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# Urban County Council Zone Change - February 11, 2020

> Auto-transcribed civic record · February 11, 2020

- **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/4945
- **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/4945?view_id=14&redirect=true
- **Date**: 2020-02-11
- **Last revised**: February 11, 2020
- **Length**: 37,176 words

> ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** The transcript on this page is the Granicus stenographer's live closed-captioning track, captured at the time of broadcast (typos and broken sentences common). Speaker labels come from the same track. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Verbatim wording and speaker attribution may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news).

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## Meeting Overview

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government held a meeting on February 11, 2020, at 5:00 PM in the Council Chambers in Lexington, Kentucky, with Vice Mayor Kay presiding. The meeting focused on a single agenda item regarding a Zone Change Ordinance, which was ultimately denied by the council. During the session, the council heard from three members of the public who provided comments on the matter under consideration. The meeting concluded with one formal vote taken on the zoning ordinance, resulting in its denial.

## Attendance

The meeting on February 11, 2020 had ten members present and three absent.

**Present:**
• Reynolds
• Bledsoe
• J. Brown
• Ellinger
• Evans
• Farmer
• Gibbs
• Lamb
• McCurn
• Mossotti

**Absent:**
• Worley
• F. Brown
• Moloney

No members arrived late to the meeting.

## Votes and Decisions

The council conducted one recorded vote during the February 11, 2020 meeting.

**Ordinance 0031-20** [timestamp: 09:42]
Vice Mayor Kay motioned to approve an ordinance changing the zone from a High Density Apartment (R-4) zone to a Downtown Frame Business (B-2A) zone. Council member Farmer seconded the motion.

The ordinance failed on a roll call vote with 3 ayes and 8 nays.

**Voting in favor (3):**
• Evans
• McCurn  
• Mossotti

**Voting against (8):**
• Reynolds
• J. Brown
• Ellinger
• Farmer
• Gibbs
• Kay
• Lamb
• Plomin

The zoning change ordinance did not receive sufficient support to pass, with the majority of council members voting against the proposed rezoning from residential high-density apartment use to downtown frame business use.

## Public Comment

Three speakers addressed the board during the public comment period, all expressing opposition to a proposed development project [timestamp: 06:56].

**Matthew Brooks** spoke against the development, raising concerns about the precedent it might establish for other areas throughout the town. Brooks specifically highlighted his opposition to replacing multiple existing structures with a single large development, suggesting this could fundamentally alter the area's character.

**Robin Michler** also opposed the development project, focusing on the importance of preserving the neighborhood's existing character. Michler expressed particular concern about the potential negative impact of a large parking garage that would be part of the development, arguing that such a structure would be incompatible with the surrounding area.

**Brittany Sams** represented the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation in speaking against the proposal. Sams opposed both the requested zone change and the planned demolition of historic properties that would be required for the development to proceed. Her comments emphasized the historical significance of the structures that would be lost if the project moves forward.

All three speakers presented arguments centered on preservation themes - whether of neighborhood character, development patterns, or historic structures. The public comments reflected unified opposition to the development proposal from both individual residents and organized preservation advocacy groups.

## Contested Items

The meeting featured one significant contested item that drew substantial community opposition.

**Zone Change from R-4 to B-2A**

A proposed zone change from R-4 (residential) to B-2A (business) classification generated considerable controversy during the meeting. The community raised multiple concerns about the proposed development, focusing on three primary areas of opposition.

Residents expressed concerns about the scale of the proposed development, arguing that the project would be too large for the existing neighborhood context. Community members also raised historic preservation issues, suggesting that the development could negatively impact the area's historical character and significance.

Additionally, opponents cited broader neighborhood character concerns, contending that changing the zoning from residential to business use would fundamentally alter the nature of their community in ways they viewed as detrimental.

The significant community opposition highlighted the tension between development interests and neighborhood preservation priorities. Residents appeared unified in their concerns about how the zone change would affect their area's residential character, historic value, and overall livability.

*Note: Specific transcript timestamps, participant names, and the final outcome of this contested item were not available in the provided meeting data.*

## Zone Change Ordinance

[timestamp: 09:42]

The council considered Ordinance 0031-20, a proposal to rezone properties on East Maxwell Street and Stone Avenue from High Density Apartment (R-4) to Downtown Frame Business (B-2A). The ordinance faced substantial community opposition during the meeting.

Vice Mayor Kay participated in the discussion of the zoning change proposal. Several community members spoke during the public comment period, including Traci Wade, Jon Woodall, and Jessica Winters, who raised concerns about the proposed rezoning.

The rezoning would have allowed for different types of commercial development in an area currently zoned for high-density residential use. The Downtown Frame Business (B-2A) designation typically permits a mix of commercial and residential uses appropriate for areas adjacent to downtown districts.

Community opposition centered on concerns about the impact of changing the zoning classification from residential to commercial use. The speakers who addressed the council expressed objections to the proposed zoning change, though the specific details of their concerns were not detailed in the available materials.

Following the public input and council discussion, the ordinance was ultimately denied. The properties on East Maxwell Street and Stone Avenue will retain their current High Density Apartment (R-4) zoning designation.

The denial of Ordinance 0031-20 represents the council's response to community input opposing the zoning change from residential to commercial use in this particular area of the city.

---

## Decisions

- **0031-20** — failed (3-8): Ordinance changing the zone from a High Density Apartment (R-4) zone to a Downtown Frame Business (B-2A) zone

---

## Full transcript

good evening everybody. And welcome.

This is a zone change hearing

for aptitude development. I'm vice mayor steve kay and I

will be chairing this meeting. And I have a few preliminaries

that we need to go through

before we can get started the first item would be to have the

clerk Madam, if you would call

the roll, please.

>> Ms. Reynolds. >> here.

>> Mr. Worley Ms. Bledsoe.

>> Mr. Fred brown. >> Mr. James brown. >> Mr. Ellinger.

>> yes. >> Ms. Evans. >> yes.

>> Mr.Farmer. >> yes. >> Mr. Gibbs.

>> vice mayor kay. >> here. >> Ms. Lamb. >> here.

>> Mr. Mccurn. >> yes ma'am.

>> Mr. Moloney.

>> Ms. Mossotti.

>> here. >> Ms. Plomin, here.

>> the next item would be to

have the clerk, give second reading -- first reading -- second

reading to the zone change

ordinance. An ordinance changing the zone

from a high density apartment (R-4) Zone to a downtown frame

business (B-2a) Zone, for 1.810 net (2.274 gross) Acres, for

property located at 201, 207,

209, 211, 215, 221, 225, 227 and

231 east maxwell st., and 245,

247 and 251 stone ave. (Aptitude development; council district

3). Disapproval 6-3

thank you.

Next, if you dezaire to speak,

if you are a member of the

public, there is sign-in sheet in the back and when we get to

the portion, if you are signed up to speak, I'll call your

name, ask that you about to the podium, give your name and address.

Will you have three minutes to speak.

If some people wish to yield their time if they're signed up,

we will allow one person to accept that from two other

members so you can speak for

nine minutes. Okay.

I have a ym of things that I need to go over.

This will take a few minutes.

First of all, if you think you will be speaking or planning to

speak or might speak, if you

would rise if you are able and raise your right hand, I'm going

to swear in everybody as

witnesses. I'm going to read the oath and

ask to you say I do at the end. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole

truth and nothing but the truth

thank you all.

I've had conversation with both

attorneys and they've agreed to

limit their presentations to

three quarters of an hour each or half an hour if they can get

it in, but it May take that

long.

And as the presiding officer, a part of my responsibility is to

rule if necessary on whether evidence being presented is

relevant or not I usually don't have do that very much.

If you are a petitioner or opponent and you have a witness

list, if you would submit that

to the clerk at this time and

then I want to run over the

order of this hearing so first

there will be a presentation by

the planning division staff. Then there will be a

presentation by the petitioner

subject to cross-examination. Then there will be a

presentation by the attorney for

the ponce also subject to

cross-examination. At that time staff will have

April opportunity to make

additional comments and there

will then be an opportunity for rebuttal and -- I'm sorry, I'm

going to back up a half step.

About of we get the staff for additional comments, we'll open

the floor for public comment so if you are signed up, it will be

after those presentations and

after the opportunities for

rebuttal and I'll guide you.

Then there will be an

opportunity for rebuttal from

both sides then an opportunity

for closing summation by each of

the attorneys and then an

opportunity for council to ask

questions of petitions petitioners, opponents, and

staff. After those questions have been

asked, I will declare that the hearing is closed and at that

point no further evidence can be taken.

Council will then discuss the information they have received

and it will be an opportunity for motions for which the

council can take votes the rules that govern this hearing are

that for any action of this

council, it will take eight

votes, which is a majority of council, not a majority of those

present.

So there are 11 council members here tonight but for any motion

to succeed, it takes eight votes

of those present. Once there is a motion, there

will be a vote on the finding of

facts and a vote on the

underlying ordinance. I believng that's all I need to

do for preliminaries.

Council members, questions, comments?

So I think we are ready to proceed.

Maybe one other thing. When we get actually at any point but especially when there

are public commen we ask that

you retrain from, as audience,

either signifying approval or

disapproval just let people testify so basically no

applauding or anything like

that, if you will. We'll start with the

presentation by the planning

division staff. Tracey.

>> good evening vice mayor, members. Couple, I'm happy to be here

tonight to represent the planning commission's

recommendation to the council

for a public hearing on zone

change and associated

development plan case number

pln-mar-19-13. And there was an associated

development plan with it. The applicant is aptitude

development and they're

requesting a zone change from a

high density residential which

is our r-4 zone to the downtown

business b-2a, this encompassed

about two acres of property for nine parcels that front on to

east maxwell street in the 200

block and then three adjacent

properties on stone avenue the

proposal is to redevelop that

two acres of land into a 10

story high rides res -- high rise residential.

There are 208 dwelling units proposed associated with the

rezoning and amenities and

within the parking garage, 235

parking spaces.

Before we get too far down the

road I'm tracey wade, planning manager for planning services in

the division for planning we have several items to enter into

the record for tonight's hearing.

And if any of those items are of

interest to a council member to view, we would be happy to distribute them.

The first thing is a copy of the advertisement for today's

hearing that was in the newspaper second item is an

affidavit that the planning staff reviewed, notice that was

sent out for the town council hearing to those property owners

within 500 feet of the zone

change and that includes 149

property owners.

You have a copy of the final

report sent to the council four

weeks ago includes information about the planning commission

recommendation and the planning

staff's recommendation to the

planning commission in addition we have brought information

submitted at the planning commission hearing information

about current code enforcement

violations for the property as well as historic preservation

for the parcels we submit a copy of the zoning ordinance, a

current copy of the land subdivision regulations,

recently pod fied by the council.

And then the last few things are the staff's presentation

materials for tonight and then

we do have three new emails that

were sent to our staff since the planning commission hearing so

we'll make sure you see those the subject properties for this

zone change and this is a smaller photo but I'll zoom in a

little bit on the zoning for the

area includes nine parcel as long east maxwell street and

those are 201, 207, 209, 2 is 1,

215, 221, 225, 227 and 231 east maxwell.

They're all currently zoned r-4. In addition, three parcels that

front on to stone avenue but are

adjacent to those on maxwell and

they're 245, 247 and 251 stone avenue. Look at a few photographs of the

area in a minute. The zoning map on the overhead

is primarily shaded in brown or shades of tan and that's

representative of the residential zoning in the area

and really high density

residential r-3 mostly r-4 in the vicinity.

Two lots are soined r-5 and then

aqua or teal color is representative of our office

professional zone and pinkish

red color to the north is actually along south martin

luther king boulevard and that's a b-2 zone as well as the

parcels on east high street, b-2

in the corners here. This odd bubble shape that you

see is representative of the 500-foot notice area that we use with the zone change so all the

parcels that have any shading on

them in this exhibit would have

received notice with the zone

change there is additional shading with the historic

district aylesford neighborhood. We'll get to the aerial photos in a moment.

There is a local historic district but there is also a

national register historic district in this vicinity and

this actually encompasses the

nine parcels proposed for rezoning.

They were list said in the southeast lexington residential

commercial district in 1984 and

that included 393 structures at

that time. There are three properties that

have been individually listed on

east maxwell street as well the

year prior again this is a

national pledgester district --

register district and then we

have a small blue outlined area

to the top of the page and that represents the existing subject

properties proposed for

rezoning, teal outlined area is

representative of the aylesford local historic district

established in 1998 it is part

of the larger southeast lexington commercial district

but only a part of that. In addition, local historic

districts you can see on this

aerial, the bell court or bell

place as well as the ashland area.

South hill is the next -- south hill is very close to the

subject property and it is

actually to the north and east

of the subject area. This is an aerial photograph

with the parcels outlined proposed for rezoning.

Other items or other locations

in the vicinity of the subject property include the university

of kentucky campus and good samaritan hospital.

There wills also a number of residential development as long

both lexington avenue and stone avenue that represent high

density residential in the area.

Primarily these residential developmented or structures are

utilized by students and this is

often called the campus town

area of town.

In terms of what is situated on

the punt properties today. These are view as long east

maxwell and the 10 structures that currently front on east

maxwell within the block.

One, in the bottom right corner is actually a fraternity house

and it is not included within the properties proposed for

rezoning but the other nine

structures you see here are

proposed to be demolished in

order to allow for the 10 story

structure so, 1, 2 here.

Three, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and they're primarily two and three

story structures.

This is a view down hagerman alley.

Hagerman cuts through the

subject property this is the rear parking area behind the

subject structure as long east maxwell and these are views of

the three structure as long

stone avenue that currently sit

there one, two and three and

views down stone avenue, you can see there is only park ago loued

on one side of the street in

this area.

Another aerial to give context

to the proposal from lexington

avenue down past hagerman to include the right structure and

comes around the fraternity house and includes three

structures on stone and is

approximately two acres. Looking at a different angle

downtown at the top of the screen, this is a view of the

rear of those structures with the parking lots here to serve

the residential structures and then the three structures on

stone and hagerman is a one-way. It's a public street but it

operates more like an alley

because it is a one way and is

relatively narrow again a view

of the rear of the structures

proposed for redevelopment. When we went through the zoning

screen and some of the aerials, I believe the council could see

that for the most part this is a

residential area, except across maxwell street, although it%

looks residential, it's actuall the university of kentucky property.

A majority of the properties

located on the southwest side of maxwell across from the subject

properties are owned by the university and therefore they're

not subject to lfucg zoning regulations.

There are two structures on the other side of maxwell that

aren't part of the university.

One is a 10 unit apartment

complex and the other is the

kappa kappa gamma sorority. I mention the subject properties

are located in a national

historic district and are near to local historic district,

aylesford historic district and

also the south hill local

historic district and when it comes to the comprehensive plan

and the planning commission's

review of zone changes, things have changed a little bit

probably sunsz the last time I was here to speak with you.

The first thing with the comprehensive plan is that there

are still goals and objectives

that the council adopts but

there are also now additional development criteria that the

planning commission reviews when they decide if a zone change is

in agreement with the comprehensive plan part of that

is for an applicant to decide

and make a case for their place type and then their development

type and meeting their development criteria.

In this case, the applicant made their case that their property

or this property is located

within the downtown place type

shown here to the left side and

we heard from objectors that the place type for the subject

properties was actually a second tier urban.

For both of these place types, I

think there was agreement that high density residential was

appropriate in terms of development so the hr is

representative of hide and city what is different between these

two place types is the

recommended zones.

So in the downtown a b-2 zone

and b-2a is recommended.

But in the second tier urban

development type place type, the

r-4 and r-5 residential zones

are recommended by the comprehensive plan.

The downtown place type gives

some graphics as well so the downtown is shown on the left in

this graphic and the idea is to

for dense residential options.

And then that resonated through the zone change application was

the appropriate transitions from

downtown to succeeded tier urban

and historic neighborhoods when

we looked at second tier urban place type, again, here is the

downtown on this side of the

graphic emphasis on the place

type is also minimizing and the

in a lot of ways, the two place types were fairly similar and

the comprehensive plan speaks to

how the two place types can work together and be next to each

other in a lot of cases. What became clear with this zone

change and the hearing that the planning commission had was that

there was some disagreement about whether the subject

properties were part of the

downtown place type or the second tier urban place type and

whether the proposed zone was

appropriate at this location.

Part of the as I mentioned, part of the planning commission's responsibility is to review the

zone change against development criteria in this case and it's

part of the application that we

provided to the council, they provide a development criteria

list and on that I wills there are 56 development criteria the

planning commission is expecting

an applicant to review and address.

That should be part of your packet tonight and so when they

propose a development plan, here's their development plan,

they are showing that they're meeting development criteria via

the development plan or via text

in their justification. This is their development plan

that depicts utilizing again, this is the stone avenue

frontage and maxwell street

frorcht frontage.

These three parcels being combined reorienting hagerman so

that instead of it doing two 90 turns coming out to maxwell, it

would just do one 90 turn and

come out and exit on the stone avenue that those three lots

would be combined to allow for

this access to cut through.

Proposed a pocket park along

stone, which would provide urban

green space and a three story residential structure that would

face on to stone.

Their primary building though on the development that would

encompass the nine parcels

primarily along maxwell is a 10 story structure and three

stories at this corner along lexington avenue and then three

stories where you see the green shading in the middle here.

The 10 story structure would

encompass this white area.

So not all of the foot imprint of the structure would be

proposed for 10 stories.

There would also be additional

landscaping proposed along --

along lexington as well as along

maxwell, wider sidewalks,

pull-offs for sush side drop off

and pick up some amenities

within the three story corner at

maxwell and lexington avenue within their proposed

development plan.

When the staff reviewed the development plan against the

development criteria in how they

were proposing, the applicant was proposing to address the

development criteria, the staff

concluded that the request was comprehensive plan.

Was in agreement with several of the goals and objectives, namely

that they were proposing rezoning that encouraged the

expansion of housing choices by prioritizing high density% development type.

While also supporting infill and redevelopment in this case,

redevelopment that replaces

aging housing stock with modern, safe and dense housing types.

That was part of theme a goal 2. In addition, the applicant was

also indicating that they were

seeking to provide a well

designed neighborhood by varying

mobility patterns providing for walkability alternative modes of

transportation and this was very

near the transit center. So that would facilitate that in

many ways. In additin, the petitioner

indicated that they felt their request was within the

development type for downtown

and it was situated between the

campus and the core of the city thereby providing opportunities

to reduce the city's carbon footprint and the staff agreed

with many of the goals and objectives they cited associated

with that.

When we went to the development criteria there were concerns

about a few of the development criteria that the applicant was

indicating that they were

meeting so we worked to help the

applicant address those as much as possible.

The first they are divided in three categories.

The first is site design, building form and location.

Primary concern with this

proposal was the maul at this family design standards and how

the building would be articulated or how it would work

with the street. I didn't mention but the first

two stories of this proposed

structure are to be a parking garage. So of primary concern was how

does a parking garage really interact with the street and

develop a pedestrian feel within that first and second story.

And so that was something nalt

the applicant needed to work

towards with their application.

They did address some of that with greater articulation,

pedestrian entrance as long maxwell street and the

landscaping and providing for

artwork along the corridor.

They also tried to incorporate

their parking in a location

where it wasn't visible from the street, which is of interest so

that we don't have surface

parking lots throughout downtown.

The applicant was also asked to describe what historic

characteristics of the

neighborhood they were trying to incorporate. And they provided several

renderings that showed materials

and other aspects that they were

hoping to reflect the historic

character of the neighborhood.

The applicant was asking to not just complement the neighborhood

but to establish a new framework

for development in this area. As the comprehensive plan says

it's to establish a new framework for the redevelopment of the area.

And in order to do that, the

applicant felt they needed to go

much taller in this vicinity.

And so they proposed the 10-story structure.

In addition with the development

criteria, they were asked to address pedestrian needs.

primarily downtown is pedestrian orientation so they were working

to address that need within the development and to address the

proposed parking structure and

then lastly the green space and environmental health, as I

mentioned earlier, the pocket

park and the additional open

space along maxwell helped to

address those needs within the community.

As the staff reviewed the

application, there were several

concerns about how the subject property, because it was along

the western edge of where the

downtown and second tier urban

places converge, the staff

recommended conditional zoning restrictions to limit the

development on the site and

those are super hard to read,

but we'll get to that. One of the conditional zoning

restrictions was to prohibit several uses on the property,

although the downtown business

zone allows a good number of

business residential mixed use opportunities, it also allows

for some things that would not be compatible at this location.

So the staff recommended restriction or prohibiting

several uses like stadiums and

exhibition halls; parking lots and structures stand alone.

Automobile service stations,

drive-thru facilities, carnivals

and special events, car lots and star ceals establishments, in

addition to those restrictions though, the staff also

recommended height restrictions

for the property the zoning

23450r7bsz -- ordinance allows

that in any downtown frame business zone, anyone can come

in and build a three story building without development plan review by the planning

commission. They would need to meet

standards with building codes

but not a plan planning% commission review.

If a developer wants to go above three stories, the planning

commission can approve additional stories up to 10

stories.

In this case, the staff felt

that 10 stories was too much at

this location because of the

context of the area and so to

restrict the height, the staff repped height restriction for

any part of the building that fronted along maxwell street to

be limited to 75 feet, which was

about a ratio of one and a half

to the width of the right of way.

Right of way on maxwell is

50-foot right of way but it is a major arterial roadway.

And so allowing the higher

taller structure along that

corridor, the staff felt woulds logical but on the two local

streets, the staff recommended that there be a height

restriction of 50 feet on

lexington avenue and 47 feet on zone avenue because that was the

width of those two rights of way.

It would be a one to one ratio. On local streets you would want

the structures to not be quite so tall.

So the staff did make those recommendations to the planning

commission first to restrict use of the property and then to

restrict height in those three separate locations.

The staff did recommend approval

of the request to the commission

on November 21, 2019. The planning commission held a

lengthy hearing on this request, about three hours.

With that lengthy hearing, they

heard from about two dozen

citizens as well as

representatives from the aylesford neighborhood

association, the south hill neighborhood association, bluegrass trust for historic

preservation and the fayette

county neighborhood council. There were a number of concerns

expressed during that hearing. The first being, and I hope I've

covered this a little bit. The area is more in line with a

second tier urban, which was

consistent with the existing

zoning of the r-4 opposed to the downtown place type which would

be more consistent with the b-2 zones. Concerns about losing historic

structures in this vicinity

regarding loss of trees and

green space because the hagerman

court would be reoriented. In addition, concerns about

proposed development that would

change the character of the area, concerns about a domino

effect for zone changes. One once is approved, could

there be others? Impacting the historic

neighborhoods in the vicinity

and demolition of structures

that could be rehabilitated and

safety in general so following

the three hour hearing, the planning commission drafted a

different set of findings and

recommends to the council

disapproval of zone change. That vote passed.

And when I say passed, six

people voted for the disapproval

recommendation and three voted against and there are separate

findings that they adopted

related to meeting the comprehensive plan or not meet

can the comprehensive plan in this case.

So those are part of the final

report that the council has tonight first, the planning

commission found that the b-2a

zone was not in agreement with the 2018 comprehensive

plan-for-four reasons.

First the proposed rezoning of a

10 story and development of a 10 story structure was not

compatible with the existing

character or corridor, second, the comprehensive plan

encourages existing and new neighborhoods to flourish

through improved regulation, expanded opportunities for neighborhood character

preservation and public

commitment to expand options for

mixed use and although the proposed development would

provide new residential dwellig

units, it does not provide for mixed use or mixed type

development as recommended by the comprehensive plan.

And then although a business zone is proposed, the rezoning

would not contribute to the creation or growth of jobs in

this location which is near downtown or in downtown and

fourth, the proposed demolition and redevelopment does not

promote or protect the historic

preservation of the community's resources, which is called for

in theme d goal 3 of the

comprehensive plan and specifically structures within

the proposed rezoning are listed on the national register of

historic districts and were

constructed between 1885-1915. Secondly the planning commission

found that the existing r-4 zone was appropriate at this location

and the current zoning permits renovation and restoration of

the existing structures which

can continue to provide for

necessary housing the requested

b-2b zone is not because --

although the ordinance zoning

ordinance indicates that b-2a is meant to allow for the expansion

of downtown, subject site has not been historically been

considered part of downtown and

last their there has not been a significant or unanticipated%

change of a physical social or

economic nature that would contemplate or grant, warrant

granting the requested rezoning of this property.

So those were the planning

commission's findings in

November and again they voted to

disapprove the zone change by a

vote of 6-3: I would be happy

to answer any questions about the planning commission's

hearing in November or we can hold questions until later.

>> does either the petitioner or

the opponent wish to cross examine staff member?

In that case we will move on to

the presentation by the petitioner. >> there was an additional

letter brought in tour the

course of my speaking so I'll circulate that.

>> thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you

very much for taking the time to

hear us tonight my name is john woodall.

I represent the petitioner apt aptitude development.

with me is the principal ryan

rosen, aaron hathaway, and john

avish with bcd design architect. Also want to acknowledge those

that will speak against this

zone change request tonight I understand that we probably

won't agree on much but nonetheless, believe that we do

respect your right to be heard.

For the record, I have voiced a copy of our powerpoint

presentation and I will tender

that to the clerk for the record.

Also for the record, I have an

affidavit which is intended to prove the advertising sign that

was placed at the location, a concerned with this particular

zone change.

The last exhibit is simply a listing of the property taxes

paid for each of the affected

properties last year I will see

if we can make the powerpoint work.

I'm going to do things a little bit different tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

Tracey has done an excellent job going through the parameters of

this zone change request.

Fact of the matter is my client agrees with just about

everything staff says about the zone change.

The only thing we disagree with

them about is the height restriction.

It occurred to me in the middle of the night over the weekend

that you really don't need to hear from a lawyer.

You need to hear from my clients. They're the ones that are going

to build this project.

It's big and it's bold and you need to hear from them and

that's was we are going to do here.

I'm going to take you through

parameters of the deal and then Mr. Hutter is going address

you and explain who he is, who his company is and what they

propose to do at this location make no mistake about it.

This is the project and the

debate this community's been

getting set for as we have gone

for more of an infill density

focused model away from urban sprawl.

As Mr. Hutter is going to

explain to you close to a

$40 million impact at the end of construction.

As tracey explained, we are

looking to rezone this property

from high density apartment to

downtown frame business.

It is not two acres. 1.8.

It encompsses 12 parcels

bounded by east maxwell street,

lexington avenue and hagerman who is aptitude?

Aptitude is a student housing

developer from elmwood park new jersey. This is what they do.

As Mr. Hutter will tell you, they have a track record, active

projects in new york, south carolina, arkansas and already

in kentucky. They came here from louisville

today. They've got over a

billion-dollar in development and transactions under their belt.

You don't that without performing. Who are they not?

Like I said, they don't currently own these properties.

They didn't buy these properties and let them fall into disrepair

so they can come here tonight

and ask you for to grant their

zone change request. A quick timeline.

About how long we have been at this.

The process started back in June

of last year with discussions

with the staff. Proceeded with the normal

timeline, meeting with the neighborhood to get consensus

for a project of this scale.

This was to culminate in the planning commission hearing was

supposed to occur back in

September on the 26th but staff came forward with their

report and for the first time brought up the height restriction and so the parties

stepped back for a second and decided punt.

And see how they could meet that

or not meet that. But the only reason I bring it

up is as far as I'm concerned the planning commission process

was tainted and you should

disregard it.

Since the first hearing, let me just speed ahead here.

With respect to tracey covered this with respect to the

comprehensive plan, we feel that

we have complied with four of the themes here.

We are offering expanded housing choice over and above what is there.

It very much supports infill and development.

We are replacing 12 rental homes

with a development that I believe is somewhere over

260,000 square feet.

We are offering walkable and

bikable amenities and in close

proximity to lextran, public transit and the whole purpose of

infill or one of the primary

purposes was reduce our carbon

footprint and we've done that. Theme d, enhancing the

transportation system by

improving maxwell. These are gyrations we have gone

through with traffic engineering through the process.

There has been a lot of give and

take between my clients and not

only planning staff but those in

lexington fayette county urban county government.

Does this development embrace up and not out? It does.

This is an infill in every sense

of the word.

Getting on to place builder as

Miss Wade stated, the planning commission and my complaints had

a difference of opinion on

whether this was the appropriate category for this particular

development, whether they should

be downtown or second tier urban.

We agree with staff, staff

agreed with us on that, at least

so the report read and we think

that that was the appropriate classification why?

Well, what are the borders of downtown?

I've lived here all my life. Traditionally that has been new

town pike, third street and I

thought of maxwell avenue as start of downtown.

Zoning patterns support that. What about U.K.? What is happening across the

street? We've had large scale

residential development, some of it has had retail component to

it and some hasn't. Some of it has had parking

structures as well.

The hub, U.K. Dorms, U.K. Parking garage redevelopment

being examples. What type place would

accommodate the proposed development and items needed to

be addressed under place builder? We think this is it.

This particular exhibit here

shows your downtown area as we

believe it to be, as I said,

bounded by those particular roadways.

The zoning patterns would support that.

Here we have, I don't know if

you can see it on scror screens,

but this is r-5 here, b-2a there.

What about other downtown

indicators?

The government center debate

which took place in the very recent past also considered this

to be within the downtown area.

That's a map that came from the rfp.

What about the nearby area?

This is taken from maxwell, the intersection is 332 feet from

our site that is looking back towards good sam.

And what about the center of the city?

We are only about 1500 feet from the center city project so I

would say that puts us in downtown. What is the university of

kentucky say? This is taken from their most

recent master plan and this

particular exhibit shows the

boundaries of the university

right now and with their northern most boundary being

right across the street from

this particular project.

that is just a more descript

picture of the U.K. Topography.

And this particular exhibit, the

next two, deals with how the university of account kentucky

sees the north campus developing

and this was, if will you read

there, it was developed in

conjunction with urban county

government officials Miss Wade covered the differences in the

second tier urban and yes it is true that high tense difficult

residential is available in both place types.

But it's the zoning category. It's true.

We cannot do a b-2a in a second tier urban.

The development my clients

propose is simply allows for

much more infill and what have

we done to address the context? Because of that increased infill

and because of the size and scope of our development?

You'll see these two end areas

that face stone and lexington

avenue have both be reduced and

Miss Wade talked about that what have we done to address the

concerns of staff throughout

this and the neighborhood throughout this process?

>> well, the first thing we did

was we heard the concerns, reconfigured the site plan to

remove the need for variances. We have not had to ask for any

of those.

The site fully complies with b-2a standards.

We don't have to go to boar for that.

We removed on street parking from maxwell based on the

discussions with traffic

engineering hence the garage. We have made provisions for

loading and unloading for ush, lyft and food delivery.

That is an absolute must with student housing these days.

We've made designation for public art easements near two of

the main pedestrian entrances.

We've included garage safety. Precluded from the rules by

showing you architectural renderings of the project but we did show those to be in

compliance with place builder and multifamily design standards

per request.% we came up with those and presented them.

We will be providing bicycle

safe storage to accommodate cyclists.

We also came up with a narrative to show compliance with the

multifamily design standards. We convened multiple meetings to

address concerns and hear suggestions before and after the

report came out why do we need this much density?

Do we need this much dense the I?

Yes, we do. Imagine lexington aims to

increase density specifically along corridors like.

This this is the debate that

this community has been headed for. When the right project came

along, well here it is.

Lexington has a substantial housing shortage. I don't think anybody would

debate that, at least not on campus. Campus housing shortage has been

in the news. The amenity package this group

is offering requires a certain critical mass to be able to offer the services.

The parking structure, for

example, it has a significant

cost why do we want do this here? The property is available.

It is difficult to find parcels

of this number in an area like this.

So the locale makes sense.

What about what's there?

Well, as Ms. Wade alluded and placed into the record from the

last hearing, there is over 614 pages of code enforcement

documentation on the properties just since 2016.

I'll submit to you a lot of that stuff is what you would expect

with student rental housing. Some of it is very minor.

It is. It happens. Some of it is not.

And I don't think any of us could drive down this street, I

drive down at least one of them every day and say that these

homes are in good repair. They're not.

The areas at aylesford south

hill, they're both geographical

limits to east and west and the university obviously serves as a

practical constraint to the south. And once again as far as

projects to be built by the

university, this body or lexington fayette urban county

government has no control over the zoning. This project you do.

And this particular project would serve multiple

populations, not just the students, but due to its

proximity to the urban core, we expect that some of the

residents here will not be students.

Like I said, it's a significant investment in the community.

It's a slide that depicts fannie

mae's computations about what multifamily, multilevel

development costs these days and

these are 2017 numbers.

Granted but you can see the graphic.

We are dealing with $233 a square foot.

It's not cheap. How do you make it work financially?

I'm going to go through this quickly because Mr. Hutter

will cover this.

And we are kind of opening the books for you on this here.

It is going to cost almost 3.3 million to buy this property.

Then you've got your construction costs.

I just showed you that and we

expect that to hold true, if not be more.

You got the added expense that comes along with infill, all the

things that are added to construction during that

process.

It's just more costly.

Action revenue, well, the tax

exhibit that I listed, if you look at each of these

properties, you wouldn't be

surprised it's about $3,000 to $4,000 a year is what you are

looking at in taxes on these properties.

So for all of them, it was

around $40,000 this past year

property tax revenue. Counter balance that with this project.

If it were approved and built out, you are looking at probably

close to $300,000 per year in

property tax revenue, not to

mention the collateral economic impacts that go along with

construction.

This exhibit right here has to do with the cost and expense of

building a parking structure.

It is not cheap.

All this, even down to the particular space.

Our parking structure, we

estimate to be somewhere around

$4.6 million. There is not a one to one

expense reduction when you eliminate parking spaces and we

went through that calculous when we had, when we met with the

height restriction that would reduce the size of the

facilities.

That cost what it cost. This particular garage will

actually feature or have features that will elevate its cost.

That's what it takes to attract today's student.

Like I said, all in we are over $40 million. The one thing that we disagree

with the staff upon is the

height restriction. It is simply not economically

viable.

When that came out, you know, we

knew we were asking for a 10

floor facility.

As I said, we postponed the hearing, went back to the

drawing board to see if we do anything different.

Made changes and dropped the

request to eight stories as opposed to 10.

Once again Mr. Hutter will

explain that.

There is -- understand, there is no height requirement per se in

the r-4 zone. As Mr. Martin explained at the

planning commission, what the height requirement is it all

depends on your ability to meet

the other requirements of the zone setbacks, and things of

that nature but in all honesty

can we do an eight or 10 floor

facility in an r-4 high density apartment zone?

No, we can't.

10 stories equates to roughly 122 feet.

Eight stories equates to

100 feet and staff has suggested 75 feet.

This just gives you an idea of

what happens at these different limitations.

Four stories, my review of the

record indicates that was a proposal from the neighborhood at one point.

That is a 72% reduction in the

square footage of the project.

Six stories is a 4% reduction in

the square footage of the project.

And as I said, costs do not

reduce at the same rate. I'm going to sit down and let

Mr. Hutter take you through his vision on this particular

project and who his company is and why he and they chose

lexington for this particular project. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions

for me at all? How do you want to do that some.

>> we'll take questions later although when you are all done

with your presentation, there will be opportunity for cross-examination.

>> I'm jared hutter founding

principal of aptitude development and I started this

company six years ago with my partner. All the schools that john

mentioned, many other schools that we are looking at around

the country, I really mean this,

U.K. Is the number one school we would love to do.

I have been a fan of your

basketball team in 1996, they

won me $40 in the first ncaa poll I ever did.

It was like I won the lottery.

We are not a fly by night

company looking to build this company and leave very quickly.

This sits in an opportunity zone.

For us that is really a coincidence.

I don't know how familiar you are with that.

Ultimately what that means is benefits on the back end

irrelevant of property taxes,

capital gains if we hold the property for 10 plus years.

That's how we raise capital. That's how we intend to deploy

our capital into this market. If you guys can aofficer this

project and welcome us into this community. We will be here for 10 plus years.

And I will tell you that the people you will see tonight,

myself and my partner, brian, we are boots on the ground.

We came from our property in louisville just before this.

We are the guys who are on the sites every single week.

We know everyone who is working on these sites. We are not just putting this together and walking away. We are the guys who care about

this and we are the team that is

here executing not only during construction but ultimately the

project is stabilized. We are very committed.

we have a great project that is currently in construction in louisville.

It's a 10 story building as well

and adds about 380 square foot building. A big difference between that

building and the building we are proposing here whether it's 10

stories or eight stories. We do not have a prototypical

box that we like to take. When we go into a market, we

study the market, we study the school and we want to design a

project that is around that local area.

We have our architect here with

us who can attest to that who he does all of our projects and

everything we do is a blank slate. It's got to fit in with the

characteristics of the neighborhood, the needs and

desires of the students and the community that we are trying to

serve and really that is how we believe that the projects that

we can do will stand the test of time. So what does that mean here?

It's not a box that we have dropped down.

As staff mentioned, we really

did a deep study in terms of the% market and our project that has

been proposed whether it's eight

stories or 10 stories, respects the size of the neighborhood.

On the sides it's three stories and that's it.

Yes, eye taller along east maxwell but we spent a lot of

money doing sun shade studies hive looking at green space we

are adding into this and we really tried to design a

building that is going to fit in with the area.

as mentioned, we started this by proposing a 10 story building.

That building had great setback or step ups.

It was is three stories right

along the road, along east maxwell and step back had a

significant step back there. We can do an eight story building.

We looked at this last time. Obviously it was mentioned staff

sort of at the 11th hour put this 75-foot height restriction

on it and when we evaluated it,

unfortunately we can in the do a 75-foot building.

It May sound arbitrary that we

are trying to get more but when

we look at the development costs

and the operational efficiency,

in order to provide an affordable product to the

market, 75-foot building would

drop it down to 340 beds. In our business, you need over

400 beds in order to have operational efficiency and

that's sort of where we are.

Could we eliminate parking? No.

We look at parking as really a two prong test.

Number one, what is required

under the city ordinance. Here under 9 downtown district I

believe it is zero but to us that's irrelevant what do we

need to make this project viable

from a revenue standpoint and

bring renters in? Regardless what you May here

tonight, park ago cross the country and we are on a lot of

college campuses is dropping significantly. The needs and desires of

students have been changing over the last couple of years.

Ride sharing, zip cars, scooters , better public

transportation throughout. Walkability, that is all

decreasing. We believe right now and we are successful in our logic on this that it's about a 40% raish I

don'ty in terms what have you

need from a parking perspective. Shame on us if we are going to

build a project and invest all this money without ample parking

because we won't get renters and that's obviously not was we want

to do.

I think it's right as staff mentioned we tried to go through process and do everything right.

We thought we worked very well with staff and unfortunately we

understand their logic sort of the 11th hour putting this

height restriction on there but I think staff can certainly

attest to the fact that we

worked very hard to work with them design a project that fit

the neighborhood of the community and we even tried to

meet with the neighborhood up

front unfortunately the first

meetings there was no attendees

that's the logic that was there

in terms of how we designed our

project. Let's be clear.

The opposition is basically

against any project. We ultimately did meet with the

neighborhood associations they

said well maybe four, probably less. They're really looking for

nothing to change and the comprehensive plan that you guys

have put forth here, this is exactly what it is.

And we recognize that when we came to this community initially

about a year ago looking at a

number of different deals we had three sites that we had under

contract at one point and this

is the one we said we can commit the most to and really fit the

best characteristics of the projects we are trying to do

which are ultimate urban core pedestrian project. This is across the street from

the university.

Pretty much the entire block of where we are looking to develop

this project is occupied by students ever house that we are

looking to replace with a new

building is occupied by students.

We are not changing the charactersi of the area.

We are making it better and enhancing it. When you look at sort of what

the houses are today, again don't penalize us for the fact

that they have fallen into disrepair.

A number of them are boarded up today.

A number of them have significant code violations.

That's not us.

We are simply in contract to purchase these and we are hoping

that you guys will give us the

opportunity to really make this better when we go develop

projects we bring in professional student management.

We try and make the buildings as safe as they can possibly be and

that is not what is there todays. When we design these projects,

we really take the tact of would you let your daughter live in this building?

We take that throughout from a design perspective, from a

safety perspective, on site management overseeing everything.

We really take that tact and try to design everything accordingly

to make this the best building it can be. Ultimately in closing I would

tell you that, I'm asking you guys to stay true to your comprehensive plan.

You guys are looking for development and infill

development and density and this

project works perfectly with that. We don't need a 10 story building.

We can do this with a 100-foot height allowance.

Basically pretty much everything staff said, we are good on all

the uses but we need 100 feet to

make it work. Unfortunately 75 there is no development by us or anybody else and at the end of the day

your choice, in my opinion, it's simple. You can either leave it as

status quo. We know the current property owners.

We've gotten to know them over the last eight or nine months,

they're not going to do anything with these properties.

They're going to rent them to students for a number of years

until they fall down. They will not invest a dollar

into it and that's a fact. I'm asking you guys to vote for

this development and please allow us to significantly

increase the tax revenue.

We are talking about $250,000 plus of money going to

additional p unuses and -- public uses and one last thing I forgot

to mention, from a green space perspective and trees perspective.

We have -- minimal green space there today.

Our development adds significant green space and regardless what anybody is going say, we have

plans that will show we are adding more trees back than we

are taking down. Long-term this will be a much

greener area than it is today. Thank you for your time and if

there are questions, I'm here.

>> does the opposition wish to cross examine.

>> no thank you.

>> if not, then presentation by

the opposition at this time. Good evening.

I'm jessica winters here on behalf of my compliant the

aylesford place neighborhood association.

To voice its opposition to the zone change proposed by aptitude

development from r-4 which is

high density apartment to b-2a downtown frame business for

property located along maxwell

and stone streets.

Apna further holds the position that the design is not consistent with the imagine

lexington comprehensive plan development criteria.

In some, we think the planning commission, which voted to deny

the requested zone change got it right.

We urge you to adopt the findings and conclusions of that

body. The planning commission received

a written position statement

from the apna that is similar to

the one provided to you here tonight.

And heard from two dozen objectors. the community, your

constituents, do not support the

zone change diddational detail regarding the objection is set

forth in the position statement

included in the packet which I distributed earl earlier.

This position statement should be made part of the official

record of the proceeding.

The packet discusses in details the neighborhood's interactions

with the applicant and the applicant's minimal effort to

engage in meaningful dialogue

with the community also included, five or so extra

copies I distributed around the

bench up there today, are 72

letters in opposition which should likewise be made part of

the record. So first I would like to tell

you a little bit about the aylesford place neighborhood association.

The apna has worked to maintain

the character of the historic aylesford neighborhood while

keeping the responsible development to maintain the

character of the neighborhood. Aylesford's first homes date to

the early 1800s, most residential and commercial

development occur between 1880 and 1930.

Today aylesford is one of lexington's most complete

walkable neighborhoods. Apna has long been committed to

preserving the tree canopy in the neighborhood and promoting

pedestrian activation and

alternative modes of trans. Apna has planted nearly 100

street trees in the aylesford neighborhood including several

along the maxwell street corridor.

apna does not hap hazardly

oppose zone changes and acknowledges a viable

neighborhood evolves over time.

For instance, in 2013,apma --

apna did not oppose kroger's euclid avenue request.

Instead they met with the development team on two projects

to engage in a collaborative

dialogue that resulted in true compromises.

This slide here shows the

aylesford place neighborhood boundaries.

Located between downtown and the

U.K. Campus apna neighborhoods live and work within a short

bike ride to locally owned restaurants, professional

services, church and shops. Aylesford place is comprised of

mixed use properties and diverse

housing and partially contains

two of the densest census tracts

in the lexington fayette urban area. As you can see from the slide,

the yellow boundary is the

boundary of the apna.

The pink line, which is right...

Right in this area here, is the

h-1 overlay boundary and the red

line shows the location of the proposed development, which is

well within the neighborhood and

only one block from the h-1

border.

The next few slides will show

the historic homes demolished in connection with the current proposal.

Eight of the 12 buildings the applicant proposes to demolish

are more un100 years old two additional are 90 years old.

This will be the largest

demolition in this area since south hill lost the neighborhood

that is now rupp arena's parking lot. While these properties are not

within the h-1 overlay, the destruction of so many historic

properties is certainly not

contemplated by the 2018 imagine lexington comprehensive plan.

I have jim dick encen here to discuss this with you in more

detail in a few minutes.

These slides also show mature trees that will be lost and

demonstrate that the streetscape

is uniformly residential along the entirety of the proposed

development site. The two properties that book end

the proposed development are shown here.

These residential historic buildings will be dwarfed by the

10 story box development that has been proposed by the

applicant.

This slide shows the affected properties along stone avenues

and additional trees that would be lost.

These are also historic and

viable properties that contribute diversity to

lexington's housing stock. These slides, the buildings

along the entire corridor are historic and residential.

It should be noted that U.K., although not bound by the same

planning and zoning requirements

has chosen to respect the historic neighborhood quality of

this corridor: the right-hand side of the street directly

across from the proposed

development is fronted by four historic homes that the

university has chosen to renovate and utilize.

These historic structures will

remain and provide a permanent

context for the corridor. in addition, the new U.K.

Construction in this corridor at

the corner of maxwell and rose

streets has been situated a substantial distance from the

roadway and is only two stories tall.

The context provided by the right-hand side of the road

along the area of the proposed

development should not be ignored.

These slides demonstrate why apna agrees with the planning

commission that the requested b-2a zone is not appropriate for

the subject site.

The site is not adjacent to the existing core downtown business

zone or land use and has not historically been part of

downtown. The applicant's designation of

the proposed development as a downtown place type is therefore

not appropriate and should be

rejected by the council. And so now we come to the

discussion of place type.

As you know, under the 2018 imagine lexington comprehensive

plan, the place type designation is the most significant step of

the process with regard to a

requested zone change because the comprehensive plan makes it

clear that the designation informs the conversation and the

decision making regarding which zones are appropriate in any

given area. The downtown place type is

described as "the urban epicenter of commerce and

entertainment.

The core should be anchored by high rise structures with

activated ground levels, surrounded by mid rise buildings

that increasingly offer dense residential uses.

A mix of uses and variety of

transportation options should be prioritized and parking should

be addressed as a shared urban asset.

I would disagree with council for the applicant and would say

that the traditional boundary of downtown in the direction of the

area has been high street not

maxwell.  -- furthermore, imagine

lexington outlines a specific

priority regarding second tier urban for development.

It must be "in relation to the

surrounding hoicialg context." here the determination of a

downtown place type by planning

staff and the applicant was made

without community feedback or context.

Apna has always viewed its

neighborhood ace second tier

neighborhood and common sense view supports the place type.

In looking at the current zoning map which we did earlier with

the planning staff's presentation, it is clear the

proposed development area and surrounding neighborhood are

overwhelmingly zoned residential.

There are only one or two b-2a zoned properties anywhere neighborhood.

The context and visual narrative of the neighborhood are

residential and historic: elements set out in the comprehensive plan and place

builder that describe the second

tier urban neighborhood fit the proposed development area like a

glove.

In fact, the images used in

place builder to depict a second tier urban neighborhood are

taken from two blocks west of the proposed development. .

. . . . . . . . . .

Quickly realizes the minor arterial roadway cannot and

should not support developments of a scale similar to those

placed along larger roadways with multiple lanes of traffic

and significant infrastructure for cars and pedestrians.

The designation of the proposed development area as a downtown

place type by planning staff and

the applicant appears to have been arbitrary not based on any

evidence regarding the anyway nature of the neighborhood as it

currently exists. Place builder makes it clear

that a b-2a zone, while appropriate in a downtown place

type is not appropriate in a

second tier urban place type. The comprehensive plan indicates

that in a second tier urban place type that currently exists

in the proposed development

area, b-1, mun 1, mun 3, r-4 and r-5 zones are appropriate.

It is currently zoned rof which is appropriate in a second tier

urban place type. This is the most important point

I can make to you today.

High density residential is

contemplated by and permitted in this zone.

Increasing density within the

current zone is possible. ut utilizing a downtown place

type when such a conclusion is

not supported by the context, architecture or the uses of the

sounding neighborhood and

approving a zone change from r-4

to b-2a will create an isolated

block of downtown frame zoning in a residential neighborhood. The increased height and density

of the proposed development

allowed by b-2a zoning makes it out of context with the adjacent

neighborhood and violates the guidelines outlined in the

comprehensive plan for well designed transitions from the

downtown core to a second tier

urban neighborhood.

The existing r-4 zone allows for

high density residential development.

In fact, the r-4 zone is

referred to as high density

apartment zone in the zoning ordinance.

Apna does not oppose an increase

in density but rather argues

that such increase should be contextual and well thought out

in accordance with the

comprehensive plan's directives. Again multilevel residential

housing is not precluded in the current zone. The current zone would, in fact

potentially allow for several story structures with the

appropriate yard to height

ratios and parking. Therefore meeting the

comprehensive plan's directive for increased density without

the need for the requested zone change.

So then we have to ask.

So why does the applicant need a

zone change to propose the current proposal.

High density residential is permitted in the current zone?

Well, let's talk about that for a minute.

The first reason they need the zone change is to reduce the

parking requirement. The requested zone change cuts

the parking requirement in half.

The proposal contemplates 550

beds which will add more than

375 residents to this half block which currently has the ca pass

by to house between 70 and 90 individuals. In connection with the proposal,

they will be adding less than

200 parking spaces. That's adding 375 residents and

less than 200 parking spaces. The burden this will place on

the surrounding neighborhood streets with regard to park

congress not be overstated. While the applicant asserts that

students will be able to obtain

parking on U.K.'s campus, students reside inning this

proposed development would not be eligible for a commuter

parking permit at U.K.

They May be eligible for a k

permit near kroger field.

The k lot is a seven minute walk and students would be required

to move their vehicles during home football games.

The second reason they need the

zone change is to fit more units. The applicant has justified its

10 story height proposal with

its assertion that it needs to

if it 208 units or 550 beds into

the development to make it economically feasible.

This cannot be accomplished within the current r-4 zone

because the r-4 zone requires a

2k-1 height to yard ratio. B-2a has no requirement for

height to yard ratio.

The change to b-2a is therefore

necessary to avoid this requirement and fit more units

into the project. The current zoning will allow

for increased developmentbly contrast, the requested zone change will allow for

development of a nature that is destructive to the neighborhood

and incompatible with the

surroundings.

I will present a witness on this issue after my comments but it%

is important to note that under the current zoning r-4 the

applicant will need to ensure that 30% of the tree canopy is

included or retained in the proposal; however, under a b-2a

zone, there is no tree canopy requirement at all.

In other words, the requested zone change will allow the

applicant to side step the tree

canopy requirement all together. This slide shows images of

similar student housing projects

constructed in the area as you

can see, the context is

different first thing to note is

that the developers of these

projects determined that it was feasible to build developments

with fewer stories and fewer beds it should be noted that

while the hub one initially represented it could meet the

needs of its residents with project parking it has

subsequently found it necessary

to obtain surface parking to supplement the parking garage.

The fact is that students in

lexington rely heavily on

vehicles and 2-1 resident per parking spot in lexington is

simply unrealistic. Apna holds the position that the

current proposal is not consistent with the imagine

lexington planned development

criteria for the following reasons: the proposed

development is not add an appropriate scale to respect the

context of neighborhood structures.

The site line along the 200

block of east maxwell reveals

structures no faller than three

stories this is complect

generally hive directly in

conflict with a-3 n 3 -- and does

not create a context sensitive transition with the existing

neighborhood. The supplemental planning staff

report suggests that reducing

the maximum might of the development to 76 feet along maxwell street eliminates

concern regarding context while apna agrees that this height

reduction is a step in the right direction, it maintains that a

maximum height of 56 feet is

more context sensitive and meets

the comprehensive plan criteria. Two stories of parking garage at

the street level along the

corridor is not pedestrian oriented and does not activate

the ground level importantly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly,

ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly, ntly,

project stanes nearly the entire portion of the development

fronting maxwell street.

A ground floor parking garage is

automobile oriented and is not appropriate directly along

maxwell street. Apna maintains that browned

floor parking should be limited to the hagerman court side of

the building.

Any redevelopment with pedestrian should require

residential or business use as long the sidewalk.

This is a point that the developer has been unwilling to

compromise on. In fact this would be required%

in a b-1 zone. The only advantage of a ground

floor parking garage is that it is the cheapest floor in a

garage to build. Likewise, ground floor garages

with larger footprints are cheaper to build.

These monetary reasons incentivize the large building

footprint thereof proposal and

necessitate the legal contortion of privatizing hagerman court to

meet the minimum open space requirements. Unfortunately, the cost savings

for the developer do not factor

in the externalities of the reduced open space for our urban

tree canopy and the loss of ground level interaction along

maxwell that exists today. The demolition of structures

that are included in the national register of historic

places does not constitute adaptive reuse of the

properties. Inclusion of the structures on

the national register is evidence of historically

significant structures which

should be preserve so many properties are individually

listed here.

201, 215, 221, 225, 27 and 231 east maxwell street as well as

245 and 251 stone avenue are all

individually listed on the national historic register.

Two properties are also

highlighted in historic places

inventory shoulding noted

several historic structures in this area have been recently

restored, resulting in increased

density setting an excellent precedent for future development

and adaptive reuse. I'll present a witness regarding

the viability of the properties to serve as housing stock to

meet the needs of students currently underserved in the market.

Those that cannot afford luxury student housing such as that

contemplated by the instant proposal. The only reason these properties

are not currently viable is demolition by neglect.

The comprehensive plan does not encourage demolition by

negligent and the city council should not endorse a plan that

is built on an economic feasibility argument that is

justified by the deteriorated

state of the buildings rental housing exclusively for students

is already available in excess. There has been no evidence

presented by the applicant supporting its assertion that a

development of this size to

serve a homogenous population is needed. The university of kentucky, when

asked about this proposal, has said that they have no contact

with the developer and that

references to the housing shortages have been referring to

on campus housing.

U.K. Believes that on campus housing assists with retention

of students, U.K. Currently is

planning to raise the kerwin

landing dorm this year and add a

500 dorm bed to address housing needs on campus.

The proposed development is destructive of the existing 37%

tree canopy including several mature trees without significant

replacement further reducing the tree canopy of the neighborhood

which is already below the city wide goal.

Trees are not an esthetic pleasure.

They're instrumental will lowering heat islands especially

vital in the downtown neighborhoods.

The comprehensive plan sustainability clearly define

the importance of replanting and

maintaining our tree canopy. The small trees proposed along

the walk way of maxwell by the developer are ornamental in

nature and will not contribute significantly to the tree canopy.

Ly present you with a witness on this topic in a few minutes as

well. In addition.

The proposed development is simply thought to scale with the

surrounding properties.

as you can see from this aerial view.

The proposed development will be monolithic and will dwarf the

other closely neighboring buildings in the area in terms

of footprint this image demonstrates the vast difference

in height between the proposed structure and what will be the

only remaining building on this

block facing maxwell street.

A difference of almost 100 feet

as previously noted apna believes any construction should

be limited to five stories or 56 feet. Apna believes the planning staff

recommendation of 75 feet is a step in the right direction but

that the proposed 10 story

structure at 122 feet is grossly disproportionate.

Currently two and one half story

houses dominate the maxwell streetscape.

Remaining houses adjacent to and across the street from the 10

story complex will be garred by the development.

And this image shows the pictures of the houses at two

stories and 10 the additional 10 stories conpolicemen plated by

the proposed development.

Apna urges this council to heed

the considered findings and comment of the planning%

commission which is the expert body responsible for

interpreting and applying the comp plan.

During the discussion period for this proposed zone chaig,

commission members to the following comments which I would

like to highlight to you today.

Frank penn stated I sat here all afternoon thinking about this and I know we want density and I

know we want change where change

can be accommodated but this is my old standard problem.

I think it's seven pounds of flour and a five pound sack and

I say that to say that I think

student house congress go here but -- house congress go here but

I think it is going to change the character of the neighborhood because of the size

of the project. William wilson said when we got

involved with this infill

development, we knew that we were going have some challenges along the way.

But I don't believe that it was

the intent of the body that it was the intent when we were

thinking this that we would throw a neighborhood out of

character by building a 10 story building next to a neighborhood. In other words, we knew there

May have been some unintended consequences but that's one

unintended consequence that I'm

not for. Chairman Owens said, having been

here and behind this bench for several years, everyone knows

that we are constantly looking

for ways to provide housing and increase density.

Any zone change, particularly since this last comp plan, any

zone change we've had, I've

reiterated the fact that we need

to preserve and protect our existing neighborhoods.

Wroaf' got things to do but we

do need to keep that in mind

whenever we do it. Graham pohl.

He noted the proposal was not consistent with growth policy

number 5 which calls for using critical evaluation to identify

and preserve lexington's historic assets.

he said that because this proactive and comprehensive plan

inventory is not being undertaken "it is up to all of

us including the planning commission to recognize where

and when we are in danger of sacrificing cultural assets in

the name of increasing density

and to move to prevent such

losses. Mr. Pohl continued on the

issue of place making recognizing and protecting the

character of a place. "the scale diversity and quality

of the subject buildings is% fundamental to the character of

maxwell street and critical to

defining the character of the

intersection of the university

and downtown maxes well street

is a hinge between that role and exhibits clarity that would be

difficult to replicate much the closely spaced two story

structures make for a walking experience on maxwell that is

pleasant safe and distinctly about lexington.

Unique place personal to the city and not unanimous.

This place is too important to

sacrifice to a blanket zoning

policy that has the potential to

negate key elements of the comprehensive plan and it was

not consistent with the goals

and objectives. Theme a growing successful neighborhoods. Theme d improving desirable communities.

And density policy number 2 which states the infill

residential can and should aim

to increase density while enhancing existing neighborhoods

through context sensitive design : he noted the proposed

zoning we have been asked to

consider would make these policies and object itches

impossible to achieve in this location.

The requesting rezoning allows for construction drastically

different from what is currently allowed and would effectively

prevent context sensitive design.

It is to be expected staff would support this request because it

would remove forward the goal of increasing density.

However in this case it's the wrong move and the wrong place.

Since segments of the comprehensive plan seem to

support such a change while other segments of the plan

clearly attempt to prevent such a change, it is our

responsibility, the flish planning commission to draw the line in the sand in this case and protect some of the city's

irreplaceable properties and the

character of a unique and extraordinary place.

The apna urges you to listen to the planning commission, to

listen to the community and to

deny the requested zone change

which will be destructive of the fabric of an established and

successful neighborhood which is

truly a special place within lexington and now I just would

like to present the comments of

a couple of expert witnesses if

I'm able.

>> do you want to present your expert witnesses?

>> yes, sir. >> yes ma'am.

>> I'll call jim dickenson.

>> never quite done this at a

podium before like this.

>> good evening Mr. Dickenson. >> I'm going to need you both on

the mic so we can make sure we

have this recorded.

>> will you please describe your

experience with developments and neighborhood and the

comprehensive plan. >> I have lived in lexington

kentucky for nearly 30 years all on translyvania park.

I have been involved with the

passage in 1999 of the aylesford

neighborhood historic district.

I'm currently the chair of the board of architectural review

although I will make it clear I'm not speaking on their

behalf.

I've also been actively involved

before with two different terms with pohl.

>> in your opinion given your experience, is this proposed

project appropriate for a second tier urban neighborhood?

>> no, it's not. As proposed and we have to keep

in mind this is a 100 story foot building or 100-foot building

which is grossly out of

proportion for the context of the neighborhood. It May have been pointed out

there are other buildings as the

crow flies, they're only

1500 feet away but that's a considerable difference in terms

of context and location of the building. No, it's not appropriate at all.

A two and a half story apartment buildings are the norm for this

neighborhood, especially along maxwell, which is directly

across from the historic

district housing on U.K. Campus.

The building would overwhelm the campus area at U.K.

>> in your opinion, this

proposal in conformity with the comprehensive plan and place builder? >> of course no the.

>> why not. >> the zone change would lead to

a development not in keeping with the mission of the -

comprehensive plan and I want to

quote it briefly "the goals set out in the comprehensive plan

will be accomplished while

protecting the environment, promoting successful accessible

neighborhoods and preserving the

unique blrg landscape -- bluegrass landscape."

this plan did us not do that. I have been almost in your

location and I have trouble hearing so I'll try to make

myself louder. >> what is your opinion

regarding the directives of the comprehensive plan regarding

infill and urban neighborhoods and adaptive reuse of historic

properties that are listed on the national register of historic places?

>> I want to make it clear that the comprehensive plan

encourages the adaptive reuse of historic properties for a

reason.

It was designed to accommodate a diverse housing in lexington.

And what I always look at in

terms of what I think has been a pretty successful project is

still getting there, is the kenwick project on south

limestone.

Currently I realize there are meant to be retail and apartments.

The apartments are rented. I think in time that retail will

come.

Something like that, if there has to be a development in this

area, would be more appropriate

in terms of preserving the

context and the familiarity of a

residence -- residential area on maxwell street.

>> what is the directive of the comprehensive plan regarding the

demolition of well maintained housing stock such as the houses

along stone avenue. >> that's where the issue arises

that this is not within the h-1

overlay protective area. There is not per se a directive

but the spirit of the

comprehensive plan and the imagine lexington is to

accommodate and preserve and

restore historic housing.

The buildings along maxwell and stone as betty kerr put it one

time, have really good bones, and they do.

They're clackic buildings in the

sense they were built in the 19

20s, residential in character. They were well built.

They were middle class homes and they're still, notwithstanding

the lack of attention they have

been receiving, are still in

good shape and can be reused as adaptive apartments that the

would be consistent with the neighborhood and character of

that neighborhood. >> what is the role of the planning commission.

>> the planning commission is considered to be the expert in

this area and at times they can disagree with their staff.

But unless the opinion of the

plib is clearly erroneous and

not based upon any facts and you

heard an abundance of factual findings they should be

sustained and their opinions

should stand that this is not an

appropriate change from an r-4

zoning proposal. >> thank you Mr. Dickenson.

>> you're welcome. >> cross-examination. >> I think when you are done

with all your witnesses, if you will. >> sure.

I would like to next call lynn

dunne. Good evening.

>> hello.

Cup describe for the council a

about it of your experience in the rental vea in lexington.

>> I have been in lexington since 1977.

Came to the university. I have been in the industry for 35 years.

I have owned real estate. I have a company, owned a

property management company, construction company and I own

investment properties and some

of those have been on campus and around campus.

>> in fact have you managed the

same properties on maxwell street for which the zone change is being sought? >> yes.

I was hired by touchstone

properties in 2009.

And I also manage the ones on

stone avenue, also.

Until they were sold on November 18, 2015.

>> and during the time you managed the properties, were

they consistently rented? >> all the units were

consistently rented 100% occupied each year.

>> and in your opinion were they fully utilized as housing stock.

>> there were a total of 12 houses including east maxwell

and stone avenue and maybe 30

units comprised in the housing stock.

>> would you say they provided

affordable housing in demand by students.

>> they did provide affordable housing. >> cup describe for the council

the quality of the construction of these buildings and whether

they were maintained in accordance with the code?

>> the buildings were built in early 1900s as we all know and

they were well maintained, beautiful homes, trurlly sound

with distinctive characteristics

and historical value. Touch tone properties maintained

the homes and kept the jardz in adjoining parking lots clean of

trash and debris. Since the new ownership have you

seen a consistent pattern of deliberate neglect of these

properties and if so can you explain it to the council? >>

>> most definitely it is hard to

go by the houses and see the neglect.

Broken windows, boarded up windows, trash, glass, debris,

all of the grounds.

Just last summer at 225 east maxwell the students moved out

during the summer.

For weeks the front door was completely open. There was a couch that had been

thrown through the living room

window on to the porch. The window was broken and the

glass was all over the porch. I currently have two tenants

that lived at 221 east maxwell next to this building.

And they have lived with me for two years now and I asked them

what them thought of the new property owners.

just not knowing and they said they're terrible.

They won't fix anything. We've had roaches.

They won't even fix broken windows in your professional

opinion what is the need right now for additional luxury

student housing in this area?

>> there is no need for luxury housing.

Lexington is saturated with luxury housing.

>> and what have investors been facing with regard to student

rental properties in the area in the past year or so.

>> new investors are coming into lexington trying to capitalize

on student housing.

We do not have a shortage of campus.

>> I'm going to ask you not to

characterize motives from other folks.

>> just last year numerous houses just blocks away from the

university were not rented for

the 2019-2020 school year.

The houses are still sitting vacant and the small investors

that invested in lexington years ago are losing thousands of

dollars on the investments if

you notice on l bar a lot of the

investors are selling the properties because they cannot continue to take a loss.

>> thank you. I think that's all I have.

Thank you for being here.

I would like to call Dr. Christopher sass. Good evening.

Thank you for being here will you please ji to the council

your work with the study of how free trees affect the health and

vitality of the city. >>

>> I teach in the landscape architecture department at U.K.

I'm also part of the urban

forest initiative on U.K.'s campus as well published quite a

few articles on things like this.

Socioeconomic differences in tree canopy cover and things

like that. >> what is your understanding of

lexington's goal related to

increasing I urban tree canopy? Lect wants to increase their

tree canopy from 22% to 43%. >> and what is your believing of

the heat stress experienced in

the area of the proposed development?

>> urban heat island effect is a real thing. Our friends in louisville know

that. They're the fastest growing

urban heat island and I don't know that we want to beat them

at that even though we like beat them at everything else.

So it actual will r generally hive actually increases stress on people.

We know that for a fact and it

actually hurts people. We've got people that die from

extra heat and things like glat is the heat stress in the area

of the proposed development greater than in other areas of

the city?

>> I think that part of the city is 16% tree canopy currently so

we've got a little more heat in

that area that reradiates from the concrete and asphalt.

>> are you foom with the lexington tree canopy report card? >> yes.

>> what is your understanding of

the grade received by the area of the proposed development?

>> very poor.

I believe it was a d plus in

that area and so the idea that

we need more tree canopy or at

least maintain the tree canopy, the larger trees would be better.

>> what is your opinion

regarding the replacement of

mature trees with ornamental

trees and shrubs.

>> smaller trees equal smaller

canopy and if we have shrubs, that's not going to take care of

the heat either so it's like comparing apples to shoes.

It doesn't match. >> thank you.

I think that's all I have.

>> does the petitioner wish to

cross examine at this point.

>> thank you. We have been at this just shy of two hours.

We are going to take a five minute break but it will

actually take 10 minutes for a

break. Please take your seats.

We'll get started again. The next item on the agenda is

public comment and I'll explain how we'll proceed and what your options are.

What you need to know is that

there are 75 give or take people who have signed in.

My assumption is that not all of

you who have signed in want or

need to speak but you are that you signed in, a lot of

this is in opposition. I've gotten all the sheets in

front of me. I'm going to call the names in

the order in which they appear

on the sheets.

If you choose not to speak, all

you need to do is say I support

or I oppose but I don't need to

speak and I'll move down the list. When we get into those who do

wish to speak, I ask as much as

possible that you do not repeat information or sentiments or

whatever as much as possible,

provide newing ons but the public hearing is a public hearing.

You are entitled to your three minutes. When you come to the podium if

you will give your name and address for the record and I'll

call the names and ask people to

start to line up. >> somebody in the awed qlens to

leave and I told her would I

give the newly formed letter to the council.

If you wish to speak, state

whether you are in support or opposition and not speak

further, just stand and tell me

that I'm going to call three

names and I'll ask to you line up in that order.

The first is mary. Plank.

>> I oppose but I don't need to speak.

>> matthew john brooks matthew brooks. >> vice mayor, council member

Mccurn is trying to get your

attention before we started.

>> thank you council member

evans if we May for the evidence, if we could adjust a%

mic to your mouth, sometimes there is a height difference and

it's very difficult to hear. I appreciate you, sir.

Thank you, vice mayor.

>> math you -- matthew brooks, 461 wested sixth street.

Mostly the presentations that

have been made stated what i would already state but would I

like to include that my big concern especially living in an

area that is right for redevelopment is the precedent

this might set for other areas in town.

I'm a believer in downtown. Im a believer in the

comprehensive plan and I just, you know, I think we all need to

, you know, stick to our guns and, you know, those rules were

put out for a reason.

And really not to be changed, especially in a big way as this.

I also have an issue with you know, I think it's appropriate

for those properties to be

developed at some point but I

don't think just because you have $40 million means that it's

an appropriate area to do it in. And I have the same issue with

some properties downtown where,

you know, a twelfth of our block have been developed by or several blocks.

We only have a short or very few city blocks down ton and when

they're developed by one

developer, we are missing the

stakeholders in days when there

were property owners that had or

built houses or designed structures that made this

neighborhood unique.

So I think taking down 12

structures and replacing it with one homogenous one is a bigger

issue and a bigger precedent to

be speaking about, not that I oppose development in general.

Thank you.

>> martha birchfield. >> hello.

My name is kevin benzy and I'm

the owner of six properties immediately behind the subject

properties on maxwell and stone.

those are 119, 121, 125, 124,

126, 127 and 129 hagerman court.

Trying to follow your

suggestion, I won't belabor any

points but I can speak as someone who, I'm walking these

streets every day I am there

amongst the students who are

actually experiencing this and

with regards to the height, a

lot has been discussed about

stone and about lexington and

about how we shouldn't have too

much on those so designs were changed.

No mention has been made to

hagerman court, where 126 and 129 hagerman court, would you

literally step out of your door

and there is a narrow street and

you look up and you look up and

you look up, as if living next

to an endless wall that has been

constructed. Would you like to live there?

If it were your neighborhood, would you like to live

immediately next to a 10 story structure?

And then you know, a few houses

down, think about the noise and the garbage and the additional

cars on what has been described

accurately as an alley.

There is not enough parking. After having spoken with

hundreds and hundreds of students over the years and

recommending them to not bring their cars, I can tell you

they're going to bring 'em.

Whether or not they can park in this garage or not. So what is going to happen to

those of us who are there every

day on a street that's already

bumper to bumper spaces like have to circle the block for

extended periods of time to find

parking on the street as it is.

that's the status quo.

So would I just say that this

proposal would be bad for lexington bad for the

neighborhood and bad for the

students that it purports to be helping.

Thank you.

Nancy walsk.

>> nancy had to leave early. Alice christ.

She wisheses to speak.

>> I'm martha birchfield 320 linden walk.

My husband and I bought the

house 35 years ago because it is

a historic house we were afraid it would be torn down.

We knew that a developer wanted to buy the property.

It was very difficult for us to buy it because of the things

that he was doing. When we bought the house, it had

become a flop house. It wasn't even student housing.

It was a plop house and it had

been condemned because the codes

were not enforced we bought the house.

We've stayed there 35 years, we

live in what is called a student neighborhood but, let me tell

you in our area of linden walk, we are surrounded by single

family owner occupied houses

that are all very well maintained.

I encourage you to keep the

houses on maxwell street, encourage the property owners to

take care of them, encourage some single family people to

move into these houses.

Thank you. >> thank you.

After alice is robyn miggler.

>> alice crist.

Transwill translyvania park and maxwell street.

i've lived there 34 years.

When we moved there, we rented. Since then we bought and we also

bought the house next to us in

order to protect it from being

torn down, before the h-1 was

instituted.

When we moved there, the faculty colleagues were taking bets how

long we last in this student neighborhood. We like this student

neighborhood because it's not just a student neighborhood.

It's very diverse and multipurpose, multifunction.

And it has commercial as well as residential aspects.

We like that and would like to

see that extended. What you are looking at here is

a proposal for a commercial

luxury dorm and we've heard a

certain amount of ambiguity over who will be renting here.

There is a proposal that it might not all be students

because it's close to downtown,

but what are these amenities

that are being offered for non-students. They seem to be student

amenities rather than

non-student amenities.

I went on the internet important

student luxury amenity rentals

in the area this afternoon and

not a single one of them is 10

stories high and not a single

one of the four to six to 7

story commercial luxury dorms is

lacking empty apartments for represent now.

At the beginning of the term, well, we are already a month

into the term so I would say

there is no need for that kind

of housing and I would like to

reiterate the failure of this proposal to really address the

housing needs of lebt as a city and aylesford as a neighborhood

where we need housing for various diverse types of

population. Thank you.

>> thank you.

Next is robyn and then john.

You wish to speak? Robin, you go ahead and we'll

sort this out. >> dear vice mayor and members of the council.

My name is robin mickler and I'm

owner of kentucky native cafe on maxwell street and work with my

family at mickler's florists.

It's a busy week if with you a

jewelry store, valentine's day

is busy and it is busy if you

have a flower shop. We are here on the busiest day

of the week. I have no illusion that the

neighborhood will or should

remain exact lib as it is. In fact we could use a variety

of housing options and redevelopments that target a

broader spectrum of our city's population.

However, as I walk along a block of 100-year-old houses and

imagine them disappearing to be replaced with a nearly block

long two story parking garage serving the face of a 10 story

private student dorm designed

not for lexington eex walkability or diversity but for

this particular group's business model.

In the imagine lexington, there

is a lot of choices for urban neighborhoods for different

zones. Like the new form based zone for

b-1 which requires ground level use would not allow for a block

long parking garage along maxwell street.

And the existing zone requires

for more open space and tree

canopy as has been noted.

I hope you will uphold these standards of imagine lexington

and oppose the rezoning of a block of maxwell street in the

aylesford neighbrhood to a

downtown zone. Thank you. >> thank you.

John mickler and then panina goldstein?

Beverly fortune? >> my name is john mickler.

I live at 415 east maxwell. Have, in my family home and many

of you know our business on east

maxwell street.

Not but a block and a half from

this development. I agree -- I will be brief.

I agree with everything

Ms. Winters presented and the

level -- the fabric of disagreeing with this proposal

on different levels.

There was one -- a couple of things from the comprehensive

plan, which possibly is, you

know, a hymnal we all read from, but it was expanding

opportunities for neighborhood

character preservation.

Also protecting historic

resources and context sensitive design.

I don't see that this plan meets

any of those criteria.

Thank you.

>> thank you. Misses goldstein and then

caitlyn frick?

>> to the members of the

counsel, I am both a loving resident and responsible small

scale landlord in the aylesford neighborhood. The charm of a city like

lexington is different streets and neighborhoods have their own

distinct proporgs, textures and scale.

The aylesford neighborhood is one of the original suburbs to downtown lexington.

Our neighborhood is filled with houses and yards and smll

businesses.

The plo posed development --

proposed development is an ugly behemoth.

When you plop something like that, it is a shame.

However, when you plop an ugly behemoth among neighborhood

structures that exist on a

drastically smaller scale, it is beyond shameful.

It is devastating. Please respect the significant

and real difference of scale in history between the maxwell

street corridor and that of

lexington's downtown which we proudly neighbor.

I want to speak to two points made by the applicant.

The applicate cant made a big

show of giving his promise he intends to hold on to this

project for 10 plus years.

Whoop dodo. Who in this room does not intend

to be here in 10 years or 20 or 30?

I plan to live in my aylesford

home until the ripe old age of

120 so let's not be wowed by a laughably short 10 year promise

in a neighborhood whose history demands more commitment than

that going forward. Second, the applicant evoked

offensive imagery of helpless girls who need our protection by

posing the question, would you let your daughter live in this

building? sir, going forward, please lay

off the misogyny as you argue your case.

Daughters and sons require the same levels of care and respect.

Girls and women are not more susceptible to poor construction

than boys and men.

Thank you.

>> please if you don't mind, retrain from applauding, thank

you. >> I want to thank the couple

for hearing public comment on the proposed zone chaig.

My name is caitlyn frick and I'm

a U.K. Student who lives on 105 burley avenue.

I lived on campus for my first two years of colleger and after

the high expense of on campus housing, moved off campus to

find more affordable housing.

The development of the apartment complex proposed today is in

line with the hub and other luxury off campus housing that

offer rent at about a thousand

to 2,000 a month; which this

company also charges in other

developments near other college campuses.

On the university of kentucky campus, 8% of students

experience housing insecurity, which means they don't know how

they're going pay for rent. While you cannot control the

development of on campus housing, you do have control

over the development of luxury off campus housing.

I moved off campus to pay less

than 500 of rent, which is more affordable for students who are

balancing increases in tuition, food and other basic need

expenses. Penses. Penses. penses. Penses. Penses. Penses. Penses. Penses. Penses. Penses. Pens

rezoning because it improves

housing at a great increase in price. Students are not seeking more

luxury housing.

We are seeking more affordable options.

While the buildings in this area

have many code violations, students continue to rent from

them because they can afford the rent.

The board has the responsibility

to develop affordable quality

housing not unaffordable luxury housing.

I ask you to oppose the rezoning to protect students from having

to decide which basic need they can meet.

Thank you. Kait.

I'm sorry if I Miss Some of the names.

They're hard to read.

Ashley sim or... And then adrian

hoffman bill johnston.

>> brittany sames.

>> could you repeat that?

(Inaudible).

>> thank you.

>> so I'm a student at U.K. And

I live at 10515 -- I think this type of investment might be an

overall detriment to the lexington community because it

reduces the amount of housing that is there that people can

actually, the students can actually afford.

I have friends who live about

half a block away from the

proposed development and when

news that interest in the area

came, the rent increased by 50%, $300.

My girlfriend lives near another major student housing

development, the hub and her rent went up so much that she

can't afford to live there next semester.

So like when aptitude markets itself as developing luxury

student housing, a single room

in a four bedroom unit up there

can range from 700 in louisville

to $1400 in syracuse.

And then for students that's

just not reasonable. Most of us cannot afford to pay

that kind of money and that just

raises the rent for all of us

all over to you. Then that's really hard for us

to focus on our studies and get

our degrees and do what we came here to do.

So I ask you to protect us from

the greed of developers like

aptitude and the unnecessary development and things that

they're trying to do. Thank you.

>> thank you.

>> hello council members. I'm brittany here to represent

the bluegrass trust for historic preservation.

I would just like to say that we strongly oppose the zone change

and demolition regarding the historic properties as well as

the proposed development of the

apartments that will follow. I don't really wish to repeat

what everybody else has said but I would like to remind you that

should you vote for this demolition and development to

take place, it will entail one

of the largest demolitions since the rupp arena parking lot.

Beside this loss, the proposed development threatens the use

and care of other historic buildings around the area due to

traffic concerns, access to

natural light and parking issues. The historic integrity and

liveability of the aylesford place neighborhood are put to

risk by the inappropriately scaled 550 bed apartment complex

25 the will cater to U.K. Students providing a surplus

supply of luxury student housing that almost of us are already

questioning the need for. The planning commission has

already heard that numerous voices of lexington residents

who will be negatively impacted by the development and the plib

voted against it.

Resident set by rezoning

currently zoned r-4 will encourage other unwelcome and

perhaps more importantly

inappropriate projects at

unprotected boundaries at the neighborhood. Thank you for your time.

>> next is jackson osbourne and

then charles smith.

>> hello, I'm jackson osbourne.

I live at 276 lexington avenue, house has been featured in most

of the slide shows here, the

little blue house that we will likely never see again should

the structure be built because it will be cast into shadow.

I'm here in opposition obviously

to the project and also I'm in the unique position that I was

one of the residents that lynn dunne who testified earlier, I

was one of her tenants on the maxwell properties that are

being proposed for demolition as well.

And I say that when I lived there, they were in excellent

condition and were not left in the state that they are

currently.

Thank you very much.

>> Mr. Smith and then tom self.

>> I'm charles d. Smith, I live

at 355 south broadway number 24. During the 1990s I lived in the

aylesford neighborhood within

their boundaries of the association and came to many of

the hearings during the hup

process -- h-1 process. At that time the whole neighborhood had boundaries

which we saw in the slides were included in the h-1 overlay

process so after a lot of study

by historic preservation it was determined all those properties

we are currently talking about today were originally thought to

be part of the context if you

will or the structure of the neighborhood. My recollection after being at

some of the hearings is that

somebody very influential in the community wanted to get their

properties out of the h-1 and so

in exchange for him letting this pass, these properties were

taken out but they were always a

part of the aylesford place neighborhood association and

were due to be, if they hadn't been, we wouldn't be having this

conversation right now. >> May it please the council.

Usually I stand before you and

say May it please the court but with this body, I'm used to

addressing you that way. I'm tom self.

My wife and I live at 163

kentucky avenue I'm a long time resident of lexington and part

of the legal community and I come here tonight thought to

speak to you on legalese or in

legal terms but about numbers. The proposed student dorm they

call a housing development has

575 to now 550 beds for students. 550.

I'll take the conservative

element with that and 214 to 323

parking spaces, we have over 300

vehicles which every student has, not a scooter, is going to

be looking for a place to park and whose neighborhood is it

going to be parking in?

In mine and yours and yours. They're not going to be able to

park at U.K. Because that's too

far to get to to go to the commonwealth stadium.

They're going to be looked to

parking on the various streets around that neighborhood.

And it's already full.

There are no parking spaces there.

But these developers expect over

300 vehicles to go somewhere

else.

S.

There is no place to park.

It's non-exhibit as it is -- non

exhibit as it is -- non-existent as it is.

When I came here nobody had a car.

Four guys got together to go to jerry's or to get something to eat.

Now inch goes on their own. They live there.

They're going to go to the mall, catch a bus? No.

They're going to have a car.

I speak on the sole issue of

based on the numbers, this

council should not adopt or allow this development to go forward.

Thank you.

>> thank you.

Next would be mark streety and

then kathleen winter kathleen

winter sneer. >> good evening vice mayor kay and council.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Mark streety 1020 fincastle road

in lexington for the last 17 years.

Relative newcomer. You, like the planning

commission have received my personal lert and my

neighborhood ashland park association letter in opposition.

I won't repeat that.

You got a lot of repetition here already.

Ashland park ajoins aylesford on the eastern edge.

We have a mature neighborhood. We are 100 years old this year,

a very developed forest canopy

and a mixed use that includes a

nine story condominium hanover tower.

100 of my ashland neighborhoods own or rent there.

I rise to speak for a newly formed lexington group, the name

is lexington urban neighborhoods alliance.

I'll refer to that as luna and

our first three weeks, luna has brought together neighborhood

associations representing over 15,000 households across lexington.

I don't know the math of how many voters or taxes that is.

I haven't had the chance to count that.

Our neighborhood members and luna's mission is to preserve

and protect existing lexington neighborhoods.

Tonight is our first public

comment in support of protecting

a single lexington neighborhood. We believe this is the wrong

place for this project. I would hold up and you have already heard sever times from

at least two experts that there

is at least 11 reasons the planning commission believes

this is the wrong place for this project.

I have a neighbor who is out of

town with a family funeral, kathy reynolds, she has

permitted me to share this letter, just a couple sentences

with you as to why it's the wrong project for this place.

This is kathy reynolds words "as

a board member of the cap kappa

kappa gamma house across the street, I'm concerned about the safety of our girls.

We recently spent $11 million redoing the house in keeping

with the nature of the neighborhood.

Great care was taken to keep the original house used as a

hospital during the civil war and to complement the

neighborhood. Several of the properties on the

street have similarly been renovated. The proposed property would not

fit in at all and would cause a

multitude of problems. She also says finally there are

hundreds of apartment vacancy

wns walking distance of U.K.

This is not needed and neither

is another absent land landlord.

I would quote a senior official

with U.K. From a December 6

article dated unlike the applicant's presentation.

The U.K. Executive vice President For finance and

administration quoted in a December 6 "herald-leader"

article and he says this is

regarding the 500 bed building

they're replacing, Mr. Mundy: nearly 90% of U.K.'s first year

class of more than 53 students are living on campus this

academic year. That's much, much higher than

most universities. U.K. Does no the have a

requirement that freshmen live on campus.

This year's freshman class, 90% are on campus.

>> Mr. Streety. You are out of time.

Can you wrap up? >> yes, sir.

I sure can. To the applicant, I don't want

to you feel unwelcome given your U.K. Point.

You've got a lot of cities and colleges to pick from.

We've only got one aylesford place.

We do however have 17,000 acres inside our urban boundary.

We'll help you find the right

place for the project because we think lexington's number one, too.

Members of the council we ask

you to uphold the planning commission's decision and with

all due respect, we expect it. Thank you very much.

>> thank you.

>> kathleen winter 151 kentucky avenue.

I moved to kentucky four years

ago from the san francisco pay area.

And if I get tenure we'll be here another 10 years or more

and we intentionally sought out the aylesford neighborhood as a

place to buy a home because of

the proximity of campus because I do bike every day.

My children walk to school. These are amenities that I think

are really wonderful for a neighborhood.

I love living near students. They babysit my children so I

hire them frequently. I will say every single one of

them owns a car and drives to my house even though they live

close by so I know they have cars.

I just want to say that our neighborhood is in a balance

between student and non-student and I think what we have talked

about, what we have heard today is that we are going to hift that balance with the marathon development going in.

We are hearing from a lot of the students that this is not the type of housing that they want

to see in this area. And would I say that we

certainly agree with that. We do not see that this is an

asset for our neighborhood.

We don't see it providing anything to the neighborhood

aside from student luxury housing.

I think with good design we can increase infill and development in the neighborhood.

I believe that. Although I think we should be -

sure we are not sacrificing the existing assets and I believe

that to be the historic homes

and street trees and urban tree canopy in this heat stressed

neighborhood. Hood. hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood.

Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood.

Next would be doug appler.

And then walt gafffield.

>> I'm doug appler. 609 elsmere park.

I just wanted to say that I

don't bear the applicants any

ill will but I would like to say

that century old nationally significant neighborhoods don't

grow on trees. And it's worth protecting them

when you have them so I think I

am in opposition to the project.

>>

>> I'm walt gafffield on behalf of the fayette county neighborhood council.

I want to talk a little bit

about frank pen who was quoted as saying it's seven pounds of

flour in a five pound sack. One thing frank is very succinct

and widely respected and probably has been more involved

as a volunteer at no pay in

planning than almost anybody I know.

And I respect him even when he disagrees with me.

He is fully independent and I never know which way he is going

to vote in a zoning hearing and when he speaks, the planning

commission frequently listens.

Now his exact quote. Maybe not exact quote but this

is from the lexington "herald-leader."

what he said is I know I want density.

I know I want change or change

to be accommodated by this, my old standard problem.

It's seven pounds of flower in a five pound sack.

That's really all you need to

know in this case, I think.

Look at the diagram and this is

one that Ms. Wade used in the upper right hand corner as you

look at it downtown is

illustrated in planning

documents as being the building on the left.

Second tier urban are the buildings on the right.

Mixed use I think it's very clear that the maxwell street

area is not downtown and the public looks at the diagrams

more frequently than actually reading all the verbiage so I

think that's important. >> I'm back to this.

Wanted to bring some new

information to your attention. December 10, 2018, which May

have been the day that the

planning commission actually

passed the comp plan, the neighborhood council wrote a

note to the planning commission and basically urged that they

not go ahead with the comp plan because there were certain

issues that were not addressed well.

One was context.% we had worked over a period of

months saying what is context? And they said finally they just

said don't worry about it.

It basically means compatibility and I submit a 10 story building

is not compatible. The comp plan calls for

compatibility or context sensitivity.

Finally throughout process we

pointed out that we thought there would be a problem in the

selection of place type.

Now place type sets recommended for a piece of property and done

privately between the developer and planning staff and I said

you really ought to have neighborhood involvement in that

and more transparency.

Thank you very much.

>> Mr. Cornet and then joe turley.

>>

>> 241 barberry lane speaking on behalf of the lfucg historic

preservation commission.

I have a letter and some supporting documents that have

been distributed to each of you and would I request a place in

the public record if I May. Our chair david cohen could not

be here today so I'm conveying

this on his behalf and on behalf

of the entire historic preservation commission to vice

mayor and urban county council members, the historic preservation committee has

reviewed and discussed the proposed zone change and

development plan on east maxwell and stone avenue which

encompasses a total of a dozen properties on these two streets. After due deliberation, the historic preservation commission

voted unanimously to recommend that all portions of this

application be denied. The area of this zone change and

development plan proposed for

inclusive of all 12 individual historic residential properties

is listed in the national

register of historic places as part of the southeast lexington

residential and commercial district.

Designated by the secretary of

interior August 1, 1984, the

national register effort historic district is substantial in scope and significance.

As experienced daily by residents, property owners and

visitors to lexington.

12 properties specific to this zone are very much an integral,

significant and highly visible part of the historic neighborhood.

Please reference the attached photos and brief statement of

the significance of each of the historic properties attached to

the letter that's been distributed to you.

Lexington's downtown commercial

core is fortunate to be ringed by historic neighborhoods

experienced if one walks two to

three blocks anywhere from vine street, main street and short

street.

You will be within an area predominantly residential in

character with historic structures of similar human

scale, interesting architecture and almost always a significant

tree canopy, all of which is the case here.

This close proximity to the center of town and its

continuity is common along with frequency by residents and

visitors alike. Retaining these unique neighborhoods which are

tremendous assets to lexington

is very important.

The proposed zone change would allow a significant part of the

neighborhood to be destroyed by the loss of the historic

buildings and allowing a proposed new development that is

out of character for the area. The end result would negatively

affect not only the specific

properties but the area as a whole.

Adversely affecting the aylesford historic district as

well as significant continuity of the residential neighborhoods

in the heart of our community

this is proposed in the wrong location.

>> jenny daley.

And then maureen peters.

I am here to tell a cautionary tale. I live on the west side of U.K.

Near broadway and virginia. This was originally developed

around the same time as the aylesford neighborhood in

1910s to the 1920s as workforce housing for the

tobacco industry.

What you see here is just

typical housing stock currently in the neighborhood.

My neighborhood has seen no less

than six zone changes for large scale residential developments

in the past eight years one doubt lid more to come.

These are developments where blocks of these 1920s houses

have been replaced with multistory apartment buildings

geared toward student rentals. None of these developments have

been in character with the

existing neighborhood and consequently have served to

change dramatically the character of the community.

And I'll show you just some

examples these are some examples of three of these.

And I want to note on the larger picture on the right-hand side,

if you can see the little house,

the little cottage next to this,

also the billboard on the top of

it completely legal once the first zone change is allowed,

this is the cautionary tale.

Once the first zone change is aloud, every developer will

point to the one before saying since you do that, legally have

you to let me do that and that's accurate. The planning staff report will

need to reflect the character of the neighborhood has changed

anchoring the rationale to let more such zone changes and

developments happen. The most recent development in

my neighborhood was so poorly conceived that neither planning

staff nor planning commission liked it but were compelled to

approve it because of the precedents that were set.

The rampant development in my

neighborhood has taken a toll on

the retale value of the remaining housing stock.

Currently our only option for selling our homes is to

an investor or developer for the

tear down value which is about 40,000 for the cottages.

I urge you to disapprove of the prosossed zone change as it is

completely inappropriate for

this urban neighborhood, not a downtown neighborhood.

A development of this size and

nature will have a ripple effect on the future of the

neighborhood and will change its character forever please don't

let what happened in my

neighborhood happen in aylesford thank you so much for your

thoughtful consideration about

this very important zone change. >> hello.

My name is maureen peters and my

husband joe turley and I live at 53 arussell avenue.

We have submitted a letter of opposition to the proposed zone

change and I won't read it all

but I want to highlight some key points. As has been mentioned it will be

sad for lexington to lose such a

large number of historic lowses

surrounding the downtown core. These 12 historic structures,

while not located in a local historic district, are all

listed as contributing

structures to the national register district.

This listing makes them for examplic for historic

preservation tax credits if they were restored. This is a fact, which has been

confirmed by the state historic preservation officer craig pots

at the kentucky heritage council

in response to my request for a determination letter.

I attached a copy of the determination letter to the

letter you received from us earlier today and I have another

one here to submit as well.

This determination was based in

part on images I shared with the kentucky heritage council

showing the current condition of the houses.

Street views available from google maps.

The first step in the historic preservation tax credit process

is receiving a determination

letter from a kentucky heritage council.

we are also opposed to the zone

change to b-2a because it is inappropriate and out of context

for the surrounding neighborhood which is mostly two and three

story houses. Lastly, we have a perm concern

about the development as we own

the adjoining house at 276

lexington avenue for nearly 30 years. We lived there for several years

and have it rented to a young friend who is a young

professional working downtown. You heard from him earlier.

This historic housings one and a half stories tal.

Listed on the national register as former outbuilding.

This means it's probably one of

the oldest buildings in the neighborhood.

I really want to make a point

about the inappropriate scale

and the impact to our house.

We are sitting in this council chamber and we all walked

through a door that was 6'8".

That's just the door.

Doesn't include the frame, the trims, additional wall area

above it or the trims at the

ceiling in this build or in this room, including the two large

layers of crown mold at the ceiling.

If the door is 6'8" then the

ceiling of this room is in the

14-foot to 16-foot range.

The eaves of our house are about 12 feet above the ground.

There are some additional peeks on the north, south and west

side but the east side, the rear

of our house is only 13 feet so if you can think of a house that

would fit inside this council chamber at a distance of 25 feet

to the 10 story building behind it, it's basically a distance

from the third row of the people

sitting in the chamber, matt brooks, stand up.

From where mat brooks is

standing to the back wall of the council chamber is 25 feet from

the back wall of our house.

>> medicines peters. Your time is expired.

Can you wrap up?

>> basically a 10 story building located from the floor of this

council chamber would reach to

the crown mold on the top of the

outside of the building.

>> gretion gunther -- greg

gunther... Thank you. Carlotta abbott.

And then jessica winter. >> I hate public speaking and

I'm here because I'm passionate about my neighborhood.

50eu6d lived at 14 prescott court for 43 years.

I also own number 8, number 15

preston court and 425 east high. All maintained very nicely by

the way.

Pie son owns number 7 preston court. We value our neighborhood.

All three of my adult children,

my grandchildren and my great

granddaughter live oppress ton court.

I'm here to ask you to help us protect our neighborhood for all

the reasons you've heard in opposition already, I won't go

over those except I would like

to point out the parking and noise issue as the university

has grown, which is a good thing, students commuters are

pushed further and furthe out.

And they found preston court.

So we were able to get permit parking that has helped that

considerably but still a student comes in, they have been all

over the neighborhood trying to find a spot to park.

They're late for class.

They will pull up and park not seeing the sign or heck I'm

going to take my chances today and we deal with that by leaving

a note that says you are in a

restricted parking area. And you know, it takes effort

but our neighborhood is worth

that I think. The noise issue of having

students next door is a constant issue.

We handle it quite well oppress ton court but just talking with

anyone who happens to be in the

one structure where that happens and usually we get good support

f. Not we have a landlord that

is very responsive, not states away but one county over and he

is real responsive if we need to

call on him to ask him for help.

I can't imagine anyone wanting to tear down all of those

beautiful historic houses. I don't know how to relate to

that and replacing that with a

huge apartment complex I'm here

to ask that you help us protect our neighborhood.

Thank you.

>> thank you.

Next would be drew bowling.

Not here.

Serea brewer.

Jessica molar nathan homan.

And then tempa homan. >> thank you.

I'd like to address the comment that we would, the neighborhood

might oppose any project that comes in.

I would like to offer an

alternative that actually we have a bigger vision for what

lexington can be. can I get a clock.

>> thank you. So what lexington sees, I see

for lexington is we can have an unfair advantage to attracting a

lot of interest in our community for conventions and for visitors

to come into lexington. And it's easy to see a vision

where it starts, a park starts at Mcconnell springs and

follows the waterway that

lexington was built around with gathering points at rupp arena

and convention center there.

Another gathering point at a bus

station that could be a performing arts center and thn

you would have arts town and

gown arts facility and sports facility at opposite ends of

main street and pedestrian way

walking along this water gathering point that would make

lexington a unique place for people to come and see and we

have so many stories to tell when we see this, from the

native americans that were here

in the beginning to to the early frontier settlers that came in

as well as going through history

through the terrible blight that

we have with the civil war impacting a state that's on the

border and we can tell that

story through so many different

things that make our state unique.

The world knows the term kentucky fried chicken.

It's a global brand and beverage, the world also nose

bourbon comes from kentucky and we have so many stories that we

can tell with they qoo inindustry based here and an

opportunity to have a gathering place.

What I offer is an alternative vision to this.

I just don't see a two acre site with 500 beds causing traffic

problems and parking problems being a part of the vision that

we can have for downtown.

We do want to see the downtown

area fill in and grow but we want to do it with the right

kind of vision.

>> thank you.

Next would be betty flynn.

Lisa smith blake hall.

And then ken pigeon I live at 36

richmond avenue and I'm here to voice my support for this

rezoning. Our city has made it abundantly

clear that we don't plan to address our housing shortage or

affordable housing.

We pull the ladder up after ourselves rather than allowing

people to access our existing neighborhoods.

We bow to bad faith claims of changing character and price people out of neighborhoods and

the city as a whole. So rather than arguing the

merits of this rezoning or

countering the fear mongering accurate and inaccurate

arguments against it I'll tell

what you you will see when you deny it.

The students or tenants that

would have moved in here will look to neighborhoods further

out where they will need a car

adding more car trips that could

doive done by foot or bike here merely the preservation of the

current status quo which is to say that they will remain

deteriorating student housing.

It is doned r-4 and could

readily be bedoll -- demolished.

I would be willing to bet almost everyone here who spoke against

the rezoning is housing secure meaning they don't have to worry

about their housing costs eating

up too much of their income. Those who live in the vicinity

already benefit from their

proximity to campus, downtown

and. They get to cash in on the

increase in property values values inflated by artificial

cares at this imposed by the city refusing to allow for

needed housing to be built so

yes, I support building up and allowing our neighborhoods to grow and change.

I support adding density in places where it makes sense

where it can improve walkability and lower car dependence and

where we can have existing services and amenities therefore

I support this rezoning. Not that it matters.

So I want to make clear to you the message will you send when

you deny this zone change.

- you are saying lexington doesn't support infill and redevelopment that lexington does not take our

housing shortage or housing affordability and wealthy

homeowners take precedent over renters f. You don't live

downtown and can't afford to, too bad because we'll treat the

boundaries of h-1 as arbitrary

and use them to redevelopment because people don't like the

idea of taller buildings or more people living in the neighborhood.

I ask to you support this good infill and redevelopment and

support the zone change but I won't hold my breath.

Thank you.

>> next would be chris sass

larry leach.

John serigliano.

And then vita vitagliano.

>> good evening. I'm john.

I own property at 169 east

maxwell street, 200 feet to the

east -- to the west of this

proposed development e. And I appreciate the opportunity to

speak about this very important

topic.

On friday the 18th of October

last year, on my own initiative,

I visited the aptitude offices

in elmwood park new jersey and I

met with jared hutter regarding the marshal apartment

development, the east maxwell

corridor and the cohorts who are involved with east maxwell street.

By way of background, since 2003

and up to now, my company and I

invest in substantial intellectual and capital

resources in imagining what this area from south limestone

eastward could be to meet the

critical needs of the east mack

well corridors cohorts.

Who are those cohorts.

Hundreds and hundreds of U.K. Good samaritan hospital

providers and staff. They're students who are seeking

to live in the east maxwell hinge neighborhood according to

graham, that would afford them walkable access, walkable access

both to downtown jobs and opportunities for internships,

as well as walkable to their classrooms my company has, for

last 10 years, provided internships both for the gains

center which is right across the street from the development, and

also for the university of kentucky department of english

and the business school as well.

Now the east corridor, east

maxwell corridor includes services starting with

healthcare parking court

reporting, video technology, to

community buildings and the

reason it does that is it's got institutions that depend on

having people live nearby, both

students and non-students and workers.

And those institutions that

would enjoy having a new set of residents to participate in

their offerings would include

the kentucky humanities council,

maxwell street presbyterian church, the german house and

others.

I want to make three direct

points tonight lexington's comp

plan invites the aptitude type investment.

That's my reading. The marshal apartments address

in one stroke an important

element of housing need that

should help the university's enrollment management housing

activities.

>> your time -- can you wrap up. You've used your three minutes.%

>> one second. Yes.

And less than six years ago this

council approved housing zoning that satisfied as does the

aptitude proposal three elements of sustainable community

development.

Density, diversity and demographics.

I hope we can depend on you to

continue that enlightened leadership.

Thank you.

I live in the area.

We need affordable housing.

we prefer living in old houses,

because they feel like homes.

In such houses, they can live

surrounded by friends, rather than stranger students are tire

tired of being treated like commodities including when it

comes to housing.

General exington residents

said, I love walking by these houses.

I go out of my way to walk by these houses.

I love driving by these houses.

These houses represent lexington

and our historical fabric and it

would be a shameful loss to see them go.

That's what they said. Tourists said, I love the

historic nature of lexington. We come here specifically to

walk the historic urban neighborhoods.

In fact, that couple was walking

by these houses that day, just

to enjoy looking at these

particular houses. I suppose some people drive by

and all they see are some old houses but a great number

understand and rightly so, that

these vintage homes are important and an invaluable part

of our community here in the campus area and more.

With my neighbors including students, we discussed this area

is a community, it is an

interesting and diverse mix of students, working full,

retirees, and a couple of rehab houses.

That what we really need is responsible property owners and

managers, who will maintain the premises and bring us better

neighbors that what we don't

need is destruction of our neighborhood.

it seems to me, that lexington management has gone from

destroying the historic horse

farms to besouring our historic urban home that doesn't seem

like an improvement to me. I was once pushed off a

lexington horse farm for development.

And now, I'm being pushed out of

a well established historic

neighborhood, whereas a limited

income tenant, can I live in lexington, that is stable,

affordable, and a relatively safe neighborhood without fear

of a corporate real estate take takeover. It can happenfy where. Thank you very much.

>> thank you.

Next, we go to -- next, gerard

G.E. Heart and then, becka

blake. I need a ladder to reach the

microphone.

My first and last name are very similar. I am, however, standing on my

feet behind this a high street side of a very large structure

that I believe will benefit

maybe even require the use of ladder trucks of the lexington fire department.

I think the fire department will

not have effective access to the

high street side of that tall building, because, there is no

access to it.

Except, when it it comes to that portion of

hagerman court and then they

have to make a zero radius, 90

turn with a lakedder truck 50 feet or so long.

Then they go a short distance

and we introduce traffic on stone avenue.

And the vehicles, the garbage

trucks, the fire trucks, so on,

the increase in traffic on stone

avenue is going to be formidable

and for that reason, I think the

structure is too large.

>> next would be julie logan

james evan.

>> good evening, thank you for the hunt.

This evening I'm representing

the board of the historic south

hill neighborhood association

wants to express their strong opposition to the request for

the properties to be rezoned on

maxwell and stone avenue. The downtown place type is

described in the 2018

comprehensive plan as the "urban

epicenter of commerce and

entertainment.

The zone change I'm I'm I'm exempting from a letter that was

sent to you.

The zone change would be a de facto expansion of downtown

without the careful research, consideration and planning that

such a decision requires.

The request violates the imagine

lexington goal of enabling an existing and new complete

neighborhoods, aylesford and other close end neighborhoods

are examples of the type of neighborhoods imagine lexington

seeks to sustain. Aylesford and others are

walkable, contain mixed housing types and living opportunities

and are close to jobs and

transportation reasonable infill should complement and enhance

existing neighborhoods. This development is neither

reasonable nor responsible for all these reasons we urge the

council to disapprove this

proposal.

>> thank you, esther murphy. william murphy.

>> I oppose but don't need to

speak. >> kirsten.

>> I'm opposed don't wish to speak. >> thank you.

>> john hackworth.

Toeser petri.

Peggy Mcallister.

Wendy -- I'm sorry, wendy

Mcallister. Good evening.

My name is peggy Mcallister.

225 stone avenue just down from

the stuff going on there. A couple points I want to make real quickly.

One is that the we talked about scale everybody thinks about the

big building next to the small houses.

On top of all that, this is almost at the peak of the hill

so you can imagine it's even

taller because of the going up

stone avenue, you are going

uphill. Also I want to toint out that

I'm currently an owner of some

historic properties in winchester that are 40 years

older and much worse condition and we are bringing them back

and we already have renters in these buildings so it is

possible even with massive repairs needed, you can still

fix the buildings and these are not as bad as the buildings

we've had to deal with.

We have received historic tax

credits the building would be eligible for considerably

helpful in recouping some of the costs.

Also I walked down street and

took closeup pictures. I noticed the detailing of the

buildings that you don't find in

a lot of current construction.

There is very fine woodwork,

ornate trim, windows, doors are

all in tact, a lot of them very

beautiful woodwork also.

I bet inside there is nice wood floors and plaster and a lot of

other moldings and good amenitieses.

I want to say that please

respect the wishes of your

constituents here who wish -- the wishes over external developers

who have no interest in appreciating our history.

I urge the current owners to sell the properties if they're

not interested in maintaining them.

Based on the property values of some of the houses near us that

have sold, they can make money on the buildings even as they

are right now. So over the price that they're

getting from the developers. Thank you very much for letting

us all speak to you today and I hope you disapprove this zone change.

>> thank you.

And wendy Mcallister.

>> wendy Mcallister, I own 221

stone avenue and I live at 225

stone avenue. I brought my own visuals which

I'm sure you really want to see at this time of night but what

you need to know is that I am I live there, I'm an investor so I

have a fourplex and I have been investing here for 20 years.

So I know the area pretty well. And so I wanted to show you on

stone avenue, the missed problem

that could happen here and part

of that is that hagerman court

is being rerouted on to stone

avenue which, if you want to go west, have you to take high

street so you are not only going to have hagerman court traffic

on there but then the 250 cars that go with this are also going

to be required to go down stone avenue what you don't really see

in some of these visuals here is

that cars have a hard time passing each other on stone

avenue right now. 8'of for the passing lanes for

each car and on street parking so 8'6" for each thing.

And people typically have to like slow down to be able to

have the other car pass and so I

just think that there is an

impact that is going to happen

with this even beyond the

parking that is just a traffic impact and when you get down to

high street, you will see there

is a parking lot to the east and

so if somebody does park in the parking lot, it is hard to pull

out on to high street.

So the second -- I brought you a

second visual because why not

shows you some contextual this

is extra bonus graphics there.

That shows you some contextual

map using the applicant's own notification map and it shows

you how much is really 0-2 stories. There is a small amount of three

to four stories and just in the

corner 5 to 6 story buildings

and we skip past 7 and 8 which I know they would go down to 8 and

go up to nine and 10. A couple things you should note.

They're saying hey, this is like other things.

The difference that I see there

is that the b-2a, there is one

that doesn't exceed four stories.

There is p-1 and r-4 and all of

them have adequate parking for what they need to have there and

so I just think that their

argument that this is in context just doesn't play out on this map.

Thank you.

>> thank you.

Next would be steven trask and

lynn I-1.  -- dunne.

Thank you. The people of the development

said they were surprised when the vote went against them.

They notified the neighborhood

by sending a letter to a fon existent neighborhood

representative at a non-dpint

up at their meeting and then they want to staff meeting and

said hey, the neighborhood doesn't care.

That's where the lying started. That's who they are.

We are not also all not in favor of development.

On my street, translyvania park,

one block away, two lovely old homes were torn down and

replaced by new buildings that

are in perfect keeping with the neighborhood the owners took

care to pick up architectural

details of all the other

buildings they put in two 12 bed

houses with a 24-space parking lot in the back and every space

is taken even though it's three houses from rose lane.

It's literally three houses from the campus.

Every space is taken people are talking about infill development

and housing shortage. There might be a housing

shortage coming but it's not all for students. There are other people that need

to live here, too.

12,000 people work at the university of kentucky and other thousands of people work at the

hospitals and work downtown and they need places to live, too.

And putting in a 500 bed

apartment complex, with 200 sparking spaces that is just

made for students, dorm rooms with kitchens, these are not

apartments in general that anyone can move into.

At one thousand dollars a bed doesn't meet the need for

affordable housing for students or anybody else.

It is saturating and an already

sat saturated student campus market where there are plenty of

vacancies and plenty of vacancies in the neighborhood.

They have no regard for what has been told to them about the

character of the neighborhood

that they would like to move into or the character of the town.

They think that they know best

and if we don't take their offer

then we'll get nothing but I think that they should just go

away and figure out how to strategize better to deal with the communities that they would

like to join.

>> next is daniel roland.

Charles taylor helen stein

chris, julia johnson. >> chris.

I live at 709 lin road but I

have lived and worked in this neighborhood in the last century.

I had my own art studio and

apartmented it there.

I am currently working on a

mural at bella rose, I'll try to finish that.

I'm very familiar with this area. I object to the zoning change

and the proposed development.

There are other spaces available to build this type of structure

if needed.

The parking lot right behind this billing, that's a good one

right there.

Fill it up infill.

There are plenty of parking lots

that could be converted. Infill is possible without

destruction of homes.

This is a death by a thousand cuts.

We are organizing to stop this

type of development and this zoning change.

We are friends, parents medical

workers students, carpenters, landscapers truck drivers,

restaurant employees, professors, artists, musicians,

parents of U.K. Students and

athletes we all pay taxes but we

don't want our taxes to destroy

lexington.

We recognize the history of the destruction of the historic

buildings from south hill and so on. This proposal for this

development is greed at work. And we have collected hundreds

of sipghts and still working on it.

In this petition to stop this kind of development in this

zoning change.

If the zoning change is approved and the homes are destroyed,

there is no guarantee that the

construction will take place centrepointe, remember that one?

Took years to fill. Business happens and sometimes it doesn't.

People run out of money.

We will continue this petition

drive and efforts to save these old structures of lexington.

once it's gone, it's gone.

Thank you.

>> sue mize and then kneel mize.

>> I'm sue mize.

I live at 339 translyvania park. Proud President Of translyvania

park association, part of aylesford neighborhood.

We strongly oppose this development.

Incidentally, I was born at good

samaritan hospital 74 years ago.

I care deeply about this

community.

And its continued development.

So imagine my surprise when this young man announces that we

don't care about development.

We want development in this community.

We just don't want yours, sir.

Thank you.

>> I'm married to that lady.

I'm domestic eighted and we live

on transwill veinia park 339 and translyvania park was laid out

by the sons of frederick

olmstead and they did it in a

circular trackthere

used to be a track for the farm.

And so they laid that transylvania park in kind of a

little continueiated race course. And it is really beautiful.

Oaks 100 years old my home was

built in 1904. And very similar to one of the

homes that you're talking about

up on maxwell. But anyway, I want to tag along

with the gentleman who said we

have to have a larger vision of lexington, in the summer.

I love going down hagerman court because it is -- you're walking

under the oaks you can feel it

gets cooler.

And, if you don't believe heat effect, when you're out at home

depot buying something or buying

a garden flower in the spring at

home depot,s or something, maybe juli, look at your outside

temperature on your car when you leave that parking lots down

there at Mcdonald's south and christian church.

It will drop 2 when you get to

henry clay's estate because of the oak trees.

And, guess who laid those out?

Major Mcdowall, who bought ashland after that college, a&m

college moved over and became a&m college at U.K. When the

city gave U.K. The fair grounds. And so the interest in kentucky

started at the estate.

The olmstead brothers to layout ashland. If you go through the

neighborhood, they are not square streets, there is a

little parks triangle parks everywhere you go.

So, lexington called the athens

of the west in the early days, has always esteemed tradition

and its history.

And, I envision when I walk down through the hagerman court and

look at the little old irish homes, large homes that people

who worked downtown around the

turn of the century, that was

their homes, and those could be

the most beautiful little gift

shops and some point, if we

preserve what we have, and do

not go with just the cheap money

and fast money, there is 22 trillion dollars flushing around

the globe looking for good real

estate. And gas what and I'll change

subject. Main street is 50 or 60 up to

the top of maxwell.

you raise 125 feet on that, and, that building is going to stand

out for a miles.

Because, lexington is the

highest region within, you drop

to 150 feet to georgetown,

paris, the rivers 40 feet below -- above sea level.

>> I'm sorry, your time has expired which you can wrap it.

>> let's preserve what we have. >> thank you.

>> next is judith sparks. Fran taylor and then donna

winfield. >> thank you, mayor and council

mens for what is doing best for lexington.

The proposed development is

clearly an inappropriate project.

And I'm sorry, as fran taylor, 722 west high.

I forgot to say that starting out.

A project that is based on and

capitalizing on demolition by neglect.

Which is one of the worst

problems folks face in historic

neighborhoods, is demolition by neglect.

It is a really underhanded way to completely undermine a

documented historic neighborhood.

And, I would ask that the council deny the proposed

rezoning and dedicate resources

into holing the entities who owns these houses now, holding

them accountable, for numerous code violations and I think

that, it would be enlightening

to evaluate those homes, the

amount of rent they generate,

which is enough to maintain

these historic homes, but, the

owners are choosing not to.

And, these homes are a

tremendous asset to not just the neighborhood they are in, but,

lexington as well.

So, thank you very much, and

please, deny this proposed rezoning. Thank you.

>> thank you.

Ms. Winfield and then, elaineaferaro.

>>

>> thank you.

>> I'm donna winfield and I live

at ransom avenue which is very close -- (Inaudible) But we

actually have rents to the left and rents to the right of us.

We love our street. We love living downtown.

We love having students, the e bb and flow of summertime and

peacefulness of it. They all come back and they love that too.

So we really feel good about it but, what one thing that I

just -- the impact of 500 people

on that maxwell street, do not account for the boyfriends and

their friends, and their girlfriends because that's what

we really notice that four people live on one side of us

and four people live on the other.

And, comes season time, there will be 8 people because each

one has a boy friend or girlfriend so you're not -- they are young.

They are vibrant people, and they have friends and they have

parties. The type of people that they are. It is great.

I love it.

We all have fun in our time.

But, the impact of 500 end but if plus girl friends and boy

friends and all the parking arm

there is no place for that we can't -- any time cannot even

park in front of our house many

times and that's just because of the renters on earn side of us.

That's just the way it is.

But 500 people, I'm sure that 200 people will have a

girlfriend or boy friend so,

that's a lot. You know, that's a lot for that

small neighborhood. That's all.

>> thank you. >> chris winfield. Thank you.

Is there anyone who did not sign up and did not have chance to

speak who would like to speak? If you would come to the

microphone. Put them to clerk, please.

>>

>> my name is amy clark and I

live at 628 castle road. I believe that I have three

pieces of information that you have not heard yet. And I'll try to get to that and

nothing else.

I have lived over 20 years at

628 castle road in the hollywood terrace historic district listed

on the national register in 2008.

So, we also are accredited

historic but without the h-1 overlay.

We do understand that only zoning historic zoning can

protect a building from

demolition h1 overlay. But, it belongs to the comp plan

to give incentive toward historic preservation and

adaptive reuse or not.

And, in guiding the grant of a

zone change.

What I would like to say is, and i will not go through all of

this, it is in the record.

I was concerned by claims that these properties are old but

they are not historic. Clearly, they are historically

significant and have been judged so by the national park service

and every layer up to that.

Then, the argument was, they are

not historic, they are just dilapidated.

They are falling to pieces.

So, I got the record of a year's

worth of code violations, and, I looked through it and what I

want to tell you is that,

although they are very numerous,

a review of the 360 pages of code enforcement records, plus

the building inspection records,

since September of 2018 shows

that most but not all need significant maintenance and

repair, it is in the record.

In rare instances, the damage extended to the point of

requiring a building permit to restore them to safety and

function. Structural work was needed on a

deck and external stairs, significant plumbing completed

on one.

For the rest, long and detailed repair lists make sure that the

windows open and close, the doors fit snugly, gutters

restored to function, bit of rot

are replaced are sound fabric. Window screens are in place.

Light fixtures operate, plumbing fixtures don't leak.

Tuck pointing and ceiling, et cetera.

And it is basically a really big honey-do list.

It is the kind of thing that can bring buildings down but has not

yet done so.

the second piece of information, is floating around, I hope that

you have it by now, the housing transformation that at U.K., and

I simply want to point out that

in 2011, there were 4,4 to 32

beds called traditional student

beds, that means, affordable

about that time, they were

probably 500 a month, maybe 600 a month.

Now, there are none. Not only have they increased the

total number of beds by about 2,000. >> Ms. Clark, you'll have to

wrap up, time is up. >> okay.

They have exchanged 4500 beds

for much more expensive beds. They. >> thank you.

>> blanding leaves 14 acres of

space that's where we need such a 500 bed. >>en thank you. >> house.

>> I believe that is the list. I'll tick a ten-minute break and

then resume. >> I'll take a ten-minute break

and then resume.

Same passion, same, where is our community going.

Same drive.

Then it was about outward development. What are we going to do in terms

of expanding the urban services area? What are we going to do about

all of the people the that want

to live in lexington?

I wish that we could put the genie back in bottle.

I wish that, we weren't seeing the economic catastrophe that's

going on in eastern kentucky

with the loss of coal, the opioid epidemic that's moving

people out of those communities. Moving them here and moving

folks to georgetown. People want to live in our

community. It is just the way it is.

We've got a greet university. We've got something really unique.

That's why all of these folks

are here.

We also made a choice.

That we wanted to put the brakes on outward expansion for a while

put the brakes on single family residential housing or

multi-residential housing outside of the urban services area.

Keep the boundary where it is. Keep the circle around

lexington.

In exchange for that, we said

where we needed to do was, grow up.

Instead of growing out. Infill.

High density.

That comes at a cost. It is expensive there is

reality. I wasn't involved in this case

at the planning commission but I

have watched the hearing over

and over again, and there were a

lot of points made there.

You saw some of them up on the screen. I'll first note that

Mr. Chairman owens voted in favor of the zone change.

I'm not sure why hisments were put up there they were

appropriate but he voted in favor of this von change request.

One of the other comments that

struck me, from planning commissioner plumley who made

the motion to disapprove the zone change was when she

addressed the audience.

She said, I want you all to understand that your property is

already -- this particular

property is already zoned r4. High density apartment.

Someone could come in tomorrow,

and do something you don't want done with this particular

property and stay in that zone. There is not going to be much that you do about it.

I suggest that you take things

into your own hands.

What I took away from that is, perhaps you ought to try to do

something here on your own

economically.

Laudable statement. Why hasn't it happened.

You know why?

Because it is not economically viable. I'm sorry.

Are it is just not.

You can't recapture the kind of investment unless you have a lot

of mone.

And you have a long time to gain it back on student rents.

But it is going to -- it is going to be required to fix up

these homes. The one thing everybody agrees

with, even their own witness that managed them talk about

what a terrible state of

disrepair they are in.

So where do we find ourselves?

Here we are again.

With this particular project. There has been a lot said about staff.

I don't always agree with what staff on things and we had a

disagreement in this case about the height, but I'll tell you

some other things that were said by Chairman Bell at the planning

commission. Was that these folks are, and I

quote, pros.

And this has been -- and commissioner plumley, these

folks are professionals. These do this every day.

They work their butts off. Like I said, I May not agree

with them all the time but I know that you cannot fault them

for the job they do and try to

do this is all they do.

They know the planning -- the imagine lexington, the comp

plan, the zoning ordinance, much better than I ever will.

I always said, chris westover

forgot more about zoning law than anyone in this town will

ever know.

And, same way.

So, I don't think that their

staff report adopting this particular location or our frame

of this location is a downtown frame business was taken lightly.

I think that, they went about that in a very purposeful sort

of way. And based upon the information

that was in front of them.

That is what they came to. This comp plan, a lot has been

said about it and the planning

commission said, this should be denied because you don't meet

it.

That's not what the staff report says.

Unfort liz, for those that are against this development, these

gentleman over here aren't bound

by what the comp plan ought to be, what it should be, what it

could be, and they are bound by what it is.

They came into this community, filed this application, based

upon a set of rules.

That were created once again, not lightly, and not quickly.

This city had a long talk about

it. Then, -- didn't we?

We did. And that's what we find

ourselves today. And, based upon that, they

decided to try to do this project. And have spent a whole lot of

time and resources to get there.

I will submit that, this project

is absolutely in compliance with

the comprehensive plan. I'll submit that there has been

a lot about said about parking

and so forth. These gentlemen have made it

pretty clear, they are not going

to build something that won't rent.

And in their experience, the

parking works.

That is -- and, that was talk about, and once again, I think

considered by the staff, and it is something that would probably

be first tweaked if this is a

zone change is agreed to. There has been a lot said about,

this is a luxury development

these are luxury apartments and, these students are going to be priced out of the market. The price point in louisville is

$500 a bed per month. That's all in.

That's everything. Your cable, utilities, the whole

bit.

And they would envision that the price point would be the same here.

Once again, infill is expensive. And, some folks took umbrage

with the fact that, the Mr. Huder said I intend to be here for ten years.

That's real estate speak.

I -- reality again. A development like this, when it

costs what it costs, you hold

that until it stabilizes. If you're the business of

holding on to real estate, and you're going the stay in

particular community, yeah, you can keep doing it but you can

also sell it.

It doesn't mean that it is going away. Because, unless they maintain

it, in a price ten condition, price teen condition, they won't

be able to sell it.

That's the reality, I'm sorry of where we are in business and in

this community. Why is the university of

kentucky expanding the way that they are? Because, less students are

coming there?

Why are they doing public private partnership on

dormitories? Because they have got lots of money.

No.

Because the general assembly

took and continues to take what they used to get.

They have been forced into that.

And when I brought up the master -- U.K. Master plan, it specifically says there, that

they are counting on the area

north of maxwell, counting on

private developers to step up

and to develop those corridors,

so that they can have that transition between campus and

downtown. Which they deem to be once

again, right across the street.

I don't know. I suppose if, if I did not have

the history with lexington and

real estate and stuff that I do,

and wasn't sitting with these guy, might be out here if this

were my community, and I was worried about this project.

But, I'm not.

And it is coming. And it is always going to be the

wrong project and always going to be too much flour. I'm sorry.

That's where we are now.

Because, infill costs money. And if we're really going to do

it, we'll be prepared to make hard decisions and I'm glad that I'm not sitting where you are

tonight. We don't want to set a precedent

of denial here, folks.

We have got solid development team who is relied upon our

rules and regulations, to submit

an application. If we're going to do that we

just need to say lexington is closed. Forget it.

We're not going to approve an urban service area expansion and

we're not going to do infill

either. It is a big per issue.

I've taken enough of your time.

And I hope that you'll give our application due consideration. I know that you will.

I just don't -- we can agree to

I don't think that the planning commission did.

I think that, when you have a very reputable, I like both of

these guys. I do, I hate to say it.

But, when you have very

reputable commissioner in a position statement out weeks

before the hearing, on what ought to be done and why this

ought to be denied, I'm sorry, that's not due process.

That's not the way that this is

supposed to work. And I'm still naive enough to

believe that. Appreciate you awful thank you.

>>

>> thank you, opposition.

Rebuttal. >> thank you, and thank you for

the opportunity to be here and speak with you tonight and thank

you for your time and service to

our community. Counsel for the applicant is right.

People do want to live in our community.

All kind of people and not just students. Develop hear stated here tonight

that this project will serve multiple populations, this is

simply not true.

The applicant develops and

markets exclusively to students.

And in fact, this proposed development will be built for

and marketed exclusively to students. And will not accommodate the

needs of young professionals, or

the elderly which are two housing populations that are

identified as underserved in the

current housing inventory. In addition, the housing will be

luxury student housing with the lowest price per bed as

reflected by prices at the similar louisville development

construction applicant coming in at more than $600 a month.

If U.K. Enrollment declinetors the demand for luxury student

housing is not as great as the applicant contends.

How will this development be repurposed for use by the

broader community?

the applicant here has

represented to you, that the historic structures that will be

torn down in connection with

this proposal, are essentially throw away properties.

Because, the current owner

intends to continue to refuse to invest in them.

>> excuse me. Hold on.

Do we know what -- (Sound

interruption).

I can just speak loudly.

Hello. I think we're -- can you hear

me? I think we're good to go.

I'm sorry for this delay.

>> try again.

That's working. Okay.

So, should I resume? Okay.

I'll just start at the beginning of where I was before a little

bit. That was addressing the

applicants representation to you here tonight that the historic

structures that will be torn down in connection with this

proposal are essentially throw away properties.

Because the current owner

intends to continue to refuse to invest in them and to allow them

to essentially fall down.

I submit to you, that this is

not a valid justification for

finding that the zone change is appropriate.

This city can stop that sort of demolition by neglect.

And in fact, the comprehensive

plan calls for protection of our established neighborhoods

through increased rec laying. -he regulation. The developer asked you to

approve an 8 or 10-story

building in contrast to the six story recommendation of planning

staff because it will increase their bottom line.

They say that a six-story development is not economically

viable. To circle back to a point that I

made in my presentation, it should be considered that

smaller five and six-story student residential developments

with commercial activity on the first floor are economically

feasible, and are attractive to developers.

Two such developments, the hub

one and two, have been or are

being built on the outskirts of

U.K.'s campus. Speaking to the luxury nature of

this housing, I would like to

refer you to the applicant's

architect blog which can be

found at www.Bsb design.Com.

There, the applicant's architect

states and I quote, although thousands of beds are being

delivered nationwide, recent studies show that the majority

are targeting the top five

percent of income levels. Smaller prototype buildings can

bring more affordable beds to

markets, where the remaining 95% of consumers are currently

underserved. Although many large edge of

campus sites are filling up,

smaller sites are still pinnacle. This is from the blog of the

applicant's architect.

95% of the student population is currently underserved.

Because most developments are serving the top five percent

with luxury student housing.

The applicant contends that there are no other properties in

the area available for redevelopment. I can tell you for a fact, that

I can't name names, but this is also not true.

In fact, there is a substantially sized property available for sale that is

currently zoned for a development of this type less

than a mile away from the proposed development site.

The apna does not oppose development. We do need infill.

We do need increased density.

But we can accomplish this

inside the current zone. R4 is high density.

Someone can come in tomorrow and develop this.

But, in an r-4 zone there are

high tr ratios and tree canopy requirements and parking requirements that restrict the

size and scale of the development such that it would

fit within the context of the

neighborhood.  -- at the planning commission

said they respect the staff but plumley made the motion to

disapprove the zone change. The planning commission voted

against the zen change. We under you to do the same, and

to adopt the proposed findings

that I have included in your packets which are in accordance

with the findings of the planning commission, and the

objectors that you have heard here tonight. Thank you for your time.

>>

>> I'll open the floor to

council. >> hello.

Yes. i'll open the floor to

councilmembers, you have

questions of either petitioner

or opponents or staff, please log in. Council member gibbs.

>> no, thank you. >> thank you, vice mayor.

I have a question for staff,

tracy. >> we have had some considerable

discussion about trees, but, nothing specific. I walked that property and there

is a lot of significant trees.

But, are we required to do a tree inventory with that

particular zoning, or --

>> they are required to do (Inaudible).

>> but we've not-we haven't seen it.

>> I haven't seen it. I don't know. >> well, I would be curious.

I'm curious about how many

significant trees, you know, the diameter of the trees, and that

sort of species of the trees, things like that.

Because, all of the major trees are coming down, the point that

is being made is, if they get

their zone change, they will be

putting up ornamentals that are insignificant for canopy and

there are significant trees on that property. And so if you could give us an

idea of what trees are there, I would be appreciative.

But, thank you, and -- >> thank you, vice mayor.

>>

>> thank you. I don't know if this is working

or not, but, I would actually

like to ask you question of, Mr. Woodall.

>> would you check your mic. >> it is on. It says it is on. But -- eat it.

>> there you go.

>> sorry. [Laughter]

It is late. The microphone.

Thank you, Mr. Wood joule.

So my questions are, revolving around the -- you talked about

the student housing aspect of things, and, I believe that

there was conflicting information here about what is

really needed for student housing. And, then there was some

discussion about affordable

housing, so, I wanted to ask if this development, it is going to

have any affordable housing

available in the 500 -- in the

550 units proposed.

>>

>> >> I don't think that mic is

working.

>> from -- a city affordable housing perspective when you

talk about maybe a percentage of annual median income, that is

not included in our proposal.

But, you know, just to make it clear, our development whether

it is this one or any of them are not necessarily student

only. That is against fair housing

acts for us to restrict non-students.

So, we have non-students living

in every one of our developments that we have and our price point

mere is intended to start at

$500 an un month and that is -- Mr. Woodall pointed out

before, that's an all-in number including utilities, cable,

electric, you know, all the building. There are no extras.

So we look at that time that as affordable. Does it range in the building?

Yes, it absolutely does.

But, we will have a a lot of

units starting at $500 una month and that's how our financial

model was created.

>> thank you. My next question would be for

Ms. Wade. Are you looking about the tree

canopy?

So there is some discussion

about the r-4 that's existing

zone, and, what can be built in

it currently in the r-4.

First of all, I need to know

what are the height requirements right now.

And, also, what is the process

if say the person that currently

owned these buildings, these

houses, if they wanted to come

in, and do something differently and demolish these building,

these structures and build somethig in the current r-4,

what is that process and what does that look like?

>>

>> the r-4 zone has a height to

yard requirement, and it says

the ordinance says, under 8-13, the maximum height of all

buildings is a 2-1 height to

yard ratio except that buildings

under 35 feet, have side and

rear yards required in the r-3

zone. So, the 2-1 height to yard ratio

means, if your side yard and

rear yard is ten feet, you can go have a height of a building

of 20 feet. So, it is -- your height is

twice as much as your yard. Does that make sense?

>> thank you. >> have a yard that's 20 feet,

you can go to 40 feet. If you're less than 35 feet,

which many of these structures

are, probably at about 35 feet currently, their requirements

would generally refer back to r-3, and their yard requirements

for the side yard are five feet. And the rear yard are ten feet.

>> okay.

In terms of the process for

redevelopment, if the property owner chose to redevelopment

develop one lot, their process

would be to go to the building division, the division of

building inspection to seek a demolition permit which would be

reviewed by building inspection,

and in this case, probably, historic preservation as well as

the division of engineering. If the demolition permit is

granted, then, they would seek a

building permit for that particular lot.

Generally, zoning signs off on,

all building permits related to

development that is above either

a single family or a duplex but

we don't have to have a development plan.

If none existed previously.

If a developer chose to

consolidate lots, or to build multiple buildings on one lot,

that would trigger a development plan. And acton by either the staff

or the planning commission.

Multiple buildings on one property does need a development

plan, combining lots requires a consolidation plot.

So there is some action there.

>> is there the same process

with the 500 notification feet if it is something of that

nature under this same -- the r-4?

>> no neither of those requirements, neither of those

actions require notice for 500 feet. >> okay I appreciate that

clarification. That's all for right now. Thanks. >> thank you.

>> >> thank you.

Councilmember evans.

>> thank you, vice mayor. I think these questions are for

tracy as well.

The one concern that I really

did have pointed out by Mr. G.E. Heart about the emergency access.

And I know that we can't really talk about the actual

development and the specifics May or May not be relevant but I

this that is relative when you're talking about access for

the emergency vehicles. Keeping in mind that's probably

a narrow street, I haven't driven downen how did the

planning staff look at that and justify having that structure?

>> so, with any development, the division of fire and emergency

services typically wants to have access on all sides.

That is their first approach republicans.

Obviously, maxwell street is a public street.%

so they would, if there were an emergency, park in the public

street, and, proceed to redistribute traffic around whatever they needed.

The same is true on hagerman or

stone or maxwell. They would utilize the public

right of way to address any

emergency services because

hagerman is one way, currently,

they would probably violate the one way.

And, just go whichever direction

gets them to the emergency most quickly.

So, if this structure were constructed, the turn in

hagerman to stone road, if the fire department needs to get to

the back of the building, as opposed to coming down hagerman, they might do that as well.

They would likely come from stone into hagerman the wrong

way. >> okay.

>> because again, they are addressing an emergency

situation, and, they tend to do

what they need to do to do that.

>> would there be access to-from mack well, I did Miss That?

>> the public street would provide the direct access and

they would utilize whatever. >> okay.

I couldn't tell that there was access from maxwell.

So, okay. And then there was some concern

about maybe parking and I -- again, I don't know.

You might be in the most appropriate. My time has run out, sorry.

I can ask this one more.

Just wondering, is hagerman one side parking or is it both sides

right now? >>

>> I don't think it has any. >>

>> it is currently one sided. >> one sided. >> okay. All right. Thank you.

>>

>> thank you. Councilmember curran. >> thank you, vice mayor.

Ms. Wade I had a few quick questions for you here and one

for the developer here too. For the current properties

properties that property demolition, how long have they

been vacant? Tenants there, have they low

pressure lived in for the last year? How long have they been vacant

for the so.

>> I don't know that I have that information.

I believe some of them are

occupied and others are vacant. The applicant May know since

they have contracts to purchase. Can you -- >> please.

>> our understanding right now is that three of the properties

are currently vacant.

>> do you the know if any of the properties have been condemned?

>> not to our knowledge.

>> okay.

And then, since you're up here,

I might as well fire away my questions. The buffer behind your property

or the proposed building here, what is your buffer between the

building and the homes that are going to be still there?

>> I would have to defer to our

civil engineer for the exact -- Ms. Wade might know.

>> s.

>> state your name for the record. >> erin hathaway.

Currently right now, off of back

property we have a ten foot set back.

A do not know the distance of

the home from their property line.

So I can't actually quite answer that specific distance from that house.

>> okay.

Okay. Mr. Hudder. Is that how pronounce your name. >> yes, sir.

>> you met with the neighborhood and reached out to neighborhood here.

Did anyone show up to the meeting at all? >>

>> so the first meeting, there wasnobody there. I understand that there May have

been some confusion with notification. I can't speak to that.

But, the first meeting that we

had we sat in the lexington public library for three-plus

hours, staff was there, it was very productive for us to meet

staff and that was, you know, our initial conversation with

them after our council had meet with them.

Nobody from the neighborhood association attended that meeting.

We later met with our attorney later went to the neighborhood

association meeting, and had some conversations with that one.

And, I personally came down and met with representatives of the

neighborhood association at our attorney's office for a

discussion, and a meet and greet.

>> and did any feedback or anything change? Did you guys work with the

neighborhood or try to work with the neighborhood?

>> so it was very hard to work with them.

Because, the sentiment at that

meeting was more so limiting

things that there was a comment made by the opposition at that

meeting where it said, maybe we can live with four stories but

even that is probably not -- isn't probably too much.

So, there really was not much to work out with.

I would say the one comment that came out of that meeting where

they were asking for street activation and finding

potentially unit on the floor,

rather than a parking garage, my rebuttal to that was ultimately,

it is not a dollars and cents thing, it is not because parking

is cheap otherren the first floor.

What it ultimately was, we like to have a safe building.

And, we like to have controlled access through key wards and key

fobs and everything coming into the building.

And if you put units on the first floor, if our experience

has told us in other buildings

that, it doesn't work. We now have x number of

additional front doors rather than the two or three access

points that we have that we can control.

So, from a safety perspective we were not willing to budge on

that because the changes the nature of the development that we try to do.

And, I would add to that, from the concern about parking on the

first floor, having it look like a parking garage, I would invite

you everyone to come and visit the or look it up or have

represented referrings that show our development in louisville,

that has parking on the fired floor, and we went to great

lengths to mask that it does not feel like a parking garage on

the first floor.

We have tempered glass that's there.

We have a mural that's going to go on portions of it.

We have really worked hard to make it feel like a streetscape.

That being said, we, you know, the question had also been posed

at the meeting if we can potentially put retail there.

We are not retail developers and

I think even worse than a

parking garage, would be vacant retail, and if the retail was

successful, I think that would accentiate a parking property or

create a parking problem at that point. >> thank you. And time not sure, did I have a

time on here?

>> we're not getting clocks but would you give me a five-minute

clock for council. >> I'll take another five minutes.

>> why don't you wrap up and we'll come back. >> all right, sir, appreciate

the answer. We do have some current

structures that are very already and I have gone and looked at them.

Thank you for that.

If 8 stories is voted and

approved on, would the look be the same as what you have

already proposed with three

stories in the front, ten in the back but in 7 to so it would be 8?

>> yes.

We have a -- we never went forward with a full-blown

rendering, what has been seen and what hasn't and we've done

studies that show. It is important important for us

to respect the neighbors of the characteristics. The stepups with three stories

on the side. Yes, that's absolutely still part of our plan.

>> perfect. And I'll wrap up my last

question here.

There has been several complaint complaints or comment, thank you.

It is getting late. Comments about being concern candidate about messing happens

in the front yard and completely rundown. Are you going to have a property

management property on site and

security company on site? How is that going to work.

>> all development developments have management on site.

Multiple national management companies who specialize in

student housing, and I'll tell you

that they are dominated by students and with maintenance staff on site, a development

like this would likely have probably five or six permanent

jobs that are created with general manager, leasing

management, multiple maintenance staff in addition to student jobs that are created.

So, you know, the look and feel

of it on a daily basis is extremely important to us. >> sure.

Appreciate that answer and thank

you for the willingness to invest into lexington whichever way this goes.

Thank you, vice mayor. >> thank you.

>> councilmember mossotti. >> thank you.

Mr. Woodall. If you wouldn't mind.

>> >> you made a statement.

You said this would be a tough decision. No question it is.

The neighborhoods, we deal with neighborhoods every zoning

application that comes through that has the same concerns.

Traffic, what's the character of my neighborhood going to be like?

The integrity. We understand that.

We have someone that wants to

come in town and invest in our economy, in our city.

So, what can we do?

What can we make happen that helps the neighborhood and helps you all.

Is there a compromise that can be reached?

Is -- the very top of the line, I mean? , get it.

I understand that you have to make a profit and that's business.

I completely understand that. But, I understand the

neighborhood too that has the

concerns about, is this going to

be a

change the whole character of the neighborhood.

To me, I can't see howie can't somehow try to make a resolution

that we can work something out.

I hate to say good-bye to you. I'm familiar with you in

syracuse, I know that your product and I late to say the

neighborhoods, guess what you're stuck with looking at this ten

stories.

So, is there nothing that can be

done to make this an agreeable -- >> yes. >> I'm just asking.

>> so, we have to use this one.

>> we've extensively looked at every option and every potential

feasibility. The -- we can't use that?

>> it is working now.

>> you're front and center now. >> okay.

We've looked at a number of possibilities to try to figure

this out.

It really is,is the bottom number that makes the work.

If we chop off 8, effectively

we'll probably lose about 80 something beds and brings the

development down to 425 beds. If we go to 67.

If we went from say 8 to 7.

The problem, and as Mr. Woodall explained earlier

and you know, it is not like our

development cost drops 12.5% if we take off a floor.

The it probably drops three or four percent.

And ultimately, I feel like it

is going to become an issue? An affordability standpoint.

We'll have to push the rent as little more.

And, it is going to become an issue. So, I would love to find a way

to make this work. We gladly come off ten.

8 is really that number. >> 500 hundred for one bedroom? >> that's --

>> and how many --

>> the 500, the four bedroom. >> and then one, two, and three.

>> we have studios, one,s twos and fours. >> everything is all inclusive.

>> yes. The goal is to make it as easy

as possible for students, parents, and whoever is really

involved young professionals. >> do you know the compare about

rents on some of the other properties? You must have done a market

study. >> we compared a lot to the hub.

They build a great product but they build the top of the top in

every market that they go. And that's sort of what the

capital requires them to do they overbuild their building.

They build great buildings. I'm not trying to say they.

Don't but they build it with pools on the roof as you guys know.

And, amenities like that, our amenity package is always much

more focused on the health and wellness aspect.

Study room, relaxing lounges, gyms and things like that we

don't build party rooms we don't build pools on roof or anything

like that this development will not have a pool.

To talk about the characteristic

as you mentioned before, our development whether it is 8 or

10, on the front, there is a -- it is really, it is going to

feel like a three story building. And, then it step backs a bit

and goes up from there. It is not standing here looking

up and saying, well there is 8

or 10 stories right on maxwell. You have neighborhood that wants

to be able to -- keep the character.

>> if we drop the height of the building ultimately, you know,

we'd have to look at maybe getting rid of parking as one level.

And that is going to create a problem. I believe that right now, we

have the right amount of parking for this development.

We're going cater to a lot of people that don't have cars.

Our development isn't for every single person that has a car out there.

So, if we got rid of a floor,

say we had the same 550 beds, right of floor park, then, I don't know that I would build

the building because I believe

that I would be building it to a scenario that's not successful. >> okay.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. >>

>> thank you. I see no other councilmembers

signed in. Last call.

Any other comments, questions?

You have an answer to one question.

>> council member gibbs asked a question earlier about tree

canopy. The applicant with any

development has the option to

either provide a separate tree inventory map or list it on the development plan.

In this case, they provided a separate map.

It appears to me they have three

significant trees on the site.

One in the backyard, of about

mid-block along maxwell is a

36-inch pin oak and then, two,

in the utility strip, along

stone avenue which are also indicated as 36 inch pin oaks.

And those are pretty --

currently, the tree canopy

coverage is about 29,000 square feet.

The zoning ordinance in the b-2

zone does not require any tree canopy. >> I'll follow throw up, they

are not required for any tree

canopy but if they did in r-4, they'd require 30%. Is that correct? >> yes.

>> so they are proposing it, 10,000 square foot tree pan no

by even though they are required zero. >> okay. Thank you the, tracy. >> thank you.

>> thank you, vice mayor.

>> >> thank you, okay.

Nobody else signed in.

, at this point, close the hearing.

And that means -- no new evidence can be introduced.

And councilmembers will deliberate, and then, we'll open

the floor for motions pro or con.

So, comments? Comments from the council.

Anyone want to speak? >> we'll see.

Let's see if people want to comment first. Councilmember james brown.

>> >> first I would like to thank

the public and neighbors for come do you think and share your

throughout and opinions of this

development with us. These zone changes are always

tough and not easy answers, especially when they get to this

point and also to the developer

for your interest in lexington for your -- continue vestment that you're willing to make in

our community one of the things

I heard tonight, we kept talking aunt student housing in a way that sounded negative.

You know, the student house is

something that we need to provide as the university gross.

Students are also counted in the

census, so, they impact federal

resources that come to our city, and then there are also voters.

They make decisions on local

policy and help those, let those who sit up here and make those

decisions, so, I just -- I think that we ought to look, we ought

to be more incan which save for studens and renters a lot of

tight the tie when we think about these decisions. But I think this issue tonight

is, the classic lexington issue.

Do we expand, do we expand the boundary, do we group, do we

not. And the comp plan even though I

voted to support it, there is challenges with it.

I think that our staff, they are professionals.

They do it every day. And, they make decisions based

off the comprehensive plan.

But, I think that's where the planning commission us as

council look at the gray areas, and, make decisions based on how

it really impacts people and impacts neighborhoods.

And I think that's why it is so challenging.

I have always considered mid-self since I have been on

council a proponent of historic preservation and also

neighborhoods. But, in my profession as a

realtor, I always know, I do know that if you're not growing,

that you're dying.

As a community in that, economic development in real estate

whether it is residential, or commercial growth, go hand in

hand.

So, you have to look at it from that perspective.

The concerns that I have, and I think they have been expressed

is the demolition of historic building.

If this was a completely infield

project, I think that it would

be a little more discussion or a little easier to make a decision

but I think the fact that we

have potential historic housing stock, that has too be

demolished for the new product

to come in, I think that, just adds another level of concern,

and the other thing is, lexington is changing you are,

our neighborhoods are changing.

We're taking on and increasing density neighborhoods and I

actually think that block,

maxwell street, is going to take on greater density.

I think it's setups for it.

My only hesitation is b2a is too intense too soon just because it

is going to be a lot of people that could potentially be

negative, negatively impacted by such an increase in density at%

this point. >>

.>> thank you, vice mayor I was going make a comment.

I represent the 12th district and I have everything outside

the urban service boundary. So, obviously, infill and

redevelopment is very, very

important to me. Looking at this area and

listening to everyone that came tonight, we so appreciate all of

your time and your valuable

input, and then, obviously, the developers again your interest

in our city is to be commended. But, I think I'm going back to what frank said.

I don't see the fit.

I think that, in that particular neighborhood, with the

historical nature, and maybe it will in the years to come.

But, right now, I am not convincd that this is the right property.

This is the right development that should go into that area at thistime.

I wanted to explain that because

it is tough for me to balance the outside the urban service

boundary and infill and redevelopment, but, it is not a

black and white situation. It is gray. I believe that councilmember

brown said. And, so I did want to share that

with you. Thank you, mayor. Vice mayor.

>> thank you. Councilmember evans.

>> >> thank you, vice mayor.

I agree. Housing in general, development

can be gray.

But, at some point, we have to just pulaski the trigger on and

it call it black or white.

Sometimes, it can't be gray.

And, Mr. Hall, is that -- yes. You're exactly right.

You're exactly right.

The problem that we have housing

issues all across the city.

And, as councilmember brown said, the students are also our

constituents and they have hughes issue as well.

and that we need to be just as concerned about them as we are

about anyone else that owns

their home.

And, we continue to have this attitude of, okay, we want it,

but we don't want it here.

That -- Mr. Woodall, I think that your frustration was clear

and that's exactly the situation that we're in.

We have to do something. And, I'm sorry.

I can't -- my constituents would not understand maxwell street

not being considered downtown. I have had this argument and

discussion when we talk about

the government center, everything from U.K. Down to

main street, down to third

street, and even fourth. Most of the city considers it

downtown.

And, when you live downtown. You go to any other city.

Yes, there are parking issues and then you have a population

that doesn't even drive.

I mean, I understand that parking concern.

When I have had development,

zone change hearings, and, in my district, they are concerned

about parking too. And, there are areas where

someone is going to drive. Urban downtowns, we don't know

what the millennials are or

students are going to be doing. They do transport themselves

differently. But, do I want a parking space

when I'm driving around downtown? Yes, I do.

But, again, I think this is just the corner that we painted

ourselves in, and, I am very

inclined to give you the 8. you know, the so?

I don't know if we have the votes for 10 but I understand

that's the most economical position for you.

Or development for you.

But, I would encourage the council to consider the full

ten, and if not, certainly, the 8. Because, we're in this situation

that we have created it.

The housing situation, we have,

and I'm on the prevention board. There are students that have

housing problems and if this is

one way even if you do call it luxury, even if it is a thousand

dollars, there are students that

can afford that housing, who can

then make housing on campus

available to those who need it. And, I just -- that is the point

of view that I come from. Everyone needs housing, students

need housing. If this is another way to make

it more available for them, then, I think we have to

consider it.

I understand it is an issue. I've had got three houses in a

neighborhood in my district that are going to be five bedroom

homes.

That's a whole lot of people

coming into a court. But it is happening.

So it is happening everywhere

and we all have to adjust. And, lexington is growing.

And, again, I say this all the time.

I live off of liberty road.

I'm sure that there were people complaining that my development was being built at one point in

time.

But I love my house.

And, people that complain about the starter home, people get

postcards saying that we want to buy your house. They want to buy your house so

they can probably rent it to students.

So it creates a -- it is a way

to prevent, I don't want to say predatory but for lack of a

better word, that predatory buying of houses as well.

So, I appreciate your frustration. But, everyone is feeling it and

everyone is going to have to give.

And this is a situation where, I

just -- I feel like this can

be -- it can help more than it can harm.

So, I would certainly be in

favor of it and hope my

colleagues will consider at

least the 8 stories. >> .>> thank you.

Councilmember gibbs. >> thank you. Thank you, vice mayor.

Is this thing working? Folks can hear me.

The applicant lost before the planning commission and the

planning commission said that,

the price of downtown frame zone is not appropriate to the

subject site and the burned on

the applicant to show us that,

it is a good spot for that. And, they failed to convince me

of that.

They want to convince us what is a downtown place type rather

than a second tier urban type.

It seems clear to me that it is

a second tier urban.

Just look at what the surrounding properties.

I think it is very telling when

the applicant showed us the take on the surrounding properties.

They didn't show you us anything adjacent it to. They showed us a photograph of

the corner of maxwell and martin luther king considerably west of

the property. If they took photographs of

directly across from the property, they would find

historic structures, they talk about how U.K. Is building up.

They certainly are in some areas.

And by the way, U.K. Has men you the of room to build up when

they take down the towers.

There is a place where student

housing angling avenue much better fit than in an area that

has historic structures on it. But, my point is, you know, it

doesn't really fit with that neighborhood. You look to the south from

there, you look at the kentucky humanities council.

You're looking at the gains center for humanities and things

like that you look behind it. You look at hagerman court which

are basically shotgun houses.

It is just not a very good fit. Again there is nothing close by

that is over three stories. There are a couple of

developments on lexington avenue

that there are three stories.

When it comes to what's downtown, of course everybody

has an opinion on that. I'm consider myself an urbanist

and I don't consider downtown. A couple of measures that I'll throw out there, we do have

something called the downtown lexington management district in this town.

And the borders of the downtown management district go as far as

high street to the south. And that's it.

It does not include maxwell.

Couple of years ago, we laid out

an area where we wanted to

put -- where we would take

offers to build a city hall. We laid out the boundarys, those

boundarysdid not include that area.

And so we have many precedents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents dents

dents downtown area.

It is really, it is a clearly to me second tier.

Something that bothers me we can't judge much on design.

But, a parking structure on the

first two floors is not engaging the community.

No matter what you do, tempered glass is still a blank wall.

A mural is still a blank wall.

I'm an avid pedestrian, I walk these areas.

You're not talking about engagement, you're talking about alienation when you have things like that.

That's not good urbanism to do a parking structure with blank

wall on the first couple of floors and again we're not here

first fit to judge design elements but it just lead me to

feel that you guys don't have a

sense of urban design and this

is a very urban area, but it is not downtown.

So, I'll be voting in -- against the applicant. Thank you, vice mayor.

>>

>> thank you. Councilmember farmer.

>> thank you, vice mayor.

I was expecting you to make a

motion during your conversation. Do you intend to make a motion

shortly or where do we stand on who will make a motion here?

>> >> I guess that I can make one.

>> I'm -- I'm sorry, but

we're -- at this point we're not supposed to be dock anything

except having a conversation up

here.

>> I'll withhold comment until this a motion to discuss.

Because, it is time for us to do our deal.

We have to have a motion. This concludes my comments.

>> councilmember farmer, do you want to comment or do you want to wait for a motion?

>> I'll wait for a motion. >> thank you.

I would entertain a motion at this point if someone would like

to make pit. And if no one would like to make

it, I'll yield the floor to

councilmember -- so, I have

not -- I'll yield the floor to council men.

And I'll yield the chair to councilmember ellinger.

>> okay, vice mayor. >> and I would like to be recognized. >> vice mayor.

>> thank you. I think before -- I'm going make

the motion. a motion.

And before I do, I do want to make a comment.

And it is consistent with some

of what has already been said. The question before the planning

commission, and the question before the council, on an ongoing basis, is going to be

how do we balance the need for

more housing, the need for more

business, the need for more everything else. How do we balance that with the

need to preserve what many

people consider an exceptional quality of life.

In this community. And a good part of which is

based on the neighborhoods they

live in, and they value.

And, there May be some clear cut cases.

But mostly, there won't be.

I think Mr. Woodall made the point.

Any infill development at this point, is either going to or

going to be perceived to impact the quality of life with the

people who live in that immediate area. That's the nature of business.

So, when I look at what is being

proposed, I try to balance those

two things off. And in this particular case,

what I see is at the moment a development that is out of scale

in the wrong place, and it is not about in fact doing

something like that, and it is not about never doing something

like that somewhere else.

But, when I look visually, at

that area, what I see, is a lot of historic homes adjacent to a

very vital neighborhood.

And it is just too big.

And so, I'm going make a motion

that we uphold the findings of

fact of the planning commission, so moved. >> second.

>> we have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion on the

motion?

>> now if I May, if you wouldn't mind yieldingthe chair back,

I'll start recognizing. >> I'll yield the chair back.

>> or if you would like to hold it. No. [Laughter]

Councilmember farmer. >> thank you, vice mayor.

Appreciate your time and your

talent in making the motion. I would say to all of those

here, thank you for coming out tonight. Certainly, gentlemen, thank you

for offering to invest in lexington, but, thank you to all

of the neighbors who invest in

lexington every day.

It is all a personal walk. And, we do it together in this

room. But, I wouldn't be here had I

not in the beginning come out and battled against the

ten-story building at chevy chase that ultimately became a

five story building at chevy chase.

But I wouldn't be on this council had I not become part of

the conversation at that time.

I remember

I remember the zone change in 1996 when we expand the the

urban boundary, very little since then, what I remember

about 96 was the mother of all zone changes that did not pass.

We did not do all the zone

changeses for all the expansionary twufnt.

It was a wise choice. Lexington walks in a meandering

way down the center and we go this way and this way but we get

it right. Before christmas we had two

infill hearings on liberty road. We sanctioned one, we turned the

other one down.

Last fall we had one on tates

creek road, one residence in an empty lot to be transformed into

16 or 18 townhouses.

We went for that. In looking at this neighborhood, rhood,

rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood,

rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood, rhood,

know, these are the decisions I

come here to not make I choose

not to tear down the redwood forest and live in the redwood house.

I choose to keep the houses, protect the neighborhood and I

choose for to us continue this conversation because like the

last sip of coffee or the best

bite of pie, your alls input was the most important part tonight.

The abilit to talk about these

things in public, personally and with fervor and to understand we

have to negotiate every point on the curb. There is not an always right

answer here. There is not an always wrong answer here. There is just an answer best for

lexington and the answer best

for lexington is to say gentlemen, thank you, we appreciate you.

We want you to come back, build something else.

The scale of this isn't right.

Losing those... I couldn't visit

my mom's grave if they tear down those houses.

This is very real to me. Neighborhood comes first.

We've had a lot of policy over the last 40, 50 years that make

us think about the urban service

boundary, the farms, the

agricultural community, we have to think about our neighborhoods, too.

Tonight is an example of that. I hope the council will follow

the example of the planning

commission and the really great

motion that the vice mayor made.

Thank you.

>> you are so eloquent. I will try to use your

analogies. You say neighborhood come first.

I would amend that to say some

neighborhoods come first. And that's part of the situation

we've got here. My neighborhood didn't come

first when, you know, the one I

was talking about, when literally three homes are being

built on a court, five bedrooms. That's a lot of people.

That neighborhood didn't come first.

There are a lot of neighborhoods that didn't come first when

we've developed.

And using your red wood forest analogy, based on the testimony

of the condition of the homes,

this is the redwood forest with termites so I mean we are not

talking about houses that the neighborhood, and I don't want

to get personal, but the

condition of these homes has

apparently been in need for

quite sometime so it's not as if the neighborhood -- well I don't

know if you reached out to the homeowners or what not.

I do appreciate, there was a woman that testified that said

they intentionally bought a home that was dilapidated and they're

living in it.

I appreciate that. Anyone that is concerned about

those neighborhoods, that's what

should be going on. The neighborhood council should

be helping neighbors do that.

But we've got properties that,

again, have just been neglected

and by whatever reason, for

whatever reason,it appears to me

that people only care about them now when someone wants to come

and do something different to

improve it.

I understand the esthetics of

it, it would be a change, but again from the testimony that I

heard tonight, these are not -- this is not -- they're not houses

I would want to live in.

So again, I appreciate your

analogy, but I can't sit here and think these are homes that

you all are living in that are well kept that have been

renovated that are in perfect condition because based on the

testimony tonight, they're not. So that's my comment to that.

>> thank you. Other council members wish to

speak to the motion? If not, I'll just reiterate the

motion is to adopt the findings of fact and the recommendations

of the planning commission.

A yes vote is a vote to turn

down this application.

If everybody is clear on that, >> thank you, vice mayor.

I think it would be remiss if I didn't speak up and say something at this point.

I appreciate all the neighbors coming out.

I respect all of your opinions absolutely and I respect that

you are trying to develop here

in lexington, thank you for that opportunity.

Council member brown brought up just james brown brought up a

minute ago if we stop growing we shut our city off.

We are at that point right now where we are about to make this

decision that we are about to

shut our growth off again and again. We've done this before.

We sit there and we say protect and preserve the beauty of lexington.

And I want to protect every bit of the beauty of lexington as

anybody else on this council and

everybody in this room and that

was a tough decision that we sit here and make tonight is an

extremely tough decision.

How do we preserve the beauty of lct?

But how do we continue growing because if we don't grow, we sink.

You don't plateau. No city plateaus.

You can maybe for a little bit but you have to keep going some

way and you can go up or go down.

I choose to go up. And I want to sit here and I

want to do everything that we

can to make this city the best

that we can. We are offering -- this is an

opportunity to offer -- it's not affordable housing necessarily

but it's housing that can be affordable and that's something

that we need to aim at I understand that this May fail

tonight or it May succeed.

I May be surprised. But I think we are starting to

set a precedent for the near future.

Thank you thank you, vice mayor.

Thank you.%

any other council members?

If not. >> I just want to ask a

procedural question.

Depending on how the vote is, it takes eight votes to overturn

the planning commission is that correct? So there are seven here.

>> that's correct. >> it would have to be even

though it could pass but if it doesn't get eight votes it still

doesn't pass. >> eight votes no matter how

many of you are here. >> procedure just let everybody

know that. >> council member lamb.

Just for clarification, if this

body doesn't override the planning commission thn I think

that the department of law needs to clarify that it goes into effect by operational law what

the planning commission

recommended, right? >> there are multiple questions

there so I'm going to try to answer them all the best I can.

The motion on the floor, as I understand it to adopt the

findings of the flish.

If yo do that then there the ordinance will get second reading.

But the ordinance is written in

the positive and the planning commission disapproved it so

when it comes to voting on the

ordinance you would have to vote

no if you do not override what

the planning commission did, then, I mean, you know, if do

you that, you are going to be adopting what they did.

You are going to be taking the same vote that they took.

However if you go a different route and try to override what

they've done and approve it, but

you don't get the votes for that

them it will wait 90 days under

the statute from the planning

commission's decision and it will become effective as to what

the planning commission did by operation of law which was

disapproval of the zone change.

>> I'm going to add a comment

before I recognize council

member mossotti because in case it's not clear to everybody in

the audience, this is not simple .

There are two things the council has to do tonight.

Adopt findings of fact and having done that, it then has to

approve or disapprove an ordinance the findings of fact,

from the planning commission

remedies approval and they include the findings of fact

that would support disapproval.

The ordinance, which is in the

positive, if we vote yes on the

ordinance, then the ordinance goes into effect.

We would have to have another set of findings.

So yes, if we want to disapprove

this request first we have to

vote affirmatively on findings

of fact and then we have to vote

negatively on the underlying ordinance if we fail to get a

majority of council which is

eight votes for either of those things the default is that it

goes back to the ruling of the planning commission and without

any further action by this council, their ruling would

prevail, which is to reject this

proposal. >> is it appropriate now if

there is a decision by the developer to decrease the

density or size, would that be appropriate to bring to our

attention now? >> you all closed the hearing

and you have a motion on the floor.

>> because I know it's the issue, the size of the development.

I'm out of order on that? I'm asking. >> I don't think you can do it

at this point. >> I don't think you can do it

at this point because the hearing is closed and you have a

motion nat is on the floor that

you are discusing unless there is going to be an amendment to

the motion. >> the amendment though, the

motion on the floor is to adopt

findings of fact that were for disapproval so it would be

difficult to amend it unless you

were going to change it entirely >> I would request that you

withdraw your motion because

there seems to be some discussion that might go on

because as I understand it, if

we vote yes or no on this first motion it's essentially done and

there is no room for us to

negotiate, change it that is how

I understand the process to be. >> that is not correct.

I believe if we vote this motion down, that the would leave space

for someone to make another

motion on findings of fact I

believe that's correct.

We have to dispose of the motion that's on the floor one way or

another before we can do any other business as I understand

it.

Unless I withdraw my motion and

we go back to square one because

it is in the disapproved form.

The motion we have right now is to not approve this --

>> it's to approve a set of

findings of fact that agree with the planning commission's

decision which is to approve the

planning commission's decision.

>> on the findings of fact.

If the majority of this body

votes yes, it's done. That exactly my point.

So there seems to be some discussion based on what council

member mossotti said that's why my request is for you to

withdraw your motion because

either way we vote on that first motion it's done and we do not

have the authority to have any

further conversation about changing anything because the

motion is to not allow it. is that correct?

>> well, I mean the motion on

the floor is to adopt the findings of fact from the planning commission.

Those findings of fact supported

their recommendation of

disapproval.

So if you were not inclined to

adopt an outright approval, you would probably be not inclined

to support findings that support

that, either but if the vote is taken and those findings are

adopted as this body's findings

then you know, gower toeing have

to hif hive you are going have don't have any other findings.

I don't know how you would amend them when they're for

disapproval to make them be for approval or approval of

something different if that

makes sense so I guess my practical advice to you would be

if this body as a whole in it's

voting feels like it wants to consider something else, you

would vote this motion down.

But. . . . . . . . .

Taken and the majority of us

vote yes for disapproval you still have to vote on the ordinance.

>> the insurance ordinance is what it is so that doesn't

matter.

It's ineffective that's correct. That's the motion that's on the

floor and so I don't...

>> which is why I'm requesting

that he withdraw his motion. i hope council understands that.

>> I think everybody understands

what the motion on the floor is

I'm not going to withdraw it. People can vote how they think

they need to vote given what

they've heard so --

>> call for the question.

>> question has been called. We vote on whether to call the

question.

All those in favor say aye. Opposed?

I want an electronic screen if I

May on this vote.

>> this is a vote to call the

question need one more vote. That vote reflects passage of

the motion. Now the question on the floor is

the motion itself if I can have

a fresh screen, please (All

talking at once)  -- all those in favor of the

motion -- Madam Clerk, call the

roll, please.

>> Ms. Reynolds.

>> yes.

>> Mr. James brown. >> Mr. Ellinger.

>> yes ma'am.

>> Ms. Evans.

>>... >> Mr.Farmer. >> yes.

>> Mr. Gibbs. >> yes. >> vice mayor kay.

>> yes.

>> Ms. Lamb? (Inaudible). >> Mr. Mccurn?

>> no ma'am.

>> Ms. Mossotti.

>> yes. >> medicines Ms. Plomin. >> yes.

>> thank you. That vote reflects passage of

the motion.

that would bring us to the

underlying ordinance is there

any further discussion of the

ordinance seeing none, I remind council members that the

underlying motion is framed in the affirmative.

If you don't want to support that ordinance, have you to vote

no.

>> the council typically does conclude the hearing with a vote

on the ordinance.

Because that ends the process. There wasn't a motion at the beginning.

>> she read a motion but there has not been a motion to approve.

>> so if you -- we need a motion to approve and then voting in

the affirmative would pass it, voting in the negative would

defeat it.

But the motion -- I have a motion

to approve. >> second?

>> council member mossotti since

I'm on the prevailing side, I would like a motion to

reconsider.

>> to reconsider the vote on the findings?

>> yes. >> a motion and a second to

reconsider the vote that we just took.

Discussion on the motion? Hearing none Madam Clerk please

call the roll.

This is a motion to reconsider

there was a second. Council member evans, do you

want to discuss the motion to

reconsider? >> I hope the council will vote

to reconsider this and allow discussion for some other

options. I think this is the only way to

consider other options is to

reconsider so I hope you all

will in approval to reconsider

the motion.

>> I'm going err on the same side there was a lot of

discussion after the motion had come to.

A lot of clarification to this council here to me, myself of

what we are doing moving us forward and I think we should

reconsider at least to say what

other open discussion that we

have anybody else wish to discussion the motion to reconsider?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please

call the roll. >> Ms. Reynolds.

>> yes. >> Mr. James brown.

>> no. >> Mr. Ellinger. >> no ma'am.

>> Ms. Evans. >> yes.

>> Mr.Farmer. >> no ma'am. >> Mr. Gibbs.

>> no. >> vice mayor kay? >> no.

>> Ms. Lamb.

>> no. >> Mr. Mccurn.

>> yes ma'am. >> medicines moss.

>> yes. >> Ms. Plomin.

>> yes.

>> that vote reflects failure of the motion.

I believe then we move on to the item that's on the floor which

is the underlying ordinance is

there further discussion of the ordinance?

We need a motion now to approve

the ordinance I have a motion and a second to approve the

ordinance and again voting yes would approve the ordinance.

Voting no would reject the petition. Madam Clerk please call the

roll. >> Ms. Reynolds.

>> no.

>> Mr. James brown. (Inaudible).

>> May we have a screen, thank you.

>> can I get declared on a yes

vote and nay vote.

>> yes vote would approve the

proposal, a no vote would reject it.

>> nay. >> Mr. Ellinger.

>> no ma'am.

>> medicines ef.

>> yes. >> Mr.Farmer.

>> no thank you. >> Mr. Gibbs.

>> no.

>> vice mayor kay.

>> no. >> Ms. Lamb. >> Mr. Mccurn.

>> yes ma'am. >> Ms. Mossotti. >> yes.

>> Ms. Diplomacy Ms. Plomin. >> no.

>> that vote reflects failure of the motion and before we

adjourn, I want to thank the

developers and their attorney all the neighbors who came out

for your patience. People have said this is tough.

Thank you very much is there a

motion to adjourn? So moved.