# Planning Commission Public Hearing to Consider Armstrong Mill West & Cardinal Valley Small Area Plans - April 30, 2015 > Auto-transcribed civic record · April 30, 2015 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3644 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3644?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2015-04-30 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 18,936 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Planning Commission held a meeting on April 30, 2015, at 1:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber, 2nd Floor of the LFUCG Government Center, located at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky. Mike Owens presided over the meeting. The Commission addressed four agenda items, all of which were approved. These included approval of the previous meeting's minutes, consideration of the Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan, consideration of the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan, and consideration of PFR 2015-3 regarding an LFUCG Department of Public Safety Communications Tower. The Commission took four motions and votes during the meeting and heard nine public comments. ## Attendance **Present:** - Mike Owens - William Berkley - Patrick Brewer - Mike Cravens - Carolyn Plumlee - Karen Mundy - Bill Wilson - Carolyn Richardson - Frank Penn **Absent:** - David Drake **Late:** - None ## Votes and Decisions **Approval of Minutes** [timestamp: 00:01:47] The body approved the minutes from the March 12, 2015 and April 9, 2015 meetings. Karen Mundy moved for approval and Mike Cravens seconded the motion. The motion passed by voice vote with no dissenting votes. All nine members voted in favor: Mike Owens, William Berkley, Patrick Brewer, Mike Cravens, Carolyn Plumlee, Karen Mundy, Bill Wilson, Carolyn Richardson, and Frank Penn. **Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan** [timestamp: 01:00:21] The body adopted the Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan as an amendment to the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. Karen Mundy moved for adoption and Carolyn Plumlee seconded. The motion passed by voice vote with all nine members voting in favor. The adoption included a minor modification to remove a statement about underutilized parking on page 93 of the plan. **Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan** [timestamp: 02:00:18] The body adopted the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan as an amendment to the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. Carolyn Plumlee moved for adoption and Carolyn Richardson seconded. The motion passed by voice vote with all nine members voting in favor: Mike Owens, William Berkley, Patrick Brewer, Mike Cravens, Carolyn Plumlee, Karen Mundy, Bill Wilson, Carolyn Richardson, and Frank Penn. **PFR 2015-3 Microwave Communications Tower Compliance** [timestamp: 02:10:38] The body adopted the recommendation that PFR 2015-3, concerning a microwave communications tower at the Public Safety Operations Center, complies with the Comprehensive Plan. William Berkley moved for adoption. The motion passed by voice vote with all nine members voting in favor. The approval included a condition recommending additional screening along the eastern property line and side of the tower location. ## Public Comment Nine speakers addressed the meeting on April 30, 2015, offering perspectives on various aspects of the proposed plan. **Infrastructure and Facilities** Carol Riker [00:42:44] expressed concern about the long-term maintenance of community gardens and landscaping, noting that previous efforts were abandoned due to lack of caretakers. Mary Ann Olson [01:37:14] advocated for the construction of a full-sized library at Oxford Circle, stating the current branch is overused and inadequate. Jan Hellebusch [01:46:20] stressed the need for a new library and safer pedestrian access, noting high foot traffic and accidents in the area. **Specific Plan Recommendations** Bruce Simpson [00:45:03] requested deletion of language recommending a farmer's market and referencing underutilized parking at Park Hills Center due to zoning and parking constraints. **Support for the Plan** Councilmember Fred Brown [00:50:03] lent strong support for the plan, emphasizing the area's need for improvements and expressing intent to pursue projects if the plan is adopted. Karen Mundy [00:52:52] shared her experience as a participant in the process, praising the community engagement and thanking staff and consultants. Paula Singer [01:38:56] supported the green space components and library idea but urged the Commission to proceed with care, noting the plan only scratches the surface. Malcolm Ratchford [01:42:27] expressed support for the feasibility study and the potential for a community center, noting the importance of the location for social services. Councilmember Peggy Henson [01:49:01] reiterated support for the plan and emphasized the need for the feasibility study to reflect the needs of underserved community members. ## Contested Items **Farmer's Market at Park Hills Center** A significant disagreement emerged regarding the inclusion of a farmer's market at Park Hills Center in planning documents. Staff members and consultants advocated for retaining language that would support the concept, arguing that keeping it in the plan would preserve future options and flexibility for the site. They believed maintaining this language was important for long-term planning purposes. Park Hills Center management opposed this position, contending that a farmer's market at the location was not feasible. They cited specific constraints as their reasoning: zoning restrictions and parking limitations would prevent the farmer's market from operating successfully at that site. The nature of this dispute centered on community opposition and the practical viability of the proposed use. The disagreement reflected a tension between preserving conceptual possibilities in planning documents versus acknowledging real-world operational constraints that management believed made the proposal unworkable. ## Approval of Minutes The minutes from the March 12, 2015 and April 9, 2015 meetings were presented for approval. [timestamp: 00:01:47] Key speakers on this agenda item included Karen Mundy and Mike Cravens. The minutes were approved by voice vote without opposition. ## Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan [timestamp: 00:02:28] Staff and consultants presented the Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan to the council. The presentation included an overview of the public input process, key issues identified in the planning area, and staff recommendations. **Presentation and Discussion** The plan was presented by Jim Duncan, Janice Westlund, Ed Holmes, Rachel Phillips, and Bruce Simpson. The presentation covered the community engagement process used to develop the plan and outlined the primary issues and recommendations for the Armstrong Mill-West area. **Public Comment** During the public comment period, concerns were raised regarding two specific elements of the plan: - Community gardens in the area - Parking availability at Park Hills Center **Council Action** Following discussion, the council voted to adopt the Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan with one modification. A statement regarding underutilized parking was deleted from the final plan. Councilmember Fred Brown participated in the discussion and voting on this item. The motion to adopt the plan with the deletion passed, resulting in approval of the plan. ## Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan Staff and consultants presented the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan to the council, focusing on community engagement and neighborhood development priorities [timestamp: 01:07:06]. **Presentation and Key Focus Areas** The presentation, led by speakers including Chris Taylor and Stan Harvey, highlighted several core components of the plan: * Neighborhood conservation strategies * Commercial district development * Versailles Road improvements * A proposed community center at Oxford Circle **Public Engagement** The presentation addressed public outreach efforts and community engagement challenges encountered during the planning process. Multiple speakers contributed to the discussion, including Mary Ann Olson, Paula Singer, Malcolm Ratchford, and Jan Hellebusch. **Public Comments** Community members who provided input expressed support for certain elements while raising concerns about others: * Strong support for library and green space initiatives * Requests for caution regarding plan implementation and development impacts **Council Action** Councilmember Peggy Henson participated in the discussion. Following the presentation and public comment period, the council voted to approve the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan. ## PFR 2015-3: LFUCG Department of Public Safety Communications Tower [timestamp: 02:03:38] Staff presented a Public Facility Review for a 150-foot microwave communications tower proposed at the Public Safety Operations Center. The project was evaluated for consistency with the Comprehensive Plan. **Key Speakers** The presentation involved Barbara Rackers, Mr. Stack, and Mr. Rick Curtis. **Presentation and Findings** The staff review determined that the communications tower project was consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. In addition to approval, staff recommended that additional screening be incorporated into the project design. **Outcome** A motion to approve compliance with the Comprehensive Plan passed unanimously. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Approval of minutes from March 12, 2015 and April 9, 2015 meetings - **Motion** — passed: Adoption of the Armstrong Mill-West Small Area Plan as an amendment to the 2013 Comprehensive Plan with a minor change to remove the statement about underutilized parking on page 93 - **Motion** — passed: Adoption of the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan as an amendment to the 2013 Comprehensive Plan - **Motion** — passed: Adoption of the recommendation that PFR 2015-3 (microwave communications tower at Public Safety Operations Center) complies with the Comprehensive Plan --- ## Full transcript Music Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Derby Week to everyone and welcome. We'll call this meeting to order. First on the agenda are approval of minutes. We have two sets from March 12, 2015 and April 9, 2015. They were emailed to the commission members. I have not heard of any corrections or changes. If there are any, please let it be known now. Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion for approval of the minutes. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Chair, I move approval of the minutes for March the 12th, 2015, and April the 9th, 2015. Thank you. Do we have motions been made and seconded for approval of those minutes? Please vote when it comes up on your screen. Maybe, yeah, maybe we can just have a voice vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Next, I'll ask Mr. Jim Duncan to get us started. He has an introduction as far as the work that's been done on the two small area plans. Jim? Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the Planning Commission. We are pleased to be here today and to present the Armstrong Mill and Cardinal Valley Small Area Plans for your consideration as amendments to the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. Today's public hearing will include presentations by planning staff and our consultants, as well as an opportunity for the public to comment on the plans. We're going to start with the Armstrong Mill Plan. Janice Westland will provide the background on the public input process and introduce the consultants. Following the consultants' presentation, we will recommend that you all open the floor for public comment on the Armstrong Mill Plan. We'll be available to answer questions, and then we'll recommend that you adopt the Armstrong Mill Plan with any changes that you desire. We've prepared a resolution for you to use in that regard. Following the Armstrong-Mill plan, Chris Taylor will come up and present the Cardinal Valley plan and will repeat the process for that one as well. For the record, we have followed the statutory process for amending comprehensive plans, including scheduling, advertising, and conducting this public hearing, as well as other notification and planning requirements. And we are also aware, especially if you all had a chance to review these plans before you came, that there are some cleanup items for the plan, some of them typos, some of them other things, that we will correct before we publish the final version. And any of those that you have found, we would be delighted if you would share those with us so we can have as clean a plan as possible. Also, anything that you decide to change from the plan today as a result of public comment, that will be incorporated into the final version as well. I do want to say a few words about small area planning and why we've done these to provide some context for today's hearings. You know, we have a long history of small area planning in Lexington. These plans have become important community tools as they're able to address particular issues in areas that are beyond the reach of the comprehensive plan. Our most recent adopted plans, the Central Sector, East End, and South Nicholasville Road, continue to provide information and informed decisions made in those areas. The reference for the plans that we're looking at today are found in the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. There we describe small area planning in Chapter 3, Growing Successful Neighborhoods. We say that small area plans guide growth and development and promote neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. As we were evaluating the data for the 2013 plan, we looked at a number of critical issues, including access to transportation, poverty, access to healthy and affordable food, safety, jobs, and other issues. And then when we started mapping those issues, we found that they intersected at several areas across town. With strong support from the mayor and from the Urban County Council, we were able to attack two of those issues simultaneously. in the plans we present today, Armstrong Mill and Cardinal Valley. In April of last year, we issued RFPs for these plans. Our consultants were selected by a team that included the council member that represents those areas, member of the Planning Commission, and staff from the Divisions of Purchasing and Planning. We entered into contracts with each of the consultants in May and began designing a strategy for a plan process And working with the council members again for those areas, we identified leaders who would serve on the steering committees. And now these leaders helped guide and direct our process. And more importantly, they served as liaisons to their respective constituencies. And we do express our deep appreciation and gratitude for the extra work that our steering committee members did. We also believe that we've tapped into a resource that as we begin to implement these plans, we will be able to call upon. So, Mr. Chair, before I leave the lectern, I want to remind the audience that we do have sign-in sheets in the back, and that will aid in the public comment portion of the meeting. At this time, are there any questions about the agenda? Okay. Well, with that, Mr. Chair, I'll turn this over to Janice, who will introduce the Armstrong Mill Plant. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jim. Good afternoon, Planning Commission Chair, Planning Commission members. I'm going to give you a recap of the meetings and the outreach for the Armstrong Mill West Small Area Plan. I know in the past a couple of times we've come to you at work session and given you an update, but for the sake of the hearing and to get it on record, I'm going to go over the meetings briefly as possible. In July of last year, EHI and Councilmember Myers and planning staff met to talk about the timeline, stakeholders, and neighboring contacts. In August, EHI and Council and planning staff went on a driving tour of the area. Also, we walked around on some sides of interest. A contacts database was compiled consisting of contacts from council office, also from our neighborhood association directory, and also from stakeholders and nonprofits that we felt were relevant to the area. Then planning staff formed an advisory committee like Jim mentioned. That representation included one of our planning commission members, Ms. Mundy, and also Councilmember Myers. And then when Councilmember Brown started his term, then he attended as an advisory committee member. We also had several LFUCG departments represented. A green space commission was represented. Several from Fayette County Public Schools. Two commercial properties. And several nonprofit groups. EHI created a website for the plan, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account. Those were used to announce meetings, to publish documents from the results of meetings, and photos and activities for the plan. In September, we had our first advisory committee meeting. There was an orientation and a timeline, and that was the first of three meetings for the advisory committee. The first meeting for the neighbors happened later in September. It was a cookout kickoff event, and lots of donations came from sources to provide free food. And we had a DJ, and it was both indoors and outdoors. And indoors they had displays and information and consultants on hand to answer questions and also to collect surveys. The consultants made up at that first meeting a card with upcoming neighborhood workshops so that people would have the dates and times also on a printed form. In October, we had a focus group meeting that was not one of the normal neighborhood meetings, but it was only for the neighborhood association reps. There are eight neighborhood associations in this area, so we felt it important to have a separate committee sort of just focusing on what the neighborhood association reps felt important for this area. That happened before the next series of three open-to-the-public neighborhood workshops. Those were all held at the Gainesway Community Center, and topics of discussion at those meetings ranged from neighborhood assets, issues, stormwater, circulation, transportation, infrastructure, and amenities and neighborhood identity. These meetings had open discussion and PowerPoints. One of the meetings, they separated everybody into groups, and it was a group exercise where they literally, it was a hands-on. They wrote on the maps information that they felt important for infrastructure, any kind of infrastructure, greenways, parks, pedestrian access, roads, traffic, lights, all kinds of things. Then, in January, we had a neighborhood visioning meeting. The consultants held it at Tates Creek Middle School in the library. Again, they had groups, and those groups on their own formulated a vision for this small area plan. They also, in a separate exercise, created a design for what they felt Armstrong Mill Corridor should look like. They were given tools of sort of like puzzle pieces of different features like lighting, sidewalks, vehicular lanes, vegetative strips, and it was pretty interesting, the outcome of those. and that's what helped formulate the plan. In February, there was a third advisory committee and also there was one in January too. The second advisory committee, they looked at with the consultants the themes and goals and elements of the plan that were evolving and then the third advisory committee meeting presented the vision statement and again, they used what the neighbors had formulated to base that upon. Also, they presented concepts and recommendations for the plan. In March, they had the last neighborhood meeting other than the one today, and it was at the Gainesway Community Center again. And it was an open house with display boards to show what these themes and concepts and recommendations were going to be. And they had a lot of discussion and input from the neighbors there. So after, just to recap, there were six advertised open to the public neighborhood meetings. three advisory committee meetings, and numerous other meetings the consultants had with stakeholders and interviews and with staff that were not part of those meetings. The initial context database was, it grew as, after each meeting, we took the sign-in sheet and added the new email addresses. So we ended up with about 140, a little bit over 140 email addresses. And again, we used that same database to get the word out about today's hearing. and also to where they could find the draft to look at before this hearing. And also, as Jim mentioned, we placed a legal ad in the Herald-Leader for today's hearing and also a location of a link to where to look at the draft. We also sent out a copy to the Bluegrass Regional Planning Council and all the surrounding planning admissions, which is part of KRS-100. I also want to thank the advisory committee. I know Jim's thanked them. and also want to thank the neighbors. We had a lot of very committed neighbors that attended these meetings. One lady, I don't know if she's here, she attended every single neighborhood meeting, including the focus group meeting. And there was a lot of neighbors. I know they couldn't come to all of them, but many of them came to quite a few of the meetings. There was a lot of effort and care put into this plan. And when I got the final draft from EHI to look at, and I do want to mention also EHI was our main contractor, and their subcontractors for this plan were Parsons Brinkerhoff and Lord Act Sargent. And when I got to look at the final draft to review, I was kind of overwhelmed with the content and thinking about all the work and effort that went into it. It's really exciting, and it's a good plan. and I just want to thank the consultants too for a good plan. And I think this plan will be a catalyst for a lot of good things in the future for this area. Now I'm going to turn it over to Ed Holmes, and he's going to introduce you to the consultants. Thank you. Thank you, Janice. Planning Commission, it's good to see most of you, and it's good to be on this side of the podium, I think. But I do want to thank the Planning Commission and Chris and your staff, Janice, Jim. It was an honor and a pleasure working with you and doing the small area plan. The thing that we like about our plans is that we want to enjoy what we're doing. We want to engage the residents in the involvement of the plans. So we have a very intensive planning process that includes public involvement, which Janice had talked about. We started with a kickoff meeting that had about, I think, 75 residents or so that came out. And that starts to form the framework for what we're doing in the plan, gathering the information and putting together what we think will be the bedrock of what makes a good plan. And what makes, I think, a good plan, a good small area plan is the level of involvement, the details to what the residents get involved with. And that's not always to say that the residents are correct in what they're wanting, but then it's our job as planners, I think, to get them engaged, get them involved, and then put it into a planning context that fits within the framework of the LFUCG planning documents that you have, and especially the comprehensive plan. So, you know, why we did this was it gives them the background on how to plan for their neighborhood and how to grow the neighborhood effectively and how to address issues that are currently occurring in the neighborhood that we maybe can come up with some policies, recommendations, and strategies. Councilman Brown's here. He came into it after his election, and we worked closely with Councilman Myers and Councilman Brown to get their input into the citizen involvement of it. We'll go to the next one. So the overview that, and Rachel will go into more detail with this, but our staff was able to get the community engaged. We were able to look at existing conditions and how that fits into the area, demographics, socioeconomics, a lot of things that you read in the plan itself. Then we come with the planning principles, which I think is probably some of the most critical elements of the plan, and we'll go into more detail to those. what makes a neighborhood important, what are the issues, and what are the assets, what are the strengths, and what are the weaknesses and opportunities that may exist in that area. Some are good, some are bad, so we tried to build on the strengths, see how we can improve the areas where there needs some improvements, and come up with the recommendations. I think this plan will serve the community and serve you as a guide as you develop some of the growth objectives of a community. And I think in each community, there are certain livability issues. You want to be safe. You want to have good access to food. You want a good transportation network. You want to have housing that's affordable and yet livable. So it's those types of things that us and our consultants that Janice mentioned. LAS was some of the design consultants, and Parson Brinkerhoff was the traffic transportation coordinator. And then our staff, I just want to mention them. Rachel Phillips, who will be giving a presentation. Then we have Ryan Holmes and Kara O'Connor here as well that put in a lot more hours and efforts than I did. But we hope it represents the thoughts of the stakeholders and the planning staff and the residents. So Rachel will go into detail on the plan itself. Thanks, Ed. Good afternoon, Planning Commission members. As Janice said and Ed as well, we had a lot of community input. And really what I would like to do is kind of go through some of the highlights of the plan. As you all probably have discovered in the past week, there's a lot of detail to the plan. And so what we would like to do is really kind of go over how some of the themes were derived, as well as the goals and objectives, and really putting the concept plan into the context of achieving those goals and objectives. And so that's how the presentation will be laid out today. So, again, throughout the community input process, we asked the neighbors and stakeholders within the Armstrong-Mail West small area plan in a variety of ways and questions, what do you like about your neighborhood and what are the issues? And so these are some of the main themes that were reoccurring throughout each of our workshops. So what we wanted to do was kind of put that into, construct that into a framework that kind of laid out throughout the plan. So some of the major issues were infrastructure, aging infrastructure, lack of sidewalks or need of repair of sidewalks, lack of bicycle lanes. Public safety was a really big issue with neighborhood residents. the fear of crime and the prevalence of drugs in the neighborhood. There was particular hot spots where that might be occurring. Property maintenance and neglect was a big issue, as well as traffic, and that included speeding, pedestrian, and vehicular safety. But we also wanted to kind of get out those issues, but we also wanted to focus on the assets and what is good about the neighborhood. A lot of people like the location of where it is within the city of Lexington, its closeness to easy access to downtown and to UK, friendly neighbors. People was a big asset for the neighborhood as well as the natural environment, being a very established neighborhood with lots of open space, parks, amenities, such as the schools and the community center. So going from issues and assets, we really didn't want to, we wanted to, again, understand the issues, but we wanted to focus our next efforts in visioning on how those issues can be changed and what can we focus on as far as the assets of the neighborhood and how can we start to resolve the issues. And so this is the visioning statement that Janice was referring to. This is the actual language that the neighbors and the residents and the stakeholders actually came up with. So really it was a great vision. I mean, it was one where they wanted to see the neighborhood to attract opportunities for businesses and for families to live, to be more walkable, have green infrastructure, being able to get around the neighborhood easily, and also have the services within the neighborhood that are currently lacking. So again, the theme, perhaps the main priority that the neighbors and residents thought was an issue in their neighborhood was public safety. So we wanted to look at ways to improve neighborhood safety. And there was one strategy was to increase police presence, providing more of a community policing effort, partnerships with the neighbors and the division of police and businesses. But also look at what are ways through design we can look at providing better public safety and then also maximizing visibility and lighting. And so we started to look at those types of issues through crime prevention, through environmental design, and I'll refer to that as CPTED. And that refers to natural surveillance, which is really the old adage of seen and be seen, as well as natural access. So it's providing a defined path where people should be walking or driving in some cases, and also territorial reinforcement, so providing where public space versus private space through fencing and lighting and landscape and things, design elements of that nature. as well as maintenance, which is, again, was one of the issues that the neighborhood residents referred to quite a bit. We also looked at another goal was to provide more improved circulation, better connectivity and mobility. And we looked at providing more or most of the improvements along Armstrong Mill West Corridor, which is basically the spine in the neighborhood. So that was a big focus. The other priority that the neighbors gave a project that they gave priority to was the redevelopment of that corridor. And through the visioning exercise that we had, they came up with their own right-of-way, which is in the plan that shows improvements on pedestrian improvements and bicycle facilities, as well as lighting and landscaping. So there's actually a section in the plan that is kind of dedicated just to Armstrong Middle West Corridor. But we're also looking at other improvements, other connectivity throughout the neighborhood. That's for pedestrian transit and traffic. So these illustrations show various priorities given to sidewalk repair, adding sidewalks, as well as where transit could be improved, as well as traffic. One of the issues that we heard about a lot was just the traffic signals along Armstrong Mill at the intersections of Tates Creek and Man of War. So if there's an opportunity to look into providing better synchronization of signals, that's a strategy that is mentioned in the plan itself. Connectivity and mobility also is included around, I mentioned Armstrong Miller as being the spine of the neighborhood. We felt like the Center Parkway and the Tates Creek School campus, the Gainesway Park, as well as the Gainesway Community Center served as kind of part of the neighborhood. And so we looked at providing better connections within that center of the neighborhood to each other. so providing better connections between the school and the park, as well as providing more integrated connections from outside of that center into the neighborhood. So we're looking at improvements to Milano, providing streetscape improvements, as well as bike and ped improvements, as well as Center Parkway with the same types of streetscape improvements. It also includes trails within the park, providing connections to the school, as well as to the College for Technical Education, which is also located, let's see if I, it's kind of right in the center there. So providing a better connection to that facility as well. Housing, that was our third goal. and looking at housing, the four strategies that came out of the housing was based on some analysis that we did looking at affordability. Although many might consider Armstrong Mill to be very affordable, there are some affordability issues, particularly with renters. They do have a larger cost burden as far as housing, more so than homeowners. homeowners and one of the goals is to increase home ownership so if we look at providing home home ownership opportunities for people or renters who currently live there there might be some issues as far as being able to afford a home and the looking at affordable renting rental as well as well as providing housing repair and rehab for the existing housing stock most of the The housing stock is about 35 years or older, and so we would want to look at providing more opportunities for seniors who might want to age in place as well as energy efficiency. And to provide a mechanism for inspection and maintenance, and so we are recommending our rental inspection program, which would allow for those rental properties to be inspected to see if there's elements of the CPTED elements that could be incorporated, such as better lighting, landscaping, defining paths, and things of that nature, but also if there's opportunities for better energy efficiency and aging in place design. Goal four, looking at land use and sustainability. From a land use perspective, there's not a lot of, we're actually not recommending any significant land use changes. What we are recommending is opportunities for enhancing the existing sites, commercial, as well as providing more sustainable opportunities for the existing land uses that are currently there in the neighborhood. and so when we look at sustainability we looked at the amount of impervious areas opportunities for stormwater best management practice as well as green infrastructure and opportunities to provide more tree coverage and vegetation so really utilizing the heart again of the neighborhood around the takes creek school campus as well as the gaysway park and these are some of the opportunities that we were looking at as far as providing those re-greening of certain areas or some of those impervious areas, opportunities to incorporate more rain gardens. The school has done a great job in providing some green infrastructure and if there's other opportunities to start incorporating maybe permeable pavement as they start to redevelop some of their facilities around the high school, that there's opportunities to incorporate green roofs, community gardens. Currently the Gainesway Community Center and I believe the school has their own community gardens but they're very small scale. There might be an opportunity to increase that and improve the community gardens that are currently there. As far as commercial enhancements, there are two. There's one large shopping center. It's the Park Hills Shopping Center located on Pimlico and Man of War. And for the enhancements we were looking at, currently there's some issues with the ingress and egress into the site. if there could be some better entrance into the site, but also providing some better pedestrian entrances into the site. Also, as far as land use, currently, the shopping center is a very stable shopping center and is being used quite a bit. And what we're recommending is to keep the same types of uses and even try to make the facility even more usable by providing a farmer's market during the weekend, if that's a possibility. That would allow for a more active site and for the neighborhood to use that as well. And if we could provide better access through better sidewalks and transit to the site, it would be even better. So some of the concepts we were looking at was providing even some pedestrian access and defining areas within the parking lot, as well as an opportunity maybe to even locate a small specialty food store. Other commercial enhancements includes the Fast Stop, which is located on Trent Boulevard. Currently, it's a small gas station, and there are three small vacant storefronts. that is based on the orientation of the site and the building. It's very hard to even realize that there are other storefronts there. So if there was a way to better define the entrance, currently it's a large area of asphalt, and you know that it's a driveway, but it's not defined very well, and it doesn't have good pedestrian access into the site. So if there are ways to enhance the site, it would be provide for a better perception of safety, because currently right now this is an area where some of the residents felt like it was very underutilized and had perceptions of safety. And so we would want to try to incorporate, again, the CPTED types of design elements, such as better lighting and defined paths, just making the site itself more aesthetically pleasing as well as better utilized with some neighborhood types of uses. We looked specifically at the Center Parkway area and the Center for Technical College that's located at the site. And so we were looking at better ways to orient the site itself. Currently, it's used as a technical school, but it also provides kind of hands-on learning for the students that attend there. So they have a daycare certificate program. So there is a daycare located on the site, and they actually provide daycare services for people in the neighborhood. There's a culinary arts program located on the site. So there's better ways to incorporate as far as the design of the building itself and the site, but also provide more of those services to the neighborhood and also to provide better pedestrian access and site design gateways and into the site itself. Goal five, we were looking at neighborhood livability, and this is the overall improving of the quality of life. So there might be a lot of strategies that talk about providing better services as far as youth activities as well as senior activities. Currently, there is a community, the Gainesway Community Center, located near the park and the school that is currently underutilized. And because some of the changes that are going on currently with the public housing redevelopment, But if there's a way to better utilize that space, particularly for seniors during the day and school children after school activities, which is a strategy that we talk about in the plan. Specifically, we talk a lot about access to affordable food, affordable and healthy food in the neighborhood, and as well as medical services and health care facilities. There are a few located on the periphery of the neighborhood, so we're really looking at trying to provide better, again, overall circulation and mobility to these areas. For healthy food accessibility, again, there are grocery stores and specialty stores located outside of the neighborhood. And so what we were looking at is trying to provide strategies that bring food internally into the neighborhood. And we looked at several different strategies, including, again, the farmer's market. If there's a possibility to locate that at Park Hills, there might be an opportunity to locate a farmer's market at the CTE site on the weekends as well. Looking at providing a mobile food truck, which is a produce truck that actually comes into the neighborhood. And there might be several different areas where that can come in and provide a service. if there's some ways to provide a partnership with some of the smaller scale retail gas stations with the Good Neighbor program that's currently in effect in Lexington and has been very successful in other neighborhoods, as well as increasing the opportunity to provide community gardens, particularly within the Gaines Way Park and around the public housing redevelopment. So we looked at those different strategies on providing healthy food internally, but also looking at providing better access to the existing facilities, grocery stores, because we understand that based on the market that a large grocery store is not going to come internally into the neighborhood. but what are ways that we can provide better access, particularly to the Kroger at Tate's Creek, the Tate's Creek Shopping Center, which is highly used by the neighborhood residents based on the survey and discussions that we had. That's the primary store that they utilize. Goal six, we looked at enhancing the small area, providing a stronger sense of identity and sense of place through placemaking. And really, we're trying to incorporate all of our concepts and strategies in some way. It was trying to get at providing more of a sense of place, sense of identity, because there are, as Janice mentioned earlier, there are eight neighborhood associations. So we were trying to find a way to bring an identity to the entire area. And so looking at doing those improvements and enhancements and providing better accessibility throughout the neighborhood. So some of the physical types of improvements, but also those intangible neighborhood things that maybe a design project might not facilitate, but really I felt like, as a planner, I felt like the small area plan process did help facilitate some of that neighborhood leadership and community engagement. And that's really something that we hope that the plan, as it continues on through its implementation, continues that fostering of that neighborhood leadership. And also encouraging community pride and celebrating all of those assets that the neighborhood does have. And again, the last section in the plan is the implementation schedule, and what we're hoping is that this plan is a roadmap for future activities. It will require additional leadership development, the continuation of community partners, because there's a lot of moving parts to the plan. There's a lot of different things or different organizations currently doing a lot of great work in the neighborhood. So it's an opportunity to nurture those partnerships, but also look at providing where you can leverage new partnerships and leverage funding to implement some of these projects and programs, and also looking at a continuation of economic and business development. So retaining those businesses that are currently there and making them stronger and enhancing the site to provide the services that the neighborhood really wanted as part of their identifications of issues. And so if you look at this as Section 6 in the plan, we've tried to lay out each strategy, the type of implementation that will be required, as well as the lead agency in implementing, as well as partners in helping implement, and potential funding. So we're hoping that the Planning Commission, the City Council, staff, the neighborhood residents and stakeholders can use this document to implement many of these concepts and strategies that we outlined in the plan. And that is the end of my presentation. And if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Questions? Frank? Rachel what percentage in this area are is home ownership versus rental is it what percentage are we talking about here overall the percentage is higher for rental there are certain census tracts that have higher home ownership I think it's 40 I'd have to check I just didn't see it reason I was asking. 60 rental, 60-40. 60 rental, 40 homeownership. Other questions? Yes. Is the golf course in this study area? It is in the study area. But I didn't see any reference or I didn't even see it on the map or anything. It's probably on the first map. Was it discussed or anything? It was discussed. We are not recommending if you see this large green area, this is the Golf Course Park Aquatic Center. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the Golf Course. And it also has the Aquatic Center, the Banquet Hall, and I think that's it as far as the facilities. But we were not recommending any changes to that. Yeah, we had a discussion about the golf course and decided to leave it alone. That's city owned, right? Yes. Other questions? No. Thank you. Others? That takes care of the presentation part, I guess. Mr. Chair, Megan has the sign-in list back there if we've got anybody who's interested in commenting on the plan. Let me just ask, are there citizens that would like to comment on this small area plan? Show of hands? Yes. Okay. This, okay. being limited just come on forward and we'll take each one of y'all. I think I'll have two hands. Please give us the name and address. Hi I'm Carol Riker from 2714 Stetson Lane so I don't live in the area. However, I've volunteered there for a number of years, excluding the last two years when I had a different assignment at work. I had nursing students in the area. My church does some work with the Gainesway Community Empowerment Center. And personally, I've done some volunteer work. So one of the comments I had, and I didn't get so far as to see how this was handled in the implementation plan, But one concern I had is for, say, the community garden and expanding that and also the landscaping that was mentioned several times. A small group of us have tried to improve the landscaping around the community center. And the problem is that you need somebody to take care of that. And I never could figure out how to get that done. similar comments with the community garden where we've had the help of seed leaf that's helped but i personally went and watered it probably every sunday for a couple years and the beautiful daylilies that stephen hillenmeyer donated they're just covered with weeds now because i just the last two years have not been able to get over and work on that sort of things. So I think landscaping and more community gardens would be beautiful. And we had hoped that it would be a way to contribute to the placemaking and pride in the neighborhood. But so far, at least I haven't figured out how to get that done. So that's my comment. Thank you, Ms. Riker. I think we'll take all comments and then let others address if there's any responses. Mr. Simpson. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, I'm Bruce Simpson. I'm here today on behalf of Park Hill Center. Cheryl Johnson, who manages the shopping center, is here as well, and she served on the steering committee. Just a couple of recommendations. I first want to say that I certainly, having been privileged to be involved in planning and zoning for a number of years now, appreciate the importance of small area planning. I really believe that that gives our community the best opportunity to look at the details of certain areas in the community and to give them the attention they deserve that sometimes doesn't get addressed as well when we're talking about just the general comprehensive plan that we adopt every five years. Certainly in this case, Jim Duncan and Janice Westland have provided excellent leadership in putting this document together. And, of course, it was drafted by EHI Consulting, Ed Holmes and Rachel Phillips, who I've worked with here in Lexington. And we are working on a very important project in downtown Louisville right now. So this body has been blessed by the expertise of the professionals that it has on its existing staff and the experts that have been consulted for this specific project. We do have a couple of changes that we have requested. I have talked these over with Jim Duncan and also Ed Holmes. I don't believe they have any objections to the request I'm going to make. And the first request is actually on page two of the document, and it concerns a recommendation for the farmer's market. It's listed under, in the lower left-hand corner, healthy food, where there's a recommendation that the parking lot be reconfigured to accommodate a farmer's market or a mobile market. Actually, Bluegrass Farmer's Market looked at Park Hill Center this year or within the last year to see if it could locate there, and it was determined that it could not because the existing zoning regulations that are currently in force would not allow it. Park Hill Center was approved, as you recall, from a previous couple of hearings we had on the case involving the McDonald's lot back in the 70s, and those were different zoning requirements. And while we meet those requirements, there's not enough parking to accommodate new users such as a farmer's market. So there's no way that this could be complied with, even if we wanted to, unless there was a text amendment that would provide for it. And so rather than create confusion about which direction to go in terms of the farmer's market in Park Hills, we would recommend that that language simply be deleted. In addition, on page 93, where it's referencing issues and also recommendations, which in terms of the recommendations, it talks about utilized parking for a farmer's market, which I just addressed. That should be deleted. And likewise, where it talks about identifying issues underutilized parking lot. As I explained, we don't have enough parking to comply with the current zoning ordinance for B6P. In addition, this body approved a fast food McDonald's that's yet to be built. We have a legal challenge, and litigation is pending on that question. And one of the questions is, is there enough parking? I think by adopting this, you're just creating another issue that we don't need to deal with in terms of planning, in terms of the parking situation. It's not going to hamper harm or detract from the purpose of the document if the language is deleted in reference to underutilized parking in this section. The plan still goes forward, and if things change, if we happen to prevail in the court case, we can come back and look at a farmer's market. But I would just ask that the language on page 92, recommending a farmer's market, and the language on page 93, referencing a farmer's market and underutilized parking, that those references simply be deleted. Again, I don't believe Jim or Ed Holmes has any objection to that request. I'll let them speak to it if they wish, but I think in light of everything, it would be the appropriate action for this body to take, and I'll be happy to respond to any questions relative to this recommendation. Any questions for Mr. Simpson? Yes, ma'am. Do you want to delete mobile market also? Yeah, we can't have anything new there because we can't comply with the existing regulations for B6P. We don't have enough parking. Other questions for Mr. Simpson? Okay. Like I said, I think we'll take all comments and then get Jim or Ed or whoever back up to. Okay. respond and clarify and so forth. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm Councilman Fred Brown. I represent this area, 8th District, and wanted to speak before this august body. I wasn't going to speak on it, but I think I need to lend my support into this. I've been a resident for 37 years on the edge of the golf course down on Pimlico and Gainesway. So I know the area quite well and am versed on all the areas. And we are in dire need of some improvements. And this area plan certainly brings those out. And I intend to, as long as I'm on the council, to bring some of those things forth. It takes money to do these things. and that'll be my part probably if you all will pass this. I think it will be a great improvement. Armstrong Mill Road, I don't know how many of you have traveled that road. It's a rural road. It's been like that for 50 years, 75 years. In fact, the state used to own it, but now the city. So it is Fayette County property, and there's not been any improvements. We do have enough right-of-way there to do a lot of work, and a lot of transportation. We've got, if you look at the nucleus there, every bit of that's in the 8th District, 8th Council District, so I have a vested interest in this, certainly. We've got a beautiful golf course out there and an aquatic pool that we put in in the year 2000. We renovated the old Tate's Creek for, spent $2 million on that project, so they really didn't have to add a lot to those two parks that we have. the, and we've got Tates Creek School system has got the elementary, middle school, and high school, and they are a very viable part of this, and in fact, I'm going to meet next week with the principal at Tates Creek, and to try to get some ideas so that we can inject. If this gets passed, then I can move forward. There's probably a half a dozen projects in there that we can do probably within the next year. It may take a couple hundred thousand dollars, but if this plan moves forward, then I think we can improve this area in all the phases. I think the consultants and the planning staff did a good job on bringing this forth, and I certainly support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Others that would like to speak on this plan? Before we get to responses, Karen, since you were involved, do you want to make any comments? Well, I'd just like to say, first of all, I live on the periphery, I guess you would say, of this area and used to play a lot of golf on that golf course. So I've spent a lot of time in that area, in that neighborhood, and I count it a privilege to be able to be part of this process, And it was a great learning experience for me to see how this whole process came together and the input from the community is so important to be able to get their thoughts, what they want. They're the ones who live there. And to try to create a better place to live through better traffic patterns, better pedestrian access, and those kinds of things. So I just would like to add my thank you to the staff and to Mr. Holmes' group for all the hard work that went into this, because I think it's a very worthy goal to reach for for this area. So thanks. Thank you, Jim. Do you or Ed want to respond to the questions, comments? Thank you, Mr. Chair. We may both respond to this. I will say, in fact, the community gardens and landscaping issue, who maintains, I believe that's an excellent question, and I appreciate Ms. Riker bringing that up because that's always the issue in these kinds of things. We're supportive of these types of changes. We believe they will have positive impact, but then getting them fully implemented. So I don't know that we have a good answer for that, but that would certainly be part of implementing these. As we put these gardens and other landscaping initiatives into place, we would think that would be part of the project, too, is to identify who's going to supply and maintain and keep these for the long term. I would say, unless Rachel or Ed has another answer, we don't have a specific answer for that, but we think that that is something that would be part of implementing these projects. Mr. Simpson brings up a very good point about Park Hills, and we have talked just briefly. we think that it would be, we agree that it would be important on page 93 when we're talking about issues and we describe the parking as underutilized, we think that would be important to strike that language. That is more of a subjective statement, and we would be happy to take that out. On the issue of the food truck and the food and the farmer's market, But those are things that we think are important for this neighborhood to have the options. And as you all know better than anybody, zoning law can be changed, text can be changed. We're not necessarily suggesting a text amendment to effectuate something like this. We're not even sure that perhaps if we looked into it that we couldn't do this already. We just don't want to foreclose the opportunity. if we see that something like this, a farmer's market, a mobile food vendor, or some other food source, is something that we want to pursue for this area, we don't want to foreclose it by completely striking it. We'd like to leave that language in here. And if we need to address that through other regulatory means, then that would certainly be something appropriate. But as far as describing the parking is underutilized, we agree with Mr. Simpson that that language could be removed from the plan. And Ed, did you? I would just agree with Jim's comments. The underutilized parking, we're in agreement that that should be stricken from the document. But I would still like to see the reference to the farmer's market and the food truck as a key element to be incorporated. And if there are some issues in terms of conflict and regulations, there are avenues by which we could explore. But it's really a concept that we're talking about. It's not set in stone, but it's a concept that we think might work. Not only there, but the community and technical college area also is an area that we're recommending. So we think a mobile food truck and the concept of farmer's market and either of those sites would work, and we'd like to keep some language to that. Hold on one second. Mr. Holmes, Frank's got a question. When I look at the farmer's market thing, and I hear Mr. Simpson talking about the parking thing, But the fundamental rule of agriculture, if you can't sell it, don't grow it. And we need to expand that opportunity to sell produce. And the question becomes, where are you going to sell it and how are you going to sell it? So don't take that out of the plan because there's ways to do that that doesn't necessarily have to fit under B6P. And I would like to see that concept explored because that is a very viable market. We don't have enough access for it and would like to grow it. And especially when you get into some underserved communities where you don't have grocery stores or access to healthy and affordable foods, I think a farmer's market gives you another viable option. Thank you. Any other questions? No? Thanks. All right. One more thing? Yeah, just to respond to Mr. Penn's comment, certainly Park Hill Center was very much interested in having farmers market locate there. But a check was made with the zoning staff, and they said we didn't have enough parking to accommodate the market. The language talks about within existing regulations, we just didn't want there to be expectation that there could be one here, and there can't be unless the zoning ordinance gets changed that would allow for more parking at our site. We're certainly in favor of the farmer's market if it can be accommodated. It's just we don't have enough space to accommodate it at Park Hill. So that was the basis of our concern. If you want to leave it as a concept, that's fine. I just don't want, I want the record to be clear that that's, we have constraints right now of having the farmer's market at Park Hill Center. I understand the zoning part of it, but I still believe in the concept where there's a will, there's a way. Okay. Good. Okay. Anything else? If not, one, I'd like to thank everyone for the work that was done on this, from Jim and Janice to Ed Holmes' staff and all the citizens involved, too. they're probably the most important part of this. To move forward, if it's commission's wishes, we would need a motion. The motion would be to amend the comprehensive plan and adopt the small area plan. And then there's a resolution that needs to be read into the minutes as well. If you're ready. You ready? Okay. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion that we accept the Armstrong Mill West small area plan with the minor change that was suggested today, otherwise as presented by staff and the consultants. Motion's been made and seconded to adopt the small area plan. I guess one point of clarification as far as the one change in regards to the statement of underutilized parking, I guess. Yeah. Just that. Yeah. The change would be on page 93 to edit out the underutilized parking lot. Okay. Just clarification. motion's been made and seconded for approval of the small area plan I guess we probably need to read that into the as part of the motion as well would that be correct? yes a resolution of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Planning Commission adopting the Armstrong Mill Road West small area plan as an element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan, whereas KRS 100.183-100.197 set forth the procedures for periodic update and review of Comprehensive Plan elements and whereas the Comprehensive Plan goals and objectives statement element for the 2013 Comprehensive Plan was adopted by the Planning Commission on September 22, 2011, and subsequently adopted by the Urban County Council on May 17, 2012 by Resolution No. 260-2012, as required by KRS 100.193, and whereas the Statement of Goals and Objectives act as a guide for the preparation of the remaining elements to aid in implementing the comprehensive plan, and whereas the Planning Commission and the Urban County Council, having adopted the said statement of goals and objectives, the Planning Commission may adopt other elements of the comprehensive plan pursuant to KRS Chapter 100, and whereas the Planning Commission finds that the Armstrong Mill Road West small area plan is consistent with the statement of goals and objectives, and whereas the Planning Commission finds that the research undertaken as part of the update and adoption of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan and, in addition, the research performed specifically in preparation for the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan fully support the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan as an element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan And, whereas in compliance with KRS Chapter 100, the Planning Commission has conducted a duly advertised public hearing on April 30, 2015, to receive comments and information from all interested persons. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Planning Commission, Section 1, that the Planning Commission hereby adopts the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan as an element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan for Lexington-Fayette County. The Armstrong Road West Small Area Plan includes the text and maps presented to the Commission. Section 2, that this resolution and the attached text and the maps adopted herein shall be referred to as the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan for Lexington Fayette Urban County. Section 3, the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan shall supersede all Comprehensive Plan recommendations previously adopted by this Planning Commission for the land area within the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan, which are consistent with any maps, text, or recommendations contained in the Armstrong Mill Road West Small Area Plan. Section 4, it is the intent of this Planning Commission that the Zoning Ordinance Land Subdivision Regulations and the Zoning Map Atlas currently in effect on the date of adoption of this resolution shall remain in full force and effect unless and until duly amended by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council after receipt of a recommendation by this Planning Commission. Section 5, the Director of the Division of Planning is directed to forward this resolution and the documents mentioned herein to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council for its information and use. Section 6, the resolution shall become effective on this date of its adoption, adopted by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Planning Commission on this the 30th day of April 2015. Thank you. So we have a motion. It was seconded. Please vote when it comes up on the screen. I think, yeah, a voice vote will work here. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. Once again, Mr. Holmes, thank you, and Janice and Jim and everyone for their work. Mr. Wilson? Yes, sir? Well, I just have a question about procedure. How long does a small area plan stay in effect? In perpetuity? Ten years. In perpetuity? Ten years. Ten years? Ten years, unless accepted as an update by the Planning Commission. Oh, okay. Thank you. Chris Taylor. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Passing around to you a copy of the appendix to the Cardinal Valley Small Airplane that includes the public comment survey. Give me just a second to distribute that. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to talk very briefly about the public outreach element of the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan. We knew there would be some inherent challenges in engaging the community in the Cardinal Valley area. The ability to obtain quality feedback from members of the Hispanic community is based almost entirely on relationships that have been built over a period of years and where trust has already been established. It was known early on that we likely would not have huge attendance at some of the meetings that we scheduled. and that we would need to lean very heavily on the steering committee individuals and their connections to people in the area. Without the help of a few key individuals, it would have been very difficult to obtain community buy-in, in particular, Councilmember Henson, as well as her aide, Hilary Angelusi, Betty Admashani from the manager of the Village Library branch, and Samantha Rodarte of the Cardinal Valley Elementary PTA and the Valley Park Board. These folks were instrumental in helping us reach out to people, get us contacts, help set up meetings. Without them, we would have had a significantly harder time with the public outreach of this small area plan. As far as public outreach, the planning team held five steering committee meetings at the Village Branch Library. Every one of them had to be late because the library is pretty much booked every night of the week, solid by community groups that need the space, tutoring, and other things that are going on in that area. So we take the last slot and we shut it down each time we take it. We had three well-attended public meetings at the Cardinal Valley Elementary to present and discuss the five key projects that are outlined in this plan. the neighborhood organized a they're they organize every year but they're organized Valley Park Fall Festival where the plan team set up a booth and collected surveys and public and public feedback that was probably the most successful at reaching the Hispanic community that was not going to attend some of our meetings their representatives they were represented in steering committees and through some of our other meetings, but to get to the actual citizens in the area, we had to go to them. And we did attend a Cardinal Valley Neighborhood Association meeting towards the end of the process. There were also numerous meetings with potential partner agencies, as well as the mayor's administration regarding the plans and recommendations for Oxford Circle, which Stan will elaborate on here in a little bit. In particular, we would very much like to thank Executive Director of the Lexington Public Library, Ann Hammond, as well as her board, and also the Executive Director of the Community Action Council, Malcolm Ratchford, and his staff for attending the meetings with the Steering Committee, as well as partner agency meetings where we had a lot of good dialogue about the future of Oxford Circle and any plans that we expect to have there in the future. At this time, I will turn it over to Stan Harvey from Lord Act Sargent and the rest of the planning team from EHI and Parsons Brinkerhoff. Good afternoon. My name is Stan Harvey. I'm principal with Lord X Sargent. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come before the commission and talk a little bit about the fun we've been having over the last six or seven months. I can honestly say we sincerely appreciate the opportunity you've given us to work with planning and with Council Member Henson's office, with a very engaged steering committee, and with stakeholders in this area to help develop this plan. And hopefully we've started to pick up some partners that Chris mentioned, and we'll continue to add to that list. I will try to just briefly give you a little bit of an overview, much like Rachel did, of some of the details, if I can make sure I'm advancing right. So a little bit about the process. Chris has touched on this, but I think that the way that planning set this up was actually very wise, which was in a two-phase process, as you all may be aware, where there was kind of an early documentation. Let's get on the ground. Let's try to understand this place. Let's have some initial meetings. Let's not predetermine the outcomes. And what you all will see in this plan, I think more than most I've ever worked on, is I think there was kind of an adjustment after that phase about where people felt like there should be some focus in this planning effort. It's a very diverse neighborhood. It's actually at strength. But it is, as Chris mentioned, a challenge to try to pull and coalesce around some common ideas. From there, we've spent a lot of time talking about catalytic projects that kind of came out of that first phase, and I'll touch on them. There's five major focus areas that we've spent some detailed study, but as many will attest, there's still work to be done, and there's some next steps that we've tried to outline. At the same time, we spent a lot of time in the early phases talking about Versailles Road. We were, in a way, it's very fortuitous that we had a parallel study that was going on through the benefit of LFUCG and the Transportation Cabinet to look at Versailles Road as a corridor. And as I will detail, there is a big focus on Versailles Road itself as both the spine of the neighborhood and the identity at some level of the city of Lexington as well. So a little bit about our study area. The area basically runs from Red Mile Road to just past Alexandria. And it's basically hemmed in by the railroad. And here's McConnell Springs. And then kind of the natural barriers that exist more on the south side of Versailles Road that separate it from as you move into basically this is Garden Side and further parts of the neighborhood. I think it's really interesting to me that these efforts were embarked upon at the same time for two reasons. One is they demonstrate that planning and revitalization is not just about downtown Lexington and the inner neighborhoods. These are arguably relatively suburban neighborhoods, particularly when they were first built. They have kind of seen some of the same pressures the rest of the city has. They've aged. There's been really great investments and improvements made, but at the same time, they struggle with some of the issues that we see across the city. I think it's also been nice to maybe have a little bit of cross-fertilization against these efforts, because they are in somewhat similar areas, one in the southeast portion of the city and one in the southwest. There are issues, much like Rachel touched on, about the balance of rental housing versus home ownership, about crime, about aging infrastructure, and about how we revitalize commercial districts that you'll see that are common themes. But if you take a step back in that phase one, I think what also became clear, and this is what the folks who have put so much of their heart and energy into this effort, some of whom will speak today, are the assets of this neighborhood. The strong historic fabric throughout, several strong single-family neighborhoods, the commercial districts and the neighborhood services and community facilities that are in this neighborhood, the library and others, which really serve, and the school, an amazing, if you have not been to Cardinal Valley Elementary School, spend a little time there, and you will have a new faith about kind of the power of public education. But the other asset is actually the natural features, which maybe is kind of a surprise to many if you don't spend a lot of time. But this area actually is blessed or cursed with a little flooding, maybe, that has been a challenge in this portion of the city we know and been part of the efforts. But there are several creek sheds that traverse this neighborhood that, as you'll see, we think can be an amenity to build on going forward. Chris has already touched on this, so I won't spend a lot of time. We started off with kind of some very high-level discussions, some exercises about vision and kind of issues of major issue identification. We've had a very engaged steering committee that has been the rock of this process, and we've kind of pulled new partners into that steering committee as we've gone. We've tried, as we've developed the focus areas, to develop working teams and outreach that may be associated with individual projects that you'll see in the plan. A little bit about that phase one existing conditions. What you see is a large percentage of the area is single-family and low-density homes, but along Alexandria and the southern side of Versailles in particular, a lot of higher-density multifamily, either mid- or higher-density commercial, not surprisingly strewn along Versailles Road, both concentrated around Alexandria Drive and around Oxford Circle, and then as you get near Pepsi and Red Mile Road and kind of the eastern end of Versailles Road. But you also see the fledgling notion of how much green space, actually kind of linear green space, that exists both in the neighborhood and immediately adjacent. Housing units, this just shows that issue of the patterns of density and number of housing units kind of in individual blocks. Those recreational assets I mentioned, the fledgling, what Lexington's investing in, much more focus on pet and bike improvements, and we'll talk some about that, but also in transit. I think that it's fair to say that transit became one of the key issues and themes we talked a lot about in this area. It is a relatively transit-dependent population. So the investment that we make as a city in that, particularly in this area, is really critical to economic development and strong neighborhoods. This is, Chris touched on this. I think this is the most interesting thing about this area is, as it has evolved, the diversity that's present here. It has over three times the Hispanic population of the rest of the city of Lexington, slightly higher African-American population than the rest of Lexington, but it is really a mix. That is a challenge for communication and for building some consensus, which is what kind of our job was through the small area plan. But you see a little bit about that, and I wanted to, I'm remiss because I haven't publicly thanked two members of our staff who've put a lot of heart and energy into this. Sam Castro, who served as our project manager, and Lily Gonzalez, who was new to Lexington, got thrown into this, and really has done a woman's job of trying to help us reach out and do some of this communication and capacity building that admittedly still has more work to be done as the plan is implemented. There's a little bit of that demographic highlights I mentioned. There's a full range of kind of analysis of kind of demographic conditions, housing tenure, other things in the beginning of the plan. When we asked that vision statement at the beginning, I think that diversity understandably came up from all parties. That was something we could all agree was something to celebrate and encourage. How you go about that, I think, became some of the question. But the overarching vision and themes were we've got to start by stabilizing and conserving and enhancing the housing in this area. But that in itself is two-pronged. strategies aimed towards more traditional single-family neighborhoods and strategies tailored towards rental housing, and there is a significant rental population. I think about 40% of the neighborhood is single-family and about 35% is multifamily. So you get a flavor of, you know, that there's a real balance there already. But I think overall, part of that theme was encouraging more homeownership and kind of pride. that you heard in the other Armstrong Mill plan as well. Economic development opportunities became a key theme. I think the challenge we tried to walk the line on is, at some level, you run the risk of destroying the very entrepreneurial nature of the economic growth that's happening in this area if you overly create too much change. It's actually an incubator. This part of the city is becoming an incubator of new small businesses. So we want to both exploit that but also enhance it. So I think that will be one of the challenges of implementing plans here. And finally, it's tying all that together and taking this natural beauty and resources that exist, the cleanup efforts and other things. Preston Spring, kind of a tucked away gem that most people wouldn't even know, is kind of back behind by the railroad that's in its natural state. Really some assets to build upon. I think it's fair to say there was a little bit of impatience at the beginning in Phase 1 of this discussion of very high-level planning strategies, that there really was a feeling that we needed to get beyond that quickly and focus in on something that was tangible, that people could get into the details, and we could have strategies built around. So what evolved was that there were five key focus areas of the plan, and they're detailed here. Once again, same kind of general three themes that I just touched on in terms of the vision. First off, it's about the neighborhoods and stabilizing and enhancing the neighborhoods. It's about the two commercial districts, one on Alexandria Drive, one at Oxford Circle. They are different, I would argue, from a market and access perspective slightly, and so they're slightly different strategies that were, and in terms of their existing physical conditions. So they're slightly different strategies for both. Versailles Road, both as the neighborhood spine, but also the idea of connecting and transit and pedestrian and bicycle improvements, and then the open space network that would come off of that. So the first kind of strategy and focus area was on neighborhood conservation. You see, and I won't go into all the details in the interest of time, but kind of looking at both encouraging new homeownership, which I think is a fair statement as a high priority of the neighborhood. Part of that, I think, is a belief that there are also opportunities where we should assist existing rental residents to transition to home ownership if possible, but that requires credit counseling and other types of programs that could be instituted. Code enforcement is actually a pretty major issue here. We documented, actually, with the help of code enforcement, I think it's over 2,000 code violations the last several years. Most of them, I will say, very, very minor. There's a lot of kind of issues of small-scale, overgrown things, that type of thing. But yet, nonetheless, it is an issue that is out there. And then kind of pet and bike improvements. The plan recommends a three-tiered strategy of investment aimed towards neighborhood conservation. Some of it is what we would call programmatic. It's about the programs and support structures that get put in place. Some aimed, once again, at kind of home ownership and single-family neighborhoods, and others aimed more towards rental housing and that, which is also a big portion. There's a regulatory and code enforcement, including an interest in looking at this actually portions of the neighborhood date to well towards the beginning of the city. So there was an interesting kind of, and we've had some preliminary conversations about things like H1, ND1, National Register, Historic District. And I think that's something that's recommended in the plan. But it also has to do with how we continue to do regulatory and code enforcement. And then finally, just like Armstrong Mill, it's an area of aging infrastructure. So there's a wide range of kind of basic, very small-scale sidewalk, tree lighting, crosswalks, street furniture, other things that are recommended. This is that programmatic level, and some of those issues under six kind of major strategies. Some, like I said, aim more towards rental housing and some towards homeownership and the neighborhoods. Some of the plan identifies some specific partners in this effort were EHI and Parsons-Sprinkerhoff. So they focus both EHI, focus very heavily on the housing strategies and the neighborhood strategies and PB on the infrastructure. So we have both kind of fine-grained, small-scale infrastructure projects that have been identified and costed and larger-scale improvements. This just is telling. This is, here is Cardinal Valley Elementary. So one of the ideas was safe routes to schools and other things that just getting crosswalks and safe crossings through this neighborhood was a major issue identified early on. This is issues of kind of wayfinding. This is an area that is very easy to get lost in, in terms of it doesn't have a lot of, there are a lot of streets that dead end or other things. So there was kind of a constant issue that was brought up of making sure. But also it's kind of an economic development opportunity that was pointed out. We're near New Circle Road. We're on Versailles Road. We're right there, visible and accessible. So there's opportunities to take advantage of that. That was one focus area. The second is Alexandria Drive. It is home to a lot of fledgling or established Hispanic businesses, but it's also a mix of longer-term businesses and a mix of local and more national retailers and services. We spent time kind of trying to outreach to some of the business owners. I think, as Chris alluded to, this might be the area where we had one of the greatest challenges. I think it's fair to say there's quite a distrust of government and the city. And so I think that's an implementation recommendation that came from the merchants, which is if we could just see some, we know what the city's trying to do, we know what is going on here, but if we could see some visible sign of change that was positive, it would go a long way towards convincing a lot of our fellow business owners and residents that there's something happening here that we should try to embrace and be more engaged on. But there's strategies and goals around kind of improving the business district, But once again, a lot of them are relatively small scale to kind of walk that balance of the incubator nature of it that is. This may astound you, astounds me. We actually inventoried and tried to document all the businesses and the types of businesses that were in the media vicinity of Alexandria Drive. And there are 69 businesses or services in just that kind of few blocks there around Alexandria Drive. The other point we've tried to make is in the larger sense, if you actually think of this area regionally with Gardenside included, you actually have a pretty significant concentration of economic and neighborhood and regional services maybe that could be exploited. We have talked a little bit and started the conversation about promoting this area, giving it some identity, at least for marketing and promotion and business attraction. An obvious theme has been the kind of international and diverse flavor that exists here, which doesn't exist in a lot of parts of the city. So that was something, the starting points of that were in the plan where we kind of started to document what's out there and talk about ways to promote what's already there. There's opportunities. You know, you hear a lot these days about tactical urbanism and kind of small-scale investment that can happen. But I think these are examples of that where there's physical opportunities to show a difference or to consolidate curb cuts to make it safer to walk and bike in the area, to reclaim some outdoor dining that's associated with some of the restaurants that now have sprung up, that type of thing, small and larger scale. This is Alexandria Drive today. You know, it doesn't take too much to visualize kind of how you can focus a lot on the infrastructure itself to, particularly with a heavy focus on transit, bike, and pet. Oxford Circle Neighborhood Center, this is a very interesting portion of the study area in that its physical layout is pretty unique in that it is off of Versailles Road but visible. It was, of course, originally in grocery and has been traditionally in grocery and other kinds of neighborhood-serving anchors. So unlike Alexandria Drive, I would tend to characterize this is more of a neighborhood-serving commercial district, whereas Alexandria Drive, I think, will over time evolve to be a little bit more citywide opportunities. But here, I think the discussion was we want to encourage more small-scale and neighborhood-serving retail here, but also this might be an opportunity for a community anchor, something that could show and anchor this area that's very accessible, it's centralized, it literally has radiating streets coming out physically from it, so it's a very easy place to get to within the north side of the study area. We began the discussion around another anchor, and I want to thank Ms. Hammond and the Board of the Library and others about their openness and discussions we've been able to have, and the anchor they already provide at the Village Branch Library. It's the smallest library in the city presently, but I would dare say it's one of the most used. And so it really is a community anchor. And so immediately in that first meeting, people latched on. There's our anchor. Can we even make that better and bigger and more important and more centralized? Ms. Hammett or others could go into more details, but that is a least situation that will be coming up at some point soon. And so it kind of, I think, was a timely point to engage in this conversation of the future of the Village Library branch. We also began discussions with the YMCA and other potential partners, recreation and all that theme that we mentioned. I think there was strong support from the YMCA, but as you all know, like many, including the library, very limited capital funds and very active capital campaigns and programs going on. So I think the conversation had been about more programmatic support that they might offer, particularly around programs after school and recreational opportunities. I want to thank Malcolm and Lady and others with Community Action Council. They quickly jumped on board with a discussion about Community Action Council has a presence in the neighborhood. They have historically operated early childhood in the neighborhood, and they saw opportunities both to enhance what they're doing, but also to be a partner in this larger vision of what might happen in a small community center in Oxford Circle. And so they have, and their board, has expressed their support. So this, I want to stress, is just an idea that you have this area that's very visible and very accessible. I think the full scale of this requires its own kind of detailed look. There's existing property owners and businesses, some that could be incorporated into a long-term vision. It may be some that are ready or unoccupied. But the idea was that starting with a library and approximately a 20,000 square foot library and perhaps complementing that with some other community use, it may be very relatively small scale and just related around child care or other things. If it involved a recreational component, as you all know, that was the scale comparison for the Ys. That's the big driver of square footage. So I think this is to be determined. But the vision and idea was an anchor community center that would be in this vicinity and would have kind of activity and action around it, both along the creek and on the grounds. And in the current parking lot, which much like strategies of Armstrong Mill, there's opportunities to use that temporarily on weekends or other things for other uses. Kind of an image of that area and the idea of an active, particularly on weekends and other places around what could be a community center. The end result of this was the recommendation that we consider doing a more detailed study, both of the physical design, the program, the cost, of course, very importantly, and how you would pay for such an anchor. And I think that is to be determined, along with working with existing property owners on their plans and issues related to any plans. I think we've had tremendous support from the administration and particularly from CAO Sally Hamilton about this idea. I think there's strong support from LFUCG to move forward with the next step as an implementation step to look at this in more detail as a feasibility study. Versailles Road, we were blessed to be able to work with EA partners and Carmen, who was doing the parallel study of Versailles Road that we were able to kind of tag team with and have public discussions about at some level together. The goal is to both improve the corridor visually for identity, but more importantly for its function, with a heavy focus on improvements for access management, for dedicated pet and bike facilities and transit facilities. We were looking more at the kind of around the corridor and the land use issues. They were looking more at the actual plans. you may or may not have received, I assume perhaps copies of the recently completed study. This is a multimillion-dollar project. It would take lifting as well and partnerships, particularly with the Commonwealth of Kentucky, but I think this is a very high-priority idea that has strong support from the plan and from the neighborhood, which is to make these multimodal improvements. Related is other infrastructure on that small scale of the series of parks. This is a little bit clearer from McConnell Springs, Preston Springs. This is Valley Park, similarly one of the most well-used parks in our system, home of street soccer and other things that you may have heard. There's a lot of demands on that park, so there's clearly some need. There's been recent investment in expanded parking and other things, but I think the plan recommends continued efforts there. And then kind of the cemetery and other kind of small scale, And then beyond, we kept trying to look beyond the study area at what we might be connecting in an open space network, including McConnell Springs, which is inaccessible but is technically just across the railroad. And the idea of the Versailles Line trail, which has had some conceptual feasibility, would do a lot to start to tie that together. Those are the pieces I just mentioned. This connection over to McConnell Springs and Versailles Line, the nature center and kind of preserving this area. around Preston Spring investments in recreation and fields and community use of Valley Park, community gardens and other small-scale open space. And then the neighborhood and others and the owners here have already launched efforts to clean up honeysuckle and basically make that creek more of an amenity and accessible to the public. And some of the examples and ideas of the different pieces of that open space plan. So that is, as quick as I could, a summary of kind of the planning process and plan. And we, after the right time, would be glad to take more questions. Thank you, Stan. Any questions for Stan right now? No? If not, thank you. and we'll move to taking other comments from anyone that would like to speak. Here comes a list. Let me see a show of hands of those that would like to speak. Very good. Thank you. Please, just please come forward. Hello, excuse me. Hello, I'm Marianne Olson. I live at one, I'm sorry. I live, allergy season is not kind to me. I live at 117 Hamilton Park and I've lived in the area for over 28 years so it is near and dear to my heart. One aspect in reading through the plan that really stands out for me is the library on Oxford Circle. The current library branch that we have is heavily used. I've been there at all different times of the day, and as a patron, I can speak to the fact that it is heavily used, and it is inadequate for the area. so that I hope whatever happens with the plan, the idea of a full-size branch of the library on Oxford Circle will go forward. I feel that a library is uniquely situated to be able to offer service to the entire range of our very diverse community. The low income, the middle income, which we should not forget, and even the upper income. Libraries are used by children, by families, by teenagers, adults, and senior citizens. So I strongly support the use of the library. The community center that's addressed for Oxford Circle, I'm not sure what you've got in mind for that. So I'm not speaking in support of that. but I do feel that the library would be a major enhancement for the neighborhood and for that entire area of the city because library branches draw in people not just in the immediate area but from around and would give people an opportunity to see our lovely, diverse neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Others, please come forward. Hi, I'm Paula Singer, 110 Hamilton Park, Lexington. I'm a member of the steering committee for the small area plan, and I had submitted written comments that I hope all of you have had a chance to read. I want to second wholeheartedly Mary Ann's support for the library. We have been hoping for a library in the Oxford Circle area for years, And like Marianne, I think it will serve all aspects of our very diverse community, as it already does, but it's a very tight fit. I also support the portion of the plan that consists of the green spaces. McConnell Springs, Preston Cave Springs, and Vons Branch near Oxford Circle. That would be marvelous if we could join those areas together. I want to keep them as a nature preserve, not necessarily an area for people to be trekking through. I would defer to the Friends of Wolf Run and their advice that they may have offered for our nature space, but I do support that concept. Our area, our neighborhood, is a complex area of Lexington. I want to thank the mayor and the council for spending $300,000 between the Versailles Road study and the small area plan study on our area. I mean, that's significant, and we really are grateful for that. Our area is a new home, presenting great opportunity for a large number of immigrants. It is also an old home for baby boomers who have invested a great deal of money in their homes and who wish to age in place. It's a residential neighborhood with great possibilities because it is located so near to downtown. town. It's also a gateway corridor welcoming tourists and visitors to our city and to our number one tourist attraction, which is the horse park. This small area plan, why I appreciate all the effort that has gone into it, I feel it only has scratched the surface of the possibilities for this area of town. So I ask the Planning Commission to act with care and caution when considering the proposals of this small area plan. I believe that much in the study needs further study. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. I'm Malcolm Ratchford. I'm the Executive Director for Community Action Council. And one of the things I want to do first, I guess, is we've been located on Cambridge Drive for over a decade. We're at 1902 Cambridge Drive. Years ago, we also had a child development center that was located on Cambridge as well, which we had to actually close. It wasn't the best physical location. As we begin to look at high-quality places for our young children that are low-income, we actually came out of that particular neighborhood. But one of the things I wanted to say first is that Community Action Council, and everyone may not know this, but we are an economic development organization who basically uses social services to make sure that we can help low-income children and families reach self-sufficiency. And we're only doing this in three ways, and that means we either prevent, reduce, or eliminate poverty. And so one of the ways that we lend our support to the Small Area Plan for Cardinal Values because things that people may not know is that we actually house a God's Pantry food bank in our location as well. This area in Cardinal Valley, I would venture to say that the many folks who visit the public library, and we love that library, often meet their basic necessities met by Community Action Council, which is located on Cambridge Drive. I would venture to say that a large majority of those individuals who participate in the function of the library venture over to our locations to be able to have their basic necessities met, such as utility assistance, food. As I said, this is a high traffic area. If you look at any of our locations, I have my center manager here today who's bilingual because what we've done for over the last decade is make sure that we have folks who can communicate effectively with the participants in that particular local area. So we've placed that first and foremost in our priority as how do you reach out to the community. So we lend our support because one of the things, if you look at our location in 1902, it's a small location. We've been there, as I said before, for many years, and we try to do our best to provide not only just the basic necessities as a community action agency, but we also know that those are what we call, in our continuum of self-sufficiency, emergency crisis. That's not where we stay at community action. We like to move folks along so that at the end of the day, there's only a couple of things that can get you out of poverty, and that is you have to have a living wage job. For our seniors, we talk about quality of life. So what we do is we provide that continuum of self-sufficiency, and that's why we support this particular project because, once again, I don't want to overstate the fact that there are folks in this community, in that particular area, in our high traffic numbers. This is one of our most visited centers out of all of our locations that are strategically placed in Fayette County, and that's for the food referrals, for referrals for other social services, but also as an employer. When I say economic development, it's not about the services that we provide to the community, But oftentimes one of the premises that we believe in Community Action is that we actually hire the folks who are low income. And so we have folks working in these locations because that is also part of this process of moving people out of poverty. So we just want to say that in terms of representative for our board at Community Action Council, how to support the feasibility study and hopefully providing some financial resources for that. But more importantly, also the sustainability of a location that is much more conducive than what we've previously had. and to bring back early childhood education to that location. And we would like to continue the God's Pantry. When Garden Sack closed a few years ago, we had folks, we had to give them bus passes to go to the other pantries. That is a tremendous barrier when you add transportation and no food for this particular community. And so we just want to lend our support once again for the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan. Thank you. Thank you. Others? Hi. My name's Jan Hellebush. I live at 134 Hamilton Park, and we are going on 34 years in that situation. And all of those 34 years, there's been talk of doing something in our part of town, and it doesn't happen. And this is the furthest I've ever seen anything go. I would hope that it would continue. I, for one, want to check, check, check, check, check the new library. We need a new library, and I would really wish, I don't think any of you all live in our part of town. I would encourage you to come and visit our part of town and just see the opportunities and see what's going on there. There's a lot of foot traffic that happens. There's a lot of accidents from that foot traffic. It's not a safe place to walk. We need, fortunately, the Versailles Road corridor study is happening. My hope is that something will happen. I, too, like Paula, think that there needs to be more efforts. It's hard. Stan mentioned to get the Spanish community. There's a lot of mistrust from them. They're a great group of people, and I would encourage you all to try to get more information from them, more communication from them. But we really need something done. We're a great part of town. We've got some great things going on in Cardinal Valley. It's a lot of people just speed through it. My understanding is that when a lot of people come into town to the airport, they take them and go in Tate's Creek instead of coming in for sales road. So to me, that says we need some work. it's a lot quicker to get downtown from Keeneland from the airport at that part of a sales road so I support this I do think there's a lot more that needs to get done and I really hope you all will come and visit some of our businesses that you will come and see Preston Springs have any of you ever been to Preston Springs? if you go So Ken Cook said it is in a lot better shape than McConnell Springs was just a few years ago, and I'm sure most of you all have been to McConnell Springs. So I would just like to see something happen on this part of town. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. By all means. Glad you're here. Thank you, sir. Thank each of you for your service. It's so much appreciated on behalf of our community. If you don't know me, I'm Peggy Henson. I'm the 11th District Council member. I hope you don't mind giving me an opportunity to speak like you did Fred Brown. I think it's only fair. But I just wanted to reiterate what others have said. I like this small area plan. I sent you a letter telling you that I support it. The area is, as Paul Singer mentioned, extremely complex, and it is diverse in every sense of the word. It's why I embrace it so much. And I think there's so many community partners that I know we can do this. It will take some time, but I am determined that we can do this. We also have our state senator here, Reggie Thomas, who participated in the steering committee meetings. And I just wanted to touch base a little bit on the feasibility study. I think, you know, there's a lot of work being done in the Cardinal Valley Center. And I do think there's a need for a community center. but the feasibility study will really dig down and tell us what it needs to be. Community Action Council is already there. And the people that are served in our community at these centers are not going to be the people that stand in front of you. They're not going to come in this chamber. so I think we have to be a voice for them Malcolm Ratchett is a wonderful organization the library is by far if you go into the Village Branch Library you would just fall out I think it is just so wonderful the work that is done there but I appreciate this opportunity And I will vow that if we move this forward to work with the community, I think there will be a lot more work done with the feasibility study. But I do think there's a strong need. And we also have one of the property owners from the Oxford Circle Center here who I believe supports it. I'm not going to speak for him, but he attended several of the steering committee meetings. So I appreciate your work, and I appreciate you considering this plan, moving it along. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Pinn, do you have a question? Yeah, Ms. Henson. Come back here just a minute. Yes, Frank. I'm a Mr. Pinn. Frank's great. Would you explain to those of us that don't know just the work that the Cardinal Valley Elementary does, just like Russell Cave Elementary does in the community? Most of us don't know how they do putting people whose English is the first language with people whose Spanish is their first language and how they make that happen. Can you explain a little bit about that? Well, I do know that they recently started a program because what they found was in early childhood years in school. So you've got kindergartners, first grades coming in, and they're speaking in Spanish. They've learned Spanish. That's their native language. And then they're taught in English. So even if they had the capacity, the mental capacity to do that and needed help with their homework, they couldn't get it at home. So they're teaching the children in Spanish while, you know, and they, English is the language that they will continue to learn. There's just so much that goes on in this community with ESL classes. And I did have the president of the PTA that served on this steering committee. She's bilingual herself. And she had a death in the family or she would have been here today. and she really could have spoke a lot more intelligently than I have. But I think the area that we live in is just so blessed to have so many different agencies, the library, the school, to help as much as we possibly can. Hopefully I answered the best I could. Yeah, let me just reiterate on that a little bit. What actually happens is that the kindergarten and first grade students teach each other how to speak their language. It's one of the most amazing things you've ever seen because they don't have to conjugate verbs. They don't have to do whatever we went through. They learn how to speak to each other, how to talk to each other. And within two or three years, it is amazing how those kids can talk to each other on their level, with their language and they learn from each other. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I've watched it at Russell Cave because that's where we live. But I understand the same things happening in Cardinal Valley, and it's a great teaching opportunity. Yeah, I actually, you know, it's I believe 75% Hispanic. So, but, yeah, I think it's really, really good for our kids, even the ones that aren't Spanish-speaking, to attend Cardinal Valley Elementary. and the kids are the communicators for the parents many times. But thank you. Thank you. I didn't say it when Councilman Brown was here, but we'd love to see you all anytime and hear from you anytime. So please come back. Others that would like to speak? Anyone else? No? Okay. Thank you. Stan, Chris, any responses? Anyone? No? Okay. Let me say this. I was the person in the commission to be part of this small area plan due to somewhat of a mistake. I think my email got dropped off early on, and I did miss a couple of meetings. I was there early, and yes, the library that is in existence at the present time is probably operating at 180% capacity. It is, I was amazed every time I went there at how busy it was and how diverse the people using the library were. As to a couple of comments, this, yes, I think is just scratching the surface, I hope, and will be used to propel this idea, other ideas that's in here, and hopefully future ideas will come and will continue on. The community, the area is broad. It's rangy. It is diverse, as has been stated, which presents its own challenges. But I think this is a good first step and looking forward to seeing efforts. And at this point in time, I think it's going to, you know, once we get finished here, it'll be up to the council to find the funds and make the other stuff happen. but any other questions if not in similar fashion we'd need a motion and also there's a resolution to be read yes ma'am thank you first i would like to thank the consultants the staff the neighbors for their participation there's much work yet to be done but i believe there's a good start. Therefore, I move for adoption of the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan and the following resolution. A resolution of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Planning Commission adopting the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan as an element of the 213 Comprehensive Plan, whereas KRS 100.183-100.197 set forth the procedures for periodic update and review of comprehensive plan elements and whereas the comprehensive plan goals and objectives statement element for the 213 comprehensive plan was adopted by the Planning Commission on September 27, 2011, and subsequently adopted by the Urban County Council on May 17, 2012, by Resolution number 260-2012 as required by KRS 100.193, and whereas the Statement of Goals and Objectives acts as a guide for the preparation of the remaining elements to aid in implementing the Comprehensive Plan, and whereas the Planning Commission and the Urban County Council have adopted the said Statement of Goals and Objectives, objectives, the Planning Commission may adopt other elements of the comprehensive plan pursuant to KRS Chapter 100. And whereas the Planning Commission finds that the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan is consistent with the statement and goals and objectives, and whereas the Planning Commission finds that the research undertaken as part of the update and adoption of the 2013 comprehensive plan and in addition the research performs specifically in preparation for the Cardinal Valley small area plan fully support the Cardinal Valley small area plan as an element of the 2013 comprehensive plan and whereas in compliance with the KRS chapter 100 the planning Commission has conducted a duly advertised public hearing on April 30, 2015 to receive comments and information from all interested persons. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Planning Commission, Section 1, that the Planning Commission hereby adopts the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan as an element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan for Lexington-Fayette County. The Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan includes the text and the maps presented to the Commission. Section 2, that this resolution with the attached text and the maps adopted herein shall be referred to as the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan for Lexington Fayette Urban County. Section 3, that the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan element of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan shall supersede all Comprehensive Plan recommendations previously adopted by this planning commission for the land area within the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan, which are inconsistent with any maps, texts, or recommendations contained in the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan. Section 4. It is the intent of this Planning Commission that the zoning ordinance, land subdivision regulations, and the zoning map atlas currently in effect on the date of adoption of this resolution shall remain in full force and effect unless and until duly amended by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council after receipt of a recommendation by this Planning Commission. Section 5, the Director of the Division of Planning is directed to forward this resolution and the documents mentioned herein to the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council for its information and use. Section 6. This resolution shall become effective on the date of its adoption. Adopted by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Planning Commission on this 30th day of April 2015. Thank you. Motion's been made for the adoption of the Cardinal Valley Small Area Plan and I believe seconded by Carolyn Richardson. If there's no further discussion I'm just going to ask for a voice vote this time around. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Let me say as well, so I don't forget anyone, thank Senator Thomas for his participation in this as well. I'd like to thank everyone for being here and coming and participate throughout. We do have a couple other items on the agenda. I believe next is a public facility review that Barbara Akers will take us through. You have it on a tan sheet of paper. It's PFR 2015 number 3. Staff report shown on it for communications hour. Good afternoon. PFR 2015-3 is a request made by the LFUCG Department of Public Safety for their property at 115 Cisco Road. And what they would like to do is put up a 150-foot-tall microwave communications tower as part of the Public Safety Operations Center. About two years ago, we did a public facility review for the Public Safety Operations Center, and that was found to be in compliance with a comprehensive plan at that time. And now they would like to put up a tower for police and emergency service communications. The property is south of Versailles Road. This is the property right here. Cisco Road, and here is Versailles Road. It contains about three acres. It's zoned R2, and the last land use recommendation for the property was in 2007, and that was for other public uses. and that is the land use category that contains large and distinct facilities that contribute to the general welfare of the community. The property has been owned by the Irving County Government for several years, and it was operated for a long time as the Youth Attention Center, and that was just until a few years ago, and now it's occupied by the Public Safety Operations Center. There's residential zoning on all sides of the property, and then on these two sides of the property, it's residential and commercial uses, and then this along here is the Urban County Government Family Life Center, Family Care Center. The original public facility review was done under the 2007 Comprehensive Plan, and that plan is still applicable to this. The text and several goals and objectives of both the 2007 plan and the 2013 plan support this, and those are listed on pages two and three of your staff report. The primary functions of the Public Safety Operations Center are to accommodate the 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year requirements of the Emergency Operations Center and the operation of the Emergency Communications Center. The purpose of the tower is to facilitate those functions and to provide emergency communication that will transmit radio signals for E-911, the police department, and the fire department. Article 25 regulates cell towers. Microwave or other towers that are used for communication or anything like that are not regulated by the zoning ordinance. This is only being reviewed because it's on a government property. That's not to say that in the future it won't host cell early antennas, but if it does, then it won't require a Planning Commission review because it will be a co-location. we urge with Article 25 that government properties or that co-location be done on other towers be used or on other structures, and that would be in compliance with Article 25, and it will not require your review if they do do that. And, Rand, if you could put up the next one, please. The preferred location of the tower is actually on the western side of the building, which is this right here. They have an alternate tower location right here on the north side of the building. It will depend on the underlying soils and bedrock as to whether it will support the tower. They will be doing geotech testing for soil and bedrock suitability for each location, and then they will make their final determination. This will be a 150-foot tall lattice structure. It looks like some cell towers, only it doesn't have the nest of antennas up at the top. It just has the one antenna at the top. But it'll be designed to withstand 90 mile per hour basic wind speed and 30 mile per hour basic wind speed if it has three quarter inch or up to three quarter of an inch ice accumulation. It'll meet all industry standards. Both the 2007 and the 2013 comp plan discuss the need to continue upgrading the E911 system. That supports the project in and of itself. And then the 2013 plan in the community facilities chapter states that a desirable community must possess quality public and semi-public services, and that includes fire and police protection. One of the general themes of the comp plan is to provide infrastructure improvements that will fully serve existing developments, will accommodate current growth, will plan for long-term future urban needs, and will enhance the high quality of life that we have here in Lexington. While this is an infrastructure in and of itself, in the strict sense of the word, it's not required for development like sanitary sewers, storm sewers, utilities, and that kind of thing. The services that will be provided are essential to help maintain our safety and quality of life, and that will be both now and in the future. We find this to be in compliance with the Comprehensive Plan, both 2007 and 2013 goals, objectives, and text. It's also in compliance with the land use recommendation from 2007 for other public uses. And this communication tower is basically an expansion of the use of the property as the public safety operations center. It's a necessary component of their operation, and that was found to be in compliance with the Comprehensive Plan when we did the public facility review a couple of years ago. If you have any questions about anything, I'd be happy to answer them. We do have one recommendation that generally consists of landscaping around the property. It says, because the property is occupied 24-7, 365, it's recommended that the existing tree line that borders the property to the north be maintained and supplemented where needed to screen the property from adjoining properties, particularly where the tower will be located. It is also recommended that additional landscaping be implemented along the frontage of the property, which is the eastern property line. If that has not yet been done, that was a recommendation from the last public facility review. Should the microwave tower ever host cellular antennae and screening around the base of the tower and equipment area should also be implemented. Mr. Stack is here from, is the director of E911. If you have any questions about the project itself, Mr. Rick Curtis is also here. He's the assistant to the commissioner of public safety. Questions? No? We made a lot of them off the hook. Anyone else want to speak on this? I'm not seeing many people left. If not, if there's no questions, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Berkley? Yes. Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the recommendations of staff and that the communications tower complies with the comprehensive plan. Thank you. Do we have a second? Motion's been made and seconded for PFR 2015-3 that it does comply with the comprehensive plan with the one recommendation. Please, let's just ask for a voice vote again. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Mr. King, do we have anything else? Mr. Chairman, in deference to our knowledge that you have other things afoot, we will defer anything to the committee meetings next week. Okay. Thank you. Any commission items? Yeah. Any audience items? No. If not, I'll entertain a motion for adjournment. Do we have a second? Somebody seconded. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion. Meetings adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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