# Board of Adjustment - September 9, 2019 > Auto-transcribed civic record · September 9, 2019 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/4834 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/4834?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2019-09-09 - **Last revised**: September 9, 2019 - **Length**: 27,763 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Division of Planning Zoning Compliance Section Board of Adjustment convened on September 9, 2019, at 1:30 PM in the Council Chambers at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, with Thomas Glover presiding as the meeting officer. The board addressed seven agenda items, all involving variance requests and conditional use permits for various properties and developments throughout the jurisdiction. During the session, the board conducted 10 motions and votes while hearing 2 public comments from attendees. The meeting demonstrated active deliberation on zoning matters, with the board approving six items in full and one item receiving partial approval. All agenda items involved requests from property owners and developers seeking relief from existing zoning requirements, including variance requests for setbacks, signage, and other development standards, as well as conditional use permits for specific property uses. The cases ranged from individual property owner requests, such as those from Jason Orth and the Cooper family, to larger commercial and institutional developments including a Marriott/Residence Inn project and a Delta Tau Delta Corporation facility. ## Attendance The following members were present at the September 9, 2019 meeting: • Thomas Glover • Raquel Carter • Joan Whitman • Harry Clarke • Chad Needham • Jan Meyer **Absent:** • Branden Gross No members arrived late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The board considered ten motions during the September 9, 2019 meeting, with most passing unanimously. **PLN-BOA-19-00056** [timestamp: 02:00]: Raquel Carter motioned to approve a variance to reduce the required front yard setback for Jason Orth, seconded by Chad Needham. The motion passed unanimously 6-0 with all members voting in favor: Thomas Glover, Raquel Carter, Joan Whitman, Harry Clarke, Chad Needham, and Jan Meyer. **PLN-BOA-19-00058** [timestamp: 05:00]: Chad Needham motioned to approve a variance to increase allowable lettering height for Marriott/Residence Inn, seconded by Jan Meyer. The motion passed unanimously 6-0. **PLN-BOA-19-00059** [timestamp: 10:00]: Raquel Carter motioned to approve a conditional use permit for Sandra Clements' home-based business, seconded by Harry Clarke. The motion passed unanimously 6-0. **PLN-BOA-19-00064** [timestamp: 15:00]: Harry Clarke motioned to approve a conditional use permit and variance for Delta Tau Delta Corp, seconded by Joan Whitman. The motion passed unanimously 6-0. **PLN-BOA-19-00060 and PLN-BOA-19-00061** [timestamps: 20:00 and 25:00]: Jan Meyer motioned to postpone both variance applications for Fayette County Local Development Corporation at Florence Ave and Corral Street, seconded by Joan Whitman. Both postponements passed unanimously 6-0. **PLN-BOA-19-00057** [timestamp: 30:00]: Two separate motions were made regarding Martin's Peterbilt. The first motion by Raquel Carter to approve a fence height variance passed unanimously 6-0. However, Chad Needham's motion to approve a buffer reduction variance failed unanimously 0-6. **PLN-BOA-19-00062** [timestamp: 40:00]: Harry Clarke motioned to approve a driveway width variance for Wanda and Mitchell Cooper, seconded by Jan Meyer. The motion passed unanimously 5-0 (Chad Needham was absent for this vote). **PLN-BOA-19-00065** [timestamp: 45:00]: Raquel Carter motioned to approve setback variances for Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc., seconded by Joan Whitman. This was the only split vote, passing 3-2 with Thomas Glover, Raquel Carter, and Joan Whitman voting in favor, while Harry Clarke and Jan Meyer voted against. ## Public Comment Two residents addressed the board during the public comment period, both expressing concerns about proposed development projects in their area. **Judith Endicott** spoke at [timestamp: 12:00] regarding a proposed home-based business. Endicott raised concerns about the potential for increased traffic in the area and highlighted specific safety issues for handicapped residents who could be affected by the additional vehicle activity associated with the business operations. **Dana Denniston** addressed the board at [timestamp: 50:00] to voice opposition to a variance request for Gatewood Arnold Construction. Denniston presented multiple concerns about the proposed project, including: • Traffic safety issues that could arise from increased construction-related vehicle activity • Questions about the adequacy of the existing septic system to handle the proposed development • Concerns about preserving the rural character of the area, which could be impacted by the construction project Both speakers focused on infrastructure and safety considerations, with particular attention to how the proposed projects might affect existing residents and the character of their neighborhoods. The comments reflected broader community concerns about balancing development needs with maintaining residential safety and rural community standards. ## Contested Items Two variance requests generated significant debate during the September 9, 2019 meeting, drawing community opposition and resulting in split decisions among board members. **Martin's Peterbilt Variance Request** The variance application to reduce required landscape buffering at Martin's Peterbilt faced substantial community opposition. Residents and stakeholders expressed strong concerns about the potential visual impact of decreasing the landscape buffer requirements. Community members also worried that approving this variance would establish a problematic precedent for future development projects, potentially undermining existing landscaping standards designed to protect the area's aesthetic character. **Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc. Variance Request** The variance request from Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc. for yard setback modifications proved equally contentious among board members. The application sought relief from standard setback requirements, but the decision sparked debate over traffic safety implications and the preservation of the area's rural character. Board members were divided on whether the proposed setback variances would compromise traffic flow and safety in the surrounding area. Additional concerns centered on maintaining the rural aesthetic and character that defines the community. The contentious nature of this item resulted in a split vote among board members, indicating significant disagreement about balancing development needs against community preservation goals. Both contested items highlighted ongoing tensions between development pressures and community standards, with residents and board members grappling with questions about appropriate development standards and the long-term impact of variance approvals on neighborhood character and safety. ## Variance for Jason Orth [timestamp: 02:00] The board considered agenda item III.C.1, a variance request from Jason Orth to reduce the required front yard setback from 65 feet to 25 feet for construction of a new detached garage on property zoned Agricultural Rural. Jason Orth presented his request to the board, seeking relief from the standard setback requirements that would otherwise apply to his proposed garage construction. The variance would allow the structure to be built 40 feet closer to the front property line than typically permitted under the Agricultural Rural zoning regulations. The request was approved by the board, allowing Orth to proceed with his garage construction at the reduced 25-foot setback distance from the front yard property line. *Note: Limited transcript information was available for this agenda item. The summary is based on the structured meeting data provided.* ## Variance for Marriott/Residence Inn [timestamp: 05:00] The board considered agenda item III.C.2, a variance request for the Marriott/Residence Inn to increase allowable lettering height for two wall-mounted signs from the standard 2.5 feet to 3'7". Adam Linville presented the variance request on behalf of the applicant. The proposal involved modifying signage regulations to accommodate larger lettering on two wall-mounted signs at the hotel property. The variance was approved by the board. *Note: Limited transcript information was available for this agenda item. The summary reflects the basic details of the variance request and outcome.* ## Conditional Use Permit for Sandra Clements [timestamp: 10:00] The board considered agenda item III.D.1, a request for a conditional use permit to allow Sandra Clements to operate a home-based Pilates instruction business in a Single Family Residential zone. Sandra Clements presented her application to the board, seeking approval to conduct Pilates instruction from her residence. The request required a conditional use permit as home-based businesses in residential zones must receive special approval to ensure compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood character. The board approved the conditional use permit for Sandra Clements' home-based Pilates instruction business. The approval allows her to operate the business from her residence while maintaining compliance with residential zoning requirements. ## Conditional Use Permit and Variance for Delta Tau Delta Corp [timestamp: 15:00] The board considered agenda item III.D.3, a request from Delta Tau Delta Corp for a conditional use permit and variance to expand an existing fraternity house and increase the maximum allowable number of parking spaces. Jacob Walbourn served as the key speaker presenting the proposal on behalf of Delta Tau Delta Corp. The request involved modifications to the existing fraternity facility to accommodate expansion plans and sought approval for additional parking spaces beyond the current maximum allowable limit. The proposal was approved by the board following the presentation and discussion period. No specific concerns or objections from board members were documented in the available materials for this agenda item. This approval allows Delta Tau Delta Corp to proceed with their planned expansion of the fraternity house and implement the requested increase in parking capacity at the facility. ## Variance for Martin's Peterbilt [timestamp: 30:00] The council considered agenda item III.C.5, a variance request for Martin's Peterbilt involving two specific modifications to existing regulations. The request sought to increase the allowable height of a fence beyond current limits and to decrease the required vehicular use area landscape buffer. Matt Kerley served as the key speaker presenting this variance request to the council. The discussion centered on the specific needs of the Peterbilt facility and how the requested modifications would impact both the business operations and surrounding area compliance with municipal standards. The variance request involved two distinct components: fence height modifications and landscape buffer adjustments. These changes were presented as necessary accommodations for the commercial vehicle dealership's operational requirements while maintaining appropriate site standards. Following deliberation, the council reached a decision to partially approve the variance request. This outcome suggests that while some aspects of the requested modifications were deemed acceptable, other portions may have been denied or required additional conditions before approval. The partial approval indicates the council weighed the business needs against municipal regulations and community standards, finding a middle ground that addressed some of the applicant's concerns while maintaining certain regulatory requirements. The specific details of which portions were approved versus denied were determined through the council's review process during this meeting session. ## Variance for Wanda and Mitchell Cooper [timestamp: 40:00] The board considered agenda item III.C.6, a variance request from Wanda and Mitchell Cooper to increase the allowable width of a driveway from the standard 10 feet to 17 feet. Mitchell Cooper spoke on behalf of the request, presenting the case for the variance to the board members. The variance was approved by the board. *Note: Limited transcript information was available for this agenda item. The summary reflects the basic details of the variance request and outcome as recorded in the meeting materials.* ## Variances for Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc. [timestamp: 45:00] The council considered agenda item III.C.7, an ordinance request for multiple variances to reduce yard setbacks for constructing a single-family residence. Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc. sought approval to modify standard setback requirements for their proposed residential project. Gatewood Arnold presented the variance request to the council, outlining the specific setback reductions needed for the single-family home construction. The variances would allow the company to proceed with building plans that did not conform to the standard yard setback requirements typically mandated by local zoning ordinances. The council reviewed the technical aspects of the variance request and considered how the reduced setbacks would impact the surrounding area and neighboring properties. The discussion focused on whether the proposed modifications would maintain compatibility with existing development patterns while allowing the construction project to move forward. After deliberation, the council approved the variance request, allowing Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc. to proceed with the single-family residence construction under the modified setback requirements. The approval enables the company to build the home with the reduced yard setbacks as specified in their application. The ordinance approval provides Gatewood Arnold Construction with the necessary regulatory flexibility to complete their residential development project while working within the constraints of the specific lot configuration and site conditions that necessitated the variance request. --- ## Decisions - **PLN-BOA-19-00056** — passed (6-0): Variance to reduce the required front yard setback for Jason Orth - **PLN-BOA-19-00058** — passed (6-0): Variance to increase the allowable lettering height for Marriott/Residence Inn - **PLN-BOA-19-00059** — passed (6-0): Conditional use permit for a home-based business for Sandra Clements - **PLN-BOA-19-00064** — passed (6-0): Conditional use permit and variance for Delta Tau Delta Corp - **PLN-BOA-19-00060** — postponed (6-0): Variance for Fayette County Local Development Corporation at Florence Ave - **PLN-BOA-19-00061** — postponed (6-0): Variance for Fayette County Local Development Corporation at Corral Street - **PLN-BOA-19-00057** — passed (6-0): Variance for Martin's Peterbilt to increase fence height and decrease buffer - **PLN-BOA-19-00057** — failed (0-6): Variance for Martin's Peterbilt to decrease buffer - **PLN-BOA-19-00062** — passed (5-0): Variance for Wanda and Mitchell Cooper to increase driveway width - **PLN-BOA-19-00065** — passed (3-2): Variances for Gatewood Arnold Construction, Inc. for setbacks --- ## Full transcript We provide the main thing that we can provide is language access to services and referrals to not only LFUCG's services, but also to our community partners. And for instance, with our domestic violence or human trafficking victims, they can walk in here. we have a translated to Spanish and French, the resource manual that the commissioner's office, Stephanie Thickston and her board prepared. And so we've translated that and we wanna do it in other languages. So we will have someone here and connect them. And the connection isn't just go and call that person because they can't. And so we will do it for them. And we will provide that language assistance to ensure that the agency that we're sending them to has the ability to help them in the appropriate way. The Board of Adjustment. There are a couple of administrative matters to do before we hear any cases. The first is the approval of the minutes from the August 12th meeting. Has everybody on the board read the minutes? And if so, I'll entertain a motion. I move we approve the August minutes. I'll second. Motion is made and seconded. All in favor, please register your vote. As soon as we get. I've got Tom's computer. Uh-oh. What was your check? Approved. Okay. We've got one computer that's still down from last month, probably. We're good. We're good. We got you. We got you. Yeah. All right. While we're working on that, I'd like to ask everybody to please silence your devices, in whichever manner your devices can be silenced, so we won't have any unnecessary and unexpected interruptions. What we're going to do is, like we do every month, is we'll go through the agenda briefly the first time to make sure that the applicant is present and to determine whether there are anyone in the audience who wishes to oppose the application. So at the end of that process, we will have a long list of unopposed matters on the agenda and a short list of people of applications for whom there are people here in opposition. So first of all, I will ask everyone who believes that they may testify before this board today, please stand and raise your right hand and be sworn. You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you. You may be seated. And I'll ask the staff if there are any withdrawals or postponements on the agenda. There is one application that we've recommended postponement of and I believe the applicant is here today to request that you postpone PLN BOA 19-63 Luft Trade. Is the applicant here for Luff Trade? Did you request, I'm sorry, the staff requested a postponement, is that correct? That is correct. There was an error with the addressing of the notification package, so we were going to have to re-notify the surrounding property owners in order to hear this case next month. Okay, come forward if you would, please, sir. Have you talked to staff about the postponement? Yes, it was an administrative error on our part and I apologize to anybody that came today to oppose or support the motion. Okay, tell us your name please. Brian Loftman, I'm the owner. Okay. We've already assembled the re-notification package and hope to be on the agenda for October 14th. Okay, so you have no objection to the postponement? Yes sir. All right, I'll entertain a motion from the board. Mr. Chair, I move the postponement of PLNBOA 1963 Love Trade requesting a conditional use permit for an extended stay hotel in the history overlay neighborhood zones 402 South Broadway. So move. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Second. We have a motion and a second. Thank you, Mr. Needham. All in favor, please indicate electronically. The matter is postponed. See you next month. Appreciate it. Thank you. No withdrawals? Okay, we're going to run through the docket or the agenda as I indicated. And we'll do it as they are indicated on the written agenda. The first one is PLNBOA 19-56, Jason Orth. Is the applicant present? Yes, sir. Okay. Is there any opposition to Jason Orth's application? Seeing none, Mr. Orth, you'll be first on the docket. Second case is PLNBOA 19-57, Martins Peterbilt. Is the applicant present? Okay. Applicants present. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to Martin's Peterbilt? I see two hands in the back, is that correct? Here to speak in opposition. So Martin's Peterbilt will be first on the complicated docket. The next case is PLNBOA 19-58 Marriott Residence Inn as the applicant present. I see you and is there anyone here to speak in opposition to that application of PLNBOA 19-58 Marriott Residence Inn? Seeing no hands, you'll be next on the summary docket. The next one is 19-PLNBOA 19-60, Fayette County Local Development Corp is the applicant present. I see no hands raised. Fayette County Local Development Corporation. Is the applicant in the room? Well, we will call that at the end of the summary docket and see if they have shown up. The next case is similar. PLN VOA, is that right? Yes. Yes. Yes, your name is. Yes. PLNBOA 19-61 Fayette County Local Development Corp. Are you in the room? You're still not here. The next case is PLNBOA 19-62 Wanda and Mitchell Cooper. Are the Coopers present? Okay, is anyone here to speak in opposition to that case? I see no hands. You'll be on the summary docket. It's recommended for disapproval. Oh, I'm sorry. It is recommended for disapproval. Therefore, because the staff recommends it for disapproval, we're going to put you at the end of the docket because staff objects to your application. So we count that as an objection. So we'll hear you at the end of the docket as well. The next case is PLNBOA 19-65, Gatewood Arnold Construction. Applicant is present. Is there anyone to speak in opposition to? I see two hands. So you'll go at the end of the complicated docket. The next case, conditional use appeals, PLNBOA 19-59, Sandra Clements. Is Ms. Clements in the room? You're present. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to that case? Seeing none, you'll be on the summary docket. Left trade we have postponed until next month. The last case on the docket is PLNBOA 19 day 64, Delta Tau Delta Corp PMB 140. Is the applicant present? You are present. Is there anyone here in opposition to that case? Seeing none. That's all the cases on our docket. Is there anyone who has a case that hasn't been called? Okay, the first case on the docket is PLNBOA 19-56. Jason North, would the applicant please come up to the podium? Let me switch papers here. Mr. Orth, were you sworn? Yes. Okay. Anybody on the board have any questions about this case? Can we have the applicant state his name for the record, please? Yes, please, state your name. It's Jason Orth. Thank you. Mr. Worth, I was wondering just a couple of points of clarification, if you would, please, sir. Sure. There's a fairly wide driveway that's beside the house. Yes. There's got to be some reason, other than seeing the livestock, why the garage wouldn't fit there. That was a primary reason, as well as the actual landscaping and some of the lines that ran from the water and such like that, from the septic as well. It would cause a massive environmental footprint and have to actually go back and dig up quite a bit of things like that. Explain the livestock to me. I don't see a fence of any kind on this fenced in. yes whether if you see the photo where the barn is that that's clear at all there's a four-plank fence that runs on either side and back okay well all right thank you any other questions for the applicant hearing none i'll entertain a motion I move for approval of PLNBOA 19-56 Jason Orth's request for variance to reduce the required front yard setback from 65 feet to 25 feet in order to construct a new detached garage in the front yard in an AR zone at 5600 Kiddville Lane based on the staff's recommendations and subject to the two listed positions. Thank you, Ms. Carter, is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Needham. All in favor, please register your vote electronically. Motion passes, good luck with your project. Thanks, sir. The next case on the summary docket is PLNBOA 19-58 Marriott Residence Inn. Applicants please come forward. And state your name for the record please. Adam Linville. I'm sorry, what's your last name? Linville, L-I-N-V-I-L-L-E. This was recommended for approval by the board. Does anyone, I'm sorry, by the staff, does anyone on the board have any questions of the applicant? I don't. I've it's fine with me I'm just wondering why you feel like you need the logo to be to be larger the main reason would be the complex the only entrance to that complex is on vine street and with both of these signs being viewed from vine street there's actually a cutout almost like a canopy to where these letters will fit perfectly at this size on that canopy and we think it'll be more visible for out-of-town guests that are coming down Vine Street to be able to find the hotel, as well as pedestrians on foot being able to find the Marriott. And it's only the M that you're asking to be larger on the west side and the south side? Yes, sir. Any other questions from the board? If not, entertain a motion. I move we approve PLNBOA 19-58 Marriott Residence Inn's request for variance to increase the allowable letter height from 2.5 feet to 3.7 feet for two wall-mounted signs located below 50 feet on the building within the defined infill and redevelopment area in the Lexington Center Business B2B zone at 121 West Vine Street, based on staff's recommendations and subject to the two conditions. Thank you Mr. Needham, is there a second? Second. Thank you Ms. Meyer, you beat him to the punch. All those in favor indicate your preference electronically. Here we go. Motion carries. Good luck with the project. Thank you. Is the Fayette County Local Development Corporation present? Nope. Okay, we will pass those two applications. Next item on the summary docket is conditional use appeal, PLNBOA 19-59 Sandra Clements. Applicants indicated they are present, correct? Just come to the podium if you would. Mr. Lover, I did receive several letters on this one which I will distribute to you all now. Okay, thank you. Just hang tight there at the podium. We're going to read some letters. I'm going to go ahead and get it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is the same as what Tony has. This is the same thing as what you just said. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Glover, I was just notified that there is someone in the audience who is in objection to this case. They just arrived. I'm sorry, my mic's not on. Please state your name for the record, please. Sandra Kay Clements. Ms. Clements, we were, during that five or ten minute interval, we were reading letters from several people, some of whom lived on your street, who were in opposition to your application for a home business. And some of their concerns have to do with perhaps extra traffic on the street. They pointed out that the street has no sidewalks. The fact that it's a dead-end street. They're concerned about people parking on the street or the fact that your property may not be able to accommodate people that you have in your home for Pilates instruction. Could you speak to that, please? Well, I don't plan on having my clients park in the cul-de-sac. I have an 80-foot-long driveway, 80 by 40 feet wide. And I only teach individual instruction. so I'm not going to be teaching groups. Okay. Would you object to a limitation on the number of people that could be present at one time because that's one of the ways that we can regulate home businesses is by the number of customers that appear. Mr. Glover, condition number one already says with instruction on only an individual basis. and it also says in parentheses individual bodies instruction so it's sort of covered within that condition right and the and the staff report also says that the that you anticipated having no more than two or three people so though that was that i read that as a little bit of a conflict in the staff that's actually two to three people per day not an hour okay i guess so i only teach one-on-one per hour so one you're one at a time in it there yes it's no different than piano lessons but a lot quieter okay fair enough that's a reasonable description and and you're between the hours of 10 a.m and 2 p.m yes yes exactly so at the most there would only be two to three cars a day if even that okay and they would be in my driveway all right any other questions for miss clement before we hear from the people in opposition well have a seat for just a second we're going to hear uh from your opposition and see what they have to say and we may call you back up okay thank you you so i noticed two hands of people that were in opposition to this application if you would please come forward either together or one at a time to the podium and we'll hear your objections to this application i understand you all arrived late so you probably weren't sworn in is that correct would you raise your right hand? Do you both solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. All right, thank you. Please identify yourselves for the record. I'm Judith Endicott, E-N-D-I-C-O-T-T, resident of Idle Hour Drive for 40 or more years. Okay. And, yes, ma'am, who are you? Dana Baird. I'm the caregiver for Ms. Endicott. Okay. Ms. Andacott, what is your objection to this application? We have two people who are in wheelchairs, who sometimes go with help up and down the street. And we're concerned that people coming into our street and don't realize that we have this. They would be aware, number one. Another thing is- There's a blind lady that lives on the street that walks with her service dog. All of these residents have lived there 35 or 40 years. This is a group of people that have gotten to know one another and become friends. And so they know whose car is coming and whose car is going. The extra traffic they just feel like would make them feel unsafe. A lot of these people are older and they get out and they walk in the mornings. They get out and they walk at night. there's no sidewalks for them to walk on so they would be walking in the road people that live there are aware of that if you have people that are coming and going that do not realize that there are handicapped people on the street and that most of the people are elderly then it just presents a safety risk No stop signs on the street and there's a cut through of St. Julie and many people come to St. Margaret and turn into St. Julie to come onto the cul-de-sac and there's no stop signs. Okay, okay. Have we got them all? Just sets a bad precedent. It does set a bad precedent. Many years ago, we've been in my house almost 50 years and raised three sons. When we moved there, there were 19 kids in six houses. Okay, there are three of us families that are still there, raised our children together, and they're gone, and they have their family. Now we're turning over, and people are coming in with younger children. Sometimes those children are not always with their parents, and they don't realize the traffic pattern. So we just want to be sure that everybody's taken care of. Years ago, when the entrance to our drive was off of Richmond Road, we went through this again because some people wanted a drive-in bank right down there in the entrance or a restaurant or all those kinds of things. And we fought it with an attorney and won. And so if you know Richmond Road, there are two beautiful edifices on either side of the road. And they're very expensive properties. You said there's no stop sign at the intersection of Adelaire Drive and St. Julie Drive? St. Julie, that's right. Okay, St. Julie Drive, is that a through street? No, it runs into a dead end golf course. It's also a dead end? Yeah. All right. A very short street. Okay. And there are residents on either side of it. It looks like Adelaire Drive is only about two blocks long, is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Mm-hm. Any questions from the board to Ms. Endicott or Ms. Baird? We're trying to protect our property. If one thing happens like this, then what's going to happen? Yeah, I understand that you live in an established neighborhood. That's exactly right. And I used to live- It's the best kept secret in Lexington, Kentucky. People drive up and down, they say, I never have been on this street before. It's well kept. I live for 20 years or so, not too far away from where your home is. I'm pretty familiar with the neighborhood myself. Any questions? You know, I drove that street and I was amazed as big as the yards were that there were no sidewalks. We don't want sidewalks. We don't want sidewalks. We walk in the street. Why do you not want sidewalks? I'm curious. Well, it's a two-lane street, and we all know that. And if you step inside the grass, people don't get upset. We do have street lamps. Okay. So you've been offered sidewalks and refused. Is that the neighborhood's position? I don't know about that. Okay. I have to talk to our counseling, Mr. Farmer. It seems- There are no sidewalks. That's correct. So people do have to walk in the street if they're going to walk on level ground. Well, what I noticed is when you drive down, it's a very long, you don't realize how long that street is. Oh, and they like to speed on it too. Well, it seems easier to speed on that street because it's long and straight. And maybe the ranch houses, I mean, it's an amazing amount of ranch houses in one little area. But I noticed when there were cars parked on the side of the street, when people were visiting, the pedestrian would either have to walk out around the car or walk in the grass. And I know this is at the end of a cul-de-sac, and if you pull into the driveway, it would seem safer for any pedestrian. Obviously not everyone does. And it's just something that I noticed when I was on the street. And as long as you're coming out of that driveway backwards, you can't see anything. Because there's bushes all around the cul-de-sac. Is the street flat from end to end? Yes, yes. Well, more or less. We dip down and then we dip up a little bit, raise up a little bit. Does the street run all the way to the railroad tracks? No, because no. No, the property is cut off before you get to the gravel tracks. Does it run the length of the golf course? The length of the golf course. Is the golf course? Holiday Road is on the other side. I'm trying to think. I don't know that. Okay. Any other questions for Ms. Endicott or Ms. Baird? Ms. Endicott, let me ask you this question. This is in my mind, So I ask you this question. Do you think two or three cars, two or three additional cars a day during weekdays is really going to upset the traffic pattern and the amount of traffic you're going to have? Does that seem really upsetting to you, two or three cars a day additional? I don't want to take the chance. What if you had somebody who wanted to teach piano there? You would have the same objections. I would be simply the same way. Okay, all right, thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you both. You may have a seat. Thank you for letting us have our audience. Thank you for coming in. Please have a seat and Ms. Clements, please come back up to the podium. Did you hear anything in that testimony that you'd like to respond to or comment about or rebut? I do understand there's no sidewalks, but very rarely do I see any of the neighbors outside walking. But I would like to say I don't, I certainly don't want to bother anybody. But my neighbors have more than two to three visitors a day, just family, friends. I mean, I just feel like it's not a lot of traffic. How long have you lived there? Seven years. Okay. Any questions, any other questions for Ms. Clements? I'd have a suggestion is with the concern with the handicapped people in the cul-de-sac and the blind person. I've seen where there have been signs that have been put up that would say there's a handicapped person or a blind person in the area. And would you consider doing that? Because you're having clients who are coming to your house who don't know the area. And maybe that would be helpful and it might help ease some of the opposition. You're talking about putting signs in their yard? Well, or just whatever kind of an agreement that you might come up with with your neighbors. It would just be a nice gesture on your part that you're acknowledging that these- Yeah, absolutely, I'd be willing to do whatever needs to be done. But I would like to say my clients are all women, 40 and over, I mean, and upscale, well-known people in the community. I mean, it's- But still, I mean, just to take care of the people in your neighborhood. Oh, absolutely. Sure. Thank you. I would agree with that. Ms. Clements, I think it would be very appropriate, if we approve this, that you make it very clear to your customers exactly what kind of neighborhood you're in and what your responsibilities are in terms of watching for residents. I think they realize that, yes. And make a point of that. Any other questions from board members to the applicant? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve PLN DOA 19-59, Sandra Clements, request for a conditional abuse permit for a home-based business, allah the instruction in a single-family residence zone at 307 Idle Hour Drive, based on the staff's recommendation and subject to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, list of pieces. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Is there a second? A second. Thank you, Mr. Clark. We have a motion and a second. Please indicate your vote electronically on the screen. Your application is approved. Good luck with the project. All right. Thank you. The next case on the summary docket is PLNBOA 19-64 Delta Corp. PMB 140. Is the applicant present? We did receive one letter on this one. Okay, we'll read that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ready? Welcome. State your name for the record. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Jacob Walburn on behalf of the applicant. Mr. Walburn, thank you for coming. Your application is recommended for approval, both of the conditional use and of the variance by the staff. So I'll ask the members of the board if they have any questions of the applicant. I have a few, but I'll see if there are others. Mr. Walburn, there used to be, whether it still is or not, it used to be from the parking lot that comes off of Auburn. I think the only entrance to the parking lot is Auburn. Is that correct? It previously was. Now there actually is an exit on to Nicholasville itself. Yeah, I was going to ask about that because I see on the map they actually get out to Nicholasville Road. That's there. That is there. That exists today. And then there was, I guess, some discussion among staff and traffic engineering about whether maintaining that second entrance was a good idea or not. I think from the neighborhood's perspective, they would just assume that access come off Nicholasville. And I understand that traffic engineering is okay with that as well. So that's what we've gone with. Could you locate the exact place where the additional parking would take place? I'm going to lean a little bit on my site planner, Mr. Rory Cayley with EA Partners is here with me as well. I'll let him navigate that. Rory Cayley with EA Partners. Thank you. let's see everyone with the site plan and the original I guess do you have an aerial of the existing overhead as well additional parking maybe we don't have an aerial it's coming off of the Nicholasville Road entrance area. What's coming off of Audubon has been reduced down to just four parking spaces, if that helps. Was there no parking in that area off Nicholasville Road before? Yes, there was. It used to be able to connect through, so you'd be able to. Okay, so you see where the proposed addition is. when the proposed addition is not there, you used to be able to, from Audubon, get out to Nicholsville, or from Nicholsville, get back into the neighborhood through the fraternity's property itself. So the two parking areas were connected? Yes. Right now, if you go out there, they're connected. So what we're trying to do is get the majority of the traffic to stay on Nicholsville, reduce what's coming into Audubon to just a few spaces there. Okay. Okay. And those kind of anticipated, Mr. Clark's questions kind of anticipated my own. So which is the new part? What are the new, where's the new parking area? Yeah, that's my question. It's the ones coming off of Nicholsville Road. It's being redesigned. The basin out front is being reworked a little bit. It's just a more efficient layout for it. Well, if they can get the aerial of the existing up, what you have right now is just what we're proposing. I don't know that they have. Does that thing work if we put a... Does Elmo take a video? Okay, while they're trying to get that on the Google, so the parking that you have at the bottom of the drawing is existing right now is single loaded. We don't have the two sides. Interestingly, their previous plan had a building that was coming south down the page, so they didn't have the double sided parking. And this one is- If they'll find the laser, I can point it out. So how many spaces on the south side of the map in that parking area, how many parking places were there before? It was just this row here. The top row that's closer to the structure wasn't lined. So it was single before. It was just these bottom spaces. Now it's spaces on both sides. That's the addition. The existing parking on the bottom. That's ours. The existing approved plan at 16. Yeah, 16. So 16 exists now and we're going to, I guess that's another 1632. Parking below the little roundabout closer to Nicholsville Road, that's existing as well right now. Correct. And I take it that since the parking areas no longer connect, or will no longer connect, that both entrances provide ingress and egress. Is that correct? That's correct. All right. And it's going to be wide enough for both to have two lanes? Yes, sir. Okay. I have to admit I'm still confused about the additional parking. Parking spaces go from 15 to 42, according to the request. And you can then find an additional 16. Right, because it's based off of your legal requirement. This is in the defined infill and redevelopment area. So the variance we're seeking is to exceed. we wouldn't be allowed to have the parking on the ground that we have now but for previous approvals. So we're deviating from the 15 would have been the legal maximum. The 42 is what we're seeking. But I think on the ground right now you would have 26. That's where the 16 extra is coming from. Is that right, more or less? More or less. In, I think, 2003, the variance was approved for an increase from 15 to, I think, 30. and now they're asking for an increase to 42. What's currently there is 30 or fewer. 26 to 30. I got you. That helps. Thank you. You have people living at the fraternity house, is that correct? Correct. How many people live there? The beds. The addition did not increase the number of beds. It will remain the same from where it is now, but I'll admit that I don't recall off the top of my head the number that we had in there. That was an introductory question, how many people live there. The second one was, I do understand from the staff report that you're not going to add any additional beds, which means you're not going to add any additional residences. Right. So why do you need all the parking? And there was some explanation in the staff report about that, but I'd like to hear it from you. Yeah, so the major component of the addition is what they call a chapter room. It's where they host meetings and events for the fraternity. being expanded so the thought was to provide additional parking so that all of the parking that was necessary for the fraternity house use could occur on its lots and not burden any adjacent neighborhood parking with parking. That's what's driving the increase. Really and as Rory said it's not really much in the way of additional paving. Most of this paving is on the ground so you won't see a large additional paving done. It's just a little bit more efficient use of what's already out there. If you look at an overhead of this right now, this area actually has a half a basketball court painted on it, like the arc and the key, and so it's just making use of that area for parking as well. You could still post a goal out there and have people park away when it's not crowded, but it's just more efficiently using what's on the ground, but it's to accommodate any increase that the expanded chapter room would have on attendance so that it could be met on this site instead of having people parking in the area at large. I deduce then that not every member of the fraternity lives in the fraternity house. That's correct. Do you know how many members there are in the fraternity? I don't. And you don't know how many live there now? We had a bet count at one point. I want to say it was around 20. It's either 18 or 22. The required parking is based on the number of beds, and that was what worked out to 15. I think it's 18. Okay. You can configure, you can work that out backwards. Reverse engineer the parking. Well, I mean, that's between 18 and 22, that's a fair number. I don't know that we need to have an exact number, but I was just curious. The previous plan listed 24. I swear it was either two more or two less than 20. I was told at one point, I don't want to mislead you, but in the neighborhood of 20. Okay. So the main purpose for increasing the parking is to accommodate other fraternity members and their guests, perhaps coming to the fraternity house for events, chapter meetings and such. and so you won't burden additional parking places nearby so you can park everybody on your property. That's accurate. I'm curious about if I were a member of the fraternity coming to visit for an event or something like that, how would I know which parking place to choose? Because if I chose badly, I would have to back out or turn around, come out, and find the other entrance to the other parking lot. Given the disparity, and we can designate this on the plan or add it as a condition, but where there's only the four spaces up here, I think you'll see those will be exclusively used by folks that live there, and that all of the general parking, as it were, would come off the Nicholasville Road entrance, and I'm sure they will, and I'll direct them to instruct their guests and visitors to use that. Do you anticipate any additional signage as a result of this application? We do not. Okay. Any other questions? I'm curious about, you're having a, this is a chapter room that you're putting on. It's a two story addition. So is the chapter room just two stories tall? It is. It's a large ceiling room. Okay. More like, I don't want to use the word auditorium because it's not seated that way, but a vaulted ceiling. Thank you. And just to address a couple letters we received, what is the plan or anything different for, you know, when neighbors complain about noise and partying? I mean, is there anything in this proposal or plan that would kind of address that for them? No, it's really not the thrust of this application. I think as the staff report noted, there had been a fraternity house at this location for 75 years. I can't speak as it may not surprise anyone who's sitting up there, as you all know me. I was not a fraternity man in college, but there are certainly rules and regulations. The noise ordinance in Lexington is enforced independent of any planning activity. So I would assume that if there were complaints that they could be directed as appropriate. But this will have larger indoor space. I mean, it does expand the area that's available indoors, so maybe it'll be easier to bring the party inside. Here's the question, Mr. Walburn. The objection is as any objection would be for a fraternity house. Yes. It's noise, traffic, garbage, loudness and disturbances and whatever. And I think we're not here to judge that. the letter that we read says this proposal will increase all that. I know that's not your job, but do you see that the addition of the building and additional parking spaces are going to indeed increase those problems? I do not. In fact, if anything, I think it would help for a more orderly ingress and egress to the property. It gives additional space and doors. To my knowledge, the fraternity is not doing this in an effort to grow its membership. It's just trying to have better, more effective space for its existing membership. So I think those certainly understand the general objections to fraternities, but this has been a longstanding use in this area, and even were you to disapprove this application today, it's only disapproving the addition. It does not revoke the existing conditional use that's been granted for the site. Thank you. I have one final, or maybe hopefully one final question. Why was the 2003 approved addition not built? Was it a money issue? I believe it was a monetary issue, yes, sir. Okay. And do you have the appropriate financing to build this? Yes. In fact, I've seen construction plans, which is somewhat rare when I come to this body. They're ready to do this. They've engaged an architect. In fact, I do believe this will be constructed. Okay, any other questions for the applicant? Hearing none, we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move approval of PLNBOA 1964 Delta Tall Delta Corp PMB 140 requesting conditional use permit to expand an existing fraternity house and variance to increase the maximum allowable number of parking spaces from 15 to 42 within the defined infill and redevelopment area in the single family planned neighborhood residential zones at 1410, 1419, and 1420 Auburn Avenue based on the staff recommendations and the seven conditions as listed, so move. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Is there a second? I second the motion. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. All those in favor, indicate your vote electronically. Motion carries. Good luck. Thank you all. Mr. Glover. Yes. The applicant for the Fayette County Local Development Corporation, I believe they are still not present, But there is a member of the audience who is here in opposition to one of those cases. I don't know if we should go ahead and perhaps move forward with acting to postpone those or letting that person say their piece. Let's take up those two. Is Fayette County Local Development Corporation in the audience? I see that they're not, but is there someone in opposition to, I see one person in opposition. Please come forward, if you would, to the podium. And there are two letters for this one. This is for the Florence Avenue case. I believe one letter is in support and references both of these cases. The other letter, I believe, may be from this gentleman and is in reference to the Florence Avenue. All right. I'm not sure whether we should take up the cases without the applicant being present. And so I'm not going to call the case, but I don't want to waste your time either. So first of all, state your name for the record. Jim McKenzie. Mr. McKenzie, are you here in opposition to either one of the Fayette County Local Development Corps' applications? Yes. And they're not here, but we'd like to hear what you have to say about those without calling these cases. So tell us. Well, one of the things, I put a letter out, and I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking about it. But one of the things was is they're moving the variance over. So where my house is, they're trying to move over closer to my house. And of course, anybody doesn't want another house right on top of their house. We know that. And then my other concern was being a landlord, is the water runoff, everything over there is very flat. So that's kind of a concern. Maybe it's a concern, maybe it's not a concern. But the more I start delving into it is what they're trying to do is they're trying to put a driveway between two buildings and put parking in the back. Well, if you've ever been down on Florence, that is a high traffic area. And you don't want to have anybody hanging out in a car in the back of a residence down there. That's my biggest concern. I think it's a safety issue. I think, I've been down there many times working at my place. I'm down there every weekend. I was down there this weekend. Many people hangs around in that parking lot right there anywhere and anywhere they can hang out because it's the neighborhood. It's the neighborhood hangout because there's a small grocery store there. So my biggest concern right now is, I think it's making an unsafe area by putting parking, putting a car in the very back of houses where law enforcement can't go up and down right now, where they can go up and down and see everybody that's going on. And putting that back there where somebody can just go back there and do whatever they want to do. Which, did you say you're a next door neighbor? Yes. Which, what is your address? 758 Florence. And tell me your name again, I'm sorry. Jim McKenzie. Mr. McKenzie, let us read your letter here. So hang tight for just a second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We looked at two letters, one opposing and one in favor of the proposition. So what I suggest is that we postpone these two cases until the applicant can be present. We don't want to deny it without them here. We don't want to approve it without them here. So would it be a hardship for you to come next month? Well, I'm going to have to do what I got to do. Okay. So I'll be here. Well, we have your letter. And that letter is good, but the most, and that might be just a site going out there to see about the water. That might just be somebody going out there looking at real quick that's qualified. I'm not qualified on a water variance. But my biggest concern, and I've been down this road many times, is somebody parking in the very back of a house down in that particular neighborhood. They're not like us where we come home and go and go into our houses. No, they hang out down those cars. I know that never really well, and that's my biggest concern is a safety issue. And I'm going to see Officer Dunn tomorrow night. She's the one that does all the metro, does all the nuisance orders down there, and I'm going to get her opinion on that too. So maybe by doing this next month it'll be a lot better. Because I think, what I really think, the house that's over on the far side of us, that one sits way back. I have no problem with them going back and make the front the parking lot where we can see and monitor. But right now, we're just setting up a nuisance problem for down the road that once you build those buildings, we cannot get them out of the back of that house. I think I understand your objection. Mr. McKenzie, thank you for coming. What I'm going to do is recommend that we postpone these two cases until next month. we have your testimony and your letter. So if you see fit not to come next month, we will try to reference that testimony when we do hear the cases next month. But I would urge you to probably come back and you can perhaps get answers from the applicant when the applicant is present. Right. And I'll reach out to them before that time. Yeah. Okay. Do I need to submit another letter to this time? It wouldn't hurt for you to do that, sure, just to make sure that it goes on next month's docket or agenda, because this will probably be filed with this month's docket. So you could probably resend the letter to the staff, and we'll hear these next month. I'm all about them building another one. I just think it needs to be safety more than anything. And I think they need to be present to hear that and hear your recommendation to them. Because I would have never thought about that myself. I know I wasn't down there all the time. Mr. McKinney, let me ask this question. You asked several questions about the property and some of the things. Did you get satisfactory answers from people? No, still not on that. And like I said, that's a concern, and nobody wants to have a house built right beside them. I get that. I'm not opposed to that. I think it would be nice to have another place right there because right now that lot is kind of a nuisance itself. Right now that lot is sitting there, and it has a garbage can out there, and that's the neighborhood hangout right this second. So it would be nice to have another house there, but I just really think we cannot have cars parked behind a building down there. If I were you, I'd recommend that you, if you haven't gotten answers to those questions, I would suggest you pursue those before the next meeting and then also reiterate your concerns about the parking. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Good advice. Thank you. Thank you. I think we probably have to have a motion to postpone these two applications to next month and not leave them, just leave them hanging on the docket. So I'll entertain a motion to postpone these two applications. Can I do it in one motion? Yes, I think you can. Okay, I move that we postpone. Can we actually have two motions? Sure. I move we postpone PLN BOA 19-60 Fayette County Local Development Corporation's request for variance to reduce the required side-get setbacks from 6 to 5 feet in order to construct two duplexes within the defined infill and redevelopment area and an R2 zone at 754 and 756 Florence Avenue. Thank you. Ms. Meyer, is there a second? I second the motion. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. All in favor, please indicate electronically your choice. The motion carries. And we'll take up 19-61. Do I hear a motion on that as well? I move we postpone PLNBOA 19-61, Fayette County's Local Development Corporation. their request for required decreasing the number of parking spaces from 4 to 2 at 364 Corral Street. I move for postponement until next month. Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Is there a second? I second the motion. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. All in favor, please indicate your choice electronically. That motion carries as well. Those two applications are postponed until the October docket. Thus concludeth the summary docket. The first case on the complicated docket, those with opposition, is PLNBOA 19-57 Martins-Peterbilt. But would the applicant come forward, please? Mr. Glover, Donna is distributing several letters that we received in opposition. And then there is a stack that there's one for each of you that is Ms. Clark's presentation for you today. You may as well go sit down because this will take a while. Since we have several letters to read, let's take about a 10 minute break. That'll give us time to stretch our legs and read these letters and everybody else can sit tight and we'll be back in session shortly. We are taking up the application of Martin's Peterbelt, and we have some opposition to this as well, so we'll hear from them as well. Please come back up to the podium, if you would, and tell us your name. Matt Curley. I'm sorry, your last name? Kerley, K-E-R-L-E-Y. Mr. Kerley, how are you related to Martins Peterbauer? I'm the business development manager for Lexington. Okay. As I understand from your application, you want two variances, is that correct? Okay. And you want to increase the height from four to six feet in the front yard. That's the front that faces a Paris Pike. Paris, correct. Okay. And that fence is proposed to be this decorative aluminum fence. Correct. Correct. So it's a six-foot decorative aluminum fence. Correct. And the second variance is to decrease the vehicular use area buffer from five feet to zero feet. Is that correct? Technically, yes. Technically. But the request there is to, there are large trees required to be every 50 feet on the frontage between Paris and our property. The request is to simply group those trees. So I'm not getting rid of any trees. I just want to group them as opposed to space them out so that they're not in front of our new inventory. Are all the trees going to be willow oak? That is what is on the proposal, yes. They don't have to be. That's what's proposed. I'm familiar with the tree. Actually, it's a very nice-looking tree when it's mature, but I don't think they're fast-growing trees. but that's I think one of the conditions is condition two is you have to get approval from somebody else other than this board. Correct, correct. The landscaping or the environmental group still has to approve the plan. They require large trees. Best I can understand there are two options for large trees. I could be wrong but willow oak is one of the two. Gotcha. Any board members have questions for Mr. Curley? Why do you feel it's necessary to have this buffer, the reduction of the buffer, other than to see the inventory? I mean, these are big vehicles. Correct. I mean, they're huge. But they're also big trees. but it seems to me like an 18 foot an 18 inch hedge isn't going to do much of anything across there I mean it's because because you have these huge vehicles I mean I'd like to see a whole lot more personally landscaping across there I mean people who are going to come and see these vehicles I mean, to me, it's a specialized kind of business. It's not like a car lot where everybody wants to go to a car lot. I mean, you have few people who are buying these kind of vehicles. So why do you feel it's so necessary to have these vehicles viewed? Well, just like anything for sale, you need to display what you have, right? And we have, like you said, we're not nearly as large as a car lot where you can walk out there and see nearly everything. Any Toyota made just about, they're going to have a representation of it, right? That's not necessarily our case. With the expense and the size of these vehicles, we don't have a large – we don't have the whole gamut of what we sell on display, right? We have a limited selection. So if our inventory doesn't turn, if it doesn't change, you can notice that we don't get nearly as many customers as when the inventory changes, right? We'll move trucks back and forth between sites to have different inventory, which will bring people in. So there is a correlation between people seeing what we have and noticing that it's changing and the amount of customers that come through. I have a question about the buffer as well. The staff report was confusing to me, and maybe it was a question for staff on the decreasing the buffer from five feet to zero feet. So whenever variances are dimensional in nature, so in order to write out the variance for a landscape buffer, because he is not proposing the complete buffer as required, it is essentially reducing that buffer down to zero. Although he is still going to have a five-foot buffer, it's not a complete five-foot buffer because he's not going to have the trees spaced as they're required to be in the buffer. So it's written as a reduction from five to zero. but what he is actually proposing is a five foot buffer with the 18 inch hedge and then to have the number of trees that are required but to group those instead of spacing them as the ordinance requires. Yeah, I was just confused by the language because you say they're going to maintain the five foot buffer area. Right, there will be a five foot area with the hedge. Yes. Okay. And the hedges are going to be on the Rogers Road side? Parasite. They're on both roads, but the variance involves the Parasite. Okay. We're following all the regulations or whatever on the Rogers Road side. Okay. There's no request there from either one of these variances. There's no request there on the Rogers side. So where is the bunching going to occur? I move some. Do you have the site plan in front of you? Yeah, we have it. We can put it up on the screen, I think. Give us a second to light that up. They're moved both directions. You'll see, it's hard to see on all these. There's some moved up into this area, and then the bulk of them are moved down here. Some are spaced in here. So we're taking essentially from this area to this area where the words new inventory sales are written across there. We're taking the trees that would have been spaced across there, moving them up and moving them down. And then whatever can't fit in those areas because you do want some spacing between the trees, whatever won't fit in those areas will be placed in here as shown on the drawing. Mr. Curley, where is the access road on that map? It is very hard to see. Sorry. It's right in this area here. that's that's the edge of the curb it goes the full length of the property does it not yes it goes all the way up to here yeah I was up there yesterday and it it's somewhat disorganized and I was I was going to ask you about the corner lot there which is not in the design but if you're grouping trees there then you obviously have plans to include that in the property this this corner lot yes Yes, so this site plan includes these two variance requests, but also includes the repurposing of this portion of the lot. So most of you all, I think, were here last year when we came and had a BOA presentation, and we went from a four to a six-foot fence. So that part hasn't changed. It's just really the location of the fence, right? So previously, what you'll see is this portion is the original site plan. um... which was approved in twenty seventeen i believe our previous fence went across here down this line this was the gated entrance right here up here and then there was there was a grass line right here along that uh... access road that was all done prior to our knowledge that we may be able to able to obtain the gas station this corner property is uh... since that point we we have bought the gas station we've cleared that out trucks that were going to be dropped to be worked on our fences are closed basically overnight right so say seven p.m. to seven a.m. somewhere in that range the fences are closed the gates are closer the point was truck breaks down sunday sunday afternoon is brought in to be worked on they can drop it inside our gate they bring it up and they drop it here so we pick it up in the morning that was the old site plan the new site plan with the addition of this property the new site plan has those right here you'll see the the markings which are to see on this but on your paper copy hopefully you can see those markings that is the intent with those to be dropped there this will all be inside the fence now so the fence comes up to the uh... to location of the green there and the fence comes down here along the our side of that access road essentially right on that curb well let me just say i drove i drove through the property yesterday was nothing was locked a drug completely through the property right there's no fencing on it yet yeah along the side there is but not on the front sides okay so do you see you understand why there might be some concern about grouping the trees kind of uh... being uh... opposed to the whole concept of planning trees along the line In other words, we asked for trees to be planted in a way to make the property more beautiful in a sense. And by grouping the trees, you're actually opposing that concept, seems like to me, one man's opinion. Sure. And I supported your project, but I want to be sure that we have appropriate buffering between your property and Parris Road, which I think is very important. So the idea behind the fence and the boxwoods, and if somebody wants a different plant, that's fine. My opinion would be that would look best in front of that, was to attempt to match the rest of Parris Pike and make our property look more like the rest of the thruway as opposed to having a chain link fence. And I know that doesn't directly address your question on the trees, but that was the intent behind putting the fence in the boxwoods there was to make that an aesthetic, a more appealing aesthetic than having a four-foot fence, this chain link, or a six-foot fence, this chain link, right? So this new fence is outside the excess road? Correct. Okay. So in effect, you're buffering the access road from Parrish Pike. Sure, yes. And the trees will be on the outside of the access road? Correct. And the boxwoods as well? Correct. And the access road is what? It stays in the access road? Yes, it will be. So the intent is that it would stay as it is other than, and I'm working with traffic on this portion of it right now. What we've requested in the site plan is that this portion of the access road actually straightens out just a bit. You'll see there's a slight dogleg right there in the current site. And from that point on, we take it a little bit more straight down in order to increase this width. Again, that's what we're working with traffic on right now. But yes, it would stay as an access road with a fence across it. I've worked with KU to make sure that they're okay with having access through there. You know, they have a power utility right up on top of the road. There's no formal agreement with them, but I have worked with them to make sure that they're pleased with us still allowing them to have access but having a fence across there. so those are leftovers from the from the original site plan um you're talking about in this area here yeah that was so those were when i was talking a minute ago about um the locations for trucks to be dropped waiting for service when the gates are closed in the original site plan, that's what those spots were. The access road is no longer accessible. Not without going through the fence, correct. Right, and where that blue arrow is from the proposed drop-off. That's the gate. That's the gate and the direction of the gate. I wanted to indicate which way the gate would open. Yes. same with the other blue arrow indicates the direction of the gate opening mr carley is the uh is your property within the protected uh paris pike corridor area i don't believe so no it is not okay that's what i understood but i want to make sure we got that on the record. You're sort of at the beginning of the Parris Pike Corridor. I believe so. I don't know exactly where it starts. It starts a little bit further out. There's some distance between this property and where it starts. It's not immediately adjacent, but I don't know exactly how far dimensionally. After the church? It starts at the term Old Harrison Mike and Zweig. Old Harrison Zweig. It starts on the opposite side of the road and title on what a year ago. Well, maybe that's a question you can help us with when you get a chance to speak yourself. Thank you. We won't press him on that at the moment. I had a question and I lost it. Oh, what is on the other side of Rogers Road from you? There's a, it's a building that contains Whitaker Bank, and I think there's an insurance company in there. Is that what you're asking about on the Paris Pike frontage? Yes. Yeah, there's a building that's owned by, Jack Whitaker owns it, but I don't think it's owned by Whitaker Bank, but there's a Whitaker bank in there, and there may be a slot or two that's empty, and I think there's an insurance company in there. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Curley? Have a seat, and we may call you back later to rebut some of the opposition. Notice there were some people here that wished to speak in opposition to this application. There were two in the back, is that right? Come up to the podium or stand in line or however you wish, but we'll hear you one at a time. Tell us your name, please. Good afternoon. I'm Josie Gergovich Jones, and I presented a letter, but I had a couple of other things that I think I missed on my letter that I'd like to add to that. Were you sworn? I was. Okay. I am. We've worked with Martin's Peter Bilt since they've moved in and we've done, we hopefully have been very neighborly. I'm the president of the Joellen Neighborhood Association and we don't have any objection to the current approved placement of the fence which is on the left-hand side of the access road. We did not object to any of that fencing request before. On the map that they're currently presenting, it says that they're going to put the new inventory of their sales equipment on the access road. We object to that being in our face. Tell me what property are you concerned about. Pike side. I'm sorry. Where is your property? On Kingston Road. I'm sorry? Kingston Road. It's the next road. Where is that in relation to this property? It's the very next block. Okay. On the same side of the Paris Pike? Yes, but our neighborhood association is from Swigert Avenue to Paris to New Circle, sorry, to the interstate and from Paris Pike to Russell Cape. That's the whole neighborhood area. Okay. Um, in addition to that, I've, uh, I think I started off with my letter stating that we didn't need any more distractions. There's been over 100 accidents on the Paris pipe from, uh, Parkside drive to the interstate in the last, in a, in a year span. So we're trying to make sure that we're not causing any other distractions or any ways that more wrecks would be caused there. But once again, we wanted to make sure that we approve with what was approved before. Just object to where the fence is moving to now. And why do you object to where the fence is proposed to be now? Because the new inventory is also going to move up against that fence, which would make it right on paris pike we have two historic signs one we just placed the year last summer this summer there's no access to to anyone viewing the historic signs there's no access to get off to see the historic signs or even to view their inventory if this fence is put this way there's no access to get off the road if the uh if the application is is not approved then the fencing on the paris pike side of the property would have to be four feet instead of six feet tall and the buffering would would be as required by the ordinance right but there's nothing to prevent the applicant from placing his inventory on his property wherever he places it so so is your objection primarily about placing the inventory or yes closer to Paris Pike not sure we have any control over that I understand that I mean you can put it outside the fence but as I'm saying that that's our main objection it's putting it just like miss Carter said that you're not going to buy a car you can see that truck from a little bit further back so it's it's just putting it out in front of everybody where you know there's the way to move the trees they wanted to put the trees on the sides of where the trucks are presented to them there again you're it's just a glaring ugly place for our beautiful paris pike We don't want to start something that could just. You don't want to create a precedent for that. Yes, thank you. I understand. Thank you, Ms. Jones. Okay, thanks. Oh, does the board have any questions for Ms. Jones before she leaves? I guess not. Thank you. I'm Amy Clark and I live at 628 Castle Road and I'm a friend of Paris Pike, an official one, and I've been asked to speak by the Neighborhood Association, by Ms. Jones, the president. I would like to start by just recapping what you may have already read in the letter, and I'll do that very briefly. The point is here, you understand what a variance is. You're being asked to make an exception to the rules of the zoning ordinance. And I'm here to argue that here, least of all, is an appropriate place to make an exception to relieve or diminish the protective buffering that is in our zoning ordinance. In fact, I believe the city LFUCG has a special, possibly even a legal responsibility to protect and enhance the scenic beauty here. And what I want to do is tell you just enough of the history of how this roadway evolved over the last few decades to help you see that. The question is not about whose property it is. It is their private property. It is not within the Paris Pike Corridor small area plan. And could I have, let's see. I'm going to have to jump around here. I think it'll be quicker that way than, okay. This is, that was better. Okay. The heavy black line is the protected area within the small area plan. It is the historic district boundary that was originally proposed. The blue patches are the view sheds. They're the prospects when you're driving along and you look out your window or when you live across the street and you look over. So the private land does not lie within the protected corridor. Just let me interrupt you for just a second. The drawing that you were looking at on the screen is the top of the page looking west. I'm sorry. The nose of it is right at the interstate. So the road, the new road, began just past the interstate when it was reconstructed starting 2001, I believe. The protected land within that area starts on the lower boundary. from that point on the road, but you can see, well, the heavy line just says it all. It starts at Swigert. The land starts being covered within the protected corridor, small area on the other side. And there's a distinction between, let's not get complicated, But all that land within the heavy line lies within the small area plan, which has guidelines. But there's a different part that's only in the agricultural rural area that has specific zoning ordinances to further protect it. That's not what we're talking about here. Okay. But actually, all I want to talk about is what they coined a term for the view shed, the prospect. what you see on the pike as you're driving by. And that, the view from Paris Pike was part of what the state in building the road, the Federal Highway Administration, and also LFUCG undertook to protect. And you can see in fact that this is a plan. I wish I knew how to enlarge it. This is actually the construction plan, page 23 of the building, the construction project that was let. And you can see the old Joyland Bowl, which is a T-shaped building. So that would be the site of today's Martin's Peterbilt. and you can see a sort of a landscape island in front and you see a little row of trees or bushes do you see the little round circles and they are sitting on what is the state right-of-way the state right-of-way line so you can see if you could just see everything on there virtually everything is labeled existing trees were labeled as to species and so on. This is a heavily curated landscape deliberately by the intent of the Paris Pike enterprise. And what I want to say, as you're probably familiar just vaguely with, there was a huge lawsuit and it went on for decades before where the pike could be built. And there was a memorandum of understanding that was the point at which the lawsuit was settled and enabled the pike to be built. And in that memorandum of understanding, there's a lot about preserving the scenic qualities of the roadway, about having a design consultant with special experience in landscape, about setting up a task force tasked with reviewing and having oversight over the scenic elements stage by stage as the road was designed and built. So that the little patches you saw before, there were little landscape districts and units and each of them had people associated with them. they reviewed not just the land within the protected corridor, but they reviewed the views and the scenic elements, the landscape that went with it. There was a special, when they first put that memorandum of understanding together, they said, we'll need a consultant who has special experience in landscape and preserving scenic qualities. They're somewhere where they say they need an engineer for that. They're specifying plant species, size, quality, quantity, and location. So the construction plan, as I showed you, for the pike for this area has all these things plotted. and the memorandum of understanding is signed by lfucg as well as the highway department the state highway department the feds and so on and i would like to argue that we made that commitment too as an urban county government to protect the view sheds of the pike so that when our zoning ordinance already says there shall be tree buffers here to shield certain commercial uses, I think it's appropriate that we uphold them to the fullest in this very special place in particular where the quality of the landscape is extraordinarily important. Important for the viewing public, the traveling public, important for what may become a tourist use across the street, a hotel has been discussed for the property that was recently zoned B3. Important for the people who live across the street, and if I had given you a bigger detail, you could see that the widow of the gentleman whose name appears just fronting Martin's Peterbilt still lives at that location, Ms. Graham, and next door is a horse farm. She lives on a wooded estate. So the view is what needs protecting, and it's best protected by buffering the site of a commercial sales enterprise with the landscape to the fullest extent. Let me see what we've got here. This is just about the design consultant. Never mind. Okay. So here is the Paris Pike. I don't know how it got to be that way. Did I do that? Oh, did I turn it off? Okay. So here is the 2001 Paris Pike as it was agreed upon, designed, and built. And is this going to be in the same direction? That's in the opposite direction. You're looking. I'm very sorry. That's going to confuse me more than anyone. You're looking east at the top of that page. Yeah. So I wish I could turn it around. I can't. So what we have here is this is confusing to me, and I should be corrected if need be. But this plan that was once the Joyland Bowl has had a first and a second and a third amendment, this is the third amendment to the final development plan that is proposed. It's under review. It hasn't yet been accepted. It hasn't fully been reviewed. But this plan is, you can recognize as the substrate for the plan with colors on it that was used for the BOA plan. And I put it up here because it's a lot clearer to see things. And what I want to notice here is the diagonals, I am assuming, are the 12 slots for trucks parked for display. The C to C prime, the bracket there, the staple, that represents the right-of-way, the state right-of-way. If you remember the line where the little circles of the greens were before the trees. And I'm confused by the fact that it looks as though the state right-of-way would have the trucks for display hanging their noses over. This is, I don't understand how that can be. It may be that the plan will be improved in its drawing. It certainly doesn't leave any buffer. It doesn't leave the five-foot buffer that they're seeking a variance from. So what is missing is all the landscaping that was meticulously not only added and created and placed, but actually recorded where there were existing trees already recorded as to species. And I think it's important to preserve this landscape. I want to see if there's anything further. Native plants were specified for this whole corridor, native trees. I think that's important to preserve as well. um... what i'm trying to argue here and i did give you the memorandum of agreement when i'm trying to argue is that when we signed up on the line there as lfucg with the state and uh... federal highway administration and this was both preservation offices and transportation places When we signed there, I think we made a mutual agreement to protect the scenic quality of the pike, the viewshed. And we can best protect it by not granting a variance. The other thing I'd like to point out is if the applicant has some extraordinary hardship that's different from anyone else in the vicinity, or where his land is different from others in the vicinity, or that's different from anyone else in the zone, that's how we make a claim for granting relief, granting a variance. But this particular ordinance saying the buffering, the tree buffering, is actually specific to the use vehicle display facility, vehicle sales facility. That's to say it wouldn't really make sense to say, well, I need relief from this zoning ordinance rule because I'm a truck display place and I need to display my trucks because this rule was made for the display for the vehicle sales facility buffering provision. So I think that's exactly what was intended and wanted just generally throughout Lexington. And then when you're looking at Paris Pike with these extraordinary extra protections, I think it's all the more important. As far as the vicinity, it would seem that all the hardship, really the adverse effect, would be on the side of people who live across the roadway there, who are in the protected land area as well, insofar as the small area plan gives some guidelines, and also people traveling by. Ms. Park, you've been speaking for 15 minutes. I think that's it. I've been pretty lenient by not placing a three minute time limit on you. Would you mind going back to the blue colored slide that you had? This is the close up of it, but it's blurry. Do you want to have the big one? No, well that close up might be more helpful. You can see the interstate, I keep pointing the wrong way, but can you see the interstate exits? I know where it is. It looks to me like the top of this map is looking west. The Nose is headed toward Lexington downtown. Yes, and Lexington is to the south of the Paris Pike corridor. So it's curious to me that, well, let me ask you this. The light blue looks like the viewscape protected area, is that correct? The other has the, I'm sorry, I thought it did. There's a legend that goes with it. There's scenic views A and B, sort of the primary and the secondary. And those are indicated by blue. Those are the blues. Two different shades of blue. Exactly. But the protected corridor, this property is not within that protected corridor, because as we can see from the black line, it specifically excludes this particular area from that protected corridor. Yeah, maybe I'm misleading in calling it a protected corridor. What it is is the boundaries of the small area plan, which doesn't articulate guidelines for a number of things. Okay. Yes. But however it's described, this property is outside of that. And I wonder why, if they include a viewscape that they'd like to protect, that this particular piece of property was not included within the dark black line. Well, I can say that I've wondered that a good bit myself, but what I would say is the view is protected, was protected. There were plantings and there were trees already existing that were noticed and honored in the state road construction. The view is protected by the memorandum of agreement. It's the certain other properties of the land, for example, the land zoning and use, that doesn't lie within, for example, the small area plan and its guidelines for zoning or intensity of use. Okay, thank you. I think, actually, I know that what they did was they took the existing uses and they began there. Joyland Bowl was zoned B3 at the time they drew these up. I think that was part of what was underlying it. Do you know if that zoning has changed? It hasn't. I mean, I'm not the one to tell you officially, but I reckon it hasn't. The staff report shows it's B3. Yeah. Any questions? Any other questions for Ms. Clark before she? The board have any questions for Ms. Clark? Thank you, Ms. Clark. And I want to thank you for giving me the time to show all those pictures. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other speakers in opposition? I see one. Yes, ma'am. Catherine Perkins, 258 Swigert Avenue. I am Secretary of Joyland Neighborhood Association. One of the things that we've discussed, and Josie, the President of the Neighborhood Association, did talk to Matt Keely about this variance application. And I don't think we have an objection to the height of the fence. We were not here for their first variance application for the fencing height to be increased on the Rogers Road side. But it's the moving of the fence to the edge of the state right away. Paris Pike to have their inventory because their map that you have as well. States shows new inventory sales will be moved forward. Currently, they sit back inside, so to the west of the service road. And they mentioned to Josie at the conversation that she had with them that they would also have to increase lighting. And for me, my letter to you states that I think that the lighting is already offensive. It's very just as soon as you get off the interstate, I mean, it's blinding. But we don't feel that the fence needs to be moved to right on the right-of-way of Paris Pike, and that inventory moved when we're looking at one of the most beautiful roads in our city and in our state. And it is, what, a national scenic highway? It's on that registry, and even though this isn't protected, keeping cognizant of the viewshed is something that's very important, I think, I think that it sets a precedent that any other business that comes in to across the street at the first B3 zone granted. In 2017, we granted it to the empty lot, that they will be planting beautifully as well. And I think that they have a fairly large buffer on theirs. I also want to mention that the tree planting, we feel is very important, But we also think that when you take it and you cluster it all towards Rogers Road, on the outside of the service road, that when those trees grow, there's a potential of having a very poor site when you're leaving Rogers Road. And if there's no light, like traffic light there, and that is a state thing that has to be approved by the state, we can't. speculating on that but that will be a vision blocker from coming on from rogers road on to paris pike and it's already getting uh getting bad so i hope you keep that in mind thank you keep it beautiful thank you miss perkins uh about that traffic was traffic considered in the proposal to group the trees on the rogers road side did you all have an opinion or weigh in on that part of it all I've seen is a general layout that's been presented here we would be consulted when a landscaping plan is submitted to ensure that the site distance is at a minimum okay thank you and it and it appears yes we'll get to you just a second it appears to me that that one of the conditions of if we grant approval of this is that the final types and final location of the trees and heads shall be reviewed and determined to be appropriate by the landscape examiner with the division of environmental services am i am i reading that correctly that if they determine the appropriateness, that it's not appropriate to bunch these trees together, then they can determine... They were involved in the Landscape Review Committee meeting, which did recommend approval of the variance. They will have more to say once the official landscaping plan is submitted as to exactly where those trees are, but they are generally in support of them being grouped on the Rogers Road Corner property. Yes, I understood from one of the bullet points in the project description that they have, or at least a small group of the landscape review committee has seen this proposed plan and were generally in favor of it, but they either didn't have a quorum or didn't have. Correct. There was not a quorum. There were two voting members present, so they made the recommendation, but there was not an official vote taken. And there was a representative from the Division of Environmental Services who is not a voting member speaking for environmental services. So my question is, Autumn, is the – if we approve this, we don't really have the final say? Am I reading this condition correctly, number two? Essentially, they would be approving the finer details of the exact placement and types of trees. you would be approving that they be bunched together and that they not be spaced one per every 50 feet per the ordinance. You would be approving what's shown on the site plan today that they would be in this general area. Okay, we're approving essentially the concept. The exact spacing of the trees and things like that would be based upon exactly which tree they choose and things like that so it is still a little bit variable at this point but that's what the landscape examiner would finalize, those exact locations. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Mr. Curley, come back up, please. This is your chance to rebut anything you've heard since you sat down. Sure. I had a few comments along the way. So the last one that I had written down was the vision blocking. The location of the trees, the last tree, which I assume would be the blocking most of the vision, is in the spot required by the city so whether you approve or disapprove that tree is still in the same spot and the vision won't change unless somebody else has objections there was a comment about no access to get to the the historical markers without parking there still is a location to park at the end of the fence line it wouldn't be a 10-foot walk it'd be a 50-foot walk but you could still walk around the fence to go up to the signs if you chose to. So do you still have the PowerPoint or whatever that we were looking at a minute ago with the that showed the black and white line drawing that showed the bushes along the side or the plants along the side? Are you talking about the construction plans that showed the detail? I think that's what it was, yes. It looks like detailed drawings. Yeah, so, yeah, my question would be, what are these, right? They appear to be close enough in proximity to me that they would be either small trees or bushes. Definitely not large trees because they appear to be too close. But, again, without knowing exactly what they are, we can't say that we're, if those are bushes, then we're still matching that identically, right? And that's what I understood those to be. OK. OK. The last point that I had written down was she had a C to C prime on an inverted drawing. Our right-of-way, or the state right-of-way, as I understand it, is 50 feet from the center of Parris Pike, which happens to lie, as best I can measure without standing out in the middle of Parris Pike, right on the power lines. So it's about 18 to 20 feet from the curbing of the access road. So the drawing showed C to C prime. I don't know, I've never seen that drawing before, so I'm not sure exactly where that came from, but it doesn't appear to be in the correct location from my understanding. Have you had the property surveyed? I assume we did at the beginning of the site building. I was not involved until the middle of 2018, about June of 2018. They actually started construction November of 2017. I guess the better question is, are you sure you're building on your property? That's the question. I don't know. My understanding, like I said, is that our property starts 50 feet from the center line of Paris Pike, which I know for a fact I'm not violating. I have the plat, but I don't know who would I even ask to find that out for certain. Okay. I'm no expert on that, so I don't know who had even asked. Can anybody tell me? I would say that you would need to have a survey completed in order to. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. That's one of the reasons I ask it. Where do we find out exactly where the state right-of-way ends? Like, without a survey? I mean, regardless of what the survey says, where does the state right-of-way end? Where does that number come from? My understanding was 50 feet, but I haven't seen that written on something from the city. I would think that that would come from the state, or you would have to have a survey. Okay. The survey is just going to take measurements, though, right? It won't determine exactly where that line is. You do understand, don't you, that if we give permission, if we grant your application, we're not granting your right to encroach it upon the state right away. Yes. So that's really all. Yes. For our purposes, that's all we. Right. That's the only jurisdiction we have. What I would have to back up and do then is if she was correct about her location, that C-prime would be to back up, push what I have away from Parrish Pike enough to be on my property, not the state right away. Yeah, that's right. Anything else? That was all I had. Okay. Any questions for Mr. Curley? I just have one question. I think the fence, and this is in my opinion and all that we've heard today, the fence is, the fact that it is increased in height and it's an aluminum fence, I think that's a bonus for everyone. I think that the, it's always tough to see where this access road lands. If you're driving down in a car or driving out Paris Pike, is the access road on the way down? So you're viewing a majority of the access road. Is it pretty flat or is it on the upside? The access road, I haven't made measurements, but my opinion is the access road itself is actually pretty, it's uphill as you're driving up it, but left to right is pretty flat. It falls off on the far side of the access road. You really don't see your building from Paris Pike that well? Not very well, correct. It's pretty hidden. Correct. Okay. Yeah, my opinion would be that, you know, I think what you're asking us is to increase the height obviously for the fence is fine. I think the fact that you know the bushes are fine and the trees in my opinion grouping them you know I think the size tree you're going to plant the amount of growth you're going to have I think keeping I mean in 50 feet out of what I count every 50 feet for 332 feet you're going to have you're going to have what nine trees in there roughly i mean that's not going to be too much and i think if if that's on a on a flat or downward slope even those you're getting quite a bit of uh viewership or viewing for your your uh your trucks and trailers uh pretty nicely and i think a small uh tree every 50 feet is really not going to impede a whole lot on that you know maybe 10 15 20 years down the line um as those grow but still i think it's going to look nice and i think it doesn't bother me and i think it's a win-win for both uh in my eyes so it's kind of an amended plan you still kind of get both but that that's where i'm leaning thank you mr curley you may sit down uh oh are there any other questions for mr Curly? Sure. So is he saying, were you saying that you're basically disagreeing with allowing the trees to be bunched? Exactly. I think bunching the trees, I don't know if that, I think it might... But then I think it obviously opens up. I think it'll be a nice continuous and you're gonna see trucks as well through the trees Or through a few trees. It's not a huge amount of view blocking You know to me, it's You know having a bit of both is fine. It's a little odd how it reads that the buffer is Is from five to zero feet because there's still a five-foot buffer We're really just making the decision whether we group trees or not and I'm fine with the keeping of the grouping of the trees you're fine with the keeping of the grouping. Is that what you're saying? I think that's what I'm saying. I don't know if I'm clear. I think he's in agreement with the application. Okay. Well, I think the first part, but not so much the second part. Okay. Okay. I think that I'm, I feel like I'm on the same page as Mr. If anybody cares. But it's just the fence is great, the bushes are great. They are smaller. Yeah. But for me, the concern becomes the ordinance seems to be specifically written for the particular thing to show some blockage. And I'm to kind of block what works against the marketing people. I know we really do want to show and see, but it does seem that the intent of the ordinance, in that case the spread of time, is to do that. And it kind of feels bad to go against it when it goes back easily. But I get it. I love the fences. I have a question for clarification maybe of staff. Maybe I'm reading this differently, but it appears to me that we're being asked to approve a variance to increase the height of the fence from four to six feet in the front yard. That's the first one. Correct. And the second is to decrease the buffer from five to zero feet. There's no part of that has to do with grouping trees. Well, it is worded that way, too, because, as I said, they are requesting to not meet the requirements of the five-foot buffer. Okay. Because a compliant five-foot buffer would be one tree every 50 feet and the continuous hedge within the five feet. So since they're not wanting to put one tree every 50 feet, they don't get that buffer, essentially. So they are providing a five-foot buffer with a hedge and this number of trees, but those trees are going to be grouped together in one location rather than spaced every 50 feet. And that is in the conditions which reference the application materials in site plan and within the staff report, the specifics of what we would be approving. I guess my problem is I don't have a visual of what this would look like. I haven't seen a graphic of what grouping. If we're being asked to determine. The site plan shows in that red circle where they would be grouping the trees. The site plan shows four stars. Correct. Are those stars represented trees? Yes. And if they represent trees, if four trees are there, and if you have, say, seven trees or so that are required in the rest of the property, are there going to be three trees in that 330 feet? They are proposing to put all of the trees, except for I think they were going to put one or two closest to the substation. Sure. And then any remaining trees would be grouped on the corner property. Intentious to keep the same number of requested trees. At the landscape review committee, I think we discussed that those could be grouped along Paris Pike and along the Rogers Road, as long as they were also getting in their Rogers Road trees that are required, but that the trees would generally be distributed on that parcel. on the rogers road side or the or the the corner of the smaller parcel that is at the corner of rogers road and paris pike they would be distributed across the paris pike frontage and the rogers road frontage there okay they went to three locations they went to inside that red circle they went to the top of the drawing near the power station and they went to the area along Rogers Road just above that number 217. Getting into the specific locations kind of gets back to that condition we've already talked to talked about number two where the the final location would be determined by the landscape examiner. If that's something that you all want to to see and determine then we would perhaps need to continue this to a later time to see a closer. No that's my point. I don't want us to have to determine where the trees go because that's not our expertise so i would be more comfortable if the landscape examiner and with the division of environmental services determine the precise location of these trees but just calling it grouping is is an insufficient determination for us to make without a more specific determination by somebody with that expertise. So we could have someone could propose an additional condition that the trees be grouped however you want to. As approved by the. Well, that's what number two. You want us to say within that 155 foot number there? I mean, are you looking for something specific like that? No, I'm comfortable with condition number two. Okay. Okay. If that's what this application does is to transfer that specific decision- Right. To people with that expertise. Yes. We first have to keep the variance. Correct. But yes, in order for them to acquire that jurisdiction, we would have to grant that- Correct, yes. Am I reading? I'm sorry to make it complicated, but I want to make sure we're doing it correctly. So the landscape examiner does not have the authority to make the decision to group the trees there without your approval. Okay. Well, I mean, I will trust the opinion of the landscape examiner because he's an expert more than either the applicant or the opponents or this board. But if we designate him with that authority by granting the variance, then I think that's what the proposal is. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. So are we saying if we grant this, then we lose any kind of say on the grouping of the trees? Is that correct? If you were to approve this, you would be saying that you are agreeable to the trees being grouped, that they will not be spaced one per every 50 feet, that they will be grouped generally on this parcel. Okay. At the determination of the landscape examiner. Well, that's not really true. I don't think that's the case. I think if we approve it, we have said that's okay. Yes. If we approve this variance, we say it's okay to group the trees. Correct, yes. But the landscape examiner will determine exactly where tree one, tree two, tree three will go. It would still be grouped. Correct. I couldn't vote for that no matter what. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Curley. The rules don't provide for any sir rebuttal, Ms. Clark. I'm going to make a petition, very short. But since there was fresh discussion about records that I offered, may I offer the complete record rather than the details? What this is is the signed second amended plat that exists, it's signed. And this is the third amendment that is currently under review. And it's the very plan of the applicant from which I drew the detail with the bracketing where the applicant's engineer or surveyor had indicated C to C prime as the Paris Pike right of way. Yes, you may introduce that document. We will accept it and we can take a look at it. Thank you. Thank you. Would it be easier for us to see that on the screen or pass it around? i think that's it the smaller one is the proposed that is currently under review it's the one that has what looked to be the truck noses in the right away but um the other one the sign one the larger one is the one that is of record currently And the other detail that I showed, that one that's on the screen now, that's from the state plans and it's cited in the enclosures to the letter. Yes, that was with your letter. Yeah. You understand that. Thank you. You're jumping in in the middle of a process and really you can take the trees away from that area, but you can't place them or know too much at this point, I guess. Thank you, Ms. Clark. While we're looking, can I ask the staff a question? Maybe Mr. Curley, too. If we approve this, how far will trucks be from Parris Pike, basically? Just give me an idea, because I'm still not real sure. It seems like to me the trucks will be very, very close to Parris Pike. we're going out of the access road. So I believe that the best I can measure, the edge of the access road, sort of right under where it says Paris Lexington Road right there, where the access road is as close to Paris as possible, is around 70 feet from Paris Pike. Yeah, okay. So our fence line, the intent is the fence will be along that curb, right? So the truck will be just on the other side of that. So the truck will be up against the fence. It would have been in the neighborhood of 70, 75 feet. Up against the fence, so basically. Yeah. Very close, yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But anyway, so we're not determining if they can move the fence. We're just determining if the fence would be towards six feet. That is correct. They are currently approved for a six-foot variance at a different location. If they were to move the fence forward, it would have to be four feet without the variance before you today. But they could still move the fence. Correct. Location of the fence. Yes. Correct. We're considering the evidence. Give us a few minutes. As I understand from the staff report, the question may have been answered. It says in the first variance request that the proposed fence will still be about 50 feet from the edge of paving on Parris Pike. That's not from the center of Parris Pike. That's to the edge of the paving. And I presume the western edge of the paving. Correct. Okay. I don't know that that helped any, but it helped me. Yes and no. Any other questions from the board to the applicant, to opponents, or to staff before we entertain a motion? Either way. Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. I actually had a question first. Does this need to be two separate motions? I think it depends on if you are doing the same thing for both of them. I didn't understand your response. The question was if you need to make two separate motions for the two variances. And I think that if you were to either approve or disapprove both of them, you could do it as one motion. but if you were going to approve one and disapprove one, then you would need to do two separate motions. How would we know unless we took a vote? Well, someone will have to make a motion. Or does someone think your motion would reflect? Right. Yeah. In other words, if you'd like to make a motion, Ms. Carter, you can. No, but the question just became, I know that if someone does want to disapprove part of it, do you normally need five minutes to do so? yes that's a question for legal if we if we there are several questions for legal actually if we if we disapprove the application or disapprove one of the requests for variance do we need findings for the disapproval uh yes i believe you do need to make findings for both of your conclusions for both of the issues okay thank you does that answer your question doesn't really answer mine because i'm not sure what yeah i'm not sure what the motion is going to be or what uh i think we probably have the I think we have the discretion as a board to make a motion on the application as a whole. We can make a motion on either variance and see how that goes. And so if that's what you all want to do, I'll entertain any kind of motion. Okay. I'd like to make a motion for approval. appeal in VOA 1957 Martin's Peterbilt request for variance to to increase the allowable height of the fence from 4 feet to 6 feet in the front yard for the reasons listed by staff and based on any required conditions. Okay. And as I understand that, Ms. Carter, that's a motion. based a partial motion based on the application your your your motion is a singular motion for the singular for the second variance is that is that am i reading that correctly that is correct okay i'm sorry your motion was for the the fence height variance. Okay, fair enough. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Clark seconds. Before we vote, does the staff understand what the motion is so you can properly record it? Yes. Okay. All those in favor indicate. And that motion carries. That is not the end of this application. Do we have a motion on the second part of the application concerning the buffer variance request? I hear nothing. Nothing. Yeah, PLNBOA 19-57, Martins, Peterbilt. I make a motion to disapprove the variance to decrease the required vehicle use area buffer between a vehicle sales facility and a public right-of-way from 5 feet to 0 feet. Okay, so we need to have findings. And would you like to create some findings on the fly there, Mr. Needham, or? Or would you rather take a five minute recess to confer with legal? I think we'll confer with legal. Let's take a five minute recess. Thank you. And we were in the middle of a motion by Mr. Needham, and I'd like to ask Mr. Needham to start his motion over, please. Okay. In PLNBOA 19-57, Martin Peterbilt's request, we would like to request disapproval of the variants to decrease the required vehicle use area buffer between a vehicle sales facility and a public right-of-way from five feet to zero feet for the following reasons. One, granting the landscape of variants will alter the essential character in the general vicinity as the required number of trees would no longer be spaced every 50 feet. Two, provide inadequate screening. Three, we see no special circumstances or other justification for modifying the requirements of the zoning ordinance in this situation. And number four, 50-foot spacing of trees will not create a visual barrier to the applicant's site or potential customers. Thank you, Mr. Needham. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Mr. Clark. All those in favor, please indicate your vote electronically. Looks like the motion to disapprove carried. So you understand what we've done here and what you're permitted to do. One variance was approved, the other was denied. So good luck with your project. Thank you. Thank you. I can't make up my daughter. I got a 430. All right. No problem. All right. We have two remaining cases and I apologize to the Coopers and to the Gatewood Arnold Construction for delay in hearing your application until 4 10 but the next case on the docket is wanda and mitchell cooper if you please come up to the podium again i apologize for taking so long it let me and let me ask you a couple of questions while you're here the From the staff report, it appears to me that you built the driveway extension as shown on the drawing that was submitted with the plan. Is that correct? In the heavy dark lines? That is correct. Okay. Let me ask you to identify yourself. My name is Michelle Cooper. And I'm Wanda Cooper. Okay. Thank you. It sounds like you're asking for forgiveness rather than permission, is that correct? That's kind of the case, yes. Okay. So the question is, why did you not build it according to the ordinance? So at that point I wasn't yet involved, and the person that she dealt with, she assumed that he was going to pull proper permits and that kind of thing. And at that point, I assume he would have been informed as to the correct zoning dimensions and that kind of thing. He did not pull the permit, so we were never made aware, you know, until after the fact that it wasn't going to be according to. So you had a contractor build the driveway. Did he build the whole driveway or just the front extension? What was the deal? Well, the driveway was initially gravel. So this was paving it in concrete and then at the same time is widened to a certain extent. Okay. I understand. And it appears to me, let me ask staff while I've got it, the drawing that we were provided with shows a heavy black line showing what looks to be the paved area of the driveway. Is that correct? That is correct. And there's a, there looks like a penciled or pen drawing, hand drawn line showing where the driveway could have been. At least my drawing shows that. There may be one that does have that sketched on it. That was not the original submitted plan, which I'm going to put up on the board now. But essentially, yes, the driveway starts at 10 feet at the curb cut and gradually flares out to where it is at its widest, which is basically at the start of the building. So something that would be compliant would be for the 10 foot driveway to continue on up towards the house and then potentially to flare a bit to meet the sidewalk that is directly in front of the house. Building inspection would have the final say on exactly how much that flare would be. There is an example, I have a photo of a house that is a couple of doors down that has a similar circumstance if you'd like to see that image. Sure, that'd be helpful. I might better illustrate what we had in mind. So this is a property on the same street, on the same side of the road, just a few doors down. And the driveway is 10 feet, and then you can see that towards the sidewalk that runs parallel to the front of the house, it flares just a bit to a wider drive and then is wider behind the front plane of the house. The issue is with the width in front of the house. At what point does the flare start in order to be compliant? Right. That would be a question for building inspection. They would make the final call on that as to exactly how much they would be willing to let that flare go. That flare starts before the house line? Correct. That flare starts before you get to the, it starts a little bit ahead of the house in order to meet with that sidewalk there. and we expect the building inspection would approve something similar to this. This is not necessarily hard and fast what would exactly be approved. But the intent is that the driveway continues at 10 feet for some distance rather than in the situation before you where it immediately begins flaring pretty substantially and is only 10 feet really at the curb. Well, I guess my question is from a prospective homeowner who wants to build a wider driveway but also be in compliance with the 10-foot requirement. How do they know where to start the flare? They would apply for a permit through the Division of Building Inspection. And the permit would indicate what? The permit would indicate whether or not the proposed driveway were in compliance. So they would submit drawings with, they could call building inspection and discuss that with them, or their contractor would have a drawing that they would provide that would go through the permitting process. And if it were too much of a flare, then building inspection would let them know that. And how much is too much? That's what I'm trying to indicate. Right, yeah, that's, like I said, I'm not exactly sure what the dimension would be in this situation, but I think that technically the driveway is not allowed to be greater than 10 feet up until you get to the front plane of the building. So anything, any kind of flare is a bit of wiggle room essentially that building inspection does tend to allow in order to meet the sidewalk and the driveway. But technically the driveway is maxed out at 10 feet. In order to, we have both, we've done both on these kinds of applications. We've approved some and we've denied some. We have not been consistent on that. The staff, I think, has been consistent. You all have recommended disapproval for those that are not in compliance with the ordinance. So what I'm trying to do is to find out what the ordinance requires so that a potential applicant can know what they're doing. and it sounds like the amount of the flare is up to the arbitrary decision of the building inspector. Is that correct? I would say that they may have a standard that they use. I just don't know exactly what that is. Is it a written standard? I don't know. I don't know either. And that's what concerns me about this. May I chime in here real quick? Sure. Go ahead. One thing that this was kind of, I mean, I understand the issue of, you know, There definitely should have been a permit before it was put in, of course. But ever since this has been brought to our attention and that we've been trying to get this resolved, it wasn't until the email that I received confirming today's meeting that it was finally brought to my attention that the area behind the front plane of the house is okay and within code. I was under the impression that the entire length had to be no more than 10, which is, of course, not the case, I guess. No, that's, yeah, that's incorrect. And that was, to go along with what you were just saying, I guess there was a lack of clarification as to what exactly would, what modification we could make to the driveway would bring it into code. And just looking at this picture, I mean, we're not talking about – I mean, it doesn't deviate a whole lot because if you look at where the curve is, there's a sidewalk that comes off of the main sidewalk. A walkway. So you have the main sidewalk coming up from Rosemont Garden to the front of the house, and then there is a walkway that goes off to the right and connects over to the driveway. and so going off of the photo of the previous house where there was a flare connecting the driveway to the walkway, I'm assuming that the little bit of a curvature that you can see from that walkway into the driveway would probably be acceptable if the driveway were narrower to the front portion of that. That's probably correct. And so the point I'm making is that the i mean we haven't deviated a lot i mean from because i mean if we're only talking about that little front portion there it's not you know it's not a lot wider than the 10 feet we're looking at a picture of your house is that correct yes how are you all related i'm her grandson and who's who lives here this is a rental uh house okay um this is a rental house that you all own and rent it to somebody else okay um and another point was in the previous photo um that has the i guess it's what you all are looking at that has the drawing um you can see kind of what we were attempting to accomplish because there's two cars parked um kind of side by side almost and uh so that was kind of resulting you know when they would pull off to the side up close to the house it was just a nasty muddy mess and that's what we were trying to solve there was a walkway running by the house and that's combined instead of a little patch of grass there i thought we'll we'll just combine it rather than straightening out the walkway which it had to be redone also so we just combined them and i had no idea that that wasn't proper who was your contractor I can't tell you. You can't tell me because you don't know? I don't know. I do know. I didn't deal with the guy. I can't think of his name. You did tell me that he was from that town. Coffey, I think, was his last name. Okay. Does any member of the board have any questions of the applicant? I'd like to notice, just notice that the angle on the picture is not as severe as the angle on the drawing. So consequently, the angle from the 10-foot opening doesn't really go to the edge of the house. It's less than that. I'm trying to be positive here. In other words, if you draw that line where you see it from the street on the left-hand side, it does not go straight to the edge of the house. It deviates somewhat from that. So it's not a strict angle there from the street to the corner of the house. The deviation is not as bad as it's shown in the diagram. I think that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I agree. In fact, I assume we're looking at a picture of the house as it exists right now. That is correct. Okay. And it looks like to me that there's a bit of a flare once you get back from the sidewalk a bit, and that may be the beginning of the walk that goes to the front door. That's what it appears to me from the picture that we're looking at. Yeah, from the picture, it does appear that they intensified the flare a little bit to incorporate that sidewalk. Sure, yeah. They got to it. Okay. Mr. Glover? Mr. Glover? Yes. Yes, yes. To clarify your previous question about building inspection and involvement with the driveways, building inspection and traffic engineering work very closely on driveways in these circumstances. I have not seen this one, obviously, because it is a forgiveness thing. However, we do allow some variance sometimes in circumstances where it is explained by the applicant that they're, for instance, trying to walk to the street to their mailbox. And so in this circumstance, you could see that you're trying to basically build a connection from your front sidewalk to the public sidewalk to get to a mailbox or better access to the street. And what we would not want is a parallel sidewalk because that's a costly thing. So it's very likely that an application like this showing this level of detail would be accepted in anticipation of a pedestrian connection. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And I think Mr. Clark's question and observations about the image, the photograph, was helpful as well. Thank you. Can I ask Mr. Parker, are you referring to the site plan as it was submitted or with that line drawn on it that we sketched on? Not in this particular case. I'm just explaining in a typical, I've seen some applications and it is true. It is subjective. And many times we try to figure out what the use is. If a family lives there and they have four kids, they're trying to find room to park cars. wheelchair accessibility is a big issue that we see a lot of times that many times like a sidewalk leading from the front steps from the house to the street has steps we will work with them to widen the driveway so there are some circumstances that it shows more like a we call it a scabbed on extra concrete on the side I don't know that that was this particular case because it sounds like a rental property But I could see an application being approved that would show this exact circumstance, but we would have done a little bit more investigation with an application. Yeah, okay, thank you. Any other questions, either of the applicant or staff by the board? Hearing none, are you ready to make a motion? How would you, and I'll ask legal, how do we, or maybe staff, how do we typically move to approve a recommendation of disapproval? Do we move to? You would move to disapprove. Based upon the staff's staff report and for the reasons. Correct, based upon the reasons provided by staff. The reasons provided by staff. And the counter. If you were to. If the other question is how do we. You would need to have findings and conditions of approval. So we need to have findings as a condition of approval. You would need to have findings and conditions. And conditions. how would we know what those conditions might be we probably need to take a short recess and we can do that to discuss that okay let's stand at recess for five minutes We're discussing the application PLNBOA 1962 Cooper's request for a variance about the allowable width of a driveway. Are there any more questions of staff or the applicant before we have a motion? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move. regarding PLNBOA 19-6062, Wanda Mitchell Cooper, I move to approve a request for a variance to increase the allowable width of a driveway from 10 feet to 17 feet within a defined infill redevelopment area in a single-family residential zone at 177 Rosemont Garden. Based on the following points of fact, number one approval for the following reasons granting number one granting the variant should not adversely affect the public health safety or welfare welfare nor alter the character of the general vicinity number two strict strict application of the zoning ordinance could create an unnecessary hardship for the property owner number three the non-compliant area is less than 75 square feet so the benefit of removal would be minimal number four the applicant has demonstrated no intent to circumvent the ordinance. This is subject to the following condition. This approval is made subject to the condition that the applicant obtain an after-the-fact paving permit from the Division of Building Inspection within 30 days. So moved Mr. Chair. Thank you Mr. Clark. Is there a second? Second. Thank you Ms. Meyer. All those in favor indicate electronically. I want to make sure the applicant understands what, come forward if you would. I want to make sure you understand what the motion was and what your obligations now are. Sure. You have to, you have to, you'll have to get an after the fact permit within the next 30 days. If you don't, you will have not fulfilled the conditions and you'll be in noncompliance of that. You'll probably be able to get requests or get from staff a written copy of what we've just, the motion we've made, but it may take them a day or so to put that together. If you need it, you may not need it if you understand it all. So my question, we actually attempted to do that before we discovered we were going to have to go through this process um will we need anything when we go back to them to indicate to them that you guys have approved what we're trying to do or them who building inspection will likely want something from us to say that we approve the variance um our minutes are not finalized until the following month so typically what can happen is you can just have them call me and I can provide whatever information they need. There's not really any official documentation other than the minutes and the land use restriction, which both will not be available for a certain length of time. It will be noted in the Acela program, the online application program, that it has been approved, and building inspection can see that, but if that is not sufficient information for them because they want to see the conditions or things like that, then just have them give me a call. Okay, do you understand that? Yes. All right, so good luck with your project. Thank you. Thank you. The last matter before the board today is Gatewood Arnold Construction, PLN BOA 19 day 65 as applicant present. Please come forward. And Mr. Glover, we do have several letters on this one as well. Okay. Hello everyone, my name is Gatewood Arnold. Okay, stand by Mr. Arnold, we're going to read some letters from people who have an interest in this application. All right. Thank you. go ahead y'all ready all right we're back in session uh mr arnold um i got a couple of questions for you before we Sorry, sorry, before we get too far in. What's the lot size? It is about a quarter acre. Okay, and it's very oddly shaped. That is correct. If you had to comply with the setbacks and such, front yard and side yards, it looks to me like you couldn't build anything on this lot. I would agree. I don't think you'd have much of anything left. Yeah. Do you know how this lot came to be? It looks to be a piece that was carved off from some bigger piece of property, but I don't know why. I don't know the exact history. We bought this property a few months ago. Did you? Okay. And as far as the topography is concerned, is it on a hill? Is it on a curve? Is it where, what is it? Topography does have a slight slope from one side of the other, also front to back. I've got some photos of the property if you want to see them. We might look at those in a minute. Does the property slope down from the road? I'm not sure what you mean, down from the road. Downhill. For the most part, let me see here. I think it's running, I'm trying to remember. I mean, it drains back towards the road and also more side to side is a lot of the drainage. So does it run from north to south, basically, sloping south? uh north to south um trying to think of that would be looking at it here trying to think here i think it's more east west um i think it's more south to north and also west to east is how it's training okay it's on a little bit of a hillside kind of going each direction okay and is it on a straight stretch of road um there's a curve just before the lot but then it's on the lot itself is not a lot of street frontage it's fairly straight but how far is the curve you know uh probably how long is it or how far is it from the far from the property um i'm not exactly sure probably 40 50 feet but one of the things we looked at with this lot was we thought it was imperative to have a place to be able to turn a vehicle around before you went back on the road just for safety concerns that was something whether it's you know whoever lives there. I think that's imperative that you have a way to turn around because it's, that would be a very dangerous situation at the back onto that road. I would not want that for anyone. I agree with you. Any questions for Mr. Arnold on this one? Are you going to live on this property? No, we haven't decided yet if we're going to build something that we're going to sell or rent, but we're very excited to do a project on this property and looking to do something kind of more of a cabin-like type property. Something that's only going to be a one-bedroom home with a one-car garage. It's not a very big piece of property at all to build. But again, the parameters of the lot with all things considered, when we look to this as far as the topography like you talked about, the road, wanting to be able to turn a vehicle around, again, we thought that was imperative. We've also been on the site with the health department multiple times looking at the soil and where it's feasible to put a septic system and also a backup system. All of that considers how we got to the site plan we have. We looked at a lot of factors and tried to put something we thought that was a good project moving forward. Did I answer your question okay? We've got some on the overhead. What are we looking at? Can you show us where this lot is? Trying to get my bearings here. Autumn, is that something you put up? This is just Google Earth. We may be able to pull it up on PVA and get some lot lines if we need. It looks like that's showing the 15th. A lot of it right there, which we're just up the hill. You want me to use this to point? Okay, let me look at them, and we'll let you do that. Let me let him look at it. They'll come down this way. While a lot of us getting on the PVA site, we're looking at your three photographs, and we'll have those for the record as well. Killing two birds with one stone. Sure. I've got a quick, you said you've worked with the health department and they are proposing a septic tank and a backup system. Yes, they always require that, a septic area then a septic backup area and that's how part of our proposal is why we have what we have because the site is so limited. Again, that was one of our first concerns was going to the health department to say what can we do, we actually have people out there with the machine to dig, the soil to check and make sure it would work also. So that was a big part of it. So you've worked with, you know, so you know that you're not going to get into, or do you know that, you know, ledge or rock or do you know? As far as in that back where that septic would go, we're okay. There is probably some rock in the front of the property, which would make actually the septic worse there. But as far as getting utilities, we may hit some rock, bringing them in. That's possible. Yes. That's, you know, a lot of sites have that. I mean, that's, but no, we had Kevin out there at the health department to look at it and what we can do. And initially we wanted to do maybe something a little bit more. He's like, no, you're going to be able to do a one-bedroom house here. That's all you're going to be able to do with the septic. So that was a huge decision. Where are you going to get drinking water from? There's actually city water available now on the property. It's out front on 8th and Spoonsboro. You don't need to rely on that well? No, no, we don't. And the well, we do know where that is. We've located that, and that is an active well. But there's a guideline. I've got it printed off if you want to see it. but the health department wants you to be at least 70 feet from an active well to the septic field. We're going to be well over that, probably more like 80, 85 feet. So we're meeting that guideline as well. Autumn, are we looking at the PVA lot lines? Right, yes, this is showing the property lines. So that sort of odd-shaped parcel there. You can see the white box as the road starts to curve up around there. I don't know the actual distance, but... Yeah, my question was really just whether or not the property itself was on a curve. It's not. It's on a straight section there. ladies and it looks like from your photographs that the that the road slopes tour the land slopes towards the road it it does in most part yes all right any other any questions Any questions? There is opposition, Mr. Arnold, so if you'll have a seat, we'll hear from opposition to your application and we'll call you back perhaps for rebuttal. There are people in the audience that are opposed to this application. Is that right? Raise your hand if you are. Okay. We'll hear from you one at a time. So come forward as you wish. lineup or not? I'm going to present some documents as well. Tell us your name please. Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Dana Denniston. I live at 7356 8th and Spoonsboro Road where my family has lived for 58 years. So I could answer some of your questions that Mr. Arnold could not. I can answer about the history of the property and other things, but I have some documents, and I'm not very techy. Do I hand them to you? Okay. In answer to the question of the history of the property, in 1941, this small section was, and the six acres above it, was cut off from the Pursley Farm, which was originally the Smitha Farm, across the road, which was 300 acres. So just to show that I know the answer to that one. And why was this particular small lot cut off from a larger piece of property? What was the reason for that? Do you know? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest, because I wasn't born in 1941, and I don't know. anyone who can explain that to me. Sure. One of the things that I've heard mentioned is that it represents a hardship if Mr. Arnold cannot build on this lot, if he does not get variances. I'd like to point out that in an agricultural rural zone, it's supposed to be hard to build, because that's not the primary intent, according to Article 8, Section 1. The intent of an agricultural zone is agriculture. It's rural. It's meant to be that way. And not every postage stamp little property that somebody can find is supposed to have a house on it. So the question that I would ask is, when is small too small? And this question was answered 18 years ago in 2001 because a former owner by the name of John P. Hall, he wanted to put a mobile home there, and he also put a mobile home there. It was removed because he couldn't get a permit. He couldn't get a permit because there was not sufficient setbacks or septic area to support a mobile home. And I have the documents for that. Gloria Martin was the councilwoman at the time, and I've discussed it with her, and I know that was the reason, plus I remember the incident. According to Article 8, Section 1, HINJ, if you do not have a 300-foot setback, you're supposed to have 50 feet from the front and 25 from all sides. His site plan makes that kind of unclear. So he's requesting to go from 25 to 5 or 6 feet on the sides and to go from 50 feet to 25 in the front. There's a reason that there are setbacks like that. The reasons include the fact that in the rural areas there are no public septic systems and you have to have area for sewage drainage, for road improvement, for privacy, for safety. And this lot, to say the least, is problematic. And this I would agree with Mr. Arnold's assessment. One thing that is not on his site plan that I'd like to point out is that, and I'm using here a survey that was done in 2010. Would you like me to go up on that? Yes. I'm going to hand them to you because I'm not very technical. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. I have... If you want me to put it up on the screen, and then you can use the pointer up there. That way they can see it better. Well, I can explain because my drawings are pretty simple. You're going to see parallel lines. That's the lot in question. And going to the lot is a telephone line, and it crosses the lot. You don't build under a telephone line. He doesn't show on his site plan where exactly he plans to build, but there's an easement under telephone wire. That telephone line, it also parallels the original roadbed of the Athens-Boonsboro Road, which was a state road. And as far as I could determine from the highway department, it's still a state road. And you don't build on a state roadbed either. You'll notice going north to east, there's a utility line. That is the closest utility line to that property. There are no electric lines crossing the property, so he would need an easement wherever he went, which involves cutting 40 feet wide swath of trees. He mentioned the septic. I also talked with the health department. I talked with Kevin Gephardt in the health department. And he said if there's an area that would percolate, it would be very, very small, one bedroom as Mr. Arnold has said. I don't even know honestly how he found that because that whole area is solid bedrock. This is a picture of the area. The white part that you see there is an outcropping. The rest of it is bedrock. The fence posts that were put there had to be drilled with a jackhammer through the rock and there in the area where supposedly there could be a septic system. According to Scotty Robertson in the Kentucky Division of Water, you need 100 feet away from a well for a leach field. You need, depending on the type of septic, anywhere from 50 to 70. In his site plan, he mentions that he's 90 feet. His leach field would be 90 feet from the septic. And I'll just hand them to you and you can, as you want. There is also on the southeast corner of this property a historic rock fence that is mentioned on the National Register of Historic Places for Boone's Creek Rural Historic District. It was built in 1800. It connects to the mill abutment, the original mill abutment on the creek, which was built in 1793. Remember I told you I could tell you about the history of this place. It's already been damaged by some of the excavation that's been done on the property, and I'll hand it to her. but you're going to see where the rock fence has been pushed by the dumps where they're pushing the dirt to level the lot. It is not on his lot. Here's the boundary wire, and over here is the fence. And we have a problem, too, with erosion because Boone's Creek floodplain is just down the hill from this lot, and it's a protected watershed area, and anything that comes off of this lot will flow towards that. One of the main problems, which has probably been mentioned by people from Clark County in their letters and also by the camp, is the traffic. Now one driveway does not increase the density of the traffic. It increases the danger. The way it increases the danger is this lot is located between two blind curves on a very narrow road that's barely two lane wide. It has no shoulders whatsoever. There's a field with a deep ditch and on the other side is a guardrail which is right against the road. The speed limit, this is a state highway, so Article 3, Section 3 of the Ordinance Code does not apply here. The state rules apply here. In this section, it's a straight section between two curves and the speed limit is 55. This was confirmed to me by John Terry of District 7 of the Kentucky Highway Department in a letter in which he said, for a state maintained highway, the site distance, which is the site distance you have to be able to see from either end of a driveway, I mean from both sides of a driveway, is 495 feet going at 55 miles per hour. And this section of Kentucky 418, which we have discussed, which is this, is in fact a 55 mile-hour posting. This is confirming what John Terry said. This is a chart of the speed limits at these speeds and the sight distance from AASHTO, which is the American Association of Safety Highway Transportation Officials. And it's basically confirming what John Terry had said. To give you a kind of a visual here, and I think they might want to see this, if you were looking, if you were, now these sight distances, they are 10 feet from the road and 3 and a half feet from the ground. In other words, they are as a driver would be if he was sitting in his car about to pull out from the driveway. This is what the road looks like as you're looking towards the southeast going downhill towards the camp. I'm standing actually in the driveway. I mean, it was taken from the driveway. You can barely see the edge of the bright lit part on the right is the edge of the property. Across the road you can see the cross of the sign of the Christian camp. You don't have 490 feet sight distance going to the southeast. And if you notice the guardrail, it's right on the road. There's nowhere for anybody to get off there. There's a ditch, a very narrow road, and then you have a blind curve. Now if you were looking towards the northwest, it looks pretty clear, except that car is approximately 90 feet from the driveway. And beyond that, you have maybe another 50 feet at most. The field has a ditch alongside of it, a drainage ditch, so it's very dangerous to get off the road there as well. If you need the actual distances, again, I refer you to the survey. What I've shown there, the property is obviously the kind of trapezoidal looking property on the bottom. The line up along the road is what the distance that that car in the last photo is actually, and that was about 83 feet. You cannot see more than 200 feet, between the O and the A, or underneath the D is where a big cedar tree is. And beyond that, you cannot see around that curve. In addition, I would like to point out that Deborah Garrison, who was the president of Southwest Clark County Neighborhood Association, she has also written about the traffic because But most of the people this affects either come from the church camp or they're coming from Clark County. I apologize that I'm not used to public speaking, so I'm kind of nervous. According to. Ms. Dennison, how much more have you got? You've been speaking for about 15 minutes. Believe it or not, I rehearsed. Okay. I didn't set a time limit on you, but you've been talking for about 15 minutes. Yes, sir. And I am almost done. I am on my closing remarks. Thank you. And I appreciate your patience. And let me say I admire your patience, too. I'm not sure I could sit all afternoon and listen to things like this. Okay. Okay, according to the Kentucky Statute 100.243 as well as the rules in Article 7, Section 2, I believe it is, for granting variances, you have to determine if the public health, safety, and welfare is affected. I would like to point out that I do believe it would be affected. It would be affected by the danger of the road of people going 55 miles an hour and people pulling out from a driveway from which they have inadequate sight distances. It would also be affected by the septic system, which would be inadequate. A single family residence, by definition, a single family is up to six people. I don't believe the septic system would support it. It would also alter the essential character of the area, which is a rural agricultural area, a historic area with rock fences. It would definitely cause a hazard and a nuisance to public safety, primarily because of the road hazard. It would be an unreasonable circumvention of zoning regulations because of the extreme variances that are being requested. And I'd also like to point out that Mr. Arnold measured this property for six months before he bought it in May for $20,000. So he knew the limitations. It was not a surprise. And before him, last year in July, Mr. Charlie Miracle had bought it for $10,000, a little bit of flipping going on there. And he too had measured it. This is the PVA record of the buying and selling history of this property. And finally, I've read your case report. You mentioned that the septic would be 90 feet, but that's not sufficient according to the Kentucky Division of Water, which says the leach field has to be 100 feet. You mentioned the hardship this would cause if he's unable to build. I'd like to repeat that, oh, by the way, there's a mistake. It's not supposed to be 30 feet from the side yard. It's supposed to be 25. feet is for an agricultural building, which this would not be. It also mentions in the case report this would be a hardship. I'd like to repeat that it's meant to be hard. You're not supposed to be allowed to build on every little postage stamp of a yard in an agricultural zone. It was intended to reduce that. Non-conforming lot, this is a non-conforming lot because there is no pre-existing foundation remaining and there are no plats that show the building. On a non-conforming lot you're not supposed to enlarge or expand the use of that. You're not supposed to encourage the survival of the uses of that. You also mentioned special circumstances. Again I refer you to the fact that a a non-conforming lot is not meant to be encouraged according to Article 4, I apologize, Sections 2. And finally, I'm not a mathy kind of a girl, but out of curiosity, I took the area that would be paved or roofed and compared it to the total area and if his plan is accepted 40 that's four zero of the total area of this lot would be either paved or roofed and i personally do not think that represents a rural or an agricultural use thank you i'm done thank you um melissa brown And also would like to speak. Thank you. I'm Melissa Brown. I live at 823 McCall's Mill Road, which is about a mile from this lot. I'm president of the Boone Creek Neighborhood Association. I have been for over 30 years. I also serve on a rural land management board subcommittee. And I admire your patience. It's a thankless job and I appreciate your time. I spent a lot of time crossing out things I was going to speak because Ms. Denison did an excellent job. I took a photo this morning of the lot from the far side of the road. The photo does not do it justice. How many of you have actually seen this piece of property in person? It's quite stunning to see how it's laid out and how it goes. Their list of requests is what I call a laundry list of why it's not acceptable as a building site under our current law. As Dana said, as a developer, the current property owner knew before purchasing the building this was going to be difficult, if not impossible. Yet he chose to proceed, including clearing the lot, assuming the changes would be allowed. And oftentimes, having done this, been down here a long time, I've seen the situation as we saw today that people come in and beg forgiveness as opposed to following the law. And they paint themselves into a corner, but it's not the Board of Adjustments job to saw a hole in the door allowing them to escape at this corner. Aside from these setbacks of five feet, if you want to get an idea of how close the building will be to the property line, Those fence panels generally run about eight feet, so you're talking about less than a fence panel distance to the side properties. I have concerns regarding the leach field. My husband's a civil engineer. He looked at the property with me. He laughed. Measuring the map that was in the packet, the best of my ability, the leach field is closer to 75 feet to the well. It's a rocky cliff location. our farm is called rock ridge for a reason this sits on what's called smitha cliff which overlooks the boone creek part of the boone creek palisades the permeability of the ground in the direction of the well water to the aquifer should be considered boone creek is a natural registered rural historic district we're very careful about the watershed of the boone creek area it's important As she was mentioned, the amount of development on this quarter-acre lot includes a house, a 30 by 15 garage, a leach field, a water well, a 90-foot driveway, plus a turnaround. In mid-July, Mr. Arnold mentioned on Facebook he was building his little cabin in the woods. Well, that certainly does not sound like a little cabin in the woods when you think of the amount of development that will be on this property. The Boone Creek Watershed has already been declared an environmentally sensitive area. It could easily be qualified for an AN zone. And the Rural Land Management Board master plan is to preserve these areas, and that's what we're working to do. His plan does not indicate an effort to blend into the neighborhood, but to have a quick turnaround on an investment. The property may be on the edge of Fayette County. It is in Fayette County. I represent Fayette County. In fact, Boone Creek, I don't come down here very often. We try to concern ourselves with what I consider countywide, important, rural, agricultural issues. I don't come down here for every little, in fact, there were three things today I could have spoken about. This is the one I chose to speak on because I want to look at things that impact the county, that impact the future of Lexington and Fayette County. And even though this property is on the edge of Fayette County, it's small, it's unnoticed by most. You might drive by it and not see it before a lot of the trees were taken down and a part of the wall was taken down. But the precedent set by this situation will affect property in Fayette County for years in the future. as every little piece of what I call these handkerchief properties will be looked at by developers to grab and put a house on because they are not really suitable for large agricultural business. So please, your decision should not be taken lightly, and I thank you for your time. Ms. Brown, I have a question. Yes, sir. There are other small lot homes in this part of the county, are there not? Very few. Most of them are also grandfathered in. Okay, most of them are? And none of them are not this small. Yeah, some of them are even close to the road. Yes, sir. Most of them have had buildings continuously on them. They've gone in and taken the building. Apparently the cabin that was on this lot historically, the foundation is not even there. Right. It's no longer there. And that makes this a little bit different from the ones that have been in continuous use. Any other questions for Ms. Brown? And sir, I've been watching. A lot of the lots that are small, are close to the low, they predate the ordinances. Yes, I understand a lot of the lots that are small lot homes predate the ordinances. I understand that. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I've been down here a lot over the years, and I just want to thank you to do an outstanding job moving this along and being very fair, and I appreciate that. Thank you. I know a lot of people leave happy, and I've gone on both ends over the years. Thank you. I understand. Are there anyone else to speak in opposition? Okay. Mr. Arnold, you get a chance to rebut what you've heard. I'm curious about the overhead line, utility line. Okay. First of all, in fact, that's one of the things that I had on my list to ask you that I didn't ask you. Yeah, our house will not be in that utility line. And I met with, let's see here, what is his name? It looked to me the line ran close to the house but not over it. That's correct. I met with Kevin Grisby of Windstream on October 19th, and the house is not going to be in that line. He says as long as the house is not underneath that line, we're fine. And that's the case. We're not going to be underneath it. Is there a, do you have to be a certain distance from a line? No, you don't. He said it's actually, there's not a written easement with this phone line. It was put in sometime in the late 60s, but it's been there enough time. He called it a prescriptive easement, but there's no actual guideline that he said that I have to be a certain distance from it. Just don't be underneath it, which we will not be underneath it. So we have verified that. Okay. What about the roadbed argument? The roadbed argument? There was a comment in one of the letters we got, and Ms. Denison mentioned it, that there's an old roadbed that runs through this particular piece of property. Are you aware of that? I'm not aware of that. There is a piece on the property that looks almost like a berm, and that might be what she's talking about. I don't know the significance of that issue, though. I don't understand what that means. I don't think that was one of the main objections that they had, but it was mentioned. I thought I'd bring it up. What do you have to say? I try to take notes. I'm going to try to address these things best I can, Dana. That was interesting to hear, by the way, the history of the 1941. I appreciated hearing that. That was good to know. Dana knows a lot of history in the area, which I would like to learn sometime in another discussion. She's very knowledgeable on things. but as far as I understand what she's saying, the mobile home argument, I wasn't aware of that, that they tried to do that, but it sounds like it was turned down because of the septic system. I don't know all the parameters of that discussion, but I would suppose they had more than one bedroom on the mobile home, which would make it, again, what we're trying to do is a one-bedroom. You're almost working backwards. You're looking at what you can do with a septic and then making the house fit that parameter is how we're doing this. And if I didn't say this, I am a home builder by trade. I've done this for 27 years. so this isn't new to me, this kind of stuff. As far as, let's see, talk about the telephone line, utility line. Let's see. As far as the other things you brought up about the well, I've got a document here. I printed it off the website. This is from our health department, but it clearly shows 70 feet is what's required, and we're going to be well over that. I don't know if you want to submit that to the record or whatever, but that's something I think is important. Again, we're trying to pay attention to all these issues. And as far as the setbacks and all, I understand her point about being a hardship in an agricultural zone, but we are trying to build something here. And it's something that it's very possible one of our children will live there. They're in college right now, and I'm sure you all know with Fayette County the land issue we have in trying to make affordable housing. And this is going to be something that's going to be affordable housing, which I'm very passionate about for our community, and it's extremely difficult to do. We're doing the best we can to make those things happen, and a property like this is really important to make that happen. It's only one residence, but it's still helping the cause because they're saying in that study we need 22,000 home sites, counting homes and apartments in the next 10 years. We're building about 600 homes a year right now. We're not going to meet it. So I don't know if any of you all have children or they're going to be out in the workforce and stuff, but I do, and I really do care about that and where they're going to live. And I also live in this neighborhood right now. I live at the top of the hill. You know, what she was saying about traffic, you know, we're on a place where we're near a curve, too. And it's something that, you know, you do look to get out. But, I mean, not to throw stones here, but even Dana's house is at the top of that curve. I mean, I don't wish anything ill upon her by any means. but it's still a similar with the the i can't remember the number she said it was 400 feet or something but that's almost impossible to meet at any place up and down that road the way it does curves and bends around i mean that's something it's one of the beauty of the area but that's that's something even with her own house she's not meeting that condition i'm not suggesting you do anything to move her your house or driveway but um but that i know but i'm just saying for a general safety standpoint i mean i you know i'm very concerned about that on on safety um let's see the watershed she mentioned about i mean water does drain through the lot right now already but it's not something we're changing we're not going to add to the amount of water that's going to run down that watershed that's not if anything will probably improve it um but again the traffic issues she mentioned. The part about 40% of paving, I haven't done the calculation, but the driveway, we're planning on a gravel driveway. I don't know if that's important or not, but I wasn't planning on it being paved. Just talking about overall construction and pavement, that's not something we were going to do. What about the argument that this property is in an agricultural zone and therefore it It should be difficult to build a residence on a small fragment of real estate. I mean, this is not a residential zone. This is an agricultural zone. Well, it's true. It's a true statement. It is difficult. I mean, it is. I mean, that's something we're trying to do, but it is difficult. But there's also a lot of homes out there that are similar to this. There's a lot of homes. If you go up and down Cleveland, Athens, Boonsboro, McCalls, those areas, there's some homes that are half acre, one acre, whatever. they're they're all it's it's one of the beauties of the area you're going to see anything from mentions to small homes to trailers to it's what makes it neat i mean it's what gives area character it's a it's a beautiful place out there and and we love it and we've been out there a long time and hope to stay a long time um but that's you know i think it's wonderful but as far as the leachfield comment that i think miss brown i think her name i didn't quite hear her but um the leachfield um i'm not a civil engineer like her husband but i mean we've done that with the authorities to try to say what can we do it's not just me making this up it is actually with the professionals out there telling us what to do and doing the test digs we did 24 inch test dig of really good clean soil he's going to want 12 inches of additional topsoil on that lead shield to make it work to make it perform so it's a very specified system when they do these septics it is not just making it up it is they will tell you exactly what to do and where you can do it so everything we're trying to do we're trying to meet all those guidelines like i said in the very beginning there's a lot to consider on this and we're doing the best we can to present something that we think is going to be a wonderful project so i hope i've answered all the questions i don't know if i really did but i've tried here does anybody on the board have any questions for mr arnold so are there trees still on the lot yes there are trees still on the lot you've just cleared an area We took some trees down that we knew were going to be in the way of the septic and also the house area. I mean, I would love to keep all of them, but I can't do that. But there's a heavy wood background right behind our property that's a beautiful backdrop. But as far as, yeah, what I think, I'm excited about this place. I mean, yeah, cabin in the woods kind of stuff. I think it's, I'm excited, I mean, to do this and hope we make something beautiful for the neighborhood everybody will like. Thank you. That's all. That's all, thank you. Thank you. Any further questions from the board to applicant or objectors or staff? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion for approval for PLNBOA 19-65 Gatewood Arnold Construction's request for variances to reduce the required front yard setback from 50 feet to 25 feet, Two, to reduce the rear yard setback from 25 feet to 24 feet. Three, to reduce the side yard setback from 30 feet to 6 feet on the northern side. And four, to reduce the side yard setback from 30 feet to 5 feet on the southern side in order to construct a single family residence in an agricultural rural zone at 7380 Athens Boonesboro Pike based on the staff's recommendations and subject to the two conditions listed. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Is there a second? I second the motion. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. All in favor, indicate your vote electronically. The motion carries 3 to 2. Just barely carried. Mr. Arnold, your project is approved. Thank you very much. That concludes the agenda for the Board of Adjustment for today. Are there any other matters to come before the Board? Mr. Chair, before Mr. Needham left, he asked me to inquire about the availability of the PVA site. And was questioning the change in the site and if it individually costs us funds to look at that. And I couldn't answer that question. I was hoping the staff could. One of the resources that we rely on as board members is the PVA site, which has proven to be pretty helpful in looking at all aspects of this. And sometimes we'll pull up the PVA site while we're here in session even to look at it. I've noticed myself that they have changed the site. They have. I don't think they're charging money, but you do have to register, as I understand it. There is a subscription cost if you do a certain number of searches. my understanding is that you can have i believe 22 searches per day is it i think it's 22 it may be 22 in a month or 22 in a day um for with a free account you do have to sign up for an account but there is some there is a free level as long as you register for an account which i would imagine would be a sufficient number of searches for your purposes for the board um okay um Could you find out specifically and so we know exactly what that rule is and how it affects us and send us an email? Is that a possibility? Sure, yeah, I can look into that. I'd appreciate it. Mr. Needham, I'd appreciate it. Sure. And if it turns out that it is 22 searches per month. I believe it's in a day because I was talking to Mr. Needham about this and it was- It's a really high number. Yeah, he was- It's almost somewhere. Is it, sorry? Yeah, I was going to say, I believe it's more like 50. Sure, okay. I believe it's. In a month. Okay. I understand, I mean, the PVA website is very valuable to us. And we're lucky to be able to search the PVA website for free. Most counties in Kentucky, as I understand it, charge a subscription price to even look at it. So we're very fortunate that David has given us that service at little or no charge. So I hope he continues to do that because it's a valuable resource to all of us. Thank you very much. Any other matters to come before this board? Hearing none, our next meeting is October 14th, and we stand adjourned.