. You can show the next one. It's not been there since 07, 08. and the next one, it was dissolved as a business. So if there was a nonconforming use, it's not there. Four and five, you know, the local and the state ordinances suggest that you can't really resume a nonconforming use. So there's not a grocery, there's not a bin, there's not a garage, and there's not a bin. The second area of concern is that the requests are individually and collectively not permitted requests. So you do six, seven, and eight. Basically, these have been covered, I think, by the staff. But in this zone, you can't do major and minor auto and truck repair. You can't store vehicles or junk. You can't have a service station. You can't run a junkyard. You can't run a commercial kennel. Next. Finally, I think you can't operate on your own car in your own garage. Next. I think that we are obliged to avoid allowing things which might cause an adverse influence on the subject property or on the neighborhood property. Next, I think that this is the red X is the subject property. The green hatch is my property. The Hadlax and the Means and the others are within 100 or 200 yards of the subject property, as are a couple of other really nice new homes. Where's your property? Sorry? Your property? The green hatch back behind you. You're saying it's a couple hundred yards. at the bottom of the hill, back there behind it. I think that my property here has no city water. My home has no city water. Our water comes from springs, which we pump, not wells, but springs, and we pump water to the house, to the house and to the barn. We have some cattle that are watered by spring-fed ponds that are just about where the PDR is on that sign there. So my concern is, in the way of a potential adverse influence, is fuels, battery leakage, antifreeze, being not just in the surface water runoff, but in the groundwater contamination, particularly in lieu of the sinkhole being in the center of the whole operation there. Next. This is my little drawing of the watershed. You see the orangey red dot is the subject property. And you see the small blue line. That's a little tributary. to Boone Creek. So this is my property here. And all of this is PDR. Tributary to the creek, Boone Creek, runs into the Kentucky River, and it's Pool 9, about just a little ways upstream from where all our water comes from. So I think those things are real potentially worrisome reason why it should not be allowed. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Martin? Okay. Let me just ask you. So the gentleman here had said that there was a continuous truck terminal use, and are you disagreeing with that then? Yes. And that's based on the fact that you've owned and lived in this area? I've been in the area since 76, and I've been in the grocery dozens of times and in and out. And it's been, there's been things going on there off and on over the years, but no, it's not been a licensed business, tax paying, credited, in the phone book. No, there's nothing there that would say that it's a continuous business. as Mr. Means was coming to say, as was John Hadlock coming to say, the two neighbors that live there. Any other questions for Mr. Martin? Thank you, sir. Does anybody else want to speak from the opposition? hi i'm mary diane hannah 6398 old richmond road i have some items that i would like submitted to the official record as well as these are for the board of adjustment members shall i give them to you or pass them out thank you I've lived there since 1955 with the exception of eight years on old Richmond Road this land was originally agricultural land it was granted a conditional use as dykes grocery and then it became hilltop grocery we used to vote at this grocery you cannot transfer one type of conditional use to another, especially a non-conforming use, and this would be considered a non-conforming use. The last annual report operated of operations on this property was 2007. The dissolution by the state was in 2008. I have a copy of that. It reverts back to agricultural with no operation under the conditional use permit, and it has not been operated with that conditional use permit for six years or so. It has not registered with the state, the Kentucky Secretary of State, at this address. Nothing has been registered with them since 2007. Prohibited uses in the AR zone, among many others, by the zoning ordinance, Article 4, are major or minor auto truck repair, storage on the land, junkyard, commercial kennels, truck terminal. I'm entering into the official record, the PVA record on 7959 Old Richmond Road, the zoning ordinance on the non-conforming uses for structures and lots, the Secretary of State records, the history of the conditional uses of the property, and a letter from the Old Richmond Road Neighborhood Association to the staff that was written to them against, you know, opposing this in early January, about January 7th. These are to be entered into the official record. To whom should I give? I give it to Ms. McMullen. Does anybody have any questions for Ms. Hannon? Okay, thank you. We're going to give the applicant an opportunity to respond to the opposition. I don't have a great deal in this property. It's been a last 10 years I've been just losing money. So, you know, whoever opposes, buy it from me. That's all I can say. You know, if you think there's no right use. Mr. Kenisa, you need to address us, not address. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Everybody have a right for their own opinion, but the picture clearly shows that it's not agricultural property. and when I bought it, it wasn't. So that's all I can comment. Does anybody have any questions? Okay, thank you. I'd like to give... Yes, sir? I'll give you an opportunity to... Legally, I'm sure it is zoned agriculture. It has not been agriculture since prior to 1959. It has been a drug stop, grocery store. It's been used for many things. None of it agricultural. Thank you, sir. Ms. Hanna, if you want to come back up to the podium. Just to clarify, it's supposed to be a conditional use. It's an agricultural property. The condition was for a grocery store. And when that no longer happens, it reverts back to the agricultural use. It doesn't look like an ag use. It's on a scenic byway. This is not a very good example of our scenic byway. Thank you, Ms. Hanna. And that is understood. Does anybody have any other comment? I'd ask the board. What's their pleasure? How would they like to move forward? If no one has any additional comments, I'll make a motion. I move that we agree with the staff and disapprove the uses going on at, in this case, A2015-1 Olympic Construction, LLC, that we disapprove their appeal to change two legal non-conforming uses to two new non-conforming uses in the AR zone at 7957 Old Richmond Road based on the staff's recommendation of disapproval. Thank you, Mr. Griggs. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Myers, seconds. I would like to ask the question before the vote's taken, and that is if the administrative appeal is denied and we support staff's recommendation, what would be the next steps? Because obviously there are uses going on on that property that are not allowable. So what would be the next steps if this action was taken, Mr. Emmons, or Mr. Marks? I see Mr. Marks getting to the microphone. We would just try to work with Mr. Knitsa to develop some kind of reasonable timeline for phasing out the activities. Thank you, Mr. Marks. We have a motion by Mr. Griggs. We add a second by Ms. Myers. All in favor for denying the appeal, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Your request for appeal has been denied, and I hope you get things worked out. And I, on a personal note, I hope these animals are taken care of. Thank you so much. I'm a huge animal lover. I hate to see the dogs displaced more than anything, but obviously this is a unanimous decision. You're going to have to make other arrangements. Thank you so much. Is there any other business of the board? I'd like to inform the board of Mr. Glover that our next board meeting, Board of Adjustment meeting, is on February 27th at 1.30. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Glover. With that being said, we are adjourned. Thank you all.