The Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. so so Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Let me welcome you to Boer's review of the application of the Pensacola Park application to be designated as the h1 overlay it was initiated on october 28th 2019 today's meeting is august 14 2019. this hearing is being held pursuant to sections 13 6a 13 6b sub 2 and 13 6 sub b 4 of the lexington county lexington fayette county zoning ordinance the board is required to hold a a public hearing to review the H1 overlay application so that may provide recommendations to the planning commission. The board must cite appropriate criteria in findings for its decision. As many of you may be aware already, the proposed Pensacola Park District Designation Report is available on the LFUCG website. In addition, we have a limited number of printed copies of the report available at today's meeting. Please let the Historic Preservation staff know during the meeting if you need a printed copy of the document and you simply just wave. The order of the hearing will be as follows. The Historic Preservation staff and consultant, Janie Rice-Brother, will make a presentation as to the recently completed study regarding this application. Following that presentation, I will open the hearing to public comment. Please be aware the sign-up sheets are located at the rear of the chamber. If you wish to speak and have not signed up, please sign up now. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes to address the board. However, an individual who has signed up to speak may, in effect, donate their time to another speaker. The maximum time any individual will be permitted to address the board shall be limited to nine minutes. please inform the board or the staff rather prior to the beginning of your comments if you'll be utilizing the time of any other speakers so that the list can be updated and we can adjust the time allowed accordingly also please note that there's a digital clock on the wall to the left of the podium you will count down the time as the speaker is talking after all who have signed up have had an opportunity to speak or have donated their time to another speaker, I will close the public comment portion of the hearing. The Historic Preservation staff may then address any final comments on the application to the board. The board will then consider the application and determine whether to forward it to the Planning Commission with a recommendation of approval or disapproval. The BOAR is required by the zoning ordinance that then provide our recommendation in writing to the Planning Commission so they may also consider the application. The Planning Commission will also hold a public hearing to consider the application, and their recommendation will be then forwarded to the Urban County Council, which in turn will hold a public hearing and take final action. At this time, I would ask for you to silence your cell phones, and the board will now hear the presentation by the Historic Preservation staff and its consultant, Janie Rice-Brother. Ms. Kirk? Mr. Chair and members of the board, let's see if we can get this so it's loud enough. Are you hearing me okay? Thank you. Before I start with our presentation, if I might make one suggestion and slight correction to your opening comment. All right, it happens. Great way to start. Just a slight thing. You made a misspoken word. I think you intended to say that the Planning Commission initiated the study on March the 28th. Believe it or not, October was rumbled. Sorry, March 28, 2019. I just wanted to be sure that the record has that. The record stands corrected. Thank you. It is my pleasure to be with you all tonight to, along with the consultant Janie Rice Brother, present the report, a very brief summary of the report that all parties have been working on. The Urban County Planning Commission, when it made its initiation for the Pensacola Park area, it's of course defined by that area by the map, which you'll be seeing details of very shortly. And then the result of their action to initiate the study is this designation report, the study and survey and research and final document that you have before you tonight and that will be utilized for the ensuing public hearings. Historic zoning, known as H1 overlay, is designed to protect and preserve structures and sites of historic, cultural, and architectural importance in Lexington and Fayette County. As you're aware, the design review process brings with it a review and permitting process for projects process for projects that affect the exterior structures and the site. Interior work that has no effect on the exterior of the building or site is not reviewed. Having property in an area protected by an H-1 overlay zoning does not require a property owner to make improvements. Work that does require a permit, which is known as a certificate of appropriateness, must have plans submitted for review and approval prior to the beginning of the work. The design guidelines form the basis for the review of each application and they help to ensure that the exterior changes are compatible with the structure itself with the site and the historic district that it is part of. The BOAR has mandated to the staff the Division of Historic Preservation the review and issuance of permits for routine items such as re-roofing, rear fences and substantial renovation that are basically existing conditions. Other proposed work, including all proposed new construction and demolition applications, are reviewed by the Board of Architecture Review yourselves. Annually, approximately 65% of the applications that are submitted are reviewed and permits issued by staff, reflecting that the nature of those permits falls in the category that you have empowered us to review and act on. And then, of course, the balance of those applications are heard by the Board of Architectural Review. The boundaries of a historic district are an important topic to be thinking on during these considerations because they establish an area where exterior changes are reviewed before the implementation, just as I've outlined. In determining boundaries, careful consideration should be given to all properties within an area as initiated and as requested. Historic districts should include whole properties and an uninterrupted sequence of properties with logical, well-defined perimeter boundary. If properties are omitted from the middle or the edges of a proposed district, the character of the proposed district is only partially protected and is not visually cohesive. In addition, the positive effects of this protection are potentially greatly diminished. Historic district boundaries are defined by several different factors, including not only the historic sites and architectural and character-defining resources present, but also the overall history and development pattern reflected in that proposed area. Article 13 of the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Zoning Ordinance states that an area being considered for historic zoning must meet at least one of nine criteria. Most of the districts that have come to be designated over the years meet several of those criteria. These criteria are included in the study, and the ones directly relating to the proposed area will be more fully discussed as part of our summary. One quick word about the LFUCG Comprehensive Plan. The current 2018 Comprehensive Plan, known as Imagine or titled, I should say, Imagine Lexington, strongly encourages the protection and enhancement of existing neighborhoods. The Comprehensive Plan notes the importance of preserving, protecting, and maintaining these existing neighborhoods so that they provide stability and the highest quality of life for all residents. all residents. Several of the themes, goals, and objectives included in the 2018 Comprehensive Plan are especially relevant to historic neighborhoods and further details of which are noted in your report. And so I'm not going to go into all the enumeration of those, but if anybody has questions or wants additional information, we certainly are glad to talk about that. At this point, I'd like introduce Janie Rice Brother who has been the consultant who has done so much of the research and documentation and evaluating the architecture and history of the Pensacola Park area for this study. She has done a great number of nominations of properties for historic designation through her career and our central Kentucky area is lucky to have her. So with that, Janie Rice Brother. Mr. Chair and members of the board, thank you so much for having me here tonight. I'm delighted to talk about this wonderful historic neighborhood and hopefully I can, I think I'm am I going the right way no there we go I'm going to talk about the history and the architecture of the proposed Pensacola Park historic district and first to establish and I'm going to do this as quickly as possible and not read the entire report to establish first it's on the south side of lexington as you can see on your map that's not that's not working um bounded by nicholsville road the railroad tracks suburban court and then goodrich is the southernmost street here you have a map that shows and the colors are showing up the five main plats that make up the district and you can see Rosemont Garden 1919, Suburban Court 1922, Penn Moken 1923, Goodrich 1927, and Pensacola Park in 1928 and these are the plats as they were filed and one of the amazing things about this district is how closely development mirrored what was in their original plat. And to take a little look back in history, Pensacola Park developed at a pivotal time in American history and in Lexington. I would say that it was a perfect storm of trends, but that, I don't know if perfect storm is exactly the best term to use. The Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical Arts College, better known as the University of Kentucky today, moved to the south side of Lexington in 1882. The electric street car made its debut in Lexington in 1890. The annexation laws in the state of Kentucky changed. There were pressures for the city of Lexington to grow so they could increase, they could get more taxes, add more land to the tax rolls. And then there was a growing desire among developers and residents for people to become homeowners in Lexington. And you can see here a 1904 map of lexington with a blue arrow showing lc price and he was the owner of what would become this historic district he was a retired dry goods merchant price and castle was his store and in 1898 he purchased his land on what was a sleepy country road at the time and he went into the horse business which was not unusual in fayette county except that he was raising Shetland ponies and the you can see one of his ads up there and then that is the historic house that was on the property price really laid the groundwork for this development and the coming suburbs he was interested in Shetland ponies but he also purchased land on the other side of Nicholasville Pike to develop into a subdivision along the streetcar lines and you can see on this map if you can make out nicholasville road there should be a green line going along that showing the route of the interurban line it ran down the east side of nicholasville road so and when you get into ads for these developments they talk about the nicholasville car line and this was there were there was a streetcar the interurban there were buses later there would of course be cars one of my favorite things in researching this was the bungalow man william mcclellan johnston and his ads are just absolutely amazing i think if he was alive today he would be on have his own show sort of like a talk show shell selling real estate and here you have um sort of a an example of one of the people who lived in the neighborhood bob mook who was a world war ii veteran bought a house i don't know that he used fha financing which was coming into its own at that time but he's indicative of the type of homeowners people owning a house for the first time small houses that were affordable they were fashionable this was an exciting place to live he was outside the city limits this was fresh air and this was country and there were no city laws and then the bungalow man says if you don't believe that rosemont gardens will be prettier than mentel park and i really like these these are sort of fighting words that he's putting out you need to come over and check out what i'm building and he was instrumental he and lc price instrumental in the development of this district by courting the interurban line and then johnston developed rosemont garden and then across nicholasville road where um johnston is johnston lane is today developed that and here is the lexington um sanborn insurance map from 1934 and suburban court and rosemont are at the top and you can sort of see development is at the north end and the south and then the later would fill in. One of the great traits about this neighborhood, one is how it developed very it maintains those same characteristics. It was a sub it was a suburb, it was out so every house has a driveway, has a comparable setback, there's a sidewalk, it's a very walkable neighborhood. Houses there's a rhythm to the pattern of development that is still still there today. We're having a slight technical there should be more pretty pictures on this slide and they're coming in. It reads like a textbook definition of popular American styles from the 1920s and 1930s. You have bungalows, Tudor revivals, Cape Cods, Dutch colonial revival, and now I'm going to go through each of those. We have styles and types. The colonial revival nationally popular 1880 to 1950 and they symmetrical facades borrowed freely from the federal and Greek revival styles which you could see all across Fayette County but in a smaller scale the colonial revival in the district does it's there's fewer examples because they do tend to be larger houses the craftsman style you will see on any number of houses whether it's a bungalow you can have um tudor revival houses that actually have craftsman elements but some that's really all about the low pitched roofs porches battered porch posts dormers exposed rafter tails brackets at the gables these are all characteristics of the craftsman style and as william johnston would have you believe the district was nothing but bungalows which is not exactly true there are 188 of them out of 427 parcels but other many other popular styles are represented as well but the bungalow along Rosemont, Suburban, and Pinmokun is the most popular house type and some people might think if you've seen one bungalow you've seen them all and you haven't. Bungalows are there's amazing array they're all they're all different they all have a special type of distinction and style. The American Foursquare like the craftsman style drew influence from the arts and crafts movement and the progressive movement they tend to be larger houses like the name implies a four square four rooms on the first floor and the second floor there's only three or four of these in the district again they tend to be larger houses and this is a district of smaller one-story to one and a half story homes predominantly Tudor revival style the 1920s you could say were the sort of bungalow mania and that's what you see along rosemont penmocan and suburban less so as you get later into the period of development but the tudor revival style it's not really the tudor period in england it's a mixture of elizabethan and jacobean styles but not a grand country houses these are small houses that were affordable and really appealed to people seeking to buy their first home sharp angles a mixture of cladding, faux half timbering, but facade chimneys these are all characteristics of the style that you see in the district and there's some amazing Tudor revival houses in this district. Dutch colonial revival, drawing inspiration from houses built by Dutch settlers in the 18th century. The predominant characteristic is the gambrel roof. Most have a full width porch and a shed dormer across the front and usually the back. There's only four, I believe, Dutch colonial revivals in the district. Cape Cod, there are 69 of those in the district. It's a smaller version really of the colonial revival. It's a one story to one and one half story. Symmetrical, usually has front gable dormers, does not have porches unless you have them a side gable porch to the side, sort of like a a wing. Minimal traditional is a simplified version of the Tudor Revival style and it came along later in the late 30s and the 40s and they typically lack the ornamentation of the Tudor Revival style but usually have almost always have that cross gable on the facade. The American small house is what you might call a starter home and that's exactly what it was what it was and this is this type of house that Bob Mook, the World War II veteran, bought on Pensacola Drive. Four rooms usually on the first floor, very simple layout, very minimal ornamentation and decoration. There's 32 of the American small houses in the district. They're surprisingly out of given the fact that that the sleepy country road turned into a major artery in Lexington. There's been very little, there's only about 10, I think, houses that do not fall into sort of the period of significance, the historic period when this neighborhood was developing. There is one commercial, and then there are some residential dwellings that have been built in the last 20 to 30 years. But surprisingly for a large district, there's been very little of this construction from this period. And I think I went through that very fast, but I'm not sure. We're tag teaming, as you can see. And so at this stage I would like to complete our presentation with the findings and the criteria that have been demonstrated to have been met via the study and completing this with a recommendation for your consideration. The findings that you have, of course, read in the report already and heard a quick summary of the facts of this matter this evening. This study reflects the area's development, its relationship to Lexington and its cultural, architectural, and economic history, as well as an evaluation of the architectural history, integrity, and character in the entire proposed district. Based on this study, the following findings are presented for the consideration of the Board of Architectural Review. And please note that I am briefly summarizing the findings and criteria in this presentation and that, as you're aware, the full findings and criteria are in the designation report and should be considered part of this whole document of presentation. The findings, the finding number one, the study area is a cohesive, dense concentration of significant domestic architecture, mainly dating from 1919 until 1944. This was a time of expansion and growth in Lexington's history and homes, as you've been hearing, and offered well-designed, affordable, well-bid residences to first-time homeowners and many others. Finding two, the area includes over 400 period examples of the residential architecture popular during the development of Lexington between the wars. The historic building within the proposed district cover a range primarily of small and medium scale houses, one and a half story predominantly, but also including a limited number of two-story larger homes. Finding three, the structures within the study area are representative of several nationally and locally popular architectural styles, as has been presented by Ms. Brother. They're very representative of the development period, and I will not re-enumerate the specific styles. I believe you understand that from her presentation. Finding four, the level of architectural integrity is very high throughout the study area. The historic houses maintain their character-defining style and forms. The streetscapes and layout remain unchanged. There are very few incidences of adverse character altering changes to these structures or sites that are all within this proposed boundary. Finding five, the study area does meet five of the nine criteria that are necessary for consideration when considering an H-1 overlay in Lexington Fayette County, as established in Article 13, Section 13.3G. And on the criteria, I'm getting ready to swing into that. And again, I'm not going to read the baseline sentence that establishes that criteria. Again, it is in your report. I'm going to just give you a quick summary response to how each of these meets those stated criteria by their numbers. So all of them are in criteria section of the document 13.3.G. Starting with number one, the proposed Pensacola Park Historic District is an excellent example of suburban growth on the south side of Lexington during the World Wars era. Get my tongue together. The intact array of historic buildings, the unified streetscapes and planned landscaping within the proposed district display a very cohesive character that reflects the development and continues to speak of that development to this day. The proposed Pensacola Park, excuse me, I missed my number. This is item number three of the criteria. The proposed Pensacola Park Historic District would not exist without the work of two Lexington residents who separately accomplished much to turn the south side of Lexington into a booming suburban oasis, that being Mr. Price, the original owner of Penn Moken Farm, and William McClellan Johnson, so fondly known as the bungalow man. who developed Rosemite Garden. Price's work to secure the interurban lines around along Nicholasville Road really laid the groundwork for that at that time Sleepy Country Road which it really was to maintain to become a main artery of suburban development and indeed a pivotal and main artery within the city of Lexington today. Number six of those criteria all of the historic structures within the proposed Pensacola Park historic district are architectural variations on nationally popular styles that were promoted by developers across the country and were eagerly sought by Americans ready to become homeowners and people even downsizing in that era. The houses' designs and character reflect and are excellent examples of the styles that you've already heard enumerated. Number seven of the criteria, the proposed Pensacola Park Historic District is immediately recognized as suburban development between World War I and World War II when people experience it. It's not a neighborhood that you go in and think, gosh, you know, I wonder when all this came to be. It is so cohesively explanatory by the striking examples that all make up the neighborhood that it's a pretty magical thing. The plan, the layout, the types of the buildings, the construction methods, the materials, and the architectural styles all point to that particular era of time. And they were united partly by the market forces that were active at that time, in addition to people's desire for particular designs and types of housing in which they wanted to make their home. In addition, it was very methodically developed, as you've seen demonstrated, talking about the development plats and so forth, and all the materials in your report reference to that outcome. Number eight, and the last of the criteria to mention tonight, the proposed Pensacola Park Historic District is reflective of this pivotal time in the growth of American cities, Lexington certainly included. It is united by its suburban mindset of that era, that 30-year window from the 20s to the 50s, and it's a significant collection of architectural styles and housing types, and it continues to this day as a neighborhood to reflect its historic development patterns, and again evidenced by its lot sizes, parcel sizes, its street patterns, and all of the character-defining elements that you've heard referenced. tonight and are reflected in your report. The final notation I would make is to forward to you the recommendation and under this, under the provision of Article 13 3G of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Zoning Ordinance and in accordance with the background information and findings enumerated in this report, including the support documentation contained in the attached appendices, The Lexington Fade Urban County Government Division of Historic Preservation recommends that the proposed local historic district reflected in the map and the addresses contained within that geography and enumerated in this report by Street request by the, this was requested by the Pensacola Park Neighborhood Association and as formally initiated by the Urban County Planning Commission, that this be approved as submitted and forwarded with recommendation of approval in its entirety to the urban county planning commission for public hearing discussion and action thank you if you have questions we're glad to respond or at any other time it's your choice all right i think at this point unless there are questions we'll move forward into the public comment period okay may i make one suggestion sure it was mentioned to me as we were setting up the room and that is that it would be helpful if the people who want to speak after their names have been called maybe to call out the first person to speak and then a second and third person to be as they say on deck all right and i've stuck at least one chair but we can put more if people want to be gravitating over so they'd be lined up ready to speak it's so that you can all go home earlier tonight so just a consideration mr chair um actually i'm going to have to struggle a little bit with some of the names or the handwriting uh the first four people that have let's let's start over again first of all let me give you a reminder that each speaker is limited to three minutes unless they have been given time from another speaker also for purposes of our record keeping please state your name and address for the record and to inform the board at the onset whether you've been whether you have donated any of your time if so then you're probably going to be sitting down there is a clock left there is a clock to the left of the podium which will count down your time the first uh four speakers that have signed up i think is phil feibold am i reading that right phil theobold Oh, I'm sorry. Only the checked ones, correct? Oh, in that case, it's going to be a... Okay. All right. In that case, this is going to be a bit shorter here. I thought it was going to be... All right. I've got Mona Rojavich. All right. Candace Wallace. what we're doing this is barry dennis with our preservation office and we have had someone hand us in a letter that they would like submitted into the record okay mr dennis is doing that yes we have one letter from in opposition from jacob walburn council for arcadia reynolds llc Are we reading the letter into the record? The party who delivered it indicated they were not requesting that, but we'll pass it down the row, and it's your choice, I would say. Ms. Murphy, advice? I think we need to read at least the sentiments. You don't have to read the entire letter, but if someone could read. All right, I'll do that. Nothing like a and given it is fairly dense, let me look at it very quickly. Mr. Walborn is willing to just come and summarize it and then you can pass the letter. He doesn't need the full three minutes. Come forward. State your name for the record, please. My name is Jacob Walborn. My address is 201 East Main Street, Suite 900. that's my office as long as you hit the high points of your of your objection letter thank you i represent the property owners that are in the extreme northern uh edge of the proposed district they object to inclusion in this uh for the reasons that are stated in my letter which are primarily uh that they don't that uh they don't believe that their properties mirror others in the district uh that they uh that they don't feel the h1 process that's been initiation initiated here should be done in response to fears about zone changes and finally that the urban county's current comprehensive plan emphasizes redevelopment along significant corridors including nicholasville road and the inclusion of properties that front nicholasville road would not be appropriate for this h1 that's the general sentiment of that letter all right thank Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. All right. Turning back to Candace Wallace, are you wanting to speak at this point? Come forward. And next person up would be Michael Cooper, I believe. Okay. It won't take very long of your time. My name is Candace Wallace. I live at 130 Goodrich Avenue. And today, as I was reflecting back. Ms. Wallace, if you'll speak more directly into the microphone. Sure. Just pull it down to you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, just lean into the tent. How's that? Is that much better? Perfect. Much better. Thank you. All right, my name is Candace Wallace. I live at 130 Goodrich Avenue. And today, as I was preparing for this hearing, I kind of thought back to how long have I been around this neighborhood. And when I really thought back to it, I've actually been in it for over 25 years. My first experience in the neighborhood was when I was 14 and I was babysitting. A couple little brats that actually grew up to be really good kids. but what really struck me at that time is even as a 14 year old was really the interest in the architecture along Goodrich Avenue because that's where I was and for a 14 year old just kind of noticing those sorts of things is kind of uncommon but you know the the properties were there and they were just they were interesting to look at and to see because I lived in a different part of the city that was a lot more cookie cutter and just I guess more standard. The next time I had experience in the neighborhood was when I was back babysitting in college in 1999 down the street and again it was wow this place is really great there's a lot of families through here and they walk up and down the street there's a lot of people with dogs and kids and it's really it's really a really fantastic neighborhood. So when my husband and I were looking for our first house We actually rented one on Pensacola. It turns out it was the Mook house, and I can attest to 100% that it was a very small house, less than 1,000 square feet, I think 925 to be exact. And we lived there for several years, I think three, and it came time for us to buy our own house. And sadly, we couldn't afford in the neighborhood, so we moved over into Longview Avenue, where it wasn't quite the same neighborhood. You didn't have the walkability. People drove very quickly. The structure of houses in the same, it was sort of a same developmental time over there, but you didn't have the neighborhood that you have in Pensacola Park, and that was very apparent to us. We tried to, you know, we got to know some of our immediate neighbors, but there was nothing. We didn't know neighbors on other streets we didn't know other folks around anyway we were fortunate we got to in 2011 we were able to purchase our house that we currently live in I walked in the first day and I said this is it and my husband looked at me he said absolutely not eight years later we're still incredibly happy we love being around our neighbors the walkability of the neighborhood and just getting to know everybody and it's a wonderful place to be and I hope you will help us protect it so thank you very much all right thank you miss Wallace next up would be Michael or Mitchell Cooper Mitch Cooper thank you state your name and spell for the record please Mitchell Cooper have properties at 175 and 177 Rosemont and largely I guess my opinion on this is I feel like I'm turning over something that has taken me 30 years to pay for and put it in the hands of a committee that has the ability to tell me what i can and cannot do as far as reconstruction of a product of a piece of property and i have one one particular problem and i don't know how it would be faced by the committee but some of the older construction these these houses got a lot of age on them and there's a lot of the fireplaces and stuff like that are in bad repair and very costly to redo and it's just not economically feasible it's a whole lot better just take them down roof over where the the chimney would be go in and actually take that that part away and alleviate a lot of the the problems you can run into from water infiltration into the pro into the property and all these kinds of things exterior materials that are normally used nowadays in construction would my understanding would not be be able to be used on the exterior of one of these buildings and i don't know i'm just kind of didn't put a lot of a lot of information together early i apologize for that um but just relinquishing uh uh partial sovereignty of my prod of my property uh to somebody else in order that i that i've taken a lot of time and effort to get paid for uh is a real problem for me um so if you know and i guess for our construction products and stuff like that exterior and what you can and cannot do as far as driveways i mean some of these properties did not have concrete driveways some of those things would i would want to be putting in i don't know if that would be something that would be passed by the committee or not it just bothers me to put my work after my work efforts over the years into somebody else's hands that i don't have a whole lot of faith in i guess because i've heard of other people that have had a lot of problems with with the committee in order to get stuff approved very much more costly in a construction standpoint and so that's my opposition to it and I am opposed to it so thank you for your time okay thank you sir the next speaker is Martin I can't make out the last name 1859 Norfolk Street all right finally David Hurston at 1853 Pensacola all right If you don't mind stating your name and spelling it for the record, please. My name is David Henson, H-E-N-S-O-N. All right. And I'm strongly opposed to this for several reasons. But firstly, I want to go back to a city of Lexington that's actually devoted to public transit. A neighborhood that's built on a street car sounds great instead of having the sprawl that we currently have in the city of Lexington. But I do have a question that I hope that the council or the staff can look into when they're considering this. My question is, what percentage of the houses currently within the neighborhood meet the guidelines that would be imposed at this point? So I travel through this neighborhood on a daily basis. I see the windows that people have. I see that people have added dormers to the back of their houses. I see that people have changed their houses over time because it makes their houses better. They want to live in this house that has been changed. And this is something that people have done over time. This isn't something new. And so that's one thing that I'm concerned about is that we're not preserving the history. We're preserving it right now. We are preserving the 2019 neighborhood. We're not preserving a neighborhood from 1920. We're preserving a neighborhood in 2019. And so that's one concern I have. I also have a larger macro concern about historic neighborhood preservation in general. There are numerous publications that have been peer-reviewed that show that as cities have more historic neighborhood designations, they have less affordable housing. this has been shown across publications as the journal of the american planning association the city journal and other such publications that show that as you lock down neighborhoods as you say that these neighborhoods cannot be changed there no longer is a redevelopment that gives places for people to live this is particularly important on the nicholasville road houses themselves because they have huge lots they have huge setbacks from the neighborhood but it's very different from my house my house has a small setback in the street but those houses on nicholasville road that i pass every day have these huge lots that are wasted green space on the most important corridor in town connecting the city to the most important employer of the university of kentucky that employs more people than any other single employer in town and so what we're doing by saying that we cannot do anything to these houses is we're saying that we don't want people to live there that means they have to drive further and that means that there's less housing for people and importantly maybe those developments are not going to be affordable housing maybe they're going to be luxury apartments but those people that would live in those luxury apartments now can't live there they're going to move somewhere else and what you have is more people for less housing and the people that are hurt at the end of the day are the people that can afford housing the least and we see this in the historic neighborhoods across town right now one of the more egregious examples of historic neighborhood preservation and the conflict over that is currently happening in the city of lexington where there's an office building that is old i guess but no one works in it it has no particular use to the city right now and it currently can't be destroyed and replaced with housing that would house people and make the city better because it was designated as historic and we have like a strip mall thing at the beginning of our neighborhood is that going to happen there someone wants redevelopment but that has to be preserved forever because someone wants their house protected. Thank you. Thank you. At this time I'll call for anyone else who would like to speak. Come forward. State your name and spell for the record please. Hi my name is Jessica Voigt and I live at 1859 Nicholasville Road. So I've been an architect for over 20 years and some of the arguments that I've heard in opposition I just kind of have to address. Firstly I live on Nicholasville Road and that's sort of the contention of should the border be kept on on Nicholasville Road because I have a big lot. And I just want to say we act as the corridor of coming into Lexington. So the homes that you see are really what show Lexington's character. And by getting rid of those and putting in new construction or no thought to what was there and improving upon what was there, we really lose the identity of what our cities offer. And I'm a modernist architects. I lived in LA for 12 years. I designed for Frank Gary. So I have done many, many modern buildings, and I'm not against modern buildings. And some of the hearsay that I'm hearing tonight is, firstly, that Historic is going to sort of tamp down and tell you what you have to do. Well, there's something called building regulations, and you have to get a building permit to do many of the things that this gentleman was worried about. What Historic is asking is that there is a review of certain things that we find important, one of which is setbacks, which is being overlooked by current development that is trying to happen in our neighborhood. You can redefine buildings and you can renovate historic buildings quite successfully. Europe, all you have to do is look at Europe and see how they've merged modern with old, and it's been very successful. What I very much worry about is the loss of identity that we see here older buildings hold some of the best construction types that you will see anywhere you will not find older windows like this you will not find old beams or stone construction when i get you know a property insurance i can't even get property insurance on my home that represents what it would take to rebuild the quality of that home that it currently is those are the things that we kind of want to maintain adding dormers and adding new windows that is not something that historic says you cannot do you can renovate and add to your building all you want and it's such a misnomer when people say that you cannot do that we're just asking that there is a review process because quite honestly what is happening right now is there is no review process when developers come in tear down a house they have nothing to go through and we're asking can we please at least have a review process of our neighborhood quote all you have to to do is look at the boundary. All you have to do is look at the number of homes that are existing. It is predominantly historic driven. There is, as she said, 10 homes that are not historic in our neighborhood. The numbers don't lie. When we ran through our whole neighborhood to get the consensus of this as we informed the whole neighborhood, we had over 70 percent support of the neighborhood on trying to protect this in a historic view. We know what happens when we have to get another review process. We're all aware that that is a little bit unnerving to have the government review us even more, but right now Lexington doesn't have any of that. And we want to make sure that our neighborhood is protected, and we also want to make sure that Lexington as a whole that there is still corridors that are not strip malls. So thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any other comments? Come up, sir. I remind you that you're limited to three minutes. I'm Michael Bardo. I live at 107 Lackawanna with my wife and two children who are grown and also living in a neighborhood. I was one of the people that actually went around the neighborhood for signatures and I talked to a lot of people about this issue. Never did I start off believing and I certainly saw that knocking on doors that it was ever going to be unanimous that we were going to all 100% be before historic. And I understand that. We have 70%. The vast majority of people that I knocked on their doors and talked to were very much in favor, even though they're not here. And of the other 30% that we didn't achieve, I would say that the percentage of those is actually more than 70 because some of them were rentals and we couldn't follow up. Some of them were sort of unsure. And so I think the opposition is certainly not 30%. That's all I want to say is that the sentiment among the neighbors, my view is overwhelmingly, even though most people are not vocal about it, are in favor of this historic district. Thank you very much. Any other comments? We're not getting any rebuttals, okay? All right. Any other comments? If not, then I want to thank you for your time, and I will close the public comment portion of this hearing, and we will entertain any further comments from the staff. I don't believe the staff has anything additional to add, and will just be available for your questions. Okay, I do have an initial question, and that is, do you have an idea approximately how many of these houses have additions that were built onto them after construction? No, we did the study from basically what you could see from the sidewalk, and we didn't go up into people's driveways and get to evaluate what's exactly on backs and sides like that. do you miss brother have any perception about that about additions I would say of the houses that you could see additions I'd say the additions that are there are most for the most part are small their back porches that have been enclosed they do not overpower the scale of the core of the historic house I also had the impression when I walked the neighborhood that there's a remarkable number of preserved garages that have not been altered or damaged there's a number of original garages and also if you saw the dry a lot of the driveways they have the hollywood drive with the two strips of concrete or asphalt and the grass down the middle a lot of new garages that have been built very much like their historic predecessors okay thank you and by the way i want to convey my my i don't know how to express this it's going to be an improvement but i know that you're going through the uh the sewer renewal project that has your neighborhoods pretty well torn up notwithstanding that it's still a quite beautiful beautiful neighborhood. All right, if there's no further comments from the staff and they're available for questioning, I'm now going to open up the discussion to the board members, and I think I will start. Ms. Hill, may I start with you first? Yes, that would be fine. Chair, board members, the LFUCG staff, and all interested parties in attendance. After thoroughly reading the Pensacola Park Historic District H1 designation report, visiting the neighborhoods and walking through them, Hearing today's staff and consultant presentation and the comments from interested neighborhood members, I wish to make the following summary observations. In the LFUCG 2018 Comprehensive Plan, Imagine Lexington, taken from the designation report, The comprehensive plan notes the importance of preserving, protecting, and maintaining existing neighborhoods to growing successful neighborhoods in placemaking and in growth policy to utilize critical evaluation to identify and preserve Lexington's historic assets while minimizing unsubstantiated calls for preservation that can hinder the city's growth. The comments about the Nicholasville Road corridor, and I've been a resident of Lexington for many decades, though I was not born and raised here. As one drives from New Circle Road toward the downtown urban core of Lexington, the visual changes tell a story about our community in a reverse timeline. With commercial development from New Circle to Southland Drive, then historic residential development framing major spaces for hospitals, churches, educational institutions, these neighborhood edges presented along Nicholasville Road north of Southland Drive drive are important to maintaining the quality of the character of this Lexington experience and of the neighborhoods themselves, preventing future development to infringe and erode these well-defined, locally significant residential neighborhoods. In addition, I support all five findings noted and described in detail within the designation report. Summarizing the architectural history, the integrity, and the character of the proposed Pensacola Park historic district area. Thank you. Mr. Gopin. I think looking over the findings from the staff, we do have five of the nine criteria necessary for designating a historic district. So I personally live close to this neighborhood, so I'm familiar with it. I've taken a lot of walks through it. I'm familiar with kind of the fabric of it and they agree with the staff. Ms. Tate? I want to start with a thank you for your wonderful package. It was like reading a novel to me. I couldn't put it down. I did live in that neighborhood before I went to the College of Architecture. But I was on the other side of Cherokee. and it's really heartwarming to me to see it look just like it did back when I was there. And I don't, you know, I can't even guess why it's that way, except that they were very well-made buildings. And the mix of styles there, it really needs to be a historic place because you can see the whole vocabulary of what they had. to make them home. They did extremely good quality buildings. I just thank you all so so much for the effort you put into to this application and my best wishes for you to be successful all the way to the end and I thank you very much. I guess it's my turn then and I have a couple of comments. First of all I do want to thank the audience for being here. Your input and your interest in preserving your neighborhood is important to us and we have to have your participation and your endorsement as well as your continued interest because this is just the very beginning of this process as you well know. Nicholasville Road has been under an enormous amount of pressure for development. And, in fact, as you all know, you've lost one building at the corner, I believe, of Rosemont and Nicholasville Road, which is a proposal for a townhouse or a series of townhouses. And I recognize that some people may have concerns that there's too much green space bordering Nicholasville Road, but it's precisely that green space that shows the transition that was so nicely pointed out as you're moving from the outer skirts of town into frankly what's becoming a preserved area there are more and more districts being added seven parks is in that area as well and i have seen a noticeable change in the overall character of seven parks in its preservation since it became part of the age one overlay process i personally have lived in ellsford for nearly 25 30 years and was part of the process that led to the historic designation for ellsford ellsford has benefited so much from the fact that we now have appropriate guidelines for additional for buildings that are coming in our new buildings as well as for any additions or changes that may may be made. And I think that's the most important thing about why you need the H1 overlay, that you need to have the design guidelines to protect your neighborhood from those people who are doing additions that may be inappropriate for the house or the structure. I'm also concerned that the H1 overlay also protects you from blind demolition, if you will. There's a process here that protects homes from being demolished unless there is a good, unless they're so deteriorated they cannot be rescued or saved, and the economic value is basically they're valueless. This process preserves those homes and keeps the additions made to them in conformity with the overall character and look of the neighborhood. So that is my principal concern. I had the pleasure of walking your neighborhood the other day. I have never, I'm sorry to say this, I had never been back there. It's a gem. It really, truly is. Especially the diversity of architecture, the diversity of the, frankly, the bungalows. I have never seen so many different bungalows. And I was seeing types I saw elsewhere in town, especially on my street, and say, oh, I recognize one. But you have them all. So it's kind of cool. So I believe that the recommendation that the Planning Commission approve the H-1 overlay is appropriate and that clearly this neighborhood fits the criteria and the elements that have been sent out by the staff. For example, 13.3 GU sub 1, it clearly has a value as a part of the heritage of the county. It was one of the very first major suburban developments that occurred between the wars. It's also identified, as noted in 13.3, identified with a person of significance, in this case L.C. Price and William McClellan Johnston, the so-called Bunglewell man. With respect to G.6, it has clearly distinguishing characteristics, in particular the unbelievable uniformity of the architecture. I was astonished that I wasn't seeing vacant lots, that I wasn't seeing more non-conforming properties. I mean, I don't know how you managed to do it, but it has been remarkable that you only have about 10 new homes, and there's only a couple that really, truly do stick out as being we're definitely the new boy on the block and with, frankly, an inappropriate design style for your neighborhood. With respect to G7, it has a character that's geographically distinct and a significant concentration of a variety of architectural styles. And finally, with 8, it's clearly a definable residential neighborhood with well-established boundaries. I've not heard any push, quite frankly, that any lots or properties be exempted. I will note for the record that there is a proposal that 1733 through 1737 not be included. Other than that, I'm a firm believer that you must maintain the integrity of the perimeter of the residential area. It's what protects the interior. And as you see from the example that's occurred at Cherokee Park, those structures are clearly inappropriate and have a negative impact on Cherokee. So that given the pressure that you're facing from the school and from probably Baptist Health, it's necessary and important that we protect the entirety of the Nicholasville Road corridor from suburban up to Southland. And that's the end of my comments. So is there any further discussion? Ms. Hill? If not, then I'm ready. I believe the Chair is ready for a motion. I move to forward the Pensacola Park H-1 designation application to the Planning Commission with a recommendation that an H-1 overlay district be approved in its entirety with boundaries as proposed and as reflected in the Pensacola Park Historic District H1 designation report and in accordance with the findings and recommendations included in that report. Is there a second? A second. All right Ms. Tate seconds. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, the chair calls the question. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Aye. The motion has passed. Thank you for your time. And you all need to be at the Planning Commission meeting when they convene this for their public hearing as well. All right. Is there any further business? If not? No, Mr. Chair. If not, then the Chair is ready for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. We stand adjourned. Thank you again for coming. Thank you. All right. you