# Board of Adjustment - November 11, 2019 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Board · November 11, 2019 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/4889 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/4889?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2019-11-11 - **Body**: Board - **Last revised**: February 6, 2026 - **Length**: 25,563 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and 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 November 11, 2019, at 1:34 PM in the Council Chambers at 200 East Main Street, Lexington, Kentucky, with Branden Gross presiding as the meeting officer. The board addressed seven agenda items during the session, covering various zoning variance requests and administrative appeals from property owners throughout the jurisdiction. The board took seven votes on matters ranging from detached accessory structure height variances to fence height requests and signage approvals. Six of the seven items brought before the board were approved, with only one variance request for fence height being denied. The approved items included variances for detached accessory structure height, floodplain setback requirements, side yard reductions, swimming pool setbacks, and signage with electronic message board installations, as well as one administrative appeal regarding accessory structure size limitations. No public comments were recorded during this meeting session, indicating that the agenda items proceeded without additional input from community members beyond the applicants and their representatives. The meeting demonstrated the board's active role in reviewing zoning compliance matters and providing property owners with necessary relief from standard zoning requirements where appropriate justification was presented. ## Attendance The Board meeting on November 11, 2019 had five members present and two members absent. **Present:** • Branden Gross • Raquel Carter • Jan Meyer • Harry Clarke • Chad Needham **Absent:** • Tommy Glover • Whitman No members arrived late to the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The Board of Adjustment conducted seven roll call votes on various variance requests and administrative appeals during the November 11, 2019 meeting. **PLN-BOA-19-00075** [timestamp: 02:30]: Raquel Carter motioned to approve a variance to increase the allowable height of a detached accessory structure from 13'9" to 18', seconded by Harry Clarke. The motion passed unanimously 5-0, with all members voting in favor: Branden Gross, Raquel Carter, Jan Meyer, Harry Clarke, and Chad Needham. The approval was subject to three conditions listed in staff recommendations. **PLN-BOA-19-00076** [timestamp: 03:45]: Harry Clarke motioned to approve a variance to decrease the minimum setback from the floodplain from 25' to 16', seconded by Jan Meyer. The motion passed unanimously 5-0, with the same five members voting in favor. The approval included three staff-recommended conditions. **PLN-BOA-19-00078** [timestamp: 04:50]: Chad Needham motioned to approve a variance to reduce required side yards from 10' to 3', seconded by Harry Clarke. The motion passed unanimously 5-0, subject to two conditions from staff recommendations. **PLN-BOA-19-00081** [timestamp: 06:00]: Jan Meyer motioned to approve a variance to reduce the required setback for a swimming pool from 10' to 7'8", seconded by Raquel Carter. The motion passed unanimously 5-0, with two staff-recommended conditions. **PLN-BOA-19-00077** [timestamp: 07:10]: Chad Needham motioned to approve an administrative appeal to increase the allowable total size of accessory structures, seconded by Harry Clarke. The motion passed unanimously 5-0, subject to three conditions. **PLN-BOA-19-00079** [timestamp: 08:30]: Chad Needham motioned to approve a variance to increase allowable fence height in the front yard from 4' to 6', seconded by Raquel Carter. The motion failed 1-4, with only Chad Needham voting in favor and Raquel Carter, Jan Meyer, Harry Clarke, and Branden Gross voting against. **PLN-BOA-19-00080** [timestamp: 10:00]: Raquel Carter motioned on a request for variances and administrative appeals for signage and electronic message board, seconded by Jan Meyer. The motion passed 4-0-1, with Raquel Carter, Jan Meyer, Harry Clarke, and Chad Needham voting in favor and Branden Gross abstaining. The approval covered requests 1-3, with requests 4-5 continued. ## Contested Items The Board addressed one contested item during the November 11, 2019 meeting that resulted in a split decision. **Electronic Message Board for LexLive Entertainment Complex** The Board considered signage requests for the LexLive Entertainment Complex, but the discussion became contentious regarding a proposed electronic message board. While the Board approved other signage requests for the facility, they continued the decision on the electronic message board due to two primary concerns. Board members expressed disagreement about whether the LexLive facility should be classified as a civic center, which would affect the signage regulations that apply to the electronic message board. This classification question created uncertainty about the appropriate standards to use when evaluating the request. Additionally, some Board members raised concerns about potential traffic distractions that could result from the electronic message board's operation. These safety considerations contributed to the Board's reluctance to approve the electronic signage component of the overall request. The outcome was a split decision where the Board approved the non-electronic signage elements of the LexLive Entertainment Complex request but continued deliberation on the electronic message board portion. This allowed the Board additional time to resolve questions about the facility's proper classification and to further evaluate potential traffic safety impacts before making a final determination on the electronic signage component. The continuation of this item demonstrates the Board's careful consideration of both regulatory compliance and public safety concerns when evaluating signage requests for entertainment facilities. ## Variance for Detached Accessory Structure Height [timestamp: 02:30] The Board of Adjustment considered case PLN-BOA-19-00075, a variance request submitted by William and Ben Stramer to increase the allowable height of a detached accessory structure from 13'9" to 18'. William Charles Stramer presented the request to the board, seeking approval for the height variance for their proposed detached accessory structure. The current zoning regulations limit such structures to 13 feet 9 inches in height, but the applicants required an additional 4 feet 3 inches to accommodate their planned use of the building. The board reviewed the staff recommendations and associated conditions for approval of the variance request. Staff had analyzed the proposal against the required variance criteria and determined that the request met the necessary standards for approval. Following the presentation and board discussion, the Board of Adjustment approved the variance request. The approval allows the Stramers to construct their detached accessory structure at the requested height of 18 feet, subject to the conditions outlined in the staff report. The approved variance provides the applicants with the flexibility needed for their accessory structure while maintaining compliance with the board's standards for granting height variances in residential areas. ## Variance for Floodplain Setback [timestamp: 03:45] The Board of Adjustment reviewed case PLN-BOA-19-00076, a variance request from Lakeshore Apartments Association LLC to reduce the required setback from the floodplain from 25 feet to 16 feet. Tony Barrett presented the case to the board, providing details on the variance request and the circumstances that warranted consideration of the reduced setback requirement. The applicant sought the variance to accommodate their development plans while maintaining compliance with other applicable regulations. Staff had reviewed the application and provided recommendations supporting approval of the variance request, along with specific conditions to ensure the reduced setback would not compromise flood safety or violate other municipal standards. The staff analysis likely considered factors such as the site's topography, flood risk assessment, and the proposed development's impact on surrounding properties. The board deliberated on the merits of the variance request, weighing the applicant's needs against public safety considerations and compliance with floodplain management requirements. The 9-foot reduction in setback represented a significant modification to the standard 25-foot requirement, necessitating careful review of the justification and potential impacts. Following discussion and consideration of the staff recommendations, the Board of Adjustment approved the variance request. The approval included the conditions recommended by staff to ensure the reduced setback would not create adverse effects on flood management or neighboring properties. This decision allowed Lakeshore Apartments Association LLC to proceed with their development plans under the modified setback requirement of 16 feet from the floodplain. ## Variance for Side Yard Reduction [timestamp: 04:50] The Board of Adjustment considered case PLN-BOA-19-00078, a variance request from H2 Construction, LLC to reduce required side yards from 10 feet to 3 feet. Tony Barrett served as the key speaker presenting this agenda item to the board. The variance request sought to allow construction with significantly reduced side yard setbacks, representing a 70% reduction from the standard zoning requirement. Staff had reviewed the application and provided recommendations supporting the variance request, along with specific conditions for approval. The board reviewed these staff recommendations as part of their deliberation process. Following discussion of the variance request and consideration of the staff analysis, the Board of Adjustment voted to approve PLN-BOA-19-00078. The approval was granted based on the staff recommendations and included the conditions outlined in the staff report. The approved variance will allow H2 Construction, LLC to proceed with their project using the reduced 3-foot side yard setbacks instead of the standard 10-foot requirements established in the zoning code. ## Variance for Swimming Pool Setback [timestamp: 06:00] The Board of Adjustment considered case PLN-BOA-19-00081, a variance request from Jeffrey and Katherine Wiseman to reduce the required setback for a swimming pool from 10 feet to 7 feet 8 inches. Bruce Simpson presented the case to the board, providing details on the variance request and staff recommendations. The Wisemans sought approval to install a swimming pool with a reduced setback from the standard 10-foot requirement established by city ordinance. Following Simpson's presentation and staff recommendations, the board reviewed the request and any applicable conditions. The variance would allow the swimming pool to be positioned closer to the property line than typically permitted under current zoning regulations. The Board of Adjustment approved the variance request, accepting the staff's analysis and recommended conditions for the project. The approval enables the Wisemans to proceed with their swimming pool installation at the reduced 7-foot 8-inch setback rather than the standard 10-foot requirement. ## Administrative Appeal for Accessory Structure Size [timestamp: 07:10] The Board of Appeals considered case PLN-BOA-19-00077, an administrative appeal submitted by Larry Hamilton requesting to increase the allowable total size of accessory structures on his property from 1,033 square feet to 1,560 square feet. Hamilton presented his request to the board, seeking approval for the expanded accessory structure allowance beyond the standard permitted size. The appeal represented an increase of 527 square feet over the current allowable limit. Staff provided their analysis and recommendations regarding the proposed size increase. The board reviewed the staff report and considered the merits of Hamilton's request in the context of applicable zoning regulations and standards for accessory structures. Following discussion of the case details and staff recommendations, the Board of Appeals voted to approve Hamilton's administrative appeal. The approval was granted subject to specific conditions outlined by staff to ensure compliance with relevant planning and zoning requirements. The decision allows Hamilton to proceed with accessory structures totaling up to 1,560 square feet on his property, representing a significant increase from the standard 1,033 square foot allowance. The approved variance provides Hamilton with additional flexibility for accessory structure development while maintaining adherence to the conditions established by the board. ## Variance for Fence Height [timestamp: 08:30] The Board of Appeals considered case PLN-BOA-19-00079, a variance request from ETS Realty II, LLC to increase the allowable height of a fence in the front yard from 4 feet to 6 feet. Jacob Walburn presented the case to the board, providing details on the variance request and the staff's analysis of the proposal. The applicant sought to exceed the standard front yard fence height restrictions established in the zoning ordinance. Following the presentation and discussion, the Board of Appeals voted to deny the variance request. The decision was based on staff recommendations that found the request did not meet the necessary criteria for granting a variance under the zoning code. The denial means ETS Realty II, LLC must comply with the existing 4-foot height limitation for front yard fencing on their property, or pursue alternative solutions that conform to current zoning regulations. ## Signage and Electronic Message Board Requests [timestamp: 10:00] The Board of Adjustment reviewed case PLN-BOA-19-00080 regarding signage and electronic message board requests from LexLive Entertainment Complex. Richard Murphy served as the key speaker presenting the requests to the board. The application included five separate requests for variances and administrative appeals related to signage requirements for the entertainment complex. The requests involved both traditional signage variances and approval for an electronic message board system. Following discussion and consideration of the merits of each request, the board took action on the five items. The board approved requests 1, 2, and 3, finding them to meet the necessary criteria for variance approval. However, requests 4 and 5 required additional consideration and were continued to a future meeting date to allow for further review and deliberation. The partial approval allows LexLive Entertainment Complex to proceed with the approved signage elements while the remaining requests undergo additional evaluation. The continuation of requests 4 and 5 indicates the board needed more information or time to properly assess those particular variance requests before making a final determination. --- ## Decisions - **PLN-BOA-19-00075** — passed (5-0): Variance to increase the allowable height of a detached accessory structure from 13’9” to 18’ - **PLN-BOA-19-00076** — passed (5-0): Variance to decrease the minimum setback from the floodplain from 25' to 16' - **PLN-BOA-19-00078** — passed (5-0): Variance to reduce the required side yards from 10’ to 3’ - **PLN-BOA-19-00081** — passed (5-0): Variance to reduce the required setback for a swimming pool from 10’ to 7’8” - **PLN-BOA-19-00077** — passed (5-0): Administrative appeal to increase the allowable total size of accessory structures - **PLN-BOA-19-00079** — failed (1-4): Variance to increase the allowable height of a fence in the front yard from 4’ to 6’ - **PLN-BOA-19-00080** — passed (4-0): Request for variances and administrative appeals for signage and electronic message board --- ## Full transcript really overwhelming, and about 30 of those give tours on a regular basis. So Jarby Dan, where we are today, is one that offers tours and many other locations around the Bluegrass area. And if someone wants to tour, how do you do that? We have a website, so people can go to visithorsecountry.com anytime they're interested in looking at availability. We also do have a partnership where you can book tours at a kiosk out at the horse park, or we have a phone number that people can call, and we're always happy to help them plan a trip or schedule a visit. We do groups as well, so guests can come just any day that they want for an individual ticket, but we also work with a lot of groups and businesses that host visits as well. So if someone tours a horse farm, what do they do? What do they see? The great thing about Visit Horse Country and our various members is that every experience is going to be a little bit different. So we can really develop an itinerary or an experience that's tailored to every guest that comes in. At a stallion-focused experience, you're going to learn a lot about the breeding operation that happens, the economic impact of that. You'll also get to see some of the stallions. Typically those guys are a little bit more hands-off because they're kind of, they have big personalities. At a nursery farm, you're going to go and get to see mares and foals or maybe the yearling prep for the sales coming up at Keeneland or Fasig-Tipton. You can go to a sale company and see the behind the scenes while it's happening. You can get a backstretch tour at Keeneland. You can have an owner-led experience at a different location. We also work with clinics and hallway feeds, which is a huge company here in Fayette County. They provide feeds all over the world for thoroughbreds and sport horses. I heard about that once and I didn't realize it was that big of an operation. I think that I always thought that it was just horse farms, but it sounds like you go out and anything that kind of has to do with a horse that that's what you... Good afternoon, everybody. I'd like to welcome you for the Board of Adjustment meeting for November 11, 2019. First, I'd like to, if anyone in the audience is a veteran, I'd like to wish you a happy Veterans Day. I know that Tommy Glover is our veteran on our board, but he is not able to make it today. So, what I'm going to do first is I'm going to run through some housekeeping items today, and then we'll go through the agenda. So, the first thing will be if your cell phone, turn it on or silent. If you plan on speaking today, remind you to sign in at the sheet underneath Mayor Pettit's portrait, and then I will swear you in in a few minutes. The general order will be the applicant will come forward. There's no objections, and it's not to be heard. If there are objections or the staff has recommended disapproval, if there are objections, we'll have the applicant come forward, tell us their plan, and they give opportunity for anyone in support or opposition to speak. If the staff has recommended disapproval, normally we will let the staff give a presentation first before the applicant does their presentation. There will be, of course, opportunities for rebuttal if you're the applicant. I occasionally put time limits on people to keep the hearing moving forward more quickly, so I'll do that if I feel like it's appropriate for a matter. Do not approach the board and don't talk unless I've recognized you. And do we have any letters in support or opposition on them today for any files? We have several letters in opposition for item number one under Variance Appeals, PLN BOA 75, William and Ben Stramer. Okay. We have several letters regarding item number five, PLN BOA 19-80, LexLive Entertainment Complex. Okay. And then we have a petition in support of item number six, BOA 19-81, Jeffrey and Catherine Wiseman. And then we have one letter in support for our administrative appeal, BOA 19-77, Larry Hamilton. Thank you, ma'am. I'll mark those. Are any of these, are there lots of letters or can we just go through them pretty quickly, do you think? There are several for the first one, William and Ben Stramer. That may take a couple minutes to get through and then there are a couple of longer letters for LexLive Entertainment Complex. The other two, I would say, will be pretty quick. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. So, the first thing on the agenda will be reviewing the minutes from last month's meeting. Staff sent those around. Did anyone have any objections to those or any revisions? And if not, then I will ask somebody to make a motion to approve them. Mr. Chairman, I recommend approval of the minutes. Thank you, sir. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, I will take it to a vote. Thank you. Thank you. Well, while we're figuring out the technology, is anyone today want to postpone or withdraw their applications before I call the agenda? All right. Anyone here today, if you plan on speaking at any point today, if you could rise so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Okay. Motion passes. So, next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to sound the actual agenda, and that will start with the variance appeals. The first item is PLM VOA 1975, William and Ben Stramer, regarding 1143 Athenia Drive. Is the applicant present? Thank you, sir. You don't do anything yet. Is there anyone here that wants to speak on this matter? All right. We have a couple letters in opposition that we'll look at, but you'll be the first case we call. The next item is PLM VOA 19-76, Lakeshore Apartments Association, regarding 519 Lake Tower Drive. Is the applicant present? Thank you, sir. Is there anyone here who wants to speak on that one? Okay. The next item is PLM VOA 19-78, H2 Construction, LLC, regarding 1755 Old Paris Road. Is the applicant present? Thank you. Is there anyone here who wants to speak on behalf of that case? Okay. The next one is PLM VOA 19-79, ETS Realty II, LLC, regarding 900 North Broadway. Is the applicant present? All right. This one is going to be heard, since the staff has recommended disapproval. The next item on the docket is PLM VOA 19-80, LexLive Entertainment Complex, regarding 301 and 307 South Broadway. Is the applicant present? Thank you, sir. Does anyone here want to speak on behalf of this item? I see that you have mixed recommendations from the staff, so we'll mark this one to be heard. Thank you. That takes us to PLM VOA 19-81, Jeffrey and Catherine Wiseman, 223 Glendover Road. Hey, guys. So this is part two of the project. Letter of support, anyone here wants to speak on this one? All right, so we have one in opposition, so this will be heard. Oh, you're representing them? Okay. Yeah, well, if they paid you enough, you would. And then lastly is administrative appeal, which is PLM VOA 19-77, Larry Hamilton, and that's regarding 690 East Loudon Avenue. Applicant present? Mr. Hamilton? Oh, there you are. Okay. Anyone here wants to speak on behalf of this one? All right, so we'll mark this one as no opposition. So let's see here. So if I did this correctly, we will hear item number four, PLM VOA 19-79, ETS Realty. We will hear number five, PLM VOA 19-80, Lex Live Entertainment. And the other ones have no opposition. Okay, so that will take us to our first item, which is PLM VOA 19-75, William and Ben Stramer, regarding 1143 Athenia Drive. And we have a couple letters if you want to come up, sir. And while we're looking at these letters, if you want to state your name for the record. Yeah, my name is William Charles Stramer. And staff has recommended approval today, and that approval is subject to the three conditions in the report. Have you seen those? Yes, sir. Are you agreeable to abide by those? Yes, sir. All right, thank you. In that case, if you want to take a couple minutes, tell us about your project while we're looking at these letters. Okay. I think, are those your slides? Yes, sir. Yeah, so you brought slides. Might as well, yeah, tell us about it. Audiovisual extravaganza. Here we go. So the project is to build an outside detached garage, and the property at 1143 Athenia, which is my son and I own together, it is a beautiful neighborhood, a lot of big trees in the neighborhood. This is a view from the street, Athenia Drive, looking up towards the area where the garage would be constructed. And this is, as I mentioned, this is a beautifully treed neighborhood. And if you look straight forward into the, where we have the two poles, there's a power line pole and also another measuring stick there that our reference will look at in a minute. This is a view from across Athenia, looking up, again, the driveway. This is a plot for the property. This is approximately where that last picture was taken. The property is a very large property, not 0.9 acres. The distance from the street to the back pen is 250 feet. This property is tree-lined from about this point all the way around, circle around the back. The entire site over here is tree-lined. Of course, this is the house and the property. This is the current driveway coming up into the house. This is a utility easement, which was with the property, which we worked to get approval for an encroachment agreement, which was in place since November of last year. Part of that utility easement agreement was to build a new pole, put in a new power line pole at the very back of the property. We buried the UK power lines along this property edge. To feed to that, along with several of the cable providers, Windstream and so forth, and that's been in place again since November of last year. The proposed garage would be back in this corner. It's a 40-foot deep by 36-foot wide garage. I mentioned previously, it's 250 feet from the property pen to the very back corner. Would be about 10 feet away from the back corner. This center of the garage, at the very front of the garage, would be 200 feet from the street. We had our civil engineer stand at the center of this, where the front of the garage would be, and hold up a measuring stick. For some of the visuals, we'll show you. As the lay of the property, it goes up a hill and goes back. It's very hidden in the back part of the property. This is the house, and the house is at 13 foot 9 inches at the top ridge of the house. Again, our request is to be able to build our garage at 18 foot, which would be approximately 4 foot 3 inches higher than the house. Attachment number three is looking up that same driveway we saw on the previous, the first slide. This is our civil engineer holding the measuring stick, and he has a flag tied at the 18-foot level, which on your copies, you may be able to read that. The house ridges at 13 foot 9 inches, as we stated. It's actually at 514.8 feet elevation. The flag that's tied at the measuring stick is at the 18-foot height, or actually at 519 feet, which is 4 foot 3 inches higher than the elevation of the house. Again, where the pull is being held is 200 foot from the edge of the property line. You can see in this view a lot of the trees around the back side of the property. Zooming back to attachment number four, looking at the same measuring stick with the flag on it at the 18-foot level, you can tell by the lay of the land, it's much lower than the actual house. You get all the way back to across the street. You can see it's very low. Again, you can see all the trees along the back side of the property. I want to go back here quick. I forgot to mention, when you're approaching the house on Athenia, the only view that you have to see in the yard at all is right through this window between the house and the tree line. If you're approaching from Athena on this way, the large tree line that is our neighbor's tree line and the edge of the house blocks any view to the back of the backyard. The only real view through here is through this opening. We've just looked at the opening, looking from this part coming up to the property, going back into our attachments. This is a view from across the street coming from the other direction. This is our same flag. Zoom in on that. That's where the 18-foot level is. Again, you can see it's a very minimal view from the street. Again, it's the fact that it's up on a hill and it's very far back into the property. That's the final view. Our proposal is to build this. We think the tree line aspect of the property, the fact that it's built at the very back corner of the property, will have minimal, minimal impact to the neighborhood. Thank you, sir. Are there any questions? If you guys recall, we heard this case in May. My recollection, I cannot recall, were we a tie vote or was there not a second? A motion was made to approve the application, but there was no second. Okay, so we took no action. Correct. Okay, so that's why it's before us again. The plan is essentially the same. That's correct. It's the exact same plan. The only new information are the slides that Mr. Schramer just showed. We do have a number of letters, so if you give us... Do you want to have a seat for a second? We've got a few more letters to read. Unless anyone has any questions for Mr. Schramer at this time. Okay. Go ahead. So, um, answer. Yes, sir. Understand. Um, yes, Mr Premier. There are four issues that have come up, and I remember them from last time, as a matter of fact, and I think would be appropriate to give you an opportunity to address each of these first. First is storm water. Um, and I think you have actually addressed that, but I think it would be appropriate to do that again. And as the chair says, uh, respond to the idea that this is this is in some way a commercial, uh, activity. And then the noise itself. Would this new structure change the amount of noise or the quality of the noise? If we could call it that. And then you've already addressed the actual the actual visual, uh, stance status of the building itself and the elevation. So if you could address those four really quickly, I don't think we need to take a lot of time, but just a matter of so the board can hear your your opinions of those those objections. Yes, sir. First of all, on the stormwater, uh, the discussion in the previous in the May meeting, we requested the engineering group to say, uh, if you compare the 18 ft structure with a, uh, with a 13 ft nine inch structure, exact size, same dimension, same location is a water runoff any more than it would be on an 18 ft or vice versa. And the comment at that time was it's a similar characteristic water runoff. And quite honestly, I'm sure the when we apply for building permit that will be looked at and reviewed when we apply for building permit. Secondly, on the idea of this is being I'm sorry. Yes, they'll have to apply for a land disturbance permit. If the disturbance areas over 5000 square feet, typically for something like this, they would apply for land disturbance permit and we would review any stormwater issues that could arise from that. So there would be a review. Um, to follow up with that further. Is there also review of the paving that's going to have to take place to get to this garage? If he's going to, I assume it has to be paved, they're going to extend the driveway with additional pavement that would be included in the stormwater review. The runoff from that. Second item on whether this is for automotive, uh, repair shop. Um, this will not be my son works full time job. What works lots of Saturdays. Some Sundays works at link belt cranes is one of our technicians. I also work at link belt cranes, senior vice president marketing sales and support. I have extensive travel schedule. Uh, neither of us have the time nor the financial need to have a secondary job working on commercial cars. So there will not be commercial cars done here. Uh, third question on noise. Uh, you know, I think I haven't seen the letters. I went on the previous May meeting. One of the subjects mentioned that the noise of the daily driver that my son drives was was his concern. Um, and it's a diesel truck. They make more noise than a gasoline engine car. Um, but this would probably, uh, since would be able to work on our hobby vehicle inside, should have a potential to reduce the noise of the hobby vehicle. Most certainly. I'd like to let me follow that up by asking the staff that these these issues have been have been brought to our attention. But can I assume that the only issue we're deciding at this point is the elevation of the garage itself? That is correct. The request that's before you is an increase in height only. Thank you. In regards to that, you're I think you said it was your engineer that was holding the pole. It seems like on the site plan. Um, it's you have a much deeper yard, but it seems as though that that is he on the front of where that you said the front of where the garage is gonna be poor. He's on the front. He is standing at right there at the front of where the garage would be. He's right there. Okay, so he's he's 200 ft from the other property line pin. This is 250 ft back to this pen 10 ft back from that, and it's a 40 ft deep structure. So he's 200 ft back from the view on the front line of the of the property pen. The view we looked at was from across the street. No, Athena. And you mentioned that would sit. Actually, the house sits a little higher than what what was listed that would sit, you think, lower than the house. The visual shows it lower, but it actually the elevation will be four ft three inches higher elevation wise. The fact that it's up a hill and in from the street, the line of sight makes it look like it's a little bit. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any additional questions for anyone? Staff or the applicant? All right. Hearing none, then I will entertain a motion. I move for approval of P. L. N. B. O. A. 19 75 William and Ben streamers request for variance to increase the allowable height of a detached accessory structure from 13 ft nine inches to 18 ft in order to construct a detached garage that exceeds the elevation of the structure of a single family residential on a property located at 11 43 Athenia Drive, based on the staff's recommendations and subject to the three listed approvals conditions. Thank you. Second. All right. We have first and second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, then I will call a vote. Okay. Your application is approved. Good luck with the project. Thank you. Welcome. The next item on the agenda will be P. L. N. B. O. A. 19 76 Lakeshore Apartments Association regarding 519 Lake Tower Drive. Good afternoon. If you could state your name for the record. I'm Tony Barrett. Very partners here on behalf of Lakeshore Apartments Association LLC. And you are an agent. You made. You can find them and speak on their behalf today. Yes, they have. Staff has recommended approval. It looks like there are three conditions. Your client seen those and agreeable toe abide by those. Yes. Thank you, sir. Any questions for Mr Barrett by anyone on the board? Mr Barrett, I just could you just talk briefly if there's any. I mean, is it common to you know, if the owner wants to, I guess, accept responsibility for building in the floodplain. I mean, is it common to extend into a floodplain for certain developments? No, and he's not building into the floodplain. He's actually this is a floodplain setback that is unique to Lexington. It's not part of the FEMA requirement. In Lexington, we have a 25 foot setback from the floodplain line, so we will not be in the floodplain. We will be in the floodplain setback. So that's the difference there. And it looks like there's just just, you know, a small portion of the entire complex that's gonna be in the setback. That's gonna be in the floodplain setback. That's right. The we had a final development plan approved and certified about 34 years ago, and in anticipation of building these, we built the first seven townhouses. Now those are sold, and we're ready to build the second eight townhouses. And in the interim, between the time we were certified and today, they revised the study, the floodplain study. The floodplain elevation did not change. There's been no work in the area where the floodplain is, but the graphic of the map changed. So we were kind of caught in between, and that's what created it. We gained some area and we lose some area, just the way the mapping was redrawn. So this happens to be where we got three of the units, we lost some area. Any additional questions? I'm hearing none, then I will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move approval of BL NPOA 19-76, Lakeshore Apartment Association LLC, requesting a variance to decrease minimum setback from the floodplain from 25 to 16 feet to build eight townhouses in a high-density apartment or four zone on property located at 519 Lake Tower Drive, based on the staff recommendations and subject to the three conditions listed. Second. I have a first and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, then I will call it for a vote. That application is approved. Thank you. Are you up next again? I am. So you might as well keep standing. Right here. Right. So the next item on the agenda is PL NPOA 19-78, H2 Construction LLC, regarding 1755 Old Paris Road. If the applicant is present, please state your name for the record. Tony Barrett here on behalf of H2 Construction LLC. I would note that Chad Crouch is here as well. OK. Does he want? He doesn't intend to speak. OK. And you're authorized to bind him? Yes. OK. The staff has recommended approval based upon two conditions. Has your client reviewed those and is he agreeable to abide by those? He is. Thank you, sir. Are there any questions for the applicant on this current plan? I actually do. I do understand it's a long, narrow lot, but because you have so much backspace, I mean, do you have to extend out quite so far the plot that was submitted? I mean, those houses, the house on the side is doing like this towards it, and you just have so much room to work with. I just wonder why you decide to spread out that way. It's just in the home construction, home design, that was the width that would make a house that was comfortable to be in for the price market in that location. It's not unusual for houses of that width to have three foot side, or that lot width to have three foot side yards, and that pretty much fits his model that he's wanting to put on there. Any additional questions? Hearing none, then I'll entertain a motion. I move we approve PLN BOA 19-78 H2 Construction LLC's request for a variance to reduce the required side yards from 10 feet to 3 feet in order to construct a new house in a single-family residential R1B zone on property located at 1755 Old Paris Road, based on the three staff recommendations and subject to the two conditions. Second. I have a first and a second on this application. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, I will call it to a vote. Applications approved. Thank you very much. Good luck. Have a good day. We are going to skip over the two items to be heard, which will take us then to item number six on page three. PLN BOA 19-81 Jeffrey and Catherine Wiseman regarding 223 Glendover Road. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm Bruce Simpson on behalf of Jeff and Catherine Wiseman. The staff has recommended approval based upon two conditions. Has your client reviewed those? Yes. And they're agreeable to abide by those? They are. If the board will remember, we've got two letters. I think they're both in support. It's a petition support. So we've got a number. It's just the one? Okay. If the board recalls, this is phase two. We approved, I believe, a fence and some driveways on the last application. In the swimming pool, too? Okay. Right. So it's the same plan. It was just the measurements were actually 28 inches off when completed, right? Yes. The board, Ms. Wiseman, appeared before the board in January of this year and got approval. And then the site plans were prepared by Mr. Rushing, who's here today. They were then given to the contractor. And he measured from the sidewalk. He thought the property line was to the sidewalk. The property line is actually 28 inches off of the sidewalk. And the Wiseman's caught, went out the next, after the pool had been poured, went out the next day to check their, to measure for furniture. And I noticed that it was 28. It was too close. And they measured it. And they called me. I was out of state. And I said, well, go down and meet with Autumn and Jim Marks. Tell them what happened. And you'll need to go back to the board and bring it to their attention. That's what they've done. Any questions from anyone? Mr. Clark, are you prepared to move forward? Okay. In that case, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move that we approve PLN BOA 19-81, Jeffrey and Catherine Wiseman's request for a variance to reduce the required setback for a swimming pool from 10 feet per a previously approved variance to 7 feet 8 inches within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a single family residential zone at property located at 223 Glendover Road for reasons recommended by staff and subject to the two conditions provided by staff. Second. I have a first and a second. Does anyone want to discuss the motion? Hearing none, I will put it to vote. All right. Congratulations. Your project doesn't need to be torn up. Thank you. That brings us to the last matter that is on the unopposed docket. I believe we have a letter or two in support that Autumn will bring, but I will call up PLN BOA 19-77, Larry Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton, if you want to come up. Nope. Mr. Hamilton. Yeah, come on up. Yeah. Oh, that's okay. And this is regarding 690 East Loudoun Avenue. Mr. Hamilton, the staff has recommended approval of the appeal subject to three conditions. Have you seen those? Yeah. First, state your name for the record, just so we have it. They want me to give up the other garage that I had intended on building the first time, and then they want me to use the same building materials. Is that all? Yeah, the structure has to be built with the way that I said that I was going to do it on your paper and didn't have to get all the permits and everything. Yep. So those three conditions they just gave you, you're willing to, you'll follow all those? Oh, yes, sir. And then last, I think for the record, your name is Larry Hamilton. I just want to make sure the record. Yeah, I'm a Hamilton. Okay. Thank you, sir. Are there any questions? Because we have the one letter, but that letter is in support. Any questions for the applicant? All right. Well, hearing none, I'll hear a motion. I move we approve PLN BOA 19-77, Larry Hamilton's request for an administrative appeal to increase the allowable total size of accessory structure in order to construct a 448 square foot addition to an existing garage with a single-family residential R1C zone on property located at 690 East Loudoun Ave, based on staff's recommendations and subject to the three conditions. I need a second. I'll second. Mr. Clark seconds. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, I'll put it to a vote. It's been approved, sir. Good luck. Thank you all. I appreciate it. Come on. So this brings us to the first item today to be heard. Staff has recommended disapproval of this item. It is PLN BOA 19-79, ETS Realty 2 LLC at 900 North Broadway. I believe Mr. Wolburn is representing the applicant. So, Autumn, if you want to give us your report. This application is a variance request to increase the allowable height of a fence in a front yard from four feet to six feet in a neighborhood business B1 zone. The property is about three-quarters of an acre located on the east side of North Broadway near the Dollar Tree near the intersection of North Broadway and West Loudoun. This property has been used historically for a restaurant and as a retail store most recently. The applicant purchased the property in 2011 and they currently have it leased for commercial use. But since the building has been vacant, they have been noticing an uptick in trespassers and things of that nature and they feel that installing a fence would be a security measure for them. They're requesting to install a six-foot fence rather than the four-foot fence that would be allowed. In our research, we found that front yard fences for commercial businesses are not something that is super common in Fayette County and fences that are taller than four feet are only allowed in the front yard in a handful of zones, those being sort of our heavier use zones, the B4, I1, I2, where there might be auto sales or more outdoor storage type uses going on that would justify the need for that six-foot tall fence. In this situation, we are recommending disapproval because this type of fence is not common to the vicinity. We feel that a four-foot tall fence would offer a similar level of protection for this property and that there was not any additional documentation to support the argument that six feet is really that much more secure than four feet for this type of use. And perhaps other security measures could be taken, especially in the meantime while the building is not being used and is available for lease. If you have any questions, I'm here to answer. Thank you, Autumn. If the applicant wants to come forward, please state your name for the record and then you may proceed. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Jacob Walburn on behalf of ETS Realty 2 LLC, who is the applicant. I know everybody gets nervous when they see I have a PowerPoint. I promise this is mostly pictures. I just thought it would be helpful to see some things. A couple of items for the record. First, a copy of my presentation. And second of all, if I could approach Mr. Chair, I've prepared findings for your consideration if you'd like to follow along. If you'll forgive the frog in my throat, I maybe hollered just a little bit too loud when we were one yard short on Saturday evening. I think Autumn did a good job of framing the request. Applicant has asked me to get help them get a variance to install a six-foot fence. This is of the wrought iron style, the black bars that you're able to see between. I'll show you an example here in just a minute. This is not one where they went ahead and put it up and are asking permission. They went through the permitting process, discovered that a variance was needed, and so it's not a willful violation situation. And we actually do have a pretty significant problem here that I'll give you some documentation concerning here in just a moment. Autumn laid out where the site is. We're in a B1 zone where on both sides of us there's B1 sites. But we're a little bit unique and I want to show you why. You all deal with setbacks a lot, so you're familiar with that. The B1 has a minimum and a maximum. In B1, you can't be any closer to the front property line than 10 feet. You're not supposed to be any farther back than 20 feet. This property is actually 122 feet behind the property line. Why? It was constructed in the 50s before we had that setback. So it's six times the distance that a standard B1 property is normally from the right-of-way. We also have another unique feature on this property. We are immediately adjacent to the Dollar General, or the Dollar Tree, excuse me, that's at the corner of Loudoun and North Broadway. That gives an extended wall plane that runs down our southern property line. Why is that important? Because if a person is driving by, particularly a law enforcement officer, that would be traveling on the right side of the street, their view of our property is completely obscured by that wall until they get right up on top of it. So those are kind of the two unique things about this site. I know that you all are often concerned about creating issues of precedent. I think you'll find that this is a fairly unique situation in Lexington in terms of the setback and the obscured view. Do we really have a problem? Yes, we do. This is from the Lexington Community Crime Map. It logs criminal incidents throughout our community. I've circled us up on the screen. This is a report that was run from January 1st of 2019 to today. We've had six criminal incidents on the site in that time, really started picking up in late summer. I would note that the nine-plus next door at the Dollar Tree is actually 24 criminal incidents. Now a majority of those, I think 16 of them, were related to shoplifting, as you might expect, but another eight were on property issues like vandalism, trespassing, there was even an assault in the parking lot. There are also two criminal incidents noted at the intersection of Kenyon Road and North Broadway, both again dealing with trespassing, and based on what my client has communicated with me, I think they may have just written down the wrong address and logged those to the intersection of Kenyon and North Broadway. There is a significant issue with a lot of trespassing, vandalism, burglary breaking into the facility while it has been vacant. Staff has suggested that I need to provide evidence for you about why a six-foot fence is superior to a four-foot fence. I don't think that that's actually what the legal standard is, but fine, let's do that. The first article up here on the screen is from the city of Montgomery, Alabama. What did they say? The American Crime Prevention Institute suggests that all fences installed be at least six feet in height. This help limits a criminal ability to jump or climb the fence. The second one on the right-hand side of the screen is from the city of San Diego, California. They also recommend that all fences be at least six feet in height. They also recommend that they be of a transparent design, like my client is proposing, because the typical flip side of installing a six-foot fence is you can limit your visibility. Of course, visibility is also a huge component of limiting crime. So this is a best-of-both-worlds situation. You can keep unwanted trespassers out, but still maintain visibility on the site. This is from a company, InfoSec, that actually specializes in putting together secure sites. They note that as a fence height increases, the degree of security likewise increases. And just for fun, the last one I threw in is from the city of Manchester, England, who also likewise recommends that transparent fences of a sufficient height be installed to deter trespassers. So it's an internationally accepted standard that the higher the fence, the taller the fence is, and the more transparent it is, the better it is at deterring trespassers. So I think that's adequate evidence that a six-foot height fence is superior to a four-foot height fence. And it's not completely uncommon to the area. The top two photographs are of the Lextran facility that's on the corner of Broadway. It's actually not quite on the corner, but on Loudon Avenue, the brand-new Lextran facility. It has a six-foot fence. I would note that the materials that were used here, and specifically over here, are exactly the same type of fencing that my client is proposing. I did notice that on the back side, where there was a little bit easier access, they actually installed a barbed wire installation as well. That is not something my client is proposing. These other two of me are just examples in the general area. I think the zoning is differential. They're not B1 sites, but they do show that there are six-foot tall fences, fronting right-of-way, both of these with barbed wire, within less than a tenth of a mile of the site that we're talking about. So I don't think that this type of fencing is completely uncommon in the area. I would notice that a number of zoning exempt entities like to use six-foot fences. BCTC, LFECG, and UK, all users of six-foot tall fences along their right-of-way to deter trespassers. So I think if it's good for the goose, it should also be good for the gander when a specific legal showing like this one has been shown. And finally, the suggestion about alternatives. These alternatives are not, I don't think, are nearly as effective. This is two lots down from us. This is the Rite Aid Pharmacy that's also on the corner of Loudoun-Broadway. You can see that they've tried to use bushes here to kind of have that fence effect. I would note three things for you. Number one, obviously, there are places where people can get through bushes, so they're not exactly as secure. Number two, the kind of landscaping alternative is not as, not as, it's not transparent. You're not able to see through it. Again, going back to that principle we've already mentioned. And three, I would notice that if you look really closely at this picture, you'll see that there's actually people sitting in the bushes right here, so it's not exactly deterring trespassers. So in brief summary, we don't think that there's any adverse impact on health, safety, or welfare here. No one will be any the wiser. You'll be able to see through it. It doesn't cause a hazard or nuisance to the public. I don't think it alters the essential character of the area at all. The question you have to ask yourself and what the zoning ordinance actually asked you to call for is, would this alter the essential character of the North Broadway Corridor? And I think given the photographs that we've shown you of adjacent properties, you can't determine that it would alter the essential character of the area. It exists in the area right now. Unnecessary hardship is obvious. This is costing my clients a tremendous amount of money. Additionally, it increases the difficulty in getting the building leased. This is a productive commercial site. Unfortunately, the last business went out, they'd like to get it leased to a new tenant. When you show up with fresh graffiti or fresh evidence of breaking and entering, it's extremely hard to get that property leased. I've tried to give you some unique elements of this property that I think go to the reasonability of this request. You're not going to run across many B1 properties in Lexington that have a six-time the maximum setback. This sets back far from the road and it's obscured. This is a very lightly intrusive means of keeping out unwanted trespassers and it was not a willful violation. I know this board is often very concerned with whether people did go through the appropriate processes. This one was caught at the appropriate time. They were seeking a permit, they hadn't begun construction, applied for the variance timely. So for those reasons, I'd ask you to consider those findings that I handed out. I tried to craft them in a way that they're narrowly tailored so you don't have any major concerns of precedent. I certainly would encourage you to speak with your own attorney if you have concerns about those. I've even suggested two conditions that I believe are typical in granting approval of these cases. That is that the site plan be followed and all appropriate permits be obtained. So with that, again forgive the frog in my throat, but I will try to rib it through any questions you might have if that would be helpful and we certainly appreciate your time and consideration of this request. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Mr. Wolburn, when I look at the property it looks like you only need a fence on probably the front side and the side, you know, bordering the old printing press. The only potential issue there, because you're right, you could really use that long wall that I've cited you as basically a de facto fence, is getting appropriate permission from the Dollar Tree people to... What do you have there? A couple feet in between? Maybe a foot. It's very, very tight. And it's certainly something we'd be open to exploring, but you're absolutely correct. What's driving the request is the open sides where we have seen a lot of pedestrians getting in. I would say that on the long side there's been some anecdotal information from my clients that when people are trying to get into that building, they'll actually creep along that wall because they're less visible to people that are driving by. But I think there are a number of ways that it could be handled to keep folks out of that area. Most of the incidents are people just walking up the front drive. Yeah, it seems that we have really three significant issues, what I'll call the troublemakers, which are people who just see a vacant building and want to go break a window or try to get in and look around. There is a not insubstantial amount of homeless population there that sometimes are looking for a sheltered place to stay, which has caused incidents as well. And then there's just the third category that I call miscellany. That happens to be where the chase ends or somebody's trying to cut through to get somewhere, more of a general trespasser than somebody who targeted that specific location. Mr. Holtman, let me let me ask you this. Is the fact that the property is vacant, isn't that causing a lot of the problems? I think it's certainly driving a significant portion of the problems, but I think also the theory being that even when that property is occupied, it's unlikely to be attended for 24 hours. So I do think that is exacerbating the problem at this point, but I don't think it's the only cause of it. So the other properties on that block past the Dollar Tree has no fencing. Am I correct in saying that? There's only two properties, so if you're traveling towards town there. No, going north. Going north? Yeah. Okay, no, there's no fencing to the next two properties or B1, and they don't have fencing at present. Are they experiencing the same kind of vandalism? According to the crime map, it would indicate to me that they're not or on a much smaller scale. I don't have personal knowledge of that, only the statistical research I've done. I'd say both the Miss Priss slash Thoroughbred printing property, the building is a similar setback from the North Broadway, but then the climbing facility is substantially further back from the roadway. And if you go down north, there are no, I mean, they're all four-foot fences pretty far back from the road. There's no six-foot fences on this section North Broadway. There are a couple of four-foot on the other side that are on residential properties. Yeah, I saw some four-foot, but I didn't see any six-foot fences. Yeah, no, I think that's correct. If somebody buys or leases this property, is that fence going to be appropriate for a business, however it's established? I would think it would be. I can't conceive of any reason why that it would inhibit a business in some way. You'd have to have a gate out front? Of course, yeah. You'd have to have a gate regardless. Yeah. Speaking of the gate, does that become a traffic issue or concern with traffic if you pull into a property that you have to wait, I mean, right there off of Broadway, if we have to wait for a gate to be open? My assumption is that that gate would remain locked during non-business hours and would remain open during business hours. I don't think it would be a situation where a customer would pull up, the gate would be closed, and they'd have to wait on it to open. They would leave it open during business hours when the site was attended and closed on times when the site was not. I think that would be a traffic EMS. I can't imagine them allowing the gate to be that close to the roadway. Usually you have to be able to turn around, but Mr. Parker has stepped out. But even with the forefoot, it would have the gate, right? So we'd still have the same question regarding the gate. I would guess that that would be something that would come up during the permitting process, that there would perhaps have to be a setback for the gate itself, perhaps that the fence would go up to the property line, but then there would have to be an offset to allow the gate to be further into the property, perhaps. I'm not sure of the exact requirements, but that would be something that would come up during the permitting process. That's been my experience with at least one or two residential projects where you can't just put the gate there at the sidewalk because cars would run into it in the process. That would be part of the permitting, I think. And on behalf of my client, I'd certainly commit to ensuring that any gate was put at an appropriate distance. Let me ask the staff. The staff suggests that other security measures are available. Does the staff have any comments on that, of what would be recommended for this in a substitute for a fence? I don't think that we have any recommendations necessarily. I think we are just referencing other types of security measures, being cameras, security systems, that type of thing. But as far as recommendations, I don't think we would have any recommendation. Yeah, thank you. I would say that goes to the unnecessary hardship argument that all of those alternatives that she just mentioned are obviously quite a bit more expensive than installation of fencing. It seems to me that you have to, in order, the property owner needs some relief here to get, you know, the property's not going to get leased until it becomes less of a problem with, you know, the trespass and the burglaries or whatever, you know, activities are going on here that you've got to have the chicken before you can have some relief. The property owner needs some relief, I think. Yeah, I would probably just say that, you know, I probably wouldn't be inclined, I would probably stick with the disapproval just because it, I feel like, yeah, I mean, if this was occupied and it wasn't vacant, I don't think you'd have any issues. I mean, you might have a few, but obviously when it's occupied, based on my experience in owning properties downtown, once they're occupied, it reduced dramatically. You know, I could, if you can do a four-foot fence, I think there's certain four-foot fences that are easier to climb than others, and I'd be inclined to probably vote that way. All right, Mr. Welburn, thank you very much. Any, I think that's done with the questions, it looks like. At this point, I will entertain a motion, one way or the other. I move we disapprove, or would it be approve, a disapproval? Yeah, disapprove the request for a variance to increase the allowable height of a fence in the front yard from four feet to six feet in a neighborhood business B1 zone on property located at 900 North Broadway, based on the three reasons outlined by staff. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. We have a first and a second. At this point, is there any discussion on the motion? All right, hearing none, I'll put it to vote. The motion to disapprove has been approved, and so the application has failed. See you next month. Thank you, sir. The next item, I'm going to jump a little bit in the agenda, and I'm going to discuss a staff item, which is consideration of our meetings for next year, real quickly, so I can participate in that. I spoke with Mr. Glover last month's hearing, and he told me that if he did not object to me personally, that he was okay with the proposed dates that we discussed last month. So I'm going to take him at his word that he is fine with that. This is the same schedule that we discussed last month, and we were ready to move last month, but we gave Mr. Glover some time and postponed to this month to give us some time to look at those dates. So at this point, I would like us to approve it, and I would like a motion, one way or the other, please. Mr. Chair, I move that we approve the meeting and filing schedule for 2020 as presented to here today. Thank you, sir. We have a second. Any discussion? If not, we'll put it to a vote. All right, so that passes. On the next case that will be called, I'm going to recuse myself, and that's going to be PLMB 08-19-80 LexLive Entertainment Complex, 301-307 South Broadway. Mr. Needham will be taking over the chairmanship from me. This is the last item on our agenda today, so I will recuse myself from the meeting place. Hope everyone has a very nice Thanksgiving, and I'll see you guys in December. Well, thank you. Let's see. Let's call this case. Let's call PLMB 08-19-80 LexLive Entertainment Complex, and they have a request. This is quite a request. One variance to increase the allowable lettering height on the sign bands below 50 feet from 30 feet to 72 feet along, I'm sorry, 50 feet from 30 inches to 72 inches along South Broadway and High Street. Two, an administrative appeal to transfer 61.33 square feet from one sign to another for the sign reading, quote, corner. Three, an administrative appeal to transfer 56.41 square feet from one wall sign above 50 feet to a location below 50 feet for the sign reading, quote, LexLive along High Street. Number four, an administrative appeal to determine that the use of the property qualifies as a, quote, civic center and therefore is allowed to have a wall-mounted electronic message board. Number five, if number four is approved, an administrative appeal to transfer 200 square feet from a loud electronic message board to the other in order to have a 400 square foot electronic message board within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a Lexington Center business B2B zone on property located at 301 and 307 South Broadway. All right, let's see here. I guess who is, I guess we'll have staff as a prepared and then we'll follow up with Mr. Murphy. All right, so for these requests we have several recommendations, so I'm going to walk you through kind of each of these five requests. Request number one, to increase the height of signs in the sign band from 30 inches to 72 inches, so that is going to apply at two locations on the building. Here you're looking at the South Broadway facade and the signs that are included in this request here are the ones in this red box. Staff has recommended approval for only the sign reading Lex Live since that is the the name of the overall entertainment complex. The consensus sort of was that it made sense to perhaps allow that sign a little bit of extra height, but that the the remaining signs of the bowling pins, the game day sports, and the Krikorian logo here should remain at the 30 inches allowed by the ordinance because of the placement on the building based on the the way that the ordinance was was written in order to the the view of that type of signage, this is the reason that the the 30 inches was approved. Then we're also looking at the same request, the signs on the High Street facade here, the ones with the lettering, reading, gaming, dining, events, etc., with the image behind. In this situation, the sign band, the lettering meets the requirements for 30 inches, but the signs behind are exceeding that and going up to that 72 inches that's being requested. Staff's concern here is with the images in the back. Obviously the lettering is at the appropriate height. Staff feels that should those images remain that they would need to also meet the 30 inch requirement, but we would be agreeable to having a contrast panel of a color perhaps behind the lettering to sort of allow for that to contrast so that the signage would be more visible. Let's see. And I'm sorry, what's the LexLive? What size are we requesting the LexLive? The LexLive, we will get to that one in a moment. That's covered under request number three. So request one is for the two sign bands, which are the horizontal bands, on either side of the building. For request number two, that is a request for the corner bar sign. In this location on the building, the applicant could have 280 square foot signs by right for a total of 160 square feet. Currently the the word bar is under the 80 square foot allowed. It's at about 61 square feet and corner exceeds by quite a bit at 131 or 141. So they're requesting 61.33 square feet of wall signage that would be allowed at a different elevation on the building to be transferred. Our recommendation is that corner bar be scaled down to meet the total 160 square feet that they would be allowed by right, but to allow a transfer between the word bar to the word corner in order to allow corner to be larger than 80 square feet, but still not as large as what is currently requested. Request number three is the LexLive sign on the high street side. This is the same sign that we see on the Broadway side that we requested or recommended approval for in the sign band. This is the same size. This is just not in the sign band on this side of the building. So rather than have a sign above 50 feet in height on the building, the applicant is requesting to transfer that allowable signage to a lower elevation in order to allow this sign that is above the sign band, but not at 50 feet. Staff is recommending approval of that request. And finally requests four and five are with regard to the electronic message display here at the corner above the word corner. This is a requested 400 square foot electronic message display. Electronic message boards are currently only allowed for civic centers in the B2 downtown business zones. Civic center is not a term that is defined specifically in our ordinance, but based on sort of the conventional definitions for civic center and the requirements that are included in the zoning ordinance for a civic center to have an electronic message board. Those types of uses are typically at least partially publicly owned, and this is a private entity. This is an entertainment complex, and the use does not include an exhibition hall in an arena. I think that the applicant has made the argument that having eSports in a theater room would qualify as an arena, but planning staff did not agree with that assessment. We do not feel that this use can be called a civic center, and the more appropriate path to perhaps allowing an electronic message board at this location we believe would be for the applicant to go through a text amendment process to perhaps allow for electronic message boards for other types of uses because we do not feel that this meets the intent of the word civic center. And with that we are recommending disapproval of items four and five since number five is subject to number four's approval. And that is all I have. I know it's the signage requirements are a lot on this one, so I'm prepared to answer any questions you may have. Yeah, does anyone have any questions? These signs are just there, they don't move. They're just electronic. They're not, it doesn't rotate, you know, messaging or anything. It would, yes. That would. The message board would. The electronic message board would. The other signs are just regular signs. Thank you. Any more questions for Autumn? Okay, thank you. Okay, Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy. I'm pleased today to be representing the LexLive Entertainment Complex. We're going to pass out some handouts for you. This is Elizabeth Ruggles-Pitchford of Ruggles Signs, who is our designer, and she is handing out two packages. One is our application materials and the other is some handouts that I'm giving you. We also have some overheads we'll be utilizing as well. I want to give you a little background on this, an introduction. George Krikorian, who is the president and owner, is here with us today in the second row, along with Tim Cambron, who's the vice president of the company. There you are, Tim. And Bruce Wren, who's the manager of the property. And Harold Tate, you've met, probably many of you know Harold Tate. He was executive director of the Downtown Development Authority here for ten years. For the last two or three years, he has, I'm not sure he has a title, but he's sort of been the project manager for the construction of the property here in Lexington. Also, as I said, we have our designers from Ruggles Sign Company, Elizabeth Ruggles-Pitchford and Katie Durham, who are in the row below. And also there, who's not part of my presentation, but Ethan Howard from the Downtown Development Authority is here as well. And I'm pleased to see there are no other people in the audience. I know you have some letters, but there's no, I can note for the record, there's nobody here to object in person to our plan. I know you have some letters of objection, and I noticed two of those just came in this morning. I got a chance to glance at those before this presentation started, and I'm going to deal with some of those objections in my presentation, because I'm not sure all those are well-founded. But just to give you a little background about this, Mr. Krekorian has 20 years of experience in Lexington. He's from California, but he owns two farms here. And he's a landowner and spent a lot of time in Lexington. He's developed 23 entertainment complexes in California, but in his travels through Lexington, he thought there was a need for one here as he has seen our downtown grow and prosper. I talked to him the other day, and he said that as he was caught in traffic one day at this, which is one of the busiest intersections in Lexington, at South Broadway and Main and High Street up there, he noted that this would be an ideal space for an entertainment complex because it has a lot of pedestrian traffic. It has very slow vehicular traffic through there. It has obviously the convention traffic, visitors coming in from out of town. It's centrally located to conserve students, families, visitors, convention goers. And with downtown coming into the strong position it is today, he felt it was appropriate to build this center, which you've probably seen going up at the corner of High Street and South Broadway. What we'll have here is a real mix of facilities. We will have 10 auditoriums here, which can obviously be used for movies, but they are multi-purpose facilities. They can also be used for convention meetings, continuing education sessions, workshops, eSports competitions, simulcasts of national events. I know it used to be the Metropolitan Opera would broadcast its operas across the country, and sporting events too as well, and other gatherings. They are going to have a laser projection system here, which I'm told puts to shame digital projection systems and IMAX projection systems. They'll be sharper and have much more clarity. There are over a hundred speakers in a number of these rooms as well. But these laser projection systems also are ideal for corporate presentations, continuing education, corporate functions, and that sort of thing. And that is the plan for some of these 10 auditoriums. But there's a lot more to this facility than just the 10 auditoriums. We're going to have a sports bar and restaurant at the corner that Ms. Goddard alluded to. We're going to have a second large restaurant inside the facility. We're going to have 14 bowling alleys. We're going to have two additional meeting rooms, which will never be used for movies, just for meetings, as some of those meetings that I told you about, gatherings and conventions. We're going to have an arcade for video and other games and concession areas. And these areas are going to be tied together by very ornate lobbies. And so it's a multifunction facility, which is unique in Lexington. And this is, and we don't want you to think this is a movie tavern or something like that. It's not. This is something much bigger. It's a multi-purpose facility, and there is nothing like this in this portion of the United States. There's nothing in Cincinnati. There's nothing in Knoxville. Don't think there's anything in Atlanta or Louisville that is like this facility. It will be a tourist draw in itself for people who are coming here. And I want to emphasize, too, that this is entirely privately financed. Mr. Krekorian has not gotten tax breaks or other incentives from the state or local government to come here. He is, this, his company is paying for it itself. Now, we are in a tax incentive district, TIF, Tax Increment Financing District. I'll discuss that in a minute. We're not getting any of the financing from that. Our money under that district is going to finance, help finance the big parking garage, which the Lexington Center is going to build on High Street on their old parking lots. So we are totally privately financed, but our funds from our employees and tax withholding is going to go, whether we want it to or not, to, and we want it to, to the construction of the new parking garage down the street on High Street across from Rip Arena. So I wanted to emphasize that we are in the TIF, but we're not getting the benefit from the TIF. Our goal every week, we plan to have 30 to 40,000 people attend events at this facility. It's about 70 or 80,000 square feet. We're going to have jobs for 200 to 300 people full and part-time. As I said, Mr. Krekorian has designed about 23 other complexes. He knows what it takes to make these succeed. If we could have the first of my pictures, not the renderings, but that the, the lighting and the signs and the activity are really critical to the success of a venue like this. And I just took a couple pictures last night. The Kentucky Theater has blinking lights along the, along the edge that go along, go down here and through here and up here and there. And it did have type on the, the message board, but it was so bright my camera couldn't pick, pick up the type. But this is what we've had. Of course, we have the Kentucky Theater. If we could go to the second one there, I guess I can use my blinker to go with that hopefully. This is the, the Helix Garage. And I think if there's anything that shows the value of lighting and signage, it's the Helix Garage. As, as you all know, that's been there for 50 years. And for last 49, for 49 prior to this, it was a, at night it was sort of a black hole. It was a dead, dead area. And I took these two pictures, go back the other way, and that one, that's the sign on the Helix Garage. I took these pictures last night, Sunday evening, because I wanted to show them to you. And when I was out there taking my pictures, there were two other people on the street taking pictures of the Helix Garage. It was amazing. They went down and took pictures of the Kentucky Theater marquee as well. But the mixture of signage and lighting, and we're using lighting on ours too, obviously we don't have to ask you for permission for that, is, has, adds so much to the sense of place and the vibrancy of downtown. It's amazing. And that's what Mr. Krikorian plans on doing here. Another example of that is the, is the city center building, which that we, I caught it when it was bluish, but it changes to purple and pink and all that sort of thing. Again, it adds a real sense of vibrancy to the, to the downtown area. The, and entertainment centers have always had this, this type of lighting to assist them. The, if we could go to the other set, the renderings there, the, we have the, wanted to show you a little bit about our location and our renderings here. For an entertainment complex, the, the saying is, the show starts on the street. We have to communicate that sense of vibrancy and immediacy to the street. Now, we're located right here. This is the corner of High Street and Broadway, going right here. The Civic Center parking garage is right there. Lexington Center, the Hyatt Regency is here. Rupp Arena is right here. We're located on the corner here. I do want to emphasize, this is, this is South Broadway, and we are across the street from the, the sort of gravel, sort of asphalt parking lot, which was for many years the Gulf Station there until it was removed. Down here, we're across from another parking lot and a couple of older buildings, which have been converted to commercial or office use. We are not across the street from any residential uses, so our signs are not facing any residential area. When we get down here, maybe there are some, but we're up here. Here's the parking garage, and our, we neighbor non-residential uses or parking facilities across South Broadway from us. Obviously, across High Street, we border Lexington Center, the Hyatt Regency, Rupp Arena area here. This gives you another block scale as to what we're doing here. The, the, where this shows in the color, the, the size of the building coming out from, it's about the same height as the parking garage coming over, takes a step down, is shorter along High Street, and you can see what we're doing along Broadway as well here. You can see the parking lot across Broadway and the building which has been converted to commercial use there. That's the Hyatt Regency pool deck, and the electronic message board for the Hyatt, for, is right on the side of the wall. You can't see it here, but it's on the side facing High Street and facing our facility as well. That's the layout that shows the, where the applications are. Ms. Goddard went through those. This is the side of the building which faces Broadway. Broadway runs here. This is the corner. The High Street is right here. This is where we're asking for the word corner. The word bar goes around to High Street, and this is the band which we asked variance for on the size. Ms. Meyer, I'm glad you asked the question you had because the term of, they call this the sign band, but it's nothing like the band in Rupp Arena or the Commonwealth Stadium where they have moving messages going on through. These do not move. What you're seeing here is permanent signage, does not move, and that's what you see now is the way it will be. The only thing that would be moving would be the electronic message display board on that. The variance here is to, for the height of this and Lex Live, we feel it's important due to the scale of this building in the area to have the height that we're asking for. Now, I want to direct your attention to this black and red rectangle which is on the side of the building which we've shown facing Broadway. That is for a sign we are not asking for. What I asked Ruggles to do was to show you the size of a sign we could have without a variance if we were to maximize out the signs on this side of the building. So what you see in black, the whole outline, is what we are allowed. Now, the little piece in red in the middle is part of what we would be allowed on that size, but that's the size that we are requesting to transfer down to the COR on corner. We're asking to transfer that size down to here. Now, what's the impact of that? The impact of that is we are not having a sign up high. I know the letter from the South Hill Neighborhood Association said we'd have signs in the neighborhood. We don't. If we were to do this one, which we are allowed to, there's signs above 30 feet and below 30 feet and that sort of thing. This would be a sign which would be much more visible to the residential neighbors, which are out off in this direction and up Broadway here. Instead, we are transferring, you can see probably about maybe a quarter of that signage, down to here to the COR and corner, which is directly opposite the parking lot, the old gravel parking lot at the corner of East High and Broadway. By approving this transfer, we are moving the sign down to a way that is farther away from any residential use. The other point is, if you grant the variances and the administrative reviews we're asking for, you are not increasing the sign square footage we could have on this building. We will have, if you approve it, we will have less square footage on this building than what we would be allowed and we think it's in a more appropriate way. It's more important for the development to have it this way because we are oriented to this corner here and we want to have the activity scene. We have glass windows along here so people walking down or driving down Broadway can see that there's activity going on inside, much like the renovation of Rupp Arena in which they're putting a glass wall in there so people can see that there's activity inside Rupp Arena. Now we're doing the same thing on the High Street side. Again, we'll have the glass walls there. We'll have the signage here telling people who are at the Hyatt or Rupp Arena because that's what we're right across from what activities are here. And again, we could have done a big black sign up high on this one to show you again that we are not using all the square footage we're allowed when we transfer a little bit of it down here and we ask for the variance on the sign band here. Again, this sign band is static. It is not moving. It does not have moving signs. What you see is what we'll get. And we have on these is, for instance, on the bowling, we have some little bowling pins behind there. And that sort of thing is what we're showing on the panels back there. But again, those are static. Those are oriented to the Hyatt Regency and to Rupp Arena. Nobody in any residential use will be able to see that. see those. The lighting we will have is comparable to what they have across the street at the Hyatt and at Rupp Arena. So we're trying to convey the sense of activity and excitement and entertainment that we will have inside this building. I want to discuss with you a little bit the electronic message display system and for this I'm going to go to my my handout because it gets into a discussion of what's allowed in the B2B zone. If you would go to page two of the handout and I think I've got an extra one I can give to them. If you look at page two of my handout a number of them on the lower right side of the page. This is what's allowed in the Lexington Center zone. We're in the B2B zone. We're not in a residential or any other zone. We're in the Lexington Center business zone and this tells you about the message boards the electronic message boards. Down in section two here you have it before you it's a little hard to read up on the screen but it says that in addition to the other signs in the zone four wall-mounted electronic message display system signs shall be permitted for civic centers which contain exhibition halls and an arena for athletic and cultural events. That's all the definition of what a civic center is but I want to emphasize to you number one very importantly where it says shall be permitted for civic centers. There's an S on the end of centers. That's a plural word not a not a singular word. This ordinance is designed to allow for more than one civic center in the B2B zone. Obviously when it was written back in 1975 there was only the one but they used plural for a reason because they didn't want to confine it only to the one they were considering back in 1975. So what are the requirements here which contain exhibition halls and an arena for athletic and cultural events? You have to have exhibition halls which we have. Our ten halls as I mentioned are multi-purpose. We can use them for meetings, displays, art displays, exhibitions, continuing education and the like. We have two meeting rooms which are never used for movies and what Mr. Krekorian has done in the past he likes to have exhibitions that relate to movie themes. For instance around the Oscars he'll have exhibits of Oscar memorabilia. He has had exhibits of wax figures of characters and movies. He has had exhibits of vintage movie posters as well. I would guess in Lexington we're probably going to have some horse related exhibits as well and that sort of thing but we definitely have the exhibit space and plan on doing it. I would wager that at two o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon we're not going to be using all ten auditoriums for movies. We're going to be wanting to use them for different things during the day and as I'll mention a little later we've had a feeler from the Lexington Center Corporation to use our facility for conventions, convention activities while their remodel goes on for the next two years. So we have exhibition halls. Now the second thing was an arena for athletic and cultural events. So I went to the dictionary on page four and page five. My dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and said what's an arena? And we're not the first definition which is a place where gladiators have combat. I hope we won't be that anyway. But we do meet number two which is an enclosed area used for public entertainment. Well we definitely have enclosed areas used for public entertainment. And B is a building containing an arena. So we have enclosed areas used for public entertainment on this. Do we have, and it's for athletic or entertainment events and certainly obviously movies and other things are entertainment events. Do we have athletic events? We have bowling. We have 14 lanes of bowling. That is an athletic event. Now just for good measure I've put in my my handout to you some information I got off the internet about eSports. eSports you can see on page 6 and page 7 they have been named a medal event at the 2020 Asian Games which are a portion of the International Olympic Committee system going up to the Olympics. They're much like the Pan American Games. On page 8 I've got a squib about Paris 2024 Olympics considering using eSports as a demonstration sport. And on page 10 of my handout I've got a news release from the UK about starting up an eSports team. And that you've probably heard in the news that a lot of colleges are starting eSports teams now. I was in I think it was Indianapolis a year or two ago and there was a major event at a center in Indianapolis. I couldn't figure out what it was because on the marquee I didn't even know what they were talking about. After walking by there I we found out it was an eSports tournament and it was bringing huge crowds in to watch people where they would be in the auditorium which we are wired for playing eSports. And the crowd sitting in the seats sees up on the screen what the people in the front are doing on their screen playing eSports. And they make a lot of money doing this. There's big prizes. And Mr. Krekorian plans on having eSports as part of the activities at this center. So I'm doing that so I'm not trying to push eSports here say how great it is. I don't get it myself but it is. And I just do it to demonstrate that yes we have sporting activities here. We have bowling obviously. But we have eSports as well. So we meet the criteria in the ordinance when it discusses civic centers plural. We have the exhibition space. We have an arena for athletic and cultural events. Is it Rupp Arena? No it's not Rupp Arena. But we have a lot of seating in here and as I said we can we can handle over 2,000 people in this building at one time. And we planned on having those activities right here. Going back through my handouts you can see on page 11 there's a letter from the Lexington Center Corporation which was dated last week to Todd Cummings who is here where they say that we see your theater as a great pre and post event destination as an entertainment option. And he says as discussed in our recent meeting we are eager to work together co-promoting Lexington Center events and perhaps even offering your venue as optional space during construction of the new Convention Center. So we could have the convention events which need to come over here during construction. Now we plan on having convention events here ourselves. Obviously they would not be as big as the ones that they have at Lexington Center across the street. But it's well equipped to handle conventions with multiple breakout sessions in our various auditoriums that are equipped for state-of-the-art presentations here. Now I want to emphasize here too and in the we it is not required our ordinance makes no mention that a Civic Center has to be owned by the city. That is not part of our ordinance at all. On page 14 I have a definition from this book Illustrated Book of Development Definitions. This is actually it says it's the new illustrated book. It's actually 1993 copyright back when Civic Center was thought about as a city hall building. But even here on their comment they say broadly speaking ownership and operation by a governmental agency is no longer a critical element in the definition of the Civic Center. Governmental participation and sanction of a private endeavor would still meet this definition. And I'm here to say we are sanctioned by a governmental entity big-time. In page 15 of my handout I have the ordinance that established the Lexington Center tax increment financing district. I didn't bring the whole give you the whole ordinance because there's over a hundred pages of materials with that. But this is the ordinance that was passed last year establishing the TIF district. And on page 16 my ex marks the spot where we are located. I just did that to show that we are part of the TIF district. And it has also been approved by the state because as you can see on pages 17 and 18, 17 is the cover sheet of the agenda for the Kentucky Economic Development and Finance Authority meeting on last Thursday October 31st. And on page 18 I have the agenda sheet telling what is in the development boundaries of the Lexington TIF district. And within those boundaries as you can see on page 18 I've underlined there there happens to be a 10 screen movie theater and a 16 lane bowling alley along with the other items that they have as part of the TIF district which includes the the Lexington Center Rupp Arena that sort of thing. We are included in that. Now what's the what's the impact of us being included in the TIF district? Well on page 19 through page 22 I have excerpts of the consultants report which was required in order to obtain eligibility last year when they did this in August 2018. And you can see on page 21 of my handout part of the consultants report they mentioned the project will include 10 screen movie theater, 16 lane bowling alley. I think we ended up with 14 lanes didn't we actually in a bowling alley instead of 16. But they are including us in the TIF district and page 22 really tells the impact of why we're in there. This this type is very hard to read but what they're showing is that in figure 11 the impact economic impact analysis just of the movie theater the 10 screen movie theater they estimate the one year impact of that of over 16 million dollars and they estimate the total wages of 132 employees as over 3 million dollars. Similarly with the bowling alley this consultant estimated the yearly economic impact of the bowling alley as being over 3 million dollars and the total employment for a year of 1.8 million dollars. And you can see they estimate the total impact of the the 10 auditoriums alone not the rest of the entertainment complex as 608 million dollars over 30 years and they estimate the impact of the bowling alley alone over 30 years as 205 million. What's why what's the significance of that? Well it means that for all the employees we have and all the property taxes and I think this year they're paying about a hundred thousand of property taxes even before it's finished. The portions of those taxes go to Lexington Center Corporation to pay for the construction of the new parking garage down High Street. So the government is depending upon the success of this facility in order to fund the construction of that new parking garage down the road. I was doing this not to say that the TIF is a good thing or a bad thing although I want to point out to you we do not benefit from the TIF we are the funding engine for the TIF we do not get any benefit of that. But to say that everything written here leads to the conclusion that we are a civic center and that we do meet the only criteria the very minimal criteria put in the ordinance for a civic center. We are privately owned but we are government sanctioned even though that's not a requirement of the ordinance. But the last thing I need to to emphasize about the about the electronic message boards is the rule in law in interpreting zoning ordinances is that if there is any ambiguity in the law the agency must interpret the law strictly in favor of the property owner. And the reason for that now I've got two cases I said I'm not going to put you to sleep by reading you these cases but as you can see Kentucky law reads and I'll just read one excerpt on the very last page of my handout from this Robertson versus Western Baptist Hospital case. It says in a doubtful application an influential factor entering into the decision is the recognized rule that restrictions and zoning ordinances being in derogation of common law right to use private property as to realize its highest utility should not be extended by implication to cases not clearly within the scope of the purpose and the intent manifest in their language. And those have been interpreted say as I mentioned that if there's ambiguity in a zoning ordinance it must be resolved in favor of the property owner. I don't think there's any ambiguity here. I think in this case the word civic centers was made plural in that ordinance. We have the facilities it takes. We're not Rupp Arena but we are us we are an arena we are smaller we meet those requirements we have the activities that takes place. Clearly the drafters of that ordinance didn't mean only the government-owned Lexington Center could have a message board. These message boards are essential to the success of what we're proposing here. We're trying to create a sense of place on the street. We have lowered these down. We have not used our signage up on the top as you saw in that exhibit which would be more obtrusive into the South Hill area in those areas. We have pulled it down to the corner of Broadway and High which is the activity center on this block. And we have done I think everything we can to install a sense of place here, a sense of excitement and to make this a place that I'm going to want to come to, that if I ever have grandchildren I'm going to want to bring them to, that students at UK are going to come to, that people visiting Rupp Arena are going to want to come to, and that people may come to Lexington just to come to this center because of events they're having here or just because they want to see the best center like this in the eastern part of the United States. Mr. Kerkorian is investing millions in this of his own money because he believes in this, but he also knows what we have to have to make this a success because he's done 23 of the other ones. So we don't come here lightly, but we don't come here asking you to stretch this out. As again I said, we're not using all the signage that we are allowed. So I probably got some things that I forgot to tell you, but we're trying to keep this in context with the architecture of the building, but we feel very strongly that this is not only permitted, but is essential to the success of this facility. And we'd be happy to answer any questions you all may have. Mr. Kerkorian may want to say something to you as well as Harold is, I think as well, but we thank you for the time you spent considering this. Thank you. Sure, thanks Mr. Murphy. This is a lot to take in. You know, I might ask the board here, how do you want to approach this? Do you want to talk about each individual one? I think as we go, because it's a lot to get through. Okay, well and the staff, are you okay with that as well? Mr. Murphy, you okay with that? Okay. All right, well any questions? I guess let's start off with the request number one. I've got to get my list out here too to show what all they are. I have a question. Why the 72 inches? Why six feet? You're asking for an allowable lettering height of 72 inches. I'd like to know how you came up with that. Well, let me answer this and some of our people may give you a better answer. It's because of the architecture of the building, the scale of the building. We need to have this visible to the motorists going by and that's why we didn't put it on the top of the building. I mean, if we were out in Hamburg or someplace like that, we'd probably want it on the top of the building because that's a sort of high speed, not high speed, but 35-45 mile per hour area out in Hamburg and you get a broad view. Here it's a slow speed area, probably 10 miles an hour if you're lucky. When I was down here taking the pictures last night, in my car here, I was getting passed by those scooters that have the governor at 15 miles an hour. They were driving much faster than I was through here. I was driving maybe five to ten miles an hour. When you're driving at that speed, you still have to be able to see it from your car. It's still a big building, so we have to have it in scale at the building, but we want it lower, so we wanted to bring that down to be able to see from a car, people in cars, and pedestrian standpoint as well. My question is similar. Do we have pictures of the other entertainment centers with similar size signage or when we were pointing out some of those things like the Kentucky Theater and those like types of things, I don't think they were exactly ... I mean, it was the lighting that was great, but I'm still trying to get a concept of what that would look like. What does a six-foot lettering look like on the side of a building? Well, I've got some pictures and I can ask Mr. Kerkorian which one of these might be six-foot lettering here on this. That one's about 10, 10, 10, 10. That's about 20 feet long. That's about 10, 10, 10, 10. This one right here is a six-foot. That's probably about 6 feet. That's about 12 feet. That's about 3 feet. That's about 8 feet. Let me give you a couple examples. We've got a lot of pictures of other entertainment centers. The first one I'm going to show you is one of Mr. Kerkorian's here. Todd, do you want to explain the dimensions of this? I've got a pointer here. You can point to the one behind you here on that, the Metroplex letters here. These letters here are 5 feet tall. This K logo, which is not a very good, the picture is difficult to see, but this is actually 7 feet from here to here. Just to give you an idea of the scale, the top of this building here is 40 feet. The top of these towers are 60 feet. Just to give you an idea, the building that we're doing on Broadway is 70 feet tall. If you can imagine, this wall over here is probably only 15 feet tall. We're only talking about, according to the code, we would have a 2 1⁄2 foot tall sign on a building that's 70 feet. You're probably talking about 6 inches. Trying to imagine that that wall is 70 feet tall and our signs would be 6 inches tall on that wall right there, is what they're, according to the current code. That's what we're looking for. I don't know if that helps you. It does with scale, particularly, because it sounds huge. It just sounds like, oh. Right, but you have to imagine the size of the building that it's on. What we're requesting is letters slightly larger than that. Those, you say, are 5 feet. We're requesting 6 and a building which is twice as tall. Let me ask you, would this building be something from a high traffic area? Or is this more of a walkable area? I don't know where this is. This is one of our theaters in California. This is in a center, so where it's at, there's a courtyard in front of it. I can show you another one if we have our Pico Rivera Theater. Sorry. Let's see. Let's see here. Okay, so this is a high traffic location. The top of this building is less than 40 feet. This sign right here is 12 feet tall from here to here. This is right on the main drag in Pico Rivera, a city in California. We're not asking for anything close to that. These bands right here, these are from the top, from the lights, here to here is 6 feet. To kind of give you an idea of the scale of what it would be. This is, again, on a major road. That is what you're asking for, 6 feet. Is that correct? That's correct. Again, this building is about half as tall. This is only one level. This building that we're building on Broadway is two full levels. Auditorium's stacked on it, so it's not just two stories. I'm sorry? It is 70 feet. It's actually just over 70 feet. Mr. Chairman, I asked the staff to give us just a rundown of the difference between what they're asking for and what you're recommending. That would help me a lot. Sure. So what they are asking for, if we're looking at the North Broadway side, they are asking for the signage for the Bowling Pins, Game Day Sports, LexLive, and the Krakorian logo to be 6 feet tall. The ordinance allows 30 inches. We are recommending that the variance be approved for the LexLive sign, but not for the Bowling Pins, the Game Day Sports, or the Krakorian logo. That's on both Broadway and High Street. That is just on the Broadway side. On the High Street side, we have the difference, the signs that are the letters with the photo images behind them. Yes. On that side, we are recommending that they be 6 feet tall. That is just on the Broadway side. On the High Street side, we have the difference, the signs that are the letters with the photo images behind them. Yes. On that side, we are recommending that those images not, that if, that we would approve the variance for a solid color panel behind the letters, but not for an image. If they were to keep the images, we would recommend that they be limited to the 30 inches. But if we would approve a variance for a solid color panel to provide contrast. I see. Thank you. I'm curious, and you probably said this in the report, but why, you know, agreeable to just the solid color as opposed to the image? I think the concern of the visual clutter and the impact of the sign, either way, it qualifies under the definition of sign as a sign, whether it's a solid color panel for contrast or an image. So that's why we kind of clarified that it would be a specific type. So you felt it was distracting? Yes. That's fair. If I can make a comment, I think it's a lot less clutter than it would be if we had another sign sitting up high on that building there. No, I just, I mean, I would say that originally when I was reading this, again, I just thought, gosh, having six foot signs out there. But now I'm reading it and I'm thinking it's almost a waste to have a 30 inch sign. Like if we put those words in 30 inches. I don't know if it helps, but for reference, the lettering on this side, on this image, those are 30 inches. So that kind of helps maybe put it at scale. If you could go back to the Broadway side elevation. It's a little deceiving on this. I'm sorry. For example, there are the game day sports. I don't know exactly what the height of the letters in game day are, but it's not six feet. The six feet comes from the full width of like Lex Live from top to bottom of that. That's how building inspection has to measure things from the very top of what might be called the sign to the very bottom. And they get, in that case, six feet. Or the bowling pins. Where the X is exclamated, so all the way at the top and the bottom of that. The impact of not allowing the full variance for game day sports is going to be pretty minimal. Because it's not six feet. I don't know what it is. They probably know and they can tell you exactly what that is. I'm sorry. I was just going to point out that the reason that we're not asking for a variance or a larger letter on High Street is because the height of the building on that side is only 42 feet. So we feel it's a little bit, you know, the impact is okay with the 30-inch sign, especially if we're able to do the graphic behind it. But you can kind of see from this side where the building drops down on High Street. Just to answer your question on the smaller sign for High Street. In the staff discussion of the corner bar portion, and I'm sorry, Chad, I think I'm getting out of line. Oh, that's okay. But the corner bar discussion, is that acceptable? I mean, it sounded pretty close to what we were requesting. Trying to determine if any of these things are more easily resolved. Well, if we didn't get the variance, what we'd essentially get, the size of what we would get, is the NER in corner on this side and, of course, the bar on the other side. So we'd have to pull it down and make it a lot smaller to do that again. We architecturally, the architects did this, they felt that the sign was in scale with the scale of the building again as well on this one. Does it say there the height of the actual corner? What is the height of that? That looks probably five feet. I think it is. I think I've got that number for you here. It is four feet. Four feet. Four feet is the height of the lettering on the corner bar. Okay. Since we're on number two at the moment, any more questions on number two? Okay, number three in regards to... Well, I don't know if we're going to decide each individually, but I think we have to go through them individually and then make a decision. So if you have any more questions on that one. It's assuming that we need, we would be, if we voted all of them, that would mean we're, it would be one motion to approve or not approve. We need to look at each one individually and I'm just, I don't know how the board feels about this, but it would be easier to do each one individually. I'm not suggesting. I'm just thinking this is a procedural thing that we need to decide how we're going to do it. And maybe legal could chime in on that. Because of the number of requests and we're discussing them individually, ultimately we'll have to make a decision on the entire, or how do you want that? Well, I mean, I think that you're going to be hard pressed to make, to vote on them in any way, or vote on them all together, unless you're just going to adopt the staff's recommendation. If you're thinking you're going to vary on any one of the requests, you're probably going to have to handle them individually. Because otherwise, I mean, the only way they're all going to be the same and not require different findings or a different decision is if you approve what the staff's recommended. Otherwise, as you go through each one, whatever you're discussing or thinking or contemplating, if it's going to be different than that, we're probably going to have to handle them individually. Sure. I think the question is, do we discuss each one and then vote? Well, I mean, I think you can do that either way you want. If you want to handle all your questions first, you can. Or, you know, if you think it's easier to discuss them individually and then vote, that's really up to you all how you think that would be easiest for you all. I would ask you to discuss them all first before you vote, because they do sort of interrelated with each other a little bit on that. Yeah, I think what we'll do is we'll discuss them all. I mean, four and five are quite a bit different, but one through three we can discuss. Probably should take a quick recess for five minutes and just figure out what we need to do there for those three, and then we'll come back. Does that sound like an okay plan? Just give us five minutes to discuss one through three. Thank you. Okay. Sure, if you'd come on up. Sure. State your name for the record. Yes, good afternoon. George Krikorian with Krikorian Theaters, and thank you for your time, and it's nice to meet all of you. And I did have a few comments I'd like to make for your consideration with respect to the signs that you've been looking at and you discussed as numbers one, two, and three. What we've tried to do, painstakingly, is to scale these signs so that they work with the building. The band that you see that says Game Day Sports on it and so forth, that's a black background band, and that's created to break up the elevation of the building so that we're looking at it architecturally, not just the size of the letters and the sign, but we want everything to fit and scale properly. So if you take the Game Day sign and you reduce the size of it, and if you stand back and look at the building, it's just not going to look right. And the lettering that's on that band, most of those letters are smaller than the six feet that we're talking about, but they need to be a certain size in order to be profound enough that people are going to appreciate and understand what they're looking at. If you take these signs and you compromise the sizes, the locations and so forth, it's going to look like an office building. This is a multi-faceted entertainment complex. We've gone through a lot of pain and effort to put all these colors and materials and the signs and the style of the lettering together so that it stands out. We want people to look at this and get excited. We didn't want it to be something drab like an industrial-type building, exterior elevation, and so we tried to be very careful and sensitive to what your concerns might be. But if we have to compromise these sizes of these different signs, if we have to compromise that, it's just not going to look right. And so I would really hope that you'd give consideration to that in your thought process here. The corner bar is supposed to be iconic. It's the entrance to all of the entertainment that's going to be taking place and the thousands of people are going to be pedestrians walking down these streets when this is all done. That's why we chose this location to put the theater here, to be part of that excitement and everything that's going to happen out here. It's not going to be the car traffic that you're going to have. It's going to be the pedestrian traffic. My understanding is that between the hotel and Rupp Arena, there's going to be a big park put through there, takes you down to Main Street. And with all the pedestrian traffic, it's important to have the proper visuals on High Street. If you're at High Hotel, looking back at the signs that we proposed here, they're not that big. They're very soft, lit signs, and the background is art. It's not meant to offend anybody. It's not trying to put some big signs on. It's part of the architecture to create more of an interest. So we're not trying to be difficult, but we're really sensitive and concerned about compromising what we propose here only because if we do, it's just not going to look right. It's going to be out of balance. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you. Yeah, thanks very much. Talk about the lighting involved in these signs and how that will play into the overall look. Which lighting are you talking about? Well, the band that we're talking about, the Game Day and all that. This right here? Correct. That's a black background band. And that's just to break up the— if you just didn't have this band and you had glass coming all the way down into glass, it just wouldn't look right. Yeah, I understand that. I guess I was asking about how lighting is applied to these signs. Lighting? Lighting, yes. Okay. The sign folks would be best for them to answer that question for you. Hi, my name's Katie Durham. How these are lit, they're just a low-voltage LED, so they're not bright. He showed a bunch of pictures that there's a lot brighter signs with the old neon. These will be a very low-voltage LED. Can you tell me about the size of the letters? Here's a pointer. This size? Can I grab my paper real quick? Yeah. She wanted to tell you something about the size of the letters in the band also. So the bowling, you can't see it over here, but the bowling will actually be 72. Game Day Sports, it'll be approximately 36, but the smaller you get on that logo, the chunkier the lettering will be, which makes it harder to read. The same with their logo. I'm sorry, just repeat that. Game Day Sports is going to be how big are those letters? About 40 inches. About 40 inches. 40 inches, okay. Got it. So the smaller you get with, I guess, what's allowed, I guess is 32, it makes it chunky, and you can't read it as well. So it'll change the entirety of this logo completely, the same with this K, and the same with their legs live. So the smaller you get, it makes it harder, and that's their logo. So if we were to go any smaller, it would change the logo completely and make it almost, I mean, really hard to read. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you. Also, Ethan Howard, who's from the Downtown Development Authority, is here, and I think he wanted to talk to you as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Ethan Howard with the Downtown Lexington Partnership. We're formerly known as the Downtown Development Authority and Downtown Lexington Corporation that merged together a couple years ago. I wanted to just briefly voice our support of both the project and today the variances that were requested for this unique situation. And I say unique because, really, there's no other part of downtown that's quite like this. It's very different from Short Street or Main Street or anywhere else that you might be constructing something, and you would never be able to construct something like this anywhere else. And also that and the fact that it is within this convention district, which may be not an official district title, but wrapped up into the TIF area to find both the area and the context of all of the buildings and uses around it and its partnership with how it works hand-in-hand with the convention center, makes it kind of a different case, a little bit different animal. And so that's why we wanted to voice our support for these. So we hope you'll take that into consideration and help these guys out with their project. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I ask a question for legal really quickly? With regards to requests one, two, and three, where staff has recommended some portion of approval, if we were to in turn, you know, want to approve those, would we need additional findings? You'd need different findings. You would? Yeah. I have submitted findings to you in my statement of justification, which hopefully is in your packet for approval of these applications. I don't have those if you all do. So that would be helpful. So from my perspective, one to three, items one through three are a little easier to handle. And I just, I don't know if it's just because I like the pictures or I kind of get the concept, but more importantly, when you start talking about the scale and the marketing, I get that part, you know, where 30 inches versus 72 inches or six feet or whatever it is. It's a big difference, you know, when you go to, you can't make some of them small and some of them large. It would just look kind of dorky, you know, so. And it was different from what I thought before I came in. I'm just like, oh, those are huge letters. But then you can't make some of them. And I see what staff has done to try to compromise, but that really does become a challenge, a marketing challenge, when you do try to resize or rescale certain types of logos and pictures. And there is a lot that goes into that as far as catching the eye. So that's just my what-fors. Okay. Thank you. So why don't we do this? Why don't we try to find and review here, take a five. We've been here for, what, three hours now. Let's take a quick recess for maybe five, ten minutes, and then we'll go to the restroom. We'll get our thoughts together, and we'll talk about one through three, and then we'll come back. Okay? Can you tell us what page the findings are on? I'll have to. They're not in my handout. They were in my statement. I'll get a copy. I've got one copy. It should be in your packet that you received from us. Yes, the justification statement was included in your packet that we emailed and should be available in Granicus, I believe. I'll try to get a copy for your attorney as well. Great. Thank you. We'll take a quick ten-minute recess. I'd like to call us back into session. We're currently on PLN BOA 19-80. And, Mr. Merica, I think what we've decided is we'd like to take a vote on one through three and then come back and discuss four and five, if that's okay with you guys. Okay. Thanks. So, as chair, I guess I will entertain a motion. I make a motion to approve PLN BOA 19-80, LexLive Entertainment Complex's request for variances to increase the allowable lettering height of the sign bands below 50 feet from 30 inches to 72 inches along South Broadway and High Street. That approval is based on the fact that there are special circumstances that justify a variance for all of the signs within the sign bands. The intent of the zoning ordinance is to allow signs within the sign band, which will be visible to nearby motorists, and its proposed use due to the busy traffic flow would require such the size of the signage. The large size of the building and the location are also special circumstances. D, granting this requested variance for the signage will not adversely affect the public health, safety, or welfare and will not alter the character of the general vicinity and will not cause a hazard or nuisance to the public. And we've actually removed item C from the recommendations. We're also amending the conditions. The first condition, bear with me here, the first condition says the LexLive sign and the signs within the sign bands on the South Broadway and High Street facades shall be installed in accordance with the submitted application materials and site plans and also that all necessary permits shall be obtained from the Division of Building Inspection prior to the installation of the signs. There we go. Okay, thank you. So just for understanding, I'll second that motion. I apologize for interrupting, but your motion was just for request number one. What are we doing for, I thought two and three were included in this whole package. I thought we were going to vote on each one. Each one, they're just going to vote on one, two, and three now. But she only did a motion for number one. Well, they're going to take. You're going to do separate motions for each of the one, two, and three? They're going to take them individually. Okay, fine, I'm sorry. So I have a motion and I have a second for request number one? Correct. Okay. I guess put it to a vote. Okay, that passed. Let's move to request number two. So move for approval, appeal in BOA 19-80, LexLife Entertainment Complex's request for an administrative appeal to transfer 61.33 square feet from one wall sign to another for the sign reading corner. This recommendation of approval is based on the zoning ordinance allows tenant spaces with independent entrances to have additional wall signage on each facade, and the location and entrance for the entire entertainment facility make this corner bar a location which needs to be visible to patrons in the convention, tourism, and entertainment event area. The location, the special circumstances that justify the need for a larger sign for this particular location are the size of the building, the purpose of the signs, and the use of the facility. And the conditions, there's two conditions. The corner bar signs shall be installed in accordance with the submitted site plan, and all necessary permits shall be obtained from the Division of Building Inspection prior to the installation of the signs. Okay, do I have a second? Second. Okay. Vote. Okay, looks like number two was approved. And then now we have request number three. That's the easy one. So I move for approval of PLN BOA 19-80, LexLife Entertainment Complex's request for an administrative appeal that transfers 56.41 square feet from one wall sign above 50 feet to a location below 50 feet for the sign reading LexLife along High Street based on the staff's recommendations and subject to their two listed conditions. Second. May I have a second? Second. Thank you. Okay, all in favor? Please vote. Okay, it looks like request number three as well has been approved. Okay, so we're three-fifths done. Okay. So right now let's go, so we have that done. Let's move to discuss four and five. And Mr. Murphy or would staff like to discuss anything on four or five? Anything different than what you've already discussed? Okay. Mr. Murphy? You've given a big presentation. We don't need to hear it again, but. Darn. So we can, you know, there's a few questions. Traffic had some information as well as legal about four and five that maybe we hear from them. After that, Mr. Wren, our manager, wanted to address you real briefly about that if we could. Sure. Okay. Would he like to go first? Okay. Bruce, if you want to come up. Give a quick presentation. I'll just speak briefly. My name is Bruce Wren. I'm going to be Director of Operations at the facility that's opening here. And we're really excited about coming into the Lexington community. I spent almost my entire professional career path in the entertainment business, movie theaters most notably, and know it's important to have a profile and a communication with your clientele to get them excited about what's upcoming in order for your property to be a success. So for most of my life I've been in the entertainment business. For my entire life I've been visiting Lexington because my dad's family is from here. So I was previously a VP with the largest theater company in the world and enjoyed my time there. But I consider this to be an opportunity which doesn't exist elsewhere and is going to be a game changer. Here in Lexington I think this is going to be a huge deal to help all of us succeed collectively downtown. I think that having the chance to be here for a few months now since I took on this opportunity, I think there's a little bit of misperception in the community about what this is. A lot of people think it's just a movie theater. And it's a lot more than that. It has a lot of other entertainment venues to come into. And George spoke to this a little while ago, that this is intended to be a huge deal for us, for the city. For example, our collective work with the university, University of Kentucky, will be hosting pre- and post-game for the basketball team, the football team, et cetera. Other things in the community and town here, that this is not just a movie theater, it's an entertainment center, which is synonymous with really what a civic center is expected to be today. In addition to that, keeping in mind geographically, we're right across the street from the convention center and from Rupp Arena. We'll be working with them as the information's already substantiated on a variety of projects to have them coming in. We aim to be doing events daily to be able to bring people into downtown Lexington in order to get exposure to our community. And we aim to be an entertainment center that is one that is not only popular here, but nationally gets to be known as the place to be and the best you can possibly do as far as entertainment goes. This time of the year and the holidays, you constantly hear in the diamond business, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Well, the same is true in the entertainment business. We want to make sure we have something downtown working in close consultation with the convention center as well as Rupp Arena and the community in order to make this a grand slam success to help all of us be in a great place going forward. And I'm very confident, given that opportunity, we're going to be very impressive to anybody who comes to visit us. So thanks for listening to us today. I just wanted to kind of get that story out there that I think the unusual set of circumstances and opportunity we have here with our specific property and its geographic location needs to be a game changer and also change our perceptions about what we're doing down here, because it's going to be a very special entertainment complex. So thanks for the opportunity to talk to you today. The only thing I'd add is that one through three were, and most of our building has static signs. They don't change at all. Four and five are for the one sign which does change. And in the business Mr. Krikorian and his company is in, every day or every week, you change not only what's going on in the building, but you change a lot of your audience, which comes in at the hotel, convention center, and even citizens coming by. So both what's happening inside is changing, and the people you're trying to reach is changing. That's why the message board is very important. I won't go through. I think the ordinance is clear, you know, using the plural, and we meet the requirements of ARENA and that sort of thing. I think that's all clear. If it weren't and if it's ambiguous, I think you need to construe it our way as well. But I think we need a message board. I think they've worked on the Civic Center, the Lexington Center. They've had theirs for years. We need to inform people about what's going on and that sort of thing. Our events change a little more quickly, and we need to be able to show that and have a message board for this facility. We're asking to combine it into one, and we think the sizing works architecturally, as Mr. Krikorian said to you as well on that. I would like to add something, if I may, at this point. Whenever you're considering this request, you need to be thinking not only of whether or not this sign is beneficial for their business as an entertainment facility, but for the precedent. We talk about precedent a lot, but for allowing this type of entertainment facility to be considered a civic center. While that is not a term that is defined in the ordinance, I think it's important to think about what other facilities in Lexington could now be considered a civic center if we're going to call this a civic center and be sure that that's something that you're really considering in your assessment. But that's only if they're in B2B zone and have everything we have. There's probably not going to be another one, but I understand that. Okay, thank you. All right, any comments from the board at the moment? Comments from legal? Comments from traffic? I just wanted to give you a little clarification on a couple of things. The sign ordinance that you got included in the information that Mr. Murphy gave you that talks about, specifically on page 2 of his, where it talks about the Lexington Center Business B2B zone and then specifically number 2, a couple of things that you should know about that. The B2B zone was created by ordinance in 1979, but it was amended in, and I was having someone check on this for me while we were in here because I thought that it had been amended, but I couldn't remember the date, in 1983 to provide for this electronic messaging board, and that was part of an overall dealing with that situation in the area. Just because it's written to say, because generally all of our ordinances are written as generically as possible, so they can apply in a zone, but just because the civic center is listed as a plural in centers doesn't mean necessarily that this particular entity is a civic center. It certainly would allow for something that would meet the criteria, but you have to remember that when this was being adopted, in all truth, it was being adopted for the Lexington Civic Center Heritage Hall, and you all are familiar with what goes on there in terms of 20,000 people at a basketball game or a concert or what goes on in all the exhibition halls in Heritage Hall. That was what was being addressed here in 1986. Also, there was a lawsuit, I'm sorry, that was addressed in 1983, the change to the ordinance. In 1986, there was a lawsuit that went up to the Sixth Circuit about the restrictions on the electronic signage boards only to the civic center. So that particular requirement was litigated, and they upheld our ability to have this in our ordinance. So I think the question for you is applying both your knowledge in this ordinance and your common sense to the area as to what a civic center is. So I just wanted you to be aware of that as you go forward because generally, except for this zone and civic centers, electronic signage is not allowed in our community. Do we currently only have one official civic center in Lexington? Well, I mean... That has an electronic message board? Yes, it's the one, you know, it's the civic center there that has the board on both the Latin Street side and then also on the High Street side. It's on the High Street side, but you see it if you're coming down Broadway because it's on the corner. Okay, thank you. So in Mr. Murphy's presentation, he talked about a little bit of ambiguity, and I don't think it's quite clear, at least in my mind, what will be on this electronic message display. Whether it's from what he just said, it sounded like it's one message per day that's not going to change. However, I'm not quite sure about that if we have so many rooms and so many events going on. But I do know there is the Kentucky Administrative Regulations covers electronic advertising devices. There's very specific guidelines that are covered by KRS, and it's very important that those are detailed. And I don't think we've heard that in detail here today. Some of the concerns that traffic engineering has is whether this is a static message or that it's a scrolling message that's covered under the KRS. I just referenced how long these messages are displayed, how many messages are displayed, whether there's animation, photos, videos, or any type of images that are shown on these, and as well as the luminance. We haven't heard the LED on these. And as well as the luminance, we haven't heard the LEDs were referenced as the voltage, but the voltage of LEDs has nothing to do with the luminance of it. So the 300 nits would be a maximum we would want. It would have to have an internal sensor that would register the foot candles that are around it, and we haven't heard anything according to that. The proximity and location of this sign is in the cone of vision for the signal heads located at this intersection. As you approach from High Street, you have a range of placement for that signal head, and these signs are potentially in that cone of vision. So one of the concerns we have is contributing to distracted driving based on what the type of signage this is, and those are important details that we have not heard. So if it's going to be a scrolling message and videos and things, we can expect delays at the intersection as well. As you're sitting at a red light and you're not paying attention to that signal, your eyes divert to this screen over here. It's just like people sitting at the light looking at their cell phone, just another video distraction that we're going to see. So this message board is in closer proximity to the right-of-way than the Civic Center shop is. So there is a location distance offset from the right-of-way, and this sign is closer to the right-of-way than the previously mentioned message board that's on the Civic Center as well. Okay, thank you. Sure, any questions from the board? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of things I'd like to say, and first I want to say what a wonderful project this is. I'm very impressed. I've been watching it grow for some time, and for many of us, we've been working for a long time in several different ways of building downtown, and I think this is a game-changer, and, Mr. Concorian, we appreciate that. Your vision is certainly wonderful. That's the good part. My negative feelings is it's fairly simple. And I don't think there's any way we can designate it as a Civic Center. The ordinance, I think, is very clear. It's not a Civic Center and could never fit that category in my mind. Of course, I'm of one opinion, and that's all. On the other hand, I think we have, in this case, I think it's important the board consider the ordinance and its meaning, and I would certainly lean in that direction. But on the other hand, I think maybe the ordinances are a bit out of date in the sense of what we're trying to do in Lexington. I don't think I could agree to approve number four under these circumstances, but I certainly would say that I think there may be ways of doing this without approval by the Board of Adjustment, and I think this is something that is probably necessary if it's going to happen. It's probably necessary to change the ordinance in some way. That's not a fun thing to do. But I would say that it's not a Civic Center, and I can't convince myself that it is, and by doing that, say, oh, yeah, it's okay to have a message board like we're talking about. So that's just my feelings, but I don't want it to decrease my enthusiasm for this project. It's exciting, and it's really good for Lexington. Thank you. Anyone else? Any comments? Questions? Mr. Murphy, do you want to say any last things? Mr. Chair, I just wanted to respond to some of the issues that were brought up by the Legal Department and Traffic Engineering. I am only vaguely familiar with the Sixth Circuit lawsuit, but I don't think it said that if you have another sign that meets the ordinance requirements, you can't approve it. I think it was that other businesses that weren't in any way, shape, or form qualified under the Civic Center wanted to have a message board and were denied it. We have a different question here before, because we have something that I feel very clearly meets the ordinance. When you're looking at the law, we can't look at what we think of as the Civic Center, because we all say, oh, that's rubbery. Well, we have to look at what the law says about who can have a sign and who can't. They didn't define Civic Center. They made it clear you cannot draft an ordinance so that it applies only to one person. You have to have your ordinances uniform throughout the zone so they apply to everyone. And I've got a statute in my handout about it. I didn't go over one during my first presentation. But the language has to be applied equally to everyone. And there's nowhere in the ordinance that says you have to have 20,000 people cheering for U.K. basketball in order to be considered a Civic Center. That is not in the ordinance. It says you have to have an exhibition hall, you have to have an arena. To meet the definition of arena, I have a place where athletic or cultural activities go on. We have spectators. We'll have sports. We'll have cultural events. Add it. It meets the language of the ordinance. Mr. Krekorian came here in good faith to build his complex. But the traffic issues, I know there are Kentucky administrative regulations about electronic signs. I'm somewhat familiar with those because I know they apply to billboards. And I know they can be complied with because if you drive across the county line in a number of directions down to Jessamine County, Madison County, up to northern Kentucky, they have electronic billboards. We're not doing a billboard. We're doing something to tell what's going on in our center here. But they do have billboards that comply with the Kentucky administrative regulations. I assume the Civic Center Board complies with that. That's near the intersection. I take the word that we're a little closer to the intersection. But I think we can comply with that. Obviously, if that applies to us, we're going to have to comply with it and comply with all the Kentucky administrative regulations here. But the fact is Mr. Krekorian has come here and spent a great deal of money. And we all want it to be a success. Every one of us here I know in this room wants this facility to be a success because it's going to be important to Lexington. And it's going to be important to the Civic Center across the street from us, too, because it's going to promote conventions there. It's going to promote meetings. It's going to give another place to go before and after games. But it's also going to be a destination in itself. But the only one in this room who knows what it takes to make this operate, there's maybe three guys here who know what it takes, and they're right here. And they have gone through the architectural process to do this. They have committed to spending. I know something about the video boards. They are those message boards. They're extremely expensive to do. They're extremely expensive. And to commit to make that expenditure, he's only doing it, not because he wants to have a message board there per se. He wants to be able to make sure his facility succeeds. And the other thing I'd mention is that this area is becoming an entertainment area. This is the gateway to it. We want people to know that this is a place where you can go on the weekends, after an event, or just to come down any time during the week, not only to our facility but to the Lexington Center on the other side, to the Rupp Arena and the new venues they're going to have on the Rupp Arena side. So while we all hope it succeeds, they know what it takes to succeed. And they're not spending the money just to spend the money. They're spending the money because they know they need this to promote and make sure this succeeds. The worst thing that could happen would be that this doesn't succeed. And Mr. Gregorian knows what it takes to succeed. He's doing this to make it succeed. And, again, I feel the language of the ordinance clearly justifies it. But even if you have a doubt, I think the doubt must be resolved in favor of this to allow us to have this. We're wanting to do it. You know what size we're doing it. You know what we're proposing on here. If they think it's appropriate, it's appropriate on the building for the size to inform people of what we're doing. It's the only non-static sign we're going to have on this. The Civic Center across the street feels they need them to promote. We feel very strongly we need them to promote them. And thank you very much. We could study this further. If you feel we need to study this further, we can. But I think it's clear. If you don't think it's clear, I'd ask you the opportunity to postpone it a month or so to let us look at it. But I think it's clear that what we're wanting to do is approvable and is in accord with the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, any additional questions? Conversation? I would just say my comment is not just about whether or not it's a Civic Center, but because we have been so restrictive on allowing the electronic boards anyway, it's just not that acceptable or just hasn't been done as much in Lexington. To add another one just on the same block and the same proximity just seems to, you know, we've got each corner of that block would have electronic signage, and that just also seems like much for me. I would also comment on the Civic Center's electronic signage. Don't they also use, promote other people's events? Like I know I see Opera House stuff and things for Broadway Live and those types of things. I didn't know if, you know, there's some other type of agreement or arrangement that could be made. Well, the Opera House is owned by the Civic Center, so they're promoting their own activities. Okay. I would comment that it seems to me that a lot of information that's going to be going, you know, activities that are going to go on down in this facility are going to be online. You know, people are carrying around their phones. They're plugged in all the time. So if they're here in town to go to an event or they're coming, they already know what's here. And so because we're all plugged into our phones, we know. We know what's going to be going on down there. And do we really need to have a message board? You've got the signage that, you know, that states what kind of activities are going on there. And then you have the online, the Internet that I would assume, you know, would be constantly being updated. So I'm not convinced that a message board is necessary. Okay. Thank you. I could ask that the ‑‑ I understand the concerns that are being expressed. And this is new use. We understand it. At the same token, when movies change, activities change, the Kentucky Theater has a message board too. The only difference is it's a manual one. You've got to put the letters up there. And they stay a little longer up there than perhaps we can change. I'll throw out one thing to you. If we can agree to a dwell time, what they call a dwell time is how much the message, how long the message must stay on the board before it changes. I think with the electronic billboards, it's what they do is eight seconds is the dwell time they're required to do. Not sure about that. If a dwell time would do it. Or otherwise, I'm going to ask you to postpone this indefinitely. Let us look at it a little bit more about the proposal and see what we can come back with. I think the worst thing we could do right now is to say no to this use as a rejection of it. I think the message, which I even hope you don't do this, but if you want to do this, I hope you will postpone this maybe for a month initially so we can look at things a little bit more. There is a committee which is studying electronic billboards or electronic mainly billboards right now. And the staff had mentioned that in the report. I've been real we are real hesitant to try to get into that because that has been going on a year already. I would wager it's going to go on for another year and to add another topic on that may make it even longer. Meanwhile, we're open and we're trying to trying to go in business. That's what we're looking at. I'm afraid that what we're being left with, with no changeable sign whatsoever, puts us at a disadvantage to other movie theaters and venues which do even have a static changeable one. We're at a disadvantage to that. That's my concern here. We're trying to do this in a way that's going to be attractive to people of all ages. People with younger ages like more things going on and that sort of thing. And signage and Times Square, as you know, has an ordinance that says you have to cover a certain percentage of your buildings with electronic signage because they found it creates the excitement. Gets people down there. Gets people doing things. So I guess what I'm saying is I hear the hesitancy. I wish you wouldn't have it because it's important. You know what we're asking for. But if you don't feel you can give it to us now and if you don't feel you can, we can talk about a static dwell time on it just to postpone it. Generally, postpone it one month. Initially, we'll see what we're going to do and we can report back to you next month. OK. Does everyone on the board understand exactly what type of sign this is? Yeah. I mean, we. It's a message board. Is there what is the Kentucky? What is the administration? What was that K? What were their rules on dwell time? So it for the message on electronic advertising device shall be static for at least eight seconds. It will change from one message to another in less than two seconds. It shall not blink, scroll or contain animation or video. And it shall be programmed to freeze in a static display. If a malfunction occurs. Electronic advertising device shall be equipped with a sensor or other device that automatically determines the ambient illumination and should be programmed to automatically dim to a limit of 300 minutes or less. If the ambient light is one point five foot candles or less. One of the. I believe in an earlier discussion that took place several months ago, it was indicated to staff that this was to be videos. And animation. So this is. And even after. My questions, I still have not heard. This is text only. This is a sign that is exactly like what's on the civic center. I think this is a much different type of sign because I'm still not clear on what exactly is going to be on this message board. OK, thank you. If I can interject just something about there is a work group that is looking at electronic billboards, and I can understand Mr. Murphy's desire to not get engaged in that process. I don't think at this point they are considering this. They're considering in relationship to existing billboards that we already have in place and converting them to digital billboards. And it's become a very long and complex conversation, in large part because of some of the things that Mr. Parker just raised about the lighting and the that kind of thing. So this particular message board that is existing currently on the civic center had its own text amendment that brought it forward separate and apart from that type of situation. So, you know, I want to encourage you all not to get into doing, I'm not trying to delay this unnecessarily, but Mr. Murphy's point might be well taken because I don't want you to get far afield from your own expertise and your own understanding about foot candles and pause times and those kinds of things and try to do those here on the fly when there may or may not be some other solution or mechanism to accomplish that, that we just don't have today. Okay. Mr. Chair, could I have three minutes to talk to my client? Sure. Post something to you. Sure, no problem. Okay, we'll go in recess for three minutes. I apologize for asking for the recess, but we were talking through some other discussion. I didn't want to miss any other discussion of it. The informing the public is still very important. It's important for movie theaters. Now they have marquee boards, and even though people have cell phones, they have to make the conscious decision to find out and all that sort of thing. We're trying to reach people who may not know about this, and we want to be able to tell people about what's going on. At the same time, we understand the concerns. What we would request is that we have an approval for an eight-second dwell time without scrolling or spiraling, that sort of thing, that is that the image must be there for eight seconds as required under the KIRs. I know there's been a lot of research on that as far as traffic safety and all that sort of thing, and that's what they've reached, that's what they've concluded is eight seconds, that we have an eight-second dwell time on this without the scrolling and that sort of thing, which is probably more of a restriction than they have on the one across the street from us now, because as I remember, they sometimes sort of circle around and then explode out and all that kind of stuff on there. And that would allow us, if that doesn't work, to engage in the process about amending the ordinance if we have to, to do more. But at the same time, it would allow us to get started and have a marquee, if you will, to tell people what the coming attractions to this are on it. Okay. My instinct says that I don't know if you're going to have the votes for that. I think we could be accommodating and extend this a month and give you a little bit of time to think about, see where this ordinance goes for the signs and the billboards. I'm okay with one month bringing you back, and we'll hear it one more time. And I'd probably feel more comfortable with that, because we're going to make some – and it gives us the ability to do a little more research on this and make a good decision, because I do think it's a great development, and I obviously understand you have to inform your public. And the advertising and marketing of that right there is very important. So we take that very seriously, and we want it, obviously, to be very successful. So I think that's the best for both, actually, at the moment, if you're accommodating that. You can also add – I agree with that. I think I would be for a postponement with the understanding that you would come back with some very specific ideas about what this messaging board or whatever we want to call it is. And let's be really specific about it so we know what we're dealing with. A messaging board without any real descriptions is off-putting, I think, and I think that's been part of our problem. And so if we agree to a postponement, would that be acceptable to you folks? I think before we get into the details about the specific sign, we do need to consider that request number four is to determine whether or not this use is a civic center. If it is not a civic center, the sign is not allowed. So before the applicant spends a lot of time coming up with a sign that we would perhaps be happier with, we need to consider whether or not we're going to consider this a civic center, whether they can provide new information that would convince us that it is, or whether we have that information now. But perhaps that should be considered before we go about making changes to the sign. And I will remind you that there is another option forward for the applicant to pursue a text amendment which would add a new use category that would permit an electronic message board if we do not feel that this is a civic center. Well, I would have said in a postponement with moderate instructions that if it comes back with the idea that it's a civic center, then I think we're back where we started. I agree with you. I think it's all wrapped up into one question, and we'd be agreeable to a postponement to try to unravel some of these issues that we've brought up. Okay. Anyone like to make a motion? I'm going to roll. Okay, I make a motion to postpone PLN BOA 19-80, LexLive Entertainment Complex's request for items number four, an administrative appeal to determine that the use of property qualifies as a civic center and is therefore allowed to have a wall-mounted electronic message board. And item number five, if four is approved, an administrative appeal to transfer 200 square feet from a allowed electronic message board to the other in order to have a 400 square foot electronic message board within the defined refill and development area in the Lexington Center Business Zone on a property located at 301 and 307 South Broadway. And that postponement is for the one month. This is a procedural thing. It would have to be a continuance since we've already heard testimony rather than a postponement. Okay, I'd like to amend the motion to be a continuance instead of a postponement. Thank you. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Before I vote, am I understanding the exact same wordage is going to come back to us next time because we've heard the argument and number four is going to come back to us exactly like it is now? The applicant can provide additional information or justification, but the wording would be the same. We're still having this. We've not determined whether or not – you've not made a motion to determine that this use is a civic center. Yes. So that will still be a question. Yes. That's my question. Okay, the motion for a continuance has passed. Thank you. It's going to come back and do the same thing again. As the chair, I will, I guess, announce that there are any items the board members wish to present at this time? Staff? The meeting date will be December 9th, 2019 at 1.30 p.m. No further business and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. She leads a lonely life. She leads a lonely life.