Something's gotta come to you, and you gotta say it's alright. They say it's alright. Say it's alright, have a good time. Cause it's alright, oh it's alright. Everybody clap your hands. Give yourself a chance. You got some Everybody knows That it's alright Oh, it's alright Someday I'll find me a woman Who will love and treat me real nice When my role's gotta go My love she will know From morning, noon and the night And she's got to say That it's alright They say it's alright It's alright Have a good time Cause it's alright Everybody clap your hands And give yourself a chance You've got some Everybody knows That it's alright Whoa, it's alright You've got some Everybody knows That it's alright Whoa, it's alright Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I need the clerk to call the roll. Ms. Gutchfield? Mr. Stinnett? Ms. Akers? Here. Ms. Bledsoe? Here. Mr. Fred Brown? Here. Mr. James Brown? Here. Ms. Evans? Mr. Farmer? Mr. Gibbs? Here. Mr. Hensley? Here. Ms. Henson? Mr. Kay? Here. Ms. Lamb? Here. Mr. Maloney? And Ms. Massadi. Thank you. Thank you. And now if I can ask you to give second reading to the zone change. Yes, sir. An ordinance changing the zone from an agricultural urban AU zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 5.80 net and gross acres from an agricultural urban AU zone to a highway service business B3 zone for 7.79 net 8.64 gross acres from a single family residential R1D zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 15.59 net 16.40 gross acres from a single family residential R1D zone to a highway service business B3 zone for 1.8 net. 1.33 net, 1.64 gross acres, and from a single-family residential R1E zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 20.30 net and gross acres for property located at 2731 and 2751 Leestown Road, a portion of, including a dimensional variance in Anderson Village at Green Acres LLC, Council District 2. Thank you. and now if you are anticipating speaking at the hearing there was a should be it was there a sign up sheet at the back of the room sign up sheet you need to sign up if you would and if you are going to speak at this moment if you would stand and raise your right hand I will swear you in do you swear or affirm that that any testimony that you give at this hearing would be true to the best of your knowledge. Thank you. The Appellant has agreed to an initial presentation of no more than 30 minutes. We'll note Councilmember Massadi present. Thank you. And there's no Attorney for those in opposition, but you will have an opportunity to speak. As the presiding officer, I have the power to make what's called evidentiary decisions to exclude irrelevant or repetitious testimony. If you have a witness list, you should present that to the clerk at this. I guess you've already done that, Councilman, Councilmember, Council, Council. not council member anybody who testifies is subject to cross-examination by the other side when you speak if you would give your name and address for the record and i want to now tell you the order of the hearing we'll have a presentation by the planning division staff then there'll be a presentation by the petitioner then there'll be a presentation by those in opposition or individual comments. Then at each point, there will be an opportunity to cross-examine, which is basically to ask questions about any testimony that's been presented. At that point, staff will then have the opportunity to make additional comments. Petitioners can present rebuttal evidence. There's an opportunity for a closing summation by those in opposition and then by the petitioner. At that point, the Council can ask questions of staff petitioners and opponents, and petitioner and opponent will have an opportunity to rebut any new evidence that's brought up on Council questioning. At that point, the hearing will be closed and no further evidence will be taken. Council will then deliberate amongst itself and vote to adopt findings of fact and then to adopt a resolution. the one other thing I want to be clear about is that in zoning matters, in order to override a decision of the planning commission, that requires a majority of council which is 15 people, not the 10 present, 11 present so it would take 8 votes to overturn a planning council commission decision I believe that's all I need to say at this point. So unless there are questions, we'll begin, and we'll ask Mr. Selle to do the presentation for the planning division. Welcome. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kaye. Council members, good afternoon. I might for the record my name is Bill Sally I'm the planning manager for the planning services section of the division of planning it's my pleasure tonight to be here to answer your questions and also to present to you the Planning Commission's recommendation on this zone change request I need to enter a number of items into the record of your hearing tonight the first being the newspaper advertisement of your hearing this evening the next item is an affidavit that I have signed regarding the notices that were mailed to property owners within 500 feet of the property you're considering tonight and to the nearest neighborhood associations as well. The next item is a copy of the Planning Commission's recommendation on this zone change from their public hearing in March. This copies of this were distributed to the Council prior to tonight's hearing and for members of the audience there are a few extra copies at the end of this counter behind me should they be interested in wishing to view that. I'll have you a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that I have for you this evening on this zone change. I'd like to enter into the record a copy of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. This has been adopted by the Planning Commission and the goals and objectives of this document by the Urban County Council. I'd like to enter in a copy of the zoning ordinance and the land subdivision regulations that are in effect for the urban county government. And then finally, the planning staff has received three email communications about this zone change. One from Tococana Bowl, from Bob Pendonpole, and from Pat Lake. All of these are in opposition to the zone change. I'll circulate these to the council members and give a copy to the clerk for the record. This is the sixth zone change the Planning Commission has reviewed this year, and it is seeking a zone change from three existing zones, single-family residential in two different categories and agricultural urban. And the request is to rezone this property to two categories, an R3 planned neighborhood residential zone and a B3 highway service business zone. We have posted a copy of the existing zoning map on the board to my left and also have one here on the overhead. The property currently has three zoning designations. I'll describe it from here. Let me orient you first to the location of the subject property. It's on Pleasetown Road here, very near Masterson Station Park and Masterson Station Drive, which is along the northwest of the subject property. Masterson Station Drive here for those in the audience. To the immediate south and east of the subject property is the Leesway subdivision here. And the area is predominantly surrounded by residential zoning. What you see here and here are existing R3 planned neighborhood residential zones. And in the yellow shades, single-family residential zoning, R1C, R1E, and R1D surrounding the property. The current zoning of the subject property has two of those categories. The rear portion is R1E here and here. The westernmost portion of the property is R1D, single-family residential. Those zones only allow one detached residence per lot, and the letter at the end of the designation indicates the minimum lot size allowed in those zones. The subject property also has an agricultural urban zone here. And this is associated with a garden center that has been on the property for well over a decade. And so that is a conditional use in the AU zone. This is a photo of the subject property. The agricultural use there that the Board of Adjustment approved years ago shows very well. You'll notice at the top of the property, the northernmost portion, there is a large pond or small lake, if you will. It flows generally from this area to Masterson Station Park. Ruffian Way is in the photograph. And drainage into this lake comes from three directions, from the northeast, from the east, and from the southeast to this location, and then flowing northwest from this area. This photo also shows a very good indication of the existing single-family residential uses in the area. in Leesway, in Masterson Station, and for folks along Shannon Trace, Buck Lane, and Lucille Drive. Lucille Drive and Summer Field, I believe that's the street name, into the subject property as well, of course, as an intersection directly across Lee's Town Road from the subject property. That intersection is not signalized at the current time. The requested zoning is for B3 Highway Service Business for the area along Lee's Town Road on the southern portion of the subject property. And that is requested for a little over 10 acres in size. The balance of the property is requested for an R3 zone. It's indicated there on the photograph. So it would be adjacent to other R3 and also R1 zones. Two collector streets of Lucille Drive and Summerfield are proposed to extend through the subject property and intersect at the location indicated here. We'll look a little more at that in the development plan later in my presentation. The other streets in the development are proposed mainly to be private streets. I have a few photos of the subject property. This is from the intersection I mentioned earlier on Leestown Road. This shows the entrance to the garden center that has been there for some time. This is at the same location looking to the northwest out of town, out Leestown Road, which has been recently improved, of course, by the Highway Department. There will be a left turn lane into the development on the subject property should it be rezoned, and there are, of course, right turn lanes there currently. This is a view from Masterson Station Drive, looking at the drainage area from the pond or the lake that we saw earlier. You can see in the distance the dam to that facility and the water flowing from that pond into and under Masterson Station Drive. This is a view from the current end of Summerfield Drive, stubbing into the subject property, where you see the flag in the center on the horizon. That is actually the garden center that is on the opposite end of the property. So you get a good idea of the size of the subject property, which is almost 51 acres in total. This is currently the end of Lucille Drive, looking into the subject property, where there is some vegetation. Again, the photo of the property. Planning staff always looks to the recommendations of the 2013 comprehensive plan in formulating our staff report. We also review the application that's been filed. In this case, the applicant proposed that their zone change was in agreement with the comprehensive plan adopted in 2013. Planning staff, upon review, found the same to be true, and in concluding our staff report that is in your packet, the Division of Planning staff recommended approval of this zone change in that we found for five reasons it was in agreement with the 2013 comprehensive plan. The Planning Commission reviewed this application at their public hearing at the end of March on the 24th, and they heard not only from the staff, but of course from the applicant and from about one dozen objectors who were present that afternoon at the Commission hearing. At the conclusion of their public hearing that day, they voted 8-2 to recommend conditional approval of this zone change to the Council. They found, as the planning staff did, that the planned neighborhood residential R3 zone and a restricted B3 highway service business zone were in agreement with the 2013 comprehensive plan for the subject property. There were five reasons cited in their findings, and these mirrored those provided in the planning staff report. First, the goals and objectives of the plan encourage expanding housing choices, supporting infill and redevelopment within the urban service area, and expanding options for mixed use throughout Lexington. Secondly, the plan also states that higher density development should be encouraged near greenways and public parks, if possible, building green infrastructure and trails throughout the community should be accomplished, and utilizing single-loaded streets adjacent to greenways will provide improved access to the community's open space. Their third finding was that the proposed development permitted by this rezoning meets the placemaking standards set forth in the comprehensive plan, which include inviting streetscapes, varied housing choice, abundant private and public open space, neighborhood focal points, and quality connections with parks, schools, and stores. The fourth finding was that the proposal expands the housing choices within the vicinity to include multifamily residential and townhouses. And finally, the proposal will utilize existing floodplain for greenway improvements and connections between existing and proposed trail systems in this portion of the urban service area. The Planning Commission recommended conditional approval of this zone change because they, like the planning staff, recommended conditional zoning restrictions for the B3 zoned portion of this application. A number of prohibited uses are recommended should the property be rezoned to B3 in its southernmost portion. Those are to prohibit lots for the display, rental, sale, or service of large equipment, such as contractor equipment, farm equipment, automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, mobile homes, boats, and travel trailers. Also prohibitions on pool halls, tattoo parlors, carnivals and circuses, pawn shops, adult entertainment establishments, billboards, hotels and motels, cocktail lounges and nightclubs as a principal use in the B-3, and also outdoor recreational facilities. These were recommended to be prohibited on the front portion of this property in order to protect the adjacent residential properties from the possible negative impacts of the most intense business uses permitted in the B-3 zone. As is typical when the Planning Commission conducts a public hearing on its own change, they also consider the development plan that has been filed by the applicant. And we provided you here for your hearing tonight the exhibit of that development plan. I'd just like to orient you to the property and what is being proposed for development. This is not quite at the same north orientation as the map. This is Leestown Road. Masterson Station Drive is here. Lucille Drive, which stubs into the property to the north and east. And Summerfield Drive at this location. As I showed earlier, these two roads are proposed to connect through the site and stub into their current locations. Summerfield is proposed to continue and loop back in this location as a private roadway into Lucille Drive, which will have a very wide entrance at Lee's Town Road. The B3 area here is mostly fronting on Lee's Town Road, although a few of the lots do abut existing homes in Lee's Way, which is in a single-family zone. And the remainder of the property is proposed for R3 development, residential of both multifamily and townhouse. The pond or lake I mentioned earlier is proposed to remain, and it is to be, if you will, single-loaded onto one side of Summerfield Drive, meeting that one comprehensive plan recommendation I mentioned earlier. The other roadways through the system are proposed to be private, so they will be maintained by the developer or a homeowner's association, supposedly, if the rezoning is approved. The commercial uses are here. They include either a small grocery or a convenience store close to the intersection of Lucille and Lee's Town, a drugstore on the opposite corner, a branch bank fronting on Lee's Town but only having access off of Lucille Drive, and then two very small commercial buildings here. There is a roundabout proposed at this intersection that would serve the commercial area along Lucille Drive. It would also have a traffic calming effect, presumably. and then there would be general retail stores and perhaps restaurants located in those buildings. The other buildings in the development are multifamily here and here, townhouses, this location, close to the homes in Masterson Station, and along Summerfield Drive, this location. The commercial use would total about 53,000 square feet of retail space, including all the stores and restaurants. 243 off-street parking spaces are shown on this plan for those uses. The residential uses would total 570 dwelling units, of which 96 would be townhomes, and the remaining 474 would be apartments on the development, with 932 parking spaces allotted for that part of the development. The open space areas are predominantly in the commercial B3 area here and next to the existing pond and lake here, as well as, if you will, a greenway connection through the northeastern part of the property. And they are actually depicting some of the trail connections that they anticipate that could be made through this development. This concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you very much for your kind attention. And as you know, I will be here and available for your questions later in the evening. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Murphy, you have a cross-examination. Yes. I had one question for Mr. Selle. I'll grab the mic and ask you this. Just to clarify, I know these go through a number of stages of review. And this proposal was recommended for approval. the development plan was recommended for approval by the technical committee. Is that correct? That's correct. And second, the development plan was recommended for approval by the subdivision committee, which is a subcommittee of the planning commission. Is that correct? That is correct. Third, the zone change itself was recommended for approval by the planning staff. Is that correct? That's correct. Fourth, the zone change was recommended for approval by the zoning committee, which is a subdivision of the Planning Commission, is that correct? That's correct. And finally, it was, as you mentioned, recommended for approval by the Planning Commission itself. That's correct. Both the development plan and the zone change were approved by the Commission by a vote of 8 to 2. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. This allows us to move to the presentation by the petitioner, Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I'm, of course, Dick Murphy, representing Anderson Communities and the Village of Great Acres. Pleased to be here tonight. Just some preliminary things. I did put into the record the affidavit that says we posted three signs on this property as required by the notification procedures of KRS. I submitted my witness list, although probably I'll be the one speaking and the others will be answering questions to save time. We have passed out a handout with five sheets in it, which are four support letters that we've received, plus an excerpt from the minutes of Barbara Stucker, who's the president of the McConnell's Trace Neighborhood Association, who couldn't be with us tonight. We request those be put into evidence along with the slides that we'll be showing you tonight. I do represent Dennis Anderson and the village at Great Acres. Dennis is here with me tonight on the second row. Our John Strom, the in-house attorney for Anderson Communities, I think is back here. We have our two designers from Integrated Engineering, Eddie Mesta, who did our traffic study, which I think Mr. Selle mentioned was submitted with our zone change and was found by the staff to be in compliance with all ordinance requirements. We have Steve Garland, our design engineer from Integrated Engineering, who did the development plan, which was certified by the Planning Commission as meeting zoning ordinance requirements. One person who's not here tonight is Steve Austin. Some of you all may know Steve and remember Steve. He's the former president, chief executive officer of Bluegrass Tomorrow. He was an advocate for good planning in central Kentucky for many years. Steve is now in private practice as a planner and a landscape architect in the state of Washington. But Steve Austin prepared the original plan for Village at Great Acres, and it was refined and improved upon by our team at Integrated Engineering. We do have the plan up before you, and as I said, it is a collaborative effort between Steve and Dennis and Integrated Engineering, and we're very pleased to present this to you tonight. It's a mixed-use development, and 14 years ago, I think Dennis and I were before you getting approval of McConnell's Trace, which is a mixed-use residential development just across the road, which has been very successful. Twelve years ago, we were in front of you with Townley Center, which is not only mixed-use residential but adds a commercial component, and some people said that wouldn't work. It has worked very well, and we'll show you some awards that it has received. But the thing I like about this plan is that it deals with the big issues, and it deals with the small issues, too. The biggest one, to me, is the connection of the trails that go through here. They aren't shown on this plan, but they will be shown on the development plan through here that connect up. This is the trail system that comes through this way from the east and the north, which will be coming through our property between the pond and Summerfield Drive going through Masterson Station Park. If I can switch to this map, I'm sorry to do it behind some of you. This is our subject property right here. It will go through from our property through Masterson Station Subdivision. You'll be able to walk or ride a bicycle through here to Masterson Station Park. At that point, you can ride down to Leestown Road and cross it and get on the trails that Dennis constructed as part of Masterson Station's subdivision, and it'll take you down to the Town Branch Trail, which goes along Town Branch and the railroad tracks, which was the first portion of the Town Branch Trail ever completed, was the part in Dennis' subdivision at McConnell's Trace, and it goes down here, and at the present time, it goes all the way to Alexandria Drive, And as you all know, it's going under New Circle Road as part of the improvements. And you'll be able to walk or ride your bike all the way from our property through the park, through McConnell's Trace, down to the Town Branch Trail, all the way down to downtown. And that's a very important part of this development. It's a very important amenity to people who choose to live here. The Town Branch Trail has been extremely popular in McConnell's Trace. As I'm sure out there now, people are walking shoulder to shoulder down the trail right now since it's such a nice evening to do that. We're retaining the pond as sort of the visual focal point of this development. That's a farm pond that was built by the Great House family many years ago. We're going to incorporate that into the stormwater system here. We have a community commercial, which is down here. As Mr. Selle mentioned, that's going to be a grocery convenience store, pharmacy, a bank, and then we'll have shops up here such as dry cleaners, coffee shop, restaurants, and that sort of thing in this area and these two buildings as well. Again, that has been very popular in Townley. The commercial, I want to put you this in scale. Townley is about 60 acres. This is about 51 acres, so this is a little smaller than Townley. The commercial area in Townley is larger than this. This will be a little smaller commercial area than we have in Townley Center, which is, of course, you're probably familiar with it, but it's the corner of New Circle Road and Lee's Town Road. We have street continuity, as Mr. Salley mentioned. We have Lucille Drive, which is a major collector. All comprehensive plans have always called that to be intersecting Lee's Town Road. At this point, we're bringing Summerfield Drive in from the west. So we connect, make street connections. We have a step-down of densities from our commercial. We go to three-story apartment structures down to two-story townhouse units on the edges. As I mentioned, I like the small features, too, and I'll point out a couple of the small features, too, on this, and that is that, for instance, these townhouses have been rotated. Normally people would put them where their backs are facing the houses along Masterson Station Drive. These are rotated so that you only see on the side of the townhouse unit, not looking into people's backyards. Another thing I like is the single-loaded nature of Summerfield Drive on here. This property on the north side of Summerfield Drive would probably normally be prime real estate to sell. You get a townhouse looking back on the pond, and it looks like your private pond. Well, we don't want people to have private ponds here. We want it to be open. This has been designed so that people coming through on Summerfield will have the vista into the pond. And this has been designed so that many people will have vistas into the pond. For instance, this is the existing log cabin on the house that we want to keep as part of the design. You can see the vista is clear through here to the pond. And we want to make it accessible to people, not only to our people, but people coming through will enjoy the vista coming into the pond. So the small features are important on this. Steve Austin and Integrated Engineering have thought about these and worked these in. Let's see here. As I said, this is like Townley Center. This is an example of the architecture of the apartments that are in Townley, and I initially thought this was an artist's rendering, but it's actually a photograph of the completed apartments. This is an example of townhouses in Townley. Our architecture will be a little different because this will be more of a prairie style to try to incorporate in with the cabin that's on the property. This is more of a craftsman or arts and crafts, so we're not going to be looking exactly like this, but it gives you an idea of the massing of the structures on the property. This is, again, another photograph of townhouses at Townley. To give you an idea, this is the commercial area in Townley. This will be sort of similar to what we're having here. In Townley, we have about six restaurants. You can see the firehouse subs there. We have a Chinese restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, an Applebee's, the firehouse subs. We have a vinaigrette salad restaurant. And we have one more, which I wrote down, which is the A&W restaurant in there. And we have shops. We have cell phone store. We have a fitness workout studio. There's a paint store. There's a number of other offices there. And this is a major, major selling point with people who choose to live in Townley. When we went in there, people said, oh, people don't want to be near commercial. On the contrary, people want to be very close to commercial. It's a major amenity that people can drive home in the evening, park their car at their townhouse, and walk to a restaurant. Or they can walk to the fitness studio. They can walk to the cell phone store. That's been a major positive amenity for Townley. and it's not only an amenity it's sort of a place making feature because that's sort of the identity of the community and we hope to do that and plan to do that recreate this in the village at great acres as well another appealing item of the properties is the lack of maintenance here all the maintenance is done by the owners association or the landlord so that the residents are not responsible for that this appeals to people my age, the empty nesters, and it appeals to the millennials who may want to do other things than mow their grass every week or every three days that you have to do it right now. And so the lack of maintenance responsibilities is probably as important as the nearness of the restaurants and the commercial area. as you know Townley has won a number of awards just to point that out the one on the right is one that was given by Bluegrass Tomorrow some years ago and this is the Mayor's Award for Best Infill Development in 2006 that was awarded Townley so I point these out just to tell you that the developer here has experience in doing mixed use development This is not just something we've drawn up a pretty picture on paper. He has a track record of doing it in Townley and in McConnell's Trace, and we know it works, and we know there's an ever-expanding segment of the population that is looking for this type of development. There's always going to be a place for single-family homes, but there's a growing segment that wants the maintenance-free living, wants to be close to amenities as well, and doesn't want a mortgage as well. I want to go on. This is just an overhead of our property. You can see, as Mr. Selle pointed out, that Leastown Road has been widened, as you all well know. And this is the intersection of Lucille Drive, Chestnut Run, and Leastown Road here. You can probably make up that. There's four lanes one way to the other. There are full turn lanes. This was designed for a traffic signal, and it's going to be signalized under the State Highway Department plans. This will be a signalized intersection, as well as the one up at Masterson Station. You can see, again, our streets coming through and coming in from the west and from the north and coming through the property. Going on to the next one, I point this out just because this is our property right here. This is the Great House property. This is the site of the Great Acres Nursery, if you've been out there. Bill Greathouse has run this for, I think, at least 20 years. He's decided to do something else at this point, and this property is on the market. The nursery is over here. That's the AU part. The log cabin where they live is right here, which we want to keep on the property. But you can see this big expanse up here. That, of course, is Masters and Station Park. I just put this up here because there was an online set of petitions that was placed into the record of the Planning Commission, and a good proportion of the people who entered the online poll that was opposed to our development made remarks such as, you better not develop Masters and Station Park. Why are you developing the park? There's a great equine program there. Don't let Dennis Anderson pave over the equine program and that kind of stuff. And we put that to emphasize, this is not an application for Masters and Station Park, as you all well know. This is an application for privately owned Great Acres Nursery property, which has been a privately owned nursery for over 20 years. And this is the portion of the property we plan on develop. I know you know that, but I wanted to get that in the record. We are not in any way, shape, or form planning on developing Masters and Station Park. These are a few letters of support we had. At the Planning Commission, we had some objections from the people who were over here. I'm referring to my left over here along Leastown Road who were concerned about this store being here. Dennis has talked to them and worked out an agreement, and these are three of the people who live in this area who put in letters saying that since the Planning Commission meeting, they've met with Dennis and worked out additional landscaping and screening as a buffer along these properties. and that they are now in support of the application that is in front of you. So we wanted to make you aware of that. This is the comprehensive plan, and I'm going to try not to put you to sleep. I'm going to go through fast on this. If I start doing it, yell at me or kick your neighbor if they're falling asleep or anything on this. But this is important because this is, of course, the legal basis for granting a zone change, and I need to get some of this in the record. But the problem I have is that we agree with so much of the comprehensive plan, there's going to be a lot of slides to go through. Because this, to me, the comprehensive plan, everything in it points to a mixed-use, walkable development that we have. So I'll go through these fast, but I need to point out to you how we do agree with the comprehensive plan. Going on the first one, the growing successful neighborhood states that the ideal structure of a neighborhood is composed of places to reside, work, shop, learn, and play. You can see there are five criteria for a successful neighborhood. The next slides have them. I won't read that until you go on to the next one. The first one is inviting streetscape and varied housing choices, which I think we've shown you we meet. This is a picture of Townley or McConnell's Trace. We'll have a different architectural type, but we'll have varying types of housing in there. Successful neighborhoods also require abundant private and public open space and their neighborhood focal points. We have open space here in the pond area and the open space we have inside. Perhaps you can see that better on this development plan that's covered up. The pond area and the green areas inside that are sprinkled throughout this add up to over 11 acres out of the 51 that we have. A very high percentage is being kept as open space, and it's not all around the pond. There's some of this back here. This is the green way back here as well. And we have neighborhood focal points. We have as focal points in this, we have the pond, which is remaining. We have the cabin, which is here. We have the neighborhood commercial that is here as well, and the village green, which is right in here, has focal points for the development. Another important part is an interconnected and accessible green infrastructure system, which we have. We've pointed out the trails coming through this and connections with the parks and the stores. We don't have a school here, but we do have parks and stores we're connecting to. And I want to point this out because in the comprehensive plan, there's very little discussion about particular neighborhoods. There's only two that are really singled out. One is Southland Drive area, which is up here. The second is Townley and Metaphor. And the comprehensive plan points out that they are well integrated with each other, with the grocery store banks, restaurants, and other shopping, and they complement each other as an edge community. And we are, of course, modeling ourselves to a great extent on Townley Center. Growing successful neighborhoods, we require green space. I mentioned that before. New trails, new parks. We create higher density residential along public green space. And we reduce congestion by connecting our streets to the surrounding neighborhood. It's all in agreement with the Comprehensive Plan. Going on to the next one, it talks about walkability, which we've talked about. It talks about green infrastructure. We've talked about that again. Trail greenways are all part of desirable communities under our Comprehensive Plan. And again, we talk about balance between urban and safeguarding rural land, and obviously that is putting, as Lexington lets grow up, not out, that motto, which was so much in vogue when the comprehensive plan was adopted three years ago. We have infill opportunities throughout the urban service area. We have considerable economic investment in this property. This is going to be a considerable investment by Anderson Communities. We have pedestrian-scale transportation. We've discussed flexibility in housing types again. We've discussed density and land uses that allow for a diversity of citizens, which we're providing to the community. Here, goals and objectives. This talks about one of the important ones, this quote down here, about having mixed use and housing near employment in commercial areas. Lee's Town Road has developed as both an important, I think the best example of having mixed use residential near employment areas in the entire community. This slide talks about support of infill and redevelopment, which is a strategic component of growth. And it talks about allowing places for social interaction among people. That's why we have the green spaces. People interact when they see each other on the sidewalk or on the trails or out for a walk in the evening. That's what we're providing here. We are reducing Lexington's carbon footprint by not requiring people to get in their car for everything they want. We are supporting the green infrastructure program, and we are providing open space and landscaping. We are, I think this is important, we're attracting young professionals in a workforce of all ages and talents to Lexington. Somebody at the Planning Commission said, no young people are going to want to work here. Well, we found, live here, we found much differently. We found that in developments such as this, The two major groups that seem to like and be attracted to this are the millennials, who don't want to be tied down to buy a mortgage or maintenance, and empty nesters, who don't want to be tied down by a mortgage or maintenance. Same thing. And I've talked to many people who live in this area, and there's a surprising number of couples who have one member working in Frankfurt and state government and one working downtown Lexington and find that this is the best place to live, a sort of geographic compromise between the two. We want to have accessible transportation. We talked about bicycles and pedestrian and walking. And next one, we need to utilize underutilized land within the urban service area, maintain the boundaries of the urban service area, and encourage compact, contiguous development. And I think you're all awake, so I've made it through the comprehensive plan. And I'm sorry we had so many slides, but again, it's because we agree with so many of the goals and objectives of this comprehensive plan. We had discussion at the Planning Commission about property values. You know, people are always concerned when something new comes into them about what's going to happen to property values. We found two studies, one from MIT and one from Harvard, that both found that multifamily developments next to single-family do not depress the values of single-family residential. The MIT states that large, dense, these are bigger developments than we have, multifamily rental developments do not negatively impact the sales price of nearby single-family homes. Our findings are transferable to similar developments in towns such as the one studied. The Harvard one talks about working communities with multifamily dwellings actually have higher property values than other types of working communities, and they say that these multifamily housing rental developments do not generally lower property values in surrounding areas. And we have local experience with that in Townley. We are right across the street from Metathorpe subdivision, and the property values in Metathorpe have not gone down at all since Townley was built, and we have continued a healthy growth rate, as has been pointed out to us by many of our neighbors. So we think the national studies and our local experience both shows that we have a positive impact on property values around us. We had a petition against us at the Planning Commission. I just pointed out to the Planning Commission that many of them were online. 38% did not live in Lexington, and almost 40% thought that we were impacting green space, particularly Masterson Station Park. We're making comments like, preserve the park. This is a great park. It would be so sad to see this happen. Wanted to keep Masterson Station Park as it is. And we are, of course, doing that. again pointing out we are not developing Masters of Station Park. We have a, Barb Stucker, the president of McConnell's Trace Neighborhood Association, couldn't be here with us tonight. We just wanted to highlight the minutes that you have. These are on page 19 of the minutes that are in your packet. She was there, and she spoke because she heard the same thing when multifamily went in McConnell's Trace. What's this going to do to our values? What's this going to do to our neighborhood? She mentioned that right here that the property values, we've since found that property values have not gone down. Rather, they have been risen steadily over the years. She then talked about crime. People were concerned about crime with multifamily in the town branch trail. She said she was unaware of any safety issues that had occurred on the trail since the townhomes were constructed. And they were concerned about having renters in the neighborhood. She interestingly said that they haven't had any problems because the renters from Dennis have a stricter set of rules than the private property owners there. and that her last remark was that her neighborhood could be improved if all the residents were as well behaved as the people who live in the townhomes. She was referring to rental townhomes there. Dennis, by the way, does criminal background checks on everybody who rents from him. So if you're renting, you know your neighbor has passed a criminal background check. If you buy a house, hopefully your neighbor has, but you don't know about that. So lastly, in the slides, we have the conditional zoning restrictions. Mr. Selle mentioned we had agreed to a number of conditional zoning restrictions, and the Planning Commission gave us a few more to abide by, which we agreed to after they proposed them to us. And I won't read the whole list, but they include no sale of cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, RVs. That is prohibited in here. Pool halls, dancing halls, drive-in restaurants, tattoo parlors, carnivals and circuses, pawn shops, any adult entertainment uses, advertising signs under Article 17. Those are billboards. No billboards on this property. No hotels or motels. No, these are what I call freestanding cocktail lounges and nightclubs as principal uses. These are ones that don't serve food. You're allowed to serve alcohol. if you're serving a food restaurant, but no freestanding, cocktail lounges and nightclubs, and a number of outdoor and recreational activities. I think those are a total of 10 or 11 entries. These are off the zoning ordinance that we are prohibited from doing, and we agreed to that at the Planning Commission. I wanted to mention a couple other follow-up items. As I said, we performed a traffic study, Mr. Mesta did, and found that, just as you might expect, Leastown Road can handle this traffic with no appreciable impact. I do want to mention that the traffic signal timing they talk about at the corner of Masterson Station Drive and Leastown Road shows a long delay right now without any development, and the traffic study is required to use the timing that is used now on the traffic signal. So when we report times there, we're having to assume that that timing stays exactly the same as it is. However, it's not going to because, as they have reported, that would be adjusted along with timing on the eventual traffic signal here. So the times they have to report to you are not the times that will actually occur. They're required to operate with the existing traffic signal timing, even though we know that's going to be changed. I want to point out a couple more traffic items to you here. We have incorporated traffic calming into this on Lucille Drive. Lucille Drive now stubs right here and is called to intersect with Leestown Road on the comp plan. Instead of doing that as a straight line, we build in curves in this, which will slow traffic. And further, we build in the traffic circle, which is, of course, a natural traffic slowdown measure as well. So we're putting traffic calming measures incorporated into this at both the recommendation of Steve Austin and integrated engineering. We have stormwater. We have integrated engineering, I think, is one of the two engineering firms in the state that has a contract with the state of Kentucky to provide engineering stormwater data to the state. They are experts in doing this. They have done studies in this particular area. As I said, we will use the pond for part of our stormwater, and it will be designed by integrated engineering to meet all local, state, and federal requirements for stormwater requirements. And you know those are very stringent requirements at this point. We've talked to you about the conditional zoning restrictions, and I think at this point I just want to point out that this property has, as you know, we don't have a map-based comprehensive plan anymore. We have a performance-based comprehensive plan, and that's why I spent so much time with you talking about how we meet the comprehensive plan goals and objectives. However, in going back through the last three comprehensive plans, the 1996 plan and the 2001 plan and the 2007 plan, This property has always been recommended for a category which allows different housing types, not only single family. Since for the last 20 years, Masters and Station had been recommended for single family on those plans, but this property has always been recommended in a category back when we had categories that allowed both single family, multifamily types of housing on it. So I just wanted to point that out to you about the previous comprehensive plan. Excuse me, Mr. Murphy, are you close to wrapping up? I'm very close. I'll try to do it in a couple sentences here. I hope I've met my time commitments here with you. Just want to conclude, we thank you for hearing us. We're excited to be here. For brevity's sake, I did the talking. We have a lot of people here, Dennis in particular, and our designers, who can answer any questions you all have, but we're real proud to present this. And as I said, we feel we agree with the comprehensive plan, but I'm not just showing you a picture. I've shown you we have a developer here who has done it twice in the past. We know it works. We know it works well, and we know it's going to work well right here too as well. Thank you very much. We'd be happy to answer any questions you all might have. Great. Thank you. At this point, I need the list of people who have signed up to speak in opposition. and if you have signed up if you'd like to come to the podium thank you the first person on the list is Jessica Hickey Jessica Hickey I didn't know that's what the sheet was for so you can skip me I wasn't aware I just thought it was a list you all were keeping with people that were for it again so I apologize not a problem thank you Ben Halada I second what she said okay then Matthew Jacobs Hi. My name is Matthew Jacobs. I live at 2636 Shannon Trace, and my property backs up directly to this development, and so I'm directly affected by it. I'm not necessarily opposed to the zoning. What I'm opposed to is, and I don't know if this is the right meeting for it, is the actual plan. I hear a lot about the 2013 comprehensive zoning changes and how we're supposed to protect green space, protect creeks and streams and that kind of thing. I'm nervous, so I don't talk in front of people, so bear with me. What I didn't hear mentioned is the creek that runs behind my house is going to have to be bulldozed or paved over, and a large number of large growth trees are going to be cut down, which is going to reduce my property value because I paid a premium when I purchased the lot because of that view. And I was told that the city would not allow building on either side of that creek because we protected our creeks and streams from pollution and that sort of thing. I wish I could share with you pictures I took about two hours ago from behind my house and of the trees and the creek that supports geese and ducks and rabbits and other wildlife. And all of the trees are going to get cut down because of this development. The development might improve my quality of life just because of the convenience of what's going to be there. But the problem I have is in this top right corner, there is a natural creek that runs through there, and that road that curves around over the top right goes right over top of it, which requires a lot of natural habitat that's never going to come back. So that's my main issue with it. I didn't hear anything addressed about that. I just heard a lot about how they support the natural habitat, green spaces, protection of waterways. Where is your house? I'm sorry. You can complete. If you have questions, we'll allow people to ask questions. That's all I've got to say. Thank you. There will be an opportunity for cross-examination. Can I? Yeah. And I apologize, Mr. Swain. It looked like your name was crossed out at the top of the list. You were right. You were first, and I should have called on you first. I think that's because that space was a lot smaller than the other one. But I wrote tiny. It confused me, but welcome. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. My name is Jeff Swain. I live at 2904 Masterson Court. My property does back up against the development here on the left-hand side. I'm not too concerned about the development. I mean, Mr. Greathouse can put a zoo over there if he wants. It's his property. We're not really in to do with what he wants. What my concern was, my concern is the same as it was in 1997 when I appeared before the Planning Zoning Commission when Mr. Greathouse, Mr. Wiseman, actually asked to have this property re-zoned to the R1 that is currently zoned now. Now, my opposition then, or my concern then, was the amount of increased stormwater that was going to be forced on downstream property owners in violation of state law. Now, I had just, a few years before that 1997 hearing, had finished the Army Engineers advanced courses, so I'm a retired Army engineer, and I aced the module on drainage. And so I came to that meeting with a comprehensive and detailed analysis of this property and what water was going to do when we changed it from turf to impervious surfaces. And so here we are 19 years later, and we're back to do that. Let me step back a moment. And that plan for Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Greathouse in 1997 was tentatively approved. And in that hearing, Mr. Murphy, you might remember this, the chairman of the board looked at Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Greathouse and said, well, what about drainage? And they just kind of gave him the polar bear salute. And the comment from the gentleman was, well, apparently Mr. Swain has done more work on your project than you have. And so we're going to tentatively approve this, but before it will go forward with development, you must come back with a drainage plan that has been approved by and reviewed by Mr. Swain. And that was written into the ordinance. So that was never developed. Been sitting there for 19 years, never developed. So here we are today. Now we're changing from R1 to R3. We're putting more impervious structure out there, and I see nothing in the plan that has addressed the drainage and the water flow. But we already know now from experience, not calculations in my comprehensive analysis that I did 20 years ago, that the current floodplain does not retain the water. The pond, the lake that we have there does not retain the water. When we have a serious rain, all the downstream homes, the downstream properties are flooded. One time we actually had water to get up into the houses there on the west side of the Master Station Drive. And so we need to see something in this plan that says we've done something with the water. And as we talked about before the meeting, when we looked at the plan, we said there's nothing been done to stop the water from going down. The coefficient of changing from turf to asphalt and concrete means that from .30 is the coefficient for turf, .65 is the coefficient for impervious surfaces. Excuse me, Mr. Swain, let me just ask if I can have a motion to extend you another three minutes. It's almost over. Anyhow, without objection, please proceed. And I apologize for running over time. So that means that if we're sending a million gallons of water per minute through that bridge at Masterson Station now, with turf grasping on that property, at .30 is the coefficient. When we raise to .65, and that's not taking into account any of the slope on the land, just strictly a basic computation, That means we're going to be over 2 million gallons per hour, per minute, or whatever the function is. So that means that the bridge that already cannot handle the water, the lake that already cannot handle the water on a significant rain, the downstream culverts and bridges where the greenway, the walking track, runs through Massive Censation can already not handle the water. It backs up and floods those properties. Now we're going to be sending down there twice as much water, it's twice as fast as what we were doing previously. And I'm just saying develop it whatever you want to, but don't increase the speed of the water. Don't increase the downstream flooding for those downstream properties. Put something in there that slows that water down and doesn't cause us problems. That's all we're asking for. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. I think at this time, unless there's cross-examination on either side, we'll have additional comments from staff and then an opportunity for petitioners to offer rebuttal. Thank you, Vice Mayor. One thing that I realized in listening to Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Swain, I did not describe to you earlier the floodplain that exists on the subject property. I thought now might be a good time to do that using the development plan. Again, the floodplain is on the northernmost portion of the property. And to use the zoning map, we're talking about this area here, farthest from Leestown Road. It does abut Masterson Station in this area generally. The creek area is shown here, feeding into the pond. And the pond drains here that we saw in the one slide that I presented to you early in the hearing. The actual floodplain is this area here. very near the pond here, and then extends along the creek in this area here. So most of the floodplain in this area is going to remain in green space, as it will around both sides of the pond. This area here is proposed to be modified so that the street can be connected through, and this area will also come out of the floodplain under this conceptual plan. Thank you. Thank you. Any rebuttal evidence from petitioner? I know most of the comments were on stormwater, so we wanted to point out that we're aware of stormwater issues on this. As you all know, when zone change is filed, we're required to file a preliminary development plan, which is what you see up there preliminary plan that plan which was approved by the planning commission does not give us authority to do anything on the property does not give us authority to turn a spade of dirt on the property before we can do that we have to come back with a final development plan and construction plans that are approved by your division of engineering signed off by all and that and the final development plan have to be signed off by all the various divisions here including water quality engineering and all the other stake off or the sign off stakeholders on that so we this this alone does not give us authority to do any work we have to come back go through the planning commission have a hearing on a final development plan and before that plan can be certified and before we can do anything all All those things have to be done before we can go out and do even grading on the property. And that all will be done. Now, I was talking to Steve Garland here when Mr. Salee was testifying. And just to clarify, Mr. Garland is not only a registered civil engineer in the state of Kentucky, he's a certified floodplain manager, floodway manager. and he's on the LFUCG committee that is redoing the stormwater manuals here in Lexington. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, Integrated Engineering itself is one of the two engineering firms in the state that has contracts with the state of Kentucky to do stormwater studies. So the reason these people are working on it is because they have the expertise to handle this and know what's going to be required. Under the LFUCG regulations, the current stormwater manuals, we are not allowed to increase the rate of runoff on this property to the other properties. We're going to have to adhere to that. We cannot increase the rate of runoff from this property to other properties. That's what we know. They're going to do the calculations to assure that we do that, and they're going to be showing that to the Division of Engineering, Division of Water Quality, and countless other people throughout this process. We're aware we're going to have to get a LOMER, which is a letter of map revision from FEMA, before we can make this connection of summary field drive into our property as well. So we're going to have to be submitting data and an application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in order to do that. that's also a very strenuous process to go through. So this is what you're seeing before you is not the end of the story. It's the beginning of the story. It gives us the authority to come back and file our plan and to have the studies prepared to demonstrate to the city, to the state, and to the federal government that we're going to be adhering with all of these stormwater requirements. So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Do any of the people who have spoken in opposition have a summary comment to make? Jeff Swain again. Thank you, Mr. Murray, for that clarification. And so I would remove all opposition to this plan if we saw in your final or your next development plan that there were mitigation to ensure that there was not additional runoff rate. Thank you. Thank you. And then finally, closing summation by petitioner. Anything further, Mr. Murphy? I think you've heard enough from me. Thank you. At this point, questions of staff petitioner, are those in opposition from council members? If you would like to ask a question of anybody, please sign in electronically. Starting with first, Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just had a question about the roundabout. I know that we've done a lot of work, for instance, the Wellington Way roundabout, and Council Member Sardi has done a great job fixing some of the issues at that particular roundabout. So I was just curious if it was going to be modeled after that model or the one at alumni or? This roundabout is, hello, I'm Steve Garland with Integrated Engineering. This roundabout is modeled after the Federal Highway Administration's many roundabout standards and guidelines. It's for a different amount of traffic. It's smaller. It's more in scope with a residential development. It's a one lane. Correct, instead of a huge roundabout. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Just glad to hear that. That's a good thing. And then secondly, some of the concerns about the outline, I see there's still trees on the current landscape. Are you planning on keeping the trees as a barrier on the sides for? Mr. Sleem may be able to correct me, but going off memory of the plan, we are required to do perimeter landscaping, trees, and bushes. Thank you. Along with additional screening that had been worked out with the neighbors along these way. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So all of these, and I guess this would be for Mr. Murphy or Mr. Anderson or whoever, are all of these units going to be rental and not privately owned? Yes, they're all going to be rental. I'm going to retain ownership of them. Okay. Okay, so that would mean that you would also be responsible from now on for the upkeep of the pond? Yes, we take care of everything. It takes care of everything, okay. No mowing, no mortgage, no maintenance. Okay, all right. Well, I mean, and the reason I say this is because we have a number of ponds or retention, detention basins that are built in developments, and then they are left to the property owners to maintain, and it's very, very difficult. It will be an amenity of the neighborhood, and it will be cared for in that. Do you plan on planting any more trees around that? Yeah, there will be lots of trees. There will be more trees on it when we get through than there are now. There are some beautiful trees there. It's been a forest. They're going to come down. Right. Around the perimeter, we won't take anything down unless it's dead. If there's a dead tree, we'll pull it down so it doesn't fall. Around the perimeter, you know, where it's back to the neighbors, we won't remove a tree. Okay. And then, so you're saying there's going to be a new traffic signal at the new intersection? I don't remember what the name of that is. Is it Summer? Chestnut Ridge, Leastown, and Lucille intersection. Yes, that will need to be lit intersection. So has that already been approved? Doesn't that have to be approved by the state? We will go to the state and try to show them that it warrants that they do it, so they will pay for it. If they don't feel it warrants it, I will pay for it. Oh, okay. So you are saying one way or the other. I have to have it to make it a successful community. I feel like if it's for the public good and we can show that the public good warrants it, hopefully the state will take care of it. If not, I'll have to take care of it. And I know there's just recently the widening of Leastown. So are there already? and maybe they're already. They're already, okay. All right. And then the other question is, you mentioned, another gentleman mentioned something about an additional screening between the B3 and the Leesway. Yes. I had the opportunity to go over and sit down with owners of three of the homes there. There's four homes that are actually back to, it's either going to be a grocery or a convenience store, the grocery operators in town. Next few weeks, they won't even meet with me. They're very secretive. It's a marketplace. It's 10,000 square feet. It would really set us off right and give us a good start. We're open that they find the site appropriate. They were interested in the interaction of their properties and that. I met with them. We discussed how we would handle that. We have letters from the fourth one I don't know that I've ever met. Will it be a buffer including a fence or just trees? Yes, it will include a fence, trees, and bushes. Okay. Okay. All right. And as far as... And the existing trees will remain, too. Okay. And around the other perimeter where there are, like over here at Masterson Court, what will be the buffer in between? In this area? Mm-hmm. Right. There's an existing tree roll that we will not disturb. It's pretty occlusive. You have to be careful with landscaping that you don't create an opportunity for crime, things like that. You want to control access and have visual barriers, but they're not all good. These townhouses have bay windows on the side, so this doesn't become an area where someone could slip out of sight. There'll be a bay window or windows in the dining area of each one of these, so there's eyes in that area. But we'll look at it and address that situation. We use, in areas like that, we'll use bushes with thorns so people can't go through them or hide in them. I had the opportunity to go to London with the chief of police and all them. We studied how to make places safer by the way we design them, and we applied that. And we picked this orientation up and redid it along Trailside, what we call Trailside along Town Branch Trail, which makes it a whole lot nicer. All right. Thank you. It opens up visibility, opens up access points, puts more eyes on the trails. It doesn't hide the trail behind the rows of garages and things of that nature. I guess the other thing, too, is are there going to be street lights within your... Yes, there will. Okay. All right. We use quite a bit of lighting in our parking areas. We're going to have the privacy fence here. we're going to have it'll come all the way down to here uh then we've got garages okay and then we'll connect in between the garages so there'll be a complete access control along this boundary okay i didn't mean to get into minutiae but you know there's a lot of thought goes into all right thank you thank you vice mayor thank you uh councilman massadi thank you vice mayor i'm not sure who can answer the question um the first resident that came up and spoke i don't recall your name sir mr jacobs yes can you come to the podium you had mentioned that they were going to pave over the creek behind your home and take some trees down and no one answered i mean you discussed it but i just wanted to get an answer in public based on the design that's up there right now and it sounds like that's preliminary Is that the case? My neighbors and I have mowed this property for the past 12 years. I'm quite familiar with how the creek runs and what's there. This road that's on this design is going to go straight over the creek. It's going to require taking down all of the trees that line it and paving over the creek that's there. Can somebody from the other side give me a response to that, please? please come to the mic if you would so this is preliminary we have just now completed the survey we've looked at the creek and maybe you can help me it does appear unstable which means it gets a lot of high flow and moves around. If we move a creek, it's a pretty big process. Absolutely. It's a lot of paperwork. It's a lot of, that brings in another government entity, which is Army Corps of Engineers. So the DOW is going to let you go ahead and do this right now as it sits? No. If we're touching the, once we get the survey in, if we're touching the creek, you have to get a dow permit right you have to get an army corps permit right you got to get a fema permit so those are three on top of our local permitting so i guess my question is is what is your what is your plan for this part that he's talking about well it's preliminary so if it does turn out that we've got to re-channel or move the creek we need to look at how long that would be but the scale right now if you can see the grain between Mr. Jacobs' house and the road. Maybe you can show me. Can you take the mic or I was just checking something real quick sir. So we engineers we like to be exact So the green space between the back of his house and the edge of the road is 100 feet. So that's 100 foot width. Can you point that out? Yeah, you've got to use the light. So right, I believe I'm pointing pretty close to your house. You're right about there? I'm on that finish at a trace, so right there. Right there. so that's actually a little bit about over 100 feet in width from the property line to the edge of the of the roadway so if it does in fact turn out the road is touching the creek we would have to use that 100 foot width or move the road. You know it's you pick one and you move it but what I'm saying is if we do have to touch a waterway There's levels of local, federal, couple of federal, state. And in our local, we try to stay at least 25 foot of greenway on each side of the creek as a minimum. That's a make a healthy, healthy waterway. I guess this gentleman's concern and Mr. Swain's were my concerns about the waterways and how you're going to deal with that. That's big. And mine, too. That's why they brought me in. I'm a certified flow plane manager, so we want to look and make sure we don't pave over or encapsulate. Right. I understand that. So when you come back again in front of our engineering staff, you will have alternatives that they will give you the thumbs up or thumbs down basically on this. Correct. And the mathematics to prove it. Yes. Mr. Swain, you said you had flooding still. Is that correct? You mentioned when you came up here that there was still flooding. Is that still correct? Yes, ma'am. We currently have flooding in the whole Masters Station area. Every time it rains or how often? Well, I mean, if it drizzles, no, we don't have it. But if we have, you know, a 20, 50 or 100 year flood or 100 year rain, you know, yes, it floods. In your dwelling? I'm sorry? In your home? No, no, not in my home. I don't live next to the creek. But those folks that live along that creek that goes out of the pond, the lake, underneath Master Station Drive, and down through the park, those homes on either side always get flooding up into their properties. At least one time in the last 20 years, it's been actually into their basements. Now, during the planning commission's hearing two months ago, there were a number of folks who live along this creek area that actually brought pictures that showed the flooding. into their property. So we know now, you know, we calculate and we plan and we do these calculations, and I've done it for years with the Army, that this is one of the worst case or the best case scenarios. But those calculations, they work well in theory, but factual is much better. And what we know for a fact that when we get heavy rain, that pond floods, it overflows, The culverts back it up, and we get problems down there. So if we're going to increase the runoff rate by changing the terrain, we're going to have a compounded problem. But, you know, Mr. Murphy, Ms. Anderson, you know, assure us that they're going to do something not to improve the runoff rate. So if that doesn't improve, then we're no worse off than we are today. No, but the problem's not fixed then. No, there is a problem that ought to be fixed because of some upstream development that's happened. Upstream, not this property, but on upstream, as you can see all this other development. All that stuff happened. When I moved to Massachusetts Station, there were 30 houses there. And we've had flooding problems since day one. And there's never been any improvements to this channel, but yet we just kept on developing all the way upstream with no improvements to the channel. So they just inherited a problem that somebody has allowed to happen over the last 20 years. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Maloney. I just want to clarify something here. When you're on a creek, you will flood in your yard. I mean, we've got tons of homes that will flood. I don't think this is going to, what this would do, I don't think it's going to solve the problem of flooding in the yard. It will keep the flooding from going in the house is what the main thing is. So I don't want anybody thinking here that they're going to fix this channel and the yard is no longer going to flood. It's going to flood. I tell you, when you build a house up against a creek, it will flood. And I think that's what I just want everybody to be clear on that. So the main thing is we do not want to damage the property, and that's the concern that I want everybody to understand, that we're not going to fix this canal or whatever, but we'll make sure that it does not go in the house. That's your whole intent. So I want to clarify that before everybody goes out here thinking it's going to be fixed. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yeah, I want to echo Council Member Maloney's comments. I have never received any complaints about someone's house being flooded in Masterson Station. I do know that the greenways flood when we get heavy rains, and they look like you could ride your kayak from Masterson to Frankfurt. And I do think near the creeks that it might get up into the yards, but I've never known of anyone's homes being flooded. Like I have houses in Metathorpe, for instance, that actually have flooding. So when we talk about flooding, there's a difference in it comes up into your backyard versus it gets into your basement or into your living room. for instance. So I just want to clarify that language. And then I wanted to ask, I guess, Mr. Anderson, in Townley, I think that your roundabout and that the driveway that goes to the commercial businesses in the back, is that pervious surface? Part of it's brick pavers. It was just for cosmetics. It really wasn't water control. So it is still impervious? It's most Most of us in Pervious, yes. Okay. We do have part of it that is Pervious, but it was more design-driven than water control. I wondered if you were going to use anything similar here. I'm sure we will, you know, to create bands from where you go from a public to a private road around the circle there, you know, for aesthetic reasons. And, again, it's a traffic common when you have a surface change. in the village green, the little triangle area. We're going to have Mr. Alston come up with some placemaking there. That's what he really likes, the entrances, stuff like that. So there will be different materials, different textures. And how many apartments are in town, Lee? 361, I believe. In town homes? 52 houses and 50 townhomes that are owned by individuals. So there's 463 units in there. So Mr. Murphy mentioned that the townhomes backing up to Masterson Station would not have their backs to the backyards of the residents on Masterson. So how would they face exactly? They are perpendicular, but the sides of the townhomes are designed with, they move in and out. They aren't just straight walls. They aren't just plain walls. They have bay windows, and they have windows, and they have architectural features. They have privacy fences. And if you ever drive down trailside, they're turned that way also. The ones that back up to the trail. Yes. In McConnell Street. And that way, the other way, you turn them and you're looking at a wall of garages and there's no ice in that area. You've got an area between the fence and the shrubbery and the backs of garages and you've got an area that people can loiter and get into mischief. And then looking at this development plan, the proposed one, west of Lucille, or I guess west of that last commercial development, are those apartments just above the word Lee's Town? Just above the word Lee's Town. Yes, those are one-bedroom apartments. So why wouldn't you have commercial in that space as well, since it faces Lee's Town, and it's kind of like Townley where you don't see any of the residences from the road? We didn't feel like there was enough demand to warrant it. And if we did, it would be something like fast feeders or something like that. We didn't, you know, it worked well in Townley. Townley was about 50% commercial and 50% residential. Here we're going 80% residential, 20% commercial. We felt like that was the correct mix for this location. You know, Townley, your access to downtown, your access to Circle 4, traffic counts, different things, could support more commercial. When we did town anything, questioned the amount of commercial we put in there and said I lost my mind. You know, so just intuitively, there's no magical way of calculating it, but just intuitively I felt like this was what it could support. But I believe at the Planning Commission hearing, You mentioned that your plan should start from the east end of the development, correct? Closest to Leesway? Yes. We're working on this. We're working on this. We're working on this. We're working on those. The apartments are no-brainers. We build them, and they'll just phase them. And as we get absorption, we just keep building. This stuff takes a little creativity. It takes a lot of work. You want to get the right people, the right services. And so that could change, though, is my question. That if you see for the demand for commercial, that parcel to the left or to the west? I won't say never. I just know that's one of the number one requests. People want more services. I know that. When we went out, that was our argument at Townley. It was the most underserved area of town. Yes. And I think the success of the commercial in town, he supported that. At the time we had that, though, we were sitting next door to an empty shopping center that was owned by an out-of-town developer. And I said then, it isn't the shopping center's fault. It has a developer who doesn't live here. He's got transactions that are easier and better that he's working on, and it's a stepchild. And when we came in and we rejuvenated that area, it would bring that shopping center back to life, and it did. I just have a couple more questions. I know my time is up, but if you don't mind here, folks. So I really like, I want to say the positives that I think that I like about this. I like that Lucille is going to extend. I think that dead-end roads in the middle of our neighborhoods is not a good thing. And so I like that that will be extended, provides more connectivity, and I think that that's always a good thing. And then the trail and making the pond, which is now a private amenity, will be a public amenity. And having that connectivity from the trail, from Town Branch, and from this development, I think all of that is very good. And, of course, the commercial services. That is the number one request and question I have at every neighborhood meeting I attend is when are we going to see a grocery? When are we going to see more restaurants? When are we going to get a dry cleaner, gym, you name it? Those are all uses we're working on. So, right. I would like to address one thing, though. Your point about keeping this in the public realm. it's very it costs twice the money to build a road and only build structures on one side does that make sense? but if we put home sites here these people take ownership of all this we hear that tonight it's no longer a public realm it becomes the property of a few fortunate and in all my developments you will see when we have a amenity of this nature we will single load a street and front houses to it and keep it to where it's amenity for the whole community okay I think that seems like I had one for Bill Salley but I can't remember now and about the creek I wanted to let Mr. Jacobs know as well that one of the reasons that your neighboring development or proposed commercial development at Citation, the reason that that has stalled for as long as it has is because of that same creek and the issues in their development plan. So I can assure you that they will not be able to easily come in and pave over the creek and put any kind of development on it. I'd like to also I'm not an engineer. You can bet I'd move that road before I go to the trouble of moving that creek. That's right. The creek's not easy. I've got plenty of green area. I can move that road and put an apartment someplace else. Okay, I think that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. I just have one more quick question. Okay, currently Summerfield and Masterson Station and Lucille, those are public streets. Right, Mr. Sally? Okay. Yes, ma'am. But everything inside this development is going to be private? Of course, this is a conceptual plan. It could change. But on this plan, Lucille is public, Summerfield is public, and all the others on this conceptual plan are considered private. Okay. So then it will be the responsible of the city to maintain Summerfield and Lucille, but then anything else interior, okay. All right. I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. At this point, there are no further council members signed in, and so I'm declaring the hearing closed. There will be no further evidence taken. Council will now deliberate on the evidence it has heard. And if you would like to speak, sign in, starting with Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to accept the finding of facts and the recommendation of the Planning Commission to move forward with, excuse me, I don't have it in front of me, but with the recommendation of the Planning Commission as approved. So moved. Motion to second to accept the findings of fact, approve the findings of fact, approved by the Planning Commission. Is there any further discussion on this motion? Hearing none, we need to take a roll call vote. Clerk. Ms. Cutchfield? Yes. Mr. Stint. Excuse me, he's not here. Ms. Akers? Yes. Ms. Bledsoe? Yes. Mr. Fred Brown? Yes. Mr. James Brown? Yes. Mr. Gibbs? Yes. Mr. Hensley? Yes. Mr. Kay? Yes. Ms. Lamb? Yes. Mr. Maloney? Yes. And Ms. Masati? Yes. Thank you. That vote reflects passage, and now I can entertain a motion to approve the ordinance. Motion and a second to approve the ordinance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, again, Madam Clerk, if you would call the roll. Ms. Kutchfield? Yes. Ms. Akers? Yes. Ms. Bledsoe? Yes. Mr. Fred Brown? Yes. Mr. James Brown? Yes. Mr. Gibbs? Yes. Mr. Hensley? Yay. Mr. Kay? Yes. Ms. Lamb? Yes. Mr. Maloney? Yes. And Ms. Mossadie? Yes. Thank you. And that vote reflects passage. Unless there's any further business to come before us, I want to entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. A motion and a second. Without objection, we stand adjourned. Thank you.