Desperately I longed to feel your touch But you left me all alone in love And now I watch the sun going down There ain't nobody around I feel the night in the breeze I keep on telling myself I don't need nobody else And I can do as I please But desperately I long to feel your touch Oh, you left me all alone in love And now I desperately I long to feel your touch But you left me all alone in love Now, every night it's the same I hear you calling my name I still love you desperately I still love you I still want you I still love you desperately Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, folks. We will, it is 1.30 now to 1.32, so we will call this meeting for July 25th to order. first on the agenda we've got approval of minutes however i don't think we have any approval minutes to approve so we'll move to we do have one yeah june 13th okay we do have one for june 13th i'm sorry there was no there was an omission in the june 13th minute so we added those and need them reapproved okay so just June 13th of 27th as well we don't we don't have minutes for June 27th no no sir yes thank you so we need approval of minutes for June 13th the chairman I make a motion that we approve the minutes of June the 13th thank you motion has been made in seconded for the approval of minutes for June 13th 2019 please vote when it comes up on the screen Motion passes. Thank you. Now then, postponements and withdrawals. Mr. Nicholson, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. Nick Nicholson here on behalf of the applicant, Ballhomes Incorporated. We have two postponements for you today. The first is for, on page two of your agenda, MAR 19-3. This is for the Blackford property. We'd request a one-month postponement to the August 22nd. planning commission meeting and we will be submitting a revised filing hopefully this week okay thank you sir anyone in the audience wish to speak to this request for postponement commission members if not i'll entertain a motion mr chair i motion for a one month postponement on pln mar-19-3 ball homes incorporated motion for one month okay motion's been made and seconded for a one month postponement which is august 22nd uh please vote when it comes up on the screen motion passes yes sir so on page three of your agenda item number mar 19-10 we would also request a one month postponement to the august 22nd planning commission meeting as we work through some development plan changes. Okay thank you sir. Anyone in the audience wish to speak to this request for postponement? Commission members? If not I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair I'd like to make a motion for a one month postponement for PLN MAR-19-10. Thank you. Motion has been made and seconded by Mr. Warrion-Pol for one month postponement until August 22nd on on plan MAR 19-10, Ball Homes Incorporated. Please vote when it comes up on the screen. That motion passes. Mr. Nicholson, anything else? You're done? Well, thank you, sir. Mr. Wahlberg. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. If I could turn your attention to page four of your agenda, item three, 6K and under auto sales, That's MAR19-11. I'd actually request a two-week postponement on this. We had what I thought was a very positive and productive meeting with staff and conversations with Mr. Murphy's client, and I'm optimistic that we will be ready to go in two weeks, so I would request a two-week postponement to your August 8th hearing. Thank you, Mr. Wahlberg. Anyone in the audience wish to speak to this request for postponement? Commission members? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Yes. Turn that thing on. Mr. Chair, I move for postponement for two weeks to August the 8th of 2019 for PLNMAR 19-11, 6K and under Auto Sales, LLC. Second. Thank you. motion has been made and seconded for postponement plan MAR 19-11 which is 6k and under all of sales I'm sorry I did not ask anyone in the audience wish to speak to this request for postponement I don't think I did did I okay okay I'm sorry we'll move on so the motion has been made and seconded for postponement until August the 8th please vote when it comes up on the screen did you That motion is granted. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Other requests? Yes, Steve Vickroy representing Raymond Waits in PLN FRP 1914. At this point in time, other counsel representing the remaining owners are here. We would like to indefinitely postpone this to be able to work out something that has not been able to be worked out in the past couple of weeks. Although I will advise the commission that the temporary structure has been moved. So that that issue is no longer a sticking point for you. But obviously the parties have to work some things out, and we don't want the commission in the middle of that while we do this. So that's why we're requesting an indefinite postponement. Okay, thank you, sir. We agree very much. We don't want to be in the middle of it either. Anyone in the audience wish to speak to this request for indefinite postponement? Commission members? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, regarding Plan FRP 19-00014, awaits more limited partnership, move to postpone indefinitely. Thank you. motion has been made by mr powell and seconded by mr forrester for an indefinite postponement of plan frp 19-14 weights more limited uh please vote when it comes up on the screen okay that motion passes thank you folks good luck with that we will move now to what is left our text amendments and we will go with the one that we started a couple of weeks ago I believe with the signage which is at the bottom of page six page 5 I think ZODA 2019-3 amendment to article 17 signed ordinance update. A lot of work has been done on this. You do have all new language before you. Emails have been passed from the staff to you all as far as changes along with the revised text. So we'll get started with this. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. You've been busy. Bear with me one moment while the slides come up on screen here. Thank you. In the meantime, I'd just like to point out that there's two handouts that everyone should have. The first is an updated version of the matrix with a comparison of the existing Article 17 and the proposed changes. And the second, of course, is the redlined version of the Article 17 text language. So what I'm presenting today are text amendments that have been drafted, or revisions rather, that have been drafted since the June 27, 2019 presentation. were also made subsequent to the planning commission's input meeting about a week ago. Those revisions center mostly around those four categories, combining freestanding sign area, the all other permitted uses category, hotels and the economic development zone, and we had a discussion regarding and versus or for signage related to religious and educational uses. With regard to combining freestanding sign area, the staff has removed the proposed text, combining freestanding signs. So you'll see in the B1, B3, B4, I1, I2, B5P, MU2, and MU3 zones, all of those had a proposed text amendment to allow the combining of signs that are listed on the slide there to go from two to one two two to one sign essentially that's all all of that text has been stricken throughout the ordinance and and returned to the original text that's in the current article 17. these are the all other permitted uses this applies to the low density residential zones the Ag zones and the higher density residential zones the The text you have in front of you today is amended to reflect the requirements of the currently adopted Article 17. So in other words, we've reverted all of those back to the current Article 17 language. Farms and estates are now requiring or allowing for one sign not exceeding ten square feet, which is exactly what's in the current ordinance or in the current Article 17 language. breakfast facilities that language has been amended to allow for one sign two square feet which is again the same as it is currently all other permitted uses were applicable there's one sign allowed there that can either be freestanding or wall mounted and that's 32 square feet again exactly the same as the article 17 language you have now and group residential projects allow for traffic traffic directional signs in R1T, allowing up to four of those traffic directional signs up to three square feet each. And in higher density residential categories, R5 in particular, one sign per street frontage is allowed for that use. That can be 32 square feet and eight feet in height. So again, I know I sound like a broken record, but that's all brought over exactly from the current Article 17 language. In addition to what you see on the slide here, we did make changes to the incidental retail in R5. Change that back to where it's limited to 16 square feet and a wall sign. And office uses in R5 are limited to two square feet per office, per principal office use that's allowed. Home occupations, we left out of this amended language. We discovered after our last meeting that home occupations actually do not allow signs on the exterior of the property and that's for Article 3-10. So we've brought it into compliance with Article 3-10. For the ED zone, hotel language was previously a hybrid of B1 for the height and B3 for the area. We have amended that so that hotels are allowed as for B3 before I1 and I2. And essentially what that allows is one freestanding sign per frontage that's 75 square feet and 25 feet in height and one 32 square foot wall sign on each face of the building. Extended stay hotels are separate in the language and unchanged from the current article 17 requirements. And finally, we had pretty good discussion on the use of and versus or as it relates to religious or educational uses. We've changed all of those references for religious and educational uses for sign allowances for those back to allowing one free standing sign or one wall sign where applicable. So that is a summary of the changes that were made since you last saw this. I'm glad to answer any questions that you have. Thank you, Craig. Craig makes it very clear and concise, whether it is or not. Any questions for Craig at the moment? Yes, sir. I do have a question. Why are extended stay hotels treated differently than regular hotels? Extended stay hotels were already defined with signage requirements and existing Article 17. To the extent possible, the purpose of this last exercise we went through was to return the signage requirements to what they are currently if they were already in the ordinance. And extended stay hotels were referenced in the ED zone, so we used the existing language for that. And is that language the same as the proposed B3 language for hotels? No, it's less. Yes, the extended stay hotel language allows for one wall mounted sign 32 square feet and one monument sign eight feet in height and 32 square feet in area. So that was what we had originally used as the base for when we started the discussion for hotel signage. But we separated the two and kept the extended stay hotel at the existing language. Would you be opposed to having all hotels, extended stay hotels and hotels? That would be up to the commission's discretion if you'd like that change. Other questions? I think I can explain why the extended stay hotels have less signage. They are allowed in residential zones as well. So hotels are generally allowed in B2, downtown, B6P, which are along the interstate interchanges, and then B3 on a highway. We recently permitted them in B6P as well. But extended stay hotels are thought to have a lesser impact and because people are not coming and going and as transient, they're staying for longer periods of time. And so they're permitted in our residential, the highest density residential zone, R5, as well as the professional office parks. So the signage for those, we're trying to keep it consistent with our office signage as well as making sure it was appropriate in a residential zone. And so when they were allowed in ED, I would say about 10 years ago, they were only, again, extended stay hotels in ED are only allowed in association with a medical campus. so where central back our Baptist Health is planning to build a 50 acre medical campus part of that can include an extended stay hotel otherwise they're not listed in the supportive uses specifically so if I happen to be an extended stay hotel but I want to be regulated as a supportive use I would just apply as a hotel and get the hotel signage but if I'm an extended stay Hotel which is specifically permitted as part of the regional medical campus as a I mean a larger kind of campus setting they were given less signage so that that was the thought process when that was added and put in. Other questions? Craig I have one I don't think it's a question as much as just clarification there was talk a couple of weeks ago as far as the construction signs yes and as a clarification discussion that we had we're not talking about the construction screening typically around the perimeter that that's still okay that's correct construction screening around the perimeter of properties is still allowed when properties are under construction and i actually have a slide that shows the thought process that got us to excluding those additional signs on those screens this is the McDonald's that's being rebuilt on South Lime so you can see that there's been some signage added there that's flapping in the breeze for essentially coming off there so screening would be fine to have there then and would actually be an enhancement to most construction sites, but additional signage that's tacked onto there was the purpose of the discussion. Thank you. Just wanted to get that on as a clarification since there was discussion earlier. Anything else? We'll move on to any public comment and continue on. Anyone in the audience would like to speak on this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy. I'm representing Anderson Communities. I've got a handout for you. I'll bring over. a person bringing my thumb drive with exhibits we didn't think you'd get to us this quick so he's on his way but we'll i've got a handout anyway so we can deal with it here i'm representing the Anderson communities. Dennis Anderson is here with me in the second row. John Strom will be here with us in a minute. He's the in-house counsel for Anderson communities. I wanted to give you a little history of the economic development zone. What I have up on the on the board right now is the is the map of the property in expansion area three here's Newtown Pike here's interstate 65 74 right going through here Newtown going over to Russell Cave this is an exhibit out of the 1996 expansion area master plan to show you the property we're talking about here. The Stanton Way uses a cracker barrel is in this white area. It's on B5P. And this roughly follows what's now Providence Place Parkway, which is constructed about halfway back right now. It doesn't make it all the way back through to Russell Cave. And if we could go to the next slide, I want to show you the B5. The other ED property in Lexington is at the corner of Interstate 75, which is right here, and Winchester Road, which is going east-west right here. It's the pink area right here. Part of it's owned by Central Baptist Hospital, but the part up at the intersection here is owned by Mr. Cowgill, which is represented by mr walburn here so these are really the only two properties we're talking about as as far as the ed zone and as far as signage goes as you all know the ed zone was created back in the expansionary master plan in 1996 23 years ago the zone itself was created i think two years later in 1998 so in 21 years as we've mentioned to you before there hasn't been much development out there we have a ag credit office up in on providence place parkway and i think that's the only development that has occurred in the ed zone it was designed for manufacturing jobs and high-tech jobs and we want to and as we have pointed out to you that nothing has happened really on it for 23 years but we want to thank you it was it was done at a time when trends were changing. This was set up in what I would call sort of the old industrial park model where we had simply manufacturing or corporate offices with no other uses which hampered its development over the time. We want to thank you for last year took the step to add the supportive uses so we can try to get this off the ground. The supportive uses, the hotels and restaurants we call our social infrastructure was added last year when you all amended the ordinance. But when that happened, it didn't make any provisions for signs for the supportive uses in the ED zone. So that's why we're dealing with this in this amendment, which is more related to contract neutrality, but because there were no signs allowed for the supportive uses, we felt we needed to make some provision for those in this zone. So my comments are going to be limited to signs in the economic development zone. I want to clarify a couple things that I mentioned last week. If we can go to the slides now on the PowerPoint that's in there. I showed you these pictures last week, a month ago, of the Embassy Suites Hotel, of the three wall signs they have at the Embassy Suites. Now, I was using hotels as an example of the need for additional signage. They were perhaps the most egregious example because hotels were only allowed one sign. But my comments went to all uses in the ED zone. The principal uses, the manufacturers and the corporate headquarters, along with the supportive uses, because all those uses right now are limited to the signs in the B1 zone. And I imagine you can imagine our discussion if we have a prospect wanting to come out to the Providence Place Parkway out here. And we have, that's another, this is the zoning map of Providence Place Parkway. this is the green is the ED zone and the salmon color is the B5P zone and but if we have an industrial prospect coming in and says okay I want to put a 200,000 square foot facility on this property that's going to employ a certain number of people now Dennis you tell me where in town I can go to look at and see what kind of signs I can put on this. Can I go to the Georgetown Road, Citation Road, Industrial Foundation properties and look at those and see what sign is available? We'd have to say no, because those are the signs allowed in the B3, B3, B4, I1, I2 zone. If you want to see what you're allowed now, you'd have to go to a neighborhood shopping center like Romney Road, because what we're allowed now for our manufacturing facilities is B1 type zones. And as you all know, the zones sort of, in my mind, correspond to how fast you drive in the zone you're in. B1, you're allowed smaller signs, and the speed limit in most B1 areas, like Romney Road, is 25 miles an hour. B3 through I2 in those four zones, when I say B3 zone, I'm doing shorthand for b3 b4 i1 i2 because it's all one sign zone but in b3 you drive a little faster 45 to 50 miles an hour around new circle road or outer portions of nicholasville road you have some bigger signs and b5p and ed we're we're near 70 mile an hour zones and b5p has larger signs signs than B3 does. So it sort of goes up, you have larger signs as your traffic speed goes up because people have to be able to see the signs in a shorter period of time as they're driving by your property. So as I said, my comments last week or last month were related to overall signage in ED zone, whether it be a principal use, corporate headquarters, or some of the supportive uses, feel very strongly that we need to go under the B3 category. We thank the staff for seeing our arguments on hotels about B3 zone. But what we're proposing, this is the, I've already seen that slide. If we can go back to the handout, if we could go back to page, look at page 4 of my handout, what I had a month ago, just was the intent of the zones where B1, where our signs come from, is neighborhood to serve surrounding residential area, economic development is intended for employment opportunities. And on page 5 of my handout, I have some of the differences between B1, Romney Road-type facilities, and Providence Place, the speed limit, we're designed to create higher paying jobs, and they have to be legible to people who are going by on Interstate 75. The staff proposal is to apply B1 signs to most of our uses, except for hotels. We agree with the staff on the, we need to go to the next page on the slide, We agree with the staff on our proposal for residential uses. We have no disagreement with the signage for the residential uses, supportive uses. Non-residential, we are requesting signage allowed in the B3 zone. And if we're next to the interstate, we would like to have the interstate sign zone allowed from the B5P zone. On page 6, I won't spend much time on that. that's the differences between B1 and B3, and I mentioned what B5P allows as well. But our proposal, which is on page 7, is this. Our proposal is to provide that on the section relating to non-residential principle and supportive uses, we're requesting that on land designated for non-residential principal or supportive uses within the development, signage shall be as regulated in the B3 zone and interstate signs shall be allowed in the B5P zone. Those are the taller signs that are visible along the interstate. And this would allow us to eliminate sections E and F because hotels would be governed under the same regulations as everybody else, whether you're a regular hotel or an extended stay hotel. So that is the summary of what we're asking for. I need to explain to you a little bit more about that, too. First, I want to go to the last page of my handout. At your work session last week, some discussion was made of the fact that the Commerce Lexington had looked through this and given their stamp of approval. and they had as to the content neutrality items. But I want to point out that we asked them for their input on the ED zone, and on this letter we received last month from Mr. Quick, the president and CEO of Commerce Lexington, he said that the ED zone should not be handicapped by sign limitations which do not apply to other similar businesses, which underlies what we were saying, is we want to have a level playing field with other similar businesses in the community. And I'd use the example of hotels, but I can use the example of a manufacturing facility as well, that when we have a new user coming here, we do not want to have to be able to tell them that they're not allowed the same size as the manufacturing plant on Georgetown Road or Citation Boulevard. We don't want to tell the hotel that they're limited to the signs for a B1 zone where hotels generally aren't permitted. Same thing for corporate headquarters. When people come here to locate their businesses here, they want a sense of place and they want visibility. A corporate headquarters coming here wants everybody to know they're there. That's why they want the accessibility and the visibility from the interstate, so they can make their corporate presence known here at Lexington. We want them to be able to do that. Similarly, our supportive uses, including hotels and other uses, there have been discussions about whether they should appeal only to the people in Providence Place or the ED on Winchester Road. But an example we'll give to you is Townley Center. Townley Center was one of the first mixed-use developments in Lexington. It was residential commercial. Now we're commercial industrial but still a mixed-use. In Townley, we've been able to have a mix of restaurant and service uses that make the residential part of Townley extremely attractive to people because they can walk to restaurants, They can walk to uses. They have a car care place right in the community. They don't even have to go out to Leastown Road. There are a number of other shops in the shopping center. But we couldn't have those if those uses didn't draw a lot of users from outside of Townley as well. The reason we can offer those amenities is because they're being supported not only by the people in Townley, but they're being supported by people in other parts of the community who come to stay at the hotel or dine at the restaurant and that sort of thing. Similarly here in ED, we want to have these uses here to support our manufacturing and corporate headquarters, but they can't be supported only by those uses. the restaurants hotels shops that we're going to have up in this limited supportive uses in ed must be able to appeal to people who are not in providence just to visit one of the businesses so we need to get the supporters of those uses there and one of the main things we do to do that is to have signs so people can number one know they're there and number two know how to get there on that so that's why we're asking for these we have considered this a little bit more since we got together and came up with our proposal to you and i'm going to show the what we have on our back moving to our our thumb drive if you would if you could go back to the thumb drive where we we were, sorry to keep switching around, but here we are in the thumb drive. We were asking for the interstate signs as allowed in B5P here in addition to the B3 uses. In discussing that among ourselves, we have proposed that that be limited to 1,200 feet from the interstate highway. That is, we could have those higher signs only if you're within 1,200 feet from the interstate highway. Here's an example at Winchester Road, Winchester Road I-75. The depth of the B-5P there is 1,200 feet. We're asking for 1,200 feet as well. Go on to the next one. This is Athens-Boonesboro Road, I-75. The depth from the interstate of the B5P over here is 2,300 feet. We're asking for 1,200 feet from the interstate. And the reason we came up with 1,200 feet is because that's the distance from the interstate to Providence Place Parkway right there. So we would limit the taller sides to that area right through there on this property. property and the other property would be governed by just the B3 regulations. So we thank you for taking the first step to making us competitive and getting some uses out there by allowing us the supportive uses which you all approved last year. We're just trying to ensure that both supportive uses and the principal uses get allowed to use the same type of sign regulations that other similar uses are being. We want our manufacturing uses to use the B3, B4, I1 requirements. We want other uses to use those too. And if we're near the interstate, we would like to be able to have the taller interstate sign within 1,200 feet of the interstate. So that's where we're at on this, and we appreciate your attention to this. We make this presentation because it is very important, we feel extremely important, to the viability of our ED zone up at Newtown Pike and the interstate. We think it's probably very important to the viability of the economic development zone at Winchester Road and I-75. It's been too long. These properties have been there and available. Dennis has built the roads. He's got the infrastructure in on this property. It's just been too long without major development on the property. And we're heading in that right direction, and we ask you to continue in the right direction by allowing the signs that we're requesting you to do on this property. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Murphy? Yes, one question. Mr. Murphy, so what you're saying is these are the only two ED properties in Lexington, correct? Yes, the one Dennis has up at Newtown and I-75, and the other one at Winchester Road and I-75. Is there a reason why they're both on highways? It wasn't here in 97, 98. I think the reason is because it was designed for manufacturing people and high-tech facilities, and those were the people who want the presence and placemaking along the interstate highway, plus they need the access to the interstate if they're manufacturing something. If you're doing an auto supply, you want to be as close to the interstate as possible. Any other questions? yes sir mr murphy um how do you deal with uh i guess an office building multi-tenants having signage and such like that well the i think the b3 i'm going to look at my ordinance right now allows you to have one per wall up to two is that correct miss laid for wall signs good I saved myself some time looking at my ordinance by asking Ms. Wade here. But in B3, if we are allowed to use the sign regulation from B3 in a corporate building, say they go here or whatever, if we have two tenants, they'd each be allowed to have a wall sign on one wall. If you go out to... okay okay i am corrected because b3 gets a you can get a wall sign on all four walls miss wade corrects me on that so we would be able to give tenants a sign on the wall and possibly a freestanding sign as well. Two freestanding signs are allowed in the B3 zone. So we would be able to identify each of those. A good example of that is out in Beaumont. If you go on Beaumont Circle, there's a building in the back that has Florida Tile on there. And at one point, there were three businesses in there. Florida Tile and a bank and another business. And each had a sign on one wall of that building. I think it's changed now. I think one of them left on Florida Tile now has two signs, and the bank has one sign. But we divide it up by walls. You get one on this wall, the other one gets one on this wall, the other one gets one on that wall. And two of them would be allowed freestanding signs if it was a multiple tenant building. And what if it's even more tenants than just two? Let's say it's eight tenants. Well, I think we'd have to have a monument sign just like you go into a lot of professional office parks listing what the users are on that monument sign out front. And how many would be on the walls themselves? How would you go about that, would you figure? Well, if we can have one sign per wall, obviously the biggest four users would be allowed to have a wall sign. The fifth guy, no. needs more space thank you very much so what you're saying is and you wouldn't have multi what you're saying is you wouldn't have multi signs per tenant on each of the walls you would you divide those four you'd have access to four and those tenants if they're four would have each each would have a particular right but if but if one tenant came in and they'd get off and got the whole building they'd be able to get all four thanks so much okay anything else others that like to speak thank you mr murphy we probably will come back to you yes sir good afternoon again mr chairman members of the commission jacob walburn here on behalf of cowgirl properties and cowgirl partners as mr murphy explained we own a section of the winchester road ed piece there are two property owners out there cowgill and baptist health owns the part that would be closer to man to manowar i would echo pretty much everything that mr murphy said cowgill's in support of that proposal we think that's a good idea i'm not going to harp on things that i said last time or things that mr murphy just said um so i'll leave my comments brief to these two points number one i appreciated the explanation that we got from miss wade about the difference between or why extended stay hotels have been treated differently than hotels in prior incarnations because i that that's helpful to understand how we got there from cowgill's perspective we think regulating them differently can cause issues of confusion with potential users because if i own and i think miss wade's contention is correct an extended stay hotel could come in and say well i'd like i'm also a hotel i'd like to be regulated under hotel but operators of extended stay chains may be confused if that regulation is different so specifically within your draft this would be on under the ed ordinance changes we would propose eliminating this would be and bear with me here 17 p2 sub f just deleting it and allow extended stay to be regulated under the same as hotel now i concur with mr murphy as well that it would also be prudent to eliminate e provided that there was a more permissive signage allowed under sub v changing it to the b3 zone in accord with mr murphy's proposal but certainly f with sub f we think could lead to conclude it's confusion the other thing i just wanted to build on one thing that mr murphy said if you'll remember when we went through the ed ordinance changes we discussed about a number of reasons that the ed properties had had difficulty developing and there was really no panacea for all of that It was a balancing act. What I would say is Lexington ED land is more expensive by virtue of its location, by virtue of the exactions program, than land in neighboring communities. But signage has value. And one of the ways that you can make those properties more valuable and more attractive to users is allowing them to advertise their business in permissible signage. So certainly when it comes to principal users, if you're going to make a significant investment in this community, you're going to want to announce your presence and make it known. And as I think Mr. Murphy correctly pointed out, the people that are driving by the ED properties are traveling at a high rate of speed. We just don't think B1 signage is sufficient for those users. So we're in complete support of the Anderson Community's proposal, would encourage you to adopt it. Our concern initially was more focused on hotels. We are very grateful that staff has taken those concerns seriously, but we have other concerns as well. We think their proposal is comprehensive and an appropriate response to the issues that the ED zone are facing and would encourage you to adopt that. Questions for Mr. Walburn? Yes, sir. Mr. Walburn, I've got a question about exactions. Can you explain to me how the exactions in the ED zone make the ED zone less competitive than other zones? That's a very complicated question, and exactions are very complicated. But in short, in order to develop property, and there's a very elaborate system for how exactions work, but you have to pay exactions on property that you develop. It's a per acreage charge, and I believe, and staff can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe ED is the second most expensive, the CC more expensive? Okay. It's the second most expensive set of exactions. It may be the most expensive. I'm not sure. That cost has to be paid by someone. Generally, that cost has to be passed on in the cost of the land. So the land is objectively more expensive. So property in Fayette County generally is more expensive because it's more valuable. But in these expansion areas, because of the exactions that go on top of that, it can actually, in a sense, artificially inflate the price a little bit. Or I guess it's not artificial inflation. It actually does inflate the price. But there's an extra layer of expense that would not be associated with developing your standard I-1, I-2, B-4 parcel that you would have in the expansion area that you don't have in other parts of our community or certainly in neighboring communities. Thank you. I think Mr. Anderson may have some insight on that as well if you'd like to hear from him. Hold on one second, Mr. Anderson. Any other questions for Mr. Walburn? No? Okay, Mr. Anderson. Thank you. You can be next. From a marketing standpoint, people don't know what exactions are, and so they get confused. and a confused man always says no we've all gone down the street so that's the main problem we have is people don't understand it and now that's been around long time nothing's happened it's almost become blighted like that's a place you can't do anything they have those crazy exactions it's about forty thousand dollars an acre on my property and you're thinking that's a better signage would help you recoup that cost or make you more competitive in the marketplace I don't know about there's a direct correlation. Better signage will let us attract more people who might go someplace else because they would have more visibility. And, you know, it is part of their marketing. In my business, 20% of our business comes off a sign. It doesn't cost very much money to put a sign up compared to other marketing. Mr. Anderson, while you're up there, if I may ask, so you've owned this property for 23 years? a lifetime. Absolutely. Do you mind just sharing philosophically, you know, timing is everything. Obviously, you've been waiting for the timing on this, and relevancy is pertinent to today. So would you mind just sharing, for my sake and maybe others, where we are timing-wise, and how you're coming with this development in your field, please? I've spent somewhere between four and six million dollars on infrastructure. I carried this piece of land through the recession with debt on it. Since then, I've said I'll never have that happen again. We were able to pay it off. We've had some interest. We sold 22 acres to Kimmy, Kentucky and Boys Mutual Insurance. and politics has gotten involved now they don't know whether they're going to build or not building my own office out there 20,000 square feet you know we had one user international headquarters went to cold stream no exactions better signage i was talking to their president today You know, just ask, why was it you chose that site? And, you know, he and I do other businesses. He's done business with me before. So it's been a tough struggle. It's kind of like your tomatoes. You can't pick them until they get ripe, and it's still a green site. and until we get some people go out there willing to be first it's hard to build that that energy I think the allowing us to mix the uses up expanding the amount of uses we can do I think I need to go out there and build some townhouses rooftops usually lead everything this one particular person they said well we sold him the land we was afraid he's gonna leave town I've I've never seen an executive or president of a company build a home office anywhere but near his house. I don't believe there was a chance of that happening. So, you know, the retail definitely follows rooftops. I think jobs follow rooftops and people, too. And it's kind of pioneering to go out there and put residential because we don't have a grocery store. But I think that's something I'm probably going to have to do. And, yeah, we've got a lot of other land in the pipeline that we're real comfortable with the prospects of success. And we think this is a wonderful location. You know, you're on I-64, I-75. You're on the crosshairs of America. I don't need to go out there and cobble it up just selling land to get out of it. I need to continue to be patient and stick to my values and stick to a good plan that when we do get through, it's nice. So, you know, a lot of people would just go to selling land, getting the hell away from it. That's not my nature. We want you to be successful, and I really appreciate you sharing that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Anyone else that would like to speak in regards to this tax amendment? If not, I think any questions at this point from commission members? Yeah. We'll go ahead. We'll kind of go to a rebuttal and let staff come in. Okay. But if you've got a specific question, we can. I'd just like you. Okay. Mr. Murphy, yes, sir. I do have a handout showing what we're proposing, what I propose now. I just have a few copies. I can pass a couple out and put them on the screen. What we're asking you to do, I don't have a copy, so I'm going to have to read off there. non-residential principal and supportive uses on land designated for non-residential principal or supportive uses emphasize principal or supportive within the development signage shall be regulated as in the b3 zone we referenced the section of b3 signs except that any parcel that is located within 1200 feet of a federal interstate highway shall also be permitted interstate signs as allowed in the B5P zone, then we reference the zone, and that would allow us to delete E and F. So I just wanted to get that to show you exactly what we're proposing to you. I've got a question for you with that. Why are you doing B5P signage within 1,200 feet rather than the whole parcel itself, all of ED? that is because the the b3 b4 i1 i2 are more consistent with the manufacturing and other uses that we have here but we do feel like near the interstate we need to have the ability to do the taller sign that's the what we call the interstate signs they would still be under b3 but they would also be allowed a taller sign if they're within 1200 feet of the interstate highway Mr. Barford, let me ask you this. Does that include, when you say non-residential principal, does that include your businesses manufacturing as well? Yes. Okay. Yeah, because they're non-residential principal, which is included there. Just to clarify. Thank you, sir. So at this point, we'll go to staff, I think, and ask for their thoughts, rebuttals. You know, my first question, I guess, Craig and or Tracy, you know, with what Mr. Murphy is presenting as far as non-residential principle, I think for the most part we had been talking about supportive uses since we failed to pick that up in the text amendment when we did supportive uses. How comfortable are you at this point with that language? Well, if I may, I'd like to provide just kind of a brief comparison between that B1 and B3. The wall signage is essentially the same for the two, between B1 and B3. There's a difference in freestanding signage, whereas B1 allows a 50-square-foot sign that's 20 feet tall. B3, that area increases to 75 square feet and 25 feet tall. So you have a 25 square foot sign area difference and a 5 foot height difference. But the other key difference that you should be aware of between B1 and B3 is that B3 allows billboards, whereas B1 does not. So that would be something that is also being opened up to discussion. If it changes to B3, billboards could also be permitted in that particular zone. B1 uses closely mirror those supportive uses that are allowed in the ED, which is why the work group is proposing that B1 signage. There was also discussion amongst the work group that the ED supportive uses would be impacted by more intense commercial or non-residential signage on the site as well. There's an allowance there for residential uses that should be considered as well. And finally, B5P, which is being discussed, allows pretty intense signage. It allows a 356 square foot freestanding sign per use. with a minimum height of 75 feet off the ground and a maximum height of 90 feet off the ground. So, again, staff would be concerned with the impact on both the remainder of the ED property as well as the residential supportive uses that go along with that, with having such intense signage. I'm glad to answer any questions. the staff just tried to pull a few google images of some of the signage that is associated with that b5p and and mr murphy called it an interstate sign i just want to clarify that sign type that he's talking about doesn't exist in our ordinance so b5p and i guess it may be a technical issue allows freestanding signs but they get an extra special tall and large i mean craig mentioned 356 square feet is a fraction shy of what a billboard is these are very large signs and they're intended to be again as mr murphy said for the people passing by on the interstate i think our staff concern would be how those would be stretched out along the interstate and where the b5p is is very concentrated near those interchanges ed not only has residential within it in some cases it's adjacent to residential or nearby residential and so having those taller signs and and i know he's concerned about providence parkway but if we extrapolate those regulations and put them over on polo club you have apartments and nursing home and assisted living facilities that are very near ed land and i don't believe that the 1200 feet would get you to polo club that whole property would be allowed to have these tall well-lit signs and billboards so those are the impact and understanding the relationship of our land uses is important because it's not just about that number of increasing a sign from 50 to 75 when they're asking to add in a 356 square foot sign which is again four times as large as the sign that they're permitted just to attract people off the road it creates more what we talked about last week and last month more sign clutter aesthetic impacts in the community so that should really be part of the conversation Question? Yes. I've got a question about where do they normally place these larger signs? Are they placed up close to the highway? Normally I would think that that's where they would be placed. I'm considering the 1,200 foot distance. I would expect a property that is within 1,200 feet of 75 could have a sign, but they're not going to put it 1,200 feet back from the highway. actually they do they put it on their property and in some cases they are 1200 or 2300 feet back but it's so tall and so large the intent is to draw people off the interstate right so as I'm driving down I 75 and I'm an interchange back I can see it and that's that's the whole point and it doesn't really matter that it's right up on the interstate it just matters that you know it's within that next interchange and you know to get off right that's how they're used. Mr. Wilson? One other thing I know we've spent a lot of time talking about the size of signs as such do we have any regulations related to the illumination of that sign? There is. For B1, illumination can either be non-illuminated, indirectly illuminated, which would mean external lighting on that, or internally illuminated. So any of those would be allowed within what staff is proposing on the site. Craig, let me ask you this. The, you know, as I mentioned a moment ago, the supportive uses did not, signage did not come into play when we did that text amendment two years ago, three years ago, whatever it was. So we're trying to pick up on that now. The rest of this language, you've been meeting for well over a year. I'm hearing most of this in the last couple of weeks. Has this been brought up to this nature over that year time span, or are we just now seeing it? The ED signage text was a late ad that came as a result of community comments. So that has been in the works for a few months rather than the two years that the rest of it's been discussed. So it was on the table more than just the last two weeks. Mr. Bell. Well, he called on you. I have a follow up on the illumination. What I see here is illuminated or non-illuminated. What I'm talking about is do we have any regulations related to what illumination means actually in terms of brightness? In other words, the premise I'm working on, you could have a small sign that's well illuminated by some standard lumens or foot candles or whatever the case may be. And you could have a huge sign that is not well illuminated. I mean, it could be illuminated, but it's not really seeable. I mean, if you're flying down the highway at 75 miles per hour, I could see a smaller sign if it's illuminated to a certain degree as opposed to a large sign that is not. And I'm not talking about just whether there's a light on it. I'm talking about and I'm using terms I don't even half know what I'm talking about but lumens versus foot candles is another way to measure that type of capability. And I don't know whether the if you can because like I said sometimes I can see smaller things that are brightly illuminated than larger things that are ill illuminated. If you see what I'm coming from. The definitions on page 17-19 define those types of illumination, but they do not go beyond that to define any sort of foot candle requirements or anything like that for those illumination types. So the Article 17 language doesn't currently define anything further than just the type of illumination. It doesn't go into intensity of that illumination. I would just say if I were living in a residential area, probably the thing that I would be worried about is whether or not I wouldn't perhaps worry as much about the bigness of the sign as I would about the brightness of that sign. Because that is what would keep me up at night and what have you as such. But that's just, yeah. I mean, she's over there making right the bigger. Because then that gets me out of the business of how big the sign is if I can illuminate it. because I understand where they're coming from as it relates to marketing, but just because you have a huge sign doesn't mean anybody's going to see it if you're driving 60 or 70 miles per hour down the road. That's all. All of the interstate signs that are regulated are allowed to be illuminated. The non-illuminated or indirectly illuminated tend to be allowed in our residential or agricultural zones where like a spotlight shines up on it. those those aren't as impactful to residential areas so they're allowed in the residential areas and then the internally illuminated is what the business that we see most often in the businesses like the ones that we depicted there the light is inside the sign and it shines through the sign and our sign companies you know they know how bright it will look there they're just phenomenal at making sure that their customers get the best signs they can and make sure they're visible okay mr. Powell mr. Banske did you if hypothetically the billboard issue were to disappear and the distance off the highway were to be studied and decided upon in a kind of method with a methodology that you could agree on, what would be left with regard to the proposed changes that you would find possibly problematic? Those are primary issues and then the last would just be that the height and the area of the freestanding sign between B1 and B3 when the work group discussed this they just found it to be more appropriate for supportive uses to recommend B1. Others? Yes, Bruce. I've got a question for you. I'm looking at the document you handed out, focusing on the B-5. You made the changes. You removed nameplates, removed construction screening signs, and permitted poll banner signs. Where does it talk about billboards on this document? I'm not reading it properly. I need to point it out. Should be in the B3 section, which is on page 3. So in B5, there's no billboards allowed in B5, is that correct? That's correct. But billboards are allowed in B3? That's correct. Okay. So when the ordinance refers back to another section, if you say, in ed i want to have all the signage as per b3 then we just the sign code interpretation flips to b3 and you get every sign there and the size is listed and so billboards are listed in b3 yeah the billboards are what's problematic could you just do the whole property b5 we've expressed concern about that the large tall sign is okay the height okay One thought, as opposed to trying to do this on the fly, and as our wonderful Mr. Penn would say, come up with unintended consequences. I'm almost of the feeling that ED needs its own hybrid sign language. simply put as Mr. Powell was going after billboards just popped up into the scheme of things today we're hearing about distance possibly 1200 feet from the interstate. I can be sympathetic to the ED property and owners as far as a need and having some visibility from the interstate personally I think 1200 feet might be a little bit much but you know instead of trying to do this on the fly I think we need to work on ED and come up with its own hybrid instead of referencing back to another zone that maybe really doesn't fit that's my thought uh i personally echo that i like the direction mr pole was heading it seemed i'd like further study just further understand others yes larry i mean that may make sense since we only have two properties in the entire fayette county that are ed so it's kind of specializing those out because we are in a situation where land is tight, e-jobs of course, so maybe you need to give staff time to work with the applicant, but I'd rather have the applicant get their opinion about that too if we could. Sure. Mr. Murphy. Well just we we'd like you to go ahead today. Dennis and I were talking and I talked to Mr. Walburn too. We're not doing this to get billboards, so there's nothing wrong with billboards, but we'd be willing to agree that no billboards, B3, but no billboards. The second thing is there is concern about illumination. We'd suggest that all the tall signs be interior lit signs. That is, they have the light source inside shining through. on these tall signs, at least what I've observed driving the interstates, is that the brightest ones are what we call indirectly illuminated. When they have a big spotlight on the ground shining up way up in the sky and you get all that light coming up, we are not in favor of that. We would suggest all the taller signs be interior lit signs, and that would cut down on the light escaping into any other zone. but we would like to go ahead today if you all can. We would too. It's just let's make sure we get it right. Mr. Walburn. Only two quick points of clarification. One, I did want to go on record that Calgill's plans for the property do not entail billboards. That's not part of our model either. We'd gladly give those up. The other, there was a question about the depth of our property and its distance from Interstate 75. I know that at the Winchester Road end, our property is 2,000 feet wide. It does narrow as it goes back. I'm not sure of that back number. I think it's in the 1,300, 1,400 ballpark, but it's less than 1,200. Just that had come up, so I wanted to clarify that. That's all. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Bell, you're reaching. So with that suggestion, staff, do we go to staff now or possibly? What do you want to do? Sorry. At this point, I think what I'll do, I will close this part of it as far as public comment and keep it between the commission members and staff with any questions and give them a brief possibility to come up with a recommendation. So, you know, with the understanding or appreciation that, for instance, he's got, they're trying to do business currently, I can appreciate the need to not keep on kicking it down the road. Staff, with these proposals that they just presented, what is y'all's response to that? Mr. Bell, is that including the, this taking out of the billboards? Yeah, and also the illumination. Yeah, that's referring to that. And then my question is with regard to, you spoke of the effects on another parcel, if you could, I don't know exactly, but. That was the one Jacob mentioned. Well, okay. So anyway, I'd just like y'all's thoughts on the latest, please. these recommendations were all formulated through a work group that comprehensively looked at the article 17 for the better part of a year and it would be i'm not sure it would be appropriate for staff to make recommendations outside what that what that work group has recommended without discussing some of these changes with them could I ask if staff is hesitant about the 1200 foot suggestion is there a figure that comes to mind to you from your experience with the considerations that you've gone through that that that you would throw out there as being a more appropriate dimension? Mr. Chair, Mr. Pohl, I'm not aware that we had considered a distance requirement for this, and so this is, as the Chair said, this is sort of making it on the fly. And I don't know what the purpose of that particular number is. It's certainly something that we could could study but i i would not be comfortable in the staff acknowledging that as an appropriate number uh without any without additional discussion and as craig said this is also something that has not been presented to the sign review committee mr chair is it is it possible that i think mr forrester might have suggested um that the staff and the parties here get together and try to iron out some things and then get back to us yeah and what if if it's okay with you all what i might offer would be a couple of options one this sign ordinance you know we've we have reviewed it there's other aspects of it besides just the ED and what I would offer we could you know one we could continue it just for the ED part or I would offer that we could staff and Tracy Jones correct me if I'm wrong we could approve if everybody's okay with this approve the current revisions with the recommendation that we have continued discussion to create hybrid language for the ED? Well, you know, the first, let me say, the first thing that prompted this whole entire process two years ago was trying to deal with the re-decision from the U.S. Supreme Court and the content neutrality in this whole sign ordinance. So you know while in most instances you all can separate out things or continue discussion on specific parts, I don't know that we want to start parsing out pieces of this ordinance in doing that. You know I think you have some options in terms of just continuing overall and setting a date to come back and address a specific section. But I don't know that we want to pass this part, pull out this part at this point. But at the same time, we don't really want to continue to delay if we can help it. So I don't know if that answers your question or not. But I just want to keep in mind where we started. yeah and that's that's where i was referring a moment ago is you know there's other parts to this than just the ed um you know and i i would you know just offer the recommendation to continue not separately you know through a new text amendment uh continue with the discussion to improve the ed language to create its own hybrid language to to make it the best that it can be that those are my thoughts you know simply you know if ever if if commission freddy approved this as is now and then ask for a new tax amendment for the ed hybrid language itself I respect what council has suggested. I'd rather do it all at one. I'd rather personally, I'd rather we wrap this all together, learn more, have staff and parties get together, try to hash something out that seems more plausible, acceptable, and then come back to us. We can set a date to try to do that by. That's what I'd prefer to do. In regard to that, the only thing, and this isn't necessarily a legal opinion, but maybe more about the legal process, you know, whatever you all determine to do with this, unless you determine not to send it forward, which I don't think you're probably going to do, is it's going to go back to the council, and they are going to consider it in whatever fashion they determine they want to consider it. And so I'm not sure the best way would be to send them everything but the ED section and then try to work on the ED section. And then while they're considering it, then send them another ED section. That may not get the best result. But that's just a process thought. And to add to that, Mr. Chair, because you have discussed extensively the applicant's proposals for their preference for this, should you choose to pass this with the staff recommendation, because you had discussed it and considered it, the council can pick it back up. So it's not like that they would have to send this back to the Planning Commission for reconsideration if they chose to move forward with the applicant's recommendations. Okay. Thank you. So hearing from staff and legal, what's the Commission's wishes? Yes, ma'am. I have a question for Craig. When you all were considering this, your committee, as you were working on all of this, did you consider any thought of breaking ED out and letting it stand on its own? We were responding to the comments that we received, and there were two separate comments that were received on this issue. So the work group felt it necessary to go through those and to respond. There was no discussion of postponing it at that time. Or separating it out? That's correct. It was considered as integral to the rest of the amendment at that time, understanding that it could be separated out. it's not it's not procedurally something that couldn't be done okay thank you yes sir thank you what i heard you say was is that you were fearful of making any changes without going back to the work group because some of the things we've been talking about were not discussed in the work group as such now i'm gonna put you on the spot sure where does the staff stand in other words if you would take this back to the work group are you would you take it back as a recommendation for approval with the recommendation changes of removing the billboard and maybe some of you share about the illumination are you are you saying to us they would go back and it would be an open discussion about what that group would have in other words how would you take it back to the work group with a recommendation or with a open discussion typically what we've done with the work group in the past is just provide the information that we've received and allow them to have open discussion we don't we do we do not as staff provide a recommendation unless it's asked for by the rest of the work group I've got a question as well this in regards to the work group so this is really unique these two ed parcels and have you included conversations with the stakeholders, the owners of the land, what their wishes and desires may be or what their ideas and thoughts for the property may be? Through the comment process we definitely did. And that's how this was kicked off is we received two separate letters on these properties. It was related to ED but clearly geared towards these two properties with the requests that were then reviewed and taken forth to that work group for discussion that resulted in the language you had before you. So if it does go back to the work group, you would bring back the stakeholders' recommendation in this form, hand it to the work group, and have the work group consider it? That's correct. We would provide all information that we've received for them to review and come to their own conclusions. Graham I'd be curious your thoughts if you wouldn't mind just sharing if that's fair to ask because I like the direction you're heading and I'm just curious your thoughts can I ask that well I mean you know my I was looking for a solution and and that we could get done today And so what's going through my mind right now is whether Mr. Anderson has considered lesser setbacks that would work, because it seems like that's really the big issue. I think everyone seems to be in agreement that the billboards could be eliminated, and it's not a problem. so maybe I'm hearing wrong but it seems like if if everyone were comfortable that that twelve hundred feet made perfect sense we wouldn't have an issue we'd be approving it at this point and so that that's a question that's in my head right now and I was trying to find out if the staff had a sense for that so that's I concur I like what you're what you're saying and if there were some way to get this done today I would prefer to do that I mean my sense is that the arguments are very good the arguments they made and it seems like everyone's picking up on that yeah Mr. Duncan, hold on, Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, this statement is not meant as an endorsement of the staff's recommendation on the proposal by the applicants. just as in fairness to process you all can go ahead and make those decisions yourself today these have not been reviewed by the work group but you don't have to wait for the work group you are certainly entitled to make these changes if you want to again that's not the staff's endorsement of the proposal but in fairness to the applicants and to the process you all are allowed of course to do that yourself today. Yes, Mr. Murphy do you have something? I would discussion of the setback we would propose 800 feet if you don't want to go with 1200 feet. Thank you sir. And of course, I'm, while they're commiserating over here, as I understood you're willing to take that billboard thing out of there, right? Okay, they're willing to take that out. And then the way the math of illumination is also recommended. I appreciate Mr. Murphy's response as far as down to 800 feet really you know that's that's still stretching as far as I'm concerned across the property pretty good you know I don't mind adjoining lots to the interstate and you could probably say that looking at the two pictures they had up there of the ed property 500 feet 600 feet uh you know those are my my thoughts so i'm not in a motion making mode so let me ask for clarification yes sir are you recommending 500 or 600 feet as opposed to 800 okay which one five five seems like a nice round number to me in looking at and may we see those visuals again just for the sake of staff they're they're in front of you I believe in mr. Murphy's handout as well just to get a feel for because I don't know what the distance really. Where are we missed? No, um, Mr. Healy and the handout Mr. Murphy gave you, I think page two and page three has those on them. Is that what you're looking for there? okay I'm sorry is that it yeah he wants to see the actual site do you have any pictures of the actual site I don't think there's any actual pictures that's what he wants What I'm seeing there is it looks like the 1,200 feet was chosen because there's already existing infrastructure and there's a road and they were choosing all the property that is abutting the interstate to have the B5P. That's what it looked like to me. that's why I think that number was 1200 they do have a road in the 500-600 foot range in the middle of the property too if they went back to that picture but would that not limit their abilities when you consider this picture here would that not limit let's say there's their abilities for development what about the buildings behind the ones closest to the interstate and says they want to be recognized well staff may help me with this because when we're talking about supportive uses begin with that the amount of supportive uses for most of us would go is limited to 18 or 20 percent of the property itself so it's not going to stretch over mr. Murphy is asking for his principal uses to have the same signage as well that you know that's up for discussion as well My take is, you know, this has expanded from the supportive uses to the principal uses of ED, which I can appreciate because, you know, okay, people need to know where they are as well. I think the supportive uses are, to me, are more critical, i.e. the hotels, to attract and get people in there and so forth. So, you know, that's where I'm coming from. And I think the opportunity is there to have signage near the interstate, near the interstate. you know it doesn't need to be 2,000 feet off the interstate or 1,200 feet I'm not yeah that's my personal opinion so and I present am I correct to presume that this is all there's no residential there's no anything there's any of this area there's a very small percentage of residential in the townhouses in the very very small percent of the 18 percent there's of the 18 percent there's eight and a half percent so mr. Anderson in your vision for this property do you mind just giving me just an idea of what this looks like with regard to do you mind sharing that how you see the development how you see the you know why you see the need how you see this whole thing and the effects it might have on on any other you know any other well anyway your vision on this property please i'd be glad to do that thank you for the question here's our entrance and I've got an office building here that I'm building for myself this is sold to an insurance executive for an office and this is the Farm Service Credit Administration As we come into here, I see the commercial uses coming in between the interstate and Providence Parkway back to a point. There's a better picture where this road comes around to right here. So I see that as being the area where we need the elevated signage. We've sold this to Kimmy. They were going to use it for offices. And then this would not be a good position for that signage because it's Russell Cave Pike and it's a residential area. So I don't see it going there. I see coming down through here doing flex space, which is what you call incubator space. Sometimes you can't get a user. You grow your own users. These are 2, 4, 6, 8, 10,000 spaces with 20% for office and the rest for manufacturing or whatever. And hopefully you get one or two of them that do well and they come back and buy more land and get larger. I see the offices here. I see a little residential island here. It had to be landscaped and amenity up real nicely. I don't know what goes here yet. but that's kind of how I see it playing out. Thank you. And when you mentioned the back close to Russell Cave, you don't see the signage there, but if we pass this, are we essentially affecting other by setting this precedent in your mind, not necessarily with your property, but you're using that discretion to do so? are we open ourself up to others that maybe wouldn't have that same discretion in other developments I'm not real sure how the Calgill property lays out I don't know if there's any residences next to it or not the I know buddy I know he's a good man he does good work we're just trying to weigh obviously consequences and such and trying to be trying to have an understanding and things so I mean you so much boundary as far as the you know I we want to limit mine to 3,300 feet from Newtown Pike 1,200 feet from or 800 feet from the interstate you know that limits me to that quarter right there thank you mr. Anderson let me bring it back to the Commission and see if we can move this on. Mr. Bowe do you have something? I can attempt a motion. I think people are ready. Mr. Chair, fellow board members, I move to approve ZODA 2019-3 amendment to article 17 the sign ordinance update with the exception that section 17-11p expansion area zones be amended as follows 2d non-residential principal and supported uses on land designated for non-residential principal supported uses within the development signage shall be regulated as in the b3 zone limited with no billboards allowed and with freestanding signage to be limited to 600 feet set back from the interstate to within 600 feet and further that pre-standing signs shall be non-illuminated or internally illuminated and that this suggests that the we eliminate staff proposals e and f relating to hotels as they are included in d above okay so we have a motion do we have a second we We do have a second of Mr. Wilson. Questions? No. You're good. I do. Yes, sir. Okay. As that was presented, this is what Mr. Murphy provided for us. I'm giving my comment right now and also going to seek some more clarification. It says we would do B3 zones, remove the ability to do billboards, if that makes sense. Then you said that the applicant said 800 feet, you said 600. I'm more interested in the 800 feet. But most importantly, the language for the illumination of the signs, I think, needs to be clarified. Was that clarified or referenced some previous ordinance? Yeah, that refers back to the – it makes an exception to the – to the language let's see on in the B3 in B3 it says no illumination indirectly illuminated or internally illuminated or directly illuminated and I'm suggesting that the freestanding signs be limited to no illuminated no illumination or internally illuminated so there would be no directly or indirectly illuminated freestanding signs they would have to be internally illuminated or not illuminated at all He's pulling off this chart under B3. That's way more homework than I've done. So staff, any questions? You're good? I think we understand the motion that's presented. All right. So once again, my comment would be that I like the idea of not handicapping the ED by limiting their sign requirements. I think 800 feet is a compromise I'm willing to live with. That's a comment. Okay. Anything else? I would like to remind my commission members that the motion was on 600 feet. Correct. Correct. So is everyone clear? I'll call for a vote if everyone is so if you did mr. Wilson accept as a seconder you said accepted the 800-foot change that was just a comment oh it's just a comment I guess that was the question is this commission thing Procedurally, I think you have to make an amendment to the motion. I was trying to stay away from that. So we do have a motion on in this specific for 600 feet. It has been seconded. You can ask for amendment at this time. I would ask for an amendment to 800 feet. Okay. Do we have a second for that amendment? Second. motion has been made and seconded for the amendment to change that to 800 feet so our first requirement will be to vote on the amendment itself correct okay everybody clear so yeah show of hands okay since since Granica's isn't with us on the amendment a show of hands please those in favor of the amendment please raise your hand motion passes so we're back to the original motion as far as the one change has been from 600 feet to 800 feet rest of it is B3 no billboards with internal illumination right okay so we've got a motion we got a second so I I think we can vote on Granicus on this, so when it comes up, please vote. That motion passes. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, sir. Sorry to set you back down, Mr. Murphy. Can I go home now? Yes. Go right ahead. we have 100 i think that was have your attention please i just wanted to compliment craig ben's on this process i think he's been uh really thorough and really patient and i think he's done a superb job to explain something that's really difficult to understand so thank you and he was very flexible we appreciate it thank you yeah i would uh if i could mr chair i'd also like to echo that but But I'd also say that if Mr. Frank Penn was here, he'd tell us that we shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff on the fly. You know, we should give some time and consideration of that. I just thought I'd stay here. Mr. Penn is somewhere in Istanbul or Jordan or somewhere at this point in time. But I would echo that, Craig. I mentioned that the last work session was kind of tedious. I thought we made progress there. this has been very good it was tedious but I think it's acceptable we have we have another issue another text amendment if I can find this I know it's here somewhere oh here it is ZODA it's on page 5 ZODA 2019-2 alternative regulation for zone map amendment miss Tracy Wade good afternoon members of the Commission how's gonna hand out revised text that I emailed to everyone yesterday and it just has one additional sentence and it was shown in red as well as a draft of a memorandum. We received four communications from citizens related to this text amendment, which is ZODA 2019-2, an alternative regulation for zoning map amendments. This is allowed or permitted under KRS 100-21111. So let me hand out the communication. This is a text amendment that was requested for initiation by the planning staff, and it is an amendment to Article 6 of our zoning ordinance. Article 6 deals with amendments in general. It talks about when a traffic study's necessary, but then it gets into the process for amendments to both the zoning ordinance in terms of a text amendment as well as a zone change amendment. And in more detail than you probably all have ever read, it also gets into when conditional zoning restrictions are allowed, how those are put in place, if you want to amend it, what's that process look like. So on page three of Article 6 is where the text starts related to when the Planning Commission makes its recommendation about a zone change. That's also called a zoning map amendment in our regulations. And article, or KRS 100.211 establishes the procedure for the entire state by which planning commissions and then the, ultimately it's usually a fiscal court for most counties, but in Fayette County it's the Urban County Council, adopts changes. So in KRS 100-211, it talks about the procedure, what notice is required, how a hearing is held, and then when final action, how that occurs. In 1988, there was an amendment to KRS that allowed for an alternative regulation. Fayette County has never utilized that, but it came up a few years ago that that may be an opportunity to save time for some of our applicants as they go through the process. KRS still requires that all zone changes, all text amendments, come before the Planning Commission and have a full public hearing. As you all know, our full public hearings range from, we call some of them abbreviated hearings. You still hear all the information, but the applicant agrees to the staff recommendation and there's a condensed meeting presentation and there's usually no objectors. And then we also have the extended hearings where we have full presentations by staff and applicants and then citizen participation. So in the range of text, our zoning ordinance, our zone map amendments that you hear, you all realize that there's a number that end up going to the council where the council doesn't do anything different than the Planning Commission recommends. In fact, about 85% of our zone changes that move forward, the council adopts what the planning commission recommended. They accept your recommendation, and they put it on their docket and do two readings, and it's adopted. In about 10% to 15% of the cases, the council will hold a second public hearing. and the the times when they hold those hearings it's at the request of either the applicant because perhaps the Planning Commission recommended disapproval and the applicant wants a second opportunity to make their case to the council or by neighborhood and neighborhood groups either neighbors or neighborhood groups and they're asking the council to hold that second hearing again so they have the opportunity perhaps the Planning Commission recommended approval and they still think this is not a good fit in our neighborhood so the amendment before you today wouldn't change anything in front of the Planning Commission it would be post Planning Commission action so post Planning Commission there would be an opportunity instead of the staff sending everything to the council for review there would be an opportunity within 21 days that anyone who deemed themselves aggrieved could come to the planning staff and make a written request for the council to act or the council itself can ask the Planning Commission and the planning staff that they be the final action if neither of those two things were to happen then it would be deemed approved without going through the council process of having two readings and again about 15% actually have additional substantial action by the council that is they have a hearing there's more input and 85% just get on their docket get read and move on so this would tailor or narrow down the number of items that the council would actually act upon the zone change process and we've talked about this a few times starts again we're recommending neighborhood meetings applicants make a pre-application with our staff they make their application and then as it goes through our committee process it gets to a planning commission hearing and currently we recommend make recommendations all recommendations go on to the council and we tell applicants that's a four to six month process so the planning commission has a minimum of a two-month process and then the council has a minimum of a two month so four but oftentimes we have postponements and they end up with a lengthier process up so we generally tell people up to six months the alternative process so again it would stay the same through the planning commission involves if no one wants the council to make an action it because your planning commission recommendation becomes final within 21 days on that 21st day or 22nd day and then you would basically the applicants would be saving three to six weeks of time if it still goes on to the council the timeline doesn't change right that we would still get it to them with the docket it would get two readings or have a hearing so our internal process would have to change to accommodate the change for the council again you all don't really necessarily see what happens after you act but right now we prepare a final report which in the ordinance it says what's included in that and we send it to the council and it's the council's document then to say okay here's what the Planning Commission did and we need to decide how we need to work with this the staff would continue to prepare a final report but depending on whether or not the council needed to act would decide what happens with that report if the council needs to act on it is requested to act on it we would continue to send those to the law department and the council clerk and they would draft an ordinance for it if in fact there wasn't a need for council action at this point there's an opportunity to decide what happens with that record I just didn't know if you were done. Then the planning can keep the final record, the report, or we can forward it to the council. But then the other thing would be to make sure the council knows when the planning commission acts. At this point, they don't hear about that until they get their report. but it becomes important that they find out sooner so that they in fact as individual council members or as a body could ask to hear an action so we would send a memo to them with written notice and that's how handed out kind of a draft the day after we have zoning items so tomorrow in this case we would send a memo to the council clerk and the council members telling them hey these are the cases that the Planning Commission heard these were their votes these were whether there was an objector or not and we need to know within 21 days if the council wants to hear this we would also work to communicate with neighbors and participants in the hearing to make sure that they understood that they could still continue to ask for that hearing but instead of going to council members they would come to the planning staff and make that request the ordinance krs talks about it being a written request and so um let me get to that we would encourage people to not just show up at our office and say i'm aggrieved but rather submit something in writing which could be an email a letter fax or you know a letter you deliver and by hand to our office to request that some of the benefits the staff saw in terms of initiating this were really saving time for our uncontested zone changes the ones that again 85% of our cases don't need a lot of attention once it gets to the council so it would save time for those applicants it ensures that the uncontested cases are the ones don't get stuck in a council break for instance right now councils on break so So the zone changes you heard in June won't get to them until the second week of August. And that puts them in a time crunch for holding a hearing if they want to. So in those cases, that'll still be probably an issue, but the unencumbered ones could be acted on by now. And then it allows the staff to focus our time and energy sending reports and that sort on the ones that really need the attention and not the uncontested ones it does require the citizens and council members to really be paying closer attention to the zone changes zone change requests and and communicating back about that because not everyone would appear on their docket and then ongoing we would continue to do education for the citizens we include something on our agendas to to make sure people understood as well as contacting them during the course of the hearing or close after to make sure they knew they could request final action by the council. One of the concerns that came up during the process was what is an aggrieved person. So the regulation specifically in KRS talks about if an aggrieved person, any aggrieved person files a written request with the planning commission the final decision shall be made by the lexington fayette urban county council that's how we've drafted that and that's directly related to what the krs statute allows the krs does not define what an aggrieved person is and therefore we have not defined it either it's not a proposed definition in this ordinance and at the direction of the law department we did not do that because there was a concern about tailoring it either too narrowly or too broadly and and really just getting into not a great situation in terms of defining who can be aggrieved and what that looks like so the Planning Commission and the staff on behalf of the Planning Commission would take a generous interpretation a broad interpretation of what that means and again that can be if you attended the meeting you're aggrieved if you own property nearby you can be aggrieved if you wrote an email you can be aggrieved there are a lot of ways to think about that basically we want to be as open and broad with that as as we could so if someone showed up and said they were aggrieved we would take their letter and then really all it does is mean we process it the old way right we send it on to the council for final action so we weren't concerned about really defining what a grieved is as long as someone said they were aggrieved we would send it on and then the last thing would be the staff would really continue to again provide guidance to participants during the hearing if they were leaving upset and not liking your decision we'd make sure they understood they could ask the council to have that hearing or have a final action from them and then other information that has come up throughout the process the law department has come to the conclusion that they felt individual council members could in fact ask for the council to take final action and that that would be acceptable they could act as an aggrieved person. And then in addition, our final record keeping is something that has really held up the text amendment for a couple months. And we've added a line in the text amendment that really places that decision in front of the council. So the council needs to decide what they want to do with the final records for zone changes. So the sentence we've added is on page four and it says the rules and regulations related to the storage and official custodian of the records shall be determined urban county council we really felt at this point that that was a placeholder and that the council can determine what they want to do with all of the final records associated with zone changes they've had a debate about whether they should be the holder of them whether it should be consistently with the council or whether they would be okay for some of them to reside with planning if they didn't have final action by council so at this point the law department felt it best that we allow the council to make that choice since they're it's their records and how they want to have them maintained and then lastly there are other counties that do utilize this alternative process and they include Nelson County McCracken County Warren and Davis in Kentucky. Did I say it wrong? I said it wrong? We won't worry about that. Sorry. No. So the staff is recommending approval of the text amendment with the additional language that you see today. We feel that Article 6, an amendment to Article 6 to adopt an alternative map amendment request process will accelerate approval of uncontested zone changes, ensure uncontested zone changes are not encumbered by extended council breaks, and then allow the staff and decision makers to focus on zone changes that are likely to be contested. I'd be happy to answer questions about this. Thank you, Ms. White. Questions? Yes. I've got a comment first and then a question. I think this is a great way to encourage developers to work with the staff, to work with the neighbors, and end up with an uncontested result. Because I don't think it can be understated how important 42 days is in a due diligence period. So if you've had a due diligence period on a piece of property, 42 days is a long time. Especially if you're carrying interest or paying additional pre-development costs. So I commend this effort. I think it's a great way to show that we want to encourage good development. Number two, my question is, how do we eliminate an aggrieved person that continually is aggrieved on everything we see? Can you limit the number of times someone can be aggrieved, or can they be aggrieved on every single thing we see? I will let the law department answer that question. I don't know that you can. the case law about what an aggrieved person means, and let me say that it comes up mostly in the context of currently appeals to the circuit court from the final action on zone changes from the urban county council, because that's the process that's mostly used. But the interpretations of what aggrieved can mean are pretty broad, and truthfully, we generally have not had that much difficulty with the people that are taking appeals or filing appeals or asking for hearings. They've generally been some participant or have some connection to that. So what we're trying to avoid in terms of that is to just allow for ongoing interpretation in the case law of that within the realm of common sense, you know, so as not to eliminate certain people or require certain people to come in, particularly since it's not defined in KRS either. Thank you, Mr. Cheney. Let me add to that and to punctuate what Tracy Wade said, we may continually get someone who says, I want the council to make the decision about every zone change. That may happen. but that does not guarantee that they will get a second public hearing they still have to go to the council member then and say I want to hold the hearing so an agreed person may come in on every zone change and say I want the council to make the decision okay well that's what happens but then it'll be just like it is now then they'll still have to make the pitch to get the second hearing so yeah just I think everybody's clear but just to be sure this process only requires that that it allows the bypass of the council entirely if there's no requests made otherwise it's just like it is today if there's the requests made in the 21 days then it'll go to the council and at the point that it goes to the council then it is their determination do we just want to put it on our docket without a hearing and read it or do we just want to schedule a hearing it's still their call at that point so it doesn't require or preclude that it still allows them to make the decision okay mr. Powell well I'm sorry go ahead so we've just been handed out letters for our attention so I understand is there a a time frame that they people need to get letters in by that we there's no way we can read letters here while you're speaking and such so explain to me how that works if you would you mean in terms of participating in a hearing we just received letters yes different sources here and my question is could we receive those earlier than that is there a time frame that they need to get them in behind you know let's share them with we we don't limit when letters can be submitted to the Planning Commission our staff has allowed for the submission of letters up until we leave our office to come to the Planning Commission and present those and then obviously people can attend the hearing and present those as well if the Planning Commission chose to limit when that communication would need to be received before a meeting we could certainly do that and and share that with with people but we have not done that today I would suggest we at least look at that sometime because it's not feasible that we read letters now and such so they're really of no you know they just don't serve the purpose necessarily and it just seems as if we ought to be able to find something in between with a zone change we've been advised not to share that communication ahead of the public hearing because it again you're meant to act on the information that's submitted during the public hearing with a text amendment we have a bit more flexibility in terms of sharing and that's why I ask because it seems that it always occurs like that's not trying to become educated question on this yes okay so for me I mean it my feeling is it if it's worked 85% of the time it must be working pretty well now and because of the systems in place it seems to me would we and then from the if it's essentially approved 85% of them then are essentially decided and if the council moves on is that essentially 21 days is that what you said right so for instance today if we had public hearings on the three zone changes that actually were postponed they would have three weeks to notify the planning staff that they wished for there to be another decision that the Planning Commission wasn't the final action so any case that was uncontested we wouldn't expect there to be a letter or request so at three weeks from today they would be deemed final do you get the impression that that many times from the council standpoint the fact that the Planning Commission has given the stamp of approval the staff has given stamp of approval thus it should even if it's contested then they kind of like don't feel the need to listen to it or am I just I don't know if we can generalize in that manner I think okay it's probably more at the request of neighbors so again if if neighbors feel they've been heard by the Planning Commission and their main concern is a development plan issue and not necessarily and we hear this often I'm concerned about the distance that building is not the fact that they want to do multifamily. So it's a development plan issue versus a zoning issue. A lot of people leave, and you all probably don't know this, leave the planning commission saying, okay, I have another shot at it because there's a final development plan. I'm okay with the zoning. So they came here to object, but they leave, and we call them up and say, you objected to this zone change. Do you want to go to the council and ask for another hearing? No, I'm okay. They heard me. I think my issue will be resolved. A lot of cases, even if there was one or two people that voted against it from the Planning Commission, the citizens still feel heard and feel the request or their request will be addressed through the process, and so they don't request that second hearing. So there's a good number that still have objectors that don't get a hearing later. Other questions for Ms. Wayne? Yes, sir. One of the reasons for the requirements that requests have to be in writing, for example, I mean, why wouldn't a phone call expressing concern be acceptable as an indication that there's an aggrieved person? And secondly, why does that person have to include the term aggrieved person? couldn't the language of our zota indicate that anyone who expresses any concern is is to be interpreted as an aggrieved person so that the whole thing is simplified and it's not it doesn't become an issue those are my questions in terms of a phone call and there's not really any documentation to that there's nothing to share but you could make documentation of it right Right. We've sort of considered, and we encourage people who call and express concerns to us to put it in writing, because otherwise it's, yes, Tom's saying, you hear it on TV all the time, that's hearsay, right? I'm testifying for someone else, and I may not be expressing their concern accurately. It's the same thought there. just the effort of putting in an email to us it documents who it is that they're aggrieved and that they made it within that time frame right and it's on them as the app as the requester to do that to meet the ordinance and I guess from our perspective it's easier if they just say I'm aggrieved we don't have to argue about it and that would be the staff's preference that they include that language in their in their request I don't know that they would have to otherwise you're assuming because I put in a request I must be aggrieved right that we could interpret it that way as well just seemed easier if we asked them to put the language in there you know declare yourself aggrieved and you don't have to say how just that you are it just seems to me that I understand the issue about the phone call but it seems to me that requiring a person to use the word a grieved person and to state the desire for the council to take final action on a particular case could easily cause some people who are not particularly clued into what's going on but who may have perfectly legitimate opinions to be shut out unnecessarily so I would certainly prefer to see the language indicate that anyone who expresses a concern about an issue that that would suggest that it should be receiving action from the council should be considered to be an aggrieved person and that should they shouldn't have to make those statements. Let's move on to any public comment. Take any public comment at this time. Yes sir. Mr. Gaffield. Let me mention we do have a letter. Mr. Chairman before we start can I just I just want to get clear I was pulling up the statute on mr. Pol's question that we can't we can't change what the requirements are in KRS as to how the Planning Commission can act and this statute specifically says two things one if you use this alternative process the 21 day notice must be in writing and two that you have to use the words aggrieved and I understand completely what you're saying about that term, but that's a requirement of KRS, and it's a very seriously legal requirement because we have had appeals dismissed because when someone files an appeal, they don't use the words aggrieved, and the reason for that is because when you have a right to an appeal or a remedy that's based on statute, then you have to follow it exactly, and if you don't, the courts can dismiss. So that's why it's in our proposed ordinance, because we don't really have an option when the statute says this is how you have to do it, if that makes sense. Mr. Gaffield. I'm Walt Gaffield. I'm president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. My address is 2001 Bamboo Drive. I'm going to start by talking about who uses the alternate process now and what the end result is. The local governments that use it are very limited in number, and they're very small for the most part. We looked at seven local governments, which we believe to be more than one-half of the planning units in the entire state that actually use the process. And the local governments that use it virtually eliminated legislative, which would be council, final decisions, and zoning cases. Only one case was found in the seven planning units over the last 18 months where the legislative body gave a final decision. Planning commission decisions in these cases are generally final. and i'll just flip through and show you what i'm talking about owensboro board of commissioners there was only that was the one instance where a council final decision was made a harden county fiscal court that's elizabeth town no legislative decisions The Hardin County Fiscal Court has only considered two zoning cases for a final decision in 12 years. Elizabethtown and Hardin County have a shared planning office. However, Elizabethtown, the largest city in Hardin County, does not use the alternative process. Shelbyville, Shelby County, Simpsonville, I think they're called three zoning or something like that. They have not had a zoning decision decided by the legislative body since the beginning of 2018 either. In talking with them, a former county judge in Shelby County would always call for the fiscal court to make the final decisions in a zoning case if there was opposition. The current fiscal court doesn't follow the same practice, so there's an element of randomness in how it's handled, I suppose, depending on who's in the legislative body. Henderson, same result. Bardstown, same result. Murray, same result. Summary, local governments are small and their number is very limited. I think we got almost all of them in the entire state. Local governments that used it have virtually eliminated legislative final decisions in zoning cases. Planning commission decisions are generally final. The alternative process itself is a poorly drafted and bad statute. Staff indicates that the alternative zoning process, if implemented, has to be put in place really with no changes. It has to conform with the statute. And we agree with staff, but we consider that a principal reason for rejecting the proposal. It doesn't really allow for compromise or very much in the way of improvements. There's a 21-day problem with it. Once the Planning Commission makes a decision on its own change, it becomes final after 21 days, and it doesn't account for council recesses. I mean, the clock runs during the council recess. That's a problem on the other side because it delays things, but if you do this, it cuts down on the time for neighborhoods to deal with it or for opposition. That's not an adequate time for objectors, really, or the council to make collective decisions. Now, this is something that we didn't know that Tracy just said has changed, because in looking at the staff notes, it basically said that an individual council member could not give notice that the council will make a final decision. So apparently the staff recommendation has changed, because otherwise it would require the council to get together and actually docket it. But in any case, there's also a problem with information. because the amount of information that goes to the council directly after the Planning Commission acts is very limited. So the council's really not going to have very much information on hand to decide whether to go ahead and dock it and have a hearing. It's basically, I think Tracy passed it out to you, it's very limited information. You know, what's the vote, what's the property, what's the zoning? Again, the definition of an aggrieved person is really not known, it's not defined in statute, and I understand the reasons for not defining it here. Again, you really don't want to get too far away from what's in the state statute. There's really no definition of aggrieved person. In Owensboro, and that's the sole instance we found where an aggrieved person did submit the required letter, it also included a petition and 10 pages of justification. So that's a lot of work, even though I understand that staff is willing to accept less. You know, things could change once the ordinance changes. another point i think is that this would apply to if whether they were aggrieved people or not they still got to go through the process of writing a letter and saying they're an aggrieved person and so on and so forth it's not just the unaggrieved who would have to do that essentially even an objector with serious concerns who wants a final legislative decision has to go to the planning commission not to the council even the council has to give notice to the planning commission and that's just backwards. The alternative process allows for a zoning map change really without a council vote. To the extent that would occur under the alternate zoning statute, council would no longer be accountable to the public. It doesn't really affect access to the courts per se because, I mean, there's clearly if somebody is aggrieved through the final ruling on his own change, they can go to the courts. But with the 21-day requirement, if the aggrieved person doesn't get that letter in, there's only nine days left to make a decision whether to appeal to circuit court. Current process really works pretty well. Because I think staff pretty much knows when there's opposition. and you know when there's opposition to a zone change, it's likely to go to the council. That doesn't require a lot of effort. So you already know that for the most part. And if a zone change is uncontested, then council, and I've seen it done a number of times, they can suspend the rules and do a first and second reading in one meeting. The short saving and time of the alternative process really doesn't justify all the problems it causes. Conclusion, alternate process and practice eliminates the involvement of elected officials. At least we've seen that in practice in the few places that use the alternate method. In those jurisdictions, the number of legislative zoning decisions is virtually zero. We only found one case in more than half of the counties or cities that use it. If legislative bodies do not hear and vote on zoning cases, there's a lack of accountability. For the map amendment process, the statute is just poorly drafted and creates numerous problems. Its rigidity really defies fixing the problems. Its use is limited statewide despite the alternate statute being in place for 30 years. Timing and lack of adequate information are major problems as you try to move things quicker. process is not that difficult for applicants, staff, and counsel and the current process is better than the one proposed. It's more democratic and open for citizens and publicly elected officials to participate. Do you have any questions? Questions for Mr. Gaffield? No? Thank you sir. Thank you. Others? Yes ma'am. Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, Brittany Rothmeier with the Fayette Alliance. We are an advocacy group for citizens promoting policies for smart, sustainable growth in Lexington, Fayette County. I had previously submitted a position statement from the Fayette Alliance to your old's attention at the end of June. You should have received that on the 26th or the 27th, I believe. I don't think it's included in the letters that you received today, but I did just want to bring that to your attention so that if you did see it, and hopefully you did. Fate Alliance does support this text amendment for the simple reason, I think at this point it's more clear than ever that, and I'm sure you've heard my predecessor say as well, that the question is not if we grow, it's how we grow. And I think it's also more important than ever that we recognize some of the difficulties that the development community faces, especially in infill and redevelopment, with regard to time constraints and financial restraints that this type of development brings along with it. So I think that in cases where we can remove any of these obstacles, we should do so where it does the least amount of harm. I think that this tax amendment does promote efficiency for not only for the planning staff, but also for the developers. I also think it's extremely important that you do have to weigh that efficiency with the importance of protection of our citizens, of our neighborhoods who have the least amount of knowledge of how these processes work. But I will say that I commend the staff for continuing to work on that and amend their original recommendations and work on those problems administratively to provide as many protections to our citizens that are not typically a part of our planning process as possible. So I think that in striking that very important balance between promoting efficiency in the places where we can do that, which I think, like I said, is very important, especially as we embrace this new comprehensive plan, we are encouraging infill and redevelopment in our community. And in the places that we can remove some of those obstacles and hurdles with the least amount of harm, I do think that that's very important to do. So again, please reference my letter for more information, but I did want to express our support. Thank you. Any questions? Any questions? No. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Hi, I'm Blake Hall. I live at 36 Richmond Avenue. I'm on a neighborhood association board that is actually not represented or part of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. I'm here to voice my support for this ZODA. I think pretty much echo what the Fade Alliance has said, but I think the concerns about the timing is a considerable benefit. And while I agree with the problems with the aggrieved person and letters in writing, I think they're still also open that someone can email or call or talk to, whatever, their council person who can interject on their behalf. So it's not they're not completely stuck out. I'd also like to address some of the earlier slideshow. Using that argument for a more democratic process could be used as an argument that we should wait you know two years to approve a zoning change. it doesn't change the existing process for things that are unburdened with people opposing it. So if people oppose it, it's the same as it always is. But I have a two-year-old. I would like him to be able to afford to live in this city regardless of his job whenever he moves out. And we're in the middle of a housing crisis that shows no signs of stopping. So I think any removing of barriers especially ones that don't seem to really have that much of purpose or protections for other people is an improvement and helps us move closer to allowing everybody a place to live. So that's all. Thank you Mr. Hall. It's nice know you're not going to throw your two-year-old out anytime soon if you could please uh what neighborhood association what neighborhood association kenwood okay thank you yes yes ma'am i would offer that as mr walbert burn did earlier recognizing mr murphy's statements anything that Mr. Gaffield said just recognize them please thank you yes ma'am actually I think this is going to be short I've thought that before but truly I do We're looking at a new comp plan and its implementation, and there's a goal to engage the residents of Lexington and Fayette County in the planning process. Wonderful. And most of the objectives center on front-loading the process, adding early engagement. But it does say establish early and continuous communication with residents. One thing that's very important here is there's a special focus on diversity and engaging underrepresented populations. So if the concern is let's not add barriers, let's not make things harder, let's get everyone involved, I think we need to think about that in terms of this zone change amendment. In general, this comp plan goal of engaging the citizens, which is F1, is currently being implemented by front-loading the zone change process, lengthening its preliminaries by urging the applicants voluntary notice to and meetings with neighborhood parties, even before the process formally begins with the application of the landowner and developer. At the same time, the Planning Commission has asked in this Article 6 ZOTA to recommend shortening the end of the process, the time to final council decision, because as it stands now, following the 211 process, council makes the final decision invariably. shortening it from the 90-day window that council has if they don't make a decision within 90 days it's it goes forward as Planning Commission recommended shortening that to 21 days if council doesn't take a particular piece of action within 21 days docketing the measure for decision not necessarily for a hearing but for decision. It's out of their hands in 21 days. In this expediting both citizen objector and the elected council are burdened with a new and additional step in the process simply to see the rezoning docketed for decision. And I want to say that really it is the end game that's critical for all of us and it moves too fast already. Not in every instance but But often, how many times has the Planning Commission offered revised materials from the applicant to review mere days before the hearing? When all the committee work is long past, often is not with staff, too, working on the double to offer revised reports, sometimes with a revised recommendation, often for approval rather than postponement, for example. revised conditions, zoning conditions, for commission consideration as well. So the commission has all this to consider at the last minute. The staff's breaking their necks trying to get it all ready. With reports and terms furnished the day prior or even during the hearing itself. Things change at the hearing. A lot changes at the hearing. So then what's proposed is a morning after summary, and it's very cursory. It's who did it, who spoke, and not a great deal more. You have a sample, which goes from planning staff to council and law staff, and one assumes it's further distributed. And the 21-day window to docket for council decision, this does not give adequate time for all to be aware what has happened, especially when things happen thick and fast in the final days, and to make a reasonable decision on docketing. And here what's at issue is, instead of the council having in due course a report with all the elements that the statute requires from the Planning Commission, they have something the day after and within 21 days they have to decide, is this for us to take action on or to forbear and let it go through automatically? how can the council legitimately get information to decide if there is a grievance that warrants docketing or not and I think it's wonderfully generous or it's wonderful that the advice is to just be very generous with who constitutes in a grief party that's what the statute gives us for for language but that's today it could be different later it's the courts who decide who in aggrieved party is there might be a and a developer who wants to say don't slow me down by heeding someone claiming to be aggrieved when they're not it's costing me money so this is going to be I think a considerable problem but especially what about the issue of ex parte communication if the council may actually also decide to hold a hearing what information may they receive at this early stage to decide whether docketing is warranted or not to decide whether there's a grievance or not and where are they going to get it from well right now they get their information from a full report and it isn't produced till after the 14-day limit for getting the preliminary development plan in good order and certified. And at that point, and the staff works very hard to get the minutes as accurate and full as is appropriate, so usually, well, the information, the full report, hits the council so that they can docket it either in the third week or in the fifth week. And what you're seeing in this proposal would say that by the 21st day, by the third week, that docketing decision is out of their hands. Surely the proposed morning-after-summary report is inadequate. I think the current process is most expeditious for the whole urban county. It is council docketing that should be automatic, and it is with our current plan. Not an expedited final decision for the convenience really mostly of the applicant, and you have to think that the applicant is usually, is generally the most skilled player in effecting a correct and timely rezoning. If you're worried about the citizens not being awake enough to meet their 21-day rule, if you're worried about whether individual council members can or cannot request a docketing, really the advantage should go with the public process as it stands. So I believe this council docketing should take place as presently without additional burden to the objector or the legislative body in exercising what is now its statutory authority to render that decision. All the government's new endeavors in engaging the citizenry in the process are for naught if the end is bad. Citizens aren't going to come back if they don't feel that their voice made a difference for their interests and their affairs, if they're hampered in bringing the matter before their elected representatives for decision. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Anyone else? I think we've run out of citizens in the audience out there. So staff, any rebuttals? No. I can answer questions or if you have concerns we can. Okay, thank you. Questions from the commission. I just want to get this in the record, I think. It was stated that the council may not have adequate information. in their packet they get our minutes right that's a great question in yes in their packet and i brought a couple of examples how can bring you bring you one the final report includes the summary of your action so it's a two-page sheet and then it includes their application the map that has always been in our binder the staff's report and then the minutes and then for counsel in the law department they get the legal description as well that's what's in a final report but what we're proposing to send in terms of what Amy called the morning after summary that would be what was on that yellow sheet I handed out which would be limited information because again it's the next day we don't have all the minutes and everything and and they wouldn't necessarily have the minutes within that 21 day window to say yes because you don't you don't approve the minutes for a month anyway we so when we send them their draft still when they go to the council but we're not allowed to send a final report unless it has the minutes per the ordinance so they would be getting a very brief summary she's correct the day after because we don't have the minutes we could attach the application and the staff report and those other things because they're documents we already have mm-hmm but the minutes we obviously are generating so who wouldn't be able to send those with the the day after summary okay other questions no let me let me offer this one speaking council members I do believe that that if they ask for information the staff will work hard to get them the information whereas they'll be knowledgeable and from what i did hear they can still file and ask to be a great an aggrieved person one of their constituents can still go to them and use that channel if necessary correct yeah so and the most important thing is it currently 15 is going to council we're trying to help expedite and not slow the process down with the other 85 that's what we're going for so thank everyone thank you very much uh any other questions mr wilson oh i was going to make a motion. Well, first of all, as a preface to a motion, I think that as a council, we understand that our duties here are threefold, legislative, judicial, and ministerial. Under the judicial thing, the most important thing is the process and that people get heard. But I think sometimes there's a mistake and a point about the fact that if you're heard and you don't agree, then you haven't been heard. And I don't think that's the point here at all. I'm going to operate under the old Star Trek rule, the benefit of the many vis-a-vis the objections of the few. And to that end, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move approval of Zota 2019-2, alternative regulations for zoning map amendment, KRS 100-2111. Motion's been made. Sorry. Motion's been made and seconded for their approval of Zota 2002-2. I presume with the revised. Yeah. one statement that's included i'm sorry yes but okay statement is included all right uh motion's been made and seconded for approval uh please vote when it comes up on your screen a motion passes thank you thank everyone thank everyone for attending any yes sir one small thing uh earlier today mr duncan made a presentation to the lexington rotary club the lexon rotor club out of 35 000 clubs worldwide is the 24th largest club in the in the world and he did a superb presentation if you're interested in seeing and hearing what he said you can go to rotary lexkentucky.org and then they gave me this on periscope or twitter and i don't know what that means so if you got a child in your family maybe they can help you out or a grandchild might be able to deal with it but it's up on it has was streamed today so miss dunkey did a nice job and you represented us well mr chris woodhall was also there and he gave a really good overview of what we do and how we function and what have you and specifically from the planning commission's point so thank you for making me proud of you thank you and thank mr duncan for putting himself out there once again um commission items staff thank you mr chair i think that we We should be congratulated for taking a zoning hearing day with no zone changes and still almost making it a three-hour meeting. So that's remarkable. Remind you all that there are committee meetings next week over in our offices. Thanks for noticing that. If there's nothing else, no objection, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.