I couldn't think of nothing better to do than checking out a little wiggle or two. Oh, but honey, that was way before I met you. When you walk in, baby, love begins When you walk by, baby, ooh, my, my When you come around, my jaw hits the ground When you shake the thing, I jump out of my skin When you cross the floor, I scream more, baby, more When you flash your smile, you drive me wild Yeah Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. All right, thank you very much. We'll hear you shortly. The second is PLNBOA 19-48 IVCP Athens LLC is the applicant present. All right, thank you. Next is PLN BOA 19-49, Bel Air Development LLC. Is the applicant present? All right, thank you, sir. Next, PLN BOA 19-52, Galen P. Stone and Leanne Ash. Are the applicants present? thank you next and I haven't asked this before if there's any opposition to these let me let me start at the beginning so we'll know I apologize for that let me start at the beginning and see if there's opposition to the ones on the first one we call KBJ construction the applicant is present Is there any opposition to this application? Anybody present in opposition to that application? Thank you very much. The next one, IVCP Athens LLC. Is there any opposition to that application present? Thank you. The next one, Bel Air Development. Is there any opposition to Bel Air Development's application? Seeing none. Galen P. Stone and Leanne Ash. This is recommended for disapproval. Is there any opposition to this as well? Two in opposition. We will hear this case at the end of the docket. Conditional use appeals, PLNBOA 19-40. Christopher and Helen Nahn, applicant present. Thank you very much. Is there any opposition to this application? I see none. The next one is PLNBOA 19-45 Horseshoe Bend Vineyard LLC DBA Jesters Paddock. Is the applicant present? Present? Is there any opposition to this one? There appears to be. We will hear you at the end of the docket. The next is PLNBOA 19-47, Mike Scott Basketball, LLC. Is the applicant present? Is there any opposition to this application? I'm sorry, PLNBOA 19-53, Steadfast, Colin, LPC, LLC. Applicant present. Any opposition to this application? Hearing none. Seeing none. Next is PLNBOA 19-55 Apostles Anglican Church, Inc. Is the applicant present? Thank you. Is there any opposition to this application? I see none. We have two administrative reviews. The first is PLNBOA 19-51 Compass Capital, LLC. Is the applicant present? Thank you, Mr. Walburn. Is there any opposition to this application? I see none. The next and last on the docket is PLNBOA 19-54 Stonewall Investments, LLC. Applicant is present. Thank you, Doug. Is there any opposition to Stonewall Investments, Inc.? Very good. As I indicated, we're going to go through these one at a time. The first ones with no opposition we will hear in a summary fashion. what I'll do is call the applicant to the podium and if the board has questions of the applicant we'll hear those at that time first on the agenda is KBJ construction applicant come forward state your name please Keith Jones Mr. Jones I had a I had a question about this one okay I can't tell from the I can't tell from the case report or from the map whether this piece of property goes all the way through from Michigan Street to Pride Avenue. No, it doesn't. It does not? Okay. It looked, okay. I couldn't tell from the big drawing whether it did or not. It does not. Okay. Thank you. How deep is the building going to be? 38 feet. Okay. Any members of the board have any questions for Mr. Jones on KBJ construction? You've recused. Thank you. There is one recusal. Thank you, ma'am. And we'll make a note of that when we vote as well. Any other questions of this applicant about this application? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. I just have a quick question. Mr. Jones, the staff report referenced that you had to slightly alter the front line to the 16 feet, so you've read the conditions and approved? Yes. Okay, I understand that. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. I move that we approve PLNBOA 19-46 KBJ Constructions request for variances to one, reduce the required side yard setbacks from three feet to two feet. Number two, to reduce the required front yard setback from 20 feet to zero feet in order to construct a house with a 12-foot setback and allow a parking space to be located in the front of the house. and three, to reduce the required rear yard setback from 20 feet to 10 feet in order to construct a new single-family residence within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a high-density R4 zone at 516 Michigan Street for reasons recommended by staff and subject to the two conditions outlined by staff. Thank you, Ms. Meredith. We have a second. Second. Thank you. We have a second. Mr. Needham, all those in favor, please register your vote electronically. As soon as the machine catches up to us. One recusal, the motion carries. Application is approved. Good luck with your project, Mr. Jones. Thank you all. The next on the agenda is PLNBOA 19-48 IVCP Athens, LLC. Applicant, please come forward and tell us your name, please, for the record. Sure. My name is Patrick Garrett. Mr. Garrett, I couldn't tell from the map, or maybe it didn't indicate in the staff report, what's intending to be built here. It's actually recently zoned in industrial space, so it would be an industrial facility. Okay. And you don't plan to move the pump station? No, we hope not. All right, you're going to build around it. Yes, sir. Any on the board have any questions of the applicant? No questions? I'll entertain a motion. I move we approve PLN VOA 19-48 IVCP Adams LLC's request for a variance to reduce the required perimeter landscape buffer between an industrial zone and AR zone from 15 feet to 6 feet in order to allow construction near the LMPCG-owned home station located interior to the subject property in a light industrial I-1 zone at 5301 Hathans Boonesboro Road based on staff's reasons and can subject to the three conditions outlined by staff. Second. Thank you, Mr. Needham and Mr. Clark. For the second, all those in favor indicate your vote electronically. Motion carries. The project is approved. Good luck with your project. Thanks, sir. Next item on the rocket docket is 19- I'm sorry, PLNBOA 19-40 9-Bel Air Development LLC. Applicant, please come forward. Thank you. Just come up to the podium. tell us your name please jason fudge mr but i had a question about it but i can't read my writing anybody on the board have any questions about this? The staff has recommended approval of a lesser variance. You asked for zero feet, and they're recommending six feet. So that was fine. We had already kind of the plan that we had, there's already six to ten feet in it anyway, so we were just asking for variance to remove the buffer. We're happy with six feet to make it work. Thank you. Any other questions for this application? All right. Any other questions for this one? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. I move for approval for PLNBOA 19-49, Bel Air Development LLC's request for variance to reduce the required landscape buffer from 15 feet to 6 feet within the defined infill redevelopment area in a light industrial zone. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Meyer. All those in favor indicate by or oppose indicate by registering your vote. Looks like it passes. Good luck with your project. The next on the docket has opposition 19-52 we'll hear towards the end of the docket. The next unopposed is a conditional appeal. Hold on just a second. I'm sorry, conditional use appeal. PLN VOA 19-40. Christopher and Helen Nahn, applicants present if you are, please come forward. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Needham is going to recuse. Mr. Non, this was on the docket last month, I think. Yes, sir. It was either postponed or. It was postponed. Postponed or something. By our request, yes. So you're back up. Yes, sir. Anybody on the board have any questions? of this applicant. I did have one question before we start and I'll Yes, sir. Before I relinquish the microphone. The staff report says that you indicated that you were going to use or plan to use a gravel lot at 568 Harry Street. Yes. For pickup and drop off. Who owns that property? Mr. Needham. That's why he recused. Yes, sir. So I want to put that on the record. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Yes, I'm a little bit, not concerned, but just somewhat undefined why it's the fact that the utilizing the space in the parking lot doesn't seem to be decided yet. It's just kind of left open. And how will that be resolved, Mr. Naan? The arrangement that we worked out with traffic engineering is that we're going to establish a loading zone right in front of the property for the drop-off and pickup of the students attending the child care facility. And that the additional space will be accommodated at the rear of the property that we own next door at 563 North Limestone. So it's not yet been done, but it's... That's correct. There's agreement? Do you have agreement with traffic engineering? Yes, with Mr. Parker, Stephen Parker. all right great thank you thank you any other questions any other board member and i want to indicate at this time it's been it's been kind of customary for this board to ask the applicant if they agree with the conditions that are imposed by that are listed in the staff report there's no requirement that the applicant agree with those conditions they're imposed as a part of the of the granting if we if your application is approved so that's a bad habit we've gotten into but but sometimes we ask and sometimes we don't. It doesn't matter whether we do or not. You're bound by the conditions as well. Yes, sir. Any other questions from any other board member? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I recommend approval for PLNBOA 19-40, Christopher and Helen Non requesting a conditional use permit for a child care facility within the defined infill and redevelopment area in the planned neighborhood residential zone at 561 North Limestone based on the staff recommendation and subject to the four conditions as listed. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Do we have a second? I'll second the motion. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. All in favor, indicate your vote. Motion. The application carries. Good luck with your project. Thank you all. Thank you. We'll hear that towards the end of the of the docket. The next unopposed is PLNPOA 19-47 Mike Scott, Basketball LLC. Applicant, please come forward. Any questions of this applicant about this application from the board? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Oh, let me ask you to identify yourself, please. Mike Scott. Thank you, Mr. Scott. I move for approval of PLNBOA 19-47 Mike Scott Basketball LLC's request for a conditional use permit for a child care facility in a light industrial zone at 2414 Palumbo Drive based on the staff's recommendations and subject to the two listed conditions. Second. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Mr. Clark. All those in favor, please indicate your vote electronically. Motion carries. Application is approved. Good luck with your project. Thank you. Next item on the docket is PLN VOA 19-53 Steadfast, Collin LPC LLC. Applicant, please come forward. My name is Matt Carter. I'm with Vision Engineering. Any questions of Mr. Carter about this application? Yes, Mr. Carter, I'd like to ask how long will this sales office be in place? asking for one year but it's very likely it'll be like more like nine or ten months the building's already under construction and it's you know they're they're on schedule so we don't think it'll take any longer all right that's good thank you yeah i was confused by the staff report it says uh the the well not the staff report but the ordinance uh in the staff report refers to temporary offices uh to be removed at the end of two years but defines temporary structures as those that are designed for use or occupancy for only 180 days that seemed to be a contradiction Am I reading that correctly or not? I think that is partially the way that building inspection defines a temporary structure is the 180 days, so anything beyond that is a permanent structure, but the temporary office use is limited differently. Okay. The classification of the structure. Any other questions for Mr. Carter or staff or anybody? hearing none I'll entertain a motion subject to the four conditions outlined by staff. Thank you, Mr. Needham. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Motion is made and seconded. Register your vote electronically, please. Motion carries. Project is approved. Good luck with the project. The next item on the rocket docket is 19-55 Apostles Anglican Church, Inc. 19-55, applicant present. Please come forward to the podium. Thank you. Mr. Glover, I did just hand out two letters. They're quite brief. Okay. Why don't you identify yourself for us, please? Jessica Morris. Give us a minute while we read these correspondence. We do that, we'll put them in the record and then have any questions that we have for you just shortly. Do you mind just giving me an overview of how this market is going to operate? Well, we pull in the farmers and the bakers before school starts because there are three schools within three blocks. So they're off the road by about 6.30 in the morning. Then we will open at 7. We have a variety of vegetables, organic vegetables, and baked goods, both artisan as well as Amish. We have a wonderful fellow that grows flowers, 80 varieties of local flowers. We have someone that has an organic dairy farm, so all of his pastures are organic. He doesn't sell, you know, he doesn't have cheese and milk there, but he has meats that are pastured, some organic as well as pastured eggs. And I have a micro sprouts fellow that grazes organic sprouts that are coming in a couple of weeks. And then we have parking behind the church. Some people do choose to park on the street, but over half of the people in the neighborhood will walk in, bike through, come in strollers. and our Amish farmer actually, the organic produce fellow, reduces his prices from what he charges downtown on Saturdays because we don't charge the farmers or bakers anything for setting up. And it's a very friendly, cozy neighborhood environment, and people seem to love it. lot of older people that are on in wheelchairs walkers canes come in Mayfair Village brings people every week we have people that have caretakers that you know those caretakers and so some of the people can come and shop there's ample room for people to move around it's not crowded and they can basically pull almost up to it um the market is that enough information okay i do have a question how long is the how long have you been uh in operation already it's been it's been running already hasn't it yes and i'll i can tell you why if you need to know three months this wednesday i'm sorry three months this wednesday okay Okay. Then I have a question for staff. The ordinance defines seasonal activities as a temporary operation for a period not to exceed 90 days. Does that mean this market can't operate for more than 90 days at a time, twice a year? Twice a year, yes. So there could be two 90-day periods butting up to one another, so long as it's not more than two 90-day periods per year. All right. Fair enough. Thank you very much. Ms. Morin, any other questions from the board? I'd like to ask, this is once a week, correct? What day is that? Wednesdays, Wednesday mornings. Good. Well, I think it's a great thing to do and a very good place to do it. Thank you. Very good. Yes, thank you. Any other questions? I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 19-55 Apostles Anchorage Church, Inc., requesting an amendment to an existing conditional use for a place of religious assembly to include seasonal activities, a weekly farmer's market, and a single-family residential zone at 202 Colony Boulevard, based on the staff's recommendation and subject to the two conditions as listed. thank you mr clark do we have a second second second thank you ms meyer all in favor register your vote electronically motion carries your application is approved good luck with the project thank you sir and ladies we have two administrative appeals the first is plnboa 19-51 compass capital good afternoon mr chairman members of the board jacob walburn on behalf of the applicant compass capital thank you mr walter any questions for this applicant None? No questions? I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move we approve PLNBOA 1951 Compass Capital LLC's request for an administrative appeal to change one legally non-conforming use retail sales to another office and retail sales within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a historic overlay planned neighborhood residential zones there's an h1 zone in the r3 zone at 131 kentucky avenue based on the staff recommendations and subject to the two conditions outlined by staff thank you ms mayor do we have a second i'll second the motion thank you ms whitman all in favor please indicate your vote electronically Could we get everybody? Chris, I'm having trouble. This is not working for some reason. Somebody could help me on this. I've done everything but sign in. I vote yes. Well, we'll just have to register Mr. Clark's vote. There we go. Is that the way you wanted to vote? Yes. Okay. We'll accept it. Motion carries. Application is approved. Good luck with your project. Thank you all very much. The next administrative appeal is 19-54 Stonewall Investments, LLC. Morning, Mr. Chair and members. I'm Doug Martin, attorney for Stonewall Investments. Any questions by the board to Mr. Martin on this administrative appeal? Mr. Lover, I have a comment. Mr. Martin and I discussed earlier today changing the language of condition number three because we had some confusion on calculating that exact number that is there. So we would like to change the language there to total signage on the property shall not exceed the total square footage allowed by Article 17-7F. Tell me that again. Total signage on the property shall not exceed the total square footage allowed by article 17-7f okay mr martin do you agree with that language change yeah the applicant's in agreement the the definition of building frontages is somewhat expansive and might be read to include both sides and backs and fronts and uh that would be substantially larger than what we had even enlisted so we're we're good to just reference the statute or the ordinance and seems reasonable to me does the board understand what the language change was reference to the statute instead of the specific language okay any any Any further questions to Mr. Martin about this application? If none, we'll entertain a motion. I move we approve PLN BOA 19-54 Stonewall Investments LLC's request for an administrative appeal to transfer 150 square feet of unused signage in order to construct a 200 square foot freestanding sign in a neighborhood v1 zone at 3101 clays mill road based on staff's recommendations and subject to three conditions outlined by staff thank you mr needham do we have a second i second the motion thank you miss whitman all in favor please indicate or oppose indicate your vote electronically. Looks like we got most everybody. Your motion carries. Project is approved. Good luck. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Board. Okay, that was the easy part. The next case on our opposed docket is 19-52 Galen P. Stone and Leanne Ash. Variance request. Applicants, please come forward and tell us your name for the record, please. Leanne Ash. and Nick Kites. I'm sorry what Kites Nick Kites. The applicants are aware that the staff has recommended disapproval of this application. Autumn do we we hear from staff first on disapprovals if we do I think it's your turn. Yes and I do have five letters of opposition to distribute as well okay This application is for a variance to increase the allowable height of a detached garage from 20 feet to 22 feet in an R2 zone at 327 McDowell Road. This application is a request for a variance for a garage that has already been constructed. Permits were issued based on drawings that showed a compliant 20-foot garage back in October. In May, two inspections were conducted in the month of May, where the change was noted that the garage had been built to 22 feet at that time. I believe it was framed but not completed. The applicant has since filed the application with the BOA. Our staff recommendation is to disapprove this variance based on the potential circumvention of the zoning ordinance by the willful alteration of the plans without going through the appropriate approval process, as well as a lack of justification or special circumstances for why this type of variance is necessary beyond the applicant stating that they would like to have some overhead storage. there's nothing particular to this lot that would be considered a special circumstance to approve this variance. Those are the primary reasons that we are recommending disapproval today. Okay. So has building halted? Has it been completed? I'm not sure. Okay. once once i realized that the height of the structure was not compliant i did an on-site meeting with a building inspector that is when i immediately stopped construction of a detached garage we continued with the remaining portion of the project and we were basically waiting to see what the next step would be after today thank you okay give us a give us a couple of minutes um autumn just hang on there for a second see see if any of these letters might prompt any questions that we have a few as well Thank you. Any questions of the board for Ms. Midyett while we have her standing here? Any questions of staff by the board? Board to staff. All right. Thanks, Autumn. You can sit down. Thanks. And the applicants, Ms. Ashe and Mr. Kite. Mr. Kite, what's your relationship with the applicant? I'm the general contractor. General contractor. Okay. So my question is, what happened? Well, initially the plans that were approved had a garage that was completely behind the house, and the location rotated 90 degrees. My mistake was that I was unaware of any other possible changes that might have occurred with the structure. In this case, the height of it got raised about a foot with Leanne and Stewart architecture. the part of the garage that's not compliant isn't the overall actual height of the structure which is below the height of the home it is the gables that are not compliant it's that measurement that code measurement is measured from the midway point of the gable to the ground not from the peak of the structure and that's the code that's it's been violated here okay all right thanks and I have a letter signed by 16 neighbors within a one block resid radius from the house stating that they would approve the variants do you have that you have that let us take a look at that if you if you would we'll I'd be glad to just start down there. If I may, while you guys are looking at the signed letter, it was by no means my willfulness to try to go around code enforcement on the matter. It was 100% oversight that I'd take responsibility for. I wasn't trying to pull a fast one in any way, shape, or form. It was just a change that was made through emails that I simply missed. And I saw the rotation of a garage is something that it didn't even occur to me to go back to building inspection on. So it's 100%. Well, let me ask you a question about when we were talking about the gable, you're talking about what's shown in the picture right there that correct not from the side but from the front you would measure that point from halfway up to the ground a bit of a subjective measurement that could be shifted one way or the other currently the structure is not two foot out of compliance it's about 18 inches to finish grade okay so about the little bit taller in the height of my book and the uh in the back of the garage uh is that a gable in the back show that next correct that's that is that a gable same same exact um halfway up the bump out in the rear is also out of compliance okay correct all right thanks and there's a few other shots as well um if you want to this is the home in the addition in front of the garage and this is behind the garage Okay. You can't see it from back there, can you? Correct. Is that the state we see? So this is what we see right now. Immediately when I found out that I was out of compliance, I haven't touched the structure. I wasn't trying to build it and come in asking for forgiveness. I was simply unaware of the code, to be honest. i'm aware of a few code you know in regard to garage the main one being it must be shorter than the existing home it's well shorter than than the home and it's not even a issue of the gable on the side being too tall it's it's the midway point gables of the front and rear I feel like the way the structure is now, I feel like we could finish it and it would be beautiful. I feel like to go back and try to fix it or make it work, I feel like I can get it within code compliance, but it's not going to look as nice. It's an oversight on my part. The difficulty we have with applications of this type is that the precedent that they set, we heard one like this last month or a month before, maybe two, three months before, that was very similar, and the structure itself was not objectionable as it stood, but it was outside of the ordinances, it was outside of the code, and if we don't enforce the code, then it encourages further people to violate the ordinances and build things out of compliance. So I don't know how this board is going to vote. I have a suspicion, but I don't know. But the reason for the staff's recommending disapproval is they want to enforce the code as well. And even though it works a hardship on applicants, contractors, owners, and such, and it may even result in an uglier structure than what was intended or what was built, the purpose of the code is to be fair to everybody and not have people just ignore it, whether it's negligently or willfully, either one. That one was also in a ND1, I believe, which location, which this one is not, if I'm not mistaken. Not that that makes this one any better than that one, but it was in a different location. Right. Right. I understand. Mr. Stone, Ms. Ash, this is a there were mistakes made and I honestly believe exactly what you said. There was no intention to do that, but somehow the communication did not work. And there were times here where it should have worked. The people were making the statements that it was out of compliance and the message didn't get through. And so possibly to help other people know where that broke down. What happened here that you didn't get the messages in a timely way? And how can we help others that we can avoid that? So the garage was originally permitted in October. In February, I asked via e-mail, and I have the e-mail if you'd like to see it, Nick, to please move the structure to the opposite side of the yard. and he said, sure, that's fine. Just have the architect draw out the plans. So we've been working with Stuart Architecture on the house and the garage plans, and they drew up the change in location. And at the same time, I also asked that the garage door be changed from a 7-foot garage door to an 8-foot garage door. Again, I was also unaware of the 20-foot mid-gable rule. I just knew that it couldn't be taller than the house. So I trusted that if there was anything that was not in compliance, that the architect would catch that and lead me in a different direction. They did not. So I also did not tell my builder, Nick Heitz, about the height change because I didn't know it was going to be an issue. And the architect didn't tell me to tell him that it was an issue. And then so I asked him to move it, and he moved forward with building it. I did give him the updated plans. so it was probably the next step should have been for him to re-measure but he did not and did not know that it would be out of compliance so that's what happened thank you any other questions to the applicants and contractor You know, I feel the pain, I mean, two feet does seem like not a lot when you're dealing with this. The problem is that we have, you know, 800 more residents that are around there that, again, this sets a precedence for, and, you know, these two have said it best. It's difficult to go against that in a way for us, especially in a different plan as well. So I feel the pain is, you know, what are the options on the other side for you guys if we deny this? Are we approved or disapproval? To get it within compliance, I would have to basically flatten out the front gable, less of a pitch, bring it down some, as well as the back half. I would have to drop that approximately 8 to 10 inches at its lowest point in order to change that midpoint measurement to get it within compliance. We're hoping to try to avoid that situation. It's, you know, I know the precedent, I know, you know, I see you're all side. We're just hoping to try to move forward with the structure as is. This project has been ongoing since August of last year, and our neighbors have had to deal with the construction vehicles and the construction sounds and the clogging of the streets. So we're also hoping, by getting a variance, to move the project along to completion quickly. quickly. If we have to have a new set of plans approved and move the dormers to be in compliance, it's going to take longer and cause a lot more traffic and disrupt the neighborhood more than if we can leave it as is and finish it. There's my understanding that the plans were not what was in non-compliance. It was the construction. Am I misunderstanding something? the non-compliance comes from when we changed the plans to move it from one side of the yard to the other side of the yard and asked for an eight-foot garage door okay they should have been re-permitted but he didn't realize there was a change in the structure itself okay i saw i saw the structure of the garage going from like this behind the house to like this right and i didn't and i saw those on the plans but i saw no other changes right to elevations on the plans yeah it did not occur to me about re-permitting the structure at that point because i'm seeing this right now uh i have a question for legal do we need uh in in a motion um on this particular application do Do we need any further language than what's in the staff report? The staff has recommended disapproval. They've given two reasons. The staff report itself is a reason. Would a motion need any further language than what's here if the motion were made to disapprove? No. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Oh, yeah, that's right. We had, we did indicate that there were people in opposition. People indicated they were in opposition to this application. Anybody in the audience wish to speak in opposition to this application? If you do, please come forward. Ms. Ash, Mr. Kite, please have a seat right there, and we'll just get back to you. Hello, my name is Kathleen Linder. I live at 107 Urban Road, which is in the Ashland Park neighborhood. I just want to say that I support the staff recommendation for disapproval for the reasons stated by the staff. Thank you, Ms. Linder. Yes, ma'am. Patricia Quick Alpern, Fincastle Road. we consider that the lack of attention to the building process to notice that it was out of compliance as well as the admitted lack of knowledge about the zoning regulations are not a reasonable reason to allow the variance thank you thank you is there anything that ms ashe ms mr kite you want to say in response to those those are fairly summary i thought you've already anything anything new that they brought up that you wish to address no sir other than the fact that i don't go around town trying to build structures that are out of compliance um you know this was one where you know basically 18 inches uh um you know makes a world of difference i guess and we're not trying to do anything any you know or get out you know not play by the rules in any way we were just um hoping you know to obtain a variance of you know the 18 inches to finish the structure as is thank you okay thank you any further questions of the board to anybody hearing none will entertain a motion I move for disapproval for PLN BOA 19-52. Galen P. Stone and Leanne Ash's request for variance to increase the allowable height of detached garage from 20 feet to 22 feet in a two-family residential zone at 327 McDowell Road. based on the staff's, the reasons the staff has stated and, oh, no conditions, sorry, based on the staff recommendations. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Do we have a second? Second. Who seconded? Mr. Clark seconded. All those in favor, please indicate your vote electronically. the application is denied sorry about that good luck with reconfiguring the construction thank you Okay. Anything else on the docket today? We have one final matter on the docket. Two of the members of the board have to leave by 5.30 at the latest, so we're going to have to budget our time. Surely it won't take three hours to hear from four people in the courtroom. We have letters. Okay. Let's take about a 10-minute break for us on the board to read the correspondence we have, and we'll recess for 10 minutes. Thank you. for everybody who wrote into us for us to review their car folks as well. So now we're going to hear the LNBOA 19-0C, the application for official use. There are people in opposition to my plan. Oh, good. Thank you. I could hear myself. Could you all hear me? And now. Thanks. 9845 Horseshoe Bend Vineyard is next on the docket. I want to get some idea of the time that this application is going to take to be heard. So let me ask counsel, Mr. Ashburner, And Mr. Walburn, each of you, how long do you think you will need to talk to us about this application? My name is Daniel Luguer. I'm here with the Dinsmore firm in place of Mr. Ashburner today. I think our presentation will probably take no longer than 20 minutes. Okay. We have a difficult time hearing people on the back of the story. I'm sorry? We have a difficult time hearing what they're saying. Okay. I'll try and project this way as well. Thank you, sir. yeah thanks okay thanks 20 minutes mr wahlburn 20 minutes suit you I might need a couple more minutes than that hopefully not long I do have a lot of information that I'd like to present to you there are several others here that would like to speak though I do feel like the bulk of my presentation will cover what I assume are the majority of the concerns here so I think you might be able to pick up some time from folks not having to repeat what I said but I I have approximately 30 slides. If we assume a minute a slide, that would be 30. Some will take a minute, some won't. But I will do my best to be as brief as practicable. Okay, I'm going to put a 30-minute time limit on you then in that case, if that suits you. And if you don't get through, you can ask me for more time. Yes, sir. And who else is going to speak? What other lawyer we got? Mr. Glover, Clay Barkley representing Hard Scuffle Incorporated. and i don't think i'll need more than five to ten minutes probably five minutes are you opposed or in favor in opposition okay so the uh uh what i'd like to do is uh how many people are going to anticipate testifying in opposition to this application let me see let me put your hands up so i can count one two three four five six seven eight i count eight uh should be we should be able to get all eight of you in no more than half an hour so if we uh if we plan initially for an hour for the opposition we'll probably run over but let's shoot for that and see what happens and we do have a we do have a long-standing uh custom before the board that uh we don't like to hear the repeat arguments and so if you're last in line to speak everything that you may want to say that has already been said we don't we want we we've already heard it so we don't need to be repeating arguments just for the sake of repeating them so if you have something to say either for or against make sure it's original if it's not original I'll probably shut you down um with that said applicant come forward and tell us your name for the record please again thanks thank you chair and thank you members of the board and please let me know if if you can't hear me i will um i will do a better job of speaking into the mic my name is daniel o'gara i'm a lawyer at dinsmore and shoal i am working with cliff hashburner on this case and i represent the applicant Horseshoe Bend winery doing business as Jester's paddock I'm I'm joined today by Brian Parnell with me here he is the operations director or manager for Jester's paddock and we're also joined today by Matt bowling who's the owner of the subject property mr. bowling's not gonna be speaking but he is here today i've i've handed out correspondence to you all that that addresses some of the elements of the imagine lexington plan and i don't intend to belabor those in my presentation but i i hope you'll appreciate the the points made in that letter where we've we've pointed out the the compliance with the imagine lexington plan but the focus of the presentation today is going to be just to show you the site as it exists today the plan for the site and why we believe the conditional use permits should be granted as the staff recommended so again today we're here to talk about conditional use permits for two uses on on what is already a permitted small farm winery Jester's Paddock is already a licensed small farm winery. The two uses at issue are for a small restaurant bistro space, seats no more than 20 individuals, and also for an event space at the property located at 4688 Paris Pike. Again, this is an application that has been recommended for approval by the staff, and our goal today is to make clear why that approval is appropriate and to ask for you all to take final action to approve it with that I'm going to turn it over briefly to mr. Parnell who's going to talk to you and give you a little background on the applicant horseshoe Bend winery and Jester's paddock what they do and also some of the background of the site itself and And the clicker works, so that's a good start. My name's Brian Parnell. Can everybody hear me over here? I'm the operations manager for Jester's Paddock, and I speak specifically to the operation that we plan on running from that property. But I can give you a little bit of history about Horseshoe Bend Vineyards and some of the things that we've got to kind of indicate that we have a history of producing wine. This is, you know, Horseshoe Bend Vineyards is actually one of the earliest vineyards in the state of Kentucky. I believe it's the fourth oldest that's actually been actively producing or currently is actively producing in the state. We started Lane and Vines in 1997. So we've been operating either a vineyard or as a winery for about 22 years. First vintage came out in 2004. That's about seven years after that first vineyard planting kind of laid in. Kentucky really started to take off in wine production in about 2000. So that gave us a chance to actually understand the nuances of growing grapes, dealing with the farming practices of a vineyard, what it actually takes to take that product, put it into a fermentation process, make wine, mess up your first few bottles, figure it out, all the kind of things that go with a new endeavor. We've got several award-winning wines. We've won silver in Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, so we've got exposure on an international market. We've done the Catalina Film Festival for several years out in California, competing directly with California wines. There's been several years that we've had the Commissioner's Cup with various metals, including gold. Been a member of Kentucky proud for just about the inception of that program. The reality is we've been doing this for a while. I'm the operations manager. My job is to figure out the impact and the business aspects of things. But the family that started this, the farming manager and the vintner, they've been active in the entire process throughout Kentucky. sitting on the Kentucky Grape and Wine Council and participating closely with the Department of Agriculture to grow the industry as a whole. In addition, the property that we're actually dealing with out on Paris Pike is the result of looking at a new partnership or a new innovative way to kind of approach this growing movement that we're seeing in wine. In 2016, Kentucky produced the most wine in sheer volume throughout the southern region. We have witnessed the quality of that wine production increase dramatically. We've got about 75 different wineries and vineyards located throughout the state and that means that we've got several farms are producing grapes actively whether for their own production or in order to augment existing winery operations. When you look at an AVA or a region of distinction for wine, you kind of want to choose the best of all of those worlds. And that's what we wanted to kind of focus on Paris Pike. We wanted to do a look at a new way to bring in a younger demographic to wines, having conversations with some people in equestrian operations and the challenges they were having at looking bringing a younger demographic into their industry. And that was the impetus for what we are actually doing on Paris Pike. Quick notes on operation. The property itself, we plan to put an acre of grapes in. An acre of grapes will produce about 1,000 gallons. We project to actually produce about 20,000 gallons of wine from the property. In order for us to do that, we actually have got a fairly innovative blending program that we want to start right out of the gate. You're starting to see in modern winemaking a new way of approaching an old problem. Blending operations were traditionally a way for vineyards and winemakers to offset crop production issues. Some of your most valuable wines in the world are blended operations, things that you see out of Bordeaux, Champagne, etc. What we want to do is we want to revisit that concept and we want to start sampling some of the local and Kentucky product that's out there on various farms and pull that in. We do have existing winery operations. One is in Willisburg, Kentucky. In Willisburg right now, we've got about three acres of adult blanc laid in on the backside of the property, which gives us an access to, I believe, about 10 additional acres that we can draw from, that we can lay in, that we've already prepped for new vines that we're setting. And that's going to help augment what we're doing in the existing or the property that we're putting out of Parris Pike. So we can actually draw from our own farm network to begin with. And then we can also draw on another 8,000 to 9,000 gallons or so from existing farm operations. This gives us the chance to really start to build a good blending operation that gives a true taste or, I guess, perception of Kentucky where it's at right now and wine. I'm not the best orator sorry about that the so yeah yeah you take it from here if you don't mind yeah appreciate that get a little lost I hope you can appreciate from Brian's presentation that he is a wine professional. This is what he does. He likes to make wine. He is not trying to open up a massive commercial restaurant operation here. Brian's passion is wine. And that's what the goal of this project is, is to create a true small farm winery. They want to have the winemaking on site, and they want to have a vineyard on site, but it's going to be a blending operation. They want to have a small tasting operation and a small bistro that's really going to be a curated wine experience. I think Brian's presentation makes clear that that is what his passion is. It's not about bringing in a massive restaurant or getting into the catering business. What they want to do is make wine, and that's the goal of this project. As I mentioned before, the applicant is already a licensed small farm winery. The photo you see here is a picture of their small farm winery license from the Kentucky ABC. And what does that mean under the statute? That means that they are licensed to produce between 250 and 100,000 gallons of wine. As Brian just discussed, they're not going to be producing anywhere near 100,000 gallons of wine. Their aims are much smaller. They're looking at 20,000 gallons of wine. And the statute also permits them to manufacture wine from any fruit. So that encompasses the blending operations that Brian discussed. so what's already permitted under the zoning ordinance when you have a small farm winery the zoning ordinance explicitly permits the production of wine sampling wholesale sales retail sales and buy the drink sales that's already permitted under the zoning ordinance What we're here today to talk about is the conditional use permit only for the bistro, the food operations. Again, it's going to be a small 20-person operation and an event space on the property, which, as we'll show on the plan, is going to be quite limited. i also want to be careful to show you what's not changing and and how beautiful the existing property is and the way that the applicant intends to preserve that the view you see here is the driveway onto the property the driveway is off the paris pike and this is what it looks like when you drive in and you can see here this building is the the existing barn and that's the structure that the applicant is keeping is going to renovate and turn into the winemaking operations building the building is also going to have a tasting room it's going to be where they do their sales and it's going to be where the planned bistro is the bistro is going to be no more than 10 percent of that building just to give you an idea of the size of of what we're talking about here excuse me no more than 10 percent of this building which again is going to remain and there will be no exterior changes to that building whatsoever there will be no exterior changes to this driveway this is another view of the driveway and you can see just how beautiful this property is and again nothing is changing here so this is the entrance to the subject property this is Paris Pike you're looking at the entrance right there and I think this view really gives you an idea of how the property looks from Paris Pike, the tree coverage, and again, the fact that none of this is changing. There are going to be no new structures under this plan. There's going to be no signage under this plan. There's going to be no changes to the entrance under this plan. So the plan really does preserve the scenic and historic qualities of Paris Pike. and this is another view of the property from Paris Pike and not to belabor the point too much again nothing new is going in here but I think you can also appreciate from this picture with the barn there in the distance just how far set back the property is off of Paris Pike by our calculations that the barn building is some 530 feet set back from Paris Pike. The paddock space, which is behind the barn, where we are proposing the small event space, is about 630 feet off of Paris Pike. So again, we're not building any new structures, and the operations we're proposing are not going to be right up against the road. There's nothing that's going to change the view from the road. it is going to look exactly as it does today. This is an aerial shot of the subject property. This is the red roof barn that you can see in the other photos. This is Paris Pike is running out here. This is the drive. This is the existing home on the property, which again will remain. Nothing is changing with the home. The owner of the property is going to live in the home. Matt's here today nothing is changing the home this is an existing small horse barn that will remain will remain a horse barn this paddock area will remain in use when it's not being used as an event space for horse operations the proposed parking once the barn is renovated for the winemaking operations and as the small bistro space will be right here on the other side of the drive the I'll flip over the plan in a second but that's going to be a very small parking space and and the point to remember with the parking space is that it is already permitted on this property because it's a licensed small farm winery the conditional use permit is not contingent on approval of the parking so that's It's just something to remember on the parking. So this is the plan, which again, because nothing's being changed, is pretty straightforward. This is the barn that's going to be renovated and turned into the bistro and winemaking operations. And then you can see this yellow space. That's the event space. And I think that really gives you a good idea in the context of the entire property, how small this space is and what we're talking about here. The surrounding horse farm properties are hundreds of feet away and will not be impacted by the outdoor events, which, again, we're proposing only two events per month and limited to this area here, right adjacent to the barn. I think you can imagine a wedding taking place. I'm sure many of you have attended events, outdoor venues where tables are set up. There's a wedding outdoors. you move inside to the barn for the restaurant and tasting. That's what we're proposing here. This is really the extent of the plan and how simple it is. So, on to the application process. We went to the Paris Pike Corridor Commission, and they recommended denial of our proposal. and what I've got here on this slide is a quote, creation of a commercial operation, Bistro and event venue that would take advantage of the by-right agricultural use, small farm winery, would set a negative precedent along the Paris Pike Corridor. And I think it's important to address that comment from the Paris Pike Corridor Commission about a commercial operation. And I think it's been the source of a lot of the opposition here, But I think when you take a step back and you look at what currently exists on Parris Pike, the thoroughbred farms that currently exist on Parris Pike are commercial operations. Those are thoroughbred farms. They exist to make money in the thoroughbred business. Those are commercial operations. Those thoroughbred farms, many of them also offer tours. Some of the very ones along Parris Pike are touted in the Imagine Lexington plan as offering tours. Those are commercial operations. And the Imagine Lexington plan talks repeatedly about those tours being a boon and a positive for the region. So to say that commercial operations per se sets a bad precedent along Paris Pike, we think is simply a mistake. The operations that are there, the thoroughbred farms, are commercial operations. The proposal by Jester's Paddock is similar in scale and scope to those thoroughbred operations. We are not trying to open a massive restaurant out here on Paris Pike. We're not trying to turn Paris Pike into the latest and greatest wedding venue. What we are proposing is an agricultural use, a small farm winery, that will also offer a very curated experience for its guests. we want to bring them in show them the winery show them the vineyards and allow them to taste and sample food with the wine which as matt can as brian can talk about much better than i can is is part of the wine tasting experience that's what we're trying to offer we're not trying to offer some natural massive commercial operation um that that i think um that i think the the corridor Commission got wrong when it fails to see that those are all commercial operations along Paris Pike. So as to the specifics of what we're proposing, the Bistro, again I've mentioned it, limited to 20 seats. It's going to be very small. It's less than 10% of that 5,000 square foot barn we have here. It could fit in a standard hotel room. Cliff and I were talking about this earlier today. Could fit in in his office you could fit 20 seats in there this is simply not a big space it's going to be open by reservation only this is not this is not going to be a walk-in dining establishment there's not going to be signage out on the road drawing people in we're not expecting people to drive up and down paris pike and think great here's jester's paddock i'm going to go check that out this is a reservation only it's supposed to be a curated small scale experience and we have here the the sampling operations allowed by right again that's under the um the small farm winery statute and and just to also be clear about the bistro that's all indoors so we're not going to be creating extra noise through the bistro operations and then our um our proposal on the the event space limited to 150 people this is not again intended to be a massive event operation it's going to be located in that small paddock area you saw right adjacent to the barn and we have hundreds of feet between that space and the adjacent thoroughbred farms and we will be limiting the the event operations to two weekends per month so that's 24 events per year and we have some proposed conditions on that event space that I think I hope will address some of the concerns that that may be raised and that you all may be thinking about as you think about an outdoor event space all the exterior lighting is going to be dark sky compliant so that we're not creating light pollution for neighbors. Again we're going to limit it to 150 attendees so that this is not a situation where you have people running all over the farm interfering with the neighbors. This is going to be again a small-scale operation and then limited to 24 events per calendar year. So I just want to close with again reiterating that Chester's Paddock is a currently licensed small farm winery. The question for you today is not about the winery operations. They already have that license. The question for you today is the conditional use permit for the bistro, that's the food service, and the event space. And I hope that we've been able to show you that the intention here is to provide a full small farm winery experience. That's what the intention is. Brian is a winemaker. He's not trying to run a massive restaurant. This is not some sort of Trojan horse application. The true intent here is to give a small farm winery experience to our guests. we want that to include tasting food with the wine we want that to include a tour we want that to include the possibility of having a small event outside the barn space there that's what that's what the intent of this proposal is and that's what I hope you all will consider and again we ask you to approve the conditional use permit for the Bistro and event space thank you Thanks. There will be some questions to you before you sit down. Certainly. You say that the small farm winery is permitted now. Is it in existence there now? Is there a winery there now? I'll let Brian address exactly what's there now, but one thing I would note is that a small farm winery under the statutes does not require a vineyard. The definition of a small farm winery simply requires winemaking. And so I think Brian will be able to tell you that there are no vineyards there currently, and he can address exactly what's on the property currently. Okay. Yes, sir. So this is a new operation and a new venture. Answering questions directly about operations is a little bit easier for me than a big speech. So the property is brand new. The ABC license for the property is brand new. However, over the years, we've learned a couple of things that allow us to build out an operation like this a little bit more effectively. The first is you need to understand there's some issues with the agricultural aspects of vineyards in general. For example, when you lay in new vines, it'll often take up to about three years to actually produce grape that you can then convert into wine and that sort of stuff. So there's a huge lag component from when you first lay in your crop and the economic impact of that that you're developing your operations around. So since this is a new location, one of the reasons that the blending operation is critical is because this gives us the opportunity to bring in crop and product that we're already producing at one location, working with other local farms in the area to bring in that crop. The barn itself, we haven't started the remodeling process because that's dependent on the permits and the licenses that we're currently going through the process for, as an example today. But we do have the equipment and the ability to go ahead and start producing that wine, producing the blends, and put them into market. So that portion is already set up. relationships with other farms and wineries are have been long established and our ability to actually make and produce wine is in effect there yes sir in connection with that let me ask staff has recommended approval of this application so i understand that autumn and jim that you all didn't have any issue about whether the issue of whether or not the winery is in existence or that that the fact didn't give you all any pause because when i when i hear when i read the statute or when i read the ordinance uh when i read that uh uh a bistro that's uh incidental and subordinate to a winery assume that there's a small farm winery in existence so did you all assume that when you were recommending approval or did that occur to you these operations should occur in conjunction with the operation of the small farm winery as they have pointed out that does not necessarily mean that they have to be using grapes grown on the property they just have to be operating as a small farm winery per KRS which is an agricultural use and allowed by right so as long as that operation is there the the Bistro and the special events are accessory and subordinate to that and one of the and one of the first slides you showed us was a was the approval of the winery so that means you're legally in existence so that answers that question that's exactly the point I was going to make that license that is what that means we are a smart small farm winery with that license okay any other Are there any questions by the board to applicants? I had a question about the events. The 150 attendees, what about the traffic and the parking at that time? Where will those people park? I know we have the designated parking for the bistro. Yes, so the site plan that we submitted originally kind of identifies where we'll be putting that parking space in. and then planning has made some conditions with their recommendation of approval that speak directly on how we have to have those parking spaces set up 15 of those spaces have to be paved 15 have to be reinforced on the turf uh we are i'm not sure okay so the parking spaces are going to be located on both sides of this drive space here is where we're going to map and lay those out okay sorry so so you have the you have the barn the 5,000 square foot barn located here as you come down the drive there's an access drive here and an access drive here the parking will actually be located on both sides of this access drive and the the planning board our planning is kind of outlined some of the requirements that they would like to see for approval of the parking spaces and we'll make sure that those are taken care of and identified with the contractor that we pull into play at the time. So let me ask you this question. So we've established the fact that there are no vines growing now. That is correct, sir, yes. So when are the vines to be planted? Yes, sir. So we're going to plant them in the spring is what we've got slated. We can look at putting them in the fall, but we're going to actually try to do a fairly innovative project on that one acre of vines. We're going to lay in an acre of Norton grape. Norton grape is an indigenous hybrid that grows really, really well in Kentucky. It's resistant to disease and all the other kind of issues that you typically worry about in a farming operation. This will allow us to work on some green and organic farming methods. We can focus it on the single acre, and we can cultivate that accordingly. Norton Grape is also a prolific fruit producer, so it allows us to actually do a few more innovative things with it. The Norton Grape itself, as far as wines go, it's got a long history, but it's becoming kind of a new space for wines here in Kentucky. We've been producing them for a while, and throughout the entire region, Virginia, Missouri, has their entire wine industry built around the Norton Grape, et cetera. So there's a strong history to it. The fact that it's disease-resistive makes it a huge bonus for us, and it gives us an opportunity to look at how we can marry some of the equine operations on the property to the vineyard aspect itself. But we have that planned for spring planting. So if you plant in the spring, how many years does it take before you can actually produce wine? Well, produce wine or produce from that particular acre of grapes? From that particular acreage. Realistically, about three years. Like I said, we do have vines already laid in at our farm location in Willisburg, and about another ten acres that's available for us to put in new crop on that that's already pinned out and everything else. We just need to select which grapes that we want to kind of work from that operation. There's also plenty of existing grape and juice in the state of Kentucky that the local farmer is an amazing job on and is ready to produce and work with wine. It's kind of a, it's an operation that requires both a strong, you know, delicate hand on the agricultural aspect, but there's an art to the winemaking process as well that you need to kind of pull in. And so it's, you know, it's something that you kind of want to work with through the whole cycle. So that first three years it's going to take to produce a good grape, but you can begin the program immediately. So we're talking three years that you're just going to be bringing juice into the location and call that a winery. Well, that is a winery, sir. The reality is that's the economic challenge when you start a winery. The reality is you've got a considerable investment. Here's a really good example. One of the things that we're talking about is 150-person event space that you mentioned before. You're talking about a 20-seat bistro operation. The revenue that you can even make off those doesn't offset your initial cost for getting that winery even started because, one, you've got to lay in the grapes. You've got a three-year span before you're able to produce the agricultural product that you're selling from that endeavor. you've got the capital investments that have to go into labor and nurturing that process the business operations necessary you know for you to bring in juice and grape from other farmers and you know it's a it's a capital it's a it's a capital heavy investment yes sir but yeah it's gonna take about three years to produce off of that that one acre and if i could just make one point. I mean, I'll profess my ignorance as to the operations of thoroughbred farms, but if we were starting a new thoroughbred farm, I think you would say, well, you're not a real thoroughbred farm. You haven't raised any horses on this farm yet. Well, that's true. We may have to start by bringing in horses from somewhere else, but that doesn't mean we're not a thoroughbred farm in this case it doesn't mean we're not a small farm winery that we have to draw on our existing operations or wine from elsewhere the in some of the literature I read where the plan is to produce 20,000 gallons of wine per year from fruit grown on this property and from from wine brought in is that right So are you planning on selling 20,000 gallons, that's 8,500 cases from this location? The first year we anticipate we'll sell between 3,500 to 4,000 cases in the business model that we've been looking at internally. The other 3,500, 4,000 cases will actually be laid up so they can go into a maturation process over time so that we can continue to replenish stock, have an aging wine base, so that we can take the blending operation itself. If you look at, let's say for example, that you wanted to make a rosé, you've got two different ways of doing that. You can actually take the grape itself, which is typically a red grape, pull it off the lees early. The lees are the skins and vines and things of that nature to give it color, flavor, etc. Leaving kind of a pale image of what that red wine is going to be. We typically, that's a very French style of making a rosé. A more common way of making a rosé that we've developed over in the United States and everything else is simply blending a red wine and a white wine at different proportions. So there's going to be bottles that will be available for sale in a very short turnaround period because of the blending nature of what we're doing. But you still want to invest heavily into a maturation process where you're allowed to let it sit into a barrel program for anywhere from three to five years, and that will be taking a certain portion of that inventory and kind of putting it into a rotation process for that. As I understand it, whether or not the bistro and the special events portion of the application is approved, you're going to be your goal is to produce 20,000 gallons or so of wine at or on this property. That is correct sir. And that will be sold either on this property or someplace else? It'll be in a variety of locations. Tasting room on the property. It'll be made available through a distribution process if we can secure those assets. Local stores, fairs, festivals, everything that's legally available to a small part of it. going to be drinking wine you're not going to be drinking 20 000 gallons of wine at the bistro and during we wouldn't even be able to do that yeah if you're talking to make that clear that yes sir not your intent yes yeah 20 20 20 people a day 365 days still won't stake down 20 000 gallons of wine okay yes sir thanks yes sir i just had to try this i had a quick question um and this might be for staff but just how many other licensed small vineyards are there with i'm sure you've done this research in Fayette County at the moment that would be similar to this that have expanded to a bistro and to an event space? The only other one that has a bistro is referenced in your staff report, the A-2006-79 Genio Daniel. That was actually an administrative appeal that allowed for a small bistro. That was prior to the text amendment that made these types of uses a conditional use. That is the only other winery in Fayette County that has a bistro operation at this time. As far as just wineries in Fayette County, I don't have a number. What would you call a Gene Farris operation, for example? I believe that is the Gene O'Neill. That is the one, okay. Okay. I can think of five operations off the top of my head, sir, if that helps. Sure. Tallon, Grimes, Mill, Gene Farris, and Black Barn. I believe we're all in Fayette County. Chrisman Mill, is that one? Chrisman Mill is in Jessamine County. Jessamine County. Yes, sir. To that point also, I'd like to mention that in Kentucky we're starting to see a growing marriage, I guess is the best way to say it, between the equine and the wine industry. There's several farms that either are absolutely adjacent to farm operations, such as Wildside Winery located in Versailles, or actually have equine operations on the farm itself, such as Prodigy Vineyards in Frankfurt. fruit. You're seeing a growing trend of that in surrounding states such as Virginia where they actually have equine operations whether it be polo pitches in the middle of their vineyard to actually incorporating the horses themselves into the vineyard program. And even in Bordeaux, France, they're experimenting on a fairly decent scale about incorporating the equine industry directly into the green growing process by allowing the horses to graze amongst the vines. And those programs are actually doing very well. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions from the board to applicant? I have a question. You've talked about with this special events, you've talked about lighting, but you haven't talked about noise. And I would assume with a wedding or a special event, you're going to have music. and how are you going to deal with that when you're surrounded, you're in the middle of a farm and you've got horses in the area that are very prone to being spooked. Yes, ma'am. One, we're definitely going to limit what time the music has to be cut off. The second, if you notice here where we plan on doing the event space itself, it's right up next to the barn. We're not looking to put any sort of element that could unduly increase the stress of the surrounding farms and animals and stuff like that by placing them anywhere near the property lines or anything along those lines. In fact, this particular paddock at its closest point is over 125 feet from the next rail that sits on this particular property. And from the rail, this barn is actually surrounded by a paddock fence as well, and it's over 50 feet from that rail fence to the next adjacent property. Our goal is to keep this minimalized as much as possible. We don't want to do concerts. And we're more than happy to make that a stipulation of disapproval. happy to have planning and zoning come out and check and inspect. We're not looking to turn this into some sort of loud music operation. In all honesty, the biggest thing we want to do with events is dinner amongst the vines or showing off our product and allowing people to experience it in that way. Yes, weddings come with a musical element. We have no problems working with ways to keep that within reason. I'd also like to point out that the property is right along Paris Pike. there's already a large you know noise pollution situation coming from the roadside itself we're not looking to add or create any sort of headache for people we actually want to work closely with lowering those impacts we talked about the lighting specifically because that's something that we can directly address from you know an operational point of view but we are sensitive to the sound issue as well yes ma'am and brian one thing council made the the point you'll probably have a tent for those operate for the events is that the way you see it working Well, it depends. The reality is, first of all, this yellow area right here represents a 60 foot by 40 foot space, which is about 2,400 square feet. 2,400 square feet is enough to actually set tables out, plate, and seat, I believe it or not, actually up to 180 people. But it also includes space for displaying wine products, food, the entire, so the entire operational aspect of entertaining 150 people is within that space. There's not bleed over to that. A tent is an optional issue for us. We're not really, you know, for us, like I said, when you're doing a dinner in the vines or an outdoor experience, especially when you're doing, you know, we're not really planning to do a lot of this over the winter months. That's not practical for our operation. It's not practical for what we're doing or the practical for the experience we're trying to create. during the warmer summer months a tent's not really necessary um you know if if we do put up a tent which is an option um once again we're talking about a space that's close up to the barn itself it's removed from the property lines um and we're still only talking about a 60 foot by 40 foot you know tent space um along those lines as far as sanitation everything else goes for the outdoor event space we can bring all of those in in upscale porta potties um the reality is now you can you You've got mobile toilets that are nicer than people's homes. And they're self-contained septic systems. We don't have to add anything else to it. They include wash stations. We don't have to pipe water in for it. And those can be brought in on a case-by-case basis. And, of course, we're going to be working with all the appropriate organizations and government entities to make sure that, you know, from the health department to the building, et cetera, to stay in compliance. any other questions by the board or board members to the applicant okay have a seat if you would and we'll hear from opposition yes sir thank you mr balburn you want to go first does anyone object if i go first thank you mr chair and members of the board again jacob waldburn um if i could get my presentation up you're convenient thank you rather than i represent several folks that have authorized me to speak on their behalf today they're now listed on the screen for you i'll show you them on a map in a minute there are far more objectors than that those are just the folks that i represent a couple of things for the record just before we get started i'm going to submit a copy of this presentation for the record also going to submit copies of two studies regarding the effect of light and noise on equine populations that i'll be referencing in the presentation handed out to you earlier to save a little bit of time i provided you with three things one were my proposed findings for disapproval of this application should you find our position persuasive and you are welcome to utilize any or all of those any of those standing alone would serve to defeat this application we think all of them are accurate statements but we think those are findings that you could use the second document you were provided were some photographs that were taken of the existing operation that i may reference briefly at the end of my presentation the final sheet the paris pike corridor commission their recommendation has already been referenced to you as you all well know a body only speaks through its approved minutes and the commission has not yet met again to approve minutes from its last meeting so i had an audio recording of the paris pike corridor commission and tried to transcribe certain quotes that i thought were relevant to my presentation i don't purport that these are the minutes for the organization it's my best hearing from that from the audio recording i had the folks that i represent are all referenced on the above map by stars as you can see i represent pretty much everybody who neighbors this property one notable omission is this property right here that's because mr barkley here is going to speak to you here in a moment on behalf of their opposition so from a neighborhood perspective though in farm country the term neighborhood means a little something different than it does within lexington the neighborhood's pretty uniformly and unitedly opposed to this application you may remember at the last hearing we were getting ready to start this hearing and i had raised an issue and staff indicated that they needed more time to investigate that issue and and that's whether a variance was needed to Section 24A of the Lexington Zoning Ordinance about conditional use in road frontage. Staff has investigated that issue. I'm going to bring it up again today because you are the final arbiter of whether that variance is required or not. I submit to you that staff has incorrectly determined that a variance is not needed, that a variance is in fact needed for this application, And because one has not been sought, you cannot legally approve this operation today. But let me explain why. Chapter 24A of our zoning ordinance regards the Paris Pike corridor overlay. And there are certain restrictions that we add for properties that are along Paris Pike. Because Paris Pike is probably certainly the most famous in terms of equine operations in Lexington, but I think probably our most important corridor for our identity as the horse capital of America, of the world. In that ordinance, there is a requirement that you have 500 feet of frontage for single-family detached residents and conditional uses, and I'm quoting here, which rely upon the Paris Pike slash Lexington Road for frontage. So let's look at that. Here's the property. There's the public street, Parrish Pike. As you can see, this property does not touch any other public street. It only touches Parrish Pike. It's actually a shared driveway, and we'll talk about some of the concerns about utilizing a shared driveway for this operation. But let's look at three issues that I think are particularly relevant to this consideration. It has a Parrish Pike address. There's really no argument that it's not fronting on Parrish Pike. There's no other public road it touches. and staff's condition contention is that it does not rely on Paris Pike for frontage my question to you is then upon what does it rely if you measure that distance you're going to find and that's very small print but it's 185.65 feet so it's well under the 500 foot threshold that is required now that's a dimensional requirement it is variable they could have sought relief from that restriction through a variance but they did not likewise they could obtain more property that fronts it and actually comply with the condition they did not do that either so i would submit to you that there's good reasons why when this ordinance was adopted we put those restrictions in there one is the legislative recognition of what our chief concern here is precedent along the paris pipe corridor this is a small lot it does not meet the 40 acre minimum that is now required in our agricultural community. If we start to see the transition of these small lots that already exist from agricultural or single-family uses to more commercial uses, a restaurant is a commercial use. It can be affiliated with a winery or not. It's a commercial use. If we see that transition, that could have a devastating impact on the equine operations along Paris Pike. Since you are the final arbiter, I would suggest to you that this property absolutely relies on Paris Pike for its frontage, that the conditional use requires at least 500 feet, and they don't have it. So I think that ends your analysis. I do not think you can approve this application today. Now, why are we really concerned? It's interesting to me when you all hear cases that seemingly have nothing to do with one another but the land use law you're going to start seeing the parallels think about that gabled roof case you had earlier it's a tough call nobody was doing anything intentional it wasn't malicious but it set a very dangerous precedent for you to acquiesce in that it's not that we think that they're evil we just think this is a place that is not appropriate for loud lighted uses look at our comprehensive plan comprehensive plan has a huge emphasis on balancing the urban uses and the rural uses in our community i would suggest to you that this proposal is directly contrary to goals one and two of the section that deals with rural uses it's not preserving our it's not preserving or promoting our agricultural industry in form of equine in fact it's going to be disruptive and i want you to remember that that this is actually going to serve as a detriment to the agricultural uses that exist in the area right now and I'll touch on why here in a minute. There's also a small area plan for Paris Pike. Quoted several sections here about why Paris Pike is so important. The 10 second version is some of the most productive and famous horse farms in the United States of America line Paris Pike. They deserve special protection. Our community has acknowledged that they deserve special protection and that's why we did this plan. It articulates several goals much like the comprehensive plan I've selected four here that I think are directly contrary this approving the conditional use would be directly contrary to they all again revolve around preserving and protecting our equine industry I think the purpose of the small area plan is particularly relevant here I'll read one line to you the plan shall promote land uses which are consistent with the rural character of the corridor preserve and protect the natural and built environment along the corridor and provide for safe and efficient movement along the Paris Pike. I do not think this application can meet that standard. A little history that you may be familiar with but maybe not, when Paris Pike was redone it was a big deal and it cost a lot of money. And the reason why is because a lawsuit was brought under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA as it's sometimes called, that required the Kentucky Transportation cabinet to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan that was less disruptive to the existing equine operations ended up costing 70 million dollars to come up with an appropriate design of Paris Pike for its redoing it has now been a nationally awarded project that NEPA project we've invested a significant amount as a community in this corridor and it needs to be protected if you go back to that small area plan I've dropped a red star in the middle as you can can see this use is directly in the middle of this protected corridor. In fact, two of the clients that I represent are on either side of this and are designated as contributing properties to the National Historic Overlay. In fact, a third property is Elmendorf that Mr. Barkley represents and will tell you about. This operation is not only in the middle of Parris Pike, it's in the middle of some of the most significant and protected parcels along Parris Pike. The location is just simply not appropriate. It also falls within what they call the Rural A View Shed Plan. That means it's visible from Parris Pike and it needs an extra layer of protection. It doesn't fall outside the view shed. These operations are going to be seen from the Parris Pike. The Parris Pike Small Area Plan would suggest that they should be even more closely scrutinized than other areas along the pike. Now, I do want to acknowledge something that opposing counsel has mentioned. He's absolutely correct. As absurd as it is, we can't defeat the winery here today. This is a horrible location for a winery. It shouldn't operate here, but that's not what's in front of you. So I've tried to focus my presentation on the handful of issues, having kind of set the stage with the comprehensive plan and the small area plan. What are my clients' biggest concerns? And they are five. One, there's a dangerous traffic situation that's only going to be exacerbated by people that have been drinking. Light, noise, and traffic are catastrophic on equine operations, thoroughbred operations, and any kind of lighter noise pollution should be avoided. It could actually serve to harm the value of the adjacent properties here. If they're not viable as thoroughbred farms anymore, the value of those properties go down significantly. It sets a potentially catastrophic precedent along the Paris Pike corridor and in the AR generally if we can just find workarounds for these small parcels and see the commercialization of our agricultural areas. And finally, we have concerns about the Trojan horse element of this application, which I'll touch on, we think is directly contradictory to the spirit of the ordinance, both the zoning ordinance and the Parris Pike overlay. Now, traffic safety. If you've driven down Parris Pike, you know you can't just turn left out of any driveway. There's a median in the middle of it, and there are only turnarounds at certain designated points. As you can see here, the driveway access does not match up with the turnaround. So anybody who was wanting to enter this property that was coming from Paris would have to come down, turn around, and come back in. What's potentially more concerning to me from somebody who thinks about these applications a lot is, what if I wanted to leave and get back to I-75? I've come in for a wedding, I've come in for a wine tasting, managed to get a spot at the bistro. How do I get home? to turn out on the Paris Pike, cross over, come up, do a U-turn, and come back down to get to Lexington or Interstate 75. That's a potentially dangerous traffic movement. It's going to be particularly more dangerous if somebody's been imbibing alcohol. It's going to be particularly more dangerous if it's at night at the end of one of these weddings when visibility is reduced. I don't think you can approve a conditional use that endangers the public safety. I think this is absolutely a danger to the public safety. And it's not just an imagined concern. Unfortunately, Paris Pike has a number of accidents. I picked this one out in particular because I noticed something on it that said, police have said the driver is from out of town and may not have been familiar with the road. It's a tourist venue. It's people coming in for a wedding. It's people who will not be familiar with Paris Pike. He just told you, we don't want the people who are driving around in the area. This is appointment-type operations. People from out of town will be coming here driving on an unfamiliar and challenging road while drinking alcohol. Unfortunately, that's not the only example of traffic accidents on Parris Pike. Traffic accidents happen all the time on Parris Pike. It's a very dangerous road, largely centered around those turnarounds. I do not think we should be encouraging additional traffic, particularly not where it coincides with those turnaround points. What are our other concerns? This request, if you read their application, wants to operate seven days a week. No rest for the weary. Every day they could have something going on. Staff reports that the events are going to be limited to 150 participants. I think, as you all have noticed, there's only parking for 30 cars. There's really only parking for 15. We're going to provide a kind of secondary area for another 15 cars. Are five people each going to come in a car to this? events or might we be under parked are they going to get what kind of impact are those operations going to have headlights beeping horns any number of things it's not only noise and then that's just the special events people can come out there for purchase retail purchase tastings the bistro operation completely separate there's no requirement that they be segregated you have 20 people in the bistro you have 150 people at a wedding you can have no limits on the number of folks that are are there for retails or tours this is going to be a significant traffic impact events may require generators and internal lightings i asked the question about the tent i actually thought that might serve to help them but now they've told you they may not even use a tent the music may be out in the open the lights may be out in the open that's a huge concern could cause a lot of noise from generators certainly could cause light pollution application acknowledges that request for music again that's noise the size of this farm means that virtually all of their materials as mr clark noted for at least three years 100 of the wine they produce will have to be trucked in from somewhere else but even after they're operating 95 of the wine they propose to make will have to be trucked in from other venues trucks are noisy that's a very small driveway again dangerous traffic situation and finally there's an operating farm that shares a driveway with them that needs to get horse trailers in and out i don't think a shared driveway is an appropriate access for a special events venue and bistro we've talked about the view shed i think they're correct they're certainly not proposing to build anything yet they certainly will be erecting tents that will have an impact on the view shed the parking area that was identified is actually closer to paris pike cars will be parked there that'll be visible from paris pike again in that rural a class a view shed that's identified for protection by the small area plan why is noise a big deal if you know anything about the breeding of horses noise is very very detrimental to the breeding of horses some of these studies that i provided this is a study by the british horse society that talks about the detrimental impact of noise on horses very interesting article that i found that was done out of Portugal after they had installed wind farms the large windmills that generate electricity that don't generate a whole lot of noise but just a little bit of noise they actually noticed that generations of horses were being born with birth defects from the impact of that noise that's a study that's here if you'd like to review it the horse magazine talks about several articles that i found here are twos that i too that i've highlighted the importance and sensitivity of horses to light and noise again encouraging isolation removal from sources of noise talk about the value of thoroughbred farms i think that anything that detrimentally impacts the value of our thoroughbred operations is directly contrary to not only our comprehensive plan but the paris pike corridor plan and our community's general sentiment we have decided as a community that we value these equine operations and that they are to be protected i think anything that could detrimentally impact those operations are contrary to those goals there are mandates to preserve and protect the agricultural community at every level particularly along paris pike and as you all know equine operations were not the horse capital of the world for no reason horse operations are a huge deal for a big reason here's some of the numbers four billion dollars in economic economic impact try to say that three times fast to the state of Kentucky and horse operations they are our top agricultural cash crop ten billion dollars in tourism that includes folks coming in for the derby which you know we do down the road but three hundred thousand three hundred twenty thousand horses fourteen thousand jobs that the people here though this is a long way of me getting to. This is a huge deal for our community. I liked these numbers over here. 80 to 100,000 people across the state, 950 million dollars in cash receipts, annual impact of 4 billion. Compare that to Toyota in Georgetown, considered one of the most important employers in our overall community. They employ 7,000 people. So this is on a scale that's much, much larger. This is an industry that we have to fiercely protect. My clients are largely, not largely, have a significant role in that economic impact. Gainesway Farm, which is in close proximity to this location, one of the most successful stud farm operations in the country, had 72 yearlings. This is the 2017 sale. Average price of those yearlings was over $400,000, dollars, well upwards of a million dollars for certain. This isn't a small time operation, these aren't just a few concerned farmers, these are people that are huge significant economic drivers in our community. Now I mentioned the Trojan horse element and this is one of the things that we're deeply, deeply concerned about. There's a requirement in your ordinance that any conditional use like the bistro, like the special events, have to be clearly incidental and subordinate to the small farm winery operation. This is a 12 acre property by their own site plan they're proposing 1.42 acres for outdoor event space. Bear in mind that they told you they only intended to plant an acre of grapes and that their entire operation would only occupy 500 square feet of that barn. So let me ask you a question, is one acre of grapes and 500 square feet clearly incidental and subordinate to almost an acre and and a half of outdoor event space the outdoor event space is larger than the operations they propose that's not clearly incidental and subordinate you get to assign a percentage to that you can you can decide what constitutes clearly incidental and subordinate but i would suggest to you it's not clearly incidental and subordinate when the gross acreage is larger for the proposed conditional uses than the proposed principal uses we think that this is probably an application that seeks to have a wedding venue in a restaurant in an area where they're not allowed and the winery is merely the tail wagging the dog the winery gives them the vehicle to get these other uses obviously a huge concern of precedent zoning ordinance restricts indoor conditional uses to 10 000 square feet or less in the agricultural rural zone this outdoor event spaces on the order of six times larger than would be permitted in an indoor facility they can only get away with it by keeping them outdoors i think when you look at this i've added to this a little box that shows what 10 000 square feet would look like as you compare it to the area they've proposed for their operations this is an order of magnitude much greater than was ever contemplated by the conditional uses in our zoning ordinance this is a massive scale operation that that should not be permitted to go forward. We also have a little bit of a math problem. I'm glad that they've conceded at the outset that they're only gonna plant one acre. I think they're a little optimistic based on my calculations on that thousand gallons from that acre, but let's say that that's legitimate. They're gonna truck in 19 times that amount to hit the production thresholds, and that's only three years from now when they're actually producing on that one acre. Up until that point, 100% of the products that they sell, taste sample and people are coming in to having their weddings for will be coming from off-site i would note that under the small farm winery statute krs 243 sub 155 a wine that is compatted shall shall be considered the product of the small farm winery that provides the fruit so the products they will sell at this facility until their wine is actually being produced will be the product of another wine and of another farm it wouldn't even be this operations wine pursuant to statute. You're going to truck wine in, you're also going to truck wine out. They've just told you 20,000 gallons aren't going to be consumed, thank goodness, per year at the operation they have proposed. So they're going to have to take several of these products out. Trucks coming in to deliver product, trucks coming in to take product away, again, all in close proximity to thoroughbred operations. Something I found that was interesting about wine waste, and I will admit this goes a little bit more to the winery use, but I think it's useful to know and to help frame some of the concerns of my clients. There's obviously no sewer in the agricultural area. These are all on septic systems. Wine waste isn't your standard wastewater. It has low pH, and these terms you learn when you learn these applications, has a high five-day biological oxygen demand. What does that mean? It's harmful to vegetation and wildlife. it's going to be in a septic tank and it has a possibility to get into the groundwater that are serving these other farm operations. It can increase metal in soils and actually cause toxins to detach and get into the groundwater. There are a number of these parcels along Parris Pike that don't have frontage requirements. They're small lots. Is this opening Pandora's box to everybody can come in and get a bistro and a special event, and we can just have a wedding venue, wedding venues up and down Parris Pike? That would annihilate the thoroughbred operations. But if we open that door today, I'm concerned that that's exactly what you're going to see. I think you need to very closely look at the following points. What constitutes subordinate and incidental? This cannot possibly constitute subordinate and incidental. If they wanted to prove that it was subordinate and incidental, they could wait until the facility was actually producing. They haven't done that. They've asked for this at the jump. whether it's compatible with adjacent uses you look at that on every conditional use permit application you hear some places conditional uses are appropriate some they are not a special events venue and restaurant next to operating stud farms is a very poor idea and not an example of compatible uses whether their facilities are adequate to serve their operations do you think that this slot and I'm going to show you a picture of it here in a minute can accommodate 20,000 gallons of product coming in and 20,000 gallons of product going out for at least three years. And then there's also an issue about production here. Part of the reason they need to hit that threshold is because the number of seats they're allowed to have in their bistro are directly tied to the amount of wine that they produce. They have to produce at least 10,000 gallons to get the 20 seats that they want, and that's pursuant to the terms of our ordinance. So for at least the first three years, 100% of that product is going to be produced elsewhere, trucked here. What does this amount to? This is really a wine processing facility. It's not an agricultural use. Most of the work that's going to be going on here is going to be in an industrial setting. And industrial setting plus restaurant plus special events does not equal an agricultural use. Again, 95%. I think it's very powerful when you see it graphically. 95% of the product when they're operating at full capacity from what they've told you they're going to do going to come from other locations. So I want to summarize because I know there are several other people that want to talk to you here today. But this is a dangerous corridor. Parris Pike is not an easy road to navigate. It's certainly not easy to navigate if you're from out of town and you're drunk. And I hope that these patrons would not be over served, but I've been to a wedding. I'm sure you have too where sometimes people get into a little bit too much fun. The use is clearly incompatible with the neighboring thoroughbred stud farms. Noise and light are the biggest components of it. Trucks, generators, music, special events, these all cause huge amounts of light and noise. It's going to impair the value of the adjacent farms if they're not viable as thoroughbred operations. They're simply not as valuable. Everything in our comprehensive plan suggests that we need to support and protect the rural area. It creates a potentially dangerous precedent along the corridor and really throughout our agricultural rural area that you can take a small 12-acre parcel that isn't really engaged in agricultural use and use it as a way to get special events and restaurants. Simply put, this accessory or conditional use dominates the principal use that's going to be taking place on the site. and I think it's just a workaround to get it in this zone where it wouldn't otherwise be permitted. So here's the property, looking at it aerially. They've told you the residence is going to stay. We're going to have a winery operation, a restaurant, an event space for 150 guests and their parking, a bottling manufacturing space, and a retail space, all taking place on this. Do you think this property is sufficient to accommodate those uses? When you look at it in comparison to its neighbors, do you think it's sufficient to accommodate those uses? I would suggest to you that it's not. Finally, I would tell you that Parris Pike is a very special corridor, probably the most important corridor in our community as it relates to equine operations. One of my clients made a comment that I thought was very powerful. When you pull up Google Maps, and that's what's displayed on the side here, as you look along the Parris Pike corridor, what do you see? Operating thoroughbred farms. It's a beautiful picture and a beautiful representation of what's important to our Fayette County community. does a bistro and special events space enhance or inhibit that legacy that's the question I think you need to ask today I don't think it can be answered in any way other than no and we'd ask that you turn out in this application with that I know there are several others that want to speak to you but I would certainly be happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you mr. Walburn any questions for mr. Walburn from the board well I would just like to clarify you are admitting I don't know about meeting is the right were but the um the notion that it's not a commercial corridor is not correct i mean the thorough thoroughbred forms farms are commercial in nature and we just we're just wanting to put a higher i guess give the equine industry you know we want to keep it consistent in the commercial nature certainly any anything that happens in our agricultural area that isn't a single family house is a commercial operation of some whether you're growing soybeans or grapes or tobacco or horses those are all commercial uses a couple of key points here that i think are different they referenced in the letter that they presented i got to see it for the first time today but oh well the thoroughbred farms are all doing these tours now we're not any really worse than that you're not caravanning 150 cars out to thoroughbred farms when you do these tours You're putting people in a bus and it's smaller operation. The trucking in and out that's going on, they're not trucking in 95% of their product. They're being raised on the property. And my particular concern about this, it's not purely commercial uses. It's what I would call objectionable or noxious commercial uses that generate things like noise and light that are particularly detrimental to the agricultural community. So it's not purely just the advent of commercial uses. Anytime you sell a product, you're a commercial use of sorts. This is too intense of a commercial use for this corridor. Although the question before us is not whether or not we're going to approve a winery, there is already approved a winery operation for this location. The only thing before us today is the bistro and special events accessory use to a winery. You're absolutely correct. We're hopeful, based on some of the representations that were made in the Paris Pike Corridor Commission, that these were integral to their operations, that they'll elect to find a more suitable location for a winery. But you're correct. You can't stop the winery today. What you can stop is the uses that are going to generate a whole bunch of extra light and noise, and we're going to hope for the best on the other things. I frankly find it absurd that what essentially amounts to a manufacturing facility can be considered a winery, but that's not a you-all problem. That's unfortunately a KRS problem. What we can stop today are headlights, car horns, slamming doors, drunk drivers, music, things that would be detrimental to the Paris Pike corridor. So we're hopeful that you will at least indulge us with that much. Other questions for Mr. Walbert? Okay, next, counsel. Introduce yourself again, please. Clay Barkley. I represent Hard Scuffle Incorporated. thank you to the board for allowing me to speak today Elmendorf is a historic horse form it's right across Paris Pike from the proposed development at 3931 Paris Pike. It's been in operation since the 19th century and I want to echo a lot of Jacob's comments that this proposal would be very detrimental to that horse operation and be detrimental to any horse operation as a preliminary matter, I've heard from the developer basically that this operation is going to be a curated experience and that it's going to be by reservation only and that they don't intend to disrupt what is essentially the Broadway of the horse capital of the world. but there are no conditions or binding elements to ensure that no more signs are put up or that it is by reservation only or that we don't have major wedding events in this location. I don't know about you all, but when I got married, my wife, it was a little more involved than I wanted to be. And as I recall, the wedding and the reception, lots of things had to take place before that. There were a DJ and a band that had to come out to the site. There were bartenders. There were flowers and beauticians. There were chairs and catering. This site, we know, is not producing any food, so all that's going to have to be catered on site. There are structures that would have to be brought to the site and built. Tent structures, possibly other structures. scaffolding, mobile toilets would have to be trucked in and placed on site and then taken off site. All these things would then have to be broken down and taken off site. You'd have drivers, you have drunk drivers, so you could have Uber drivers or taxis that come out to the site. So simply saying that this is 24 events per year is a little bit of a misnomer, because if you have 24 weddings and wedding receptions per year of 150 guests, guests, that's essentially going to be 250 days per year in all the preparation for those events. So I wanted to say that first. Second of all, I wanted to say I think there is a fundamental distinction between horse farms as a commercial entity because they're not. They're agricultural. And the Lexington Comp Plan basically designates them as agriculture and they are treated differently because agricultural and this but that is not the fight we're getting into but i just want to say that i think it's really important that we protect the pear spike corridor as the small area plan the the pear spike overlay and the lexington comp plan contemplate let me go back into and i'll try to bounce around so i don't cover anything that jacob has covered But basically, we believe that this plan is inconsistent with the comp plan. It's inconsistent with the Louisville zoning ordinance. It's inconsistent with the overlay zone. And it's inconsistent with a small area plan. We believe that you should follow the determination of the Paris Pike Commission, which unanimously voted against this particular development. We believe that this will irreparably harm Elmendorf. Elmendorf, it will irreparably harm Paris Pike. And there's really no going back once you start to allow these kind of developments in this area. We agree with Jacob that this is about the tail wagging the dog. Essentially, the developer has said they're only going to do one acre of vines. And they have a 1.42 acre space with tents. and they've put up you know essentially showing that they're they're only going to use i guess it was a 60 60 by 80 area but still the application is for a 1.42 acre space and unless there are conditions and unless there are binding elements they can make this as big as they want it to be from a legal perspective we believe that special events are not even allowed by the zoning ordinance so there's a specific provision in the zoning ordinance let me go to it section 8 1 e under prohibited uses special events parties festivals concerts and children's rides related to a commercial purpose. All other uses other than those listed as principal accessory or conditional uses. So we believe that those aren't allowed. And certainly we believe that this is not a proper accessory use. It is not clearly incidental and subordinate to the one acre of vines that the developer is going to use. Also, we want to point out what the developer said in the Parris Pike Commission, because we think it's relevant. Again, this is language that's not in the minutes of the Paris Pike Corridor Commission, so it's something that we transcribed. But at the July 8, 2019 hearing at 39, 45, and 46, and 51 minutes, advocates stated, I guess at 53, this particular quote, the events are not our primary concern. If for some reason that is something that you wanted to restrict or identify as a way of offsetting some of these other concerns, especially how we choose to use the property, that's fine. If the commission feels that it's not practical or in the best interest of the corridor for the events, we will not be upset or willing to compromise or even eliminate the special events venue if necessary. And certainly, at minimum, we think that's something that this Board of Adjustment should do. see if there's anything else that we jacob didn't hit we also have an issue with you know the the winery is in existence uh uh they do have a license from the state of kentucky but in effect it's not um and that goes to whether or not it's an accessory reuse. If currently there are zero grapes being produced on site, I don't see how it is possible for this to be subordinate, either the bistro or the special events place, to a winery which in effect does not exist. They're taking grapes from Lewisburg or taking bottles of wine from other locations and selling them in this sort of boutique location on Pears Pike. Again, And we don't think that is consistent with either the spirit or the letter of the relevant ordinance. At the end of the day, my client simply wants to protect this as a unique, historic location in both Fayette County and Kentucky. And we feel that if you start to make this change, ultimately it will create a precedent that will be unchangeable. And in 10 to 20 years, there really will be no Parris Pike corridor as we know it. My client, who's a representative of Heart Scuffle, Nana Lampton, will speak briefly about her experience. and her father's experience with the sort of promises, you know, from Fayette County that this would not become a commercial corridor in the future. But at the end of the day, we believe that the comp plan, the overlay zone, the ordinance, and the requirement that this use be subordinate just are not there. So, thank you. If you all have any questions, I'm happy to answer. Anybody have any questions? Anybody on the board have questions for Mr. Barkley at the present time? Thank you, Mr. Barkley. Now, any more counsel for parties wish to speak before we allow non-professionals to speak? And I want to, hearing there are not any other lawyers speaking in opposition, I want to caution the people that do speak. We've already heard very good, thorough, scholarly, and persuasive arguments, both for and against, and giving good reasons. If you do get up to speak, we want to hear something new that hasn't been said before, because we want to be efficient in the way we spend our time here. So if you do come up to the podium to speak, and you're certainly allowed and encouraged to, But if you do, we want to hear something new. Mr. Barkley was very careful not to repeat anything that Mr. Walburn had said, and we want you to follow that same precedent. So with that said, how many people, again, want to speak? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I see. So one at a time, please come up. You can form a queue before the podium or however you want to assemble yourselves. but you're welcome to come up one at a time and speak um what i'm going to do is is to uh is to limit you to three minutes each and if uh if staff has the ability to keep track of the timing uh three minutes per speaker that'll be helpful what i'd like you to do is identify yourself and i assume that everybody that's going to speak is speaking in opposition if not you tell us before you speak. Otherwise, we'll assume you're in opposition to this application. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. What's your name? Chairman, Board of Adjustment Members, Brittany Rothmeier, on behalf of the Fayette Alliance. I appreciate your patience. I will keep it brief. The Fayette Alliance is a land use advocacy group promoting policies which support responsible and sustainable growth here in Fayette County. And what I want to draw your attention to, so I don't repeat anything else, But I want to speak to the primary intent of the agricultural rural zone, which is comprised of the most sensitive and core agricultural lands here in Fayette County. The primary intent of this zone is to encourage production agriculture and protect the rural character of the bluegrass. The location of the conditional use permit is not only in the AR zone, but as well as the Paris Pike overlay, which we heard very much about. And I think, again, as someone has spoken about, conditional uses in the AR zone are only permitted so long as they are clearly incidental to and subordinate to the winery. And what is not addressed, but what is of utmost importance from a policy matter, is that when we consider conditional uses on our most sensitive land and our most sensitive zone, is how related these conditional and commercial uses are to the land on which they operate. to ensure that they do comply with the actual intent of the AR zone. Are the services being offered by the conditional uses and the product being sold actually and meaningful related to the land on which the business operates? And if not, are the conditional uses truly subordinate to the small farm winery operation? I think that our community must be very wary of uses in the AR zone that are not significantly tied to the land on which they sit, so that our ordinance doesn't serve as a loophole that might actually undermine the intent of AR Zone. Doing so, since an incredibly dangerous precedent, that will be very difficult to come back from. In the same vein, also at issue, as Mr. Walburn mentioned, is the determination on the variance, that no variance is required, which also sends a dangerous precedent. I would say that the Fayette Alliance certainly acknowledges the importance of agribusiness and agritourism in our community's desire to engage with the land that makes our county so unique. But protecting the agricultural intent of our rural zones is essential to continuing to have that public experience and allow our community to actually enjoy our signature environmental assets and landscape. So the balance that we have to strike between those two is critical for the future of the Bluegrass and for Fayette County. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much. I'm Nana Lambton. I'm Chair of Hard Scuffle Incorporated and American Life. And at the time the Transportation Cabinet came to negotiate with us, it was both federal and state. They came over a dozen times to talk to my father Dinwiddie and me. I was CEO and Chairman at the time. We agreed to part with 13 acres and those acres were to allow the utility poles to run along Paris Pike in order to assure them of their work. widening. That came our agreement to part with those 13 acres was because they assured us there would be no retail or commercial development along this magnificent boulevard all the way to Paris. And that is the conclusion of my remarks. Thank you. Ms. Lambton, do you know my niece Katie and Margaret? Yes. Well, maybe that disqualifies me to sit as a chairman. Never mind. Oh, well, I think that's wonderful. I didn't know that. Thank you very much. Well, anyway, Elmendorf is not going to be sold. Elmendorf is there for good, and we follow Ben Eli. He started this whole thing of a long-term farm, and that's what we agree. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Ashley Greathouse. I'm with the Bluegrass Land Conservancy. We are a nonprofit land trust operating in the Bluegrass region and we have 132 easements I believe right now. As an organization, we very rarely get involved in zoning and planning issues, but we just felt that this was really important because the potential precedent that's being set for the non-agricultural commercial uses that are going to be permitted in the Ag Zone, and in particular in the Paris Pike Historic Corridor Overlay Zone. I agree with everything everyone has said in opposition so far, so I'm not going to repeat any of that. I do want to say, though, that we do have conservation easements on two farms that are very, very close to the subject property, and it will significantly impair those conservation values. Those landowners that donated easements did get a substantial tax benefit for the donation of their easement because the federal government recognized the importance of their conservation values. In particular, the Paris Pike historic overlay was noted significantly in those two conservation easements, and those are primarily the purpose of those two conservation easements. So we're just here because we would hope that this project will be denied so that it doesn't impair the conservation values on our two conservation easements in the nearby lands. So thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Questions? Any questions? Ms. Greyhouse, none? Thank you. Yes, ma'am. My name is Hillary McCowan. I'm here representing Gainesway Farm. there's been a bit of communication about the tour status of farms and kind of the more commercial aspect of farming. And as Gainesway's representative for tours, I wanted to kind of speak on that. We generally do not accept any large events. We get calls on a regular basis for large wedding receptions and events. And those are always turned down for the reasons that have been highlighted by the attorneys. The second point is any tours that are provided are generally 10 to 12 people tours. They come in on a small gold shield van, like a 15-passenger van at the largest size, and those are just taken through the farm, driven through to show the property. They are not at any way a large operation or a commercial part of the operation. More than the majority of tours are given free at their request. Anyone that wants to visit the farm is welcome to reach out and request a tour. There are tour tickets that are sold through Visit Horse Country. Those are not sold by our farm directly. That's a separate operation that is organized to promote different farms throughout the area. And they organize those and they'll direct guests out to us. Thank you, ma'am. My name is Bill Justice and I don't speak as fast as some of these lawyers speak. I've been asked by Virginia Craft Payson and her husband David Cole to speak on their behalf to make a few points. I've been around 40 years in this business and I now realize how much power you all really have. I applaud you for the volunteerism you do for our community. You spent 20 minutes trying not to set a precedent on a two-foot garage. I want to read you former Governor Paul Patton's last paragraph. Now understand we we have read I would like to read it if you don't mind sir. We've read that that is in the record so i'd like to read it so one paragraph okay any commercialization of the historic overlay zone will degrade the unique character and will be a violation of the spirit of the agreement and will inevitably lead to the expansion of commercialization of this area and destroy the unique asset that is entrusted to Fayette County. I make a living selling horse farms. The applicant talked to you about a blend of equestrian and vineyard operations in Virginia. That's why Virginia doesn't have a thoroughbred operation today. We have a comprehensive plan. You have a responsibility, and the president you set today will last for generations. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. My name is Connie Hale. I'm here representing Gainesway Farm as well. I'm the CFO out there. Mr. Beck also has winery operations, not just a thoroughbred farm. We're very familiar with wineries, how they operate, how the vineyards operate. He has several in Oregon. They're not in Kentucky. So I decided to take a drive yesterday to Willisburg and visit this farm, Horseshoe Bend, to see these grapes and vines that were going to be making this wine. There are no vines to the visible eye. Drove all the way back. Now, the gentleman said that he does have three acres of grapes planted at the very back. Three acres of grapes are not going to make 20,000 gallons of wine. Y'all have the math. I don't have to go through that with you. I do not believe that this is a true agricultural endeavor. I think it is a Trojan horse going out to this property, seeing it overgrown with these poles, and knowing that their tasting room out there is now an Airbnb, and I know you all have this, but this spring they converted that to an Airbnb. I would just hate to see something like that happen on Parris Pike. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Amy Clark, 628 Castle Road. It's wonderful the support that has already been presented and expressed. I have very little left to say. I would invite you to consider why cite the wine production that is already permitted by the ABC here on Paris Pike. And it seems the answer is as a tourist attraction and as a sales and marketing opportunity. The vineyard seems to be sort of for display, educational purposes. Tasting alone won't do it, which is what's already permitted by Kentucky and the ABC. So your question is, is this really accessory? Is it clearly subordinate and incidental? Why offer incentive for the wine production that is apparently permitted by statute in this agricultural zone? Why offer incentive to site it here, offering the fame and fortune of the Paris Pike Corridor to enhance this wine production in a place that's not appropriate? This use would be very welcome in our urban area. There are lots of lovely places, you could put it. It needs that fame and sales and marketing aspect. There must be a reason it's not just ongoing in Willisburg, but Paris Pike's the wrong place for it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Catherine Perkins, 258 Swigert Avenue. I live right off of Paris Pike. and we are in the thoroughbred training business and I used to be a farm owner in Bourbon County. I didn't think I'd hear anybody mention about in the application, the applicant talks about renovating the existing barn, and we already know that they did mention they plan to use a very small portion of the existing barn for their bistro. I do not know if you all have seen Martin's Peterbilt. that was renovated Joyland Bowling Alley. Can you find anything of the Joyland Bowling Alley there? We don't know what the applicant plans to renovate the barn into, but we do know from everything that we've heard that it will be a bottling, processing plant, potentially warehouse. We have ordinances in AR, the same one that Mr. Barkley cited, but number four, retail sales or services, wholesale or warehouse uses. That would be what this barn is potentially going to hold if this is allowed. And I think we need to take that into consideration. If you opt to go forward and follow staff's recommendations, which I certainly don't see how you could, but if you do, I suggest that you take the time to condition everything that has been asked for in. Because if you do not, they can go over and beyond and do what they want. So the barn, to me, what you're renovating the barn into has to be conditioned in height, right? And also the events have to be conditioned. Can an event be two or three days? Or is it one day? No more than two events a month, but what if? And then you have to take into consideration the impact of the events. No one mentioned that. They did mention noise. But going on at 10 o'clock at night. During sales prepping season, when these people are turning their horses out at 8 o'clock at night, These horses are feeling frisky and you have parties going on. But also, again, the overlay states, no parking lots are allowed within. That's one of the ordinances within the overlay. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Any other speakers in opposition? Daniel? Daniel? You're up. rebuttal thank you hear anything you didn't like I heard a lot and I'll try my best to decipher my notes first as to the frontage variance I think that's a simple one the staff says it's not necessary we didn't seek it because the staff told us it wasn't necessary if the staff tells us it is necessary obviously that's something we'd consider, but that's why we didn't seek the variance, because we weren't required to. As to the traffic and noise concerns, which were a theme throughout, I think a few points. First, as to the traffic, the parking lot is for 30 cars. That's all the parking we can handle, and that's all we'll take. Certainly the intention with the bistro is to seat only 20 people. The event space, as we've mentioned, we're conditioning to be open to 150 people. Obviously, 150 people can't fit in 30 spots. So, you know, if we were ever anywhere close to 150 people, we would have to obviously figure out how to transport those people in buses or some other way to get them onto the property. There's never going to be a situation where 150 cars are trying to park on our property. That just won't happen. I think there was some concern about the specific traffic considerations of Paris Pike and drunk driving and things of those nature. And I think it's important to consider when you're thinking about that. There are, we were looking at Google Maps, the thoroughbred centers right down the road. That venue hosts up to 900 people, has a liquor license. Lexington Country Club is right down the road, hosts events, has a liquor license. So there's not only precedent for that, there's large-scale precedent for that. and what we're proposing is not anything of the scale or scope of a country club or the thoroughbred center. Those uses exist. That's just a fact. We're not breaking any new ground in that respect. As to the noise concerns, we're sensitive to that. We get it. We've proposed conditions that we think will address that. we're open to making those binding elements. We're open to other binding elements. If you think those are appropriate to address noise concerns, if it's events must be held inside tents, if it's music's got to stop at certain hours, if it's things like that, I think we're willing to do that. Again, our intention here is not to become a concert venue. It's not to hold large-scale loud events. I think Brian talked about it earlier. The intention is to host small events that showcase our wines and the food that we want to offer our guests. There was some talk about harming the value of the horse farms. Again, that's completely contrary to our plan. the beauty and all of these things that everybody's talked about that make Paris Pike what it is and horse country what it is, that's what we want to promote. That's what we want to be a part of and help grow and build. The intention certainly isn't to harm the value of those farms. That would be harming the value of our own property. So I don't think that that's a fair criticism that we intend to harm the value of these farms. That's simply not the case. As to the arguments about a bad precedent with permitting a commercial operation, I think one of the counsel kind of gave away the game there when he said, he admitted that these horse farms are huge commercial operations. and and that's the reality of it we talked about the thoroughbred center we talked about the country club these horse farms are huge commercial operations they generate traffic they have trucks they generate noise they generate all those things I'd venture to say in a much larger scale than than our small proposal so I don't think there's any precedent setting here in terms of commercialization. Again, our proposal is simply to create a small, a true small farm winery experience. This isn't a Trojan horse. We're not trying to build a huge restaurant. We want 20 seats just to be able to serve people food that highlight the wines that Brian, as you've heard, really wants to grow. We have our small farm winery license, we are an existing small farm winery, under the statute. The question before you is not whether we are a small farm winery or we are not a small farm winery or how many gallons of wine we are going to produce. The question before you is can we also operate this bistro in this event space and under what conditions. And I think we've tried to focus our presentation on the the limitations we're willing to accept on those operations and like I said we're willing to entertain binding elements with respect to the noise tents and things of those nature if you don't mind if I just look through my notes really quick There was some discussion of the AR zone and primary agricultural use. On that, we are proposing a primary agricultural use. A small farm winery is an agricultural use. That is our primary, the primary use we are proposing that we've been approved for. So I just wanted to make that point. There was a discussion of retail uses on Paris Pike. Again, that question is not before you. So a retail use is already permitted under the statute and the ordinance because we are a small farm winery. I think that's about all I have. There was some discussion of an Airbnb. There's certainly no proposal for an Airbnb-type arrangement here. obviously if we were going to propose that we would have to get approval for that. There was a citation to I think it was the KRS about the wine must be considered the product of the farm that provided the fruit. That's not, again, leaving aside the fact that the question of whether we're a small farm winery is not before you, that provision of the KRS is simply saying the providence of the wine is to be considered the farm where the fruit was grown. That's not saying that to be a small farm winery you have to have actually grown the grapes on the property. As I've discussed, there's no requirement that a small farm winery actually grow grapes and bottle the wine. The only wine they can bottle is from the grapes there on the property. That's not part of the statute. And then finally on the barn renovations, as I've discussed, we're not making any exterior changes to that barn. It's going to look exactly like it does now. The view from Paris Pike is not going to change. And I think that's all I've got, Brian. Do you mind if Brian speaks? No, go ahead. Yeah, I just have a couple of minor points just to address some of the concerns on some logistics. One, the statute referring to the compounding is actually in direct relation to the crushing process. There's a limit of 100,000 gallons of small farm winery can produce in the state of Kentucky. And if you are crushing for another operation, that particular statute addresses you not using that against your allotment to your 100,000 gallon production limits. Producing, venting, these are actually legal and technical terms in the alcohol and wine industry. industry. Producing means that the fermentation, the blending, and the finishing are all are conducted on one site. Venting refers to taking a fermented product and then doing a finishing. So the equivalent of the bourbon industry would be taking bourbon and finishing on a port barrel, something along those lines. 20,000 gallons sounds like a lot of wine. I know it does. My number's been brought up quite a bit so I want to put that into perspective for a little bit. We ship things in 240 or 260 gallon food grade tubs. These things when completely full weigh about 2,400 pounds. To put this into perspective, a pickup truck, your standard half ton, buy it off of a lot, take it home pickup truck carries 3,000 pounds in its bed. You can literally put one of these in a bed of a pickup truck, do two pickup trucks a week for 52 weeks, that's a year, and that's your 20,000 gallons of wine. We're not talking about as much as it sounds. We're not talking about a high impact in traffic and loading and crush and that sort of stuff. I think that's being exaggerated a little bit. The other thing I want to point out is the 1.42 acres existing paddock, that is actually to protect the viewshed on Bears Pike. That was an existing paddock established space. We did not tear down fence. We did not restructure. We did not realign. We did not rework. It's just the space that we're using. It's clearly defined. So that when we presented that to planning and zoning, there was a defined space that they could identify so they knew exactly where we were going to be, how we were going to do it, and if they wanted to place conditions upon that, they were able to clearly define that. We're not trying to do some sort of mathematical equation that 150 people all of a sudden becomes 5,000 people. The condition for 150 people is 150 people, and we understand and respect that. The last thing from an operational point of view is it's been brought up several times. Why are we seeking conditional permit at this particular time in our operation? It's simple. This is a heavy capital investment. We just want to know, are we allowed to do what our business plan and our agricultural needs are? That way we can invest in the right things at the right times and do this the right way. We've done this process under good faith. We're not trying to, I don't know, be in operation that we're not. At the end of the day, what's the definition of a farm? We grow things. It just happens to be our particular thing takes three years to make us money. We've got to find some way to bridge that and introduce people to the product that we do. It is incidental to what we're doing. There's no way that those numbers can support the capital cost of running a winery, no matter what volume we're producing. And I'd like for you to please take that into consideration. This is incidental. We are going to make wine. We are going to grow grapes. And fundamentally, we believe that the grape culture and the farm culture in the state of Kentucky, as it applies to wine, has a lot to offer. And we plan to highlight that. Yes, we are marrying that to the equine industry. Unfortunately, Matt Bowling had to leave a little bit early. But I do want to give you just a little insight into what Matt deals with in his operations. Matt does breed over 500 mares between himself and his clients. He owns shares in stallions throughout the state of Kentucky and many of these stallion farms. His sales agency, Vinery, is often in the top five of the total amount of horses sold in the United States. We do understand the equine industry. But today, we're specifically addressing the operational needs of the winery. We're asking for the permit so that we can do this the right way, and we can do it in such a way that we don't impact the area unnecessarily. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you both, Mr. Parnell. Thank you. Mr. Walburn, there's no provision for a sir rebuttal in the rules before the Board of Adjustment, unless you can show me otherwise. However, do you have anything to say in sir rebuttal to what you've just heard? If the Chair will indulge me, I think I've limited it to six points that are about two sentences each. I will give you two minutes to make those six points. You got it. And then we will hear nothing further. I'll speak quickly. With respect to the variance, as I mentioned, you're the arbiter of your ordinance. If you think that variance is necessary, and I'd suggest to you there's no way you can think anything else, then they should be required to apply for that. That's one of the findings that I've given to you. With respect to the traffic and noise, buses make more noises than cars. They're bigger operations. And I'd suggest to you that they're not going to limit it to 30 cars. That's going to be a huge headache for a wedding. there'll be more cars out there than 30 unless you strictly condition that Paris Pike centric concerns they mentioned the Thoroughbred Center and the Lexington Country Club let's talk about scale the Thoroughbred Center is 260 acres has accesses at two of those turnarounds Lexington Country Club massive operation again accessed at one of those turnarounds it's not just that it's happening out there it's how it's happening and how that functions you should definitely keep that in mind. Horse farms, okay, fine, they're commercial use, but they're permitted by right in the agricultural zone, and this isn't. Why? Because those uses are different. Wedding event, wedding or an event venue, a bistro, those are not agricultural uses. Grapes, maybe, but these are not agricultural uses. And finally, they said that harming farms was contrary to their plans then i'd respectfully request that they don't do it all of the horse farm owners around them are united in opposition to this don't harm us we don't want you to just say no thank you thank you sir okay we've heard all the testimony we're going to hear does the board have any questions of staff or of anybody before we entertain them see if we can entertain a motion the uh the matter before us is the application uh pln boa 19-45 jester's paddock for a conditional use permit for a bistro and special events accessory to a small farm winery that's the issue before us are you ready to see if we can propose a motion anybody want to make a motion on this application mr. Clark I don't want to make a motion yet but I do have some comments and and I think we've heard we've heard good arguments on both sides I think it's important that we keep to the matter at hand here and it seemed like to me this application and I should say I should also say first thank goodness for wineries if I might it's a good thing in this particular case I think we've got the cart before the horse it seems like to me that I asked this question, is this incidental and subordinate to the winery? And that's why I brought the question up about producing wine. And the definition that I have heard and I've seen for a farm winery basically differs from a commercial winery in the fact that the fruit, which is the source of the wine, is usually produced on the farm. So I have to keep that in mind. And the fact that we're going to have a production facility here that's primarily more than growing grapes at this point bothers me in the sense that it's no longer the primary reason for this facility. So I think we've got it backwards. I think the cart before the horse probably says that as well. So it's subordinate to what? Subordinate to an acre of grapes or subordinate to a production facility that brings in wine from other facilities. So I can't see how this can possibly be a proper use of this. And I would applaud anyone that wanted to do a really fine winery, and I think it's a great idea. But the conditional use of this is simply not appropriate. And I would have to vote. No, no, no, no, no, no. but I would have I would have to say that as strongly as I can thank you very much okay thank you mr. Clark anybody else on the board want to make any comments before we emotion I'm not in I'm not inviting or encouraging comments I'm just asking if it's your pleasure I just see this as a processing facility I agree with mr. Clark that we're putting the cart before the horse and that we don't we don't have a viable agricultural operation out there. And so, you know, we're not California, we're Kentucky, and we have horses. And I think that is something that we have to keep in mind also. And I'm also concerned about, I think, a lot of the points that Mr. Walburn has made as far as these small parcels that are on Parris Pike. We have to be very careful and cautious about what we do out there. And it's a beautiful corridor. I had the pleasure of driving to Paris this spring, and it took my breath away. And I think that we have to keep that in mind as we go forward. Anybody else? I think we spent more time on this application than we did on the first ten applications, so I think we've given you a fair chance and choice to hear everything that's been said. This, to me, is, like many we hear, is not an easy case. There are good arguments on both sides. On the one hand, the staff recommends approval of this, and I place great weight on what the staff does because they spend all of their time on these applications. They review in greater detail than we ever can in our public hearings, so the vote of the staff carries great weight with me. On the other hand, I understand the interest in protecting the horse industry, protecting the Parris Pike corridor because the horse industry is such an economic driver for Lexington and the Lexington commerce. I'm not sure that the accessory use for a bistro and special events venue is in the best interest of this piece of property. And I think that's what it turns on. As far as the Trojan horse issue is concerned, I think the Trojan horse has already been delivered. there's a winery in the paris pike corridor so deal with it horse people it's already there the question before us is not that the question before us is whether or not we permit or allow an incidental uh or subordinate use in that we permit or allow a bistro or special events venue in the area. I think it's probably too soon to tell. So my inclination is to not vote in favor of this application because of that. And I agree that this corridor is deserving of special protection because it is probably the main artery of the horse industry which as we said before is one of the main economic drivers for lexington so my inclination is not to vote to approve this application however I'm only one vote out of six present so we'll see how this goes with that being said our normal procedure is to entertain a motion from the board and And do we have anyone that wants to propose a motion at this time? Let me get my papers together here. Ms. Myers has a motion. All right. I move that we disapprove PLN BOA 1945 Horseshoe Bend Vineyard LLC DBA Jester's Paddocks request for a conditional use permit to host special events accessory to a small farm winery in the agricultural zone at 4688 paris pike for the following reasons one the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the requested conditional uses are clearly incidental and subordinate to a small farm winery operation which is required by 8-1d 27 of the lexington fayette urban county zoning ordinance because the proposed conditional uses specifically the special events are out of scope with the size of the property and the existing operation number two the subject property does not contain 500 feet of furniture on paris pike the road the property relies upon for frontage in contravention of ordinance 24a- sub 8c of the lexington fayette urban county zoning ordinance number three the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the site can be accessed and departed from safely by the general public which will generate potentially unsafe conditions on a challenged roadway. And number four, the increased light, noise, and traffic generated by the requested conditional uses would detrimentally impact the existing thoroughbred operations located adjacent to the property and cause adverse effects on the surrounding properties. Okay. Do we have a second? I second the motion. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor, please indicate by registering your vote electronically. the motion to disapprove carries the application is denied thanks everybody for your attendance and uh you're free to go that concludes the docket of the board of adjustment for today there any other matters to come before the board any other matters that the board members wished to bring before the board before we adjourn hearing none I remind the board that the next meeting was is September 9 2019 at 1 30 here and we are adjourned thank you you