Music Hey everybody, my name is Brett Smith and I'm here at The Casual Pint on Main Street for LexTV and only downtown. I'm joined today by The Casual Pint's owner, Jason Elsie. And Jason, for anybody that's not been to The Casual Pint before, could you describe it in just a couple sentences? Yeah, we are a craft beer tap room with a focus and emphasis on a casual atmosphere. We try to be a coffee shop vibe that serves beer. Kind of unique from other stores around here is we also sell package. So behind us you can see six packs. You can make your own six pack. We have a cooler with almost 300 different beers in there. So we're here in the morning and you guys are already open. Are you always open this early? Yes, we are. Being in a more business-oriented area and serving food, we thought it was pretty important to be open at 11 around times when people are looking for something to eat. We're a little bit isolated as far as bars or alcohol goes over here. And I think that people gravitate towards us, not only because we have a great beer selection, but we have food as well and a casual atmosphere. And you guys just celebrated your one-year anniversary here, right? Sure did, yeah. It's been a crazy fast year. Well, Jason, congratulations on your first birthday here. Thank you. Now, you mentioned the Mix of Sixes, and you actually already went ahead and built me one. I did, yes. So you guys at Casual Pint, you're all beer experts. So assume that I know nothing. You're probably correct. And go through what you picked out for me in my Mix of Six today and sort of explain why you picked those. Sure. Sure. We tried to stick with a little bit of local from here in Lexington and a bit of regional local. Think local, drink local. I like it. Exactly. So how appropriate, we have a West 6 poster here behind us, but the first beer I picked for you was the Cerveza. This is a new Mexican-style lager that West 6 came out with recently. This is a great one. Easy drinker, great for the summer, hot weather. The staple of Lexington, I think, is the Country Boy Cougar Bait. Yeah. You'll see this pretty much everywhere that sells beer. Why is that the staple for Country Boy, would you say? Honestly, it's a fantastic beer. It's an easy drinker, and I think they do a really good job at marketing it and getting it out there. Next, we have a Cincinnati beer by Rheingeist. It's called Truth. This is an IPA. One of my favorites. Also another really easy drinker for those especially that love some hops. Another IPA, another West 6, just their typical IPA. Very similar, same boat as Cougar Bait. You're going to see this pretty much everywhere that sells craft beer. I'm not going to put you on the spot and ask which IPA you like better. I like them all equally. We have another one out of Cincinnati. This is Madtree's Psychopathy. Madtree just came to the region, or this area, Lexington area, about eight months ago, maybe. Something like that. Had a huge release, but this is a fantastic IPA. Highly recommend. This is IPA heavy. It is IPA heavy, but it's my favorite style. Why is that? Well, show me what you got, and then we'll talk IPAs. We have Bearded Iris Home Style. Super popular. Recently came to the Lexington area. This is out of Nashville, actually. This is also an IPA, but it's described as juicy. What does that mean? You're going to get some citrus flavors. It's not going to be super crisp or bitter like you would find with your psychopathy. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ORCHESTRA PLAYS Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Good afternoon. We're ready to proceed. Welcome to everybody. This is a zone change public hearing, Tuesday, June 12, 2018. I'm Vice Mayor Steve Kaye. I'll be presiding at the zone change and we have some preliminaries to go through before we get to the actual presentation. starting with asking the clerk to call the roll. Mr. Maloney. Here. Ms. Massadi. Ms. Plowman. Here. Mr. Smith. Here. Mr. Stinnett. Mr. Worley. Yes, sir. Ms. Bledsoe. Mr. Fred Brown. Here. Mr. James Brown. Ms. Evans. Here. farmer yes yes sir mr gibbs here miss henson here vice mayor kay here miss lamb here thank you the next item will be for the clerk to give second reading to the zone change ordinance when you're ready sir an ordinance changing the zone from a single family residential r1c zone to a planned neighborhood residential r3 zone for 2.09 net 2.60 gross acres for property located at 3009 3013 and 3021 tates creek road off-season llc council district 4. thank you next If people have not signed in but wish to speak, there's a sign-in sheet at the back of the room. And the way that we have conducted these hearings is that people who wish to comment, we ask them to come to the podium, give their name and address, and each person will have three minutes. If you are here and you wish to yield your time to someone else, when you can yield up to two people can yield three minutes each to a another person for one person to speak a maximum of nine minutes I will be the time keeper and I will let you know when your time is expiring if you plan to speak this evening or you think you might speak this evening I'm going to ask you to stand and I need to swear you in so if you would all if you plan to speak or Or if you might speak. It won't hurt you to swear an oath even if you don't speak. I'm going to read it and then I'm going to ask you to say yes. Do you swear or affirm that any testimony that you give at this hearing will be true to the best of your knowledge? Yes. Thank you. You may be seated. Now a couple of things about the way these hearings are conducted. I will be the presiding officer, and as such, I have the power to, it says here, make evidentiary decisions to exclude irrelevant and repetitious testimony, and basically to rule if comments are in order. So if I think that they're not, I'll probably interrupt you. I usually don't have to do that. It's typically not a problem, but that's one of the things that I get to do. I think we have the people who have signed up. I have those sheets up here. If the petitioner has a list of people to be submitted, I don't know if that's been submitted to the clerk. Will you be the only one to speak for the petitioner, Mr. Turner? I am. Okay. Thank you. If you have spoken, we ask that you stay until the hearing is over in case there are questions that people have about any of your testimony. I'm going to read off the order of the hearing this evening. First, there will be a presentation by the planning division staff. Then there'll be a presentation by the petitioner. Then there'll be a presentation or an opportunity for comments by any opponents. There's an opportunity for rebuttal by the petitioner and by the opponents. And there is a closing summation by the opponents and then by the petitioner. At that point, there will be an opportunity for council members to ask questions of anybody who has testified. And there will be an opportunity to rebut if there's new information presented. After those questions, I will declare that the hearing is closed. At that point, there will be only an opportunity for council members to comment or ask questions if they wish. after which the council will vote to adopt findings of fact and will vote on the underlying resolution. I also need to explain that by the rules that we operate under, any motion to override anything that the Planning Commission has approved will require not a majority of the people present, but a majority of council. So that's eight votes required to make any change in anything that the Planning Commission has brought to us. I believe that's all I need to explain. Are there questions, comments, anybody? If not, we can. Council Member Finimer. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lamb, has there been any opportunity for arbitration or arbitrated settlement to this that would preclude the need for an entire hearing? May a Vice Mayor respond? And there has been a discussion between the neighborhood and the attorney, but it's my understanding that there are still yet some concerns to be vetted. Thank you very much. Any other council members, questions, comments? Seeing none, we are ready to proceed, and we'll begin with the presentation by the planning division staff. Ms. Wade, welcome. Good evening, Vice Mayor Kay, members of the Urban County Council. Thank you. I'm glad to be here tonight to present to you a zone change, as has been referred to you by the Urban County Planning Commission. This is a case from the Planning Commission with a case number of PLN MAR18-1 with an applicant named Off Season LLC. This applicant is asking to rezone property, as the clerk mentioned, at 3009, 3013, and 3021 Taits Creek Road from an existing single-family residential, which is our R1C zone in this case, to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone. For the record, my name is Tracy Wade, and I am the Planning Services Manager in the Division of Planning. I have a few items to enter into the record this evening, so I'll proceed with that. The first is a legal notice that was put in the Herald-Leader for advertising the public hearing tonight. The second is an affidavit stating that I myself supervised the mailing of the notice letters that went to the 500-foot notice requirement. In addition, a copy of our final report that comes from the Urban County Planning Commission to the Urban County Council, and a copy of those have been placed at each of your seats. There are also additional copies in the back of the room for the public. A copy of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan in total. The 2018 Comprehensive Plan Goals and Objectives, which were recently adopted by the Urban County Council. Copy of the current zoning ordinance for the urban county. And then last, a copy of the land subdivision regulations also for our urban county. The applicant has an affidavit as well to the sign posting, which is additional required notice for the zone change. We'll enter that in the record. And then the last item I have tonight for the record is a number of emails that our staff has received since the time of the Planning Commission meeting in March. And there are a total of six items. I'll enter a copy in the record and then we'll distribute that as well for each council member to review during the hearing. As I mentioned, the subject properties consist of three parcels located on Tates Creek Road. The property is approximately, in total, two acres. It is located on the west side of Tates Creek Road. And so in addition to the overhead screen that both the audience and the council can see, as we go through this information, the two most important pieces are also on a board here behind Council Member Gibbs for reference during the course of the public hearing. So the subject properties are located between Rebecca Drive and Albany Drive on Tates Creek Road. They are approximately two acres in size, and again, it's three parcels in total. The parcels are situated within a single-family residential area and primarily surrounded to the west, north, and south by the Glendover neighborhood. To the east, across Tates Creek Road, exists another single-family residential zone, in this case the R1B zone. There are several larger churches, religious assembly locations, across Tates Creek Road from this property. In addition, just to the north, the immediate north, there also exists a church. It's a Greek Orthodox church. and one of the parcels within the subject property area was most recently utilized as a church. As you can see, the parcels are not quite even. One is much larger than the other two, so that parcel is about an acre, and these two smaller parcels are about half an acre each. If we look at the aerial photographs of the area, you can see the Greek Orthodox Church to the north and then also several churches across Tates Creek Road from this area. But between Rebecca and Albany Drive, primarily single-family residential in this area, there is an existing structure on one of the properties, and that was built as a single-family home in the 50s. It has most recently been utilized by a small church that has, again, just recently vacated the property and made it for sale and available for potential redevelopment by the applicant the other two smaller parcels are have been vacant since the property was subdivided in the 1950s just a closer view of the subject property there are a number of large trees that line takes Creek Road in this area and we haven't had a recent sidewalk project that improved parts of that right-of-way as well the Tates Creek Road corridor in this vicinity as I mentioned is mostly single-family residential there are a few and I'll go back to the zoning map a few smaller commercial areas nearby there's one that exists at the intersection of old Mount Tabor and Tates Creek Road and then as you progress down tates creek road towards new circle road there is commercial around the new circle road interchange with a shopping center a bank several banks as well as fire station and other resources for the community the applicant is proposing today to rezone the property to the r3 zone in order to construct 14 townhouses on the subject property this represents a density of 6.7 dwelling units per acre and they are also proposing one access point into the site towards the middle of the property in terms of the requested rezoning they have stated in their justification to the planning commission that this request is in agreement with our comprehensive plan not only in agreement with the 2013 comprehensive plan in in total but also several elements of the 2018 comprehensive plan the staff provided this information to the planning commission as well the current or the new comprehensive plan mission statement changed only slightly from five years ago and now talks much about preserving our quality of life but also enhancing elements of our community we want to stay do those things though an enhanced manner and also in an equitable manner so those were two of the adjectives that changed in the new 2018 mission statement in terms of the goals and objectives that are cited by the applicant for this request they cited three primary goals and objectives from the 2013 comprehensive plan that they felt they met and the planning commission did agree with those assertions the first is that we're expanding housing choices on this site and that allows for an applicant to meet a market need within lexington to provide for mixed use and or housing nearby employment and commercial areas as i mentioned there is an employment area to the south closer to new circle road with the shopping center banks assisted living facilities in addition they cited the support infill and redevelopment throughout our urban service area which is goal two of theme a and they've identified this site as an opportunity for infill and redevelopment again two of the site two of the parcels within the development are currently vacant so they would be considered underutilized by the planning commission and then the third goal that the applicant cited in terms of this request is to maintain a balance between planning and urban uses in terms of upholding our urban service boundary so this incurred by developing inside of our urban service boundary they are encouraging the boundary to make be maintained in its current location the staff also in reviewing those particular zone change found information in chapter seven of the comprehensive plan that again deals with the balance between our urban uses and our rural uses and there's a particular area in that that cites information about infill and redevelopment projects and in terms of sites that are between two and five acres which the subject property falls within the comprehensive plan recommends that those sites be developed at a density above the surrounding area in order to increase our our expand density within the urban service area and the examples provided in that comprehensive plan section talk about small lot single-family homes duplexes and townhouses which the applicant is proposing as I mentioned earlier they are proposing a density of 6.7 dwelling units per acre and the immediate area surrounding this area is about two units per acre so it is above their their proposal is above the average density in the immediate area in addition tates creek road corridor is residential and the applicant is proposing to maintain that residential character and the they are also proposing higher density development which will buffer between the corridor which is a minor arterial corridor and the higher intensity residential excuse me religious uses across tates creek road and the single family to the rear the two goals and objectives mentioned by the applicant and cited by the planning commission and their recommendation to the council from the 2018 comprehensive plan differed slightly for growing successful neighborhoods again expanding housing choices this particular goal and objective mentions meeting the demand for housing in a responsible manner prioritizing higher density types of housing which the applicant again is proposing a higher density than is current in that in the area and then lastly goal one upholding the urban service area within theme e and this focuses on utilizing our vacant land within the urban service area and promoting redevelopment the Planning Commission did hold a public hearing on March 22nd of this year and they reviewed both the zone change information as well as an associated development plan at that time the Planning Commission did find that the R3 zone was in substantial agreement with the 2013 comprehensive plan for several reasons first it met the goals and objectives cited by the applicant from the 2013 comprehensive plan second the townhouses are compatible with the surrounding area and the development is residential in nature which is in context and in keeping with the design features of the area third the proposed density is similar or very near what is currently in the area and meets the comprehensive plan recommendation for actually increasing density for infill projects. Fourth, the subject site is situated along a minor arterial road and this will provide a buffer between the single-family and the religious uses. And then lastly the proposed single-family detached dwelling units would be compatible with the surrounding residential zoning and use pattern and the Planning Commission agreed that these units are similar to other residential units within the area in terms of size and that that would not detract from the existing urban form along Tates Creek Road the Planning Commission's recommendation also cited that the proposed infill and redevelopment site was in agreement with the two 2018 comprehensive plan goals and objectives cited by the applicant and then lastly the Planning Commission as a manner of their regular course of business makes their findings for its own change in relation to a development plan so that they made their recommendation contingent upon the development plan being sort of approved and certified by the Planning Commission so I'll go over that fairly quickly this is the certified development plan that was submitted to the Planning Commission for review two weeks after the public hearing and it helps a little bit to have it in color and what's what's on the overhead as well Taits Creek Road in this development plan lies on the north side of the map and you can see that there is one entrance into the development in the center so there's a divided entrance with a small median and then the development is shown proposed in two banks of townhouses so six townhomes that would face Taits Creek Road and then another eight behind that with an access that surrounds the six to the front there's also excess visitor parking provided or proposed along both sides of the subject property the applicant also has to provide landscape buffering between an R1C zone which surrounds the subject property and the proposed R3 and they showed that as a six-foot buffer along all three edges of the subject property within that area the applicant also proposed a brick or masonry wall be constructed of my understanding was various heights to meet the requirements of the zoning ordinance a masonry wall can be four feet in the front yard which would be along tates creek road and then it can it can actually be eight feet anywhere behind the front plane of those buildings so it could be eight feet in the edges as long as it's behind this front plane of those townhomes each townhome is proposed to be on its own lot if this application is approved and each lot would be required to have its own personal private open space and those are delineated behind each of the townhomes a little bit closer the Planning Commission again held their hearing and voted on March 22nd 2018 to recommend approval of the requested rezoning to R3 to the urban County Council and the Planning Commission followed in this case the staff's recommendation and they voted nine in favor and zero opposed to that motion that afternoon. There. I believe that concludes my remarks for this evening. I'd be happy to answer any questions and will be available throughout the course of the hearing tonight for the council. Thank you. Thank you. Next is the presentation by petitioner. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I'm Vice Mayor and members of the Council. We're pleased to be here before you tonight. As your packet indicates, this zone change and preliminary development plan were approved by your planning commission on a 9-0 vote. We are in complete agreement with the report and recommendations of the staff and the decision of the Planning Commission. I'm going to take a few minutes to show you what the project is, and then I'm going to sit down and listen to the concerns there may be, and would reserve the right to come back and respond to those, reserve the opportunity. But the townhouses that you're looking at are what we would call upscale townhouses. They are going to be approximately, give or take, 3,000 square feet each. If the geotech shows suitability, there will be basements under them, which will add 2,000 square feet. The floor, the original floor area, or the first floor area is about 1,800, give or take, with a master suite and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. And that is these are designed for empty nesters, folks that want to travel and so forth that don't want to take care of a yard and so forth and so on. So, excuse me. I've got too many things that ring. The brick wall that Tracy alluded to is eight feet, brick on both sides, be a four foot knee wall as you come around the front for the presentation to Tate's Creek Road with a, you'll see a gatehouse, but don't know whether that's gonna be there or not. That'll be one of the things that'll have to be worked through have to be worked through on the on the final development plan but we've already had a couple of realtors and a couple of individual calls from folks that are very interested in this product so the the townhouses themselves are solid masonry or not solid masonry but masonry veneer brick and so it'll be a very nice development in keeping with the Tates Creek Road corridor. Let me, how long I can reach here. Let me show you a, kind of a, all right. All right. A couple of renderings so that you can see what we're talking about. Mr. Turner, I'm going to have to interrupt you. We have previously taken the position that renderings are not appropriate because you're not bound to create what you present to us in a zone change. that's that's that's fine these had been presented to the neighborhood to show the concept that we're talking about so that that's fine yeah we just well I've told you what I've described to you what I wanted to to let you understand which is the scope and scope of the project so that's all I have for you in addition to the planning staff at Tracy's report and I'm going to sit down as I said and and listen and hopefully address any concerns. Thank you. Next would be comments by those in opposition. I have a few sheets here. I will take them in order. When I call your name, if you'd come to the podium, give us your name and address. If you are yielding your time, if you tell me who you're yielding it to, that would be helpful. and I'm going to call a couple people so that you can get in line and then I'll keep adding to first is Joe Martinolich thank you very much my name is Joe Martinolich I live at 3013 Shirley Court just outside the yellow barn boundary up there it's on the map I've lived in the neighborhood for approximately about 20 years one of the things that attracted us to the area was the single-family homes that are in the area one of my concerns about this this project has been the fact that the the precedent that changing this from an r1c to an r3 might may raise obviously r3 zoning allows not just townhomes but a number of other available uses in looking through the zoning ordinances i'm just going to read a couple of them that that may be allowable in our three type zone in addition to multi-family homes and townhomes boarding houses lodging houses community residences orphanages rest homes community garages boarding houses as i mentioned day shelters and the ones that we like like the most especially are sorority houses and fraternity houses. Obviously, we don't want to impinge on this owner's right to develop this property. And we actually feel that if it is going to go someplace, the townhomes certainly sound like a reasonable way to go. But what the concern we have is that without going, it could have gone to an R1T zone. And actually we talked about this and has been raised with the planning commission in the past. The concern we have is that once this goes R3, the neighboring properties, it will set a precedent clearly for any future zone changes. I would challenge anybody on this board or in the planning commission to say, once this goes R3, how can you say no to the next one who wants to go R3 as well? Someone who may not have the same sensibilities and sensitivities sensitivities that this developer is hoping to do here by not planning a townhome but rather a sorority house we are so close to the university or a fraternity house why not do that so that's what we're concerned about we feel that it not only affects the property values for the single-family homes but also for this development in the future so this way if the next lot goes R3 and the next one goes R3 what control is there to keep it from becoming an erosion of the single-family homes that we've come to really relish and enjoy and love that we like so much about the neighborhood the other thing that's interesting too is that on one of these lots there is an existing what was a single-family home and my understanding with the comprehensive plan is the fact that it's supposed to be for infill it's one of the promoting things so if we allow a home to be demolished to allow this development to go forward again we're setting a precedent for future single-family homes that may end up saying okay i want to go r3 and i want to demolish my home and i want to put up an orphanage okay your your time is can you wrap up um yeah i mean basically my point is i i would request that that you all consider this very carefully we had over 250 households that submitted against this for this project and we would certainly would like you to reconsider the r3 and possibly go with an r1t instead thank you thank you next would be meredith Reed and then Tracy Lilly hi I'm Meredith Reed I'm at 3033 Shirley Drive in Glendover neighborhood I'd like to address two issues regarding the zone change and development on these three tates creek road lots the demolition of an existing family resident single family residential structure in the name of urban infill and allowing the most flexible zoning because it's advantageous to a developer the 2018 comprehensive plans goals and objectives are being touted by planning and zoning without consideration of our existing well-established neighborhood please hear me when i say i am opposed to sprawl and i do support well thought out infill the 2018 comprehensive plan outlines the need for preserving protecting and enhancing existing neighborhoods like glendover 3021 tates creek road this plan puts a 65 year old 3 300 square foot home up for demolition it is no blinded residents the pva assessment is 575 thousand dollars in fact this stone home is the epitome of our neighborhood's character where's the preservation mentioned in the comprehensive plan not only does this fail to preserve and protect our neighborhood's character it puts any and all r1c properties at risk r1c residents have no zoning protection if this precedent is accepted by council What's to stop the Allens next door and the Hensons beyond that? What's to stop them from getting together, selling their lots to a developer to then come in and be demolished all because of the comprehensive plan and the interpretation that planning and zoning is taking with this? Tearing down a 65 year old home in well established neighborhoods is neither preservation nor protection. It's simply enhancement for one developer and 14 potential buyers. This is not the intent of the comprehensive plan. Next, I'd like to address the zone change from R1C to R3 that was approved by Planning and Zoning. The developer originally sought R3 zoning. This was at the encouragement of Planning and Zoning to give the developer more flexibility. Our neighborhood fears what could come with R3 zone. large apartment complexes being just one. While we've been assured that Mr. Turner and Mr. Stewart, we've been assured by them that these townhouses are all that will be constructed, they still insist on keeping the R3 zone as opposed to changing to the more fitting R1T zone, which would solidify that only townhouses be built on this property. While 14 townhomes being built at the cost of demolition to one home and failing to maintain the character of our neighborhood is is bad enough, there is absolutely no consideration on their part for offering the neighborhood protection by changing to the more restrictive R1T. Ms. Reed, I'm sorry, but your time has expired. Can you wrap up? Yes, we need some assurance that this lot will stay only townhomes. R13 is far too flexible if Mr. Stewart decides for some reason that he is not going to build or not able to build these townhomes, this could be sold as an R3 lot, and I doubt very seriously that anybody's going to come back and then pull back the restrictions on the next owner. We need protection. Thank you. Tracy Lilly and then Ann Dixon. Hi, Vice Mayor and Council. I'm Tracy Lilly, 3038 Windermere Road, and I yield my time to Meredith Reed if she needs further. time. Do you need more time? Okay, thank you. Then Ann Dixon. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'll note that, that you have three minutes to yield. Bob Dixon. Okay. Kathy Loeb. Okay. Ken Kurosopoulos. I'm giving Kurosopoulos. I'm giving time to Kurosopoulos. Okay, just to be clear, there's a maximum of nine minutes for any speaker, so if we have more than that, we can yield to other folks. Al Saylor? And then Janice Saylor. Thank you. My name is Al Saylor. My wife and I own a home on Hill Dean at 828 Hill Dean. We've been there since 1999. Formerly we owned a home on Sherwood, so we've been in the neighborhood for quite a while. I agree with many of the comments of the former speakers. My primary objection is to the zoning change as well. I do feel that that zoning change is too flexible and would harm property values in the future. If this development for some reason falls through, or even with this development, I have concerns about the impact on property values. The other impact I have is, as mentioned before, if you change this zoning, it's like a domino. The next plot could also be changed and much easier to change. One of the things that attracted me to the neighborhood is the spacing between the houses and the trees and the character of the neighborhood. And this development does not reflect that. So that's another concern I had. Also, this is the first time I've seen the plan and the parking doesn't look adequate to me. So those are some concerns I had. And I hope that you consider that. Thank you. Janice Saylor. I hadn't really expected to speak, but there's a lot of things that came up. The points that they made were excellent, especially if there is a R1T. it's ridiculous to go for R3. But also, just thinking in the past of how we've had such trouble with the overflow of storm sewers and drains and how we've actually had to demolish homes to take care of that. And you're talking about putting 14 townhomes on two acres with additional parking and brick fence to build it all in. It is going to be problems from that. Even if you say there are 3,000, but only 1,800 feet are on the main floor, there's going to be problems from that i don't think anybody's really taken that into consideration and then if you were living near that and you have a six foot setback how wonderful six feet before you have to look at that or your eight foot tall brick fence and how is that going to fit into the neighborhood with a large brick fence all around it i mean there is a development on nicholsville road that really doesn't fit in it's it's just not a really good idea if you want townhomes how about fewer of them and how about going for the r1t but they said that does exist so it's just some of my concerns and of course the obvious concerns about its snowballing down the street down the street not ending Thank you. Next would be Don Pfister and then Steve White. Excuse me. I'm Don Pfister. I'd like to use Mr. Savity, please. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Stephen White. I live at 345 Jessalyn Drive. okay i'm gonna have the yeah she said he's got it right i was gonna give you nine minutes so on you i don't know if i'll need it all um one of the points i'd like to make about the previous planning and zoning hearing was we clearly requested the r1t zone at the hearing not only myself but at least two maybe three other people did and I don't even believe it made it into the minutes of the meeting which that's seems you know unfair I mean did it make it in there okay sorry I thought it didn't better but we were not heard in any real fashion at that meeting we were really essentially chastised because we weren't involved in the formation of the 2018 comprehensive plan can i ask how many of you all were involved with that like at the on the table i'm afraid that you you are only allowed to testify and ask questions of counsel okay well let me let me put it this way um i'm getting into some questions about how some of the some of the things for the for the comprehensive plan were put together and so there were meetings where people met and they got public input and that was why we were told literally at that meeting almost that our opinions didn't matter because they had gotten public input through other means which is ridiculous you know 11 000 people having lunch for one afternoon is not real input of those 11 000 people only 1400 actually filled out the survey afterwards of which one question asked specifically um what are the following top priorities of improving lexington and this is the results of all the correspondence one of this i should have brought my glasses one of them says promote infill and redevelopment in poor performing areas what would you answer to that i would answer yes poor performing areas definitely but however that last sentence in poor performing areas seems to have left not made it to the comprehensive plan neither in 2013 or 2018 and i don't really consider this a poor performing area I think there's lots of areas in this city that need help. Versailles Road, Winchester Road, north side of town, there's a lot of good folks doing stuff there. And I still don't have a problem with what they're doing. I don't have a problem with them building townhomes on this vacant land. But I have a problem with people being surveyed, good people being asked good questions, and them answering them honestly, and then that being cherry-picked and put into a different type of format. It's, I don't know, what kind of straw man fallacy or whatever you want to get into, but that's, people were asked a question, and they gave their input, but this is not the question that's really being done. This is not a poor-performing area. This is a high-performing area. And we were told that this really became less about an infill project, and it's really more about redevelopment. Redevelopment on every arterial corridor in this city. Why? Because we want to stop sprawl, which is a great thing. No doubt that that is a good thing. Sprawl is bad. But what about infill sprawl? That's what we see happening already. Buy a house next door. Oh, here we go. you know so that kind of thing starts to happen and why one of the gentlemen afterwards even said this at the planning and zoning meeting I don't know you all have to understand that those properties are really valuable and it basically just told us that Tates Creek Road is ripe for redevelopment and you've got to deal with it and Tates Creek Road has a lot of big properties and it you could buy a lot of properties and this sets the precedent to just go to town do you think they're going to go spend time working on versales road winchester road when the money can be made on tates creek road i don't know about that so that's part of the problem with us asking for r1t we asked a simple request r1t allows this man to still build what he wants what is the problem it's a piece of paper a piece of paperwork that gets filled out does anybody have to go back to court for that i don't think so or not back to a hearing whatever anyways um i have some suggestions that i'd like to pass along kind of findings of fact um for these gentlemen to consider they might actually consider some of these things i am an architect by trade and i can't help but look at things and always try to improve them um and um so these are these are following restrictions and conditions that i'd like to see uh granted uh for conditions of this plan under the article provisions of article 7 in the zoning ordinance i'd like to see this zone change restricted to r1t still allow this gentleman to build townhomes i would like to see the number limited to 12 not 14 why does everything have to be maximized to the maximum amount of 14 homes there's clearly a lot of people packed into a limited amount of space so more parking would be allowable more green space green space which is one of those other buzzwords from the comprehensive plan that this is not adding green space to our city it's clearly taking it away I'd also and another reason we'd like to ask for 12 is because we've heard the price of these units fall every time we've met last time we met with them the price fell to 500,000 if they're limited to 12 then that's going to force them to ask 600,000 like they're saying like they've stated all along I believe their proposal letter or whatever in the original thing stated 600 to 700 thousand dollar units so they would have to you know he could still make the same amount of money as if he was charging 500,000 I'd like to see the dwell the access road go around the perimeter of the property mainly to get these things so that are so right up on the property off the property a little bit more of a buffer between the adjacent households and neighbors. More some more parking than just the 13 spots that are shown. If it's Super Bowl, if it's a football game, if it's basketball season, that place is going to be so full of cars and it's there's really not enough parking. I'd like to see the boundary wall limited to six feet high. There are no eight feet walls in our neighborhood. there's I there's not a one and we like to be neighborly in our neighborhood and people might have six foot walls in their backyards but not in their front yards not anywhere in their front yards is there a six-foot wall in our neighborhood so we'd like to see the six-foot wall limited to the back of the property line and to where it comes to the sides of the houses of the existing setback of the other properties not to their front yard which is 65 feet away from tates creek road we'd like to see i'd like to see i'm not a not a we here i'm a me and then it could be four feet no wall on tates creek road at all why is there a need for a wall why is there a need for a gate or rather or not there's a guard house why does anybody need a guard house i mean we'd like to see this thing as inclusive to our neighborhood not exclusive You know, we're not building walls to keep people out. You know, how are you ever going to meet a neighbor if you've got an eight-foot wall around? So we'd like to see something a little more friendly, like the rest of our neighborhood, not so sterile and brutal. Running out of time. And also we'd like to see the existing trees preserved on Tates Creek Road and on the back property line as well. unless they're diseased or found dead or hazardous to someone's health or invasive species. These restrictions are appropriate and necessary in order to incorporate to be incorporated to incorporate this proposed project into our neighborhood and from permitted over density exclusive development that is out of character with the existing the adjacent existing residential zones in the surrounding area. Thank you. We'd like this to happen so we can go on with our lives, and we'd like it, if it's going to be built, to fit at least with the neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Peter, is this Sawaya? Sawaya. And then Julie Tater. here is so i am the parish council secretary at the greek orthodox church which is north to this property i i'm going to echo all what they just said in front of you but what i want to highlight again is to look all of you look at the tates creek road there and you see the entrance is only on one side people are going rush hours going down south on this road and they're going to stop for all this population that is going to be in this area, I can assure you one accident after the other is going to happen right here. If you want to build something like this, you've got to have access to it either from Rebecca Road or from the back road where people can split off Tates Creek and then slow down and enter to their apartments. It's going to be a disaster. I'm not an engineer. I'm a physician. I have nothing to do about traffic and stuff like that. But I can tell you, anybody who drove through Tates Creek Road would understand. At 5 p.m. going down, and here we go, slow down, somebody's going to go to that building. One after the other, one after the other. Mark my words, a lot of accidents. Thank you. Thank you. Next, Julie Tater and then Erwin Jones. Good evening. I'm Julie Tatar. I'm at 814 Glendover Cove. And I have a couple issues with this. First and foremost, I want to say I do agree with a comprehensive plan. I do agree with infill development as needed, as the farmland around here is spectacularly beautiful. And as long as there's horse farms where people can financially support them, I'd like to see them stay. Having said that, I feel like we keep breezing over the fact that there is a beautiful stone home that is being torn down. I don't consider that infill development. The petitioner here at our last meeting admitted that the homes along Tates Creek Corridor were considered the finest homes in the community when they were built. They have big lots and they're beautiful homes. I would really implore you to consider the tearing down of a home that is not blighted. It could easily be converted back to a residence. You're tearing down these beautiful homes that make Lexington unique. I suspect that looking at our downtown area, there's a few buildings that, in retrospect, we all wish would have been spared the wrecking ball. Changing this to an R3 and allowing them to tear down existing homes that lend character and enhance our community is a dangerous precedent. You can go up and down Tates Creek and they're all large homes, beautiful old homes with big large lots. I would even, not to be facetious, say why not take down the clay home? That's one home on a huge lot, we could redevelop that. It's a little facetious, but where does this stop? These are beautiful homes that need to be preserved. I 100% support the empty lot, the one acre. If this gentleman would like to build townhomes on that, I 100% support that. And I support it even at a high density. That is infill development and I think that's what the comprehensive plan is meant to be. And that's what I support 100%. A couple other points I'd like to bring up is about the zoning change. The petitioner last time said he wanted R3 because it cleared up issues. I'm not sure what issues those are, but there's a little hesitancy by me and neighbors about that. Once again, on that open acre, develop away, I understand. But the other thing is, I also understood the comprehensive plan to be redevelopment of areas that were blighted or needed it. drive down winchester road every day talk about a corridor that needs redevelopment i also understand that this is cherry picking this gentleman is very smart bless his heart and i know he's out to make money and i understand that but this is cherry picking this will be an easy easy sell to anyone who wants to come and buy these i would just suggest to the planning commission or whoever i sway with them that if you're going to cherry pick these these lots like they would be mandated to develop something more risky along Winchester or another corridor that we know is not cherry picking like on Tates Creek Road. And the last point I'd like to make is part of the comprehensive plan talked about a tree canopy. If that home gets torn down, there's huge trees on that lot. It's a large amount of green space that will be lost to the city when you talk about erosion, water runoff, all other sorts of things that affect our infrastructure. Ms. Hatter, I'm sorry, your time has expired. I need you to wrap up if you can. Yeah, I'm going to take Bob's time, Bob Dixon. Okay. Okay, Bob, can I take your time? Thanks. Go ahead. But I will wrap up. Proceed. I just feel like that's something we also need to consider in looking at this plan. It's extremely dense, I understand that's what we're moving toward. But we also need to think about the green space in our community, our communities, and our tree canopy. That was brought forward as other issues that we need to attend to. So I would really, for me, it's tearing down these beautiful homes that are part of making Lexington special. I moved here two years ago, I'm new to the community relatively. These homes are wonderful and make this community unique. You tear them down, you're going to have another bland, bland city. I just really want to caution you to think about that. And I support him in developing the empty lot, the one acre. Make it dense, but make it an R1T. Thank you for considering it. Thank you. Next would be Erwin Jones and then Alan Perea. I'm Irwin Jones and I live at 822 Glendover Cove. previously about the zone changes. One thing that has not been addressed except by one of the volunteers is the traffic situation. Trying to access Tate's Creek from Rebecca Drive any time between 7 and 10 in the morning is in asking for disaster. There's no stoplight. You have traffic coming from both directions and And this can only worsen the problem. When I came to Lexington in 1964, Tate's Creek was two lanes, trees along the way. And because of all the buildup of residents and so forth, in South Lexington, as you know, Tate's Creek was widened. Even now, it's impossible to get onto Tate's Creek many times unless you have a four or five minute wait. In addition, where Tate's Creek melds from two lanes on each side to one, the backup is unbelievable. It's not unusual for traffic to be backed up from Alumni Drive all the way to Old Mount Tabor, which is a long ways. So this can only add to the traffic problem. so I would urge you to consider these factors as well in making your decision thank you very much thank you so Alan Perea and then grace Perea thank you thank you it's six minutes and it's nice to be with you this is my first time come to a meeting and it's good to see all your faces i live at 182 jesslyn drive and i'm following one of my former doctors speaking a concerned issue of safety Has there been any studies done on the traffic in relationship to the types of activities that are going on in that area? We have four churches that bring in a great deal of people, a great deal of traffic. And they are entering and leaving all the time. And there is also a school that is very active on Tate's Creek at the Baptist Church. And so those children are going to be out and about. I would like to add on to this, just the ordinary, everyday backup of cars on Tate's Creek. I use that every day. I go up Albany onto Tate's Creek to use one of the church's facilities, and I've been involved with activities at the other churches too. and there's just a lot going on in and out aside from the cars in the morning and in the early evening being backed up and they back up all the way down to not just down to to alumni but they back up down to the shopping lansdowne shopping center And we've seen some bad accidents there, too, along that way. And when there isn't much traffic, there's high-speed car drives that go back and forth. They go a lot faster than the speed limit. there's another thing that concerns me about the travel of cars in that area and that is according to your plan there I see you have one entrance in one exit and when those cars go out onto Tate's Creek they will have to go I believe it south. And if those cars are going to eventually need to go north, how are they going to turn around? That's going to be an extremely dangerous activity that's going on, people trying to make that redirection to drive up north. The last issue that I realized and I learned from Another plan like that of density housing on a main artery, which I saw near Kansas City, was the fact that they had backups trying to get out of the community there. And there was a lot of concern about if there's any fires that start, if there's any other service, perhaps wiring, you know, after storms and that, it would be very difficult to get those big trucks in and out. and I think that these entrance and exit issues are about caring about people, their lives, and I think that's the most important thing myself. I hope that, and I'm sure that if you work at it, you will find other places. this this would this housing project would fit better and so this is what I came to say and I hope you'll get adequate consideration thank you thank you next would be and long acre thank you next is Barry Saturday and then Connie Stevens. Thank you. Is it okay if my is my bodyguard here? She come up with me. Okay. Uh, my name is Barry Saturday. Uh, I am currently running for council in the fourth to represent the Glendover neighborhood. Um, I drive up and down taste Creek Road every day. There There are a couple things in the planning agency has a document pulled up from the March 15th work session. I'd like you to take a look at page 5 with me please. No, let's see, should be listed as page 5 perhaps. Doesn't have numbers on there. Go up a little bit farther, please. A couple pages. Hold on, hold on. Go back down a little bit. Above policies. There we go. Yes. So the vision for this whole plan. Support the vision with data, public input. I want to focus on that for a second. What was the public input at the Planning Commission like? How many of y'all were there? A bunch of you? Some of you? We had a lot of people. For those of you who were there, how many letters were sent in to the planning box stating that we don't want this? Hundreds. Literally hundreds were sent in intentionally with that end in mind to say we don't want this plan. Is there anyone from the public here that wants to support this plan? Anybody? Raise your hand. Nobody. If we want public input, I think we need to value public input. So we'll set that aside for a second. All right. Page 13. We can go eight pages later. We have design is critical to creating desired spaces. Couldn't agree more. The professor contributes on that number. this design is not creating a desired space as you've heard from everyone in the public so far by the way guys this is the document the current working document for the planning agency that they're using to create the comprehensive plan the current comprehensive plan I believe this gentleman right here mentioned earlier is wondering how many people voted for that currently every member on councils 15 to 0 voted for that so your current council representative as well, voted for this current comprehensive plan. So this design is not creating desired space. Did anyone, I'd love to know, if any elderly group looked into this plan and saw whether this was or was not feasible for this location? Sorry, my wife called me. Okay. If so, what were their conclusions? Love to hear from that. We have not heard that. Page 15, a couple pages later. Safety in housing design is critical. I think we have gone too far. This may be an exercise in futility here. We'll see how it goes. But page 15 says, safety in housing design is critical. I will contend that car travel for people living here, Is this designed for elderly folks? Designed for whoever. I believe in the planning commission meeting you mentioned it was for the elderly. Is that not correct? Why don't we just let him. You can state whatever you want to state and you can ask questions later if you'd like. So for those of you that were here, it was directed for the elderly. That was the intent. So I think this will end. Someone else brought that earlier. I believe it was Erwin mentioned this might be a little bit difficult. and I think this lady did too, for elderly drivers to navigate. You're asking people at the top of that green and orange, the road there, they are going to be turned, if they want to go toward downtown, they're going to have to make a right turn onto a busy arterial road, one of our primary corridors. They're going to have to move over a lane, move over another lane, and then do a U-turn. How many elderly drivers do you all know who want to make left turns? Much less three of them. Yes. Okay. So, also on page 15, transit options are highly desirable. There are no nearby bus stops. But if they place one, what's that going to do to the traffic? They're going to be stopping that right in the middle of rush hour and every other time of day. It's going to be an absolute disaster. And if they did make a little insert onto there, that would further diminish what available green space is left. Page 26, that's a little ways later. New developments should provide usable and appropriate green space that is not simply an afterthought. Are we able to find that? It may be in that big paragraph, several pages of text. Yes, so I'll spare you all that. But does this development provide any new usable green space? No. Clearly, that is removing a ton of usable green space. So green space use in this case does appear to be an afterthought, which goes against both the 2013 and the 2018 comprehensive plans. Back on page 18, so that's a little closer to that, large density intensity increases on the primary corridors. Do we have that a little bit farther down probably? Vision for density right there. Let's try one more page. There we go. bottom two bullets there large density intensity increases on the primary corridors you guys need to pay attention to that part until i was running for council for other reasons this is now one of the primary reasons i'm running for council what you're going to find out when you talk to the planners is that their goal for the comprehensive plan is to build up and actually create more traffic on all the primary quarters not just tates creek road nixville road newtown pike georgetown road every primary corridor in town they don't want less traffic they actually want more that'll sound crazy until you figure out what they're actually trying to do what they're going to do and i don't know how that's going to work for these guys but their act their goal is to actually put rapid transit bus lanes up and down every single primary corridor that means they're going to take away a lane of each road to put in dedicated bus lanes that only the buses are allowed to go. This is the long-term goal of the planning agency here in town. Anybody sign up for that? I'm sorry I couldn't I'm gonna I've been missed it Saturday I've been trying to be patient with your comments I'd like you to conclude if you would okay so other part of this I don't know I think all what I'm talking about is relevant to the current discussion as if we put bus lanes there it could impact transit I did get I'm excuse me another minute I'm gonna rule that that is out of order it's a speculation on your part I don't I can verify that. I'm asking you not to continue speaking about the bus lanes. If you would, please wrap up. Thank you. Okay, I'll not speak about the bus lanes for the remainder of my time. Okay. On page 18, large density and density creases on the primary corridors treats all corridors the same, but Tates Creek is not the same as Nichols Hill Road, and it's not the same as Old Frankfort Pike. I think the plan to treat them all the same is a mistake. That kills our culture as a city. Also, I looked over the contributors to the plan. There is not a single traffic engineer who has been tasked with adding contributions to this plan. Not one. So, as no traffic engineers were consulted, what does this do to traffic? That's something I think we should think about. There are many other things to be considered, but I think we all need to be aware that this will be a nightmare for any elderly folks to try to do it. And as others have said, it does not contribute anything to the neighboring community. Thank you. Thank you. Next would be Connie Stevens and then Liz Knapp. Thank you. Liz Knapp. Okay. Next would be Dalton Hensman. Vice Mayor and members of the council, thank you for having me. I would like to take the two people's time for me, if that's possible. We'll give you nine minutes. All right, thank you. Thank you. The reason is that? Okay, perfect. I've lived two houses down, sorry, address is 3033 Tays Creek Road. I've lived two houses down for 18 years, and I cannot tell you how some of these people have, that that stretch of road right there is probably some of the most dangerous stretch of road in Lexington. You see that U-turn right there above the D in road? I made that Sunday night about 1030. I've lived there for 17 years now, 28, been driving for 12. Make the U-turn, don't see any cars coming the other way. Dangerous U-turn. My parents have told me ever since we bought the house on September 11th, you've got to pay 100% to what you're doing here because you can wreck the car in an instant. I pull the U-turn, get ready to turn into my driveway, no cars in the site. All of a sudden, two cars come up over that hill where the T and the A are in Tate's. The road actually comes up and planes out. The two cars closed on me 400 feet by the time I could take 20 feet. I had to hit the gas pedal and drive into my front yard in order not to be involved in a collision This man wants to put a guard head shack and he wants to put a divider in there Like some of these people have said for me that is an absolute disaster waiting to happen Absolute you see that little u-turn right there You can't tell me a 16 year old girl who just got a permit or license and can try to shoot the gap there from the backwards into the entrance because i've seen it happen a hundred times coming out of drakes so that right there is a monstrosity not to mention that there's school traffic across the road you go like some of these people have said before me you cannot turn out of our driveway in the morning 30 minutes to maybe make that u-turn to go back downtown because it's backed up all the way to drakes um let's see here sorry this man said that they were proposing a wall my parents have had a business in our house for 15 years well when you come down the driveway you like i said the road comes up and planes out right about in ferrana know where they're proposing this to the entrance to be. Well, you take 80 mile an hour traffic, which I've clocked it before because I've used a radar gun I've used for my little brother, and I sit out on the front porch and I've clocked him 80, 90, 95, 100 racing down Tastery Road. I can hear him laying in bed at night. That's a disaster. Eight foot wall coming out of the driveway, 80 mile an hour car, you won't see it. It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time. I've actually had to go out in my neighbor's yard and cut down the tree and trim it to where I can just look down Tay Street Road and see oncoming traffic. That's how dangerous that stretch of road is right there. So just kind of hit on everything I've said, you know, this plan is, in my opinion, been formulated with 100% disregard to public safety. 100% disregard to public safety. This needs to be, in my opinion, something that was just an idea. Because this right here, like this man said from the Greek church, disaster. Thank you. Next would be Libby Farmer and then Pauline Hunter. Good evening. My name is Libby Farmer, and I live at 3037 Tates Creek Road. I live in that block. We've had a lot of people speak passionately about this zoning change, as well as the addition of condos. Over 100 letters, many have come here and spoken against it, but I live in this block. We have been, farmers have been there since about 20 years. When we bought this property, we purchased it because it was a residential section. We did not purchase it to live next door to condos. We purchased it because of the beautiful green trees. We do not want to look at walls. Walls are for penitentiaries and not for this section of Tate's Creek Road. They say the townhouses are comparable to the area. Our homes are not brick veneer. Our homes are landscaped beautifully. We sit 120 feet back from Tate's Creek Road, our homes, not 14 feet. Even the Greek church is 120 feet back. it's just not comparable we do not have walls around our property we live there none of you all live on tates creek road in this area and i know all these things about the zoning changes and all this stuff it just kind of fries your brain when you're sitting up here after a while i'm speaking from my heart this is a beautiful residential section something that lexington has been proud of for years we did not buy to live next to condos no matter how lovely they are and i'm sure you wouldn't want one on your street By putting that in, you're almost wiping out half of that block. They're taking down a beautiful home, then plus the area for the condos, that will leave four houses. Thanks a lot for our property values. This isn't right. For all these people against it, and they don't even live on Tate's Creek, please take this to heart. Ms. Farmer, your time has expired. You want to wrap up? That's fine. Thank you. It's an abomination to put something like that in that block. I'm sure there are other lovely areas in Lexington that would do beautifully with this. but no on this block of Tate's Creek Road. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Please, can I... Just going forward, we'd like to ask people not to applaud or respond in other ways. Next would be Pauline Hunter. And then Danny Willems. Vice Chairman and other councilpersons, thank you for hearing me today. I'm Pauline Hunter, and I live across Tates Creek from this development on Montevideo Road and down south of our block. so I'm concerned as the closer neighbors are with the quality of neighborhood and what it would change in our block, in our neighborhood. I have lived there, did I say, more than 40 years and have seen all of this coming about. So my request today is that asking you to reject the R3 zoning for this plot and I want to read what R33 allows. Multi-family dwellings, dormitories, boarding or lodging houses, assisted living facilities, hospitality houses for up to eight persons, community residences, group residential projects, townhouses except that no less than three and no more than 12 shall be attached let's see then on down there are other accessory uses athletic club facilities operated solely for the residents other conditional uses are permitted on down the road uh hospitals nursing homes rest homes and orphanages community centers ywca ymcas community garages kindergarten nursery schools and child care centers for more than four or more children sorority fraternity houses boarding or lodging houses assisted living hospitality for more than aid persons and rehabilitation homes so all of these things are possible with this with this zoning and i ask you to reject the r3 zoning today thank you for listening thank you and next danny willems my name is danny willems i live at 3467 warwick court deep in the heart of the fourth I want to begin this evening by thanking each of you all for agreeing to be here. I know that the last thing that you all want to do right now is probably do a public hearing for Zone Change, but I really appreciate you all taking the time to be here. I want to speak and kind of second a lot of what's already been said this evening. It's hard going last because you've already heard so many great comments. But one of the things that kind of really struck my interest about this particular issue is last year in July, right in front of this particular area, right in front of what was once New Beginnings Church, I was in a car accident. I was stopped at a stoplight which you might notice is several lots down and I had my car was totaled I was hit from the rear and shut the car in front of me. That's the reality of traffic along Tate Street Road right along that section is every day that road is backed up all the way to this particular lot section and it continues all the way down. This is a very beautiful area and a very pristine area but it's one that has a great deal of drivers constantly coming through that area. When I think about Lexington and the future that we want to have in it, I understand that infill is a huge issue. And I know that, especially in the election year, you are all thinking about the different ways that you will have to make sure that you're trying to make as many people happy as possible. And I recognize that zone changes is not one of the easier ones for that. But when we think about infill with the direction that we want to have, this is not a conversation we'd be having if we were talking about Richmond Road. When we look at Richmond Road and the character of Richmond Road going out to about where the Good Samaritan Hospital used to be, we know what that looks like. We imagine it, we appreciate it, and it's part of our historic appreciation of Lexington. And the same goes for Tate's Creek Road. As we leave Tate's Creek Road, as we're going through that area, we know that this is Church Row. It's got a lot of beautiful churches, and we've got these beautiful houses going all the way into town. I mean, the lots change, the sizes change, but these are beautiful single-family units all the way into town and almost all the way out until we get to the corridor where it kind of gets more commercial section. I know it sounds a lot like not in my backyard. I know it sounds a lot like do this elsewhere. I know we've talked a lot about Angela's district. We've talked a lot about Peggy's district. But we all want what's best for the future of Lexington. We all want to have as many people as we can into our areas without sprawling too far. But we want to make sure that we're doing it with great consideration. As we put up walls around this one particular unit section, we're thinking about a church, walled area, beautiful homes, all the way down. And that's not in the character of our area. That's not in the character of our city. I appreciate the developer coming in and buying the places that have been vacant for quite a while. The unit slots next to it, the church that's been vacant for almost about a year now. But as we think about the future moving forward, I hope that you will consider perhaps denying this now and looking towards a R1T and looking towards other options that the community has spoken today. Thank you all. Thank you. I have no one else signed up to speak in opposition. I'm going to ask council that I think we'll take a 10-minute break. Then we'll come back. Thank you. We'll get started again. Thank you. The next order of business is to give the staff an opportunity for additional comments, if any. Staff, Tracy. Tracy. Do you have additional comments? Yes. I apologize. I do have a few rebuttal comments based on the testimony that was presented this evening. The first is that the R3 zone was requested by the applicant, and it's our responsibility as the staff, the planning commission, and then ultimately the urban county council to respond to what the applicant has done. applied for we can encourage as a staff a different zone but ultimately the applicant is entitled to request a particular zone and they are offered the opportunity to have hearings associated with their request so at this time although the neighbors have expressed a desire for a different zone it is not really the authority of either the Planning Commission or the council to mandate a change of zone for the applicant to have to agree to tonight they would have to willingly have changed the request before it went to the planning commission for action so i wanted to be clear about that several of the r3 zone permitted uses that were mentioned by the neighbors as being concerns they specifically mentioned fraternities and sororities assisted living facilities and orphanages with the YMCA in terms of a community center childcare centers for over four those are conditional uses in our R3 zone and so they do require a trip by an applicant to the Board of Adjustment for permission and the Board of Adjustment considers those particular uses on a a case-by-case basis. The council can restrict uses. They can restrict landscaping or provide for particular landscaping through conditional zoning restrictions. And so if the council feels that those uses are not appropriate or would never be appropriate, certainly they can be restricted through conditional zoning restrictions for the subject property. The third item that the staff would like to mention is the traffic concerns that were mentioned. Certainly the U-turn situation that would have to occur is a concern that exists today for most of those homes that do front along Tates Creek, where if you want to go in a certain direction, perhaps downtown, you would have to exit the site and take a right, and then ultimately do a U-turn somewhere to return back to the north, in the northerly direction, or choose an alternative route perhaps to the east and then instead of doing left turns, you can also maneuver towards downtown by doing right turns back towards Nicholasville Road. So those are existing conditions of the sites there because of the median controls along Tates Creek Road. The applicant was not required to do a traffic impact study for the proposal. Our zoning ordinance requires traffic impact studies only when a project generates 100 new trips in the peak hour. And so for residential dwelling units, that would require 200 dwelling units to generate 100 new trips. In this case, the applicant is proposing 14 dwelling units, and so that equates to seven new trips during the peak hour for Tates Creek Road. Obviously, those 14 dwelling units generate more than seven trips during the day, but during the peak hour, which for Tates Creek Road, that's the evening rush hour, it would create, again, this is a traffic formula, on average seven new trips for this particular corridor. Tates Creek Road is a minor arterial corridor and it has 30,000 trips per day that traverse it currently. Fourth, in terms of the neighbors mentioned green space and obviously the two lots that exist there today are vacant. However, they are owned by a particular property owner and so they're not available in terms of usable open space for the neighborhood. They are visually open for us to see as we drive down Tates Creek Road, but I would mention that with the proposal for townhouses, each lot is required to have open space associated with it to the benefit of the particular resident that lives there. And in no way is there any requirement that there be neighborhood open space or accessible open space for the rest of the neighborhood for their site. and then lastly there was a comment about the proposed setbacks on Tates Creek Road 125 feet is the current required setback per the plat for this particular section of Tates Creek Road the applicant is proposing to situate that front row of townhouses at 60 feet so that is approximately half the distance that the current setback requires along Tates Creek Road but I wanted to clarify that it wasn't 14 I heard a neighbor well the brick Eddie a fence or a wall can be situated to answer that question in the in the front yard and it can be up to four feet tall and there is no particular setback for a wall or fence in the front yard it's just a height restriction those are the comments that the planning staff has for this evening but again we are here to answer questions as necessary thank you thank you next would be a petitioner any rebuttal thank you mr feisbeer and i failed to introduce the the developer grady stewart who's the principal of all seasons who's here with me should have had him in my seat but he is here with us and we did as was indicated that several weeks ago we did meet with the neighborhood but number of the neighborhood I guess it was the board about eight or so people up until that time we had been trying to meet with neighborhood group since we actually before we started and had been our efforts had been declined and I'll leave it at that on a number of at least half a dozen times so with regard to the R3 R1T issue we started with a different design and we started with an R1T zone change request. That design had, without going into a lot of detail, had a center pod where there was four units and there was some discussion about whether that was a multi-family building or townhouses. And so the solution, as we discussed through the staff was to go to an R3 zone. So that's what we did as we came along. After some of the processes through the Planning Commission committees, particularly, we took an extension, we pushed for 30 days, and came back with a different design after hearing many of the comments at the committee level. And this design, which the planning committees and commission liked much better. We could have done an R1T zone with this, but we didn't even know it was an issue with the neighborhood because of the lack of communication until it was mentioned at the planning commission hearing. Now, as you know, the R3 zone offers a great deal of flexibility. It's a residential zone, and it's used for single family, multifamily, it's used for townhouses, duplexes, and all sorts of things. But at this point, we've talked to Tracy Jones and neither one of us are comfortable with changing a zone request on the fly, which would mean we'd have to go back through the whole process again. And that's not fair. We've got an approved preliminary development plan, and this issue did, as was said, was first brought up for the planning commission. Mr. Penn and a number indicated to the concerned folks that if we brought back anything different than essentially what we have proposed, that it was going to be a whole other process, which we understand. So that's where we are on the R3 versus R1T. At this point, our only choice to comply with that would be to go back through the process, and that's just not acceptable at this point. The existing house, and I think one of the individuals indicated, it has not been used as a single-family residential for a number of years, at least four or five. It has been used as a church building and is in some state of disrepair. This was purchased by, this was recently purchased by Mr. Stewart as a part of this project. He had nothing to do with the former use of that individual, that single family house as a church or any other use. There's been a lot of talk about the vacant lots versus the residential lot with the house on it not being infill. What we're talking about really is redevelopment. You all, I think, understand that. Infill and redevelopment, you infill where you can, you tear down what you need to to redevelop appropriately. this community through the Planning Commission through all the process has gone on over the last two years has made and ultimately this body has made the decision that this community is going to develop infill redevelopment particularly along major corridors it was even thrown up there and so we didn't make that decision that's been a community-wide decision people disagree with whether the urban service area should have been expanded should not have been expanded whatnot but this was the this was the solution we're not going to expand the urban service area and we're going to increase densities that's the clear message to the development community I think it's the clear message to the community so we're trying to do that in a respectful manner you know at some point one of the Planning Commission members said well why don't you put 30 you aren't you go up put 30 units in there so we don't want to do that that's not appropriate so that's that's where we are the you know Tracy very well went through some of the other issues and I'm not really going to repeat those the parking internally and one thing I forgot to mention is these units each had two car garages so you've got two spots in the house so anything else is virtually visitor parking and it meets all the parking requirements plus you've got some driveway space to park in traffic you know the u-turn issue I've been in a number of communities not necessarily in Kentucky but who use u-turns as very much of a traffic control for instance with the situation where you've got Rebecca the problem with Rebecca is you can go you can make a three left-hand turn you know let traffic in those communities where I've seen it effectively used you would not be able to make a left-hand turn on Rebecca you would have to go right and have to go south and then make a u-turn back in between traffic lights where you get where you get the gaps so it's a it's a concept that we don't use very much but it's a concept that's utilized in a lot of other communities to very effective traffic control to prevent the problems you get when you get unsignalized cross streets, trying to make left-hand turns. Obviously, we've got to go through our final development plan. We've got to deal with the stormwater calculations. We've got to deal with all of the technical issues, including traffic and the entrance and so forth. So we've got to go through that process. We've offered to have the neighborhood involved with that process, that we could sit down with them as we go through that process. I've not had an acceptance of that. We've also offered, you know, we're fine to put a note on the plan, on the development plan, that the development is limited to 14 units, that the neighborhood association will be given notice on chaining amendments changes filings relative to that development plan we're perfectly willing to do all that but we're at a point in the process where we've gone through it we've listened to the staff we've listened to the comprehensive plan we've listened to this body as it speaks through the goals and objectives and we We think we've come up with a compliant, a good project on a very nice street that's a quality that meets those goals and objectives. And we would urge your approval of the zone change and the ratification of the Planning Commission in their unanimous decision. Thank you. If I can answer any questions, I'll be glad to. Thank you. check on first if see if the anybody from the opposition has any rebuttal evidence so this is not new information anything you've heard that you believe you want to we'll give you again three minutes if you restate your name and address I'm Meredith Reed 3033 Shirley Drive I am part of the Glendover Neighbors Hood Association board and I would like to clarify a couple of things that mr turner said and i believe he misspoke um there was in i'm trying to go through on my phone and i can't find it right now it's kind of hard for my phone but they in no way shape or form reached out to us a half a dozen times to talk for starters okay you have to understand that we are a neighborhood association we are laymen who live in our neighborhood who want to protect it we do We do not have an attorney to represent us. We don't have the means to hire an attorney to represent us. So the first inclination of this development that we received was from the city, where they already had this ball rolling with this plan to develop. So please do not, for a second, think that they reached out to us to have a say in this. They did not. Yes, we did not want to meet with them personally, because I don't know many people who would meet with an attorney. or two attorneys without their own representation. When we did meet with them finally, it was a show and tell. So please do not mistake what they're saying as wanting to come to the table and have some agreement. They said they would put a limit of 14 on the plan. Well, that's been their plan all along. So please just understand that. Thank you. Take one more. or two um so here's the here's the dilemma uh since you're not represented the neighborhood is not represented by council unless you have something new to rebut and i'm going to ask i'll i'll recognize you and i'll ask you to keep it brief so i'll go ahead stephen white three four five jessaline drive um and i'm one of the glendover neighborhood association board members at large i did indeed get an email from darby and at one of the committee level meetings i was at every single committee level meeting for this job i provided input at every single meeting that we were informed of and i said same thing about character distance the road blah blah the only time it got moved was when fire wanted needed the wider roads to get the fire trucks in there which is what caused this plan to have to change which then allowed it to be r1t he's right he did say we'd like to meet meet with you and show it to you i'm an architect i can read plans i can i understand everything i'm looking at there i'm not a lay person I can draw something like that. I don't need someone to explain all of that to me. That is what I said no to. Brandon said the same thing at the very first meeting. He asked me, we'd like to meet with you, and the guy from AE over here forgot his name. And I didn't need someone to explain it to me. I'm able to read plans. I'm an architect. So I understood what I was looking at. I understood the implications of everything they were doing. So there wasn't, and we also did not have a lawyer. If you were getting divorced and your ex had a lawyer and you did not, would you meet with them and make negotiations? That was part of the reason that that didn't happen. I can honestly say we wished we had met and said we want R1T. Would they have done it then? I don't know. We are not asking for a whole lot. Okay, I'm asking you not to repeat. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I'll be really brief. I'm Julie Tatar. Two comments. Not everyone is part of a neighborhood association. Well, I don't live that far from this development. I had no idea that this was happening until the Glendover Neighborhood Association sent out cards and said, hey, did you know this was happening? The only other way I would have known is I would have had a stop on Tate's Creek to read that sign, which no one would do with the traffic on Tate's Creek. So I do want to say that I don't think it's a fair characterization to say that they asked the neighborhood to be involved in this. And the last thing I will say is they talked about this home, that it's in disrepair. I'll say one block over, I don't know if that home was in disrepair. They took it down to the studs and rebuilt it from the ground up because it's a valuable place to live. So the commentary about the home, I also don't think is a fair comment. Thank you. Thank you. One more. Yes, ma'am. Libby Farmer, 3037 Tates Creek Road. Four doors down. Here's the thing, we do not belong to a neighborhood association. There are four houses they could have trotted down the street and spoken with us. Mr. Turner says all these people he's talked to and he's listened to, he hasn't listened to the most important one, the residents that actually live there. You've had plenty of people and letters, and that's the bottom line. If Mr. Turner wants to do something nice or Mr. Stewart, rehab that house. Sell it for $800,000, $900,000 and be happy. How about that? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Kaye. I want to quickly note as well, I live outside New Circle. I do not live in a neighborhood association. I live in one of the swarms. They do not have that kind of cohesive grouping. I live in a section that has a high minority population, a population that has a lot of working families, people who are not often represented on boards, on commissions, who aren't often able to show up to things like this. And so thankfully I am able to do that. I'm able to come here and talk to you all today. People who don't live right next to the section also need to have a say. People who live outside the area, who are not represented by neighborhood association, we're not able to talk, we're not notified. The only reason I was able to find out about it was because thankfully Councilwoman Lamb does have her quarterly meetings, was able to talk about that. So the high minority area that I know that all of us do care about, people who don't often have a voice at these situations, we're not able to be notified about that because of various systemic issues that we all face. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, at this point there's an opportunity for summation. I believe we've heard from both sides at great length. Unless anyone objects, I'm going to move right to. I'll just take one brief. Okay. Is it summation or is it not re-crossed because we're not? It's really in response to the notice thing and I don't want to belabor it. It's really in response to the contact with the neighborhood and I don't want to belabor it. And then I'm going to sit down. But Steve is correct. He appeared at every hearing, every committee meeting, whatnot. and he indicated he was there on behalf of the Neighborhood Association. So I've got at least eight documented, I can document at least eight occurrences from early February, late January, through April, and then not including our last meeting, where either Steve, Meredith, emails, personal conversations, so forth, and there was a continued decline to meet. And so that's how we finally, through Susan's efforts, were able to meet. And I thought we had a very good meeting, but obviously we didn't get it resolved. Thank you. I summed up earlier. I'm going to assume that summations have been spoken. And at this point, I'll open the floor for council members. If they have questions of staff, petitioner, or people in opposition, Please sign in. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And know that we have a five-minute rule that I have five minutes, and I can speak twice on those five minutes. So I'm going to get in as much as I can during my two minutes. I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt you immediately. This is for questions. If you have comments, we'll save those until the hearing is closed. Questions are good. I have questions. I was explaining so that they would understand. on you go okay my questions are for mr turner when you talk about the specific reasons of the difference between r3 and a one r1t and it being flexibility i guess i would like for you to expand on that we have the ability to amend the findings of fact and place additional restrictions and basically I would like to know your thoughts on if we were to amend the findings and add some additional restrictions. Obviously that would depend on what the restrictions are but as I said we're not trying to do any bait and switch or whatnot. Originally we needed we started with our one team we we the design dictated that we go to an r3 because of the concern of one piece of the development and whether it's a multi family or whether it was a townhouse the r13 because of that I mean we probably would if we had had an early early on gone to the r1t with this plan but we are where we are and if we want to come back and do one of these units is a duplex or you know again get back into that configuration where there's a gray area about whether it's a townhouse or not we don't want to be restricted on that we are 14 units we're fine with that that kind of restriction Okay, so 14 units, but with the R3 you had the ability of doing something other than townhomes, obviously, like you just spoke about duplex. Well, we would call them townhomes, but the staff called them multifamily. So that's where we differ. I don't think we're going back there, but we've got to do the detailed engineering and everything else at this point. and sometimes those factors dictate minor changes in what you're going to do. Okay. All right. Thank you. The other questions, and this was asked, I know that you're saying that the beginning of the units is 60 foot, and I would like to know about the distance, the intended distance from the fence to the street. Do you have that information, Mr. Turner? Sure. Let me go back in history, and we didn't get into this at this hearing, but the planted setbacks on these lots and this block in Antet's Creek, I think they're 120? 125. 125. That goes back to a deed restriction in 1952, which set that setback as shown on the plat but sunsetted it at 50 years from October of 1952. So that restriction has long since gone away. It is on a plat, so therefore it had to be amended officially to reflect that. But the intent, getting exactly to your question, on the four-foot fence, it would be I think it's shown up there and it would be within well it would be in the green area so it would be closely on the property line it's designed to to offer again it's a four-foot fence it's not designed to screen everything from the road but to provide a visual boundary of a pleasing effect if you will it's not meant to wall anything out it's meant to be an amenity an attractive piece of the overall development okay all right thank you and i have 32 seconds left on this time of five minutes mr ms wade would you please come to the podium and my question for you is as far as the landscape plan for the tates creek corridor are there other opportunities or options other than a brick fence i know that there is a house at the corner of albany and tates creek that has a it it appears to be a wrought iron but it is actually a aluminum fence that is and it has brick columns what other options for a land under the landscape plan are we available to consider i believe the council can consider those but i'm not sure if you can restrict the materials of a fence through conditional zoning restrictions our board of adjustment did restrict the materials on that particular fence i believe to allow for opacity because of the closeness of the fence to the tates creek road corridor okay because it was a corner lot okay all right um okay i'm out of time on my this first five minutes so i'll come back thank you council member fred brown thank you vice mayor uh tracy planning uh did you all approve or did you talk about the r3 versus the r1t in uh in staff Yes, we did, and Mr. Turner's correct. The first plan that was filed had a fourplex in the center and then two rows of townhouses facing that, and that would have necessitated the R3 zone, in our opinion. So you all made that decision to go to R3 then based on his design or what he wanted to build there? Yes, that was a recommendation related to their... Okay, follow up on that. There's several properties there on each side there. If the developer wants to come in and do an R3 on each one of those, have you not set precedent? Has the council in making that decision set a precedent? No, as a planning department, have you not set precedent that any of those lots could be an R3? Well, the comprehensive plan sets the guidance for where we're moving. I don't believe it does set a precedent. I think the Planning Commission takes it, everything on a case-by-case basis. I'm sure they do, but once you know the whole domino effect throughout the county or throughout our plans, it does have a bearing. And then the second question, was there any discussion about having a cut through from the front of that development out to cross over to Tates Creek Road? As you well know, I think Tates Creek Road now belongs to the city. And it wasn't, six months ago it wasn't, but it was State Road, which would have been almost impossible to do that. but was there any discussion about having an actual turn there like there i think there's one other one in front of the church i mean modifying the median of tates yeah yeah where you could have a turn in uh that was not something that either our mpo or traffic engineering presented as a potential solution okay thank you thank you council member evans thank you vice mayor tracy these are for you um i guess i'll start but how big is this zone that we're talking about what what's the is it this whole parameter that we're talking about changing the acreage of the subject property which is three lots is 2.09 acres okay so it's just those three lots changing the zone for that okay um just making sure that i'm clear uh and how much space is on either side of those three lots next to the other the other homes how much space is in between I would have to look on an aerial photograph to estimate that distance I don't think good because I'm gonna ask for that later because I like to see the the the u-turn we're talking about that that is concerning so if we could get that pulled up that'd be appreciated just so I can fully understand and then i am curious to know because there was discussion about or it's all been about i guess um the comprehensive plan what would have to change in this proposal for it not to be in compliance with the comprehensive plan or be in because i i'm i think that's a big question and a big concern that we all have because i think regardless of what the office would say i think this might very well set a precedent so i am trying to figure out what would need to be changed for it not to meet um for for the office not to be able to say no this is just outside of the comprehensive plan goals without saying okay put in a hotel i mean something that you know it's relatively close i mean i'm trying to figure out i'm not really sure how i could answer that question to anyone's satisfaction um today that is a very open-ended question of it really the staff's recommendations and the planning commission's decisions are all very reliant on the context of each project and so you're asking me to hypothesize about at what point would the staff have said no yes and i don't i honestly don't think i am in a situation to be able to to make that determination the comprehensive plan is is made up of 50 goals and objectives i understand that but i guess i i'm asking the question because i think that will help us all one because one it was an argument that was made that this everything that's presented would fit into the comprehensive plan that was an argument that we had or discussion that we had during the comprehensive plan discussion and i think this is the first time that we've had an example since then because i am trying to figure out i understand the recommendation but what would not make it because otherwise i think everything that comes through here we're we're just going to be saying yes to and i i do have some concern about that because what would be the use for for the the planning commission or for us for that matter so i i mean i know it's a hypothetical and i appreciate you not wanting to give an answer but i think i need an answer to help figure this out and how what my decision really would be on it The comprehensive plan no longer makes a recommendation on a particular density cap for residential. So when we look at residential, we're looking at the context and how is it compatible or is it not compatible with adjacent residential uses. So in your scenario of what wouldn't work, potentially a four- or five-story apartment building would be inappropriate in this location because you are adjacent to single-family residential to the rear and to the sides. And the size of the lot would restrict how much density you can put there. but it but what number of dwelling units is the cutoff I don't think the staff can determine a particular number so okay so I'm clear it's the number as opposed to maybe the the planner well design itself that's how I understood your question so is it a particular use or a particular I think the staff recommended approval of in the Planning Commission because townhouses are very similar they're single-family to existing single-family detached that's a similar traffic pattern a similar family situation typically versus apartments versus offices versus a hotel those more intense uses that that that's helpful that I think that's about what I'm gonna get but that is a helpful explanation thank you my time's up thank you councilmember Maloney my question to you if they were to build a new house there how far would this step back at the big new single-family take that vacant lot and put a new house up there how far would a setback have to be under all of the current plans that are filed it have to be set back 125 feet now the question i have the deed restriction is no longer an issue true so i'm trying to play fair how do you let a house that has to go back to that step back and be so it can be with compatible with the neighborhood 125 feet and then you can't do this with the townhouses and i'm just trying to compare apple i know i know just how do you how do you get around that a new zone has a new setback right so the r3 zone permits a 20-foot setback even the existing r1c zone permits a 30-foot setback but the original developer chose to to identify a setback that was 125 feet which has now expired so a new property owner can come in and request that that platted building line change and move up to that 30-foot line i mean that i mean the other problem i have is and i'm more into safety yes sir and where we're talking about doing that u-turn there are roads that we have in lexington we can't do u-turns here because i don't have what is it albany is that where this is the road where they're going to be doing the u-turn on albany no it's it's at the median and I would try. It's in between Rebecca and Albany. So there is no light there, so they will be doing the U-turn? There is no light. Do they go up to the light to do the U-turn? That's why I'm confused. There is a turn that you don't have to do the U-turn. Is that correct? No. There is an open in the grassy area before you get to Albany? I'm going to ask Mr. Edwards to pull up the aerial photograph, and I think that will help explain. There's a break in the median very near the second side of their circle drive. There's a break in the median. There's no light there. So on there, show me where the main entrance will be on there. They are proposing their entrance in the center of these three properties, so very near here. And so someone would turn right and maneuver to the south, or if they were to do a u-turn they would need to cross two lanes of traffic and enter this left turn lane and do a u-turn and come back in they could also come to the next light and presumably that would be a safer location to perform a u-turn the question I have is I'm not an expert on traffic and all that is that enough time because usually when you're coming down tates creek road you pull over like that now you're coming out real quick and making them is that enough the traffic claimed it was okay to do that that's a that's a very good question uh the division of traffic engineering on a preliminary basis signed off on the plan so it could move forward for consideration by the council that there is a note on the development plan that says that the division of traffic engineering will reassess the entrance at the stage of the final development plan and so they have discussed moving the access my conversations with traffic engineering involved moving the access closer to the church access which would give you more time to enter that left turn lane so they're going to ask to move back a little bit for the entrance so they have enough time so they can get over that potentially because i'm more concerned about the safety now that you answered that because i thought you had had to go up to albany do u-turn so then yeah the next intersection is albany here okay that's what i need thank you you're welcome thank you council member henson thank you vice mayor tracy there is another there is an alternative route besides doing the left turn correct You can access Albany, which is a signaled intersection, correct? And you're only talking about a small number of vehicles, your estimation, correct? The MPO's estimation of seven vehicles in the peak hour. Now, you... We're back together. I'm sorry. Please do not speak from the audience. Well, I have the map, so according to this, it looks like you can. Get to Albany if you were concerned about... I would be me. I would be concerned about getting over there to make a U-turn. Also, the R3. you mentioned several were conditional yes ma'am but we could um in an r3 they would also allow multi-housing what what is allowed without a conditional use great question the uses that are permitted in an r3 zone principal permitted uses are single family residential duplexes multifamily dwellings dormitories boarding or lodging houses assisted living and hospitality houses for only up to eight people community residences a group residential project would be multiple multifamily buildings on one site which could be possible here but it be i would say challenging and then townhouses so there are a number of abuses above and beyond the what they're proposing you know i think when you talk about townhomes you know it could work but when you look it takes on a whole different outlook i mean my voice is going to go and i'm I'm going to have to write down my question. But I'm just trying to get a good picture of what this looks like. Because, you know, I do think the character of the neighborhood is important. So when you look, townhomes being, you know, proposed, but then all these other things are options without conditional uses. That is true. I think there is a maybe perhaps misunderstanding, but when the Planning Commission reviews a preliminary development plan and they approve a project, if the applicant were to bring in a development plan that was significantly different, they could disapprove that application and say, this is not what we saw. this is not why we recommended approval of the zone change so they would have the ability to say you know what that's not the character of what we were agreeing to um if that gives any it's not nearly as strong as conditional zoning restrictions thank you thank you vice mayor thank you before i recognize councilmember lamb i have a question to myself um just to follow up on this question of the particular zone despite the fact that the well I think what I hear is a lot of concern that the even with the protections in place the r3 zone makes people uncomfortable can this council restrict the uses that are now permitted uses can we say you can have the r3 but you can't do group homes you can't do novel you can't do i don't remember the list and could we go through the list and restrict it to all but townhouses or is that pushing the rights too far the law department in the past has advised not to restrict a particular use a particular piece of property to one use that that creates issues for long-term planning but i do believe the council would be within their authority to restrict some of the uses on the property is that anything in that case um well oh that's the question i had um i think that's all comes from overland thank you vice mayor um this question is for um Mr. Turner, the six-foot buffer around the premises, could you expand on what that is in a very quick manner? So I still have a lot of my five minutes. Your six-foot buffer, what is it going to be made of, please? The six-foot buffer? We haven't really determined yet. Probably masonry brick and stone. So your six-foot buffer is going to be the fence? Yeah. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And as far as the existing tree canopy, have you all looked with this preliminary development plan how that's going to affect the existing tree canopy? And I'm not asking you to speak to every single tree that's on there, but the larger caliper trees. Have you gauged what number of trees that you all will have to take down in order to put that up? That's really a part of the final development plan. plan process to go through that technical piece but no we think we can do what we have here it's there too there are two residential lots most of the trees are around the around the edges on the perimeter aren't they right okay um question for um miss wade please As far as when we're talking about the trees, they are vetted through the LFUCG arborist, right? Or urban forester. Or urban forest. And that's done prior to the development plan is finalized? Yes, it's through our technical committee review. Now, can a urban forester advise the developer to not cut down a tree, but at the end of the day it's their choice whether they can cut down a tree or not? The Article 26 of the Zoning Ordinance does protect trees during construction, and then after that significant trees can be removed. Okay. I'm just trying to lay out the, you know, so that we're all on the same level playing field and we all understand and are hearing the information. I understand that about the fire access, that the changes to the existing development plan are made so that the fire EMS units and fire trucks can get in and out of this. That was one concern during the technical committee review and the subdivision committee of the planning commission, but there were other considerations. I think part of it was the neighbor's concern about the proximity of what was initially proposed to Tates Creek Grove. Okay. All right. And I have to say, I know that there's been discussion about being able to turn right out onto Tates Creek out of this if this new development is put in place and going up and making a U-turn on Albany. And we already have a ton of complications with that intersection in itself, and I would totally not suggest that U-turns start being made at the Albany-Tates Creek intersection. I just have to say that for the record. I think this is everything I have at this point before we go on to the next stage. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. I see nobody else signed up for questions. In that case, I will declare this hearing closed. And at this point, no further evidence can be taken, and Council is left to deliberate on the evidence it has heard. So I'll open the floor now to comments from Council. if any. Council Member Lamb. Okay. I have tried to come up with a way that we can all work together on this plan because I do believe in infill and redevelopment but I also know that the traffic is already a nightmare on Tate's Creek Road. And it's not necessarily the number of cars that are going on to Tates Creek Road, it is the actual, the departure and the entrance entering into this development and the way that it's situated on Tates Creek that is very concerning to me. I'm also very concerned about the brick brick wall. I actually went back to a 2016 BOA case which I spoke of earlier. That's the property at the corner of Tates Creek and Albany. And they were asking for, I believe, a six or seven foot fence all the way around their property. And they were denied a taller fence on their front yard because it would be out of character with others in the neighborhood as no adjacent properties and Very few properties in the Tates Creek Road corridor have any front yard fences, much less at the height that they requested. I look at this request for a brick wall to be out of character as well for this section of the corridor. And that corridor is from Alumni Drive to New Circle Drive. That apparently is how the staff at the time in 2016, they recognized and defined the Tates Creek Corridor as from alumni to new circles. So I know that there are some other houses on back further down towards Chevy Chase that do have brick walls, but in my research, I have not found where there are any brick walls that are on in that Tates Creek Corridor. So I think that changes the character of this. I think that we can work on some things, and I think we as a council have the ability to request consideration from the petitioner that they would agree to concede and to follow some restrictions. and I will stop here, but I would also ask, Vice Mayor, that at the time that the conversation around the dais right now stops or is finished, that I would ask for a 10-minute recess so that I can speak with Law Department and Planning. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just first of all, thank you all from the neighborhood for being here tonight. next a lot of time and and appreciate all your input and uh and opinions um it seems to me this boils down to this beat this r3 versus the r1d and i think you mentioned council member brown it's kind of dangerous with precedence um we've seen that happen before with council with vice mayor um k trying to look at ways that we could somehow make this work with it still staying in our in our 3d and I know Councilmember Lamb we're going to recess and kind of look at that too but it's going to share that my husband I first got married we lived on Albany Road so I know how special that area is and we used to walk all the streets you've been talking about but you know I think I think again it just boils down to this this this zone and I know mr. Turner going back and starting all over this was timely and expensive and and whatever but uh i just think there was a lot to think about in regard to the zone so thank you vice mayor thank you before i go back to councilmember lamb i have a comments and first i'd like to hear the list again of the permitted uses in the r3 if i could Thank you. maybe i can maybe i can show it okay asking mr edwards to put it on the screen for you the only thing that's missing that i indicated earlier vice mayor k was the first principal use reads the principal permitted uses in the r2 zone and that by my so those are all residential single-family residential and duplexes and i'm sorry perks operated by the government for the record so um i know with it from what you already told me that this is on the edge of um getting into dangerous territory but i'm I'm going to suggest the possibility. I'm going to ask Mr. Turner to speak to this in a minute. If we restricted the principal uses to the principal permitted uses in the R2 zone and townhouses, would that be acceptable to the developer? Yeah, I can. I think I can clear this up. What we're interested in is 19 dwelling units. So principal permitted uses in R2 zone. She said 19. I'm sorry, 14. I'm sorry, 14. Look at it. No, 14 units. Thank you, Tracy. The multifamily dwelling is important. if you move this entrance or we start playing around we may have to end up with a what we would again what we would consider a townhouse but is a always going to be considered a multifamily dwelling either a fourplex or you know kind of like the still the same quality but we may have to to do something so multifamily and then townhouses if you if you restrict it to those we're fine with that so i want to make sure i understand you'd like well you could live with principal permitted uses in the r2 zone multi-family dwellings and townhouses yes and strike everything else you strike everything else and limit it to 14 units and we're fine and limit it to 14 units thank you I'd like if staff could work on that as an option to put before the council. I'd appreciate that. Council Member Lamb. Well, and on that, I would also like to have consideration about the fence. Is the four-foot fence in the front, is that negotiable? Again, that's a part of the process of going through the final development plan that we're going to have to approve. but if if you let me show if you had seen what we had on the on the on the renderings we actually had brick columns with a small brick uh fets and basically a wrought iron type situation more decorative than walled out um and we're open to almost anything okay because i was it was my under impression at the planning commission you said that it was going to be a double brick it It would be a double-sided brick fence. The idea around the back and the sides is a six, eight-foot brick wall on both sides. Really, not only is it an amenity to the townhouses, but also those residences. If somebody that back up to it, they'll have a nice-looking brick wall in their backyard. Well, but there are trees in between that, and I know that with one of the other developments in my district, then it becomes an issue as to who takes care of and manages what's on the other side of that wall. And I'm not asking for a response on this. I'm making a statement that I know that that is a serious consideration. when you have a brick wall that's six foot and then you have a green space because you can't set it right on top of the property line, I don't believe. And so you have an issue of you've got a space there, and then who takes care of that because you can't get a lawnmower in there probably. Well, you know, I can't speak precisely to that because I don't know, we don't know exactly where that fence has got to be. But it's not untypical to provide an easement that makes that a part of the backyard of the adjoining house or something to that effect just to deal with the issues you're talking about. But without knowing where that is exactly because of the trees and utility easements and other things that have to be dealt with, I can't precisely answer that question but yes that's got to be dealt with and it would be an issue dealt with at final development plan because then we will know where we've exactly we've got to put things well and then that leads me to a another point is that I'm assuming that this this new development would have a maintenance association of some nature it would have a homeowners Association that would take care of the outside common areas. But everybody that is living in there is responsible for carrying on that HOA. It would no longer be the developer after all the units are sold. So then it would become the responsibility of those property owners to make sure that the property on the outskirts of that fence would be managed. If that was the solution. Okay. I mean, again, I look at this as a positive for if somebody wanted to build a brick wall in my backyard at the end of my backyard to give my backyard privacy, I'd be pretty happy about that. If they wanted to give me another foot of land where I could plant, I'd be happy about that. I can't speak wherever. I'm just saying myself. So there are creative solutions depending on where exactly that wall is. And I can't tell you that. And I realize that we can't speak to that. I mean, we don't even know about the topography between the two properties. I mean, there was one picture that Tracy, Ms. Wade put up there, and it looked like that there was a lot of dirt in behind the existing house. I personally haven't walked on the property, so I don't even know what it is. Roy, correct me, but I think the grades are pretty comparable. Is it? Okay. All right. Okay. Well, I'm going to let my, Mr. Maloney, if you want to say something, then I'll ask for a motion to recess for 10 minutes, if that's okay. Council Member Maloney. Just one quick question. Are y'all going to, when they pull in, is it going to be a gated community? When they pull in, is this going to be a gated community? it may be okay I just want to give you one advice I had a problem with the Oaks when they put the gate up if traffic backed all the way on Redding Road on some problems when they have a big so the last thing I want to see is traffic backing up on Tate's Creek Road no I and that's why I say it may be and some of that depends on where the entrance is going to be and some of the other detail that we're talking about but no Richard you're exactly you're exactly right thank you council member lamb you're asking for a little recess for 10 minutes I so move so Thank you. ¶¶ The End The End Thank you. The End Thank you. The End Council members if you'd resume your seats we'll get started again. I want to make sure we've got a quorum. Thank you. Do we need a motion to come back into session? I think we were just taking a break. We went recessing. I'll recognize Council Member Lamb. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay. I am making a motion to amend the findings of fact to place additional zoning restrictions as follows. Under the provisions of Article 6-7 of the zoning ordinance, the following conditional zoning restrictions shall apply to the subject property. Prohibited uses, dormitories, boarding or lodging houses, assisted living facilities, and hospitality houses for up to eight persons, community residences, group residential projects as provided in Article 9. All conditional uses and planned neighborhood residential R3 zone except for the permitted conditional uses in the R1A zone. Limit to maximum of 14 dwelling units as agreed to by the applicant. These restrictions are appropriate and necessary to maintain the character of the Tates Creek Road corridor. I so move. I have a motion. Is there a second? I have a motion and a second. any discussion on the motion councilmember farmer just go over it one more time sure with delight the prohibited uses are dormitories boarding or lodging houses assisted living facilities and hospitality houses for up to eight persons community residences group residential projects as provided in article 9 and then all the conditional uses in planned neighborhood residential r3 zone except for the permitted conditional uses in the r1a zone we did not list those all out that's good mr turner anything objectionable in that list i don't think so i'm not sure i haven't looked at the zoning ordinance on what the conditional what the r1a zone you which is one of the reasons i asked you to read it a second time but i think he's entitled the the option to see the individual. May I realize you just scan that? That's acceptable. It is? Yes. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. any further discussion on the motion seeing none i'll ask the thank you since this is as i've been advised an amendment all those in favor please say aye any opposed that motion carries that would bring us now to the original motion as amended and uh for the comment council member lamb i was going to make a motion now to approve the findings of fact as amended as as we have discussed tonight that includes the findings of fact that have been from the planning commission as well as the ones that we just read here for two i so move Second. I have a motion and a second. So further discussion? Council Member Farmer. So then that provides for the use of the development plan as illustrated on the wall behind you. Can you repeat what you just said? So that provides for the use of the development plan as illustrated on the wall behind you. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none on this, we need a roll call vote. Please call the roll. Mr. Maloney? Yes. Ms. Plumman? Yes. Mr. Smith? Yes. Mr. Worley? Yes, sir. Mr. Fred Brown? No. Ms. Evans? Yes. Mr. Farmer? Yes, sir. Mr. Gibbs? Yes. Ms. Henson? Yes. Vice Mayor Kaye? Yes. Ms. Lamb? Yes. That vote reflects passage of the motion. That would bring us now to, I believe we need a motion to suspend the rules and give, First reading to the. We need to make a motion to amend the ordinance. We need to make a motion to amend the ordinance to include these findings of fact. I so move. I have a motion to amend the ordinance to include these findings of fact. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. That motion carries. Now a motion on... Now there's a motion to give... Well, no, then on a motion, the new ordinance as amended needs to give a new first reading. I believe we need to suspend the rules in order to allow that first reading. I don't think we do, but I think that we just amended it by the findings of fact, so... You'll have to suspend if you want to give it second reading tonight. We have to have first reading, and then if we want to give a second reading tonight, we'll move to suspend the rules. So if we can have a new first reading, please. An ordinance changing the zone from a single family residential R1C zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 2.09 net, 2.60 gross acres for property located at 3,013 and 3,021 Tates Creek Road as amended. Off-season LLC, Council District 4. Thank you. Now is there a motion to suspend the rules and allow for a second reading? So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second to suspend the rules. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. We can now have a second reading, please. In order to change the zone from a single-family residential R1C zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 2.09 net, 2.60 gross acres for property located at 3009, 3013, and 3021 Tates Creek Road as amended, off-season LLC, Council District 4. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve? I have a motion and a second. To approve, is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, if you'd call the roll. Mr. Maloney? Yes. Ms. Plowman? Yes. Mr. Smith? Yes. Mr. Worley? Yes, sir. Mr. Fred Brown? No. Ms. Evans? Mr. Farmer? Yes, sir. Mr. Gibbs? Yes. Ms. Henson? Yes. Vice Mayor Kay? Yes. Ms. Lamb? Yes. Thank you. That vote reflects passage of the motion, and before I entertain a motion to adjourn, I want to see if Councilmembers have any further comments, and I want to make a last comment myself. Anybody else wish to speak? Councilmember Lamb. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank everybody for coming down here to go through this process, And second of all, more so, I want to thank my colleagues for coming to this meeting tonight and being here for a quorum. Thank you very much for doing that. Second of all, I want to make sure that you all know that I will follow up because now I am free from this process and I can follow up as far as the development plan goes, and I will be glad to talk and continue working with Mr. Turner and Mr. Stewart and Mr. Gross and the neighborhood so that we can go forward and continue working together and have further discussions about defense and so forth and everything that will take place as it relates to the final development plan. And I do appreciate everything that has been stated tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just add my kind of echo those comments. I appreciate people coming out, participating in the process. Thanks to my colleagues for being here. it's never easy these are never simple issues we try our best to do what we think is in the best interest of the community but thank you all for coming I'll entertain a motion to adjourn I have a motion and a second without objection we stand adjourned Thank you.