# Council Workshop -ZOTA - December 1, 2016 > Auto-transcribed civic record · December 1, 2016 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/4125 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/4125?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2016-12-01 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 13,601 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 Council held a meeting on December 1, 2016, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the 2nd Floor Council Chamber. The Vice Mayor presided over the session. During the meeting, the Council considered one agenda item: ZOTA 2016-4, which addressed amendments to Articles 23A-10 of the Economic Development (ED) Zone regarding Duncan. This item received a first reading. The Council took one motion and vote during the meeting and heard ten public comments from members of the community. ## Attendance The following council members were present at the meeting on December 1, 2016: * Council Member Massadi * Council Member Bledsoe * Council Member Plowman * Council Member Lamb * Council Member Fred Brown * Council Member Evans * Council Member Gibbs * Council Member Henson * Council Member James Brown * Council Member Stennett * Council Member Stinnett No council members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The workshop meeting concluded with one motion brought before the council. **Adjournment of the Workshop Meeting** [timestamp: 1:36:19] Council Member Stinnett moved to adjourn the workshop meeting, with Council Member Plowman providing the second. The motion passed unanimously with no opposing votes or abstentions. ## Public Comment Council members raised several substantive concerns about the proposed Economic Development (ED) zone amendments during the meeting. **Zoning Consistency and Fairness** Council Member Massadi questioned the inconsistent treatment of ED zone parcels, noting that one parcel with a high-value medical user received different zoning provisions than another parcel that would allow retail and residential uses. Massadi asked whether these changes favored one developer over another. [timestamp: 1:25:05] **Development Sequencing** Council Member Bledsoe raised concerns about the timing of supportive uses in development, specifically the "chicken-and-egg problem" of whether restaurants, hotels, and other supportive uses could be developed before principal job-creating uses, and whether this could generate resistance from existing developments. [timestamp: 0:38:07] **Permanence and Risk** Council Member Lamb expressed wariness about the permanence of the proposed ZODA, noting that once implemented, it may be difficult to reverse if the experiment fails. [timestamp: 0:44:41] **Process and Transparency** Council Member Evans requested that the process for approving supportive and accessory uses be clearly written down to ensure consistency and transparency, rather than relying on unwritten practices. [timestamp: 0:56:38] **Economic Impacts** Council Member Gibbs worried that allowing 20% supportive uses could increase land prices further and that future demands for ED land expansion may grow louder if the zone remains underutilized. [timestamp: 1:03:35] Council Member Henson asked whether the city has a broader economic development strategy beyond zoning, noting that zoning alone may not be sufficient to compete with surrounding counties. [timestamp: 1:07:47] **Technical Clarifications** Council Member James Brown sought clarification on whether flex space and office warehouse uses are fully included in the packet and confirmed they require separate Planning Commission review. [timestamp: 1:09:23] Council Member Stennett asked whether the ED ZODA should be delayed to consider an upcoming P2 zone change, but was advised to proceed separately. [timestamp: 1:21:06] **Recommendation for Further Review** Council Member Plowman suggested that the ZODA be sent to the planning committee for further study due to complexity and lack of full consensus on key issues. [timestamp: 1:30:03] Council Member Lamb also raised concerns about restricting supportive uses like gas stations from highway-facing locations to protect the Royal Spring Aquifer wellhead protection area. [timestamp: 1:35:09] ## Contested Items The December 1, 2016 meeting featured three significant areas of disagreement among council members regarding proposed Economic Development (ED) zone amendments. **Supportive Use Ratio and Development Timing** Council members were divided on whether allowing 20% supportive uses would create a viable development environment or instead undermine the job-creating intent of the ED zone. The debate centered on a "chicken-and-egg" problem: whether permitting supportive uses would encourage development or discourage it by reducing the incentive for job creation. Some council members worried that existing developments might resist the changes, while others believed the flexibility was necessary to make projects feasible. **ZODA Permanence and Reversibility** Council Member Lamb raised concerns about the irreversible nature of the proposed zoning changes. Lamb warned that once the amendments were implemented, it could be difficult or impossible to reverse them if the experiment failed to achieve its intended outcomes. This highlighted fundamental uncertainty about whether the proposed changes would work as intended and the risks of locking the city into a long-term commitment without an exit strategy. **Consistency Across ED Zone Parcels** Council Member Massadi questioned the fairness and consistency of the proposed amendments, noting that the ED zone changes appeared tailored to favor one developer—Central Baptist—over another developer, Dennis Anderson. Massadi's concern was that the council was not applying uniform standards across different ED zone parcels, creating an inconsistent approach to zoning policy that could disadvantage some property owners while benefiting others. These three contested items reflected broader tensions between promoting economic development, protecting the integrity of zoning policy, managing risk, and ensuring equitable treatment of different stakeholders in the development process. ## ZOTA 2016-4: Amendments to Articles 23A-10 to the Economic Development (ED) Zone [timestamp: 00:08:30] The Planning Department presented a recommendation to amend the zoning ordinance for the Economic Development (ED) zone. The proposal, presented by Jim Duncan, introduces new permitted uses and modifies development standards for the zone. **Proposed Changes** The amendment adds several new permitted uses to the ED zone, including: - Breweries - Nursing homes - Hotels - Restaurants with drive-thrus - Office/warehouse flex space The proposal also establishes parameters for supportive uses, allowing them to comprise up to 20% of total development, with residential uses limited to 15% of that supportive use allocation. **Planning Commission Recommendations** The Planning Commission had previously reviewed this proposal and recommended modifications to the original staff recommendation, including: - A 20% supportive use ratio - Increased floor area ratio - Increased building height allowances **Discussion Topics** The workshop discussion addressed the rationale behind the proposed amendments, stakeholder input received during the review process, and various concerns raised by the body. Specific concerns mentioned included timing of the amendments, consistency with existing zoning framework, and potential long-term impacts on the ED zone. **Outcome** The ordinance advanced to first reading. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Adjournment of the workshop meeting --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End The End Thank you. Thank you. The End I'm sorry. Good afternoon. It's a council workshop risotto 2016-4, December 1st, 2016. I think we have a quorum in the room, and there's a couple people who will be here in a moment. So I think we need to get started. I know that we have a lot to cover, and we have an absolute stop time because we have a council meeting at 6 o'clock. So, welcome everybody. And we're going to start, and I will ask Mr. Duncan to begin with a presentation from the Planning Department. Thank you, Vice Mayor, members of the Council, for this opportunity to address you on this issue. This is a somewhat complex and certainly consequential issue that we've brought before you, and I think this setting will allow us to talk more about the history of the ED zone and the expansion area and the issues that were associated with this that brought us to this point and certainly the recommendations that are before you now. so we do appreciate this opportunity to address you. This is an issue that has been formally in the making since the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. At that time, the Planning Commission, looking at the available land in the urban service area, wondered aloud and in writing why the 500-plus acres of expansion area ED zone had not developed in any meaningful way in the nearly 20 years that it had been in existence. So they ask in that question as a task for one of the implementation items for the 2013 Comprehensive Plan for us to review the ED zone and the issues associated with it in hopes of addressing what the problems might be, why it hasn't developed, and offering solutions as to how the ED zone could be more purposeful for economic development purposes. Just to be clear, the ZODA is Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment. So what we have brought before you is a recommendation to amend the zoning ordinance, in particular the ED section of the zoning ordinance, or the Economic Development. ED is shorthand for ED land use, Economic Development land use, and Economic Development zone, entirely contained in the expansion area. And today we will discuss the process and the issues that we covered to date and then talk about what the next steps might be for this. To get you oriented to where the ED land is in the urban service area, it can only be, it's a zone just like B1 or R3, but it can only be in the expansion area. So it was established in 1996 with all the other expansion area zones. and there is an expansion area three on the north side of town and then expansion area two on the east side. And in a moment, we'll look particularly where those are located. As I said, the comprehensive plan compelled us to look at this because the ED was not fulfilling its goal, and yet we were being told and we were being given a lot of information that we don't have sufficient land available for job development. This was in the 2013 plan and even in the 2007 plan. And yet we look at these two large tracts of over 500 acres and wonder why they're not contributing to our economic development growth. So that was what the Planning Commission through the Comprehensive Plan asked us to do. In light of that, we also went back and looked at what is the intent of the ED zone. and this is from the zoning ordinance, the purpose of the Economic Development Zone is to provide land in the expansion area for employment opportunities, for jobs, for economic development, that is compatible with the overall character of the development in the Expansion Area Master Plan in relationship to other expansion area land uses. So the idea was that in 1996 when this was created, the ED Zone would be different than the I-1 zone, and it would even be different than the P1 or the P2. It was supposed to be, at that time, a modern and contemporary version, a blend of the I1 and the I2, so the heavy uses and the more contemporary office part. So to look closer at where these two areas are, the one on the north side of town, expansion area 3, to orient you, on the west side is Newtown Pike. Across the road is Main Chance Farm. The northern boundary, the notched area, is the urban service boundary. So this particular ED land use abuts the urban service boundary. On the east is Russell Cave Road, and then along the south is Interstate 6475. This is about 350 acres. To further orient you in this area, there are several restaurants, Cracker Barrel, Waffle House, McDonald's, in this area. For the most part, the rest of this area is undeveloped. This particular piece of about 350 acres is owned by Dennis Anderson. The other ED area on the east side of town is adjacent to the interstate, 75 on the west, Polo Club Boulevard on the east, Winchester Road along the north, and then the boundary here abuts the CC Zone in the expansion area where the Cabela's and the Costco stores are. The point comes near where Manowar Boulevard is here. This has not been completely zoned. I should point out that the purple represents that this land has been zoned. About two-thirds of this particular section has been zoned. 129 acres belongs to Baptist Health, Central Baptist, and then the remaining 86, which has not been zoned and is the original zone, the agricultural rural zone from when it was brought in in 1996, is owned by the Calgill family. So following the directive of the Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Commission, the Commissioner of Planning, Dr. Paulson, organized a work group with the sole purpose of studying the issues related to the Economic Development Zone. This included 16 members. It included all three owners of these properties, the Calgill family, the Anderson, Dennis Anderson, and Central Baptist, as well as Councilmember Stennett, Planning Commission member Berkley, and Kevin Atkins from the Mayor's office, as well as economic development experts from the community, including Commerce Lexington and others. We began meeting about two years ago and met through May of 2015, a total of nine meetings. It was a fairly intensive time to meet. We were meeting frequently and coming back with new issues, resolving and moving on where we could. Early on, we identified seven major issues associated with economic development in general and perhaps this area in particular, but the ones that focused on the question the Planning Commission asked in the Comprehensive Plan and most pertinent to the ED zone was, why has this zone developed at a slow rate compared to others in the expansion area, noting that the CC zones are doing very well, the residential is moving apace, but nothing is happening in the ED zone. And then, more consequentially, what changes would lead us to a conclusion that this ED zone might perform better? Early on, we established the premise that our goal in this work group was to fix the ED zone, not to dismantle it. The goal was still to ensure that the ED zone was available to provide jobs and in a compatible fashion with the rest of the expansion area. To look at the ED zones in relationship to where the other jobs lands are in the community, Again, we've got the EA3 and the EA2 EDs sort of on the edges of the urban area. Most of the I1, the industrial land in the purple, is on the northern part of town. The office, the P1, scattered into the southern part of town. and then the 1P2 area we have, the Coldstream Research Park, Caddy Corner from the EA3. So through the nine meetings of the work group and as they concluded, we addressed a number of issues. We talked about things not related to the zone itself, to the ZODA itself, and in fact, Dr. Paulson gave you all an update on Tuesday about the infrastructure program. and that was discussed through this process as a way of offsetting the infrastructure costs in these areas. We also talked about assembling an economic development team from across government that could expedite requests and applications for economic development use. But those are not part of the ordinance, so that's not really before you, but I did want you to know that other issues related to promoting and supporting job development in the community, particularly for these zones, were part of the discussion. But when we got right down to it, what the group was looking at is the zone itself, and is there anything about this zone that needs to be modernized, to be updated, in order to make it more attractive for development. The conclusion was that we needed to increase some of the principal permitted uses, which are recommended now. We also developed a set, sort of a new language, of supportive uses that would accompany the principal uses. These would be a percentage of the total amount of development for the area. So a supportive use would be a by-right principal use, but only up to a certain percent of the total use. And these uses included sort of the non-jobs uses, such as hotels and restaurants, as well as included a percentage of residential, of multifamily and townhouse residential. Other issues, we wanted to address the whole thing, not just the uses, but all the provisions of the ED zone. So we looked at the intensity of the zone requirements and the open space requirements, and the committee at that point decided to leave those decisions to the Planning Commission rather than try to work on those themselves. The Planning Commission was probably better qualified to do that, So they passed that on to the Planning Commission. And as the committee was finishing its work, they really did agree very well on what the additional permitted uses should be, what the supportive uses should be, and what type of residential uses should be. What they did not agree on was the ratio of those. So again, the supportive uses were going to be a percentage of the total development there. The property owners favored a much higher percentage than the rest of the team did, and they never did really come to a consensus. So we narrowed it down to between 15% and 20%, and at that point the commissioner said we're going to split the baby. So we forwarded to the Planning Commission a recommendation of 17.5% of supportive uses, knowing full well that that clunky, odd number was going to generate further discussion through the planning commission process. I also should add that during this process, we didn't just leap into talking about what additional uses do we need to have. Before we even got to that point, we asked Commerce Lexington, as a member of the work group, to also update us on what kinds of uses that they themselves were recruiting and what uses they were showing an interest in Lexington. So they gave us a very thorough report at one of our meetings about the uses that they are pursuing and what the demands of those uses are based on building size, building versus land, land size, and that sort of thing. So we had all of that information going in, knowing that a modern economic development program in a community is different perhaps than it was 50 years ago. And with that in mind, then, the additional permitted uses and supportive uses recommendations were generated. Following the work group, which finished its report in May, the staff assembled that into a packet that we could present to the Planning Commission, And in fall of 2015, last year, we began the first of five work session discussions with the Planning Commission, where we explained just what we're talking about today, what the work group did, who they were composed of, what kind of information the work group had, and what recommendations they put forward. We told the Planning Commission that there were several issues that they would have to resolve, including the ratio. At that point, by the time of the June work session, which was the last work session the Planning Commission had on this of this year, the Planning Commission agreed to advance a recommendation of 15% of supportive uses for consideration at their public hearing. They held their public hearing on August 25th of this year, received a number of comments from the audience, most of them from the property owners themselves associated with the ratio issue. They at that time were asking for 30% rather than the offered 15%. The Planning Commission grappled with this, and through a series of motions that did not pass, ended up settling on 20%. So they raised their initial recommendation to 20% of the uses could be supportive uses, left the residential recommendation at 15% of the 20%. We'll talk about that number in just a moment. And then resolve the issues of the dimensions. We'll cover all those in just a moment. But let's talk about what are some of the new uses that are proposed for the zone. The principal uses that were developed by the work group and forwarded by the Planning Commission include breweries, nursing homes, flex space, office warehouse, ag research, and the supportive uses, which can only be provided as part of the development of some of these other principal uses. All of the other principal uses that were presently in the ED remain in place. The new supportive uses that are recommended, and again, these are principal uses. They're not conditional uses, so they don't need an additional approval. They're just limited as to how many of these they can do. Some of these were actually accessory or conditional uses already in the ED zone, and they were advanced to this level to be a bigger part of the picture. The ones that are catching the most attention are the food service and the hotels and motels. The food service was developed by the work group without a drive-through, The Planning Commission added the drive-thrus during their discussions. And then other uses, banks, nursery schools, and gas stations. So perhaps the three most recognizable new uses in this area that would perhaps have the highest impact would be the hotels and motels, the restaurants with drive-thrus, and the gas stations. And then in addition, the residential, which at this time in the proposal is limited to 15% of the 20%, or to simplify that, 3% of the developed uses in the ED could be residential. This is limited to multifamily residential or a mixed-use residential where the housing is above a non-residential use or attached townhouses. The question about how do we ensure that this is happening, that the amount of residential and the amount of supportive uses, that's all controlled through the development plan process. I'll say a word about that in a moment as well. But to finish up what the work the Planning Commission did, looking at the intensity issues associated with ED, they increased the floor area ratio from .75 to 1. and in so doing that really compelled them to also increase the building height to 120 feet from 90 feet. They did not change the requirement of a minimum requirement of 25% open space, but they did allow that that could be clustered throughout the development to create more of an open space system rather than just having an individual lot with 25%. So again, the development plan would show throughout the course of the entire development how the 25% open space is met. It may be met in a larger form here than it is here, but we hope that that would offer a more purposeful open space system. A lot of things are not recommended with this change, and for the most part they were not discussed nor asked for, even at the work group or at the Planning Commission. But just to be clear, this proposal does not include single-family detached houses. That could not be a part of this. Nor could big-box retail, and our definition of that is something more than 80,000 square feet. So that is not part of the proposal as well. After the Planning Commission hearing in August, we heard several comments about the inclusion of office warehouse and flex space projects as principal uses in the ED and the concerns about what the outcome of that might be and how that might change the picture of the ED zone. In some instances, I do want to remind that warehousing was already a permitted use in the ED as an accessory use. So warehousing as part of a manufacturing process is already permitted right now. But what the FlexSpace project and the Office Warehouse Mixed-Use project would do would really provide an opportunity for adaptation into the future as economic development needs and characteristics change. We've seen some of this applied, particularly on Moore Drive here in town, where something in a B4 that was really more, started out more as a B4 type use, small manufacturing also ended up including a retail component to it, maybe some more storage to it. And yet in that environment, that was not disrupted to the other uses or to the infrastructure. So those kind of spaces could be approved without impact. What is important to note on the flex space and the office warehouse is both of those have to be approved as separate projects by the Planning Commission. So the Planning Commission would see on a development plan that an applicant wants to propose an office warehouse or a flex space project. And then the Planning Commission would determine, well, does that really make sense? because when we're thinking about these flex space and office projects, we're really looking more at areas that have already been developed, areas that have a mixture of zones and buildings that were built for a former use. We don't think about it so much on the undeveloped areas, so this is not something that we would expect would be applicable immediately. And if an applicant wanted to use one of these now, He would have to demonstrate why what he's doing is keeping with the intent of the ED zone. But having this in place would be something for the coming years as economic development needs change, as the individual business itself changes. It would allow them to grow and expand in place until such time they needed to move someplace else. Central Baptist used the example that they may be getting more into medical research themselves. And so if they set up a laboratory to do some work and then brought in a company to sort of take that over and turn that into a manufacturing site or a sales site, then that would be a simplification of what this type of use would be. But the idea would certainly be not to turn the ED land into warehouses. We think that would be a completely inefficient use of that land. It would take up a lot of land without creating the jobs, which is the intent of the ED. So it would be incumbent upon the Planning Commission for the staff's advice to ensure that any flex space or office warehouse project that was proposed was in keeping with the intent of the zone. And then, as I said, there were also questions about the timing of the supportive uses and how do we ensure that what is being requested as supportive use, such as fast food restaurants, hotels, and residents, don't get ahead of the principal uses, which are meant to provide jobs and income for the community. and we believe that process will be controlled through the development plan. We would expect that the applicant would bring in a preliminary development plan for the entire site that would lay out the relationships between the supportive uses, residential, and the principal uses and show those in a way that can be calculated. And then as they bring in the individual development plans, we would expect that they would bring in a building of a certain size and if they wanted a supportive use or a residential use along with that, then what they would be showing would be the appropriate percentage of that size as well. So the question of timing gets controlled through the development plan process and through the zoning, through the permitting process. And then just to bring us up to date on where we are on the calendar, following the Planning Commission public hearing and the questions afterwards, then this was placed on your agenda and given first reading on September 29th. Since the August hearing, we have also had other pending ZOTAs come our way, and we felt like it was important to tell you about those so that you would know that these are also jobs-related requests. We believe they are separate and apart from the issue before you, but did want to tell you just a little bit about them. UK this fall has asked us for changes to the P2 zone. Again, that's the Coldstream Park on the north side of town. P2 is described as the Office Industry Research Park Zone, and Coldstream Campus is the only P2 zone we have in the community. That is scheduled to be heard by the Planning Commission, that ZODA, in two weeks from today. And then, following the recommendations for the ED zone, a property owner has also asked that we make some changes to the ED zone or some changes in some context to accommodate future ED zones of a small nature. and this particular request was for a tract of land that is in the expansion area, but it is not zoned nor is it designated for zoning to ED. But it is an unusual tract of land that we believe needs perhaps a bold response to it in order to develop. The representatives for that property owner have asked for some changes to the ED zone to accommodate that, and that is scheduled for the Planning Commission in January. And just one more orientation reminder, the P2, the 700-acre Coldstream Research Park, Caddy Corner, from the ED and the EA3 area. At this point, you all have before you the ZODA that has been recommended by the Planning Commission. we believe that you can schedule the ED ZOTA as is or with modest changes for second reading or hold a public hearing at some future date. And you all recall that you did have a public hearing scheduled at the end of August and canceled that in favor of this workshop. If you feel like that the ED ZOTA that's been put before you is not what you don't have a full grasp of it, or you may want to make significant changes to it, some that might even need to go back for review by the Planning Commission, then our recommendation would be that this be assigned to committee and studied further. There is no time limit on this, so we can spend the time that we need to to get this right if we don't think that it is. And with that, Vice Mayor, I will be happy to address any questions that you have, but I see that my wonderful, supportive staff has joined me. So between the three of us, we should be able to address your questions. Great. Thank you very much. There are a few people signed on already. I'll start recognizing them first. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Jim, for the synopsis. Can you give me a little bit more specifics as far as the composition of the members of the ED workgroup? I think you named three or four. My concern was specifically, were there any agricultural folks on there, any commercial real estate, residential real estate, and neighborhood groups? I'll run down the list of names and the organizations they represented. Dr. Paulson was the commissioner. Skip Alexander, representing Baptist Health. Dennis Anderson, representing his property. Betty Calgill and his daughter, Christy Harris, representing their property. Eric Mundy and Melody Flowers, both from UK's finance administration. Jenna Greathouse, Kimberly Rossetti, both from Commerce Lexington. Price Bell, we had him listed for a variety of reasons. His general expertise because of his history of relationship to this type of development that's proposed in the ED text amendment in Nashville, but also because of his association with the horse farm industry in the area. Herb Miller of Columbia Gas and Commerce Lexington. Will Berkley, member of the Planning Commission, who is also professionally an appraiser. Council Member Kevin Stennett, Kevin Atkins from the Mayor's Office, Economic Development from the Mayor's Office, and then Jonathan Hollinger, and at the time, Chris King. So those were the 16 members of the committee. Okay, and I guess the million-dollar question is, what was the reason that you all determined that you just couldn't get this up and going? I mean, was there a consensus? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the— What was the consensus of the group as why this just hasn't been successful? There were a variety of reasons. There was some concern about, first of all, the cost of the land itself, and comparing that to what adjacent counties charge per acre for this type of land. Adjacent counties charge 10% or even less than what Fayette County offers their jobs-related land. So cost of land was an issue. The exactions to a point, but really what the property owners said was the main issue was the limitations of the land uses themselves. And they said that they needed to have in a modern office park, a modern business park environment, They needed to be able to offer these supportive uses where workers could live on site, where executives coming in to visit would have a convenient place to stay, where people who work on site and live on site would have a convenient place to get something to eat. So that's what the property owners told us, and that was supported by the economic development leaders to an extent. They also agreed that modern business and modern office parks look different than they did 20, 30 years ago, and that what is proposed is one way of addressing that change. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to keep going on the line Council Member Sade was kind of going on. I think it's interesting that that's kind of why it hasn't been used so far, is that we need the supportive uses. But my question is, based on the timing element of this in a market environment, how would that work? If we have to have the development before we can have the supportive uses, and the supportive uses are what they think is going to generate the development, and if you can't have A before B, how do you think that's going to work and be successful? And that was a question that was raised during the process, too. And certainly the concern was that the supportive uses, if they get too far ahead, that the principal uses would never follow then. And we would just end up with another commercial development. The thing is, the compromise on that is that they don't have to wait until after. They can be concurrent. So a business, an office building, a manufacturing facility, one of the uses could be built at the same time as the restaurant, the hotel, or the residence. So one doesn't have to wait until the other one, but they do have to at least go march together. Well, wouldn't you be able, and I'm just asking naively this question, but wouldn't the guidelines limit the development already by percentage? So they couldn't turn into a full commercial property or full development. You'd have to reserve that space for manufacturing regardless of the timing, right? Well, the problem, and we found this in development across the urban service area, particularly with multifamily development, if somebody arrives first and sort of establishes themselves and then something else comes along that's perceived to be a threat to that, it can be very difficult to get that through the approval process. So if we put in a lot of residential and some commercial and then try to bring in a manufacturing facility, we're concerned that we would meet with the resistance to develop that manufacturing facility from the people who have already established themselves there. I see what you're saying. Okay, I get that, and I can respect that. I do think it's very challenging in a market environment to control those elements and be successful, and I'm not sure even doing all these things will allow that to be successful. It's just kind of my thought there for right now. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Chair. I want to first of all thank my colleagues about a month ago. I think you remember that I had asked for a workshop. I think I had about four weeks behind me of experience in all three of the areas that we're talking about when the ED are located in the 12th District. So I thank you, and I thank the Planning Commission for taking the time to come here today and explain this more in detail. I think there's a lot here to digest. One of the things that kind of added the starting gate for me is, why would this not be a zone change versus a ZODA approach to it? In part, the expansion area can only be the zones that are described in the expansion area master plan. So without going through some more significant changes to the ordinance, You could not come in and ask for this to be a B3 or a B1 or an I1 or something like that. Those zones just don't work in the expansion area. They're tied to exactions. They're tied to the policies of the expansion area. So all of the zones were created in the expansion area for a particular purpose, for their compatibility, for the exaction process, and all of that. So it couldn't be something else. The other answer is that we feel like making an incremental step with this would still keep the intent of the ED zone, but allow us to experiment with some other options to see if that's going to move this along. And by moving incrementally, if we see that we've not done enough, and yet a little bit more would be more attractive, then we can come back and make that adjustment. But if we start at this level and attempt to move up, perhaps that will get us where we need to be. You kind of addressed this before, and that had to do with over the past 20 years, there hasn't been a lot of activity. Have you been tracking what activity did try to come into this property? And I know you mentioned restrictions, landowners. They didn't really desire the type of entities that were trying to come. Have you tracked? Is there a number? We don't have that information, but we do know that from talking with Commerce Lexington and the property owners that some of the reasons that these haven't developed, in addition to the limitations that have been described, are some of the preferences of the property owners as well. Central Baptist, for instance, is only going to want one thing, and they know what they want. They, in fact, petitioned the council to change the text ten years ago and were successful in doing that so that they could build their medical campus. And at some point, we expect that they will do that on that site. But the remaining sites have been sort of the preference of the property owners combined with the limitations of the zone. So those two things together have kept them from developing fully. And my last comment question would be, 20 years ago, when this was identified as EG, the intent was for economic development with higher-paying jobs in other areas. Is that correct? Well, the intent was to really combine the old smokestacks of the I-1 with the modern office park of a P-2, P-1 and P-2, and put those together so that you would still have contemporary, modern, clean manufacturing, but as well you could have office headquarters and research and those kinds of things. But the bottom line was that this was meant to be jobs paying land, good jobs, and to be compatible with the rest of the expansion area land uses. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And now Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have several questions, but the one thing I want to say is just something you just said about the experimenting. That's kind of scary because once it's done, I don't know if there's any way of reversing an experiment gone wrong. So your comment kind of makes me a little wary. And while that thought's on our lips, that was part of where we got to an answer finally with the planning commission because they were grappling with what number to advance to you all. And we suggested to them if they stay low, that that gets us moving forward. And if we see that that number isn't working, then we can go back and revisit that and go higher. It would be highly unlikely that we could claw that back and go lower if we felt like we had made a mistake. Okay. The other is, and I've tried to delve into this, and I probably have read too much probably, but that's just what I do. The B4 zone, wasn't that originally included with the EAMP or the expansion area or the ED zone at the very beginning? The B4 uses? Yeah, I might be saying it incorrectly. There would be some crossover with a certain amount of office and manufacturing, but the B4 itself was not part of the ED proposal from the beginning. Every one of the zones was developed anew. Now, they may have pulled from some of the existing characteristics of the zoning ordinance, but ED itself was not described as B4 as part of the expansionary master plan. And it's really just the opposite of what they wanted, because the concern with B4, which can be more warehousing and take up a lot of land, that would really be what we didn't want in our higher-paying jobs land. Okay, but it sounds to me like that what is being proposed is more opportunities of B4. Am I misunderstanding that? Well, with the Flex Space and the Office Warehouse Project, But that does, as I said, enables a business to have, for lack of a better word, flexibility in how it gets started and how it grows and how it expands before perhaps it needs to move on to another location. We have numerous examples of successful companies, one being our fan company here in town that started in one capacity, and as it grew, it needed to move to another location entirely. So we see that the advantage of this, first of all, there's the protection of the Planning Commission having to approve these as development plan projects and showing that what is proposed is compatible with the rest of the ED and with the expansion area. But then also it's another component of what we are being told is a modern and future business and office research type environment where they need some flexibility to be able to maneuver within their business model as it changes or expands until such a point that they have to make a completely different decision altogether. So we wouldn't want to get somebody who's starting out and growing in a non-conforming situation before they're ready to move on to a more appropriate or better location for them. Okay, moving on to, I know these exaction fees, and I've tried to read up on that. I understand that puts an insurmountable expense on the property owners, and I know we are working for, Dr. Paulson was introducing the infrastructure fund, And I guess I'm wondering if there is any benefit in waiting to see if that actually provides any relief to the property owners at this point before moving forward, because you would still hold the intent of what was originally planned for the ED zone. and obviously the exactions are important, but they're also very costly to the property owners. What the property owners actually told us during the work group process, and again, they were faithful participants. They also, by the way, audited the Planning Commission work session process, so they've been with us the whole way, was that they acknowledged that certainly exactions are an issue, but they are not the overriding issue. For instance, Mr. Anderson's exactions, certainly not an inconsequential number at $39,000 an acre, but that's less than half of what Central Baptists are at over $81,000 per acre. So the exactions can be recouped in other ways, and that's in part back to Ms. Bledsoe's question about the viability of these non-supportive businesses coming in, that we were told that the premium sites and premium costs of premium sales could go to these supportive uses, the hotels, the chain restaurants and gas stations, and then the remaining land could be better discounted and sold. So that's the way that that business model, in short, would work for the whole development. But the exactions were not the lead problem. They were not mentioned as the insurmountable problem. And, in fact, they're proceeding with some of their exactable infrastructure at this time. So I agree that we still want to get that in place and offer that as an incentive, but I don't believe that that alone, based on our conversations, would be sufficient to move this any faster than it already has. My time is out, so I'll have to wait until the next because I do have some more questions. So thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fred Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I know you went through the spill and the property owners got involved in all the information. Are they supportive of this, Zoda? They are supportive of the uses. They consent to the additional permitted uses, the supportive uses, and the type of residential that's being proposed, the multifamily townhouse. They would prefer to have a higher percentage of supportive uses and a much higher percentage of residential uses. But the flexibility has been afforded them in changing with the ZODA change, right? Yes. And this is not where you would have a zone change, so they wouldn't be asking for a public hearing. So there's nothing else the property owners can do at this point? Well, there's still one more portion. The Calgill property has not been zoned to ED yet, so that would still need to come before you, before the Planning Commission and the Council at some point. This is done 20 years ago? 1996, yes. Okay. I was on the council then, and I remember that we were really trying to use that land. I believe it was 5,400 acres. Is this included in that 5,400 acres? That's right. That we were really trying at that time, and there was a lot of discussion, a lot of meetings. We were trying to do the best for everything. Obviously, the rest of the expansion area has worked out, I guess. I know there's been zone changes, but these two areas did not come about. Evidently, at that time, we felt like that we were looking into the future and that this ED land would be great, a great opportunity for the community and for the developers or whatever. It hasn't worked out. So you're going back, what you're talking about here is tweaking this particular properties with a ZODA change to make it more compatible and get it developed. And tweaking may be too light of a word, but certainly expanding the flexibility of this zone to make it more viable as a jobs creator. Let me ask you one other question leading into we're going to be looking at, I guess, 2018 expansion area master plan again. Is that correct? Not necessarily. What we'll be doing is looking at we'll be updating the comprehensive plan for 2018. And certainly we believe a question during that process will be do we need to expand the urban service boundary. Would these properties play into effect at that time if there was expansion? Would these properties play and they could add, the property owners could actually put those into the expansion area under a different zoning idea? I believe at this point if we were to expand the urban service boundary that we would need to look at how we do that and whether we want to adopt the tenants of the expansionary master plan or come up with a whole new scheme altogether. Since that plan is 20 years old, I think we would actually want to look at, if we were to expand the urban service boundary, to look at a more contemporary version of what our needs are and how we would propose those to be developed. Well, especially with these zones, this ED, economic development properties, that didn't work or hasn't worked. So, you know, maybe we need to do something differently. But this ZODA change looks like it's a pretty good compromise. The planning staff is supporting it. And then the planning commission went 7-3, I believe, to support it. What's the next steps again? I think you've mentioned that. We have a variety of options. You can go ahead and advance this either for second reading or for a public hearing like you were going to have at the end of October. Or if you felt like you wanted to have more discussion about this, then we would recommend that you maybe sign it to a committee and spend some more time with it that way. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Did I understand you correctly when you said that the office warehouse mixed use was already allowed in the ED zone originally? What I said was that there is some warehouse already allowed as an accessory use presently in the ED. So as an accessory to some of the manufacturing or other uses in the ED, warehousing is a permitted accessory use. Accessory meaning it can't be there unless the principal use is there also. Is there, and I don't think there is, but was there a limit to how much of the area that could take up? Did I stump you? The limit is that it certainly is not supposed to be more than what the principal use is. So the idea is that you wouldn't have a 100,000-square-foot warehouse and a 1,000-square-foot office or manufacturing facility. So that would be out of balance if that was the case. And I think that kind of leads into another thought that I had was that, And I'm big for seeing the process actually written down. And while we've got the ordinances, I think it would be helpful for me anyway to actually see how you're going to write this process out. Because going back to the shoveling the snow on the sidewalk kind of thing, it's great we can have, say, this is going to be our policy, but it's always an unwritten policy. And that's the thing that concerns people. I'd rather see it in writing, so it's going to be consistent for everyone, and everyone can see that this, and it's going to be uniform. So I'm wondering if there's something that can be drafted up, or if that language can be, where that language would be. I know it probably can't be in the ordinance, but where would all of that policy language be written down? Well, we believe that it is sufficiently institutionalized in the zoning ordinance. And accessory uses are not just in the expansion area but throughout the urban service area. And in some instances those may be left to interpretation by staff or enforcement staff or review by the Planning Commission or the Board of Adjustment if this is something that has to be treated as a violation. and we have the experience doing that. We certainly have the institution of the zoning ordinance and other instances where we've had to address this. So we believe that we have the tools that we need to ensure that what is accessory remains subordinate and in smaller scale to what is principal. Okay. And then I think my last issue was I read the minutes that were provided by someone from one of the meetings. I'm curious if whatever this zone is going to end up being and whatever business can be their businesses, the main businesses we're looking for, because there seemed to be the discussion that Commerce Lex is just looking for businesses to come in and there are certain types of businesses and certain types of land that they need and all these different factors that play in. And I don't know if this is just going to be Commerce Lex or if this is something that the city and maybe we as a council need to commit to. I don't know. But whatever these businesses are that are perfect for this land, how are we going to advertise or be committed to getting that? because that seems to be the biggest problem that Commerce Lex was saying. We've got people, we come in second or third, but they always go someplace else. It seems like we're really going to have to be committed to finding the businesses that are perfect for this land in order for it to work because, yeah, I mean, that's the fear, understanding that the land is so expensive. I think we're just going to have that problem. That's the growth of Lexington, that businesses are going to go out of county. So I'm just curious, what are we going to do to seek out those businesses that's going to make this land productive if we do change this? So that's a good question. It's one that when we first started this work group, we discussed. And what we said is it was beyond the scope of this work group and beyond the scope of the Division of Planning and Zoning, and that this really needed to be – it was part of the whole work that we needed to do. I think what we decided was we needed to look at the land, why has it not worked for 20 years, what are the barriers to it, and how do we start addressing those. But kind of in concert with that, I think we really needed to look, and it was discussed during these meetings, what is it we need to do in terms of how we go about economic development? And does that also need to be looked at, and do we need to adjust that in how we go forward? Because the land is one part of it, exactions are one part of it, the flexibility of the zone, that's all part of it, the cost, but there are other aspects to it as well. And it was beyond the discussion of the uses of the land, but we felt it was something that probably should be discussed at a council committee or some other sort of a work group. But it was something that we discussed but felt that it was beyond the scope of what we were talking about. Thank you. Council Member Gibbs. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Jim, thanks for your report. I want to probe on a couple areas, and they're not necessarily consistent, but some things I've just been mulling over my brains. and you can probably just speculate at best. I know I can't hold you to speculations, but you say there's research that new decades that developments like this tend to work out pretty well. How deep is that research? Are you confident in it? And something that goes along with that is it would seem to me if we had a successful, say, 15% of hotels, restaurants, residential, would that potentially drive up the cost of the ED land even more? Because we're already, as you said, probably 10% higher than surrounding counties. So if you could try to work on that one a little bit first, and I've got another one. And I may have misspoken my math. We're much higher than 10%. Okay, I'm sorry. What I thought was 10%. The other communities are selling their property at 10% of the cost of ours. Oh, that's right. I got that wrong. Thank you. But I'll work backwards on that again. As I said, what we were told was that these supportive uses could be sold at a premium and that that would then offset the discounting of the other sites. So the expectation is that by selling the restaurant and the hotel and the apartment sites at a premium would not drive up the cost of the other land. it would actually make it so that the property owner, the developer, could sell that at a more reasonable rate and bring that cost down. And now to your first question about how do we know this. Well, the property owners told us, but they alone did not tell us this. Commerce Lexington corroborated that this is what they're seeing. Our other economic development representatives on the committee said, for instance, Price Bell had done this type of development in Nashville and said this is the trend, this is the next generation of these types of developments, so we need to move in that direction. Otherwise, this land will sit here vacant forever then. Well, thank you. It's comforting to hear that this is no question a good deal for the owners. I mean, they'll make a good buck on selling this commercial residential property. Can we get in writing that they'll drop the price on the ED's stuff? I mean, I think that would be nice. But, hey, you can't answer that right now, I don't think. The other thing, this kind of goes in the other direction. This is kind of maybe much too speculation probably. But one of the things I'm concerned about is we've had this ED land laid out. And granted, it hasn't been developed to any great extent. But say we take 20 percent of that for these supportive uses, and then when we come around to the next comprehensive plan, people start screaming that we don't have enough ED land and want to expand the urban service boundary. That's one of the things that concerns me. I'm concerned about losing ED land and then being confronted with pressure to create more ED land later. Did you guys address this sort of question? That pressure already exists, and it existed in the 07 plan. The ED leaders of the community said even though we had this 500-plus acres of ED land that was vacant, they really weren't able to count that in their calculation because they weren't able to market it, they weren't able to get people interested, they couldn't get the buyer and the seller together on that. So they're already saying that we need additional land, and if we don't do anything with this, that voice is going to be even louder. If we can move this and get 80% of what we had, then we're 80% better off than we were with that. And so perhaps it might soften the demand to expand for economic development purposes in other areas if we can get this land moving. Thanks for the warning about the pressures. I'm done, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Jim, for the presentation. This gives me a much better understanding of this zone. I had similar questions to Council Member Gibbs. Since I've been on the council, I've heard we don't have enough land, we don't have enough land. So I find it unlikely, but in the case a large manufacturer decided they wanted to move into Fayette County, what would we do then? How would we identify land? Well, I'll answer that question in a variety of ways. Earlier this week, I heard the mayor say, and I'll add to what he said, something like IBM and Toyota are once-in-a-generation developments. Yet we always say, are we ready for the next Toyota if it wants to come to Fayette County? And clearly we do not have 1,000 acres of contiguous land in the urban service boundary that would be suitable for that type of development. I think that would be a major policy question. We would not, if Honda or Mercedes showed up and said they wanted to build their next manufacturing site here, I have full assurance that we would not say no thank you. I believe that we would do all we could to accommodate them and to work with them and to identify appropriate land where that would not be harmful to our other policies and goals but also be beneficial to our community. So I can't say specifically what we would do, but I do believe that we would do all we could to accommodate that. Yeah. And I guess, you know, from what I've heard, I don't have a problem with the changes to, you know, but I think, you know, we're trying to accommodate the price. we're having to accommodate because of the price of our land, because it is so expensive. So, and I think bottom line, that is why these properties have sat there so long, is because of the cost. And if we could, you know, I guess Council Member Evans made reference to, you know, incentives or something that we could possibly do to get these businesses to want to live in Lexington. And one last question, that was just my comment, but do we have an existing area like what the ED zone would look like that we could compare it to? And I'm picturing office buildings, but then restaurants and hotels. So we don't have a mirror image of what this would look like, but you can look to the Coldstream Park and see elements of that. There's an Embassy Suites in there along with their major facilities. You can look at places like the Summit and see how those are developing as office, retail, and residential uses. So we have elements of that that are emerging in the community. Okay. And I guess I just think it makes sense if we have available land within the urban service boundary that has sat there for 20 years, then we need to use it for something. So that's my thought. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And just to be clear, all the permitted principal uses and all the supported uses are included in this packet. The only variable may be the flex space or the office warehouse space, or is there any permitted principal use or supported use that's not included in this packet? Well, all the existing principal uses remain in place, so we did not repeat those. But if you've got a copy of the ordinance itself, and I believe we forwarded that to you as well, the one with the boxes around it and the strikes and the additions, that includes everything that would be permitted if this text amendment were to pass. So it includes all the uses that are presently included in the ED zone as well as the proposed ones. Okay. And then I guess as far as the flex space and the office warehouse space, the process for that would be the development plan and the permit process. That's the way that you would determine whether you allow those uses or not allow those uses? Yes, the planning commission would look at the flex space or the office warehouse project and determine whether what they're proposing meets the intent of the ordinance and whether it's compatible with the surrounding uses. So that would be presented to the Planning Commission through the staff, and we would make a recommendation to the Planning Commission based on that. Okay. And then the Cowgill property, right now it's zoned AR, but it's in the expansion area? Yes. So it wouldn't get, I mean, if we moved forward with this ED Zota, they would have to apply for a zone change to be ED area? Whether you move forward with this or not, they still have to apply for a zone change for ED, yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Before I recognize Council Members who want to speak a second time, I'm going to ask Council Member Stinnett if you'd take the chair. I'd like to get my first comments in. To follow up on some of what's already been asked, both the flex space and the office warehouse mixed use by reference say as further regulated in 821-05, 821-03. When we look at those, there is a long list of permitted uses within those references. So these are references to other sections of the zoning text. there's been some concern that when the committee looked at it and when the planning commission looked at it it was not discussed very much and that those uses are not actually listed out they're not visible except by reference I just want to make sure that I understand what's really the case that is correct the new ordinance before you lists it by reference that does not list all the other uses in the B4 zone. The work group did discuss the FlexSpace office warehouse project extensively, but they didn't run their finger down each of the uses. Their discussion centered more around having flexibility for offices, for businesses to grow, rather than trying to bring in a specific use that is listed as a permitted use in the underlying zone or in the referenced zone. The Planning Commission did not, they just simply advanced the recommendations of the work group on that issue. They spent most of their effort discussing the supportive uses and the ratio. Okay, so if I understand correctly, those permitted uses under the referenced article include, I don't want to read the whole list, it's a very long list. but I guess my question is this if we found some of those uses to be inappropriate for this proposed change is there a way for us to modify that so that it's either not directly by reference to those permitted uses or can we modify those so I'm just going to read a couple that stand out for me ice plant, tire retraining and recapping parking lots and structures, machine shop, sale, lease, use and rental of agricultural supplies, mobile homes, recreational vehicles, carnivals on a temporary basis. All that's listed in the section by reference. So if we wanted, and as I understand correctly, those would be the kinds of things that someone could come forward and say, That's what I want to do as part of my either flex space or my office warehouse mixed use. They could do that now. Theoretically, that is possible. And I believe to answer your question, Vice Mayor, if the Council wanted to specifically X some of those uses as part of this, you absolutely could do that. So we could go back to add into those sections that now say it's further regulated by and exclude from that section specifically things that we think really don't fit. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Vice Chair. I'll take the chair back. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I'm going to add on to what Vice Mayor was just talking about. If this text amendment were to be approved, do the property owners have to come back before the Planning Commission to – I know they have to present their development plans and everything, but would they have to come back, or is it just grandfathered in to the ones that have already gotten – that already have the ED zoned property? Would they have to still come back if this were to be approved before the Planning Commission? Yes, they would still need to present. If they wanted to use any of the supportive uses, they would need to come back and revise their preliminary development plans to show where these supportive uses are so that we can calculate the number of those and the amount of those in relationship to the other principal uses. So they would need to modify their development plans through the planning commission process. Okay, so now I just found out something that I didn't know. So there are already development plans in place for the existing ED properties? Yes. Okay, all right. But that accompanies a zone change. That's ordinary for a zone change to have a development plan. So that came forward when they applied for the ED at the beginning, whenever, you know, 07, 90, whenever 99. Years ago, yes. Okay. Transitional area zone was included in the EAMP zone, and this might be a question for Mr. Salley because I don't know, but it was removed from the EAMP or the expansion area, I think, as we understood. and I'm curious, what were the reasons why it was removed from the expansion area? I would be delighted for Mr. Salee to address that question. Good afternoon. Thank you, sir. The TA zone is still part of the suite of zones allowable in the expansion area. We have had one location that was previously zoned TA that has since been removed, and that may be what you're thinking of, But we do have parcels zoned TA in other areas of the expansion area. So it is a viable zone. We do have land in that zoning designation, and some of that land is even developed. It was designed to be a hybrid use between the community centers and the higher-density residential in the expansion area. Okay. All right. Thank you for that information. And then what's the zoning for the current hospitals for UK, Baptist Health, and St. Joe on their existing properties? I just am curious. I believe UK's is an AU zone. They don't have to have urban zoning. Central Baptist is P1 on Nicholasville Road. Do you all know the St. Joseph or the A? Yes, also. All P1 as well. Yes. P, P as in Paul, 1. All the other ones are P1? Yes. All right. I was just curious. With the intent of the ED zone that is to create jobs, how does 20% more supportive uses meet this intent? What the property owners told us, as well as the economic development experts on the work group, was that these were the kinds of uses that modern employers want associated with their developments. So they want to be able to offer housing for their workers. They want to be able to offer a place for their visiting executives or other customers to stay when they come into town. and certainly the restaurants just to have a place to go not only during lunch but to have activities in the evening as well, to really make sort of a town center environment for the people who are working in that area. And I guess the last thing is that I know that you mentioned the Summit property, which is in my district and is going to be a really unique design. I've watched it for years before it was developed. And it's a mixed-use development, a mixed-use zone. And it has created jobs. So I guess my question is that if ED is not creating jobs, then why not look at other options that can actually create it? I mean, because ED clearly has not, I mean, 20 years, it's not doing anything. And plus, you know, the property owners, I respect that they own their property and they want to do with what they want to do with it. I respect that. I mean, that's their – but if the intention of the expansion area in 96 was to create jobs in these ED zones and it's not working, then I'm not sure that creating all these supportive uses, and I'm just not sure that that's really going to be the answer to it. Because at the end of the day, if we're not able to bring new businesses in to Lexington that's going to fit within these specific properties, then its ED zone is not going to be what we intended it to be back in 1996. That's one of the concerns I have with it. I appreciate this conversation and my time is out again, but that's just me. So thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Jim, thank you. Good presentation. Nice overview from what's been going on two or three years now. I just want to follow back on a couple of comments you made. You said Central Baptist is coming for a P2 change. Are you recommending we wait before we bring this for consideration for final approval until they get their hearing in two weeks? Obviously, we'll be on break. Because, as you said, they're diagonal from each other, and they're very similar, and they're asking very similar things. So would you recommend us waiting and looking at them both at the same time? And just to clarify, UK and Coldstream are coming for the P2. we would recommend that those actions remain separate. We don't know what the Planning Commission is going to do on December 15th when they review this, so we would like to go ahead and see this proceed. It may be that what's proposed in the P2 is not appealing to the Planning Commission, so it's not necessarily what they're proposing is something the Planning Commission would recommend to you all. So if the Planning Commission passes the P2, would that be a zone that the landowners now could apply for and fit in the expansionary zone? No, that wouldn't change that. The P2 would still be part of the traditional urban service boundary zones. Okay. And then you mentioned exaction fees. I know, have we ever waived those in the past for any of our expansionaries? No. And does the ordinance prohibit us waiving that? I don't know if it prohibits us from doing that, but if we did waive them, then the government would have to cover the cost. So it has to be built some way or the other. I was just curious from a legal standpoint, as we've all discussed, this land hadn't produced one job in 20 years. So if we were to go in and incentivize, if a company really wanted to locate there and pay part of that, would we have to refund the people in other expansion areas that have already paid it? And that's part of what the commissioner's infrastructure program is about. That money could be used to pay down the infrastructure cost in the expansion area. Because the expansion area, if I'm not mistaken, has the highest exaction fees in the county. Well, the expansion area is the only place where there's a... I mean the ED zone. No, the CC has the highest. The CC where Cabela's and Costco are, that has the highest. And then tell me what we... We've already changed the ED zone one time in the past. We did a text amendment on the ED. Some of my colleagues weren't, obviously most of them weren't here when we did that. Explain to us what that change was, because we've already amended this before to try to get activity. And do you want to explain what we did? Yes, in 06, Central Baptist Hospital came to the Planning Commission with a proposal that they wanted to build a regional medical campus in the ED. and the text at that time did not permit what they wanted to do, certainly to the scale that they wanted to do so. So they wrote a text amendment and then put in a number of conditions that for the most part isolated where a regional medical campus could be and that is at the site that is shown for them. Now it's possible to have a regional medical campus in Mr. Anderson's site, but it would be much smaller and a much different scale. But what came in and was before you all in January of 2007 was that change that added the regional medical campus, and that was for Baptist Health. And they tell us they intend to follow through on that at some point. Yeah, I think so. And then are they allowed to have fast food or any living spaces as part of that regional campus for medical? They can certainly have restaurants associated with their buildings as they do now, coffee shops and that sort of thing, and some assisted living facilities, that kind of residential on-site. Okay. My last question was, you know, we're focused on three parcels that are ED now. Has any other parcel in Fayette County applied to go to ED zone change? No other parcel has formally applied, although we understand that a parcel is interested in doing so. But none to date have applied for ED zone? No. Okay. Outside of the zones that were designated in the expansionary master plan. So no one's come forward and said, hey, this is a great zone. We want it. Right. No. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Massadi. Thank you. I wanted to follow up on some of what Council Member Stenet was saying. It seems to me, when you look at these two different parcels, the one that is 346 acres, is for one specific developer who has different uses in mind. When you look at the EA2 with 129 acres, you have one specific user. And that one specific user seems to me that it's going to afford more economic development opportunity than there would be in the 346 because we've got one user whose jobs aren't going to be retail jobs. They're going to be jobs from physicians to physical therapists to pharmacists, a myriad of different types. So that's what you're looking for, I'm assuming. So how can these two parcels then be, how can we be consistent? Because we've got, we're making, it seems like we're making amends for one development as opposed to the other. And that's what I'm worried about is the consistency here. Because we've got a user right here for the 129 that's exactly what we're looking for. Economic development, high-end jobs, whatever. We don't have that in this other parcel. And in order to make that work, we're going to have to put the retail in at seven and a quarter an hour and some of these others. And I get the numbers here, but I'm not sure that's what we're trying to accomplish because you all said you haven't been able to do it for 20 years. And we're kind of going backwards then, in my opinion. Well, based on the information that we've been given and certainly the best practices that we know about ourselves, that this giving up some of this industrial jobs, land, for these supportive uses in order to get something of nothing that we have now, we see as a win for certainly the property owner and the community as well. I can understand that, but I think Council Member Budso touched on that too, the chicken or the egg. So you go ahead and you put a developer in. Maybe you put some multifamily in there and you put some retail and some other ancillary uses. It's somebody like IBM saying, you know, I liked it there. It looks good. I'm going to go in there. But now there's 75 acres or 100 acres used. That footprint's not big enough. We're going to have to go someplace else. I think we need to focus on that scope that Commissioner Polson said that we haven't focused on. What Commerce Lexington also told us, that most of the people they're looking at are looking at existing buildings, but they're also looking at smaller parcels of land as well, the people they're trying to recruit. So it may not be that we necessarily have to keep the 300 acres intact for one user. It may very well be that we can divide that into 20 and 30 acre tracts and still attract a variety of principal users that are jobs creators while weaving through that a small percentage of non-jobs users. So this is in part what they're telling us, that they're not really trying to market necessarily 200 and 300 acres at a time. They're looking at smaller parcels as well, particularly amongst the types of uses that Commerce Lexington is targeting for Lexington. And has anybody been trying to market this parcel at all? Do you know? Has a developer at all? Maybe he has. I just don't know. We hear that he has and that just the right fit has not come along for him. Okay. Well, lots of questions out there still, I think. Thank you so much. That's all, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Evans. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a quick question. What are considered modest changes? Which kind of goes back to Vice Mayor Kay's comment. When does crossing out whatever use, if that's a route to go, when do we cross out too much to say that's? No, crossing out would be a modest change because it's something that the Planning Commission actually considered. It would be when we start to add something that the Planning Commission did not consider at all that we would want to potentially take that back for their review. But the Planning Commission saw that these potential uses were on there, and they either commented on them or they advanced them without comment. But if the Council chooses to strike something, that would not necessarily send this back for further review by the Planning Commission. Thank you. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We've been all asking a lot of questions, and you've done a great job of answering them. But I think there's a lot here. I really don't believe we can make a motion or I can make a motion, but I think it would be very sensible to send this to the planning committee for us to really take a longer look at it. And I think that was one of your next steps that you even recommended as one of our options. But at the appropriate time, I will make that motion. I don't think I can do that here today. Councilmember Lamb, as parliamentarian, would you like to comment on the question? Well, the reason I signed in is I do have one more question about the 1EAR, and I was going to ask if I would be allowed to speak three times. But as parliamentary goes, I would think that, I mean, we are not in the body of making decisions at this point, so it is not the proper time to bring forward motions at this time. And since this was the workshop was set up at a work session, as opposed to the council meeting, which, anyway, that's another conversation. I would think that it would be appropriate to do that at a work session. Thank you. Before I recognize you, let me make sure that Council Member Plowman is— is that all you had at this point? Yes. Okay. So then before I recognize Council Member Lamb to ask for a suspension of the rules to allow her to speak again, I'd like to turn the chair back over to Council Member Stinnett. I have a further comment if I can. Thank you. A question about the supportive uses. Is it within our purview, or within the Planning Commission's purview, I don't know, whoever, to identify location for those supportive uses? So what I'm asking is, can we say, yeah, you can have supportive uses, but you can't put the gas station on the highway or on the major road because that's not a supportive use. That's a highway use. If you want a gas station in the middle of the development, great. If you want residential, but make sure it's buffered from the rural land as was initially intended, you can do it that way. Are there ways that we could make those kinds of restrictions that would not impede the intention of having the supportive uses be a part of the development, but would ensure that either a change of hands from developers or a new ED zone, what we don't have is essentially services that are really not supportive but are designed to service the highway. So I guess the question is, is there a way to do that within the legalities of zoning? Vice Mayor, the academic answer to that question is yes, that is possible. But those issues were discussed at the work group, whether we should try to conceal these on an interior road or away from public view. Somewhat discussed at the Planning Commission, not greatly. But the idea was not embraced by the work group in any meaningful way. So the feeling was that if we do clamp down too tightly on these supportive uses, that just like Ms. Bledsoe said, if we make it just almost impossible, then we may be defeating ourselves. So we felt like that just leaving it to the percentage was adequate. Okay. I think if I understand, the Council could, in whichever way we choose to proceed, could have more of a conversation about that with the various incentive folk who know more about development than we do and might be able to come up with something that satisfies their needs, their interests, and at least my interest in protecting the overall development of the community. So we could do that if we so chose. I believe that you could do that, yes. Okay. Just a comment. I would support what Council Member Plowman has said. I think there are some details that either weren't discussed fully by the previous bodies or were discussed and we may want to come out in a different place, and I would support at the appropriate time of motion to put it in the planning committee And that would also allow folks who have come today to watch us the opportunity to contribute to the conversation from their own perspectives. So, again, thank you for the work. Now, Council Member Lamb is seeking recognition for a third time to speak without objection. Council Member Lamb. All right. Okay. Wellhead protection plan for the Royal Spring Aquifer. Is that still in place over at the EAR-3? The wellhead protection plan, yes, that's still in place. Okay. The reason I mention this is because some of these principal uses that could fall under the Flex Space Projects and the office warehouse, I'm wanting to, for my colleagues to know this, in case you didn't, that I wanted to make sure that there weren't any of these support uses or principal uses that could compromise that plan. Now, I assume that that would come back before you guys with an amended development plan, and that would be when that would be looked at. Yes, that's correct. That would come through the development plan process, and we would certainly, just like any other sensitive land, we would review that with the appropriate protections in mind. Okay. All right. That's what I wanted. I wanted my colleagues to hear about that because I've read that in some of the documents today. And thank you for my time. Thank you. I see no further council members signed up to speak. Anything else, Jim, before we entertain a motion to adjourn? I think that's more than enough. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Motion? Second. Motion is second. Without objection, we stand adjourned. Thank you.