# Planning Commission Subdivision Meeting - April 8, 2021 > Auto-transcribed civic record · April 8, 2021 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5326 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5326?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2021-04-08 - **Last revised**: April 8, 2021 - **Length**: 18,316 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission met via video teleconference on April 8, 2021, at 1:30 PM, with Larry Forester presiding as the presiding officer. The commission addressed 17 agenda items during the session, taking a total of 19 votes on various development proposals, text amendments, and procedural matters. No public comments were heard during this meeting. The commission's work focused primarily on development approvals and postponements, with five items being postponed to future meetings, including projects for University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union, Hamburg Place Farm office development, Chick-fil-A, and residential developments at Newmarket Property and Kingston Hall. The commission approved eight development-related items, including reapproval of JFG Enterprises, approval of Lexington Clinic amendments, Gerald C. Johnson & Barbara Johnson Property with an associated waiver request, Griffin Gate Office Park amendments, Spring Lake development, and Kingston Hall Unit 1 Lot 8. In addition to individual project reviews, the commission approved several regulatory amendments, including revisions to Articles 1 and 6 regarding street patterns and continuity standards. The commission also initiated two text amendment processes: one for traffic impact studies in the zoning ordinance and another for subdivision regulations concerning street trees near intersections. The meeting concluded with approval to cancel the work session that had been scheduled for April 15, 2021. ## Attendance The following members were present at the April 8, 2021 meeting: • Ivy Barksdale • Headley Bell • Zach Davis • Anthony de Movellan • Larry Forester • Janice Meyer • Frank Penn • Carolyn Plumlee • Graham Pohl • Bill Wilson **Absent:** Nicol **Late arrivals:** None Ten members attended the meeting, with one member absent. No members arrived late to the proceedings. ## Votes and Decisions The commission conducted 19 votes during the April 8, 2021 meeting, with all motions passing unanimously by a vote of 10-0. All ten commissioners present—Ivy Barksdale, Headley Bell, Zach Davis, Anthony de Movellan, Larry Forester, Janice Meyer, Frank Penn, Carolyn Plumlee, Graham Pohl, and Bill Wilson—voted in favor of each item. **Administrative Actions** The commission approved minutes from the February 25, 2021, and March 11, 2021 meetings on a motion by Carolyn Plumlee, seconded by Graham Pohl. **Postponements** [timestamp: 00:00] Five development plans were postponed unanimously: - PLN-MJDP-20-00051 (Queen Estate/University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union) - PLN-MJDP-21-00007 (Hamburg Place Farm, Sir Barton Way Office Park, Phase 2, Lot 9) - PLN-MJDP-21-00006 (Wiggins & Company/Chick-fil-A) - DP 2012-89 (Newmarket Property, Phase 1, Unit 10) - PLN-MJDP-21-00009 (Kingston Hall, Unit 1 & 2) **Project Approvals** [timestamp: 00:00] The commission approved several development projects with conditions: - PLN-MJDP-19-00027 (JFG Enterprises, Inc./IVCP Athens LLC) reapproval - PLN-MJDP-21-00008 (Lexington Clinic AMD) - PLN-FRP-21-00006 (Gerald C. Johnson & Barbara Johnson Property) with eight conditions and an associated waiver - PLN-MJDP-20-00057 (Griffin Gate Office Park AMD) with 12 conditions - PLN-MJDP-20-00067 (Spring Lake) with 19 conditions and 15 waiver findings - PLN-MJDP-21-00012 (Kingston Hall, Unit 1, Lot 8) with 19 conditions and EAMP compliance report **Regulatory Changes** [timestamp: 00:00] The commission approved SRA 2021-1, amending Articles 1 and 6 to revise street pattern standards, and initiated two text amendments regarding traffic impact studies and street trees near intersections. The commission also voted to cancel the April 15, 2021 work session. ## Approval of Minutes The board considered the approval of minutes from two previous meetings during this agenda item. The minutes under review were from the February 25, 2021, meeting and the March 11, 2021, meeting. Key speakers during this discussion included Carolyn Plumlee and Graham Pohl, who participated in the consideration of the meeting records. Following the review and discussion of both sets of minutes, the board approved the minutes from both the February 25, 2021, and March 11, 2021, meetings. No specific concerns or amendments to the minutes were noted in the available records. The approval of these minutes allows them to serve as the official record of the proceedings from those previous meetings. ## Postponement of QUEEN ESTATE (UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION) [timestamp: 00:00] The planning commission considered agenda item PLN-MJDP-20-00051, a development proposal for Queen Estate by the University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union. Richard Murphy addressed the commission regarding the application status. The applicant formally requested a two-week postponement of the agenda item to allow additional time to address outstanding concerns with security consultants. No detailed presentation of the development proposal was made during this meeting, as the focus was solely on the postponement request. The commission granted the requested postponement without extended discussion, allowing the applicant the additional time needed to resolve the security-related issues before returning for full consideration of the development plan. The item will be rescheduled for a future meeting once the applicant has completed their work with security consultants and is prepared to proceed with the review process. ## Postponement of HAMBURG PLACE FARM, SIR BARTON WAY OFFICE PARK, PHASE 2, LOT 9 [timestamp: 00:00] The planning commission considered agenda item PLN-MJDP-21-00007, a request for postponement of the Hamburg Place Farm, Sir Barton Way Office Park, Phase 2, Lot 9 development proposal. Steve Baker addressed the commission regarding the postponement request. The applicant sought a one-month delay to address outstanding parking issues that needed resolution before the project could proceed to full review. The commission granted the requested postponement without extended discussion, allowing the development team additional time to work through the parking-related concerns that had been identified during the preliminary review process. The item was postponed and will return to the commission's agenda at a future meeting once the parking issues have been resolved by the applicant. ## Postponement of WIGGINS & COMPANY (CHICK-FIL-A) [timestamp: 00:00] The planning commission addressed agenda item PLN-MJDP-21-00006, a postponement request for the Wiggins & Company (Chick-fil-A) development proposal. Donna Brown presented the postponement request on behalf of the applicant. The applicant requested a one-month delay to allow additional time to resolve outstanding parking issues with the Division of Traffic Engineering. These technical matters required further coordination between the development team and city traffic officials before the project could proceed to full review. The commission granted the postponement request without opposition, allowing the applicant the requested time to address the parking and traffic engineering concerns. The item will return to the commission's agenda following resolution of these technical issues with the appropriate city departments. ## Postponement of NEWMARKET PROPERTY, PHASE 1, UNIT 10 [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item DP 2012-89 regarding the Newmarket Property, Phase 1, Unit 10 development project. However, the item was not heard as scheduled due to a procedural issue. Rory Kahly addressed the commission regarding the postponement request. The applicant had requested a two-week delay because they failed to post the required public notice sign within the mandated timeframe. This posting requirement is a standard procedural step that must be completed before development proposals can be heard by the Planning Commission. The commission granted the postponement request, allowing the applicant additional time to properly complete the public notification requirements. The item will be rescheduled for a future meeting once the proper signage has been posted and the required notification period has elapsed. This postponement ensures that all proper public notice procedures are followed before the commission considers the development proposal, maintaining transparency in the planning process and providing adequate opportunity for public input on the project. ## Postponement of KINGSTON HALL, UNIT 1 & 2 [timestamp: 00:00] The planning application PLN-MJDP-21-00009 for Kingston Hall, Unit 1 & 2 was addressed during the meeting, with Rory Kahly serving as the key speaker for this agenda item. The applicant formally requested a one-month postponement of the review process to allow additional time to address several outstanding issues identified on the property. The specific nature of these issues was not detailed in the available meeting materials, but the request indicated that the applicant needed additional time to resolve matters before proceeding with the planning review. The meeting participants accepted the applicant's request for postponement without apparent objection or extended debate. This type of postponement is a standard procedural option that allows applicants to address concerns or make necessary modifications to their proposals before formal consideration by the planning body. The outcome of this agenda item was the approval of the requested one-month postponement, effectively deferring further consideration of the Kingston Hall development proposal to a future meeting date. This postponement will provide the applicant with the requested time to resolve the identified property issues before the planning review process continues. ## Reapproval of JFG ENTERPRISES, INC. (IVCP ATHENS LLC) [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-MJDP-19-00027, the reapproval of JFG ENTERPRISES, INC. (IVCP ATHENS LLC). Traci Wade served as the key speaker for this item. The commission reviewed the previously approved plan and determined that reapproval was appropriate under the existing framework. The discussion focused on maintaining consistency with the original approval conditions that had been established for this development project. Following the presentation and review, the Planning Commission voted to reapprove the plan subject to the original conditions that were part of the initial approval. No modifications to the existing conditions were made during this reapproval process. The item was approved by the commission, allowing JFG ENTERPRISES, INC. (IVCP ATHENS LLC) to proceed under the terms of their original approval conditions. ## Approval of LEXINGTON CLINIC (AMD) [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-MJDP-21-00008, an amendment request for the Lexington Clinic to add an additional building and parking facilities to their existing development. Traci Wade served as the key speaker presenting this agenda item to the commission. The amendment proposal involved expanding the clinic's current footprint with additional building space and corresponding parking infrastructure to support the expanded facility. During the discussion, the commission reviewed the details of the proposed amendment, which would allow the Lexington Clinic to enhance their medical services capacity through the addition of new building space. The parking expansion was designed to accommodate the increased demand that would result from the additional building. The Planning Commission ultimately approved the amendment request, allowing the Lexington Clinic to proceed with their expansion plans. However, the approval came with specific conditions that the clinic must meet as part of the development process. These conditions were established to ensure the expansion aligns with local planning requirements and development standards. The approval of PLN-MJDP-21-00008 represents the commission's support for healthcare facility expansion in the area, while maintaining appropriate oversight through the conditional approval structure. The Lexington Clinic will now be able to move forward with their plans to add the additional building and parking, provided they comply with all specified conditions attached to the approval. ## Approval of GERALD C. JOHNSON & BARBARA JOHNSON PROPERTY [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-FRP-21-00006 for the approval of the Gerald C. Johnson & Barbara Johnson property final record plat. Lauren Hedge and Tom Martin served as key speakers during the discussion of this agenda item. The commission reviewed the proposed final record plat for the Johnson property, examining the technical details and compliance requirements associated with the development proposal. Following their review and discussion, the Planning Commission voted to approve the final record plat for the Gerald C. Johnson & Barbara Johnson property. However, the approval was granted subject to eight specific conditions that must be met as part of the development process. The conditional approval indicates that while the commission found the overall proposal acceptable, certain requirements or modifications were deemed necessary to ensure compliance with local planning standards and regulations. The eight conditions attached to the approval will need to be satisfied before the development can proceed. The commission's decision represents the completion of the review process for this particular property development proposal, allowing the project to move forward provided all specified conditions are met by the property owners. ## Approval of waiver request for GERALD C. JOHNSON & BARBARA JOHNSON PROPERTY [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered a waiver request for property owned by Gerald C. Johnson and Barbara Johnson. Tom Martin served as the key speaker presenting information on this agenda item. The waiver request involved access easement provisions that would benefit both properties under consideration. The Commission made a specific finding that the proposed access easement would serve both properties, which was a critical component of their approval decision. The Planning Commission approved the waiver request for the Gerald C. Johnson & Barbara Johnson property. The approval included the determination that the access easement arrangement met the necessary requirements to serve both properties involved in the request. No significant concerns or opposition were noted during the discussion of this waiver request, and the item proceeded to approval without recorded debate or controversy. ## Approval of GRIFFIN GATE OFFICE PARK (AMD) [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered an amendment to the Griffin Gate Office Park development plan, identified as PLN-MJDP-20-00057. The proposed amendment sought to add access to Citation Boulevard for the office park development. Key speakers during the discussion included Cheryl Gallt and Scott Southall, who presented details about the proposed access modification and its implications for the development. The Planning Commission ultimately approved the amendment to allow the additional access point to Citation Boulevard. However, the approval came with 12 specific conditions that must be met as part of the development plan. The amendment represents a modification to the existing Griffin Gate Office Park development, expanding the access options for the commercial office development. The addition of Citation Boulevard access is intended to improve traffic flow and connectivity for the office park. The Planning Commission's decision to approve the amendment with conditions demonstrates their consideration of both the development needs and potential impacts on the surrounding area. The 12 conditions attached to the approval will govern how the Citation Boulevard access is implemented and maintained as part of the overall development plan. ## Approval of SPRING LAKE [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-MJDP-20-00067 for the approval of Spring Lake development plan. The discussion involved key presentations from Traci Wade and Tom Martin. The commission reviewed the proposed development plan and associated waiver requests submitted as part of the application. During the deliberations, commissioners examined various aspects of the project including site design, infrastructure requirements, and compliance with local planning regulations. Following their review and discussion of the proposal, the Planning Commission voted to approve the Spring Lake development plan. The approval came with 19 specific conditions that must be met as part of the project's implementation. These conditions likely address various planning, engineering, and regulatory requirements to ensure the development meets municipal standards. In addition to approving the main development plan, the commission also granted approval for the waiver requests that were submitted as part of the application. These waivers typically involve exceptions to standard development requirements where the applicant has demonstrated that alternative approaches will still meet the intent of the regulations. The approval of both the development plan and the associated waivers allows the Spring Lake project to move forward in the development process, subject to meeting all 19 specified conditions. ## Approval of KINGSTON HALL, UNIT 1, LOT 8 [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission reviewed application PLN-MJDP-21-00012 for the Kingston Hall development project, Unit 1, Lot 8. Key speakers during the discussion included Tom Martin and Dick Murphy. The commission considered both the development plan for the project and an Environmental Assessment and Management Plan (EAMP) compliance report. The discussion covered the technical aspects of the proposed development and its compliance with environmental regulations. Following their review and deliberation, the Planning Commission voted to approve the Kingston Hall development plan. The approval came with 19 specific conditions that must be met as part of the project's implementation. Additionally, the commission approved the EAMP compliance report, indicating that the environmental assessment components of the project met the required standards. The approval of both the development plan and environmental compliance report allows the Kingston Hall project to move forward to the next phase of the development process, contingent upon satisfying all 19 attached conditions. ## Approval of amendment to Articles 1 and 6 to revise standards for street pattern [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item SRA 2021-1, an amendment to Articles 1 and 6 to revise standards for street patterns and continuity. Jim Duncan served as the key speaker presenting this item to the commission. The proposed amendment focused on updating requirements related to street patterns and continuity standards within the municipal code. The discussion centered on revising existing regulations to better address how streets should be designed and connected within development projects. Following the presentation and discussion, the Planning Commission voted to approve the amendment to Articles 1 and 6. The approval will update the standards governing street patterns and continuity requirements for future development projects within the jurisdiction. The amendment represents a regulatory update to modernize street design standards and ensure proper connectivity in new developments. ## Initiation of a zoning ordinance text amendment for traffic impact studies [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission discussed initiating a zoning ordinance text amendment to update traffic impact study requirements. Jimmy Emmons presented the proposal to modernize and simplify the existing regulations found in Articles 6-1 and 21-4 of the zoning ordinance. The amendment aims to update the current Traffic Impact Studies framework to make it more streamlined and contemporary. The existing provisions in the zoning ordinance were identified as needing modernization to better serve current development review processes. The Planning Commission approved the initiation of this text amendment, allowing staff to proceed with developing the specific language changes and bringing the proposal through the formal amendment process. This approval represents the first step in what will be a multi-stage review process to update these traffic study requirements. The initiative reflects the Commission's ongoing efforts to ensure that zoning regulations remain current and effective for evaluating the transportation impacts of new development projects within the jurisdiction. ## Initiation of a subdivision regulation amendment for street trees located near intersections [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission discussed initiating an amendment to subdivision regulations regarding the placement of street trees near intersections. The item focused on increasing the minimum distance requirements for locating street trees from intersections. Traci Wade served as the key speaker for this agenda item, presenting the proposed regulatory changes to the commission members. The discussion centered on modifying existing subdivision regulations to establish greater setback requirements for street tree placement near intersection areas. The proposed amendment aims to address safety and visibility concerns that can arise when street trees are planted too close to intersections. By increasing the minimum distance requirements, the regulation would help ensure that trees do not obstruct sight lines for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists navigating intersections. The Planning Commission approved the initiation of this subdivision regulation amendment. This approval allows staff to begin the formal process of drafting the specific regulatory language and conducting the necessary review procedures required for amending subdivision regulations. The initiation represents the first step in what will likely be a multi-stage process involving additional public review, stakeholder input, and formal adoption procedures before the amended regulations take effect. The approved initiation demonstrates the commission's recognition of the need to balance urban forestry goals with intersection safety considerations in future subdivision developments. ## Cancellation of the work session scheduled for April 15, 2021 [timestamp: 00:00] The Planning Commission addressed the cancellation of a work session that had been scheduled for April 15, 2021. Jim Duncan spoke regarding this agenda item. The Commission formally canceled the previously scheduled work session without extensive discussion. The cancellation was approved by the Commission. No specific reasons for the cancellation were detailed in the available meeting materials, and no concerns or objections were raised regarding this scheduling change. The decision appeared to be administrative in nature and was handled as a routine matter during the meeting. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of the minutes of the February 25, 2021, and March 11, 2021, meetings - **PLN-MJDP-20-00051** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of QUEEN ESTATE (UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION) - **PLN-MJDP-21-00007** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of HAMBURG PLACE FARM, SIR BARTON WAY OFFICE PARK, PHASE 2, LOT 9 - **PLN-MJDP-21-00006** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of WIGGINS & COMPANY (CHICK-FIL-A) - **DP 2012-89** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of NEWMARKET PROPERTY, PHASE 1, UNIT 10 - **PLN-MJDP-21-00009** — postponed (10-0): Postponement of KINGSTON HALL, UNIT 1 & 2 - **PLN-MJDP-19-00027** — passed (10-0): Reapproval of JFG ENTERPRISES, INC. (IVCP ATHENS LLC) - **PLN-MJDP-21-00008** — passed (10-0): Approval of LEXINGTON CLINIC (AMD) - **PLN-FRP-21-00006** — passed (10-0): Approval of GERALD C. JOHNSON & BARBARA JOHNSON PROPERTY - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of waiver request for GERALD C. JOHNSON & BARBARA JOHNSON PROPERTY - **PLN-MJDP-20-00057** — passed (10-0): Approval of GRIFFIN GATE OFFICE PARK (AMD) - **PLN-MJDP-20-00067** — passed (10-0): Approval of SPRING LAKE - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of waiver requests for SPRING LAKE - **PLN-MJDP-21-00012** — passed (10-0): Approval of KINGSTON HALL, UNIT 1, LOT 8 - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of EAMP compliance report for KINGSTON HALL, UNIT 1, LOT 8 - **SRA 2021-1** — passed (10-0): Approval of amendment to Articles 1 and 6 to revise standards for street patterns & continuity - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Initiation of a zoning ordinance text amendment for traffic impact studies - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Initiation of a subdivision regulation amendment for street trees located near intersections - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Cancellation of the work session scheduled for April 15, 2021 --- ## Full transcript And again, there are several connections to neighborhoods along the way that allow you, even the folks who live in that neighborhood, but any person in the public to hop on the trail right there. Well, you did mention the park down the way. What other kind of amenities do they have along this trail here that's going to be connected? So Pleasant Ridge Park is probably the one that has most amenities. There's the dog parks, there's playgrounds, there's water fountains, there's benches. So that's a good hub for a lot of the trail users to start from or stop at on the way. Oh, cool. And you might have mentioned it before, I'm sorry if I missed it, the total amount of connected trail that this bridge is going to be bringing together? Just over three miles. Just over three miles. That's pretty nice. So in the future, are you guys thinking of making any additional additions, I guess, to this bridge? So not to the bridge, but the trail itself, we're always looking to expand because the point of all these trails is connectivity. You know, we've got Legacy Trail and we're going to have Town Branch Commons and Town Branch Trail connecting into downtown soon. And we'll eventually be bringing those all the way out to connect these. We'll be putting on the street a design for a project to redo Liberty Road inside New Circle. KYTC already has a project going. We'll do the same. And we're going to fight for a shared use path through all those segments so that eventually you'll be able to get all the way from Horse Park to downtown all the way out to Deerhead. So if I was to ask you, what is the impact of a bridge like this on our city at large? Is that connectivity? It's that connectivity. Because that connectivity makes it not just a recreational trail, it makes it a transportation system. So if you want to make a short grocery run, why get in your car when you hop on your bike and ride the bike trail to the grocery or ride the bike trail to work? So that connectivity is huge. And it's not just huge for the local community, but it's huge for the region because then that rail trail becomes an attraction for people outside of our community. It becomes tourism, cycle tourism. So they come here to see the beautiful bluegrass. Well, thank you for answering the questions, Director. It's definitely great to get out here and talk with you. Here in a minute, I'm going to bring out my next guest, and we're going to have a few questions about the actual construction and what we can expect for that to be completed. So hold on just a second. All right, and now we're back with my next guest. This is the project manager for the construction, Andrew Grunwald. He's going to answer a few questions, and I'll just start with the first and most important one. When's this whole thing going to get finished up? Well, we're hoping to complete probably about mid-summer, July, August. It would be wonderful if we could do it a little bit faster, but that's our target date. I know that weather can always be an issue there, especially what we experienced a couple weeks ago. Weather and COVID. COVID has really played a significant part in our scheduling. That's hitting everybody about the same there. So while we're getting through with this construction, and again, we can see all the work you've done in such a short period of time, what kind of impacts can people around here expect from the rest of this construction period? Well, primarily we'll have some more, another major impact on Man of War, but we'll try to confine it to the same process we had last time. We'll do it at night. We're going to have to shut the whole road down when we pour the deck. And that will probably happen at the end of March, beginning of April. We haven't actually set that date. That depends on how construction goes in the next couple of weeks. Other impacts will be just small impacts, a little bit of traffic blocks here and there when we move equipment around, but nothing major. So hopefully only one more closure. One more closure? So you mentioned it. I know that's the one everyone's interested in is the road closure. So we think there's going to be one more road closure if everything goes well on Manowar, hopefully in the evening? We'll make the contractor do it in the evening. We won't have it run during the day. Well, thank you. That's always more considerate when that happens that way. So in a project like this, there's always a ton of little stumbling blocks. What would you say was or is the most challenging aspect of a project like this? For any bridge, of course, the most challenging is the foundation and setting the beams themselves. For this one, the foundation and around the KU substation, we had a tremendous amount of relocations for the utilities. Get them out of the way. And once the foundation came up, then, of course, it was setting the beams. Once those two are out of the way, our hope is just smooth sailing and all the major stuff that can go wrong is done. So you're saying the hardest part is behind you? Yes. All right, we're going to cross our fingers on that one always, right? It is still construction. It is still construction. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for coming out and taking some time and telling us about this bridge. I'm sure that everyone is going to appreciate when this is done, and this is an amenity that will last for a very long time. So thank you again for working so hard on it and for answering our questions. And if you have any other questions about timelines or anything dealing with the bridge at all, feel free to reach out to my office. We are willing to answer your questions at any time, and this is going to be an amazing addition to our district, and we're really excited to have it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm home. I need to relax and watch TV. Get off the phone, hear the dog on the phone. Hey, hey, hey, honey, I'm home. I'm home. Oh. Oh, that feels much better. I'm Ten minutes after midnight said, sir, you broke the limit and it's a rusty old trouble. I don't know about that accent, son. This is where did you come from? I said, where I come from? It's cornbread and chickens. Where I come from? A lot of front porch sitting. Where I come from? Trying to make a living. And working hard to get to heaven. Where I come from? I'm south of Detroit City, pulled in this country kitchen Try their brand of barbecues, antsy finger licking I paid the tab and the lady asked me how'd I like my biscuit I'll be honest with you ma'am, it ain't like mama fixed it Cause where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken Where I come from, a lot of front porch picking Where I come from, trying to make a living And working hard to get to heaven where I come from I was chasing sun on 101 somewhere around in tour I lost a universal joint and I had to use my finger. This tall lady stopped and asked if I had plans for dinner. Said, no thanks, ma'am. Back home, we like the girls that sing soprano. Cause where I come from, it's cornbread and chicken. Where I come from, a lot of front porch sitting. Where I come from, trying to make a living. And working hard to get to heaven. Where I come from. I was heading home on 65 somewhere around Kentucky And the CB rang with the bop-tail rig, it's rolling on like thunder Well, I answered him and he asked me, aren't you from out in Tulsa? No, but you might have seen me there. Just dropped a load of salsa. I'm out. Thank you. Mayor Redekop, Chair of the Board of Trustees Meeting, and I'll see you next time. If all of our planning commission members could go ahead and start their video. You're on TV now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Welcome. It is now 1.30 April 8, 2021. Welcome to the Urban County Planning Commission Subdivision Items Meeting. I'm going to call this meeting to order. First off, I would like to read the Governor's statement. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, state of the emergency, and Governor Beshear's executive orders regarding social distancing, this meeting is held via teleconference pursuant to Senate Bill 150 as assigned by the governor on March 30th, 2020, and Attorney General Opinion 20-05, and in accordance with KRS 61.826, because it is not feasible to offer a primary location for the meeting. So next up on our agenda item, we have approval of minutes. We have two sets minutes here for february 25th and march 11th from 2021 everyone had a chance to review those minutes if there's any changes to those minutes please force those now if not the floor is open for a motion is plumbly thank you mr chair move approval of february 25th and march the 11th 2021 minutes If we have a motion, do we have a second? Seconded by Mr. Poe. Any further discussion? All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next up, we'd like to skip down a little bit to the letters of credit and performance bonds. I'd like I take a motion for that as well. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of the performance of the letter of credit as presented by Mr. Penn. We have a second to that motion. Seconded by Mr. DeMoglin. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. bonus or withdrawals? Staff? So we have a few hands raised. We'll start with the first hand. Mr. Richard Murphy, we'll allow him to speak. Mr. Murphy, you've been allowed to speak. Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm Richard Murphy on page three, item C, PLNMJDP 2051, Queen Estate, University of Kentucky Federal Credit Union. I'm asking for a postponement. I'm asking for a two-week postponement. You had some discussion that the subdivision committee were reviewing this with some security consultants. We need a little more time. I have some people who cannot come to the May meeting, talk to the staff yesterday, and it appears there would be time on your meeting in two weeks. That would be the April 22nd meeting, is that correct? Yes, sir. All right, thank you. Any discussion to that recommendation? Planning Commission members? Hearing none, the floor is open. Mr. Wilson? I was going to make a motion if you wanted it. yes this floor is over okay then i move for postponement of pln mjdp 20-51 queen of state university of kentucky federal credit union for april until april the 22nd all right thank you and we have a second by miss plumley any further discussion not seeing any all in favor please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. All right. We will move on to our next hand raised, Mr. Steve Baker from MEI. You have now been permitted to speak. Go ahead and address the commission. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission. I'm Steve baker with midwest engineering and i'd like to request postponement of a project that's located on page five item g of the agenda it's pln mjdp 21-00007 still uh remain some some questions with our client trying to sort through their parking needs and and trying to make sure that this plan is adequate um so they'd request a one month postponement Okay. Any discussion to that recommendation? That, uh, one more month, will that be the 6th? May 6th? I actually think it is the next week. May 13th. 13, sorry. One month postponement for the May 13th meeting. The floor is open for a motion for that recommendation. Mr. Poe. Can I move to approve postponement of BLNM MJDP 21-7, Hemberg Place Farm, for one month to May 17th, is that right? 13th. 13th? 13th, yes, sir. Okay, thank you. We have a seconded by Ms. Meyer. All in favor, please raise your hand. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Baker. Next we have Ms. Donna Brown. Ms. Brown, we're going to allow you to speak now. You can go ahead and unmute yourself and address the commission. Hi, yes, good afternoon. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Good afternoon. Respectfully, I'd like to request a postponement for PL, I'm sorry, on page five, item number F, PLN, MJDP 21-0006, Wiggins & Company, Chick-fil-A, development plan amendment. We've been working with the fire captain and traffic engineering to kind of come to resolution on some items. So we would like to respectfully request a postponement, hopefully to be able to pick back up for the subdivision committee meeting on May 6th, if possible, for the planning commission meeting on May 13th. Be May 1st, 13th, 13th. I'm hearing Mr. Howes talking to me. So May 13th. All right. Thank you. So you're requesting a one month postponement to the May 13th meeting? Please. All right. Thank you. Any discussion, any concerns of that recommendation? Seeing none, the floor is open for a motion. Ms. Plumlee. Thank you, Mr. Chair regarding PLNMJDP 21-6, Wiggins & Company, move postponement until May 13. I'm going to motion and a second by Mr. Pohl. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Mr. Chair, it seems as if we jumped out in front of Mr. Murphy before he was complete. Mr. Murphy, we'll go ahead and allow you to speak now if you would like to address the commission again. I'm sorry, I forgot to lower my hand. Apologize. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy. We will be jumping over to Mr. Cayley. Mr. Cayley, we will unmute you or allow you to speak now. if you would like to unmute yourself and address the commission. Good afternoon. Rory Kaley of EA Partners. On page two, development plans, item A, new market property, phase one, unit 10. I did not get my notification sign up in time, so I request a two-week postponement to the April 22nd meeting. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Kaley. Any discussion for the two weeks postponement? Seeing none, floor is open for a motion. Mr. Chair, I move to post-longly the D2-2012-89 New Market property to the April 22nd meeting. Thank you. Ms. Plumlee, is that second by you? Thank you. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Sir, there are no other hands raised for postponements at this time. All right. Thank you. So I wish you all. I'm sorry, sir. We have one more hand raised. I think Mr. Kaley would like to come back up for it. So Mr. Kaley, go ahead and unmute yourself and address the commission. Yes, I think we probably need to officially postpone on page six. Item I. This is Major Development 21-009 Kingston Hall. You did not see this at the subdivision committee. We're working through some issues, but I think we officially need to request postponement to the May 13th. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion to that recommendation? Seeing none, the floor is open for a motion for the one-month postponement for the May 13th meeting. Mr. Poli. Chair, I move to postpone PLNMJDP 21.9 Kingston Hall for two weeks. One month. Thank you. I'll get one of these right. It's all right. We have a second. Mr. Bell, thank you. Doesn't see any more discussion to that one month postponement. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Now, sir, I do not see any hands raised. And I'll kick it back up. All right, no problem. So we should be on page two of the agenda. First up, final record flat. Ms. Wade has her hand raised. Oh, I didn't see that. Sorry, Ms. Wade. Chairman Forrester, typically we do the consent items. You're right. I was on vacation for two weeks. I'm not too. We do have a consent agenda today for two items, and I believe if we could have the planning staff display the PowerPoints, We'll get those up. And I think on the consent agenda, they're in the opposite order of what they're on the agenda. And I apologize. They get switched around sometimes. So the first item appears on page six of the agenda, and it's item H. This was a development plan or is a development plan that was recommended for approval by the subdivision committee. of course, with conditions, and it's PLN MJDP 21-8 for the Lexington Clinic, and it's an amended final development plan. That property is located at 1203, 1207, 1221 South Broadway, as well as 406 and 410 Gibson Avenue. Then our second item is a re-approval item, and because we insert those in the agenda back in the order they were originally filed, that appears on page three of your agenda, item B, and it is PLN MJDP 19-27, JFG Enterprises Incorporated, also known as IVCP Athens LLC property. That's located at 5301 Athens Boonesboro Road. Both of these items were recommended for approval by the subdivision committee. The second item listed there on the screen is actually re-approval with the same exact conditions as the Planning Commission approved it last, not last year, but the year before. So at this time, we would just ask if anyone in the audience would like to have either of these items heard by the commission, or if there's someone, one of the applicants if they wish to have the item pulled or if someone on the planning commission wishes to have the staff present any either of these two items today. As a citizen you can do so by raising your hand. Mr. Chair and Ms. Wade we are seeing no hands raised right now on the purchase. Okay. So with that we can take both of these items collectively with one motion for approval. Okay so I'll open the floor up for a motion to approve the consent agenda. Ms. Plumlee? Thank you Mr. Chair. Move approval of the consent agenda as recommended by staff. Thank you. I can't see the remaining. Mr. DeMogul. Okay, thank you. A motion and a second by Mr. DeMogul. Any further discussion? Not seeing any. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Now I think I can get back into the swing of things here. We're on page two. 10-918-PLN-FRP-21-00006. Stand. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me pull it up here. This is the final record plat for the Gerald C. Johnson and Barbara Johnson property. This is located at 3534 and 3540 DeLong Road. So this property is located to the east of Taits Creek Road. This plan does require the posting of a sign and an affidavit for that sign because this property is in the AR zone and that has been completed. The purpose of this amendment, I'm sorry, of this plat is to record the subdivision deed per KRS 100.292. Also, they're dedicating a portion of right-of-way on DeLong Road and creating an access and utility easement. So we have most of our standard sign-offs on this plat. And then our final condition is regarding the waiver request that the applicant has submitted for minimum lot frontage. So the AR zone has a minimum lot frontage of 750 feet, and both of these lots currently do not have any street frontage. But I'm going to have Mr. Martin come up and discuss that waiver request and the waiver report that should be in your packet also. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, the waiver, as Lauren has explained to you, relates to the frontage of these two lots. And as she stated, these two lots were created by deed in 1980. and you can see the configuration that was created by the deed now they have a little bit of frontage right here this long little leg out through here is actually about provides about 40 feet of frontage to the properties at this time and that's how it was created by deed in 1980 this particular and again this particular little dog leg out through here this is their access This is a driveway that serves this property. So as a result of this subdivision, lot two will maintain 40 feet of frontage at this location on DeLong Road. Lot one will then have frontage along the access easement right through here. That will be its frontage that it will have on this access easement. So the waiver before you today is a frontage waiver. You can see, obviously, by the deeded configuration, it would be impossible to provide frontage that would meet our current standards. And again, these lots were created by deed at a time when we had different standards. The 10-acre minimum was in effect, and the frontage was of a lesser distance at that time, too, that was required. One aspect of this waiver is a finding on this access easement. This access easement will serve both of these properties. It currently serves the property and has since they were created. So with that, staff has reviewed this, and we are recommending approval of the waiver, as well as the finding on the appropriateness of the access easement. Now, you can see on the plat, there is a note. This is a standard required note, access easement responsibility of owners. They will sign this and it gets certified and they're acknowledging it is their responsibility to maintain this access easement. And again, it is an existing driveway that currently serves the property. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have about the waiver and the easement. Okay, I think Mr. Penn has his hand raised. And Mr. Martin, would you mind stopping share of your screen? I was anticipating that. Mr. Penn? Mr. Martin, I would just want to get this on the record. This is still zoned AR until they sell it. Is that right? It will be zoned AR until there's a zone change, which would be unlikely. obviously in this area. Well, that's where I was going with this. So what we've done, we've done plat of record and plat of the easement is what we're actually doing here with the waiver in order to grant the easement. Yes, sir. What we're doing is in effect acknowledging that these properties were created by deed and KRS 100 allows that to be addressed through the appropriate subdivision process, which is why we're here today. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any further questions at this moment? All right. I'm seeing any. Applicant? Good afternoon. Kevin Phillips with Interest Engineering. I'm not sure if Tommy Todd is on here or not. He's the legal representative. I don't think we have anything really to add. We agree with the findings for the frontage waiver and also in request that, and I'm not sure which comes first, but to make a finding regarding the use of an access easement to access the properties. Answer any questions, certainly, that you have. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant or commission members? Not seeing any. Do we have any citizens that would like to speak on behalf of this application? If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak in opposition or support this application, please go ahead and raise your hand digitally now. Sir, seeing none. Okay. Bring it back in. Okay. We'll close that part of this application out, and it's back to the commission members for a motion. We have two motions, one for the waiver and one for the access easement. Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. Mr. Penn. I move for approval of PLN FRP 21-6 with the eight conditions as presented by staff. We have a motion and a second by Mr. DeMoglin. All in favor, please raise your hand. okay motion passes unanimously the access easement yes sir we'll do the waiver next i move for approval of the waiver granted uh that designates that this access easement is part of the plan that we just approved All right. We have a motion for the approval of the access easement, seconded by Mr. DeMoviland. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, applicant. After him, we'll be demoting you now. So that should take us to page four of the agenda item. Item D, PLN, MJDP-20-57, Griffin Gate, Office Park. Staff? Ready for staff? I'm trying to find it. Sorry. Oh, no, you're fine. I didn't know if you heard me or not. Yeah, I'm just trying to find it here. There we go. I found it. Good afternoon. property is for Griffin Great property located off of Newtown Pike. We have revised conditions in the Google Drive from what we have on the agenda. As you can see this property is located at the corner of Newtown, Citation Boulevard. There's also Olivia Lane that comes along parallel to Citation just north of it. This is the structure. This is where they came in. They were for this property here they were wanting to add an access point out onto Citation Boulevard. It was so... Ms. Gulp, we're not seeing the plan that you're discussing right now. Would you mind sharing your screen? What did I do? Escape, hold on a second. Sorry, I thought we were sharing. Can you see it? Can you see it now? I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. We can see it. Okay. As I said, this property is located at the corner of Newtown Pike, Citation Boulevard. Here's Olivia Lane that runs parallel to Citation Boulevard. They originally came in with this development to ask for access onto Citation Boulevard from this property in the rear. coming out onto Olivia there is no signal so it's very difficult to hang a left out onto Newtown Pike so they were wanting to come out onto Citation to hit the light here so with that they've proposed a right out only onto Citation Boulevard and with that we have our typical sign off conditions. We just asked for cleanup with the landscape buffer and this property is located within the Royal Springs Aquifer and therefore they will be reviewing that this plan with them. And our last question was to resolve the access citation of Boulevard. There was a lot of discussion at the subdivision committee meeting about the location of this coming out onto Citation Boulevard. There were some concerns with the median cut over to the convenience store that's located at the corner of Citation and Newtown. But they've worked with, the applicant has been working with engineering and traffic and they have come to the conclusion this is the best location for this to come out as far as the grade, not hitting any other engineering. There's, I believe, a box culvert that they were trying to miss. So at this point here was at their best location for this. So I will open it to the Planning Commission to see if there's any other comments, questions. How many members have any questions for staff at this moment? Good. Seeing any at this time. Applicant. We'll be promoting Mr. Scott Southall. Mr. Southall, you've been promoted to a panelist. You may address the planning question. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. My name is Scott Southall with Earth Cycle Design. As Mr. Gall had noted, we have been working diligently with the traffic engineering and engineering on this project in terms of finding a suitable location for the write out only onto citation. And at this point in time, we are in agreement with the staff recommendations for approval and we'll be here for any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Southall. Do we have any questions at this time for Mr. Southall from the commission members? I'm not seeing any. Do we have any citizens that would like to speak on behalf of this application or against this particular application? You can do so by raising your hand on the digital screen. I'm not seeing any. So I'll close that part of the application out and bring it back to the commission members. Ms. Barstow, I know there's some questions that you may have had previously about this. Do you have anything further you would like to add? No, I think it comes out at the right place. Okay. All right. Okay, Mr. Penn. We have part of the discussion this at the Sun Division Committee, and we're made aware that this will be blocked so that you can't make a right turn in there if you're coming out the citation toward newtown there'll be a perk up there where you can't make a right in so it's it's that that was our discussion is to make sure that it was a right at only and we talked about different different traffic movements and patterns but i think we've come to a conclusion that where we are and I want to thank Ms. Marksdale because she lives in that area and drives it more than the rest of us. Thank you Mr. Penn. Also keep in mind we do have revised staff recommendations for this particular application item. So I'm not seeing any other questions. Mr. DeMolden. I'll move for approval of PLN and JDP 2057, Griffin Gate Park with the 12 items. Thank you. And we have a seconded by Mr. Barksdale. Mr. Pohl, you had your hand raised. You wanted to say something? All right. I got you. So we have a seconded by Ms. Barksdale. Any further discussion to that motion? All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commission. Next up, we're on page four, item E, PLN, MJDP-20-67, Spring Lake. Scott. Thank you, Chairman Forrester. This is Ms. Wade. Just ask if the planning staff in the office could display the development plan for the planning commission. I can annotate from my location here, so I'm going to use my. I'll just use my mouse cleaner. So the development plan you see and preliminary subdivision plan you see is PLN MJDP 20-67 for Spring Lake Development. And the site is located at the intersection, the southeast side corner of an intersection of Greendale Road and Sandersville Road in the northern part of Fayette County. This is currently situated as the Spring Valley Golf Course, and it's a zone change that the Planning Commission heard last summer. The applicant submitted their final development plan and preliminary subdivision plan for this residential development in October. Shortly after they submitted their plan, it was discovered that there was a cemetery, a private cemetery located on the site. And that caused the applicant to postpone this plan for several months until they completed the required cemetery location study on the site. And from the view of the plan, you can see the greenway that borders Sandersville Road along the northern edge of the property. There's an existing Hillemeier Warehouse and the Lincoln House on this white portion that the property surrounds. There's also several lakes or ponds on the property. And its name probably would tell you there are springs on this property as well. Some of these do show, thanks, Lauren, show up in the ponds as well as along the railroad track. And then the subject property comes up against the Norfolk Southern Railroad track. And then to the south of the property, it's bordered by light industrial development and zoning. And if you all remember from last summer when we had the zone change, there were some interested property owners to the south that were concerned about putting single family and multifamily residential up against the industrial land uses. So when the applicant brought in their new or their final development plan and preliminary subdivision plan, there were a number of changes that the staff noted. with the cemetery addition in March. We saw that now noted on the plan. The staff also would let you know that the bunch property was added to the development plan, and that is directly adjacent to the industrial parcel along Sandersville Road, and it's labeled today as a leasing office and clubhouse and former its former life was the Hill and Meyer Garden Center and then it was converted to a single family home. So that piece of property it's about an acre was added to the Spring Lake site and in doing that the applicant modified the land use in that portion of the development plan. Instead of townhouses that were originally proposed with the zone change Now there are multifamily, multifamily buildings. So with the request for this development plan and preliminary subdivision plan to be approved, there was also some concern that the staff had about the location of the single family homes. And if you'll recall last month, the subdivision committee actually saw a plan that depicted some single family homes on the north side of that primary roadway that goes through the entire development on the greenway side. and that caused the staff some concern. We asked the applicant to relook at their proposal and see if it was possible to shift the road closer to the greenway as opposed to the single family homes and maintain that single loaded street to provide visibility and access to the existing greenway and amenity in our community. And they were able to do that. So that made the staff very pleased that that was able to be accommodated. So if we, Steph, can you move to, or I'm sorry, Lauren, can you move to the next slide? With this development, there was also, or is also kind of an agreement that we look at multifamily design guidelines from the comprehensive plan. The applicant provided a three or four page written statement related to how they were meeting the multifamily design guidelines from the comprehensive plan, as well as some graphics showing existing projects within the city for their multifamily, as well as townhouse development. And then if you'll click to the next slide. So two of the areas that are this one area here where the townhouses abut Greendale Road and Sandersville Road. The staff would just note that there's a need to connect those dwelling units and their parking out to the main public right-of-way, which in this case would be Greendale Road. We think that can be that that would be part of the multifamily design guidelines recommendations. We think that the bike and pedestrian planner will address that with his sign-off, so we're not concerned necessarily about that requirement or design guideline. And then, Lauren, if you'll click to the next slide, just wanted to point out the multifamily area that had changed from the original development plan that came in for the zone change. There were two multifamily buildings that now front onto the public street, and those replaced about six or seven single-family home lots, and then three buildings that parallel the Norfolk Southern Railroad and are closer to Sandersville Road, and those replaced about 30 townhouses in that area. In the end, the applicant will have 322 single-family home lots, 35 townhome structures, and then 378 multifamily dwelling units. That's a total of 735 dwelling units for the community and a density of 5.2 dwelling units per acre. With this application, they do need, Lauren, could you go back to the main plan for me? A couple slides, they do need a waiver for their access to Sandersville Road for the multifamily development. And that's because of the location of several other access points in this area. And so the waiver was submitted with their original application back in October. And Mr. Martin will have a short presentation about that. But I just wanted to note that we do have 21 conditions on the agenda today. They did not have another revised plan, so we didn't update those since the subdivision committee. Those include just our standard sign-offs for the first, let's see, 12 sign-offs, and then there are a couple cleanup things like dimensioning our accessory buildings in the multifamily area, denoting timing of construction of street infrastructure so we know how many lots will be accessing those two primary locations onto the to the main collector streets denoting the waiver if that is approved as well as location of fence requirements around the cemetery and maintenance requirements. They do need to resolve some driveway access points along that main roadway as well as access to the two lots that are nearest Greendale Road, and the staff believes that can be accommodated through the final record platting process. Primarily, it's the corner lots. If you have all the corner lots have driveways out to the main road, just the number of driveways becomes problematic in terms of having traffic move through that area. So, usually the corner lots have access from the local street rather than the collector or the primary street in this case. And then the last few things are resolving traffic calming. And we believe that the applicant is very close to having that occur on the primary street and traffic engineering and the bike and pedestrian planner would just need to sign off on those changes on the plan. And then the last two things on the agenda list discuss documentation, for compliance with the multifamily design standards. The staff does believe that the three multifamily areas, the townhouse areas, as well as the larger apartment complex area do meet the intent of those guidelines. And we would just like to see some additional sidewalk connections to the public right of way. And then the changes from the preliminary subdivision, a preliminary development plan. I think I covered those. They added the bunch property, which is that leasing office on Sandersville Road. There's now a cemetery that's being protected, and then there's a switch from some townhouses to multifamily in the northeast corner of the site. With that, the staff is recommending approval, as did the subdivision committee last week, of this subdivision, preliminary subdivision plan and final development plan but it is also contingent on a waiver I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you Ms. Wade and Ms. Plumlee thank you Tracy I think we talked about this before but remind me the lots that back up to that main street are they going to be backing out onto that or do they what kind of access Can you get a panelist real quick? Ms. Plumlee, if you'll just give us one or two seconds here, we'll get your question answered. I can answer the question if necessary. Go right ahead, Mr. Martin. I believe we lost Ms. Ware. Okay. Okay. Ms. Plumlee, yes, this is a local street, and the lots at new front on this local street will have driveway access to that local street. And they're going to be backing out. Well, that's pretty much up to the individual's behavior. They probably will be backing out. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Benn. Tom, while we've got you, on 20 and 21, do we need to keep those as discussed, resolved, or eliminated? Well, I believe the, excuse me, I put on my glasses. There we go. 20 would be a resolve, and 21 was a discuss the changes, which I believe that could go away because we have discussed the changes. with you and you all are aware of how this plan has changed. So eliminate 21? Yes, sir. And 20 would be resolved. And as Ms. Wade explained, they have done a good job of addressing those issues and we're not concerned with their ability to meet the multi-family design standards. Tom, are you going to? Yes, sir. Beaver? Yes, sir. I'm going to address the waiver request. Now, the waiver request is multifold. There's several waivers inherent in the design and the access that they are requesting. Excuse me. Now, as you can see, again, we have a local street system for the development. The multifamily area here under your subdivision standards for access, land use access, actually require that multifamily not access local streets. It's discouraged. It does happen at times. And so by accessing the collector street, Sandersville Road, they're actually meeting the intent of your land subdivision regulations with this proposed access point in this location. Now, they are maintaining a secondary access point to this local street system, and that is absolutely necessary to the provision of fire and other public safety services to a large multifamily development that we have here. Their request for this access point, however, also presents a spacing issue on a collector street. If they were being spaced solely from this local street connection to this proposed access, they would meet the subdivision regulations. However, because of the access that exists to this property that was added to the plan, as well as existing access with the industrial property, and again, the access points across the road on the Hillenmire property. And these, as you all are aware, are historical access points. They've been present for many, many years. They were present when this was nothing other than a little rural road. And the primary activity out here was the Hill and Meyer Nursery and then the golf course. So with that, there are, in fact, within this distance right through here, which is a little over 800 feet, There are seven access points on the south side of Sandersville Road. So with that, one access point in this location is being removed. An access point in this location is being replaced with the new access point. And they're actually removing a secondary access point that you can't really see well on the plan. The house actually has two little access points. So they are actually replacing three with one new constructed access point in this location. One aspect of the waiver request that staff is recommending, you can see it on the plan. Let's see. Right there, that little half moon. That's a little driveway. There's no parking associated with it. Currently serves the house. Staff is recommending that that be closed, that that goes away. They have the ability with their new access drive and their parking in this location and a sidewalk for this to function as the leasing office, which is the intent that this will be their leasing office. But again, that's with all these multiple access points. There's just there's just too many in the area and too many potential conflicts that can't control this access point here or the access point at the other side of the industrial building at this location. nor do they have any control over the existing access points into the Hill and Meyer nursery. And there's a couple of major access points into the nursery as well. So with that, that is the access spacing waiver. The other waiver that's inherent in this request is the cross section of Sanders Row Road. And normally, as you all are aware, we would require full improvements along their frontage on a street, particularly a collector street. They are doing all the requirements in a full half section improvements along Greendale. However, along Sandersville, they're doing a modified cross section, and that is to match what has been done across the street. And that is intended to protect the stone walls, the trees and the rural appearance of Sandersville Road. And again, that was approved across the street and they put in a pedestrian system on the other side of the stone walls. along the Hillenmeyer property. And you can see that is one aspect of this proposal as well, that this trail system will actually function as the public pedestrian system. They're going to have to continue it across their entire frontage, and there will need to be a connection to allow people safely to utilize that pedestrian system in the property. But again, that is also one of waivers they're requesting on the half section. In reviewing this, staff is recommending approval of the waivers. Again, just wanting to emphasize that we believe that this little half-moon driveway should be closed as an aspect of this waiver approval. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any questions? Oh, I can stop, Chair. There we go. Do we have any questions? Okay, not seeing any. Okay, applicant? Mr. Nick Nicholson has raised his hand. We'll bring him in as a panelist. Mr. Rory Kaling has also raised his hand. And we'll see if the applicant, Nick, would you like anyone else added from your development team? We have Rory on here and that's all we really need. We should be able to be just fine going forward because, as I noted at the subdivision committee, a whole lot of work has really gone into this plan behind the scenes. And so it is quite, you know, we're quite happy with being able to be in front of you today to say that we are in complete agreement with staff's recommendations and the conditions. I did want to kind of note one thing on number 20. Tom said that that needs to be resolved. I was talking with Ms. Wade earlier this morning, and we both thought that that one could be removed entirely because it is part of number seven, the bike and pedestrian planner sign off. The only issue of concerns with the multifamily design guidelines, we're making sure that the kind of the pathway and sidewalk serving the townhomes does go all the way to the right of way. And so that's kind of goes hand in hand with his sign off. And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have about any of the changes that have occurred over the kind of literally past year that we've been working on this final development plan to get it to this point. We have been in constant kind of communications with the neighbors that have been involved and had spoken previously about this during the zone change. And I'm quite happy to say that, you know, that all of the neighbors that we have been talking to are now in support of this plan. And we believe that it is ready to move forward. Thank you, Mr. Newferson. Any questions? I'm not seeing any and I think it's staff is okay with removing item 20 as well well Ms. Wade is Tom didn't tell me I'm Mr. Part I'm so sorry I got bumped off but I know that Mr. Martin carried carried the water so thank you okay Mr. Pogue this may not be related to the questions that we're considering right now but I do have a question for Mr. Nicholson looking through the there are a number of photographs of houses with what I call snout houses do you know what I'm talking about I do not but I'm guessing you're talking about the townhomes that possibly are kind of have different bump outs, so to speak? Where the garages stick out and make the major, the garages are dominant on those buildings. I think that's the rear of the building. Okay, so those garages then, those are just on the multifamily buildings. And the other elevations are the elevations that one would perceive as the primary elevation. Am I right? I believe so. We did not submit any pictures of single-family detached houses, just of townhomes as those kind of fall under the purview of the multifamily design guidelines if we are not subdividing the individual townhomes themselves. And so those were just examples of townhome projects that we have done throughout the community that kind of get at some of the aspects of the multifamily design guidelines to show that the product can be in fact in compliance. Okay. And so my understanding that the sides with the garages are the back sides of the building, that's a correct understanding? Okay. I just was curious about that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any further questions for the applicant before we move on to the citizen? Okay. I see any. At this time, do we have anyone that would like to speak on behalf of this particular application, either for or against? You can do so by raising your hand. We have Mr. Gross. Mr. Gross, you've been allowed to speak, and we do have your slide to us to pull that up. Perfect. First, I'd like to apologize. I would have brought this to at least the subdivision's attention, committee's attention last week, but I was not aware that it was being heard last week. I know it's been on the agenda every month forever, but I wasn't not aware I was going to get moved up. But needless to say, I have talked with, and just to remind everyone, I represent Bowman Paper, who's one of the industrial users. We have spoken with Nick several times during this process. We are in support of the development plan. If we go to the next slide. and this just tentatively we have agreed that during the certification process we'll add a couple notes to the plan and really this is just to make you aware as the planning commission that for us and bt which is a ups affiliates my understanding just to be notified of future plans and that just a note to be on the plan just so that the residents have a notice somewhere on the plan and on the subdivision plat that we are industrial property next to us or next to them and but and i've talked briefly with staff i think tentatively they're in agreement that these can be added and we may need to tweak them if staff has any questions but i just want to put it on the record that we're going to be adding a couple notes to the development plan during the certification process and i'm here to answer any questions if you need but i think Nick's an agreement, and I think we hope this is going to be a successful project for him and his client. Great. Thanks, Mr. Brooks. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak at this moment on this particular application? Not seeing any. We'll bring this back to the commission members for a motion. We have two waivers. Go Frank go. Let me get my paperwork together. You're nice thinking somebody else. Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. I assume you want to do the motion and then do the waiver. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of PLN-MJDP 2067 Spring Lake for approval with the 20 conditions, erasure number 21, or we can do it to dissolve, or we can eliminate. So I haven't gotten to understand what we're going to do with number 20. So before I finish, I think we're all going to do that. Ms. Wade was okay with that. Yes. Mr. Martin, can we eliminate 20? He's on mute. I believe that Ms. Wade said that both of us can. Yeah, we can. Okay. Okay, so then this goes for approval with the 19 conditions, eliminating 20-21, as presented by staff. Okay, we have a motion and a second by Mr. Bell. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Then the waivers, we have two waivers. In your package, you'll have a, in your Google Drive, you'll have a waiver. one is to approve the access to Santa Fe Road, the collection street, and the other one is to have sections of the same window. Is there anything else that needs to go with that waiver? Findings as presented by the staff. Okay, so we have a motion for the two waivers to approve with the findings by staff, and we have a second by Mr. Bell. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously as well. Thank you, thank you, Rory, thank you, Nick. Nice job. Ready. Okay. So that should take page seven, agenda item J, PLNMJDP-21-12. And we should have a EAMP report for this as well. Mr. Martin, you are muted. Can you go back there to the purple? Yeah, perfect. Here we are. Right. This is a major development plan 21-12 Kingston Hall, Unit 1, Lot 8. This is a proposed warehouse development that is located roughly in the center of the Kingston Hall Providence Place development, which is out across I-75 between Newtown Pike, which would be to your left on the screen, and Russell Cave Road to the right. It is an area that is zoned ED that has had some development, primarily office-related development, towards Newtown Pike, as you all are aware. This particular plan that you see before you is a revised amended plan. When it first came in, it involved not only the warehouses, but there was a large townhouse development proposed in this area. They have revised that plan due to some of the conditions and concerns about the townhouse development. And again, as you all are aware, residential is a supplemental use in the ED, whereas the warehouse is, of course, a principal use. In this particular plan, they're proposing, you can see them here, six buildings. These are 75,000 square foot buildings, so it's a considerable amount of square footage being proposed on this site. Now, it's a little misleading at this scale. It is a large development. This is a little over 30 acres, and they have about 1,500 feet of frontage along Providence Parkway. Again, you can see the warehouses they're proposing. Here's the parking. this is truck parking and loading docks in this area and an additional parking that surrounds the property they're uh they're a little they're a little over their required parking they're somewhat heavily parked but a lot of that uh is the the truck parking that they need to serve these they refer to this the applicant does this flex space uh when they use the word flex space It's not the way your staff uses it. They're talking about their ability to adjust the interior space to meet the demands of an individual business so that they can adjust their square footage accordingly. Again, this is a permissible use in the ED. They have access points you can see here at these locations, three access points along the property. They initially on the previous plan, and I believe we'll have this discussion in the future about the closing of Destiny Drive, but currently it is constructed. It intersects Providence Parkway at this location. They will extend the parkway. It's not built at this point past here. They will build the parkway out to serve the entire frontage of this proposed wholesale development. Now, as a final development plan, you can see on your staff, on your agenda, we have all our regular sign-offs or required sign-offs for a final development plan. As the chairman stated, there is an AAMP report. You will have to find that they do comply with the expansionary master plan. They need to denote compliance with a couple of requirements, one of which is the agricultural fencing that is required along this location. They are adjacent to the AR zone and the urban service area. You can see that urban service boundary, AR zone. They have proposed 50 feet as a buffer around the properties until now. At this point, they're only proposing 15 feet in this location. However, they will have to document a signed agreement with the adjoining property owner. And of course, as you're all aware, they're one in the same in this situation. They will have to meet Article 18, which requires VUA screening as well, and some additional screening relative to the urban service boundary. There's a setback, which they are meeting. They're averaging it. There's a 100-foot building setback, and these buildings do meet that particular setback in this location. They are going to have to, again, as I stated, document exactly the agreements and the covenants that will govern the buffer along this part of the development. Now, they are in the Royal Springs Aquifer. They will be going to the committee for review, and they will have to meet any recommendations that the committee makes relative to their stormwater. the last condition is condition 19 and that is to revise the providence parkway cross section now providence as i stated has been built up to here from newtown pike it will eventually extend to russell cave road that condition is related to your amp report and i'm going to get into it in more detail is that staff wants them to transition their cross section instead of having a sidewalk per the original cross section and a bicycle lane on the parkway we want them to transition to a multi-use shared trail and with that this is a good uh good time to segue into your EAMP report, which we have provided to you on your Google Drive. Now, this is Area 3 of your EAMP, the Expansion Area Master Plan. And it is, as I stated, Expansion Area 3. It's an economic development zone. And they have a future land use element, as I stated, warehousing, industrial uses are consistent with the ED. So obviously they match and comply with the land use element for your expansion area master plan. Now they have a construction, pardon me, a community design element. And the community design element in the ED is not particularly stringent. They are working with the topography in this area. There there's not a great disturbance to any natural features or to the land. It is a gently rolling farmland at this point. So it does not take a whole lot of grading and a whole lot of work for them to develop this particular property. There's no tree stands. There's no environmentally sensitive areas in this particular in any area three in this particular expansion area. one aspect that staff does believe is very important and it's an aspect of the community design element is the pedestrian system and they will need to provide sidewalks out to the public pedestrian system the sidewalks and in conjunction with that that brings me back to the transition and the multi-use trail and we believe the multi-use trail is beneficial for several reasons, one of which cyclists will be much more comfortable when they're off-road and able to use the multi-use trail. We think that this is going to become particularly important when those supplemental uses are ultimately developed out here. As I mentioned before, the townhouses that they propose in this area, as we get those types of uses residential, As we get commercial uses, restaurants, those types of uses that are associated with the supplemental uses that are now allowed out here, that pedestrian system and bike system will become much more important to the area and to the community. So with that, that's an important aspect of the community design element, and they have agreed to that transition, so they are in compliance with the community design element as well. Last and certainly not least is the infrastructure elements of your expansion area plan. And I know, as you all are well aware now, the pump station has been completed. And that pump station is completed up here to the northwest, and it is functioning. The trunk line has been built. A lot of work has been done to address the sanitary sewer issues out here, and they will be served by that new system and by that new pump station. The other major infrastructure item is, of course, Providence Parkway. It's identified in the AMP. It's required. It's exactable. They are going to be building it from this point to this point. So they are in substantial compliance with the infrastructure element. Now, they can't be in full compliance until they construct Providence Parkway all the way out to Russell Cave Road. And if you look right here at this point, they're only approximately 1,700 feet away from Russell Cave. So we're anticipating in the near future that hopefully the Providence Parkway will be completed. There is no regional stormwater plan for this area. Their stormwater facilities are off-site and they will have to submit to engineering, of course, detailed plans on how their drainage and their stormwater will be conveyed to those off-site detention basins. so your staff is uh has provided you with a conclusion that they are in substantial compliance with the amp we are recommending approval of the development plan as well as uh again the amp report that you have before you and i'll be happy to answer any questions you may have for staff any questions for staff Not seeing any. Okay. Mr. Tony Barrett and Mr. Richard Murphy both have their hands raised. We'll promote the two panelists now. Mr. Barrett, Mr. Murphy. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy, and Tony Barrett and I are representing Dennis Anderson and Anderson Communities. I think Dennis is on the call, too, as well. And we do agree with the staff conditions. I do want to note for the record that Mr. Barrett did post the sign, and we've submitted the affidavit about posting the sign in the records. That was done. and the as Mr. Martin mentioned we've had a lot of discussion about the transition to the bike lane basically the transition is from putting the bike lane on the street surface inside the curb to moving it outside the curb and we agree with that we think it's a good idea and we'll we'll make that transition on the plan we are in contact with the Royal Spring Aquifer Committee to get this plan reviewed by them as required by the ordinance. And we are in agreement with the staff conditions. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Does any commission members have any questions for the applicant at this time? Mr. Penn. Mr. Murphy or Mr. Barrett or Mr. Angleton, whomever, I'm aware that you own both sides of that. Is this intended to be owned by Anderson or sold by Anderson? What's the intent of these buildings? Are they going to be constructed and owned? My reason for asking is the fence situation. They are going to be constructed and owned by Anderson Communities. These are not going to be for sale. These are designed as flex space for industries that may rent the spaces and then want express, they want their own layout inside the buildings. As a follow-up to that then, can you talk about what kind of fencing you want to protect the property from the agriculture use on the other side? Excuse me, you say what kind of fencing? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, we're looking at, we talked to Dennis a little bit about that, and probably we're going to be wanting to use chain link or diamond mesh wire plus hedges. And the reason for that is that we're near the training track along a lot of this line. And tennis doesn't want to get uses that are going to put irregular shadows on the track. So that's why we'd be going with that type of fencing. I understand that. And that's my reason for asking. You know, normally how you face that fence makes a difference. But in this situation, you pretty much need to face the training center part of it because of safety. But I'm just asking about that question. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Penn, Mr. Murphy for your answers. Any further questions from commission members? I'm not seeing any. Okay, we'll move on. We're to the citizens. Do we have any citizen comments, either for or against? you can do so by raising your hand digitally on the screen. Not seeing any. We'll close this part out then and bring it back to the commission for a motion. I think I'm going to stop doing that with my third grade teacher and pointing out. Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell. Chairman, if I'm not mistaken, I would like to ask for approval of PLNMJ DP 2112 Kingston Hall, Unit 1, Lot 8, as amended with the 19 conditions. Yes. I'm not looking at the Google Drive, so I'm taking it off of what was. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And we got a second by Mr. DeMolino. any further discussion to that motion all in favor please raise your hand okay okay okay motion passes unanimously and we have another we need another motion for the eamp compliance report bill are you going to take that up as well that might be a man hey great mr mr penn might do that for me do you want me to do that no he's he said he didn't take care of it i move for it that the eam compliance report is presented by staff in regard to this zone change be granted or noted whatever the right word is okay so we have a motion in the second by mr wilson any further discussion to that motion all in favor please raise your hand all right motion passes unanimously good teamwork mr bell and mr penn thank you thank you all very much thank you it's all about who you count on you know larry it's all about that who you identifying that captain hey i'm taking notes man you guys got a lot of experience over me no you told me that call you over okay so uh next up we are page seven commission items yeah land self division regulation amendment yes sir sra 2021-1 so we have uh mr kerns on today thank you um good afternoon chairman can you hear me yes we can how are you both thank you thank you uh good to see you members of the commission uh i am here today to talk to you about an amendment to articles one and six to revise the standards for street patterns and continuity. Before I get going, I just want to give a quick and sincere thank you to everybody on my team and everybody who contributed to this. I'm not going to name everybody individually, but I just want to say I'm fortunate to work with a talented group of professionals, so they've really made this an easy experience for me. So with that, let me share my screen. all right there we go so why am i here um well as you uh as you know with the adoption of the 2018 comprehensive plan uh the planning commission initiated an amendment to articles one and six of the land subdivision regulations regarding street patterns and continuity and the primary intent of these revisions is to promote better street continuity in our community particularly within and between residential developments. So I want to talk a little bit about our outreach over the past year as we've worked on these amendments. We've reviewed them internally with planning, engineering, fire, environmental services traffic engineering environmental quality parts and rec and you know all to a favorable response we also have a planning commission at at least two work sessions and most recently with the subdivision and zoning pc subcommittees we also had a outreach developer design community engagement session back in december and then more recently we sent out the required neighborhood notification letter and we also met with the infill and redevelopment committee so you know i can feel confident that these amendments that we're bringing before you today have been properly vetted and of course with that that said i think there's you know there's always going to be a few concerns raised along the way and so just kind of quickly kind of go through some of those that kind of came up you know one of the main concerns that came up and should always come up with something like this is, you know, why do we even need to revisit the text? You know, and these are things I'm going to talk about as I get into my presentation. You know, what are the benefits of this, of doing, of having better street continuity? What's the right maximum block length? We went kind of back and forth on what was appropriate. We had some people ask, you know, is this going to affect the amount of impermeable surface, you know, because you're slightly increasing the pavement. uh people also ask are we still going to have cul-de-sac lots and there's people concerned about that uh there's also people ask you know is this going to result in less developable lots there's also questions about infrastructure costs is this going to increase infrastructure costs and then finally um you know will these changes apply retroactively to existing development spoiler alert they don't this is all for new uh development and redevelopment so but that's just kind of gives you an idea of some of the concerns that were raised during our process and I'll just kind of jump in. So why do we need to revisit the tech team? Why are we considering these changes to the subroads? This graphic kind of summarizes the way that street patterns in many U.S. and other western cities have evolved over time. If you kind of start over with the pre-industrial side you see you know as cities developed they kind of tended toward a grid pattern and this kind of supported people's ability to walk to their destinations and the density and this well connected grid network you know it supported uh efficient public transit and made it easier for the buses to get around it was better for bikeability uh and this is very important you know this walkability and access to efficient trap transit is really important for people who use this to get around. And a lot of people rely on walking, biking, and transit and don't always use the single occupant vehicle. As you can see, when we got into the post-1950s, we started to see a rise in private car ownership. So you had more and more people had the access of, you know, an option to live out in the suburbs. And they kind of went for the privacy and perceived safety that kind of comes from leaving on a less continuous street system. This became very attractive for a lot of people. So you started seeing a lot more cul-de-sacs and loop roads and things like that. Move forward to today and many U.S. cities are very lacking when it comes to street continuity. We're kind of seeing a shift away from that and back towards a gridded system. So let's take a look and see kind of, you know, how these changes came over time here in Lexington. um the harrisburg road corridor is a really good example of this but you'd see this same trend on any of our major quarters here in lexington so you can see clearly how the grid and those connections have broken down as time went on you know if you look back in the 50s uh back you know close to mason heedley and you know at that time 90% of the total mileage on the through streets was on through streets. Moving out, you know, in the 60s, that's dropped a little bit to 75%. Then you get to the 90s, you know, developments that happened in the 90s just outside of New Circle in the Beaumont area, and only 18% of the total mileage is on through streets. Everything else is a cul-de-sac or a loop road and, you know, a road that's not really getting you anywhere. So, you know, what does that say about our street network today? So we did an in-house study. And here's what we found. We found that approximately one in four of Lexington's intersections lead to a cul-de-sac. and then only about one in ten of all of our intersections are four-way and by that I mean you know intersections of two through streets you know there's no no leg is a cul-de-sac in it so not a whole lot of intersections that are full four-way intersections and most of these as you would imagine are all located inside New Circle Road. You know this research and along with other other things is really suggesting that it's probably time for us to make some changes to regulations to get us back towards a more gridded system. Now, we're not advocating for better street continuity for its own sake. Street continuity has a lot of well-documented benefits for health, safety, and welfare. This is a graphic that comes from the 2017 Utah Street Connectivity Guide. They really took a deep dive into these issues and really looked at a lot of the benefits, benefits, but a lot of these things that they found would apply to any U.S. city. You know, one of the big benefits is that it improves mobility. The more continuity, it means there's more dispersed traffic, and that equals kind of less need for more multi-lane arterials with more congestion. It also gives people more choices. You know, you have more intersection, more connectivity, you have more flexibility in, you know, how on the path that people choose to get where they're needing to go, whether that's, you know, by car or walking or by bike and the intersection density kind of provides a framework for you know public transit you know if bus is going down the road and there's an accident a bus can always divert to you know to get around this is an important factor for equitable planning and it also improves our ability to get you know where we need to go another really important benefit is better response times. When you have more through streets and more connectivity, you have more direct routes for emergency services. You know, if your house is on fire, you do want your fire truck to be stuck on Nicholasville Road, or do they want to have another route to get to you? Safety is a big benefit. You know, we create a situation where drivers have no choice but to use roads with more lanes and faster speeds to get to their destinations. We also increase the risk of fatal and severe crashes. Also mentioned people who have to use roads like pedestrians and bicyclists. This also applies to longer block lengths, as we'll talk about a little bit later. Longer block lengths tend to add to speeding in residential areas. And then finally, there's economic benefit. Research shows that more connected and walkable neighborhoods command a premium and they create a framework for uh you know the more equitable placement of public facilities and this kind of helps distribute home how increased home values more evenly in our communities so and you can also you can look at any of these benefits you can kind of flip them and you can infer what the disadvantages are of not having good street continuity so uh what's the community perspective about street continuity at least here in lexington um well you know it's not just planners geeking out about urban design 101 and you know how we can create the perfect city uh you know lexingtonians voiced their opinion through the comp plan process and you know they asked for more continuous street patterns and this is called out in several of the goals and objectives that you see here you know growing successful neighborhoods creating jobs and prosperity protecting the environment improving a desirable community and all of these themes had goals that supported street continuity. These changes and all of these improvements also support the Mayor's Commission for Racial Justice and Equality, specifically the goal of having integrated walkable transit accessible neighborhoods for all residents. So that's kind of why we want to make these changes. So now I want to get very specifically into what we propose to change. So planning staff from transportation, long-range planning services, we all kind of came together and looked at best practices and the tenets of good urban design and revised the text to kind of better fit the vision that was set out in the comp plan. Basically, these updates are in four separate groups that I'll talk about. First is block standards. The second is street patterns and continuity. Third deals with cul-de-sacs. And then finally, we're going to be looking at, you know, how we plan for compatible street patterns and land use. So let's jump in. Okay, this first update deals with what we think of as a functional block and how changing our standards can kind of flip the switch on getting back to that connected grid. If you happen to attend one of the Urban Design 102 series, you might recall that there's a step-by-step process on how a designer lays out a new street network, kind of taking into account factors such as the existing street connections, topography, and natural boundaries. One important thing to look at on the slide is perimeter continuity, which kind of suggests, how do you circumnavigate a block? So our current definition of block in Article 1 is this. It's basically a surface land area which is separated and distinguished from other surface land areas by visible physical boundaries such as streets, railroads, rivers, extremely steep land, or other physical barriers. So you look at this map and you're going to take a hard look and you think, you know would you consider everything here a block well we would call the areas in green a block because you can kind of walk around them but not so much the areas that are you know up against the river or the undeveloped land you can't really get around those areas but all of those would meet the current definition which really is a definition that was taken from the taken from the u.s census to kind of define a block so this is what we propose for this. We propose redefining the term block. So instead of what I mentioned earlier, we're looking at defining it as a block is the smallest basic unit of a city's urban fabric is surrounded by streets and usually contains several buildings. It seems a little simplified, but it really changes the mindset. And there's a lot of psychology behind changing the mindset about how we look at these things. It kind of moves us away from something that's more based on the language of the census and more towards the form and the function of how we actually perceive a block, especially when it comes to planning. This is something that really, its core wants to be surrounded by streets, something that can be walked and biked and driven around. So the next thing that we looked at were block dimensions. We looked at the length of a kind of a block face, kind of bookended by through streets, kind of determine what length would actually help us improve the overall street network and, you know, provide more options to drivers, increase walkability, and new residential neighborhoods. You know, it's important to have good block lengths because it's better dispersed traffic, you have, you know, you reduce travel distances, and it's also good for transit efficiency. So, you know, we looked at best practices around the country, and what the world pushes for a good walkable block size is actually about 250 to 600 feet so we have some different examples here if you look at portland in the top left this is probably the most extreme they have like 200 square foot blocks uh one that's a little more commonly accepted is new york on the third one over has similar block width of about 264 feet with a length of about 900 feet which to many kind of feels a bit too long uh even our multi-family design standards call for an 800 foot maximum and that was always intended for a more suburban apartment context so this is what we propose for block size so we propose we propose reducing our current maximum block length from 1600 feet down to 800 feet which we we feel this would get us an increased walkability whilst not being such a drastic change, you know, not down to the 250 to 600 foot range. We also propose removing the minimum block length requirement, which is currently 500 feet. And of course, the block width is just a function of the lot depths. Kind of give you a sense of, you know, what an 800 foot block feels like. Here's some common block lengths in different Lexington neighborhoods. You can kind of see that there's always exceptions. There are some shorter or longer blocks, but this is kind of an average in each of these neighborhoods, kind of a range. You'll notice that there are really relatively few areas with very short blocks, and those are closer to downtown. Most of them kind of cluster around the 750 to 1,000 foot today. So reducing the maximum block length down to 800 feet for new development would not be a drastic change from what's already out there, but really more of a, you know, bringing them into the status quo. So arguments are going to be made that, you know, you have shorter block lengths, then that's going to be more streets, which will give you less land for development and more infrastructure, which is going to equal more cost. So we took a look at this and kind of the potential impacts and developable lots. And our feeling is that this impact would be negligible and certainly not at the level that would outweigh the benefits that I discussed earlier. This graphic you see here kind of illustrates the impact of decreasing the block length at a very basic level. You know, we have a 1600 foot block and then an 800 foot block that's divided by a short section of roadway. You know, keep in mind that, you know, a good designer is always going to be looking to maximize the number of lots allowable under whatever regulations they're working within. So this is kind of gives you an idea of, you know, worst case scenario, what you would be looking at. The infrastructure cost to the developer would be negligible, but the better street continuity would have a great benefit on system-wide infrastructure costs. You know, you decrease the number of arterials and arterial lanes that you would need to be adding. um you know the utah study that i mentioned earlier found that a just a one percent increase in street continuity yielded the same benefits as adding one lane mile uh to our roadway and collectors and um that's a pretty substantial cost savings uh we also had a concern raised that you know if you're adding this roadway and that you would be increasing imperial service and stormwater runoff and we also feel that this would be negligible and this is why you know if you if you kind of look um you know even though you're taking a couple of lots out um and you are adding the roadway you're also taking out you know the surface area from the roofs and from the driveways so all in all it really we expect that it really kind of be more of a wash all right so that is the first update so let me move on to the next one which is street patterns and continuity and just kind of looking at better ways to address how developments could should connect to adjacent property um so we're kind of coming back to this slide uh because we want to kind of stress the importance of of connecting to existing street networks on all sides and at regular intervals to provide options to disperse the traffic and at a minimum you know we want to encourage stub streets for future connections. We've actually kind of already touched on stub streets back in the, towards the end of 2019 when we added a requirement for sub street signage. So let's, let's go back, take a look at continuity between subdivisions in Lexington, a couple of different areas. So, you know, kind of look at the Richmond road and Tates Creek area. Historically, you know, a grid system kind of allowed for separate developments of land to connect each other throughout the local connector streets without pushing everybody onto an arterial. This kind of occurred in the Richmond Road areas. Various farms were sold off and they kind of chose to develop their land into neighborhoods and they kind of chose to connect their property through a series of local roads, sort of forcing everyone out onto Richmond Road. You know, and you look and you see like in the Richmond Road, 94% of the total miles is on, on 48.9 miles of connected streets. Then you look at Taste Creek Road and only 18 and a half miles of connected streets with 30% of the total mileage. This is kind of a spaghetti of disconnected streets and not a lot of through streets in that area. So this is what we propose for that. So for section 68B, street continuity, the first thing we propose is adding patterns to the title to kind of better describe what we're actually trying to achieve through this text. We also asked for requirement of some sort of connection, even if it's just a stub street, about every quarter mile along the perimeter of a new development. This one quarter mile external connection actually comes from a recommendation from the KYTC model connectivity ordinance um and to be honest you know i love the guys from kytc but really what they're recommending should probably be considered the minimum standard for us to build off of um we also added stronger wording to push for the use of local and collector streets between developments and uh then with that that kind of brings us to our third update which is cul-de-sacs um you know as i mentioned earlier uh the way that lexington has grown has produced a lot of cul-de-sacs uh the previous updates are really kind of trying to move us away from the use of cul-de-sacs and kind of form a more connected robust robust road network and um you know but we're aware that there's still going to be times where you know you're going to need to put cul-de-sacs and maybe there's some physical barrier there's still going to be a need for them and people still you know there's still a market for them so what we're looking to do here is just implement more rigorous standards so there's you know there's kind of an argument that a cul-de-sac you know helps form a close-knit neighborhood unit but you know we kind of feel like you know while that may be true at some point the length of the cul-de-sac kind of negates that community feel when you have just really really long cul-de-sacs there's also a desire to kind of be on a cul-de-sac because it has less traffic than a typical local street but again if you make them really long um you know you may not have as much traffic but you're going to have speeding and you know there's there's some disadvantages there's also kind of a practicality uh you know for the economies of scale for city infrastructure because um you know like like placing fire hydrants every 500 feet um which is the um you know which is the standard uh so that rationale kind of helped us adjust for the allowable lengths of a cul-de-sac um you know this desire for you know no traffic and kind of have an enclave is kind of negated when you allow cul-de-sacs to connect to other cul-de-sacs which is which has come up before you know basically just kind of get this this long you know string of cul-de-sacs uh and you also kind of have a lifetime cost to the city a cul-de-sac is you It's a lot of pavement, only serving a few homes, benefiting from it, and paying taxes, whereas a well-connected network can support a lot more densities. A lot more people can use a connected street network and get the benefit of it. So this is what we propose for cul-de-sacs. We are proposing reducing the maximum cul-de-sac length from 1,000 feet to 500 feet, which would support about 10 to 12 houses total. This also supports, as I mentioned before, the use of a single hydrant to serve the cul-de-sac for the fire code. And we're proposing adding language that would prohibit locating a cul-de-sac off of another cul-de-sac. So that's everything on cul-de-sacs. This is our fourth update. And in this, we're not really looking so much with connectivity, but just how we plan for compatible street patterns and land use. you know kind of became clear that the current text that we have for this kind of addresses separating neighborhoods from conflicting and undesirable street patterns and land uses but it doesn't really talk about you know how can we you know improve access and visibility between neighborhoods and compatible street patterns and land uses so we are proposing that the city proactively plan for land uses that we want to encourage next to each other so this what we're looking to do is kind of promote pulling our proposed parts or open spaces or greenways and schools and other publicly accessible facilities out from behind houses are hidden at the end of cul-de-sac's. You know if you look at like a couple parks like Mount Tabor and Kennewood Parks each of these have less than 10 percent of their perimeter which is publicly accessible. You know most of it is just backing up to houses. There's only a couple different locations where you can actually access the park. Contrast this with two of our most used neighborhood parks, which are Woodland and Kirk-Levington. They each have, you know, 60 percent or more of their frontage abutting the right-of-way. This makes them more public, or makes their public spaces more prominent, more visible, and it's a very important form of placemaking. It also kind of helps spread the value of that amenity out, you know, because more people can get to it rather than, you know, the fortunate few who are just very adjacent to the accesses, you know, when there's not a lot of access available. And then finally, it helps with safety and visibility because you have more eyes on the park. You know, we felt that, you know, addressing planning for both conflicting and compatible situations could best be achieved by splitting the current section 6.8D into two section so that's what we have here uh you know as i mentioned it already covers conflicting land use uh we want to expand it uh and so in essence what we're asking for is that 60 percent of the perimeter length of a park open space or greenway or you know school other public facility that was to be faced by new development rather than having us back to it and to be clear what that means is the 60% requirement is only applied to the portion of the property that is adjacent to the compatible land use. So it's like a new development only abuts, you know, one side of a square part. They're only required to keep no less than 60% of that one side open to the street. So those are the updates that we're looking at. And that concludes the bulk of my presentation. So with that, like a well-connected street system, I will bring us back where we started. So in summary, you know, when compared with best practices, I believe that our proposed updates are modest in scope, but they still can move us towards the goals of the comp plan and other community initiatives, such as the Mayor's Commission for Racial Justice and Equality. We also firmly believe that these benefits of these amendments far outweigh the impacts so you know last week the subdivision committee did recommend approval and the staff is recommending approval for the reasons that you have in front of you and so with that i will stop sharing my screen and open it up for any questions that you might have any questions for staff Ms. Meyer? Are you on mute? There you go. One of the concerns that was expressed early in your presentation, Mr. Kearns, was about the possibility of unusable space or lots that you would, you know, you'd end up with some land that you couldn't use. Is there some flexibility in this rig that because you don't have a minimum size, you're eliminating the minimum block size, does it get adjusted a little bit? How do you all think that's going to work out? That's a good question. You know, of course, there's when you have kind of odd situations, whether it be something kind of a topography or some other physical barrier, you know, there are sometimes reasons to have differing block lengths. And there's times when you might have difficulty making it work. So we do have a waiver process for that. You know, I still feel like designers can work within this, you know, 800 feet and with has a maximum and with no minimum. They can kind of work to fit the street system in there and kind of try to get the best value they can out of their land for housing. You know, of course, they're always going to have to work within constraints. I mean, this isn't the only constraint that affects the ability to, you know, to, you know, place lots on a development. But I do feel like with the waiver process that there's room to achieve what they need to achieve. If that answers your question. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? I'm going to ask for citizen comments, concerns. if we do have any you can do so by raising your hand digitally if not bring it back to the commission okay bring it back to the commission take a motion for this approval as presented mr wilson you raising your hand are you yawning okay mr poe thank you move to approve land subdivision regulation amendment sra 2021-1 amendment to articles one and six to revise standards for street patterns and continuity. We have a motion second by Ms. Barnstaff. Any further discussions of that motion? All in favor please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. It's a good job staff putting it together. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you again to my team and everybody. So Y'all have a good afternoon. Yes, thank you. All right. It should be page eight, staff items. Number one, initiation of a zoning ordinance text amendment for a traffic impact study. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm here to officially request initiation of the traffic impact study. Zota, this would be a zoning ordinance text amendments to Article 6-1 and a minor amendment to Article 21 if you do this. I've talked to you in the past about traffic impact studies, and at your last work session, I gave you our proposed draft language along with a kind of a two-column with the staff commentary explaining each of those. I believe that that might be in your Google Drive. If you would like, I could talk about that anymore. But at this point, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. I respectfully request initiation. and even though we do feel like that it this is a very timely update to our zoning ordinance and that we do believe that we are helping our our comprehensive plan is leading us to work towards this this was not one of the implementation items in the in the larger comprehensive plan zota implementation and so that's the reason why we are requesting a specific initiation of this text amendment today. I do have a PowerPoint that has some visuals if we need them to answer any questions, but other than that, I'm going to stop talking. Thank you. We're ready to initiate. Do we have any questions for Mr. Emmons? I'm not saying any. Do we have any citizens that would like to speak on behalf of this item? I want to make sure we do it right. Okay. We'll be back. Bring it back to the commission for initiation. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I move the client commission to initiate zoning text amendments to traffic impact studies for Article 6-1 and Miner 21-4. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second to that motion. Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Okay, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Thank you, Commission. We'll get right to work on it. Next up, initiation of subdivision regulation amendment for the street trees located near intersections. This was a request from the divisions of environmental services and traffic engineering. been having some issues with trees obstructing intersections or street trees. So current regulations require the if a street tree is in the right-of-way for it to be located at least 50 feet back from the intersection, the change they're requesting is to make it 75 feet. Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff? citizen no okay we'll bring it back for the initiation of the subdivision recommendation amendment or street trees located in the intersection as mr. Cole um I have a question about this have we seen anything on this in the past We have not. It was a request. Actually, it's been something that the tree board has spoken about internally, as well as these two divisions. And they sent a memo to the planning commission and that triggers an initiation request to you all to make this change to the subdivision regulations. so are we to assume that there is no dissenting opinion with regard to that request uh among for example the tree board or other uh organizations that are uh trying to improve our canopy what happens is they typically still are required those same number of street trees they just cannot plant them in the right-of-way. So they'll put them in that five to ten feet behind the sidewalk when it's close to the intersection and so the trees are still being planted they are just not within the right-of-way near the intersection. Okay does this affect historic areas? It would be new development. What happens is environmental services has to go out and trim the trees that are problematic. And then sometimes property owners are saying, well, why did you make us plant a tree there in the first place? Which is a reasonable question. I got a question since you brought it up, Tracy. If you're in an older neighborhood that had a tree and the trees were removed, if this was passed, would the new tree then have to fit into the increased guideline? That would be up to the urban forester if they were to apply that in a neighborhood retroactively. I don't, usually they encourage it just to be replaced at the same location if possible. But I think Tim Querrey would have to address that. Okay. You ready for a motion, Mr. Chair? Yes, sir, I am. I move to initiation of subdivision regulation amendment for Street Tree located near intersections. We have a motion. We have a second to that motion. It's boxed up. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Okay. Motion approved unanimously. Okay, and next up we have Mr. Duncan. We have a staff item you want to discuss. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to you all. I wanted to bring to your attention that we have two Planning Commission work sessions scheduled for this month as we have a fifth Thursday. And because one of the presentations is going to be an update on the work of the Strategic Growth Task Force, and that update can only take place on the 29th because we want to include the next meeting of that strategic growth before we report out to you. So we are recommending that you all cancel the work session scheduled for April 15th, which is next Thursday, and then we will have our regularly scheduled fifth Thursday work session on the 29th, where we'll have not only the strategic growth update but we'll have some other updates for you as well. So recommend canceling the meeting on the work session on April 15th, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you, Mr. Duncan. Floor is open for that motion and the approval of that motion, excuse me. Ms. Plumlee? So moved. Second. Thank you. All in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In that regard, your next meeting then will be on Thursday, April 22nd for the regularly scheduled zoning hearing. Okay. Thank you. Is there anything else to be discussed? Ms. Plumlee? Thank you, Mr. Chair. While we have Mr. Duncan here, I would like for him to kind of expand a bit on what we saw on the front page of the Herald-Leader this morning regarding the Walmart out at Richmond Road. It was kind of a zoning issue that was addressed by the council at the public, at their work committee, in which I think there was kind of an uncommon approach to planning and zoning. And I just kind of wondered if Mr. Dungan could give us some thoughts on that right now, because I was kind of perplexed by the action, just to be honest about the situation. indeed uh miss plumley that was it's an it's an uncommon uh condition on on the plan to begin with that's and that's not the kind of thing we would we would do now uh this was a deed restriction that was on this plan from 1991 uh he's talking about the walmart former walmart at richmond road and man of war uh mist lake shopping center and at that time uh there was a deed restriction placed on that plan in favor of the government, so the government's deed restriction, that made some additional conditions that would ordinarily be handled through conditional zoning now if we were to do something like that. So removing that deed restriction would not necessarily be the same process as removing a conditional zoning restriction, which is why that did not go through the planning commission process. And so the council is addressing that directly themselves. Since the law department was involved in this, Ms. Plumlee, I would recommend that perhaps Tracy Jones may want to say a word or two about this as well. Basically what Jim's told you is accurate. It was done a long time ago and it was most unusual kind of circumstance because there was some, well, there wasn't some, there was a lot of opposition from the existing neighborhoods at that time, which I think was back in maybe the early 90s. It was before, frankly, I think most any of us were involved with planning and zoning in our current capacity. But it was, the whole situation was resolved, and I think there was some litigation involved as well, by executing a document that was recorded in the county clerk's office as a deed restriction, and there was language in that deed restriction that said that it ran to the benefit of the Lexington Fayette-Irban County government, and that only the Lexington Fayette-Irban County government could remove or modify those deed restrictions. So when this particular property owner became interested in this property and the uses that were on it, they recognized that there were some recorded deed restrictions that would prohibit them from doing some of the things they wanted to do, although other things that were restricted they really didn't have any problem with. So we had various discussions between planning, between the law department. Nick Nicholson was representing the property owner that was, you know, doing their due diligence before making a purchase of this property about what to do with that. Because normally, as you all know, deed restrictions are not something that the Planning Commission or the Urban County Government generally deal with because they're normally between private parties. But the way this one was drafted, and it was drafted by, you know, several attorneys that were involved at that time, the only way that they could be changed or modified was if the urban county government acted on those. And so, obviously, an action of the urban county government has to be made by the urban county council. so um the developer or purchaser that property approached mr or council member whirly whirly because it's in his district and asked him if he would bring it up to the council to see if they would be amenable to removing that restriction um he said he would but he wanted to take it through some type of a process where the public would be have the opportunity to give input since it was an unusual circumstance and an obviously you know a piece of property that's very visible to a lot of people so that's how it got put through the planning committee and in fact they asked the developer to send out notices that it was going to be heard at the planning committee of the council to the neighborhoods around so they could come in and comment if they chose to. They also had some neighborhood meetings just to make everybody aware because it was an unusual circumstance. So that's how it all evolved. It did go through the planning committee of the council and they opted to move it forward to the full urban county council for removal of the specific restrictions and the deed restrictions that would allow them to do the use they are proposing. The rest of the or the remainder of the deed restrictions are going to stay in place and they'll still be recorded in the urban county I mean in the Fayette County Clerk's Office. So it was a different circumstance but it probably would not happen today. But that's what evolved. Thank you. Any more questions or concerns? Ms. Blumley? Well, I let this drop because I'm very curious yet. This site, could it have been like for apartments and housing? Because we hear every day, daily, sob stories about affordable housing. We have written in the comp plan that we want housing on corridors and we're not doing it. So I'm just curious, just in my dreams, I have to know, could this have been something different for an infill project or could it have been housing? Well, Ms. Plumlee, certainly the property could have been redeveloped and the property owner still has that option. So by the action that they're taking now, it doesn't preclude that from happening at some time in the future. But at this time, the owner of this property, the potential owner of this property has an interest in going in this other direction. But indeed, this property would be very good for redevelopment as far as residential use goes. there is a public park that is behind the shopping center that could be made accessible to uh to for more density so uh that and you know and maybe at some point in the future that will happen at this site so that that is a possibility a a different zone a different development plan you could make something work here very very well yes thank you Thank you. Thank you. You're not seeing any more hands raised. I'll take a motion for adjournment. Okay, Mr. Poe, thank you. Move to adjourn. And second by Mr. Bell. All in favor, don't even raise your hand because everybody's going to raise it. See you. . Singing songs about the Southland I miss Alabama once again And I think it's the same, yes