# Planning and Public Safety Committee - July 6, 2021 > Auto-transcribed civic record · July 6, 2021 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5392 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5392?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2021-07-06 - **Last revised**: July 6, 2021 - **Length**: 13,356 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 Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Planning and Public Safety Committee met on July 6, 2021, at 1:00 PM in the Council Chamber at 200 E. Main Street, Lexington, KY 40507. The committee addressed three agenda items during the session, including the approval of previous meeting minutes and consideration of a residential parking permit program. The committee took three votes during the meeting and heard from four members of the public during the comment period. Two items were approved by the committee: the May 4, 2021 Committee Summary and the Residential Parking Permit Program for the 500 Block of Fairfield Drive. Additionally, the committee received an informational presentation on an Amendment to Revise Standards for Street Patterns and Continuity, which did not require a vote. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took action on three items during the July 6, 2021 meeting. **Motion 0687-21** [timestamp: 01:05] - Committee member Plomen moved to approve the May 4, 2021 Committee Summary, with a second from Ellinger. The motion passed by voice vote with no opposition recorded. **Motion 0688-21** [timestamp: 03:00] - Bledsoe made a motion to establish the Residential Parking Permit Program for the 500 Block of Fairfield Drive, seconded by Lamb. This motion also passed by voice vote with no recorded opposition. **Public Comment Motion** [timestamp: 10:00] - The committee voted to allow public comment on the amendment to revise standards for street patterns and continuity. This procedural motion passed by voice vote. All three votes were conducted by voice vote rather than roll call, with no recorded dissenting votes or abstentions. The meeting proceeded efficiently through these agenda items with apparent unanimous support from committee members present. ## Public Comment Four speakers addressed the council during the public comment period, all expressing concerns about proposed subdivision regulations and their potential impact on housing development in Lexington. **Nick Nicolson** [timestamp: 11:00] raised procedural concerns about the subdivision regulations being considered without the accompanying zoning ordinance text amendment. He suggested that both documents should be evaluated together to provide a complete picture of the proposed changes. **Todd Johnson** [timestamp: 15:00], representing the Building Industry Association, focused on the potential negative impact of the proposed subdivision regulations on housing development. Johnson specifically highlighted concerns about block length requirements and associated costs that could affect development projects. **Ralph Rashel** [timestamp: 20:00] discussed how the proposed regulations could adversely affect the Home Place subdivision. Rashel particularly emphasized concerns about open space requirements and their implications for the development. **Tammy Hincks** [timestamp: 25:00] addressed broader housing affordability issues in Lexington, expressing concerns that the proposed subdivision regulations could worsen the existing affordability crisis facing the community. All four speakers shared a common theme of concern about the proposed subdivision regulations, though they approached the issue from different perspectives - procedural coordination, industry impact, specific development effects, and overall housing affordability. The comments reflected stakeholder concerns about both the process and substance of the regulatory changes under consideration. ## Contested Items The primary contested item during the July 6, 2021 meeting centered on proposed subdivision regulations and zoning ordinance changes that drew significant community opposition. **Subdivision Regulations and Zoning Ordinance** Several members of the public voiced concerns about the proposed subdivision regulations during the public comment period. The opposition focused specifically on two key areas: the potential impact on housing affordability and increased development costs that could result from the new regulations. Community members who spoke against the proposal argued that the subdivision regulations would create additional barriers to affordable housing development in the area. They expressed worry that stricter requirements and new compliance measures would drive up construction costs, which would ultimately be passed on to homebuyers and renters. The nature of the opposition appeared to be grassroots community concern rather than organized developer or industry pushback. Public commenters emphasized their belief that the regulations could exacerbate existing housing affordability challenges in the jurisdiction. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps, participant names, and the final outcome of this contested item are not available in the provided meeting data. The meeting materials indicate this was a point of contention but do not include the complete details of the discussion or resolution.* The subdivision regulations discussion represents the type of land use policy debate that frequently generates community engagement, as residents weigh development standards against housing accessibility concerns. ## Residential Parking Permit Program - 500 Block of Fairfield Drive [timestamp: 03:00] The committee considered Resolution 0688-21 to establish a residential parking permit program for the 500 block of Fairfield Drive. The resolution was presented as a measure to address parking concerns in this residential area. Key speakers during the discussion included Bledsoe and Lamb, who participated in the deliberation of this parking management initiative. The proposed program would create a permit system specifically for residents of the 500 block of Fairfield Drive, allowing them priority parking access in their neighborhood. The committee approved the resolution to move forward with implementing the residential parking permit program for this specific block. This approval represents the city's response to parking challenges faced by residents in this area, providing them with a structured system to manage parking availability on their street. The resolution's passage enables the establishment of the permit program, which will give residents of the 500 block of Fairfield Drive designated parking privileges in their immediate neighborhood area. ## Amendment to Revise Standards for Street Patterns and Continuity [timestamp: 05:00] The committee reviewed agenda item 0689-21, an amendment to revise standards for street patterns and continuity. The proposed changes focus on updating requirements for block lengths and connectivity standards in new developments. Duncan presented the amendment, which seeks to modify existing regulations governing how streets must be laid out and connected in residential and commercial developments. The revisions address block length requirements and standards for ensuring proper street connectivity between neighborhoods and developments. During the discussion, concerns were raised regarding the practical implementation of the proposed standards. The specific nature of these concerns was not detailed in the available materials, but they appear to center on how the revised standards would affect current development practices and planning requirements. The item was treated as an informational discussion, with no formal action taken during this meeting. The amendment remains under review as the committee continues to evaluate the proposed changes to street pattern and continuity standards. This agenda item represents ongoing efforts to update municipal development standards to ensure proper street connectivity and appropriate block sizing in new construction projects throughout the jurisdiction. --- ## Decisions - **0687-21** — passed (0-0): Approval of May 4, 2021 Committee Summary - **0688-21** — passed (0-0): Establish the Residential Parking Permit Program for the 500 Block of Fairfield Drive - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Allow public comment on the amendment to revise standards for street patterns and continuity --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. July 6th at 1.05 p.m. Looking at our agenda, I will entertain a motion to approve the May 4th committee summary. So moved. Second. All right, a motion has been made by Council Member Plowman and seconded by Council Member Ellinger to approve the May 4th, 2021 committee summary. All those in favor, please vote, say yay and approval. Yay! Those that disapprove, vote. Hearing none, that motion passed. The committee summary is approved. The next item on the agenda is a residential parking program for the 500 block of Fairfield Drive. I'll turn that over to Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. Council Member, she'll find in your packet on page six a proposed resolution for a residential parking permit program for the 500 block of Fairfield Drive from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday between the addresses of 528 and 571. The Rosemill neighborhood and the Fairfield Drive in particular have been working on this for a number of years. This is the area that's most impacted probably by Lexington Catholic High School in terms of the children who park, students who park in those areas. As you'll note, they did meet the parking requirement, 85% to 100% of the on street parking during the day. They only met the 75% of the spots identified being taken on one day, but I will tell you that they've been working on this for a number of years. Many people use that for on street parking, and honestly, lot of residents use that for on-street parking as there's not a lot of garages in that particular area so there's more people who use the on-street parking than less we have ed trammell here from the parking authority you'll find their letter of support on page seven and eight in your packet as well as the area in question on pages 10 and i will entertain any questions or comments before making a motion Thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. Are there any questions from Council Members? Okay, then I move to establish the Resilience of Parking Permit Program for the 500 block of Fairfield Drive from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through 5 a.m. Second. Okay, thank you, Council Member Bledsoe. So a motion was made by Council Member Bledsoe and seconded by Council Member Lamb. Are there any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please vote aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes. I just want to put on the record, we have talked to Lexington Catholic about this particular issue for a while and I have told the neighbors that actually I think this will not solve all the problems as people will just park further down the road. So while this is not probably my best long-term solution, it is the solution that the neighborhood has asked for to help them manage crowd control. So I appreciate your support, and they will be notified via letter next. But when it comes to the docket, when it was reported out in August, that Lex Park will send a letter to everyone in that neighborhood, including Catholic, so they can be present when it comes on to the docket. Councilmember Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. That was just when you brought that up, I was looking at the diagram that was put on there for the street that had it. So it's not all the street, it's just like two-thirds of it. So will there be something there that will have the sign they'll say from hence this four? Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember, are there any other comments or questions to this item? Seeing none, we'll move to the next item on the agenda, and that's an amendment to revise standards for street patterns and continuity. So Director Duncan is going to do this presentation, and I know there are a few folks here to speak on this item, so at the end of the presentation, I would entertain a motion from Councilmembers to allow for public comment thereafter. Thank you. Thank you, Director. Please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a moment for me, and then I'm going to ask Stuart Kearns, who is a senior planner in our transportation section, our MPO section, who was the project lead to make our presentation, and then staff will be available to address any questions. Street Continuity is brought to you as a recommendation from the Comprehensive Plan and by the Planning Commission, so we will be happy to present that to you today and address your questions afterwards. Stuart. Thank you. All right. So, as Jim mentioned, I'm here to talk about amendments to Article 1 and 6 to revise the, to amend for street continuity. And let's jump right into this. So I'll give you a little background. Basically, the comprehensive plan really calls for street continuity in a number of its goals and objectives. Theme A, growing connectivity between neighborhoods, reducing automobile dependence in theme B, supporting better jobs and improving quality of life, and improving walkability and accessibility. over the past year we have been working as a staff to develop these amendments and we vetted these internally with police fire traffic engineering engineering environmental quality environmental services and we had a developer design community engagement session after we worked these out in december of 2020 to allow the stakeholders to have an opportunity to comment on these and then we took these to the Planning Commission on April 8 where they were unanimously approved without changes or voiced public objections. So just to kind of give you a little background before I move into them, I wanted to talk a little bit about the benefits of street continuity and also kind of why this is important, what's happened to street continuity. So street continuity has a number of well-documented benefits. This graphic here is from the 2017 Utah Street Connectivity Guide. It's kind of a multi-agency report that really took a deep dive into street continuity and really kind of got into the benefits. These benefits are something you would see in pretty much any city. First off, street continuity improves mobility. It helps disperse traffic. And rather than concentrating on arterials, it spreads it out, which this kind of helps alleviate congestion. And doing so really kind of decreases the need to widen or build multilaneic arterials. Continuity creates choice, a choice for all modes. When you have a well-connected network, you have more route choices, better ways to get around. Street connectivity improves emergency service. basically just improving your street continuity can improve your service area for your first responders can also improve your response time and you know one other thing is just you know having alternate route choices you know when you don't want your you don't want your first responders if the road is blocked to have only one route to get to where they're needing to go to Street connectivity improves safety. When you have longer distances between your intersections and your residential areas, the opportunity to speed increases. You can have more speeding. And also when you don't have good connectivity, you're kind of pushing people out onto the arterials. So that in itself can also increase speeding. And then finally, street connectivity also improves as economic benefits. Research shows that homes in walkable neighborhoods command a premium. This is something that a lot of people are looking for, especially younger and older generations, which is a cohort that we're going to see a lot of as we go forward in Lexington. It's also something that companies look for. They want a walkable neighborhood. So when a company is looking to locate in a city, that's one of the things that they're looking for. Another thing, Better Street continuity also kind of creates a framework for equitable distribution of public facilities, which helps distribute increased home values more evenly. And this is something that was called for in the Mayor's Commission for Racial Justice and Equality, which had a goal of creating a community with integrated, walkable, transit, accessible neighborhoods for all residents. So that's just kind of a quick overview of the benefits. So let's just kind of talk about what happened to street continuity. So this is just kind of a graphic that gives you kind of a quick overview. But as our cities kind of developed initially, they kind of tended toward a grid pattern. But when you got into the 1950s, people started to spread more out into the suburbs. You started getting more cul-de-sacs and winding loop roads. And then as time kind of passed, street systems got more and more disconnected. And this is something that's happened all over. Lexington really is not an exception. The Harrodsburg Road corridor is kind of a good example of this. If you look at how things developed through there, but you pretty much see this in any of our major corridors in Lexington. But if you look, like in the 1950s, 90% of the total mileage on the through streets in the Mason-Headley area, 90% of the total mileage was on through streets in the Mason-Headley area. Move up to the 1960s and over in the Lane Allen, Garden Springs area, it dropped down to 75%. By the 90s, in the Beaumont area, it only had about 18% total mileage on through streets. So, you know, what does that mean for street continuity in Lexington today? Out of Lexington's roughly 6,000 intersections, about one in three of those lead to a cul-de-sac, and about one in ten, or only one in ten, are four-way, intersection of two through roads. And most of those are located inside New Circle Road. When you have something like this, you have a lot more traffic getting pushed to, you know, intersections along the arterial so you get a lot more traffic and a lot more congestion, like, for example, the corporate drive Beaumont area in Fieldstone. You'll get situations like that where everything's being pushed out to just one point. So that's enough of the background. Let me move on to the proposed amendments. Okay, the first amendment in Article 1 is the only one in Article 1. It's just updating the definition of a block. Our current definition is pretty much just what the census uses for a definition of block. The update that we have really kind of gets to the heart of what a block is, something that can be walked, biked, driven around. And this is something that seems like a fairly small change, but a lot of times small changes like this kind of can reorient our thinking about a subject. So this is why we wanted to kind of go in and just kind of redefine what we look at as a block. The next amendment concerns the length of a block. Shorter blocks really improve the overall street network by providing more route options and increasing walkability. So each of these black boxes represent exactly one square mile in some different cities, just to kind of illustrate kind of some different block lengths on a more national scale. You see Portland in the top left. That's probably the most extreme with 200 square foot blocks. New York has a similar block width of 264 feet with about 900 foot length, which to some people that's a little bit too long. Best practices call for a block length ranging somewhere between 250 to 600 feet. And even our own multifamily design standards call for an 800 foot maximum. and that was always more intended for more of a suburban apartment context. So this is what the Planning Commission proposes for block length. Right now, the current requirement has a 1,600-foot maximum block length with a minimum of 500 feet. The Planning Commission is asking for an 800-foot maximum block length with no minimum block length. This is not as short as the best practices, but it works well in the context of our community, and removing the minimum provides extra flexibility for developers. And, of course, there's always going to be situations, as with all regulations, where there needs to be some belief from these, but there are mechanisms in place for that. Basically, what this allows us to do is incrementally work towards having our block links kind of cluster around an 800-foot length. To give you a sense of what some of the different block links feel like, Here are several Lexington neighborhoods. You can see that a lot of the smaller ones tend to cluster towards downtown, but there's a lot of neighborhoods that already are in the 750 to 1,000-foot range. And so what we're asking for for 800 feet is not a drastic change from the status quo. So one of the things that came up in our outreach was, you know, what would the impact be on local street infrastructure for developers? Because we're, you know, basically asking them to go from 1,600 maximum to 800 foot maximum. So obviously there's going to be a need for extra roadway within the developments. What we found, we looked at this, and really found the potential impact would be negligible. If you notice, using typical 50 by 120 foot lot lengths in a 1,600 foot block, you're going to be able to get about 62 lots. If you added a street to the center there, you're only going to lose a couple of those lots. Another question that came up kind of related was, what would the impact be on stormwater? You're adding streets, what's it going to do to stormwater? Again, we also felt that this would be negligible. You'll notice that with the added street, you're also taking out rooftops, driveways, and other impermeable services. And then with the addition of street trees, we really felt that the additional stormwater would be negligible. Let's see. The next amendment addresses continuity between developments. The Planning Commission wanted the staff to explore better ways to address how a new development would connect to adjacent property. Good continuity between neighborhoods means having connections in all directions at regular intervals. So this is what the Planning Commission recommends. There we go. The current requirement does provide for continuity between subdivisions, but only generally. So the Planning Commission wanted to be a little more specific. What they want to do is update the text to require some sort of connection, even if it's just a stub street into undeveloped property, about every quarter mile along the perimeter of a new development. This quarter mile requirement comes from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet's model connectivity ordinance, and that really should be kind of a minimum standard for urban areas. And we also added stronger wording to encourage the use of local and collector streets to make these connections between developments. The next amendment involves cul-de-sacs. As I mentioned, Lexington has a lot of cul-de-sacs, and sometimes they can be quite long. There are even cases where cul-de-sacs have been located off of other cul-de-sacs, and this can create a situation like the one we see here, where you have a sizable neighborhood with only one way in and out. So if that one intersection was blocked, that's not great if there's an emergency. The Planning Commission understands that many people desire to live on a cul-de-sac and there's also always going to be situations and constraints which make a cul-de-sac the only option for developers. So they're not asking for the complete restriction of cul-de-sacs, which has happened in some communities. Instead, they're seeking to make the current standards reflect best practices. So the current standard basically says that cul-de-sacs should be no longer than 1,000 feet. Planning Commission is asking that we reduce that to 500 feet and that we also prohibit locating a cul-de-sac off of another cul-de-sac. Now this has not changed the number of future cul-de-sacs a lot. They can still be built. They just have to be built on shorter streets. So just to be clear, a 500-foot cul-de-sac is really not small. Here's a couple of cul-de-sacs from the Gainesway neighborhood. As you can see, they support about 10 to 12 houses each, so they're really not particularly small, and there's actually a lot of cul-de-sacs in Lexington that are considerably shorter than that. And then our final amendment really seeks to improve how people are able to access public facilities. When we were evaluating the subregs, it became clear that the current text that we have addresses protecting neighborhoods from conflicting, undesirable street patterns and land uses, but it really doesn't say anything about improving access and visibility between neighborhoods and desirable, compatible street patterns and land uses, such as parks and open space, schools, things like that. Mount Tabor and Kennewood Park are kind of an example of what the Planning Commission is trying to move away from. If you look, only about 5% to 6% of the total perimeter of these parks is directly accessible. Everything else is tucked behind houses and stuff. So you could be a stone thrown away from the park, but still have to walk quite a distance to be able to access it. So let's contrast this with a couple of the more accessible and highly desirable parks in Lexington, Woodland Park and Kirk Levington. Both of these have 60% plus of their perimeter directly abutting the right-of-way, much more accessible. These are much more desirable parks. Very easy to walk to, and this is the level of access that the Planning Commission would really like to see with our future parks. You know, in doing this also kind of helps spread the value of public amenities around to more than just the people who are just directly adjacent to the parks. So the Planning Commission proposes to approve accessibility with this amendment. The intent of the current requirement is basically to buffer neighborhoods from incompatible land uses, which is needed. the updated language retains this requirement but would also expand it to include facilitating access between neighborhoods and compatible desirable land uses so basically what the planning commission is asking for is that 60% of the length of an adjacent park open space greenway school or public facility whether it's existing or proposed to be faced by any that would be faced by a new development rather than have its back to it. And with that, that is the end of our proposed amendments or the Planning Commission's proposed amendments. And at this point, I would open it up for questions. Thank you. Council Member? I move to allow public comment on this before we entertain questions from ourselves. All right, a motion has been made and seconded to allow public comment. Are there any questions on this? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Okay, so sign-up list. I don't think anyone knows what's back there. All right. So, yeah, so if you want to speak, if you don't mind getting him, can you come to the podium? I see. Yes, sir. Nick Nicholson. I'm with Stalking and Ogden, 300 West Bind Street. When we walked in, we didn't see the public sign-up sheet. So my apologies, or else I would, and I'm happy to sign up after just one minute of y'all's time. I think everybody up here is aware that most of my practice is essentially just development work. whether it's representing property owners or developers in the zone change process or just on a kind of development plan kind of you know step if the property is already kind of appropriately zoned whenever you are looking at a development coming in there are two main regulations that matter it is the subdivision regulations and zoning ordinance oftentimes those two documents apply to the exact same project sometimes they only basically apply to one. If you're having basically a kind of mixed use type development or single family lots and multifamily together, both the zoning ordinance and the subdivision regulations will govern the same development plan. They are basically kind of inextricably tied together when you're trying to find out how a development is governed and what could be approved. And so for several months, the planning staff has been talking about what they call a global rethinking to open space in lexington we thought that that meant a subdivision regulation and zoning ordinance text amendment would come forward to you all as kind of one text amendment they instead have basically separated them out where the subdivision regulation text amendment is before you today while the planning commission has yet to evaluate the zoning ordinance text amendment The draft language is out now for the zoning ordinance text, and I do believe that the Planning Commission probably will be reviewing that in the next month or so, and most likely with the speed with which the Planning Commission has been approving these ZOTAs, it will be before you all probably kind of shortly after you all return from break. And so what we kind of are asking is that you all just hold off until you get the full picture. the zoning ordinance text amendment for open space is very wide-ranging and it has direct implications on the text that's in front of you all today the easiest example I can give you all is the block length that was just discussed while taking it down to 800 basically feet in that in that picture doesn't look like it's that big of a deal council would have no way of knowing that in in the zoning ordinance text amendment on open space, one of the proposed changes is to require what the planning staff kind of open space planner called mid block crossings, which was a hundred by a hundred greenway that would go in the middle of that block. And so 90% of all dwelling units in any new development will have to be within a quarter mile of that hundred by a hundred open space, little kind of mid block crossing. So while it looked like it was just losing two lots, in reality, you would only have seven houses, 100 by 100 greenway, and then seven houses. And so it is a big change, and you all would not be able to know about that unless you're looking at both of them together. So that's all we would ask is that you all wait to look at both of these togethers in order to properly evaluate the full picture of what these changes really are. I'm happy to go into specifics if you want. But Chairman Brown, I know I gave you a letter. I have copies if you all would like me to hand those out. But I know my time is up. Yeah, if you can share the copies, then I think they'll get them to us. Thank you. Is there any other public comment? Good afternoon, Councilmembers. My name is Todd Johnson. I'm with the Building Industry Association of Central Kentucky. It's good to be back in the chambers. I know you all are happy to be here as well. I'd just like to reiterate the points that Mr. Nicholson made just now in the letter, Chairman Brown, that we sent to you. I believe a copy is being distributed now that lays out kind of our concerns. I just want to hit just briefly on a couple of big concerns that we have about this that Mr. Nicholson didn't talk about. With the shortening of the blocks by 50% down to 800 feet as a maximum, we're losing buildable lots on each block. The planning staff in their presentation to you today indicated that might be up to two lots. Looking at this from our perspective and the design with the design engineers, I think it's going to be probably more than two per block based on side yard setbacks and things like that. We're thinking it could be as many as four. And then with the open space requirements that are coming in for the green blocks, it's a loss of more land to put houses on. While maybe negligible on stormwater, it's not negligible on cost of paving to put more streets on every block that goes into a neighborhood. The concern with that is for every lot that you lose, you lose the opportunity to sell a house, and that's a problem. If you also hadn't realized, we're kind of in a housing crisis right now and a shortage of housing. I see our realtor friend over here laughing about that. So that's a big concern of us is beginning the production of houses where it needs to be in our community in general and taking more lots away while considered negligible by some is a big deal to us trying to provide housing. The biggest thing is taking the cost that you're losing on those lots and the cost that you're increasing in cost of infrastructure and things like that that these requirements will force is raising the cost of every other house on every other lot that will be built in the neighborhood. So that's a big concern of ours as builders of homes and trying to put the most affordable product on the market that we can for our community. So again, we would just ask that you would hold this in committee at this time to take a look at how this will cross over and impact with the open space zone that's coming out. As Mr. Nicholson said, it's going to be, we see some ties that are coming at us with the proposed language that we've been able to see so far that give us concerns about other land that's going to be taking out of the ability to be built in neighborhoods. And from there is kind of where our concerns originate. So we ask that you guys would consider that today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional public comment? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy, pleased to be with you today. I'm here to give you maybe a little different view on how it impacts a particular development. I represent the home place subdivision, which is being developed by the Clark family, which is out on Deerhaven Lane, Polo Club Boulevard. We don't publicize that very much. We don't have to because it sells itself. But we've sold probably about 1,000 lots over the last 20 years. May have that many to go out there in that area. So it's a very significant development. It's where, if you're not familiar with it, Garrett Morgan Elementary is out in the home place. big stretch of the Brighton Trail going to the trailhead is in home place subdivision the last three homes for the St. Jude dream house giveaway are in the home place subdivision the Clark family is the developer who I represent Ralph Rochelle is the development manager for the Clark family and we have as I said we've been working on this subdivision for 20 years our guide has been your expansion area master plan which was adopted after about a hundred community meetings back in the late 90s is a very the most prolonged zoning experience I've ever been through in my life and they'll most I never hope to go through that again but this is a very refined document it's about 880 pages long mr. Rochelle has copies of it if you'd like to see it but that's what we followed for 20 years and it's been extremely successful we speaking of open space we We have open space, we have greenways, we have walking trails, we have a rural scenic roadway on our property. We probably have as many, much open space and greenways as any subdivision in Lexington. But none of it, we don't think any of it meets one of these new requirements, some of these new requirements. The main one I'll talk about is the requirement that we pave 60% of the perimeter of each of our open spaces that is a requirement in any public open space have roads immediately adjacent to it not not across the street or not on the other side of houses but immediately adjacent to it for 60% of the perimeter of the open space we don't meet them and we never knew that was a problem we've never had a complaint about that our open space is accessible it does have street frontage it doesn't have 60% street frontage that has never been presented to us as a problem by any resident out in that area we don't think that's a problem on our subdivision and we want to keep building the way we have been one example is the Brighton Trail itself this ordinance the Brighton Trail is a publicly accessible facility this ordinance would require that the Brighton Trail be surrounded on 60% of its sides by another road. In other words we'd have to have a parallel road built to the Brighton Trail along one entire side of the Brighton Trail and on 10% of the other side of the Brighton Trail. Now that's exactly against what our experience of the Brighton Trail has been. People go on the Brighton Trail. Mr. Murphy I'd hate to cut you off but you're out of three minutes. Can I summarize real quick for you here on it? It wouldn't work for the Brighton Trail. The problem we have, this results in more paving, more impervious surface. Second, it results in fewer houses, putting more pressure on expansion of the urban service boundary, and it increased the cost. Now, our experience, we did a quick calculation. We figure it will add $10,000 to the cost of every lot out in our subdivision, $10,000 to the cost of every lot. That does not count the cost it will be to comply with the open space ordinance that is coming to you. So that's why we agree. Well, we don't agree with the ordinance at all. But if you're going to further consider it, we would ask, as Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Johnson have, that we take this up at one time when the open space ordinance comes to you. Thank you. Mr. Murphy, I hate to cut you off. Sorry. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Is there any additional public comment? My name is Ralph Rochelle. As Mr. Murphy said, I work out on this property. I don't want to take long. Well, I won't take long. Certainly not more than three minutes. But I would like to point out what I think is the most significant document page in the whole deal. We talk about affordable housing in this community, and I want you to read, if you do, if you have your document that's called Amendment to Revise Standards for Streak Patterns and Continuity, if you have that. Or if you don't, just remember the number 19. And I'm going to read to you what page number 19 says. He read part of it, but he didn't read the significant part. I'm sorry, sir, I don't know your name. Stuart. Stuart read part of it, but not the significant part. I don't think. On page 19, it says, compact, connected, walkable neighborhoods can command a price premium. That's where he stopped. Of 40 to 100 percent compared to nearby neighborhoods. In other words, they're suggesting by this that houses double in price. And if we talk about in the community wanting to have affordable housing, which I work every day for. We have a neighborhood, we'd love for you to come out, that's very diverse, that has a wide range of homes. We're complimented all the time on our architecture. We have several different builders we use at one time. But this doesn't do that. If you take our houses from $200,000 to $400,000 on one end, from $500,000 to $1 million on the other end, you tell me how that possibly, possibly is providing affordable housing in our community. I thank you very much. Thank you. Is there any additional public comment? Thank you. Hi. I'm Tammy Hinks, and I just came here the first time ever to talk to our councilman. I live in Hamburg. And listening to this, because I wasn't really here for that, we moved here two years ago. And this affordable housing is very expensive to live in Lexington. And we live in Hamburg, and our houses are going for $100,000 more than we paid for it two years ago. So if you increase it by their standards of more green space and adding the developers $10,000 per lot, you can't have affordable housing. Nobody's going to move here. I mean, you just can't. So maybe you should wait and think about a compromise between those two somehow. That's all. Just one second. Any other photo? All right. All right, seeing none, then I'll open it up for council members with any questions or comments about the presentation from our planning staff. Council members? Council member Lamb. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for this presentation, and I appreciate the public comment. As always, it's good to understand where everybody's coming from. I guess Mr. Kearns or Mr. Duncan, I guess my first question would be to the, this is the subdivision regulation, but the text amendment that the other gentlemen are talking about, can you expand on when you expect that to be coming forward to the Planning Commission, please? Mr. Woodall, please. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. We have taken that text to the Planning Commission. We've already undergone one series of public engagement on that. And since we've produced the text, we expect another round of public engagement. Also, we have, as a matter of fact, in the IR Steering Committee tomorrow, we'll be presenting that. and we'll be going to a number of different groups to present that information and to get more information from the public on that. So we don't have any plans. We don't have a work session scheduled for when we will be bringing that to the planning commission to move forward with a public hearing at this time. Okay. Well, I appreciate that information. And I guess I know that there is a lot of engagement with other departments and divisions within the city. as it relates to different things that are going through planning. One of the things that, and I don't know if this is relevant at all, but it came to my mind about if we're going to shorten the segments, you know, my colleagues and I, we have to choose our paving by segments, which in my mind the first thing I thought of is, is this going to cost us more for paving because we can pave by segments only? And so if we're creating more segments, I'm just curious if anybody from Public Works was involved in this discussion about the subdivision regulations in the streets and the shortening. I'm just really curious. Mr. Kearns or Mr. Duncan? Council Member Lamb, we did meet with Public Works, primarily focused with traffic engineering about this and also with engineering. I don't know that the question of the cost of repaving was thoroughly discussed, but as far as the design of the roads, the function, and what that means for mobility, for movement, and for safety, for multimodalism, we discussed all of that through Public Works. Well, and I appreciate that, and I do understand. I mean, I was glad that Kirk Levington Park was one of the examples because it is. I wish I had a ticker that caught everybody that walked in that park because this is the most heavily used park. I would bet close to the heaviest one in the state, in this county, because there are so many people there because of its contiguous availability. So I guess the other thing is, is there, you know, sometimes there are grandfather possibilities, and I don't know if that would be relevant to subdivision regulations, But with this subdivision regulation, if it were put in place, would it be for anything moving forward that doesn't already have a development plan in the process? Or how would that work, please? Certainly, Council Member Lamb. I would invite Tracy to correct me, but any approved development plan would proceed as the Planning Commission had approved that. so they would not be required to address those changes. And certainly any existing development, even without a development plan, would not be required to go back and address it. This is looking forward. This is how the remaining green fields in the urban service area and even beyond would be addressed going forward. Well, I appreciate that. I'm looking forward to the other comments of my colleagues, and thank you all very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Bledsoe? Mama State, Councilmember Reynolds. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for everyone for sharing your thoughts on this. I have a few questions for the Division of Planning. The first question that I have is why is there no minimum block length? Could you expound on why in the new version there would be no minimum requirement for a block length? Council Member Reynolds, this is one of those instances, just like many of the other text amendments that have come your way over the past year and a half, where if an additional requirement is being made, we're looking for ways to relieve other requirements. So not requiring a minimum block length and allowing a developer to work with existing topography or existing constraints, we believe, is an important option. But certainly the maximum block length is what we're focused on. But if there are other reasons that a block length should be significantly shorter, we believe the developer should have the option to work around the topography and other constraints to accomplish that. And the neighborhoods that are listed where currently we have some blocks that are actually lower than our current minimum block length, is that because they're older neighborhoods? And I'm looking at that list there. Many of those are. You'll notice those, particularly the ones from downtown, they radiate out. They've been there for decades. So the much older neighborhoods have those shorter blocks, yes. Okay. And then when we talk about street continuity requirements, On page 29, it talks about that street continuity between subdivisions shall be provided in all directions at a fourth mile intervals. Could you help me understand that a little better? No, but Stuart can. Okay. basically what we're asking for is you know when you have a development come in that in general in all cardinal directions as to the extent possible that you either have that either connect to an existing development if it's there if you can or you at least provide a stub street now certainly there's going to be situations whether it be topography may prevent you from doing that there may be a creek or there may be you know something that keeps you from getting through or you may already have a existing you know development that that only has cul-de-sacs this so but to the extent possible we would like to see at intervals of about a quarter mile around the perimeter connections to the other developments so that you don't have to that you can move from one development to the other without having to drive out of the arterial and then back into another development. Okay so like if there's a new development it can't stand on its own and another neighborhood stand on its own they have to have connectivity between them right so that you don't have to go out onto the main road like Harrodsburg Road or something like that in order to get there okay okay thank you yeah I I'm interested to hear more about this I think that there's some good things that could come out of it but I think that there's some things that give me pause that I want to make sure that I understand better before moving forward thank you thank you councilmember councilmember Bledsoe thank you chair I just have a few questions and I appreciate the presentation since you use beaumont i'll use that as a good example and you're exactly right the neighborhoods inside that new circle area you can see the progression of how it's changed and i would um a great deal of that of that particular park in in beaumont has a great deal of public access so a number of that of the park the trails are all you can access pretty easily not all of it but a lot of it does have a lot of frontage if you will but a lot of those all cul-de-sacs or dead end streets and that's why people choose to live there it's because they like it and i remember in dogwood when the agape was going through part of the conversation was we wanted agape to be open so that from a i would use the fire conversations easiest one so you have access for ems you have access for fire trucks more quickly from a police standpoint it was always my my what i heard was that safe streets had less access and i'm trying to remember former commissioner derrick polson talked a lot about safe street design that there's safe street for walkability safe street for um cars and then there's designs to make them safe people don't speed but there's also you know less crime it seemed like in some of those smaller inner access areas so um chief lo i know you're back there i didn't ask you this but did you do you have any commentary on if i'm making this up please tell me i'm making it up But it seemed to me that there was a public safety, safe street component to designing neighborhoods. I'm definitely not an expert on it. I believe you're talking about safe by design. Yes. And I know it's been a long time since I've even looked at the topic. There were certain design elements that could create a situation that is not particularly safe. one of the ones that that comes to mind is walkways behind houses where you don't have good visibility into where people are walking so some of those components do come into it I don't know if that answers your question at all but I believe safe by design is what you're talking about it is what I'm talking about and I'm I'm only referencing it because I wasn't sure if it was part of the conversation when you design this yes no maybe yes I just couldn't think of the right terminology. I'm sorry Council Member Bledsoe, say the question to us again. Safety by design. Right. Was that part of your thought process and how you thought about less cul-de-sacs, more connectivity, design? Yes, Council Member Bledsoe and from a variety of standpoints safety. Certainly safety of the people on and the right of way, the pedestrians, the bicyclists, the motorists, the people needing the emergency services to get to them so all of that and understanding that there are sometimes competing interests for these things and looking at the balance of it we felt like that the the issues associated with vehicular safety with pedestrian safety with public service access were the ones that we were we prioritized and certainly we want to continue these conversations with our public safety officials they are involved in the technical review of all developments so we would we would look for them to advise if they felt like there was something that was being laid out that was going to cause a problem for the neighborhood but we also think on balance these other issues help solve a lot of other issues that have not been addressed and would be better for for our citizens as well okay i feel like i should disclose i live on a cul-de-sac i grew up on a cul-de-sac court one court you know greg court has 10 houses the court i'm on now has probably closer to 20 it's a longer beaumont has those longer stretches of courts that kind of connect around um and both were chosen on purpose um by my parents and by our family for for kids safety and for um we liked it And it's interesting, I'll just throw this out there as well. When you have neighborhoods that have those parks that are surrounded by homes, it does, we back up to a green access point, so I see it. And when people are back there that we don't know or look suspicious, we call. We've got some neighborhood parks that don't have a lot of frontage to neighborhood, to people. And so there's things that happen there, there's not a lot of eyes on all the time. And so what happens is I'll get a call from someone who says, hey, I'm watching that street over there, but there's no one close to it that's watching it. And so I don't necessarily love, while some it makes sense, Kirk Lubbock is a great example, big park, great area. I'm not sure some of those neighborhood pocket parks need to have as much open space for it to still be accessible. And I would use the commentary on accessibility. Neighborhood to neighborhood from trail to trail is one thing. Road to road is a different one. And so there can be connectivity without necessarily being road connectivity just for access to parks. And I'm out of time, so I'm going to stop talking. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member McCurn. Thank you, Chair. I'm going to pick up right where she just left off there. I kind of – the connectivity is key here. And in safety and talking about that, I want to see more connectivity and I want to see more walkability throughout Lexington. But to me, it just seems a little backwards when you say, let's put more crosswalks in crossing over pavement rather than just having longer sidewalks. I don't want my kid to go over. If he's going to go to his friend's house and he's going to cross over crosswalks, I want him to take the shortest amount of crosswalks that he can rather than let's have more here and more here and more here. If there's a trail option, I mean, that's a different story. But I think with crosswalks here and safety, I don't necessarily understand how it becomes less or it becomes more safe having more or four-way stops, too. You know, I appreciate the list here, talking about the Lexington neighborhoods and the walkability in them and discussing that. Because Masters and Station, between 500 feet and 700 feet, is their block length. That's less walkable of a neighborhood than Metathorpe. I think Metathorpe is probably one which is in the 1,000-plus feet. I think Metathorpe is by far one of the most walkable neighborhoods that I have in my district and probably all in Lexington, and there aren't even trails except for in the park that's in the middle. I do have a few questions for Director Duncan, please, just on if you guys had any studies on, you know, cul-de-sac safety compared to, you know, the street safety here, and if you could share any of those with us today or if you'd be able to share with us in the future. Certainly, Councilmember McCurran, if we can look at the information that we provide on this, we'd be happy to share that with you. Just want to punctuate, as we said earlier, that this proposal doesn't take away one single cul-de-sac that presently exists. And it does not prohibit cul-de-sacs, as many other communities have done going forward. It still leaves the option for the same kind of cul-de-sac that Councilmember Bledsoe just described. So cul-de-sacs are not going away under this proposal. We certainly see their need, but we just believe they need to be shorter than some of them are. Okay. In the presentation, it was discussed on there would be a limited on a few homes in, If you take a block from 1,000 feet, or I believe it was 1,200 feet, down to 1,600, down to 1,800, how many homes is that roughly taking out? The example that we showed showed two of the single-family detached units coming out in order to make that cross. Should the developer choose to use a mixed housing option, those units could be made up in other ways in that same development. as they could be made up in different ways with 1,600 feet, though, too. And I think that some of the public comment that was made on affordable housing, that kind of hits the nail on the head with it, too, is that we are focused on affordable housing. Thank you for answering those questions. I appreciate it. But, no, I think that more affordable housing and more homes in Lexington is what we're focused on, and especially if we're not expanding the urban service boundary and we are cutting out some of our development that grows up, we need more homes. And I'm okay with how we have it right now, but I'd be interested in seeing the futures that are coming forward too. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member McCurn. Council Member Brown. Thank you for recognizing me, Chair. I'm not on this committee, but I did put this in committee because I thought it was worthwhile that we have the discussion and get all parties involved. And I don't know, you know, my perspective is I don't know why we're making it more difficult for development because I think these changes, updated requirements, are making it more difficult. I think the development community has shared that with me. You know, when you reduce, and everything I see here looks like we're reducing housing. And then we're always talking about infill. Did anybody look at the infill versus the existing housing that this particular subdivision plan would do? I mean, obviously, if you're reducing lots, you're contradicting the infill policy. Is that? Council Member Brown, I disagree because, of course, it's the developer's choice of what type of housing they want to build, whether it's single family detached or another product that would provide housing and that's what the community is focused on is providing housing not just one type of housing but i would also say that uh that in these conversations and we've made this the planning commission has made this clear the comprehensive plan has made this clear that that each new text amendment or subdivision regulation that grants more permissions, more relief to the developers, would likely be met with something that would look at a quality of life response. So for instance, when the council and the planning commission recommended increasing floor area ratio, which puts more housing on a lot, the discussion was we're going to come back and address that with other things that address the quality of life that offsets whatever this is. It's the same with the accessory dwelling unit ordinance that's been sitting in council for almost two years now. That was more housing that the planning commission recommended be provided, and that's not been provided. So there have been a number of text amendments that have said, yes, here is relief from the regulations. Developers can build more. Individuals can build more. And in response, we're going to look at quality of life, and we're looking at the quality of life now. Okay, Director, why do you think the development community is against this? I think they articulated their concerns, and we respect that. Certainly the developers that spoke to you today are primarily focused on a type of development, but we didn't hear from any of those at the Planning Commission. None of them addressed the Planning Commission hearing about this earlier this spring. We don't hear from the infill developers, those who work on much smaller projects. They didn't say one way or the other. because you don't request to hear from them, or they just decided, nobody showed up? No, no, we reached out to the development community in the development of this subdivision regulation. And one other example, you've got a cul-de-sac you want to go back to 500 feet, you've got a development plan, let's just say because of the topography and, you know, the variances, I guess you could have floodplains, all that kind of stuff. stuff if you had a 600 foot cul-de-sac what would they have to do there just do 500 and then a block vacant lot on the end of it no sir with every regulation there is a relief option and that would be a variant a waiver through the through the planning commission okay okay so there is a a an allowed variance of some kind a waiver a waiver to the subdivision regulation a waiver yeah and who would they go to on that waiver to the planning commission the planning commission yes okay all right thank you sir thank you council member uh council member plowman thank you chair uh home place that was referenced by mr rochelle and mr murphy is in the 12th district and uh as they said it's well done the quality of life that you see in that area is is very very top notch I think that the page 19 reference to the increase, the value, speaks volumes. I just think it's counterproductive what we're trying to do across our community. I also wanted to check on, we don't have all the information we need today. Obviously, the reference to the zone that's coming down the pike is one, But also, this is a lot of information to digest, so I would not be in favor of moving this forward today. Let us come back after our break. Let's listen to others, and let's look at the other information that's forthcoming. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Plowman. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. I just have a few questions. One, I really appreciate the conversation and the presentation, And I love hearing the public comments so that we know at this point going forward where everybody kind of stands. I'm trying to wrap my head around the intersection densities. I know we had talked about shortening the blocks. So I'm envisioning what this potential subdivision looks like going forward and trying to figure out if at every break in the block are we looking at a four-way stop or a two-way stop. You know, you think of continuity, and I think it's very important based on first respondent. I think that that definitely does increase our quality of life. However, if I'm going through a neighborhood and I'm having to stop every 600 feet just based on safety, that seems a little counterintuitive. I know we want to shorten the blocks so that we can decrease speeding, and then I just see a four-way stop coming into play and I think that that just is very frustrating. So I'm definitely not in favor of that. I feel like the quarter mile intervals is a very short amount of distance and I understand where you're saying we can just step out a road to attach potential developments down the road but I feel like that is maybe too short. Director Duncan, I know you spoke about neighborhood waivers. So in looking at Beaumont, I'll use Beaumont for an example, the trail that leads through that. Would there be a potential for a waiver on a trail versus a neighborhood park? Because I know, sorry, I know one of the public commenters made the reference to Brighton Trail and there would have to be road frontage on the majority of it and that seems pointless to be honest um so is that something that you all took into consideration as a park versus a trail council member baxter it's impossible to account for every possible situation that might come up and i think that's a good example of how that might look and and when you describe it you'd say put a two-lane road next to a trail and with another two-lane road on the other side well that really doesn't doesn't sound right does it so that's why and yet having our public spaces only in people's backyards is not right either because then you you lose the access to a publicly maintained space to the majority of the public and just the people who front on it really get or back up to it so I bet that's a that's an excellent example of where we would want the developer to to bring some creativity to the regulations and to the process to see how can we ensure that this public asset gets all the public access that it should while still maintaining certainly what it makes sense as far as public infrastructure, additional infrastructure, roads and that sort of thing. So that's an example. I couldn't tell you exactly how that would turn out, but that's something we would want to have a conversation with the developer to see would we need to waive the regulations and is there a way to ensure that this public asset is publicly accessible. I appreciate it. Thank you. Echoing Council Member Plowman's sentiments about just not having enough information at this point, I agree that I could not move this forward at this time without hearing the proposed ZODA coming forward. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Baxter. I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Steve Kaye. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for recognizing me, though I'm not on this committee. I really had just a couple of questions. First, it's about the questions that have been raised about why you would bring this forward without the Zone Text Amendment and whether it would be helpful to Council to have all of that together. that together is there a rationale for separating them or how do you how do you think about that mr. vice mayor I believe is Chris what all said we're just we're trying to bring these to you as they become available and street continuity progressed faster it was able to through our meetings and our research was able to pull that together with open space still being in development so they are complementary ordinances as are most of the ones that have been brought to you because they're all coming from the comprehensive plan. That doesn't mean that they have to walk together. They can stand alone, which is why we went ahead and advanced this without waiting for the open space, though. We feel that this, as a regulation through the subdivision part, as Mr. Nicholson noted, is a separate regulation, can go ahead and be implemented going forward, even though the zoning part will still be forthcoming. Okay, and it's a related question. This has a number of pieces. Are they separable in your mind or in the staff's mind? Together, are they a package that would need to be considered up or down? Vice Mayor, we believe that these work together. They work very well together. However, certainly if you had a particular question about one or you wanted to talk about a number up or down, that's certainly something that the staff would be happy to talk about. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Chair. So now I'm getting ready to have some contradictory commentary because I can't help myself. So, all right, I've listened to everybody talk. I've listened to the presentation. And, yes, Director Duncan and the planning staff, you know that I'm always supportive. But here's Fourth District, okay? Fourth District is Lansdowne, was built in 1950. So on page 20, 1950 segment, that's Lansdowne. then you go up here to between 1970 and today that's Bella wood subdivision and thinking about it from the context of what councilmember Bledsoe was talking about it about the police and and traffic yes Bella would drive gets a lot of traffic complaints of speeders but Lansdowne gets the lion's share of it and I continuously getting conversations from constituents that are worried about speeders on the streets. And I am taking all that into context while I'm listening to what all the questions and all the answers. And then I listen to the part about the ZODA, which I really do respect and understand that sometimes it is good. I know that you all are working as quickly as possible with the process, with the comprehensive plan, and I appreciate that. But I do understand that sometimes it is good to be able to read side by side when things are moving forward. Not always, not always, but it is sometimes good. And I could see how this could possibly really work well if we could look at both of the ZODA and subdivision regulations. So, you know, I think it is really unique. I shared with Council Member Baxter before I moved to Lexington in 1986, I didn't even know what a cul-de-sac was. I was raised in the country. We don't have those in the country. We have lanes, and we don't have that. So I respect that because people like to live on them because they feel like they're safer. However, the other example I will say, and Mr. Nicholson, you'll remember this, is when the summit was built, the Devondale neighborhood, they don't have contiguous into the summit. and you know what the neighbors were like well we we want to walk to the summit development well they they can't they walk around so that's those are some contradictory things you know i see opportunities for us to be able to have contiguous and be able to walk and make things more accessible which is really important to our communities but i think that this is where the planning staff and the planning commission and if boa is involved board of adjustment is involved in any of it and the decision making of all of this because I think that we have to look about how do we move forward to create more affordable housing and there are multiple you know there's not just single-family residential that's going to create affordable housing so I think that there are opportunities here for us to really dig our heads together put them not in the sand but put them together and figure out how is the best way to move forward with this and and and sometimes maybe it is that we, when there is an opportunity for us to think outside of the box and move forward on, like the subdivision regulations, at the time we get the ZODA information in, that there will be areas of town where I could see this concept being very important, but I likewise can see areas that it ain't gonna work. So, you know, everything doesn't fit in the eight ounce cup. So I think that we have to really, I want to be supportive of this, and I think there is a place for it. But I think that at this point in time I am going to have to go back on Mr. Duncan and Mr. Woodall. I had a conversation with you all last week, and I want to see the ZODA too before we move forward with that. this and and I think there's a place for this to be able to move forward in our community to where that that would this this can be good I just I'm not there right now so I appreciate that thank you chair thank you councilmember councilmember Bledsoe thank you thank you chair I wasn't quite done so director Duncan if I could that or maybe both of you one of the things in the particularly outside the new circle part of the district for me is how much of the frontage on exits and entrances for neighborhoods takes up a lot of green space. So I'm thinking of Palomar, Dogwood, Firebrook, that have a lot of green space. Is that considered open space under the requirements, or is that demographically just the way it happens to lay out? I'm just curious if that's in the open space ZODA or if that is part of this conversation. Thank you for rescuing us, Council Member Bledsoe. The open space ZODA really is about the private open space. What we're talking about in the subdivision regulation, and we're talking about streets and access to parks, that's really more the public space, the public open space, or access to public open space. The ZODA that Chris talked about will be forthcoming. We'll be addressing much more of the private open space requirements and how those are provided better than the regulations presently require them to be. Okay, so that would be the next conversation, not this conversation. Okay, thank you for that. And then I just, so my commentary is going to be this. You know, I understand we've done developments. Sometimes having all the cut-throughs, excuse me, having cut-throughs and more accessibility is nice for traffic because it diversifies it. You've got people moving instead of just one on Manor Wharf or on Dogwood Boulevard. There's one way in, one way out. So that is a high traffic area. I'm thinking Fort Harrods would be another one, Malone. Those are high traffic areas, but if you have more accessibility, the argument is well, then you go out different places inside the New Circle Road area. So I can understand both parts of that. I think the challenge, there's tensions to be managed, as you said. you want people to have accessibility to have safety to have um walkability you want ems to be able to get you there quickly you also want to be quiet and calm and i don't know how we do all of that in anything to be honest there's a perfect development if there were we'd all live there that has all of those things um so it's a it's a it's a tension to be managed just not a problem that we can solve and say well this is it you know we're trying to navigate that well and i think we all want to navigate that well when i talk to people who say why are you buying a home here they want a street where people don't speed really badly they want it to be safe from car break-ins they want it to have accessibility and play area for their kids that's kind of an access to green space you're right access to parks that's kind of it there's not in my opinion those are kind of top three things outside schools and everything else we don't have control over but we do have control over the rest of it so i would i would strongly encourage two things one is secure by design i think is a planning document from police it is a it's a mentality of how you think about planning neighborhoods it's not just a you know that where the house seems to structure so i know at least commissioner paulsen had that information and did research on it so i would encourage you all to find that or ask him for that document because i think that there is a planning element to it that goes above and beyond just the way your house is located and then secondly i think as we move forward i think i'm i agree with my colleagues we should wait and do both of these things together um because i think what we're looking for is a place of are affordable places for people to live that have lots of different options and so I choose as a suburban mom to live in suburban area for a reason that's my choice others make different choices because they want to be close to they want to be maybe in a higher density area they want they don't want the green space they don't want different things that's okay we're trying to create a community where we can all have someplace to live that's affordable and kind of meets our needs and that's a tension we're going to have a balance as our land becomes less it's just part of it and I don't have an answer to that but I think we need to be mindful of that conversation. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember. Not seeing anybody else signed up for comments, I'll ask a few questions and share some comments on my own. I appreciate all the feedback that was given today from public comment and council members and I think I share the concerns that one size doesn't fit all in regards to this holistic view of street patterns and continuity. I think folks are looking for things different in the neighborhoods they choose to live in. I think closer to downtown, you expect shorter block lengths. Outside of New Circle Road, you expect cul-de-sacs and longer block lengths. I myself live in a cul-de-sac. So I understand that. And I think there are some elements of this amendment that I haven't heard anybody challenge or have conversation about, and one of them is street continuity. I think we all understand the importance of that in neighborhoods. And I remember having a conversation with our police department a few years ago about a neighborhood in my district that has one way in and one way out. And to have a police presence in that neighborhood could feel like to the neighbors that live in that neighborhood that it's an occupying presence as opposed to a patrolling presence. So I do see the benefit and understand the benefit of having streets and the ability to ride through neighborhoods. The other concern are the additional cost to development in regards to housing affordability. To not address those issues and have conversations about them in regards to our housing situation here in Lexington, I think, will be negligible. So, Director, I was just wondering, since we didn't have any participation from the development community in regards to the public hearings and the planning commission, is there a mechanism in place to maybe back up and have those kind of conversations and to get that input about how block lengths and cul-de-sac restrictions would impact the cost of development? Well, again, Council Member Brown, we did have those conversations with the development community while we developed the subdivision regulation. They just didn't come and make the same statements to you, to the planning commission. So we have had those conversations with them and have had that input. Certainly, we will be happy to continue those conversations and receive more input from them if that would help. I think it would help. I think it would give this committee maybe some direction in addition to ways to move forward in regards to seeing how the open space ZODA is going to impact this. Because if you're talking about privately owned open spaces, that's also a potential additional cost to developers and development. If they have to maintain those and they take away from potential buildable lots. So I think it would be helpful to have those conversations and maybe try to get to some numbers that we can understand and doesn't severely impact the cost of development. Thank you for that. Let me ask one more question. In regards to deed restrictions and zoning, deed restrictions can be more restrictive than the zoning, but not vice versa. Is that correct? So there could be deed restrictions that impact development more restrictive than our zoning policy. Is that the case? Yes, but they could certainly limit a person's right to do things, but as far as the infrastructure design and layout, that would not be something that could be overcome by a deed restriction. That would have to be addressed by a waiver through the Planning Commission. Okay. Deed restriction generally applies more to making something even, you know, limiting uses or maybe even setbacks that are more restrictive than what the ordinances require. But if you're thinking about a deed restriction to require a longer cul-de-sac than the ordinance requires, that would not be possible. Okay, okay. All right, thank you for that. And with nobody else signed up to speak. I don't think we're ready to take any action at this moment on this item, so we'll keep this in committee. Looking like we have the next item on our – Council Member Lamb. I was just going to – I hate just leaving something laying. So what I was wondering, and I realize that we don't have a true understanding of exactly because the process is still in place for the ZODA. but but chair if um i mean do you think september october i'm looking at mr duncan and mr woodall i mean i just would like to at this point today to point it to another uh to another meeting so that it doesn't get it doesn't go away and we're we have our eye on the sparrow and uh that we can look to that. I mean, and if it's not ready by October, then... Council Member Lam, what I would offer, and Chris may ring my neck, but we can do with you like we have done for some of our other tax amendments, like we did with accessory dwelling units. We'd be glad to bring you at a session like this, or in a conference in the small room, an update on where we are and what we've heard and what we expect to be presenting to the Planning Commission. We'd be happy to provide that update to you all as well. Okay. Alrighty. I appreciate that. I do. So, Chair, maybe, I don't know, but, well, I've got my packet in front of me. When is our next meeting? I believe our next meeting is in August. Yeah. What if, what if we, and I mean, I'm willing to, what if we say, would you entertain bringing this object back up on the committee in September? And then we can have the conversation between now and then with the staff and then see? Yes, ma'am. I think that is a viable option. I think we'll just be in communication with the planning department and see if there is an update to bring it back in September or October. I appreciate that. That way, everybody in the room and everybody that's listening to this conversation, that we have a plan going forward of when we can have expectations of the next conversation. I just think that's a very good, important thing to do. So thank you all. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. And so the next item on the agenda is items referred to committee. And I will say this before we go look at the committee list, because I know the director had brought up ADUs that's been in committee for a long time. We had had some conversations about having a refresher for the new folks to council and the committee, I mean the community as a whole. So that's an item that we may look to bring up when we get back from council recess. That's just, we had talked about it today, but I didn't think it'd be good to have a refresher, then we're going to break for a month and then come back and try to pick it up. So with that, I would entertain any motions to remove or update any items in committee. Councilmember McCurn. Thank you, Chair. I took on this item back at the beginning of this year. Councilmember Farmer had this item in committee before, but number 13, the downtown traffic study, I'm going to move to remove that from committee. So move. All right. There was a motion to remove the downtown traffic study and second it from the committee referral list. Any questions? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, we'll remove that item from committee. Thank you, Council Member McCurn. Council Member Bledsoe. Thank you, Chair. I'll make a motion to remove item number two, the residential parking permit proposal for the 500 block of Fairfield Drive. So moved. All right, there was a motion to remove the parking permit item from committee and seconded. Are there any questions? See it, none. Any, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, we'll remove that item from the committee list. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I would like to make a motion to remove number 15, study of commercial solar farms from committee. So moved. Second. All right, a motion was made to remove the study of commercial solar farms and second it. Are there any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes. All right. Seeing none, I will pass the, do I need to pass the chair for me to remove some items from committee? Okay, just that. All right, well, I'll make a motion to remove the five-year public safety plan for corrections from committee. I've talked to Commissioner Armstrong, and that's something that they may bring back to us at a later time. So move. Second. All right, a motion has been made to remove a five-year safety plan, public safety plan for corrections out of committee. Any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, we'll remove that item from committee and then also the Division of Correction jail concerns. I've also talked to the commissioner about that item and anything that comes up, we can always put that back in committee. So I'll make a motion to remove that item as well. All right, that motion was seconded. Are there any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that motion passes. Are there any other items or any other business for this committee for today? All right, Council Member Reynolds. I would like to remove the comprehensive review of code enforcement, but I would like Code to give us an update in committee at least once a year. Okay. Can I do that? Yeah, yes ma'am, we can do that. Okay. All right, so is that in the form of a motion? Yes, please. I move to remove the number 17 comprehensive review of code enforcement, but ask that Code give us a reviewing committee once a year. That motion was made and seconded. Are there any additional questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? That motion passes. If there's no other business for this committee, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. All right, this meeting's adjourned. Thank you.