# Special Urban County Council Meeting - August 14, 2007 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Council · August 14, 2007 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/46 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/46?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2007-08-14 - **Body**: Council - **Last revised**: February 1, 2026 - **Length**: 18,206 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Council convened on August 14, 2007, at 6:00 PM with Council Member Gorton presiding over the session. The meeting focused on a single agenda item involving an ordinance second reading, which was ultimately denied by the Council. During the proceedings, the Council conducted 2 motions and votes while hearing from 6 members of the public who provided comments on matters before the body. The meeting represented a focused session with limited agenda items but significant public engagement through the comment period. ## Attendance The Council meeting on August 14, 2007 had strong attendance with 13 members present and 2 absent. **Present:** • Gorton • Ellinger • James • Lane • McChord • Moloney • Stevens • Stinnett • Beard • Blevins • Blues • Crosbie • DeCamp **Absent:** • Gray • Myers No members arrived late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The Council conducted two roll call votes on matters related to a zone change request at 756 Wilderness Road. **Motion to Adopt Findings of Fact for Disapproval** [timestamp: 08:15] Mr. Stinnett made a motion to adopt findings of fact in support of disapproval of the zone change request at 756 Wilderness Road, seconded by Ms. Crosbie. The motion passed by a vote of 9-4. Voting in favor: Gorton, James, McChord, Moloney, Stinnett, Blevins, Blues, Crosbie, and DeCamp. Voting against: Ellinger, Lane, Stevens, and Beard. **Motion to Approve Zone Change Ordinance** [timestamp: 08:27] Mr. McChord made a motion to approve the ordinance for zone change at 756 Wilderness Road, seconded by Mr. Blevins. The motion failed by a vote of 3-10. Voting in favor: Ellinger, Lane, and Stevens. Voting against: Gorton, James, McChord, Moloney, Stinnett, Beard, Blevins, Blues, Crosbie, and DeCamp. The voting pattern shows that the majority of Council members supported the findings of fact that justified disapproving the zone change, while only three members voted to approve the actual zone change ordinance. Notably, Mr. McChord voted for the findings of fact supporting disapproval but then made the motion to approve the ordinance, ultimately voting against his own motion. ## Public Comment Six residents spoke during the public comment period, all expressing opposition to a proposed zone change. [timestamp: 02:00-04:30] **Jim Dougherty** opened the public comment session by voicing concerns about safety hazards and increased traffic that would result from the proposed zone change. [timestamp: 02:00] **Steve Van Winkle** followed, arguing that the zone change would negatively impact property values in the area while also creating additional traffic problems for the neighborhood. [timestamp: 02:30] **William Riggs** spoke in opposition to the zone change, specifically citing traffic problems as a primary concern. He also expressed a preference for maintaining fewer homes in the area. [timestamp: 03:00] **Samantha Frederick** presented a petition against the proposed zone change to the Council. In addition to the petition, she raised concerns about the adequacy of existing infrastructure to handle increased development and the potential negative impact on property values. [timestamp: 03:30] **Becky Haynes** opposed the zone change, focusing her remarks on two key issues: increased traffic congestion and potential problems with groundwater resources in the area. [timestamp: 04:00] **Carolyn Kidd** concluded the public comment period by expressing concerns about traffic impacts and emphasizing the importance of preserving the rural character of the neighborhood. [timestamp: 04:30] The common themes throughout all public comments were opposition to increased traffic, concerns about maintaining property values, and preserving the existing character of the area. No speakers voiced support for the proposed zone change during this portion of the meeting. ## Contested Items The Council meeting on August 14, 2007, featured one significant contested item that drew community opposition. **Zone Change at 756 Wilderness Road** The primary point of contention during this meeting was a proposed zone change for the property located at 756 Wilderness Road. The proposal faced substantial opposition from local residents who raised multiple concerns about the potential impact on their neighborhood. Community members expressed specific objections regarding: - Increased traffic that would result from the zone change - Safety concerns for the surrounding area - Potential negative effects on the existing neighborhood character The opposition appeared to be organized, with local residents presenting a unified front against the proposed zoning modification. Their concerns centered on how the change would fundamentally alter the nature of their community and create additional burdens on local infrastructure and safety. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps, speaker names, and the final outcome of this contested item were not available in the provided meeting data. Readers seeking complete details about the discussion and resolution should refer to the full meeting video and official minutes.* ## Ordinance Second Reading [timestamp: 01:00] The Council considered a zone change request from Single Family Residential (R-1B) to Planned Neighborhood Residential (R-3) for property located at 756 Wilderness Road. This second reading represented the final opportunity for public input and Council deliberation before a final vote. The discussion featured extensive participation from both city officials and residents. Key speakers included Bill Sallee, Richard Murphy, Charles Hite, Jim Dougherty, and Steve Van Winkle, who presented various aspects of the proposed zoning change. Community members Samantha Frederick, Becky Haynes, and Carolyn Kidd also provided input during the proceedings. The proposed rezoning would have changed the property designation from R-1B, which typically allows single-family homes on larger lots, to R-3 Planned Neighborhood Residential, which generally permits higher density residential development including townhomes, condominiums, or multi-family housing units. During the deliberations, Council members and speakers addressed various concerns related to the zoning change, including potential impacts on neighborhood character, traffic patterns, infrastructure capacity, and compatibility with surrounding residential areas. The R-3 designation would have allowed for more intensive residential development than currently permitted under the existing R-1B zoning. Following the presentations and discussion, the Council voted to deny the ordinance. This decision means the property at 756 Wilderness Road will retain its current Single Family Residential (R-1B) zoning classification, preventing the higher-density development that would have been possible under the proposed R-3 designation. The denial concludes the formal review process for this particular zoning change request, though the property owner could potentially submit a new application in the future with modifications to address concerns raised during the proceedings. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (9-4): Motion to adopt findings of fact in support of disapproval of the zone change request at 756 Wilderness Road - **Motion** — failed (3-10): Motion to approve the ordinance for zone change at 756 Wilderness Road --- ## Full transcript Council Members, if you will take your seats, please. We will go ahead and get started. And this is August 14, 2007, and we are in a zone change, and if you will go ahead and log into your computers, please, and I'll ask the clerk to take the roll. Mr. Ellinger? Here. Ms. Gordon? Here. Mr. Gray? Ms. James? Here. Mr. Lane? Here. Mr. McCord? Here. Mr. Maloney? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Myers? Dr. Stephens? Present. Mr. Sinnott? Present. Mr. Beard? Here. Mr. Blevins? Present. Ms. Luz? Here. Ms. Crosby? Here. Mr. DeCanne? Here. Thank you very much. Now, I believe the next thing we need to do is have second reading of the ordinance. An ordinance changes the owner of a single-family residential R1B zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone, 1.26 net, 1.56 gross acres of property, located at 756 Wilderness Road, subject to a certain use restriction, imposed as a condition of granting the zone change. Rodney and Allison Moberly. Thank you. Now, if you are here tonight, and I'm going to be relying a lot on our planning and law folks to keep me in line here, but I believe the next thing we need to do is swear in anyone who intends to speak or be a witness. So if you intend to speak, please stand up and raise your right hand. Do you swear that everything you say tonight is the truth and nothing but the truth? Thank you very much. This is the point where I am permitted to explain a few rules. And the rules are as followed. When you go to the podium, you need to state your name and your address. And as far as witnesses other than the petitioner or the planning staff, each individual will have a three-minute limit to what you say. And we will not accept into evidence any architectural renderings of developments. We can have building footprints, parking, or other very basic information, but we do not want and cannot accept any architectural renderings. If there is testimony that councilmembers deem is irrelevant or is repetitious, councilmembers will please let me know that, and we will not allow repetitious or irrelevant testimony. Now I have a witness list from the petitioner's attorney, and I think we're ready to go. We'll hear from our planning staff first, Mr. Bill Salih. Madam Chair, thank you. Members of the council, good evening. As I'm sure you know, there are a number of items I need to enter into the record of your hearing this evening. The first is the legal notice published in the local newspaper advertising tonight's public hearing. The next is an affidavit signed by myself regarding the mailed notices that were sent for tonight's public hearing. Thirty-two letters were mailed to area property owners near this location. Next item is the recommendation from the Urban County Planning Commission regarding their public hearing on this zone change request. Copies were distributed to the council, and there are a few extra copies behind me on the counter for anyone in the audience interested in that document. You need to enter in copies of the zoning ordinance and the land subdivision regulations in effect for the Urban County. And then finally, a copy of the 2007 Comprehensive Plan, which has been adopted by the Planning Commission for the Urban County. I'd like to start this evening by orienting you to the location of the subject property that's before you this evening. Using zoning map 34, this property is just east of New Circle Road, very near the intersection with Liberty Road, which is a major signalized intersection at this location. In this general vicinity on New Circle Road, we have commercial uses in business zones here indicated in red. There is also some light industrial zoning along New Circle Road, but this property does not have frontage on New Circle Road. It fronts on Wilderness Road, which is the first intersection of a public street beyond New Circle Road heading out of town on Liberty. The subject property is south of Liberty Road and has frontage on two sides by Wilderness Road, also on a third side by a small street called Paradise Lane. These are public streets. They are old county roads that were accepted in at merger. Subject property is zoned R1B, as is all of the property immediately surrounding the property. As I indicated, there is some non-residential zoning in the area, but it is some distance removed several hundred feet away from the property. Not all of the property surrounding is residential in use. Subject property directly to the west, across Wilderness Road, has been and is used for some time by a church, and churches, of course, are conditional uses in residential zones. This property is just over one and a half gross acres, and the petitioner is asking for an R3, a planned neighborhood residential zone, for this property. I have a few photos to show you of the property and of the area that I've described to you. First is an aerial photo looking from the south, and again, to orient you, we have Liberty Road at the top of the screen. New Circle Road is just outside the picture on the left. We have Wilderness Road here, which then turns in this direction and heads to the southeast. Paradise Lane is in the photo here. This is the subject property, fronting on all three of those streets, and then bounded on a fourth side by residential uses in the Wilderness Road area. You can also see very clearly the church property immediately across the street, and a few of the commercial uses more oriented to New Circle Road. This is a little closer view of the subject property. Again, we have Paradise Lane, the two sides of Wilderness Road. You can see in this photo there is a single family house, a barn and garage on the property, and several sheds on this one and a half acre property. Now we're looking from the north, and this view, we have Liberty Road, Wilderness Road here, Paradise Lane, and the subject property at this location here. Now a few ground level shots. This is a photo of the existing residence on the subject property. There's only one on this one and a half acres. These are some of the sheds, which are oriented on the east property line of the subject property. For instance, this home is on an adjoining property here. I think we have one more photo. This is at the intersection of Wilderness Road and Wilderness Road. This is looking in the southeastern direction away from Liberty Road. The subject property fronts on the left, this location. Get a good flavor of that old county road there. This is a view of Paradise Lane. This is looking from the east to the west, back toward its intersection with Wilderness Road. At the time of the Planning Commission's hearing, there were improvements being made to the sanitary sewers in this general area. I believe you can see that construction along the left-hand side of the road here. That's a concrete pipe, I believe. Finally, this is looking back the opposite direction on Paradise Lane. This is a view of Paradise Lane. Subject property in this photo is on the left side of the road. The comprehensive plan for this area has a mixed land use recommendation. It's based, in large part, to the roads in which it orients. A larger version is here to my left. It's probably easier to use the one on the overhead for tonight. Again, we have New Circle Road, Liberty Road here. Wilderness Road is here on the plan. Paradise Lane is here. We have the subject property identified with the red line. It and property immediately to the north and east are recommended for medium-density residential land use. That is defined in the plan as residential use with a density of 5 to 10 dwelling units per net acre. Lands across Wilderness Road to the south, the comprehensive plan is recommending low-density residential development. That is defined as 0 to 5 dwelling units per net acre. The church property immediately across the street is also recommended for medium-density, although a semi-public use. Lands oriented to Liberty Road have either a highway commercial or professional service orientation land use recommendation on the south side. Along New Circle Road, highway commercial, retail, and wholesale and warehouse land uses, again, orienting more to that highway. The petitioner is proposing 8 dwelling units for the subject property at a density of just under 6.5 units per acre. The density proposed with this development is in agreement with the medium-density recommendation of the comprehensive plan. For that reason, the planning staff, when we reviewed this request, did find that it is in agreement with the comprehensive plan. We made those findings and a recommendation of approval available to the planning commission at their public hearing. In late May, the planning commission did hold a public hearing and did hear from not only the staff and the petitioner, but also from several objectors to this proposed rezoning. At the conclusion of their hearing that afternoon, they voted 6 to 3 to recommend approval of the zone change to the Urban County Council. The reasons for that recommendation are that the proposed rezoning to R3 is in agreement with the 2007 comprehensive plan in that the plan recommends medium-density residential use for the subject property defined as 5 to 10 dwelling units an acre and the fact that the petitioner's proposed residential density is 6.35 dwelling units per acre, which is in agreement with the plan's recommendation. The planning staff and the planning commission both have recommended a conditional zoning restriction for the property. That would be that there be development of no more than 12 single-family residential dwelling units on this one-and-a-half-acre property. That is to ensure that the density remains in agreement with the comprehensive plan and the necessary finding for that is it is appropriate to maintain a character consistent with surrounding residential properties as well. Again, the staff and planning commission both have made that recommendation. The planning commission also approved the preliminary development plan that was submitted with the zone change. That is to my immediate left. It's not quite at the same angle as the other drawings, but Liberty Road is off the drawing to the top, Wilderness Road here, and then it's turned to the southeast in this direction and Paradise Lane here. Eight residential lots are proposed for the subject property, as indicated, four fronting on Paradise Lane and four on the southern part of Wilderness Road. At the planning commission meeting, there was discussion about street improvements along the frontage of the subject property and also along Liberty Road and also stormwater detention and whether or not that would be necessary for this one-and-a-half-acre development in the future. Planning commission did approve this development plan, but that approval is subject to the rezoning being granted by the council. Otherwise, that approval is voided. That concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you very much. Of course, I will be available for questions from you later in the evening. Thank you very much, Mr. Sully. We'll call the petitioner forward for presentation, Mr. Richard Murphy. Thank you, Ms. Gordon. I appreciate being in front of you tonight. I appreciate you all's time for this hearing, and we'll keep it as brief as possible. I do have some handouts, which I'll hand around here to you all. And I'll put a couple extra behind me for other people who may want those as well. And I have put in the record the affidavit regarding the posting of the sign and the photograph of the sign, which is required. I've given that to the council clerk already. Ms. Gordon, members of the council, I represent Rodney and Allison Moberly, who cannot be here tonight. A couple of days ago, Mr. Moberly found out he'd have to be going in for surgery today. And Allison Moberly, his wife, was going to come and be here. She called me about an hour ago and said that there were some complications in the recovery room. She would not be able to come. They understand that you have time limits on when you can have a hearing, and that time limit runs out, I think, a week from today. And so I talked to them about how they wanted to proceed, and they said they understand the situation and they were okay with going ahead with the hearing. I wanted to explain that to you because they're not here. I do have a cell phone number that I can get in touch with Allison Moberly if questions come up about this. So that's the situation. They're a nice young couple, or I say young, they're younger than me, and they inherited this property and it has been in Rodney Moberly's family for about 60 years. I believe it was the residence of his father who passed away, I think, about a year ago. I have an aerial photograph, too, and wanted to just discuss the uses in the vicinity just a little bit more. I'm going to give that to the operator here. This is black and white. As soon as we get it up there on the screen, the... We're located near the corner of New Circle Road and Liberty Road. There we go. All right. This is courtesy of Google Maps here. Here's New Circle Road, and here is Liberty Road, and this is the auto zone out there, which is sort of the landmark in the area. This is the River of Life Church of God, and they face on Wilderness Road and they go back. They have a parking lot behind them, which you can see from New Circle Road, but this is the River of Life Church of God property right through here, an older building and a newer building on back and a parking lot. This is Lamar Advertising, which is the billboard company, which you can see from New Circle, which you actually access from Wilderness Road. Coming off of New Circle Road, there's a used car sales lot right there. Coming in off of Liberty onto Wilderness, we come down to here, and again, here is Paradise Lane, which comes down at some point. There's a gate across Paradise Lane, and it becomes a private drive. It's public down to that gate, as I understand. Four houses have driveways on Paradise Lane, is what I counted from the map this morning. We border this portion of Paradise Lane. We come down Wilderness across from River of Life Church, and then Wilderness takes a turn, and we come down to this point and go back. It's about an acre and a quarter net acres, acre and a half gross, as Mr. Selle mentioned to you. I have a couple photographs, too. Photograph one is the River of Life Church of God. That's immediately across the street from us. If you could go to the second photograph, we're sort of turning around where we were standing for the first photograph, looking across the street at the Mobile East property. You can see where it is there on Wilderness Road. The third photograph, we're looking down Wilderness Road after it takes a turn at some of the houses there. The subject property is over here on the left of the picture, and these are houses across the street, single-family detached houses going down Wilderness Road. There are a number of churches down Wilderness Road. There's at least three. There may be four. Both Paradise Lane and Wilderness Road are dead-end streets, so there's low amounts of traffic generation. There's maybe a little more on Sunday mornings than on Wednesday night, but relative to other streets, there's relatively low amounts of traffic generation on this. Two new matters in the neighborhood are, one, the urban county government. You all are putting in a sanitary sewer project right now. As I understand, the property out here has been in septic tanks for many years, and through a grant and the efforts of the Division of Engineering, the sewers are being installed right now. I think they've already been installed in this area, but it's not complete further down, so the houses cannot yet attach to the sewer, but the streets have been patched if you've been out there and you can see where the sewers are going in. Another new element out there is the new elementary school on Liberty Road, which if you've been out there lately, you can see is under construction. The walls are up to serve this area, which is nearby, which will serve the children in this area. So there's, although this is an older neighborhood, there's new infrastructure and services that are going in the server. As Mr. Selle mentioned, this proposal is in agreement with the comprehensive plan, and the comprehensive plan calls for this property to be medium-density residential, which is up to 10 units per acre, or on our property, as Mr. Selle mentioned, 12 units, because we have about 1 1⁄4 acres net. So 12 units would be allowed on our property, and we are only showing 8 units on the development plan, which Mr. Selle showed you. The Planning Commission, excuse me, there's the four lots on Wilderness and four lots fronting on Paradise there. Here's the single family across the street from us there. Here's the church. Here's the Paradise Lane area up there. My clients are not developers. They're not builders. They're a young couple who inherited this property, and when they came in to do the zone change, they didn't come in and say, well, let's see how many units we can get on here. Because if they had, we might have come in and asked for apartments or 12 or 20 units of apartments or whatever. They said to me, when they came in, they want to do single family detached, because that's what's in the neighborhood across the street from them. So we didn't come in with apartments or duplexes or townhomes. Even those would be allowed under the comprehensive plan, and up to 12 townhomes or apartments would be found to be in agreement with the comprehensive plan. They came and said they want to do single family detached houses. So that's what we brought in with eight units. That's what we showed to the Planning Commission. That's what we have here tonight. Now, the Planning Commission put a conditional zoning restriction on this property of 12, no more than 12, single family units, which we certainly agree to, because we show less than that on our development plan. We show eight units on our development plan. So I wanted to make that clear, but that we do agree with the comprehensive plan. We have six and a third units per acre. We would be allowed up to ten units, five to ten. So we're at the lower range of the medium density residential category, as you saw in the comprehensive plan, which Bill slowly showed you. Now, we're also in agreement with the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. About a year ago, we had a lot of neighborhood meetings around the community at the libraries to discuss the vision for the community. And I know a lot of you all went to those meetings. And at those meetings, I think the overwhelming sentiment of the citizens that was expressed was this. We need to use all vacant land and all underdeveloped land inside the urban service area boundary, and we do not need to expand the urban service area boundary because of that. We need to use all of that land, vacant underdeveloped land, before we expand the urban service area boundary. And that's what this is an example of. As you all know, the Planning Commission did not expand the urban service area boundary, but made infill and redevelopment a high priority, and as a matter of fact, added a specific set of goals and objectives about infill and redevelopment. We have such a property here. We agree with not only the map of the plan, but the goals and objectives on page one and two of my handout. I've numbered them on the lower right-hand side. I've just highlighted some of the goals and objectives that support our development. I'm not going to read them all to you, but I'm going to read a few of them that we agree with. Goal seven is to support and uphold the urban service area concept and related growth management strategies. Goal C is about redevelopment and development of housing and public facilities. Objective E says encourage new development to be compact and contiguous, which we are. We're contiguous, and we're compact, and we're using existing infrastructure. Goal 8 says create strategies that enable and encourage appropriate infill and redevelopment of established developments and neighborhoods. Objective L encourages infill, and Objective N says design and support programs aimed at converting vacant lots into residential housing. Again, support programs to convert vacant lots into residential housing. Goal 13 is provide housing opportunities to meet the needs of all citizens, and a number of those talk about offering affordable housing opportunities to people in Lexington. Objective E is to provide increased opportunities for and reduce impediments to home ownership. Objective F is to provide land for residential uses of all types and sufficient amount and locations within the urban service area to adequately meet the projected population growth of Fayette County, so we don't have to expand the urban service boundary. And goal 14, finally, is establishing and promoting well-designed communities that provide appropriate services to multi-neighborhood areas and encourage community interaction. And in F, they encourage new residential developments actually to exceed minimum threshold densities. Maybe we haven't exceeded as much as we could, but we felt 8 would be appropriate and did not want to go to the 12 units that would be allowed here. So I point that out, not only to say we just don't agree with the land use map, we agree with everything that was espoused over the last year about using infill, using leftover parcels, vacant parcels, underdeveloped parcels, so we do not have to expand the urban service area boundary. And again, as I mentioned, we've agreed to that conditional zoning restriction. I want to talk about our particular proposal here a little bit. We are showing on this development plan, which the Planning Commission approved, eight single-family detached lots. We have streets on three sides of us. And on lots, we don't know what houses will be built on these because my clients aren't builders, as I said. But on houses and other subdivisions nearby that have this size lots, houses are selling between $150,000 and about $225,000 to give you a range of what type of house will most likely be built on this property on this size lot. As I said, we're developing at two-thirds of the density, which we would be allowed under the comprehensive plan. Now, at the Planning Commission, there was some discussion of stormwater out here and what was going to be done. The Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr. Harper, pointed out that there had been no evidence at all that there's any stormwater issues in this neighborhood. But nevertheless, and that was pointed out, it's on the record by the Chairman of the Planning Commission. That wasn't my statement. But we said that even if there are, we will comply with, number one, all stormwater manuals. Number two, the stormwater manuals may not require a detention basin. But we said that on review, when we come in for further review at the Planning Commission, if a detention basin is needed, we will construct that if requested by the Division of Engineering. We have to go through two more levels of review before we can do much on this property. We can't do a thing on the ground with this approved by the Planning Commission. If you approve the zone change, we have to come back for a preliminary subdivision plan which shows our plans for streets, stormwater, and other matters. And Ms. Godfrey, who is the Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission, said that after she voted in favor of this, said that she would be looking over those to make sure that the stormwater and roads and that sort of thing are satisfactory. So before we build streets or reconstruct streets or stormwater, we have to come in for a preliminary subdivision plan. Now before we can get building permits for houses, we have to have a final subdivision plan approved. So there's two more times we're going to have to go back to the Planning Commission. As far as roads are concerned, we showed the required cross-section of the Planning Commission required showing the construction of right-of-way and curbs and gutters. There was some discussion about traffic at the Planning Commission, and I know this is a concern of the neighborhood out here. Traffic is an issue everywhere in Lexington, and this neighborhood is no different. And so I wanted to provide a little more information about traffic than we provided to the Planning Commission. If you look at my handout on page three, I have the information from the trip generation manual of the Institute of Traffic Engineers, and I put in the cover page so you know where it's coming from. The Institute of Traffic Engineers, as you all know, is a group of traffic engineers from across the country who send in results of traffic counts they do at developments all over the United States. And from that, the Institute of Traffic Engineers in Washington compiles these and compiles what is an average trip generation for particular developments. And on page four and five, I've provided the trip generation figures for single-family detached houses from the Institute of Traffic Engineering. And bear in mind, we're proposing eight units here. And on page four, we have the generation figures for a single-family detached house, how many trips it generates during the peak hour of the adjacent street traffic, which is one hour, the busiest hour, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. And again, a trip is if you go out to the store or the school, when you leave your house is one trip, and when you come back is two trips under this counting. I would just count that as one trip. I made one trip to the store. But the traffic engineers count that as two trips because you're going and then you're coming back. So that's two trips. Now, they say a single-family detached house will generate 0.75 trips per house during that peak morning traffic-generating hour. So that means with eight houses, these lots will generate a total of six trips during the morning peak rush hour. Six trips, looking another way, is one trip every 10 minutes generated by these six lots. One trip every 10 minutes. And some of those are going to be coming in. You count coming in and coming out. This chart, as you can see, says 25% of those trips enter and 75% exit in the morning. But counting them all, we generate six trips, one every 10 minutes in the morning peak hour. That's all we generate from these six houses. In the afternoon, I've got page 5, what the afternoon generation is. It's a little higher. Again, this is the one hour of peak traffic, whenever it is, between 4 and 5 p.m. They say a house will generate 1.01 trips, about one trip. So that means we would have eight trips during that peak hour. And again, of course, more of them are coming in in the afternoon than are going out. But that's one trip every seven and a half minutes would be generated by these properties right here. On average, based upon surveys taken across the United States by members of the Institute of Traffic Engineers. And again, bearing in mind these are dead-end streets. I know there's a number of houses on Wilderness Road in particular. There's only four on Paradise Lane, but there are a number on Wilderness Road. But there is no through traffic through this neighborhood. Now in further amplification of that, I asked Charles Hite, who is a planner, to do some actual traffic counts on here. Because I know the concern was, what about when you come out on Wilderness Road out to Liberty Road? That was the discussion at the Planning Commission. Here's our subject property in white, coming out to, here's Wilderness Road, here's Liberty. When you come out in the morning and try to make a left turn onto Liberty Road, what's the situation right there? And there's some discussion of that at the Planning Commission hearing. So I asked Mr. Hite to go out and actually count traffic and time the number of seconds it took people to turn left out of Wilderness Road onto Liberty Road during the morning rush hour. At this point, I'd ask him to come up, and he has sworn in and will tell you a little bit about traffic. First Mr. Hite, when you come up, I'd ask you to give a real brief summary of your education and credentials. My name is Charles Hite. I live at 929 Aurora here in Lexington. I went to UK undergrad, got a master of science degree in planning from the University of Tennessee. They did not change my loyalties a bit. Dick had asked me to do a few things pertaining to this property, including some traffic counts. I sat across from the Wilderness Road, Liberty Road intersection. There's a little, I think it's a KU substation or something there, right at the corner of Christian Road. I sat there on the mornings of Thursday the 26th of July and Monday the 30th of July for two hours, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., which are the standard morning rush hour peaks here in Fayette County. The average time that someone took to take a left turn out of there, not counting the three seconds that anyone has to stop at a stop sign, look both ways and go through, was about 12 seconds. It fell between 10 and 15 seconds. This is actual data taken in person. We counted the number of times that vehicles actually were stacked up. In other words, one vehicle sitting at the stop sign and then another vehicle behind them. During those two hours, there were only an average of seven vehicles stacked up for the total during those two hours. Mr. Murphy also consulted with Les Haney, who's a transportation engineering firm from EA Partners, where this gentleman is also from. He said that those waiting times and stacking times are actually less than average for a standard street coming into a major arterial, which is what Liberty Pike is at that point. Mr. Hyde, you're a planner. Just getting away from traffic for a minute, do you feel that this proposal meets good planning principles? Of course, I certainly do. Housing would be the best use for that parcel. Obviously, it agrees with the comprehensive plan. Most of the surrounding uses are residential. Single family residential would be the lowest traffic generator possible for that parcel. As Dick mentioned earlier, this is not the highest and best use for this land. They could come in and ask for rezones to other higher residential, R3, R4, or higher, and ask for a higher density. We are only asking for eight units when we could ask for 12. I might point out that the current zoning on this parcel would allow for three units to be built. They could put three houses there today without coming before you or the planning commission. We're asking for eight. The differential, what we're actually talking about here today, is five additional houses. That's all we're talking about. New development, new homes, new standards, new construction will actually increase the value of the surrounding property here. The existing home and sheds are not necessarily an asset to the neighborhood at this point. We know, getting back to traffic just a little bit, one point I wanted to bring out. We know that there is a widening scheduled for Liberty Pike at some point in the future. The government is not sure when it's going to happen, but it is scheduled to happen sometime. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Mr. Pike will be here to answer any questions you all might have. In the interest of time, Tom Hatfield is here from EA Partners. I'm not going to ask him to come up. He's prepared to talk about the engineering issues, stormwater, other matters, but I'll just make him available if you all have any questions about this. At this point, the issue hasn't been raised. I'm going to conclude here. Of course, I'd want to respond to any new issues that come up, but I just want to emphasize a couple of things. This proposal is in complete agreement with the comprehensive plan, the map, and the goals and objectives in the entire spirit of what this community went through for the last two years when we were updating that plan. All the comments people made that lots such as this have to be used, have to be used, in order to make the comprehensive plan work, since we're not expanding the urban service area boundary. This agrees with the plan. It was recommended for approval by your planning staff. It was recommended for approval by the zoning committee of the planning commission. It was recommended for approval by the planning commission itself. So at four stages, comp plan, staff, zoning committee, and planning commission, it has met with approval recommendations. At the planning commission, when the motions were made, there were just a couple of comments I wanted to repeat to you. Mr. Mahan on the commission, when he was commenting on this, he stated that projects like this are exactly what the planning commission wanted to do when it voted not to expand the urban service area. He also noted that some comment was made this property should be a farm. He said it's not functioning as a farm and cannot remain one. Ms. Linda Godfrey, who's the vice chair of the planning commission, also voted in favor of this, but she noted that she was not ignoring neighborhood concerns, and she said she would assure the neighbors that those issues will be considered prior to the issuance of any permits for this property. As I mentioned to you, this is only the first stage of approval we have to go through at the planning commission. So again, we're very pleased to present this to you, and Mr. and Mrs. Moberly, I'm sure if they were here, would ask you to approve this and tell you how proud and hopeful they were about the development they have proposed to you. We agree with the comprehensive plan. We hope you'll vote in favor of this, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you all might have. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy. And do we have a list of folks who want to speak for the opposition? Does anyone else need to add your name to the list? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Selley. Okay. We will go ahead then with the opposition, and the first person to speak is Jim Doherty, and then following Jim will be Steve VanWinkle. If you'll state your name and address, please. Madam Chairperson, members of the council, I'm Jim Doherty. My wife and I have lived at 669 Wilderness Road for 18 years. We are opposed to the zone change at 756 Wilderness Road from R1 to R3 for the following reasons. One, it will create an additional severe safety hazard on an already dangerous 45-degree curve. Two, children who are loading and unloading school buses and private cars to board or exit school buses will be at increased risk. Additional school buses will be required to pick up children coming from 8 to 12 units proposed being built in this small area. The density of this already dangerous curve may be increased from 40 to 200 percent. Wilderness Road is a one-lane country road, one way to enter and the same way to exit. You must traverse the entire length to a cul-de-sac or turn around in someone's driveway, which is the norm now. Five, these additional 8 to 20 units will increase the danger of exiting Wilderness Road onto Liberty Road at any time of day or night, but especially between 7 and 10. To try to go west toward town or New Circle Road between those hours will be automotive suicide. Lastly, before I close, we beseech you to turn down this zone change for the safety of all and the wishes of most. Let me close by reading several paragraphs from a letter to the editor of the Election Herald written by Mr. Paul McCauley. I've received permission from Mr. Cauley to use this. Members of the Council, once in a while wisdom flows from the public like a fountain. I call this wisdom common sense. Now to Mr. Cauley, if the Planning Commission's attitude is they can do anything they want favoring new development at the expense of existing residents, the Commission has failed to protect all Lexington residents' interests, not just those of a privileged few. Haphazard changes to zoning ordinances without considering existing residents cannot be called planning. The Commission fails in its very reason for being when it favors and protects only the highest bidder. Such action shows a callous lack of concern for the very people who should be protected. Mr. Daugherty, you have six seconds. All we have going for us tonight is that we are right and the Planning Commission is wrong. Thank you very much. Next will be Mr. Steve Van Winkle, and you'll also have three minutes if you'll state your name and address, please. Yes, my name's Steve Van Winkle. I'm 744 Wilderness Road. I live right next door, and the man has been gone longer than a year. That thing's been sitting there for 15 years doing nothing but rotting. And two, when we was here in May, they said that we had a year for them to come up with this long sewer drain. If anybody's done the trigonometry, it's a 34-foot drop. He's only got a half acre of flat land, and that 34-foot drop goes to Paradise Lane. And all these little maps and everything, and they've got my pictures on their computers over there that I brought to show how the land goes down. They download them, but how come they won't bring them up? And you're going to stick a new house in our neighborhood as old as it is, isn't it going to devalue our property? I think so, because my sister's house in Cumberland Hills, I mean, they built Veterans Park and all the apartments knocked their property value down 50,000. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. VanWinkle. Next is William Riggs, and following him is Samantha Frederick. Please give us your name and address. Yes, my name is William E. Riggs, Jr., and I live at 740 Wilderness Road. And I was here at the May meeting, and it didn't seem to accomplish much, but it hadn't changed anything. I hear all this about no traffic problems, and we've been living with traffic problems out there 10, 15 years. I've been out there since 69. I know what the problems are. I've been there, lived them. And this is just going to add to us. Me, I would be perfectly happy if they built the three houses that are allowed now. I could live with three, but eight, 10, 12, it's going to erode our quality of life out there because we're having enough problems as it is. And I also speak to the point that none of this would have happened if our little sewers hadn't got put in. I've been needing them for 30 years. We finally get them, and now we're going to make the purpose to us, helping me or you. We're going to hurt by doing all these buildings. If we got more property on our street that would be developmental, if we got acreage more than this, probably several times larger than this spot, are we going to build all those full of houses? That's my question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Riggs. Next is Samantha Frederick. Hello, I'm Samantha Frederick, and I'm representing 773 Wilderness Road and 716 Wilderness Road. Good evening. First of all, I did have handouts. I did a petition with our neighbors, and I would say that roughly out of close to 65 to 70 households, I've got 65 around that, people that oppose. Do you want to enter that into the record? Please, I would like to enter that into the record. Also, just out of curiosity, out of the 32 letters that were sent to alert us of the zone change hearing, how many people from this neighborhood over here received a letter? I didn't think that there were a lot of people that I spoke with that were aware of this meeting. I also have pictures. I don't want to run out of time, so can I also use your machine for my pictures? They are just various shots showing some of the traffic complications at the end of Liberty and Wilderness, and also how far back the houses sit to show you what kind of lots we have on the street. Then I'll just look down through my bulleted list and tell you some of the reasons why we do not believe the zone change should be allowed. One of the main reasons is we don't believe that absentee ownership should be rewarded. We understand that he inherited the property, and we have nothing against somebody wanting to make a profit on their land, but we do not agree that he should be permitted to have a zone change and then not be there living on the street, accepting those consequences. Also, we don't think that the houses that will be built will retain the character of our street. As you've heard, we live on a rural street. You can see some of the houses. We have nice-sized lots, so seeing a development with 8 to 12 houses will not fit in with Wilderness Road at all. You've heard about the infrastructure. It's just simply not in place. We've just now gotten the sanitary sewers. There are stormwater drainage problems, and just the street itself. We just do not feel that the infrastructure is in place. The land is sloped. There is not a picture of the land in my pictures, but it's incredibly sloped. We are next to the AutoZone and the Speedway entrances off of Liberty, and I think you've seen some of those pictures. This is everyday traffic. I've taken pictures of school traffic. I know that I'm not disrespecting your statistics, but you took that study in the summer when there's not school buses running, so try getting out of our street on the several times during the day when the school buses are running in and out. Also, yes, we believe that our property value will be devalued. I know that it doesn't fit within the comprehensive plan, but as neighbors, that's something that's very important to us. I'd just like to read what I wrote in closing. Actually, you have four seconds. What if somebody wants to donate their time to me? Give me your name, please. It needs to be someone on the list, I believe, who was sworn in and signed up to speak. Jim Eades. We need for one person to step forward, say their name, and give their time to Ms. Frederick. At the microphone, please. This will need to be on the record. My name is Jimmy Eades. I live at 703 Wilmer's Road. Thank you. She'll have an extra. She'll have your three minutes. Does that suit the council? Sorry, I didn't mean to break tradition. In closing, I just wanted to read what I wrote. Many of the residents on Wilderness Road have been around for decades. Many of us remember picking blackberries in what is now a subdivision, even riding horses in what is now land that the school has been built for behaviorally challenged kids. It hardly seems fair to us to continue development that will inevitably force many residents to move. Shouldn't we be more concerned about the quality of life for existing residents over the quality of life for the unknown? I have been increasingly frustrated and saddened to learn about the comprehensive plan to develop existing service areas so as not to touch the outlying horse farms. Perhaps we should borrow ideas from other cities that develop lands in such a way as to retain the beauty without losing the green space, and this beauty includes streets like Wilderness Road that used to be pure rural farmland. I ask that you give our concerns a heartfelt consideration instead of asking, does it fit within the comprehensive plan? Ask, is this the right thing to do? Is this the right thing for Wilderness Road and for the residents? Would I approve a similar plan in my own neighborhood? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then we ask that you vote no on this zone change request. We ask earnestly that you please help us save Wilderness Road for the next generation. And if I have any time left on a personal level, I have a one and a three-year-old. We are moving there. It will be our family home. I was raised there for 15 to 20 years. I would like to preserve that for my family as well. You still have a minute 40. Can I ask for any questions or any other comments? This is actually not a questioning time. It's a time for questions. Okay, then. Let me have my minute 40 then, or it's fairly less now. Crime is a big concern. I know we don't know exactly what the plan is for the subdivision, but we can assume what will be built there. I find it hard to believe that these houses are going to sell from the $150,000 to $250,000 range. I find that very hard to believe. I would love it if that were true. If they wanted to build the two or three that they are currently permitted for and make them upscale homes, that would be wonderful. But in similar subdivisions on what we envision this will be, crime rates are high. Assaults, robberies, burglaries, and we don't want that on our street. Thank you very much. Next on the list is Becky Haynes and then Carolyn Kidd. I think Samantha covered a lot of the things I'd like to cover. My name is Becky Haynes. I live at 754 Wilderness Road, and that is directly catty-cornered, directly diagonal from the property that's being discussed. Infill sounds like a really good idea. Use the existing vacant land. This is not existing vacant land or was not until the farmer who lived there passed away. This is farmland. It's as much farmland as any horse farm in this area. As a matter of fact, there were horses on it until Mr. Boverly passed away. So you can talk about infill all you want to, but when that infill is across the street from your house, you're not going to be quite as happy with it. And it's not vacant land when it's really farmland. The traffic study that was done was done in the summertime. I don't know if you are aware that there's a major bus garage on Liberty Road. All those buses have to pass on Liberty Road in order to get where they need to get to pick up the children. So we're not just talking about the buses picking up the children in our neighborhood. We're talking about all the buses that are used on the east side of town. All the bus drivers have to get to the bus garage. All the buses have to egress. Egressing is much more difficult than he indicated in the mornings and in the afternoons. It's a very difficult situation. A few years ago, there was a fire at the corner of Liberty and Wilderness, and the road was blocked for more than three hours. Put eight more houses on there. Anything that happens like that, we're going to be stuck in there if something happens. They talked a little bit about groundwater. They talked a little bit about storm drainage. Groundwater is a whole other situation. That is an area that has a lot of groundwater activity. There have been a great deal of problems with water going across from where the River of Life Church goes across over to this Moberly property. We've had a great deal of problem with groundwater. There are underground springs there, quite a few of them. An underground water survey needs to be done and needs to be done in great detail before any of this is developed because this is all runoff into Elkhorn Creek. And so this is our groundwater that we're talking about disrupting. And I think you're going to have a lot more problems than just water runoff. You're going to have groundwater that is under there with the underground springs. Liberty Road and Wilderness Road at this point is one of the highest elevations in this city. We sit much higher, and we have a lot of groundwater, and there will be a great deal of problem with that. I think all of us are concerned about the rural nature of our street. I've lived there for 20 years. I've raised my children there. I didn't move in there because it was medium-density housing. I moved in there because it was a great place to raise my children, and it has been a great place to raise my children, and I would like to see it continue to be that kind of a place. Thank you, Ms. Haynes. Carolyn Kidd. Please state your name and address, and you'll have three minutes. Thank you. I'm Carolyn Kidd. I live at 540 Wilderness Road. Most of my concerns have already been addressed. I would like to point out, however, the only thing that you saw on that picture of the map is that one little area right around Moberly's house. There's a whole lot of us that live on down the road and around the circle, and we come in and out all day, every day. I don't know why there are only seven cars going to work between 7 and 9 in the morning. We're not wealthy. We work. A lot of us go in and out to work. I was actually going to speak about the storm sewers. We don't have any. It says on this paper that Lexington picks up the garbage out there. They don't. We already have like four different companies coming in and out on our road to pick up garbage. We don't have sidewalks. Our kids ride bikes on the street. We have skateboards, rollers, everything on the street. It's like a little lane. Mr. Moberly wasn't interested in developing it before he sold his house and bought a farm in Richmond. We're not really interested in doing that now. We're thinking three houses. We have about, oh, a third of an acre is about an average-sized lot out there. And we would like to keep the neighborhood the way it is. We're for improvement, and we want to come up and join the city as far as progressing, but we don't really think that would be progress. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kidd. I think that concludes the opponents' presentations, and now we'll move back to staff to give you an opportunity for any additional comments. You have none? All right. For the petitioner, do you have any rebuttal, Mr. Murphy? Just a few comments. I know traffic is an issue in anybody's mind in any neighborhood. It's an issue in Lexington. We tried to point out to you that even though, yes, this would be an increase in traffic, a single house here would be an increase in traffic, but to get the figures to show what the average generation figures are, and as I mentioned to you under the ITE averages, this would be six trips during that morning rush hour, which is about one trip every ten minutes. That is not an excessive number of trips. To add to this, I know everybody feels they have more traffic than they need, but this is not a through system through here. They do not have traffic coming from other neighborhoods driving through this area. As I mentioned to you, we will be thoroughly reviewed as we go forward in this process for stormwater, whether detention is needed, whether that's the best thing or not. If it's the best thing, it will be done. If the city feels that detention is needed, it will be done. If they feel it's not the best thing, we won't. We will do the best thing for drainage out in this issue. As I mentioned, the staff report, which is in your record, has said there were no major flooding issues in the general area through here, and there's no floodplain on this property at all. The lots out here are nonconforming. The ones right next to us do not meet R1B standards as they are. The ones next to us may have around 8,000 or so square feet, but they do not meet the 15,000 square foot requirement for R1B around us in the general area, and we are asking for the same type of housing, single family detached housing, as it is in this area. As was pointed out at the planning commission, this one and a quarter acre is not being farmed anymore. It's not a viable farm, and we feel this is a fine neighborhood, and we do not feel that this will be decreasing the quality of this neighborhood, and we feel that other children ought to have the opportunity to grow up in this neighborhood too. And in closing, as I mentioned to you before, the new comprehensive plan, the basis of that was infill. This council or your predecessors specifically asked a specific infill section be added to that comprehensive plan to encourage use of vacant or underused parcels throughout this county, and you saw the statistics on them, how many there are, and that they should be used before the urban service area line is expanded, and that's exactly what has happened here. We are supporting the underlying doctrine of the comprehensive plan, and as such, to support that, this law must be used to make the goals of the comprehensive plan work. Thank you very much, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you all might have. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Did that include your summation? Okay. Did someone from the opponents have any summation? I'd like to ask Mr. Murphy some questions. Will you come to the microphone, please? And I need for you to state your name and address one more time. Steve VanWinkle, 744 Wilderness Road. Thank you. Mr. Murphy keeps saying this is a safe road, and the mobilize is saying there's no traffic on it, but I hate to bring this up. Their 13-year-old son got killed right on that road. Their own brothers got killed on that road because it's a one-lane road, and they go 100 miles an hour down it. And he's sitting there going out 12 seconds' car can get by the road. Couldn't even turn on Liberty Road this afternoon. It was backed up. Ann Miller, Ann Ross, I mean, when she was here the last time, she was the only one of the council members drove that, and it took her 45 minutes to get from Fortune Drive to Newsorker Road. Only of y'all probably ever went down that way, had you, because of the traffic. And Mr. Mobley thinks, oh, no, eight more houses won't hurt nothing. You can't get in and out now. And it's a dangerous road. In that curve, I'd be ashamed of myself if a brother of mine got killed. I'd want to sell that to little kids. Thank you very much. Parents are going to bring up little kids and get killed. Thank you, Mr. Van Winkle. Now, at this time, we've had closing statements. And so now, council members, if you have questions, will you log in your request to speak, please? And we'll take questions from council members. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. First of all, I want to thank the residents for coming out tonight. I know this is a difficult thing to do, but I appreciate your unity and support and coming out and supporting your neighborhood. That means a lot. I first have a question for staff. Mr. Shelley, the comprehensive plan, which is approved by the planning commission, has designated this area as medium density. How long has it been designated medium density? I mean, is this something that changed in the 01 or 96 plan? Because the rest of the area around it is low density. Exactly. The lands to the south and east are low density, and then the other properties to the north and west are medium density. Those density changes did not occur with the 2001 comprehensive plan. They were the same. The only change from that plan was the professional service designation on Liberty Road. I did not research any further back to, say, the 96 plan or any other plans. Okay. So the current R1B law obviously doesn't fit with the comprehensive plan. It's just one unit. It's less than one unit an acre. That's correct. We have this conflict as we go through these infield and redevelopment zone changes all the time. It seems like there's something not right here in terms of the comprehensive plan. When we have these situations, when you have a current piece of property, which is not zoned farmland or anything, it's zoned R1B, which means that how many homes can they put there now? Well, the R1B zone allows a lot as small as 15,000 square feet. Currently this one and a quarter acre is just one lot. Potentially there might be some expectation of subdivision because it is rich in frontage, and I think the testimony earlier was two or three potential lots on this property. But how much by our zoning ordinance would the R1B be allowed? If it stayed that, could that 1.25 acres directly fit? Probably three or at most four lots. Including the existing home lot, including the existing property? It could possibly be lotted around the existing home, yes, sir. Okay. And the R1B, what is the minimum size of the frontage of each lot? I believe it is 100 feet. I can check my ordinance. If you can check that while we're here tonight, that would be great. And then the rest of the lots in the neighborhood, are they all R1B? Yes, R1B basically from the Liberty Road area back to the south and east. That's correct. Okay. And zoned that for many years. And do we know the width of Paradise Lane, of that road? Let me look at the development plan and see if that's giving us a cross section. It says 20 feet plus or minus, but the photos do not confirm that. When I was out there over the summer break, it's definitely minus 20 feet. I think that's right. I guess I've got a question for Mr. Murphy. So why the R3 zone? Why not R1C, R1D, maybe even R1E? What's the rationale for R3? We debated between R1E and R3. As you know, R3 allows other uses other than single family detached. It allows duplexes and townhouses and apartments. Now, the reason we went with R3, R1E is just single family detached, but it has a upper limit on the size of a lot of 7,500 square feet. Now, at least two of our lots exceed that, but as we have checked the ordinance since the planning commission, that question came up at the planning commission meeting, so I've looked back at the ordinance. This development could be done in the R1E zone because you are allowed to exceed the maximum lot size on corner lots. So we think we could do it. We might have to get a variance on another lot or two to go above the maximum size, but I think the Board of Adjustment has entertained those in the past when you're trying to increase the size of an R1E lot to go above the size. So I think this development could be done in R1E. The reason we went with R3, again, was originally because of that maximum lot size, but on looking at it a second time after the planning commission meeting, this development could probably be done in an R1E zone to further assure that they'd be not only single family, but that they'd be detached single family lots. And I might mention, too, that the planning commission put a limit of 12 units on us, and certainly we'd agree to a limit of 8 units because that's all we're showing on this plan and that's all we ever intended to do is 8 units. So we'd certainly be willing to agree to a change in that condition from 12 to 8 units on this property. Do you have the approximate frontage of each of those lots or the approximate square feet of each of the lots? Well, I have the frontage. You can read them for me. I don't mind. Well, this isn't the I'm going to get it out. I don't think we've got this labeled, but I think the lots, I'm looking at this so I can get my lot numbers when I point them out to here. Lots 6, 7, and 8 have a frontage of 40 feet. And the size I measured, let's see here. They're about 120 feet deep or a little more, 125 feet. They're ranging to 4,800 square feet or a little higher. As an example, the lot, Mr. Van Winkle's lot right next to us is 50 feet wide. He has 50 feet of frontage. He's a little deeper because he goes deeper here. You can see that line, but the one on Paradise Lane zips up a little bit and lets some of those lots be a little deeper on that. That's 50 next to us. That's 50. These three are 40. This lot 5 is about 65. The ones on the other side on Paradise Lane are about 45, about 45. The last one's a little lower, but you count it at the building line so it meets that requirement on there. And so hopefully that answers the question for you best I can. The next question is how do the sizes you just described compare to the rest of the neighborhood? Are these much smaller, much larger, the same? The lot, let me give you a couple other examples. Across the street at 743, I scale that off as 45 feet frontage. 741 is 50 feet of frontage. 743 and 741 are 55 feet of frontage. We have 40 feet of frontage. Our smallest lots are slightly smaller than neighboring lots. Our bigger lots may be the same size or a little bigger than neighboring lots because of that corner. When you do a corner, you have to have the big front yards. You have to have the bigger ones. So the smaller lots we have, especially 6, 7, and 8, may be a little smaller than ones next to it and across the street. But I need to point out to you that all these ones next to us and across the street, they're also nonconforming because they don't meet the 100-foot frontage of R1B. They don't meet the lot size of R1B. So R1B just got put on them years ago, and they're nonconforming lots, so I don't think that's the standard. But we are slightly smaller on some, comparable, or maybe a little larger on those front two lots. So for lots, would that be acceptable to your clients at the current R1B? I guess the better question is why is that not acceptable? Well, because a couple reasons. One, you're out there with neither going to be new homes, new construction, which is generally considered desirable by buyers, but at the same time, we're out there competing in the market with this similar lot size. The number I gave to you, I checked out what houses are being built on 40-foot lots out in the Charlesburg Road area on new homes, and those were going, builders told me, 150 to 220 on 40-foot lots, on 40-foot lots. And the lot size and the price, you're competitive on lot size, land cost, and that sort of thing. So we're not out there competing in the marketplace with only the lots around us here. We're competing with that person who may want to go out on Charlesburg Road or Polo Club or off of Bryant Road or what I guess is now Man o' War out there. So we have to compete with them, and so we have to do lot sizes commencement with them. So four lots I don't think would be agreeable to my client. My client called me, and I'm sorry, you probably saw me rushing out of the room a couple times when I was trying to call back and forth. And I actually talked to Allison Mulberry the last time I went out, and I told her that the issue might come up about reducing the number of lots on this property. I was just assuming it would, and I take it that's the assumption. Well, questions are coming to on this one. And I'll just lay it on the line here. They told me they could reduce it to seven or six lots, they felt, from the eight that we have. And bearing in mind that if it goes to six, that's only half of what the comprehensive plan allows, and that kicks us down into the low-density category under the comprehensive plan. It's as if we were designated low-density like everybody else if we had six lots. Now, seven, I haven't done the math, may put us right maybe above that five units an acre maximum, but six puts us, if I do the math right in my head, just below five units an acre because we have one and a quarter acres out here. So if we went to six units on this, we'd be in what's the low-density category under the comprehensive plan, and I think would be very comparable to the non-conforming lots which are in this situation because I asked her specifically how low we could go on that, and that's the answer I got from Mrs. Moberly just now. And you still would want to keep the R3 zone, though? We could go R1E on that if needed. Now, the benefit of that, it would assure that these would be single-family detached, and maybe you could, if you did that, you could give a sense of the council that maybe it might be nice for the Board of Adjustment to grant variances so that we can go higher than the maximum lot size if we need to to make this work in the R1E zone. You can't govern it, but just if somebody could say that on the minutes, that might help. I mean, because the problem this council has is, and I've seen it time and time again, we approve the zone change and all of a sudden that development plan changes. It goes from eight, as you proposed, to 12. And then we have no control over that whatsoever. And, you know, that's what we're struggling with from this end. I mean, I fully support infill. I mean, we've got to have it in our county because we do have some underutilized land. But to say you want eight homes in this piece of acreage is pretty tough for me to vote for. Well, we, you know, perhaps we should have asked for 12 to start with. But they wanted to ask for what they could ask for. That's what I thought you were doing. You were asking for eight, hoping to get six, maybe four. No. They didn't. These are not – this was not a bargaining chip. Because if they did come in with a bargaining chip, they would have come in with 12 to start. But we did talk to them, and they could go down to six. And if you want to impose that as a conditional zoning restriction, which would prohibit any more than six, they would be agreeable to that. I have one last question for Mr. – maybe, Mr. Hatfield, you can answer this. In terms of the slope of the lot, do we have any slope angles or the amount of square feet it drops off? Because I do have a concern of stormwater. You know, my district has more stormwater issues than any other district, it seems like. In Lexington, I deal with a lot of them. And to say we're going to put homes here, take away that natural land where that water drains, and say there's not going to be a stormwater problem is being naive. Because someone is going to get that water from those driveways and those rooftops. I'm just curious about at what speed, if you all have looked at that, the water is going to drain down that hill if you build homes on it, or how much infill you're going to make it level. Tell me about the slope of the property. We have not done a whole lot of study on the drainage. We will at the construction plan phase and the preliminary subdivision planning. I'm looking at an elevation up the top of the intersection of the 90-degree turn and Williston Road is about 1055. The lowest point down at Paradise Lane is 1040. So you've got 15 feet of fall and about 300 feet. So it's roughly 5%. Not terribly steep, although there is, I mean, that's where the water is going to run. It's going to run from that intersection down towards Paradise Lane. Would that be in the back corner there on the top right of those orange lines? The high point is right here. Right. And it will run down this direction the way that it's going right now. It's proposed to have curb and gutter around the roads so the water, you know, these front yards might come out this way. This probably goes this way. This water would run down the curb and gutter and around. This water would fall in the back yards and flow down in between the houses and then down into the streets and on down Paradise Lane. So it would have curb and gutter. So the rest of the street doesn't have that. So where are we sending those gutters? Well, right now that's what the planning commission or that's what the street section has for right now. I mean, I would recommend not having curb and gutter. I was surprised when I saw that on here, but that's what the section that I guess the planning staff recommended or came from the planning commission. But, yeah, you don't have any curb and gutter anyplace else out there. That would, again, be a construction item and a preliminary subdivision plan item. And then I assume that would go the same for sidewalks, Dick? You would ask not to have sidewalks in the rest of the neighborhood? Yes. Particularly if the neighborhood does not want sidewalks, we would ask to waive those. And we had a little bit of discussion at the planning commission about this stormwater issue that since it's working out there, what happens is the water goes off the roads and is absorbed in the front yards, and a curb would stop that from doing it. And that system is working right now. And what we told the planning commission is we would like to be able to study that further. And if that system would work better here since that's the system right now, we would ask them to do that. And we'd want the city engineering division to be comfortable with that and okay with that before we did it. But that is definitely something we'd be bringing up with the planning commission, sidewalks, curbs, and the stormwater issues, because the system right now seems to be functioning well. The front yards are absorbing it. As it comes off in little bits off the road, and putting a curb would block that and send it down, and we think maybe it's better to leave the system the way it is here. But we'll be getting into that at the planning commission as these reviews go on. Okay. And I have one last question for Mr. Salley, or maybe Mr. Gardner. Is it allowable, permissible during a zone change for council to put stormwater stipulations on there? We have done it. Do you have to do a retention based on that sort of thing? I know we have put conditions on that would require the developer to address specific issues. I don't ever remember it being as specific as detention because, frankly, detention might not be what's necessary. It will depend on how the engineering works out. So that might be a little problematic. However, something about stormwater would be consistent, I think, with a condition to put on the zone that might work. Okay. So you can't – I'm sorry. You can't do that, sir. Thank you. So, you know, I guess, again, it goes back to this council. We approve zone changes, and then the stormwater plans are never carried out, and we get the phone calls because my lots are flooding after they built these neighborhoods. And that's just something that we need to take seriously as a council because it's happening. And if we want good infield projects and projects that are agreeable to the neighborhoods, stormwater has got to be addressed somehow, someway in these zone changes. So I'll rest right now and give my time to everybody else. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. One further question on the same subject. If, in fact, a detention basin is necessary, would that mean that one or more of those lots would have to be surrendered? It's possible. I mean, we'd have to look at the location of that because it does go down to that lot on the – that top up there. Okay. So we'd have to – if we had to have a detention basin, it's likely that would be there, and we'd have – you know, we might lose a lot. I just can't tell you right at this point. You're not going to build a house, though, with a waterfront. No, no. In all probability, the whole lot will go. I think that's a possibility, yes. Does that finish your questioning? Council Member Blues. Thank you. Mr. Murphy, I've just got a couple of questions. To clear up one thing, is there room for more than eight lots, according to your plan? In other words, is there room beyond those eight for 12? I'm not sure we could get 12 using single-family detached. I think we could perhaps fit nine or ten single-family detached on here. We could certainly fit 12 townhomes on here, which would agree with the COBB plan, and townhomes were frankly something I raised with them because this is a nice laid-out property for townhomes. You could have one row facing one street and one the other, but the mobiles did not want to do that. They wanted to stay single-family detached. So single-family detached, we could probably not go 12, maybe nine or ten on this one. But zoned R3, they could do it? Yes. And one other question about one of the residents said that the traffic study was done in the summertime when there were no school buses running. Is that true? That is correct. The Planning Commission voted, I think, on May 24th, and the hearing today is on. And we didn't really have a point to do it while school was in session. So we studied it when we had the opportunity. We picked a Thursday and a Monday as sort of random dates. I had Mr. Hyatt look at some issues over there some other days, too. Didn't do the full two hours, but the same numbers came up. And probably there is more traffic on Liberty Road when school is in session. I know there's more traffic everywhere when school is in session than not. But the point is this, is that these houses don't generate that much additional traffic themselves on this property. And again, if you get into that, you're sort of penalizing this property for development decisions that were made out Liberty Road. I mean, it's not the development here that's the traffic issue out at Liberty and Wilderness. It's the decisions that have been made down that road in past years. And unless we're going to say, well, there's a moratorium on all development out Liberty Road, it's not going to help the traffic situation at Liberty and Wilderness because it's that traffic coming in, not the traffic coming out, which is the issue. But they're right on top of New Circle, and that makes for a... There are ways back from New Circle on there. But again, we don't feel that the amount of traffic here is going to have an appreciable impact on what happens at that intersection. Thank you. I've got a question or two for Mr. Shelley. The urban services report says that Wilderness Road is 20 feet wide, Paradise is 10 feet wide, and both roads are substandard. Does that imply that there are some plans for development or improvement of those roads, Bill? No, sir. I don't think that statement is meant to indicate that there is a, let's say, a widening project plan for any of those. I think by using the term substandard, what that means is they don't meet the current subdivision regulations, which ordinarily would include curbing, a grass utility strip, and a formal sidewalk. I think that's what substandard is referencing there. Okay. But you've got very limited room, limited maneuverability, and no pedestrian accommodation. Right. The rights of way are very narrow, and so one of the issues I think that Mr. Murphy mentioned earlier that was discussed at the planning commission hearing about the development plan is to what extent to require improvement along their frontage for either widening or curbing or sidewalk, at least on these proposed lots. To not develop the curb or the sidewalk would technically require a waiver of the subdivision regulations, so there's nothing automatic about not having to be able to put those in. It's just the opposite. The ordinary procedure is that through the subdivision process those would be expected unless there is some unusual circumstance that could be cited to waive that. So the road borders around the new subdivision, they might be widened. The roadways there might be widened, sidewalk, curb, gutter, and everything else as is. Yes, sir. The ordinary process with a subdivision like this would be what we call half section improvements where the expectation would be that the streets that they front would be improved up to a half section of a local standard street. That was somewhat discussed here only because there is no curbing in this area, and I think the Planning Commission was somewhat interested in whether the neighbors would want there to be curbing on these lots since it doesn't exist anywhere else. But that is the ordinary standard. Thank you. Does that complete your question? Yes, thank you very much. Council Member DeCamp. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got some real problems, and I don't know who wants to answer them, but, you know, it was opened up that Mr. Mobley inherited this property and that Mr. Mobley is not a developer. And I'm not saying that Mr. Mobley just wants to get the property and sell his family's, you know, property at the highest and best use, but we approve zone changes. We don't approve development plans. And what's the stop? You know, if we change the zone in view of somebody who's not a developer, who has inherited this land, and if I had inherited the land, I'd probably want to do the same thing is get the highest price I could for it. What's stopping him just to sort of stop and then sell the land, then it's zoned R3 where we can see townhouses, and a lot more than is proposed right now at 8, which I feel is too much anyway. So I've got a problem with that. I mean, I think maybe it's something we ought to think about. The other thing is I looked at those pictures, and I'm sorry, and I apologize. I should have gone out and driven that area, but I didn't. But I saw some pictures, and Paradise Lane looks like paradise, a little lane. It doesn't look like a street to me that houses should be built on, and we're looking at four houses being built on a look to me, and anybody can contradict me or set me straight, but it looked like a little country lane. And I think we see too much of approving situations when there is not the proper infrastructure. Now, I'm a big proponent of infill redevelopment, and I know how you people must feel. You've had this wonderful open space around you. It's not going to last. I mean, the way the building pressures are on us constantly, it would be nice if it stayed that way forever, but unless somebody wanted to buy it and just dedicate it as land for recreational purpose for the neighborhood, it's not going to be that way. Somebody is going to build something on it, And I think it's our responsibility to see what is built on it is something that doesn't crowd too much into a cul-de-sac here with a little teeny lane, another street, which I'm not sure if you have parking on the street, although there are no curbs, whether you could even get emergency vehicles through there. So I think there are lots of things that we're looking at here. I also have a problem somewhat with, well, I don't know when the sanitary sewers are going to be completed. I assume that they're not completed at this point. Am I correct on that? And when are they scheduled to be? We talk about, well, we'll go back and widen the road, and we'll go back and put in sidewalks and curbs. There are so many places in Lexington right now that need sidewalks and curbs and that kind of thing, and that's been going on for years. So I think these are some of the things we need to think about. There appears to me we talk about half-section improvements. I don't quite understand what half-section improvements. Maybe Mr. Murphy can help me on that one. I mean, is that improvements to that area around that lot, like curbs and sidewalks and things? Yeah, what that means is particularly along Paradise Lane, if this property develops, the developer will be required to widen Paradise on his side. He can't go across the street and add width to it, but they can add width to it on their side of the street, so it will not be a 10-foot lane going back through there. It would be a full-service road to serve this property. Well, what's the definition of full-service road? I mean, really, when I saw that picture of that lane, it looked to me like they're going to have to be a lot done to make it a serviceable road to service the construction which is proposed to be put on Paradise Lane. Well, there's already four houses down there past this on Paradise Lane which was serviced by that road. Let me mention a couple things. You had mentioned Mr. Mobley is not a developer. Mr. Mobley works in the landscape department at U.K. Oh, I'm not criticizing Mr. Mobley. And he came in, and I viewed this as an advantage because he was coming in. I think if he sold this piece of property to the developer, you would have come in and seen something with at least 12 units on here and maybe trying to go higher to go above the comprehensive plan density on this property. They came in and did this zone change because they wanted to have some control over it and they thought it ought to be single-family detached. I want to clarify that, and I hope we don't get to the point in this community where only developers can come in and ask for a zone change and the actual owner cannot. I think you're absolutely right, but I do want to say that if he would have sold it under the present zoning, he couldn't have put eight in. He could have put, I guess, three, maybe four under the present zoning. But if he sold it under the present zoning, he'd be under contingency with a developer to come in and get as many units as a developer could. That's right, and they would have had to come back to us to get that zone change. To do that. And I think we probably would have had the same questions that we have right now. But he can price it knowing that it's only eight or six lots. He wouldn't sell it for the dollar that the developer would come in and say to you, price I'm paying, I have to get 20 lots or 12 lots or whatever. Mr. Mobley is not going to know how many lots he has and can price it to developers so the developer will stay, obviously have to stay with the conditional zoning restriction, but will be economically able to stay with the conditional zoning restriction of eight or six or whatever. So I view that as a major positive that you're not dealing with a developer. I mean, we can disagree with that. Right. But, again, you're saying that if Mr. Mobley were to turn around and sell it after the zone change, that you could only put eight on there then? Under the current condition as imposed by the planning commission, I guess he could put 12 on there. I understand. What we said is we'd agree to a condition if you want to impose it on us of eight, I said that at the beginning of the meeting because we have eight, and I said recently we'd agreed to a condition of six. And if you put that on, nobody can come in and ask for more because it's six without going through a full zone change procedure again. Okay. That clarifies that. And we will build Paradise to the requirement so it can serve those four lots, and if the planning commission doesn't find it, they won't approve it with us when we come in with our preliminary subdivision plan. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Blevins. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Salih, could you help me out on a couple of things, please? My question while you're walking up, can you explain to us, newbie council people, how the process will work? Let's say we approve tonight something or whatever and they go to develop. Where is the part of the process that will impose stormwater drainage issues to be addressed? How does that work after tonight? Most likely, that would be an issue that the planning commission would address the first time that this plan would come back to them in what I'll call the framework, whether or not there would be a basin, perhaps a generalized location of where on this acre and a quarter that would be, whether or not there would be curbing, which does have a stormwater function to it. Those would all be decisions germane to the planning commission. Would they have the assistance of engineering at that point as well? They would, yes, sir. An engineering staff member attends all of their meetings, both in subcommittee and full meeting. The details of whether that basin is three feet or six feet in depth and the headwalls, those generally are not reviewed by the planning commission, but more are part of what's called the improvement plan phase, where the developers engineer works with our engineering staff to coordinate that, including the construction. Once the construction is done, then again, the planning commission reviews that information quite often when they go to consider the final plan. I'm going to change directions on you. Help me with my math here. This is an acre and quarter usable. If I divide that by five, that's quarter acre lots. Four plus one. Yes, thank you. So I could get five quarter acre lots into this. Is my memory correct? Could you give us some examples of quarter acre lots in the community? Garden side, I think, is quarter acre lots. Metaphor, does that sound right? That sounds right. I'm trying to get mental images of how big the yards are and the setbacks and all that kind of stuff. Okay, thank you. Mr. Hatfield, is it? I'm sorry, with EA? I want you to help me read this plat here. If I read this correctly, the elevation lines are 1055 dropping down to 1040. That's correct. Now, for the council members, you all can't see this. The 1055 line goes right down the middle of the property, and it circles back to Wilderness Road. So there's a big hump on this end where lots six, seven, and eight are. Am I reading that correctly? Yeah, there's a ridge line that kind of runs something like this. This would be the high point in the road that probably falls this way, and this is the high point that comes back this way. This part of the farm goes towards Wilderness Road, and this part of the property goes towards Paradise. This is a hump. Yes, yes. Yeah, this is a ridge. Okay, so there's this ridge that goes about midway through the property, and then it drops to the backside on Paradise Lane at 1040. That's correct. So if I understand correctly, that's 100 feet, and it drops 15 feet over a 100-foot run, roughly. Well, this lot depth here is 170, and that one's 91. Actually, that's 190 from there to there, and then 97. So that's almost 300 feet from here to there. Right, but what about from the midpoint to Paradise? Because that's where the 1055 edge is. We can't measure from there. This is about 80 plus. It's 180 feet, 15 feet and 180. Okay, I might have to disagree with you a little. It's about half the size, so let's call it 150. 170 divided by 2 is 80 plus 97 is 180, so somewhere around. Am I right? No. The 1055 line is right there. Well, the high point. This point. Okay, okay. Over there is a 15-foot drop. You shouldn't have to do math up in front of a 15 feet and 800. I'm trying to get a visual image here. That's 150 feet, maybe 100 feet, somewhere in that range, drops 15 feet. Now, if my memory serves, that's about just shy of being a pretty good sleigh riding hill. Is that a good visual image? That's 15 percent. Thank you. I'm getting confirmation from locals. Okay, thank you. That means to me, council members, we've got a serious stormwater problem here. What you're talking about is a real steep grade, and it happens midway in the property, not from Wilderness Road like we discussed earlier. It's about midway. Further, we've got a church across the way with a huge impervious surface. So all this new water is going to go one place, down Paradise Lane, and we're going to have some flooded basements. If you all have basements, I don't know. So that's my primary concern. I'm looking at this thinking, trying to get a number that seems reasonable for the development. It's getting lower each time I talk about it. That's all I had. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to go ahead and turn the chair over to Council Member Ellinger because I have some comments. Ms. Gorton. Thank you. I really wanted to go back to what Council Member DeCamp said and his comments because I did drive out to this neighborhood, and I had never been there before. And I actually, quite frankly, was amazed. I thought I'd gone out into the country. It's a very hidden piece of countryside right in the middle of the city. And I was also, well, the word I was going to use was distressed, but the width of Paradise Lane is very, very narrow. And I happen to agree with what Council Member Blevins just said, and that is about the stormwater runoff. That is a very narrow street. And if, in fact, the pitch is from the middle of the property down, I think that we are going to add to our stormwater runoff right down Paradise Lane. And that concerns me greatly. I'm not an engineer, but it appeared, because Paradise Lane does go downhill, that that's where it's all going to go. I have a concern with that. I have a concern with the density that has been asked, which was approved by the Planning Commission. This, Mr. Murphy, you did talk about in the beginning that the Planning Commission didn't expand the urban service boundary. So, yes, we do take the infill really seriously. But when we do the infill, we have to make sure it still preserves the character of the neighborhood. And I have great concerns with that in terms of the density. So those are all of my comments. Thank you, Mr. Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Kelly, did you figure out the R1B versus the C, D, E, for that matter, the size of the frontage, each of those a minimum? Because I believe C and D are 60-foot lot minimums. That is correct. And R1B, as I earlier guessed, is 100-feet minimum frontage. So with 100-feet minimum, what are the dimensions of that piece of property? Let me put it up on Elmo. Oh, thank you. That would be great. The property is about 250 feet along Paradise Lane, about 300 feet from Paradise Lane to Wilderness Road, about 200 feet of frontage on Paradise, pardon me, along Wilderness Road on the southern edge, and then another 300 feet along the western edge. Okay. Approximately. Very good. Thank you, sir. I'm going to resume chairing the meeting. And Council Member Lane is next. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just wanted to, I guess, just make a short comment here, is that I always have concern about the council trying to overrule the study that was made by the planning staff and the recommendations of the Planning Commission by having a short meeting when this has been studied extensively. So I do have some concern if we change things too much. The other thing I'd like to mention is that if this is going to be developed into lots, there has to be enough lots so that they can be done cost-effectively so the final lot value would be competitive in the marketplace. So I'm sort of leaning towards supporting the recommendations of the Planning Commission, but I think that it would be appropriate to accept the offer of the applicant to reduce the number of lots from eight to six, which I think would reduce the density but still allow enough lots so it could be developed economically. That's just sort of my thought process. I wanted to share it with you all. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Sorry. One of the things that concerns me is that there hasn't, I think, been enough study and consideration of the problems here. I'm kind of compelled by the last recommendation, Number 15, on the list of possible conditions. Should this plan be approved, the following requirements should be considered. Number 15, discuss the need for stormwater detention. Then we learned tonight that from the spokespeople of the potential developers, the owners, we haven't done a whole lot of study on drainage. And it's pointed out that we have a significant drop-off and a lot of potential for stormwater problems. So it's true we're perhaps groping a bit here in the dark, but we haven't been brought the kind of exacting information and the sort of real attention to the topography and to the consistency and compatibility of the plan with the rest of the neighborhood that I think we need to make a truly informed decision. And yet we're going to make a decision. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Maloney. Thank you. I understand the stormwater issue and all that, and I know that the council doesn't have the knowledge to do that. That's what the planning committee will be looking at. What kind of puzzles me is when I look at the original presentation that Mr. Stiley made, surrounding this property is all low density. And I just don't feel that the high density or whatever, I mean the medium density, is going to fit into this neighborhood, not going to be compatible with this neighborhood. And the problems that we've seen over the years of going in and doing this kind of work, it caused a lot of problems on the surrounding neighbors, flood problems, stormwater problems. And I just feel that this is not, I'm not going to support what the planning committee recommended. And I'm going to vote against it. But I really feel that they need to come back and planning needs to come back and look at this property again, because I just don't think they're really looking at what's best for this neighborhood. So hopefully someday down the road or whatever, if it does not pass, I hope they go back and review and make it compatible with the neighborhood. So I will vote against it. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. May I ask a question? Ms. Frederick, the lady that gave us the petition, if you can step to the podium. I just have one question. It seems that I'm asking you because it seems like you've spoke to more of the residents in the area than anyone else because of the petition. And I'm curious as to whether there was a consensus regarding the number of houses. Were residents overall saying, no, we don't want it at all, or were they concerned about the number? And if they did express what would be an acceptable number, what did they express to you? Actually, I'm glad you asked me that. I did talk to almost every single neighbor on the street. Everybody was fine if they wanted to sell it to a single homeowner and they wanted to rebuild or possibly even two houses. Because I don't know if you can tell from the plat, but some of the lots that he picked out, the length of the lots I think surrounding it, I just don't think it was really accurate. Some of the lots are a lot wider on that street. The average lot is a lot wider than these lots here. So I would say in answer to your question, the neighbors felt like one or two homes would be acceptable and that was what we would prefer as a neighborhood. And my survey was 100% statistically opposed. Everybody I talked to signed my petition. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Do any other council members wish to speak or ask questions? Council Member Stephens. Yes, I think that one or two houses on that lot is not a realistic approach to infill. And we're talking about an acre and a quarter, which is a large lot. And I think it can certainly accommodate more of that and not disrupt the neighborhood. And I also think that the stormwater issue could be rectified. And I would hope that when the motion is made, it would have that contingency, a condition in it that had to be done before the final plan is accepted. Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Stephens. Is there any other council member who wishes to speak? Council Member Stennett, do you have something? Council Member Stennett is requesting a five-minute recess. Okay, so we'll recess for five minutes. And council members, I want to remind you not to speak with folks who are on either side. Thank you. Ms. Gordon, Mrs. Moberly is on her way. I mean, she's going to be here in about ten minutes, I'm guessing. I mean, that's up to you. I'm just telling you whether you want to do that or not. Well, it seems to me that we've moved to the point where Council Member Stennett is working on a conclusion. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Stennett, are you ready with a motion? Yes, ma'am. All right. You know, this is a difficult decision. You know, there's a lot of residents here who want to protect the integrity of the neighborhood, and there's a lot of people on this council and city that want to see good infield projects take place. Regarding this project, I'm not sure it's the ideal project for this location. There's a lot of concerns that Council Members have brought up tonight, a lot of concerns that I have. And in the best interest of the residents of the neighborhood, I hereby move to adopt the finding of the facts in support of disapproval of the zone change request at 756 Wilderness Road, Rodney and Allison Moberly. That was disapproval. The existing R1B zoning on the property is appropriate, and the proposed R3 zoning is inappropriate based on the following. Traffic in the area in which the subject property is located has increased dramatically in the last several years, and the proposed rezoning and corresponding development will exacerbate that problem. Number two, road improvements planned for the area are not sufficient to address the current traffic issues, and the traffic situation will worsen if the requested zoning is granted. Number three, retaining the existing R1B zone at this time is compatible with the goal 15 of the 2007 comprehensive plan to preserve, protect, and enhance the character and quality of existing neighborhoods. Number four, Wilderness Road and Paradise Lanes are not sufficient to carry additional traffic, which will be created by the proposed development of eight units of housing on the subject property. And number six, there are stormwater issues in the area of the subject property and on the subject property, which will be exacerbated by the proposed development. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. And so if council members want to, the motion is to disapprove the findings of fact which were brought to us by the planning commission. And so if council members want to disapprove, they vote yea or yes. So it's my understanding we're doing both a roll call vote and an electronic vote. Is that correct? You can vote when your name is called or any time while the vote is being taken. Okay. Very good. So will you take the vote? Mr. Ellinger? No. Ms. Gordon? Let's see. I just said what I'm supposed to do. If I want to disapprove, I vote yes. Correct. Ms. James? The motion that Mr. Stenup brought is to disapprove the findings of fact. So if you agree with that, you vote yes. No, they're actually to adopt findings of fact in support of disapproving the zone change. The findings of fact would be in support of disapproval of the zone change. So if you are against the zone change, you would vote in favor of these findings of fact. Yes. Mr. Lane? No. Mr. McCord? Yes. Mr. Maloney? Yes. Dr. Stevens? Nay. Mr. Stenup? Yes. Mr. Beard? No. Mr. Blevins? Yes. Mr. Blues? Yes. Ms. Crosby? Yes. Mr. DeKalb? Yes. Okay. The vote is 9 in favor. Where is the ninth one? A minute. Who has a vote? There is someone missing. So the vote is 9. It's 9 to 4. To 4. So those findings are adopted. Now there would be a vote on the ordinance if you would vote no on the ordinance if you don't want the zone change to go through. If you don't, will you repeat that again loudly? You would vote no if you don't want the zone change to occur. As brought to us by the Planning Commission. Right. The ordinance on the docket, you know, you would vote no. Okay. So we're going to vote for the ordinance now. In keeping with recent practice, there should be a motion to approve the ordinance, which then would be voted down if it's consistent with the findings. Do I hear a motion? Do I hear a second? There's a motion and a second. Wait one second. Is there a question? The mover and the seconder need to put that in your electronic system, please. And so the motion again is to? The motion is to approve the ordinance. Okay. If the vote will be, you know, consistent with, I mean, it doesn't have to be consistent, but I mean the findings would be in support of disapproving the ordinance. So the findings would be in support of a no vote. So if council members would like to have the zone change, the ordinance, they vote yes. Will you take the vote? Mr. Ellinger? Yes. Ms. Gordon? No. Ms. James? No. Mr. Lane? Yes. Mr. McCord? No. Mr. Maloney? No. Dr. Stephens? Yay. Mr. Stinnett? No. You also want to do the push button. Okay. Mr. Beard? No. Mr. Blevins? No. Mr. Blues? No. Ms. Crosby? No. Mr. DeCamp? No. No, they got nine. They got ten. So the vote, what did the clerk get? Ten noes this time? Ten noes this time, yes. Three in favor and ten against. And three in favor. Unless there are other matters to come before us, our hearing has ended. No motion to approve. Second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.