He tried to forgive me for what I'd done there Cause I never meant the things I did I gave me something to believe in But there's a load of others I gave me something to believe in Oh, a load of lies My best friend died an early man Some calls him the terror I got the call last Christmas Eve And they told me the news I tried all night not to break down and cry As tears rolled down my face I felt so cold and empty Like a lost soul out of place And the mirror, mirror on the wall Seemed to start to face again I gave me something to believe in But there's a load of others I gave me something to believe in Oh, a load of lies It's time to wish to God I didn't know now The things I didn't know then Wish I didn't know . . . We'll move in and take your seats, please. . . . I want to call the meeting of the Planning Commission September 26th meeting to order. Just file in and have your seats, please. Approval of minutes. Do we have any minutes? Carolyn? Thank you. Move approval of the August 22nd minutes. Second. Motion been made and seconded. Please vote when it comes up on your screen. I've got one on the record. Just give her a second. Just give her a second. It'll come up. . . . . . . Motion passed. Thank you. Any questions and withdrawals? Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. Jacob Walburn today on behalf of Aptitude Development. If I could turn your attention to page three, item number two on your agenda, PLN MAR 19-13. We're going to be requesting a one-month postponement for that case, which I believe would be your October 24th meeting. Can you give us the reason for that, please? We received a staff report late Tuesday that was unexpected and have not yet had an opportunity to react beyond visceral, emotional reaction, but to react in terms of development plans, amendments, and things like that. That's fine. Thank you. Chair, I'll entertain a motion to postpone until October 24th. Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Motion for postponement of MAR, PLN MAR 19-13, Aptitude Development, until October 24th of 2019. Motion has been made and seconded by Ms. Plumlee. Please vote when it comes up on the screen. Ms. Plumlee. I haven't seen you yet. There you go. Vote on the screen. Thank you, Mr. Waldron. Thank you all. Good afternoon. Nick Nicholson here on behalf of the applicant, Ball Holmes. I'd like to request a one-month postponement also to the October 24th meeting for, on page two of your agenda, item number one, MAR 19-10. We recently filed an amended application on this, and so we will be going back through the committee process and hope to be able to present at that October meeting. So you do want it on the 24th? Yes. All right. You heard the request. Chair, I'll entertain a motion. Carol. Mr. Chair, I move postponement of PLN MAR 19-10, Ball Holmes, until October the 24th. Second by Ms. Mundy. Vote when it comes on the screen, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. Any other postponements or withdrawals? If not, then we'll move to the bottom of page one. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, the first item on your agenda is a preliminary development plan. It is on page one. It is 19-05, the James McComb Track 2 property, located at 2020 Russell Cave Road. Here you can see Russell Cave Road. This is the connecting street system that comes into the proposed development. You recall there was a zone change recently on this property. That plan was postponed at that time and is now back before you for your approval. There are 53 single-family lots on the property. This area right here is a proposed detention. You can see that they're going to extend local streets into this property in anticipation of its future development, which is recommended under the EAMP. There are buffer areas that were established through these areas adjacent to the single-family homes, as well as a buffer area adjacent to this existing home and property in this location. There is a setback relative to this zone that impacts this part of the property as well. This plan in and of itself, as you can see, is relatively simple and straightforward. This is a revision. There was a slight revision. If you look on page 2, there were only two cleanup conditions, 7 and 8. They've actually met those conditions on this plan. At this time, there is only sign-off conditions remaining on this particular plan that you see before you today. I will emphasize something I believe that you all are well aware of. This is a preliminary development plan in the expansion area. You will see a final development plan, preliminary subdivision plan, again on this property before a thing can be built. At that time as well, they will provide, as required under the ordinance, statements addressing design, infrastructure, and those items consistent with the EAMP. Of course, those, as always, will be evaluated, reviewed, and a report by your staff will be presented to you at that time. Again, I know you've heard a lot of discussion about various issues and that, and those will all be addressed in depth at the time of the final development plan, preliminary subdivision plan. Your subdivision committee did recommend approval of this plan, and I'll answer any questions you may have for staff. Any questions for Mr. Martin from the Planning Commission? If not, thank you, Mr. Martin. Applicant? Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the Planning Commission. My name is Zach Cato. I'm an attorney at Billings Law Firm. I represent the applicant in this matter. My comments will be very brief. We are in agreement with the staff's recommendation, as it only requires sign-offs anyway. That's great news to us. You may recall this has been a long process since we went through the zoning process earlier this year. There was some conditional zoning put on this piece of property, as Mr. Martin indicated, that required some buffer yards, some building setbacks to protect the existing neighborhood. Those are represented on this plan and are in place now. We've also met with this neighborhood on multiple occasions to discuss their concerns, and we've made revisions throughout the process since earlier this year as a result of those meetings to accommodate their concerns the best that we can to be good neighbors to the existing neighborhood that's out there. I met most recently on Monday night with the owners of the 2060 parcel, which is the spot that's carved out up here, this rectangular shape, that are most impacted by this. I can't say that they're in support of this development, but I will say that they appear to me to be satisfied with the revisions that have been made and the efforts to accommodate them as far as the design of this project goes. That's really all I have to say about this. I appreciate your time and attention to this application throughout the last several months, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Any questions for the applicant? Thank you, sir. Anybody in the audience want to comment on this one? This is the time for audience comment if you have on this particular development plan. Yes, ma'am. Come forward, please. Hello. My name is Catherine Perkins, 258 Swigert Avenue. I'm speaking on behalf of myself and a few of the homeowners that live nearby who signed petitions and also permission for us to represent them at this meeting and at the last meeting. I gave you a handout that pretty much explains, but I'll try and make it brief and reiterate that I'm not against infill and redevelopment. I'm not here fighting this development plan as much as I'm fighting that you, our planning commission, voted to pass this EAR2 zone map amendment, but you stated that density was a big issue for you. At the meeting on April 25th, it was very late in the evening, and it was a unanimous vote. The density that was agreed was too much for this property. So the answer was to pull mixed-use, single-family attached homes from the development plan, but that did nothing to control density on this property. I tried to let the planning commissioners know that density on this property needed to be conditioned and that this property did not have to be EAR2. It could have been EAR1. But that's passed, present. This property is allowed accessory use, ADUs. You're going to hear about ADUs in a minute, but this property doesn't have the same regulations that are in effect right now. This property can, any homeowner, lot owner, can put an ADU up on their property. That potentially doubles the density of this property. I don't know if this property can be conditioned, either with deed restrictions or conditions in the development plan stage, to somehow keep the density, which is something that you, our planning commission, did not like, to not go to double or even more. And this is another thing that was failed to be told to planning commission on the April 25th meeting is that the density for this property, with density transfer rights, can increase to nine dwelling units per acre. That's going to be, that's without ADUs. So you're looking at, and then with ADUs, potentially 144 dwelling units per acre on this small property. Now this is a preliminary development plan. It doesn't show exactly, it's not the subdivision plan. I don't know what you can condition. I don't know if you can condition deed restrictions or if you can do anything to keep this property from becoming developed to its fullest ability according to our ordinances. And that's my concern and my worry is that it will be built to that, that it is capable of being built to that ability. We've been told, we being the neighborhood association board members, that the current applicant is considering selling lots, not doing the development, putting the actual homes. I don't know if this is true or not true. But I know at this time, if I buy a lot, I can also go in, build my own home, and chop down any tree that our city and our urban forester has deemed substantial and tree canopies that have been deemed by our city to be important and worth saving. I don't know if those can be included in deed restrictions or somehow down the road from being destroyed. I think those are important to keep in mind. I think it's also important to let you know on page 3 of my handout I gave you, it's page 3 of the EAMP, and highlighted on it is something that this development plan is in total opposition of. Traffic to and from expansion areas should be directed away from existing residential neighborhoods, which are adjacent to. This development plan dumps all the traffic into an existing neighborhood. And it speculates the future, that people are going to move, they're going to sell off, because we're going to push them off, we're going to make them leave. Who wants to have a small farm right next to 144 dwelling units, if it is potentially developed to its fullest capacity? On page 4 of the handout I gave you, the expansion area 3 does say medium to low density. To me, if it is with a full density that it's capable of with the accessory dwelling units, that becomes high density. It's not 53, it's 106 dwelling units. So I think that these are things that if you can adjust, staff, I guess, can tell you what you can do. I couldn't find it in my research. I'm learning this whole game as I go. And then the other concern is where people build the ADUs. Because if the applicant becomes the developer, builds the houses, he'll do everything that the city makes him do. And individual people, when they build their house, I guess, will place it where the city tells them. But when it comes to the ADUs, they can place them anywhere. On the environmentally sensitive areas, they can take down the trees, they can place them on the alluvial soils without any restrictions. I assume, I don't know. The other thing I have concern about is that in the EAMP, it speaks of Swigert Avenue being a rural scenic road and worth protecting. Now, it does specifically state that no development, new development, can have direct access to Swigert Avenue. Swigert Avenue is the street I live on. It's a very rural street, it's a beautiful street. We have already seen cut through traffic triple in the last year and a half. Our BOA gave commercial landscaping business conditional use of running a tree nursery. They changed the name of a landscaping business into a tree nursery that has semis accessing our street on a daily basis and heavy-duty trucks up and down hauling trees in and out constantly. This subdivision, emptying into Eden Court only, people will head north on Pearson. If they don't want to go from Faulkner out onto Russell Cave Road but they want to go to Paris Pike, they're going to cut through our neighborhood. They'll cut through on Swigert because everybody's cutting through on Swigert. So I think that this street needs to be protected and needs to be kept into consideration in the traffic for this development plan. And I think that might be all the time I'm going to waste of yours. So thank you. Take the letter home, read it. Maybe it'll help you another day down the road. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Perkin. Anybody else want to comment on this development plan? Good afternoon. I'm Jo Seeger. I live at 689 Kingston Road. I just wanted to tag onto what Catherine said, especially about the environmental issues of the land, but of the environmental issues that 100 more cars through our neighborhood will be causing. We have a police report for a year's time that there's 100 wrecks in a six-block area from Hagrid Lane to Parkside. You're adding 100 more cars to that area for potential more wrecks or even for anybody to try to get in and out of the neighborhood at all anymore. I also wanted to be concerned about the tree cover. We have a flood zone area in our neighborhood. The spring rains that we had heavily flooded particular areas, which are downhill from this property. We want to make sure that that is taken into consideration for any development that is occurring here. Thank you very much. Any other comments on this development plan? Any rebuttal? On behalf of the applicant, just very briefly, I will let staff, if they have comments to make about the ADU issue, comment on that. I think that's what there's going to be a lot of commentary on today anyway. But that has not been adopted yet, and it's separate from what's being considered here today, which is a preliminary development plan. So I don't think that needs to be discussed too much further at this time. As to the comments about density, as I recall the comments from the Planning Commission in April were reminding of the push to have increased density within the urban services boundary to protect the horse farm areas. And the concern was instead a design concern about the townhouses, which previously were on this plan, that have been removed as a result of the conditional zoning. The density allowed in this lot is 53 lots, and that's what we have. So there's no density issue here, and there's no density transfer being sought at this time, or I don't think it could be sought at this time, but it's not being, regardless. Finally, as to the tree canopies, on our plan is a tree inventory map and a tree protection plan. The urban forester went out and walked this property after we submitted our plan in April and revised it and actually took trees off that were previously protected. And the reason is there used to be a landscaper's business and a tree nursery on this property, and there was a bunch of overgrown stuff that was basically scrubbed or was diseased or dying. So that revision, which has been sort of informally approved by the urban forester, resulted in a reduction of the number of trees that needed to be protected. Notwithstanding that change, we've done everything we can to preserve trees as much as possible, particularly around the edges of this property to create additional buffers that will benefit the existing neighborhood as far as minimizing the impact of noise and light by this new development. Lastly, with regard to traffic, this development was small enough that traffic engineering determined there was no traffic study required, and so one was not done. That was discussed extensively previously, and there's been no issue raised by staff as far as traffic goes in that regard because of the small size of this development. Thank you. Now, the two ladies that had comments about it, do you have any rebuttal to just what he said? Again, I don't know what can be done at this stage. I do know that density was an issue for you guys and that you did nothing to condition it. I know that staff didn't tell you at the time that this property could potentially have double the density, if not more, with the other things that are allowed in the EAR property. I don't know if that is anything that you can deal with now or not. But I do know that deed restrictions may keep people who buy the lots from doing the ADUs without going through certain steps. Maybe you can put a condition on that they can't destroy what the forester has deemed worth saving in their yards. I don't know if you can do that. But I do know that there are conditions or deed restrictions that could be put on to not allow this. Maybe a deed restriction saying no density transfer rights later. I don't know if you can do that. That's a question for staff, but I hope you ask it, and I hope you take that into consideration in the decision that you make now or farther down the road when it comes to you. And the next time you say you don't like density, even if it's at 830 at night, do something to condition density. Right? Thank you. Before Mr. Martin comes, I want you to understand this is a preliminary. We will see the final development plan. And that's when you would do that type of thing. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, in fact, I was going to speak to that issue just very briefly to clarify. You will see a final development plan, a preliminary subdivision plan, which will allow you to address some very specifics, including if there are significant trees that need specific protection, which we have done in the past and we will continue to do, and it's something this body is empowered to do. In addition, the applicant spoke to this, and the report speaks for itself. There were not a lot of staff concerns with this proposed development. Traffic did not have a lot of concerns. Fire, we addressed those concerns. In terms of streets and one-way and difficulties getting in, yes, this is a long way back through the neighborhood. However, that neighborhood, which was built in 1958 through the early 60s, was also built in pieces in a part of time. That road system that exists in that neighborhood wasn't built at one time. It was built in a series. That happens with most developments. They happen over time. That development will eventually be connected to the north when that property is developed. As to deed restrictions, that's up to the private property owner, the developer. They are welcome to place deed restrictions on the property. You all have conditioned the density in that there was a cap of dwelling units placed on this property, 53. That's it. It's conditionally zoned to that many units. Accessory dwelling units are allowed by right in the expansion area. They are. They've been allowed since the ordinance was written in the 1990s, mid-1990s. So that's true. However, they are dwelling units. And unless that change to the ordinance that you're going to talk about today addresses that issue, well, this property is bound to 53 dwelling units. Thank you, Mr. Martin. The chair is going to close the hearing and turn it over to the commission for any comments and or motions that they want to make. Carol. May I ask the applicant a question? Certainly. This is for the applicant. Mr. Cato. Do you know if they plan to have a homeowner's association? It's my understanding on those properties developed, there will be one. It's a standard practice at this point. And there would be requirements to observe those covenants and restrictions like in any other neighborhood. Thank you. Mr. Graham. Mr. Powell. I also have a question for the applicant. Could you explain why the street system is not connected to Russell Cave Road? There is a sight distance issue coming across the bridge on Russell Cave Road that basically if you come across there, it's kind of hard to tell from the development plan, but when you're driving down through there, there's not enough distance from the end of that bridge to turn in right there. And it was determined, I think there's a regulation on point, I'm not certain, but traffic engineering told us it's just not feasible there. If the property at 2060, which is that little carve-out rectangular one that I showed you earlier, I said we've been working with their neighbors, if that develops in the future, that may change that and allow access to Russell Cave Road, but right now we're being told that that's simply not possible because of the dimensions in there and the sight distance that's required. If I may. Yes, Mr. Martin. If I may. Please. Staff has adamantly opposed any connection to Russell Cave at this time. There needs to be changes to Russell Cave Road before we would consider access at this location. Thank you. Anybody else on the commission? No further comments, no further questions. The Chair will entertain a motion. Karen. Mr. Chair, in light of all the discussion we've heard today, I appreciate these folks coming down and their concerns. I think staff has done a diligent job in searching through this and putting things in perspective, and I think the applicant has worked well with staff to make this happen. And in light of that, I will move for approval of PLN-MJDP-19-5, James R.B. McComb Tract 2, and portion of Tract 1 with the eight conditions as set forth by staff. Motion has been made and accepted by Mr. Forrester. All in favor, vote on it when it comes up on the screen. Thank you very much. We will now move into the public hearing phase of what we're here today to do. I want to, before Mr. Taylor makes his presentation, I want us all to be on the same page here today. This is a public hearing for the ZOTA-19-5 accessory dwelling units. There will not be a vote taken today. We're here to hear what you all have to say. We will come back on the 21st of October. This will be on a Monday. This will be the only item on the agenda. And the Planning Commission will hear what you have to say today. And we will be ready to respond to what we've heard. And we'll be ready to take a vote on it, hopefully, at that time. So at this time, I'm going to turn to Mr. Taylor. We are going to do a three-minute time limit. I don't know how many people want to speak. We can work that out as we go. But let's get started with this. I want you to pay attention not only to what we're saying, but I want you to pay attention to what your fellow citizens are saying. Mr. Taylor will open this with a presentation of the ADUs. Then we want to hear what you all have to say. And we'd certainly like for you all to listen to what your fellow citizens have to say so we don't be redundant over and over and over. At this point, Mr. Taylor, we'll start with you. All right. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, thank you. The next item on your agenda is on page four. It is item number one under item C, ZOTA 2019-5. It is an amendment to Articles 1, 3, 8, in this case 22 and 23 of the zoning ordinance. The staff did give you earlier this week digitally copies of correspondence that we've received. I do have an additional packet of that correspondence, as well as any additional correspondence that we've received up to around 1231 o'clock today. So I'm going to go ahead and pass that around. And just as another housekeeping matter, this item was recommended for approval at your last Zoning Committee meeting. And with that, we'll go ahead and we'll get right into it. Taking a look at sort of where we're going to go with this, we're going to talk a little bit about the context for the proposal, the why. We'll get into the ordinance, what the ordinance recommends, what it's calling for in the provisions. We'll do a look at some other communities, and we'll talk about the community response and public input that we've had, and then we'll wrap it up with projections and community impact. So to start off with, I think it's important for us to very broadly set the table that we have unique growth challenges in the city of Lexington. Our urban growth boundary, it does set us apart. It does make us unique, not just in the state of Kentucky, but really nationally. And that does require unique housing solutions as well. The 2018 Conference of Planning called for accessory dwelling units to address a very specific housing need. We've worked frequently and continuously over the last 18 months with community groups, including the Senior Services Commission, as well as neighborhoods and professional organizations, to discuss the concept of accessory dwelling units. And I can tell you the staff has done exhaustive, extensive research into the national best practices for accessory dwelling units. We've looked at all the challenges and the failures and the successes of other communities across the country. And the ADU proposal that we've put forward is rooted in the lessons learned from those communities throughout the United States in an attempt to try to get the ordinance right from the get-go. And the primary lesson that we've learned is that communities are not finding problems resulting from ADUs, that they're revisiting their regulations in order to further promote them. But the need overall for ADUs in our community, we expect to have another 80,000 people as part of our population by the year 2035. We estimate that around 30,000 of those will be senior citizens. And we know from recent studies from the AARP that around 87% of those seniors are looking to stay in their current homes, in their neighborhoods, in the places that they know, the places where they've made economic investment over time. And we also know from working with the Senior Services Commission that they've described sort of a continuum of care that basically takes you from your current home all the way to things like a nursing home facility. And that the number of options at that early end of the spectrum are few. They're the most affordable, but they don't exist. They're harder to come by. And so one of the options that the Senior Services Commission brought to us was the idea of accessory dwelling units as part of a way to keep seniors in their home for a longer period of time and keep folks from having to go into one of the other housing types that they may not need too soon. Thinking a little bit about what is and what is not in the ordinance. Basically the definition is a smaller, secondary, independent housekeeping unit on the same lot as a principal dwelling unit. They're completely independently habitable. And they provide all the basic requirements for shelter, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. There's four different types of accessory dwelling units. There's basically the new construction that you might see in the back. There's alterations of existing structures. You might have an existing attached garage or an addition to an existing structure. And then probably the most common type is an attic or a basement conversion. If we look at the cost per square footage to build an accessory dwelling unit, when you build a new detached structure, you have all the fixed costs of the principal structure. But you don't have any of the square footage to spread out those per square foot costs. It's very expensive to build a detached ADU. It's much more affordable to build the attic and basement conversions. And what we know nationally is around two-thirds, 70 to 70 percent of all accessory dwelling units are done as part of a conversion or an addition or some other existing structure that can be adapted to accommodate that. We do have accessory dwelling units already allowable in Lexington and Fayette County. In our expansion area in the mid-90s, the last major expansion of our urban service boundary, the EAR 1, 2, 3, and CC zones do allow for accessory dwelling units. Most of them have been deed restricted out through private covenants after the Planning Commission has approved those developments. But they are allowed as accessory uses in those zones. The proposed regulations in front of you would allow an accessory dwelling unit in all of our residential zones that have a single family detached housing type as a principal permitted use. So that would be our R1 zones, our R2, our single family lots, and R2, R3, and R4 zones. The provisions that are set forth in front of you allow for one accessory dwelling unit per single family dwelling per lot. And that's to ensure that the ADU remains subordinate to the principal structure as well as to minimize potential changes to the built neighborhood character. There is no minimum lot size restriction, and we think it's important to note that imposing a minimum lot size restriction would exclude many lots that may be able to accommodate a small accessory dwelling unit that might be done through an addition or a conversion of an existing space. And again, the size and scale of the principal structures are typically the defining characteristics of a single family neighborhood, not necessarily the lot size. The maximum size of an accessory dwelling unit would be 800 square feet. That would be whether it was attached or detached. The 800 square feet is a very widely used number across the country. There are some cities that allow bigger, and there are some cities that require smaller. Our Article 15 of the Zoning Ordinance that already regulates accessory detached structures, things like garages and sheds, has a different requirement that limits those structures to 50% of the principal structure or 625 square feet, whichever would be greater. So in the case of a small house on a lot, it would be possible that a detached ADU could be restricted to 625 square feet. Again, the provisions set forth in that requirement are for the same reason that we put forward here. Those accessory structures are meant to remain clearly subordinate and incidental to the principal structure on the lot. As far as the maximum floor area and lot coverage, those would be the same as the underlying zone. It's important to note that there are not lot coverage and floor area restrictions on our single-family zones except in the infill and redevelopment area. Those restrictions, again, would carry forward as it pertains to the construction of an accessory dwelling unit. And the same with the maximum height as defined already in Article 15, as well as the underlying zone for the principal structure. The current ordinance in Article 15, again, for detached accessory structures has an 18-inch side and rear setback. The initial draft that was proposed suggested moving the accessory structure setback from 18 inches to 3 feet. And again, the reason for that staff recommendation initially was to move that setback to be in keeping with what our smallest setback is for principal residential structures. Based on commission feedback, we did put that change back into the 18 inches. I think there were some concerns about creating nonconformities from the existing structures, as well as whether or not if 18 inches is unusable, an additional 18 inches isn't going to make a whole heck of a lot of difference in terms of usable space between the lot line. The biggest practical impact for someone building an accessory structure at 18 inches and then putting a unit in it would be that it would have to meet additional fire rating under the building code. And that is something that the homeowner would decide at the time they go to pull a permit, whether or not it would be something that they want to do in order to meet that fire code. Some of the design standards that were put in place. We recommended three design standards. And again, the point of these three design standards are to minimize the visual impact to a single family residential neighborhood. The goal is to, as much as possible, minimize any visual impact to an existing single family neighborhood and still allow for the unit to exist. For starters, there is a requirement that only one pedestrian entrance be permitted off of the primary front wall plane. So any accessory dwelling unit access point would have to come to the side or rear of the structure. Another aspect of the design standard relates to preserving the existing front yards of a single family neighborhood. So any detached accessory dwelling unit would have to go behind the primary wall plane. It's just as similar as garages would be. And last would be the location of exterior stairs to access say a converted upper level space, attic space, or adding a second story to say a garage. That would have to be located also, again, to the side and rear. We didn't want stairs coming off of the front of the property and disrupting the visual character of the neighborhood. As far as parking requirements go, an additional parking space would not be required. It would have to be located at the front of the property and the parking space would not be required, but they would be permitted. Requiring a space, again, that's a $5,000 to $10,000 expense on an accessory dwelling unit that may not be necessary in every context. We think it's important to not require additional impervious surface where it's not required, and it may not be needed. As far as style and materials go, elements related to style, they're not included in this ordinance. As I'll go through in just a minute with the accessory dwelling units manual that we've put in place, it has all of the best practices for determining the existing neighborhood character on each individual case-by-case basis as they would come in for their zoning compliance permit. We would go through the existing character and how that is defined on a street-by-street level, work with applicants to try to set a standard on the unit that could match the property, but again, if we were looking to define elements countywide for architecture and style, we don't believe that we could come up with those types of requirements that would broadly satisfy the entire community and the uniqueness of each neighborhood. And again, it's also important to note that where there are standards related to architecture or design elements, the H-1, ND-1, and deed restrictions, they already remain in place. As far as an owner occupancy requirement, there is not a recommended owner occupancy requirement for accessory dwelling units. Unless the dwelling unit is proposed to be used as a short-term rental, and I think it's really important to explain why that is. We currently do not regulate anything in our zoning ordinance in terms of residential uses by who owns the property and who lives in the property. That is an important consistency point from a regulatory standpoint of how we regulate zoning in Fayette County. And secondly, we want to prevent some significant barriers to financing that the owner occupancy requirement can put in the way of ADU construction. And what we know nationally is that requiring owner occupancy has shown to be one of the biggest detriments to ADU construction. And we'll go through a couple of scenarios with that in just a few minutes. However, we do recommend that there be an owner occupancy requirement for short-term rentals. And again, I want to make the point of why it's different for a dwelling unit. We are regulating the commercial use of a property in a residential zone. We currently have regulations for a bed and breakfast that requires an owner operator to live on site. We feel like we're maintaining consistency with just the only difference being the nature of how it was rented being online. There's a similar way that we regulate bed and breakfast. So again, our goal is to provide additional long-term housing. It is not to provide an additional boom to the short-term rental industry. So why these regulations? Why have we proposed these particular set of regulations? Again, we think that they're based on the national best practices using lessons that we've learned from a number of other cities across the country. They're equitable. They provide ADU opportunities and access to the widest number of residents. And again, they're consistent. This is what some other communities have done with ADUs that we think are pretty relevant to Lexington. So Durham, North Carolina is a city of around 275,000 people. They have two universities that comprise a student population of around 24,000 people. It makes their overall student population around 8.7 percent of their overall population. In 2012, they amended their ADU ordinance to remove owner occupancy due to a North Carolina Supreme Court case. As you see there, the city of Durham, North Carolina, and the city of Wilmington v. Broadus Hill III. I ruled that owner occupancy impermissibly regulated ownership rather than use. I won't make any qualifying statements about Kentucky's underlying statutes or whether we would be doing the same. I think the point is to say that this has been litigated before, and we don't want to set... I think largely from a planning perspective, we agree that we want to regulate use through public health, safety, and welfare, which is what our enabling legislation empowers us to do zoning under. The other city that we looked at that I think was an apt comparison was Fayetteville, Arkansas, a city that's much smaller than ours, but it has a student population of about the same size, 28,000. Almost a third of their population is students. Their urban county council removed their owner occupancy requirement in August of 2018 specifically to encourage the construction of more accessory dwelling units. Again, just for a comparison, we're roughly 323,000 people with a student population of around 29,000-30,000. Durham, North Carolina is a very apt comparison in terms of the overall student population here. Again, I'm going to come back to some of the projections in a little bit, but I just wanted to point out two cities that have colleges in them that have addressed their owner occupancy requirement based on finding a way to reduce the student population. They've addressed their owner occupancy requirement based on findings of what has been built in their community to date. Some of the community response that we heard, we'll start with where we started. In March of 2018, the idea for accessory dwelling units came out of discussions within the theme A of our comprehensive plan on neighborhoods. We pulled together experts for each theme, both inside the government, outside the government, and we talked with them about the issues that were important to them. It was important to them in terms of setting recommended policies in the comprehensive plan. One of them from the Senior Services Commission was this need for accessory dwelling units. Starting in the summer of 2018, while we were still working on the comprehensive plan, we began working with the Senior Services Commission to talk about how we could further their goals. In July of 2018, Ms. Stanbaugh from the Senior Services Commission came and spoke at one of the work sessions and talked about the need for accessory dwelling units. Later that year, in September of 2018, the Senior Services Commission received a grant from AARP to develop an ADU manual for Lexington. I'll tell you, the idea for doing the manual as a method of public education came from the city of Santa Cruz, California. They were lauded for their ADU manual that they've had almost 10 or 12 years. They update it almost annually as they update their ordinances. It's been a great tool for helping homeowner developers navigate the ADU process. We thought that would be a great way to start the educational components for accessory dwelling units. In January 2019, we finished up that ADU manual and we released it to the public. Through April and May, we did public input meetings that we hosted at the Senior Center. We advertised through over 1,000 commercials as well as social media and a very extensive email list that we would send out to folks letting them know that we were having these public input meetings for accessory dwelling units. In July of 2019, we released the draft of the proposal. We released that to the Planning Commission. In August, we held a public input meeting again at the Senior Services Commission. We developed an online form for feedback that you all have been forwarded all that feedback as well. We had a number of concerns raised. Out of the public input, we heard a lot of concerns. Over the past few months, we've been meeting with as many groups as possible to listen to those concerns and provide answers on why we think that this proposal addresses those issues. Many of the concerns raised, they've not shown to be issues in other communities that have an almost 20-year history of constructing accessory dwelling units. We found those meetings to be very constructive. We continue to meet once or twice a week with neighborhood groups to talk to them about accessory dwelling units. We look forward to doing more of those as we move this through the process. I would also like to point out, this is new for folks in our area. This is new in Kentucky. It is not done, to my knowledge, anywhere in the state of Kentucky. But to that point, no one else does land use the way we do land use already. There are the growth challenges that we have. Again, I think this highlights, again, the point that we have to come up with unique solutions. So again, some of the issues that we heard, particularly related to student housing. As members of this commission, I think you know very well that we handle student housing supply in sort of big chunks, big applications, three, four, 500 bedrooms at a time. We've seen that over the last 10 years substantially and regularly. The small-scale construction of accessory dwelling units would be a tiny fraction of potential student housing. As we've also talked about, it doesn't make economic sense to have that square footage limitation at around 800 square feet. And again, I think it's important to point out there's no evidence from any other college town that has accessory dwelling units that accessory dwelling units has exacerbated a student housing problem. And based on experience, again, with other cities, ADU construction starts out slow. It takes time for the lending industry, for appraisers, for builders to understand the product and start to offer it. And we see those. The Planning Commission sees those. The subtle and gentle intensification of a neighborhood through things like an accessory dwelling unit can have a stabilizing effect on existing neighborhoods, not a detrimental one. Things like short-term rentals, we heard. And it's important to point out how short-term rentals is a very separate issue from accessory dwelling units. To the extent that we have an issue or a problem with short-term rentals, we have a lot of homeowners absent accessory dwelling units. They're currently regulated by the code of ordinances. A council workgroup is working to address that issue. But the strongest regulation that we can put on a unit, we have done so through this proposed text amendment with the requirement of an owner occupancy for a short-term rental. That's not a provision that exists anywhere related to short-term rentals, anywhere else in the zoning ordinance for any other type of short-term rental. We've taken great care to come up with restrictions that define the character of an existing single-family neighborhood to make sure that they're kept in scale, to make sure that the visual character as you go down the street and look at the structures is not disrupted. We have set minimal design standards to ensure that they can conform with those characteristics. But we're not dictating style and materials, again, consistent with how we treat other principal structures in this community. Another thing that's very important to point out is that we do not accept the kitchen facilities. And we'll go through that again here in just a second as well. Since storm and sanitary, we heard concerns related to storm and sanitary sewers. Again, that is regulated through our code of ordinances. Those elements that are allowed for an ADU are already allowed. So an addition on the property would be allowed already. The impervious surface, additional bathrooms, could all be done today. However, if in the event of an accessory dwelling unit being built, it would go through the capacity assurance program because it would be adding a dwelling unit. So in that case, it's much more restrictive than if someone were to build just an addition on their property today. And again, I think one very important point to point out, too, is that one of the biggest issues in neighborhoods today related to storm and sanitary sewers is related to the improperly connected sump pumps. And it's very difficult for the Division of Water Quality to know where those are. So having a permit for an accessory dwelling unit also gives Water Quality a chance to make sure that sump pump is redirected properly, and the government offers cost sharing on that redirect program. But we also heard very clearly about the demonstrated need for accessory dwelling units. We heard from single folks who want to be able to afford a property in a neighborhood that they want to live in. We heard from seniors. We heard from people who have disabled children. It makes it very difficult to design a set of regulations that is only targeted to a certain group of people. Because when we target a regulation to a certain group of people, we are also saying that we don't want the outside of that particular group. So as far as projections and community impact, I think the last section I want to talk about here. Again, Santa Cruz, California, I don't think anybody would say we're just like Santa Cruz, California. No, it's a very small city in California. Just about every city in California has a very acute housing crisis. The cost of housing is very expensive. And we include that to point out that our growth boundaries, the restrictions that we have in place, while they're not creating an acute housing crisis of affordability in our community now, it could in the future. It likely will in the future, unless we provide areas and avenues for densification that doesn't harm neighborhoods, that can be inconsequential, that can fit in and be critical to a situation where we do have the housing affordability issues of cities like Santa Cruz. And so I think it's important to point out that they issue about 5.8 ADU permits for every 10,000 people in their communities. They issued 38 permits in 2018. And Durham, North Carolina, a city, again, very similar to Lexington, a college town with regulations very similar to what we're proposing. And again, I handed out to you a set of regulations from Durham County. They issued .58 ADU permits per 10,000 people. After their reform, where they got rid of their parking requirement and their owner occupancy requirement, they issued 16 permits. So if we're going to make a projection, I don't think it would be prudent for us to give you just a flat number. But if we were to build at the Santa Cruz, if we were to have a housing crisis of affordability and build at 5.8 ADUs per 10,000 people, we'd be looking at around 190 units. And the city is most similar to what we're proposing. Nineteen. The impact is negligible. And so I want to talk slightly a little bit about the practical impact on neighborhoods. In addition to single-family dwellings, I mean, that is allowed today with no square footage limit. The adding of a detached structure is already allowed, again, in Article 15, to the extent that we're allowing it under accessory dwelling units. The creation of additional parking space is an impervious surface. There's no limit on that today. That could be done today. There's no requirement on the choice of building materials for principal or accessory structures, again, unless you're in H-1 or any one. And sadly, as we've heard from someone already, the removal of tree canopy and the regulation of our tree canopy standards in our zoning ordinance is not something we regulate after the year. We do have an issue with enforcing the maintaining of tree canopy in areas, but that requirement is not changed by an accessory dwelling unit ordinance. Building a guest home, that's allowed today, allowed on single-family lots without a kitchen. They're free to rent. People are free to rent their property, again, without an owner-occupancy requirement today. Using their property as a short-term rental, as we all know, without a stove. That's legal today. And our guidelines for our N-D-1 areas, our H-1 areas, and those deed restrictions, they would still apply even with ADUs. There would be no change. And so I think what's important to note, what's different, what's allowed, what is proposed to be allowed from a physical character of a single-family neighborhood, there's nothing. The change is extremely minimal to the built environment. I'm sure folks are going to talk about neighborhood character in other ways, but the way planning staff defines the character of neighborhoods is through the built environment. So the last point I want to make is that the real land-use impact of accessory dwelling units is projected to be very small, but allowing the development of these structures will have a significant impact for the people that do need them, and to help with quality of life for a number of residents. But with that, I'll be happy to take any questions or begin the hearing. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. We're going to go into the public comment section, and we have 47 people signed up to speak. Mr. Devolian on my right here is going to call out the names, and we're going to try to keep the three-minute time limit. Not that we don't want to hear from you, but brevity would certainly be appreciated. And, again, listen to what your citizens have to say, and then we'll go to public comment. All right. First up is Ashley Smith, and then next would be Brittany Rothenier. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Ashley Smith, and I reside at 1171 Redwood Drive, and today I'm yielding my time to Brittany Rothenier. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Brittany Rothenier, and I'm the Executive Director of the Fayette Alliance. We are a coalition of citizens dedicated to achieving sustainable growth here in Lexington, Fayette County, through land use advocacy, education, and research. As we know now, the comprehensive plan identified quite a few things, infill development, land use efficiency, expansion of housing choice, enhancement of existing neighborhoods, all as primary objectives of our community policies going forward. These policies were necessary to accommodate growth, but also to maintain our high quality of life, preserve our neighborhoods, bluegrass assets, and our identity as a city. So we must work together to navigate the implementation of these policies in a way that both enhances our city and protects our citizens. For this plan to be successful, we must be committed as a community to seeing it work by being open to change and progress in ways that we have not seen in the past. This is difficult work, but I know that we as a city are up for it. We know Lexington is growing, our city's demographics are changing, and the data shows that more diverse housing options are critical to accommodate these trends. The most basic intent of ADUs, as you heard Chris Taylor talk about, is to provide an alternative housing choice that increases density through infill in an incremental way by using existing infrastructure. Further, they provide the opportunity for aging in place and creating additional housing units that fit within the needs of the city. We know that this will not completely solve our housing needs and are not intended to do so. Many efforts must be combined to meet these needs, and this is just one opportunity. Planning staff has clearly done their research on ADU ordinances around the country and proposed an ordinance here which would pave the way for the most likely utilization of ADUs as an actual housing option in Lexington. And the Fayette Alliance applauds the staff for all of their hard work. Many restrictions and caveats written into the ordinance may serve to actually deter this. The ordinance's effectiveness in Lexington, however, depends on ensuring that the mitigation of risks and the community's support outweighs the potential negative effect that it might have in our neighborhoods. So we must work with our community to act for our community. So while the staff has addressed many risks that are identified in the ordinance, particularly the potential for ADUs to be used as unregulated rentals in student housing does have the ability to threaten the quality and context of our neighborhoods. In order to better prepare the ordinance for adoption, Fayette Alliance would recommend the following to be further discussed and incorporated into the draft ordinance prior to its passage by the Planning Commission. Number one, expansion of the application of the existing limit of four unrelated persons to reside in one single family dwelling. Second would be owner occupancy for one of the two dwellings, whether that be the primary dwelling or the accessory dwelling. And then just as a general matter, enforcement process and research education for neighborhoods, educating them on how they go about addressing enforcement and making sure that they have the resources to do so. Fayette Alliance believes that additional discussion and incorporation of these particular items can work to lessen the burden on our neighborhoods, as well as maintain the effectiveness and achieve the goals that the ADU ordinance sets out to achieve. So in addition to the above, doing further research into establishing a process for rental licensing and inspection could reduce the burden of existing rentals on neighborhoods, promoting safe, affordable, appropriately maintained rental units that actually work to enhance neighborhoods and provide their own option for housing diversity. We think that successfully doing so could work to negate the restrictions that I just mentioned sometime in the future. Fayette Alliance is committed to being a supportive partner and reexamining this ordinance over time as it may need to continue to be in line, as it may need to change to continue to be in line with the goals and the desires of our community. On behalf of the Fayette Alliance, I thank you for your consideration. Mr. Rothmeier, if you will give us your address, I want people to come up and give your name and your address in case we need to get back in touch with you to expand on an idea or whatever we can do with you. Sure. Sorry about that. Brittany Rothmeier, 315 Cassidy Avenue, Lexington, Kentucky, 40502. Thank you. It was my mistake for not asking. Up next is Ann Graham. Start right over there with me. There you go. I'd like to thank the staff and the planning commission for allowing us to be here today. Your name and address, please. Ann Graham, 1225 Providence Lane, Lexington. Thank you. I was born in Lexington. I've lived here most of my life. I lived away for a few short years in San Francisco, Phoenix, Arizona, and Sun Valley, Idaho, and Menlo Park. You can tell when the discussion of ADUs is by a person with pie-in-the-sky hopes for their success, mostly monetary, or when a person who has real-life experience with ADUs, particularly rentals, talks about them. The dreamer discourages all discussion that might bring experience to the table. The practical person knows the negative impact these units can have in the demise of a neighborhood, causing it to become a rental slum. Unfortunately, the real reason for most people supporting ADUs might be to enrich themselves off this lucrative business opportunity, rather than to house the aged or handicapped. It shocks me to see that some of our elected leaders are indeed already in the business, and probably hope to profit even more from our government changing one-family lots into lots for two residences. Large commercial interests, like Mary Ann's, are also growing. Make no mistake about it, this will be the commercialization of our neighborhoods. The burden for these structures will be borne by the current residents, who, as good stewards, have ensured the stability of neighborhoods, paying for sidewalks to be replaced, replanting street trees, assuring safety through Neighborhood Watch, and more. ADUs are not paying taxes. They are not paying rent. And the Council Work Session on Tuesday, September 17th, showed how it is near impossible to get them to pay any taxes in a gig economy. We will be footing the bill. Putting two residences on a lot designed for one will mean doubling up on our utilities, sewers. Sewage can mingle with stormwater in basements during heavy rain events in our neighborhood. We will also have to pay for the construction of our gas leaks, many in our area, and water. Recently, a main water pipe broke on our street. Street parking will cause our two-lane streets to narrow to almost one, as eight unrelated people and their cars will be allowed to reside on residential property. Surely this is not the only solution to housing needs. UK seems to be quickly building nicer homes, and we will need to make sure that we are not the only solution to housing needs. UK seems to be quickly building nicer dorms to house its students. Already small, assisted living facilities like Ashton Terrace are being built closer to the homes where our loved ones live. Imagine an affordable one in the Adelaide subdivision, just behind the shopping restaurant area and close to our new senior center. There is already bus service, and the walkability is just what is called for in our comprehensive plan. This will allow easy access for families to supervise the professional, round-the-clock care that is hard to come by in an individual residence. Just as we were the first community in the country to create the Urban Service Boundary, we can be more creative with our solutions to the housing problems which are a result of those boundaries. Healthy, family-oriented, walkable neighborhoods make less of a problem for our residents. Healthy, family-oriented, walkable neighborhoods make Lexington great, and hopefully will remain our best asset. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Next is Marcia Bloxam. And then Walt Gatfield. I don't think Marcia is here. Walt? I'm Walt Gatfield. I'm president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. I live at 2001 Bamboo Drive in Lexington. I'd like someone to donate three more minutes to me, please. Okay. Thank you. I'm not going to give you a PowerPoint or anything like that. I'm going to kind of speak off the cuff. I don't know what the impact of this is going to be. In Portland, Oregon, last year, there were nearly as many ADU permits issued as for single-family detached houses. I think it was probably maybe 600 and 700 or something like that. So you really don't know. There's going to be a very minute impact. It may not be a large impact at first, but it's going to head in that direction. One, owner occupancy not required. That essentially means you can have two rental units. One, it can be attached, it can be detached, but you're going to have two rental units. Or it can go that way. Second item, under this, each ADU and a house is considered a dwelling. And each dwelling can have up to four unrelated renters, which is going to, you know, greatly increase density and increase income from these properties. License and inspection for rental property doesn't really exist in Lexington. And so once building inspection approves an ADU that's attached to a house and it's completely a rental, you really don't know how many people are living in there and you don't know how many people are going to be living in the house. You really don't know how many people are living in there and you, or where they're living in the house or whether they're really doing what they say they're going to do. In the last meeting of the neighborhoods in transition, they talked about development in transitional neighborhoods. And you'd think they'd talk about ADUs or economic development or something like that, but they talked about slumlords. They talked about displacement of residents with renters, and they talked about gentrification. And it was a long meeting and it was fairly consistent, but that was what was talked about in the area of development. We think licensing and inspection of rental property, it was requested by a task force ten years ago. It still hasn't happened. It's in the 2018 comprehensive plan. Staff has told the council, well, they didn't have it, but they did with a senior services commission. The neighborhood council has agreed to co-sponsor a licensing and inspection program for the city. We'd be glad to work on it. We think it's critical. Accessory use. If these are accessory uses, it would be like building a shed in your backyard. You can just kind of go ahead and do it as long as you meet building requirements. There is local knowledge in neighborhoods that the city's not going to know about. For example, my house flooded maybe once or twice in the last ten years. If my neighbor wants to add impermeable surface, if it's a rental unit, I'm not likely to know about it. If it's a neighbor, they'll probably tell me. But it could add impermeable surface and affect my property. The ADU manual is really a nice piece of work. We're building an ADU. But then if you look at the ordinance that you're studying, it basically says that it's only going to provide guidelines. Now, guidelines, if you don't want to talk to the neighbor, if you want to build your ADU so that it blocks the sun from your neighbor's garden, or if you just don't want to talk to anybody, you just want to meet the minimum building requirements and standards, you can go ahead and do it. But if you're going to talk to people, if you're going to violate an ordinance, why would you follow a guideline? So what's the point? There are environmental concerns. I think staff is working on addressing them, and I appreciate that. Because if water quality is going to, in fact, inspect for the consent decree, and if they have a chance to actually look at the line, that'll be very helpful. There's a pipe in Lexington, and there's deteriorating cast iron pipes. It would be nice to also look at those to see if there's deterioration and see if the sewer line is actually there. Pre-canopy kind of speaks for itself. Flexible housing options for seniors and individuals with disabilities. You know, we're fully supportive of that. I think the commission needs to take a hard look at what's been portrayed publicly in the public hearings. Conclusion. In a well-attended meeting of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council on the 9th of this month, only one person at the meeting in a survey said that they favored this particular ordinance among all the neighborhoods present, because we did a survey on it. FCNC members have expressed a lack of confidence in the public meetings. It was kind of a sales pitch. Basically, the draft ordinance increases rental dwellings and occupancy in single-family residential neighborhoods without adequate safeguards. Included but not limited to rental licensing and inspection, reasonable occupancy limits, owner occupancy, environmental protection, local neighborhood and neighborhood engagement in the process, and overall enforcement. Let me have just a minute, if that would be all right. I've got on the back of the packet I gave you, I'm citing an article from the New York Times from June the 20th. This was an article basically entitled, want a house like this? Prepare for a bidding war with investors. Now, what it basically says is that last year investors, and this is in 2018, investors bought about one in five single-family homes. One in five starter homes in the United States defined as priced at the bottom third of the local market according to CoreLogic. CoreLogic is a company that keeps national real estate data. That's even higher than in the early years after the Great Recession when property was cheap and easy to get, and doubled the level of two decades ago. In the most frenzied markets, investors bought close to half of the most affordable house homes sold in the United States. That's about 20 percent. That's part of the reason that young people are having trouble buying, you know, buying homes, because they're being sucked up by investors who are renting them out or flipping them, and they're going to more people with more money. Thank you very much. We have an order that we would like to use to speak if that's permissible. I think we'll stay with our list. We've already started on that list. I think we'll stay with it. Okay. Thanks, Walt. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next is Janet Cannabis. And I do apologize. All my life I've been Cannabis. But I'm not. My name is Janet Cannabis, and I live at 704 Cumberland Road. That's in Stonewall. And Kim Justice, the current president of Stonewall Community Association, just had to leave to go back to work, and she ceded me her three minutes. I think I'm going to be able to speak in three minutes, but I hope you won't get mad at me if I exceed just three minutes. I'd like to inform you of the Planning Commission of the position of the Stonewall Community Association Board of Directors, of which I'm a member. At our September 18th board meeting, the board passed a motion not to support the currently proposed ZOTA on accessory dwelling units. We feel that there are many potential problems which might result from the passage of the ZOTA that have been ignored by the current proposed ordinance. I'm not going to touch them and leave. And then I have another one. We're concerned about the fact that there's no information passing between neighbors about what's going to happen next that would change a lot of things in the living situation if an ADU is constructed in the next-door backyard. We don't want surprises to homeowners. Not desirable, particularly. Eight unrelated persons living on a property is of concern. We are concerned that there's no proposal for LFUCG to hire additional staff for building inspection or rental registration or licensing, whatever you want to call that, and making sure rental standards are high in ADUs. Also, for accommodating additional vehicles, we think that's a concern. Deteriorating lateral sewer lines are a concern. The effect on the tree canopy is of concern. That's a concern to us. The setback I thought was three feet. It looks like, from what Chris told us, it's 18 inches now. That is definitely of concern because of what Walt said about blockage and being close and noise traveling and all that sort of thing. We would love it if neighborhood character could be respected, and we don't see that there is any particular compunction to respect neighborhood character as it exists. But the most important fact, perhaps, is that I really do not understand why a 2012 ordinance that has allowed permission to residents to construct a semi-independent living unit, I believe that's the name of it, for disabled or elderly persons as long as it is attached to the residents. The Stonewall Board has felt that it's not a good idea to do that. It's not a good idea. I think that you might want to investigate the possibility that this ordinance could be modified and expanded to allow both attached and detached units, right now it's only for attached, to be constructed upon request of the owner of a property. They can have accessory dwelling units or something very similar to that, I think. We don't need ADU legislation since you've, like you've proposed in the ZOTA. Duplicate ordinances aren't a virtue. So we're hoping that you would consider looking at that and using it and not writing even more legislation than does exist. Just because an option doesn't exist right now is no excuse for it not to exist in the future. We're talking creativity here with our ADUs. I hope you can consider some other type of creativity in the future. Like rewriting that 2012 ordinance. I ask you please do not approve this ZOTA. It's not right for Lexington. Chris has said that all of the negatives I've listed above we shouldn't worry about because they're legal today to tear down tree canopy, this, that, and the other. Respectfully, we disagree with that. We think things should work differently. Because this is Lexington. This is special. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next is Sarah Smith. You'll be followed by Mary Camby. My name is Sarah Smith. I reside at 307 DeShay Road, Lexington, Kentucky. I currently have the privilege of serving as the vice president of the office of public safety. I'm also a member of the Ashland Park Neighborhood Association. At our most recent board meeting, we approved a letter which has been submitted to the planning commission and should have been delivered to you in the last packet. And our bottom line is we don't think that this proposal is the right way to go. We do not have a consensus that everybody hates ADUs. We just think this is not the right path. And I think you've heard that from people who've spoken previously. Ashland Park neighborhood is very familiar with variety of housing units and density. We were built to be that way. We have single family homes, duplexes, fourplexes, multiple housing units. We also have small lots. We have big lots. We have small streets. We have a lot of parking lots. We're parked on both sides. So parking is something that we pay attention to, too. One of the things that has just been highlighted a couple of times is we've really already got a way to deal with helping to have an accessory living unit in an existing building, in an attached building. And that is the ordinance that was passed in 2012 and that has been used. It is a zoning compliance permit. It's obtained by right. It requires no public process and is granted by the planning staff. So that's already there. So we're really talking about detached, and detached seems to have a much higher level of pain that you're hearing from folks right now. And detached without this ordinance would mean that if you had a single family lot, you would have to make a zoning change. You would have to go to the Board of Adjustment, at which point your neighbors would get some notice that you wanted to do something that was different from what you currently could do and what everybody else in the neighborhood bought their lots believing this is what was going to happen. And they would have the opportunity for some input. With this zoning ordinance, we are in effect making a zone change for every residential lot in the county for a zone change. We think that's a problem. We also agree very strongly. In fact, it is the first major point in our letter to you that rental licensing, inspection, enforcement, and as a corollary, the fees and taxes that should be assessed to cover the costs for staff to be dealing with that and the costs for the city to be dealing with the infrastructure. That's the first thing that has to come into play. We've seen that we're having a problem with short-term rentals, and this would help support that. One of the reasons people are so antsy about this, by the way, I need three minutes. Who's donating? Thank you. We're worried about what happens when the need for an elderly person or a disabled person goes away. What do you do with that accessory unit? Very likely, rent it out. Hopefully long-term rental. However, in Portland, which did start out with a very low incremental increase of ADUs and is now seeing them do this. The Portland Tribune just reviewed a report that was prepared that indicates that 25% of those ADUs in Portland are now short-term rentals. That's something we should not ignore. Short-term rentals can change the character of a neighborhood, and I absolutely adore Airbnb and use it frequently, but I can see what it does to a neighborhood when you have too many. So those are some of the things that we're working on. We're going to see that this is a new investment opportunity. I'm all for investment opportunities, but not if it destroys a neighborhood. So we need to try to maintain stable ownership. Ownership keeps the neighborhood safe. Ownership keeps the community safe. Ownership keeps the community healthy. Ownership keeps the community healthy. Ownership keeps the community healthy. Ownership keeps the neighborhoods very healthy. We need to have neighbors have the ability to support their neighborhood and support their neighbors, as well as ask questions and have some input on what happens around them. One of the things that really struck me in your presentation was that the reason you don't have a lot of detail in the ordinance as to whether there should be parking, what kind of materials, what kind of style, is because there's a lot of information out there. One of the things that struck me is that each situation is different. And I absolutely agree with you. And that brings us to the conclusion that each situation should be looked at differently, but have the ability for the community to have some say on that, like a conditional use permit. I understand you've looked at that, but to us, that seems to be maybe a way to go. And I would like to see how we step through this in a proper way. I've spent a lot of time working in the environmental field, and one of the things that has happened in the environmental field in the last 10, 15 years is that regulators have discovered that when they need to create a new program, they have a much better program if they work with all the various stakeholders. So the State Department of Environmental Protection needs to be addressed and work out a very good solution that everybody can buy in on. That's what I think we need here. And our Neighborhood Association is ready and willing to step up and work on any collaborative effort that you would like. We don't think it's a debt issue. We don't think this ordinance is the right way. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. I'm Mary Campbell at 328 South Mill Street here in Lexington, and I'm a member of the Historic Southdale Neighborhood Association. And I'd like to speak to some points in a letter that we have drafted for you all and that we spent a lot of time and energy on. But in the interest of time and because of previous speakers, I'm going to jump around here a little bit. The Historic Southdale Neighborhood Association is opposed to the concept of ADUs and appreciate their benefit as a housing option for aging residents. The amendment is written as too broad and far reaching, and there are numerous untested questions about impact. Carefully testing these is all the more important if there's to be no monitoring, which we understand is the case under the proposed amendment. The current text would allow an additional dwelling for the vast majority of residential units, lots and lots. Under current regulations, the owner of a single family lot would be required to seek a zone change in order to add a second unit. This ordinance would allow such units simply upon the issuance of a building permit with no public notice or hearing. This is a major change that will affect every Lexington neighborhood. Another concern is that it requires only a building permit. Another concern is that it's also likely that the older neighborhoods and those near downtown will bear the brunt of this charge. Most of the newer subdivisions built in the last 35 years have deed restrictions that prohibit a second dwelling on a union. The older neighborhoods either do not have such restrictions or they have long since expired. Another concern is that there's no existing mechanism that would be enacted until the adoption of an ordinance requiring the registration and inspection of rental properties, as called for by the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. The ordinance assumes that the necessary public infrastructure is available for all ADUs regardless of location. However, as demonstrated each month when the Planning Commission considers development approvals, not all areas are equally served. The ordinance should require finding that sanitary facilities and other necessities are available and adequate. A final concern is that there are no design standards for the construction of ADUs. The staff has circulated information on suggested best practices, unquote, for the design of ADUs, but acknowledges that the government cannot lawfully mandate such requirements. As noted above, the current ordinance is a major policy asking for sweeping change and, as written, could lead to significant negative consequences for existing neighborhoods throughout Lexington. Therefore, we strongly urge the Planning Commission to postpone this for further study and impact. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next is Dana Manning, followed by Jennifer Braddock. Dana Manning, 1120 Slashes Road. If this proposal was restricted to elderly parents and children with special needs, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but that is not the reality of accessory dwelling units. As was pointed out, Portland has seen that up to a quarter or more of their ADUs are actually being used as short-term rentals, Airbnb-style. So, if this proposal was restricted to elderly parents and children with special needs, I wouldn't have a problem with it. The reality of ADUs is that your neighbors can fill their backyard with an 800-square-foot separate house a foot and a half from your fence, rent it out to strangers, or make it into a hotel, and you will have absolutely nothing that you can say or do about it. The reality of ADUs is that your neighbors can fill their backyard with an 800-square-foot separate house a foot and a half from your fence, rent it out to strangers, or make it into a hotel, and you will have absolutely nothing that you can say or do about it. Lexington's core residential areas are already pretty dense. They have relatively smaller lot sizes. They have less clearance, you know, not a lot of clearance between houses. As has been pointed out, not a lot of off-street parking. We should be working to save and improve these off-street areas. We should be working to save and improve these off-street areas. Thank you. Next is Jennifer Braddock. Followed by Mark Streety. Jennifer Braddock, 424 West 3rd Street. I'm a resident there, but I'm also here on behalf of the Northside Neighborhood Association, and we did send a letter to our councilman, James Brown, as well as, I believe, looks like mostly our council members. And I just want to reiterate and read this so you can put a face to it and understand our position here in the Northside. After many meetings within our Neighborhood Association and with the leadership of other neighborhood associations in Fayette County, we have concluded that the ADU proposal is the most appropriate alternative to the ADU proposal. It would be both unnecessary and would inflict significant, permanent, and irreparable harm to the quality of life for those who have chosen to make a long-term investment in homeownership in Lexington. The most significant effect of the proposal is the enormous likelihood for the unchecked alteration of single-family zone lots into two-family or, worse, two-motel zone lots. Currently, more than 60 percent of Lexingtonians have a single-family zone lot containing a single-principle structure, which is a single-family detached residence. And the zoning ordinance defines the intent of single-family zones, R1, RB, etc., as providing for single-family detached residences, supporting and supporting uses. The ADU proposal eliminates the requirement for notifying neighbors, conducting a public hearing, or other measures currently in place provided by the ADU to provide a fair process for all parties to consider the merits of significant alterations to the neighborhoods we've invested in. We see no reason that an accessory dwelling unit couldn't simply be added to the definitions section of the zoning ordinance and subsequently added as a conditional use within appropriate zones. This approach would be in keeping with the years of division of planning policy to shape the zoning ordinance language carefully with well-crafted text amendments that protect the rights of all Lexingtonians. The ADU proposal makes no attempt to address the parking nightmare it would certainly create. The potential to add up to four unrelated individuals per single-family lot would more than likely mean up to four additional vehicles. When too many residents can't find a place to park, disorder and frustration ensue. Most single-family neighborhoods in Lexington are limited to vehicles and primary viable mode of transportation. Although Lexington does have a bus system, it runs too infrequently to be viable when compared to public transportation systems in other urban areas in the United States and around the world. The ADU proposal's short-term rental provisions are another cause for alarm. Without going into great detail, the idea of a daily or weekly rotating crop of strangers living in the most potentially unsafe accommodations is not one that has found support in any neighborhood we've encountered. The ADU proposal does not limit the number of properties that an individual may purchase and convert into unregulated dual motels on single-family zone lots. The proposal also renders neighbors powerless to voice concerns or grievances in a public forum. More troubling still should the Urban County Council approve the proposal in the future, there will be no recourse for unbuilding ADUs that are likely to rapidly appear in the absence of a Board of Adjustment public approval process. The ADU proposal as currently drafted is frankly unacceptable and reckless in its particulars. From our attendance of many education sessions hosted by the Division of Planning, we have not seen any evidence that there is concern on their part for the overwhelming negative feedback they've received from the public. Because of this, we as a neighborhood are fearful that the Planning Commission intends to pass the ADU proposal regardless of public support. Therefore, we urge the Council to re-read and understand the text of the ADU proposal with special attention to the potential negative impact to the quality of the proposal.