test thank you for being here. Thank you commission commissioners for being here and staff for helping us out. With that we'll have the approval of the minutes. I think you received the August 10, 2017 minutes. Any additions or corrections to the minutes? Miss Plumlee? >> move approval of the August 10 minutes. >> second. >> moved by Miss Plumbee second by Miss Mundy. That we approve the August 10, 2017 meeting minutes. Vote when it comes up on the screens. Vote has been approved. Thank you. I would ask the commission members if we could to, without objection, to modify our agenda a little bit. We have one of our former commission members with us. I don't know whether you would like to sit through all of our deliberations today until the very end or not, but would I like for our commission members to join me in the front as we present him with a special resolution. By the fact... This is what he has done in order to make sure he gets a parking space. Join me councilors. I don't want to hear any laughing about the fact that we don't know how to use these microphones. But it is a pleasure to get some -- give some recognition to Mr. Smith. He has served well. He has given a lot of his time, his energy, and most importantly he has given us his wisdom. And although he doesn't say a whole lot but when he does speak , we listen and he has done an absolute superb job. So we would like to give you this resolution. May I read it? It says whereas we the members of the lexington fayette county urban planning commission recognize joe smith in order to serve on the urban county council and whereas we wish to recognize Mr. Smith for his valuable service to this commission from April 10, 2014 to July 1, 2017, having served on the subdivision committee for the especially tire term and having served on the board of adjustment from October 25, 2012 to March 20, 2014 when he was appointed to the planning commission, and whereas Mr. Smith has been influential in the formation of the armstrong mill west mill west small area plan cardinal valley small area plan and winburn small area plan, the feasibility study and fourth street zoning study encouraging and facilitat ing infill and the goals and objectives of the 2018 comprehensive plan, and whereas Mr. Smith has consistently shown a deep concern for the citizens of lexington fayette county regarding land use and development and whereas the members of this commission and the staff feel that the service and guidance contributed by Mr . Smith will be greatly missed by this body, now therefore be it resolved we the members of the commission and the staff do hereby express our gratitude to Mr. Smith for his service to the commission and citizens of lexington fayette county and the planning commission do hereby wish for m r. Smith much happiness and continued success and ask that he continue to provide valuable guidance and be it further re solved a copy of this resolution will be presented to Mr. Smith also spread upon the minutes, books of this body. This is dated lexington, kentucky, 14th day of September, 2017. It also has a P.S., Mr. Smith will help provide a parking space for all those people who are on the commission... That last was an add lib but we thank you. [Applause] >> I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to serve with this group here. All these accolades here. I couldn't do it without the staff number one. And very helpful folks here standing beside me and I Miss These folks. They were good to me and they helped me learn what goes on in urban county government. And I thank you all. [Applause] [Applause] I notice he didn't stick around to hear the rest of the deliberations. Just before we get to the postponements and withdrawals. If there is anyone who would like to speak, would you please make sure you sign up so we'll get you on the roster. Postponements and withdrawals. >> I would like to postpone dp 2015-6 until the October 12 meeting, please. Had a snaf u on the snafu on the sign. Need to get it right. >> page 9. >> richardson property? >> yes, sir. >> do you have a reason for our bylaws we need a reason. >> we had a snafu on the sign as far as the proper timing so it's now posted but not at the appropriate time. >> anyone like to speak on this particular item from the audience. From the commission. >> move post postponement 2015-6 , I think it was. >> it has been moved by Mr. Cravens second by Miss Mundy that we postpone 2015-6 richardson property as amended. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none fleece vote when it comes up on the screens. Motion carries. Thank you. Any other postponements withdrawals. >> Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, staff would like to direct your attention to... Here we go. To page 6 if I May. This is item d major development plan 17-70 san del shopping center and green leaf motor properties. They do have a representative here, he has not come to the front to postpone this, although we understand they do wish to postpone this for one month. Zandale. >> anyone want to speak to this postponement. If not we'll entertain a motion here on the commission. Miss Plumlee. >> I move postponement of pln -mjdp-17-00070 zandale shopping center and greenleaf motor lodge for one month. >> it has been properly moved and seconded that we postpone pln-mjdp-17-70 zandale shopping center and greenleaf motor lodge properties for one month as a mended. Any other discussion on the motion? Hearing none please vote when it comes up on your screens. Motion carries. >> staff would like to direct your attention to page 2 of the agenda, item b, this is major subdivision plan-17-48 guard n of heart land request for a one- month postponement. >> anyone in the audience like to speak to this particular agenda item? On the commission? If not we'll entertain a mission mief mief entertain a motion. Miss Mundy. >> thank you, Mr. Chair, I move for postponement of pln mjsub -- 17-48 garden of hartland unit 3 for one month until October 12. Moved and seconded that we postpone pln mjsub -- 17-48 until October 12. Any other discussion on the motion? Hearing none please vote when it comes up on the screens. That motion carries. >> staff would like to direct your attention to bottom of page 2 item tem d, the greer hancock farm. We have received request from the applicant for a two week postponement on this plan. >> anyone in the audience like to speak to this agenda item? the commission? If not we'll entertain a motion for two weeks. >> Mr. Chairman I move postponement of two weeks to pln mjsub-17-50 greer had the hancock farm -- greer-hancock farm. >> moved and seconded that we postpone pln-mjsub -- 17-50 for two weeks September 28? Any other discussion on that motion? Hearing none please vote when it comes up on your screens. That motion carries as well. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman. If we, staff could direct your attention to page 4, item a under development plans at the bottom of the page. Major development plan 17-58 henry clay subdivision known as the dolly land company. Staff has received a request for a one-month postponement. >> anyone in the audience like to speak to this agenda item? Anyone on the commission? If not we are ready for a motion on that. >> Mr. Chair, I move we postpone pln-mjdp-17-58 for one month. >> moved by Mr. Larry forester second by Miss Carolyn plumlee we postpone pln-mjdp-17-58 henry clay subdivision dolly land company adaptive reuse project for one month. Any questions on the motion? Any discussion? If not please vote when it comes up on your screens. Motion carries. Thank you. We can go now to the consent agenda. >> at this time we will read through the consent agenda. Several items that do appear on your agenda today on a tan sheet should be with your regular agenda. We have six subdivision items and six development plans that qualify for the consent agenda. I'll read through those and ask if there is anyone in the audience or on the commission that would like to remove any of those from the consent agenda. So we'll get started. The first is subdivision items that were recommended by our subdivision committee for approval. First one is page 2 of the agenda item c, pln mjsub-17-49. The townhouses at jefferson street. Also known as west jefferson place lot 2 and preston subdivision lots 19 and 20. This is located at 500 and 508 maryland avenue. With this particular plan, there is also a finding for an access easement that's with the plan ning commission's packet so that should be included in the motion when you look at the consent agenda. The second is on page 3, item e, pln-mjsub-17-52, application for newmarket property unit 6-c located at 1263 angus trail. Next page 3 item f, pln-mjsub-17 -53 L.P. Wit, business subdivision, also known as visumatic located at 856 and 860 porter place. We do have three items that were recommended for reapproval by the staff that appear on the consent agenda. First page 3 item g, pln-mjsub- 17-61. This had a former plan name of 2006-220f for the gess property unit 2-e in chilesburg located off hays boulevard. Next page 4 item h, plan 2016-67 f: lexmark international incorporated formerly known as I.B.M. Located at 361 w. Loudoun avenue. And then lastly, on page 4, item I, plan 2016-69f, wyndale subdivision lot 2 amended locat ed at 1580 higbee mill road moving on to the development plans. Starting on page 5 item c, pln -mjdp-17-67, wagon wheel unit 3 for charter ridge. Property located at 3050 rio dos a drive. Next page 7 item f, pln -- mjdp-17 -85, application for michael gentry property lot 2 located at 3270 rich mopped road page p item g, the next item pln -mjdp-17-87. Application at hamburg place farm tuscany unit one lot 169 for the ymca pavilion. That property is located at 2681 old rosebud road. Page 8, item I. Pln-mjdp-17-91 for cherokee park subdivision lot 2 located at 1721 nicholasville road. Page 8 item j pln-mjdp-17 hfer 19, maple leaf subdivision lot 10 thrive church located at 3162 mapleleaf drive and then last page 9, item l, dp 2016-39 for wyndale subdivision located at 1580 higbee mill road. At this time we'll ask if the plannings commission, any members of the audience or the petitioners would request that any of those items I read be removed from the consent agenda and be discussed and heard by the planning commission in full. Seeing none. chairman, I think the planning commission can take all of those items in one motion, including the finding for the town homes at jefferson street. >> thank you. The first item, comes with findings so if you would make a motion for the approval of the consent agenda, would you also% include the findings for that? Page 9, item k richardson property amendment was postponed so you can take that one off. All the items will appear on the consent agenda. >> Mr. Chairman, I want to make a motion for approval of the consent agenda and also for the findings on plan 17-49 and noting that item k page 9 was postponed. >> okay. Moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda as presented with a cowell of notifications first of all findings for pln mjsub-17-49 town homes at jefferson street west jefferson place lot 2. Also with under development plan s, page 9, the richardson property was postponed. Any discussion on the motion? If not would you please vote when it comes up on your screens consent agenda has been approved we move to the first item. Pln-mjsub-17 denton farms incorporated. While the staff is preparing that. >>> I want to move approval of the release of the bonds. >> second. >> moved and seconded for the release of the bonds. Any discussion on the motion? Please vote when it comes up on your screen. thank you. That item is taken care of. >> first item on the agenda is page 1 under final subdivision plans. A major subdivision plan 17-45, denton farms, unit 2 lot 2 and a portion of lot 3. This is a final record plat to create 11 lots in the interior of the denton farm development, accessed off livingston lane. Here you can see the old richmond road frontage for the denton farm property the plat was originally recommended for postponements due to concerns about traffic at the main intersection with richmond roads that has all been resolved, all parties satisfaction. It was a matter of some markins and expenses associated with some improvements to make that a safer intersection. With that staff is now recommending approval of the plan subject to the conditions that you see on the agenda. Standard conditions with just a few final cleanup conditions. I'm to answer any questions have you for staff. >> I'm the owner of denton farms and john barlow, manager of den ton farms inching, inc. I'll entertain any questions you May have. >> does anyone in the audience like to speak to this particular agenda item? Anyone on the commission? If not we are ready for a motion >> I move for approval of plan sub17-45 denton farms, inc. With the 12 conditions noted by staff any other discussion with the motion? Please vote when it comes up on your screen. that motion carries. Thank you. The next item on the agenda I think is the peninsula and squires apartments as amended. >> Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission. On item, on page 5 of your agenda, plan-mjdp-17-61 the peninsula and squires apartments amended. We have passed out to you on a yellow piece of paper some revised conditions based on revised plans that your staff has received on this plan. As you are all well aware, this plan has been on your agenda for sometime, there have been re visions an awful lot of discussions and meetings with the applicant, the neighbors and various parties within the government, again to talk about this plan and some of the issues that it has. You can see again where it's positioned. We have the reservoir in this location. Here is squires circle, scierks. It is partly owned by american kentucky and water company proposed for the development. As you can see here, creating this street pattern within this area, these are apartments and then as you come as you can see, they're establishing a street pattern here to create townhouse area here and single family homes. And this area we have a clubhouse with attendant parking the plan as it is involved involved has a conditional zon ing buffer imposed by your council. This body recommended 25 feet, the council extended that to 50 feet. They reduced the density on the site as well. So what we have now before you today is we have we were provid ed with a plan easier to see. You can see squires circle, the existing apartment complex in this area, here are the new apartments. You can see how they're oriented through the street system interior parkin. A lot of green space available to this development. You can see again the clubhouse and the pool area. There is access here at squires circle, they're connected. Though there will be available for movement within the complex. They have an access point here out on to the extension of squires circle. We have a townhouse, again you can see the townhouses with access here and here they're oriented to the street and again , because it was very difficult to review the plan for staff and everyone involved, frankly. We can see the single family home area that is being proposed and these are 163 single family lots. You can see the layout here, the internal street system. Here is a pedestrian access to the school site being proposed. And again we highlighted for you the 50-foot conditional zoning buffer on this property. We've also highlighted for you a as well the fema flood plain and the 25-foot building set back that is a requirement from the fema flood plain. You can see that in virtually all circumstances, the conditional zoning buffer far exceeds any setback that would be required by your ordinance. There is a bit of an exception in this area because of this in let that impacts these lots. In the course of reviewing this as I stated, there has been a lot of communication, a lot of meetings with the applicant, your staff and various component s of the government to talk about the issues and the major issues that face this plan and if you look at your conditions, a lot of them are standard development plan and preliminary subdivision plan conditions. This is a combined plan and one of the reasons for that is that they can proceed now and construct infrastructure off this plan. They can also pull building permits for the apartments from the final development plan. Eventually once the infrastructure is in place, they can plat the single family home lots that's how that works and one of the reasons they have a combined plan first item 6 is a sign off, our department of environmental quality. And what actually has arisen from this discussion as much as anything is your conditional zoning restrictions imposed by the council, and the council has stated. And hazardous or invasive species. They also have placed thrort with your environmental services people to and I say people, and protecting the buffer and the tree canopy, how how to delineate that buffer area when they buy property. Any community recommendations of trying to physically delineate the area to placing monuments to the applicant stating that they would provide in their closing documents information and how it is buffered. That's the nature of the discussion and I can't tell you today that that has fully been resolved but it can be resolved through the sign-off process with environmental services and staff would is making an assumption, I know that can be dangerous, that that will be re solved to everyone's satisfaction with the clear intent that we support the enforcement of the conditional zoning and the protection of that buffer. Now item 13, label proposed storm water basin on the plan for article 21 or denote alternatives to the approval of the division of engineering. Your article 21 requires detention and other areas shown on the plan if they're required on the plan. And that quite often comes about through the actual design stage how they determine but it's a matter of making sure there is area in a site on a piece of property where these types of issues can be addressed. That was discussed in length on several occasions by a lot of people involved in the discussion. I want you all to know that. Your planning staff, engineering water quality at large and in-depth discussions about how to address storm water issues and the paramount issue is water quality, not detention. they're noax a reservoir and you want the water to move down stream before the rest of the water gets there particularly when you are close to a body such as this or a stream. Planning staff can report to you that it is our understanding that they have reached an accommodation, that being the applicant is with the division of water quality and engineering to address water quality issues on this site. And we will allow the applicant to elaborate about you think it is necessary but it is our understanding that they're going to utilize wetlands as their primary water quality feature. Staff comments that that is reasonable. Wetlands have a strong relationship with streams and lakes and reservoirs and bodies of water and as an example, your expansion area requires wetlands in their storm water management and many of those wetlands that are to be constructed in the expansion area are associated with the jacobson reservoir. So again, that relationship seems to be a good relationship and seems like a very reasonable approach. A smaller item is that they need to denote board of adjustment approval of the conditional use for the clubhouse. It's a cm use in the zone. They're aware of that. They have to go do the board of adjustment and get approval for that. That will have to be done before the issuance of a building permit. That's the control mechanism for that and that's a public hearing as you all are aware. They'll have to go before the board and gain approval for the clubhouse. We want that clearly denoted on the plan. We would like for them to denote the timing and legal structure of providing access to squires road for the single family homes I know that those of you that are on the subdivision committee what have probably heard this discussion the most, but squires road is going to be relocated in this location. It currently runs up to here. There are four or five houses that currently front and they have the driveways enter on to squires road. It's going to be necessary during this development process when this gets redesigned and re located, this will need to be closed it will become an access easement. We want that clearly denoted on the plan. There is a process involved. This will be closed openlily the urban county counsel. There is a process in that that they will have to meet. To address that particular issue item 16 is denote the timing of the 20-acre school site. Staff can report to you that we have a minor plat in our office now that addresses the creation of that school site. That will move forward if this plan gets approved by this body today. The next item is born from or has come from the discussions I mentioned before. The water quality issue, the enforcement issues, and the sensitivity that staff would agree needs to be followed on the development of this property that is a requirement of your subdivision regulations and it has to be submitted to this body for your review prior to any notice to proceed, notice to them doing any work or anything on the site. Does not require you to take action. But it does allow you to review and be sure these types of things are being done per your intent to seeing these practices are followed. And I'll give you an example of the type of thing you can do because you've done it. You recommended a buffer. That would be the type of practice that would be enumerat ed in this type of plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Specific. Now staff would not presume to get specific on best management practices. We believe that our division of engineering, water quality, working with the applicant's engineers can certainly develop the appropriate risk management practices to address the concerns on this site and we also believe and we think that this the planning staff does not believe we should be specifying very, very specific best manage ment practices that is something that should be develop ed in the improvement plan process that is spelled out in the land subdivision regulations 9 last two items 18 and 19, one will go on the plan up here were these new apartment s an area adjacent to squire circumstance circle. In this zone parking not allowed in the front yard. It scales that there is room but it is a building line. They just need to but it on the plan but that leads us to our last condition, one that is very concerned of great concern to the staff. As you all know, there is single family homes tremendous area out here with a lot of single family homes with the orientation on the street and nice front yards and that sort of thing. What we see here and our concern about this orientation is you are going to see the backside of these buildings with their garages and just parking in the front yard and staff believes that it would be a much better orientation to mimic what they're doing in this area to the rest and to the street and to the residential family homes in this area. It's a concern that we have that we believe needs to be resolved on this plan. And with that, staff is recommending approval of the plan and I'll be happy to answer any questions you May have for staff. >> any questions for Mr. Martin? Yes Miss Plumlee. >> thank you, Mr. Chair. Tom, you probably mentioned it and I missed it, I believe council imposed a condition within the buffer that there would be all structures including accessory structures and fences and place structures shall be prohibited. >> if I were to purchase a lot, the single family, how far would I own? >> this is the property line. We have highlighted for you in black. This is the property line. There will be a strip of land around the complete perimeter of this property that is owned by kentucky american water. The people who buy these lots will not own property that literally touches that reservoir because kentucky american water is maintaining that. >> they were not own that and you would have a 50-foot buffer where they cannot put structures >> that 50-foot buffer is off of the property line. It is into seech line 50 feet from their property line. >> thank you. >> any other questions. >> nick nicholson on behalf of the applicant tom kimer and venerable trees is here as well. I want to kind of start off by letting you know that we are in complete agreement with the staff's recommended conditions. And at the end we will be asking you to approve this development plan subject to the listed conditions that Mr. Martin just went over. He went fairly thoroughly through what this development plan is. I do want to highlight kind of one of the big changes that has occurred since you saw this plan last and that is the incorporation of the adjacent town home site. Right now this existing is town homes. We have incorporated it but we did so at a density that will not increase, the existing conditions plus what the urban county council density restrictions were for the main part of the site. So if you look what the density restrictions are that the council put on and what is there today, that is what the density we are asking you to approve. This is not an increase in any way, shape or form from what the council approved and what is there currently today. We adjusted the location and width of squires road trail. Since the school, we think is going to be one of the primary kind of benefactors for the pedestrian access here, we made sure that the trail goes on their site. We also moved it up to eight feet in width that width is basically equal to wherever the squires road trail is along a public road basically. Most of that trail is old squires road. It's not along a public road in any way. The widest point on a public road that diswiers road trail is is eight feet. We matched that. In most places that it goes along a public road, it's just a normal neighborhood sidewalk width. We agreed to match that. We also widened the street width s around the schools in order to accommodate the pickup and dropoff for the middle school kids around the school site and finally we rearranged the clubhouse and pool area to ensure shat the cherry tree thoroughly discussed at the last hearing had a proper tree protection area around it. Now that is pretty much the only changes that were made from the last time you all saw this plan. But that in no way is indicative of how much work we have had to put in behind the scenes we are going to do a comprehensive run down but I want to highlight three main topics ensure that they're comfortable with the path forward on how we are going to street storm water on site. As I'm sure you all remember, this is a very large watershed this reservoir helps maintain. We are only.26% of that watershed. In initial discussions we were talking about using the reservoir as the primary method for water quality treatment. This discussions with them, we no longer are going to do that. We are going take care of that on site. Lfucg, water quality and the are comfortable with it. It is going to take a lot of work. We are not able to show it on a development plan of this scale, the size at this point. There is a lot of modeling that needs to go into this, a lot of stud toe make sure this can go forward. So that is what tom highlighted in condition 13. While I know you all know that the division of engineering is a sign-off and we don't get a build unless they're happy. we wanted to make sure it is in writing, very specifically spell ed out if they're not happy with our storm water treatment facilities, we don't get a build and they get a review it. Not just to certification, it's an ongoing process through the infrastructure design work. We sat down with traffic engineering about the school street width, the squires road and the general improvements that we can make to the surround ing area. We put a note on the development plan that we are going give $60 ,000 to traffic engineering specifically for them to decide how to use in order to better the traffic calming and multi modal transportation system in the neighborhood all the way from richmond road, man o' war and alumni, that kind of rectanglish site. We talked with the environmental services. Out of that came two primary notes, the first is basically ac tress the notification of tom kimmel and the trees and how the conditional zoning is going to be handled during the development. The second note is how future property owners are going to handle this and how they're going to be put on notice to make sure that they are aware that their 50 feet has special rules on there. As I'm sure you no doubt remember, this body put in very specific and stringent conditional zoning restrictions basically governing the development of that strip of land around the lake's edge. You all heard from neighbors. you all heard from us. You all heard from the staff, and determined that a 25-foot buffer area with protection for three inch caliper trees was going to protect this property, protect the environment... The reservoir and the surrounding environment. The council took that recommendation, they heard again from staff, from us and from neighbors and they doubled those restrictions. They basically said the same special rules that you all put in place, don't just go for 25. They're going for 50 feet and three inch calipers we are knocking it down to one and a half inch calipers. They determined that was enough to protect the environment, this property and the surrounding reservoir. Both of those bodies decided the removal of dead, diseased, hadz does trees and invasive species is allowed. That removal is the process that we are talking about. How are we going to govern and make sure that the rules are followed during that removal? Now let me be very clear. The language is what it is. It was very carefully vetted, drafted by lfucg personnel, it was edited by lfucg personnel. Approved by lfucg, that was the language determined to be thoroughly protective. We agreed to abide by that. We are agreeing to abide by this tom kimer has been very, very clear. It is a cooperative process with urban forestry we don't get to decide what goes on in this development. it is a cooperative process with the divisions of government that are the necessary to make these decisions. This is where condition 17 comes into play. This is adding an even basically an additional layer of protection so you all know that we are required to abide by the rules that are set in place by the conditional zoning restrictions and the various divisions of government. They ensure that all the appropriate steps where, when, what's are approved by the divisions of government. So I have a feeling that you are going to hear after a speak -- after I speak about this area a whole lot. I have a feeling it's going to seem very familiar to you all because a lot of the same things that they asked are what they're going to ask again today. Sufficient things as do not allow any removal of any invasive species, do not allow any type of removal of anything in this conditional zoning area f. You do allow it, I think they're going to ask for replant ing of native species at the same density. All of those arguments were before this body before. All of those arguments were before the council before. You all heard them. You weighed them, you discussed them and you decided not to implement them. There is no reason... There was no reason then to do it and no reason now to implement those. You have an area that is covered with incredibly stringent conditional zoning restriction language. You have an area that has been committed in writing by us to work with the amicable divisions of government to review all of the process and we are putting conditions on the plan that not only do we have to work with them, we have to tell you what we are going to do in writing during the infrastructure phase. This area is covered. It is as protected as it can get or should get. You all have done your duty. You did it at the conditional zoning phase, and by upholding this development plan and what the staff is asking you to do, you'll do it again today. I'm happy to answer any questions. But again that's really all have I to say and we request approval >> any questions? Miss Mundy. >> nick, how does american access get to their area? >> there is an area which they can access through but they also have the water access across the lake there is a full actually driveway access and you can get to this property. >> so coming across the water. >> you can come across the water , yes. >> thank you. >> any other questions? >> thank you. Now anyone here who wants to speak in favor of this particular agenda item? Okay how many here would like to speak in a concerning way for this particular project? Fine. And Mr. Billings, you are representing the neighborhood? Well, we'll get everyone in that would like to speak. Just so we can move it along and respect for our other fellow citizens, approximately a three- minute opportunity to speak. One other thing, too, which is, I know it's a little difficult on occasion but if somebody has already said what you want to be said, but if you still want to go on the record, you can come forward and just say I agree with what was said and take your seat. But again, we don't want to hamper any persons who would like to speak. We'll ask you to be respectfully mindful of the three-minute limit. Mr. Billings, go ahead. Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission, staff, as you all know I'm nathan billings and I have been involved in this process for just under a year at this point starting in October of 2016. You will recall what Mr. Nicholson alluded to a minute ago is a very long hearing and contentious hearing before this body that I believe was in January or February and then you probably didn't watch because you had already seen a lot of it, the long hearing before the council in April. And so at this point the zone change has occurred. There are conditional zoning restrictions that council did put in place that were discussed by staff and Mr. Nicholson, so today we are here to talk about really the fleshing out of the details. Mr. Nicholson is correct in some ways but his beliefs are also incorrect. In my talking points today what you are go for example to see is that the discussion is not really about what the staff has recommended here. There is not a lot of dis agreement about these notes on behalf of the opposition. I think that the areas of concern and specifically the dis agreement and what our suggestions are for notes which I'll come to at the end is simply this and this is the 800- pound gorilla, the issue in this case. There is a vision that ball homes has to sell lake front lots and the question I have is simply this. What their vision is as opposed to what the notes say and what we believe the legal documents that the city has, whether they can do that. What you are going to find is that while they refer to things like plans and the improvement plan, you hear them say you can't do anything about it. You can basically require a plan but the only thing you can do is get an update and you can't take any action on it. So I'm here to tell you today that I want you to take action. I would like you to approve this development plan but it needs some additional notes if you are going to approve it. And if those notes aren't on there, you should not approve it so let me start back. Under zoning ordinance 21-4. The legal standard by which a development plan can be approved and/or disapproved and you all either must modify or disapprove a plan if it doesn't comply with the zoning ordinance or other laws or issues of flood drainage , et cetera. You saw the standard before but not usually put in front of you. That's the standard we are operating with today. So I'm going to go through themes you all saw. This is a comprehensive plan. We want to create tree protection areas, riparian areas the storm water manual has a no- mo zone within 25 feet of stream banks and waterways. This is an issue that ball homes , the applicant, won't answer. Their property line does not come to the lake's edge. It was insengsally set back from the water varying between 0-50 feet in different areas. It's not consistent because the boundary lines are straight lines. What they won't say is whether the riparian areas under the city manuals apply to their property even if their property is within that zone. Nothing on the document, nothing in the staff notes for development plan that answers that question. Before you approve this plan, it is my recommendation the you know the answer to that and it is transparent so if something adverse happens in the future, because I'm convinced it will happen, we know the standards by which it will be addressed and get with. -- dealt with. The comprehensive plan adopted the greenway master plan, the flood plains and all the flood plains are conservation green ways the the riparian zones are not addressed. Greenway environmentally sensitive area. There is not one sensitive area addressed on the plan. There is a buffer but not a single esa on the plan. Article 26 talks about it's the tree protection ordinance you've seen. It comes up a lot. There is the language in 20.1 for the purpose of it. The riparian buffer under 26.2 is the purpose of why rye pair riparian buffers exist. Includes trees in understory, we talk about riparian trees, here is the key of this. The question is whether any of this property falls within the riparian buffer and the storm water manual. Since this development was re filed for three and a half months I've tried to get an absolute clear answer to that question. As I stand here today, I'm still unable to tell you all what the answer is because I don't know. Is it or isn't it. It also says the designation shall be in Ard cons with the provision of the lfucg storm water manual. They have removed trees to complete the sanitary sewer line they have do that. What it doesn't create the right to create backyards, play areas or turf. This is the issue in this case. Is in the issue that is before you to vote on today. Is the vision for the peninsula that the developer will be able to come in and from that 50-foot boundary line to either the property boundary line or beyond , remove every tree, every bush if it is dead, diseased, invasive or hazardous leaving a handful of what they will designate as trees and not re planting simply a vision of backyards to the water zone or protect the riparian area that multiple lfucg documents create and intend to protect. It talks about reforestation. And that this is really important. The buffer shall have appropriate notes and easement for that purpose on the A.M. Cablg dlans p development plans. There is not a single note on the development plan about the riparian area. There is the conditional zone of 50 feet but doesn't have the enforcement mechanisms because the conditional zoning buffer can't have those. That's a development plan note. Having moving on to the storm water manual. The zoning ordinance and code of ordinances require the dp be designed in accordance with the storm water manual. Section 9.3 creates riparian buffer zones that include lakes. There has been discussion that the reservoir is not protected by 9.3. Why doesn't it qualify? It is not an official answer but people repeating back other information that has come from the applicant. I think it is fair for the hearing today to know whether that is going to be respected on that plan one way or the other so at least we know. So the question is ball homes won't consent it is applicable to it so I think you should require compliance with the section. You have heard before about the purpose of the riparian buffer zones, why they're important and there is really the riparian buffer zone for the storm water manual, there are two zones. The first one extends for a minimum of 15 feet and I I have a diagram in a second. The second zone at the edge and comes in an additional 20 feet. And here what is it says. That zone, zones 1 and 2 must be at least 100 feet or 30% of the flood plain. Here is storm water manual that's a diagram from 9-1 or figure 9-1 in the manual showing% how the zone 1 is created. There is 9-1 showing similar type of evaluation and 9-3 shows the importance to the canopy. Why is this important? The development plan today doesn't address that issue. Either there should be a finding from the commission which says it doesn't apply, which I will disagree with but at least it is a finding or there should be a finding that says it does comply in which the development plan cannot be approved because it does not adequately address that so why won't they acknowledged riparian zone is applicable? Because I said this issue is really not about the changes they made to the school site, which are appreciated. The changes to refacing the clubhouse which are appreciated. It's really not about the density issue. That's been handled and resolve. Not about the money they're giving to the city for road improvement or traffic control. that's appreciated. It's about a vision-for-how are we going to do development in lexington. Stick by the manuals or vague ness so ambiguous and un certain, there is no ability to enforce and protect. Next, lfucg code of ordinances 1271 also creates riparian buffer zone different from the storm water zone. It is at least 25 feet from the water unless a larger area is approved by the division of environmental services and this is important. I includes a requirement to plant approved species in that area. This allows for nationalized detention basins. Similar in 32-2016. You have seen this email before. This is tim qairy, the urban for evidenter's finding. The rye pair riparian buffer, under the storm water quality manual that 50 to 100-foot buffer has to be protected. Not sa saying that you can't remove dead or invasive species, we are in favor of that but the second component is that it has to be replanted. It has to be replanted that's what it says here. Requirement to replant species. Urban forester recommended if you are going to touch the riparian buffer, it should be known as a conservation greenway and that he suggested that native plantings be made to mitigate the loss of the bush honeysuckle and other invasive species. And he agrees and we agree the note about sustainable manage ment practice is an appropriate note but it is too ambiguous to enforce. The greenway master plan requir ed a 50-foot riparian buffer around all streams, part of the conservation greenway system and this reservoir was identified as one of those. You remember this map from before that shows the buffer is required. Here is the nuance of what this discussion involves. Everyone wants to say that on the zone change once council created the 50-foot conditional buffer, it went and satisfied every one of these requirements. That's not true. They want to sweep them under the rug saying the buffer was enacted. You don't get to ignore the greenway master plan or storm water manual just because council said in the zoning approval there is a 50-foot buffer. Greenway master plan has pre ambles and philosophical statements. But the crucial component is the preservation and reestablishment of open space and repirian buffers. When things are removed, they have to be replanted. This talks about the importance of them. This is what the master plan says, 50-foot buffer has been added so it has to be on the plan. Riparian areas would function to protect water quality and steep sloped areas. The topography slopes deeply on some areas. It slopes steeply. It identified certain areas on this site. Not just the 50-foot buffer no one has voted flly. They ignore it. This says there are environmentally sensitive areas on the peninsula, identifies the types of them and some of them have been identified like the tree preservation stand here and up here. Two of probably 20 have been identified and protected where are the others? We believe the development plan fails to document, identify or protect those environmental, the sensitive areas and therefore it would fail under the greenway master plan. The green space plan has similar provisions, specifically page 55 , it talks about the importance of those and how the buffer is important for cost effective flood management in the plan. Talks about the goal of the green space plan which is to prevent essentially floods. Power lex has a similar plan we went through similar before. A guiding document, not control ling but shows the importance of the rye pearian buffer and the best management practices for the creation of the buffer. So I think the real question comes down to this how are you going to enforce a vague note against either a developer during construction or against the first homeowner or second or tenth homeowner in it is simply unreal realistic to expect. The city staff whether it be tim or environmental services or water quality, to be on site every single day during construction. It's just not possible. After the construction, how is it going to be protected? It is our belief that the city needs to have a mechanism by which someone will serve to protect it. While it is nice to say they% will pass a piece of paper to somebody at closing, by the way the city has no way to enforce, whapsz when that person sells their property? Nothing because there is no enforcement mechanism. We need to protect protocols to protect the zones and the suffer s. This is a diagram we've drawn that shows each of the different burrs, property line set forth in red. The blue is the flood plain and the different shading of influences shows the increase and the setback in each buffer. We think it should identified not just the 50-foot zoning buffer it is required do but should identify the other buffer s created by the storm water manual by environmental quality and tim qairy on the plan. Through a creation of homeowners or property association that would enforce those. We've talked all along we didn't know if we would suggest those or not. Waited to see what might come out. We came down to it, what we understood is that without anybody to protect that buffer, the city is not capable of doing it, not because they don't want to, they just don't have the resources to do it. the developer won't have an incentive to do it after they sold and therefore the only logical people are the common property of the people who live there and similar provisions on any development plans including those by ball homes. The next is a short blurb about the trail system. They did increase the trail system from six to eight feet. I talked to planning about this just to make sure they haven't changed. The words to me is we would always like a 12-foot foot system because it helicopters integrate the system for fayette county. Aasto, the american association of state certified traffic officers, traffic control device s, federal hea aide managers all choired a minimum of it but at least 12 feet is best practices. That's what every trail the city builds. At least to a 12-foot width. At eight foot, it doesn't promote productive bicyclist passing pedestrians walking or oning. Eight feet is 9 minimum two people handicapped can pass. What happens with congestion is that eight foot, if people have a perception the trail is congested, they don't use it. So we recommend the 12-foot width because of the high density residential, the school and connecting to future trails. We talk about existing trails. Town branch commons, legacy trail are all 12-foot, brighton, and the jacobson park trail will connect eastward in the future. There is the existing trails that show width of them and you can see those are not eight-foot trails. In fact eight-foot trails wouldn't allow the traffic to go to the horse park and back. We gist need an open table format. If you have read through any of the comments, I'm sure most of you have looked at a lot of them what did you see time and time again? People want more open spaces, more walking spaces, more bike paths? Why? Because our constituent wants to be more and more akist and a little-foot trails won't accommodate that. In June of 2017, we were told that, and no one has rebutted this, that there was an vice mayor issue on the property and we were told staff would follow up. We were not able to get anymore information and there is probablily contamination on this site. Before development plans approved, anticipates with high tess dengs and is there a mitigation plan in place for the public? If it is vague or ambiguous, it cannot be enforced. So we have some notes that we would suggest that you all add. The first is that all of the zones be added on the plan. We have the first part of this is already added in so we would plans that are removed must be removed manually and stumps painted with herbicide. I've asked tim about that and he said that is very doable and that for every one next seas of one and a half inch, it has a replacement of one to one. Phased approach to building along the water line. Our suggestion is during the construction that what you all require. With what that will do is stop anybody from going to that area unless one it is needed for utility work approved by environmental quality or they want to clear out the dead, diseased and invasive species and there is a clear plan to remove and replant before they do it. Mr. Martin recommended four and five. As a mechanism, that's a great lofty goal. The problem is while you can require the plan, you have no power to do anything to enforce it after today. `so our request is, until the plan notes are adequately adopted, and until the plan adequately creates the buffers that the development plan doesn't comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance or other law understand a and we request respectfully that you all deny the plan at this time. Which notes are you really recommending? We submit that the plan should be denied until they're out on the plan. >> you would add all seven of yours. >> that's correct. >> thank you. There are three buffers. Kentucky american's buffer which is their private property, there is a regular, 25-foot buffer that we allow. that the city, the council put in place so in my mind if kentucky american owns the buffer, these lots can't run all the way to the water, correct? Your assumption is incorrect about the buffers. The buffer, wherever the water line is in and the property boundary line is owned by kentucky american water. It is incorrect to call it a buffer because this development plan can't control anything on the other side of the property boundary line. There are other documents like the storm water quality manage men which we believe would apply not just from the water line to the property boundary line which this development plan cannot denote but the lines would come inside of the bound are I line so, for example here is the flood line, the water line deviates based on the water lefl there is no zon ing buffer. The buffers that apply then we believe the storm water quality manual and riparian buffers and we have had no one who will agree yes or no whether that buffer exists. There is a riparian buffer area that is created by lfucg documents not on the plan. To get back to where I want to be is the fact that kentucky american owns the body of water. >> that's correct. >> in my mind it's a reservoir. It's not a lake. So you are tying it back to regulations for a lake, but there was nowhere in that regulation anything about a reservoir that is privately own ed. >> well I think, I would search for reservoirs in the city documents. I don't know what you would call it but a lake. Weblg call it a reservoir or huge water retention area. It's my opinion it is a lake. If someone in the city or plan ning commission is make making a determination that it does not qualify under that. I would at least like the clarity, I would disagree with that interpretation but would I like the clarity made into the record publicly so we would know if we have to challenge this what the decision is so we can then figure out if the decision is right or wrong. Any kind of mandates on what kentucky mrn american does with that body of water because it's their body of water, not the city's, not publicly accessible. >> that's not quite true. The question is which ones apply and which ones don't. That's the battle and that's what I believe, in order to have total clarity on what is and isn't enforceable moving forward on behalf of the owners in the area who expressed deep concern that you are aware of, we want to specifically know what is the decision and if the decision is the planning commission doesn't believe it has to require with storm water manual. I May disagree with it but I'll respect the decision is made. I think there should be a decision made and not swept under the rug and continue to be ambiguous. >> I'm not trying to be argument tiff. I'm trying to in my mind this will not control kentucky american's control of that whether it is two feet or 20 feet. There May be other lfucg documents. That has been clear from day one I don't think whether we fight about other issues, have disagreed on that issue. What we have said once we come in the boundary line, that's what we want to protect. >> any other questions. >> thank you. We May call you back up later on we have several people who want ed to speak. Is he going to speak or passing out stuff for you? I think the new storm water manual has a 50-foot no mo zone but Mr. Martin can clarify that. I'm here to ask for additional requirements in the final development plan. This is not a normal buffer because normally you put a buffer between a neighborhood and something out of context that would be people on boats trying to keep them from looking at houses. This is more a stream buffer and I think that's the intent. Council. That's what was discussed. It would be wrong if you look at it like a normal traditional buffer. I agree substantially you need to be careful where the boundary is, there needs to be signage on it or a way to differentiate where the boundary starts it is unenforceable if you don't know where it is or owned by 100 property owners. You need it owned by a homeowners association or balls homes until it is turned over to the homeowners association that's pretty much standard practice for commonly owned properties. Plannings commission needs to specify that it invasion vasive species be taken out by hand. If you move equipment in there four, condition how will the planning commission enforce the conditions? It is a different buffer that is going to require enforcement often. Until it is completed. The conditions on the buffer should include maintenance once invasive species is removed if it is not done right and even if it is done correctly it is not 100% proper and it will come back and you can't do that with lot owners. The comprehensive plan, the goals and objectives established by the council to support what the neighbor, minimize disruption of natural features when building new communities. Identify and protect natural resources and landscapes before d. Occurs. >> my name is addison, I live on hunter's point drive which borders the western edge of the proposed development. When I first spoke to you in January I expressed concern about the quality of the water that will result from the runoff of roads, parking lots, lawns and driveways. Into reservoir number 4 we have two 234u reasons to be concerned cautiously pessimistic. First we have seen that the final development plan doesn't include retention basins and apparent intention of allowing the water to drain directly into the water -- into the reservoir. This has been addressed at least verbally. Second we've learned that this property has been used as a burial ground for asbestos waste by kentucky american water. The quality of water in the reservoir which has been diminished over the years will be badly affected by the new development lake ellerslie is a backup water supply supplying 13 % of our drinking water. It is my hope that the planning commission and the various lexington divisions will require ball homes to address these concerns by adding explicit conditional notes to the development plan. These notes should require retention basins and require identification and cleanup of the asbestos. >> my name is suzanne, I live at 1,000 rain court. We thank the commission for the 25-foot buffer in the zoning hearing. While this might appear to be adequate protection for the riparian canopy, there is no language currently attached to the development plan that would prevent excessive thinning during construction or clear cutting by owners once the lots are sold and we were advised and to preserve the character of the whiching neighborhoods. In their previous tree survey, ball homes stated that they would replant any areas in which invasive species were removed% with trees they now propose to use grass which will result in significant thinning and degradation of the buffer. In 2013 kentucky american water cited significant declines in water quality in the reservoir due to adjacent development. Section 9.3 of the storm water manual defines buffer zones as being composed of trees and/or shrubs. Anything that is removed must be replaced with a native tree or shrub as opposed to lawns and grass and would otherwise constitute a violation of the storm water regulations. Despite their claims that they do not control the strip of land to be retained by kentucky american, ball homes attorneys have clearly stated they seek to have waterfront property on the lots with the possibility of boat docks. This runs counter to the existence of a dense tree buffer as you know, our community has bent over backyards to compromise. We did not fight development on the peninsula. We have simply fought to ensure that some aspect of this environmentally sensitive area be preserved in the tree buffer. Please act to ensure that this piece of the city's tree canopy remains in tact and functional by including. >> it doesn't take a significant amount of expertise and traffic analysis to know that this development will produce more traffic than any residential neighborhood should endure. And I applaud their contributing to traffic calming it might produce some of the threw traffic but this development is going to put a significant strain on that area. it's a poor plan that places high density development in the interior of a neighborhood and forces the traffic through the residential streets to get out to the arterials. Nd to finalize what I had to say about this, this goes along with many of the other comments, but that this develoment plan does not contain sufficient note s in keeping with the spirit and intent of the council's decision to ensure the preserv ation of 50-foot buffer and the tree canopy. Thank you. >> I live at 1,000 rain court. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. 3 I agree up with is that venerable trees expert has said that they would work with kentucky american water company when they're canning the buffer. What that means is that presum ably what they're going to do on ball homes property is going to happen in the kentucky american buffer. What we think of as a buffer, that strip of property that we have, one of the concerns that we have is they're allowed to do the same thing everywhere. What will end up happening is we will have a few trees left and the rest will be grass. Why? Because kentucky american, I mean as ball homes has said they will replant only with grass. All of these problems will be solved if they just require to replant according to some standards. Replant with trees and bushes. Because that is what is required to protect water quality. Kentucky american has said in 2013 that the water quality is I am impaired on that lake because of the development if you don't have a good buffer, my question is that if nothing else, make sure that they replant with tree s and bushes. There are clear standards in the storm water manual about how we should replant to get the canopy at certain levels and so on and so forth. Language adopted like that would be perfect for a situation like this. If you notice there is a lot in the 100 year flood plain and conditional zoning buffer so if ball homes does what they say they're going to do, which is to remove a lot of trees, dead and invasives and replant the grass, they're going to not be in compliance with the storm water manual because the storm water manual has regulations, has rules on what it cannot do. It cannot even mow within 25 feet of the 100-year flood plain. How is that going to work if you are going to replant grass? Also if you are replant grass, future homeowners are not going to be encourageed for the tree buffer. In January of this year when the zoning hearing was taking place, you voted 7-1 to put in a buffer what were you imagining the buffer is going to be like? Presumably you were thinking about trees and bushes because that's what the storm water manual defines a buffer to be. Well, unfortunately that won't be realized unless we have strong language like the ones proposed by nathan, our attorney unless that happens we won't have a viable buffer. It will be a fake buffer that is just on paper. Thank you very much. >> thank you. >> good afternoon. I'm wendy henry. I live at 1012 cool water court. And as the name implies, I back up to the lake which is beautiful. I've lived there for 25 years but I've noticed in the years since the lake was sold to outside entity, the management of the lake has greatly declined so I want to encourage you that if you think that kentucky american water is going to do much to make sure our water doesn't get polluted much more, that the barriers are maintained , that's not going to happen. I have witnessed them, the kentucky american water company cut down trees that is in the current barrier to the lake and they do not replace them. That causes more erosion into the lake and they're not doing anything about it. Please do not think you can count on kentucky american water to be concerned or maintain your your drinking water. That's on us. We are the ones consuming it. We are the ones that need to protect it and that being said, protecting it with enforcements and regulations and rules and blah blah blah is all very good, kind of like, you know, strong language, but I think the most important part is the large stick because if you cannot enforce these things, if you cannot make sure that what you want to happen happens, then i think we are all wasting our time. So I encourage you to do what is best for the city and all of its people to take the responsibility for our drinking water upon yourselves and not count on an outside entity to do it. And to make the regulations we need including the strong enforcements necessary to make sure that those regulations and rules are followed. Thank you. We'll move to the rebuttal. The applicant has an opportunity to have a few minutes. The applicant gets your shot and back to the community again for another shot and the staff wraps up and then I will allow the commission members if they have fully questions of anybody and then after that we take it over from there. >> absolutely. I will try to be very brief. Our development plan, the notes that are on the development plan and the conditions that the staff are recommending approval address all of the concerns that Mr. Billings and the neighbors have pointed out. They might not address them like they want or to the extent that they want them to, but they are addressed. Note 11 specifically says we have to follow all the manuals. We have to follow the storm water manual. It's on the development plan. We absolutely have it. All of that powerpoint present ation I personally believe that that was entirely to confuse you all to make you all try to make a rash decision significants that is an expert level decision instead of trusting the very divisions and experts of lfucg that are required to approve and basically review all of our plans that we have three different times have said have to approve all of our plans. And I'll say it for the fourth time. We have to comply with the storm water manual. We have to work with urban forestry. He kept quoting tim query from the last hearing. Tim is going to be the guy on site who is going to be evaluat ing this area to make these decisions what can come out and what cannot come out. He is going to be the one on site and his staff is on site making the very decision. I have no problems him reading off emails that tim has since corrected many times over but that's fine. I just feel that this discussion is more about protecting view shed as opposed to protecting watershed quite frankly. Kentucky american water issued letters talking about the water quality impact of this project. They do not have concerns because, again, this is zero 0. 29% of the acreage in the watershed draining to this reservoir. Richmond road directly drains to 24 reservoir, golf clubs directly drain to this reservoir this is 0.29%. I'm happy to basically pass out the kentucky american water letters again we introduced as exhibits they first hearing. I've talked to both tom kimer and tom hatfield with regards to what the restoration efforts we are doing and the impact that they will have on this area. The grass we are talking about, will have a dramatically positive impact on the area around the reservoir, any types of replantings only destroy and hip...... Disrupt the soil more. That's not good for the surround ing area in the bed. Condition 1 is to ensure that you I don't have to make the decisions they're asking you to make, that you do not have significant enough information to make. You all do not need to make the exact determine determinization how honeysuckle busheses are removed. That's when the departments are here for. Hearing one person's opinion what the storm water manual says I also have to say that that conditional zoning language is not vague and ambiguous in any way, shape or form it is very clear. You shall not remove except bop, bop, bop. It is not vague or in any way ambiguous. Last point this buffer is easily identifiable as every single property line in lexington. That is why we made the conditional zoning restriction to be 50 feet from the property lines. It's not from the water's edge. It's not prt top of the bank or any type of arbitrary line. It is exactly from the property lines this buffer is easily identifiable just like all of your all's property lines are easily identifiable. >> I thank you for the opportunity to address this issue before it is put to bed, at least at this stage. There is a lot of evidence that you all have heard both before and today and the question that I would leave you to ask today is simply this. If you go out there today can you tell me where the property boundary is and if you buy a house out there tomorrow, can you tell me where the property boundary is. It is not going to be mark willed by pins or ribbons. It's going to be an ambiguous line between the water's edge and the house. Unless you all act to protect it , it won't exist, I'm confident because I've seen it happen in development after development in fayette county. Thank you. >> staff. >> Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission, really I just want to make several points for clarity. I think a lot of this has been covered. I think by both parties. There is a note on this development plan. It's on all of them. It's a requirement and it basically says that this property shall be developed in conformance with the requirement of your storm water manual. We don't put the entire ordinance on every plan and we are certainly not going to put the manual on every other plan. This is part of the review process, and they do have to follow these. Article 26, it governs tree protection plans. It has to be followed in the development of the tree protection plan. And I'm a little... I'm just a little disturbed by a statement that things are being swept under the rug. I certainly don't believe this body sweeps things under the rug and I can certainly tell you it has been my experience that staff and whether it's to the division of engineering, the division of traffic, environmental services or water quality sweeps anything under the rug. They are very consciencous about doing their job and seeing that they get the best development that they can get under the law, under the rules I'm on a committee for water quality and it's the older neighborhoods, the one I live in, for instance, that are the problem with our water quality. It's not new development, ladies and gentlemen. It's being held to much stricter standards. >> there is going to be a boat dock. >> there is a very stringent easement. I do not know of any docks. I'm not sure how docks could work with the language that is before you. But that will have to be worked out with the proper professional s but right now I know there is not an easement in place certainly to have docks on this property. >> you say no docks for now. >> so there is not an easement in place to put docks there. I haven't reviewed the lake ellerslie fishing club easement that I know is very strict on what can go in there. I don't know how lfucg would feel about the fact that it says no structure can go in that 50- foot conditional zoning restriction area. My guess would be a dock would be a structure. But that can be worked out and will be worked out with all of the professionals. >> considering this has gone on quite a while and there have - been multiple questions. I would feel more at's if we address -- at leez if we address ed the dock question. I feel this is an unanswered thing on this development. >> I understand. Technically any dock that could be built would need to be on the water and that is on kentucky american water's property. That property is not part of this development plan. >> thank you. Mr. Big billings. During your presentation you had like seven notes. But we don't have copies of those and I don't remember them enough to know really what they contain, and it would be beneficial if we could have those. But I don't know how to get them at this hour. Because I think possibly they alluded to they might have tied in with a homeowners association down the road making certain that there was another pair of eyes on this property for future owners. >> that's correct. What we suggest is that those notes would be appropriate because staff has not rep recommended them and applicant would not approve those. I ask have the presentation pull ed back up and identify the seven but they specifically what you asked for, homeowners association that for things that are removed there is a replant - ing requirement, there is the phased construction along the line. The identification of all of the various buffers because there is more than just the conditional zoning buffer. But that's why they're not identified in the record because we seek disapproval at this time >> thank you. >> any other questions Miss Mund y? >> Mr. Nichols. Someone mentioned there might be some asbestos on the property. >> yes ma'am. >> if you discover that is there , I am assuming and you know what one does when one assumes but I assuming that you would use or the construction company would use proper methods for removal of that. >> there are very specific re mediation protocols that are in place that would have to be, if asbestos was discovered on the site, this is an infill project even if it vacant ant for a long time. Most infill projects involve some type of remediation. >> okay. Because that concerned me when I heard that because of possible runoff into the water if that's disturbed or whatever. So I checked with someone quickly on text that I knew would know and that area is technically not used for consumption. The jacobson park lake is only used in extreme drought situations but I just wanted to be sure that if asbestos is discovered, it will be taken care of properly. >> yes. >> thank you. >> anyone else? Mr. Nichols, I have a question >> not a problem. >> I'm trying to give my colleagues the first crack at this. >> I didn't was you can to work today. I'm getting my steps in. >> one of the things I keep hearing is if you remove the diseased trees and bushes and what have you, what I heard the neighbors say and the people in the dmuptd say is something to the effect that the replacement of simply grass is not appropriate. Please clarify that. >> it is not grass like you are thinking of. Tom kimer might be the appropriate person to answer what the specific type of grass is if he wants to jump up here, tom. But the removal of the invasive species alone will be a dramatic increase to the quality of the ater right around there based on the nitrogen runoff that comes from honeysuckle and if you will,... >> let me get clarifyfication here. >> you are telling me that by removing some of the brush and diseased trees, it will improve the water quality. Now if you take that out, what do you plan on doing about it? >> first of all, I'm tom kimer I'm the chief scientist of venerable trees. Honeysuckle is a really insidious plant. If you look underneath that honeysuckle, what you see is bare ground. There is no native herbs, no native shrubs ornative grasses growing under the honeysuckle and honeysuckle is known to release the increase of nitrogen into bodies of water. By removing the honeysuckle, that is the first step in improving water quality and we'll plant a mixture of native grasses and herbs, not lawns, and that will prevent the nitrogen runoff into the lake. Process of removing the invasive species will dramatically improve the quality of the water flowing into the reservoir and there has been some misat the same times about the overstory and planting and I just want to point out. We are not disturbing the over story of this little strip of woods. We are taking out the invasive understory. So the actual canopy cover will be left when we are done is about the same as it is now. Except for the removal of ash trees which are dying. >> thank you. Any other questions. I'm going to officially close this part of the hearing and then pull it back to the commission for additional discussion and/or motion. >> the planning commission can only do a few things. We don't have a lot of enforcement over things once they leave here. We can put some things on development plan but a lot of these things mentioned don't belong on development plans they May have to be taken back off. But we work in 2 d. We work on the plans and I can tell you from experience once this plan leaves here and goes into everybody else at the city, I mean that's when the work starts. It's nothing to get a plan through here and we approve it and go by the staff and send it on, but I can tell when you they get into sign offs and engineer ing and water quality and, I mean they better have a big staff with a project this size because it's very difficult and very time consuming. They don't even have, they don't have deadlines like we have. You file a develoment plan, there is a deadline when you can hear it and when it's heard. It gets in those other places, it's a nightmare and there is lots of development done around our reservoirs. We haven't heard be ins of I think this develop has done some on the water and many of you live in that development and we haven't even any problems out of it. I'd like to make a motion for approval of plan-mjdp-17-61 using the staff's revised conditions. >> second. >> properly moved by Mr. Mike cravens, second by Miss Karen mundy we approve pln-mjdp-17-61 the peninsula and squires apartments as amended with the 19 conditions as provided by staff. Any other discussion on the motion? This has been very perplexing and what we see is not what happens at the very end. On October 3 to the commission suggesting... If anything one being that there be a trail around the reservoir and as we see there is no trail around the reservoir. The buffer is somewhat of a dis appointment and the neighbors have some legitimate concerns about that and another dis appointment in this whole process has been, has kind of been like developing the whole of a doughnut because the sooner we got the school, but at the beginning we didn't know much about well yeah there was going to be a school and there May be a middle school and it might be something else and to us public ly, the school never... (Inaudible) Are we going have trees on the 20-acre site where we have the school, maybe, maybe not. Is there going to be parking on the side. Do we have to have off street parking for the store. Do we need to make wider streets and we were left to deal with all these things about the school building again. The road width and the other thing I mentioned is with that reservoir, that body of water is a great opportunity for some marine biology and ecology study and we didn't hear anything about that. We have been spending a lot of time how to arrive at the best solution. I would like to have a condition number 20 in that there be hoa enforcement perpetually on this area. I would make that motion. >> we have an amendment to the main motion. That's what we have. An amendment to the main motion. Is there a second to the amendment? Is there a second to the motion. That amendment unfortunately does not pass. Back to the main motion. Mr. Berkeley. >> yeah, you know, I can tell there has been a lot of work done between when we saw this before and I do appreciate the neighbors coming down, nathan, your comments, but I personally feel like we have put enough restrictions on this property. I would be remiss with not stating though one thing my dis appointment with what the council did or some of those on the city council, reducing the density from 500 units to the 450 units. The staff vetted this plan for months and made those recommendations and in light of where we have been in the comprehensive plan process talking about increased density, I was quite shocked that that was done with no real basis. That being said, I'm ready to% vote. >> okay, I make one final comment if I could because I said unfortunately I agree with Miss Plumbee's point about the homeowners association but as chair I cannot second a motion. I can only make one, interesting ly enough. i can only make a motion but cannot second one. With that call, we'll call for the question. All in favor of the motion presented by Mr. Mike cravens and second by Miss Mundy, please vote. Motion is approved 6-1. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your participation and for being here. Let me ask my other commission members. Do you wish to push through or take a break. We have one break and one push through. Y'all want to take a couple of minutes then. A couple minutes. We'll take a couple minute recess the conditions are your standard sign-offs. However, I would like to bring to your attention two conditions that were left on that should have been removed. Condition number 11 and condition number 13. We see they adequately have shown where the public art will be and we are okay. Additionally, they have request ed a waiver, 5% reduction the b-4 zone require 10% tree canopy, the applicant submitted the waiver. Due to it being fully paved and the constraints of the current existing environment, it is too significant for them to actually achieve 10%. Staff believes that a 5% reduction is acceptable because of their compliance with green infrastructure and the addition of the landscape islands. Additionally staff does believe that plan meets the adaptive re use project rirps and -- requirements and I would be happy to answer any additional questions. >> any questions? Who is going to speak to is adaptive reuse? >> I can or tom can? >> which ever. >> the adisaptive reuse is the historic structure is 150 years. The green infrastructure, which is the rain water infiltration system as well as other green infrastructure that was, which will be dealt with at the in speaks stage and then the public art. With those three, we believe it complies. >> any questions? Applicant? >> Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission, with the revised lavender sheet he has presented and the changes to omitting 11 and 13 and the 5% canopy waiver for number 12, we are in agreement and request approval. >> any questions? Thank you. Anyone in the audience like to speak to this particular agenda item? Any questions from the commissioners? I suppose we are ready for a motion. I am unclear about one thing k. We do this all in one motion with the findings or do I have to have two mowings on this? Included in the motion with the findings. Unless you have some other discussion item Mr. Cravens. >> I didn't see anybody stepping up there. i want to move approval of plan -mjdp-17-73 with the revised using the revised conditions and noting that the findings by that and the approval of the waiver. >> second. >> okay. Motion has been made by Mr. Cravens second by Miss Karen mundy we approve pln-mjdp- 17-73 liberty heights subdivision block a portion of lots 1, 2 and 3 and all of lot 4 with the 14 conditions identified by staff and with the findings for the petition for waiver. Any discussion on the motion? >> I thought we could remove 11 and 13. >> I thought we had. The lavender sheet he said 11 and 13 would be owe omitted. Conditions 1-10, 12 is the 5% waiver canopy and 14 was the findings so there are 12 conditions at the end of it. >> Mr. Chairman,. >> yes, sir. >> I'd like to if ix my motion. >> okay. Going to ask and make sure you agree with this. Okay. Go ahead. >> do they agree? >> the applicant is saying the new 11 that they come off? >> yes. I hereby remove those from my >> I second that. >> the new motion contains 12 yifltions by staff and we are at the discussion staff. Is that agreeable with staff? >> yes. Motion carries 7-0. Next. >> Mr. Chairperson, mention of the planning commission. moving down to the bottom of page 7, major development plan 17-88 stephens and winslow subdivision known as the hub at lexington I, the plan that you currently have before you. We have handed out to you on this colored sheet revised conditions, along with the revised conditions you should find at your seat on this tan paper, a report on the character study that was submitted and also you should find at your seat several emails that staff received and we were receiving these right up until just a short time before this meeting, from various neighborhood residents. I will say I believe they're all in opposition to this particular proposal. What you have before you is a final development plan request ing a b-1 form status that is a section of your b-1 zoning code that allows a form based b-1 project such as before you today to set its own development standards, in essence in terms of setbacks and those sorts of things that are normally governed by your b-1s , your front yards, side yar, open space and things like that. And it does that to allow creativity, to allow flexibility for development in a b-1 neighborhood. Somewhat similar to mixed use where they're allowed to set certain criteria but it is actually in some ways less stringent than mixed use categories and some of the things that mixed use dictates. In conjunction with this development plan as I stated and the reason for this report is that the applicant is required to submit an area character and context study. This is submitted for the form based code. Now, where we are is located on jersey street between south upper in this location. Here is pine street, south limestone is down here. Mcdonald's and those areas, the mexican restaurant are on south limestone through here. This is the jersey street park ing lot. That's the site that you are looking at. Raising canes is located here. Center court is there. Mellow mushroom, I believe, is across the street. So that is the area where you are. This is property I know you have now heard before. U.K. Owns it and they have negotiated a swap in some property with this developer. And this is one of the sites involved in that property deal and they are proposing a six- story 76 feet tall building. They got 20,000 feet of retail on the first floor in this location. They have parking. It's a parking structure, part of the overall building. It's one and really about one and a half stories of parking. They have ground level parking and then an upper level with some additional lower level park ing. They are proposing 162 units in the upper floors. That's 489 bedrooms, it's 145 ,000 square feet. The parking garage itself is over 59,000 square feet. In conjunction with this, they're providing 35,000 square feet of open space and a large part of that has to do with large courtyards that are interior and you can see open to retail, it says. Open below. They have a pool terrace on the roof of the building along with a pool for open space on the top they have another courtyard that's open to the residents so they're providing open space for the residents interior to the structure as well as the pool on the roof of the structure. They have three street frontages they are providing large sidewalk areas around the entire redevelopment of the property. Here is your primary access point on upper street. This is a full access point. It is an access point that is slightly off from cedar street. Just a slight offset. That was some concern and was discussed with traffic at length this is the best location in terms of their layout in getting the garage to function. There had been a full access point off jersey street but there is some grade issues and they have gone... This is just a service entrance into the loading dock, mechanical room and the trash room where they'll collect their trash and it will be picked up, will be served there off of jersey street. The development plan, the building itself is basically covering the majority of the lot with the exception of the large sidewalks that they're providing around the street frontage and the perimeter of the property. the plan was reviewed, of course , by your staff and you can see the conditions of approval in the sign-offs. There is one significant issue in terms of infrastructure, actually I'd say two, that have to be addressed and will be addressed. They're very, very much aware of this and it was discussed at your subdivision committee and that is the infrastructure, the storm water definitely has to be addressed in terms of the facilities in the area. And then the sanitary sewer situatio is such. There is a large public project that is going to be under way soon that is going to provide a new collector line for this area , which will greatly enhance the capacity in this particular bank. This bank doesn't have much room in it and the applicant was made very aware that they needed to address that sooner not later with our sanitary sewer people and get that committed to them, the capacity definitely needs to be committed to them and they can do that when they pay their fees to the sanitary sewer department of water quality. The applicant is also providing ... Excuse me... 148 parking spaces in the parking areas in the parking garage that pinpoint, that we show you on the plan here. Now it does not meet their actual requirement. They are going to have to go to the board of adjustment and ask for a variance for their parking that will be under the purview of the board of adjustment. It will be a public hearing and fully vetted at the board of adjustment. This plan will not be certified that variance from the board of adjustment and there are other -- the other option would be just to provide all the required park ing. They're asking for about a 31% reduction in the required park ing. The other most significant aspect is the form brief code. They're required to submit the report it was distributed to your committee at subdivision committee and since the zone change, the zoning committee did not get to see this particular one, but in it they go through and they show the site, of course, and then they give, they provide pictures and elevations of the surrounding neighborhood and the purpose of this study is to demonstrate that this development does fit within the context and character of the area and I would draw your attention, and if you'll all have a copy, you can put it on the overhead. I believe that will help, to page 4. It May not fit very well but the purpose, if you glance briefly. These are photographs intended to give you commercial and residential context and you will see that there is a variety in the area. There are residential structures that are 20 some feet tall in nature one and two stories, some commercial structures that are mellow mushroom is only a single story. Then you will see that there are others you have center court and parking garage at U.K. And structures that are much higher next seas of 90 feet in height. This particular as I state, the building is proposed to be 76 feet in height and six story. They're stepping it back to five stories on the north side where it's closest across pine street from the south hill historic neighborhood. And then I would direct your attention to page 8. This is an aerial photograph and you can see in red where the project is right under the word upper and you can look and see and that's looking across the campus of U.K. You can see some of the buildings in the area. You can see the massing, the you can see the dorms. And many of the large buildings that exist on U.K. As well as looking across on further you can see downtown. And then moving on to page 12 this is itself graphics representation to scale of the various buildings in the area. You can see the parking garage and the hub depicted and other buildings in the area and they range from 30 feet in height to 90 feet in height in the area and again this is part of the study just to demonstrate that contech. The last page I would direct your attention to would be page 13 and this aerial photograph and staff believes this demonstrates very well the context of the area as you look and you can see the hub there in the center. You can see the pool on the roof , yes, thank you. You can see parking garages, you can see the dorms under construction and see the large massing that is just right across lime street and jersey street and then if you look in the area direction, you can see on upper, center court and its massing and then even the neighborhood, and again I would add that the neighborhood area, the massing there, this is all part of the context and the content of a neighborhood study. And it is a form-based study. We are not talking about use in this instance. In terms of the appearance and the massing of the building. We are talking about its form and its size and height. So in the review, we have handed out to you, again, the building and staff's estimation does fit within the area. There are, as stated larger buildings, smaller buildings. There is quite a diversity of massing and height in the area. The design, and there are pictures and this will be incorporated by the way. I want to invest that, it is absolutely a requirement that this plan, this study be adopted as part of your approval. They're using brick and various types of material that are compatible with much of the material in the area and with the character of many of the structures in the area. So again we think staff does that is complying with the requirement of the form based zone. The pedestrian accommodations and this is very important, and they are proposing anywhere from 16 to 18 feet of sidewalk around the perimeter. Creating a very nice pedestrian accommodation. And there is also large right of ways this is rough roughly almost 50 feet of right of way on jersey. Same with pine street. 50 feet and the arterial it is 60 feet. You have the horizontal distance that helps mitigate height when you cite a building in an urban environment. Staff initially had some concerns with the study and with the development plan that had to do with pedestian level and the interest tbraition into the neighborhood. Most of us, when we are in an area like this, whether we are walking in an area, we interact at a pedestrian level. And that's where the experience, I mean we May step back and look up and say, you know, this is a large building and wow, look at that and be impressed from that sort of thing and from a distance but we tend to interact mostly at that pedestrian level. And it was very important and in your requirements, in your ordinances, it stresses supplemental landscaping, stress es the pedestrian facilities, it stresses public open space to help integrate the development into the neighborhood with this new plan we believe they're doing that. They're showing us large trees and public areas defined by walls and screens along with plantings. You can see here and they've done this long the major street frontages. Staff believes that this revised plan and the study is very much an improvement over the original one because it addresses what we believe is a very important component to integrating this sort of development to the neighborhood. Very quickly, let me show you two other things. Staff is aware of the south hill historic neighborhood to the south of the development. We wanted you to see it and it is right there it is hard for me to see anyway, just that up, that purple area is the neighborhood and you can see it covers several blocks. It exists in a relationship with the university of kentucky. It exists in a relationship with downtown, with rupp arena, the surface parking associated with rupp arena. You can see if you look, the lex in this area, you can see center court, you can certainly see the university of kentucky and the many large structures that dominate the university of kentucky as well as downtown. That's part of the relationship that exists in this entire area. If you see the blue line, that's jersey street and you can see the parking lot and as you look. I think this particular photograph compliments the photographs in the character study that was provided and show s the massing and height of other structures in the area and this is one reason staff submit ted that we have recommend ed, not only apro. Of the development plan, we do believe that the character study demonstrates this form-based b-1 request is justified in this area and does meet the requirements of your form-based requirements in your b-1 of your zoning ordinance. There is one recommendation that they provide a revised area character and context study that illustrates the supplemental landscaping. I believe they have one. Staff does not. But because you are going to incorporate that in part of your findings, it needs to reflect it and what we are talking about is the landscaping, the public areas and these aspects of tying this development at a pedestrian level into the surrounding neighborhood. And staff again, thinks that the student housing adjacent to U.K. Is a good place for student housing. And so with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you May have. >> >> any questions? >> Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I'm dick murphy and I'm very pleased today to be representing core spaces which is the proposed developer of this property. Jeff our architect is passing out to you our contact study which Mr. Martin alluded to I think that we've already made the change that he suggested in our latest submission. I wanted to introduce you to tom harrington, and -- from chicago, their headquarters. Our architect. And chicago as well. And antonivich does almost all of core's university oriented houseingprojects. They have done about 22 of them across the country. Also, here our local team is kevin warner, john carmen has been involved here along with kevin. Eddie and brett malloy have integrated in here, our traffic consultants would be happy to answer any questions that you May have about. That kevin philips from andrus engineering is our surveyor. Kevin is not here was. Chas works with me and he's here as well. As I mentioned you to, core spaces is specializes in constructing and operating high-quality student-oriented quality projects in cities across america. They currently have 22 projects madison wisconsin, west lafayette, indiana, and tucson, tempe, arizona, oxford, mississippi, and columbia south carolina and about 15 more projects across america. They their goal is to be close to campus. They suply a high-quality, high-end resident with amenities. For instance, in our development here, you probably saw in our plan, there is a roof top swimming pool on this development. They have succeeded, I think, in providing a high-quality development on this property. And as we're -- as Mr. Martin mentioned, we are basically right at campus here. We're oriented to the university of kentucky. And we are much closer to the core of campus here, much closer than many of the new dormitories that U.K. Has built out sports center drive which goes out to cooper drive. we'll be in much closer walking distance to the core campus than many of their own new dormitories. And as has been discussed, this is a mixed use project. We have a we were under a confidentiality clause in our negotiations with our retailer. We under a confidentiality clause we cannot reveal who the retailer is. But we can say that we're very close to an agreement with a national retailer the that has a grocery component, a grocery component on the first floor 20,000 square feet space. It is a compact very compact version of the national retailers plan. They have done this in a couple of other cities. But we are close to that, but, not quite finalized. And on the background is to how core got this property, Mr. Martin mentioned land swap with U.K. You probably saw in the paper a couple of months ago, the U.K. Trustees approved a land swap with core, and that is because core had gotten a contract to purchase kennedy book store, and also, the fazoli's restaurant next to kennedy book store for a project similar to this. When U.K. Got notice of that, they were concerned because they felt that the kennedy book store site is the keystone to their central campus. Core would get this upper street jersey street parking lot and also tracks down at the corner of virginia avenue and south limestone street and you'll be seeing that later on. We have this under contract with university university of kentucky, and I'm real excited about this development. Us a know, I have been attending your discussions of the cam present hennessy plan over the last few months. People come can't speak unless you're a member of the planning commission but I've been hearing the discussion about making new development pedestrian friendly, and bicycle friendly, and transit friendly there can be upgrades to lex tran and stop just 50 feet away from her going in both directions and also, the discussion, the important discussion about putting greater density along corridors. Which we, do making use of underutilized property, which this certainly is, it is a parking lot. That's all that there is on the property. No buildings on this property at all. It is parking lot. And, also, having density near to our major corridors. So when I hear that discussion, and I've been working with core for a few months on this, I'm thinking, wow, we have what the new comprehensive plan, the new goals and objectives that you voted on last week, we have exactly what is being proposed on the new comprehensive plan. I'll give you more details about this as you know, this is a form-based project and the b-1 zone. You all passed an ordinance two or three years ago allowing form-based projects there has been one before us. And that was this thisle station development at newtown and fourth street. As you probably recall that was a 15 story building. 15 stories up at newtown and fourth. This is a six-story building in the south part of, a five story building in the north part of this property. But, I want to emphasize, it is already zoned b1. There has been some we're not rezoning this property. It is already zoned neighborhood business and in a zone which allows exactly what we're proposing to you four or five story parking structure. Go to the next one, and we -- this is center court which is across upper street. We're going to the other side now and across upper street from us. This is the four story section of center court and this is again to the west, closer into the areas than we are across upper street, four stories there. Going to next slide. We on the south part of center court, interest is five stories. One, two, three, four, five stories farther to the south. So that transitions four to five, we transitioned five to six. On the closer side to U.K. I want to mention the kennedy faz oli's lot. That's between us and U.K.'s parking structure so if we are trading the kennedy fazoli's lot to U.K., obviously, U.K. Will build something on there I asked U.K. About this and said, well what are you going to build on there? they said, we don't know yet. I said, can you give me an idea of what the size or the massingwould be? We think that it would be in keeping with our parking garage since it is directly adjacent to our parking garage. That's the seven story parking garage I told you about. So it is likely that we'll have a building comparable in size. I don't know what the use will be in size, to that parking garage on the kennedy fazoli's lot which is just one lot separated from us and as U.K. Seems to like seven stories. They have seven story parking garage and two seven-story garages. We're transitioning down from that on the west side of the campus. The other thing that we wanted to mention to you also, is what if core does not build on this site? What will be built on this parking lot that we're -- we have before you today? And if you go to that slide with the U.K. Does not know that -- they sent out in I think November last year, at an rfp for a ppp. Rpf request for proposal request for proposal for a public private partnership to develop this lot that we have before you today. This was before core came in to the picture. And, I was just trying to get an idea of what the plan was. So the next -- the page that I have got in here describes what their requirement was. It would retain the property tax exemption on the property. doing it that way. But, it would be a private public partnership on the property. And it was also, retained zoning exemption as you all know, U.K. Is exempt from zoning requirements. What were they looking for? Down there, you can see it says the university requires the development of the jersey street lot consists of ground floor retail, commercial and/or office use with four or more, four or more levels of supported parking above. Also, they said the university will consider a mixed use development that supports the overall objectives of the university. So what that says is, when they set out the request for proposals, before core got involved, they required a minimum of a five-story building. Not maximum, a minimum of a five-story building on this property. We are proposing five, as I said, on pine, and six to the rear. So, this would be totally in keeping with what the request% for proposals would be. But, with the swap to core, it is no longer exempt from taxes, and it is no longer exempt from zoning. You have the review. I mean, U.K. Might come in with their -- one of their public facility reviews like the school board does, but as you all know, even if you vote down the school board proposal, they can still build it anyway. Same thing with U.K. On this. so I needed to point that out because we're not dealing with the situation where it is either a parking lot or a one-story building versus what we're proposing. A minimum five it could be parking structure and retail, or it could be a mixed use building as we're proposing with you today. But, this way, you all have review power, over us and our development plan. Mr. Chairman, I need tuque about parking here. But before I get into that I want to know if I'm allowed to talk about patienting today because our parking request is going to go to the board of adjustment. And, the board of adjustment has the control over what parking we do. >> I would prefer that we hold on that we have no control over that but as questions come up later on, we might want to address that particular issue. >> all I'm going to caution you is that, I May need more than the normal three minutes to respond to, describe to you what our parking situation is on this property. >> okay, if the question comes up, I will caution my colleagues here again, once again, you have got to go before the board of adjustment for that. And they have got to give you a waiver and of course, in some instances, you would have gone there before you came here to begin. With I mean, it is kind of like they tell me it is like a chicken and an egg kind of thing but we'll hold off if you don't mind and we'll get, if we get to the questions and you need to answer more fully, we'll give you that ample opportunity. >> we wanted to come to you first because when we come you to, then we know how many units that we have, and all of that sort of thing. And then, we can go to the board and say, this is exactly what we have been approved for. Unit-wise and size-wise, and now we need to talk to you about what our parking is. But as he mentioned, core knows what they need, and the parking requirements are closer to campus that you get, the less parking that you need because we are geared toward students who know they do not need a car to get around campus. There have been questions raised to us about maintenance of the building, and I want to point out as I mentioned at the beginning, ore is in the business of developing, operating and maintaining what they develop here in the communities around the country. They do it. The questions have raised about security. What is the security? These are largely going to be students, now this is not limited to students but we recognize with the location that we're in, it is going be oriented to students and probably have a great appeal to students and the majority of our residents will be students, so, what is the security at this property? And, core has an office here which is staffed every day in the building. also, they have a policy that the employee, they have employees that live here. So they will have their employees living at the site, obviously 24/7 to know what is going on, and be able to be on top of any issues that come up. And, in addition, they have high irinsecurity on an as-needed basis for events or whatever is going on and in addition, they have many security cameras all over the place. And I have found that in working with student oriented housing, the most important thing about maintaining things is having strong onsite management. If you contrast this with houses in the state street area, other areas like that, where the owner May come by, some of the owners are very good. They go by once a day. Some of the owners come by once a month to pick up the rent check. There is varying degree of security but here, with core, it is -- they are there every day, they have people who work for them living there 24/7. And, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I have a number of people here who can answer questions that you May have about our facility. But, we're very, very pleased to do it. We have people who have a track record of doing high-quality, high-end student oriented housing and university communities and that's what core does. They do housing, and university communities like lexington. They would like to come here. They do a very good job with this. And as I said you to last, at the beginning, the -- I'm excited about it because, this totally meshs with what everything that we have been discussing about density, with the staff, we met with the staff before we started with this. And said, hey, are we on the right track? What do you think we ought to be doing? And we have listened to them every step of the way. And we're -- this again agrees with the goals that we have of making pedestrian bicycle friendly transit development increasing density and also not only along corridors but increasing density, major employment and educational centers in the community and this is the, as you all know, the major employment and educational center in lexington. So we're very pleased to bring this to you. Question thank you for your time and we would be pleased to answer any questions that you all might have. >> okay. Please stand back. As you probably will be. I guess that you're the person who would speak to this. >> if you could pull the powerpoint up. There was a report passed out, the study is that the same one that you sent me or is that a revised one? >> we we passed out to same. >> >> >> that's what I thought but I wanted to make sure that there wasn't a second revision. >>>> thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the proposed hub project 500-519 south upper street. I want to first address two things that Mr. Murphy said in his presentation that are probably really important. The first one, there was a lot of discussion about what U.K. Has. The problem is, this developer isn't U.K. This developeris a private out of state developer, who has to comply with our city zoning and subdivision regulations. They are not exempt like U.K. Is. So while U.K. Might be used for some import for architectural detailing, the heavy reliance upon U.K. Building structures and setbacks certainly is not dispositive and I submit to you shouldn't be weighted in considering your decision today. Second is at the end, Mr. Murphy referenced the rfp from the university of kentucky with respect to the size of the building. What Mr. Murphy didn't tell you and I May have time to get to it later on is that, in that proposal, U.K. Met with the neighborhood association south hill in the process, and through a process from last July through at least April of this year. And in that process, they agreed to a four-story height limitation and those proposals and plans were given to this developer when they entered into the land swap. Unfortunately, we have asked for copies of those architectural rending that U.K. Said they will not release under an open records request because the rfp is not closed and therefore we're not able to show you them today. The neighborhood association met with U.K. With respect to and U.K. Did an admiral job of engaging the neighborhood association and at the end an agreement was reached that it would be a four-story structure with retail and offices on the first level. And, if you look at the language there, it said supported parking. And it was going to have a three-story parking garage to adequately support the use of the project. With respect to your decision, you're governed by zoning ordinance 21-4d which was presented earlier, you must modify or disapprove the plan if it doesn't comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance or there is existing this plan falls under 8-16 our b-1 ordinance and specifically for a form based neighborhood business project under sub section 0 3. This is the second time this has come before the planning commission. I didn't go back and check the minutes to see how many of you all were at that hearing. As you know, that might have been a 15-story building but as you also know, the developer folded the project and it is not going anywhere. In this case I believe that at the end of the hearing, you should deny this project or dis approve this project for three reasons. Number one we actually evaluated the form based provisions of the code. We don't think they comply with the minimum standards and they're vague. I won't deal a lot with that. Even if it is not vague, the study they produced to you does not comply with the requirements it requires a deep level of analysis. It doesn't have even if it did have the analysis, it wouldn't justify the approval of the building. Here is another way to say that. If you are a fifth grader and the teacher assigns you a five- page paper to write and you turn in a one-page paper, you fail. Even if you turned in a five page paper and it's really, really bad, you still fail because although it's five pages , it doesn't meet the teacher's standards. In this case. To accommodate neighborhood shopping facilities it must orient to the residential neighborhood which is key and have a system adequate. We don't think it satisfies the comprehensive plan goals. Is we don't think it adequately addresses the intentions. There is a 20,000 square foot re tail center. Why it actually doesn't address the commercial needs of the area and it certainly doesn't analyze the commercial needs of the area and this is just sort of a pre view but similar mixed use projects in this area basically have failed to attract and sustain meaningful commercial re tail or restaurant options. The orientation to the neighborhood, if you look through the presentation, they spent very little time on the residential areas. As I counted it, about a minute. They spent about 10 to 12 minutes on U.K. That's not being oriented to the neighborhood. The roadway system, we already have some additional issues on congestion it will cause. You all know traffic problems on limestone and upper street, inevitability is that this will likely lead to a red light at the corner of cedar and upper and there is a new one on upper street. I'll deal with more specifics as we go through. So we don't think it meets the intent of the b-1 zone just to start out. If you look at what the b-1 zone requirements would be, which which are here and what they proposed, except for the form based provision at 0 3, they wouldn't be able do this. Essentially this allows them to circumvent the b-1 provisions by adding 20,000 square foot of are y tail on the first floor which May never be occupied to get a five and six story residential structure with park ing that would be the subject of the board of adjust ment, of course. The first argument is that 0 3 is vague. I won't go into details other than the research we've done does not require the elements necessary for a form based code or set fords the minimum standards for a form based study and therefore that has one of the. it doesn't comply with the elements. Even if it did have the elements , it junt justify the form based project. What is a form based code. This is something you haven't seen a lot of before you. Lots of development plans, lots of zone changes, lots of subdivision plats and plans. Here is what is important. It has predictable built results that are high quality. This is from the form-based codes institute. The intent is to ensure that the public's preferences are expressed and realized. And to enhance the neighborhood the public in south hill are not unreasonablable. They met with U.K. And came to an agreement regarding the park ing garage. Phase one and phase two actually submitted a letter in support of the four-story 50-foot height at center court because they believe that it was going to be adequate at the height level to not be excessive. It will not... It was scale, it's mass and size were complementary to the neighborhood. The developer in that case realized that, went in and gaug ed the neighborhood and got their agreement. South bell town home -- south mill town homes is similar. South hill's objectives is not that it is a mixed use project or dense project. It is that the scale and mass of this building does not complement the character of the neighborhood area and I'll define what area is in a second and that contrary to its rel iance upon a couple of U.K. Buildings when you do an analysis of all of the other residential, commercial and mix ed use, this project doesn't fit with the character of those. You don't here the folks support ing this project. There are a bunch of articles on line if you read public comments, we have prepared two and three binders of data of articles, photographs which I will not have time in 30 minutes to go through. We submit that into the record for additional support for the bullet points in here. We have letters and emails in opposition at 12:30 today walking over here, bluegrass trust has opposed the project. Across broadway apposed this. This isn't hub's first zoning fight. This is one example of flagstaff arizona. Most of their projects are not next to historic residential neighborhoods. Most of them are in areas that are either already high density multistory eight, 10, 12, 15 story buildings or they're out in residential -- or out on college or university campuses with vast expanses of land and you'll see pictures later on to show their buildings have park ing garages all around them and open field. They're not near historic residence. Flagstaff is one of those and they had significant open ition. There the battle raged into court system finally. And other implications. The public's preference is that this project as it is currently proposed, not the concept but proposed is too massive and doesn't have enough parking which is another issue and is not consistent with the architecture of the surrounding area. So what is the intent? It has to... Not to remove the appropriate elements but to instead engage the area as built in a complementary way. We have some resources. But here is what the study should include. It needs to look at lapped use, zoning, public policy, socio economic conditions, open spaces, public and private, historic and curl resources, urban design, shadow lighting transportation noise. None of these have been evaluat ed thoroughly in the study. They have some conclusion collusionary statements but none have data, or analysis. So what should an area character in context study include? So this is what is required under 618.On 3 we believe to comply with the ordinance if the ordinance is valid. Have you to document the architectural and urban design character of the area. They have one page of photos that does that. Demonstrate through graphic materials how the project will enhance and complement the area 's character. I'm going to show you there are four conclusionary sentences and show integration with the surrounding neighborhood by using positive design features the that May be their strongest point is that they included some pedestrian sit down areas which happened in the last two weeks. In order to identify the, the there is information about why character neighborhood matters. So our belief is that the hub's stud fails to define the actual area. It relies on pictures of 21 adjacent properties with two exceptions. The two non-adjacent properties are U.K. Properties. It skips where they want to go and ignore other data. They ignore south hill residential neighborhood area which is supposed to be oriented to. It doesn't include architectural or analysis and has conclusion ary statements. Page 5, it says the project seeks to actively engage the south hill neighborhood through creative architecture dynamic re tail presence along pine street. That sounds great what does it mean? How does it engage the question unless it is towering over it. Center court reduces the height. What is the dynamic retail along pine street? I don't know if you walk add long pine street. It doesn't have any retail. There is a restaurant at the corner of pine and upper and there is a restaurant at the corner of limestone and pine but pine doesn't have any retail. There is retail long upper. There is retail along limestone. But not along pine. We think this shows and a short shrifting of the analysis to figure out what is going to work for this area. There is another example of page seven, conclusionary. I'm going to come and talk about some of those in a minute when I do the analysis of the historical area. The study May look good but when you actually do the analysis they're not supported by the data. So let's compare this to the fiscal station study. Page 7 or 10, the materials over there. They have a lot more analysis of local structures of neighborhood buildings and area context than this study does. So what is the area? U.K. Study, the hub study define s this as 21 adjacent properties U.K. Dorm and parking lot. We think there are four areas, there are four components that comprise this area. The first is single family residential which consists of historic and non-historic. Commercial aspect along upper and limestone. There is mixed use, if you think of a boundary everyone knows where city court is on south martin luther. I have a map. This is the area over here. Down here city court. Centre court, south mill town homes, the lex. If we would walk through the area, we would actually see that there is an engaging line of mix ed use properties all along the border of U.K. And the rest of lexington that this totally ignores and finally we do have to admit U.K. Is one of four components of the area but not the sole component. This is their map. There are 23 total properties. We don't think that even when you look at the properties that they identified that they support the height or the density or the setbacks. Here is an analysis of their properties, the setbacks and of the height for the residential. The analysis of the setbacks and the height for the commercial properties. You can clearly tell their project dwarfs any of the neighboring residential commercial they identified in page 3 or 4 of their study. The U.K. Property, a parking garage and residential structure both have significant setbacks and height again they're uk. They can do what they want. This developer is not. We think if they did the analysis, it would not support what they ro pose and again this is where in 2004 southland neighborhood association engaged by the centre court developers agreed to a 50-foot height limit ation. We think that should be the benchmark for this property to be developed. It's what U.K. Agreed when they put out the rfp, south hill neighborhood and they've said no this is what they want. I wish that wasn't the case but they're entitled to have a view point different than ours. This is the parking lot. If you look at the university colored in yellow and I apologize, I'm not an attorney. I don't have all the things to make the drawings nice. Highlighted in red around here, we have mixed use the pink property and kim believe court. Low density residential and some more higher density residential. It consists of houses and we pulled the historic inventories for every property, it talks about when it was built, structures, all types of floor ing issues, materials, structure materials, alterations , doors window, orientation to the street, set backs, this study doesn't have an analysis of any of that. There is significant information that can guide. It was ignored. National historic register, photos about the neighborhood. I'm not asking it to look like this again. That's not the point. The point is to say there are other historical information they could have looked at at the study that they didn't. Secretary of the interior standards for treatment of historic properties again it instructs how historic neighborhoods should be interest integrated into mixed use increasing density residential areas and commercial areas. You'll see for example, a quick overvie, things like hip gable roofs, clapboards, rick veneer siding, rock stone face. None of those architectural features are in this project. Additional houses. Then have you non-historic residential properties and here you see this is the zoning categories for each of those, the story's height. What this shows is again all of the historic, all of the non- historic residential properties have a height limit ation of about one and a half to two stories. Here is key architectural features, windows and doors vertically proportions, multi pane, attached elements, information we pulled by summarizing the data that the study doesn't look at. Number two, the second part of the area is commercial. Again area mainly on limestone and some on maxwell with a smattering of upper. We looked at the height of those there is the height references to each of those properties. Again, the commercial with some exceptions are well below five stories, all of them below four stories, most of them are two or three. Mixed use area. So here is a map that shows the mixed use area that forms the line between U.K. Ands which is here and the downtown and residential areas. South hill, crawl town kim ball house, south broadway place, the lex, and mixed use projects and I include them for specific reasons. Other high density residential like city core, south mill commons and 524 and 525. No analysis or recognitions that these properties could be constructive to the character of the area they're developing in this is a parking issue for the board after justment. We have height issues. Every one of these max much four stories. And when I say that, where it engages the neighborhood. This is example of centre court, 50-foot on the residential side. s I can't overstate the importance. We have to oppose this plan. It is not because they're oppos ed to mixed use in the south hill area. It is because this project doesn't take into consideration and respect the integration with the existing residential and commercial areas that are not five and six stories in height. Centre court, city court again kim balance house, south mill commons. The lex, the examples of the height. 500 on main. This is a great example of one that does not... Of the height that engages a four or five or six depending how you count it, road, right across from rupp arena. That's the mass and scale into that type of space. Not into a residential area. Then we talked about mixed use area. This is really important. They want to put a 20,000 square foot retail space. As much as it sounds nice. As much as we all wish it were true, retail and mixed use in lexington is a failure. If you think about any of the projects along this line around downtown, around the U.K. Area all of them have significant vacancies. The one exception is probably main and rose but if you go, I had to come through and change the conditional zoning restriction on kim balance kim ball house. Three of seven spaces in centre court are leased. The lex, they've never leased anything there. Two are open. J.D.I. Closed. The restaurant in new town cross ing, three different restaurants in there. So while it May sound good to have retail or restaurant in these mixed use projects in practice we have a real problem in getting them to fill up. I can't prove this but I suspect that one of the reasons why is that the these projecs rely upon people who live there seven or eight months out of the year at most and they can't make it the rest of the year. And so while they May survive a year or two, they eventually go out of business or move location because they can't sustain re tail in these areas. These are pictures of the vacancies to support the claim that the idea of commercial May sound great but doesn't work. Finally U.K. Area, there is just a three, a height in stories, the setbacks, you can see that even U.K. When they build large structures, they provide significant setbacks from the pedestrian right of way to minimize the scale and intrusion% of that building into the public% space and to the neighborhood. Essentially, though not exactly, there is about seven to 10 feet for every height. They step back. U.K.'s park ago national sis, 44 % of the students have parking not asking you to resolve 9 park ing issue today. It's not as clean cut as they think it is. Before we approve the building with the density, we need to think carefully on a plan that accomplishes or integrates a parking issue. I just think it's unrealistic when they come to parking to think that even if the retailer says they only want 30 spots, that they can't guarantee that residents don't take them over, force the retail over or the re tail doesn't need more. It's a just come believed mix. The bottom line is zoning ordinance requires 75 parking spaces for the retail regardless what the retailer believes they want. Hub's other projects receive mix ed reviews. They say they're a high end developer. I'm not here to say. When we look across and look at their analysis of the bedrooms and information we can get, they have a higher percentage of park ing in the ones we could find data for than what they are proposing in lexington. There is the next chart. A lot of these are still under construction. One of the reasons is they put five to six projects online a year so we think they have about 10 to 12 that are in construction phase right now. So we can't get final data on that. Also they're built in non- historic areas. In those areas there isn't the need to emphasize the distinct ive character of the area. I say the word area because that's what our ordinance uses. The ordinance is not just residential. The area is multifaceted. It is complex but it should also be acknowledged and understood and respected in all of those aspects not just the couple U.K. Buildings they want to emphasize more stuff from the problems they had in flagstaff. Just research that says this. They can come in here and sing a great song, but a lot of the people don't agree. Tenants say it's not as great as what they thought it was. That's tenants. Some of them like it, some of them don't. Safety concerns. We've found stories where a death at a property not too long ago. Roof top deck with a pool, beer bottles then over. Somebody jumped off or something like that, we don't know exactly and fell to his death. The other thing that concerned us hub told us at subcommittee hearings they intend do well out of state company that mans the property. They actually come in and like to flip these buildings so they're here for two years and sell it and they're out. What happens to the next owner? Again the security isn't a portion of this, but I think it destlesz into considerations about how are we going to integrate this building and the security especially in the neighborhood where residents are already struggling the times with a student population and out of control student population on thursday friday and saturday nights. One of the other concerns we have is that developers have found a way to take what tip their were one and two bedroom apartments and another one and two bedroom apartment with two kitchens and make them into... That's 27 minutes, and make them into one unit, get rid of one kitchen and increase the bedroom s by one. What that does for those of you who have had college kids, if you have two kids living together, the chances of security issues of partying goes down significantly. Once you put three or four, five kids together, those issues increase significantly. We are concerned how they're going to do the allocation. We asked them for the allocation they said they don't know. We are worried about that. The neighborhood association, a parking permit in south hill. Engage that to protect your problem. Here is the problem. It's monday to friday 8:00 to 5:00, the very time the people are at work is the only time their parking spaces are protect ed. Does that make sense? Of course not. But that's what it says. It's not fair for somebody to say they have parking protection we have explored changing that and based upon the current guidelines we don't think it's realistic it will occur. Here are some examples of other buildings, larger buildings. Some of them are pretty. I'm not knocking their architectural design. I'm challenging the design in lexington doesn't fit this area. There is another one. There is another one. S this is sinting from tuscon. if they were willing to discuss it, they knocked it down one story. They could do a project in lexington whenner they started one level at three and then tier ed it up to four or five on the backside. There is a way that they could better integrate this project with lexington if they had been willing to talk to us. Here is another project that I thought in my swru did a great job of integrating a lot more historical character like old types of barn wood, vertical in set, not modern steel clad windows but forms that project outside which is a lot of the historical character so they can% design this stuff. They just didn't do it here. Finally, I've been concerned about the rushed schedule on this. When they met with the neighborhood association in July , this is what they said. We are going to come to a trc in August. We are going to come back for a second trc in September. We are going have our subdivision committee in October and final in November. I got involved the first week of August and we asked to clarify what we found out late August they wanted to keep on a date to get heard today instead of what they originally told the neighborhood they were going to do. Finally there is this air with our recent decision for infill and redevelopment and not expanding the uban service boundary that we are going to have to approve every single in fill project that comes in regardless. I want to disabuse the planning commission of that notion. That decision is a political and philosophical guideline. Doesn't mean you should approve everything that comes through here. You still have to follow 816.0 3 less than a mile away there are three lots that are for sale and for development, 840, I do don't know if these two are. Developer backed out of these two days ago because when he saw the hub article, he said I can't build high density apartments if they're going to build. There is land available to have density with student housing that's appropriate. We have land to do that. But this shows that in my mind, that developer is also from chicago. That they're worried about we are overbuilding our off campus student housing in the multi- projects. So in conclusion, I don't think their study complies with the minimum requirements of 816 hnt 0 3 and even if it does, they haven't justified or explained why it should be approved. In conclusion, while I always prefer to get up here and ask the planning commission to adopt something that has conditions, because of the way this project is set up under the form-based code guidelines, I can't do that today because it can't be fixed by notes or subtle changes; therefore, although I'm disheart ened to have to suggest against an infill project, I'm respectfully asking you all to deny this application today, invite the applicant to come back, discuss this with the neighborhood association, re consider their project so that they can move forward on one that is appropriate for the scale, the mass and integration with the neighborhood that will result in a better product for U.K., for U.K. Students, for you all and for our community. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> Mr. Duncan, how much time do we have in this facility? >> there is a 6:00 council meeting in here tonight so we have 30 minutes. If you wanted to relocate we have made arrangements to move to the phoenix building third floor. We will not have any media. The secretary will have a recording that she will continue to use for minutes but there will not be any overhead or media at that location. But that is available to us at any time now. >> so we can stay here until 6:00? Well, I would say for about 15 more minutes. >> I would like to stay here for at least 15 minutes because if there are people here that would like to get their comments on record. >> we will still have the record just not the video record. >> I will give them a shot to be on television we'll turn it over to the citizens. Anybody want to speak in favor of this project? Anyone like to speak period? In light of the time and respect to your colleagues about three minutes each. >> is it pots to -- possible to pull up number 8 on the character study? My name is alan bartly, 353 south hill street. I want to point this picture up but I'll start briefly. I'm an economist at translyvania university, have a ph.D. From vanderbilt and I have been with transy for 18 years. I also work for the state. I do budgeting. I say all this because I have been professionally trained and paid as a consultant to conduct analyses of these types of things. I brought my son up. To the right up there pacht the red, a lot of what we see in the drawings is down here to the right. That little group of trees is where the neighborhood is. That's where he rides his bike. The group doesn't address the neighborhood. The neighborhood is a neighborhood. We know as citizens what a neighborhood is. It's not these buildings down here. These are filled nine months out of the year. It's the neighborhood and so I bring that up because as an economist I recognize development. I've lived downtown for 18 years I love development. When I moved here 18 years ago, I lived 18 all downtown. Hardly anything to do. I'm. Chad: we have development but as an economist I know the difference between development and suitable good development. And here what is I think the big distinction is. In this area and context study, the area character has been for the U.K. Buildings and all of the concrete. That little group of trees up there that is the historic neighborhood is the difference between the concrete of U.K. And the concrete of downtown. And if you have ever traveled or listened to other people who do like to travel here, people don't come for the concrete. They don't come for the high buildings. They come for the character of an area. And I think this is very important as an economist because I do study this a lot professionally; that when you have a difference between something like that the thistle station was brought up earlier, thistle station, I actually like the design. Thistle station was 15 stories next to new town pike which is just a thoroughfare to get in and out of town, massive traffic this is highly different. This is six stories of students and the students, my understanding, these rooms are individually rented. This is not a family of four living together like down in the rest of the neighborhood which is, again, directly right up to the right. That's very important. Economists talk about negative externalities. That's fancy economic language. I won't bore you. But basically what that means as an example, economists like development, economists like developers taking chances to fill up things for profit as long as it doesn't negatively affect others. Think of the smokers that we allow to smoke but not sitting next to you inside of a restaurant. There is a reason why we do that because we say people can smoke but not next to you because it is a negatively affecting you. This will negatively affect the area. On the rest of the studies they have the red and white around it we all know that a neighborhood is not the house directly across the street from you. It is the neighborhood. The only neighborhood is that little patch of green up there that as round there. So what I submit to you is that even though I know today we are not talking about parking. Parking is large. I say my son bikes on that street. He does not bike during normal working hours because traffic is terrible. There is going to be a major parking issue here. There is a parking congestion. There is the speedig. There is the vandalism, these are students. I think that's very important to note. For a character study, yes at scu U.K. They're... I love them but they're not the ones living in our neighborhoods. They're living on U.K.'s campus and yes it is close but it is not the same and they bring negative externalities. They bring positive. If we get a retailer, that's great but the four story limit is very important because as an economist, I recognize that if you match what is already there, you are expanding and I would say enhancing. If you get massive congestion jetion, massive parking that is not especially hansing and my understanding is the contact study requires that you enhance the neighborhood and that doesn't do it. Thank you very much. >> I'm jennifer kaufman, retired federal judge lives downtown south mill street in 2005. I say retired but I'm still teaching part time at U.K. And I walk to do that. My husband is a retired dentist% and he is teaching at U.K. And running their faculty practice clinic and when he is teaching he walks to U.K. Why did we move in part of the reason we moved was the architecture, the historical charm and the desire to, yes, walk a lot of places. Now as alan... And alan is my across the street neighbor and he has two children. I have a neighbor right next door 20 have a little boy who is elementary school age in montessori school street, joy moore who just had to leave, has two children. This is a neighborhood. We know our neighbors and I mov ed there for the walking and the charm, but I got a lot more. There are baby boomer empty nest ers like us. There are college students, there are young professionals. They range in age from burr and ruby, all the way to people in their 70s. I walked to work every day to the federal courthouse and I still walk to U.K. My home is part of the historic architecture. In fact one of those pictures, I didn't know you took it, but that was my home. But we looked to move downtown a year and a half before we actually moved. I felt it was a little scary in parts because south hill cross ing, those south mill town homes weren't there then and my husband thought he had found some great places and I just said I wouldn't feel comfortable with all that empty space across the street and then came south hill crossing. Developed by the same developer who did centre court with respect for the surrounding area built structures that complement and enhance the neighborhood. That's my first point. This is a unique neighborhood. That is, that does have some good infill and development. My second point is I want infill and development. I love the fact that the uban service boundary was not expanded. I want this development but I want good development. Look at centre court. They respected the neighborhood. Look at the agreement we came to with U.K., really in April or so o o o o o o o talk more about that. But they knew what enhanced the neighborhood. that's my second point, that we want infill and development if it's right and my third point is this: this is a precedent. You don't have to approve just anything somebody brings to you. This form-based study is important. This form-based concept is important. I hope you will consider our arguments. And our concerns. >> thank you very much. >> my name is daniel brazil. 358 south upper a block and a half from this development. I have lived there with my family since 1978. I've seen a lot of changes in the south mill area and never seen the prospect of a change which was as threat toing as to the character of the neighborhood. I won't add anything because the points have been made but I simply wanted to second the points that have been made. Thank you. >> bill johnston. I'm President Of the bluegrass trust for historic preservation and I'm here speaking for the trust and for myself. I'm going to condense what I scribbled down to say because it has been said so well. The trust is absolutely in agreement with the opposition to south hill has expressed. We are very concerned about the mass of the building relative to the neighborhood that it is being set down into. I think the picture on page 13 really summarizes that very well page 13 of your handout from... Some points I wanted to make, core spaces is its hub projects are oriented for providing hous ing for students as everybody has stated, including them. Their website defines their hub projects of which there are several, in existence are quote flag ship, brand offerings that best in class, student housing, designated designed for every aspect of student life. This sounds a lot like a student dormitory. The zoning ordinance on page 16 calls for dormitories owned by the school to consider each bedroom as a separate dwelling unit. Elsewhere the zoning ordinance consistently calls for one park ing space for dwelling unit. Providing 173 spaces instead of three each per 162 units or 486 spaces is only 36% of what the zoning ordinance calls for. It's like 64% reduced from what it should be. Dumping several hundred cars on the surrounding streets when they're already packed with park ed cars, is hard to comprehend. South hill does not consist of many private driveways and homeowners are often dependent on street parking by their house with an increase in density and possible lack of available park ing, south hill neighborhood association will become less desirable. Bluegrass trust because of the negative impact that the hub at 500 south upper will have on south hill's contribution to the city of the historic district bluegrass trust for historic preservation cannot support core 's plan for the off campus apartment complex. thank you. >> we are now going to move over