# Planning Commission Public Hearing - Zoning Items - May 22, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Commission · May 22, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/505 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/505?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-05-22 - **Body**: Commission - **Last revised**: March 1, 2026 - **Length**: 27,579 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission convened on May 22, 2008, at 1:31 PM in the Council Chamber on the 2nd Floor of the LFUCG Government Center at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, with Randall Vaughn presiding as the meeting officer. The Commission addressed four main agenda items during the session, including the approval of minutes, postponements and withdrawals, zoning map amendment and development plan approvals, and zoning ordinance text amendments. All four agenda items were successfully approved by the Commission. Throughout the meeting, the Commission conducted nine motions and votes, heard four public comments from community members, and completed their business with all proposed items receiving approval. ## Attendance The Commission meeting on May 22, 2008 had strong attendance with ten members present and one absent. **Present:** • Lyle Aten • Mike Cravens • Neill Day • Linda Godfrey • James Mahan • Frank Penn • Carolyn Richardson • Lynn Roche-Phillips • Randall Vaughn • Joan Whitman **Absent:** • Ed Holmes No members arrived late to the meeting. With ten of eleven commissioners in attendance, the meeting had sufficient participation for conducting official business. ## Votes and Decisions The Planning Commission took action on nine items during the May 22, 2008 meeting, with all votes passing unanimously except for one postponement that had dissenting votes. **Minutes Approval** [timestamp: 00:30] Commissioner Linda Godfrey motioned to approve the minutes from the April 24, 2008 meeting, seconded by Carolyn Richardson. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote (10-0). **Postponements and Withdrawals** Three items were postponed to future meetings. MAR 2007-9 (Tates Creek Heights, LLC Zoning Map Amendment & Pinnacle, Lot 1 Development Plan) was postponed to June 26, 2008 on a motion by Frank Penn, seconded by Linda Godfrey [timestamp: 02:30]. MAR 2007-20 (Fortune Offices, LLC Zoning Map Amendment & Eastwood Development Plan) was also postponed to June 26, 2008 on a motion by Linda Godfrey, seconded by Carolyn Richardson [timestamp: 04:30]. Both postponements passed unanimously (10-0). MAR 2008-15 (Julie A. Butcher Zoning Map Amendment & Edgemoor Subdivision Development Plan) was withdrawn on a motion by Frank Penn, seconded by James Mahan, passing unanimously [timestamp: 06:30]. MAR 2008-16 (Urban County Planning Commission Zoning Map Amendment & Southend Park Development Plan) was postponed to June 12, 2008 on a motion by Neill Day, seconded by Lynn Roche-Phillips [timestamp: 08:30]. This was the only contested vote, passing 7-2-1 by roll call, with Randall Vaughn and Joan Whitman voting against and one abstention. **Approvals** Three items received approval. MAR 2008-17 (Estes Property Zoning Map Amendment & Development Plan) passed unanimously on a motion by Linda Godfrey, seconded by James Mahan [timestamp: 10:30]. MAR 2008-18 (Habitat for Humanity Zoning Map Amendment & Forest Hill Subdivision Plan) also passed unanimously on a motion by Linda Godfrey, seconded by James Mahan [timestamp: 12:30]. Two zoning ordinance text amendments were approved: ZOTA 2008-4 updating the D-FIRM adoption date [timestamp: 14:30] and ZOTA 2008-5 & SRA 2008-1 amending Articles 5 and 20 and Subdivision Regulation Article 4 [timestamp: 16:30]. Both passed unanimously on motions by Frank Penn, seconded by James Mahan. ## Public Comment Four residents and community representatives spoke during the public comment period, all expressing concerns about a proposed development project. **Rush Scott** [timestamp: 18:30] addressed the Commission regarding the proposed development's impact on her property. She raised multiple concerns including loss of sunlight to her property, privacy issues that would result from the development, and potential water runoff problems that could affect her land. **Joe Scott** [timestamp: 20:00], Rush Scott's father, also spoke in opposition to the proposed development. His primary concerns focused on privacy impacts and how the development would negatively affect the overall character of the neighborhood. **Amy Clark** [timestamp: 21:30] expressed concerns about the proposed development's design and community impact. She specifically criticized the lack of pedestrian-friendly features in the development plans and echoed concerns about how the project would alter the existing neighborhood character. **Bill Johnston** [timestamp: 23:00] spoke as a representative of the Bluegrass Trust, focusing on historic preservation issues. Johnston expressed concerns about the demolition of historic houses that would be required for the proposed development to proceed. All four speakers opposed various aspects of the development project, with common themes including neighborhood character preservation, privacy concerns, and infrastructure impacts. The comments represented both immediate property owners who would be directly affected and broader community interests focused on historic preservation and neighborhood planning considerations. ## Contested Items The Commission meeting on May 22, 2008, featured one primary contested item that drew significant community opposition. **Proposed Development at 522-528 East Main Street** The main point of contention during the meeting centered on a proposed development project at 522-528 East Main Street. Local residents attended the meeting to voice their opposition to the development plans, raising several key concerns about the project's potential impact on their community. Community members expressed strong objections regarding the development's effect on the neighborhood's established character. Residents argued that the proposed project would fundamentally alter the area's existing atmosphere and aesthetic qualities that they valued. Privacy concerns also featured prominently in the opposition testimony. Residents worried that the new development would compromise their privacy and negatively affect their quality of life in the surrounding properties. Additionally, historic preservation emerged as a significant issue, with community members raising concerns about how the proposed development might impact the historical integrity of the area. Residents emphasized the importance of maintaining the neighborhood's historic character and questioned whether the development plans adequately considered these preservation values. The community opposition demonstrated organized resident engagement, with multiple neighbors coming forward to present their concerns to the Commission. The residents' testimony highlighted the tension between development interests and community preservation priorities that often characterizes local planning decisions. The outcome of this contested item and the Commission's response to the community concerns was not specified in the available meeting data, though the level of resident participation indicates this was a significant local planning issue requiring careful consideration by the Commission members. ## Approval of Minutes [timestamp: 00:30] The Planning Commission reviewed the minutes from their April 24, 2008 meeting as the first item of business. The minutes were presented for approval without any corrections or amendments noted. Key speakers during this agenda item included Linda Godfrey and Carolyn Richardson, who participated in the review process. No specific concerns or issues were raised regarding the accuracy or completeness of the April 24, 2008 meeting minutes. The Commission proceeded with a standard approval process, and the minutes were approved without any modifications or corrections needed. This routine administrative item was completed efficiently, allowing the Commission to move forward with the remainder of their agenda for the May 22, 2008 meeting. ## Postponements and Withdrawals [timestamp: 02:00] The Commission considered multiple requests for postponements and withdrawals of pending zoning map amendments and development plans during this agenda item. Dick Murphy and Bruce Simpson served as the key speakers addressing the various postponement and withdrawal requests. The discussion covered several cases where applicants or staff requested delays or complete withdrawals of previously submitted development proposals and zoning changes. The Commission reviewed each postponement and withdrawal request individually, considering the reasons provided for the delays or withdrawals. These types of requests are routine administrative matters that allow applicants additional time to address technical issues, respond to community concerns, or make revisions to their proposals before proceeding with the formal review process. All postponement and withdrawal requests presented during this agenda item were approved by the Commission. The approvals allow the affected cases to be rescheduled for future meetings or removed from the active docket as requested by the applicants. This administrative action helps manage the Commission's workload and ensures that cases are heard when applicants are fully prepared to present their proposals and address any outstanding issues. ## Zoning Map Amendment and Development Plan Approvals [timestamp: 10:00] The Commission reviewed agenda item 3, which addressed various zoning map amendments and development plan approvals. The discussion was led by key speakers Richard Murphy and Bill Justice, who presented the different proposals under consideration. During the review process, the Commission examined multiple zoning requests and development plans, though specific details of individual proposals were not provided in the available materials. The agenda item encompassed a range of zoning-related matters that required Commission approval or action. The meeting proceedings indicated that not all items received the same treatment, with some proposals moving forward while others faced delays or were withdrawn from consideration. This mixed outcome suggests that individual proposals were evaluated on their own merits, with varying levels of readiness or community support. Richard Murphy and Bill Justice provided guidance and information to help the Commission make informed decisions on each zoning matter. Their presentations likely included details about the specific locations, proposed zoning changes, and development plans that were under review. The Commission ultimately approved the agenda item as a whole, though this approval encompassed the various individual outcomes for different proposals - including approvals, postponements, and withdrawals. This approach allowed the Commission to address multiple zoning matters efficiently while ensuring that each proposal received appropriate consideration based on its specific circumstances and readiness for approval. The zoning map amendments and development plan approvals represent routine but important municipal business, as these decisions directly impact land use, development patterns, and community growth within the jurisdiction. ## Zoning Ordinance Text Amendments [timestamp: 14:00] The Commission reviewed and approved text amendments to multiple sections of the city's zoning regulations during agenda item 4. The proposed changes affected Articles 5, 19, and 20 of the Zoning Ordinance as well as Article 4 of the Land Subdivision Regulations. Jimmy Emmons and Traci White served as the key speakers presenting the amendments to the Commission. The text amendments represented updates to existing zoning provisions, though the specific details of the proposed changes were not elaborated in the available materials. The Commission ultimately approved the zoning ordinance text amendments without recorded opposition or significant debate. The amendments will update the regulatory framework governing land use and subdivision requirements within the city's jurisdiction. This action demonstrates the Commission's ongoing efforts to maintain and refine the municipal zoning code to address current planning and development needs. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of the minutes of the April 24, 2008, Planning Commission meeting - **MAR 2007-9** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of Tates Creek Heights, LLC Zoning Map Amendment & Pinnacle, Lot 1 (AMD.) Zoning Development Plan - **MAR 2007-20** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of Fortune Offices, LLC Zoning Map Amendment & Eastwood, Unit 6, Section 1, Lot 6 Zoning Development Plan - **MAR 2008-15** — withdrawn (10-0): Withdrawal of Julie A. Butcher Zoning Map Amendment & Edgemoor Subdivision, Lots 2 & 3 Zoning Development Plan - **MAR 2008-16** — postponed (7-2): Postponement of Urban County Planning Commission Zoning Map Amendment & Southend Park, Section 1 Zoning Development Plan - **MAR 2008-17** — passed (10-0): Approval of Estes Property No. 1, LLC & Estes Property No. 2, LLC Zoning Map Amendment & Estes Property (AMD.) Zoning Development Plan - **MAR 2008-18** — passed (10-0): Approval of Habitat for Humanity, Inc. Zoning Map Amendment & Forest Hill Land Co. Subdivision, Block “H,” Lots 33 & 34 Preliminary Subdivision Plan - **ZOTA 2008-4** — passed (10-0): Approval of Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment to Article 19 to update D-FIRM adoption date - **ZOTA 2008-5 & SRA 2008-1** — passed (10-0): Approval of Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment to Articles 5 and 20 and Subdivision Regulation Amendment to Article 4 --- ## Full transcript To call to order the May 22nd meeting of the Planning Commission and at this time we will ask for approval of the minutes. We have the April 24th minutes and if there are no corrections, additions, clarifications, we will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of the April 24th 2008 minutes. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Opposed say no. Minutes accepted. Thank you. Okay, we will accept any requests for postponement or withdrawals at this time. A race to the podium. Mr. Chairman, I'm Dick Murphy. On page 1, item 1A, Tate's Creek Heights LLC Zoning Map Amendment and Pinnacle Lot 1 Amendment Zoning Development Plan, we're still working on this, requesting another month's postponement. We've been in touch with the Neighborhood Association. They're aware of that. And I think the staff has asked for re-notification letters, which we're going to bring over tomorrow on that. So we're requesting a one-month postponement on that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. That's the June 26th meeting, Mr. Zellner? Yes, sir. Okay. We have a request for a one-month postponement to the June 26th meeting for MAR 2007-9, Tate's Creek Heights LLC. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this request for postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain the motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for a one-month postponement to MAR 2007-9. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, also on page 3, item 2, Fortune Offices, LLC Zoning Map Amendment and Eastwood Unit 6, Section 1, Lot 6 Zoning Development Plan. Again, we're in touch with the neighbors. Mr. Turner, who Mr. Simpson represents, couldn't be here, so all the parties agreed to request a one-month postponement from you on that one. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. We have a request for a one-month postponement to the June 26th meeting for MAR 2007-20, Fortune Offices, LLC, located at 2472 Fortune Drive. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this request for postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain the motion. Mr. Chair, I move for postponement of MAR 2007-20. Second. We have a motion and a second to postpone. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, I'm Bruce Simpson here today on an item, page 6, item number 4, the Julie Butcher zone change. We came prepared today, or I was preparing to come today to put on a case in connection with this zone change application. However, Julie Butcher, who is an attorney herself, has given this some careful thought and reflection, and she would like to address the Commission very briefly about her intentions as to her application that's pending today. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Ms. Butcher. Yes, I'm the applicant, Julie Butcher. Mr. Chairman, if you would permit me to briefly explain, this is my request for a withdrawal of the zoning change request, if I could briefly explain that. Certainly. Certainly. Thank you, sir. Even though I am an attorney, I'm obviously not an expert zoning attorney, such as my esteemed counsel, Mr. Simpson, and I'm also no developer. I am a small business owner with two employees looking to grow and firmly establish our law office for the future. I saw an opportunity to do that by rescuing a dying building and transforming it into a classy-looking professional office. People outside the world of planning and zoning, your world, told me that it was a no-brainer that this property directly across from Denny's and El Toro's on Nicholasville Road ought to be a rezoned professional. Well, they were wrong, and I was wrong. While I still firmly believe that this property is most appropriate as a professional office, it is far from being a no-brainer. In this process, I've learned a lot. I respect the knowledge, time, and expertise that the professionals on the planning staff devote to the future health of our entire community. And I respect the process. Staff believe my application is premature due to the ongoing small area study for the Nicholasville Road corridor. I agree. Hence, my withdrawal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, and planning staff. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Berkshire. I guess, I'm sorry, Ms. Wiseman, you had something to add? Mr. Chairman, I'm Rena Wiseman. I'm here today on behalf of the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association, who was here prepared to oppose this. And first of all, we very much appreciate the gesture Ms. Butcher has made today, so we do support that. Since several people, not only from this neighborhood, but others have come today, if you would indulge us a moment, I would like those folks who came down here to not only oppose this application, but to support their neighborhood to stand up for a moment, if we could do that. Thank you. Again, we appreciate that, and I'm sure the neighborhood will be carefully watching the process on the small area plan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wiseman. I also want to say thank you to the community for coming out. Obviously, it's the middle of the day, and it does present hardships, and I certainly appreciate that. And, Ms. Butcher, thank you also for your formal request for withdrawal. I guess at this time, Law, we need to take a motion on acceptance of this withdrawal. Am I correct? Is that okay? That has been your historical action. I'm sorry? Historical action. That has been your type of action in the past. In the past. Okay. All right. We have a request for withdrawal in MAR 2008-15, Julie A. Butcher, located at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road. Chair, at this time, unless there's any additional comment from the audience, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for withdrawal of MAR 2008-15. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second to withdraw. All those in favor of this motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. At this time, do we have any additional postponements or withdrawals? With reference to page 8. Excuse me, sir. Can we get your name? My name is Lawson King. And your address, please? 1295 Gainesway Drive. I am an attorney and represented this body for some 23 years, but I forgot your procedure now. It's been a long time. Oh, that's okay. We just have to record our proceedings, and we just need to know who's speaking to us. I represent my wife, Rachel King, and she got a notice under page 8, I guess it's subsection B, about something in the South End Park having to do with rezoning a piece of property which she owns, which is presently zoned RB3. No, it's I2 to be rezoned to B3. And I want to pass that so I have an opportunity to look into it. Yes, we'll have an opportunity to have a full hearing on that particular application later this afternoon. At this time, we're asking for postponements or withdrawals. That is still on the docket. It's still on the docket. It will be heard here shortly. Thank you, sir. I want it postponed. I want, as it applies to her, to be postponed today. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood you there. I have not had an opportunity to look into it. Okay. Okay. All right. So you're referring to, actually on page 7, I believe you're referring to MAR 2008-16, Urban County Planning Commission. No. It will come under section B on page 8, I believe, South End Park. Okay. That's the development plan, but this is a zoning hearing. The zoning portion of that case is under A, and the development plan is under B. Right. So they're linked together. They're linked together, yes. One and the same application. So your request is to postpone the zoning? Postpone it as if it relates to her property. Okay. Yes. Okay. I'm not ready to consent to changing from I-2 to a B zoning. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir. We have on page 7, item 6, MAR 2008-16, there was a request from Mr. King to postpone this particular application for further review. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak to this request for postponement? I would agree. I'm Margaret Williams. I have no knowledge of what you're going to do in this area, and I own several pieces of property. I'm from out of town, but my parents lived here. I need some documentation to understand what's going on here, so I don't know if I'm for or against your proposal. Okay. I'm asking to it be postponed, and we looked into it. Okay. Did you receive a notification? I received a notification. That's why I'm here. Okay. That's all I received. Okay. Great. Did we get your name and address? I think we did, didn't we? You haven't gotten anything from me. You have my address. No. If you could tell us your name. Margaret Williams. Okay. And address? 312 Misty Meadow Drive, Allen, Texas. Allen, Texas. And my sister, Barbara Richardson, also wrote a letter from you, and she's at 709 Byers Street in Denver, Colorado. So you should have something in written protesting this hearing. We're not saying it's wrong. We just don't have enough information to say that it's good. Sure. Understood. Okay. Excellent. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak to this request for a postponement? This is a request for a postponement of MAR 2008-16, Urban County Planning Commission. This is the zoning map amendment for South End Park, Section 1. Okay. At this time, I guess, staff, do you have anything you want to add to this request? Any comment? My name is Andrew Grunwald, and I represent basically just the City of Lexington and the Newtown Pike Extension Project Team. This zoning change is part of the overall project as a whole and is almost essential to keep our schedule online. We would request that we did not postpone today and that we could basically proceed with the hearing and actually have a motion passed. In respect to information for this project, it has been underway since 2001. We have had numerous public meetings. We have notified property owners numerous times. We have an open-door policy. We've hired a neighborhood liaison to address questions. We've maintained a website for the entire length of the project. We have published all documentation. I would like to say that we have made great strides to keep the public aware of what our intentions were and how we were proceeding. I would just like that to be added to the record to say that we would like to proceed today. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Grunwald. Okay. We've heard comments from those wishing or requesting that there be a postponement. We've heard from staff requesting that the application be heard. At this time, if there's no additional comment from the audience. Yes, sir. My name is Charles Hyde. I live at 929 Aurora here in Lexington. I'm almost a lifelong resident of Lexington. Very often, I travel from the west end of town to the south end of town. Speaking for those citizens, I would like to see this hearing go through, too. The Newtown Pike Extension has taken way too long, and we need to expedite the process. And I agree with your staff person that says it's been completely open and above board. Everyone has had plenty of opportunity to question, research, make their comments known. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'd like to make a comment. Being raised in Davis Bottom, a lot of black people are down there who are not educated enough to know what they should ask for. And I doubt very seriously that they've been represented fairly in this hearing. We're not saying that it shouldn't go through, but I doubt very seriously that the people who say they represent a neighborhood have really explained to all the black people down there. I drove down there yesterday. It's a shame what's happened to that neighborhood. People are buying up property, boarding it up, letting it deteriorate, hoping to force people out. And if you're going to rezone it, why don't you rezone it to mixed housing so you can provide some housing for black poor here in Lexington? That would be my request. Take this thing serious. It's an opportunity to do something great for the black community in Lexington, Kentucky. And I hope you do that. Thank you very much. Okay. At this time, we have before us, we can hear the case or we can acknowledge a request for a postponement. So whatever commission's pleasure. We have to take no action if we want to go forward with this at this time. Could I make a comment, please? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir, you have the opportunity to make a comment. My name is Chris Christensen, and I own a business nearby where this planned change is taking place. And I've attended all the meetings that the city's had at the community center right there in this area. And I think that this has been handled very much above board and that there's been very transparent. And those of us who ‑‑ and there was lots of representation from the neighborhoods when we were there. They provided food. They provided, you know, drinks. There was a lot of people that came from the neighborhood there to find out what was going on. The engineers and the city planning people were there, provided a lot of information, including printed information on exactly what was going on. So, you know, I don't know whether we're going to go ahead or not, but I don't think that lack of information is a good reason for not going ahead. Thank you, sir. Can we get your address? I don't think we got your address. 234 McCarty Court is my office, and my home is on 833 West Maxwell. Thank you, Mr. Christensen. Appreciate it. Okay. At this time ‑‑ Mr. Chairman, I want to close the commission. I attended three or four meetings. Zone change was never, ever mentioned. Period. Thank you, sir. Okay. At this time, we'll turn it over to the commission. If there's not a motion to postpone this, we'll have a full hearing on this today. Mr. Chairman, I would move that we postpone it at least for two weeks. I just think it's been our policy in the past. I can't ever hardly remember us turning down a postponement. I don't ‑‑ if it gives people an opportunity to find out what's going on, I don't think we have to do it a month, but we could possibly do it in two weeks. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Day. Seconded by Ms. Phillips. We have a motion for a two‑week postponement for MAR 2008‑16, Urban County Planning Commission. All those in favor ‑‑ yes, sir, Mr. Salih. Chairman, if I could just comment, your next meeting is actually three weeks from today. Thank you. It would be June the 12th. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Salih. We have a request to postpone this until our June 12th meeting for MAR 2008‑16. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. No. Okay. Can we just take roll call just to double check that? Ms. Whitman. Abstention. No. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Chairman, I have seven yes, two no, one abstention. Okay. Motion carries. We'll postpone to the June 12th meeting. Thank you, all. Okay. Any additional postponements or withdrawals? Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, my name is Brian Hill. Page 4, item 3, CMW Inc., Zomac Amendment and Mark Aker Properties. We would like to ask for a one-month postponement. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hill. Page 4, item 3, we have a request for a one-month postponement until the June 26th meeting for MARV 2008-7, CMW Inc., and this is for property located at 502 through 526 South Broadway, 320 Pine Street, and 319 Cedar Street. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to this request for a postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for postponement of MAR 2008-7 for one month to the June meeting. We have a motion and a second to postpone. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay. At this time, any additional postponements or withdrawals? Okay. At this time, I'll ask Mr. Salih if we have any qualified for abbreviated. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do believe some of the remaining items on your agenda today would qualify ordinarily for abbreviated hearing. The first item that may qualify, make sure I get the right page here, would be on page 9 of your agenda, item number 7, MAR 2008-17, a request by Estes Property No. 1 and No. 2 LLC. This is a proposed change in conditional zoning restrictions in a B3 highway service business zone for property at 3294 Richmond Road and 101 South Eagle Creek Drive. At this time, the staff would ask if anyone is present who wishes to object or to speak to this proposed rezoning of the Estes Property. Seeing none, Mr. Chairman, this can be our first abbreviated item today. Thank you, sir. The other item that may qualify is on the bottom of that same page, item number 8, MAR 2008-18, a request by Habitat for Humanity Incorporated for rezoning to a single-family residential R1E zone for property at 422 Michigan Street. Again, at this time, we would ask if anyone is present who wishes either to object or to speak to this proposed rezoning on Michigan Street. Seeing none, Mr. Chairman, this can be our second abbreviated item today. The other remaining item, item number 4, the staff does have a disapproval recommendation on dimensional variances. Okay. All right. I guess we'll begin with setup for the first abbreviated case? Yes, sir, and that will appear at the top of page 7. Okay. Thank you, sir. Page 9. Page 10. Page 11. Good afternoon, Chairman Vaughan, members of the commission. The first item for hearing today on your agenda is again on page 9, item number 7, and is behind tab 7 in your notebook. It is MAR 2008-17, a request by Estes Property No. 1, LLC, and Estes Property No. 2, LLC. And again, this is a zone change request to modify conditional zoning restrictions for 3294 Richmond Road and a portion of 101 South Eagle Creek Drive. The property is currently zoned B3 and was rezoned in 2004 to that designation. And let me orient you to the subject property. The parcel has frontage on Richmond Road. This would be the 3294. The second parcel also has frontage on Richmond Road but has a South Eagle Creek Drive address as it is a portion of this larger parcel. And in the vicinity, we are south of Manowar Boulevard and Richmond Road intersection, and South Eagle Creek has a traffic signal just to the southeast of the subject properties. And there is currently a right-in small access road that connects Richmond Road to South Eagle Creek here. Also in the vicinity is the library across the street, several office buildings, restaurants. The Walmart is on the other side of Manowar on Richmond Road, Kroger Shopping Center, and then the St. Joe East Hospital in this vicinity. And the aerial photograph shows the subject property fairly well. This portion of this parcel is on South Eagle Creek and then this property here on Richmond Road. And you can see the Sand Lake property to the rear and the existing veterinary clinic just to the north of the subject properties. And again, the property is currently zoned B3. A few photos of the parcel. Work is happening there. The applicant is proposing to remove a conditional zoning restriction that prohibits drive-thrus when they're associated with restaurants. And that restriction was put in place in 2004 by the Urban County Council when the parcel was rezoned from P1 to B3. That restriction was applied because of the concern about the intensity of land use on this parcel at the time due to its lack of direct access to Richmond Road, the impact of unrestricted B3 uses on the property, and also to minimize the impact of B3 on the adjacent residential. And on the comprehensive plan, you can see where medium-density residential exists here along South Eagle Creek. The subject property here is very near to the existing residential in that area. And the applicant is proposing on their development plan to show or is showing two restaurants with drive-thrus. The subject property is recommended for professional service land use by the comprehensive plan, although this is not all that relevant in a case where we consider conditional zoning restriction changes. But Article 6-7 of the Zoning Ordinance Subsection C does establish the guidelines for changing or modifying conditional zoning restrictions. Basically, the applicant has to show a finding that there has been an unanticipated change in the immediate area of an economic, physical, or social nature that occurred since the restriction was put in place. That would be 2004. And the applicant documented in their justification three such changes in this immediate area. First would be the Sand Lake property was rezoned in 2005 to B3 with no restrictions. Second, the Markham Gentry property just to the north was rezoned in 2006 from a B1 to a B3 with similar restrictions to this parcel. And then third, the Richmond Road Traffic and Safety Ordinance was amended in 2006 to alter the access to the subject property and surrounding lots. As we saw in the photograph, there is an existing access road that allows a right in and connects Richmond Road to South Eagle Creek, and the Traffic and Safety Ordinance will alter that and move that access point to the opposite side of the subject property. I'm sure you all are familiar with this, but it is shown on the development plan. The new access will be on the northern edge of the property rather than an access here on the south. Also, the Sand Lake Drive is proposed to be at the rear of the property, so this property will have much more vehicular access and circulation than when the rezoning was approved in 2004. And the staff would note that those three are major changes that do affect the economic and physical nature of the area and are certainly justification for modifying the conditional zoning restrictions for this property. The staff would also note that while drive-through windows will likely increase traffic in the area, we felt that the changes to the circulation allowed by the Traffic and Safety Ordinance will allow or mitigate that problem. The zoning committee and the staff are both recommending approval of this zone change, and for the reasons I mentioned earlier, and they're shown on your staff report and agenda, and this recommendation, as always, is made subject to the approval of the development plan and its certification within two weeks of this hearing. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have at this time. One other thing I didn't mention was the portion of 101 South Eagle Creek that is not proposed for rezoning will maintain that restriction for no drive-throughs, and again, that's the portion of the property that is not being rezoned or removed, the conditional zoning restriction is not being removed, is here adjacent to the residential uses. So, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ms. White. Any questions for Ms. White at this time? Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Taylor. How are you doing? The development plan for this zone change is on page 9, ZDP 2008-69. This is an amended preliminary development plan, so you will see a final again. As Tracy pointed out, the locations and everything, we'll just keep it simple. We have two restaurants provided here, two drive-throughs. Access points are the same as shown on the previous development plans for the overall Sand Lake area. Subdivision committee recommended approval of this development plan subject to nine conditions, all of the cleanup nature, so if there's any questions you have, I'd be happy to try to answer them. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Any questions for Mr. Taylor at this time? Thank you, sir. Petitioner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Rena Wiseman for the owner and the applicant. We basically agree with the staff and their conditions. Just for the record, I have the minutes of the changes that we cited in our justification specifically. First of all, the original application in 2004 when the prior owner requested the zone change with these conditions, and then the subsequent changes to the Sand Lake property, the adjacent Markham Gentry property, and the amendment to the Richmond Road ordinance. We'll put those in the record. In summary, when this property was zoned B3 in 2004 with those conditions, the entire area north of South Eagle Creek was still zoned R3. It was undeveloped, and it was all zoned R3. A small piece was AU, and then the property immediately to the northwest was zoned B1 with restrictions. And this property was also separated from the Glen Buick B3, which is not colored, but by that one-way entrance into South Eagle Creek, which is now going to be eliminated. So now at this point, we are surrounded by property, which is B3 without restrictions. That one-way road is going to be eliminated, so this property will immediately adjoin the car dealership. And those changes have occurred since 2004, so the nature of this development has changed in those past years. It is important to note that the piece that does adjoin the residential area is not being affected by this. And one of the reasons that these conditions were imposed in 2004 was the proximity of those residential dwellings, those townhomes. So we're not removing those with regard to that part of the property. So with that, we are in agreement with the staff's recommendation. We are in agreement with the conditions on the development plan, and we request your approval. Of course, we'll answer questions if you have them. Thank you, Ms. Wiseman. Any questions for Ms. Wiseman at this time? Okay, thank you. Staff, I guess you have any rebuttal or anything? Okay, good. We'll close, unless the petitioner has anything additional to add, we'll close this portion of the hearing and turn it over to the commission for discussion and or a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of MAR 2008-17 for the zone change for the reasons provided by staff. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve MAR 2008-17, Estes Property, located at 3294 Richmond Road and 101 South Eagle Drive, for the reasons provided by staff. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of ZDP 2008-69, which accompanies this plan with nine conditions as noted by staff. We have a motion and a second to approve ZDP 2008-69 based on the nine conditions provided by staff. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon. It's late. The next item on our agenda is MAR 2008-18, a request by Habitat for Humanity Incorporated. This is a zone change from an R2, which is the two-family residential zone, to an R1E, single-family residential zone, for approximately a fourth of an acre at 422 Michigan Street. And the subject property is located on the south side of Michigan Street. And Michigan runs south of Lexington Cemetery, but connects here to Whitney and runs by Charles Avenue and over to Georgetown Road to the east and then also continues over to Newtown Road. So, again, Michigan Street. And our subject property is on the south side, just in the bend of Michigan. Also in this vicinity, there are some commercial and more dense residential uses along Georgetown. The subject property, again, is R2, and the applicant is proposing R1E in order to develop two single-family residential units on the subject property. And in the aerial photograph, all of our maps are showing north, but this is kind of a view from the north. And the parcel is here, again, right in the bend of Michigan Street. And it does have, in the pictometry from earlier this or last year, it does show one residence on the property, but at signposting time, that unit had been removed. So, currently, the property is vacant. The applicant, with the two units they're proposing, that's a residential density of 8.55 dwelling units per net acre. And the comprehensive plan for this property does recommend medium-density residential land use, as it does for the rest of that neighborhood, with a few exceptions up on Georgetown. The definition for medium-density residential is, again, 5 to 10 dwelling units per net acre. So the applicant's proposal for two units on this property does fall within that recommendation. The staff noted in our report that the R2 zone does allow for two units on this parcel. However, in the form of a duplex, that would require some construction. In the form of single-family, the existing parcel does not meet the necessary lot frontage and lot size requirements of the R2 zone in order to subdivide it. So the R1E zone was thought by the staff to be an appropriate alternative to developing single-family in this area. And a majority of the neighborhood is developed in a single-family residential manner. So that is in keeping with the existing character of the neighborhood. The staff is recommending approval, and I believe the Zoning Committee also recommended approval of this request. And that is, of course, because it's in agreement with the comprehensive plan. And we are recommending approval subject to the, not development plan, but the preliminary subdivision plan associated with this zone change. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ms. White. Any questions for Ms. White at this time? Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. If you would turn to page 10, about midway down, item B, 2008-56P, Forest Hill Land Company subdivision, block H, lots 33 and 34. As Tracy spoke, this property is zoned R2, and they are asking for an R1E. This is a preliminary subdivision because at the time the streets are here, so we just want to show that we want to subdivide this into two lots. The committee, the subdivision committee, recommended approval with the 12 conditions. On number 12, it says discuss adjacent property driveway encroachments and side yard requirements. We can now put denote because we think with the removal of the house, it doesn't matter anymore. So the only one is going to be denote adjacent property driveway. Thank you, Ms. Colt. Any questions for Ms. Colt? So you're saying on note 12, change it to denote adjacent property? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. I would assume leave the encroachment. Yes, sir. Is that correct? Well, no. I'm sorry. It would be denote side yard requirements because the driveway has been removed. Okay. So change note 12 to say denote side yard requirements? Yes, sir. Is that correct? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Colt? Thank you very much. Is there a petitioner present? Yes, sir. Okay. What she said was the driveway had been removed and what she meant was that the house had been removed. Okay. Can we get your name, sir? My name is Mike Robbins and I'm here on behalf of Foster Rowland Incorporated. And the item number 12 says discuss the adjacent property driveway encroachment and side yard requirements. Okay. So she was saying that that has two parts, the driveway and the side yard requirement. But since the house had been demolished, there is no side yard requirement for the current building. There is a lady named Dora Lee who lives at 438 Michigan Street who has been using, who has her own driveway, but apparently there's a car that doesn't run sitting in that driveway. And she's been coming through the applicant's property to get to behind her car that doesn't seem to be running. And representatives from Habitat have tried on numerous occasions to contact this lady by telephone, have talked to her in person, and she doesn't seem to understand or doesn't want to understand that they own the land that she is trespassing on. At our meeting up in the conference room up on the seventh floor of the building over on Vine Street, you all had asked us to try and get this resolved and out of the way so it wouldn't have squabbles or whatever in front of you. But she's not here to oppose. We've done everything legally required to talk to her about this. We've offered her a driveway easement. But so it says to discuss the adjacent driveway, and that's what I'm doing. We are ready to comply with all of the other, well, with all, with all the conditions for approval, and I would like to request a motion for approval at this time. Okay, thank you, sir. Mr. Payne, you have a question? Yes, so how would you like to leave number 12? How would you like number 12 to read? Well, it, there's no, there's no, the, if I understood Cheryl Galt, she said she wanted 12 to simply read to denote that the, what the side yard requirements are, just to show a dashed line with an arrow saying, you know, 6-foot side yard, 10-foot side yard, whatever it is. So to simply denote on the drawing what the side yard requirements are, and because there's no reason to discuss them, and we've already discussed the adjacent property driveway, so if we could just change 12 to denote side yard requirements on the plat, then that would make me happy. What about the adjacent property driveway? That, to me, is, let me ask Rachel Childress, the attorney for Habitat, to come up here. She's had more on the ground. Mr. Salih, you, excuse me just a second. Mr. Salih, you have something? We were just going to put something on the overhead for you to consider about the driveway, possible driveway encroachment. Thank you, sir. And I believe the subcommittee, we had asked them to attempt to contact the property owner to see if she could cooperate, but basically that's an issue between property owners. Right. I'm Rachel Childress, not the attorney, the executive director for Lexington Habitat. We have attempted to contact the neighbor. She's not returned our phone calls or our notes left in the door. We are willing and continue to be willing to provide her an easement for the driveway. We don't intend to take away her driveway. We'll grant her the easement for the driveway at such time that she will sign the form to let us do that. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Childress. Yes, Ms. Whitman. Did I understand you to say that this driveway is actually on the subject? It's on our property. It encroaches 6 to 7 feet on our property. And she has a driveway, but it's blocked by a car? Well, the driveway that encroaches on our property contains this dead vehicle that I guess we should tell code enforcement about. Let me park. That is a land surveying issue, and we did survey it. And when we located the property owners, the iron pan is in the middle of what is supposed to be her supposedly legitimate driveway. But in addition to her supposedly legitimate driveway, half of which is on Habitat's property, she is also coming in much further in on Habitat's property and going around this derelict automobile and parking behind it. So I think what we're trying to say is the half of her driveway that encroaches onto Habitat, we're willing to give her an easement for that. Getting rid of the car that's keeping her from getting her other car behind it is her problem. Right. Well, yeah, we're not going to give her an easement to drive in the yard. Go around the car. Right. Just that half of the driveway that's on. So you essentially give her an easement for a portion of that to allow that to continue to be used. It's not a driveway to be there, not to drive in the yard. Okay. All right. Mr. Sally, you have a note on the overhead for us? Yes, sir. One that you could consider would be to denote that the adjacent property driveway encroachment will be resolved at the time of the final record plat. If the property is rezoned, that will allow time for the applicant and the neighbor to discuss the future of that possible driveway. Okay. It will be resolved at the time of the final record plat. Okay. But we also, again, have before us the zoning, the rezoning that we need to address today. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments from Petitioner? Thank you all very much. Staff, do you have anything additional you want to add? Okay. All right. We have MAR 2008-18, Zone Map Amendment for property located at 422 Michigan Street. The Zoning Committee recommended approval. Staff has recommended approval for the reasons provided at this time. The Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of MAR 2008-18. Second. We have a motion and a second for approval. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of Development Plan 2008-56P with the 11 conditions changing number 12 to denote or resolve at the time of the final development plan. Okay. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the Preliminary Development Plan 2008-56P with the 11 conditions, 12 conditions changing number 12 to read as noted on the overhead. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you. If you'll give us just a moment to set up for the next zone change. Yes, sir. Mr. Emmons, you have time to get set up. Why don't we take a quick five-minute break to give staff a chance to get set up. Our next zone change today is located on your agenda at the bottom of page 5, and the request continues on to page 6. It's three parts. We've got MARV 2008-9. The zone change request is at the bottom of page 5. Carried on to page 6, you can see there's also some requested variances, and then the Preliminary Development Plan associated with the zone change request. Before I get started on the staff presentation, the applicant would like to get up and withdraw portions of the variance requests as they are today. So I'll turn it over to the applicant. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Emmons. Fisher? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy. I represent the applicant on this, and as Mr. Emmons mentioned to you, we are requesting all of the front yard variance we had requested along Main Street, the side yard variance, and we are requesting a modification of the rear yard variance, which is along the Justice Real Estate property. We had requested from 12-foot yard to 8 feet. We're modifying that, requesting modification of 12 feet to 10 feet, so we're reducing that by half. Instead of 8 feet, we're going to ask for 10 feet instead of the 12-foot requirement. So we're withdrawing two of our variance requests. The only thing that would remain is our rear yard. Our rear yard is along the Justice property, Justice Real Estate building property. We're asking from 10 feet, excuse me, from 12 feet to 10 feet, a 2-foot variance in that yard, and I'll explain the reasons as I get into that because of handicap parking requirements. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. I'm going to turn to legal at this time. Do we need to take action on that at this point, this request for withdrawal? Yes. Okay. We have a request from the applicant to withdraw the front yard and I believe the side yard variance and then make a modification to the rear yard variance from 12 feet to 10 feet, a 2-foot variance. I guess we need to essentially take action on the withdrawal first. I think you could take one action accepting the withdrawal and the modification since it's all tied together and it's less of a variance than was advertised. So I think you could just take one action. Okay. All right. I'm going to turn it over to the commission at this time for a motion. Okay. Mr. Chair, I move for acceptance of the withdrawal of the requested variances to reduce the side yard. No, actually. I'm not through. To reduce the required front yard setback to adjust the rear yard setback from 12 feet to 10 feet. And the third one, you said another? Withdrawal number three. That was on three. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Emmons, I guess you can continue. Thank you. To kind of let you know how we're going to do it, I'll do the zoning report and then we'll have the staff report on the development plan and then followed up by the remaining variance report from the staff. Before I get started on the zoning presentation, I would like to go ahead and pass out to the commission the letters that we received. We have received a letter of one, two, three, a total from four different people. There's five letters. There's two letters from one person that are in opposition to this. I'll go ahead and pass those out to the commission now. Thank you, sir. This is a zone change request for a total of three properties that are actually located at 522, 528 East Main Street and 109 Kentucky Avenue. This is a zone change request from two zones, an R3 zone and a P1 zone to a B2A zone, which is one of our downtown framed business zones. If I can, I'll go through a quick PowerPoint presentation. If I can. Here we go. First, looking at the comprehensive plan, land use recommendation for the subject property. It is fairly small, so I zoomed in on Sam here. The comprehensive plan recommends the downtown master plan, as indicated by the purple. This property is located at the corner of Main Street and Kentucky Avenue. You can see the large area on the 2007 comprehensive plan that is recommended for the downtown master plan land uses and the more detailed recommendations of the downtown master plan. Looking at the proposed property and the existing zoning, the property itself is highlighted in yellow, the three properties. You can see a portion of the property where the existing building is along Main Street is zone P1. There's an existing parking lot that's zoned R3 and a single family home that is oriented towards Kentucky Avenue that is also zoned R3. Some of the surrounding uses, you have R3 zoning to the southeast. You have P1 zoning across Kentucky Avenue. A mixture of R4 and B1 zoning across Main Street and P1 zoning for the two properties that are right next to the Wellington Arms. I'm still trying to get used to the remote here. There we go. I'm not sure where to point it. I'm afraid of poking somebody's eye out. Where do I point this, Cynthia? There we go. This is a pictometry showing the subject properties. We've highlighted the existing structure that is currently vacant, the parking lot, the house that fronts along Kentucky Avenue. You can see the townhouses that are adjacent to it, the Justice Real Estate and some of the other properties. You can see just on the edge of this one of the office buildings that's directly across Kentucky Avenue. Looking at the downtown master plan, looking specifically at Recommendation 6, it recommends that we maximize density in our vacant sites. As you can tell, the underlying premise of the entire master plan is to combat sprawl by looking for infill opportunities in our underutilized and vacant land parcels. It goes on to talk about how that infill opportunities does need to be compatible and form a character with the existing neighborhood. The downtown master plan gave an example of that, of what a compatible infill development would be. This is actually located, the example that they gave was located along High Street next to the YMCA. You can see that there. I've got a few pictures of the subject property and the surrounding neighborhood. This is, you can see a corner of Kentucky Avenue and Main Street. This is the, you can see the existing vacant structure, the hedge around the parking lot. And you can go on and see in the distance the Wellington Arms. This is just a little bit closer where you can see the setbacks along, the front setbacks of the area. And this is looking from across Kentucky Avenue and you can see the vacant lot. Or you can see the portion that looks, appears to be vacant from the Justice sign forward is the area of the zone change. This is a good picture that shows you the existing Wellington Arms. And just behind that, the Woodlands building, which is about a nine story building at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Main Street. Going on looking up Main Street, you can see the Good Shepherd Church in the distance. And several of the other uses. Directly across Main Street, you've got the Barclay East Apartments. That's a building that I'm sure everybody is familiar with. Looking back and going a little bit further, this is a good view of the, of the office buildings that are directly across the street looking back at the subject property. And then looking at some of the landmark buildings that are in the general vicinity. This is the building that at, that's at the corner of Clay Avenue and Main Street, about a block away. It's got a mixture of resident, not residential, but mixture of commercial uses there. This has a picture where you can see, there are residences upstairs. Thank you. This is a picture that has, you can see the auction, McGee's Breakery, and then Hanover Towers, which is about two or three blocks away from the subject property. And these are just more pictures of the general area along Main Street. You can see the, in the distance with the tower there, that's the Fayette County School. And then getting back closer to the subject property, this is a close-up of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the Wellington Arms, which is in the same block at the end of the Woodland Avenue and Main Street intersection of this block, and then the Woodlands. The applicant has submitted for this, at our request, some sketches of what the development could appear to be. Now I do have to admit, these are some of the earlier sketches for the subject property, so they are not necessarily indicative of the setbacks on the revised development plan that will be presented to you today, but they do give an overall concept. And I think that's important because one of the things that the staff has struggled with is trying to get out what is the part of the overall concept and what's details, along with this application. And then finally, it would have essentially a front orientation towards Kentucky Avenue, with you can see Main Street and the Barclay East Apartments there at the intersection. And we do thank the applicant for providing these sketches because they do help kind of generate the idea and the concept for the development on something that's much easier to see in three dimensions than it is on a two-dimensional development plan. I believe that's my last slide. Looking at the zone change report, the staff at our last zoning committee, we had recommended postponement of this report because there were several things that we were still reviewing. And to be quite honest, this zone change request, probably more than any other, has had an immense amount of time at the staff level of discussing this zone change request. Whether it was or was not in agreement with the comprehensive plan, whether we should or shouldn't grant the request of variances, whether the B2A zoning was appropriate for the proposed zoning as we were. We looked closely at our comprehensive plan. We looked closely at the downtown master plan. And ultimately, we have come to the conclusion that we do believe that this is an appropriate zone change for this. And we do believe that it fulfills many of the recommendations of the 2007 comprehensive plan and the downtown master plan for this. For instance, the applicants are proposing between 10 and 12 units per acre. That would give a density of somewhere between 16 and 19 dwelling units per acre. That goes right in line with our maximizing residential densities within and near our downtown area. Another thing that the downtown master plan talks about is being able to keep the restoration of the street wall along that area. And along this portion of Main Street, you really have a hodgepodge of building heights. You've got the Hanover Towers. You've got the Woodlands, which are very tall. You've got the Wellington Arms, which is about five or six stories. And then you have several one-story, two-story, three-stories. You also have the Good Shepherd Church with its large cathedral that, although it's not several stories, it does add bulk to the streetscape. And much of that streetscape is also set back, as you notice from the pictures. And that's why we took so many pictures of looking kind of at the property from the other property so it kind of really looks at that front streetscape. We did spend a lot of time looking at this. And what we found is that the existing mixture along there is a mixture of uses. It's a mixture of architectural styles. It's just a good mixture along the Main Street corridor. And we feel that the proposed application with its proposed zoning and its proposed development would enhance that mixture along there. Therefore, we found it to be in substantial agreement with the 2007 Comprehensive Plan and the Downtown Master Plan because of the residential density of the proposed use and because of the existing mixture along there. The staff did feel that it was very important with the B2A zoning. The closest B2A zoning is the Woodlands, so it's one block away. We feel that it's very important to propose conditional zoning restrictions on this piece of property in order to make the B2A an appropriate zoning to meet to enhance our Comprehensive Plan vision for this area. Some of those things that, for instance, if you can see on the back of the revised staff report, we are proposing several use restrictions. The first one being that we would have a maximum building height of six stories. That's the size of the building that the applicant is proposing. The B2A zone would allow up to ten stories. And we do feel that ten stories would be too much on this corner, but we feel that six is the maximum height of the building that should be on this corner. We are also proposing a minimum of six residential units on the property and that if there is any commercial use of the property, that it would be contained within a mixed-use building. The staff feels that this is important. I don't want to, I don't want to, I want to make it clear the applicant is not proposing any commercial use. But as the staff, we are always looking at the B2A zoning as if the zoning were there and if this applicant, if things fall through and this proposal is not built, then we're still left with the B2A zoning. And we thought that it would be very inappropriate for essentially, say, something, a use such as a gas station or a typical one-story restaurant, like a McDonald's or something like that going in at this site. We think that would be very inappropriate at this site. So we've conditioned our, well, we've tried to fashion those uses so that we're not prohibiting many commercial uses such as a restaurant, but it would not be, it would have to be in a mixed-use building and there would have that minimum six residential dwelling units that would be proposed for the overall area. The reason why we chose six, that essentially gets you to about ten dwelling units per net acre and that's about medium-density residential. We felt that was kind of the, in a redevelopment scenario, we felt that was pretty much the minimum density that should go on this site. We are also proposing several prohibited uses. You can see on those, much more of a standard list of prohibited uses. We wouldn't want the display rental of automobiles. We wouldn't want this turned into a corner car lot. Minor automobile and truck repair, wholesale establishments, gasoline pumps, those things that we feel like would be inappropriate for this corner and that could become a nuisance to the surrounding neighborhood, we have recommended that they be prohibited. In the end, we are recommending approval of this zone change with the conditional zoning because we feel that the conditional zoning restrictions are appropriate in order to ensure greater compliance with our comprehensive plan and to protect the surrounding neighborhoods. If you have any questions for me about the zoning, I'd be happy to answer them. And of course, if at any time the Planning Commission wishes, we can pull any of our photos back up from the PowerPoint presentation. Other than that, I apologize. One exhibit that we had prepared that I forgot to point out. This is just an aerial of Main Street and the surrounding areas. We've got Main Street and Kentucky Avenue, Woodland Avenue, so this large structure here is the woodlands, the Wellington Arms, the subject property, the professional offices. As you go down through here, this is the church. And we have put a two-scale cutout of what the original size of the development, of the building proposed for this property is. We have not, we didn't cut this down. The building on the revised development plan is slightly smaller, but it's still, you'll see whenever the development plan is proposed, it still takes up a good portion, more than 50% of the total land area. If you have any questions for me, or about the zoning, I'd be happy to answer them. And of course, we'll be available throughout your hearing. Jimmy, I had one question. On restriction number three, where you say any commercial use of the property shall be contained within a mixed-use residential building, what governs that ratio? There would not be any ratio, but since the condition right above it with a minimum of six residential units, there wouldn't be any kind of ratio like we would have in our mixed-use zones. In our mixed-use zones. That was my question. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Eamons? Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you, sir. Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I'd like to direct your attention to page six, item C, ZDP 2008-59, the Bennett Vaughan Residential Development, which is the preliminary development plan associated with this zone change. Jimmy, of course, did an excellent job of orienting you to the property, and again, here is the subject property with the building footprint, Kentucky Avenue and Main Street. The applicant is proposing six stories, five-story residential. It's 43,400 total square feet within the residential. Those are ten units are being proposed, two per floor. You can see the access points. These access points will lead you into the front orientation of this building, into the parking, which is on the first floor. Here, the front yard along Main Street is, of course, you just heard them withdraw the variance request, and you can see they have modified this plan to reflect that intention. This revised plan does show a larger front yard than the previous plan. Here is an access easement, and this, too, was subject to a variance which they withdrew. This is designed to serve the adjoining property. Here is the variance that they've modified through here. Now, again, and of course, that picture is worth a thousand words that you saw the rendering. This was reviewed by the subdivision committee and recommended for referral. This was prior to submission of this plan. It was recommended for referral primarily at that time for concern about open space. They have met that concern, and we have a condition on the plan that they denote it. We do believe that they will meet it. They are proposing a rooftop open space, a garden. You saw from the rendering, if that is indeed what is built, those balconies qualify as open space, so staff is comfortable with that. The conditions for that were, should this plan be approved that you see on your agenda are standard. We do have to note that a consolidation plat shall be recorded prior to a final. That is necessary in these situations, as you all are aware, to avoid building code problems. We have also asked them, again, to denote open space and add some standard information to this plan. If you will look at number 12 on your agenda, please. It states, discuss compliance with the parking and orientation to the street. That relates, again, to the original plan in this area here. When they were crowding the street, they had their parking in the building. That was, at the time, one of their justifications for trying to do this. Now the parking that they're providing is 30 spaces. The B2A zoning does not require that much. In fact, it rewards you and has a much smaller requirement of seven spaces based on what they are proposing. Obviously, they did not consider that adequate for their purposes, and we at the time want to discuss the impact of that proposed parking and that orientation. Since the new plan has been submitted, and I would note that we have met with the applicant on several occasions and made a lot of progress with them, particularly along those Jimmy alluded to, all the staff discussion, and there were a lot of concerns expressed about the orientation to the street, pedestrian facilities, certain architectural and building details that we felt were important. And through these meetings and through this new submittal, we have crafted for you a new revised staff recommendation on the pink sheet, number 12, and that is a new recommendation and it addresses, we believe, these, allows us and addresses the issues that have been described to you about the orientation to the street, the parking and those facilities. And again, this is a preliminary, you will see a final development plan. So staff is comfortable with the progress we've made and the opportunity to deal with these issues. And we also took the liberty of adding the number 13, which, of course, is addition of conditional zoning restrictions should you adopt those. And if you ---- Mr. Martin, can I ask you, if you could read note 12, it's a little blurry. I mean, if you just read it out. Oh, yes, sir. I will be happy to. Denote, details concerning the perimeter fencing in front yards, landscaping, pedestrian facilities, and first floor building features shall be reviewed at the time of final development plan approval. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Martin? Thank you. Petitioner? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy. I'm very pleased today to be representing the applicants, Hugh Bennett and Roland Vaughn. I do have a handout, and Mr. Charles Hyde, who's a planner who assists me, is handing that out as we're speaking here. With me today is Hugh Bennett on the second row, who is the ---- both the designer and one of the developers. Roland Vaughn is also an architect, the other applicant. And Roger Ladenberger is here, who's our landscape architect. And Bill Justice, the owner of the property, is on the third row with me. And I think it's important to note that Hugh Bennett and Bill Justice plan on living here. So Hugh, in his capacity as resident, will be overseeing the developer and the designer on this and making sure that everything is correct. They want to live here and have, obviously, a good development, which we think we have to present to you today. We've made some changes in this plan since you saw it at the subdivision committee stage and zoning committee stage. I think that was about seven weeks ago. And the changes have been in response to concerns that were voiced at that meeting. And the first one is at our ---- at the subcommittees along Main Street, we had a setback of four feet. We were requesting a variance. And at that time, some concern was voiced about it being too close to Main Street and how we related to other buildings in that area. I think Mr. Aitken, you mentioned that, and Ms. Phillips mentioned that as well and some others perhaps. We went back and looked at that and have brought that back to, I think, we're at 15.8 feet. It's 15 and a fraction feet, whatever it is, which meets the setback requirement. So we don't need a variance in this zone. And what that does, that puts us, I think, we're farther back than Wellington Arms. We're farther back than Host Communication down here. We're a little closer than the dentist office right here. We're probably a little farther back than the Barclay East Apartments, which are across the street from us. We're not the closest. We're not the farthest back, but we're sitting in that range of setbacks. And there was also a concern, I think, from Ms. Schnabel of the interior shop right up here with Mr. Justice's office is here, but Ms. Schnabel's interior is here, about visibility for turning out. And so that deals with any visibility issues along Main Street as well. So we are, Mr. Bennett has cut every foot he can out of this, and we've got it, instead of four feet from Main Street, we've got it 15.8 feet from Main Street. So that's 11 feet farther back than we had it when you all looked at it at the subcommittee stage. Similarly, we have removed the necessity for a variance along the sideline. We actually didn't need a side yard variance, because we met the side yard requirement. It was the property perimeter screening variance. We had asked for a foot or two off, but with the additional space, we can meet that right here on the side. The only variance we are still requesting is the variance along what is our rear yard line, which is adjacent to Bill Justice's office. Now, the existing building that's on the property is 6.8 feet from the property line. We are asking to be 10 feet from the property line. So we are actually going to be farther back from the property line than is the existing building. Mr. Justice's property, of course, this is his property, so we're asking for a variance along his line, which he is totally agreeable with here, since he's here in the audience and is the owner and approved the application. So it only impacts him. What this does for us, the particular reason we want to keep that two feet is these two handicap accessible parking spaces out front along Kentucky Avenue. As you know, we have to have more spaces for those. One has to be van accessible, so we have to have that striped off area in between, which has to be a certain width. Our spaces have to be a certain width. We need to still get that landscaping in. So that's the real reason we're still requesting this two feet along here, plus it gives us more landscape room around Kentucky Avenue. But it only impacts the Justice property back there. So that's the only variance we are still requesting, which is that one right there along that property line as it relates to Mr. Justice's property right there. So I'm trying to sort of put that in context. I have a number of photographs showing the other buildings, which I'll show you if I need to on that, but we are farther back, as I mentioned, than a number of these buildings in this area in particular. As far as height goes, we're six stories, counting our parking height. We have one floor of parking and five floors of residences above that. In relation to other buildings, that puts us at about the same height as Wellington Arms. Wellington Arms may have fewer stories, but it's the same height with just the design of the buildings there. As Mr. Emmons mentioned, the Woodlands, which is just on the next corner, one block away from this, is nine stories. The Hanover Towers, which is down at, of course, the Hanover intersection, is also nine stories. So we are well below their heights. Obviously, we're higher than some of the other buildings in the area, but again, we're in that range, so we're not the highest. We're not the lowest building in the area on this property. The ... I'd like to show you the rendering of this right now, if I can get it up on ... This is similar to the one Mr. Emmons showed you, except I think we're being a little more accurate with the setbacks that we now have. The design will have the ... We're showing the greater setback along Main Street. The entrance is along Kentucky Avenue. We have a sidewalk coming down Main Street to give access into here. An important feature of each of these is the outdoor living spaces for each unit on this property. We're going to have five stories of residential units. We're going to have 10 or possibly 12 units on here, probably two units per floor, one in the front, one in the back on each of these. Each will have its own balcony space, open-air area, which we think is an important feature because I'll discuss the demographic we're trying to reach here on this property. The entrance is on Kentucky Avenue. I want to discuss that a little bit. There's some discussion, should our entrance be on Main Street, should it be on Kentucky Avenue? Our entrance is on Kentucky, and there's a very important practical reason for that. I think it's probably the same as the other buildings along here on Main that have entrances on the side street rather than on Main Street, which includes the one right next door to us, the dentist building. I call it the dentist building. It's 540 East Main Street. All the dentists are in there. I've spent a lot of time there myself. The one down at the next cross street, there's a name for that building. It's a red brick building, and the Ross Tarrant Architects building, which is down at Lafayette intersection. The other one's at Park. Those buildings, all these properties have the same characteristic. I think they have a lesser frontage on Main and a deeper frontage along the side street. As you all know, especially doing elevators here, if we're having an entrance off of Main Street, we've got a choice to have the elevator right here, which means everybody's got to have a hallway on every floor going down the side, taking up all the windows along that side to get to the unit in the back. That would destroy the one entire side of each of these units down here, or we'd have to have a long, narrow hallway going down the front down to the elevator unit here, which of course would interfere with this unit down here and create a hardship probably for the people coming back here. You have to have the elevator in the center of the building. When you put it in the wide dimension for efficiency, and so we don't have to have an additional hallway on one floor or on each floor to get to the back unit. That's the same setup that the one next to us has, the Kentucky Avenue. I'll just show you a couple photographs of those. This first photograph shows the dentist building right across the street. This is the Kentucky Avenue frontage there. You can see the front door is on Kentucky, and they have the same sort of dimensional issues we have. They're deeper on Kentucky than they are on Main Street. Going to the second photograph, that's the front of the dentist building along Main Street. Going to the third building, I think they call that the impact building, that's down at the next intersection. I think it's Old Park and East Main Street again. They have their main entrance on the side street for the same reason, I assume, and the same reason, too, with the stairwells. We can't have, for fire code purposes, our stairwells have to be centrally located as well because there are limits on the number of feet you can have from a part of the building to get to the emergency stairwell. We have those in the center as well, and that would be an issue about the entrance. So the point I'm making is, number one, there's a practical reason for having the entrance, the main entrance on Kentucky Avenue, and secondly, that we are consistent with other buildings of the same lot dimension up along Main Street on having our entrance on Kentucky Avenue. As we said, we've added, since you last saw us, the sidewalk along Main Street there to give that pedestrian orientation in there so you don't have to come in and go through the parking area to get in the building. You've got a pedestrian walkway. You can have from Main Street. Just in general here, as Mr. Emmons mentioned to you, we're requesting a zone change to the B2A zone. This lot right now is split zone P1 and R3. This will be an upscale condominium development, and we feel that there's a definite need for this in downtown. We haven't had similar units built in this area since the Woodlands was built, which I don't know, was that 20 years ago, something like that? Seems like just yesterday, but it was about 20 years ago that Woodlands was built. This is designed to bring empty nesters back downtown from the suburbs, and I'm going to talk about the downtown master plan in a minute. It's ideally located because we're within walking distance of downtown, Woodland Park, the Ellsford neighborhood, the Woodland Triangle, Clay Avenue, all those sorts of things. Once you get here, people can live here, can walk out, don't have to use their car, can go to restaurants and that sort of thing and all the shops in this area, which is what we have been pushing in the infill concept, encouraging. Within one block of this, I counted six zones we have. We have R2, R3, R4, P1, B1, and B2A zoning within a block of this, and we've got a seventh zone, B4, which is pretty close. This is truly a mixed-use area down here. We've got professional offices. We've got high-density residential across the street from us at the Barclay East. We've got behind us on Kentucky Avenue. We've got retail shops and restaurants along Main Street, so it truly, as I said, truly is a mixed-use area. Architecture is mixed-use on this well, too, which I think is important. It's important to have a variety of architecture types in your downtown. We have the old IBM building two blocks down, which is identifiable as an IBM building. We have the dental offices across Kentucky from us. We've got the Barclay East Apartments, which are their own unique architectural style. We have the Justice Real Estate building, which will remain. We have residential townhouses to the south, which I think were built in the 90s, that type of construction. We mix in with the mix of architectural styles here in downtown, and we feel the residents here will support the commercial and residential uses here in downtown. I do want to discuss for a second the Comprehensive Plan. As the staff has mentioned, they feel, and we agree, of course, totally that we are in substantial agreement with the Comprehensive Plan. On page two of my handout, or page one, excuse me, right after the cover sheet, I just have some excerpts of the goals and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan. I'm not going to put you to sleep by reading all of them. Just want to hit some highlights of the goals and objectives here. On page one, goal eight is to create strategies that enable and encourage appropriate infill and redevelopment of established developments and neighborhoods. Goal 12 is to ensure the desirability, diversity, and vitality of downtown, which I think, again, we do. Goal 13, objective A, is to offer sufficient choice of decent and safe housing for citizens of all income levels in all areas of Lexington. And I firmly believe that. As you all know, I represent Faith Community Housing Foundation, and you have been assisting them when you recommended approval of some zone changes, which is to allow new, good housing for low-income people, especially single-family detached, which need bedrooms for children. That's an important element of downtown. And I think it's just as important to have a unit such as this to bring empty nesters back downtown with their participation, their buying power, and their participation in downtown activities as well. We need all of that downtown, and it's one of the wonderful things about Lexington is that we do have that downtown. Goal 13, objective F, is to provide land for residential uses of all types in sufficient amount and location within the urban service area to adequately meet the projected population growth of Fayette County. It's interesting because I'm before you today advocating this development, not a 10-acre luxury subdivision out on the fringe of the urban service area. This is what this community, including you all, have advocated, and our comprehensive plan has pointed for, and this is a development community listening to you, listening to those goals and objectives, and coming down to you with a development such as this. So I'm not arguing up there for the 10-acre lot subdivision on the fringe of the urban service area. Goal 14, objective F, is to encourage new residential developments to exceed minimum threshold densities. Just don't build as few as you can. We want to have some density downtown. And the final goal, 19, objective J, is to encourage and enhance alternatives to motorized modes of transportation, including biking and walking. And people down here in this development, I think, will be doing a lot of walking. I'm not sure if they're going to do a lot of biking, but they're going to be doing a lot of walking down here, hopefully some biking too. And I want to talk about the downtown master plan because as I read the plan, I know Hugh and Bill had been planning this for a while before the downtown master plan was done, and I thought it was remarkable how we came in for the type of development that is advocated in the downtown master plan. On page 2 of my handout, my numbers are on the bottom right, but this page 2 is also page 101 of the downtown master plan. It discusses that the draw area, in other words, the people who the authors of the plan hope to bring downtown, 69.8% of them already live here in Lexington and Fayette County. That's sort of the type we're aiming this for. On the next page, which is page 102 of the downtown plan, it mentions that younger singles and couples are a big group, but so are empty nesters and retirees, and there's a market for downtown. And on this middle column, it says, however, new construction should concentrate on higher density housing types, which support civic and commercial urban development and redevelopment most efficiently, and include, as I highlighted, for sale lofts and apartments, which these are. Our condominiums were for sale apartments, essentially, on this. But the key of this, I think, is on the next page, which is why I thought it was so interesting how well we coincided with this. The plan, as you all know, you've read it, discusses the different market segments of people that are coming down. They put these interesting tags on the groups that they're going to get, but the biggest market they find for downtown is these young, childless, urban professional types. That's the biggest. But the second biggest is the empty nesters. And down in that first column, I'm just going to read this one part for you, because I think it hits the nail on the head. It says, the next largest market segment is composed of older households, empty nesters, and retirees. A significant number of these households have children who have grown up and moved away. Another large percentage are retirees with incomes from pensions, savings, and investments in Social Security. The largest potential market for downtown Lexington in this segment are what they call affluent empty nesters and middle class move-downs, predominantly empty nest couples, many of whom lived in downtown locations in their youth, who are likely to be attracted to appropriately designed housing in a vibrant downtown. Additional significant empty nester markets are, I like these titles they give them, the Social Register, Nouveau Money, Postwar Suburban Pioneers, and Active Retirees. I hope that I will be an active retiree as opposed to an inactive retiree. In other cities, these households have been among the first to move into downtown units and, listen to this, particularly once larger and more amenity-oriented condominiums have become available. That's exactly what we're providing here. We're providing, in this development, a larger and amenity-oriented condominium for people that are available. I want to discuss this a minute because there's been some discussion about, well, should we have commercial in this building? Should this be a mixed-use building? I think this illustrates that there are different segments that are targeted by downtown. When I first looked into this, this is in the mixed-use area downtown. As I read the downtown master plan, it said that it's a mixed-use area, but not every building had to be mixed-use. I want to make sure I was reading that right, so I called Harold Tate, and Harold confirmed that and said, yeah, it's a mixed-use area, but not every building has to be mixed-use. That's right. You're fine. It makes sense because when you're 25 or 35, it may seem to be an exciting thing, a good thing, to live on top of a Starbucks or a bar or a restaurant or a shop. Those people enjoy that type of activity 24-7, but when you're 55 or 65 or 75, things change a little bit. You may want to enjoy the downtown vibrancy, but you may not want it 24-7. You may want it 7-7, or you may want it 8-6 or something like that. For the segment we are going for here, having a commercial use in this building may be seen as a detriment instead of a positive. There are some other practical aspects. If you have a coffee house, restaurant, bar, the outside area, the patio dining, which is another word for the smoking section, is the smoking section, and it would interfere with the use of the balconies for the open space above that for the people here. So there are some practical reasons that we don't have mixed-use. I don't know really if that's an issue with anybody, but we don't have mixed-use proposed in this building, and that's for those practical reasons, and because there are different market segments here, and different segments have different preferences, and we think we need to have an option for people who prefer the way we are presenting things here. It's good to have mixed-use buildings, but it's not perhaps good to have mixed-use building in every building here downtown. That's why we're doing residential on this. The staff had a concern that if the use were ever changed, that we would not lose the residential component of this, and they have proposed those conditional zoning restrictions to you, and we are in agreement with those conditional zoning restrictions, and we understand where they're coming from, and we fully agree with those. The other elements of the downtown master plan I'll just go for real quick on page six of my handout. It, of course, talks about infill and talk about how infill is an appropriate use of infrastructure. As you all know that, I won't preach to the choir on that one anymore, and on page seven, the recommendation four is to increase residential development downtown, and down at the bottom, it says they talk about these units should vary in size, program, and price point to attract a diverse group of residences to the downtown area, and again, that's just what we're doing here, and again, I thought it was pretty remarkable that the concept that was come up, which was come up with during the same time the downtown plan was being formulated does jive so closely with what the downtown plan is advocating for this area. The last one I had was to maximize density in vacant sites, which, of course, we're doing as well. I think I've dealt with most of the issues here. We do have supporters here, and I've got another exhibit. I do know we have some opponents here who have concern about the property behind us on Kentucky Avenue, but I just want to point out these are people we've contacted or have expressed to us orally in writing. I do have two letters in the back of my handout from two property owners, and I have a petition which I'll hand out. This is the only copy I have. I'll start it over here, and we have other people that Bill and Hugh have talked to to express their lack of opposition or support for this, and we've colored them in in green on this overlay. You can see the blue is our property here. The green is, of course, the Barclay East over here and Church, the dentist and old host property here. Wellington Arms and the Woodlands over here have either not expressed any through discussions not expressed any opposition or support for this development. I know we have concerns over here with the townhouses or the hand resident of the townhouse there. I would point out I know there'll be more discussion about it. We are 15 feet back from our property line at that point. The side yard requirement in R3 is only 5 feet. The side yard requirement in P1 is 12 feet. I don't think there is a side yard requirement in B2A, yet we are 15 feet back from that property line. We have our building, we have a driveway, we have a green area, we have a retaining wall in that 15-foot area, and on the other side there's another driveway and I know there's a patio. There'll be some discussion about it, so our building's probably at least 30 or more feet from that building. I know there are concerns about a patio, which is next door, but this is the downtown area. I think the patio is visible from other higher buildings in the downtown and we can't assure anybody that a patio or a backyard won't be visible from a neighboring building and I don't think that's an assurance we can make anywhere in downtown. I know that's a concern and I know they will voice that concern to you. But in conclusion, we agree, we feel very strongly with the goals and objectives of the comp plan, which puts us in the downtown master plan area. We feel very strongly we agree with the downtown master plan. This is infill, which I won't dwell on that anymore. It's infill, which is important to this community. We are catering exactly to a target audience, which the downtown master plan has said is a very important target market to bring downtown. And we are supplying, as many people will have to supply, we're supplying one of those niches of people, different market segments, which the downtown master plan has identified, which we're wanting to bring downtown. We thank you very much. We hope you'll vote in favor of this and we'd be happy to answer any questions you all may have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Any questions for Mr. Murphy at this time? Ms. Phillips? You've not mentioned in your presentation anything about the historic property that's located on Kentucky Avenue that's a separate address. Can you talk about that property and your plans for the structure on that? Is that the one at 109 you're talking about? Well, that is not in the historic district. It is, as I understand, it has a, what is that, a perma stone facade, which was added later on, which is not the original facade of that building. That building will be removed, as will the other one. About 10 years ago or so, there was a big hearing, set of hearings, about the Aylesford Historic District. This property was specifically not included in the Aylesford Historic District. There was a lot of discussion about it. It was not something that was just not discussed at all. It was discussion about this property and neither 109 Kentucky nor the one on Main Street were included in the historic district. That's a separate decision that Mr. Justice has made, that the buildings will be removed, but he has every right to do that because they're not in the historic district. We think that there's nothing in particular historic about that building, seeing as the facade has changed, the perma stone exterior and that sort of thing. I would point out that that building is, we believe, one foot off the property line. Our building will be back at least 15 feet from the property line. That's closer right now than our building will be on the property. Thank you. Mr. Aitken. Mr. Chairman, Dick, would you describe for me, I mentioned to you I think at the earlier committee meeting, about the setbacks in the corridors, character. And I can't quite tell from your aerial photograph because of the obliteration of the green, but how does it compare to the dentist's office, the church down the street, the woodlands and so forth, as far as setback from Main Street? Yeah, I've got some photographs on that I can show you here. I was wondering, in looking at one of the staff graphics, I mean, you could almost draw a line, I guess, over that block and show its relative setback to Wellington Arms and others. So, I mean, that might be a better graphic. I think it's a little bit different than what we see there on the aerial. I'll show you these photographs, then you can get that graphic up, too. But this is the East Main looking toward downtown. And here we're, this is the dentist building here. Here's Kentucky Avenue coming in. Here is Wellington Arms. Here is the woodlands. Now, we're going to be a little farther back than Wellington Arms. We're estimating Wellington Arms is probably, I don't know, 10, 12 feet on that. We're going to be 15 feet back. And you see a little bit here, the Barclay East, I think we're going to be maybe equivalent to that. If you can go to the next slide, that's a little closer one of Wellington Arms. They have a pull-in there. You can get a car in obliquely, I think. You can't get it in straight. You can get it in obliquely. A car is about 18 feet long. You can't get it straight, but you can tilt it. So we're thinking it's, I don't know, 12 feet, something like that, through Wellington Arms. Well, there's the Hanover Towers. If you go to the next one, yeah, we're going down to Hanover here. I just wanted to show you this. The Hanover Towers is closer than we have. I think it's about maybe 10 feet. And you all may recall this lot at the corner of Ashland and East Main Street. Some of us were before you on that one, too. I was the attorney. He was the architect. Roger was the landscape architect for Tyler Pruitt when we got a zone change on that property about a couple years ago. That property is going to be 10 feet off of Main Street. I checked the development plan, and the development plan is 10 feet on that one. Going on to the next one here, well, that's Wellington Arms. That shows you the car parked obliquely in the circle there in the front of that. And going on to the next one, we've got the, that's looking back the other way. We're going to be closer than the Justice Real Estate Building. We're going to be closer than this building. But here is the Dennis Building, which is probably 20, I'm guessing 23 feet, something like that back. And then next to that right here is Host, which is, you can see, closer to Main Street than the Dennis Building. So we're probably going to be pretty much in line with Host, I'm calling it Host, I'm not sure they're still there, Host Building right there. And I think I've got a couple more pictures there. Yeah, that's Barclay East, which we think is about the same, about 15 feet there. And then going on, we've got, again, Hanover Towers, which I think is about 10 feet. And then that's another one, Hanover Towers, about 10 feet on that. So we don't have all of them there, but we're, as I said, we're in a range. We're not the closest and we're not the furthest back, but we're well within the range of what you've got there. I think it would have helped if we had had that sort of graphic to show us how that corridor is unfolding, you know, because I think it's extremely important. Thank you, Mr. Aden. Any further questions for Mr. Murphy? Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. I believe we have some folks wishing to speak. We'd like to, for those that are wishing to speak in favor of this, please come forward. Okay. Seeing none, and folks wishing to speak in objection, please come forward. Thank you. Excuse me. Did you have anything for the? In favor, if there was someone that wanted to make a comment in favor. Okay. For me to speak now? Sure. If you would like to come forward. I was getting pulled in another direction. I'm sorry. My name is Bill Justice. Thank you for your attendance and your service to this community. I own the property that is the subject of this discussion. I also own the property that's referred to as the Justice Real Estate Building at 518 East Main Street. I've been there since 1985, and I absolutely love this location. I think it's wonderful for downtown, but it's also good for the Woodland Park, Chevy Chase, the Triangle, Clay Avenue. I have remarked at what Richard's been saying, and I live in a relatively large house on five acres, and although it may not show, I'm rapidly approaching 60 years old. Things are changing, but I'm not going to retire. I'm going to have Justice Real Estate and the Justice Real Estate Building for a long time to come, but my life is changing. I'm going to downsize, and I'm going to live here. We as a community and as a government decided we weren't going to expand the urban service area. I'm grateful for that. I sell horse farms. I'm not a developer. I'm grateful for that, but at the same time, we encouraged infill development. We encouraged a vibrant downtown. We said that we were against sprawl. This is a wonderful development that we have to send a message to this entire community that we're in support of. I drove to Portofino's last night. It took me 20, 25 minutes, so I told Hugh this morning that I could probably pay for this condo in about three years with $4 gasoline prices. When Hugh came to me, he wanted me to sell these lots and this building. I said, I don't want to sell it. I got excited about it, realizing I was approaching 60 pretty soon. The more he talked, the more he talked, the exciteder I got. We're all here. I've been a community business leader here for a number of years, and I would ask for your complete support and the message that you send to this community. Folks, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you, Mr. Justice. Is there anyone else who would like to speak in favor? Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, my name is Rush Scott. I live at 113A Kentucky Avenue. My home will back directly up to the proposed building. If we could show some of the pictures first, I would appreciate it. While Mr. Emmons, his presentation did have pictures, there is not any representation from my side of the property. An accurate description has not been given of how this will affect my property. You can see right here, my house is covered in trees, and right next door, that's the building that will be torn down. Could we do the next one? Thank you. This is from my front yard. You can see the sky, lots of open space. This is the view from my patio right now. Where this house will be, there is an eight-foot wall that's going to be instead. You can see the roof of the house. You won't be able to see any sort of sky from where this picture is taken. Then, again, this is the open view of my patio from the side of the house. They are saying that the building will be 15 feet back, but along the edge right there of that grass, there is an eight-foot wall that will be built, a wall that has no openings. It is just a tall wall. This is the only entrance to get to the back of my house to where I park. It's difficult enough getting in and out of it because it is small. The grass is run over every day. There will be a wall, a very large wall right there. Those are all the pictures I have. My home is approximately 20 feet tall. You can clearly see the sky, the beautiful view. My hope was that these pictures will give you an idea of what it will be like to have an 80-foot structure right next to a 20-foot home. In addition, I essentially paid $25,000 or $30,000 more for the extra lot that is my patio on my home. I do spend most of my time there during the summer and when it's nice outside, maybe seven months a year when I'm actually home. The proposed building will ruin the enjoyment of my outdoor space, not only with the construction, but by putting in a formidable-looking building in a neighborhood largely residential of two and three stories, obviously with the exception of Wellington Arms, which is on the same block. This building is extremely out of character with the Aylesford Neighborhood Association. In addition to my opposition of the structure in general, the construction and building will cause my trees to die because of the lack of sunlight. It will also ruin my right to use my property, specifically the patio, for a minimum of the proposed 14 to 16 months of construction. Moving on for the patio a little bit further, the building that has been proposed will align with my property in such a way, and I think you saw that from the pictures, that the terraces will look directly onto my house. They said it will probably have 10 tenants or 10 separate units. That could mean a lot more, but just 10, that means five on my side. Anytime I have five different sets of tenants, that if they're using their outdoor space, they're looking directly at me, and I live by myself, which is kind of scary also. One of my primary concerns is that my house is on a slope from this area. My wall that you saw is eight feet tall. Theirs will be five feet tall, which is a property difference of 13 feet. Their property is 13 feet higher than mine. Obviously, this season has been a great indicator of the rain that we've had, and any sort of water runoff will go directly to my property. I'm on a slab foundation, and this water runoff is definitely a problem, and it's a huge concern for which I do not have an answer and have not heard of any type of solution. Air conditioning units, I haven't heard of where they're going to be, but will probably be on my side of the property, since the other side will be on Main Street and is where the outdoor living space on the roof will be. Outdoor lighting shining directly into my house, and garbage pickup. I've heard that we might have some sort of compactor inside. And again, I haven't heard for sure about that, but garbage pickup, again, will be on my side, right next to my house. And do you have any questions for me? Thank you, Ms. Scott. Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Scott? Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Joe Scott. I'm Rush's dad. Rush and I, and my wife, Patty, we've lived downtown, in the heart of downtown, since 1974. We're dwellers of downtown. We're used to this kind of stuff, so we're not here griping just for general principles. We also live next door to Transylvania, and I've been battling them for the 34 years I've been living over things that they try to do. Rush is a single professional who is working in her first job. She's living in her first house, and out of the blue, a development shows up that is going to build this thing, that is going to be looking directly, at least five of them are going to be looking into her house. It is to one of the comments that Mr. Murphy said, is that they didn't, the balconies, they didn't want smoking to interfere with the open space on the balconies of this building. Well, this building and its balconies are interfering with the open space that we enjoy, that Rush enjoys at this property. So all the talking that's been going on today has been focused on Main Street. None of the pictures the staff or Mr. Murphy showed you showed us the effect of what's happening to us directly. So there is somebody getting caught under the wheels of this machine, and we think the Zoning Commission can take some steps to remedy this thing to some extent. This thing is right on top of us, and we think that it should not be so close. One other comment is the conditional restrictions that the staff is putting on the property. Well, earlier today we were here having some conditional restrictions taken off another piece of property. So another day, another dollar, there will be somebody else here perhaps asking for the same thing. So the B-2A is a disaster to us. All the potential uses it has has a direct impact on us, if nobody else. A big point was made about how many people are not opposing this thing or are supporting it. Well, the people who have a financial investment are all here in favor of it. Aylesford's not for it. I'm not aware of any of the other neighbors who have expressed support for this. I want to call your attention to the case review, some of the language that is used, because I think I'm not going to go into our objection and repeat it to you, because I'm sure you will have read it. But there seems to be a diversity of opinion about what the B-2A and what the mixed use is and what ought to go on this property. There doesn't seem to be a zone that really fits. The B-2A seems to be one that is being shoehorned, and I don't think it's one that should apply. We feel the mixed use, pedestrian friendly, the kind of neighborhood that this is around here. Main Street's got some crazy stuff on it, but all around it is Aylesford and residential and the pedestrian friendliness, those kinds of things this building does not have at all. We think that the property should blend in with the neighborhood. It should be complimentary instead of steamrolling over the neighbors. It is our request today that the proposed zone change be denied. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Any other comments from the audience? Hi, my name is Amy Clark, and I live at 628 Castle Road. And first of all, I'd just like to thank everyone, both the members of the commission and the petitioner, who have put a lot of time and care into this very ambitious project. And obviously, it's important to all of us. I'm here principally to add my voice to those of our good neighbors in Aylesford who have sent you a letter requesting, and I would request that you address their concerns from the letter in your deliberations. I don't know if you each have a copy or if there's one that's floating by. I think the letter was circulated. There was one. Okay. Well, then, I'll just read you bits of it. Essentially, what they're doing is addressing its presence, the presence of the proposed project in an infill and redevelopment area, how well it fits in with neighboring properties. Concerning the street orientation, the primary wall faces Kentucky rather than Maine. Admittedly, there are two precedents. The 540 East Main Office Building, I think this is the one referred to as the dentist, fronts on Kentucky, despite its address, and one block east, the Blue Grass Impact Office Building at 570, likewise fronts Old Park. While both office buildings orient to side streets, both have ground floor occupancy. Both have extended setbacks that include green space, and both are no greater than three stories in height, features neglected in the proposed design. So I would summarize that. It's turning a cold shoulder to Main Street, this proposed design. The second point in the letter addresses a four-foot setback variance, and the Petitioner has removed most of the setback variances. Some of what they have to say, just the same, is quite important. They're asking whether it's a pedestrian-friendly design to go on our Main Street in Lexington. They talk about, well, four-foot setback variance. The only existing structures within blocks of the proposed site that have such reduced setbacks are retail businesses around Walton and Clay, and these exhibit architectural features that accommodate pedestrians in the streetscape. And as I said, the setback objection is no longer pertinent, but the architectural features accommodating pedestrians, I think, are quite significant. They offer open balconies, canopies. Their primary walls are greater than 10% glass. The very architectural features promoted and itemized in Article 15.7 for infill development. These retail spaces are, in fact, prime examples of the pedestrian-friendly streetscapes promoted by the Downtown Lexington Master Plan. Most important, these retail businesses have ground floor occupancy rather than parking garages. The third concern from the Aylesford letter is height. The six-story height of the development severely amplifies the negative impact of a reduced setback. Well, the setback has been increased to — it keeps varying. I think it's 10 feet, or is it 10 feet for the front on Main Street? The only comparable structures in height, that is, the Woodlands and Wellington Arms, have sufficient setbacks, green space, and rear off-Main Street parking structures. And it says they need more setback, okay? And the point here is the ratio of height to setback and the idea, let's put the parking in the background. Let's not make that a central design feature of the building. I would summarize what some of the concern here is that it's fundamentally an auto-centered design put in a walkable neighborhood. The open space is on the roof, the green space. You've got a ground floor devoted to parking, if I had to say there are three key things. A ground floor devoted to parking, and this proposed zone amendment would prohibit auto showrooms, but automobile storage is what goes on this ground floor here. There's no welcome to pedestrians from Main Street. Nothing architectural, not a window, not a door. No retail on the first floor. In fact, there's no mix to the use. It seems to me some of the way they're talking, I think mixed use is a great idea. This seems, I have to say, a little exclusionary. The target market is a market that we all welcome in a city that needs taxpayers, but the target market seems to be influencing the design, the walls, the lack of openings, putting the green space on the roof. These are Aylesford's concerns. I would just add this. You're asked to look at two separate issues here. One is a map amendment. The other is a development plan. When you make a zone map amendment, that goes with the ground. It doesn't go with the owner, a very well-meaning individual who's made his office next door for many, many years. It doesn't go with the project, however visionary that project may be. I think that R3 higher density is good for this area. I think that professional use is good for this area. I personally would also welcome retail use, welcome commerce, welcome business to this area. And I think the idea of a mix is good for this area. If it's a residential development. isn't there a residential zoning that's right for it, one that includes green space? If we're asking for a zoning that's called mixed use, could we ask that it have indeed a mixed use? Could there be a mix of retail in it? Could there be professional in this building? If you look on the final page of your longer version of the staff advice, they list the restrictions, the subject property, the property shall be subject to the following use restrictions. They're changing the zoning, as I understand it, they're making the zone map amendment to have these conditions, six stories and so on. Look at number three. Any commercial use of the property shall be contained within a mixed use residential building. Already Mr. Vaughan has raised the question, what will the proportion be? Is there any way to know what proportion it would be if we don't call it mixed use, but we call it B2A instead? As I said, they prohibit sale of automobiles, and yet the first floor is a garage. The ground floor is a parking garage. Other concerns I have within the zone map amendment, the new designation is B2A. Would that not mean that there's nothing to govern the ratio of commercial to residential? There are no restrictions on floor area ratio, as in R3, which I think is about 0.5, and this is over 0.5. P1, these have restrictions on floor area ratio. I don't believe there are any restrictions on lot coverage in the B2A. It's been said today that the parking requirement for B2A for this piece of property would be seven parking spaces. And I would point out that in the current plan, even the front yard, which is on Kentucky, is a parking lot. They need handicapped spaces there and just additional spaces. So there could be more sharing of the green space, I think. I guess I'd just like to close by asking what it says about our city if we let a building go up on Main Street without a front door on Main Street, without any front entrance on Main Street, pinching on the front yard a little, using the ground floor to store cars. If mixed use is really what this building needs, and mixed use is how it's to be used, the awkward thing is we're not ready for that yet. The mixed use isn't in place, and that's why we're thinking about B2A instead. And I guess I would just have to say that perhaps it's good to remember sometimes that good things do come to those who wait, and there'll be time for this when the vision is in place to regulate it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clark. I'm Bill Johnson, 645 West George Street. I'm president of the Historic Western Suburb Neighborhood Association, and I'm on the board of the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation. I've been focused on downtown issues for most of the 36 years I have lived downtown and have spent a lot of personal time, along with that of many others, in the preparation of the downtown master plan. Today I'm representing the Bluegrass Trust and myself. We all agree that infill is an important ingredient in the revitalization of downtown. I have personally been involved with two infill projects downtown and live in an infill house in one of the oldest sections of town, all built on vacant land. I think good infill requires vacant land and not land that you have to destroy historic houses for. As you know, this property is all part of the downtown master plan area, and the application states that it is in full agreement with the downtown master plan. However, the application skipped over a couple of items, I think, that are an important part of the plan. The proposal has parking on the first floor, as has been mentioned, next to where pedestrian traffic will pass. So either the pedestrian will get to view the entrance of a parking garage or a blank wall. Definitely not an exciting pedestrian environment, which is part, a major part and theme of the downtown master plan. This proposal also will eliminate yet two more of Lexington's historic homes. The 109 Kentucky House was built in the mid-1880s as a part of the Woodland subdivision. So that house has made it through all the way to today as a part of three centuries. So it is definitely historic. 522 East Main is a very attractive two and a half story, Richardsonian Eastlake house, built sometime before 1902, and a part of the very attractive entrance to downtown from the east side. There are several more instances in the downtown master plan that were overlooked or misinterpreted in the application. The applicant quotes Recommendation 1 of the master plan on page 29 of the plan when it says on page 2 of the Statement of Justification that they submitted that infill, quote, improves quality of life in older communities. Infill does not improve the quality of life in older communities when it requires the destruction of two historic houses that are an integral part of that older community, especially a community that is part of the Woodlands National Historic District, which these parcels are in. In the same paragraph of Recommendation 1 that speaks to infill development, the downtown master plan also says, and I'll read it, quote, infill should strive to strengthen existing neighborhoods by respecting the historic fabric and introducing compatible uses that complement the community's attributes and needs. Tearing down two historic houses does not respect the historic fabric. That was on page 29 of the downtown master plan. On page 20 of the downtown master plan, where it talks about section 2, concept development, and the section on architectural language based on memory and invention, item 3 says require all new buildings to respect the historic character of Lexington. Tearing down two historic houses does not respect the historic character of Lexington. On page 50 of the downtown master plan, it states the regional image should be preserved in the downtown core and historic, cultural, and architectural resources enhanced. Again, tearing down two historic houses does not respect the historic and cultural resources. And finally, on page 52 of the downtown master plan, it states under objectives for downtown core, for the downtown core, identify, restore, and preserve architecturally significant and historic buildings in downtown Lexington. Once again, tearing down two buildings, historic buildings does not preserve historic buildings in downtown Lexington. So I think that this does not, this proposal is not in agreement with the downtown master plan and that this is not the type of infill that we need in Lexington. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnston. Is there anyone else that would like to make comments? Okay. Staff, I guess at this time we'll have rebuttal. Good afternoon. Although there wasn't any kind of a presentation on the variances that were requested, we were prepared to recommend disapproval for the variance to eight feet because the reason they gave was only for additional landscaping. And in this case, we figured that there was, that more space between buildings was more important than more landscaping. We generally would say go with more landscaping, but in this case we thought it was more important to have space between the buildings. But because they're asking for a variance to only 10 feet to accommodate the handicap-accessible parking, we're comfortable with recommending approval of that variance, the two-foot variance. And I've got findings for approval of that if you should choose to approve the zone change. Thank you, Ms. Rutgers. I apologize. Ms. Phillips. Could you please articulate where we're talking about these variances? Yes. The one that they're requesting now, the only one that's left, or the all of them? All of them. Okay. They've withdrawn the two, which was this one right here and this one right here. And then this is where they're asking for the variance? Okay. It's only on the property line between this and the Justice property. Yeah. And what would the size adjoining the young woman's property? Ms. Scott's property, what, yes. This is right here, and it says 5 feet, and then there's an 8-foot driveway, and then there's a foot between the 8-foot driveway and the building, it looks like, and a foot between there, so that's 15 between the building and the property line. And what's the setback on Kentucky? It's about, let's see. It's 13 feet back, and then probably 10 feet, maybe a little bit more than 10 feet, so it's going to be about 22, 23, 24 feet from Kentucky Avenue right away. Any other questions? Thank you, Ms. Rikers. Okay, thanks. Mr. Ayden, we did try and prepare something that would more easily show the, it needs to be focused in, but we did try and show something that does just clearly color in the buildings and along there, and you can see as soon as it focuses, the subject property is right here. We basically, we put a dark line along the fronts of all of the buildings and then colored in the buildings just to try and make them pop out for you. But to kind of reiterate what Mr. Murphy said, the proposed setback of this building will be kind of in range with the other setbacks along this street, along this side of the street. It will not be the farthest setback. It will not be the closest building. And so we just tried to clarify that for you in this. So, Jimmy, that's where the crosshatch area is, that dark line parallel with Main Street is the base. That scales off. Of course, this is a one inch equals 200 map, so we did our best. But relative, that dark line that you see, if you could point your. Yes, sir. Yes. This dark line is essentially the front of the proposed building. And then you can see the dark lines with the fronts of the existing buildings. Okay. Along and through there. It's, and then really just to kind of paraphrase Mr. Murphy, it's not the closest. It's not the farthest back. It's kind of in range with the other buildings out there. One other thing that I would like to say, of course, is that when we look at all infill and redevelopment projects, the two types of, two things that we really try and look at are quality and compatibility. And compatibility is one of those issues that's really hard to define because it doesn't necessarily mean the same as. If you think that compatibility is always the same as, then we won't get anything new as we go out and through and develop. But then there are obviously things that are completely out of context with that. That's what the staff tried to do. And we tried to reach that balance with the proposed B2A through our conditional zoning restrictions and through the details that will be resolved at our final development plan. The condition that Tom passed out to you on the pink paper where we would look at the details concerning the perimeter fencing, front yards, landscaping, pedestrian facilities, bus shelters, and first floor building features will all be reviewed at the final development plan stage. We really do think that those are the types of things that we need in order to do that. As I mentioned kind of during our staff report, this particular zone change has garnered many hours of staff discussion on our recommendation that came to you. And we did look at all of the neighborhoods. I had many, many more pictures that I weeded out to kind of focus in our presentation to you today. But for all of those reasons, we are recommending approval now of the zoning. And as Ms. Rackers put it, as she told you, the revised variance report and the development plan with the revised conditions. If you have any questions for me or any of our other staff members, we'll be happy to try and answer those. Thank you. Thank you, Jimmy. I think Ms. Godfrey has a question. Yes, ma'am. I had a question. This B2A that provides for mixed use development, with the P1 and the R3 that's currently there, what are the restrictions in terms of building multi-use or in terms of height and so forth? That's kind of a hard one. One of the things that I do want to kind of point out, and it's confusing, and Mr. King tried to work closely with the people when they were doing the downtown master plan, that whenever they said a mixed use corridor, they weren't talking about our mixed use zoning categories. And as they mentioned earlier, Mr. Tate has pointed out that it is kind of a mixture of uses in the corridor, not necessarily mixed use in every building. The existing P1 zoning doesn't really have, as long as they had commercial uses on the first floor, they could have residential uses up above it. The R3 zone doesn't really have any commercial uses that would be allowed. I just kind of want to make a point. Also, we've talked a lot about mixed uses. There are no mixed uses proposed by this applicant. And in the staff conditional zoning restrictions, even though we do mention a mixed use, that's really if a commercial use were to come in, we want to guarantee the residential use. There's nothing in our conditional zoning restrictions that will prohibit a residential only development, as long as it has a minimum of six units, six residential units. Did I answer your question? I started talking, then I'm not sure if I answered your question or not. Yeah, you got most of it. But my other part of that question is, what are the height restrictions on the building in the current zoning? In the R3 zone, it has a 35 foot maximum height restriction. In the P1 zone, it's a height to yard ratio. And I believe it's three to one. Isn't it three to one in the P1? We're checking that. But for every one foot of side yard, you can go three feet up. So if you had a 12 foot side yard, you could go 36 feet high. If you had a 100 foot side yard, you could go 300 feet high. So there's not really a maximum height in the P1 zone that I'm aware of. And it is three to one. Boy, I tell you what, my mind's better than I thought it was. Okay, you're doing pretty good. You're good. And my last question is, with all, you know, we're involved in all the controversy with the H1 overlay for Main Street and all that. But currently, there is absolutely no restrictions on those historic houses. Am I correct? Correct. The properties that are in front of you today for a zone change are not zoned H1. Right. Thank you, Jimmy. Ms. Phillips? There was a point made, though, by Mr. Johnston that said that this was in the Woodland Historic, National Historic District. It's the National Registry. National Registry District. It has no impact. Can you explain the differences? I've realized that we have local historic zoning. But what, if any, protections does the National Registry afford? I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question. I'm going to see if any of my colleagues can answer that, can help me out on this. Ms. Phillips, I'm certainly not an expert on National Registry Districts. My understanding from my career in planning with National Registry Districts are that when federal monies are involved with a project, that additional steps must be made and taken for review of those type of activities. That said, often our local historic districts are closely compared to National Register Historic Districts. And in the early stages of what ultimately became the Aylesford Local Historic District, that same comparison was made. And I do remember the planning staff dealing a great deal of time in our staff reports to the commission back then covering those comparisons. Matt? We'll have a time for rebuttal here if we could. Okay. Yes, another question. Another question. The plat, the design showed the upper tier being a recreational area, an open balcony. Will that also be a roof garden, or will there just be some planters and pots to support plantings? Or have you guys gotten that far? The reason I'm asking this is that I was hoping that a roof garden may address some of Ms. Scott's concerns regarding impervious surface coverage and stormwater runoff. I believe the applicant would be the best to answer that question rather than me. Thank you, Mr. Evans. Mr. Murphy, any rebuttal? Thank you very much. To answer that, we will have plantings and things on the roof of this development. Not yet designed at this point, Mr. Bennett points out, but we will have the plantings up there. The number of different issues were raised, and I just maybe deal with some of these in sort of random order as they were brought up. This is a historic district. This is not in the historic H-1 overlay zone. That may be in one of the National Register ones, which has no impact at all on what a private owner does with his or her property on it. I want to point out a couple things. When the townhouses were built on Kentucky, where Ms. Scott now lives, there were other houses, such as 109 Kentucky, going down Kentucky Avenue. Those houses were demolished, and I don't know if they were demolished before those owners built those or whatever, but they had to be demolished before that development was built. I assume this one was not because it wasn't part of Mr. Justice's property at that point, but there were a number of other houses such as this which had been removed prior to the construction of the townhouse unit on Kentucky Avenue. When the H-1 overlay hearings were held about 10 years ago, I was not involved with this property, but I did sit through it all, and I did hear all the discussion about this property, and the decision was made to take this property out, not include it in the H-1 overlay, and I respect Mr. Johnston's views on that, but as I was sitting there listening to him, all those issues came up 10 years ago, and the affirmative decision was made by the Urban County Council not to include this property in the H-1 overlay zone. As a result, Mr. Justice could have taken these buildings down 10 years ago. He can take them down today, and he can take them down tomorrow, and if this project isn't done, another one will, which will result in the removal of these buildings, and it's two separate issues. I'm here today to discuss whether those buildings come down because they will be coming down at some point, but whether we can get the zone changed to do this particular project on this particular piece of property. Mr. Johnston mentioned a number of goals and objectives of the downtown plan. He mentioned to you goals and objectives for the downtown core a number of times, at least two or three times I mentioned. There are separate goals and objectives for the core, the mixed-use area, and the third area they call the resident. I don't know what they call the third area, but there are three different areas in the downtown plan. We are not in the downtown core. We're in the downtown mixed-use area, and as I mentioned, as has been mentioned, I checked with Harold Tate just to make sure, you know, are we doing the right thing? Do we have to have mixed-use in the building in the mixed-use areas? No, it's a mixed-use area. It's not mixed-use buildings. It's a mixed-use area in the corridor. We want to have different types of uses in the corridor. You can do all residential in that. So we do agree, I think, with the objectives of the downtown plan. The parking, it's sort of tough to deal with because we say we're catering to the cars too much, but we shouldn't put them underneath where nobody can see them. We are putting them underneath our units. They're not going to be directly visible from Main Street. Contrast this with Hanover Towers, for instance, which has a large surface parking area, which sort of dominates the landscape along there. We're not going to have that. When you're walking down Main Street, we're not going to be dominated by surface parking lots. We're not going to have open vistas from Main Street into the parking area. We're going to have it underneath the building. Other areas of the downtown plan, and this may talk about the downtown core as well, but they talk about that when you have residential, it is good to have it elevated above street level to give people a sense of privacy and security in their residential uses. We will be able to elevate it a little bit above street level. Maybe I'm out of school because they talk about that in the downtown core section, but other people have talked about that too. But we're not letting this development be dominated by the automobile. We're having them underneath. We're not having them at the side where everybody sees or whatever. We're having them underneath. We want our people to come down here and get out and walk around downtown. They wouldn't be moving here if they didn't want to do that. If you don't want to walk, you shouldn't move to downtown. You should stay out in the suburbs or wherever you're going to be if you don't want to walk. So we're not being dominated by the automobile here. The letter from Aylesford, I know they composed the original one before we had changed our plan to pull us further back from Main Street. At that time, we didn't have a lot of landscaping along Main Street. Now we have a good piece of property to do good landscaping along Main Street. They said we don't have as much as others. We have more than others around here. Wellington is fine. I love it. We have more than they do. I think they have a fine landscape there, but we have more than that. So I think we are treating the green space appropriately. As far as the mixed-use issue, when we first brought this in, the issue was brought up to us by the staff that there really is no downtown residential zone. The zones we have are really more suburban in nature. There's a need for a downtown residential zone, and there isn't one at this point. We declined the sort of invitation to file a text amendment with you to create the downtown residential zone because that would take a year or so, and we just don't have that time to devote to this. So we're doing it B2A because that's the closest thing we can do to fit this in. Now, as far as mixed uses, we heard different comments from objectors. I think the woman from Castle Road said that we ought to have mixed use in here. I know Mr. Scott talked about the number of uses we could have that are undesirable in the B2A zone, so sort of mixed comments on that. We offered at the beginning to make a conditional use or conditional zoning restriction not to have only residential in this building, and we still make that offer if you want that, to have only residential in this building. That is our intent. We understand the staff's thinking that in the future if some other use is made of this property, we could do some mixed use in this building as long as we keep a significant and probably dominant residential component on this building. And so we agree with that, but I wanted to explain to you that we offered to and still offer if you want a conditional zoning restriction that it be fully residential, which we think is appropriate for this property. As far as the property on the side, and Ms. Scott is the only resident of this area to testify before you. The others live in other areas. As far as construction goes, there will be construction on this property, probably whether a zone change is granted or not. And I will concede with you that it's at times an issue to have construction going on next to you, but that will be occurring on this property, and it's, again, not a function of whether this is granted because something will be going on this property. In the current zones, as far as the closeness goes, the two zones on this property right now are R3 and P1. In R3, the side yard is 5 feet. In P1, the side yard is 12 feet. What we're proposing is 15 feet away. So we're exceeding the side yard setback, which would be allowed in either of the current zones. Now, granted, B2A allows us to build a taller building than we could in R3. But on the other hand, in R3, we could build at least a three-story building. And as you all know, with a building such as this in smaller units, we could have well more than five residential units overlooking this side of the property. We could probably actually have fewer residential units overlooking this property or near it than you would if we had an R3 zone where we could have more units in a three-story building. And these are large units. These are, what, up to 3,000 square foot, 3,600 square foot condominium units. So you could do a lot greater number of units in this space. The water runoff, we will have the retaining wall along there, which will not allow water to go on to the townhouse property. Roger Ladenberger has told me our water will be going into the stormwater, storm sewer system of Lexington. That will be designed as part of the final development plan. The air conditioning units will be on the roof. They will not be on the side of the building toward Kentucky Avenue. They'll be on the roof. They will not be in the roof garden area. They'll be in another part of it. We will not have direct lighting into the properties along Kentucky Avenue. Our trash pickup, we will have a compactor in the core in the lowest floor of this structure in the middle of it, so it will not be on the side toward the Scott property. The ‑‑ let's see here. But, again, I think this gets down. And the variance, I didn't really mention the variance in my presentation. Ms. Rackers mentioned it. But we do request that two-foot variance along this side. Essentially, this would allow us to bring this where we're showing it. If not, we'd have to move it two feet closer to Kentucky Avenue along here, and we have a concern about the two handicapped parking spaces here. And the fact that our building is farther away from this property line than the existing building is, I think, is appropriate, too, because we'll be farther away from Mr. Justice's office than the building is there, which is currently on the property. And I know the staff said they had findings for that. I have done findings, too, in my proposal, but I'm sure they'll want to go with the staff findings rather than my findings on it. In summary, again, there's been discussion about, you know, who's going to live here. But I think, as the downtown master plan contemplates, there is particular niches of people, and this appeals to a particular niche, which has been directly identified in the downtown master plan as people we want moving downtown, and it even says we want them moving downtown early, as soon as units like this are available for people downtown. It's in complete agreement with the infill concept, and we've been through the discussion of infill, and we need to be doing developments like this to comply with those infill guidelines. And we feel that this will be a very good addition to the downtown area. I think with the changes we have made in pulling it back and moving the building, I think we've dealt with the issues of setback. We have landscaping, and we agree with the staff recommendation that those be finalized and dealt with further at the final development plan stage, which you all will be seeing. Hopefully, if we get the zone change approved, you will see the final development plan to deal with some of those other issues on the property as well. Again, thank you very much. I know you've had a lengthy hearing on this, but it's an important building. It's very important to Hugh Bennett and Roland Vaughn and Bill Justice and this property. It's something that has been taking a lot of thought and work to get into this concept to bring to you, and we appreciate very much the time you've spent on it. And, again, we hope you'll vote in favor of the zone change request. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. I believe Ms. Godfrey has a question for you. I was going to ask you about the six stories. Yes. Is that in concrete that the building be that tall? I mean, is that the final plan? Yes, it is. It's not negotiable? Yes. Well, I hate to use the word non-negotiable, but we have to have six stories to make this development work. We have to have the six stories. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Any other questions for Mr. Murphy? Okay. Mr. Justice, did you have a brief rebuttal comment? Mr. Murphy covered? Okay. Do we have any citizen rebuttal comment to what was said? Okay. At this time, we will close this portion of the hearing and turn it over to the commission for discussion. And the staff has recommended approval for the reasons. There are two reasons. The third actually being some conditional zoning restrictions as well as use restrictions. And then I believe Ms. Rackers also gave us a modification to the variance request with the findings for that modification. So with that, I'll turn it over to the commission for comment. Mr. Chairman, may I make a few comments? Yes, sir. This is, I think, a great opportunity for the implementation of our comprehensive plan and the quality of design of our city. And I commend Mr. Bennett for the design of it and the consideration of the whole group for the proposal. The corridors of our city are very important. And that was why I made some of the comments I have, and you've addressed it adequately, I think. There is one concern that I have with regard to that corridor situation. And we're looking to a corridor as affecting not only automobiles but pedestrians. And I think that this is one issue where the identification of this is Main Street. And I think that the movement of the pedestrian from Main Street to the entrances should be a complementary movement so that it's as interesting to move from Main Street to the front door or to the side door, whatever it might be, by a series of plazas or some sort of design element that brings that quality of entry to Main Street. And I don't think it's a matter of just a three-foot sidewalk or a four-foot sidewalk. I think it has to be an experiential entry condition between the Main Street, which we're giving great emphasis to. And I think that's something that should be considered in the design. I appreciate the revisions of setback and making it more uniform to the corridor qualities that we have there already along Main Street. And I know I have great confidence in the kind of design that Mr. Bennett can produce. But those are my comments on the situation. Thank you, Mr. Aitken. Any additional comments? Motion? Motion. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move at this time for approval of MAR 2008-9 for the zone change, for the reasons provided by the staff, and with the adoption of the restrictions that are noted for the zone change to help minimize any negative impact. Are you making note to the waiver, the modification to the? Yes. I would like to address the waiver. I was going to do that separate, but I can do it as part of this motion. I would like to accept the waiver to the requested, the waiver for the requested variance to change the side, to change the rear yard from 12 feet to 10 feet, according to the applicant's modification, for the reasons provided by staff. Can we just clarify that is recommending approval of that variance request? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Because the rest of them were withdrawn. We were just a little confused by the term waiver of the variance request. You meant to approve it. Oh, I'm sorry. The approval for the requested variance for related to the side, the rear yard. I keep saying side yard. Related to the rear yard, because all the other requests were withdrawn. Okay. Thank you. That's the only variance that's left. Okay. We have a motion for approval and a second. Without need to repeat that, I'll take a vote. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Okay. Two noes. Mr. Chairman, I need to abstain on this. Okay. Do we get that? One no and one abstention. Okay. All right. Motion carries. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move for approval of the accompanying development plan, CDP 2008-59, with the first 11 conditions as noted, and deleting number 12 on our sheet and adapting number 12 on the revised staff recommendation to denote details concerning the perimeter fencing as noted on this sheet. To add a condition number 13, which is the addition of the conditional zoning restrictions. Okay. We have a motion and a second for approval of CDP 2008-59. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Our next, what we have coming up next is a zoning ordinance text amendment. We'll give staff a moment to get set up. So. Okay. Still not over. We'll have more to do. Okay. Okay. Mr. Emmons, are you ready? Yes, sir. I'm sorry, but we have to be realistic. Our first of two zoning ordinance text amendments today is located on your agenda on page 10. And in your notebooks, it's behind tab 9. It's ZOTA 2008-4. This is a zoning ordinance text amendment to amend portions of article 19 of our zoning ordinance. Article 19 concerns our floodplain conservation and maintenance ordinance. This is behind tab 9. You can see that we've got first the staff report and then the text. I'll probably concentrate on the text for this report. And if you look on the text portion of this, turn your attention to pages 19-2 and 19-3. These are the first changes that we come to in article 19, and they are reflecting the adoption date of the new floodplain maps. We've been working on the floodplain maps for about three or four years now. FEMA has finally given us another letter of final determination, and the new maps will become effective on September 17, 2008. These are changes that we have to make to our zoning ordinance or else we will be suspended from the National Flood Insurance Program, and we don't want to do that. Turning over to page 19-4 and 19-5, really that's all of the changes that we are proposing to article 19 either fall into the category of increasing our regulatory compliance with the FEMA regulations or clarifying our own zoning ordinance. We've highlighted in yellow all of those changes that relate to increased regulatory compliance, and in the gray we've highlighted all of those things which are just simply clarifications. We've had a couple of events that have warranted our re-looking at article 19, and in looking at it more than just adding in the dates as we did the last time we had a letter of final determination, which turns out wasn't so final. In looking at that, we've also had the fact that we've had our first ever appeal to the Floodplain Appeals Committee that went forward there, and we've kind of taken a good look at article 19. The two big changes that we're proposing other than the date is to 19-7, and that's lots within a special flood hazard area, and that's the regulation that applies to lots that are already in existence that have floodplain on them. And the change there is just separating out on an existing lot that has a floodplain, changing out different regulations on whether you're dealing with an existing house or a vacant lot, and that's all that 19-7C does. And then on page 19-5, which is 19-7G3, which is the revision to the special flood hazard area, this is the governing restrictions on when an applicant must provide a letter of map amendment to FEMA in order to officially change the FEMA maps. And if I can, I'll go through just a real quick, if we can get the lights down, just two examples of what we're looking at, why it's important. This is an aerial photograph of the Glen Eagles subdivision, and you can see we have a greenway. This is a fairly recent subdivision, if you will. It's out in the Secure Justice property or the Glen Eagles neighborhood. And originally, when it was designed, the greenway was totally inclusive of the 1992 floodplain, as it was shown on the maps. It was a Zone A floodplain, which means there wasn't a study that was involved with that. It was a best-guess floodplain. That's what a Zone A floodplain is. And it was completely contained within the greenway. But whenever we do the new maps, the contours are on there, but they don't show up fairly well. But what we did is, for those Zone A floodplains, we had to take the existing contours and apply this methodology to that. And in reality, whenever this plan was coming through, the applicants did a flood study, and they showed that their floodplain was actually smaller than the Zone A floodplain, and it was contained completely within the greenway. So under our regulations at that time, since their studied floodplain was narrower than our 1992 floodplain, then they didn't have to file. It was up to their option on whether to file a letter of map revision or not, with FEMA to officially change the flood maps. Now, in this particular case, whenever we applied the methodology that we had to apply under that, that Zone A floodplain actually gets bigger on the new maps, and we're going to have several lots out in the Glen Eagle Subdivision that are going to appear to be in the floodplain, when in reality that floodplain is actually contained within the greenway. This is one example of why it's important that we change this section of Article 19 to say that basically any time the flood study shows it is different. And I've got one other example, and this one is in Danby Corners, and I call this one the Magic Floodplain. This is one of my favorites. This is an area, as you can see, these two individual properties applying for their individual LOMAs, and what it means is that the floodwaters will come down. FEMA determined that those two properties are outside of the floodplain, so the floodwaters are magically going to go around those two lots and get everybody else. In reality, what's going on here, there was a detention basin. The water is going to go through the stormwater system, get into the detention basin, and go under Liberty Road into the greenway. But these are just a couple of the worst examples that I could come up with of why we need to change our regulations so that in any time that the flood study is different than what we have on the official floodplain maps, we're going to make the applicant file the appropriate paperwork with FEMA to get the official floodplain maps changed. That is it in a nutshell. There are a few other items that are really kind of just to clean up and clarify Article 19. I would like to point out that at the end of your packet, we have a sheet in blue. There's just a few text changes that we're proposing that we talked about at our zoning committee. Some people pointed out that a few things weren't really clear. The language didn't actually say what I wanted it to say, so we have tried to clear that up. The only changes that we have are the ones on this that are actually highlighted in gray. That's the changes from the overall packet. And the staff would respectfully request that you adopt the changes to Article 19 because, one, we have to, two, it will increase our greater regulatory compliance, and three, because the new maps are more reliable floodplain information. And really that's what we're doing it for so that we have the most reliable floodplain information. I do have one tiny little correction on the blue sheet even. And as many times as I've looked at it, I've got one word that needs deleting. And as many times as I looked at this, I didn't catch it until now. But it's still better to catch it now before you approve it than after you approve it. So I'd like you to also delete the word floor under that section on the revised plan. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to try and answer them. Other than that, that concludes my presentation. Thank you, Jimmy. Okay. Are there any questions for Mr. Emmons? So on the blue sheet, I guess, because I'm a little confused now. Okay. What I would like for you to ask is that you adopt all of the proposed changes with the changes denoted on the blue sheet. On the blue sheet, okay. And the one thing that I did forget to mention is that all along I have been in contact with our State Division of Water, and they are in support of the changes that we're proposing today. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much. No, I think on the blue sheet, you just had one, that one. It was actually saying delete the word floor. The blue sheet has some, the additional words are highlighted in gray. In gray, yes. And then delete the word floor. And then it would be those changes in addition, those changes to the overall packet that we've submitted. Okay. Staff has recommended approval with the noted changes. They offered three reasons for approval of this ZLTA-2008-4, this purpose being to amend Article 19 to update our de-firm adoption date. So at this time, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of ZLTA-2008-4, which amends Article 19 for the reasons provided by staff, and on the blue sheet, delete the word floor and move that adoption also. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. The next item on our agenda is ZLTA-2008-5 and Subdivision Regulation Amendment, or SRA-2008-1, which is to transfer the responsibility of grading permits from the Division of Building Inspection to the Division of Engineering. There are a few other changes that are proposed as well. This text amendment was initiated by the Planning Commission at the request of the Division of Engineering and was initiated in March of this year. The changes would apply to Article 5 and Article 20 of the Zoning Ordinance and Article 4 of the Land Subdivision Regulations. And the changes, first change would be to move the responsibility for grading permit, issuing grading permits from Building Inspection to Engineering, thereby reducing the time and effort needed to actually obtain your grading permit, mostly by the applicant. The same level of review would still apply by the Division of Engineering. The second change would be to require a grading permit at the time of demolition permits, and that would be coordinated with the Division of Building Inspection. The third change would be to require erosion control plans for single-family and two-family lots, so a single-family or a duplex lot, and that would also be coordinated with Building Inspection. The two-family and single-family lot requirement would be just for erosion control plans, not an actual grading permit for each lot. And on a subdivision-wide level, there would still be erosion control and grading permits issued. Those changes would, for Division of Engineering, would hopefully reduce the amount of stormwater runoff and protect our streams, rivers, aquifers to a greater extent. The proposed changes are also something that would meet several of the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. And overall, these changes will streamline the grading permit process, help to protect our streams, rivers, and aquifers from unnecessary soil erosion, and adequately address surface drainage during and immediately after construction, especially on single-family and two-family lots, residential lots. And these changes will hopefully help the LFUCG comply with the EPA consent decree that was just approved by Council within the last few months. Division of Engineering is also asking that these changes become effective on July 1st of this year, as long as the Council has, you know, worked this through their process by then as well. To address some questions during the Zoning Committee's review of this text amendment, I developed just a very standard, I guess, flowchart. And typically we talk about what the Planning Commission's process is and how planning interacts with you all as a commission. And typically we don't talk about kind of some of the after processes. In terms of a development plan, I've created a slide here that just shows the first step would be a final development plan is approved by you all and then certified in our office that it's met all the conditions. And once a development plan has been certified, it will allow the engineer, developer's engineer, to prepare their erosion and sediment control plan. And they would submit those plans to the Division of Engineering here at LFUCG. The division would review those and any other supporting documentation. After that, they would hold, once they have reviewed those plans, they would hold a pre-construction meeting on site after those plans have been, if there's any corrections that need to be made, any tweaks, those would be made and then they would hold the pre-construction meeting on site. The contractor would install any of their sediment and erosion control and then the Division of Engineering would accept the construction plans. And then they would, instead of building inspection, I've highlighted in green, this is how the amendment would change what happens, the Division of Engineering would issue a grading permit and then after grading permits, building inspection would be able to issue their building permits. In terms of a preliminary subdivision and final record process, it's a little more complicated. The first step would be the preliminary subdivision plan is certified by the planning commission or your staff. And I'm going to, these look a little gray on the screen, but they were actually blue. Talk about the blue boxes first. Next, again, the developer's engineer would prepare, instead of construction plans, their improvement plan, which includes the erosion and sediment control. Then the developer, again, submits their full set of plans to engineering. Engineering reviews those plans and other documentation, would hold their on-site meeting for pre-construction with the developer. The contractor installs their sediment control and the Division of Engineering then accepts the improvement plans. And this is where a change occurs. The Division of Engineering would issue a grading permit rather than building inspection and public improvements can then be constructed. And the developer's engineer, in terms of the engineering process, developer's engineer submits their final record plat and other required supporting documentation for review. Engineering would review the record plat, hopefully sign it and forward it to the Division of Planning. Division of Planning reviews the record plat, then has it certified and recorded with the county clerk. And if it's a typical single-family residential development, the builder would prepare an erosion or sediment control plan for their single-family lot when they request their building permit. And then the Division of Engineering would sign off on that plan and building inspection would be able to issue permits. So, again, the green boxes is where something's changed. And I want to address a question we had at Zoning Committee about the requirement for the developer's engineer to submit a 30% design report to the Planning Commission. And I've added kind of a sub-process on there because that doesn't directly line up with the process, the other processes. They kind of run parallel. After the preliminary subdivision plan would be certified, the developer's engineer would begin preparing their improvement plans, including the sediment control and erosion plans. And at the 30% design point, they would submit a report to the Planning Commission. Not until they get 100% of their improvement plans completed would they actually submit those to Engineering. So I've created a dashed line with kind of an orange box here to indicate somewhere before they've completed their plans, they're submitting a report to the Planning Commission. Once we've received that report as a Planning Commission, then the applicant could submit their final record plat for approval by the Planning Commission. Those two things can happen in any number of points along the gray or blue box process, or this could anyway, the final record plat point. They could submit it right after their improvement plans. They could wait until the Division of Engineering has accepted or even after the grading permit has been issued. So the final record plat, the point when those are submitted, varies just depending on the developer and kind of the rate of them developing. So I hope that that answers the questions that came up at Zoning Committee. The 30% design report does need to be submitted before final record plats, and then the grading permit would be issued also before any lots are created usually. But they're not directly tied to each other. The staff is recommending approval of this text amendment to the three articles, 5 and 20 of the Zoning Ordinance and Article 4 of the subdivision regulations for four reasons. First, we think that this change will help streamline the development process and be more efficient so that grading permits can be issued in a more timely manner. Second, these changes will help to adequately address surface drainage during and immediately after construction, especially for single-family, two-family lots as well as vacant lots after demolition. Also, these proposed changes will help to protect streams, rivers, aquifers from unnecessary soil erosion. And then lastly, we believe the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan are furthered by the proposed text amendment. And there are four specific goals that we list on the staff report and on the agenda. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Mr. Penn has a question, I believe. First of all, I want to compliment you all on the work of this, and engineering and Bill and everybody for working together to do this. Help me understand what the purpose of the 30% rule is. What is that designed to show? From the subregs, it indicates that you would, as you're working towards basically the requirements on the agenda that everyone agrees to, I'm going to get a sign off from engineering, and they're going to accept drainage, stormwater, sanitary, sewer, and floodplain information. They would need to report to you in that 30% report, and I don't know the format necessarily, if there's a standard format, but I would say how they're addressing drainage, storm and sanitary, sewers. How's it going? Have they come up with any roadblocks, any problems, if it's standard? This is to identify problems before we actually get into putting them in the ground? I believe it is. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. White. Any other questions for Ms. White? Just to remind the commission, you all don't take action on that 30% report. It's just for information. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay. Staff has recommended approval. My amendments to Article 520, Zoning Ordinance, and four of the Land Subdivision Regulations for the reasons provided. And if there's no other questions. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move for approval to Articles 5 and 20 of the Zoning Ordinance and Article 4 of the Land Subdivision Regulations as presented by staff, and per the four reasons cited on our staff report. Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. I think that concludes our zoning items today. Mr. Salih, do we have any commission items? I know one, I guess, is next Thursday, correct? That was the only thing I was thinking, Mr. Chairman. I'll let you go. We do want to just remind you and, of course, invite you to next week's work session that will be held in this room. There will be two very important topics discussed. One is the digital billboard text amendment that has been on your agenda a number of times over the last six months, and also a discussion on the ad hoc committee formed a few months ago by the Planning Commission, also is expected to present its report next week. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Salih. I know I want to make a comment, but I'm sure go ahead, Mr. Penn. I just want to ask a question. Bill, do you know if this is going to be phrased like an information meeting? Are we going to do this on GTV? As far as I know, Mr. Penn, as far as I know, there have been arrangements made to televise that meeting next week. So it's kind of how we're going to operate or how we proceed? Mr. King, I think, had made those arrangements, and I'm not aware of those details. I'm not sure if both items or only the one item will be televised. Okay. All right. It will be a work session, though. It will not be a public hearing or anything. Thank you. I guess the only comment I want to make, I hope you're able to make next Thursday, because the ad hoc committee has been meeting and some good information to bring to the full body of the commission. And, of course, we've had some, I guess, some postponements of the digital billboard, so I think they actually have a presentation to make as well. So hopefully everyone can make it next week. And I guess that's all I have. Staff, do you all have any other? We have no additional staff items. Just hope everyone has a good holiday weekend. Great. Thank you very much. Same here. Everyone have a good holiday. I think Mr. Mahan wants to make a comment. Mr. Chairman, earlier we were discussing, during our infield discussion, we talked some about the elderly, affluent, empty nesters. Mrs. Effective Tomorrow, Mrs. Frank Penn, is going to be living with a much older empty nester. And I just think that this commission certainly should give their sympathy and et cetera to Mrs. Frank Penn, who's going to be living with a much older husband, Effective Tomorrow. Thank you. Well, I certainly are happy birthday wishes to Mr. Penn. There being no further business, so motion for adjournment. With friends like Mr. Mahan, you don't need any enemies.