His nose like a chimney, I wimple with buns. His droll little mouth was dry, the beard on his chin was as white as the snow. The stump on his little old pipe he held tight in his teeth. And the smoke went around and around and around his head like a wreath. Oh, he was so jolly and flump, right jolly old jolly old air. And a laugh, and a laugh, and a laugh when I saw him in spite of myself. He had a broad face and a little round belly. He shook when he left. I'd fall full of jelly. He gave me a wink of his eye and a twist of his head. A chocolate smile and a new hawk while I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his word. He filled all the stockings, then turned with a chair. And laying a finger aside of his nose. And giving a nod up the chimney, he rose. He sprang to his sleigh to his team, gave a whistle And away they all pulled like the dawn of a thistle But I heard him explain that he drove out of song Merry Christmas to all And to all good night Within a winter symphony Winter symphony Snowflake fantasy Warms my heart like a tropic sea There the sun always shines There you'll always be mine All in a winter symphony Christmas I've ever known Singing carols Stringing popcorn Shiny faces of all the children Precious memories of every Christmas I've known I love you. The End Chara Chara Christmas future is far away Christmas past is past. Christmas present is here to stay. Bringing joy that will last. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. From now on, our troubles will be out of sight. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Make the yuletide gay From now on Our troubles will be miles away Here we are As in olden days Happy golden days Of your faithful friends who are dear to us Gather near to all Let them know his, his, his, his We'll be right back. Let them go, let them go, let them go, let them go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. The mayoral transition team was announced, the MetroCats program, and Food for Fines. This and more up next on this week's edition of Lexington Now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End ¶¶ Planning Commission's meeting. This is a public hearing, and our purpose for being here this evening is, of course, to talk with you a little bit more about Imagine Lexington. Of course, we are going to do what we can to listen as carefully as we possibly can. Just a couple of things. If you're interested in making a presentation or a speech or whatever the case may be, there's a sign-up sheet in the back, and I encourage you to do that. If you have any PowerPoints of any kind, I would appreciate it if you go now and give them a chance so they can load it, preload it, and get it ready for you as such. What we're going to do here this evening in addition to listening, of course, is we'll do in this order, we've got the presentation from the staff, then we'll have the public comment, and because of the numbers of people that we have here, We're going to ask you, if you would, kindly up here to a three-minute limit, and we'll have a clock set for you so you can see. And then we'll talk about what we do and how we go forward from here. With that, I'd like to extend again Season's Greetings. It is so quiet in here, it's almost like a morgue. I didn't know whether we were having a funeral or celebration or what, but I'm glad and delighted to see you, delighted to see the staff, and certainly delighted to see my commission members. With that, let us begin. Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We hope it's more of a celebratory atmosphere today. But it's an honor to present to you and the Planning Commission for your consideration the 2018 Comprehensive Plan Imagine Lexington. Over two years of study, as you all are well aware because you've been involved in this process every step of the way, this two-year process has involved study public outreach research deliberation and lots of meetings which you all have attended part of those meetings included recent meetings leading up to this with community organizations the building industry association land use attorneys Fayette Alliance the Fayette County Neighborhood Council Bluegrass Trust and among others leading up to this public hearing but we'll expand a little bit on our public input process a little bit later on also just as a reminder to you all there's a text amendment for article 21 regarding development plans on the agenda for this thursday but our staff is recommending indefinite postponement for that this will give us an opportunity to review additional input from many of the same groups that I just mentioned a moment ago. I wanted to allow us to, staff was wanting to attempt to address their concerns with some alternate text that would appear at a later date. So just at the outset, I wanted to be clear that we're not talking about the Article 21 text amendment right now. This proceeding is a public hearing on the full text of the comprehensive plan. I think we've got the wrong presentation. I apologize for that, but while they're getting that put together, I will let you know that staff has, along with the community, spent this two-year-long process talking about the vision for Lexington and how we want to move this community forward and we believe you know I'll walk you through that process from A to Z how we got to the recommendations that we did along with an overview at a high level about what we're trying to do here but we feel like what Imagine Lexington has done is sort of encapsulate the community vision that we heard from over 10,000 folks throughout this process the over 70 experts that we heard from within the different areas and disciplines we feel like it's really provided us an opportunity to listen to what the community wants as we know Lexington continues to be a growing city we continue to grow at one and a quarter percent year over year and it's it's extremely important as the community has time and time again re-emphasized how important the urban service boundary is to our growth patterns and so as we continue to grow our infill and redevelopment continues to be an important part of that. So while there are different facets of the community that warrant some consideration as we continue to develop, it's important to remember that this plan has, over the past two years, taken into account a lot of community input from a lot of different venues. And so I think the product that we put forward is something that we're proud of and something that we believe reflects accurately the vision for the community as we continue to grow and develop over the next 20 years. Alright, I apologize for the technical difficulties, but we're back on track here. So, I mentioned the great deal of energy and effort that went into this plan across the community, and the result is in keeping with the historic forward thinking and progressive leadership that brought us here. A comprehensive plan that's, some of the historic events that have led up to this are a comprehensive plan that was completed directly on the heels of the nation's first completed comprehensive plan in 1925 in Cincinnati. The nation's first urban service boundary in 1958, a purchase of development rights program in 1999, and an insightful decision to sort of move away from the future land use map in 2013 to provide some flexibility and creativity within this constrained growth environment that I mentioned. This is among many of the other landmark things that we've accomplished throughout our history in Lexington planning. and now it's time for this planning commission to be sort of next in line to adopt a comprehensive plan that takes some of these bold initiatives to accomplish a community vision that includes fiscally responsible growth, sustainable growth, and growth that allows us to prosper while preserving our prime agricultural land and identity. So right now I'll kind of talk about the components of the comprehensive plan and why we have it, but as you all are aware, the comprehensive plans are mandated by state law And any community who exercises land use regulations needs to have one. But as I mentioned before, Lexington has always had a strong tradition of comprehensive planning, which is good. Because as I mentioned before, too, we're consistently growing at 1.25%. That's a sign of a vital and desirable place, we think. And we need to have a plan that accommodates this growth while preserving our compact development pattern and our iconic bluegrass identity. So the first phase of the comprehensive plan is also state mandated, but it's broken down into two phases. The goals and objectives here were completed in 2017, and it's the framework for this comprehensive plan and sets the general direction for the rest of the plan. They were recommended by this body and adopted by the council in 2017. team. The elements and implementation is what you'll be considering for adoption today. The elements give you the contextual substance to the plan and set out the strategy for implementing the goals and objectives that were set out by council. And each of the policies within this comprehensive plan further those goals and objectives. Now state law requires certain elements to be included in the plan, land use, transportation, and community facilities. But Lexington historically covers much more very comprehensively but it includes different elements as well now given that those elements have so much interplay between them the plan this plan follows the 2013 format which included combining them into cross-cutting themes and i'll explain lexington imagine lexington's strategy for these themes on a high level in the coming slides so before we get there though we need to discuss the immense public input that i talked about before that have brought us to this community vision through our on the table event public input meetings imagine lexington week and public hearings we've heard from well over 10 000 people who are invested in our community those who live work and visit here on a daily basis we've had over 500 pages of public input comments 14 public input meetings and hearings offered up over 60 different community organization meeting opportunities with staff established our first social media presence created imagine lexington.com which is our first ever dedicated comprehensive plan website we've made all our documents our presentations available and accessible on that website created an educational video series created public additional online public input opportunities to allow greater accessibilities for those who may not physically be able to attend our meetings and we tried to make this plan as inviting as possible while providing opportunities to the community for them to contribute we've asked and the public has responded in tremendous fashion you can see our timeline here and well if you'll permit me to walk us through a little bit of memory lane but 2017 started in january where we laid the baseline data i had a workshop and and for the planning commission to walk through some of the the trends and census data that we were able to collect we set up our imagine lexington website as well february we held our five public input meetings march we hosted on the table with a partnership of the bluegrass community foundation and others march and april we solicited input from our community organizations april we presented the public input report in may the planning commission heard from community organizations august september the planning commission recommended approval of the goals and objectives in october and november a council committee of the whole discussed those recommendations and then in november the council unanimously approved the goals and objectives which brings us to this year which is coming to a close january through march we consulted nearly 70 outside expert advisors in various fields related to the individual themes. In March, you all heard presentations on neighborhoods, April, the environment, May and June improving a desirable community. In June, jobs and prosperity. In July, the urban and rural balance. In August, September, we talked about the place builder. October, Imagine Lexington Week and Imagine Out Loud public input events took place. November the completed draft was presented and now we're here at the December public input meeting public hearing for the comprehensive plan two years later so there's been a lot that's gone on within those two years to get us to this point today so now at this point I'll kind of walk through some of the highlights for each of these but the main event that we're here today is to hear from the public in response to our draft comprehensive plan so I won't spend a ton of time on this, even though I could go on on each of these topics for a very long time. But to refresh your memory, each of our themes were divided up into three pillars to provide organization and emphasis. Together, they make up the direction of Imagine Lexington as they pertain to that specific theme. So our first theme included design, density, and equity. the key concepts here are that design and context matter new development is essential and as we know we're continuing to be a growing community but it must enhance the existing neighborhoods in its site layout a gap analysis could help identify opportunities for new neighborhood supporting uses and would also provide accessibility to a wider range of lexington residents who use these uses increase of density and affordable housing is also important important within fill and redevelopment continuing to be our primary growth strategy. It's important that development efficiently use the land and provide opportunities for increased housing opportunities. We work with to improve tenant protections to raise the baseline living standard for Lexington residents as well. Again, there's a lot in all these themes, but I'm going to hit some of the high points protecting the environment. It's about protection, sustainability, restoration. How can we ensure the long term survival of our fragile and unique environment. There are environmental considerations both inside and outside the urban service area. We should do everything we can to preserve and protect these resources. Minimizing the impacts of development on the environment is crucial, and encouraging new green building techniques and increasing the scope of green infrastructure is important as well. We can look to programs like the STAR Community Certification to benchmark and provide metrics, for our sustainability and also maintain and create a robust urban canopy. Theme C was all about creating jobs and prosperity, including livability, diversity, and prosperity. The key concepts here are to create a desirable community that attracts employers, offering a diverse range of employment opportunities for all, capitalizing on existing businesses and industries and creating opportunities for new and exciting employers to locate here as well. We also threw out the studying of the P1 zone to see how we might be able to repurpose some of the vacant office space available, analyze our employment opportunities and graduate supply to see if there are any conclusions that we could reduce the brain drain of students that graduate leaving our communities, and also work with the mayor's office to create a long-range plan for the 250 acres of economic development land out at Coldstream that was acquired by the city in the land swap. Theme D, improving a desirable community, is about connectivity. It's about placemaking, and it's about support. Creating multimodal streets that are pointed at moving people rather than simply moving cars. Utilizing a variety of strategies to create unique places throughout Lexington that offer unique opportunities to improve the quality of life for everyone. provide accessible and reliable support services to all populations. Equitable support and transportation is also incredibly important. Implementing projects from the recently adopted bicycle and pedestrian master plan will help to create a robust network to increase our transportation options. Amending the zoning ordinance to address many of the placemaking principles included in Imagine Lexington as well, and performing corridor studies to examine our land use and transportation connection along our major thoroughfares, preparing for the shifting retail landscape. And we also have funding for a Nicholasville Road study that will happen next year. So improving a desirable community. This is theme E, which is talking about a balance between urban uses and safeguarding rural land, and that includes accountability, it includes stewardship, and it includes growth. So accountability is key, and this is something that we've stressed throughout the Imagine Lexington process, trying to provide information and make sure that all the information that you all consider when you're making decisions is available to the public, but also providing opportunities for them to provide input as well. So this is furthered through the call for creation of a citizens advisory panel to increase public input throughout the life of the comprehensive plan and not just at its development stage. Regional planning is an easy concept in theory, but in practice it's a difficult one. This plan seeks to provide some entry points to further that conversation a little bit. Smart growth also is embedded into the concept of the urban service boundary. it's continuing to pursue sustainable development which is important but it also allows the density and housing options we need as we continue to grow an evaluation of our ordinances is also important to make sure that they're reflecting this vision so we can begin the modernization process of those regulations and finally perhaps the most important policy in the plan is the call for the establishment of a new process for long-term land use decisions involving the urban service boundary so it's a long-range look at the future of that 1958 boundary and it's important as we continue to grow how are we doing with our current development what areas should be off limits for generations where should future urban development be directed and what should that look like how should that development take place this will be concluded mid 2020. So the place builder is furthering again in 2013 this body had the foresight to move away from the future land use map in favor of a policy-based plan. Among other reasons it was to provide flexibility and creativity to the infill and redevelopment environment. Imagine Lexington is an extension of this idea but helps to provide additional clarity consistency and certainty to all involved in the development process through the place builder again in an environment where infill and redevelopment is at the forefront and development can be challenging the place builder offers a menu of options for applicants as they seek to create a specific place type found here downtown second-tier urban regional center corridor new complete neighborhood enhanced neighborhood and industry and production centers are the place types that we've got spelled out an emphasis with the exception of the industry and Production Center is that specific land uses are far less important in modern times than the form that development takes and an emphasis is placed on the surrounding context. There are by design a wide range of possibilities offered in the place builder with the understanding that great places offer diversity and a range of uses that enhance the existing development within around them. So where do the place builder criteria come from? As a reminder the goals and objectives were adopted by council in 2017. These goals and objectives are the foundation from which all of the clearly directed policies in the plan are derived. The criteria found in the place builder are a distillation of all the externally focused policies in the plan. Their concise direction for all parties involved about how to apply the comprehensive plan to development plan applications. This place builder is a concept that we've been discussing since the very first work session on the comprehensive plan in 2016 where we sat right in here and talked about direction and what we needed to do as we develop this plan it was created specifically to alleviate these concerns and apply the comprehensive plan consistency consistently absent a land-use map so all of that said we do have a couple of minor text changes to recommend to the Planning Commission this evening that we hope you will consider. There's a sheet at your all seat that outlines these changes and copies have been made to the public as well and these are in direct response to some of the concerns that we heard as a staff through discussions that I mentioned recently with the Building Industry Association representatives, land use attorneys, Fayette Alliance, and the Fayette County Neighborhood Council and they're simply clarifying how staff intends to use and not use the place builder. The first revision is to the introduction, to clarify that the place builder is not a checklist and that we do not expect every application to meet every criterion, though they must address each one as to whether or not it applies to a particular development. This new language reads, The place builder is a set of development criteria to be addressed by applicants in their zone change application justifications. It is intended to provide transparency to applicants, stakeholders, the Planning Commission, and the Urban County Council in how development proposals are evaluated for their compliance with the comprehensive plan as required in KRS 100. Not all criteria may be applicable to every proposal. however every zone change justification should address each one noting why certain criteria may or may not apply no zone change application will satisfy every single criteria and the place builder is not a checklist the applicability of criteria will be assessed through the development review process the second amendment is more to clarify what the place builder is not and again was directed by some of the conversations that we had leading up to this meeting and that breeds recommended zones the place builder includes a list of ideal zoning categories to develop a particular place type this is not intended to assess the appropriateness of an existing zone but rather to guide new development and redevelopment proposals provided there's an appropriate justification addressing the criteria other zones can be considered We believe these text amendments that we put forward do not fundamentally change what is proposed in the place builder, but offer additional clarity to those who have expressed concerns by its implementation. So with that, in the spirit of listening to the public input, we'll turn the floor over to the public to hear their response to Imagine Lexington. But first, it's incredibly important to acknowledge the vast amount of work that has gone into the development of this plan by you, the Planning Commission, our Division of Planning staff, the almost 70 expert advisors who volunteered their time to assist, the countless other LFUCG staff who contributed, and the over 10,000 citizens who have already let their voices be heard. It would not have been possible if it had not been for the quality input that's helped shape the current draft of this plan. It is without a doubt the community's plan. And with that, we'd like to hear from the public now, unless you all have any questions. Thank you. And I might indicate to my commission members, of course, our purpose here this evening is to listen. But if you have a clarifying question, clarifying question, that's okay. But we'll go from there. But that will just start. Thank you. Mr. Lear, you're first up. I'm just going to, I've got a sheet here for people who signed up. Again, if you haven't signed up, but you want to speak, I'll make a comment or two. It's in the back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is Bill Lear. I'm not here tonight representing any particular person or entity other than myself. I do represent some points of view which I'll try to express succinctly. I've written a letter. I won't read it, and I won't be able to hit all of it in three minutes, but at some point in time before you vote, hopefully you'll have a chance to peruse it. But let me try to crystallize what I have to say by giving you a short list of the circumstances under which we function right now. We have a restricted land supply. Everybody acknowledges that. I think it's more restricted than some of you all may believe, and some of it for reasons you're not even aware of. You have a mandate to increase density. What that means is there aren't going to be any easy zone changes in the next several years. There really haven't been any in the last year or two. As you try to put more density into areas than exists in areas already developed around it, the neighbors are going to object. I don't say that to cast any aspersions. It's just a fact of life. The neighbors are going to object. I've been in this room with you all too many times, seeing it too often to believe otherwise. One of the more interesting things, I told Susan I was going to do this tonight, the advocates, the most vocal advocates for keeping the urban service area static and increased density, never seem to find their way into those zone changes. Their MIA, Fayette Alliance and others, and I've invited them at times to show up and say, are you going to be there and advocate for increased density and either they say no thank you or they just demur and don't show that's a problem for us and then the council can be expected at least at times to to yield to the voices of residents through conditional zoning and the like and reduce the density that's the world in which we live you all know it as as well as i do against that backdrop comes the place builder the place builder it is said in this recent handout, it's still evolving apparently, which is one of the issues several of us have with it. It says it's not a checklist, but it says that every zone change justification should address each criteria. Well, I just opened what should be the simplest and easiest, the low density residential section, and I counted 57 criteria that each zone change will have to address. And each of those is in the comprehensive plan, and therefore failure to comply with any one of those could be argued as a reason that a proposed zone change doesn't agree with the comprehensive plan. What I'm afraid that you will see, if this last 72 pages is adopted in the form that it's in, I'm afraid what you will see is this. instead of talking about what's the right land use and instead of talking directly about what's the right density, every zone change is going to be a lengthy debate about appropriate scale and design adjacent to existing neighborhoods, people first building orientations, pedestrian friendly characteristics, focal points, contrasts in scale, massing, and design, context sensitive design, the proper integration of housing types and these are all quotes from the things we're supposed to talk about the viability of existing structures and whether they might be incorporated into new development whether new housing is one of my favorite Graham whether new housing near a historic district mimics housing within the district which is kind of a expansion of the current rules today that's what you're going to see in zone changes and the arguments are going to be that by failure to comply with a majority of those you're not in agreement with the comprehensive plan. I think you should take some more time I know you've probably got comprehensive plan fatigue at this stage but if we're under state law that says you should review them every five years our comp plans go like this 1967, 1973, 1980, 1988, 1996, 2001, 2006, or 2007, 2013. So we have not slavishly adhered to five years. There are others in this room that are often on different sides of development than I find myself most recently that will tell you that we need to take more time to work through this and get this part of it in particular right. I urge you to do that I thank you for your time commitment and all this I know it's been it's been a long journey and you're ready to get to the the end of this branch of the Lexington zoning road just take a little little bit longer to do it as best you can thank you thank you mr. Lee we'll send you our bill by the way of the work that we've done mr. Nicholson Thank you all. Nick Nicholson and like Mr. Lear before me, I also submitted a letter to the Planning Commission that kind of detailed out more of my concerns about the comprehensive plan and why I urge you all not to go ahead and take it basically action this week. If you all do feel compelled to vote on Thursday a mere 65 hours after the very first time you've heard from the basically any non-staff member about the actual text of this comprehensive plan i would urge you not to include the place builder and appendix a for the multi-family design standards for a multitude of the reasons i kind of laid out in my letter but in very summary fashion you know i i've read this plan i've read all you know the 347 pages that just got uploaded on december 4th and it we're just not ready we are not ready to adopt this plan and i keep on hearing that staff says that the place builder program specifically is a distillation of what the comprehensive plan says i wholeheartedly disagree with that statement it is staff's subjective interpretation of what the comprehensive plan says and all these zone change hearings that we have here you all hear from the staff about what they think the comprehensive plan says and whether a particular project is in compliance with that you also hear from applicants you also hear from concerned citizens all three of those views tend to be different about what the comprehensive plan says the text can speak for itself I urge you all not to wholeheartedly just adopt the staff's unilateral interpretation of what the various points of the comprehensive plan are and because I think the text does speak for itself I spent this weekend going through the matrix of the place builder I looked at what these staffs little one sentence summary was and compared it to what the text was for that specific theme and design pillar in just theme a design policies I think there are 12 of them, I found eight that I did not think were supported by the actual text of the section that they cited to or were adding additional requirements to that that were not discussed in the actual text. How many of you all have gone through that exact same exercise? And if it's the number that I think that it is, I urge you all not to adopt place builders specifically with the comprehensive plan because the comprehensive plan is this body's interpretation of what the text says. It's not the staff's interpretation, it's not the applicant's, it's not the concerned citizen's. It is this body's. I pointed out those eight criteria that I felt were not accurate in my letter. I could have done that for every single thing and every single different pillar. Now, it is the fundamental nature that reasonable people can very much disagree with what the actual text says you all as the neutral arbiter can then take those disagreements in those arguments and decide for yourselves kind of what the conference of plan says and is a specific project in compliance with the conference plan i urge you all to do this exact same thing with the place builder and i do want to kind of make one comparison very quickly that the stormwater manual right now is being updated as well the text of the stormwater manual came out about a year ago it didn't come out September 30th and in that time I think water quality has kind of invited all the applicants that have been submitting applications over the past few years regarding the stormwater manual and they had work sessions with them they took comments from kind of what the changes to the manual were and what the industry professional's reaction to those comments or to those changes are. And from that, they've made revisions to what that original text was. I urge we use that exact same process with this place builder program. Thank you all. Thank you. Mr. Walt Gatfield. I'm Walt Gaffield, 2001 Bamboo Drive. I'm president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. Our recommendation really is to postpone the plan and take more input because of some points that we think still need to be addressed. our points probably are not the same as their points but but we do see I think there there needs to be a little more thought taken and staffs work very hard we think we think basically the plan will will basically pass in very close to its current format we said we sent correspondence earlier I'm just going to summarize what we've already sent you plan does not really deal with individual small developments in existing neighborhoods because they have little or no immediate impact on neighborhood focal points, multimodal transportation, green space, overall design, and neighborhood success and failure. It's the accumulation of this sort of spot zoning that really creates problems. And the overall design is for large developments. And it would be hard to to work on small things, which really is most of what you see, you know, things that are an acre or less. The SCNC has asked for a definition of context sensitivity and maybe some examples, because we don't really understand what it means, because it seems to be applied differently in different cases. The draft plan, if implemented, suggests major changes in zoning requirements, really without the approval of the urban county council. And probably stretches the goals and objectives that have been approved by the council. Now we agree with some of that. There's an element of randomness in the plan. Instead of development based on location and prioritization, Developers get to pick locations within broad zoning categories, it seems to us. The goals and objectives started with higher density in corridors and downtown for the most part, and the draft plan gradually expanded it to arterials, minor arterials, collector streets, minor collector streets, and then to just about everywhere. And we'd like a little bit more definition on location. The FCNC actually supports multimodal transportation. I mean, it's a great idea. It makes neighborhoods better. However, Lex Tran only has 65 buses in the entire county, and if there are large developments going in, that's going to increase traffic, and it could take decades before Lex Tran actually catches up and deals with the traffic. So traffic is a major concern for neighborhoods. And we don't think, you know, Lexstrand is staged to have a quick and immediate impact. The environmental portion of place builder we think is deficient. We think it needs to include sanitary sewer laterals if an existing property is going to expand. We think there are major environmental issues with sewage getting into Lexington's watersheds. when a building is expanded or something is added to a building. And that's not specifically to ADUs. It really involves any expansion of a building that will add people in the building because we know there are major problems with sanitary sewer laterals. In addition, we were disappointed that green architecture was pretty much removed from Place Builder. We think that both the sanitary sewer laterals and the green building requirements are really an important component of smart growth. The organization of the plan needs work, not because we object to the organization, because it's 350 pages. There's a certain amount of repetition. It's just simply hard to use. and it needs to be made more accessible and usable for the public. And that can be indexing or whatever. We've written about that. The zoning ordinance text amendment phase of the plan really should occur almost concurrently with the plan itself, in our opinion, so we can assess really what's going to actually happen, because the zoning ordinance text amendments are going to pretty much drive the process. small area plans need to be living documents and they need to be followed with updates and metrics and communication periodically and they should not be taken out of the plan really without talking to the neighborhood the neighborhoods involved to see if they actually should stay in or be changed or whatever they shouldn't be just sort of taken out And as a whole, they should be living documents when they exist. Accessible dwelling units are in the plan in a number of locations in the draft plan without sufficient detail to determine if they will work everywhere and how they will work. So we're going to kind of withhold judgment on those. There are some substantial benefits from them, but there are also some issues and problems. I'd encourage you to look at the correspondence you received today from the East End Development Corporation they they dealt with some equity issues and and small area plan issues thanks very much thank you miss Janet Cambanis is it My name is Janet Cabanus, and I live at 704 Cumberland Road. I also work a lot with Fayette County Neighborhood Council and have been in on quite a few of the letters that were sent to you all and know those points and agree with those points. I do ask that my comments be put on the record for the Planning Commission, if that's understood. I agree fully that with what Walt has said, I just don't think that we are ready in terms of the overall language of the plan to pass it. I think I would urge postponement, and I hope you'll agree with that. The Neighborhood Council kind of took things apart, and we hope put them back together. We were going to each take certain provisions of our objections, and Walt has now stolen all of my thunder with regard to the points I was going to take. I was going to tell you about the importance of considering laterals in the environmental consideration. We're spending lots and lots of millions of dollars to get it right in the public part of the main sewer lines in order to meet the provisions of the consent decree, which actually has to be fulfilled by 2026, I believe. I think we also have to consider that we're an aging city, and we do have those laterals, and they're falling apart too. and I think that should be important that any kind of development that affects a lateral should require approval and proof that that lateral is operable. I was also going to say something about green building practices being included in Place Builder. I hope they will be. green building practices are part of smart growth, and I don't think it's quite fair to expect that we use some of the provisions of smart growth and not all of the tenets of smart growth. So I'm following up on that and repeating what Walt has already said. because I'm sort of a repeat inadvertently I will ask you on another issue the neighborhood council talked about the complicatedness of 305 pages of the comprehensive plan and its appendices and all of that. I hope you will really really really work on getting a good table of contents both electronically and in a written in written output as well for the comp plan. I work with neighborhoods a lot, and many of the times they don't even know a comp plan exists. If all of a sudden I spring on them, okay, this is how we work with this sort of thing, when we're dealing with a change in our neighborhood, if I give them, you know, how many pages is 300? It's a lot. We need all the help that we can get in understanding and being able as amateurs to adhere to that comprehensive plan. We're not, as neighborhoods, trying to not adhere to it. It's that many things are just not all that understandable. Place builder is an important part. Place builder is revolutionary. And I think we need to work with neighborhoods as much as we possibly can, both from the planning staff standpoint and the developer standpoint and the neighborhood association standpoint. So, okay, that's what I have to say. I thank you for listening and appreciate all your time and effort that you've put in on it. I know it's gargantuan. Thank you, ma'am. Ms. Susan, is it Backner? Good evening. Can you hear me all right? My name is Susan Bauchner and I live at 874 McMechan Place in Lexington. I'm also a member of the Senior Services Commission. I recently retired as an occupational therapist who, for many years, partnered with the homeowners and building professionals and designers to create supportive home environments for people who have medical challenges and or were attempting to age in place. And throughout those projects, I consistently used universal design. And the purpose of my sharing that with you is because I wanted to make the point tonight in regard to theme A, equity policy 8, that says housing developments should implement universal design principles on a portion of their units. And looking through my lens as an occupational therapist and getting feedback over the years of the difference universal design can make in people's ability to live life to the fullest, I want to say that I think it's a great piece to include. I love the idea that the principles are laid out, and I commend you for including that in this theme A, equity policy number eight. My one suggestion in regard to this section has to do with the wording, and I would encourage you to look at it and perhaps tweak it. The current wording speaks to seniors and aging in place. And one of the things about universal design is how inclusive it is and how it makes life easier and more comfortable. People can function comfortably without being stigmatized. And so what I would suggest for your consideration is that instead of limiting the wording to seniors and aging in place, that we reflect the inclusiveness of universal design and expand the beneficiaries to include people of all ages and all abilities. I think the recommended language would be compatible with livable Lexington as well. So again, I applaud the commission for including this and appreciate your time. Thank you and happy holidays. Thank you. Mr. Bob Quick. My name is Bob Quick. I'm the CEO of Commerce Lexington. Commerce Lexington actively participated in the goals and objectives process last year. Today we express concerns about the place builder language in the plan and the possibility of new constraints on economic development efforts in what already is a challenging environment. For those of you who are new to the commission and didn't hear our presentation in 2017, Commerce Lexington's economic development team reviewed the economic development land inside the urban service boundary and explained what land was actually available to market to business. In 2017, there were fewer than 15 reasonable sites of 10 acres scattered throughout Lexington. Today, there are less than eight sites. While the land swap at Coldstream is positive, very positive, there are outstanding development issues to be resolved. This will take time. We anticipate it being two to three years before the majority of this land will even be marketable. Commerce Lexington's primary concern continues to be Lexington's ability to retain and attract businesses, a critical driver for city revenue. Although the place builder may be well-intentioned, there is a lot of confusion about how this section could be and would be interpreted. Does this make infill and redevelopment more difficult? Does it make it more challenging for economic development efforts? These are some of the questions we hope to get more clarity on before this language is built into the comp plan. There is no reason to rush the process here at the end. We urge the Commission to allow more time for stakeholders to review the place builder in order to better understand its potential impacts before adopting the final comp plan. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Jenny Daly. hello i'm jenny daly i live at 136 burleigh avenue i also serve on the board of the fayette county neighborhood council and although some of my comments derived from my personal experience they reflect a lot of the input that we've received from working with neighborhoods as we went through the comp plan review in several several ways the Fayette County Neighborhood Council got solicited information from our neighborhood members I want to tunnel in and drill down on the term context sensitive and encourage you to further define that either within the comp plan document itself or refer to a standalone document that picks up the term content sensitive and elaborates on it this term occurs throughout the draft of the comp plan and I believe in some to some extent in place builder but you all let me know if I'm wrong especially when new context sensitive infill and redevelopment is encouraged to preserve positive characteristics of existing neighborhoods context sensitive infill and redevelopment is critical to providing a form of equitable development that does not overwhelm the economic or cultural elements of an existing neighborhood thus allowing for change to occur but at a pace that's compatible with the with the existing neighborhood character and current residents context sensitive development is an important practice for maintaining livability and desirability as Lexington grows. And that's why it's mentioned throughout the comp plan so many times. Yet nowhere in this document is the term defined. It can be anticipated that developers, builders, residents, planning staff, and planning commission can all have different ideas about whether a proposed zone change or development is in fact context sensitive. A definition of context sensitive should include what context should be used. Are we talking about neighboring dwellings, the street and the streetscape, the collective character of the neighborhood, the character of Lexington in general? The definition should also include what sensitive means. Are we talking about building mass and scale, materials used, common setbacks, or the function and use of the new property going in? We recommend that a basic definition of context sensitive be included in the plan or as I said, maybe refer to a standalone document on guidelines that could be developed. I think this is critical if future zone changes and development plans are to be evaluated by how they measure up against the Com Plan. Without some sort of definition of this term, it becomes virtually useless and therefore a key component growing neighborhoods in a healthy respectful manner becomes eviscerated. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Miss Ashley Smith. Is this a tag team? Good evening. My name is Ashley C Smith and I reside at 1171 Redwood Drive and this evening I will be yielding my time to Susan Speckert. Thank you. Ms. Susan Speckert. Good evening Chairman Wilson and members of the Planning Commission. Susan Speckert on behalf of the Fayette Alliance. As you know, we are a coalition of citizens dedicated to sustainably growing our city and promoting our farms in Lexington Fayette County. Earlier today, we submitted our position letter to you in support of the vast majority of the policies contained in Imagine Lexington. We appreciate your consideration of our letter and I won't go through each of the points contained in it, but just highlight a couple for you this evening. First, with respect to housing, we were proud to partner with other stakeholders and the city to commission the housing market demand study. That study told us several important things we can expect in the future. We will continue to grow at the same pace. Our demographics are shifting, and much of our future housing needs will be for seniors and people in their 20s. To meet our needs and increase affordability, we need to diversify our housing stock. Lexingtonians have indicated they generally support the goal of expanded housing choices, and Imagine Lexington contains several strategies for meeting our future housing needs. We know what our housing needs are. However, we have not had a community-wide discussion about how to meet those needs in a comprehensive way. Many communities have housing policies that contain goals, strategies for meeting those goals, and metrics to measure progress. The process of citizen engagement and education on this issue is as important as the creation of the policy itself. We ask you to consider including in the comp plan a recommendation to create such a comprehensive housing policy that would build on the data collected in both the housing demand study and the affordable housing study that was completed in 2014. With respect to place builder, as you all know, the 2013 plan eliminated the future land use map, which we do not question. The 2013 plan also called for creation of frameworks and policies to ensure intentionality, context sensitivity, and transparency in development and redevelopment. However, standards and guidelines were not created, and neighborhoods and citizens have been left feeling blindsided and frustrated. Imagine Lexington seeks to remedy this issue in several important ways, including through Place Builder. This is a difficult issue and we applaud the staff for tackling it. Fayette Alliance generally supports Place Builder and its intent. However, from a citizen's perspective, it is difficult to understand how Place Builder will work in practice without some kind of visual representation. I hesitate to use the dreaded word map, but we do think that creation of a policy map or series of maps that generally identify the geographic areas that correspond with each of the seven place types contained in Place Builder would be helpful. We are not suggesting creation of a rigid land use map. Rather, we're suggesting creation of illustrative, generalized maps that can demonstrate the intent behind Place Builder. The community has asked for clarity on our long-range growth strategy, and we think some kind of map would help provide that clarity in an accessible format. that. We also had some concern about the exclusion of established existing uses from the place builder, but the additional proposed language that the staff that Chris presented earlier, I believe addresses that. So I appreciate that proposal and response to some of the concerns that were expressed about that. Finally, with respect to citizen engagement, The Planning Commission and the planning staff have undertaken unprecedented efforts to engage citizens, gather input, and respond to the community's desires. Citizen engagement should not end once the comp plan is adopted. Imagine Lexington encourages citizen engagement, both with respect to broad community-wide issues and individual development projects. We strongly support these recommendations. In particular, we support a process to foster meaningful dialogue between developers, neighborhoods, and other stakeholders before the process begins and throughout the process. As always, the comp plan is meant to be a guide. Imagine Lexington contains many innovative new strategies and concepts. Ultimately, its success will be measured by how it's implemented. Fayette Alliance is committed to continuing to work together to ensure the success of Imagine Lexington. I want to express our sincere and heartfelt appreciation to the planning staff for their tireless work throughout this long process. They have done outstanding work and we greatly appreciate it. We also thank all of the planning commissioners for your hard work and commitment. This process is never easy. We appreciate your diligence, public service, and leadership. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Todd Johnson. Mr. Chairman, Commission members, thank you for taking the time to hear us tonight in the public format. First off, I'd like to start out by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, and the commissioners who took the time to listen to our concerns on Article 21. I know we're not talking about that tonight but I do want to recognize that we do appreciate that and for the staff and their work on us through that language. We'd also like to say we applaud the decision of the staff to recommend postponement of Article 21 at this time. As we saw in Article 21 there are measures that are containing the comp plan that in our opinion do require further analysis and vetting to understand the consequences just as we worked through in Article 21. Place Builder for example is a completely different approach to the development process, and it appears that this proposal, to us, our first knowing about it was toward the end of September. Since that time, we were fully engaged in working with the staff on Article 21, and as a result of that time spent, the details of Place Builder have not been fully discussed and vetted, in our opinion, for we fully understand this new approach and how it will affect us as the stakeholders and the end users of Place Builder. Appendix A also is something of concern to us, the multifamily design standards. This is another example of a significant change that has not been openly discussed, deeply discussed, or properly vetted in our opinion. At first glance, whenever you read through Appendix A, the standards appear to be suggestive in part, and then very directive as almost a requirement in other language contained in that document. And then you turn to the comp plan draft under policy three under design, and it states multifamily residential development must comply with the multifamily design standards in Appendix A. What does that statement mean? How does the appendix fit into the full context of the comp plan? How will this be interpreted during the review process? We just don't fully understand any of the answer to any of those questions at this time. We feel strongly that more discussion and review is needed on both Place Builder and Appendix A before they are accepted as part of the Comprehensive Plan document. I know for a fact, I can see it on your faces, you guys have spent a lot of time, you guys have been through this, and I know that everything that's been done from the staff standpoint and your all as commission members has been well intended and for the better of our community. However, after careful consideration in going through the document, our organization is asking that you take a little more time to get this right, just as we have heard from other representatives here tonight across the board. We're requesting you to consider the removal of both place builder and Appendix A from the draft comp plan at this time and that neither be considered for approval as part of the comp plan document until ample discussion, analysis, and review with staff and stakeholders has occurred on both of these items. Thank you for the consideration of this request, and we appreciate the time being here tonight. Thank you. Ms. Margaret McCoskey, is it? My name is Margaret McCoskey. I live at 2086 Old Nassau Road. I thank you, Chairman and Commission members, for listening to all of us. I am also a member of the Mayor's Senior Services Commission. I'm a retired social worker that specialized in the care of the elderly. I believe it was theme A of this proposal that addressed housing, and as such, this is why I'm here. Susan Spector mentioned the Fayette County Housing Demand Study of 2015. In that study, they noted that the most significant growth in housing needs between 2015 and 2025, not that far away, will be for the aging population of our community. Of 21,000 new households anticipated during these years, 52.8% or almost 53% will be over the age of 65. So that means we're going to have a housing situation for our elder population as well. Most people want to stay in their own home or in their same neighborhood. We do have options now, but they're either retirement homes or a single-family home. So I am here to advocate, I believe it's under theme A, for housing options, specifically accessory dwelling units. In other parts of the country, these have been implemented very successfully, and I researched some of this myself and think it could be very helpful here in our community as our population of this age increases. A definition of accessory dwelling units is a secondary housing unit on the same grounds or attached to or within a main single-family house. These are self-contained units with their own kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and or living space. There are different types of ADUs, accessory dwelling units. They can be a single family home, an addition to an existing home, like an additional bedroom, bathroom, conversion of garage or barn, freestanding cottage, or a new design, new construction altogether. Of course, we realize that there will be concerns. I know concerns of sewer and street access. Most of the cities that I've researched, they are owner occupied units. The owner has to occupy at least one of these structures, the main house or an accessory dwelling unit. Building permits are required, a certificate occupancy is normally required. We know the city would not pass something or permit something that didn't have sewer proper provisions. I think the key here for me is that it is a way to provide affordable housing for seniors or caregivers that we don't normally have now. It's keeping families together, bringing families back together as we used to be. The city will address and set the criteria. I have faith that you will all do that. But it provides an opportunity for independent living for our older population in some ways such that from time to time they may require some assistance it may be acute condition or maybe more prolonged but at least they will be around family members or a caregiver it's bringing them back together i really strongly encourage in this in your consideration of the overall plan that you remember and think about our senior citizens i think it is critical for them and disabled individuals thank you for your time thank you mr barry saturday thank you chairman members uh just want to say uh we've got so many brilliant people here i'm just really glad to hear all these different perspectives some people have done a lot of research bob your organization's got those signs about how well educated our city is and we just need a little more space i'm glad you brought that up so i really agree a lot with everything that has been said particularly the needs we have to take a look at place builder but as a former candidate for the fourth district i did a lot of door-to-door this past year and the thing that really resonated with everybody was traffic that is the number one concern no matter what precinct you live in in the fourth district and from the mayor's race and listen to a lot of that it seems like that's pretty much the case citywide my concern that I bring up today and I'm so glad some of the other people have addressed these other important topics is I really want to focus on traffic. I've got just a few minutes. The traffic aspect of the comprehensive plan is going to increase dramatically the number of cars on all our arterials, our Tates Creek Road, our Nicholsville Road, which are the primary concerns of those in the 4th District, but also Newtown Pike, Versailles Road, Richmond Road, Georgetown, et cetera. What that's going to do is take away every single family home that's currently there that kind of gives us that rural-looking city feel, and it's going to replace those, as it did with the Glendover Zone change that was approved this year by turning some residents that had roughly two cars into a residence that's now going to have 28 cars. And while this growth has to go somewhere, but putting on the arterials, I think, is not the right choice. that's going to have people turning into and turning off of our arterials at a highly exponentially increased rate. The problem with that, of course, is our arterials are our only flows in and outside of the city. I've spoken with some of the members of the Division of Planning, and their thought is that, and what they have told me, is that more cars on these roads somehow is going to yield less traffic. And they've said that that was counterintuitive, and I think it's a little bit different than counterintuitive. It's just not going to work. We're going to have vastly increased traffic on our arterials. And one of the things that they've also said is they've compared us to Louisville and, for whatever reason, Chicago. Whether it's Cincinnati, Chicago, Louisville, or Nashville, all these cities have in common something that we don't. We have no interstate highways traversing inside the city. Our arterials are our only way to get up and downtown through vehicles, whether they're buses or cars or anything else. So I would highly recommend you guys highly consider the arterials and the health and the flow of the traffic in this city prior to making a decision. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Saturday. I would digest here for just a minute. I just met one of your biggest fans about an hour ago at your mother. And quite frankly. And out of that she gave me your card as well as such. It's good to meet you. Pleasure to meet you, sir. Mr. Kenny Churchill. I'm sorry. I didn't know I said Mr. Miss. I'm sorry. Thank you. My name is Carrie Churchill. I live in Lexington. And even though I have really enjoyed volunteering with the livable, age-friendly Lexington initiatives for the last several years, and I am a nurse, I am speaking for myself only. So I just want to share a few of my experiences over the last few years. I went back to school for graduate work and I'm focusing on community health, and it could not have come at a better time that the comprehensive planning activities were congruent with that time. I talked to so many people in the community, and I let so many people know about the activities that the planning division put together. So I just really want to honor and appreciate Chris Woodall and Jim Duncan and all the work that the planning staff have done to bring together many, many members in the community who told me that it was the first time that they really did feel heard and seen. I want to share briefly a personal story, and that is that when I was growing up, my grandmother had some health challenges, and she used a wheelchair the last several years of her life. I remember then, so many years ago, the struggles that she faced in getting around. She, among other things, wanted to come visit me in Kentucky when I moved here, and yet it was not meant to be. She passed before that happened. However, those experiences have stayed with me, and I've gone on to, of course, meet both professionally as a nurse and personally so many people of all ages, all sizes, all abilities, who for one reason or another use a mobility device. device. So when I imagined past tense Lexington over 20 years ago, I imagined a city that would welcome my grandmother and welcome my friends and family, some who I knew I hadn't even met yet, who used a mobility device. I saw in my mind's eye Lexington being a place where many, many homes would have universal design features or at the very least basic access, a no-step entrance wider doors and hallways an accessible bathroom the built environment promoting this sense of connectivity and inclusion versus separation as a nurse i know intimately that the opposite of dis-ease is ease so i just invite you as you look at the comprehensive plan i know it's a really lengthy plan and when I glimpsed it what I most would love is to have some more visual representation that reflects the spirit of the accessibility and the inclusion. I would really like to see some photos and images that show my friends who use scooters and walkers and wheelchairs and push strollers in the comprehensive plan. I would have some feedback on the text by Thursday but i thank you for your time at this time thank you thank you mr simpson bruce simpson thank you mr chairman and members of the commission i'm bruce simpson i'm here on behalf of myself i have appeared before this august body several times on behalf of developers and more times really than developers representing neighborhoods more time lately representing a developer but I still have neighborhoods that I'm representing in this community and in other communities I am appreciative of what our staff has done I of course worked with them for many years some more recently because they're new there's no question that producing a document that's nearly 600 pages in length reflects a great deal of thought and work. My comments tonight are intended to be constructive because they are constructive. I speak tonight as a citizen offering whatever value my thoughts and recommendations might be as you all consider what you wish to do with respect to this proposed comprehensive plan. You've heard already tonight several recommendations for postponement to consider place builder, to define neighborhood contact sensitivity, and other features. I think those points are well taken. The folks that I've represented really in terms of the development community are totally without sufficient information as to what all the terms in this new document mean. Janet Cabanas who addressed you earlier from Stonewall Neighborhood Association said it correctly. This is a revolutionary comprehensive plan. is totally unlike and different from any other comprehensive plan that your predecessors have ever adopted for this city. A lot of conversation, rightly so, on the place builder section. Why? As Bill Lear shared with you, if you're going to submit a low density development, you're going to have to address 57 different building criteria in connection with that application. this proposed comprehensive plan is going to be great for lawyers. There's no question about that. The problem is, as Susan Speckert said, the comprehensive plan is a guide under state law is a guide. I had submitted a memorandum to you guys with respect to Article 21 in which I discussed that particular section of the Kentucky Revised Statutes that guides your actions in adopting the plan. And the language speaks very clearly and says it is a guide. But the courts have even gone further and added an additional clause to that characterization, to that express provision, and they have said many times since 1967, it is a guide. It is not a straitjacket. In my judgment, the specificity of having 57 criteria that you have to address in a zone map amendment request is a straightjacket. It is far too specific. In my judgment it doesn't comply with what the law provides in terms of a comp plan, which are broad principles of application, of aspiration. Recently had a, I say recently, it wasn't that recently, I guess it's almost a year, but we had a very contested zone change at the corner of Heredtburg Road and Matta War. and Frank Penn called me out in that case, among several points he made, was that, you know, we're spending all our time talking about a development plan. And he was absolutely right. We were. Why is that? Because the staff focused the zoning in that case. This was before, obviously, we didn't have place builder criteria. on issues that we had to demonstrate we were in compliance with to justify approval under their assessment of whether or not we were in compliance with the comprehensive plan. Well, this place builder criteria, Mr. Penn, is going to effectuate major battles of a preliminary development plan in every zone change, because how else can you identify and show compliance with the place builder's criteria, 57, 7 in low density unless you show them on a development plan. You can't just articulate them in some broadly worded letter. You've got to see them because these are specifics. For example, as has already been discussed, multifamily residential development must comply with the multifamily design standards in Appendix 1. That's a mandatory provision which highlights another problem with this place builder. Not every provision is the same. Some are guidelines, some are fragment sentences, and some are outright mandatory provisions using the words like must or shall. In terms of what the law allows you to do, you can't require mandatory compliance with any provision of the comprehensive plan. In fact, in a case that came out of Lexington in the year 2000, a contested zone change, The court said even if the applicant demonstrates and there's no question he's in compliance with the plan, he is not entitled to a rezoning. The council can turn it down for other reasons. So my recommendation would be specifically with respect to place builder. It's much too specific. It doesn't comply with the law. Some provisions have mandatory provisions which need to be taken out. and we really need to postpone further consideration of this document until we vet it to the people who are actually going to have to implement it, and that's the development community. I've asked the staff several times, why don't you invite every single applicant for a zone change who's filed one in the last five years and come in and give them a workshop? Do a couple, two or three. This is what this document is. This is how we're going to look at it being implemented, what's your reaction are you missing something is the staff missing something in terms of trying to create design guidelines which I don't think are legal but you know are those guidelines going to cause the potential developer to to leave because he doesn't want to do those design guidelines or there are other provisions that have mandatory requirements they're going to deter somebody coming in and implementing a plan that we would all like but are much too specific because you're taking away the developer's market judgment about what will work and what won't work. So these are constructive. I want to see Lexington become more beautiful than it has in the past. I attended a seminar one time. They did a slide show about the most ugly developments in Lexington. They did a top ten and it was the neighborhood meeting and I was one of the speakers. And when the guy finished his presentation before me, he showed a top ten list like David Letterman. And the ugliest development, number one, was where I was living. And the ugliest house was my house. So I want to see improvement. I do. I really do. As a citizen of this community, I want to see improvement. But I think we need a little more work. We don't need to rush to judgment and pass this thing when people don't understand it and some changes need to be made to comply with the law. Okay, thank you. Ms. Mary Schmidt. Good evening, members of the Planning Commission. Thanks for hearing all our input this evening. I live at 2836 Arc Royal Way, like Noah's Arc. I have been a resident here in Fayette County since 1986. And full disclosure, this is the first time I have participated in a comprehensive plan input. And I give full credit to the planning staff because they invited community input like no other time. Two full input sessions held at the senior center. And as you've heard mentioned before, the bluegrass is turning gray. And I see some of it up there. Myself included, I've been at my job for 32 years. So in general, I now chair the senior services commission, the mayor's commission on senior services. and we have been working on the age-friendly slash livable Lexington effort since 2014. And the eight domains of livability, many of those are covered in this plan. There's a whole livability section, as a matter of fact. One of the comments I want to make is you're starting to hear more about social isolation among seniors, and there's statistics out there now saying that social isolation is worse for someone than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It has that kind of health detriment. The sections on multi types of housing, accessory dwelling units, those type of things encourage people to remain engaged in their community rather than segregating the aged into separate facilities where there's no intergenerational activities. Social isolation contributes to so many negatives among seniors. I work for the Bluegrass Area Agency on Aging, which is under the umbrella of the Area Development District. We take 900 calls a month from folks wanting to know where do I start getting services for my loved ones. And we hear so many calls from individuals that can't find housing. You know, if your income is below $22,000 a year, you can live in subsidized housing with other seniors. Or if your income is high enough that you can afford the $4,000 to $9,000 a month that these beautiful assisted living facilities have. But otherwise, you're the missing middle income housing. And so some of the provisions in this proposal address that. and we fully support that. One of the other policies that we're in support of is equity policy five in the neighborhood themes about a rental property registration program. We hear from a lot of folks that are living in rental properties that are not up to par. Seniors many times aren't feeling empowered to advocate for themselves, although us baby boomers are a different breed and we're not going to be afraid to step up. and for some of the concerns around the accessory dwelling units. If this rental property registration does take place, then there will be more oversight as far as code enforcement. Again, thanks to the planning staff for their inclusion and to you for hearing all our comments. Ms. Smith, I would really like to thank you. You've given me a great Christmas idea for my colleagues here. It will be some Grecian formula hair color. You don't. Ms. Catherine Perkins. Good evening. My name is Catherine Perkins. I live at 258 Swigert Avenue on the north side of Lexington. I'm here representing myself as a homeowner on the north side. I'm also a secretary for the Joyland Neighborhood Association and am representing our board of directors. I am concerned about the omission in place builder on page 3 of place builder or page 255 of the draft, I believe, since paging changes. At the top of that page, it mentions small area plans and it has six icons. Not one of them is the Parris Pike Corridor Small Area Plan. I do not know if this omission is a mistake or is a purposeful omission. I often wonder, because there's no map that I can look at, to see what area of Lexington is next to be hit by developers. But since we now have a truck stop, not a truck stop, I'm sorry, truck sales and service center in our neighborhood with access off of a residential street where diesel will be running off that concrete downhill into our neighborhood, I have to be concerned for my neighborhood. And I would hope that the draft will make sure that the small area plan for the Paris Pike Corridor is going to be kept in place. Other than that, I want to thank you. Also, I serve as a commissioner on the corridor, but I'm not here representing them. And Joyland itself has fought against some of the development that is going on. We fought very strongly about the first B3 that was granted on the corridor. And we know that there's more to come. And I've spent my entire life working in the thoroughbred industry and would like to preserve as much of our green space as we can and preserve our industry. I think it's an important industry. So far I can't find a job outside of it. Oh, caregiving, I'm doing that now. But I just hope that you make sure that the Parris Pike Corridor Small Area Plan is kept into the comp plan. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Al Cross. Al Gross, I'm sorry. I feel like I have to reintroduce myself often. It's gray hair. Al Gross, the A-Partners, I won't take up much of your time. I think you've heard from a pretty diverse crowd here tonight. They're singing pretty much the same song. I encourage you to sit down between now and Thursday and try to read through Place Builder. I think it is a revolutionary concept. I know staff has put in a tremendous amount of work. There's a lot of good in it. It just needs to be distilled. I think the workshop idea is what is the necessary next step. That's worked very effectively with the stormwater manuals and the other design manuals. with that said I'll sit back down and thank you for your time and effort thank you sir Mr. Murphy, Dick Murphy thank you Mr. Chairman I'm Dick Murphy I do have a letter I'll put in the record and pass copies around here too if I could the I'd also like to sign the sign-up sheet for grease and formula when it comes around, too, if I could, Mr. Chairman. I'm an attorney not representing any client, just representing myself, and I have a little different perspective on it. I have had to stand before a judge and explain to the judge why the goals and objectives of the 2013 ComP Plan are not a checklist. The goals and objectives of the 2013 ComP Plan. You've heard the argument in here before. I've had a case I was trying to uphold his own change where my opponent said, well, Mr. Murphy's client only complied with 18 out of the over 100 goals and objectives in the 2013 comprehensive planning. The judge turned to me and said, yeah, Mr. Murphy, I wish your client had complied with more of those. And I had to go through and explain to him that the other 100 didn't apply to our property at all. And I won the case. Luckily, we got the zone change upheld. But if I had that much trouble explaining why the goals and objectives weren't a checklist to go by, you can imagine the trouble I'll have in explaining why the place builder, if I'm in the corridor development criteria for development for medium density residential, there's 74 detailed criteria which I have to address in my application for a zone change, each one of those. The difficulty I'll have explaining to a judge why that is not a checklist, even though it says it's not a checklist, because I have to address each one of those. And by the way, if I spend a third of a page discussing each of those 74 criteria in my zone change applications, I hope each one of you will read all 25 pages of the zone change application. It makes it a lot more complicated, and it makes it seem an awful lot like a checklist or list of things because you have to address each and every one of those as they come up. Dennis Anderson has told me many times that great artists don't paint by the numbers and that great planners blur the lines. As you all know, we've had a number come through that, since it's Townley, which changed the rules, I'm not sure Townley could have been approved under a place builder type concept, because when you are trying to, you can't mandate creativity by complying with a checklist. I think having checklists where so much detail and so many criteria are on this one, and this one I mentioned to you, there's 74 detailed criteria. I think by using a checklist, you destroy the creative process. You do the focus on this, this, this, this, this, rather than the big picture on it. So, again, I'm asking you to not adopt at this time Place Builder as part of the comp plan and not adopt Appendix A as part of the comp plan. I've had a lot more to say, but you've heard a lot of it, so I'll sit down and let the next person talk. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Tim Kondo, is it? Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. I'm Tim Kondo on behalf of the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation. We'd just like to commend the time, energy, and attention of all those involved in this process, from the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Development, to the Planning Commission itself, and the engaged citizens who've played a role in shaping this plan. We'd also like to give our sincere thanks to the planning staff for consideration and in many cases, incorporation of our comments. So, excuse me, historic preservation is an integral part of the community. It helps inform our identity. It helps create the authenticity that Lexington is increasingly recognized for and which attracts residents and visitors alike. It's also an important tool in our efforts to becoming a more sustainable community. So we are pleased to see language and policies in the plan that support these, from updating the stone fence ordinance to stressing context sensitivity for infill development adjacent to historic areas, to promoting adaptive reuse as a means of redevelopment. We're encouraged by the comprehensive inventory that is laid out in Theme E, Growth Policy Number 5, the comprehensive inventory of Lexington's historic resources. There are important questions as to the details and methodology of this process, but this should be developed and implemented as soon as possible, and the Bluegrass Trust stands willing to assist in that effort. Insofar as the planning division may play a support role in this effort and the division of historic preservation may lead this effort, we feel that this comprehensive inventory should be on the list of action items implementation table and it may be worth considering adding other action items to this table for the agencies outside of the division of planning to ensure implementation across the plan. We'd also like to echo some comments from earlier about the need for definition of context sensitivity as well as the Fayette Alliance's call for some type of general map on the place builder to give an idea of what areas might fall in certain place types. We think that would be very helpful in keeping with the goal of the place builder so again thank you for your time and efforts and i appreciate your consideration of our comments tonight thank you mr lawrence goodwin jr i should have put buddy on there since i don't think my dad was lawrence but um buddy goodwin general counsel ball homes 3609 walden uh i'd like to uh i guess i get the benefit of going after a lot of my peers and so i'll pass that on to you like mr gross and some of these others lately i'll be short um i would echo that that i think place builders specifically and the article 14 attachment needs to be looked at further i have great concerns i'm an attorney by trade obviously and i do a lot more transactional work now and we have a great we have a great uh a bar for planning and zoning so you don't see me much but i have great concerns about what mr simpson has brought up and and the legality of some of that i think at the very least the idea of how it will practically play out from a conceptual standpoint and zone changes from the understanding of the things that you see in the place builder i've had about maybe a month or so to look at and i've tried to digest it in the midst of everything else going on so i've relied on people like our in-house engineer who's done this for 20 years and i said hey what does this mean to you and he just gave me back he probably gets yeah but it's there's questions galore uh so i just don't think something like this that at least in my lifetime is is uh of living here is it's probably one of the bigger changes that i would have seen to a comp plan should should kind of uh go through in that fashion i think it's well deserved to have the workshops and to get it worked out right and to avoid uh potential for either uh you know bad or or or or unintended development results or litigation or all those kind of things so i'll i'll uh i'll try to keep true to my word and sit down i thank you all uh all the commission members and the staff for your time i know this is a long process i know this has been echoed a lot but it's truly a labor of love for your community and we appreciate that uh and i think that everybody's sincere about that so thank you okay thank you that's all the names that i have but did anyone come in that wanted to speak that did not sign up would you okay please would you come up and also i do need you to sign in someplace or you did okay uh... uh... thank you i mean the park and i live at six twenty eight castle road and i see you know how the late commerce sign up sheet uh... where i appear i'm not sure i'm first on it uh... what a plan i have to say this is not a revolutionary radical new plan i think twenty thirteen was that and it left commission members public everyone alike begging for more clarity more guidance particularly in some changes So this is triple the length or thereabouts, and it leaves us begging for less. By way of preamble, I would urge you not to approve piecemeal everything but the place builder and so on, because the place builder was developed and instituted to mend some of the problems and challenges of the larger plan. The plan as a whole needs to work and work well together. I agree it's a good idea to step back, give it a good once-over, make it a better plan, give it the time it needs, make the body of it clear. I have the same reservations about Place Builder that others do. I don't need to go into that. I look at the comp plan and I ask, is it usable? And I think about neighborhoods coming, and they're usually coming as objectors rather than investors. and will it work for them? And I have to say it does look like a lawyer's paradise. It looks like a planner's full employment program and so on. It's baffling. It's huge. It's rather chaotic and confused. There are many, many instances of repetition. Whole sections on livability occur in more than one of the thematic chapters. I would urge that it returned to the order where the land use element was one chapter and the transportation element was a chapter and economic development can be an optional chapter, environment, and so on. And then each of them is to interrelate, but they're not just all mixed together. I look for something in it. I try to find it. I go back. I fish again. Where was that? Where was that? I spent ages the other day looking for where it said it was crystal clear. It was offering a crystal clear guidance and finally did find it. But I think if it were coherent so people could know which part to find what thing in, it would help hugely. You're doing something very radical here. you're trying to make a shift from a use-based system of planning and development to a design-based system. I don't know that you have the tools for it. I don't know that you have the authority, the statutes, and so on. But I think the confusion fundamentally is that. What kind of a plan is it? A key challenge that you began with is housing. Hey, Lexington, where are we going to put 80,000 more people in the next 20 years? This was a plan posed to the community at large that the comp plan seeks to address. There was a need for ED land, land for major employment. Research also observed there was a glut of office space. There's a high vacancy rate. There are these huge tracts of obsolete or obsolescent retail as our retail changes. How are we going to get that needed housing? We need a plan with better articulation. We have in the place builder part of it, and I think it's trying to solve problems, trying to offer guidance, development types. And these development types, I tried to decide what are they. Are they uses? Are they forms? I don't know what they are. They're development types. And they're actually named by density. They're called low density, medium, medium high, and then high density, either residential or mixed residential with a commercially non-residential component. So they have something fundamental to do with density. That's important because we want to address population housing density. The problem is they never say, not any of these types articulate how many dwellings per acre. So how can we talk about density in a usable, useful way if we don't say high density means so and so many and others not? What's offered instead, as far as I can tell, is a measure that maybe is intensity of use. I don't think it's quite the same as intensity. Intensity could mean traffic, for example. But what's offered is this FAR, the ratio of built floor space to land, to the lot area. And there are targets for how much floor space relative to the lot area. And I disagree with whoever it was who said we don't have a map. There are a zillion maps in this plan. But what's missing is a comprehensive map. There's an EAR map, a map for the expansion area map. There's a rural area map, a highly articulated rural area map. There are maps for each of the small area plans. There's a map that shows all the corridors where FAR is destined to be. I'm not sure if it's population density or what. All kinds of maps. But what's missing is the comprehensiveness of the map. So that if you come and you say, this piece of land, this larger area of land is designated for, say, higher density housing, you know that it won't be used for a greater glut of office housing or something. We're not able to address and meet our needs for various sorts of land and land development unless we can better articulate which they are and roughly, not parcel by parcel, but roughly where to put them. I'll close by saying, well, two things, but second to last. Long ago, you may remember when you came up with transit-oriented development and the corridor density and so on, we pointed out that the ribbon along Main Street, Richmond Road, and so forth, extending to a quarter mile on either side covered four historic districts, both National Register and H1 and this whole area all the way out including Coach Calipari's house and this was all designated for corridor density transit oriented development and it felt like a joke and everyone laughed we thought it was a pretty good joke because everybody knows Coach Calipari's house is safe from intensive or unwelcome development. But then we had a zone change on Tate's Creek. We have one pending. There's a Nicholasville at Penn Moken Park. We've had zone changes since then that say, no, if Coach Calipari wanted to sell his house and some investor wanted to put in whatever, it's on a corridor. We need a better articulated map, a better articulated apportionment of land uses, and the chapters need to be better articulated. Finally, I just want to say a comprehensive rewrite of the zoning ordinances and vision, and many specific elements of that were put forward, and some have already been initiated, reviewed, and passed through the council. I want to remind you that comprehensive zoning ordinance changes, their council has a huge role and ought to have a huge role. Consider how long they took with the rec soda. Consider how long they took, how much committee work broadly based for the infill and redevelopment ordinances, and I think there were three sets of those. So I would encourage the plan, the planners, the commission members to think very carefully about if there's going to be a comprehensive revision of the zoning ordinance, it needs to be in a comprehensive community effort that greatly incorporates the council as well as the administration. Thank you for indulging my length. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. Hi, I'm Bill Johnston. I live at 2700 Manowar Boulevard. I'm in awe of the work that you all have been doing and the time you have spent. For the last 46 years until I moved, I've lived downtown and I'm currently still president of the Historic Western Suburb Neighborhood Association. During the 90s, I spent a lot of time talking to whomever would listen, including my dog, my wife, anybody, about the importance of having people move downtown if we were going to make downtown become something of interest again. If you remember during the 90s, there was a lot of conversation about how to save downtown and what to do. My whole thought was getting more people to live downtown. So I'm ecstatic about what's happened since 2000 with all the building and the increased number of people that are living downtown. I've also at the same time been talking to all the people that would listen, my dog, my wife, again, about how important the historic overlays are to Lexington and the character of Lexington and what makes Lexington unique. I have two Airbnbs and the people are always telling me how much they love coming to Lexington and walking around the old neighborhoods. So I want both. I want increased density downtown and I want the historic H1 overlays protected. So what I would like to see, actually I've had people tell me that I can't have my cake and eat it too. I've also had people tell me that the charge for the Planning Commission should be to increase the density by itself. what I would like to see put in a comprehensive plan is a statement that says that the sanctity of the H1 overlays will not be sacrificed for the purpose of increasing density so I want to have my cake and I want to eat it thank you thank you miss Butler Carrie Butler is it Thank you. I'm Carrie Butler and I'm a resident of Fayette County. I have a master's degree in urban and regional planning. I have served on a planning commission in the state of Kentucky and I have spent starting my third decade of my career involved in both land use and transportation issues. So I offer that to say I appreciate the work that this body has done, and I encourage you to think about some of the changes that you've made and have been proposed in this comprehensive plan. I'm here tonight as a member of the Mayor's Commission for Senior Services, and I'm speaking in support of the language on accessible dwelling units and the other policy statements that support housing and choices for people to be able to keep families together, to age in place, and to provide choice throughout our community. So thank you to the staff for your work on the conference plan, and thank you, of course, to the commission for your service to our community. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else? Okay. Then, ladies and gentlemen, let me, on behalf of the commission, thank you all very, very much for your participation this evening. Our job was to listen and certainly what we need to do now is to go back and think through some of the things. I've got some papers to read as well as my colleagues and we plan to do that and then we'll get back with you. But thank you so very, very much for your time and your attendance here this evening. To our commission members, is there anything else, Mr. Duncan? Mr. Chair, I do want to remind the Planning Commission and the audience that the agenda for Thursday, three days from now, includes the Planning Commission's regular subdivision meeting, the Planning Commission's regular monthly zoning hearing, and the consideration of the comprehensive plan for adoption. So the intention of the staff is to take the comments that were received tonight and process those and bring those back to you on Thursday with what we heard and have a discussion about the future of the comprehensive plan. The meeting is scheduled to start at 1.30 for your subdivision hearing. Following the zoning hearing, then the comprehensive plan will be scheduled. Thank you. Anything else? If not, without objection, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rock is Christmas.