hydrated water is always the best thing just good old h2o is the best way to stay hydrated everybody's heard the weather forecasters talk about the muggies that's when the temperature is high and the humidity starts to rise the heat index in fact can rise to 105 110 now you're getting into the dangerous area it's not only the heat it's the humidity the body loses its ability to regulate temperature and now you can be into serious trouble. And this is particularly important for the very, very young, the very, very old, and those who may have some sort of chronic illness. Those are the people who need to stay indoors. They need to stay within an air-conditioned environment. You can't stay in a building where there's no air conditioning. The problem there is you start getting into conditions of heat exhaustion. The most severe form of that condition is called heat stroke, where all of a sudden you start losing cognitive ability. You lose the ability to think straight. Your body starts cramping up. There are other physiological symptoms that come from just being too hot. Your internal temperature starts to rise. You lose the ability to sweat. Your skin becomes hot and dry. You look red. You look flushed. You are beginning to die. Your body starts shutting down. Your functions start shutting down, and you're in serious trouble. If you suspect somebody either has heat exhaustion or heat stroke, get them to the hospital. Get them to urgent care. Get them someplace where there's trained medical professionals who can treat the symptoms. Every year throughout the United States, we see cases of people who unintentionally leave young children in cars. It's been approximately 40 deaths this year of children who are left in cars. The internal temperature of a car gets very... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If anyone's interested in speaking today, we ask that you sign up in the back. We're not going to keep you from speaking, but if we can, get you to sign up in the back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a little bit after 1.30. I will call this meeting to order. Welcome, everyone, today. We have a few things on the agenda. we'll try and get through them as efficiently as possible first uh item as i mentioned just a moment ago if you do plan to speak today please try and sign in in the back so that we've got your name and it can be properly recorded in our minutes later first on our agenda would be approval of minutes for july 25th 2019 these were emailed to the commission members i have not heard of any changes if they are any please let it be known or I'll entertain a motion mr. chair yes ma'am I move for approval of the minutes from the July 25th 2019 meeting thank you motions been made in second and by miss Plumlee I think I heard for approval of the July 25th minutes please vote when it comes up on the screen motion passes next on the agenda would be any postponements or withdrawals from today's agenda yes sir good afternoon nick nicholson here on behalf of ball homes i would like to request a postponement excuse me for a plan mar 19-10 on page 3 of your agenda it's item 2 of your zoning items this is for the property located at I believe it's 2570 polo club or 2575 polo club boulevard we expect to be submitting a revised development plan after sitting down with the staff and would like it to go through the committee process so link just like one month postponement one month that's been September 19th anyone in the audience wish to speak to this request for a postponement believe me number 26 I'm sorry I'm one week ahead anyone in the audience audience wish to speak to this request for postponement Commission members if not I'll entertain a motion for a postponement Mr. Chair yes sir i move post for postponement for pln mar 19-10 ball homes incorporated until september the 26th motion's been made and seconded for postponement of plan mar 19-10 ball homes and the associated development plan until september 26th please vote when it comes up the screen motion passes any other requests for postponements or withdrawals from today's agenda seeing none uh we can sound the agenda to see if we can have anything in an abbreviated fashion she's shaking her head we understand that there are objectors present for the two zone change requests today so we'll have to take those in order okay so we've got four items on the agenda we'll take them in order at this point in time so first on the agenda would be starting on page two under item one ball homes incorporated zoning map amendment and blackford properties phase four zoning development plan it's plan 19-3 ball homes incorporated eventually we will be getting to a development plan you have revisions for that on a green sheet before you mr. Bayer Bailey good afternoon this is PLN MAR 19-00003 Ball Homes incorporated as amended we do have 53 letters of opposition and a petition of 1,073 signatures of opposition. With the amended application, the petitioner has requested a zone change from the community Center or CC zone to an expansion area residential 2 EAR 2 zone for approximately 17 acres and an expansion area residential 3 EAR 3 zone for approximately 8 acres for the property located at 6600 Man of War Boulevard. This amendment leaves approximately 2 acres of community center CC zone land that the applicant would utilize for the prescribed purposes. The petitioner proposes to rezone the subject property to the EAR 2 and 3 zones to allow for an apartment complex development comprising of 10 three and four-story apartment buildings at an average residential density of 12.84 units per gross acre with a total of 324 dwelling units. Within the remaining CC zoned land the applicant is proposing a three-story mixed-use building with 16 dwelling units and 11 600 square feet of non-residential space the expansion area master plan ea mp an adopted element of the 2013 comprehensive plan for the expansion area 2a recommends community center land use the community center land use for the subject property i will make a note here that we are dealing with the 2013 comprehensive plan and the adopted goals and objectives of the 2018 comprehensive plan so the place builder or any of the newer adopted elements of the comprehensive plan are not subject to this zone change the subject property is located within the expansion area 2a on the east side of man of war boulevard approximately a half mile northeast of the the interchange with interstate 75. man of war boulevard or ky 1480 transitions to a two-lane highway along the frontage of the property between interstate 75 and winchester road or us 60. there is one local street constantine avenue that stubs into the western boundary of the site stub streets are utilized when future connections are planned a new entrance is expected expected to be constructed on the property to allow access to man-of-war boulevard access points off of man of war boulevard are to be provided at a minimum spacing interval of approximately 500 feet The subject property has remained vacant since the initial rezoning in the fall of 2000. This portion of the expansion area is primarily characterized by residential land use of varying types, to the east in the Blackford Oaks and the Glen Eagles subdivisions, which are both EAR1 and EAR2 zoning, and in agricultural use north of the property, you can see it right here. There are also some apartments across the way in EAR 3 zone. That is the Waterstone at Hamburg. In addition to the residential and agricultural zoning nearby, there is the community center zoning located to the south and west of the subject property. The existing land uses include a gas station and convenience store, bank, multifamily residential, a Costco, and a Starbucks that is currently under construction located across the street here. Here we see an aerial photography of the site itself, and you can see the greenways that are running along the property here and here. Those are meant to be connecting tissue between these areas. We will be having some trails go through at some point. But it is proposed to have these remain and at some point be dedicated to the city. Here we see the frontage of Man of War Boulevard looking into the property on the top. The bottom left that's looking back into town across to the property at 2575 Polo Club Boulevard. and then going back out of town towards winchester road this is looking at the other stub street on constantine and we're looking directly into the greenway here this is actually greenway space here and here and then looking back into the neighborhood itself finally the applicant is proposing a extension of caversham park road that would go into the KU owned property located here and connect to their property you can see the current stub Street and then looking back into the neighborhood again that would access Barrington Way and then down to Polo Club the subject property was added to the urban service area in 1996 with the approval of the expansion area and adoption of the expansion area master plan. In 2001, the EAMP became an adopted element of the comprehensive plan and its future land use recommendations have been reinforced and carried forward in the 2013 and 2018 comprehensive plans. The subject property was initially rezoned from Agricultural Rural in 2000 with the entire Blackford property which extends from Man of War Boulevard to Walnut Grove Lane. During the rezoning of the 385 acre farm the applicant at that time indicated a desire to conform with the expansion area master plan by mixing the development with expansion area residential one two and community center zoning there is a transitional area slash expansion area residential two located right in this area abutting the subject property and they and then there are also various areas including a the designation of a special design area or sda which you can see connotated by the dashed lines there sub area 2a of the eamp recommended a density of 527 to 1591 dwelling units for the residential zoned portions of the Blackford property split between EAR1 and EAR2 zoning. Over the course of the last two decades the applicant has completed much of the Blackford property development. The development has resulted in the construction of single-family residential primarily detached houses with a small portion of attached single-family townhouses. The current overall density of this site is 1,288 dwelling units per acre or a density of 3.63 dwelling units per acre. I'm sorry that's just a total of 1,288 dwelling units. The current proposal for the portion of the Blackford property that is within the CC will not amend the possible total density of the overall development but rather seeks to remove the CC land uses to create a purely residential development with greater heights and larger structures in the ea r3 zone the proposed shift from the cc zone to the residential zoning and the development would exceed the expansion area master plan recommendation for a maximum of 1591 dwelling units for the blackford property by approximately 25 units the subject property is recommended by the ea mp for the cc future land use which allows for a variety of uses including residential retail and community amenities there is no restriction of dwelling unit density within the cc but there is a limitation on the zone and 40 percent of the aggregated floor area should be designated to residential there are other aspects of the ea r3 which are allowable within the cc including schools places religious assembly and their accessory structures in public buildings the special provision this special provision allows for either vertical or horizontal mixtures within new neighborhoods and the expansion area there is a restriction on the size of the structures in the cc as well as the floor area ratio which was were put into place to minimize the impacts on surrounding neighborhoods for the cc zone the maximum height of a structure is 48 feet and the zone for has a maximum far of point or 1.0. While the vision for the CC land use in the expansion area 2a is still important, there have been several deviations from the initial plans for development. In 1996, the portion of the CC zoned land was recommended to mirror a large portion of CC zoned land across Mandevoir Boulevard between Polo Club and the North Elkhorn Creek. We can see that here in which this is the subject property, and then this was meant to be that mirroring CC zoned land. In 2010, this portion of land was rezoned to the expansion area 3 zone, and the CC zone was relocated to the west side of Polo Club Boulevard. The applicant argued that the area east of Polo Club Boulevard was more appropriate for residential development than the area adjacent to I-75, and that the proximity to the proposed greenway system and the future park, which is proposed in this area down here, planned to the north of Polo Club, was more advantageous to the residential development. The Planning Commission agreed at that time, which resulted in the construction of the Costco west of Polo Club Boulevard and a multifamily residential development and assisted living facility on the south and east of Polo Club Boulevard. following the flipping of the zoning across polo club boulevard an additional parcel of cc zone was added located at 2350 polo club boulevard this portion of property was rezoned from the expansion area residential three with a transition area overlay zone to the cc zone the zone change was approved to allow for job growth and economic development provide land uses that are more compatible with the surrounding land uses and provide a more appropriate mix of land uses that was previously planned. And that is specifically over in this area, and we can look at this now, in which you see the Cabela's growth and then there is the area that is allowable for further CC development. Finally, in 2017, a portion of 6800 Man of War Boulevard was rezoned from Expansion Area Residential 2 to the Community Center Zone. The change to the zoning in this area and the modification of the plan was to allow for greater community services for the residents of the Justice property. The inclusion of greater amount of uses would also allow for services for many residents of the expansion area 2A as it is connected so to allow for greater access. And that specifically is this property right here. Due to these three zone changes over the last nine years, there has been significant modification in the location and total need of CC land uses in the expansion area 2A. The proposed zone change retains approximately the same number of planned acres for CC zoned land necessary for the development of services for the residents in the area. However, it does place a greater onus on the need for proper multimodal infrastructure and connectivity. By expanding the distances that residents must travel to access goods and services, this can continue to promote an auto-centric development within the expansion area. By promoting and providing a diverse transportation system, residents can choose how they travel throughout the area. Since the submission of the application, the petitioner has requested postponement of their application twice, during the May 23rd and July 25th public hearings, in an effort to work with the staff regarding their concerns. Since that date, the applicant has met with staff and amended their application to leave a portion of CC zone land along Man of War Boulevard, connecting the portion of CC zoning located at 6411 Man of War Boulevard. The inclusion of the CC zone land represents a modification of the plan and a recognition of the need for the community services for the surrounding neighborhoods. furthermore the applicant has alleviated staff's concerns regarding the continuity of land uses and the association with nearby transitional areas by locating ear3 against the cc and ta zoned areas the applicant opines that they are expanding housing choices by providing mixed use and housing near employment and commercial areas the applicant indicates that they will encourage compact, continuous, and or mixed-use sustainable development within the urban service area, as guided by market demand to accommodate future growth needs for safe, affordable, and accessible housing to meet the needs of older and or disadvantaged residents. The applicant also indicates that they will strive for positive and safe social interactions in neighborhoods, including, but not limited to, neighborhoods that are connected for pedestrians and various modes of transportation. Staff agrees with these aspects of the applicant's proposal and that these specific goals and objectives can be met. However, within the applicant's justification, they state that there are in agreement with several other goals and objectives that need greater discussion by the applicant or are not within the purview of the applicant. One area that necessitates a little bit more conversation is the applicant's statement that they will develop a viable network of accessible transportation alternates for residents and commuters. staff would like to know what transportation alternatives they are providing for residents at this location so at this point staff is recommending approval contingent upon these reasons and based on the approval and certification of PLNMGDP 19-9 Blackford property stays for which mr. Martin will come and talk to you to talk about in just one second but if you have any questions regarding the zoning and the zoning application I would be happy to answer questions mr. Bailey yes mr. Bailey it looks like we are the proposed own changes for 25.23 gross acres from CCD EAR two and three what how many acres are staying CC though Pull it up right here. So we have 2.25 gross acres and 1.85 net acres of CC that will be remaining. The total for the EAR2 and EAR3 is 24.62 net and 25.23 gross. Okay and I guess the follow-up question, can you walk me through the amount of available CC acreage that has been preserved or has changed over the past three previous zone changes? So I can get you the exact numbers here shortly, but what we're seeing is the shifting of the CC zone from this portion to this portion in which it encompasses all of that EAR3 was an increase of the CC zone on that portion. And then we see another increase with the addition of this portion here. by removing this portion we are actually being we're going down in a few acres but we are retaining the overall net goal of the cc zone land in this area thank you other questions if not mr fairly i've got a couple one uh in your presentation you mentioned um I believe you said it with the CC property they could build to a height of 48 feet yes sir would that be what is that three stories or four stories it could be four stories depending on the height of your bill of yours room size okay all right then and then specifically as far as the zone change itself KRS I I think we're charged with the fact that it's my understanding you're saying that this is in compliance with the with the comprehensive plan CC is that appropriate still or inappropriate so staff is of the opinion that the CC zone can still be appropriate they are not they have made that argument but at this point in time the the argument that the CC zone is inappropriate because it has remained vacant is not a argument that staff believes is one that supports the appropriateness or inappropriateness. So mostly it's the changes that's occurred in the area? The changes that have occurred in the area and their compliance with the comprehensive plan. Okay good deal thank you sir. Any other questions? If not Mr. Martin? Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, on page three of your agenda is the development plan, the preliminary development plan for this zone change. However, you should find at your seat a green piece of paper with revised conditions for your consideration. The preliminary development plan that you see before you, here is Manowar at this location. Here is the proposed entrance into the development, as you can see, with the parking. You see the parking areas they're proposing that are in the interior associated with the various apartment buildings. The buildings themselves have been positioned along the perimeter of the property and adjacent to the greenways, Mr. Bailey mentioned, the greenways, which are important characteristics in the EAMP. As he said, they're designed to hold developments together to be one of the characteristics in the EAMP area. Several interesting things about this development. there are six residential building types that they are proposing. Now, they're proposing, as Hal mentioned, 324 units. There's 560 bedrooms. It's a mix of one, two, and three bedrooms. And their FAR, which is the total square footage of the residential development, is .41. And they could be allowed .75. So actually their density with the total square footage is well under the maximum that would be available to them. They're proposing just over six acres of open space. Of course, the greenways provide a lot of open space for the development. And they're proposing this area right here. Here is the amenity area for the apartment complex, a 6,100-square-foot clubhouse, a pool area and a lot of green space associated around it. Interesting enough, and I don't know that we've seen this, they're proposing two pools on this particular plan. They can speak to the significance of that, but that is interesting that we've not seen. Now, the buildings have different bedroom makeups, and building number one is one bedroom, and I believe building number six is all two bedrooms. The other types are mixes of one and two bedroom apartments. The three and six buildings are four stories in height, 45 feet. So they're three feet under what would be allowed in the CC. The rest of the buildings are all 35 feet in height, three stories. They are proposing 517 parking spaces. That includes some garage spaces associated with the buildings as well. The CC area, this area, and this is the entire area, and of course a lot of greenway runs through here. They're proposing the commercial building, first floor commercial, with two stories of residential above. Now in total, that's 34,800 square feet total in the three-story building. Again, with 11,600 square feet of commercial on the first floor residential units above. You can see the cul-de-sac hammerhead proposed here on the street that has stubbed in. And then they're proposing access. And the secondary access is absolutely crucial and mandated for this size development, for public service vehicles, fire, and ambulance. So the man-of-war entrance is here, but they are required to have a second entrance. Now, it's important to point out that this is an exhibit so that we can explain to you and you can see the proposal. However, a plan was submitted to staff that does not show this particular access, and that was at the staff's recommendation because it crosses Lexington-Fayette Urban County property, which we think, although may not be impossible, is very unlikely. On the other hand, the KU connection is the one that they are proposing and pursuing, and it lines up with the street intersection right here and will provide secondary access. If, for some reason, they can't procure this access, it will be necessary to come back and reconsider the cul-de-sac and the termination of this public street if, indeed, they can't provide secondary access. And that will be something for a final development plan. And, again, this is a preliminary development plan. You will see a final development plan should this zone change be approved, where a couple of issues will be further addressed. One other small discrepancy on this plan is just that right through here, there's a requirement in the EAMP and in the zoning ordinance in the expansion area. a very specific and strict landscape requirement between CC and a residential zone. This parking area does not meet that. So the plan they submitted to staff, and they did this color-up. It takes a lot of work and effort to do these color-ups, and they didn't get a chance to amend this particular color-up. That's why there's these couple of discrepancies. But on the plan that staff has reviewed, there's a landscape area right in here that meets the requirement of Article 18 and the expansion area ordinance as well. That raises the issue that will be dealt with on the final development plan that you all have heard presented to you before, and that is to minimize parking in the CC in the front of the building. So that's going to be an interesting challenge. should this zone change be approved on the final development plan, that relationship in there. But again, that is something that we, our staff is comfortable to deal with at the time of a final development plan. One other slight item I will mention, Mr. Emmons is going to present a traffic study to you because this is on Manowar and it's an urban development. And as you all are aware, Manowar has some rural attributes. one of the recommendations is full half section improvements along the frontage, as well as a left turn and a right turn lane into the development. And those are something they'll have to address on their plan, again, should this zone change be approved. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have about the development plan. Questions for Mr. Martin? No? Yes? I do have some questions. Okay. With CC, we're talking about building heights here. So with the CC zoning, the building heights are allowed to be 48 feet tall. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And what we're looking at on this development plan is you have the type 3 building and the type 6 building. Those are 43 feet tall? 45 feet, sir. 45. Okay. And all of the other buildings are proposed 35 foot in height? Yes, sir. And that's the same height for R1 zoning requirements, correct? Yes, sir. In fact, yes, single-family zoning will allow a 35-foot house. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. My question is about the entrance or the exit, whatever the case may be there at the bottom. One cannot cross LFUCG land, and the other is KU is not really firm, so they'll have to look for another exit. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. they would have to and that would be resolved at the final development plan again should the zone change be approved. Thank you. Let me just state I heard something from the crowd anyone out in the audience will have an opportunity to speak and ask questions a little bit later we're going to continue with this we'll go to the applicant's presentation and then get to all others and you'll have opportunity to bring up questions then um other questions from commission uh mr martin to a couple of questions you mentioned that there were a couple four-story buildings and looking on the plan they're they're shown as three-story four-story with a dividing line through that is are they truly four stories or or can you further define it i believe part of the building would be four stars okay maybe they generally date okay and they they can explain their intent okay um one other question i've got to ask uh i've already asked you but i've got to got to get it out here um the possible back entrance back access whatever you want to call it through what you're saying is ku property now is there any possibility instead of it going and turning to go to calversham park that it simply goes straight across ku property to polo club The possibility, of course, exists. It would not meet our spacing standards for an intersection. And it would be spacing as well as it would be, we try to create full intersections, so it would be offset again. So it would not meet our subdivision regulations. It would not meet the AMP recommendations for the boulevard, the collector streets. So although it's always a possibility they would have to request relief from this body to do that. I guess one final question in regards to the parking that we're seeing on the access through the development. we've typically stayed away from parking like this as far as backing out into the through access ways that's the best way i can put it i know this is private but was there any discussion as to the park the way the parkings configure it with with through access through it There has been, yes, sir. And I think at the final development plan, we'll re-examine that issue to a certain degree. Again, it is a residential apartment complex with parking. There is a pedestrian path fairly straight through the development that will lead to the CC. And I believe what you will find is that when the final development plan comes back, that we will be discussing that type of access through the property. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? If not, we'll move on to the applicant. Mr. Chairman. Oh, I'm sorry. There is a traffic impact. Mr. Jim Emmons. Mr. Emmons. I even got reminded that you had something for us. Yes, sir. If it's okay with the Planning Commission, I'm going to present from here today. For the record, I'm Jimmy Emmons, Senior Transportation Planner in our Division of Planning. The applicants, EA partners, submitted a traffic impact study with this development. I'm just going to highlight just a couple of those, just a few highlights from their traffic impact study and our review of it. First of all, this traffic study was developed early on in coordination with the EA Partners contacted staff, and it builds upon several other traffic studies that have been done in the area that had been recently completed. So this kind of fits in in the puzzle pieces. Some of the major intersections that we looked at, we looked at the applicant's new access point on the Manowar Boulevard. Just to the left and to the right of that, we looked at the Polo Club Boulevard intersection and the Blackford Parkway intersection. And we also looked at Barrington Lane and Polo Club Boulevard for the traffic that would exit to the rear. One of the things that the traffic impact study does and looks at the distribution of this and the likelihood of where that traffic is going, we looked at probably about 85 to 90 percent of the traffic that is generated by this use is very likely to use the main man-of-war access. And so the staff agreed with that, and that's one of the things that went into the study. The study was amended with a very minor addendum, because with the change in the land use, there was a slight change in the amount of traffic that was generated by this from the time the original traffic study was submitted. Ultimately, what that did, that did not generate any concern for the staff. For the Manowar, the only change in the traffic impact study that that would result in is that the Manowar access point for this development would go from a level of service D to a level of service E. Now, if you're not familiar with level of service, it's on a grading system from A to F, but it's not like our typical educational system where A is the best and F is the worst. Really, it's more of a measure of how long you would have to wait at an intersection. And in an urban environment, level of service D is really actually a very desirable thing because that's when you get an appropriate amount of friction between cars to slow things down, and it's a safer environment for everyone. So in this particular instance, if you look at the math, and it's not graded this way, but if you were looking at it, it would be changing from like a D minus to an E plus. So the staff was not really changed in the amount. Staff was not concerned about the change in the delay that would be on the subject property. It's not going to have a negative impact on Manowar Boulevard, Polo Club Boulevard, or Blackford Parkway. And it would only be that during the evening rush hour time. The applicant's traffic study did recommend both right-turn and left-turn lanes into their main entrance off of Manowar Boulevard, and the staff agrees with that. Once Blackford Parkway has some sort of intersection control, essentially most likely a traffic signal, there would be appropriate breaks on Manowar Boulevard to allow traffic to come in and out, assuming that we had the appropriate right and left turn lanes for storage onto here. The staff also recommends, and that would be recommendation A, staff agrees with the applicant recommendation B the staff is recommending that they provide a half section improvements especially a sidewalk or multi-use path along Manowar Boulevard to the approval of engineering I've added traffic engineering the bicycle and pedestrian planner and KYTC in district 7 this is from a preliminary development plan recommending that that we go ahead and that the Planning Commission require those urban improvements part of that comes from our coordination with district 7 our Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 7 they they recognize that this area is urbanizing but this section of man-o-war as it is today is actually classified as a rural road because that's what it is today and we don't and they don't really classify roads based off what they are going to be they look at what they are what they're going to be is where the Planning Commission comes in and in my talks with K with District 7 they would be very supportive if the Planning Commission were to require the half section urban improvements they would hold the developers to those standards during the permitting process the staff also noticed and it was brought up in our justification about the you know transportation alternatives I think that that's one of the major things that we could do in this area that is really developing and allowing people to get up and down Manowar Boulevard and as we do these improvements to be able to get those multi-use trails or wide sidewalks along the road I believe that's all that the staff has that's all that I have to present I'm sure that there I like I said I hit just the highlights if there are any questions from the Planning Commission or from the applicant during the hearing I'll be happy to try and answer them and I believe that also completes all of the staff presentations for this. If you have any questions for us we'd be happy to answer them. Thank you Mr. Emmons. Any any questions in regards to the traffic report for Mr. Emmons? No? If not we'll proceed on to the applicant's presentation. I will mention that we do have time limits that's shown on the first page of the agenda. There's been no request for additional time so we will try and abide by those so mr nicholson i don't know if i saw these time limits you've been around here long enough you know him um my presentation's right 30 minutes of this perfect um good afternoon nick nicholson here on behalf of ball homes who's also represented by buddy goodwin here as well and ea partners with rory kaylee and i believe al gross is here as well as is the current property owner bill blackford we are happy to answer any questions that you all may have about this zone change about the development plan and about the history of the property if you all have any whatsoever but i think i probably can speak for bill blackford to say that this zone change request has been a long time coming while this was recommended as CC about 25 years ago with the expansionary master plan they have had little to no success in being able to develop that property as CC and in fact has had very little interest in developing that property as CC when it got recommended back in 96 it was shortly thereafter rezoned in 2000 so we are now approaching 20 years with little to no interest he has not even been able I think get to the altar with any deals every time someone actually looks at the property in order to see if a CC project will work when looking at the financials of it they just can't make the math work luckily I believe that this comes at a very opportune time for Lexington because we are in what I continue to call a bit of a housing crisis while we remain to stay hold or hold the urban service boundary this This lets us have a tract that was originally designed for a very high intense use to be able to absorb some of the density that we very much need. Now to give you an idea of kind of how this property has kind of developed in the area, this is just shortly after the expansionary master plan was approved. As you can see, this is Hamburg right here. It is still pasture land. We are just now seeing one building, the anchor that became target, to start coming out of the ground. Of course, we don't have any residential yet, as the Expansion Area Master Plan had just been approved the year prior. Now, seven years later, we see significant growth in the Hamburg area. You see the front of this is pretty much starting to open up, and we are seeing the residential use come into existence in the expansion area. In 2008, for the first time, we had multifamily introduced into this area. This is basically directly across Polo Club from this subject property. And you are seeing Hamburg basically round into the form that we know it as today. And, of course, substantial kind of residential progress. And this is kind of when you start to see almost the property fully enveloped by mostly single-family residential and the beginning of Blackford Parkway coming into effect. six years later is the first time the CC zone has been able to see any movement that became that came after a text amendment that dramatically changed how the CC zone functions and it led to this Costco coming in right here you also see the CC development basically right here and for the first time you have townhome use coming into the Blackford neighborhood as you all know it is a majority single-family neighborhood but this is the first introduction of kind of the mix of uses that we are desiring 2018 we have a further addition into the cc zone with cabela's and we have the waterstone development of the uh basically the multi-family ea r3 this is the first time that ea r3 has been used or has been actually developed in the expansion area so this gives you a quick idea of how much a area can change in 23 years. What has stayed constant though is this dot right here in the middle. Unfortunately it has not been able to see any development in spite of the fact that we have seen very active CC development, that we have seen significant commercial development in Hamburg, and we have seen significant residential and multifamily development all around this parcel. Now, when we are looking at this type of development, the question always leads back to the urban service boundary. When we have committed, when a community commits to having an urban service boundary, it is not committing in any way to not grow. It is committing to grow internally. It is a recognition that we have something that we want to protect and that we also do not want to burden the entire region with our expansion. We want to look internal. In order to do that, we have to maximize infill sites. We have to provide a mix of different housing. It cannot be entirely single family. We have to have compact and efficient planning. And we typically need to have new development near existing infrastructure in order to make sure that we are taking advantage of the kind of vital and dwindling amount of vacant acreage that we have. One of the key reasons why we want to make sure that we are looking inwards is because we are trying to reduce our carbon footprint as a community. We are trying to reduce the amount of vehicular miles that are traveled. And when we do not have enough housing supply, we are putting that burden on surrounding communities, surrounding counties, which then the workers are driving in. and I'll get into those statistics later, but we are seeing an uptick in the amount of people that are living outside of the community and driving back into Fayette County, and that is only increasing our carbon input or carbon footprint, excuse me. When you look at the communities that are kind of well known for their urban growth boundaries, most of them have desired density around six dwelling units to 18 dwelling units, that is the spectrum per acre. A lot of the information we've heard during the update to the 2018 comprehensive plan is a desire to meet that six and upward dwelling units per acre what we have right now is traditionally in blackford we certainly not have not hit that these numbers are slightly different than uh the staffs this came from the amount of dwelling units on the plats for blackford i think the staff also is looking at hoa lots is what i've been told but there are 1250 dwelling units in the blackford neighborhood at a density of 3.52 even adding all of the units we are here to talk about today you are still only up for this neighborhood to four dwelling units 4.14 dwelling units per acre that does not even hit the spectrum of where communities want to be when they are serious and focused about having and urban growth boundary i had ea partners do this exhibit in order to give us a feel for what this project would look like as it relates to kind of the big picture the small area so to speak of kind of the area of town that we are talking about right now while normally we would start this off by talking about compliance with a comprehensive plan i'm instead going to focus on the appropriateness of our zoning scheme this project and the inappropriateness of the majority of this property to be cc and so i wanted to kind of get give you a feel of what this can look like and why we think this is such a prime location we are located directly on the arterial of man o war we know that that arterial is planned to be moved out to four basically lanes a stoplight that is is going in on Blackwood Parkway and the revised development plan that we submitted this week does show those half section improvements that the staff is desiring. So we're putting density directly on arterials. Even the back exit only passes 500 feet of local streets before getting directly onto a collector. You are two turns away from a collector in the back exit. You are on the arterial with a direct access to the interstate to man of into polo club that is ideal location for how to handle any type of density when it comes to multifamily now this parcel specifically was originally designed to be a 30 acre site of CC zone as we can see here are you know current CC zonings basically right here and right here having 30 acres of this is a much more intense use of this tract than what we are proposing today we have a traffic study to back that up that i will show you kind of later on in this presentation but we are able to add the multi-family component to the blackford neighborhood that the comprehensive plan stresses that we need we need to look at adding the mix and variety of uses and densities to make sure we have complete neighborhoods that is exactly what this is doing this is the first multi-family in the blackford here is your town homes over here that is not technically considered as multi-family but the comprehensive plan specifically encourages all three of these types of uses to exist in complete neighborhoods but key to this is while it's introducing a new use inside the blackford neighborhood it is not introducing a new use in any way shape or form to this area we are again directly across the street from multi-story multi-family that is very similar basically in height to what exactly we're talking about there is also existing multi-family multi-story right across polo club as well one of the key reasons why we think this site works so well for multi-family is that buffer that mr bailey was talking about we are flanked between single family and multi-family by a buffer area that's about a hundred feet wide of thick dense trees we are not talking about farm row trees that we so often talk about on these types of infill projects that come in on agricultural land this is a hundred feet wide buffer strip that is being retained in between single family and multi-family in between the commercial and this multi-family we have the exact same type of buffer so when you are looking at the type of transition in zoning which we are being encouraged what have we heard so often from the more intense roads you want commercial into multi-family into single family moving it back into a basically transition from the intensity of zoning and we are flanking basically those transitions with substantial buffer this gives you a great idea for what we're talking about from the back of these lots to the property line that is all treed area this is a great way to look at a transition we've already seen that is becoming successful right across the street when you go from the interstate to commercial to the multi-family and this is all basically recommended for the single family uh like density that is the blackford again with a very large buffer between those uses so basically in keeping this is exactly you know what we have been told on how this community how smart planning wants to handle density when it comes to what amounts to an infill site even though this is in the expansion area we're putting it directly on collectors we're buffering it substantially and we're making sure that we are using a vacant tract that needs to be used to handle density that it's been designed and intended to handle with regards to the inappropriateness of the existing zoning as hal indicated there have been a couple changes that have gone in place he didn't kind of miss one glenn eagles this was originally slated for ea r3 as you can tell this is the glenn eagles lot right now it is ea r2 we lost 30 acres of what was supposed to be high density multi-family at the very jump after the expansionary master plan came we have never recovered that yet so this 30 acres went to ea r2 this cease this transition area and this cc jumped over here and expanded and then we added even more cc so this mirror origination that the original concept of creating a mirror of acreage of about 62 acres of kind of connected and functioning community center land we know is already gone with regards to the fact that it's over here so it cannot be a mirror but we did pick up enough acreage to basically recapture that 62 acres of the original mirror but that just those zoning changes alone is not what you know we are simply talking about here by the way i believe mr nickel you were the one who indicated that you wanted to see the exact acreage figures the eamp recommended 62 acres for the cc it is now ballooned to 94 acres with this change it goes back to 65.32 acres still more than what what was originally contemplated, but much more in keeping. The EAR2, this is the 30 acres we lost with the kind of Glen Eagles property. We're regaining some of that. We are still above where the EAR2 was contemplated of being. A lot of that is the Glen Eagles. However, if you are looking at the kind of list of priorities of where we need additional land, I think everyone would agree that Fayette County needs more residential land. So if we are just talking about the 30 acres, Having it as EAR2, I think, is very beneficial, not only for the community, but also for the neighbors that are around here, because they, again, kind of want that lower density of residential zones. But the zoning isn't the only reason that we do not believe that this CC zoning is inappropriate. There's also the changes that have occurred to our community and to the way that our community shops, the way to our community basically interacts and engages, that we simply could not have predicted back when we were doing this expansionary master plan in 96. We certainly could not have envisioned at that time that the changes that came by text amendment to the CC zone would have led to a Costco and Cabela's being right there at that corner, which amounts to basically almost big box retail. There just wasn't a way to predict that occurring. But what we really could not have predicted, unless all of us are multimillionaires in this room, is the rise of Amazon. Amazon and online retailers have changed the game when it comes to any type of community center, any type of community commercial, and social media has changed the game on how we interact as a society. You can think what you will about those changes, but you have to acknowledge the reality of them. In this image alone, we have three and a half million square foot of commercial area. We have another million square feet of office space. When looking at the appropriateness of this to continue on the route of serving commercial, office, neighborhood engagement needs, you have to look at what is in the general proximity. 4.5 million square feet of uses that would have been designed to go in CC already exist on this image alone. Not only that, we have 15 acres, 14.97 acres to be exact, of vacant CC land directly across the street in a parcel that is more visible, that has better access, that already has major traffic generators on site, that sits and remains vacant. The days of the neighborhood retail center, they're starting to dwindle. We've seen it throughout our community. And when you are competing as a bricks-and-mortar store, not just against other bricks-and-mortar stores, but you are competing against the reality of how we are shopping today. Retailers all across this community are flocking to the areas where you can get the large foot traffic draws and basically have pass-by draws that are right in here. And we still have 15 acres of that left to use. We just got even more acreage right up the road. This site just simply is not appropriate for 30 acres. of cc we are keeping part cc i believe it was 1.85 acres in order to make sure that the community still has some form of basically neighborhood services that will be available we're making sure to connect those with pedestrian pathways in order to draw from the existing community solely for their benefit but we're doing so without adding the vehicular access which with the the neighborhood basically was very concerned about adding on. So all in all, again, Bill Blackford is here if you do want to talk about any of the kind of history that he has had with trying to basically rezone this site, or not rezone this site, it's been zoned for 19 years, but trying to actually develop this site for any type of CC use, but at the end of the day, we simply do not think that it is commercially viable for a majority of the site to be CC, and we do think it's time for it to focus on the residential that this community needs and would finish out the kind of complete neighborhood that we've talked about within the comprehensive plan. Mr. Bailey already went over a majority of the reasons why we are in compliance, and I know there are a lot of people here, so I do not want to repeat, and I do not want to basically dwell on this topic, but I do must point out kind of the big picture items here that this zoning scheme we are putting forth allows us to take advantage of a major infill project and do so at an appropriate density, and it adds that multifamily that completes out the neighborhood. This is exactly kind of what the tenants of the comprehensive plan have said that we wanted to do. We need to expand these housing choices and do so with diverse neighborhoods that feature townhomes, apartments, and single-family uses. And I know that people in this room hate to hear this, but this is an infill project. When we talk about the urban service area, we are talking about making sure we basically do this throughout the urban service area. In order to maintain the boundary, we must take advantage of infill and redevelopment throughout the urban service area. We have given strategies that specifically address this, talking about the flexibility in housing types and density, looking at providing a mix of those housing types and densities, and then finally allowing a higher density to achieve the critical mass of residential that we need. This project checks every one of those boxes. And the reason why we keep on talking about the need for the residential housing is because what we have been shown time and time again from the housing study that where population is increasing by 40,000 people in the span of just 10 years. However, we're still losing percentages of that to other counties. So while we're gaining in population, We are losing workers in this community. 2014, we have dropped below 50% of people that live and work here. That means over 50% of our workforce is driving in from our surrounding communities. People want to talk about traffic problems. This is where traffic problems come from when you are adding 30-mile trips in order to get to work as opposed to living near where you are working. In order to do that, we must provide additional housing. specifically we must provide basically renter-occupied non-student housing just for the non-student population you're looking at the need for 7400 more units 6300 of those units are specifically designed for multi-family or designated to be multi-family structures for these apartments exactly what we are here talking about today and we're here talking about 30 or 340 units of the 6,000 units that we've determined this community needs in non-students a lot of the apartment complexes that have come up lately and keep on getting making news those are student housing apartments there is a need for rental units in multi-family that is not geared towards students and they are geared towards locations where people work and where people want to basically interact that is why we think that this site is so perfect for this particular use now i know i've been talking fairly uh fairly long but i do want to kind of address uh some of the neighborhood concerns that we heard i've sat down with the board i believe two times once when this first came out and then a couple months later after they had kind of time to digest the development plan and we each time heard three kind of main concerns besides the general concern of we just don't want apartments here it is that we're worried about the connection to constantine we're worried about the height of buildings near the single family and we're worried about the buffer since this plan has first basically been brought forth we've tried to address those concerns with constantine originally this was vehicular access onto the site we eliminated that vehicular access but we have kept the pedestrian access that mostly is for the benefit of the neighborhood to be able to walk to the cc and continue walking to the cc that is below and out to polo club drive but we have tried to eliminate that vehicular connection miss plumley you are correct in that we will have to address at the time of the final development plan and ensure that this rear exit is feasible every message we have received this this exit will be feasible but we will have to come back and have another public hearing that that will address that very issue but we do believe this is not going to be the connection point because quite frankly we don't believe it makes any sense to do because in reality if that did come through that would only be a way for the kind of single family folks to come through our development it wouldn't logistically make sense for anyone in this apartment to wind its way through local roads when you're just going back to either polo club or blackford which we're currently showing access to or not blackford man award excuse me with regards to the height adjacent to the single family all of these structures have been reduced to 35 feet mr nickel you are correct that is the kind of maximum height in the r1a zone these two buildings also we've been able to basically adjust and pull back originally this building here was 80 feet away from the property line we've been able to pull that back to 130 feet just from the property line that doesn't include the significant buffer that we've already talked about and shown that is also on the single family side of this this building five right here went from 75 feet to 90 feet and of course we are not actually disturbing you know this buffer in any way we agree with the community that this is a great amenity that we also want to basically preserve here is a look at some of the buffer from from the edge of constantine the road that we're proposing not to basically extend this kind of gets at what i was saying with regards to this is not farm row trees or fence row trees in any way shape or form this is significant buffer that is quite old quite large and is very dense here's another shot looking at it that again you have a solid line of trees that is i think about a hundred feet in width that this buffer area we are talking about i know traffic is going to be an issue today i can't say that approving this development plan will not add trips. This will be adding trips from existing conditions, but it is a fraction of the traffic that this site could be developed if it was CC. I had EA partners take a look at this. We're not trying to max out the CC zone in any way. We're not projecting a Walmart by any chance, but if this 30 acres is developed as CC, there's a chance that that is four times the traffic that we're talking about. We even reduced proposed traffic by 30% to be able to capture just the pass by traffic that would be coming through for the neighborhoods four times the amount of traffic if this remains CC as I've talked about kind of continually throughout this we think that this is an ideal location to be able to put the type of density our community needs you're directly onto an arterial you are two turns away and only 500 feet of a local street until you are on a a collector within a couple hundred feet of leaving this apartment or this complex you'll be looking at either getting on man-o-war staying on man-o-war getting on polo club or getting on the interstate within a couple hundred feet that is an ideal situation if you're talking about the density we are minimizing any connections to the local roads and we are only projecting basically 10% of the traffic to be coming out this back exit this is why we were able to show and Mr. Immons kind of indicated that you're looking at a second delay on man o' war and this is not assuming that the improvements happen this is just existing conditions barely a second delay because we're adding turn lanes we're adding curb and gutters we're adding sidewalks to this part of the street we know that the improvements by the state are coming but they're not coming until the development comes as well on Barrington you are only basically under six seconds of a delay from no build to full build six seconds that is all that we are talking about we also heard in some of the neighbors comments back to staff that there already is too much multifamily in this area this is the shot I've been kind of showing the whole time there is not too much multifamily in this area when you're talking about being on arterials you're talking about being on collectors you're talking about being on the interstate system. This is where communities encourage multifamily to be, and we certainly do not have too much multifamily. In conclusion, pretty much we submit that this zone change is not only in compliance with the comprehensive plan. We think our proposed zoning scheme is appropriate because it is a much better transition in zoning. It is being able to take advantage of the kind of natural buffers that exist that aren't going to be disturbed and we are taking advantage of the vacant site to add the much needed density that we have. The CC is inappropriate not just because it has remained vacant but because of the changes that have occurred around it with regards to the increase in CC that already exists with regards to how much available services that Hamburg and the Cabela site, Costco Cabela site has that can serve this very purpose and the justice site that was just approved i'm happy to answer any questions but that is pretty much our presentation thank you mr nicholson questions yes sir mr nicholson that sir i want to double check a couple of things this was also this was in the staff report but it was also something that you underscored somewhat but i needed a clarification on one of your points it had to do with the housing that you're having in there it says here it's going to be affordable accessible housing to meet the needs of older and our disadvantaged residents I'm assuming number one that you indicated earlier that that meant that students was not what your market correct correct okay now here's where the sensitive part comes in you have to be careful how you answer this one what do you mean by older I mean senior citizens and above what you know just making sure I'm not classifying you in any way shape or form into this whole demographic. Oh, I like your answer. I like your answer. But it is for, are you emphasizing senior citizens or are you emphasizing just anyone out of the student range? It is basically out of the student range is our target demographic. There is a student housing complex that is going up right across the street, but I do think that these units also play well for that as well. Okay, thank you. Other questions? Mr. Penn? Mr. Nicholson, I don't want to get down this road too far, but the question that hit me was that when I listened to your presentation, the thing that jumped out at me was we don't want to build a CC. We want to take 30 acres of what was CC and move it over to 15 acres that we don't have to build. But we're going to leave an acre and eight-tenths of the CC there. I also heard your occupies to say that you really don't need the commercial there because Hamburg has plenty of commercial within its boundary. That's your justification for changing the CC and basically putting it over on somebody else's to develop. I would alter that just slightly. We have already zoned 90 acres of CC land. We originally only intended for 62 acres to exist in the expansion area. Right. Since this body has already made certain changes that went against the map with the justice property and the increase in CC on the Madden parcel across the way, it is no longer necessary to have this acreage as CC. We are not pushing it on to anybody. They've already taken it. Okay. I understand where you're coming from but I want you to also understand what I'm seeing here sure and you know the argument about density we really aren't to the level of density we need to be I agree and you made that your presentation I agree and the reason I even bring that up is that I want the audience to understand that density is not in my backyard we're all for density but we don't want it in our backyard and so as we go through this conversation today i want us to understand where we are and what we're requesting versus what the goals of the infill projects are thank you other questions miss mundy mr nicholson i'm on there we are um it's my understanding too that in the far which is the floor area ratio that you all are are under what the maximum could be oh yes so that translates then into your your comment that the traffic could be a lot more oh absolutely but not just the traffic we we could be talking about structures that were significantly higher we could be talking about units that are significantly higher we have ample open space we have low floor area ratio and quite frankly we have a lower density than what we could be proposing so absolutely thank you other questions mr. Nicholson I've got one right now I may have something later but focusing on the one CC building mm-hmm it does have a residential component to it as well it does focusing on the CC or a commercial aspect of it what do you foresee being built on that or in that so probably very similar to what the Brighton 3050 project has that is right down the road it is this project right here it is basically a apartment complex Brighton 3050 and then one of the structures is a mixed-use structure with kind of space for retail restaurant office space over residential will it be built or will it be occupied as cc the commercial aspect it well we wouldn't be able to turn it into residential if that's what you're saying no i'm just asking will it be occupied as commercial property the desire would be for it to be occupied yes very much so i don't foresee you You know, unless we do not feel comfortable that it could be actually occupied, I don't foresee us moving forward with bringing the final development plan for that section in there. But we built Brighton 3050 for a reason. We believe it will be occupied. Okay. Thank you, sir. Any other questions? Ms. Plumlee? Thank you. Going back to his question about the CC, could that be a bread and milk place or not? What do you mean by bread and milk? like a shopping like a uh you know that that residents of the apartment could just walk there for bread and milk absolutely um some type of sundry store thing like that absolutely thank you and again it's one of the reasons why we are showing the pedestrian connection to the existing neighborhood we do want them to be able to take advantage of it not through having to get in their cars. Other questions? Mr. Powell? Just one quick. Hold on one second. Mr. Powell. Quick question. Yes sir. A lot of the letters that we've that have been distributed from neighbors mention wetlands, concern about wetlands. Could you address that? So we are basically showing a see you know a basically a you know a blood flame kind of conservation area right here where we are 25 feet off of that and we are significantly set back more this area is is not to be disturbed and I believe mr. Bailey is correct that the long-term idea is for LFUCG to be taking over this property I'm not sure of any specific wetlands that have been identified on site it is floodplain though mr wilson uh one of the things you heard mr emmons report on the traffic and you saw the recommendations and heard the recommendations that they were making are you all in agreement with that we are and uh with the updated plan we are showing the uh changed cross section that show the uh improvements that have a sidewalk um have curb and gutter have the turn lanes okay thank you anything else right now yep mr mr i've got a question as well i'm referencing the staff's recommendations for approval um 3c it says the proposed rezoning and the corollary plan strive for positive and safe social interactions in the neighborhood would you please show me where the interactions between the neighborhoods occur so i mean it is more of the ability to like you have the ability to interact with a trail going through the system in no way is it you know designed to have basically vehicular access in order to basically cause any type of traffic concern but we are allowing pedestrian access to ensure that there can be interconnectivity at the neighbor's desire also adding on the half lane improvements i think also speak to that as well because you are no longer having the kind of rural road that just rolls off man or you are adding actual urban kind of sidewalks is that is that going to be a sidewalk three foot sidewalk four foot sidewalk six foot sidewalk what are we looking at it is just a four foot sidewalk on the plan right now yeah four foot sidewalk right now on the half half section okay thank you Anything else from the commission? Any other questions? If not, at this point, I'll thank you, Mr. Nicholson. I'll ask if there's anyone here to speak in favor of this plan. Seeing none, we'll move to opposition. And what I'll do is, let me ask. Yes, sir. Hold on one second. My question is, is there any one person here as a spokesperson for the group? If not, we welcome anyone that wants to speak. We do have a three-minute limit for speaking. And I would definitely ask that, pay attention, and let's not be repetitive in the situation. I know you're here in opposition. We all know that. we've got one arm up in the back okay okay that's fine so please come forward at such time you can be next in line if you'd like to however at this point it looks like we're going to hold everybody to like three minutes we do have people out in the mezzanine area and it's my understanding there is a little bit of a time delay. Anyone that wishes to speak there, please come in as well. And anyone that wants to speak, don't be bashful. Be next in line. Be right behind the person that's speaking, and we'll keep this as efficient as possible. So, yes, sir, your name? My name is Ronald Gifford. I live at 3109 Scottish Trace, and I'm not formally appointed. I just have a couple of comments. First of all, I appreciate you all looking after our business. I'm happy to be a citizen of Lexington, and we have a well-run city, and you're a part of that. And I'm hard of hearing, and I didn't understand two-thirds of what you all said because it's technical. So if I have something to say that's already been taken care of, please forgive me. Two concerns. One is traffic. I'm delighted to know that you're talking about a major entrance to the development at Manowar. Obviously, there is a backdoor to that for emergency services. I can't remember what you said. Fifteen percent may use the backdoor. There's 500 parking places, give or take. Fifteen percent of that is 75 people using Barrington. I expect you've all driven on Barrington. 15% of that is a lot of traffic. I suggest you may want to require the developer to upgrade the intersection at Polo Club and Barrington. That's already a dangerous intersection. That's just a suggestion. Our other concern is going to be property value, and I think you understand that. We've been in our place for 14 years. we were one of the first residents in that area i'm concerned we're over on that side of the development i'm concerned that these things will be visible from my backyard our presenters have tried their best to say this is not going to be in our backyard it's separate from that it's not going to have a high profile and they showed pictures of nice trees that will separate us from them I invite you to come to my place and sit on my back porch and I'll cook something on the bar before you and I think that you'll see that they've showed pictures of really nice trees that are going to separate it and I'm going to tell you that that scrub trees and they picked the best pictures of trees possible and they aren't really nice big oak trees there and even nice hackberry trees there when we bought our property the developer told us that there would be a really nice green space with a nice walking path in it and that's developer talk you know there's no walking space there there is just crummy green space and we rolled our eyes and knew that would never happen and what I heard today I rolled my eyes again and thought yeah we're gonna see all of those buildings and I don't know what to say about that and I don't know if you can require something that's going to screen all of that from us or not. I'm just saying I have my doubts about that. And I don't know what you can do about that, and I appreciate your sensitivity to that and the way you're talking about setting it back from us, and I just hope it hurts. I hope it helps. I don't know. I'm just expressing my concerns. Thank you, Mr. Gufford. Yes, ma'am. Your name? I'm Heather Claycombe, and I'm here on behalf of the Blackbird Oaks Place Homeowners Association. and we would like to inform you of several reasons why our neighborhood and many of the surrounding neighborhoods are against this proposed zoning change. First and foremost, excuse me, could you give us your address as well? Address? Yes. 3273 Tranquility Point. Thank you. First and foremost, the comprehensive plan has always recommended the CC zoning for this area. We feel it is still appropriate for this subject property. We've not heard anything different that states that it is not currently appropriate. Just because it's set vacant doesn't mean it's not appropriate. You all spend a lot of time approving these plans and development plans. We don't think you do that lightly. That's why you've always continued to reinforce CC zoning that's needed here. We think it's still needed here. The CC zone would accomplish the set density goals for housing, but it would also serve the needs of the neighborhoods surrounding the development by giving us a better quality of life year-round. When the EAMP and comprehensive plans were developed and reinforced, these CC zones were placed in order to allow enough land for civic, cultural, educational, or religious institutions to be near our area. Those of us that live in the Blackford Oaks area and surrounding areas can attest to the fact that our amenities are severely lacking in our area. We don't have a grocery store, a coffee shop, a post office, anything that we can get to without having to get in a car, drive a significant distance, or cross the interstate to get to it. We hear all this about there's all these homes that are going to be developed and all these homes need to be there. Well, where are these people going to go? We would love to have a place where we could go and call it our own, to give us an identity and bring us together. If you think about the size of the residential developments of Blackford, Glen Eagles, and Homeplace alone, those independently are about the size of a modest town in Kentucky. We have nothing to meet, no place to network with our neighbors, or be a part of our community. Most of the neighborhoods in our area even lack a community pool or clubhouse. So again, we're lacking some place we can go, call up your neighbor, take your friend, walk to, bike to, jog to. not have to drive and create traffic problems if there was a place similar to Summit or downtown or what they're doing to Southland now, the revamping there, to just get out and stroll and go on an evening and get a coffee, get an ice cream, sit and talk and interact with your neighbors. Our quality of life is not going to be accomplished by this current zoning change. If it stays CC, we feel we would have that Main Street USA type of filter in our neighborhood and something we could be proud of. We're not going to be proud of another apartment complex that's going to be right behind us, that is going to utilize our green spaces, our roadways, and not pay HOA dues to keep those maintained. They probably won't even care if they throw their trash down on the street because it's not part of their development. Under the current zoning, there's going to be approximately 10,000 to 15,000 people within this immediate area of this proposed development plan. CC zoning is needed to service our needs. Our local residents' needs should be placed above the profits. I know a lot of us built and moved into this neighborhood with the thoughts of never having to move again. We need something to keep us there. This type of development is not going to want to keep us there The current zoning would give us an identity that we currently do not have We are not opposed to development. We are opposed to this type of development. It does not benefit us as residents of these neighborhoods It doesn't benefit the surrounding area Land uses within CC are meant to allow for integrated forms of commerce and mixed uses around public places and private assembly This current plan does not do that the applicant talks about Again, no increase of traffic. I would like them to come and sit sometimes to try to turn out our neighborhood at certain times of the day. And that's before they develop what's currently there or their proposed plan to develop across the street as well. The proposed development shows that one little small commercial building that's not even fully a commercial building. My guess is they'll put an insurance company, a dry cleaner or something in there. I don't think that's anywhere any of us are going to want to go and sit and talk to our neighbors or interact with each other. Ma'am, if you would, please wrap up. Three minutes are up. Okay. Okay. Again, as we would just like to state, we do think it would significantly impact traffic, and it does not integrate with the neighborhood plan. We would ask that you please deny this plan. Thank you. Please, please, please, please, please. We understand your interest, but please, let's keep it orderly. I'll cut it off completely, okay? We want to hear from everybody, but we don't need the clapping. All right, so please, thank you. Yes, sir. Hi, I'm with the Blackford Oaks HOA. I'm also a real estate agent and I care about my community. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, name, address? My name's Jeremy Perryman, I live at 3492 Jacob Court. I'm here to tell you that these apartments, though may be needed in Lexington, aren't needed right here because they will affect our property values. And I'm here to show you how. All right, so factors that maintain a home's property values, which we currently have, except for the service shopping centers in our community, is shopping. We've got entertainment, we've got traffic, well, good traffic. I wouldn't call it the best. We've got low crime, and the neighborhood's very appealing. All right, so a change in the zoning to allow a 324-unit apartment complex affects a home's value through the loss of location factors. I'll go back. We lose some of those factors, okay? We don't get a full-size service shopping center. We get more traffic possibility of increased crime just because of higher population density and we definitely lose our neighborhood appeal All right, so based on that our housing prices will go down and I'll show you what happened with Glen Eagles here in a second I went over that in a second loss of desired CC. So we don't desire Shops underneath an apartment building we desire like Heather said somewhere to go hang out coffee shop local Mexican food restaurant just somewhere we can you know bike we have over 2,000 homes without anywhere we can actually go on foot we're on an island all right went over that CC purpose okay CC's purpose is to allow businesses which to provide goods and services to residents adjacent to the adjacent neighborhoods within a planned and architecturally unified development I don't see that the apartments meet that all right now this is the Glen Eagles apartments now if you look back there that's probably about a hundred feet maybe a buffer I could still see him it looks like they tried to put some you know evergreens in between the backyards in the apartment complex keep in mind that this is an eight building apartment complex the one that's being proposed is much larger these homes right here do you think that this home this ranch right here would be worth a lot more without those in the backyard I mean would you buy one would you live there I wouldn't all right there you go again hey look we got two apartment complexes apparently don't have enough there's one there's two same thing look at all the single-family homes their property values just went down in the dirt people had to move they lost everything all right here if this is Zillow so Zillow uses the algorithm using the you know local comps sales in the area demand everything to associate a price or a value to each house on the left side with the other apartment complex you'll notice those values are a lot lower now where their units are being proposed on the right side they're in the 200s and up it's a very desirable neighborhood all right you see barrington right below well that barrington street is going to get impacted with a lot of traffic because a lot of people in those apartments are going to take that entrance as opposed to the man-of-war because they don't want to go over speed bumps they don't want to have to go through the long way of the apartment complex so mr bearman your time's up please wrap please wrap up um again right side see the house right there the yellow house that's right in front of the glenn eagles apartment complex look how light that is their values just went right into the dirt our values will too all right there's the entrances it's no longer an emergency entrance it is a trail now the question i have for you guys is it ethically okay for this zone to change if it's going to affect property values i mean is it is it okay for someone to move there with the assumption that that's cc and that could possibly serve the community and then all of a sudden change that to the benefit of an apartment complex because that's just you know it's a profit center that's a money maker and at what cost thank you thank you mr bearman yes sir next your name uh nick ratliff i live at 3101 sunningdale court thank you sir i am also a real estate agent i've been doing it 15 years in lexington and i've got a lot of numbers that i'm gonna skip because y'all don't really care but we sell a lot of real estate we have a lot of clients 40509 is our number one area 20 of our business comes from that area so the reason i'm here is not only because i live here but also because my clients live here and as an agent i honestly believe every agent in town should be here to let you all know you have to protect our people one of the things a lot of people are missing has not been mentioned is that every home value in that neighborhood was determined based upon the assumed zoning that you all had set aside from day want these developers are setting out this plan people are coming in buying homes and developing them enjoying the neighborhood and then after we're all in there they come back go oh that little place that's not feasible to build that we're going to do something different and it has a negative impact and that's not fair guys it's just not right like if they want to do it up front do it but nobody builds a 10 building apartment complex and then builds a neighborhood they come and they ask you to change it they give all these reasons and they're great reasons i see it all but it's not right to the people it's not protecting them and so a couple little things i had the feasibility thing the fact that it's not been developed i don't know about you all but in real estate when something doesn't sell it usually means conditions bad it's just laying or it's overpriced it's not our fault if the owner wants more than it's actually worth to be able to develop it the proper way so that's one thing that doesn't bother me but the whole community centers are gone Amazon is amazing you know I use Amazon but shop local would tell you that community centers are not gone we're seeing an uprising in these things we're seeing more people in a shop local what I do with the little one the big box stores they're gone that's why you go across the interstate and you got these big box stores that are half empty and it's just not right we've got to keep protecting our people what we have I'm all for infield i'll be honest i'm not even against rezoning it but it needs to be like-minded so i'm used to be an engineer so i did a little research on it and i went to our zoning ordinance this is off of the lexton ky.gov thing the purpose of the zoning is to require buffering between non-compatible land uses and protection we can agree to disagree on that preserve and promote aesthetic appeal character and the value of the surrounding neighborhoods there's no way we can approve this and do that it's gonna have a negative impact and i just want you all to really think about that thank you thank you sir yes ma'am um my name is mercedes mclean i live at 2873 mahala Constantine and Mahalo where the emergency traffic vehicles are gonna have to go through Ball homes is asking to rezone the property behind us to build apartments I bought my home four years ago I thought it was the perfect space for me and my grandmother she came to live with me this summer she decided she wanted to move out and Be closer to my mom and my brothers and The house is really too big for just my husband and I and so we're actually in the process of trying to sell right now now it's been very difficult no one wants to live behind apartments and we're kind of nervous about what this is going to do to our property value you know when we bought our house four years ago if i'd known they were going to put apartments back there i wouldn't have bought that house and so i just want to nobody wants to live behind you know that right in your backyard and i just want you to think about what this is going to do to the property value of people and people like me who maybe do have life stuff come up and you know do need to sell our homes what's going to happen to us thank you for your time and consideration thank you ma'am yes sir your name yes keith rice 3116 timber neck cove don't have nothing against ball homes by the way i live in one also i'm a good friend of jane blackford that she told me a lot macedonia christian church i go to and i met her there until she's an assistant living now she don't live in her house over winchester road saying that um mike adkins told me to come and and uh before before i say what i need to say real short is uh if you all need to represent to raise money i'm raising for the sager festival this year hillbilly days i raised 2.8 million dollars i'm an entertainer 36 years we appreciate that yes however please stick to what we're talking about here but my concern is is you got a lot of apartments in that area which somebody's already said so I don't need to say it no more and basically mayor mayor gray is wants the you know the hamburger area the empty spots and I understand that that's to build Lexington Kentucky that's great and also I think what needs to be there is there's houses that's empty that ball homes is built here lately and nobody's been in them basically apartment complex you pay more money and still living in a house like I do with with a mortgage payment and I think what needs to be there in my opinion real short I think they need to be a parking playground there and especially shops something like that for the kids and especially shops for the the elderly that's 78 years old that can't get to hamburg or you know or they're just disabled which a lot of people in my community which i live in blackford area that that's my concern thank you very much sir appreciate it thank you and i must admit i have been to the sorghum festival uh yes ma'am my name is amanda acres i live at 3488 Jacob Court on our one cul-de-sac alone there are 22 children most of which are elementary school or getting ready to be an elementary school age in 2016 in great response to a high need Garrett Morgan was built for this area with the increased housing need and the increased students that were there 18 months after that school was built the school board was asked for a hundred and thirty eight thousand three hundred and fifty three dollars to put portable basically trailers out back because that school was overcrowded it was built originally for 650 students its enrollment its first year was 695 so it was over capacity before it ever opened its doors the ball home proposal is for 324 apartments that would be 560 bedrooms if one out of every four of those bedrooms was occupied by a child that needed to go to an elementary school that would be 140 additional students into that school so just the impact of that alone there's several other factors I think that need to be considered before this development takes place that I don't feel have been adequately addressed thank you ma'am and let me say this real quick if there's others in the hallway or mezzanine that would like to come in and speak please come forward we've got people four people in line yes ma'am it's your turn my name is Lee Carlin I live at 1826 Rachel's run and first I'd like to say that mr. Nicholson slightly misrepresented the wetland that is in the front it is considered a wetland you're correct about the floodplain there is a floodplain area that runs into the wetland. In fact, Ball Holmes was the one who did the mitigation on that wetland, and it is part of the creek system that runs through there. The other thing is that Mr. Nicholson did not mention, even though he mentioned it during his presentation, he didn't circle the townhomes that are now off of Blackford across from Amethyst. and the other thing I'd like to say is that I too am not against ball homes I live in one as well and and we enjoy it but I think that we do need to look at the potential for overall needs in our area and if you have not noticed how people on Barrington Park on both sides that is going to be a huge issue because you can only get one card through so that will have to be addressed as well thank you thank you ma'am yes ma'am hello my name is mary toktagian i live at 3424 scottish trace and i feel like she just said everything i wanted to say but i just wanted to also point out that whenever they showed the picture of the multi-family homes and now hamburg doesn't have too many there would be three within a quarter mile not even like a thousand feet which is maybe really high density for that not for hamburg maybe for that street um also barington is tiny they said that and the wetlands 25 foot buffer if i had someone building construction 25 feet away from me i might not decide to stay there i don't know remains to be seen especially if i don't know what's going on as an animal um i also bought my we also bought our house we also used to live in brighton 3050 and it was never fully occupied not even close i guess we moved whenever Whenever they started building the last four apartment buildings they had, or the new ones, I guess all the new ones, because we didn't want to put up with it. I don't know how full those are now, but I feel like they have a lot of room there. I feel like there are other places that I feel like it can be built. Thanks. Thank you, ma'am. Good afternoon. My name is Linda Nardin, I live at 3416 Bay Springs Park. I thought that I was going to be the last person, so actually I was just going to sum up some things, I know you've heard all of our complaints and you're well aware of our concerns of the traffic. The increased possibility in crime, the increase in influx of the people, the type of buildings that are going to be built. One thing though that's a real concern is I actually moved here to this area in 2015. And I searched and I looked all throughout the Lexington area and the Hamburg area was one area that I really, my husband and I, that we really liked. And it was one of the areas that we chose because of the environment, the atmosphere, the ambience of the whole neighborhood. In the last four years, it has drastically changed. And that's a real concern for us because again, like many of the people here, I don't buy a home every two years. I buy a home looking to stay in that home for a while, looking to raise my family, looking to have my grandchildren eventually come to my home. And Mr. Nicholson here presented a fabulous picture, gave you great numbers, gave you great things that would support everything that Ball Home wants to do. But I want you really to take into consideration. And the statement was made that everybody wants density, but they don't want it in their backyard. Some of that is true, but there's also the truth to where we can't overlook, although he presented great facts and great numbers, there is the reality of what happens when you build a multi-family structure, such as what Bob Holmes is proposing. So I want you all to really look at not just that, what Bob Holmes wants to do right there in that particular area, but in the whole entire hamburger area. Because again, in moving here in the last four years and seeing some of the change, it's something that's very disconcerting. And something that I'm very worried about in the future of what exactly is that whole area going to look like. And having that apartment building built there is not something that we want. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir. My name is Brian Bruggeman. I live at 3196 Caversham Park Lane. If we were standing before you today with just 50 signatures of voices of concern, I, like you, would probably prove this zoning change. But we're not. There are 1,073 voices, taxpaying citizens of this merged government county and city, that are asking you to pause and consider their concern. If we're ignored, that sets precedent for any other group of over 1,000 or more citizens who bring to your commission a concern. 1,073 people is the statistic that has not been mentioned but one other time in this entire discourse. That, to me, is civic engagement that we all want in our communities. There is concern about this development that should be heard, and it's a supermajority of the community that is concerned. And for that reason, I ask you to oppose this zoning change. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Mike Lutz. Sorry, I'm just going to match you. 1873, Rachel's run. I just want to make a few clarification points. First of all, thank you for all the factual studies in detail today. I appreciate it. You guys have a tough job because you're trying to balance development and planning, and we as homeowners making the biggest investment in our lives want a certain area that we pay for to live in. So please, I'm going to follow up on what he just said. One of the comments I had written down here is, please consider the 1,073 people who can't be here to stand in line behind us. It's important to all of us with our biggest investment. We chose to live here. Also, I heard some competing arguments made by Ball Homes, and I just want to add, maybe it's a comment. When you say the area can't be developed for appropriate CC over these last few years, our neighborhood was never fully developed, so you don't know that for sure. Secondly, as mentioned by the real estate agent, if it was too expensive, then that takes it away. It doesn't say it can't be developed. It says it's not good development because it's not the right price. The other argument that I think is competing and maybe the self-answer is, well, Amazon hurts stores. No, it doesn't. Amazon creates other small business activities for those entrepreneurs out there. There's a lot of communities making big success stories, even with Amazon as they are. Yes, it's different, but you can still have good CC area development with good small business activity. And my last point, maybe a comment that I heard, and I don't want to take this the wrong way, but the Glen Eagles area was never recovered. Paul Holmes made that comment. And to me, what I hear there is, well, we lost some money that we didn't get back. And if you're in development and you're trying to do it, I don't think it's that purpose. You're exchanging things. Maybe the whole story for me is it's a profit issue. And I don't think that can be the full consideration for the company. So please consider all. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Once again, if there's anyone in the hallway area that wants to speak, please come on in. My name is Mike Adkins. I'm the property manager for the Blackford Oaks Homeowners Association. I'll let everybody else talk first and just kind of sum a few things up. One thing, the first fellow that stood up and talked, he's right. If you stand down at Constantine and look up, it's way up there. You can see the top of the hill. You had three stories of apartments going up. It's going to be really, really bad for those folks. But in a nutshell, this community, as you've gotten emails, you've gotten the petition, 1,073 folks, and there's folks that couldn't make it here because they have to work in the middle of the day. So for everybody you see here and out in the hallway, there's probably three more that are in disagreement with this proposal. What I'm asking you guys to do is to pass on this one. I believe there will be a developer that will come along later that would actually give this community a true community center, not a one building community center with 19 acres of three and four story apartment buildings. So I'm asking you pass on this one. I'm asking for each and every one of you to say no to this zone change. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Brad Wallace, 2848 Mahalo Lane. We actually, my wife and I moved here two years ago I used to I used to drive a truck down here back in the 70s I always loved Lexington and our son and daughter-in-law just had a baby so we decided to move here so we moved here two years ago and right this is right adjacent to the backside of this building six I believe it is from my front steps of my house I can look at this so-called buffer they're talking about but I can actually see the ground from my house so now I'm gonna look at a a 45-foot high back above an apartment complex, three of the buildings probably, maybe four. That's not what I signed up for when I moved here two years ago. I just feel like if this gets approved, that I just might as well took $25,000, $50,000 and just throw it away because that's probably what I'm going to lose. I'm actually a builder in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I still drive to Fort Wayne every week, and I live here. so I'm commuting back and forth but I love this town that's why I came here we as a builder in Fort Wayne Indiana I know that the reason why this CC was it's never no one's ever jumped on this on this property is obviously it's priced too high they can't make it feasible same white reason they're probably not going to build houses there because the price of a lot would have to be so high you wouldn't be able to sell houses this community needs houses that doesn't need apartments it needs houses houses around this area sell quick I mean it took us we would look down here for a house we would look on a Wednesday and find something drive down there on the weekend and already be pending sale so we need housing in that area we don't need apartments and I really don't want to look at the backside of it an apartment complex so I'm pleading with you to just vote no on this. Thank you. Thank you sir. So no one else in line anyone else that we should speak. I've asked for anybody out and outside to come forward. I know where I'm on a time delay to get out there audio video wise but if not at this point what I'm gonna do I'm gonna ask for a brief recess of about five minutes and we'll resume. What I will say before we get before the recess, what we will do is go into a rebuttal phase in which the applicant will first speak. Someone from the neighborhood can, so if you all want to choose someone you'd have a chance to rebut any comments and that would be on the rebuttal itself and then the staff would have a chance to rebut. After that we'll close the public comments section, open it up for any questions from the Commission members. After that we'll close it, offer up any comments that wishes to be made and then we'll get to a vote. So at this point we'll take a brief recess. Everyone take their seats we'll resume. As I said we're at this point where we're rebuttal phase applicant uh someone from the opposition than staff so mr nicholson thank you um and i will try to be very quick um just a few points of kind of correction with regards to this the the notion that the buffer means that that buffer screening means that nothing will be visible and that you know it the fact that these apartments are here will be unknown that that is not what buffering screening is that is not what is intended to do is trying to mitigate any type of adverse impact that you might have be it noise light and traffic that is what buffer is for and honestly i was just talking about it with mr goodwin here when you're looking at a site for multi-family coming in next to commercial coming in next to single family it would be tough to draw up a better piece of property than this one would be knowing that the nearest single-family house is about 250 feet away with a solid line of a hundred feet or hundred feet of trees and while mr. Blackford is about to get up here and say some stuff he also has indicated it was a whole lot more than shove brush that he had to put on that that that stream with regards to the CC is still needed and where can they possibly go to get any things like groceries and coffee there are two grocery stores within a mile from this site i live in the downtown area there's not two groceries within you know five miles unfortunately of my site and so two groceries within a mile sounds pretty good to me there is a coffee shop within half of a mile there are restaurants within like several restaurants within a mile and so while i do feel for the blackford not having a true neighborhood commercial center a majority of lexington does not have any true neighborhood commercial center because they have not been able to last. With regards to the comments of you know rezoning should be like-minded and nobody wants to live next to apartments. What we have seen consistently in the past few years is that is not true. When you look at the success of the developments like the tracery in Childsburg and in Guest right down the road from what we are talking about that is not the case. Mr. Goodwin himself lives one street away from an apartment complex. The concept that this was, you know, that this somehow was a plan to wait 20 years and then come and put apartments there, it's just, it's nonsense. Mr. Blackford has actively tried to develop this property, and he's about to kind of explain what his efforts were. Schools, with regards to apartments, historically they are ideal for school districts because they have a very low, basically, unit to child kind of ratio. wetlands mr. Cayley and I are not aware of wetlands on this specific property if there are that's okay we're not touching any of this area that there are you know that wetlands might be it would be in this buffer area we're not touching The wetlands that we did know about was up on Blackford near there, and we did do a significant amount of work to ensure that the wetlands were good there. I believe there was even a fiasco about beavers that came into play about there. So we do know how to deal with wetlands, and if they are there, they will be treated appropriately. Once again, we heard the time-old saying that Lexington needs density, Lexington needs apartments, but that our neighborhood does not need apartments. We don't need them here. every neighborhood that we have brought any type of development into has said this exact same thing and with all due respect to the thousands of citizens or the thousand citizens that did sign this petition we spent a lot of room or a lot of time in this room in about the past eight months hearing about the upwards of 11,000 citizens that have come forward and said that we are need to protect this urban service boundary we need a change from just single family houses we need diverse neighborhoods our community has spoken and it is necessary to put this type of density on vacant uh tracks and we think that we have found a way to do it in such a way that will not have an adverse impact on this neighborhood and it is truly just an ideal track i would ask mr blackwood to come up here right now to kind of talk about his ownership for the past 20 years Welcome. You have about one minute. All right, sir. I'm Bill Blackford. I live at 5158 Winchester Road here in Lexington. And I'm going to just give you the real short version of what occurred in 1995. or maybe when was Scotty Basler mayor? Scotty told me that development would not cross I-75. We looked around and I had a hundred neighbors between myself and I-75. You haven't lived till you've had cattle walk on the second green at Greenbrier. I'm a farmer, I'm not a developer. we have incongruent uses right now that I can't sustain. In 2000, we had a deal to sell the whole deal. The guy who was going to put up the money had the misfortune of skiing into a tree and killing himself. In 2001, we had a deal to sell the whole deal. I'm talking about signed and ready to go, money in the bank. We were going to go to signatures on September the 23rd, 2001. Needless to say, on the 11th, something happened, and that deal went up in smoke. In 2002, the residential section was desired, and we entered into a deal with Ball Homes. And so things were really hitting it hard in those years from 2002 to 2008, and things were progressing really fast and way faster actually than we had planned we planned on it being a 10-year build out and in in that time period we had another signatures on paper money in the bank deal for the CC property and mr. Sims was doing that development and was worked with I don't know if any of this staff was there in those days, but we all know what happened in 2008. The whole thing went up in smoke again, and the financing dried up and it wouldn't work. In 2017, and with regard to the price, we have entertained every offer that was legitimate and we've only had three go to signature. Mr. Blackwood speak here you go. Okay speak to us. With I'm sorry with regard to the the price of the land we've never priced it. People have come to us and said would you and we go do you have the money and they say yes and we say let's get let's let's work on this and so the last project was in 2017 into 2018 we had signatures with Menards and I don't know if they would rather have a Menards behind them or not that's between I don't know well anyway needless to say that deal didn't work. Then I approached a developer named Troy Thompson who worked with Frank Sadler Homes and Troy looked at it very carefully and he elected not to even pursue anything. And at that time, because I'm not in the development business and I I don't know where one goes to market CC property. I spoke with Ray Ball, and Ray made us an offer that was substantially lower than all the previous offers, but it was a real legitimate offer. And we went to signatures almost a year ago now. And all I can tell you is that farming it has become really difficult. No one likes to drive on Manowar Drive behind a John Deere tractor. I certainly feel terrible about having to drive through the subdivision with my equipment to farm there. I can't leave anything there unattended. Mr. Blackburn, I'm sorry, here, up front. I'm sorry. If I may, this is actually rebuttal phase, and a lot of this should have been early on. We appreciate the story. Okay, thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Closing? You're done? Happy to answer any questions. Okay, thank you. We may get to that. Someone, Representative of the Opposition? Heather Claycomb again just briefly that it's our understanding that the purpose of the CC zoning is to also allow for alternate ways of traffic of ways to walk to get somewhere not having to drop yes there may be a grocery store or two a mile away but we have to drive a coffee shop we have to drive to impact traffic if we could walk or bike or jog to somewhere we wouldn't to do that um there's yes diverse housing that's already there but i guarantee half of it's not fully leased so here we're going to have another again this problem where we're building the places but there's nowhere for anyone to be and they're not half pleased and at one point i've been told by the previous hoa that lfucg actually did come in and tell them they could not mow a certain piece of that property because it was in fact wetlands and that was several years ago and again just to close we would just ask we don't think the purpose of the cc zoning is being achieved with this plan. Technical compliance is not achieving this goal. And we would just ask that you put us first, the people over profit in this situation. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Staff, rebuttal? Just a couple of quick points on Clarification, as you all are aware, this is a preliminary plan, and under your expansionary requirements at the time of the final development plan, the applicant will have to submit compliance statements, and as you all are well aware, staff evaluates those and issues a compliance report, and it covers very specific details as to neighborhood characteristics and definition, and it covers infrastructure. And as has been said, there are no, to staff's knowledge, there's no identified wetlands on the property. Certainly there's greenways and there's drainage and there's floodplain. And under the stormwater plan, the applicant is correct. They won't be allowed to negatively impact any of those environmental areas. Just the contrary, the expansion area plan calls for them to be an integral part of the development and protect it. And, in fact, there are constructed wetlands across Manowar on the Hamburg property. And the plan identifies these areas. It identifies preexisting, and it identifies recommended improvements as well. And then the buffer issue, again, that's something that can be addressed on the final development plan. And if this buffer is deemed in any way inadequate, it could certainly be addressed as an aspect of the neighborhood that they're creating here. And so those are things that can certainly be addressed should this zone change go forward at the final development plan. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bailey. Staff doesn't have much to say other than a little bit of clarification about what the CC zone is and then the EAR2 and EAR3. There is no restriction of dwelling unit density within the CC zone. The greatest limitation within that zone is that at least 40% of the aggregated floor area of the buildings within the CC zone shall be devoted to residential uses as permitted in the EAR3. So this indicates that a developer would have to develop at least 40% of their floor area ratio as residential. But there is no cap on that residential, so the entire property could be done so under the EAR3 guidance. The difference between the EAR3 and the CC would be that the EAR3 has a higher height limit. You're looking at 60 feet versus the 48 feet that are allowable in the CC. Also, the difference in FAR, the FAR for the CC zone is 1.0, whereas there is no FAR requirement in the EAR3. There's a .75 requirement for the EAR2 and a 35 foot height limit in the EAR2, which the applicant is going with with their EAR2 zone. The biggest difference from the CC zone with the applicant's application here is really the 20,000 square foot floor area per building. So with the CC, you're looking at a difference in the layout of the structures. The CC necessitates breaking them up every 20,000 square feet. There are some special provisions that allow for bigger buildings, but when it comes to residential or just doing purely commercial, it does keep it within those 20,000 square feet. So there are some differences, but an applicant would be able to build apartment complexes within the CC as it stands now. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. So at this point, we've heard from applicant opposition staff, and I'm going to close the public comments section and open it up to commission members for any questions they may have from anyone you've heard from today. Yes, ma'am. I have a question, and I think staff's used to me questioning fire service and police service. And I noticed in a couple of the letters that we got, there was concern that to put this complex there would cause grave concern for the emergency services in that area. And I always seem to have the heightened awareness about that. I was wondering if one of you could address that with regard to that so we can maybe give them some comfort level. Yes, ma'am. Greg Lingle, Division of Fire. This complex isn't going to add any more burden to our services. We have the fire stations, at least from a fire and emergency access, we have fire station 2117 who are right around that area. I did hear a couple things today talking about the street whist and I'd ask anybody in the audience who does have an issue with public safety as far as street whist to contact us and we can address that but I don't see any burden. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions from the commission? i don't see anyone reach um mr nickel nicholson let me ask you one thing um try to see how i can phrase it as appropriately as i can um in the staff report that was given uh and i'm just going to say i'm not quoting i'm paraphrasing but but you have indicated that this would strive for positive social interaction with neighborhoods that you kind of addressed with Mr. Nichols. And then also, while enabling existing and new neighborhoods to flourish through improved regulation, expanded opportunities, and neighborhood character preservation. With what you've heard here today, do you think this request would be accomplished in those? I certainly think it can. And while it is not necessarily what everyone in this room desires, I do believe that multifamilies can be integrated into communities in a very, you know, in a context-sensitive way, the term we keep on hearing. We've done it throughout several developments that we have done. We have built apartments first and then single-family. We've also built single-family and then apartments as well. And so we think it absolutely can complement each other. We think there can be positive social interactions between them. And we do want these kind of two different uses to be able to play together. And that is why we are putting the pedestrian access point to the commercial on this site. It is why we are adding improvements to Manowar. Okay. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Yes, Mr. Penn. We heard a comment about the half section improvements. Would you let us have some idea of what should that be, a staff recommendation, a number 10, or how do we get to that? I believe that that is already on number 7. Denote improvements to Manowar Boulevard on proposed cross section per traffic study recommendation. we have submitted a development plan that does in fact show that does in fact yes okay thank you that's what I want yes thank you thank you any anyone else no if not I'll close this part open it up for any comments from the Commission and then from there we'll move on to a motion anyone wish to make any comments Yes, Carolyn. Thank you. First I would like to thank the extensive input by the neighbors and we appreciate input by neighbors. It's obvious that you care for your neighborhood. A couple of things, you mentioned school district overcrowding and This planning commission body has no input on that. That's above our pay grade, so to speak. And getting back to the 2013 and mostly in the 2018 comprehensive plan, we really, really promote walkable neighborhoods and we want to support successful neighborhoods and I think that's where you guys are coming from. You have a successful neighborhood and you want to promote that. In my opinion for this particular development zone change the best of the best would be to have your area for your coffee class and whatever your neighborhood gatherings and still have the apartments as if we could go to more CC there for what you desire and yet have the apartments to address what we really need in housing in Lexington and to avoid expanding the urban service boundary. Again, I think we want to support neighborhoods, And this, as it's been presented, doesn't really support your neighborhood. And I have to appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Poe. I just wanted to, I also appreciate everyone showing up. I think it's a good sign. I wanted to point out to you all that most of us on the Commission have seen this project multiple times before this evening so our lack of asking questions is maybe a result of having been run through several times prior to this evening it's not a lack of interest thank you anyone else yes sir I want to say to you that I've been around here a while and I don't think I've ever seen a thousand signatures come in in this fashion. And it's certainly gotten my attention. But our job is to do what we think is best for Lexington and not try to micromanage any one particular parcel of land. I say that based on the fact we are doing a zone change here and so you can make that argument. But the comp plan that we just finished in 2018 comp plan to which you all are part of but not completely at all because some of us 13, it very specifically said that for us to accomplish the goals we need to accomplish in the next 40 to 50 years, that we did not need to expand the urban service boundary in the next short term, that we need to do infield and redevelopment. So the question here today becomes, is this the appropriate infield and redevelopment or is it not the appropriate infield and redevelopment? Not if we're going to do it or not, but is it appropriate? And that's what we're dealing with here today. Most of the time when I look at it, I look at the staff's reasoning for why they would recommend approval of this. And most of the time, their number one statement is that it applies and works with the EAMP master plan. But their second reason is that there has been a social, economic, and physical change done in this area, which is the outlier which is what changes what they normally would recommend so that's what i'm weighing right here right now is the changes that's happened in that area since the amp was put in and that's i think that's where the crux of the matter is and i want to say that for you all but i want you to understand that that's what i'm dealing with right now Thank you, Mr. Van. Anyone else? If not, I'll close with a brief statement. One, watching this come forward as Mr. Pohl had indicated, we've seen this and it's been postponed. We've seen revisions and so forth. I've been conflicted throughout the whole thing. I have, and it's a pretty well-known fact, that I'm a proponent for what I'd call mixed use, which I think the CC land can be. And one thing that was said today by Heather, and I'm sorry I don't have her last name, Baker, She mentioned the fact that they felt like they had no place to call their own, which I think community centers should be, whether it's a Starbucks or a collection of gatherings like that, services like that, commercial businesses. I think it should be personally, instead of being on the fringe of Blackford, I think it should be right in the middle of Blackford where everybody can get to it in a walkable type manner. That's a little bit late now, but that's the way I see it. In looking at today, we've heard that even with CC, they could build residential units there. with what is being proposed. This, the height is a little less than what could be there. So, you know, as I said, I've been conflicted every time I've seen this. I've argued on both sides of it, and I'm still arguing on both sides of it. But Mr. Penn's right. At the end of the day, you know, we've got to make the tough decisions here, and that's what this is coming down to. I want to thank everyone for coming today and believe me when a thousand people, 1,073 people respond, we take that seriously. We really do. And I don't know if people are still in the hallway or not, but everyone that's here, we do appreciate it. If there's no further comments, I'll close it and we'll move to the motion phase and ask for a motion. Anyone? Mr. Nickel. I will make a motion. I would like to make a motion to take the staff's recommendation and approve PLN MAR 19-00003, Ball Homes Inc. Motion's been made by Mr. Bruce Nichols and seconded by Karen Mundy for approval of plan MAR 19-3 Ball Homes Inc. for the reasons stated by the staff. Any discussion on the motion? Yes two motions. So this is for the zone change itself. If there's no other discussions please vote when it comes up on the screen. Motion passes. For the development plan which is the revised staff with the revised staff recommendations Mr. Nickel. Yes I would like to make a motion to approve PLN MJDP 19-009 Blackford Property Phase 4 with the staffs nine recommendations. Thank you. Motion's been made and seconded for approval of the revised staff recommendations for plan MJDP 19-9 Blackford property with the nine conditions. Please vote when it comes up on the screen. That motion passes. Thank you. We'll move on. And at the staff's approval, I'm going to ask that we take one item out of order. And what we will do, we will move to page five under commission items. This is SRA 2019-1 update article 6 for sidewalks and shared youth paths. We have a few people that is here to speak on this, and they've got transportation limitations and may have to leave if we did not take this out of order. So, Mr. Berry. Good afternoon. This is SAR 2019-1. This is under commission items starting on page five of your agenda. Today we will be talking about sidewalks and shared use paths. The proposed amendment is located in Article 6 of the LFUCG land subdivision regulations, which establishes the basic and minimum design and improvement standards, which will be required as a precondition to development or in conjunction with development development for lots, streets, utilities, and other physical elements in a subdivision. I would like to stress that this is a precondition to construction rather than an active change. Anything that is proposed in this section is focused on new and updated construction. The major direction of this article is to promote development that is most harmonious with the existing environment while providing guidelines and standards to protect the public health, safety, and welfare. The focus on this amendment is Article 6-8, which lays out the elements of street standards. The proposed amendment seeks to provide connectivity and equity as it relates to the transportation network in urbanized areas. As proposed, these amendments promote greater mobility and will impact how the built environment directly affects economic growth, public health and quality of life of Lexington's current and future residents. Along those lines, we do have four letters of support and one letter of substantial support that we all hand out right now. Sidewalks and shared use paths are part of the required infrastructure for our community. A greater emphasis on connectivity should be applied to future development, taking into account the context-sensitive design as it relates to multimodal transportation networks. Design of this infrastructure should include both micro and macro views of the context of current and future use so that more sustainable development patterns are promoted. In an effort to ensure the preferred types of multimodal development and those networks becoming the normal part of development, this amendment provides guidance for the future development of those networks. To best make these modifications to both ensure we are in compliance with federal standards while also protecting the health, safety, and welfare of our community, there are three changes to Article 6-8. the first is the modification of sidewalk widths in article 6-8 n table a standard sidewalk alignment there are an increase in widths that are recommended for the three for the different types of roads for new construction as you can see here we are seeking to shift or increase the widths of roads for non-residential and industrial collectors and connectors non-residential and industrial collectors and connectors with a 51-foot street width, residential collectors, connectors, and industrial locals, local residential, local residential cul-de-sacs, and adding in arterial, major, and minor roadways. We are seeing a shift to six feet for the industrial collectors, six feet in residential collectors and connectors and industrial locals with the potential to go to eight feet in high use areas, which include downtown and urban environments near shopping centers, schools, and civic centers. We are also seeking to increase the local residential and local residential cul-de-sacs to five feet, and we'll get into the specific needs for those, and then the arterial major and minor roadways to six feet and eight feet in high use areas. Oh, I'm sorry. The changes that are made for these areas are both an element of compliance with local, state, and federal guidance, but also a review of sidewalk construction that is context sensitive. A one-size-fits-all approach to sidewalks has led to inadequate infrastructure for the users and promotes an auto-centric mobility pattern. By right-sizing sidewalks, it has been proven that users will be safer and actually take advantage of our infrastructure. The next portion of the changes is focused on the definition of the shared use paths. It states that where these paths are indicated in the comprehensive plan as outlined in the Lexington area MPO bike and pedestrian master plan, and where existing trails provide opportunities for connections, the commission shall require the dedication of right-of-way or an easement of sufficient width for the construction and use of the path. If a shared use path is required by the Commission in lieu of a sidewalk, the developer shall build the shared use path at a minimum width of 10 feet. The shared use path shall be designed and constructed in conformance with the roadway manual. This is incredibly important as the shared use paths were not defined previously. We have had an incredible network of shared use paths that are developing throughout our community from both the government side of things and the private developers. Without the inclusion of a language, we are unable to provide clear guidance to our development community. The final update to Article 6-8 is to the language itself. Subdivision regulations and zoning ordinances are living documents that must be updated from time to time, not only to remove outdated terms, but to include new texts that have been adopted by this body, as well as the other LFUCG divisions and the Urban County Council. The Urban County and the Development Community have traditionally designed our infrastructure primarily for safe and adequate movement of single occupancy vehicles, while providing less attention or diligence to the safe movement of pedestrians and cyclists. This is the focus or is reflective of some of the terminology that we have in Article 6-8. Sidewalks, shared use trails, bike lanes, streets and roads are all part of a transportation system and should be noted as such. The term transportation system is a more inclusive element of all of the transportation options that we have in our community. Furthermore, it stresses the aspects of connected infrastructure that provides safe access for all users. Finally, the MPO and the bike and pedestrian master plan was adopted in 2018 and lays out both the professional and community guidance for future development. In review of the amendment, there are three main reasons for the adoption of these updates. First is the compliance with the minimum design standards of the federal government, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, and the MPO bike and pedestrian master plan. The LFUCG land subdivision regulation states that all sidewalks and shared use paths primarily provided for the convenience and or improved flow shall conform to the following standards and shall be designed in accordance with the Division of Engineering Roadway Manual, the Division of Engineering Standard Drawings, and I stress, and in conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA. For those design guidelines for the ADA, we refer to the United States Access Board minimum requirements. They state that the minimum clear width of a pedestrian access route shall be 60 inches or 5 feet, exclusive of the width of the curb. They go further to encourage additional width where possible, especially in high-use areas such as downtown urban environments, near shopping centers, schools, civic facilities, etc. It is recommended that the pedestrian access route be no less than 72 inches or 6 feet wide in high-use areas. This is reflected in the changes recommended today. Here we're able to see the differences between the ability to maneuver for an individual in a wheelchair in an area where sidewalks are three feet, which we see in some of our older areas of town, four feet, which are the primary width for the majority of residential areas in town, and five feet, which is being exemplified on a private property as we don't have many of them around. While the previous slide shows the need for the width of an individual in a wheelchair who is by themselves, it's also important to stress the need for facilities that allow for individuals who have a disability to be accompanied by others who might need to be there in a supported position or in a social position. Compliance with the ADA standards is also complimentary to bringing the minimum standards for development in line with with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet's design guidelines and comply with the United States Access Board standards for access in the public way. Compliance with the federal requirements for accessibility protect future funding for transportation system projects and aligned with LFUCG efforts to provide a more comprehensive transportation network. I will point out that they are showing shoulders at 1 foot 10 inches. For many of us, it is a little bit bigger than that. Throughout Lexington, there are various issues regarding the adequacy of our sidewalks. In the top, we can see an individual riding in the roadway because there is no other way for him to get around town. The bottom left, we see one user is able to use an inadequately sized sidewalk. In the bottom right, we are presented with an area in which the sidewalk just terminates. We are looking down Broadway, one of the heaviest traveled roadways with commercial, residential, and office space, and we are unable to have travelers get around without a car or creating their own walkways. However, this is changing throughout Lexington, but we need to make sure that we are solidifying these in our regulations to ensure that all are aware of the minimum standards that we need. If you look at this picture right here, that is actually the development that is occurring right along Southland. It is a six-foot sidewalk, and it's moving with the environment, and it's moving with the context of the situations that we're having there. On the top portion, you can see a very large sidewalk that is adequate for those users. And then, also, we're showing the transition. It does not need to be a hard and fast stop line between new development or updated development and old development. We can make those transitions over time and make them so that they aren't an affront on the aesthetics that we're seeing. In terms of compliance, the proposed land subdivision regulation changes also support LFUCG's larger safety and transportation goals, which emphasize the well-being of people of all ages and abilities across all modes of transportation operating within the public right-of-way. This text amendment supports development that serves the need for all people consistent with the community's equity goals. The increase of a shared use trail that is off-road provides a travel area separate from motorized traffic for bicyclists, pedestrians, skaters, wheelchairs, users, joggers, and other users. Shared use trails can provide a low stress experience for a variety of users using the network for transportation or recreation. When we have the option for cyclists, pedestrians and other users we can we can remove potentially dangerous interactions that we see here and there throughout the city this is one example of an individual that doesn't have that safe access to a shared use trail or a bike lane and is forced onto the sidewalk which can create some dangerous potentially dangerous interactions between pedestrians who are meant to be that sidewalk same right here and put them now we can put them in safer situations that we see at the legacy trail and the brighton trail and future town branch trail and the possible harrodsburg road trail this amendment to the sub land subdivision regulations is also in agreement with the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. The proposed text amendment will work to achieve an effective and comprehensive transportation network, Theme D, Goal 1, by supporting the complete streets concept, prioritizing a pedestrian-first design that accommodates the needs of cyclists, transit operators, and other vehicles, Theme D, Goal 1A. Over the course of the last 75 years, the urban county and the development community have designed primarily for the safe adequate movement of those single occupancy vehicles. Those portions of our transportation network that lack adequate sidewalks or shared use trails serve as barriers to equitable and safe pedestrian movement unless a traveler is utilizing a vehicle. Additionally the safety of pedestrians has been overlooked in those areas that have extremely long block lengths which encourage dangerous mid-block crossings and highway interchanges in urbanized areas that do not provide adequate or safe connections. By requiring facilities that are sized appropriately at locations, there will be more diverse transportation options for all residents and visitors to our community. And I do want to point out that we have been talking about this for some time. We talked about it with the comprehensive plan, but this is some of the information that was provided to us by the bike and pedmaster plan in which individuals were talking about how it is hard to get around town because sidewalks are either non-existent or not sized correctly and then how it is hard to get around on a bike because there aren't delineated space for those cyclists they feel uncomfortable being on the road but they also feel uncomfortable creating dangerous or hazardous conditions on sidewalks so this is also reinforced by the fact that we have been having a change in our mobility over time this is the map of the 1990 use of bikes to travel to and from work in our area and as you can see it's increasing in various different areas and then it is very much increasing in our downtown landscape it is also increasing especially along those areas that have trailways so when we provide options people take advantage of them this is very important for our community going forward to not only support those residents that we have here now but for those residents that are going to be enticed or come into our areas because of opportunities staff is recommending approval of this subdivision regulation amendment for the following reasons the proposed amendment to article 6 of the land subdivision regulations to update the requirements for the sidewalks and shared use paths will provide a more diverse transportation network with options for residents and visitors to our community while also promoting economic growth public health and quality of life of the lexington's current and future residents the proposed text amendment will work to achieve an effective and comprehensive transportation network themed d goal one by supporting the complete streets concept prioritizing a pedestrian first design that also accommodates the needs of cyclists transit operators and other vehicles themed d goal 1a finally and possibly the most important here the proposed text meets the minimum design standards established by the kentucky transportation cabinet the u.s access board and the americans with disability act during the zoning subcommittee the committee recommended a referral to this body due to a concern of members of engineering and traffic engineering divisions that had not been involved in this process. While those members of the divisions that were at the meeting weren't immediately involved in the process, the heads of their divisions were involved and reaffirmed their support for the increase in sidewalk widths and shared use paths. And with that, I'm available for questions regarding the presentation. We also have Mr. Scott Thompson here from the MPO. He's here to also answer probably some of the more detailed numbers kind of data that you might have. But we are happy to answer any questions. We also have various members of the public here to talk about this. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Any questions for Mr. Bailey or the staff at this point? Yes, sir. I do have a question. We saw four letters of support. Do you have any letters of non-support? We have no letters of opposition. And I will say, going to some of our conversations that we had during the work session, we have reached out to the Builders Association, and we did provide a fair amount more information about this over the past couple of weeks. They have not responded in any positive or negative way. They just have asked for more information. We've provided that up until yesterday. Any other questions? Okay, thank you Mr. Bailey. We'll move to anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this. In favor, I would ask that anyone that has time, I'd say traffic constraints as far as transportation needs and so forth, please come on forward and we'll make sure you get heard. Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon. Hi. My name is Ashley C. Smith and I reside at 1171 Redwood Drive and today I'm representing the Fayette Alliance as the Director of Education and Governmental Affairs. We're here today in support of the sidewalk regulation amendments. Well-planned infrastructure strengthens communities, boosts economies, expands opportunity and promotes equitable development. Theod Alliance commends the planning staff for working on updates to our ordinances that help our community be more people-centric and just not for automobiles. While Imagine Lexington states our city's vision for sustainable development, the amendments brought forward by planning staff lay out the ways we will actually achieve this vision. Diversifying transit opportunities and making communities more pedestrian friendly has been shown to reap benefits in many areas. Economic development, quality of life, accessibility, and more. Research indicates that projects in walkable neighborhoods command premium prices and can earn developers and investors a higher return on investment, as they are more appealing to pedestrians and can also benefit local businesses by attracting more customers. Because many prefer to live, work, and shop in walkable places with good transit access, a correlation between transit and property values has been shown, and with demographics continuing to change, is even more robust. Focusing on improvements and enhancements to streetscapes and infrastructure projects, which improves cycling and walking conditions, increases local economic activity, and improves quality of life for all citizens. As business and individuals prefer accessibilities have been shifting, companies are now frequently searching for locations with access to amenities and diverse transit, and demographic trends are driving increasing preference for more compact, diverse, and walkable development. Improved design, planning and building of streets and public spaces are crucial to provide citizens with what they desire from their city. And the proposed amendment is an example of how our planning staff is diligently working towards these goals that are community outlined in the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Laura Thomas. I live at 301 Ash Street in town here. I just moved there. I have an accessible house. The five-foot sidewalk around that house is my house. I'm a member of the Commission for People with Disabilities, have been for five years. My neighborhood, as far as I can travel, is to my neighbor's house. Beyond her is a three-foot sidewalk. In the past, one of the fears I've always had as a senior was falling. Yes, I fall shorter than most people, but I have fallen in my chair off a sidewalk that wasn't wide enough, and I tipped and fell into a pile of slush. I did get hurt, but I travel around town using paratransit, And if it wasn't for the fact that they do door-to-door service, I probably wouldn't go very far on my own. Sidewalks in this town are scary. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sandra Broadus. I live at 441 Kingswood Drive. But I'm here as the chair of the Lexington Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. We are a group of citizens that provide input and advice to the MPO staff on a regular basis. We meet once a month in the government building. And I'm here in support of, as the committee, in support of this change. I know that the Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee is made up of a diverse group of people. But when I think about my peers who are generally young professionals that are upwardly mobile, when they are looking at where they would like to develop their careers or where they would like to raise their families, they look at place first and job opportunities second. And things that create a sense of place are the community in which you live and the ability to get around that community. You know, the number of Starbucks in a city is not really a factor because you can find Starbucks in any city in America. And so really just being able to know that, you know, I can walk to opportunities and businesses and that my kids can play in the street safely and that I don't have to worry about safety because there are so many people out in the neighborhood that I know and have met personally because people are out enjoying the neighborhood and i think that these changes definitely lend to more communities like that in lexington so thank you thank you yes ma'am hello my name is carrie churchill i live in lexington and i'm a nurse so i understand that we each bring our unique perspective mine is both personal because i have family and many many friends who use wheelchairs As a nurse, I've also helped care for those who have sustained an accident or injury, and a surprising number of those were a result of something pedestrian-related. Maybe they slipped and fell. I myself am wearing a knee brace because I was walking, and I had to step off the sidewalk to allow someone to pass, and I kind of caught my ankle and leg. So I, too, know that I'm not immune. I also would mention that the wheelchair and mobility device widths have grown over the years so not only when i walk in lexington am i very aware of the narrow widths of the current sidewalks and even some of the trails i'm also aware that the dimensions needed just to allow two people who use a walker or wheelchair to pass with any kind of grace at all is is very minimal so i stand again in full support of the sidewalk and shared with expansion minimums and I also want to point out that by setting an example in Lexington I would hope the rest of the state would follow because when I am visiting people in other parts of the state the lack of pedestrian safe places to walk whether you use a bike or a wheelchair or a walker or walk is very lacking so I would hope that Lexington would help lead in this way thank you thank you hello thank you for your time and for considering this of course I'm in support of the expansion of the sidewalks my name is Christy Stambaugh director of aging and disability services and so certainly the clients that I work with every single day would benefit from this we are an age-friendly community and again this is in line with what we try to do to make Lexington's great and the quality of life superb for our people as they age and through all spaces of life. At Idle Hour Park lately, what are those things called that everybody's chasing down? The app, the Pokemon. Pokemon has been a big deal and if you notice at Idle Hour Park we're lucky to have mostly five and six foot wide paths and there are tons of people out there passing one another chasing these things down so that's another way the quality of life could be improved with this expansion of the sidewalks thank you thank you others if if not any questions from the Commission yes I do have a question on the process how we're going to implement this so if we see a new development plan, let's say an infill redevelopment property, and it does have three-foot sidewalks. Does three-foot sidewalks come out and five-foot sidewalks come in? It would have to be a major redevelopment that would be impacting because there's the nexus of what you're doing with what you have to do in terms of public improvements. It is a land subdivision regulation, so it will come into play with subdivision of property, not necessarily with every development plan. So unfortunately, we're not going to see a major retrofit of our pre-foot sidewalks in our city? No, not unless it's public projects. Other questions? Staff, anything to add? No one in the audience? Nothing else? Any other questions? If not, I'll close this and ask for comments or motion. Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, my first comment is it's about time, and I appreciate the comments that people have had related to the support of this. I would recommend approval for SRA 2019-1 update, Article 6 for Sidewalks and Shared Use Paths for the provisions provided by staff. Thank you. we've got a motion for approval of sra 2019-1 the amendment to article six for sidewalks and shared use paths with the two reasons recommended by staff this has been seconded by mr forster if there's no further questions please vote when it comes up on the screen the motion passes thank you thank everyone for coming speaking sorry we had to to hold you up with one, but that's what happens. And then I apologize for leapfrogging over who we're about to take care of right now. That would be on page four, item three, the Clifton LLC, Zoning Map Amendment, and Sonier Living Zoning Development Plan with the associated development plan, as I've mentioned. This is plan MAR 19-12. Yes. This is the Clifton LLC zone change. We do have three letters of opposition that I will hand out now. now. Delaying just a second. The applicant is just outside. So this is PLN MAR 19-12, the Clifton LLC. The petitioner has requested a zone change from a high-density apartment R4 zone to a downtown frame business B2A zone for 0.119 net, 0.135 gross acres for the property located at 171 Sonier Street. The proposed development seeks to adaptively reuse the current structure for special events or as a banquet facility. The B2A zone allows for such activities and provides for a reduction in the necessary parking due to the high level of walkability downtown and availability of on-street parking, as well as private lots and structured parking. Sonier Street is a local road that extends between West 2nd Street and West Short Street. While the road is categorized as a street, it performs more like an alley. The road provides access to and from parking for the businesses, churches, and schools that front on North Broadway and West Short Street. Additionally, the cross-section of the street does not meet current standards. The subject property is located within a mixed-use neighborhood. that currently includes various residential businesses and office land uses. The zoning surrounding the property includes the high-density apartment R4, downtown frame business B2A, and downtown center business B2B zones. The B2A and B2B zones offer a wide variety of potential uses and the fewest site restrictions, which are meant to allow for the greatest utilization of our downtown landscape. the subject property was previously within the general business district which was the b4 zone which was changed the wholesale and warehouse business in b4 zone with the 1975 update to the lfucg zoning ordinance the subject property was rezoned from the b4 zone to the high density apartment r4 zone in 1969 during the comprehensive modification of the county wide zoning this change was made to allow for greater continuity with a multi-family residential uses located along second street and short street the subject property borders the eastern edge of the historic western suburb neighborhood and the eastern edge of the historic north side neighborhood the western suburb neighborhood achieved its historic h1 overlay in 1975 and expanded again in 2004, or I'm sorry, 2014. The north side neighborhood achieved its H1 overlay in two separate sections in 1986. Here we see the aerial of the property. We get a good look at the layout of the subject property and the surrounding properties. The properties that directly abut the subject property include two churches, Broadway Christian Church and St. Paul the Apostle Catholic church, a private school, Saints Peter and Paul Regional Catholic School, and a funeral home, Millward Funeral Directors. North of the subject property is a parking lot owned by the Broadway Christian Church and a multi-family residential structure. And I know it's covered a little bit because we have the H1 overlays and the hatching that you see right there, but here is your multifamily, Broadway Christian, the Catholic Church, and then Millward. Here we have a good view of looking into the subject property. This is what it looks like as of last week, looking down Sonier Street, two seconds, or I'm sorry, two short street, into the parking lot that is abutting the property for Broadway Christian, across into the rear portion of Broadway Christian. This is also across towards Millward. Funeral homes, I'm sorry. And then looking out towards 2nd Street. Here we're able to look at the side of the property, just looking at the old construction techniques. And then just a view of the historic aspect of this area. While this property is not within the H1 overlay, it does have some historic roots. This is Sonier Street, 1933, and you can see that there's still a focus on the horse industry. Right here is the old horseshoeing house. The property was utilized by the LFUCG police as their livery until they moved to the Koolavan Park recently. Then we have another historic view. Looking down Sonier Street in 2018 and looking down Sonier Street in 1976, The real difference that you see between the two pictures is that in 1976, there was some meter parking and some slightly more interesting cars. So one of the things that has come up throughout this process has been a discussion of the parking. The B2A zone allows for a reduction down to 25% of the required parking for any use. For this subject property, we're looking at six parking spots being required for their use. The applicant is proposing two lots, two separate lots, one located at 157 North Broadway that would provide the necessary six spaces within the 300-foot area of the establishment, and then one located at 181 to 183 North Mill Street that provides an additional 84 parking spaces. Additionally, there is various different lot and structured parking throughout the area. staff is really would like to really push the idea that we are in a downtown area so one of the major aspects of this development would be that connection to the walkability of downtown lexington there is also a greater access to some of the multimodal transportation options that we have in lexington the applicant opines that the proposed development is an agreement with the goals and objectives of the 2018 comprehensive plan and state that the proposed rezoning supports infill and redevelopment by identifying areas of opportunity for adaptive reuse while also respecting the context and design features of the surrounding development projects to ensure compatibility with the existing urban form. Furthermore, the petitioner indicates that their plan seeks to support and showcase local assets to allow for the creation of a variety of jobs while also adding services that promote and enhance tourism in the area. The applicant states that through the inclusion of the use event space or banquet facility that they will provide entertainment and other quality of life opportunities that attract young and culturally diverse professionals and a workforce of all ages and talents to Lexington. Finally the applicant opines that their proposed rezoning will protect and enhance the natural and cultural landscape that give Lexington State County its unique identity and and image by protecting historic resources including the renovation, restoration, and maintenance of a historic commercial structure. Staff agrees with these aspects of the applicant's proposal and these specific goals and objectives can be met. Additionally, the applicant has provided a justification that meets the development criteria for the subject property regarding transportation and pedestrian connections and green space and environmental health. Despite compliance with the majority of the criteria for site design building form and location, there is one area of concern that the applicant should expand upon here today. In response to development criteria BSU 11-1, green infrastructure should be implemented in new development. The applicant stated that they would further contemplate the inclusion of green infrastructure to the extent possible. During the committee meeting the applicant discussed the inclusion of pavers or some sort of green infrastructure in the rear of the property as the front of the property is all the way up to the street edge. However with the most recent development plan that Mr. Martin will go through there has not been an indication of where they are doing that. Staff is recommending approval of this zone change and the zoning committee is also recommending approval also recommended approval during their meeting. If you have any questions on the zoning I would be happy to answer them at this time. Questions for Mr. Bailey? Not at this time. Thank you sir. Applicant? I'm sorry Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, at the bottom of page four is Major Development Plan 19-48 for the Sonier delivery which is a company that zone change. Now this is a final development plan and you're used to seeing preliminary development plans but the reason this is a final development plan is of course they're utilizing an existing facility. This is the area here, it is just a little over 4,000 square feet in the existing structure. This is the main entrance off of Saunier and then and they're proposing a covered walkway in this area, kind of a patio walkway area, to this is the one new structure they are proposing. It's a 900-square-foot building that will have restroom facilities and prep areas for the activities that will take place on site. This is the green area, a large lawn in the back that is an open area. So it's a really simple and straightforward plan. Again, it's a final development plan. It was recommended for approval by your subdivision committee, and it is subject to a minimum amount of conditions, primarily the sign-offs. And then, as Mr. Bailey mentioned, they're going to have to denote the type of green infrastructure relative to the place builder that they want to use and intend to use on the property. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have for staff. Questions for Mr. Martin? None at this time. Thank you. Very quickly there was a mistake on the overhead slide with the findings. It had a different zone that was right at the end. However, if you look on your agenda that has the correct findings and for anything that you refer to for anything going forward, if you will please reference those. So Mr. Faggler, you're saying that your findings, reasons for approvals, what you're saying is one, two, and three as shown on the agenda? As shown on the agenda, all are correct. Yes, sir. Thank you. Applant. Starting to be good evening. Here's a copy of my presentation for the PowerPoint presentation. you could bring it up my name is Nick Nicholson I'm here with Tony Barrett and Calhoun Clifton for the applicant the Clifton that is quite frankly we are really excited to talk to you today about this project that we're proposing here we think it is a chance to be a great kind of downtown core project that will be able to be inviting to tourism and Lexingtonians alike quite frankly we think that this is a very straightforward zone change it is one that more is a recognition of the historic use of this property versus trying to change completely the spectrum of use that is allowed on a piece of property while this underlying zoning is R4 in the 130 year history of the structure we cannot find any indication that any residential use has ever actually occurred it has always been commercial in nature for an overwhelming majority of that history as mr. Bailey indicated we do believe that this was mostly a horse in kind of carriage stable area it was originally built I believe as part of an iron workings kind of site but we think it was always just basically the kind of stable for the iron working site that was adjacent we believe that this kind of proposed zone change you know again it just basically is recognizing the commercial nature of this property as opposed to really requesting any type of true change in actual use the existing structure was uh it was erected sometime between 19 or 1890 and 1896 we're not exactly sure um the exact date but we do know that we are preserving the exterior shell of this when we say that this site needs to be fully renovated this is why this site needs to be fully renovated it is still 100 staples the roof does need to be addressed but the actual kind of core facade of the historic structure will be entirely kept the back area is going to be renovated and add a kind of covered walkway and a rear kind of accessory building that will be added and i'll kind of show what a mock-up is of that with regards to the green infrastructure we don't exactly have designs because we haven't gotten to the point where we know exactly what is going in the grounds but we do believe that there will be kind of a paper system that will be coming along this line and back to the accessory structure we are also investigating some other types of kind of green infrastructure that we you know hopefully will be able to implement into this program this hard fence right here this is proposed to basically be remaining and i will get to why i put that point that out just in a in a minute so while we are basically adjusting justifying this request on compliance with the conference of plan i do briefly kind of want to talk about uh the kind of nature of this zoning why we think this zone change specifically is kind of so appropriate as you can tell the parcel while it is zoned r4 it is adjacent to b2b on this side and b2a these two structures while also r4 are commercial in nature they are garages and have always been commercial in nature in their basically throughout their existence we have a parking lot right here and a multi-family structure right here the only true single-family use that is adjacent to this is the 424 and that is where we are showing kind of the landscaping buffer and also the accessory building kind of to also try to further buffer that actually that use there's no way to kind beat around the bush this is a very small site we are under 0.12 acres just under and any type of true multi-family structure would be very difficult what would be even more difficult is actually creating a multi-family structure and keeping the historic structure itself as we pointed out this is what we look like inside you are only about 2300 square feet of kind of a footprint interior to this building in order to create a apartment site in this you are basically creating apartment building inside of a historic shell the bigger problem with that is this entire wall right here is lined up with the garage so there is no way to meet fire code for any units that are on this entire side of the structure so the actual design of any type of units would be very difficult and And we think that keeping the shell, you are looking at somewhere between two to four actual units and that financially just doesn't really make sense. And so what you are probably looking at, if you are sticking with R4, is either blowing out the roof and going up or essentially expanding back out and putting a fairly large addition. So we believe that any type of true multifamily building building would compromise the integrity of the front facade if we were even able to keep the building itself because either you're looking at a massive addition on back or you are looking at a very tall basically roof with a story and a half kind of front facade further i don't know how we could actually comply with the r4 zoning code here with regards to access with regards to kind of open space and parking on 0.12 acres i'm just not exactly sure how we could get that done And so with that said, here we are facing a decision. Do we keep the underlying zoning or do we recognize the historic use of this property as commercial and basically have a zoning that recognizes that it's commercial, especially when we have an opportunity to do an adaptive reuse project on historic property. In our comprehensive plan and I think in our community, we believe that we always will choose historic preservation in this type of situation. Mr. Bailey kind of went over the comprehensive plan compliance but at the end of the day this is an adaptive reuse project in the downtown core that is going to preserve a historic structure and be a benefit to both tourism and locals alike this is what is supported in theme a goal 2 theme C goal 1 and goal 2 and also theme D goal 3 as well I think this is exactly what we are trying to ask our community to do to invest in this type of historic structure and not just look at as a potential site to grab some density. As a result, well first of all the development plan itself there's very little to kind of really talk about because of the size of this site. We are talking about the actual shell is 2,500, the interior is more around 2,300. There is that small loft space that is there but from what i've been told we are not to touch the loft space due to safety concerns and so that would be a full basically rebuild in order to actually take use of that property and here is kind of the major changes that would be occurring is just you know creating this wall canopy creating a covered canopy this is the area that we're anticipating to be using pavers we are anticipating to be catching kind of the additional storm water and making sure that we are basically reducing impervious surface because already there is a whole lot of pervious surface in this back here's the proposed accessory structure we made sure to keep it off of the wall have the setback that is required and again we are showing that this will be a solid fence throughout the the residential side this is a kind of initial mock-up of what we were thinking that the backyard would look like there have been some changes to that in order to apply with the setback requirements but this is in general kind of what we are envisioning for kind of this backyard area i noticed this this clear fence right there and this is why i made sure to stress and point out that fence earlier this is just clear for the the purposes of the drawing itself we've spoken to uh several of the neighbors i know several of them are here today the concerns that we really heard were what's how are we going to handle noise because this is near residential structures and how are we going to handle parking with regards to the noise we added a development plan note that specifically addressed when events must end on this property and we made sure to put it on the development development plan as a note to make sure that if this property ever sells if this use turns over to something else they're going to have to come back here have a full public hearing and amend the development plan before they can ever have any type of events past the time limits that are set on this development plan what we have right now is 10 o'clock for sundays 11 o'clock for monday through thursday and then 12 o'clock for fridays and saturdays in no way is this anticipated to be any you know bar like structure that is in the downtown core that can can go out till 2 30 a.m. anything like that this is designed for events but it is not trying to basically you know annoy the neighbors in any way shape or form with regards to least parking mr. Bailey already did address this and I didn't even look as far as he did I just tried to basically pull it in the general area of this site we have 90 kind of spaces that are leased and in just public parking not the you know parking that's on the street not parking on private lots i found over 780 parking spaces that are just in this little area right here not including the uh you know the rup arena not including any of the other things that are within a thousand feet just in this small area right here so we certainly do not think parking is going to be an issue we do not think this use is going to generate much parking at all i know that we've talked about extensively that we are trying to get away from being an auto-centric society, especially when we're talking about in the downtown core, and we certainly think that this use will be doing just that. Again, you know, just to wrap up, we very much believe that this is a straightforward zone change. This is about doing an adaptive reuse project on a building that we should save. These are the type of structures that make Lexington incredibly unique and make desirable, And I bet there's a fair amount of people in Lexington, if not in this room, that did not know that this structure existed before this project came before you all. So I'm happy to answer any questions whatsoever, but we think that this is an absolute win, and we appreciate your support. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Yes? Mr. Nicholson, are there going to be reserved parking places just for this particular event? They have the ability to be, yes. How many? It is 90 spaces have the ability to be specifically reserved and assigned in advance that no one else, no public can park on it. It can be reserved for this particular use. Okay, because when you mention all the other parking spaces, that's assuming that there are no other events going on downtown that would be competing. That is why we made sure that we have the ability up front, 90 spaces we can have. Thank you. Ms. Plimley? Thank you. do you have any proposed hours in mind at this point it is so since this is kind of event driven um we don't have you know true set hours but we did want to make sure that there was a cap on there this is not something that is open from eight to five by any means this is something that a special event would come in whether it is a non-profit whether it is a corporate lunch whether it is a wedding it is designed to basically just be open during those event hours Other questions? Mr. Nicholson, special events, entertainment, live entertainment, outside entertainment? So, like in talking with neighbors, we assured them that there is not any live outdoor entertainment in any way, shape, or form. Okay. Come again. Any entertainment would be indoors? Yes. Okay. Anything else? If not, we'll proceed on to the audience. Anyone here to speak in favor of this? If not, we'll move to the opposition. Please come forward and give us your name. I'm Bob Milward. on the real estate that Millward Funeral Directors is located on. We've been there since 1904, that same year that this livery stable was born, was established. I want you to know that you probably received this this sheet like I did, summary of request. This business down here at the bottom is false. It says the petitioner has indicated that they have reached out to surrounding neighborhoods but have not received any response the representative has noticed that the owner of the Clifton LLC has spoken with the owners of the property surrounding 171 Sonja Avenue I want you to know that my property is 66 feet from this property and they haven't said boo turkey to me so this is this is incorrect i don't know how much else in this is incorrect but i guarantee you that is incorrect now we are vehemently opposed to chaining to changing the property to b dash 2a because we don't know down the road what this property might be used for and once you let the genie out the bottle you're not going to put him back in again but if you all are familiar with b2a you know that there are a number of very undesirable businesses that could come into that property and they would be a neighbor of mine probably christian church saint paul church the school there, the opera house. So we're all vehemently opposed to changing this rezoning. Now I'm also opposed to even a continual use of this property. I think it's a pipe dream to plan a business with no parking next to your building for staff or for caterers that come to take care of the parties or for the 150 people that they can accommodate for a function now i think you were told that they had a huge number of parking places in the area what you don't know they're either broadway christian churches lots my two lots uh the church's lots st paul's lots none of those are available to them so you have to reduce that 700 and whatever he said uh to this these paid places now their lot and i guarantee you that nick probably hadn't gone to that lot and walked over to this building okay well let me tell you what he knows then uh the middle of this lot i've walked it if you go out to church street walk to broadway go over the four lanes of traffic cross over the street walk up to 2nd Street, walk over to Sonia Street, walk down to this property, there are 600 of my steps. It took me six minutes. Now I can't imagine people getting dressed up going to this place. Let's just say in the winter when there's ice and snow and slush on the streets and particularly on Broadway. It just doesn't make sense if this place wants to operate with no adjacent parking. I think it's ridiculous. Unfortunately, two of the closest lots are my lots, and my lots are not available to this property. Unfortunately, when you come from this lot that the counselor has talked about, you head right towards the front door of my funeral home and my parking lot. I don't want them cutting through my parking lot because I've got families calling on people or maybe afternoon funerals. I don't want them cutting through my lot, but if you cut through my lot instead of 600 feet, it's only 300 feet. Instead of six minutes, it's three minutes. So I've got some liability there and I don't want them cutting through my lot. So on your street as they've mentioned earlier is basically an alley. I think it was always originally an alley and then they upgraded it to an an avenue and now maybe they've upgraded to a street but it's still basically an alley and as you know there's absolutely no parking on Sonia Street so you're not gonna be able to stop there for very long and let people out you're not gonna be able to stop there very long and unload stuff just before I came over here there's a beverage truck that just happened to be stopped right in front of this structure and the beverage truck was longer than this structure itself now what happens if you get two people, two trucks unloading beverages or food or whatever and I've got to get out the back gate of my funeral home to take a funeral up to 2nd Street because we can't get out on Broadway which you know is sometimes like a parking lot. I don't know that I won't be able to get out safely with these huge trucks on that parking space. And we have to get into the back of our lot when we come back to the cemetery because if Broadway is blocked I can't come in the front entrance. So we've got to make sure that we can still use Sonia Street to get out to get up to 2nd Street. Now the way I look at it, if this place is successful, they're going to have people coming there, coming one way from 2nd Street and you have other people coming from Short Street up. It's two lanes, but as you know, the only people that have permission to park there are those trucks from the Opera House. They can, they'll have a 16-wheeler, at least one, behind the Opera House whenever they have a performance there. And they'll also have a tour bus or two there, and they're parked there for two or three days. The tour bus is where the performers like to change, and maybe they sleep there, I don't know. But that really makes Sonia Street a one-lane street whenever they have something like that going on at the Opera House. Now, I see no reason that they have to have this as an event space. You've got an event space one half mile away at corner of 3rd and North Lyme, and they actually have off-street parking. So how in the world you can try to make this a success with no parking next door for older people that want to come to a party? I mean you're going to make them walk 600 feet and I know they're going to try to cut through my parking lot. But they need to go up to 2nd Street right in front of Broadway Christian Church and then behind Broadway Christian Church and make another turn. That's a whole lot of walking I would think for a lady in high heels. Now, the Sonia Street neighbors collectively have over 625 years using Sonia Street. So we certainly have a vested interest in this zoning request or a conditional use request that might come next. So I urge you all not to allow this rezoning. I have nothing personally against whoever's doing this, but I'm looking to the future. We're only 194 years old as a business, and I don't know what may happen 50 or 100 years from now, but if this property is zoned as they want to rezone it, B2A, there could be an awful lot of undesirable businesses in that location which neither church is going to want the opera house isn't going to want we're not going to want and i'm sure the neighbors on second street aren't going to want that backyard looks awful big in your picture there but i've seen it it's not as near as big as it looks and any music inside when they open the back doors the people on second street their property backs up to that they're going to be bothered with it with whatever noise comes out of that building so i urge you to vote against this i think it's a terrible idea thank you thank you mr miller yes thank you my name is john pika i am president of saints peter and paul regional catholic school and my attendance here today is to represent the school as we express our opposition to the zone change from r4 high density to b2a downtown frame business as one of several adjacent neighboring organizations to the property we are concerned with the prospective zoning transition on several front fronts we are proud to serve as leaders and educators of a historical catholic school in the heart of downtown lexington we are stewards of a vibrant learning community which has taught wisdom character and virtue on the property for 106 years the parking lot of st paul catholic church in the parking lot and play yard of saint peter and paul regional catholic school shares a portion of the rear property in line with 171 sawnier street since 171 sawnier street doesn't have the adequate parking as has been mentioned for patrons of business of a business establishment as like this we are steadfast against the uh steadfast in agreement with our neighbors and organizations and businesses and residents to oppose this zone change. In partnership with our St. Paul Catholic Church, the school and church would need to expend extra resources in order to ensure that parking is more routinely monitored for the availability of our parishioners, school families, and guests of both school and church based on our varied programming throughout the week and weekends. Second, a successful establishment will likely plan to have regularly scheduled client events and parties on weekday evenings as well as weekends. While it will be claimed that the activities will be confined to the event company's property, the residual effects of event parties and entertainment will change the area culture comprised of churches and funeral home, an opera house, and a school of an adjacent property that serves as a parking lot in a schoolyard lastly we share concern with our neighbors our neighborhood organizations and residents regarding the future use of the property once zone b2a with no restrictions when this space transitions it could likely shift to an occupant with a less attractive business plan such as a nightclub bar liquor lounge tavern tap room directly adjacent in line with our schoolyard understandably we are concerned that while the obnoxious description of event space serves as the venue format for this initial proposal it will also create the opportunity for an adult only nightclub and bars in the future in summary we oppose the zone change due to that lack of parking the residual effects of the event parties on a deliberately peaceful environment of this street and the fear that future occupants could establish adult-only bars, entertainment that will transform the good and beautiful of this street, flanked with the historic churches, a prominent funeral home, a distinguished opera house, and directly next to a school. Thank you. Thank you sir. Others? I'm Wendell Gay Redding. I live at 417 West 2nd Street. Most of the pictures of this property that you saw looking down Sonier Avenue were taken from in front of my house. It is a pipe dream to think that this will not be disturbing to a residential neighborhood. I'm here representing all my immediate neighbors. None of us were contacted by this group. In fact, I contacted them to find out what was going on. There was no outreach to our neighborhood. People do not want this kind of thing going on in the backyard. They said, oh, nicely, they will restrict noise up until 11 o'clock, is it? I'm supposed to be in my home up until 11 o'clock with rock concerts going on in the front yard. And that's what you said. Sir, Mr. Redding. Yes. Asking you to speak to us. I have lived there since the 1970s. Most of that time, the place was occupied by horses. They were wonderful neighbors. We appreciated their sense and sounds a great deal. So there could be, I think, great adaptive use for this beautiful property. I want to see it preserved. I love the attempt to find an adaptive use for it. This is just not the one, and a zone change is not the way to do it. In reading the B2A zone, what's permitted in there, it's impossible to think that we could be allowed or forced to live with all those conditions in the future. And I don't think anyone would consider having this in their, essentially, in their front yard. There is nothing space-wise between the front yard of my home and this property except an open parking lot. And there are people on the opposite side of the street who are directly back up to this property. We already have a problem with people going to bars downtown, parking in the parking lot directly across the street from me, unless it's policed, and you know it won't be. I don't see how this zone change can be considered. I would applaud looking for other uses which could be granted on a conditional use basis that would not disturb people trying to live in this neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Hi, my name is Doug Pyatt. I'm the executive pastor at Broadway Christian Church at 187 North Broadway, and I've served there for eight years. And I'm here to concur with my neighbors to object to this change on three reasons. First and foremost, I just want to say by no means do I want to disparage Miss Clifton. I've met with her. She met with us and asked about provisional use of our property. We are right now going through a renovation of ourselves, and Broadway is not just a one-day-a-week church. and we do an incredible amount of ministry in our church 24 7 7 days a week and so we are not just a a saturday night or a sunday morning church we we reach out to the homelessness we serve free meals to about 150 175 people twice a day or twice a week and so our facility is used pretty frequently on a regular basis god's pantry is is home on our campus and so we are open five days a week twice a day from 1 30 to 2 30 and 6 to 7 30 and we we serve and feed about 40 to 50 people per session and so our parking lot is is full Monday through Friday for those events plus we house AA and some other ministry groups that stay at our facility all the time and so she asked about provisional use I wanted to do that but we just simply can't I went to my board and our elders and our strategic planning team and our executive team vehemently denied that we would be able to share space we just need our space for our own facility usage as well so we border her her property again a wonderful young lady she was very spirited very passionate what you do I have no qualms against her usage and her development I wish for the best and work but I'm our concern is is the future use If this code change goes in place, then what can happen after if she decides to sell or decides to move on or is unsuccessful in her business usage? Then the nightclubs or other organizations that could take over this space would not really kind of embrace the character of this place. Broadway was created in 1870. We're getting ready to celebrate 150 years in 2020. And we want to celebrate again 150 years from there. I won't be around to see that celebration, but I do want to be able to see, to have, we've got great relationships with Mr. Millward, with the Opera House, with St. Peter, St. Paul. And one of the things I just want to do is be able to continue to embrace the integrity and the character of that. And we've got great relationships with our partners and friends down on 2nd Street in their neighborhood. And so just on that, I'd like to ask you that you would just, on that alone, just to please refrain from changing this zone change. We wanted to retain that, and I just want to go on to record to say that our church will not be able to offer her extra parking on our site, because we are doing a renovation now, and we hope to have some future plans of having Saturday evening services and Sunday night services. and that may compete with some things that are going on with her venue, that there will be no parking there, and our constituents and our people will be able to use that. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. I'm Sister Clara Faringer, and I'm the parish life director over at St. Paul's Catholic Church, and probably will reiterate, echo a little bit of what has already been said, except there is one other issue that is very important to me because we serve, as you know, we minister to people from the very elderly to the very, very young, and this is a safety issue in relation to the traffic on Sonier Avenue, and getting in and out of the parking lot whatever parking lot whether they're coming out of Millward's or our parking lot and then trying to turn left onto 2nd Street when there is traffic all around it is impossible to really be able to add any more traffic onto that place and i appreciate saying you know we won't have any problem with um parking that's a joke we would have to have a full-time attendant at our place at saint paul's catholic church 24 hours a day if we wanted to keep our parking places for those whom we are to serve and to minister to. And so when we look at the age of the people that come to our church each week, our church is 150 years old. We celebrated that this year. Now, we've been around a long time, and there have been a number of our parishioners who have been very, very faithful, coming clear across town for services for weddings and weddings take place at different hours especially on Friday and Saturday evenings again transportation parking we also have to consider Rupp Arena is very very close basketball games of course they want to use our parking space and so we need to work on that so there's the traffic and parking are big big issues so I really beg you please do not let this zoning go through thank you thank you yes sir Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, my name is Tom Brown. I'm the superintendent of schools for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington. I'm here to oppose this zoning change, and for me, it's simply a student safety issue. They have a wonderful plan, and I just wish it was not so close to our school. Schools are not eight to five institutions. We have night activities almost every night, and we have things going on. We have our Knights of Columbus. We have all kinds of night activities in our building. And we are fortunate that we are able to share some parking and different things with our neighbors. But the parking is important, and it is maybe a major thing. But to me and my position, as I address you, it is about safety of our students. We have students from five years old to 13 or 14 in there. They don't always make the best decisions on darting out as best we can. So we work very hard at maintaining a safe environment for our students. and this type of zoning change simply does not guarantee or help in our safety issues. We have concerns. I hope you will listen. All of you all have probably had children and look at this, but for me, that is my job to protect the over 3,000 students under my care, and I oppose from this on a purely school student safety issue. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else that would like to speak? If not, we'll move to the rebuttal part of this. Mr. Nicholson. thank you all first of all with regards to the type of notice and conversations the the basically the highlighted aspect of the staff report that was basically provided to staff I believe six weeks ago something to that effect we have had conversations since then we have had individuals talk with mr. Millward we have spoken with the churches we have spoken with mr. Redding he did call my office I did not specifically call him but we have certainly reached out I have reached out specifically to the Northside neighborhood and did not hear anything back one of the owners of this property is the secretary of the North Side Neighborhood Association and so to say that we have not reached out with our community is simply not true now we heard a lot about that this is going to lead to improper uses interestingly enough we heard about that from property owners that are zoned currently B2A and B2B we also heard that they're fine with some type of adaptive reuse but just not this well any adaptive reuse that could come into this that is not multifamily residential requires a zone change to B2A or B2B. The question is should this stay R4 or should it change over to recognize the commercial nature of this property? All of these surrounding zonings that are B2A and B2B are eligible to be these toxic uses that they are worried about and those uses simply have not come up. This is not a full-time location this is what we are talking about miss Plumlee we are thinking that in a dream scenario we are having three to four events a week that lasts about an hour to four hours each that is it this is not a 24 hour a day operation this is not an operation that requires monitoring of parking and speaking of parking none of the church lots mr. Millward's lot or any of those were counted the only thing that was counted when we calculated our spots are public parking not on the streets public lot parking and the least spots that we have I have to point out that the churches and the Millward's funeral home regularly hold events in this area whether that those be services whether those be visitations that draw more people than what we are talking about coming to this point one two acre site and I do have to point out that just two weeks ago I did visit mr. Millward's facility I walked from my office and I just checked it was 1600 feet I was wearing my suit and we were able to manage just fine I regularly also walk from the to the Opera House in full you know attire and we managed to walk just fine I'm not very concerned about the 500 to 600 feet walking from this reserved parking that might be in heels I'm happy to answer any questions but at the end of the day this comes back to do we want to keep this building or not because if we keep it our four there's just not a way to feasibly keep it based on the fire code based on the R4 zoning based on what would have to go on in order to basically make this a remotely uh financially feasible development and so while i know that nothing occurring on property sounds great to neighbors we can't do that in our downtown core we have to take advantage of these types of opportunities and these unique type of opportunities to allow for an adaptive reuse project in such a kind of historic structure i'm happy to answer any questions if you have them thank you we'll save the questions through after the rebuttal stage anyone in the opposition like to make a comment as far as rebuttal on what you just heard as far as his rebuttals no staff staff would just like to clarify that what the applicant is proposing does meet the guidelines for parking within this zone change so within the b2a they would need to require those six parking spaces within 300 feet and that is it they are providing above that within 600 feet the b2b zone which is off to the west of this subject property does not require parking mainly because of the location proximity to the rup arena the b2a does have some requirements for parking but just down to that 25% requirement. If you have any questions about parking or any of that access issue I'd be happy to answer. Thank you. So questions from the Commission? Yes sir. Yes sir Mr. Chairman I have a quick question I'm not sure is I think it's probably to staff. If that if it did change meaning from an events what else could go in there? So there are a host of different activities that can occur in a B2 zone, including the activities of the individuals here today. Let me pull it up real quick so that I can give you all of them. So the B2A, which is our downtown frame business, includes all of those principal permitted uses in the B2. So we jump back. And all those principal permitted uses in the B1. So you can see on the overhead, it's not a great overhead. All of that's available? So there are a total of 17 principal permitted uses that are exclusive to the B2 zone. And then if you jump back to the B1, there are an additional 47 other uses that would be available to them in this area. So let me say, based on what I'm reading here from our colleague, adult massage parlors? So those would not be permitted basically because there are performance metrics, Proximity to schools, residences, things of that section, that would preclude them from having them. The proximity to both the churches as well as the school, as well as the residential properties would make those prohibited. Okay, so all of that is off the table? All of that is off the table. That's why you don't see it in downtown areas or near any residential area. Okay, thank you Mr. Chairman. If I may maybe follow up with that, I think I heard with Mr. Nicholson earlier that they were offering up a note on the development plan as far as if any other use, not any other use, but anything else came in here they would have to come back. I will let Mr. Nicholson discuss that. It is right now, so the note is about the timing of operations basically. If any event is to occur outside of the time limits that are in that note, it would have to come back here. It is not specified that whatever use that might go on there would have to come back. This was just a note that was addressing the time. So there is an issue about parking at this point. If there is a change in the use that would necessitate a greater amount of parking, then they would have to come back. Additionally, in this case, the applicant is leasing parking. If the new owner of the property or the user of the property were to come back and not have those parking spaces, that would be an issue going forward, and we would need to discuss that as an update to the development plan. I think it's safe to say any change in use, you'll be getting this right back. Thank you. Back to the commission. Ms. Clemley and then Mr. Forrester. Thank you. This is a zone change, so could we put conditional uses on here at this time? Restrictions. Yes, ma'am, you can. Thank you. Mr. Forrester. This question is for Mr. Nicholson. There was a couple of opposition individuals mentioned about safety for the schools and things of that nature. Can you address that? I just want to know if there's anything that would be harmful to the students, 5 to 14-year-old. again the kind of I would say the nature of any events that would be occurring at the same time that school was in session you were talking about corporate luncheons you're talking about a you know nonprofit board meeting you're talking about those type of events that I do not believe cause a great concerns the safety of students we do not believe that this use in any way would cause any type of safety concerns for the churches for the schools itself again we're talking maybe at the maximum you're looking at like 16 hours a week of use of this property I just do not believe that this would be a real safety concern other questions may ask one question with the staff as far as this is currently eight R4 so how many residential units would be allowed there as far as the zone what what's possible so I will say that the R4 would be very difficult at this location primarily because of the need for various different waivers parking again would be a major component of any R4 development in In addition to that, any of the conditional uses associated with the R4, which then refers back to the R3 and then to the R1 as well, would require certain sets of parking that this property could not meet at the current level. So you would be looking at needing to lease properties elsewhere, like the applicant is currently doing, to meet those parking guidelines. Okay, thank you. Can I follow that? Yeah. I just want to follow that up for my thick head. So you are basically saying R4 is inappropriate? The R4 zoning would be very difficult to go through. Okay. All right. Thank you. Sir, we actually, I didn't officially, but we closed the public comments section. But do you have one other thing to say? Come forward. Come forward. Operating hours and the school relationship was brought up. I would like to say that we are an arts-infused program, school. We have plays that go on in the evening. We have an iconic theater in our building that is used extensively. We have athletic events. We have basketball practices that go until 9 o'clock at night. We have two boys' teams, two girls' teams. so we as the superintendent said we are not just um you know seven to three or till six we go till nine a lot of times our programming goes throughout the year okay thank you uh lie on him to come forward anything in response to that mr nicholson um simply put these this exact use is allowed and is in this existing area and so while i understand that we are not trying to be critical in any way shape or form about the concern of school safety and student safety it is a downtown core project and this very use is occurring in this area okay thank you um i think miss plumley first and then mr nichols thank you i didn't aim to talk so much but i wonder if the staff would be willing to have some conditions that they could suggest for us that would restrict this use for, I mean, I think the neighbors are concerned about down the road what could happen. So could we, you provide any comfort level for those people? If I may, the point that we were trying to make with the parking and the use, virtually any change of use is going to have to have an amended development plan to address the different parking. So I'm not sure to what degree conditional zoning would help, except to the obvious, perhaps, that isn't going to be allowed there anyway. And just as an example, retail would have a completely different generator. A bar, a restaurant, a completely different generator, would require an amendment to the plan and would be back before this body. Thank you. I'm just trying to accommodate. We've heard again from neighbors and I want people who come down here as neighbors to appreciate that they are heard and that we're trying to work with them. So if you say no condition, it would not be wise to do that, then I understand. Thank you. Mr. Nickel. I've got a question about the H1 overlay. It looks like that this property is not included in the H1 overlay, is that correct? That is correct, it abuts two separate H1 overlays, but is not within. If this property was to be used for R4, do you have the ability to demo the building and build a new structure with the requisite parking required? The parking would be difficult, just because of the small size of the lot. But, yes, they would be able to demo without a BOAR or Board of Architectural Review meeting to understand if they have hit those threshold criteria for demolition. And if I may again jump in, Mr. Nickel, staff gets questioned a lot on how many units will fit on a piece of property. And then people are a little surprised when we go, well, we don't know. Because you have to meet the parking. You have to meet the open space. You have to meet the setbacks. there are all these other criteria that you have to meet which will ultimately dictate what you can do on a site and then how many units you could get on a site. And as we all are very aware, small sites are very difficult to develop in that manner. And this is .1 acres, is that correct? .11 acres. 118, it's very small. Yeah, okay. Any other questions? If not, I'll close this part of here and open it up for any comments and subsequently a motion. Yes, Mr. Penn? I have lived too long. I can remember going to Sonia's welding shop and I'm surprised that place didn't burn, being next door to Sonia's welding shop. I think we're in a situation right here where it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. I think we're in a situation here where the fear of the unknown is driving this. And if we can be assured that the unknown is not as fearful as we're being thought to believe here, then that's one thing. If all the B1 uses could be done there, if you could work out all the logistics to it, that's another thing. So we're somewhere between those two points. We're somewhere between this opens Pandora's box to where it is such a limited use that with any kind of restrictions at all, it's not feasible. So I would like to hear somebody that was on the zoning committee that approved this to go forward to us. I'd like to get some input from them as to what they heard and why they did what they did. Because I'm struggling with this right now just for why we have it. Because I read what the staff says, but I'm not on the zoning committee, and I don't know what happened in that committee. So for somebody that could help me understand a little bit about that, I'd certainly be appreciative. All right. I hope I'm representing what happened there. When we're looking at this, I mean, you're looking at a development, as you know, we're looking at a development plan, and we're judging whether or not it should be R4 or it should be B2. We did not hear from any of the neighbors who've made great cases. We didn't hear any of that. So from a strictly land use perspective, my recommendation was for approval. but we've got something that's something other than strictly a land use issue. So we have a lot of things to take under consideration, and I've heard great comments from all related parties, so this is definitely a struggle. But on a strictly land use, from a land use perspective, this property makes more sense as B2A than R4, But that's on a black and white development plan, not in front of everybody here. And Mr. Penn, Mr. Penn, I would concur with my colleague there in the zoning committee. We did not hear one opposition. So now what I'm hearing today is it's got me conflicted too. Yeah, I'm like you. I don't have much hair to lose. So I'm stressing over here. Sir, we've closed the public comments section. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We didn't hear from us. We didn't know about it. We've got any other comments from here? If not, I can say I'm conflicted as well. going into this I thought it was pretty easy. I had not really heard. I knew that I'd heard that there was a couple of neighbors coming down. They made very valid points. In the same token with what Mr. Nickel just said, we're looking at a land use issue. What can, could this be? Everyone knows we look at infill and redevelopment everyone knows we look at adaptive reuse and the concerns that's been brought up today whether it's parking whether it's traffic whether it's safety they're very very valid concerns and I can appreciate those by the same token what is being asked today for this use is to provide a business in the area. Same sort of activities that's going on at these other neighboring spots right now. And is it going to add a little bit of congestion? It may. But is that enough to say, no, we can't allow this to happen, we're going to keep it just as status quo? We've got to look progressively forward and I think this is what we would be doing in this case and simply hope that, I'm not saying this goes forward because I'm sitting here and sharing this and I don't make motions. However, if it does, I sincerely hope that all the neighbors can work together. This is a tough situation, but in the whole scheme of things, I think as we've heard, if something else is going to come in here, if this doesn't go, then they're going to have to come back and ask for approval in essence. So, any other comments? If not, I'll ask for a motion. Mr. Chair, I actually have a, I'm going to need to abstain because I have two friends who are immediate neighbors. Okay. Mr. DeMovlin. I was waiting for a motion. I'm going to have to abstain as well. Mr. Millward is my favorite uncle. You've got a good nephew. Hold on. Let me ask a question. My son goes to St. Peter, St. Paul. Should I abstain too? I don't know about the friends, but it's my son. I would think not, but turn to the legal. I'm going to have to look at him. There's a difference in abstaining and recusing. And I think you can. It's up to you if you feel like you have a sufficient conflict to recuse from the matter. Remember, abstentions go with the majority if you're abstaining. Then I recuse myself. Because it ain't free. I've got to pay for school, buddy. The only thing I have a question Mr. Chairman for Mr. Forrester is why are you recusing yourself now when you voted for it in your- Look at that. Yeah. Mr. Forrester, if you want to disqualify yourself, that's fine. It's been good seeing you here today. No, I said that one more thing. All right. I'm sorry. So, we'll move along with the remaining two, four, six of us. We're still in the motion phase, I'd ask for a motion, if anyone so chooses. I'm looking at you. As everyone knows, either way, we have to have findings of fact. If the commission would feel more comfortable with conditional zoning restrictions, the staff can draft something if that would assist. Take a look at them. We'll take a look at them. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Chairman, how long does this take? Because I have to leave here at 545. You've got two minutes. I have one just generally. Do you want to do this before you see the condition? That's up to you, sir. How close are we on the conditions? Well, put them up there. Let's take a look at them. Doesn't make sense to me. I want to unwind it. So based on what staff has heard today in the conversation during the question answer session, staff is recommending a prohibited use list of automotive, automobile service stations and auto repair, amusement enterprises, pawn shops, community centers, private clubs and day shelters, outdoor live entertainment, cocktail lounges and nightclubs. And then as a extra time frame operation, operating hours shall end at 10 PM on Sunday, 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and midnight on Friday and Saturday. We've got one question on that. So because of the proximity to a school, all of the quote, sin uses are not allowed. That is correct. All of the night use, those kind of uses. You nailed it. I write it in contract like that. That are broadly centered around adult entertainment uses. Those are precluded because of proximity to the school, to the residential, and to the churches. Mr. Bailey, with Mr. Nicholson behind you, have you concurred with him? Are you okay with these conditional restrictions, sir? Yes, we are. For the record. For the record, yes. I had a more of a educational, philosophical question for Ms. Wade on whether operating hours actually could be a conditional zoning restriction. I think she's got the answer for you right there. See why you don't want to bring things that you haven't vetted. Yep. I'm just so used to it being buffer density related. I hadn't actually thought about something. So I'm presuming that the staff's right as usual. As always. Okay. Get that out of here. Mr. Penn. Before we dig ourselves in a bigger hole, I'm ready to make a motion. Yes, sir. I move for approval of PLM-MAR 19-12. according to the staff recommendations the reasons for staff recommendations including the conditional uses that we've seen on conditional restrictions thanks for the correction that we have seen on the on the overhead sorry mr can you actually add a reason for your conditional zoning restrictions excuse me we usually have a reason for the conditional zoning restrictions and that might be to protect the adjoining property owners. Amen, as you wish. Thank you. Motion's been made for approval and seconded by Miss Mundy for the approval of the Clifton LLC. It's plan MAR 19-12 for the three reasons provided by staff along with the conditional use restrictions as we've seen on the screen. Any questions on the motion? If not, please vote when it comes up on the screen. That motion passes. Next would be the development plan which is plan mjdp 19-46 on your living i believe it has where does see nine ten ten ten ten no eleven actually yeah eleven eleven conditions yeah okay so mr chairman i move for approval of pln mjdp 19-46 with the 11 conditions presented by staff thank you motion's been made and seconded uh miss mundy for approval uh with the 11 conditions uh please vote when it comes up on the screen that motion passes thank you um thank you folks for coming uh we hope it works out for everyone I'm concerned. We do have one remaining item. It's- Mr. Chairman, is it possible that I might be excused if everybody else can? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. I have to represent the planning commission at another meeting, which is why. We appreciate your diligence. We have, let's see here, it's on page five under public hearings on an ordinance tax amendments. It's under number one, ZODA 2019-4, amendment to Article 8, B2 zone for the town branch commons. Mr. Bailey. We are now moving to ZODA 2019, amendment to Article 8, B2 zones for the town branch commons. The Urban County Council initiated a text amendment on June 6th. Folks, if you would, let's move outside with the conversation. We have another item. We do have another item. Thank you. All right. The Urban County Council initiated a text amendment on June 6, 2019 to Article 8 of the LFUCG Zoning Ordinance to require compliance with the Town Branch Commons Master Plan and design standards between the town branch commons corridor and the development that is adjacent to, connected to, or interacts directly with the town branch commons corridor. This requirement will only apply in the downtown business zones B2, B2A, and B2B. The following provisions have been proposed for the special provisions of B2, B2A, and B2B zones. For any development that is located adjacent to, connected to, or interacts directly with the Town Branch Commons corridor, such development of the site shall comply with the Town Branch Commons master plan and design standards, taking precedent over the downtown streetscape master plan where conflicts occur. So in review, this is the current outline of the Town Branch Commons extending From our future park downtown and then up Midland and past Midland, it will terminate over at Third Street. The areas that we are specifically contemplating today are basically this here to right up here. Now with the Town Branch Commons Trail or the corridor, we are not just doing something for mobility, although it is very important to our mobility. They are also restoring and revealing some of our water features, cleaning up some of any of the rainfall, and then connecting our mobility patterns throughout the area. We see CARV here, I was interested in that one as well. This creates a space that differentiates the walking areas and some of those trail areas from the roadway. This is another picture of what is being proposed. We're a little out on Midland. The area that actually stops the B2 is right about there, but it gives you a good idea of what they are proposing for the design of the corridor. In which you see those kind of water features in which it will be storage and cleaning of the water, as well as bike and ped facilities and some greenery. By incorporating compliance into the town branch commons master plan and design standards for those properties adjacent to, connected to, and interacting directly with the town branch commons corridor, subsequent development will need to consider the impacts that they may have on a vital portion of the community's multimodal infrastructure. But also the surrounding context of the development. It is necessary to apply such standards within the context of the downtown area as these developments will be a major beneficiary of the improvements made by the city. But can also lead to the most detrimental impacts on the trail if not regulated. Furthermore, by maintaining consistent design standards along the corridor, the urban county government will be able to create a more enticing space for potential residents, visitors, businesses, and other tourists into the downtown commercial areas. In addition to the language that is being proposed by the urban county council, staff is also recommending the deletion of two sections of the LFUCG zoning ordinance. 18-701 and 18-1901. Each of these sections reference the urban renewal project area and the urban renewal plan. Both of the area and the plan are outdated and are no longer utilized by the planning commission and review of developments in the B2B and the B2 zones. This specifically goes back to the zoning ordinance being a living document and the subdivision regulations being a living document and us needing to remove terminology that is no longer utilized by this body or the urban county council. So for those reasons, staff is recommending approval of this staff alternative text. The proposed text amendment to Article 8 of the LFUCG zoning ordinance to require compliance with the town branch commons master plan and design standards between the town branch commons corridor and development that is adjacent to, connected to or interacts directly with the town branch common corridor supports the complete streets concept. Prioritizing a pedestrian first design that also accommodates the needs of cyclists, transit users and other vehicles, theme D goal 1A. Additionally, through the implementation of the master plan and the design standards, the urban county will also be providing quality of life opportunities and amenities that attract young and culturally diverse professionals. a workforce of all ages and talents to Lexington theme C goal 1D and finally the proposal proposed text amendment will implement appendix b of the comprehensive plan while also supporting the policies of the comprehensive plan growth policy 2 livability policy 8 and sustainable policy 4. if you have any questions regarding this zoning ordinance text amendment i'd be happy to answer them at this time. Questions? I see none. I see no one in the audience that wishes to speak on this. So if there's no questions, no comments, we can entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion for the approval of ZODA 2019-4 based on the staff's recommendations. Thank you. Do we have a second? We've got a motion and a second by Ms. Mundy for approval of ZODA 2019 for the amendment to Article 8 B2 zones for Town Branch Commons. Looks like our Granicus is kind of locked up so I'll or is it? There it is. So please vote when it comes up or it is up. That motion passes, thank you. Any other items today? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again, yeoman's duty on your part. So thank you all for sticking with a very challenging agenda. We really never know what things are going to be like. So thank you for your patience. I also want to remind you that next Thursday, August the 29th, we have a fifth Thursday work session, and we'll be back in the Phoenix building, third floor, and at that time we're going to present to you the update that we had from the public input meeting on Tuesday night for the accessory dwelling units. So we have a robust presentation to you that will then launch the official application part of the ZODA. So we hope you all can come next Thursday at 1.30 in an open meeting. And then finally, I do want to also express my appreciation for your work today on the sidewalk Zoda. That was a lot of work on staff's part and the community involved in helping us get there. And I appreciate, on behalf of the staff, your support for that. So thank you very much. All right, with that, yeah, I would concur. Thank everyone today for this. It was eventful, as it can be at times. Without any objection, I'll adjourn this meeting. Have a good week.