It took my heart to shatter in a thousand pieces before I ever dropped my flight. Using love, worrying about my image, really helped me realize. It is enough. Why do I feel this way? Why does she stay on my mind? It is love, why does it feel so bad? Does me feel so sad inside? It is love, why could I do this way? Why does she stay on my mind? It is love, why does it feel so bad? Does it feel so sad inside? It isn't love, it is wild, do I feel this way? It isn't love, it isn't love It isn't love, why does it hurt so bad? It isn't love, it makes me feel so sad inside It isn't love, why do I feel this way? Well, why does she stay on my mind? If it is love, why does it hurt so bad? Make me feel so sad inside. If it is love. If it is love. The End ¶¶ Good afternoon. It's 1 p.m. and we're ready to start the planning and public safety meeting today. And I'll turn it right over to our research analyst Paul Schoeniger for a few Before we go forward I need a motion for the summer that's on the first two pages of the packet motion to approve it was seconded by councilmember Henson all those in favor those posed okay so moved then we'll move on with research analyst Seaniger a couple of informational notifications here Thank You councilmember and if it's alright I'll do it here as opposed to going to the podium unless anybody objects. I was asked by the chair to do a couple things. One, discuss the charge of the committee. Two, to discuss management of issues in the committee. And three, give some kind of overview of Robert's rules and the rules of the committee. I don't want to read it to you. I probably could have just asked if there are any questions, but I did want to go over just a couple very simple, very basic rules. As you all aware, council uses Robert's Rules, and this is primarily, it gives you order and function, but while at the same time allowing for healthy debate and full participation, at least I think they do. But there are, and there are a couple, I think, basic rules I just want to go over. Number one, the quorum of this committee and all the standing committees is six. any non-voting member that if you need a quorum you can use and not you can have a non-voting you can recognize a non-voting member if they're recognized they have full full participation in the committee if you're not part of the quorum you can ask questions you just can't make motions you can't vote number two no member can speak twice on an issue before before everyone else that wanted to speak can speak you're limited to five minutes speaking on a on per occasion members of the public are invited to participate as well and they're limited to three minutes speaking and presentations are generally are limited to 15 minutes unless the council so changes makes a motion to provide more time i think that was really only for the only couple that i wanted to go forward with I've also attached a cheat sheet and some other information on Robert's rules for your information turn any other questions you do have a full agenda so we do and we'll move right to it vice mayor Kaye you're first up on the docket if you wouldn't mind going forward with your design excellent ordinance please Thank you, Chair. And thank you for taking the time for this item this afternoon. Before I launch into it, I want to express thanks to the many people who have been a part of this process for the last four and a half years, but primarily to the Downtown Development Authority and all of the staff work that they've done on this. That's both Brandy Berryman and Jeff Fugate, and to my aide, Nathan Dickerson, and my former aide, Leah Boggs, who worked on this for quite a while, and also to former council member and former mayor's staff member, Tom Blues, who was the original chair of this task force. So this first slide basically gives you an idea about what the work of the task force has been since it was started in August of 2010. There's been a fair amount of work that has gone into it, as I think this page demonstrates. There's been extensive work by subcommittees of the task force. there have been numerous presentations to this body on updating what the task force has been up to. There have been public meetings. There's been work by the Planning Commission on the Zone Text Amendment. And at this point, we are hoping that we can move this forward through the committee and on to council. A couple things, just a couple more things I want to point out. In the downtown inventory subcommittee, there's a very extensive document that's been provided for you electronically. That's an inventory of the complete downtown study area. It's the most comprehensive and complex study that's been done in the downtown. It's extremely informative, and it's really the basis for the individual decisions about the standards and guidelines that then the task force is recommending. Also, I want to point out that in the third, kind of whatever that is, it's not a circle, it's an oblong, January, October 2013. At that time, the task force reached consensus about the main set of recommendations, which is the standards and guidelines. So this page essentially summarizes what the intent of the work has been since the beginning. I would summarize it very briefly by saying that it's an attempt to make downtown more appealing and a more vibrant place and a place where people feel more comfortable being, more attracted to, and that it provides an incentive for people who are interested in developing downtown to think forward about the ways in which their investment will be protected. So just briefly, there's two slides, what is allowed now, and it shows you what could be done today without any existing standards and guidelines and what would be allowed under the new standards and guidelines. It's meant to make a contrast. So the short story on this is that a part of the intent of the standards and guidelines is to prevent the most negative kinds of impact that could still be possible on downtown. Second, the next slide shows essentially another couple examples of what could happen now, which would not be an addition to downtown, and what could happen or should happen with the new design standards and guidelines. Next slide shows the beginning of existing overlays. So the grade, I think it's very hard to see on the screen. I hope your copies are better. But in the area of study, we have H1 overlays, the existing courthouse overlay, Newtown Pike extension, and then around all of that, the boundaries that the task force looked at as it was developing the standards and guidelines. The next slide shows a little more detail, and it shows the B2 zones. So the short story here is that after trying to figure out as carefully as possible where the boundaries should be for the new proposed guidelines and standards, The task force agreed that both the simplest thing to do and the decision that would have the most impact was to draw the boundaries around the existing B2A and B2B zones, which are the downtown business zones. And I'll explain when we get to the zone text, but essentially what that does is allows for a minimum amount of adjustment to the zoning text, because it all applies to those three zones. And finally, an indication of the number of parcels in each of the boundaries, and I'll point out and I'll repeat it when we get further down, that the H-1 overlays that are included in the proposed boundaries would not be subject to the design standards and guidelines. That is, the H1 present overlay would be the ruling factor in consideration of what could and could not be done in that area. So this next slide shows more clearly the B2, B2A, and B2B zones, and it shows districts and street types. So this is the first indication that the guidelines and standards are not simply one set to be applied uniformly throughout the B2, B2A, and B2B zones. There are two ways of filtering what could and should be done. The first is districts. So there's gateway districts, core districts, and neighborhood districts. And these were determined based on the extensive inventory that I've already mentioned. So after looking at essentially every single parcel within the boundary, we concluded that there were differences in the aspect of that part of downtown and differences in the way in which they should be subject to standards and guidelines. The second filter is street types. So here we've got major corridors, local connectors, neighborhood streets, and service streets. So again, the standards and guidelines do not apply uniformly across all of those. Essentially, what a developer would need to do would be to look at, first, what district the proposed development would be in. Secondly, the street type that it would be in. and then to look at a grid, which we'll come to, to determine what aspects of the design standards and guidelines applied there and what the standards did and did not allow. So this is kind of a chart of the standards and guidelines themselves, and I'm not going to walk through all of that. But the most important thing to say is that one of the guiding principles of the work of the task force throughout was to keep the standards, which are not flexible, to a minimum, to make sure that they were adequate for the intent of regulation but kept that, as I said, at a minimum with as little regulation there as possible. The guidelines, on the other hand, are more suggestive, and they include many illustrations of what would be recommended to be consistent with the standards themselves and with the existing development in the downtown area. So here's a couple of examples of how standards and guidelines differ. So for structure parking, there are some specific standards of what would need to be met. And first, you notice on the bottom left corner, the districts are indicated and the street types indicated. So, for example, within a gateway street type A, there's an 80% street level frontage requirement, and then it steps down in the core and the neighborhood areas. And the illustrations are meant to show what essentially the preferred design and the least preferred design would look like. this is again an example of the difference between standards and guidelines using building height maximum and minimum as an example and again the guidelines talk about more generally height mass and scale the standards set specific minimum height and maximum height so that the buildings that are proposed are consistent with the streetscape that they're being proposed for. So that really is the heart of the set of recommendations. Included in them, however, are some recommendations about the process. So if we have standards and guidelines, how will they be implemented? How will they be regulated? And what this first slide shows is that there would be a review process. And again, the task force was intent on setting up the standards and guidelines in such a way that as often as possible review would be handled by staff rather than going to a full board hearing. So much of what is being proposed would be handled at the staff level. But what you see on the left hand side is what staff would have purview over for review in terms of additions, rehab, demolitions, etc. And on the right hand side, what the board would then have responsibility for, which is much more major projects. This next slide shows existing structures, and if they had been proposed under the proposed standards and guidelines, where they would have been reviewed and what aspects they would have been subject to. So a fair amount of what could be done would be done by staff. These major projects would be subject, if they were now coming before this for review, this is what they would be subject to. And here's a kind of visual examples. These are the kinds of projects that would be subject to board level review, and these are the kinds of buildings that would simply go before a staff for a determination of appropriateness. In thinking about new standards and guidelines, the task force was also concerned about making certain that if they are to be adopted, that those who are proposing development would have as much assistance as possible in moving through the process. So a part of the recommendations from the task force is that there be two new positions created. The first would be the design excellence officer, who would be primarily responsible for doing the staff review of all design excellence projects, and would also work throughout the community on providing assistance in design for proposed projects. The second, the project facilitator is actually a position that did exist in planning previously and was cut when we had hard times with the budget. We're proposing that that position be reinstituted and that it be a position that would help guide particular developers through the entire development process, focused primarily on downtown but available for work throughout the community. So practically, here's what would have to happen to make this all work. First of all, changes to Article 27 and Article 8, which are now the governing documents for the B2, B2A, B2B. The proposed ZOTA would take the language that now applies to the courthouse overlay review board and modify it, change the boundaries, and change some of the language so that it refers directly back to the standards and guidelines that are proposed. As I said, the H-1 parcels would only be subject to H-1 requirements. There is a board for review that is proposed to have seven members. There was a fair amount of conversation in the task force about the composition of this body. There were some people who felt it needed to have primarily or have a majority of people in the design professions. Others felt that we wanted a majority of citizens rather than design professionals, and the proposal is to have a majority of citizens. So three design professionals, four citizens representing various entities of interest in the community. If there were an appeal to be had from a decision by the board or staff, a staff review would go to the board if there's an appeal, but anything that appealed from the board would go directly to circuit court. And there's some language there about the design excellence officer, ensuring that that person is well qualified for the position. And that really sums up, briefly, a lot of information that you've been provided in more detail. You should have received either electronically or in hard copy the design, excellent standards and guidelines, the background information, the zone text, and so on. There's one other piece that I want to mention, and that is that a part of the thinking of the task force was, in addition to the incentives provided by additional staffing and making the process easier for developers, that there could or should be additional incentives for development downtown, in part to balance off the difficulty of developing downtown, given the different kinds of existing regulations and the cost of land and so on. And a part of what the task force is recommending is that in addition to the existing kinds of incentive staffing that the downtown, the Lexington, I was going to say garage authority, that's not right. Thank you. Lexington Parking Authority has already committed to building a structured garage on the west end of Main Street and has undertaken, is in the process of working on a 10-year plan that would include multiple additional parking structures for the downtown area, which is what developers tell us they most need. Vice Mayor, are you about to wrap it up, or do you need some additional time? We're done. I am about to wrap up. Thank you. Obviously, the last thing, and that is, in addition, we are going to recommend that the cost, the initial cost of filing a TIF application be a joint endeavor by the city and the developers, and that we put money in the forthcoming budget, it would be somewhere between $40,000 and $80,000 on an annual basis to provide assistance to people on major projects downtown. That's my presentation. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll take questions, comments. Thank you. Has anyone signed up for any questions or comments to the Vice Mayor? Council member land Thank you Vice Mayor Kay for this presentation I'm just curious about the the boundaries You know this project goes back to August of 2010 So were there original boundaries and how were they decided in that how? Have they the reasons for them the change? Well, there were no original proposed boundaries. There was a study area, which was much larger than the three B2 zones. So a lot of what we looked at, if you look on the second or third slide, fourth slide, let me see if I can back up. So the dotted blue line that is a rough rectangle was the study area, and the notion was that within that we would draw the boundary. The more we talked about the boundaries and the appropriateness, the more it became clear that simply using the existing B2, B2A, and B2B zones, which govern most of downtown would be the most direct way to handle the question of boundaries. And I would add only that should these be adopted and should we go forward and should there be an interest in changing those boundaries, that can be done by resolution. But our thought was that covers most of what we think needs to be covered and it makes the zone text change very easy. So there was never an initial boundary drawn and then changed. It was we hadn't figured it out, and then we settled on those three zones. Thank you, Councilmember Lamb. Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Vice Mayor, this one, this started as somebody else's baby and became yours along the way. Yes. And it's been a long and winding road. Yes, this is almost an adult child. Yes, sir. I think in my recollection from one of the meetings we had in planning, and I remember Bill Lear among others being here and talking about, at least in my memory, the importance of having incentives to make all of this work. And I don't believe, at least in the terms of my recollection, that among those things considered as incentives was adding two more jobs. I could be wrong. I thought they were going to take a different nature or tone in terms of enticing development to come downtown. Maybe I'm incorrect. I've looked through the handout and the background piece and even the planning piece, but I don't see those types of incentives even mentioned as part of the work product. And I just wonder if you might help me there a little bit. Sure. And, of course, I cannot speak for Mr. Lear. Sure. I didn't bring my fright wig with me. Excellent. But I think it's fair to say that when the task force began its work, the Lexington Parking Authority had not begun to do its work on parking garages. Most developers would tell you that their moving forward on that is a significant incentive and that the city does not have to add to that, but that's a change from 2010. I think they would also say, many developers would say, again, Mr. Lear or not, that having additional staff to guide them through the process is a significant incentive. It saves time, and that saves money. And so I think there will, I did not organize people to come here today. I think we could get some of the people who are most concerned about downtown development and have done infill and redevelopment, and they would tell you that that's a significant move forward. In addition, we considered other cash incentives, and I think the bottom line is that most of what could be proposed either was not significant enough or was too expensive. All right. But in the last meeting we had, we settled on this proposal that the application fee for TIF projects be absorbed by the city rather than the developer to get that first phase going. So that's a small but, for some people, a helpful piece. I guess one other thing. Yes, sir. In parallel with the work of this task force, the Infill and Redevelopment Committee has been working on some of the same issues. And so in the intervening time, we have, with the help of Commissioner of Planning, Paulson, we have reinstituted the vacant lot commission. We have, there's one other piece, and I'm not going to remember what it is, but one other aspect of the way in which the city now regulates has been improved. And so all of those things combined, I think, should convince people who are interested in developing downtown that the city is interested in making that as easy as possible and that we're continuing to work on those kinds of incentives. Whether we institute new regulation or not, we're interested in helping downtown development. Let me just say that before government service that I have experienced, I was a ready-aimed fire person. And when you're here making preparations to make decisions, sometimes it becomes very important just to make the decision because you get something done. And it kind of becomes a ready-fire aim approach. And I think that what I'm kind of hearing in this is you've prepared the way, and this is the least expensive way right now to get this started. And if we do move forward and we do enact all of these things, we could let the proof come in what the outcomes are in terms of if this doesn't help and we need to add incentives, we could do later, I guess. Would that be within accuracy range? Absolutely. Absolutely. This is, like most other regulations, it's subject to review and it's subject to modification. So I guess I don't want to overemphasize this, but I think it's important to say that over the years, what has happened is that the task force itself reached consensus about this body of work. They're behind it. And there was a lot of detailed work that went into that. And it does not mean that everybody on council hasn't seen it before, can swallow it wholesale. But I think that says a lot. And that body included people from the development community, people from the preservation community, staff, and so on. Madam Chair, ma'am. And it's been a while. We held up presenting this until we got a new council because we did not want to start twice from scratch. But I think, you know, here we are, and many of the new council members took advantage of the opportunity to come to a workshop and get a lot more detail about the background and so on. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Farmer? I was just going to ask if I could ask one more question before we moved on. Does anyone have any objections? Proceed. Thank you. So in looking at the potential for these two new positions, a project facilitator and a design excellence officer, which part of the presentation or part of the background, I believe, is the mayor is going to be asked or has been asked to place these in his upcoming budget potentially. Is that it? Yes. The commissioner has made that recommendation to the mayor to include that in his budget. having not got to that consideration level yet and always looking for another way, is one of these positions more important than the other in starting this process? So it depends on how you want to look at it. Okay. So one way is to say that having the design standards and guidelines without a staff person to do the review or to manage the review, it would be extremely difficult. And so from one perspective, that position is really crucial. From a slightly different perspective, if you're interested in overall downtown development, reinstituting the position of a project facilitator is going to be more broadly useful to many other folks. So it's not, I mean, fairly or not, we would like to say these are not two new positions. One of them is a position that we had at one time and was useful and had to be for budget considerations eliminated. And the design excellence officer would be a staff for this set of recommendations. Thank you, sir. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Councilmember Farmer. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor, you may have provided it somewhere else, But could you summarize or send us later the list of the members of the task force? I believe that's in the, it was in the packet that I used. Is that in this packet? No, it's in the review that we did for council members. Okay. So the workshop. Okay. Let me get you the right. So has the membership changed over time since it has, I mean, I know the chair changed, So did other members also change? Yes, there's been a fair amount of turnover. So when you say, though, that there was consensus, that was the latest membership reached consensus on these recommendations? Yes. And I probably also, in kind of complete transparency, need to remind folks that this task force was structured a little differently for many and that the only voting members were the council members. But having said that, I think it's fair to say that when we reached consensus, it was all of the participants at that time. It was not just the council members. So there was agreement. But, in fact, the way it was set up, as Council Member Farmer pointed out before my time, it was set up with only Council Members as voting members. Okay. And regarding the project facilitator position, I'm interested in this concerning, since we have so many TIF projects in the city and haven't, as of yet, had anyone that really helped facilitate those, Would this position help with existing TIF projects or future TIF projects? Or what all projects, I guess, what types of projects? Would it be specific to this design area? I know that you said outside, but... Yeah, the likelihood is that any TIF proposal would trigger some kind of review, either staff level or board level, and that the facilitator would be, I mean, the design excellence officer would be the person who would help shepherd that person, that set of people through the design process and through the application process. But what if it was a TIF project outside of these boundaries? The Red Mile, for instance, distiller district would be outside. It would depend on time. So the primary responsibility would be for projects that are actually within, subject to design standards and guidelines, but that person would also be available to provide assistance in other projects throughout the community. So the likelihood is that, especially in the early going, that person would be available more outside, and then we would see how downtown development goes. Is there any mechanism for measuring an increase or uptick or any kind of, I guess, benefit of the guidelines or in development over any certain period of time? An increase in, I'm not clear about your question. Well, I guess this is probably more for the infill redevelopment question, but, I mean, we want to encourage downtown development, correct? Yes. And good downtown development. Yes. So is there any mechanism set up included in this proposal that would measure, I mean, whether these guidelines are helpful or harmful to downtown development, to encouraging that? There was nothing built in. I think it would be extremely difficult to measure, maybe not impossible, and we ought to think about that. But this goes a little far afield, but there are so many intervening variables. If you were measuring starting at 206 and going to 2010, what you would find is this big slump in 28. Sure, sure. You know, so I think it would be difficult. Well, I guess it leads into my next question. I remember this presentation or discussion maybe a year or so ago, and I think it was Knox that brought it up, the sticks and the carrots. And again, maybe this goes into infill and redevelopment and not so much design guidelines, but I see the design guidelines as the sticks and not the carrots. And so I'm also interested in the incentive side of balancing this equation to encourage development and not overburden it or make it more difficult. It's already challenging. It's already very expensive. So what can we do to incentivize that outside of the incentives from the parking garage and additional staff, I guess? And so that's what I would hope to see from the, I guess, next committee or next task force. You can speak to that in my time's up. Thank you. Well, I would just say that there's been an extensive conversation about that. And so where we ended up is where we ended up at this point. If it turns out that that's not adequate from council perspective, then we'll entertain additional proposals. but I am hoping that the council will accept the wisdom of the task force and the work that we've done over the years in trying to figure out how to do that in a way that was fair and appropriate and what we've come up with is a mix of process incentives and you know and a very little cash incentive. Thank you. Councilmember Sinnott. Thank you chair. Vice Mayor how does it feel to on that side I love it good you're doing a good job at it speaking of fast force so where's the task force at now has it been disbanded or they are is it still enacted is this a final recommendation so this is the final recommendation of the task force it has not been officially disbanded we met just before the presentation to at the council workshop to make sure that what we were presenting was consistent with what the task force wanted us to do. And so they're essentially on hiatus. Okay. Talk about inventory within this boundary of properties. I mean, as I look at the, what you're showing on the overhead, I know it's not up there now, but most of the, I'd say 40 to 50 percent are owned by government. So would government have to adhere to the same design standards as we're asking the public to adhere to? Because I know when the federal courthouse building. I'll give you an example. It was built on the corner of Mill and Vine. It's probably one of the most unattractive buildings we have in downtown, and it didn't have to adhere to anything. They just put it there. So if government owns Rupp Arena, the old courthouse, this building here, the transit center, I can go down the list. Do we have to abide by the same under the task force's recommendations? So under the existing recommendations, the answer is no, because the The state government is exempt generally from its own regulations. It's also, I think it's important to note that there's a difference also between local government, state government, federal government. I think as most people on council know, most citizens may not. The state and local, state government, the federal government can basically do what they want. They're not subject to our rules and regulations, and that may be why we have that building that you've mentioned. They did not have to come before the Planning Commission for review. Now, I think if the council is interested in having our own government be subject to this, I believe that it's possible to stipulate that. Right now, that's not a part of the recommendations. Okay. I'm just trying to drill down to how many people this actually really affects by passing this and moving this forward. The other recommendation I know is to create a board, another board, along with the two new positions. How would that board interact with the existing DDA? DDA, and are you saying we replace the DDA with this board and we don't need them anymore? Because in the past, the DDA has done a lot of those things, helped shepherd projects through, worked on infill and redevelopment initiatives downtown. So how would they work with the DDA board? How does that move forward? Well, the new board actually would replace the courthouse overlay board. So that wouldn't go away. This one would have much broader jurisdiction. And functionally, we expect that the relationship between that board and our staff and the DDA staff would be pretty much what it has been, which is they collaborate. They work together. On this particular task force, the DDA provided a tremendous amount of staff support. So most of the technical information that you see, they developed. As a part of their mission and interest in helping downtown development, I assume that would continue. But the board would not be a replacement for the DDA. It has much broader, I think, responsibility and jurisdiction. So we never considered them being one of the same entity, the DDA board, taking this role? Because I've seen them do it in the past, the last 10 years. They've done a lot of the things that were mentioned here in helping the downtown development. Well, it's a possibility. I'll just give you my quick take, and that is that the DDA is closer in its work to the work that Commerce Lexington does in terms of development, except it's focused on downtown. That's a proactive role. That's about meeting with people who are considering projects downtown, helping them from their perspective, seeking those people out, et cetera. And I think that's not exactly what this board would be constituted to do. But, you know, we can modify it. I understand. And the last thing I would echo in my last couple seconds here is the incentive piece as well. I think there are ways to incentivize people to come downtown. You know, we all talk about in this city about keeping our urban service boundary, you know, locked in. But as we keep doing that, we're going to have to grow up. And density is going to become a factor. And anything that would discourage density, I think at this point downtown, would be a negative and a hindrance to what Councilmember Akers was alluding to. So I think incentives have got to be able to realize that density is important, and it plays a major role in if we pass this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Stinnett. If there are no other Councilmembers that are signed up, I'll turn over the chair to Vice Chair of Scotchfield. I have a couple of questions. Councilmember Massadi. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kay, I appreciate the presentation. I guess my concern is if I'm a developer and I'm going to come downtown, I certainly need to know what incentives are concrete and finalized. I can't go out there with, well, this may be an incentive and this may not. And I guess that's my concern about the whole presentation. When and how will these incentives be finalized? Well, since some of them depend upon the budget, the two positions, the funding of the TIF application, those would not be finalized until the budget is finalized for 2016. Council can indicate its interest in doing that, but obviously there will be no final determination of that until June. On the parking garage issue, which I think for most developers is potentially more significant, what we have is already a commitment to build one garage, a set of plans that are in process that envision multiple additional garages downtown. That study and those decisions will not be made probably for another six, eight months. What they will be, and in detail, we don't know. So the situation is somewhat fluid, but I think actually it would help them in their thinking if they knew that the council had supported the guidelines and standards and that that was a part of what people who are interested in developing downtown could depend on going forward. Were these the only two incentives that were discussed by the task force? No, there were many incentives discussed. I guess, which, which, which, these are the only two that were agreed upon? Yes. Well, so the, so it depends on how you look at incentives. Some people would say process incentives are incentives, that they are ways to take, say to developers, we're going to try and help save you time and money and your development. That's an incentive. It's easier to go through the process. Some people would say that the standards and guidelines themselves are an incentive because they help guarantee the future positive development of downtown. And if I'm going to invest in downtown, I'd like to know that going forward, that development is going to reflect the quality that I'm willing to build. Right now, that's a little less certain. So some people would look at that as an incentive. if council has some suggestions about additional incentives that involve spending additional government money then we got you know we ought to bring them forward and discuss them but this is where after extensive conversation this is where the task force ended up many of the proposals that were brought forward simply seemed too expensive and that they would be I want to be careful how I say this, but that they would be themselves a kind of a dagger to the heart of this set of recommendations. People would look at a very expensive incentive and they would say, well, we can't afford that. And since we can't afford that, we ought not to move forward at all. And the judgment was, let's not do that. Let's be conservative in what we do. Let's be careful. Let's try to provide good incentives. Let's put it together with a package of standards and guidelines that we think will be good for downtown, and let's move forward. I appreciate the response. One last quick question. What about the development community? What's their, have you heard from them? What's their take on this? Yes, we've heard throughout the process. And some of the concerns that have been raised today, they have expressed as well. And I can't speak for the entire development community. There may be individuals who have questions about one or more pieces of this, but in general, I would say that the people who have been in our meetings, who are developers themselves, who represent developers, especially the people who do downtown development, feel that this is a positive effort and ought to go forward. All right, thank you. I guess there's a motion. I'm sorry, Council Member Farmer. council member lamb thank you i think that um i think it's a known fact that we all understand that there's a work and process for a development district a downtown development district i'm just curious if there's been any thought as to how that will um how that will work with with this downtown excellence? Just curious. Well, it's a related effort to improve the appeal, the aesthetics of downtown. It is very different in that it simply assesses a fee for existing property owners so that that money can be used on various projects that are focused specifically on improving the downtown area. So it would not, I don't believe it would not intersect with anything that we are recommending. It's consistent with it, same intention, but very different. I mean, I'm just curious off the top of my head right now. What if, I mean, could there be some collaboration for incentives or anything like that? I don't know. I'm just between the two. I don't know. So your question really reminds me that incentives have, there's a coin with two sides. So if I'm a property owner downtown, or I'm thinking about being a property owner downtown, I can look at that proposal for a downtown development district as either a positive, something that's going to help, or a negative, something that's just going to cost me money. So I think, I mean, we haven't, that's going to come before council, separate issue, it's on its way. But, I mean, I think what that just demonstrates is that it depends on how you think about the way in which we use the resources we have to move towards a goal. Some people say, yeah, that's a positive move, and other people look at the same thing and say, no, that's not going to help. Councilmember Sinnott. Thank you, Chair. One question I meant to ask earlier, Vice Mayor Kay, when the task force was doing its work, Did they take a barometer and get some data on how many active projects there are right now downtown, say, in the last 12 months, 24 months, and how many would actually have to go through this process and this process would have an impact on? No, that hasn't been done in the last 18 months or so. Was it ever during the last four or five years? Did they ever look at that? Because I know, obviously, coming off the recession, totally different numbers, but in the last couple years, it's picked up a little bit. But I'm just trying to see how active, I mean, hiring two new positions, what would they do all day? How much activity is really happening downtown on the scale of needing two full-time positions? Well, you know, I think, first of all, to answer the first part of your question, I don't, so far as I know, there was not that kind of an inventory taken. So we don't have a set of data. I presume we could get that for you and the rest of council, if that's desirable. but it's important again to note that that second position, the facilitator, was one that already existed. That person was plenty busy. There was plenty to do, and there would be again. The design officer would have less to do initially, I think, and would be available for consultation with projects outside the downtown area. But our belief is that there'd be no lack of work for them. Okay, so you just changed something from earlier. So the design excellence officer would not just be downtown projects, it would be all over the city? They would fulfill that role everywhere? It would be primarily tasked with the administration of the design excellence standards and guidelines. As time permitted, that person would also be available to work with other projects outside of the area. Okay, I'm just trying to understand. I remember I was here when we had the project coordinator, and I remember those discussions. So I was just trying to get a better feel of how much inventory we have already in the pipeline and going forward. Because a lot of the projects that were shown up here earlier have obviously been done several years ago. I'm just trying to see the activity level. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Farmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't believe that there's anyone here who's not supportive of an excellent outcome for downtown. But taking into account previous conversations and input on this issue, I think that given the diligence that was provided over these four-plus years, I think it's incumbent upon the council or this committee of the council to do some of its own diligence before we move this legislation forward. And I want to center those comments specifically around the idea of the incentives, the incentive conversation. And I understand that this was kind of, to me, from your description, kind of a stymie point. You had some conversation, didn't really get anything that, in my opinion, rose to the level of what I believed incentive package would come back looking like. And I would like for us to have that discussion, because I think it's important for us to have it to fill out the legislative nature of what, not only what we do, but what this would represent. So with that in mind, I would like to keep this item in committee, but have us either before our next meeting or at our next meeting vet through what was the conversation points, what were they, and see if there's any we want to enact or add or others that we might add to it. But I think we need more done before this is ready. And I would just move to keep it in committee and try to work on an incentive addition to what has been proposed. So moved. So we have a motion to keep this into committee until the next time the planning committee meets to discuss primarily incentives. And we have second by Council Member Akers. Any discussion on the motion? Council Member Gibbs. I'm sorry, Council Member Akers. Is that your second or do you want to speak to the motion? Maybe this is to the motion. I just wanted to ask when we might hear. So if it's not pertinent, let me know, Susan. when we might hear the presentation or findings from the infill redevelopment committee is that i assume that will come to this committee too is that task force work near its completion because i know that they really go pretty hand in hand so will that is that something we should have with this next conversation currently um yeah if timing is applicable yes we can i'm not sure of the timing and council i mean sorry vice mayor kay you could respond to that i would assume yes the Infill and Redevelopment Committee essentially put on hold all of its discussion of the variety of things that they've been working on, including incentives for downtown, until this task force presented its report and we could see where that was going. We didn't want to be doing and, well, I'll just finish the sentence. We just didn't want to be working on it. And there's been a couple of other issues that Infill and Redevelopment took up and then put aside because other parts of the government were working on them. So the short answer is infill and redevelopment will not meet again until March. And what we have on our agenda is not, at the moment, incentives. If it's useful for us to do that, we can do that. I'll defer. This committee will not meet again in March because of timing schedule. So it won't meet until April. Is that correct, Stacey? Yes. Okay, so we, they can meet in March, and then maybe perhaps what they, their findings are, they could come back and provide us that information in April. And then that way it would answer some of the questions that you have, Councilmember Akers, and maybe some that others have as well. Would that be agreeable? Yes. Well, let me just qualify that by one caveat. As it happens, I also chair the Infill and Redevelopment Committee. Not a conflict of interest at all. I inherited that as well. And I would want to circulate this request to the committee. And I don't think there will be objection, but... I think it's fair. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Council Member Gibbs. Here's some clarification. Vice Mayor, you're okay with the postponement. Is that correct? Because I'm opposed to the postponement. I am okay with the postponement. I believe that it's a legitimate concern and a question. I'm happy to have council tackle that issue and see if they can do better than the task force did. It'll get us closer to the end of the budget cycle. We'll know more about not quite close enough, but, oh, yeah, it will be. It'll be after the mayor's budget address. So there'll be more information. So I do not have any objection. Thank you for asking. If it's okay with you, it's okay with me. But I do want to say I think these are really thoughtful. I've been on council for a month. I've studied them closely. I think they've been very, very well done. I think it's clear. I think there are significant incentives. If the incentives don't turn out the way we would like them, we can amend them at any time. We can even amend them before council when they came before council. And so I represent the third district, which most this district is in the third district, and I'm enthusiastic about it. And the citizens I talk to in the third district are enthusiastic about it. and I would like to see these move along. So March, okay. Thank you. April. I think it would be April. Okay. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you. This is to the motion. Council Member Kay, can you get us maybe some information on what type of various incentives the task force actually did look at and which didn't make it out maybe or there were a lot of issues with maybe so we don't have to do redundant? We will absolutely get that for you. Yeah, I'm sure you all looked at several different ones. So we'll get that and we'll get the inventory that's been requested. Okay. Thank you. We've got a motion on the floor, and the motion was by Council Member Farmer to move this, I believe, into the next planning committee, which is April, to talk about the specific incentives and also to get some information in reference to infill and redevelopment. And we've got a second. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Also, we have someone from the audience. Bill Justice, do you want to speak? Please. Pardon me? No, no. We've got three minutes. Let's proceed. I know who you are, Bill, but if you tell the audience and where you live, please. Thank you. My name is Bill Justice. I own property at 518 East Main Street, 522 East Main Street, and 109 Kentucky Avenue. And if I could get Vice Mayor Kay to put the slide back there for showing the design boundary. First of all, I want to thank all of you for the time that you're putting forth to make Lexington a better place to live and to work. Thank you very much. I don't know many of you. I used to know you all. I certainly not know the boundary, please, Mr. Kay. This is the same thing on your handout. You can't read that either. Right there. On the property, it's not contiguous. And planning people will tell you if you're going to plan on a design excellence, you keep contiguous property. I'm on Main Street in that little square there at Kentucky. I'm not a developer. I've been called worse. And much worse. Is this a downtown design excellence overview or task force? Would somebody answer that question? Yes, it is. Okay. And would most of us consider, I just want to give you some things to think about. Where do we imagine downtown starting? Where does the parade start? Midland Avenue. I think the Planning Commission has established that boundary as the line coming in. And we keep referring to incentives. I'm a property rights person. and I believe in property rights. And incentives means taxpayers somehow are going to pay for whatever happens. We're going to pay for it regardless of where it takes place, whether it takes place on Midland Avenue or Manchester Street or Royal Franklin Park. So I wish you would consider, and I agree with Councilman Farmer, that we're probably not prepared to go forward at this point in time and look at where incentives bring us and look at the boundaries that you're encompassing with a bureaucratic overreach and how it's extended grasshopping over particular areas. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kay. And do you have any closing remarks? I'll give you the floor for a few minutes. No, but just to thank the council for taking the time, for considering this, and for putting it back on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Council Member Farmer, you're on the fire code amendments. We've got a pretty full agenda for the next hour. We'll try to keep it brief. May I tie you off? Brief. Let's go. All right. I don't know who's going to make a presentation for fire, but these items appeared on one of our first dockets when we came back, which is like me showing up at the firehouse with the keys to the truck ready to drive it out. Not a good idea. So if you would run through these briefly, I think that would be helpful to all of us just as a matter of course. I will. Do I need to introduce myself as well? That helps. Thank you. Okay. My name is Farmer. I'm the Fire Marshal in Lexington Battalion Chief Rank, I guess. I didn't create a presentation. I considered it, but it just seemed like I was going to be typing the stuff that was already in here to begin with. What was the driver for these multiple changes? They are way overdue. Like I told you before in the other work session, maybe. Yeah, that it was some of them are from 46. So they're way overdue. And a lot of these are to put us in line with the State Fire Marshal's office. A lot of the verbiage is going to be the same. Can we just run through it page by page? Absolutely. All right. It looks to me like on page 29 you're adding nightclubs, bars, and schools. All seems fine. Yes. Ordered remedy and adding the word order on the rest of 29 and on 30. and then adding fire marshal at the bottom of 30 in this group. There was nothing super different about any of that. No. Then you come up to page 34. This changes the verbiage about being able to close what was places of public assembly and now making it of buildings, premises, and public thoroughfares. If we could, can we go back to 33? Yes, sir. Well, just because there are some changes there as well. Oh, I'm sorry, please. No, it's okay. Item number four is the establishment of firescapes. they're not permitted anymore as a means of egress, as a required means. So we have to regulate the ones that are there, but we are not going to establish those as new means of egress. So I think it should be. Nice clarification. I appreciate it, sir. Okay. And number eight as well, we don't do that. And as far as anybody can remember, we haven't done that. So I don't know how old that is. All right, then. Under the 34? Yes, sir. Okay. 34 is just making that verbiage clearer with 9-11, which was on page 29. trying to make that those wordings be the same as far as the closing so instead of just saying the closing places of public assembly it's actually putting examples in there that match 9-3 9-11 I'm sorry all right then let's move on to 35 a lot to do with appealing the fire marshal's order here yes so there wasn't an application and you're now going to establish it Well, what we're trying to do is delete Section 921, which was a fire prevention appeals board. So basically the way it would work is my inspectors would come up with something that was not necessarily illegal, but didn't meet the code. It wasn't compliant. And we would issue something in writing. They would come back, and they would appeal to me. All right. Okay. I would either agree. Let's say I agree with the fire inspector. At that point, they would appeal to the fire chief. Once it reached him, if he agreed with me, then there was an appeals board. So a long trail. It was a long trail, and we're going to keep the trail approximately the same length, except the appeals board doesn't need to be there. It was, as far as I can tell from talking to people, going all the way back to the 80s, nobody's used it. It was actually, I think maybe Mayor Newberry asked for people, he asked the fire marshal at that time to recommend people for that board. And he sent a letter, the fire marshal sent a letter to the mayor listing people that could be on that board, but it never came to fruition. There was never any meeting. And the only appeals they would have heard were the ones we're referring to here. Oh, right. Right. So by fiat, if we strike all these, does that strike the board itself? I'm hoping is that correct yes mr. Sander from law thank you sir so that's what takes up the balance of page 36 and then 37 and 38 the one thing that we have added in in that is that once we go through the same chain of events they appeal for the fire inspector to me they appeal my decision with chief Jackson at that point instead of a fire prevention appeals board it would go to the state fire marshal's office that's where the appeal would go at that point and that would be where it would come to a head I think unless there's something else you want to add those are the explanations in the background I personally was after on behalf of the council sure thank you thank you and I would make a motion lister's commentary to move this on at the full council we have a motion on the the floor to move this on to the full council and we're second by Councilmember Henson. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Thank you, sir, very much. Thank you, Major Farmer. I appreciate it. Okay, Councilmember Henson, you're on deck. I believe we've got a taxicab ordinance that we're going to discuss and I knew that there was a new ordinance that was provided. I hope everyone has a copy. Councilmember Henson, you're on. Thank you, Chair. this has been an ongoing project and actually this came about Council Member Lawless had been looking at this originally and I agreed to take it on but mainly because of the ride sharing and the state regulations coming down, emergency state regulations Permanent regulations will be in place there, but to make it more equitable for taxi drivers. So, Paul, who was someone going to present? Melissa Murphy or Rick Curtis? This was going to. She popped her head in and said she was coming back, but I hadn't seen her. She actually wrote things. Okay. Well, I can go through them, and then if anyone has any questions. There's not a great deal of changes in the ordinance, but one would be 18A-1 for definition of wheelchair accessible, and then 18A-3 to reduce the minimum number of vehicles from 25 to 10. and that would be to start a taxi company. Yes. So it's currently at 25, and our proposed ordinance reduces that number to 10. 18A-16 would eliminate the taxi meter requirement if the company has electronic alternatives. It's not saying they have to eliminate it. It's saying if they have the electronic alternative. And then eliminate the requirement for 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week central dispatch requirement. And 18A-22, eliminate the paper manifest if electronic alternative is available. And then also to add an incentive for wheelchair-assessible vehicles. So this is what we are proposing, and Rick Curtis has met with folks with the taxi companies as well as taxi drivers. Well, I haven't specifically spoke to any individual drivers. Okay. Rick, can you come to the microphone a little closer, please? I'm sorry. Thank you. I have spoken to the two managers that run both companies, and there's concerns with both. I mean, the companies themselves are germane to what they've been doing for years and years, and change is hard. But at the same time, what we tried to do, as you so eloquently said, was we tried to make it economical and fair for everyone. I know I had a question about the 24-hour concern about eliminating the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week central dispatch, because not everyone uses electronic devices, and I would just want to be assured that they could get a taxi. Well, I agree with you. I agree with you. But there are other means specifically where you could have a 24-hour number that could be called, where somebody could be contacted to actually go give someone a ride. It is extremely expensive to keep a dispatching station lucrative 24 hours, seven days a week. Now, I have heard from one of the cab companies that on weekends they have as many as five dispatchers working just to keep up with the content of the calls. And when you consider that, it's extremely expensive to do that, whereas electronic applications, if applied correctly using GPS and so forth, then it eliminates some of the need for that expense. Okay. Council Member Hanson, I believe Ms. Murphy is here from the Law Department if you need her expertise at all. Melissa, do you have anything you wanted to add? or? No, ma'am. I don't. Okay. I think you've already gone over everything. Okay. Thank you. Chair, I guess we can open it up for questions if we're ready. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. I've had discussions with Mr. Daugherty and Mr. Sheehy, and they have expressed concerns about this and moving forward on different levels. And I guess what I'd like to do is I'd like to hear from the companies that this would be affecting. And also, I mean, Mr. Curtis, you just stated that you did meet with them both. I've spoken to them. I didn't meet with them, but I've spoken to both of them. Okay. I spoke to Mr. Daugherty as late as this morning. And I've spoken to Mr. Sheehy as well as late as last week. I understand that this was a proposal. I'm sorry. I don't mean to cover you, But, I mean, it was a proposal, and there really hasn't been an ordinance brought forward for consideration. Did we make sure that these companies saw a copy of the draft ordinance before today? I don't think so, but I can do that right now. I brought copies for them. Okay. I just think personally, I think that's not good business. I think that if we're going to change regulations, whether up or down, that's going to affect local businesses, I do think it's important that we share that information with them beforehand. before we just decide to move on, because that way they have time to look at things and have time to decide. I did speak with Mr. Doherty this morning, and I spoke with Mr. Sheehy yesterday, but I didn't provide them copies of the draft ordinance either. So I guess I would just like to see maybe after the council, if there's other questions from the council, perhaps we allow them an opportunity to speak to this. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbs I'm just not clear on the 24-7 stuff works I'm sorry I'm not clear on how like say it's Sunday night at 11 a.m. and I've got a flip phone what do I do well right now what you would do is you would look at a phone book and look up a phone number and call it just like we've done for but they've got no no longer do they have no no no that's not true at all that That would still exist, and we would ask for that still to exist, because there will be people coming in with a flip phone that don't have smart applications that basically would need a ride. And, you know, the taxicab companies would be the one that you would be calling. So you'd still call that taxi number? Yes, sir. You'd be calling somebody at home and not at the central location? Possibly. I don't understand. It may very well be that you're calling someone at home who's on standby to come pick someone up. Okay. Sorry? As opposed to having a dispatch center running all the time. Okay. That just doesn't have to be in a central location. Sure. That clears it up for me. Thank you. Council Member Hanson. Thank you, Chair. And I do want to clarify that I did sit down with Ned Sheehy and went through all of these bullet points earlier this week. And he didn't express a great deal of concern to me, and I also know that this has probably been going on for a year, it seems like, but maybe not. So I just particularly think about reducing the number of taxis required to have a company. I know that that's probably not popular with the taxi company, but I do feel that it is fair. I think that we don't require other companies, whatever it might be, if you're going to open a hair salon, nobody says you have to have 25 before you can start your business. So I don't know if that's not comparing apples to apples. But anyway, I feel like to the new council members, yes, I can see where. But we have the vice mayor, the former vice mayor, when she left, she gave me a document where this was worked on in like 1987. So it's not new, but I think it's something that should be done and something particularly with the ride share companies coming on. This would help the companies and the drivers to be more competitive. So those are my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Henson. Councilmember Akers. Thank you, Chair. And I understand this, Councilmember Henson, from Councilmember Lawless's presentations previously, that this is a way to actually reduce regulations on the cab companies and make them more competitive with the new Uber and Lyft-type ride share programs. And I remember asking also, like, why we had the need for 25 cabs and why not five or why not, you know. I did get a little bit of an explanation for that. That's to protect consumers so that you don't have someone fly by night, you know, say that they're a cab company and disappear tomorrow and kidnap people, I guess, or something bad. So, but I had a question about, I also asked or remember asking recently when we discussed ride share companies about the 365 days a year. And so I don't know who can answer this. But so if we remove that requirement, is there a chance that someone would not be able to access, I mean, transportation? And did we include that a long time ago for some particular reason, I assume? Maybe, Ms. Murphy, you can answer that question. And I'm coming up to the microphone to defer this to Rick or either Ms. George, because honestly, I don't know in the past as to why the 365 days was there. However, I'm sure it was based on making sure there was 24 hours. It was there. But this particular, what we're asking for is that there's not a central dispatch requirement, not that the taxi company is completely shut down from 5 until, which they could choose to do if they're a business. I mean, they could have set their own business hours. But as Rick has stated, a lot of taxicab companies, most of their business is within the night hours. And I think that it would still be there, but it would not be a requirement to cut down on the cost so they would not have to have a central dispatch open 24 hours, 365 days. Does that make sense? Well, the way I read it, though, it says, and shall offer 24-hour service 365 days a year, not just the dispatch service. Or maybe I'm reading it wrong. So maybe I'm misinterpreting that as actually taxi service versus dispatch service. So let me, yeah. And I'm not, I mean, I'm not saying that we should require 24-7, 365 either. I'm not advocating for that. I just want to make sure it's clear, I suppose. Anyone else? It does say central dispatch requirement. And that's what we were wanting to take out was for the two-way communication and the dispatch. The central dispatch is what we were. And this is one of the things that we have talked about since last year that I believe former Councilmember Lawless had also requested. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Senate. Thank you, Chair. Ms. Murphy, before you sit down, let me go ahead and ask the question of you. In the first section on page, well, of the draft, let's see, section three, where it says they can add, increase the number of tax caps one at a time. Yes. I know we have one company that is grandfathered in that has one cap. Yes. So would that apply to them? They can add one and he has two, then three? He's grandfathered in. He already has a permit. So, yes, he would be able to, or he would not. Okay. I'm sorry. I want to make sure we had that. I think he's grandfathered in at his set amount that what he has, but Ms. George can answer that. The minimum number of taxicabs is 25. And so everyone except for the one taxicab company has to have that minimum number. Now, if you recall, I think at the last meeting where we talked about this, we actually litigated that one taxicab at a time with Mr. McGinnis because he had one, and he wanted to operate somewhere between one and 25. Right. And we actually won that. And so if he wants to have any number other than one, he has to go to 25. Or whatever number we set the minimum. Or whatever we set the minimum number. Yeah, I just want to make sure that did not change that because this has been before council committee a couple times and hasn't moved out of committee ever. And that, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. I'm just giving some history. That language is still in there because that was one of the things that Councilmember Lawless had wanted us to put in there because she was still trying to achieve the goal of that company being able to operate somewhere between 1 and 25. But I really think that could come out at this point. And while you're here, you want to give the new council members the reason why it's 25? Sure. You did so eloquently two years ago when we had this issue. When we first looked at taking over local control of the taxi cabs, we had a committee that looked at this issue. And keep in mind, 10, 12, 15 years ago, however long it was, things were a little different. And so there was a concern about just having what we would call gypsy taxi cabs, and you would just have one taxi cab or two taxi cabs operating. And so what we wanted to ensure is that these taxicab companies would be sustainable businesses. And so we felt like that if you had 25, that you were a legitimate business, that you had the number of cabs, and you could actually operate and meet the requirements of the ordinance. Now things have changed, and we have things like these ride-sharing companies. And so we may be at the point where we reduce the number. But when we first started talking about this, the concern was that we wanted to make sure that we had legitimate businesses. Very good. That's exactly how I remember it. Thank you. Well, good. Thank you for giving us that history lesson. Thank you, Glenda. And Rick, do you, I'm not done. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Rick, on the taxi meters, do we inspect those now, the current taxi meters, and make sure they're functioning properly and counting the mileage calibrated correctly? I have to say no. And what we basically do is we ensure that they're proper when they go in, but we don't inspect them on a regular basis. They have to be attached to the transmission, so there's not really by law, so there's no really way for them to actually do anything with the meters themselves. So then how would we look at the app, and who would program that app, and how would we know if that app, if it takes the place of the meter, would be calculated correctly? That's a very good question. I mean, I know that Lyft and Uber have been able to do that, And I know that both cab companies we have now have applications, you know, on board with their people now. You know, with modernization. And I'm not an IT person by any stretch of the imagination. But it's governed by geosyncing from one location to the other, how much time is stopped. And the app actually records that off of Google Earth pretty much. Okay, so I just legally we don't need to put any language in there that it has to be geosynced or to protect consumers. We did. Did we not put geosynced in there? I didn't see anything could be in there we did put global positioning in there we did yes I'm trying to look weird okay I just want to make sure because you know again you don't know who programmed the app and who who wrote it for all that exactly I'm looking for it in there is so you think it's in there the GOC the GPS requirement I see it I see right in the middle thank you I found it And, Rick, in terms of how many cab companies do we have now? Two. And how often do we inspect, just the initial? We inspect when we can. And that's, I mean, it's random. With the new ordinance that was passed two years ago, as you well know, we now can make random inspections where we couldn't before. And there are officers in the field that make inspections. We have two detectives, and that's all we have, that do a lot of other things other than just taxi cab inspections. But they'll do random inspections where they'll just pull cabs out and have them report to one location or have one of our city mechanics look at it to make sure it's mechanically sound while we inspect it as well. Okay. So it basically is a surprise inspection so they don't know which ones are coming and when we're going to ask for what. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Senate. Any other Councilmembers have any questions, discussion, et cetera? Mr. Sheehy, can you come up in five minutes and give us a rundown since you represent the taxicab folks? I'll do it in less than five if you want. Less than five would be great. Thanks. Ned Sheehy, General Manager for the El Cap of Lexington. Really, I didn't have any prepared remarks. was the issue of the 25 cabs. We'll start off with that one. Because Lexington was deregulated from the state, the fact that they don't have to go through the process of getting a certificate from the Transportation Cabinet is the primary reason for the 25 cabs, was to make sure that it was a justifiable company, that it truly was a company that was sustainable, so you did not have the fly-by-nights. Its reduction is there's no magic number. as to what would make a legitimate company, but 25 is what was chosen, and I guess it's what they wanted to keep because it's been renewed or looked at since 2002 when it was originally implemented. With respect to the taxi meters, if you've got someone who does not have a phone or does not have a smartphone or is from out of town and they don't see a meter in front of them, it's going to be a little suspect as to what your rate is going to be. So I can see that it's going to go that direction at some point. I just think that a lot of these implementations that go into effect, we need to make sure that we watch them, that we don't go too fast, because we need to make sure that we're able to support everybody's needs as we're getting to the level where this could be. This could be there. Everything on this list could be there in five years. but we want to make sure we don't leave people behind as we're moving forward. There's a time-sensitive aspect to it. The paper manifest, that's mostly for your all's benefit. You had asked for it to make sure that if we had to research something, that we would have a paper copy of something. We have an electronic manifest. Anybody who calls into our office and gets dispatched, that's electronically saved. We have that in effect. But when someone hails a cab, there's no way that we have any way of knowing that that happened unless there was an electronic manifest that was required that the drivers enter that into it. The 24-hour call center. We're here to serve everyone in the community. And I understand that apps are – I mean, we've got an app that's just as good, if not better, than Uber's. And it's – everyone who's used it, they love it. But they're still the people who call in at 2 o'clock in the morning because they lost their phone. And they don't. I wonder why that would happen. But anyway, so by having the call center, I know that having a central dispatch, local dispatch, is what this is trying to get at. Which, true, we could very easily satellite our dispatch to our Louisville office. We could do that. we're not right now ready to do that because there's a lot of people that are working here that need to that as we walk down that path to self you know to self uh taxi healing uh it's something we want to make sure we once again we take baby steps as we're trying to get there so that's all i really have if you all have any questions i Does anyone have any questions of Mr. Sheehy at this time? If not, absolutely. I know that you all have been, Councilwoman Henson, I know that this has been going on for a long time. There are new members to the committee. I really wish that we could kind of hold off on doing something with this until we have a chance to educate everyone about our needs. Because we really want to get there at some point. We really want to be automated to that point. So. Thank you, Mr. Sheehy. Councilmember Akers, you have a question, Mr. Sheehy or Councilmember Hansen? Yes. Because you were, hold on a minute. No. Councilmember, go ahead then, Councilmember Akers. Mr. Sheehy, so what are your reservations in moving this forward today other than there are new council members here? The, well, the 24-hour, the taxi meter, those things are, those are major changes. And we really need to evaluate, because I didn't hear anything about the elimination of the meter until a week and a half ago. So, I mean, I really haven't vetted that with anyone at all. But it's only if you have an electronic alternative. So you can still keep the taxi meter. I mean, it's an either-or situation or your preference. I mean, it really just gives you more flexibility in how you want to measure your rides or – Well, I mean, that's true, but there's also – there's the component that if you're going to lower this down to 10, you're just giving a little bit more of an option for people to say, oh, well, I'm just not going to have a meter. I'm going to run zones, where – which if you've ever been to D.C., zones are not that fun to go with. Okay. Yeah, I don't know what zone means. Well, you have specific areas that are marked off, and if you go through three zones, it's $8. If you go through four zones, it's $12. Oh, I see. Yes. I do know what you mean. Okay. And then the 24-7, so that, again, only gives you the option of getting rid of that. It reduces the requirement that you must have a dispatch, but it doesn't say you can't have one still. Right? It's true, but we're here to serve everyone in the community, not just the selected few that have the luxury of having a smartphone. It's the people with the smartphones that are the ones that keep our business lively because if you've got the people going from Ashland Park to Fayette Mall, they're the ones who pay the $30 to get there. It's $20 plus a $10 tip. We also have to take Ms. Jones from Moore Drive to get to Kroger for $4. If we don't have the $30 trips, our cab drivers don't make a living because they can't do all the $5 trips and make a living out of it. So there's the possibility of losing the ability to have a sustainable cab service is what we're worried about with that, is everybody should be able to have access. And if you simply say that we're going to allow the cherry picking to happen, then you're going to see the industry suffer. So you're saying by getting rid of the dispatch that the industry would suffer? Well, the requirement. Because, once again, if you're lowering the level of cars that you need to have, there's a tendency. Then you're talking about the number of taxis, the 25 to 10, not the 24-7 requirement. Well, I'm talking both. Because if you reduce it down to 10 and then you say you don't have to have a central dispatch, I mean, once again, you're catering to a group that is possibly the disadvantaged in our community. And we're just, as I said, doesn't mean we're not wanting to go there because we do want to get there. It's just making sure that we take the proper steps and the timeline to get there so we don't leave anybody behind. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Does anyone have any other questions than Mr. Sheehy? Okay, Council Member Hanson. Yes, sir. If you come to the podium and give us your name and address. I'm Don Doherty. I live on Smuggler's Notch. I'm the general manager of Bluegrass Cab. Thank you, sir. I just wanted to take a few minutes to address some of these topics. I respectively disagree with some of what Ned has said to say, and I wanted to give Council Member Stinnett some clarification. Talking about reducing cabs from 25 to 10, Bluegrass Cab would be a support of that. We're not going to fight that issue. If the council wants to reduce that to 25 to 10, there's really no reason in today's market, with the additional competition of Lyft and Uber, not having to follow that anyway. You're just going to make it more difficult for cab companies to fight Lyft and Uber or to compete with Lyft and Uber. One of my main concerns is I'd like the council to look at is why we have to have two laws, two separate laws regulating the same type of business. Lyft and Uber provides transportation services in Fayette County. They fall under this law. Bluegrass and Yellow Cab offers the same service to the same people, and they're going to fall under different regulation. So I would like the council to look at why that is being done. When you talk about the taxi meters and the GPS units, one thing you have to keep in mind is the taxi meter is locked to the transmission and motor. It is also sealed, so it cannot be tampered with. If that seal is not there, that meter can be adjusted. So all meters have to be sealed and locked in addition to being connected to the transmission. A smartphone app that acts in place of a meter is not connected to the car. and the driver would have the ability to adjust that or use their own. There would be nothing to prevent a cab driver from downloading their own app and using it instead of the meter app that the company provided them. So just my caution would be that the meters prevent customers from getting cheated and that the apps would be much harder to regulate than a sealed meter. So we would not support getting rid of meters as part of the ordinance. The paper manifest, as Ned says, all of our cab driver's trips are electronically manifested in addition to the paper manifest. The electronic manifest are more accurate and they're kept forever. So the paper manifest is more of a redundancy than anything else. when Mr. Stinnett asked about inspections earlier I also want to reiterate that in addition to the random inspections the city also has two scheduled inspections serviced on the cabs every six months so the cabs do get inspected by an independent ASC certified mechanic on a regular basis so you want to make sure that that is continued whereas with with Lyft and Uber these cars only will fall under the state regulation and will not be inspected by someone that the city designates. Thank you. Mr. Doherty, you're up. Do you have to finish off a few minutes? I mean, I had more to say, but if I'm up, I'm up. Okay, thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Doherty, and thank you, Mr. Sheehy, for coming in today to be able to address these issues. And I guess I have another question of Mr. Curtis. please. Okay, if you're saying, if I'm understanding correctly, with the two companies that are currently in place, that it is very difficult for the two detectives that are supposed to be inspecting random inspections, it sounds like that is a difficult, is that a difficult task because there's two people doing a large task? It depends upon what kind of inspection you're talking about. If you're talking about just a cursory inspection to make sure that they're clean, that the cab is up to par as far as look goes and that sort of thing, that's not a problem. The kind of inspection I'm referring to is a mechanical inspection. It takes a certified mechanic with a police officer standing there to actually do the inspection. And we only have four certified, I think it is, mechanics that work for the city. And they have to do work on our cars. And we trouble them to do our random inspections and they have graciously agreed to do that, but at what cost? That's the random inspections that we do mechanically. Okay. So, and I'm just saying this, just I'm thinking this out loud. If that's the case, and obviously if we lower it 25 to 10 and there are more companies, that means there's going to be more inspections to be required. I think that is a, that's fair to say. So are we going to add more staff in order to make sure, because this is a public safety issue. It's clearly a public safety issue in lots of ways. So I think we need to think about if we're going to allow, and I'm all for allowing people to have businesses. You know, I think it's great. But we do not want to set up our citizens for possibly, and the companies for not having the oversight with the inspections. And if there's a problem with that, then I think that's something we need to consider as well. Up until two years ago, we didn't have any inspections except for one random a year, and that was if we were lucky. So we now have two mandated, and they get a permit that they actually have to stick on the car, so we know that it's been inspected at least once every six months for mechanical issues. And as far as random inspections go, because you open it up, there are more, and I don't have a number about how many inspections are actually being done, but because that law also included random inspections by uniformed officers, which they couldn't do before, There are more inspections that are being done than just a few a year. And obviously, public safety is paramount to us as well. So, I mean, it's better than it was two years ago. It's not as good as it could be, obviously. And to your point, with more companies, there's also a process, an application process they have to go through where they are inspected to the nth degree before we issue them a permit to operate as a company. And it's very expensive to get to that point. and every vehicle has gone over with a fine-tooth comb before it's allowed to be put out on the road and then reinspected twice a year thereafter, mechanically speaking. If I could just take 30 seconds to make two points. One thing that we ask for is a grandfather clause within this ordinance insomuch to give the existing companies up to a year to actually come into compliance. And if you also notice, the ordinance that says eliminate, it doesn't say that it's mandated if they want to keep if they want to keep the taxi meters they can if they want to keep status quo the way that they have been doing with a dispatch center the current companies can all we were trying to do was was to make it easier for people to come in with 10 10 vehicles and start a company thank you mr. Curtis councilmember Hudson do you want to put forward a motion or how do you want to wrap this up Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I know that, you know, and I hear all the concerns and Rick just addressed several of them, but none of this says that it is required. It says if it is available. So I would make a motion to move this ordinance to the full council. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second to move this to the full council. All those in favor? Any discussion? Council Member Senate. Council Member Henson, would you be willing to, are you saying every change at once? Because I may support three or four of them, but there's a couple we may not. And I would take an amendment, but I feel like none of those are really like, say that you have to do this. It says if it is available, if there's an alternative available, they can continue operating exactly as they want to. But I think the main one is reducing the number to start the business. And I believe the taxi companies pay for those inspections. So it's not a cost to our city. So the motion is to move again to move every one of those bullet points all six changes? Yes all the changes in the ordinance. Thank you. Any other council members have any questions? If not we'll take a vote on the motion which was to move the items forward to the full council. All those in favor? Any opposed? Would you please indicate that by the electronic voting, please? I believe the motion passes, and that will be moved to the full committee. Thank you, Mr. Sheehy. Thank you, Mr. Doherty. Appreciate your time in coming down. If you want to come down to the full council when we discuss this, that would be in approximately two weeks. Is that right? And you're welcome to come and speak at that time as well. Thank you very much. Okay, we've got one more item. Council Member Gibbs, I can wrap it up. It's nothing urgent. I wouldn't mind postponing it until April. So is that, would you like to make a motion that we just... Yeah, we've only got a few minutes left. Don't. Yeah, so I'll make a motion that we postpone this. We've got 20 minutes. If you want to, if not, if you want to, we can deal with it now. Oh, well, Craig, you want to take care of it? How long would it take you to do your spiel? Perfect. Let's go. Good afternoon. Craig, can I just say one thing first, please? Absolutely. On the agenda, it says this is a building inspection civil offenses. This is actually about zoning violation ordinance fines. That's great. And Council Member Gibbs, I don't know if you have your mic on, but it's hard to hear. Okay. Maybe pull it down a little closer. That may be helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Craig, if you'd go. Thank you. Sure. So starting on page 46 of your packets, there's a memo provided in response to a request by the Planning and Public Works Committee, as it was called last year, for options for increasing civil fines related specifically to zoning enforcement. So it's just important to make that distinction. These recommendations do not apply to code enforcement generally. These are for zoning enforcement only. The table on the top of the slide that's before you shows the current fine structure for zoning citations. Fines are assessed at the minimum of the range currently unless they're unsuccessfully appealed to the infrastructure hearing board, and they escalate over the course of a 12-month period from the time the first fine would be issued. So in other words, right now, if someone pays the fine and does not appeal the fine, with the first citation they would be paying $75, the second one $150 and so on. Zoning enforcement provided some calendar year 2014 statistics for the memo, and those are on page 47 of the packet. The important takeaway there is that only 36 out of the 654 zoning violations that were issued required one or more citations to gain compliance. In other words, most of them came into compliance without actually receiving a fine. The rate of compliance after that first notice was about 94% without issuing a citation, again, with the fine. The most frequent violations were illegal signage. There were 231 of those. Illegal businesses, there were 132 of those. Site triangle violations, there were 54 of those. Gravel-related issues related to parking, there were 44 of those. And there were 91 occupancy violations. And that's typically when there's, for example, more than one unit in a structure that's only approved for one unit. So as part of this process, I researched zoning enforcement fines for the 10 cities closest in population to Lexington. And that's what you see on the bottom of the slide there. It looks like it's not quite fitting on the slide, but you can still get the majority of the information there. Civil fine ranges for first citations were between 50 and 500 for all of the cities surveyed. And it's actually between $50 and $250 because Cincinnati, the one with the $500 fine, similar to ours, it's subject to a reduction for compliance. So typically people would be paying half of what's listed on that chart. Second citations were between $150 and $1,000. And the same rule applies. Typically it would be closer to $500 for the top of that range. And the third citations would be $225 to $1,000. Two of the 10 cities surveyed do not use civil fine structures. In other words, they would go through the criminal process, which is also outlined in our code, but we do not use that because it's cumbersome and takes quite a bit of time to go through that. So the end of your memo just outlines three potential options the committee could take today. You can choose to retain the existing schedule of civil penalties. In other words, make no changes. The second option you have is to increase the minimum fines associated with civil citations within the existing range. So, for example, the first zoning citation, the range is $75 to $200. We typically would fine it at $75, so you have some discretion to raise it within that. And finally, you could increase the range of fines altogether associated with civil citations. That's all I have, and I'd be glad to answer any questions. Thank you. Do any of the council members have any questions? Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Chair. I just had a couple of questions, I guess, getting the big picture. These obvious, how many fines do we have that fell under each one of these? We had, and there's actually a correction I need to make on that. If you're looking at the second page of the memo with the bullet points there, only 36 of the actual, of the 654 zoning cases resulted in fines. 24 of those were issued at $75. Five were issued at $150, and so on. What's missing from the memo is that there were two citations that were issued at $300, so that's why the math didn't work if you added those up. And I guess geographically for Lexington, where are they dispersed throughout the city? I don't have that information. There may be someone here that has more information on that. I can tell you that the total fines only amounted to $4,575, and $1,125 were actually paid, so about 28%. So there's still some outstanding fines from that. Okay, so increasing the fines, we only have 25% paid. So we're... Okay. Okay. The other question, the city populations that you compared us to, I absolutely agree. Same size city. Are these merged governments, though? I think a couple of them were. Okay. Because I know that that kind of changes the dynamics of that area. Yeah, it definitely did. I looked at population density, and when you look at it that way, we're lower on the scale. We're closer to the bottom of the scale instead of the middle. Okay. Thank you, Chair. That's all I have. Thank you, Councilmember Scotchfield. Councilmember Gibbs. Thank you, Chair. I inherited this thing. We know you did. Yes. But when I look at what Craig has done, I think what we're most interested in is compliance and not so much fines. And I think we're doing very well with compliance just by letting people know, you know, 654 problems, 612 of them corrected without a fine. Most of the people who did get fines took care of it right away. only a handful went to a second fine. So our fines are maybe a bit lower than most, if you want to call these our benchmarks. But unless people feel strongly otherwise, I'm okay with leaving it where it is. Thank you. Council Member Akers. I agree with Council Member Gibbs. I mean, I was going to point to, from the math here, 2934 citations were issued in all of last year out of the 654 citations. or zoning violations that there were. So, I mean, even if we raise them, we're not going to, I mean, it's not going to really be an impactful number for revenue, and I think the point is to correct the violations. So I agree with Council Member Gibbs. Thank you. Thank you. Looks like that we've all, Council Member Gibbs, that you don't want to move this forward. Oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Actually, I have a question for Commissioner Paulson, if that's okay. Sure. I know he's got data, and he just loves to share it. Yes, sir. The question was asked about geography. Geography. We can probably produce a map. They are fairly spread around the community, including out in the rural area. I mean, zoning violations are, as opposed to code enforcement, which really doesn't go into the rural area, zoning violations can occur anywhere. But we can, we'll get you a map if you really, if y'all would like to see a geographic spread. But it is not contained in any one district more than another. And a second question. The trend, I believe there's been more vigorous enforcement and more, a higher level of compliance in the last couple years. Is that the case? I would agree with you, yes. And we are, one of the things that we're really starting to implement as well is with every conditional, this is possibly one of the reasons why we are being very strict on our, every conditional use must have a visit once a year. So that may generate some of the zoning violations. We also get a lot of calls. So three on one still generates some of these calls. But there's part of it being self-generated and that we're going out and inspecting on the conditional use permits. But also that we do get calls in. Some of these can be flag signs. So this is one of the ones that my kids love to point these out. So if you know what the banner signs, kind of the ones that kind of wave, that they're not allowed anywhere. So those we, I know Chris King at one point did a nice little letter to a section of town where they were kind of prevalent and got a great deal of compliance. It was one of those, just wanted to let you know these are not allowed. And I think a lot of it is that people don't necessarily know. But once they did, I think 94% compliance is, to me, that's very good. And, again, we are working very hard. Jim Marks and the folks in planning that do zoning enforcement have done a great job. They've had some cases that were difficult to try to prove. To find the violations, one of those things you kind of think it. They've partnered with the police in a couple cases and some other instances, and they've just done a fabulous job. So I think it's a great testament to them, and we would love to see. You know, I think we'll get some more calls here and there, some more cases called in. But I think we'll always keep striving to get that compliance up even higher. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. I was just going to echo what Commissioner Paulson was saying. Back in 2008, this used to be under building inspection, and the only way we could enforce violations was through the criminal process. And, Council Member Gibbs, thankful to your district, we decided to create a task force in which I chaired to create this, and the reason why we gave the range was to give our infrastructure hearing board and staff flexibility on, as you said, compliance versus penalizing our way out of it because it wasn't working through the criminal process. So it seems like it's working. I want to give kudos to our planning folks. They really have upped the ante and stayed on top of it and done a great job. Not that the prior department wasn't. They just had so many other things to worry about when we moved them to planning. It was a big, big deal and a big help. So thank you, Commissioner, and all the hard workers in planning. They're really getting this done. It's evident by the numbers. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Paulson, and thank you, Council Member Stennett. if there's no other council members that have any other questions I guess Councilmember Gibbs will just pull this right out of committee because you're not going to take any action on it is that correct you make a motion to take absolutely duration so moved we have a motion a second to remove this from this committee all those in favor any opposed thank you the next item on agenda as items referred you can look at the back page of your packet we don't need to go over it and I will thank you all for your comments today I thought it It was a great moving, and I'll take a motion to adjourn. Committee is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.