# Urban County Council Zone Change - September 2, 2021 > Auto-transcribed civic record · September 2, 2021 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5427 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5427?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2021-09-02 - **Last revised**: September 2, 2021 - **Length**: 33,028 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 held a meeting on September 2, 2021, at 5:00 PM in the Council Chambers in Lexington, Kentucky, with Vice Mayor Kay presiding. The meeting focused on a single agenda item, Ordinance 0379-20, which was ultimately denied by the council. During the proceedings, the council heard from 6 members of the public who provided comments on the matter under consideration. The meeting resulted in 1 formal vote being taken on the ordinance before the council. ## Attendance **Present:** • Baxter • F. Brown • J. Brown • Ellinger • Kay • Kloiber • Lamb • LeGris • Moloney • Plomin • Sheehan • Bledsoe (arrived late) **Absent:** • McCurn • Reynolds • Worley **Late Arrival:** • Bledsoe Twelve members were present for the September 2, 2021 meeting, with three members absent. Bledsoe arrived after the meeting had begun. ## Votes and Decisions The council conducted one roll call vote during the meeting on a zoning change ordinance. **Ordinance 0379-20** [timestamp: 08:45] - An Ordinance changing the zone from a Single Family Residential (R-1C) zone to a Professional Office (P-1) zone for property located at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Rd. The motion was made by F. Brown and seconded by Plomin. The ordinance **failed** by a vote of 5 ayes, 6 nays, and 1 abstention. **Voting in favor (5):** - Baxter - Bledsoe - J. Brown - Kloiber - Moloney **Voting against (6):** - F. Brown - Kay - Lamb - LeGris - Plomin - Sheehan **Abstaining (1):** - One council member abstained (name not specified in the data) The failed zoning change would have converted residential property to allow professional office use at the Nicholasville Road location. The ordinance did not receive the necessary votes to pass, with the opposition citing concerns not detailed in the available voting record. ## Public Comment Six residents spoke during the public comment period, all addressing concerns related to a proposed zoning change [timestamp: 06:21]. **Joe Chappell** opposed the zoning change, emphasizing the neighborhood's history of community engagement and preservation efforts. He highlighted the community's longstanding commitment to maintaining the area's character. **Andy Mead** expressed concerns about increased traffic on Edgemoor Drive that would result from the proposed zoning change. He focused on the potential impact of additional vehicle traffic on the residential street. **Kim Gersony** also raised traffic and infrastructure concerns related to the proposed zoning change. She highlighted how the development could strain existing infrastructure and worsen traffic conditions in the area. **Mike Brower** argued that the current zoning provides a natural boundary for the neighborhood that should be preserved. He contended that maintaining the existing zoning designation would help protect the neighborhood's defined borders. **Molly Davis** urged the council to preserve the neighborhood's integrity and follow the planning commission's recommendation. She emphasized the importance of maintaining the area's character and supporting the planning commission's guidance on the matter. **Amy Clark** discussed high vacancy rates for office space in the area and argued against the need for additional P-1 zoning. She questioned whether there was sufficient demand to justify expanding professional office zoning given existing vacant properties. All speakers appeared to oppose the zoning change, citing concerns about traffic impacts, neighborhood character, infrastructure capacity, and market demand for office space. The comments reflected coordinated community opposition to the proposed zoning modification. ## Contested Items The council addressed one contested zoning matter during the September 2, 2021 meeting that generated significant community opposition. **Zoning Change for 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road** A proposed zoning change for properties located at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road faced substantial resistance from local residents. The Southern Heights Neighborhood Association organized opposition to the zoning request, expressing concerns about the potential impact on their community. The neighborhood association's opposition proved effective, as the council ultimately denied the proposed zoning change. The denial reflected the council's consideration of community input and the organized resistance from affected residents who felt the zoning modification would negatively affect their neighborhood character or quality of life. This contested item demonstrates the role of neighborhood associations in the local zoning process and their ability to influence municipal decision-making when residents unite around shared concerns about proposed developments in their area. ## Ordinance 0379-20 [timestamp: 05:05] The council considered Ordinance 0379-20, which proposed rezoning properties at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road from Single Family Residential (R-1C) to Professional Office (P-1). The ordinance faced significant community opposition during the meeting. Key speakers during the discussion included Hal Baillie, Nathan Billings, and Jessica Winters, who presented various perspectives on the proposed zoning change. The rezoning request would have allowed professional office use on properties currently zoned for single-family residential development. Community members expressed concerns about the potential impact of converting residential properties to commercial office use in the area. The opposition centered on how the zoning change might affect the character of the neighborhood and surrounding residential properties. After hearing from speakers and considering the community feedback, the council ultimately denied the ordinance. The disapproval means the properties at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road will retain their current Single Family Residential (R-1C) zoning designation rather than being converted to Professional Office (P-1) use. --- ## Decisions - **Ordinance 0379-20** — failed (5-6): An Ordinance changing the zone from a Single Family Residential (R-1C) zone to a Professional Office (P-1) zone for property located at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Rd. --- ## Full transcript . Good evening everybody. Good evening. Welcome. This is a Urban County Council zone change hearing on PLN MAR 19-00016. And I guess before I go to the first order of business, I'll introduce myself. I'm Steve Kaye, I'm the Vice Mayor and I'll be chairing this meeting. And the first order of business is for the clerk to please call the roll. Ms. Baxter? Yes. Ms. Bledsoe? Mr. Fred Brown? Here. Mr. James Brown? Here. Mr. Ellinger? Yes, ma'am. Vice Mayor Kay? Here. Mr. Kloiber? Yes, ma'am. Ms. Lamb? Here. Ms. Legree? Here. Mr. McCurn? Mr. Maloney? Yes, ma'am. Ms. Plowman? Here. Ms. Reynolds? Ms. Sheehan? Here. Mr. Worley? Thank you. The next order of business is to have the clerk give a second reading to the zone change ordinance when you're ready, ma'am. Number one, an ordinance changing the zone from a single-family residential R1C zone to a professional office p1 zone for 0.876 net 1.191 gross acres for the property located at 1918 and 1922 nicholasville road julie butcher council district four thank you next i'm going to summarize the order of the hearing before i do that actually the The next thing is to swear in anybody who will be a witness. And so if you have not signed in or your name has not been submitted to the clerk, there's a sign up sheet in the back of the room. But if you intend at all or it's possible that you'll be speaking, I ask that you stand if you're able and raise your right hand and I want to swear you in. Do you swear or affirm that any testimony that you give at this hearing will be true to the best of your knowledge? Thank you. I have had a preliminary conversation with both attorneys who will be speaking tonight, and they've agreed to limit their remarks to 45 minutes. Initially, it does not include rebuttals and summary. And anybody who is signed up as a witness in addition will be given three minutes to speak. My job, a part of my job, is to make rulings on whether testimony is relevant or not, or if it's repetitive. And so I will try not to interrupt anybody, but if I do need to, I'll make a ruling. And unless there's a motion to overrule my ruling, that ruling will stand. If you do speak, we ask that you remain for the entire proceedings because you'll be subject to cross-examination by the attorney from one or the other side. When you speak, if you would give us your name and address for the record, I'd appreciate that. And then this has come up before, and I did it the last hearing. The council, because we do not have any jurisdiction over actual planning documents, we will not allow renderings to be considered. That is, the development plan is not our jurisdiction. We're here only to consider whether the zone change that's being asked for is appropriate. And because renderings are just that and we have no control over it, we will not allow those as testimony. So the order of the proceedings will be as follows. First, there'll be a presentation by the planning division staff, and that will be subject to cross-examination. Then there'll be a presentation by the petitioner, also subject to cross-examination. Then a presentation by the attorney for the opponents, also subject to cross-examination. At that time, if there are additional people who have signed up to speak, whether in favor or opposed, we'll take them in the order that they are on the sign up sheet. I have one sheet here already. There's another sign up sheet at the back of the room. There will be an opportunity for staff then to make additional comments, and then an opportunity for both sides, first petitioner and then opponent for rebuttal evidence. And if it's not already happened in the course of business, if there's a summation that either side, either council would like to make, we'll entertain that at that time. Following that, council will be signing in to ask questions of staff, petitioner, and opponents. And there's an opportunity again to rebut, but not to enter new evidence from the attorneys. Following that, I will declare that the hearing is closed. And at that point, there will be no further comments of any kind from anybody in the public. It's time for council to share their thoughts. They can ask questions of anybody, but absent a question being asked directly, it will all be council's time for their comments. Then council will first vote to adopt findings of fact, which will have to be approved or disapproved by a roll call vote. And then finally, there'll be a vote on the underlying ordinance. I believe that's all the preliminaries unless council members have questions or comments at this point. and if not then we'll open the hearing and we'll hear from staff mr bailey welcome uh thank you very much vice mr vice mayor uh and members of the council good evening i'm glad to be here tonight to present to you the recommendation of the urban county planning commission for the map amendment request pln mar 19-00016 a request by julie butcher the petitioner has requested a zone change from a single family r1c zone to a professional office p1 zone for approximately one acre at the located on the properties uh 1918 and 1922 nicholasville road for the record my name is hal bailey i am the senior planner for the for zoning in the division of planning planning services section i have a number of items that i i need to enter into the record for tonight's hearing prior to beginning our presentation first we have entered into the record a copy of the legal advertisement that was placed in the newspaper for this public hearing this has been provided by the council clerk's staff also a sworn affidavit stating that the mailed notification letters for the this public hearing to the property owners within 500 feet of the subject property and a supplemental notice to the note to the property owners has also been completed as required in this case there were two mailings upon the mailing of the first notification there was an error in the title of the zone. It stated neighborhood professional office zone or P1 zone. There is no such thing as a neighborhood professional office zone. A corrective letter was sent following the identification of the error indicating what the appropriate name of the zone was. This is a professional office zone or a P1 zone. Those mailings were also sent to the leaders of the nearest neighborhood associations there were three in this case in addition a copy of the final report that was sent to council previously is being entered into the record you should have a copy of that in front of you at this time information submitted to the planning commission hearing emails of opposition and the staff presentation from the original presentation is also entered into the record additionally the 2018 comprehensive plan imagine lexington the current zoning ordinance the current land sub and the current land subdivision records i've also entered a copy of my presentation that i'll be presenting today into the record as i stated before this is a review for the zone change for the properties located at 1918 and 1922 nicholasville road the applicant is seeking that p1 zone from an r1c or a medium-sized uh single-family residential zone with our newest comprehensive plan we have a new system in which it locates our developments within a place type and then a development type in this case the applicant is locating their proposed development within the corridor place type and the medium density non-residential or mixed-use development type. The applicant is proposing with their development to construct a two-story professional office and an associated off-street parking. I'd like to take you in and orient you to the specific zone change and the properties that we'll be discussing. We are located along Nicholasville Road here at the corner of Edgemoor Drive. We are just close to Southland Drive here and Jeslin Drive. jumping a little closer we can take a look at the current zoning for the subject properties as you can see there are significant portions of r1c in yellow located here that is your single family residential or detached residential zoning across the street across nicholasville road we do have portions of b3 which is a highway service business zone b1 here and here along southland drive and then across the way a single family residential with some plant neighborhood residential or r3 zone across the way we do have an h1 overlay for the pensacola park neighborhood jumping into the aerial view this gives you a bit of a better view of the land use that has been developed over time you can see that the area to the north and to the east as well as to the west uh are primarily single family detached housing uh when you look at the area of southern heights in this area it's typically a little bit larger lot size whereas if you go across the way to the pensacola park neighborhood or the wgpl neighborhood slightly smaller lots the subject properties are here on the corner while the subject properties are being utilized as one single family residential structure it is in fact two lots these two lots have been utilized as residential with one large structure fronting on the property I'll jump into some photos of the area itself in this top center picture we have a straight on view of the subject property it is that single family detached structure it's a Dutch revival style house in the top left here we're looking into town along Nicholasville Road, top right going out of town along Nicholasville Road, a little bit less clear of a photo there, I apologize for that. Across the way we are seeing the El Toro restaurant and the T-Mobile store, as well as the former location of the Denny's. I will say that this presentation was put together a couple of years ago when this was brought in. The Denny's has since been removed from this location. Again looking into the property from Edgemoor, down Edgemoor, away from Nicholasville Road, and then across the street. Across the street we do have the location of a bank that is also a professional office zone. And then the neighboring property. This is a newer construction compared to much of what we're seeing throughout the neighborhood and then again just another look into the property from the corner of Edgemoor and Nicholasville Road when reviewing any zone change application it is incumbent upon the staff to look at the small area plans or any other studies that are referenced for a property in the 2007 comprehensive plan within the land use element it called for a study of the Nicholasville Road corridor at this location it was the location of the North Nicholasville Road small area plan while that was planned and initiated it was never completed at that time I will also say that a study that was produced for the Nicholasville Road corridor study was developed following the submission of this application and is not reviewed for what the applicant has brought today uh when reviewing the uh corridor place type or the place type and development type associated with the comprehensive plan the corridor actually is mapped within our comprehensive plan uh this is actually the the sole uh area within the comprehensive plan for a place type that is mapped and as you can see it is located along that nicholasville road which uh the staff concurred the applicant's designation as this as a corridor place type the medium density place development type is strongly tied to several aspects of the comprehensive plan specifically theme a a goal our density policy number four which is focused on developing our higher density and intensity uses along our corridors theme b sustainability policy three encouraging mass transit to be really focused along our corridors trying to get to the largest amount of population as well as the largest amount of employers and then theme e growth policy 10 which is focused on the enhancement reuse and redevelopment of underutilized properties along this corridor so seeking to intensify and densify some of our corridors uh this is uh the pull pull from the place place builder within the comprehensive plan the applicant is seeking to utilize that corridor place type and situating it along a medium density non-residential uh or mixed-use development type the medium density non uh make apologize medium density non-residential or and mixed-use development type is really focused on providing mid-rise structures at a higher density than what you would see on a local road. It is also focused on providing employment opportunities and higher density residential mixed-use types of opportunities. Our typical mixed-use zones are our B6P, our B1, our MU2, our MU3, and then getting into our R4 and R5. There are certain elements of the R4 and R5 that allow for small development of office space. In this case, the applicant is not utilizing any of the recommended zones in the comprehensive plan place builder element. However, that does not preclude them from asking for another zone within the place builder it states explicitly that an applicant can request a separate zone outside of what is in this recommended area however it is incumbent upon that applicant to provide greater information as to why they are going to that zone in this case the professional office or the p1 zone the professional office or the p1 zone is intended primarily for offices and related uses retail spaces are typically prohibited except we're directly associated with those office functions this zone should be located as recommended in the comprehensive plan now this gets into a few aspects of how does this get applied through the place builder in this case we are looking at the allowing for mixed uses it is a greater intensity than what you would typically see for a residential development but it is less intensive along most commercial zones. And then it is, while not referenced within the comprehensive plan, it is covered within all of the uses of the B1 zone or the neighborhood business zone. In this case, the P1, all uses that are allowable there are brought into the B1 zone and allowable at that time and in those locations. Within the applicant's letter of justification, they sought to apply different elements and goals and objectives. They sought to respect the context, and this specifically gets into how they saw the appropriateness of the P1 zone, rather than some of the recommended zones at this location. They sought to respect the context and design features of the surrounding residential neighborhood, ensuring for some compatibility with the existing urban form, and not overburdening the land use with intensity and transitioning from that residential to professional use. They sought to promote a well-designed neighborhood by providing newer services that would be accessible to the residents of that area along Nicholasville Road without significantly disrupting the existing nearby residential character or neighborhood. it and then finally they were proposing to support the complete streets concept by encouraging the use of bicycles they were adding uh bicycle stations or uh parking on their site as well as prioritizing a pedestrian first design that also accommodated the needs of bicycle transit and other vehicles within their letter of justification they reviewed the place builder criteria for the corridor and the medium density non-resolution residential or mixed-use development type in this section there are uh 70 excuse me 73 uh different develop development criteria which apply to this uh not all of these are applicable to a site like this uh as such the applicant went through and uh during our conversations in the earliest parts of our review of this there were a few areas of concern that the applicant went further to identify specifically dealing with green infrastructure mass transit uh connected multi-modal modality uh development along the corridors trying to get to a more transit intensive or oriented development and then uh looking at ride sharing uh this is a major component of how people move nowadays is shifting away from the single single occupancy vehicle and playing more into the uber lyft or the gig economy with staff's review of this there were certain elements that staff was still concerned with staff recommended certain use prohibitions as well as some lighting and sound restrictions this was meant to make the professional office a little bit more compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and reduce the impact of lighting and sound on those nearest neighbors the staff did recommend approval of this application with their review this included the review of the the goals and objectives and the development criteria as well as the implementation of the conditional zoning restrictions during the planning commission review there was a specific recommendation uh at that time it was held first on january 30th 2020 seems like quite a long time ago um at that time the opposition was uh primarily re to the request was primarily from the southern heights neighborhood association the bluegrass trust for historic preservation and a dozen other neighbors uh who expressed the following concerns they were specifically concerned with the demolition of the structure at that location the existing residents providing a housing option in the area increased traffic traffic and the potential for backup along edgemore drive the potential increase of traffic conflicts along nicholasville road specifically in the fact that this section of the roadway does narrow down if as everyone has driven this portion of nicholasville road it goes from approximately eight lanes to about five lanes and the portion of the this property does have a narrowing lane which all too often people speed on by to get ahead there is increased the applicant the opposition was specifically worried about increased storm water runoff the fact that the imagine nicholasville road study was only in the beginning stages and no recommendations had been made yet and the neighborhood and uh the opposition was worried about the importance of respecting established neighborhoods uh the public hearing had a motion to approve that resulted in a four four tie uh at that per the uh per statute uh it must wait 30 days to come back to the planning commission for any new vote at the the February 27th, 2020 hearing, there was another brief discussion. And then at that point in time, it was recommended for disapproval with a vote of five voting for disapproval and for voting against. The planning commission's recommendation for disapproval was based on findings of fact, the subject property being appropriately zoned and creating a well-established land use boundary between the residential business offices on the south side of Edgemoor Drive and along the east side of Nicholasville Road the request is in conflict with design policy number four under theme a growing success successful neighborhoods respecting the context and design features of the area surrounding developments and development design standards and guidelines to ensure compatibility with exist the existing urban form the proposed the Planning Commission found that proposed uh rezoning or zoning is in conflict with theme a goal uh growing successful neighborhoods as the rezoning and demolition would remove without replacing a housing choice in the market then the uh the planning commission also stated that the proposed development does not grow successful uh a successful community through well-designed neighborhoods by encouraging existing neighborhoods to flourish this gets into theme a goal 3a by demolishing a well-preserved an architecturally significant example of Dutch colonial revival architectural style. It is a viable residential property that contributes to the history of Lexington and the architecture of the established Southern Heights neighborhood. The proposed development is destructive of several mature trees that contribute to the urban forest without significant replacement. and then getting into the development does not create a context sensitive transition between that intense corridor along Nicholasville Road and the existing neighborhood. There was a review of a development plan. This is a the location of the subject property just gives you a little bit more of the review of the area and then illustrative document that gets into what the applicant was proposing with that i i am here to answer any questions that you might have i also have another member of staff that is also available if you should have any questions and we'll be here for any questions or cross-examination by the applicant or opposition thank you does petitioner want to cross-examine i just had a question for staff if they have any updated recommendations i'm sorry you need to come to the microphone pardon me vice mayor nathan billings billings law firm on behalf of the applicant 145 constitution if i keep my mask like this can you still hear me okay if you'll speak right into the mic that'll be helpful is that better sir yes okay uh the only question i have for staff is in light of the imagined nicholasville road study if they have any updated reports or recommendations to the council for tonight mr bailey it is the opinion of staff and law that in this case the applicant submitted their application prior to the establishment or the adoption of the study uh in this case staff is reviewing the application and the record and recommendation of the planning commission as if the the study had not been adopted thank you Anything else, Mr. Billings? Thank you. Miss Winter, anything? Cross examination of staff? Not at this time. Thank you. In that case, we can move on to the presentation by the petitioner and welcome. Good evening, Vice Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of the council. My name is Nathan Billings. I'm an attorney with Billings Law Firm, 145 Constitution, and it is my pleasure to represent the applicant julie butcher tonight for her zone change request for 1918 1922 nicholasville road as i start my presentation tonight i have a couple things to introduce into the record first is a copy of the affidavit regarding the sign posting on the property from one of my staff members who posted it along with photographs a copy of the comprehensive plan from 2018. the place builder which is adopted as part of the comprehensive plan and the imagine nicholasville road study which the council has adopted as part of the comprehensive plan in may of 2021 which then updates the comprehensive plan with that i also have some additional evidence that i will cite tonight regarding listing information for the property for the number of days has been listed since 2007 and the price changes and a herald leader article from february 2020 regarding development in lexington referencing the specific property in question which came out before the planning commission vote in late february 2020. you should have in front of you two handouts that i've passed out the first is a small packet which includes a description of the p1 zone for your ease and information some other additional information which I will reference during the presentation tonight. The second thing you should have is a one-page motion, which is just simply a proposed draft motion for your consideration with proposed findings and conclusions at the end of the hearing when I will ask for your support to vote in favor of the zone change that's at issue tonight. Mr. Bailey has done an excellent job, as always, summarizing sort of the background of the project, what happened procedurally and what brought us here to tonight. I actually started this process. It's almost sad, but 25 months ago in August, early August of 2019 was our initial meeting with staff. I don't know of another zone change, which has taken 25 months in the history of Lexington to come through Council for hearing. So we are thankful that you have decided to hold a hearing tonight. We are here to answer any questions about it. And we hope that you will see and understand why a zone change for the property of one acre on Nicholasville Road is appropriate. One of the first days of law school, one of my teachers taught me that, one of the professors taught me that the best way to make an argument is to follow a very simple rule. And if you've heard me talk before, I use this analogy or this statement all the time, which is just called IRAC, Issue, Rule, Analysis, and Conclusion. The professor said that if you always follow that, you'll always get to the right result, because all you have to do is identify the issue, look at the rules of law that are applicable, look at the facts and apply them to that law, and it'll lead you to the conclusion. I submit to you all tonight, and I'm going to walk through an IRAC analysis, that if you all look at the rules that are applicable to a zone change under KERIS 100 and the applicable governing documents that primarily the comprehensive plan as updated by a place builder and as updated by imagine nicholasville road study which will come to when you look at the facts is that there's only one conclusion here which is a zone change is appropriate and is necessary for nicholasville road while there may be other zones that are also appropriate we have selected the least intensive professional use in the city of lexington to change the property zoning that's important mr bailey talked to you about place builder and how in place builder there are recommended zones and and that this was not one of them. One of the reasons why it isn't one of those zones is because this is actually less intense. It's a lower intense use of the property. And because of the extensive engagement that we did with the neighborhoods on both sides of Nickelodeon Road, as well as with other area business owners, we determined that the P1 zone was more appropriate given their concerns, given their feedback, given objections they had than a B1 or an R4 or an R5 or an MU3. So while Mr. Bailey is correct that P1 is not one of the recommended zones, PlaceBuilder allows an applicant to ask for, and staff agreed with our recommendation that the P1 being a lower intense use of the property on the Nicholasville Road corridor is appropriate. it. So I see the zone change as sort of an extenuated discussion of what you will see almost every time there's a public hearing on his own change. And that is, will council do what you all have been saying now for at least the last decade that Lexington is continuing to grow and we have to make decisions that aren't always fun. They're not always nice. They're not always comfortable, but they're going to stretch our city. We're making decisions to add density for residential purposes because we want to protect our urban service boundary. We're making decisions to change how corridors work like the Nicholasville Road corridor study because we have traffic problems that we have to address and they don't get fixed overnight. We're making decisions about our properties along corridors immediately on the property on the corridor like this one or are they a block away like you all did a couple of weeks ago. We're looking at questions about underutilized parcels in downtown areas and whether three or four-story apartment buildings are more appropriate than one-story office buildings. This decision tonight that you're going to make is only part of that continuing discussion. The tension is not going to go away after tonight. It's going to continue to exist. But the question is, are you all going to continue to do what the comprehensive plan says you want to do, which is to add increased intense use of land, at the same time, try to balance a respect with the integration of existing neighborhoods, existing businesses, growing corridors. That's what this hearing is about tonight. So the issue is really is whether a zone change of a one-acre underutilized piece of property on Nicholsville Road that's already along a business zone should be rezoned from a single-family residential zone. Again, one single family on an acre of land on Nicholsville Road to a P1 zone, the least intense commercial use in Lexington. Because the Planning Commission voted 5-4 in February to recommend disapproval of this, it is important that I communicate this and that I ask this of you tonight. The law requires a majority of the entire council has to overturn the Planning Commission. What that practically means is there are 15 council members. Regardless of how many are here tonight, because there's 15, it takes a majority of the entire council. So we need eight affirmative votes to overturn the Planning Commission. So at the end of my presentation, I'm going to ask for your support to vote in favor of this. And I hope that we get a majority of the entire council, not the majority of the quorum, the majority of the entire council, which does take eight votes. So with that introduction of the issue, what's the rule? The rule is really, really simple. We have a statute K.R.S. 100-213 that says a zone change is appropriate when it's recommended by the comprehensive plan. Well, we have a comprehensive plan. It was adopted in February of 19. We have Place Builder, which is part of that, which was adopted in February 19. We have the Imagine Nicholasville Road Corridor Study, which was adopted in May of 2021 and made a part of the comprehensive plan. And staff report reflects these. The analysis has a lot of facts regarding this. the location use and history of the property i imagine you're going to hear significant amount of the history of the property from the objectors and we will give you a brief history the long history of the property however while it gives context to the discussion tonight is not relevant under keras 100 or the comprehensive plan we're going to talk about the surrounding adjacent business zones and properties we're going to talk about the public engagement process with that I won't spend a lot of detail tonight, but this is our public engagement binder, which we introduced the planning commission, which we're introducing the record here tonight. I'm going to summarize those before we have never seen the engagement process that had over 20 public meetings, interacted with hundreds of citizens and delayed our zone change filing for 60 days while we engaged the public before we ever selected the zone we were going to file. Unlike most zone changes where the applicant says, this is what I'm going to file and they might have a meeting with the neighborhood, In this case, we didn't select the zone. We actually engaged the neighborhood to walk through the place builder process to look at the place type, the development type and come up with the zone. We did that because we wanted their input rather than just saying we're going to make a B1 or we're going to make an R4. That's how the P1 was selected. It's because the neighborhood got involved and participated in the process and because of their concerns, that's the public engagement process. That's what was selected. it. So we're talking about the proposed use the development plan. Vice mayor, I know it's not the evidence, but we're gonna have a picture of it just because staff showed us as part of the application process. But but Council, I understand and acknowledge has no jurisdiction over the development plan. It's located on a corridor. We're going to talk about the importance of that fact. We're talking about corridor development criteria underneath place builder. We're talking about the buffering issue, which is I think one of perhaps the main concerns we heard from area residents, which is you have large scale residential across the street and behind this. However, this property does face Nicholasville Road. It's not three doors in or a half a block in or a block into a neighborhood. We're going to talk about, finally, I think some of the neighborhood objections and why they may at first have some facial appeal potentially they are really myths that don't really stick with krs 100 213 regarding the comprehensive plan our conclusion is going to be that the zone change to p1 is appropriate and we'll ask for you to vote in favor of that so i've talked about keros 100 213 and which is the start of the legal process you may hear a lot of evidence tonight and the vice mayor has extreme discretion to allow evidence into the record however i would submit to you that that and having represented a number of hoas and neighborhood associations i've done this myself is there may be a number of comments that are not focused upon whether or not it's in conformity with the comprehensive plan so for example somebody says it's going to affect our property values i respect that concern it the data doesn't bear out with respect to that but it's not a member a matter for the comprehensive plan as an example. So what does the comprehensive plan say? I'm not going to read each of these. The presentation is in the record, but theme A talks about growing successful neighborhoods and we're talking about identifying areas for endville redevelopment and mixed use development, i.e. along the corridors. B, design features of surrounding areas. You've heard staff say things like we have setbacks. The building is oriented towards Nicholasville Road. We have height limitations, which is part of the zoning conditions we have in in this case for lighting for sound no drive-throughs we're adding those things that respect the buffering between a building which is pulled forward towards nickelstone road to respect space within neighborhood with lighting sound drive-throughs which of course reduce the amount of vehicular traffic through there there's other things that um that you'll see i hope to identify through the presentation theme b everything a goal three talks about public public command to expand options for mixed use. The P one zone is actually a mixed use zone. It's not called an MU P one provides and you can see it in your P one description. You can actually have residents as long as it's not on the first floor and as long as you don't mix uses on floors. So potentially you could have office space on the first floor and you could have condominiums on the second floor. That's an example of the flexibility of P1 which doesn't add an R45 story apartment building or 16 townhomes, but it does allow that mixed use opportunity. Going on goal for objective B talks about providing access to health care services. As you know, Nicholasville Road is the primary health care corridor in Lexington. it's going to continue to be that because of the facilities that exist along that road theme b talks about protecting the environment so one of the ways we have to do that is we have to figure out ways where we're putting offices closer to where people live like nicholasville road and while we have great facilities that are being built out in hamburg the problem is you have to drive out there so where do people want to go they want to be able to drive to their doctor in five minutes not 35 minutes themed objectives b and c all of these are talking about increasing the intensity of use on parcels of land inside the urban service boundary and particularly along corridors like nicholasville road objective d is to encourage development that offers employment same thing for the professional space same thing theme c goal two objective a talks about strategically targeted sectors like health care it talks about specifically says enable infill and redevelopment that creates jobs where people live well again if you have large-scale developments out in hamburg with with significant acreage tracks that's great for large-scale projects like new hospitals however there is a limitation of one acre parcels like this one for small office buildings which are near where people live for them to walk bike take mass transit to and they don't have to drive across town going on theme d goal one objective a b and c all of these are talking about in providing employment enhancement on corridors and for the mass transit that is desired as you know from the corridor study theme d goal two talks about encouraged development that protects national environments creates buffers which we're trying to do here theme eagle one uphold the urban service boundary again we're taking an underutilized parcel and we're developing it rather than having again a single family residence on a one acre parcel inside of not just urban service boundary not just inside new circle road but inside of southland drive in uk so place builder is the second part of this place builder requires what you all adopted in february of 19 as sort of at the back end of the comprehensive plan process has sort of six steps engagement place type development type you select your zone you have an application review and input well this is the review and input stage tonight this is the final step for that um so a brief overview this engagement as you all know is to have public engagement instead of an applicant like they used to do is go file the zone change now place builder says you're supposed to go engage neighborhoods engage stakeholders engage area businesses so we did that then you look at the place type and the place type talks about not the zone meaning how does it get into a p1 or r4 but it talks about what are the spaces that are that that are created by the zone change then you talk about the development type and the development types so whether you're going to have mixed use versus residential high medium or low and then you finally come to your zone and then you file your application and then you have a hearing the reason that layout is important is i'm going to come to in a minute is because as i said earlier place builder requires the applicants to go through a process with stakeholders in the area and the p1 zone in this case was selected specifically because the area neighbors did not want townhomes they did not want an apartment building they did not want retail they did not want drive-throughs so what's left small scale professional office space so the zone was selected through an engagement process and hearing the neighborhood comment about what they didn't want understanding that a zone change was going to be filed and it wasn't going to stay single family but to respect their selection of things they didn't want and to therefore select the zone that best fit with the things that they didn't want. In other words, we threw the things that they liked the least out. I'm not saying they like this, but at least this tried to respect the things that they liked. They disliked more. Finally, imagine Nicholasville road. Um, this study, I respectfully disagree with staffs comments and in references department of law, that it is, that it is not a part of the comprehensive plan. Um, because the council has adopted that as part of the comprehensive plan in may we firmly believe it's part of that there may be a legal issue as part of that but i know there's a lot of discussion about nicholasville road i know there's a lot of discussion about corridors i'm going to go through this presentation uh regarding nicholasville road understanding that we just have a legal disagreement so let me talk about some of the goals of imagine nicholasville road study that came from that i I know it's called Imagine Nickelsville Road. I call it the Nickelsville Road Corridor Study or the study because of habit. So one is, this is the first out of the gate. This increased the intensity of land uses along the corridor in order to accommodate population growth. During our place builder process, people objected to increasing residences, so we said, what do we do? And we chose lower intense use of professional offices. Goal two is talk about improved mass transit viability and improved safety connectivity. One of the things from the zone change that staff has said, again, this is a development plan criteria, but it is important to understand. The city is now asking for all redevelopment parcels along Nicholasville Road to dedicate additional right-of-way so that as Nicholasville Road expands in the future, that makes way for additional bus lanes, additional transition lanes, walkways. So that is part of this process. Coordinate transportation improvements with future development opportunities, just like this. This is a classic example of how that study marries with what's going on in this property. It has action plans and implementation. It talks about a transportation network improvements, things like the complete streets, which you heard Mr. Bailey reiterate and affirm earlier. It talks about acquiring future right away, enhanced bicycle and pedestrian facilities. You saw the picture of the sidewalk along Nicholasville Road in Mr. Bailey's presentation. Would you want to ride a bicycle down that right now? I wouldn't. I wouldn't want my kids, but as these properties are redeveloped along Nicholasville Road, what that allows is to create increased widths of sidewalks and increased buffers between the roadway and the actual sidewalk itself to enhance pedestrian and bicycle safety. And it also recommends redevelopment and development strategies. Again, it focuses on underutilized land, underutilized parcels in the urban service boundary. There's six segments of Nicholasville Road. If you haven't studied it carefully, you'll see that. And this is in segment three which is from the Waller Cooper intersection to Southland Jessalyn Drive. It specifically talks about adding and improving bicycle pedestrian neighborhood connections along through here. It talks so there is the the sidewalk path along the road talks about vehicular improvements. You got the additional white right away and also add sidewalks. One of the interesting things about Southern Heights neighborhood is it was voted a time when the city didn't require sidewalks. So if you go through that neighborhood today, there are not sidewalks along the properties. And so what this does is for this property, it starts to add the sidewalks back into the neighborhood instead of being on the road out to Nicholasville Road. Is it a perfect solution? No, because we can't create a sidewalk all the way down. But at least we can do it from this parcel into Nicholasville Road. So people transitioning from the neighborhood into the corridor, then have a sidewalk to at least come onto the corridor instead of having to come all the way to Nicholasville Road to do that. It talks about a transit station at Southland Drive, and it encourages development close to those situations, those mass transit stations so that people can either walk to work uh walk to uh to a bus station for school um walk there to but then bus to work and bus home i'm not telling you that's going to be fixed next year but it is the prime location um for for people to bus from the neighborhood out and for people to come to this place just like all of the health care facilities along nicholas go road um then it talks about development typology and you know this is it's kind of confusing because place builder has sort of some terms they use and the nicholasville road quarter study used different terms and they're not really inconsistent but the terms can sound inconsistent so development type in place builder is not the same as development typology in the nicholas road quarter study but why i say that is because the the study says there's really two types of of areas that concern this property along the road it is right at the edge between the suburban town center and neighborhoods. Basically, if you look at where this is, to the west and to the south is suburban businesses, commercial office, hotel, gas stations, pizza places, restaurants, T-Mobile stores, healthcare facilities, real estate brokerages, and just behind it and to the north is residential. But as soon as you go to the north, within a couple of blocks, you then have this mismatch of blue Lego and red Lego of a block of residences and then three or four misplaced commercial properties amongst them. And then you have a couple misplaced residential properties, and then you have some more commercial properties. And that's consistent all the way from Waller to Southland Drive. This is not a full-blown residential corridor where all it is is houses like Richmond Road or like areas of Tate's Creek Road. It's not the same. So this is in a unique position that it's right along that buffer, that transition area, and the other side of the road has already made the transition. So some examples of this development typology that is along there are listed here, our presentation. They're all up and along there with P1 and R1 that even has office uses in R1 C-Zone. So example, there's a dentist office right there that is operating in R1 C-Zone. So we really have to balance these two typologies. So the suburban typology wants us to create new development that faces the corridor. It's an active ground level uses like office space. and has infill residential, but also has building heights and densities that step down as they approach into neighborhoods, which this project does. The neighborhood topologies, at the same time, they want to create new development that is appropriate in scale and density to the existing areas. They want it to serve as a buffer between the corridor and the areas behind the corridor. And that's what a project like this does, where you have a building that is shifted north along Nicholasville Road. You have a parking lot with lights that are lower, so they're not intrusive into the neighborhood. You have fencing and landscaping that create buffers. P1 is the perfect balance. It's the perfect type of buffer between the corridor and the business types and the residential areas behind it. This isn't a four-story hotel on a two-acre site. This isn't a gas station that you have lights on poles and people pulling in and out 24 hours a day. it's an office which has limited in and out during regular business hours and it's right on the corridor for traffic. There's other citywide goals that this study suggests. Staff report finally. The staff has agreed, Mr. Bailey summarized the staff earlier, staff agreed that the P1 is in agreement with the 2018 comprehensive plan. He went through each of those. I won't repeat them. one of the things that Mr. Bailey indicated was certain prohibited uses for drive-throughs and standalone parking lots and structures and the applicant we have agreed that those would be inappropriate because we want to create that buffer between the corridor and the neighborhood behind it prohibit outdoor speakers amplification we've agreed these are appropriate limitations on the p1 zone to again decrease limit the intense use on the property and finally lighting somebody maximum of 10 feet and shall be shielded and directed away from the neighborhood located at the rear of the property what these things do is help protect the buffer between nicholasville road a low intense use as a business professional space and the residential area behind this we agree with the staff reports we agree with this recommendations and conclusions and we agree with the conditional zoning restrictions that staff has recommended so that's sort of the overview of the rules which i know that's longer than you wanted to hear but that's all of the rules that we have to apply here um so let's look through what what what the facts are here so this is just an extension of of the continuing discussion to implement the 2018 comprehensive plan you have two recent zone changes are reflective of this you've got blackburn avenue and willington way you don't use those as evidence here to say we did that so we have to do it here that's not what this is about this there's not precedent in zoning what those show is the continuing discussion in the city of lexington to say we believe that we have underutilized parcels and as a we're committing as a city to redevelop those and at the same time to create appropriate buffering or limitations of those properties to respect existing neighborhoods and that's exactly what this application does here's our app here's the property address here you'll see the p1 zone is down here u.s bank has two buildings here and here there's actually a cut through right here. It's been created so that now people from Edgemore can actually come down here through the property. It's not on this slide but access out Southland Drive or Jessland Drive at the light there that happened maybe within the last year or so. You'll see across the road. You know you have the Denny's that's now torn down which is now going to be a it's a build a suit is my understanding had to change my presentation because of that. You've got the various business uses over here be one be three. You've got R three over here which is more intense. You know one of the concerns on this parcel which is where the hotel is is the lighting from the hotel that's one of the things that was a concern uh from neighbors we heard that concern is one of the reasons why we talk with staff and that's one of our conditional zoning restrictions here's a side view of the property i'm just giving you a look at it now there's some comments about the the property being historic and i guess this depends on how you're going to define the word historic it's not in an h1 overlay zone it's not on the national register historic places it has no national designation it's gone through no less than three renovations during its history in fact the property behind it which you can you can see right there was parceled off in the last 15 years and that big monstrosity of a house which is very very nice but it doesn't fit with the character of the neighborhood was built right behind it nobody complained about that house which clearly doesn't fit with the historic character of the neighborhood when that occurred so the property itself has been subdivided over time um where the house was built many years ago i guess if that's the qualification for historical then i guess it's historical because it was built in 1924 but the comprehensive plan and that's where i would direct you to look does not say because you have a historic property being 1924 that you don't approve his own change it doesn't say that well it says you should respect those things we have rules in lexington to do that like the nd1 h1 overlay we have other things to protect the property This neighborhood has never gone through that process. Our reason is we don't think they want the H-1 overlay process in the neighborhood, which is why they've never completed a... Mr. Billings, I believe you're speculating about the intention of the opponents. I'll move on. Thank you. All right. Existing properties were also torn down that were built in the same time frame, like across the street where El Toro is and the T-Mobile store is. U.S. Bank was built in 1965. Does that make it historic? It's a commercial use property. The irony here is that in 2007, 2008, the applicant actually came and asked for a zone change so that she could move her law firm to the house. So she could use the house for her law firm and the neighborhood objected to that process. Ultimately, before it was heard by the council, she withdrew that application. Largely because there was a, as Mr. Bailey said, there was the small area plan for Nicholasville Road in process at the time, which was never completed. Today, things have changed. The comprehensive plan has changed several times. We have a corridor road study that is now more comprehensive, larger in scale. It has changed. The city of Lexington has changed significantly with respect to health care, employees, residences, and our commitment to preserve the urban service boundary and improve our corridors. The U.S. bank properties, which are right here, are also already P1. the applicant has listed the property for sale many times over the years overall it's been on the market more than 1700 days since 2007 the reason I bring this up to you is is that there have been objections to us in this process saying why don't you just sell it as a single-family residence the applicant has tried it's on the market today for a very reasonable price and we would invite anyone to buy it. The problem is this. It's a single family residence on an acre of land on Nicholsville Road and single families don't want to live on a large parcel like this on Nicholsville Road or it would have sold. It's used as rental property to UK undergrad and graduate students and has been almost continuously except for some periods of vacancy during the process. It's not going to sell as a single family residents because people don't want the vehicular traffic. They don't want the sirens. They have concerns on pulling out if their 16 year old has a car. They don't want their kids to ride a bike in a yard that's on the road. It's not family friendly. It's not even really ideal for rental property, which are typically one to three bedrooms in Lexington. larger bedroom houses are harder to rent than the smaller ones. And this is a larger house. The only current viable use of this is as college housing, which is not what we I think want to have a primary focus in Lexington. The best future use of this property is redevelopment, but is what? The least intense professional use, the P1 zone. I'm not going to go through the history of the comprehensive plan. You all know that. This is information from the Imagine Nicholasville Road study. The summary of this data is simply this, that this corridor is dominated by commercial uses. The areas off behind those for the length of Nicholasville Road are residential. We agree believe that should be preserved but properties along the corridor are appropriate to redevelop to respect the but in respect to the neighboring areas behind them i talked about the other p1 and similar business uses between south and waller here's some photos of just the properties that go through here you'll see this is what the property if you're on the property and you take a picture of it this is what you see it's not the residential areas. If you go down Nicholasville Road, there are residences, but you know what they've done? They've changed them to businesses. These are examples of those. So along Nicholasville Road, this is the subject's property. You know, you have the P1 zone. This is Southland. This is Jessalyn. This is Nicholasville Road. You have business area here. You have P1 all along here. This is right. As I said earlier, it's right at the transition point. But further down within within two blocks, you have this on the casket road. This is what the city has been doing for 25 or 30 years. It's what the city is going to continue to do for the next 25 or 30 years. And it's what the city should continue to do for the next 25 or 30 years, because it doesn't make sense to have single family residential properties right on nicholasville road anymore you all voted on that and you all said that's not appropriate we need to look at changing this for the long-term viability of lexington as a city so nicholasville road is not a pure neighborhood it's segment three in the study that segment three has a ton of business uses in there in fact when you look at the linear footage of properties along nicholasville road. The business uses outweigh the residential uses just looking at the at the linear footage for the length of that roadway. Um while there is some single family there, uh we think of the properties that touch or adjacent to this property. If you draw a circle three quarters of them around this are professional business. They're not residential. Nicholasville road is not a neighborhood. It is a corridor and this property should serve as a buffer with a low intense use of professional space with to the neighborhood from the corridor place builder we went through the process it's clearly a corridor staff found it's a corridor the neighbors said it was a corridor under place builder it's a corridor if it's a corridor then you have to have four development types medium density medium high high density all the neighbors said no we don't want that we said okay so then you have two options you have medium density non-residential or you have medium high density well they didn't want medium high so you look at then at medium density non-residential mixed use what zones allow that well comprehensive plan recommends these zones right here replace builder recommends these zones however they allow the same principle and some of the same accessories of the p1 but p1 creates this natural buffer so what we did is instead of selecting what place builder actually says we're supposed to we actually went down a level we actually met with staff and said we don't think any of these apply we'd like to do p1 because we think it's a lower use of the property than what the place builder recommends i don't know how often you see that in zone changes i don't watch all of them but i think that's rare in lexington where an applicant wants to reason the property and doesn't look at the highest and absolute best use they could they actually tailor it back out of respect for the place builder process but it's the natural buffer between high intensity like commercial uses and lower intensity like residential uses it strikes a balance in place builders recommendation for play type place type and the unique factors of the property in this process i could talk for an hour about our engagement process let me just say this i have i've done zoning for 15 years and i've never been as exhaustive as i have in engaging stakeholders and if you want to see the number of letters the summaries of meetings and all the things we do this binder right here you can read it for an hour and we'll tell you everything we did we had dozens of meetings we had dozens of signs we went door to door with a survey we asked the neighborhood association to send a survey out we sent letters to every single area of business inviting them to meetings we had meetings with the adjacent property owners we had multiple meetings with the hoa board we had meetings with hoa owners we had meetings with the hoa across the street we did everything we could to engage in this process because what i didn't want because this was place better was was remember place better was brand new just been passed in in February when we started this process. What we want to make sure of is that we did what PlaceBitter said, which is go engage stakeholders, take their input, and make a decision based on what they said. And that's what we did. This is a summary of all those meetings. I won't go through it, except that's my first meeting right there, August 2nd. I'd forgotten until I was preparing for this, how long ago that was. We have tons of things we've done. We got letters of support from area businesses back. What we learned was basically they didn't have a desire for multifamily. They didn't have a desire for single family attached like townhomes or condos. They didn't want parties and noise, things like that. So we said, okay, that's off the table. They didn't want increased traffic on Edgemoor. You're going to have some increased traffic because the city doesn't want another entrance off of Nicholasville Road onto this. So we're actually, by this development, actually removing an entrance on and off. So you have to use city streets, which adds to public safety, especially where the road narrows there. That's one of the causes of accidents. is because you have a right in off of Nicholasville Road. We need to keep entrances like that on main streets, not in the driveways. They were concerned about light pollution. We accomplished that. They were at privacy. We accomplished that. They were concerned about a domino effect. We believe, I don't want to be mistaken here, the properties on Nicholasville Road will be redeveloped. They should be redeveloped. But it does not reach behind them. The neighborhood has a boundary that is the properties on Nicholasville Road part of the corridor and the properties behind them should stay single family and the properties along nicholasville road should create and respect this buffer that we're talking about we have so much feedback that we talked about you know multi-family how we addressed it to change the concepts to professional office how about entry increased traffic uh we're getting actually rid of two entrances from edgemore into the property down to one we're getting rid of the entrance off of nicholasville road we did we just talked about light pollution privacy the fit with the neighborhood the building height was reduced the building was pulled forward to nicholasville road as far as possible considering the future right away and the sidewalk that's going to be done so anyway the assembly property is clearly in a corridor under place builder pursuant to nicholasville road study it's clearly on a corridor it's the transition area between that suburban town center higher use commercial business typology and a neighborhood typology So how do you deal with that? You find the zone that fits in both of them and that's the P1 zone because it's a lower intense use. It does allow for residential as long as it's on the same floor or as long as the first floor. It's on the same floor of other uses. But there's height limitations. There's setback limitations. All of the comprehensive plan goals that I talked about are applicable to the zone change. there are development criteria design standards that this is applicable for that staff showed you a summary of that in their letter these are the parts that are pulled out that are applicable if you if any of you want to drill down in those i'm glad to do that the study says that we should i'm right here you know basically is the character of changes along the corridor transition to single family residential and the neighborhood topology is apply. That's what it's talking about for how we look at Nicholasville Road study. When we do this. This is what it says Nicholas for a ground floor office, other streets ground floor office upper floors office, which means even if this is the neighborhood typology along Nicholasville Road, even the corridor study says it's still appropriate for office space on Nicholasville Road, even the neighborhood denomination is appropriate for office on Nicholasville Road. The key findings of this are simply that the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan very plainly call for the intensification of major corridors. Imagine it comes for road says the same thing increase the intensity of land uses along the corridor particularly residential uses in order to accommodate population growth to the more efficient use of land. That's what we're talking about here the more efficient use of land. This is a corridor as a place type. The development type is medium density non residential and the zone type is a p1 based on the extensive engagement and neighborhood feedback. They didn't want higher density residential for example we selected the p1 because it's the least intensive professional use and linda blackford recognized that in february 2020 she wrote an article on it talking about development lexington it's part of the record tonight if you want to understand sort of more about the global picture development it's a great article to go back and reference so here's the development plan um how said there's a close-up of it i'm going to skip over the technical things from the development plan if you have questions about i'm happy to answer but but I don't know that they're relevant to the decision on the zone change, but I'm happy to discuss them. So in the process, we got a bunch of feedback and myths from the neighborhood and was presented as well at the planning commission stage. And I talked about the historic structure. Here is a thing that I don't want to lose sight of, and I don't want the council to lose sight of tonight. The property tonight, the applicant has the right to go get a demolition permit and tear down that house tomorrow morning. she hasn't done it but she could have done it the applicant has the right to go and tear down that house and subdivide it and build three or four single family residences today because that's the right she has under the existing lfucg city ordinances and laws voting to deny the zone change doesn't respect the historic property all it does is take a property development off the table and miss an opportunity for nicholasville road to continue along the city's vision for what it's going to look like in the future. There was there was talk that the neighborhood overwhelmingly opposed this application. There's about 300 homes out there. Only about 40 of them submitted letters. We sent out a survey saying please respond to us went door to door is part of that too by letter by email to the board and door to door. We can only get 26, 26 people to respond of that. This is interesting. Respondent split 42%, no objection, indifferent, 58% opposed. So only a little over half of the residents out there were even opposed to it, people who responded. Again, that data is in here if you want to see it, all the survey responses. talks about destroying a house when Lexington needs more housing opportunities. I don't disagree with that concept, but the problem is they told us they didn't want more housing on this property. They told us they didn't want more housing on here. So we took those comments and we selected, again, the least intense professional zone. And then, of course, we actually heard that the zone change was premature. We should wait until the courthouse study is completed. I had no idea because I didn't have a crystal ball in January 2020 that we would be here in August of 2021. And that this story, the study would actually be completed. Nor would I know what its findings would be, which is completely consistent. In fact, if you read it, it actually speaks that we may actually need to increase the use of the property that we're talking about. But out of respect for the neighborhood, we don't believe that's appropriate. And then there's a discussion about there's too much vacant professional space already. they relied upon a 2019 report. Here's the 2020 report showing occupancy rates in Lexington as a whole. Lexington as a whole. Not Nicholasville Road, not the subject area. Here is current as of last Friday. There's vacancies. There's not a single thing along Nicholasville Road available for lease right now from a business spot. Why? Because it's a hotbed for professional and business uses. It is a primary corridor for people to come in and out of Lexington. There's not a shortage. I mean, there's not an abundance of that in Lexington. There's a shortage of professional office space along Nicholasville Road. The healthcare industry will continue to demand space in that corridor and ancillary businesses to that. So again, this zone change, I believe, is just, is Lexington going to follow our comprehensive plan and what you all have said we're going to do or not a zone change must be granted under keras one 100 213 when this requested zoning map amendment is in conformity or in agreement with the comprehensive plan which i don't know in how in my time that i've been allotted i can i can show any more evidence that it does satisfy that pursuant to the themes the goals objectives of the comprehensive plan place builder the corridor study the property is clearly along the corridor it's a one acre underutilized site in lexington that houses college students it doesn't create economic activity for the city's jobs and it's underutilized it cannot be sold as a single family residence she's tried since 2007. it can't be used as a single family residence because that people don't want to live there as a family again it's college rental property we want to add density and increase the intensity of use along corridors single family residential use isn't desirable along corridors anymore according to place builder and imagine nicholsville road study place builder directs that as a corridor type and pursuant to the development types again residential or medium density non-residential mixed use the property is more appropriately rezoned as a lower intensity professional or mixed zone use this property is in a transition area between the suburban town center commercial area to the south and the mixed typology it's called neighborhood but the mixed typology north of here which include residential and business areas p1 zone is the least intensive professional use in lexington therefore we think the zoning is appropriate and necessary because the planning commission recommended this approval in a five to four vote i respectfully ask ladies and gentlemen of the council that you vote in favor you vote in favor of the zone change You have a proposed motion in front of you and it takes eight of you to carry the motion. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Does opponent wish to cross examine at this point? Yes, sir. Thank you. In that case, we can move to the opening statement by the opponent. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Jessica Winters. I'm an attorney here in town. I'm here today on behalf of my client, Southern Heights Neighborhood Association, to voice its opposition to the zone change request submitted to the council by Julie Butcher. Southern Heights opposes the zone change proposed from R1C, which is single family residence, to the P1 professional office for the property located at 1918 through 1922 Nicholasville Road, which is being sought in order to construct an office building on 1.9 total acres of property. I ask that the packet of materials you've been provided, which is in the white binder that you should have all received, the first item in there is a copy of my PowerPoint presentation. The second item is a copy of our position statement. The third item is our proposed motion in favor of disapproving the zone change request. And the fourth item is a host of letters in opposition. I believe there are about 30 letters in opposition total. We ask that all these items be entered into the record of this proceeding. I also wanted to note at the outset of this, before I really get started into the meat of the issue, that the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association has objected to the public notice in this matter. And we have requested that this meeting be rescheduled due to insufficient notice, and that request has been denied. I set out the legal basis for that objection in my position statement, and I just wanted to make sure it was preserved for the record. Southern Heights Neighborhood Association posed the request before the Planning Commission in January 2020 for the P1 Zone. The Planning Commission by tie vote of 4-4 failed to approve the zone change requested, and a reconsideration vote thereafter occurred on February 27th, where the Planning Commission voted 5-4 against the zone change request. The Planning Commission doesn't usually disagree with their staff, and as you've heard here tonight, planning staff recommended approval of the zone change. But they did in this case, and key to their decision was the fact that the comp plan has a goal that speaks to the preservation of existing and established neighborhoods. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt and hold your time. We're... I need to consult with my colleagues, if you'll excuse me. Would it maybe make sense to just take a couple minute break for everyone to run to the restroom and then I can start over? I'm sorry, but rules of procedure are that the members of the council must be in attendance at all times. And if we need to take a break, we need to take a break. And it looks like we need to take a break. So I apologize. We'll take a short 10-minute break, and then we'll reconvene. You can start from the beginning if you prefer. Thank you. That'd be fine. I hate to subject you to more of me, but I think it might make sense to start at the beginning. That's fine. The End The End Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ The End Thank you. All right, council members. I apologize for the interruption. I think there was, well, I think you understand. So we'll be beginning wherever you'd like to start. 45 minutes. Okay, thank you sir. No worries. My name is Jessica Winters. I'm just gonna start from the top so everybody can hear everything I'm here to say tonight on behalf of my client, which is the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association. And the properties that we're here about tonight are located inside the boundaries of the Southern Heights neighborhood. So this is me speaking on behalf of the Neighborhood Association, which consists of about 50% of the 300 property owners in this area. They oppose the zone change to P1. And at the outset, I want to request, everyone has been provided a white binder of materials. I'm asking that all the materials in the binder, which I also provided to the clerk, be entered into the record of this proceeding. That includes a copy of the PowerPoint, our legal position statement, our proposed motion in favor of denying the requested zone change, and then letters in opposition, which I think there are about 30, and many of the people couldn't be here tonight, so I urge you to take a look at those when you have an opportunity during the break. I also need to state on the record that Southern Heights has objected to the public notice in this matter and has requested that this meeting be rescheduled due to insufficient notice, and that request has been denied. The full legal basis for the objection is set forth in our position statement in your packet, but I needed to state it on the record to preserve that issue. Just so you know, the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association opposed the same request that we're here about tonight before the Planning Commission in January of 2020. And the Planning Commission, by a tie vote of 4-4, failed to approve the zone change request. And then in a reconsideration vote that took place thereafter in February, they voted 5-4 against the zone change. The Southern Heights Neighborhood respectfully requests that this council do the same. I want to say here that the Planning Commission doesn't typically disagree with its staff. And as you heard earlier in the Planning Staff presentation, the Planning Staff recommended to the Planning Commission that the zone change request be approved. The Planning Commission disagreed. And as I'll explain later on in my presentation, key to their decision is the fact that the comp plan actually does have a goal that speaks to the preservation of established neighborhoods. And the comp plan does not recommend the P1 zone for any place type. It was also important to the Planning Commission that this property that we're here about today has served as a cornerstone for this 100% residential neighborhood for 100 years. By statute, KRS 100, this body must find that either the zone change request is consistent with the comp plan, or that there's a compelling need or change justifying the request and that the current zoning is no longer appropriate. So everything that I am going to speak to tonight bears on one of those elements that you will have to think about when you're making the decision to approve or deny this zone change request. I want to tell you a little bit about the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association. The Southern Heights Neighborhood Association was formed in 1973, and the boundaries of this neighborhood are the University of Kentucky Arboretum and Central Baptist Hospital to the north, trying to use the little laser thing here, so over in here, and then Nicholasville Road to the west, which you can see is this here, and then Edgemore Drive to the south, which is this right here, okay? Those are the edges of the neighborhood. The Southern Heights neighborhood has more than 290 homes representing many historical architectural styles. There are 18 homes built in the 1920s. Importantly, the subject property, which was built in 1924, is one of the oldest and most architecturally significant homes in the Southern Heights neighborhood. This is important and it is relevant to the comprehensive plan because the comprehensive plan states that the first objective of goal three is to provide well-designed neighborhoods, expanding opportunities for the preservation of neighborhood character. And that's where the relevance fits here with the historic nature of this property, the important architectural style that it represents, and the fact that it has served as a cornerstone of this neighborhood for 100 years. Some of the more unique historic houses in the neighborhood are excellent examples of cottages and bungalows built with local stone construction. The neighborhood also has many fine examples of historic colonial architecture, including Georgian, Dutch Revival, and Federal styles. Here's what's important for you guys to think about tonight. Despite extensive changes in Lexington over the past 40 years, including the rapid development and infill of urban services boundary, the Southern Heights neighborhood has maintained its clean boundaries, even along Nicholasville Road. The Southern Heights neighborhood is zoned 100% residential. It is maintain these boundaries despite the rapid infill and pressure for increased density. So one thing that we need to focus on here is this property right here, this little green area. And that is two properties along Nicholasville Road that are currently zoned P1. And those properties provide a transition from the more intense commercial uses down the Nicholasville Road corridor to this residential area. and that blue square right there is the property we're here about today. Okay. So if you approve the zone change request, you're essentially going to pull that P1 zoning into this 100% residential neighborhood, and then that will become the new buffer. But there is currently a buffer there, a P1 zone buffer. It houses administrative offices for a bank inside the original residential structure. might i add the p1 zone property provides a marked boundary for the neighborhood and a transition buffer recently the owner of the property at 1950 nicholasville road and its neighboring property at 2020 nicholasville road that p1 buffer that currently exists for the neighborhood actually connected the two properties with an access road that runs behind both and connects jesaline drive to edgemore which already increases the intensity and the impact of the p1 uses at these locations on the neighborhood it should be noted that edgemore is a small local road with no sidewalks so any increased intensity and use on this street can be dangerous the properties at 1918 and 1922 nicholasville road which have been located within a single family residential zone since 1967 when lexington's zoning ordinance was adopted have been a cornerstone of the southern heights neighborhood for almost 100 years the original parcel included a house, a large yard, a tennis court, and an in-ground pool. 1918 Nicholasville Road contains the accessory garage for the original structure and significant green space. 1922 contains the original residence. It is important to note that the 1918 parcel, which is zoned R1C, has potential for residential and field development in accordance with the plan's recommendation for increased housing opportunities and densification. However, the property owner has never pursued any such development of this parcel. The Dutch colonial revival style building at 1922 Nicholasville Road is a well-preserved and architecturally significant example of the Dutch colonial style characterized by a gambrel roof and curved eaves along the length of the house. the home at 3,958 feet was purchased by the applicant in 2008 for 290,000 it is now on the market and is listed at 629,000 the listing describes the home as follows close to UK shopping food and fun this lovely home is situated on two combined lots at the corner of Nicholasville Road and Edgemore Drive. Features six bedrooms, 4.5 baths, hardwood floors, beautiful built-ins, and a fantastic floor plan. Also included is the adjacent lot, 1918 Nicholasville Road in a two-car garage, convenient location near Baptist Health and University of Kentucky. Who wouldn't want to live here? What professional working at UK or Central Baptist Hospital with a large family wouldn't want to live in this beautiful property on Nicholasville Road? The property has been listed in the past few years for a residential rental at the rate of $2,700 a month. It is a beautiful and viable residential property that is not underutilized and contributes to the history and architecture of the established Southern Heights neighborhood. Thank you. I don't know how to use the laser apparently. but um southern heights is actually a desirable neighborhood despite the applicant's protestations to the contrary it has high property values the properties to the left of the subject property along and facing nicholasville road are residences that are valued between 268 000 and 461 000 the residential property directly behind the subject property is valued at 732 000 and most other properties along Edgemoor are valued at or above 400,000. People are buying properties in this neighborhood. People are buying single-family residences that front Nicholasville Road and they're paying quite a bit for the privilege of doing so. There is no doubt that the owner of this piece of property can realize a profit as it is currently zoned. The value of the property has increased by more than 100 percent since the applicant purchased it in 2008. According to Zillow, lexington home values have grown 10 since september 2020 while southern heights home values have outpaced that growing in value by 12 during this miss winters i i think the value of the property is not at issue okay if you don't mind thank you the subject property is a well-established land use boundary between residential and business office uses along the east side of nicholasville road and to the south of edgemore given the position of the property at the clearly defined 100% residential neighborhood boundary, its destruction could certainly create a precedent for rezoning and development along Nicholasville Road and likely Edgemore that would be detrimental to the neighborhood as a whole. The current applicant previously sought a zone change to P1 for the subject property in 2008. At that time, the applicant intended to preserve the existing historic structure but requested a zone change to P1 so that the residents could house a legal office. Despite the fact that the proposal would have preserved the cornerstone property, planning staff actually recommended disapproval of the zone change. Importantly, the bases of the planning staff's 2008 decision to recommend disapproval are still applicable and should counsel against the approval of the same request currently under consideration. The first basis for the 2008 recommendation to deny the requested zone change to P1 was that the 2007 comprehensive plan recommended low density residential land use for the subject property. While the comprehensive plan has since been amended. Counselor, I'm going to allow what's being described if you are rising to objective. Thank you. While the comprehensive plan has since been amended, it remains true that residential zoning for this property is in agreement with the comprehensive plan. In fact, the P1 zone being requested tonight is not recommended for this area or for any area in the 2008 Imagine Lexington Comprehensive Plan, which in fact notes that there is a surplus of P1 zoning within our urban service boundary and that the efficacy of the P1 zone itself should be evaluated. Further, the R1C zone is still in agreement with the comp plan's vision for this historic residential neighborhood. another basis for the planning staff's recommendation to deny the requested p1 zoning in 2008 was the edgemore drive was then considered to be a land use boundary between residential and office land uses at this location and edgemore drive if you'll recall from the map is the street that runs between the existing p1 zoning that fronts nicholasville road and the subject properties so in 2008 planning staff said that is the land use boundary we should keep that land use boundary intact. This is the same thing as it is today. That P1 zoning that fronts Nicholasville Road on the south side of Edgemoor Drive still provides a land use boundary. It's exemplified by a six-foot brick wall that delineates the boundary on the south side of Edgemoor Drive. Another basis for the recommended denial of the P1 zone in 2008 was planning staff's conclusion that there had been no unanticipated change that affected the basic character of the area so as to request the requested zone change and and that's true today as well the applicant purchased a residentially zoned property in 2008 the property has increased substantially in value and is a viable historic residential property that contributes to the fabric of the neighborhood the neighborhood has remained relatively unchanged since 2008 and there has been no unanticipated change in the area that affected the basic character of the neighborhood so as to justify the requested zone change thus now as in 2008 there is no clear justification for this rezoning request i would agree with nathan on the fact that we believe that the nicholasville road imagine nicholasville road study is relevant to the issues today as are some other studies of this area that have occurred previously. Nicholasville Road is the busiest arterial roadway in Lexington. There's no denying that. But what's important to remember is that it's characterized by varying intensities of use. So from the recent developments in northern Jasmine County to the ongoing revitalization of downtown, the characteristics of the corridor differ greatly from end to end with varying high intensity uses. The corridor was recently studied in 2014. The 2014 Nicholasville Road Corridor Study did not recommend increasing density or intensifying the use of the subject property. This 2014 corridor study was intended to demonstrate and this is quoting from the study how the study area is expected to change over the next 30 years and to understand how the land within the study area was currently used to make informed decisions on where future growth opportunities exist the land use inventory inventory in connection with that study identified 12 generalized land use categories including commercial single family residential and multi-family residential etc this figure from that land use study okay here we are let me see here we're right in here identified the area on both sides of Nicholasville Road in and around the subject property and up to Southland Drive as a single family residential land use which is reflected in the yellow areas here the figure demonstrates that intensified uses don't begin until the Southland Drive intersection which is about one block south from the subject properties The land use summary from that study demonstrates that single family residential land uses are almost as prevalent along the entire Nicholasville Road corridor at 23% as commercial land uses at 26%. Section 12 of the study addressed potential for economic development along the corridor. The figures attached to the report reflect the areas identified as ideal for commercial development and increased intensity. Areas that are recommended for future development are outlined in yellow. This graphic shows that the subject property right here is not one of these yellow identified areas for future intensity and development. development and increased intensified use was not recommended during the 2014 study of the Nicholasville Road corridor for the subject property. Now that we have an understanding of the neighborhood, the property and previous rezoning attempts, previous land use studies for the area in question, let's consider whether the zone change in agreement is in agreement with the 2018 comprehensive plan. Our position that the proposed P1 zone does not meet the objectives of the 2018 comprehensive plan. Lexington's Imagine Lexington Comp Plan recommends developing in-depth land use plans and transportation studies for major corridors across Lexington. And Nicholasville Road is the first corridor to undergo such a study. This has resulted in conceptual designs for transportation and the development of a bus rapid transit line with accompanying stations for each segment of Nicholasville Road. The results of the study were named Imagine Nicholasville Road and they were adopted as a part of our city's comprehensive plan on May 20, 2021. Imagine Nicholasville Road contains several recommendations for future changes to transportation along the corridor that are tailored to the unique areas of Nicholasville Road. These recommendations include innovative intersection improvements, plans for bus rapid transit, future development of large parking lots and underutilized shopping centers, and dedicated bike and pedestrian facilities. Imagine Nicholasville Road stresses that the focus on increased intensity relates mainly to increasing density for residential uses and identifying underutilized properties for development. This property was not identified as an underutilized property right for development. In discussing existing conditions along Nicholasville Road, Imagine Nicholasville Road specifically describes the area in which the subject property is located as residential. It states, quote, the corridor makes a significant shift in character to residential at the Southland Drive intersection. Single-family homes front a narrower street with curb cutouts for residential garages. Imagine Nicholasville Road includes the subject property within the neighborhood typology. Do you see this green circle here? Oop, I'll go back. This green circle here provides a specific cutout for the subject property in Edgemore Drive along both sides of Edgemore Drive. So the subject property was specifically considered and included in this neighborhood typology. Imagine Nicholasville Road states that each station is categorized as one of four development typologies responding to the station's surrounding character, land uses, and overall context. The neighborhood typology will then ensure that a new development is appropriate in scale and density to its surroundings while infilling the corridor with new residential and active ground level uses. Imagine Nicholasville Road recommends small-scale infill that responds to the existing built environment. Infill development is intended to add density while preserving existing residential character. The proposed rezoning is not appropriate in scale or density to its surroundings. It contemplates the destruction of an historic property and accompanying green space in an area that is currently zoned 100% residential. The proposed rezoning will actually remove housing stock in favor of adding unneeded office space. Imagine Nicholasville Road lists the top 15 concerns for the corridor as including no room to move, lack of flow, bottlenecking, peak hour traffic, and too many access points. The proposed rezoning will exacerbate these problems as they already exist at the subject property and the priorities of Imagine Nicholasville Road were to improve traffic flow, reduce congestion, improve safety and provide affordable housing the proposed rezoning will not satisfy any of these listed goals for nicholasville road moving on to the zoning ordinance section 815 of the zoning ordinance addresses the p1 zone it specifically states the zone is primarily for offices and related uses retailed sales are prohibited except for where they're directly related to office functions this zone should be located as recommended in the comprehensive plan. That's what our zoning ordinance says. So then you look at the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan does not reference the proposed P1 zone at all, except to note that there is an excessive amount of vacant office space within the urban service area. That is language specifically in our comp plan. Theme C, diversity policy number one, states that, and I quote, there is an abundance of vacant office space options of many sizes throughout Lexington. That's what our comp plan says about office space in the P1 zone. Theme C, prosperity policy number nine, also language from our comprehensive plan, notes that, quote, the vacancy rate for office space is around 12 percent, with over a million square feet of available space throughout the urban service area. This is a significantly higher vacant rate than either industrial or retail. language from the comprehensive plan due to the abundance of vacant office space within the urban service area the comp plan discusses the need to evaluate the future of p1 zoning and does not recommend this zone for any place type again language from the comprehensive plan theme c prosperity policy number nine provides as follows action item study the efficacy of the professional office zone look at ordinance revisions aimed at reducing vacancy rates so vacancy and the availability of p1 office space in and around the subject properties is directly relevant it's directly relevant and it's referenced by the language in our comp plan which states that we have too much p1 we have too much vacant office space in lexington In fact, the recent search demonstrated that there are more than 30 vacant professional office spaces of varying sizes available for rent within one mile of the subject property. NAI Isaac, in its mid-year 2019 office report for the Lexington office market, said that the combined vacancy rate of Class A and Class B suburban office space stood at 14.73%. In 2021, it's at 12.5% to 13% for downtown and 13.7% for suburban. The comprehensive plan map. This is the map that people can use to determine what their neighborhood has been characterized at as by the comp plan. This map shows that the subject property is intended to be a part of a neighborhood. So the dark pink spot, the dark pink is the neighborhood. This is the subject property. That's what the comprehensive plan map shows. It also shows that the subject property is a cornerstone property for the neighborhood in question. The same interactive comprehensive plan map shows the subject property is not part of a prosperity area. Mixed use is not designated as a potential use for the subject property. Again, the purple is the prosperity area. This light purple, the neighborhood, is where the subject property is. The first goal under theme A, growing successful neighborhoods, is to expand housing choices. The proposed rezoning and demolition will remove a housing choice from the marketplace. Goal 2B is respect the context and design features of areas surrounding development projects projects and develop design standards and guidelines to ensure compatibility with existing urban form. The proposed P1 requirements for this project do not embody this goal or objective. Taking two residential lots, one of which is vacant and could be utilized for development of residential infill, and one with a beautiful, large, single-family home, and demolishing those in favor of an impervious surface parking lot and office building is not in compliance with comprehensive plans objectives for well-designed development the first objective of goal three which is to provide well-designed neighborhoods and communities states that it should expand opportunities for neighborhood character preservation when considering that the section of the east side of nicholasville road from edgemore all the way to hiltonia park reads as a residential neighborhood a change to p1 would establish a condition that is counterproductive to this goal. Given the foregoing, a change to the zone of P1 would be arbitrary for this neighborhood. Shifting to Place Builder, which sets forth an interactive process for considering zone change requests, it's important to note at the outset that the aspects of the comp plan that aim to increase intensity and density are aimed primarily at underutilized commercial properties. Theme D, Placemaking Policy Number 12 calls for an analysis of underutilized commercial property through corridor land use and transportation studies. This is not an underutilized property and it has never been zoned anything other than residential. Looking to the process for considering zone changes, PlaceBuilder makes it clear that the first step is engagement with the community. Place Builder states that Imagine Lexington strongly encourages meaningful engagement between applicants and stakeholders for design and envisioning of a development before the process begins. The Southern Heights Neighborhood Association believes that the applicant here failed to engage in any meaningful dialogue with the stakeholders. My position statement sets forth facts relating to this engagement, which I will not dwell upon here. Neighbors who participated in community meetings express express concerns regarding development, citing traffic congestion, public safety, and changes to the existing neighborhood character. The proposed zone change does not address these concerns. I should also note that the applicant began its efforts to communicate with the neighborhood in early November 2019 immediately before the holiday season and only two months before the Planning Commission vote. The leaders of Southern Heights Neighborhood Association participated in several meetings arranged by the applicant often with very little advance notice. They usually consisted of lengthy presentations by the attorneys for the applicant regarding the comp plan and what they felt was threats that the development proposal for the subject property could entail a much taller larger and more intense development if the neighborhood did not curtail its objections to the requested zone change unfortunately the southern heights neighborhood association members felt that the applicants meetings were an effort to check the box with regard to community engagement and that none of the neighborhood's concerns or suggestions were incorporated the second step in the process envisioned by imagine lexington's place builder is designation of place type this step is important because designation of place type necessarily informs the discussion of what zones are appropriate within the development area place builder indicates that an applicant should consider site community feedback and surrounding context in determining place type and obviously the properties are located on nicholasville road nicholasville road is a corridor so the designation of corridor place type might facially seem to be appropriate However, it should also be considered that it's not exclusively corridor. It is also a very important part of an established neighborhood. Again, P1 is not a recommended zone in any place type. The corridor place type does indicate that MNR mixed-use developments are suitable, but it lists the recommended zones for such developments as being B6P, B1, MU3, R4, R5, MU2, and B1. P1 is not listed here or elsewhere. Planning staff and applicant have attempted to reconcile this by asserting that the P1 is a suitably limited intensity zone and that the proposed development is characteristic of a non-residential mixed-use development. However, the P1 zone itself is not recommended, not even within a corridor zone. The staff also recognizes that mixed use zones are higher intensity uses than you would expect to see on local roads. This is on a local road. It fronts a corridor, however, to the side is a small local road with no sidewalks. The entry and exit points for this development will be on a local road. It will impact the other residences on a small local road. the property affected by this zone change is not an exclusively corridor place type the zoning map that i showed you earlier shows all residential r1c in the block of properties in which the subject property is located the notification map demonstrates the overwhelming nature of the residential nature of the surrounding properties that would be directly impacted by the zone change i'm going to show you a few pictures now of the nicholasville road streetscape from Tahoma to Edgemoor. It's exclusively residential, both on the corridor and behind the corridor. Across Nicholasville Road is the Pensacola Park neighborhood, which achieved an H-1 overlay in December of 2019. I would respectfully disagree with the assertion that people don't want to live in houses that face along Nicholasville Road. They're beautiful, and they're occupied... If place type is a context based determination and a property is part of two distinct place types, then there must be some recognition of this overlap and planning and zoning determinations. In other words, the undeniable residential component of the location of the subject property cannot be ignored. The Southern Heights neighborhood is most accurately described as an enhanced neighborhood place type. This place type is described in place builder as an existing residential area that could be enhanced with additional amenities, housing types, and neighborhoods serving retail services and employment options that contribute to a sustainable neighborhood. The development that occurs in this place type should be context sensitive to the surrounding area and implemented in a way that adds to the sense of place. Mixed use is not listed as a suitable development type for an enhanced neighborhood, the MNR-MU, and P1 is not listed as a recommended zone. we have R3, R4, MU1, MU2, and B1, which are the recommended zones, not MNR-MU. A P1 zone is not appropriate in this area as a transition to higher intensity uses to the south. The southern neighborhood already has a P1 transition zone. It exists south of the subject property with P1 zoning almost to Zandale Drive, and this shows us pretty well. So you have, This is the subject property, and then all of this is the buffer P1 zone. This is a better graphic. Along these lines, the planning staff notes that the first P1 property next to the subject property is a bank, but the first building there, the first lot, is actually not the bank. It's offices for the bank, which are located in the existing residential building there. This is a picture of it. So this is the P1 zone directly next to the subject properties that provides the buffer zone. And then the drive-through bank is located on the other side of that further south on Nicholasville Road. So when you look at the P1 office for the bank there, you can see its relation to 1922 Nicholasville Road, the property that we're here about tonight. Southern Heights neighborhood was established for single family residences from its beginning in the 1930s. It does not contain underutilized structures and it presents an attractive and green southern entrance to Lexington and the University of Kentucky. The proposed development of an office building at this cornerstone property would be detrimental to the character of the neighborhood. There is ample room within walking distance to the neighborhood on Southland Drive to increase intensity and add infill on parcels already zoned for such uses should the zone change be approved southern heights neighborhood is in agreement that multiple conditional use restrictions should be utilized and would support the same restrictions that are included in the planning staff report the planning commission heard this request for rezoning in january 2020 during a full public hearing at that time dozens of area residents appeared to voice their objection to the request more than 40 letters of opposition were submitted to the planning commission and many Many members of the community spoke out against the request. None spoke in favor. Commission member Graham Pohl noted his opposition to the proposed zone change. during the commission comment period. He stated that because this is a single property on the corner of an intact neighborhood, the opportunity to increase density on this particular property was not a persuasive argument. He agreed that the P1 zone is already oversupplied and that this type of intensity doesn't serve the city of Lexington. This application, because I think it's very clear that this property is, It's a single property, it's a small property, and it's very clearly the corner piece of a substantial neighborhood that has been intact for 100 years and should remain intact. I don't see that the opportunity to increase density on this particular property is an adequate argument for the loss of that identification of the neighborhood. I'm concerned about the fact that there are no sidewalks on Edgemore and that forces people to walk in the streets. I think that's a legitimate concern. I also think that the opponent's argument that the use is already oversupplied is a good argument that supports my sense that this particular increase of intensity really doesn't serve the city in the long run. And I think it's more important that we're thinking about density, not intensity in this case. And this actually decreases density. So those are my feelings about this application. A motion was thereafter made to approve the zone change request for the reasons provided by the staff. During discussion on the motion, Mr. Pohl commented that the comp plan specifically states that existing neighborhoods should be protected and enhanced and that the proposed rezoning would accomplish neither goal. Yes, sir. I would just like to make one more remark, and that is that the comprehensive plan specifically says that we should be protecting and enhancing existing neighborhoods. And I think that we've had several instances of this kind of proposal coming before us in which there's a tendency to ignore that, both from the staff and from this commission. I think we need to take that seriously. Is there more of this? Thank you, sir. Any other discussion? Well, I would echo that. I'll move on. I do think it's relevant what the Planning Commission stated in response to the motion to approve the P1 zone. And there have been other descriptions of what the Planning Commission considered and decided and initially considering. And this council has to have eight votes to overturn that. And so I was just attempting to highlight some of the more relevant comments made by the Planning Commission in opposition to the zone change request. So, I'm sorry. Let me, if I may. I believe that this video did not add anything to the record that wasn't included in the minutes of the Planning Commission hearing. And so I think we're going to have to rule those out of order. Okay. Thank you. In your packets, you have a proposed motion submitted by the Neighborhood Association. Southern Heights neighborhood urges this council to reflect on the destruction of the Southern Heights neighborhood that will result from the approval of the requested zone change. Please keep this 100% residential historic neighborhood intact and say no to the request of P1 zoning for this cornerstone property. The motion submitted requests that the council will deny the zone change request for 10 specifically enumerated reasons. Number one, the properties are located within a single family residential zone. This is a cornerstone property that has been preserved for 100 years. It's viable and it contributes to the history and architecture of the neighborhood. Number two, the property owner can realize the profit from the property is currently zoned. Number three, the property is a well-established land use boundary between residential and business office uses. A zone, a P1 transition zone exists south of the subject property with P1 zoning almost to Zandale Drive. Four, the 2018 comprehensive plan notes that there is a surplus of P1 zoning within our urban service boundary and that the efficacy of the P1 zone itself should be evaluated. Further, the R1C zone is still in agreement with the comp plan's vision for this historic residential neighborhood. Five, the Nicholasville Road corridor was studied in 2014 and again in 2019. Neither the 2014 study nor Imagine Nicholasville Road recommended intensifying the use of this particular property. Number six, there's an excessive amount of office space within the urban service area. Number seven, the comp plan map shows that the subject property is intended to be part of a neighborhood and that it is not part of a prosperity area. Mixed use is not designated as a potential use for the subject property. Number eight, the first goal under theme A, growing successful neighborhoods, is to expand housing choices. The proposed rezoning and demolition will remove a housing choice from the marketplace. Number nine, the first objective of goal three, provide well-designed neighborhoods and communities, is to expand opportunities for neighborhood character preservation. A change to P1 would establish a condition that is counterproductive to this goal. And ten, the subject properties are not part of an exclusively corridor place type. The corridor place type does not recommend a P1 zone and neither does the enhanced neighborhood place type. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Does the council for the petitioner wish to cross examine? I do. If you would come to the podium and you may have to, If you have questions or comments that require a response, then Ms. Winter will need to also share the mic. No comments, just questions. Ms. Winters, can you testify to whether the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association would agree to any zone change on the property other than R1C? I have not been informed one way or another by that. I know that they are opposing P1, and I would assume any opposition to a different zone change would have to be voted on by the board. i only know that they're opposed to the p1 miss winners would you agree that the p1 is the least intense use under the corridor place type p1 is not listed as a recommended zone for the corridor place type she needs the question i'll ask the next one i'll go move ahead vice mayor Ms. Winters, with respect to the established neighborhood place type, is it your testimony today that any one of those other recommended zones is appropriate then for the property? My testimony today was that P1 was not listed for a corridor or an enhanced neighborhood type. I don't know what the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association would vote to decide with regard to any other requested zone change. all i know is what i've been told that is they're opposed to the p1 which is what i spoke to this evening thank you thank you at this time this time there's an opportunity for public comment and i have one two four people signed up and more people coming if you have signed up for public comment and were not here when the swearing in occurred would you please stand and raise your right hand and i'll swear you in Do you swear or affirm that any testimony that you give at this hearing will be true to the best of your knowledge? Thank you. Okay, I have on the list first, Joe Chappelle. If you come to the mic, give your name and address, you have three minutes. Thank you, Vice Mayor, City Council. I'm Joe Chappell. I live at 137 Edgemore Drive, and I'm here in opposition of the proposed zoning change. And I have submitted a letter to you on August 23rd, and I won't reiterate any of the points in that letter. Instead, I would like to elaborate on the nature of the neighborhood. And I'm going to, despite my youthful look, I'm going to draw us back about 30 years when we had a great debate about whether we should extend Belafonte Drive. And that was to relieve congestion on the roadways into the city. The neighborhood as a whole came together and worked with the community, being the university, the city, all the planning organizations, and came up with a really good plan. And that was to put in an arboretum. I hope we would agree that that decision was really very key to creating an ambiance in the neighborhood, and it's representative of the engagement of the neighbors. We did that, and we continue to do those types of things continuously. About 20 years ago, when our neighborhood elementary school was facing a lot of difficulty, the neighborhood came together to help it reorient itself to the Global Studies Elementary School and that created that inclusive, diverse attraction to our neighborhood. We created that such that we could have students of all ethnicities, races, just increasing the diversity in our neighborhood. That's important because that speaks to the intent of the neighbors. Third, more recently, the neighborhood came together with the proposed bike lanes that needed to be put in place for transport, for transit between the southern parts of the city into the city center. And of course there was a lot of controversy about it, but the neighborhood worked to help design and find a recommended path that goes right through the neighborhood. So the neighborhood is not against evolving, changing. The neighborhood is about maintaining a culture that is embodying the families, the personnel that live in the neighborhood. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Andy Mead. Good evening. My name is Andy Mead. I live at 121 Edgemore Drive. I oppose this rezoning request because of the impact of the traffic on my street, which is already dangerous. And I'm a retired newspaper reporter. Something I have some news, something I found out at the first break. The Langer's here, who arrived too late to sign up for speaking, have just bought a house on Nicholasville Road at Tahoma. So, and they love it. So you can sell single family homes on Nicholsville Road. This photo I took this morning, my partner and I walked our dog, Lily. Why is she in the street? Well, there are no sidewalks as you've been told. Now look into the distance. What looks like maybe the end of the road is a blind, it's not the end of the street, it is a blind hill. how straight and wide the street is most people take that as as a invitation to put the pedal to the middle there's a lot of speeding on the street when I first moved on the edge more 27 years ago we had twins who were six months old now think about going around some of those vehicles in that photo and facing an suv speeding over the hill mr mead yes i'm sorry but i believe the the question of the traffic is not in order i can ask live i'm now making a ruling that's appropriate but i don't think i don't think there's any traffic study i don't think there's anything that's relevant to i know that it's important to you but it is important i understand but i actually good to take this mr bison anyway my children are now grown having wonderful lives in distant cities but there's still young people there's still young parents out there that are pushing strollers there are people walking there are kids riding bikes or walking to school and from the from the bus stop it if you did a traffic study you wouldn't find a whole lot of traffic It's nothing compared to Nicholsville Road, but it is a dangerous place, and this would make it, this development would make it more dangerous. The house on the property has a few people living there, and it is accessed from Nicholsville Road or Edgemoor. The proposed development would only have traffic coming and going on Edgemoor. The project is being pushed as something that's needed because it's on a corridor. But ironically, most of the traffic, sorry, going on about traffic, would be in and out of Edgemoor. They would take the whole street because, especially in the morning and afternoon rush hours, when it is really difficult to get out of Edgemoor Drive going either way. generally until the bank put a convenient road through there most people went around the block to get onto Nicholasville Road and they would do that instead of trying to get from the new development out there. The beautiful Dutch colonial house, 1924 house that would be raised for this is serving a useful purpose. Mr. Reid I'm sorry your time has expired if you'd like to conclude. One last sentence. Please follow the wisdom of the planning commission and deny this toning request. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Kim Gersteny. You'll have to show me how to use this. but he has to point at something okay okay um i don't know if i need to show this or not but basically this this uh is a little movie of the traffic situation on nicholasville art as you look down um going north uh so i'm sorry again if you If you could hold that for a minute, I have the same question about whether traffic on Nicholasville Road is relevant. I'm looking for our attorney to speak. There wasn't a traffic study because this development and the traffic counts didn't warrant it, but typically if the neighbors have a concern about traffic in their area and how this development might impact that, they can normally raise those concerns. But just for your information, the reason there wasn't a traffic study was because the traffic counts didn't require one in this instance. Okay. Well, proceed, and if it gets too far down Nicholasville Road, I'll probably jump in again. um i just will point out that um where this property is right where there's an x um oops i'm not doing good here point with that okay where that x is that's the pinch point where you go from seven lanes house at eight uh down to five right there you lose a right right hand lane right before the property so the point of pointing this out is that currently with the r1c zone you're not going to have that many vehicles coming in and out and around in this very busy area if this were office building as proposed you would have um sorry these are a little bit out of order you would have uh 55 parking places which essentially i'm going to skip through here a little bit so i can get to this you'd have 55 cars coming out of that property and they would be trying to get out on the nicholasville road they would be spilling onto edgemore not knowing exactly what is going would that p1 would actually be um you could end up with more traffic coming in and out and so that's where we feel like the p1 zone impacts the neighborhood negatively and that the r1c zone i feel like actually calms the traffic it doesn't add any you know major traffic issues at a place where it's a pinch point right where those roads narrow they're not going to add a lane it's just going to stay narrow and there'll always be issues right around there this particular area so you see a P1 to the south and residential this way and this being the boundary let's get forward a little bit this is some of the infrastructure there's utility line on our side of that street So on the east side of Nicholasville Road, there's these massive utility poles all the way through. So I don't know if the new 10-foot shared use paths and things like that that may go in or whatever, that would be something that would have to be contended with. Here's the location R1C with all the P1 to the south and that gradual from the bank to the bank house to the R1C. Your time has expired. Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next would be Mike Brower. Thank you. My name is Mike Brower. I live at 114 Shady Lane in the Southern Heights neighborhood. and I just want to briefly mention that as part of the neighborhood association board we met a couple of times with representatives from the imagined Nicholsville Road study and they were very specific that they've been pointing out that the opportunity for infill I couldn't hear all of that but I expect you're saying this is hearsay and not admissible. I don't have the ability to cross-examine. I don't have the ability to cross-examine third parties. He's citing their testimony, so I would move to limit any words other than his testimony. That's fair enough. Okay, can I say that we were told that our... So again, the problem is that we don't have them as witnesses. All right, let me... You can provide your opinion. Sure. My opinion is that anybody, any reasonable person who looks at an overlay of our area and looks south of Southland Drive sees wonderful opportunity for infill and development. Looking at Edgemoor Drive, where the natural boundary of our neighborhood has been for 100 years, is an inappropriate place for development, my opinion. Also, the bank building that's across Edgemoor there is not a bank. It's an office building owned by a bank, and it does represent that very nice step down or step up from commercial to residential already, very appropriately. The other thing that I would like to say is that in terms of historic on this particular building, again any reasonable person that looks at this wonderful home would hate to see that thing torn down and replaced by an office building I mean it's just a matter of aesthetics and once you tear down these hundred-year-old architectural gems you're not getting them back nobody can build a house like that anymore the materials aren't available the craftsmanship's not available it's something that should be treasured and maintained and as far as Southern Heights being interested in historic overlays we've been involved in that process for a couple years now but because of covid and wanting to respect uh the the uh seclusion of our neighborhoods we are not able to proceed with that to do what needs to be done in terms of education which is go door to door and talk with people and spend the time to do that and we we are not able to do that today but but we have been in the process we've met with preservation office they've given presentations to our neighborhood in large meetings before the whole pandemic started. So we are definitely interested in that. And this house is, again, a cornerstone for our neighborhood. And I hope you hold up that vote. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Next is Molly. Is that John? You'll give us your name, please. That would be Molly Davis. I'm sorry. It would be Molly Davis. It would be Molly Davis, yes. Sorry. Welcome. Handwriting, not the best. My name is Molly Davis. I live at 201 Tahoma Road. Vice Mayor Kay and honored council members, I did not write a letter this time. I did the last time I chose and said to come in person I feel like that has more weight perhaps also it's so fun to come to hearings I would respectfully request that you follow the recommendation of the urban County Planning Commission of Lexington of Bayek County Kentucky in this matter you see that there are a few people here but there are four of my fellow board members from Southern Heights Neighborhood Association we have met often often sometimes once a week about this issue for the past year we've held letter-writing campaigns we've had zoom meetings fund drives this is very much a concern to us because of the possibility of really changing an intact neighborhood Andy Mead mentioned that there are two homeowners back here Nicole and John Langer who bought a house at 1868 Nicholasville Road in March of this year for $417,000. And they love it. So there are people who will come and live on Nicholasville Road. I would also just take issue with Mr. Billings' characterization of the public engagement process. It simply didn't happen. Mr. Billings was pushy. He was threatening. I'm sorry, but if you can avoid personal attacks, thank you. It was not a public engagement process that led to a good outcome. So that's why there might not be the results that he was expecting. I would just say that I think this is a case of an individual wanting to realize a profit on their investment. and it shouldn't happen at the expense of an entire neighborhood, an intact neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Amy Clark. I'm Amy Clark and I live at 628 Castle Road. I would begin by saying if you want housing, it's important to zone for housing and especially not to take the housing zone away. Police don't make a white elephant of a piece of property which has aspirations to be developed as P1 or whatever. They may not be realized. They may not be realized for decades, like a pair of apartment houses I can think of on Nicholasville Road. So I think it's important to keep the housing designation until or unless you see a better housing designation, if that's what's needed. Mr. Billings went over at some length and quite accurately the office vacancy. I want to recap in brief. During the comp plan, they were using data from mid-2017. There was a 12% office vacancy rate, and it was termed a problem. that's about a million square feet two years later when this zone change came before the planning commission there was an office vacancy of double that about two million square feet not one and it was in the range of 13 to 15 depending whether you're downtown or suburban percent there is still an office vacancy rate of that order and it's significant 12 or 13 percent downtown, about 14 farther out. But it's not the key factor just here. And this is where you come in as a council. It's important that you be the last vote, the important vote on a zone change, because you have the big picture. And you, as a council, determined the growth trajectory for Baptist Health when you voted a big tax incentive for them to develop new employment, 600 jobs to start with, out at the interstate in Hamburg. I'm reading my way through the letter, sort of. Baptist Health drives the demand for office space in the immediate vicinity and they have definitively set their growth at the interstate by Hamburg. What did you vote exactly? Something on the order of 12.72 million if they do begin with 600 new employees at the interstate and keep that many and add not one more. in a tax package that was cutting the payroll tax in half for five years, cutting it to 40% for the following 15. Yes. I'm sorry, but your time has expired. Do you want a last sentence? Yeah. The site is very constrained in depth. It has just enough room and no more. If you need 12 more feet for the right of way, the pedestrian and bus infrastructure, it means you lose a row of parking. Here's a clear conflict between- Ms. Clark, your summation, thank you. Does the petitioner wish to cross examine any of the witnesses who have spoken? Thank you, Vice Mayor, but no. Thank you. staff now has an opportunity to make additional comments thank you very much sir i'm just going to clarify a few statements as well as correct some information that was provided the adoption of the comprehensive plan and the imagine nicholasville road corridor study were referenced to the council and in this case that this is not under the purview of the council it is adopted by the planning commission the goals and objectives are adopted by this council the staff presented the recommendation of the staff and the planning commission as it was at the time of the review of the application both with staff's review and then the planning commission recommendation to you here today as as such it would be inappropriate of the staff or the planning commission to make any new recommendation based off of new documentation like the imagine nicholas bill road corridor study here today as it wouldn't have had proper review in terms of the p1 zone page 264 of the comprehensive plan directly addresses other zoning categories it states that the place builder includes a list of ideal zones categories to develop a particular for categories to develop a particular place type provided there is an appropriate justification addressing the criteria other zones can be considered in this case the there was a reference to the zoning ordinance as well that intent section of the zoning ordinance is also aspirational it is not restrictive in a sense and any zone change is guided by the comprehensive plan and in this case the uh the recommendation uh or the uh application by the p1 was not out of line um in terms of the the staff and the planning commission uh reviewing historic documents uh there was several references to old comprehensive plans uh the staff and the planning commission do not review any new zone change application or any application against past comprehensive plans or past land use maps this goes back to the fact that in 2013 we removed the land future land use map proponent or component of the comprehensive plan and shifted to a policy-based system with that there was reference to some mapping of the north nicholasville road small area plan that small area plan was never completed and it was never adopted by any discerning body of the urban county government as such it was not ever vetted in any significant way and should not be utilized for any determination regarding zoning within the urban county sorry i'm trying to run through this quick so that we don't have to stay too long there was reference to a comprehensive plan map within the comprehensive plan there are some maps they do not recommend any specific types of zones in those maps there is one map that does identify the specific corridors there are opportunities for applicants to use different place types along corridors but that corridor map is the only identified place type within the comprehensive plan the maps that were shown representing the context maps in the company for associated with the comprehensive plan are not adopted maps by any discerning body they are illustrative documents that are utilized for uh review by the public of what is currently there in the context not what is represented by the recommendations of the comprehensive plan and not as an adopted element of the comprehensive plan uh so just to reiterate there is no uh zone map uh p1 offices offices that are utilized for banks are considered banks by land use. And then also the Planning Commission made specific recommendations within their final report, as you have on your documentation in front of you currently. There was reference to a proposed motion by the applicant and then represented on screen in front of you today that proposed motion is not representative of any determination that the planning commission made there are two elements that are covered by some of the recommendations or findings that were made that are represented on your final report however I would recommend that if you are seeking to make any recommendation associated with a planning commission determination that not be made made based off of the 10 elements that were shown on screen previously with that if you have any questions about what i've brought up here now i'd be happy to answer them i think we're going to hold questions until we get to that section there's also right now an opportunity for a petitioner if you have additional rebuttal evidence that would be the time mr vice mayor just to be clear as the applicant don't i go last before the questions about the council and that the objector should do rebuttal? I'm sorry could you repeat that? In other words, I'm fine to go with rebuttal but I may have some sub rebuttal depending on how the opposition goes if I need to go now versus wait. Well, I have in the order of this proceeding that the petitioner first presents rebuttal evidence, and then the opponent has the opportunity to make the same. Am I not? That's very good. That's why I was clarifying. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, wow, we've been here two hours and 40 minutes, and I think for a minute we went back to 2007-2008, 2013-2014, and I thought we were in August of 2021. Thankfully, Mr. Bailey clarified some of what I was going to say, which is all of the references to things that may have happened in the past, some of which are not exactly accurate by some of the evidence here tonight, doesn't matter. KERIS 100-213 is very, very clear. It does not say you go back and look at what the Planning Commission did in 2007 or 2008. It doesn't say you go back and look at a small area plan that wasn't completed 15 years ago. It doesn't say you go back and look at a Lex Tran transportation study that is not part of our comprehensive plan and has never been adopted by LFUCG as part of a zone change. It does not say that the council looks at the video transcript from the planning commission to determine whether it is making a decision based on the evidence presented before you today. KRS 100 213 says very, very simply, what does a comprehensive plan say? Is the proposed zone change in conformity in accordance with the comprehensive plan, in this case, which include Place Builder and Imagine Nicholsville Road? And if so, the zone change should be granted. It's a very simple process. While we have a lot of other details inside of this legal structure that I presented and talked about, the question is not that difficult to ascertain. What you heard from a number of opposition speakers tonight is this myth that the Southern Heights neighborhood boundary is somehow created and respected and to be preserved by the comprehensive plan by Place Builder or by Imagine Nicholasville Road. It doesn't say that at all. It never specifically identifies the Southern Heights neighborhood association boundary. It describes what are called neighborhoods. You have enhanced neighborhoods under Place Builder. You have a neighborhood development typology under the Imagine-Nicholasville Road study. But neither of those say you can't take a residential lot on a corridor and rezone it for development. None of them say that the boundaries of the neighborhood are such that they cannot be changed by a rezoning. It doesn't, in fact, say that what you're rezoning does changes the neighborhood boundary. What you're doing is changing the use of a piece of property on a corridor. When you look at the basis for the 2008 denial, which was talked about extensively, if you look through each one of those, what you're going to find is, in fact, the story supports the zone change today. So, for example, the first one they talked about was the 2008 denial of a zone change, finding it wasn't in agreement with the comprehensive plan. And then the argument today was P1 zoning is not recommended for any zone today. Well, the reality is, if you look inside of our comprehensive plan, as Mr. Bailey said, we've gotten rid of the future land use map. It was a massive change when we did that. In other words, there is no recommended zone under a future land use map in Lexington today. It's a philosophical policy decision that was made by the council with lots of input, and it now directs our policies and our decision-making. There is no recommended zone inside of the comprehensive plan. Instead, what you have is you have a process inside of the comprehensive plan called place builder. And under place builder, you go through an analysis that says first, what is the place type? Question is, is it a corridor or is it an enhanced neighborhood? in the engagement with the residents and stakeholders. And if I have time, I'd be glad to go through the extensive engagement we did. They said, we don't want the enhanced neighborhood potential impacts, which are R4, R5, R3, MU3, and MU4. They said they didn't want it. So the only other applicable place type, it has to be a corridor. When you look at the corridor, then the question is, what are the development types we talked about the development types you're either going to have medium density medium high density or high density residential or you have medium mixed use non-residential or you have high mixed use non-residential and within that then you do have six recommended zones none of which are the p1 they have six it doesn't say the only zones it doesn't limit council to approving zones in that to those six what it says is recommended zones and the staff has pointed out to you and we argue to you all an applicant has the right and council has the right to rezone a property under that under that to a different zone i'm sorry look you're gonna say something mr so i i think I have a little bit of a quandary. I was asking for rebuttal, and I believe what you have been giving us is summation, and you are correct. Summations are presented first by the opposition and then by the petitioner. I should have intervened a while ago. It's okay. It seemed to me you were rebutting, and then it tailed off into summation. and we didn't put a clock up. So I would like, if it's okay, I would like you to finish. If the opponents have any rebuttal evidence, I'll ask for that. Then I'll ask for the summation from the opposition, and if you would like to further sum. So let me come with the only rebuttal evidence then, and I'm sorry that I have confused the process, is the testimony regarding the vacancy rates in Fayette County. When you, is to understand the distinction between what opposition has presented and the evidence is Nicholasville Road does not have an abundance of available office space. You can't look downtown. You can't look outside of the county as a whole. You can't look at Beaumont or Hamburg. The evidence is what is it like along the corridor here? And I'll save other comments for my closing argument. Thank you. Rebuttal from the opposition, and again, rebuttal of particulars and not a summation, and I'll give you an opportunity to do that. Do the rebuttal, and then you'll have an opportunity to sum up. Thank you. and i am and can i get a give me a 10 minute clock and see how that works oh yeah i'm immensely grateful for your time and attention and i will be brief uh with rebuttal especially because i actually only have one thing that i wanted to point out um i know that i spent a lot of time during my presentation uh discussing the history of the property and prior land use studies and prior zone change requests and what happened with each of those and i feel like i explained to you why they were relevant to the issue before you today but the applicant has indicated that prior land use studies are not relevant and i just wanted to rebut that point i'm looking at the comp plan right now and it has at page 270 it says in addition to the 2018 comprehensive plan there are various plans and studies that have been adopted in order to guide the growth land use management in context to sensitive development in lexington and then it says it goes on to list various types of plans that have been considered and adopted and the lextran study that we cited to you is listed as one of the studies there so i just wanted to point that out that's all i have i'll save the rest for summation thank you and then if you would like to sum up at this point oh okay Mr. Bailey from the planning staff mentioned that the comp plan through place builder states that the zones listed for each place type are the ideal zones for the place type. okay so in this case we have a property that if you rely on what planning staff has characterized it and the applicant is a corridor place type exclusively and the way the neighborhood sees this place type is it is on a corridor but it is part of an enhanced existing 100 complete neighborhood and so but under either place type when you look at the ideal zones for the place type as stated in place builder p1 is not there okay the comp plan does state that other zones can be considered with appropriate justification so then we have to ask well what is the justification for a p1 zone that's not listed as an ideal zone under either of the two potential applicable place types is it that the property can't be used with the current zoning well no it's a beautiful viable residential structure it's been rented as a residential structure it's currently on the market it's doubled in value since the owner purchased it in 2008. okay well so then is the appropriate justification that there has been some sort of major change to the neighborhood well nope that's not a justification here either because the neighborhood still exhibits the same exact mix of uses and the same intensity of uses that it has had for the past 10 years it's still this property is still located in an area that is 100 zoned residential there has been no change to that well is the justification that p1 office space is needed no we've talked about it till we're blue in the face tonight about how there's an excess of p1 space in lexington within a one mile radius of the subject property there are 30 available spaces and our comp plan specifically states that there is an overabundance of p1 and that the p1 zone needs to be reconsidered because of that okay so then is the justification that profit can't be realized from the property no as we've talked about it's doubled in value since it was purchased what is the justification i don't think we've heard the justification from the applicant what we have here and these are the facts is that an owner purchased an r1 property in a 100 residentially zoned neighborhood in 2008 Now, without presenting the council with any justification for doing so, they're asking you to change the zone to P1, which is not listed as an ideal or recommended zone for this place type in our comprehensive plan. Southern Heights Neighborhood Association submits to you that approving the P1 zone will be destructive to the neighborhood, that the city council and our comp plan should value the protection and preservation of existing neighborhoods, especially those that are intact. and have remained intact for more than 100 years, even under increasing pressures from infill. Thank you. Thank you. Petitioner, further summation? Thank you, Mr. Rice-Mayor. We get a 10-minute clock. 10 minutes on the clock? Is that right? 10 minutes? Yes. there were a number of comments earlier about traffic and complaints 55 parking spots it's this bottle of water traffic on nicholasville road is 47 000 plus cars a day it's like pouring this bottle of water in lake cumberland it makes no material difference at all to traffic you've heard the neighbors complain that it's going to change the character of their neighborhood the character of their neighborhood has changed it's not the same today that it was in 1924 it's not the same today that it was in 1950 it's not the same as it was in 1980 it's not the same as it was in 2007 and it's not going to be the same in 2030 the reason we have a comprehensive plan place builder and imagine nicholasville road corridor study is because we recognize as a city it's going to change people saying we don't want change is no longer a viable option in our city you all have decided that as a matter of policy i support that as a matter of policy my client the applicant supports this as a matter of policy we ask the stakeholders in this area to engage with us in an extensive process and i take exception to the attack that was made that we did not engage in that in good faith. We asked them, which of these types of developments are the least offensive to you all? What we heard back was people from the board saying, basically, we will fight you tooth and nail because we never want this property developed, which is what they did in 2007. And it's what they're doing tonight. The vast majority of people who participated in this conversation. That's why there's 30 letters in opposition, but 300 neighbors out there. They don't speak for everybody. I recognize that COVID is an impact on attendance tonight, so I don't know how it's impacted it. I've been in zone changes where there's been 250 people, and I've submitted 200-plus letters in opposition because that's how you get neighborhood support behind you. We have 30 letters, which is approximately 10% of the neighborhood. The reality is the vast majority of people in these neighborhoods understand that Nicholsville Road has to change because our city is going to change. We can either not do something today, or we will deal with it in the future in other adverse ways. When you look at the comprehensive plan goals and objectives that I reviewed and are in the evidence, when you look at the place builder process, this is either a corridor, and it's one sort of property, or it's an enhanced neighborhood, and there's other types of increased residential density which they opposed worse. It's one of the two. when when they were given the choice the overwhelming feedback from stakeholders involved was we want office space not increased residential density when discussed with them about appropriate zones that are recommended they did not like the more intense commercial business uses that are recommended zones as a result the p1 zone was selected based upon extensive feedback from those people who were willing to participate in the conversation because they recognized Lexington has changed, it is changing, and it's going to continue changing. It's inevitable. That's why we have a study. We have a really, really big comprehensive study. And that study recognizes the tension about what we're talking here tonight. There's zone changes that happen in Lexington occasionally that's not a big fight over. There's some that are. There's some that are in the middle. two weeks ago you over here and had a lot of evidence don't you can't take that evidence to do here but it's a it's a illustration for what's going on in lexington and recognizing the tension the zone change we're requesting from you all is not a four or five story apartment building it's not a mcdonald's restaurant with lots of drive-thru it's the least intense business use available in lexington which has always historically been the buffer between corridors and higher intense commercial activity in neighborhoods. It's why the P1 is south of there on the U.S. bank lots. It's why it exists. That's why the P1 zone was selected, because nobody wanted the B1 zone. This isn't appropriate for a hotel. So how do you mitigate those factors? You listen to the neighborhood, and you try to make a decision that respects those boundaries, but at the same time understands a re-zoning is appropriate. You know, these zone changes have been less frequent in the last two years, but I don't envy you all for having to sit here several times a year and hear arguments from attorneys, evidence from neighbors, friends, people you've known sometimes your lifetimes, and be faced with questions that aren't really comfortable that you don't want to do. I don't envy you for that. but i also believe that you all got into public service and ran for office because you all wanted the responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interest of the future of lexington and you adopt plans like nicholasville road quarter study which do that you've heard no evidence tonight that the proposed rezoning to a p1 is inconsistent with the nicholasville road study you have it the only argument you heard about place builder was just p1 isn't a recommended zone, which it's not. It's a lower intense use. The reality is the people who have spoken tonight just don't want it redeveloped at all. If we were again, I would ask you not to impugn motivation to the other party. We have gone through an extensive process. We have waited over two years. We admittedly had a tie initially to the Planning Commission, and Planning Commission voted 5-4 against it. Since then, we have a brand new study with a lot more data and information, which you are very familiar with. You all probably read it time and time again. And the evidence is that study supports rezoning the property as a continuing buffer zone between the corridor and the neighborhood. There's nothing in any of the evidence tonight that says the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association boundary is to be preserved by the Comprehensive Plan. None of it says it's supposed to be preserved by Place Builder. None of it says it's supposed to be preserved by the Nicholsville Road Study. Staff agrees with us. I understand the Planning Commission voted against us. I respectfully ask for you all to vote yes for our zone change tonight. I have a motion and proposed findings in front of you. I do respectfully ask that we need eight positive votes for the zone change under Kentucky law to overturn the recommendation of the Planning Commission. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions the Commission may have, Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you. The next section is really about Council's ability to ask questions. I would propose another 10-minute break, and we will go to the next session at that point. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Transcription by CastingWords Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ The End Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ The End Thank you. Thank you. We would like to resume. Thank you. Okay, the next order of business is questions of staff, petitioner, and opponent. If we have any, if you'd please sign in electronically and I'll recognize you. Council Member Ellinger. Thanks, Vice Mayor. I have a statement here. After hearing testimony from the legal counsel of the applicant, I was concerned I may need to either recuse or abstain from the vote. I own a property and live at 1823 Nicholsville Road, which is on the corner of Nicholsville Road and Rosemont Garden, which is about four blocks down the street from here. When the Penn Moken Park H1 overlay was discussed, I recused. After speaking with our own legal counsel, I don't think this arises to her accusal, but I do think an abstention is in order. Therefore, my abstention will go with the majority. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Other council members, questions for staff, petitioner, or opponent? You log in. Council Member Lamb. Just for the record, can I keep this off for 20 minutes now? Lord free okay thank you vice mayor I have some questions and I'm going to start out with the the petitioner mr. Billings please and I don't know if miss butcher was sworn in or if if she's able to answer this if you might not be able to the question is has the property ever been used for office space and if so since she's owned it so if I understand the question council member is has the office space has the property been used office space by the applicant since she has owned the property yes sir not to my knowledge I don't believe she did she looked at the zone change in 2007 and the neighborhood opposed it and before it came to council she withdrew the application because of the then proceedings Nicholasville Road the North Nicholas the road small area plan which was never completed so she has not ever used it as her office I don't know if any of the tenants have ever used it as like a study or office I assume that's probably so but not as what you're meaning I think a professional well I just I just feel like I need to ask a few extra questions that that from my own personal knowledge has the property you've been used you have been sworn in Yes, ma'am. Julie Butcher. I am the applicant. My address is 130 Cherokee Park. And no, it has never been used by me as a professional office. As an attorney, I think that would be absolutely antithetical to be breaking the zone law and try to use it as such. All right, thank you. Okay, thank you. Well, I know we've all had our houses used as offices over the last 18 months. But the property, what about residential? I know that you have had, I believe, has it been used for residential? And I know that you currently have it for sale. And, I mean, the successes of that have not been good, sounds like. There has been no success. There have been no offers at any price. It has been used exclusively for students when I'm able to rent it. The one time when I actually got a single family to rent, I ended up having to evict them, which was a horrible thing I never want to have to go through again. And that's the history. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. um the um that that we talked about the type of that we haven't talked about the exact type of buffer uh between this property and 103 edgemore and the 1914 nicholasville road i was curious if you would mind wouldn't mind to expand on that as proposed to the extent i can't so that's a development plan question and there are subdivision regulations which specifically provide for buffering but in addition to those we created for landscaping berm and a six foot fence to make sure that we created the visual barrier as well as these and this is I think very important there are conditional zoning restrictions as part of our agreement with staff on the zone change and it's in the motion we've submitted to you what that means is these are restrictions on the property that follow the zone which means in addition to any of the subdivision regulations which you have to comply with the the lighting issue the drive-through issues those are the buffering criteria that we agreed staff agreed and we've even presented to the owners that create not just the space buffer like six feet or eight feet but also the use buffer so that you don't have a McDonald's drive-through or a bank drive-through okay thank you and and we that is something that we as a council can take under consideration for conditionals uses so it's important for us to understand what those buffers are with with adjacent properties so and in fact they can only be changed by action of the council through another zone change process. So you're, you're the only one who can change. If you adopt the zone change tonight with those in place, the only people who can change them are you all right. Right. Okay. And, um, miss Winters, if you don't mind to come to the podium, please. And I'm running out of time. So, um, this goes back to the, some comments that have been made tonight and um as as far as southern since you are representing southern heights neighborhood here tonight my question to you is is that is it fair to say i understand that that the neighborhood has not agreed with wanting residential to to like say town homes or single-family residentials to be developed on this property and i'd like for you to expand on that. Yeah, I actually was trying to object when Mr. Billings was representing to the council things that were said to him by the folks in the neighborhood association during their meetings because that's all hearsay and they're not here to defend themselves or the statements that they made during those meetings. But they are not here today saying that they object to development there. They're not saying that they object to any other type of zone change. They are here today to say that they object to the P1 zone change, and that they are here today to say that the R1 zone that's currently there still works for the neighborhood, and it still works for the property, and there's no justification to change it. So for the applicant to represent what people who are not here tonight to defend themselves or cross-examine on said to him during meetings that happened two years ago, I feel is inappropriate. it but I'm here to speak to Southern Heights current position which is no to the P1. Okay I appreciate that and I thought that I heard that you had said something to that relevance during your presentation as well so but I appreciate this very much thank you thank you. Thank you Councilmember Bledsoe. Thank you Vice Mayor I actually have questions for Mr. Bailey. I want to go back to the definition of corridor mostly since at the property in wellington what what did what do you think about the definition of a corridor in this situation in this situation from a staff perspective we were looking at it based off of the map that was provided and how the property was fronting the integration of that property into that corridor development for the planning commission they felt that the corridor development was not appropriate at this location uh for a comp plan perspective there is some flexibility within that as miss winters pointed out throughout her presentation um so within the staff perspective they felt that it was more appropriate for a corridor with that and a slightly more intense development uh for a definition of what the corridor is it is really how it interacts with the corridor for previous zone changes specifically the wellington way that was focused on a collector roadway that directly funneled into that corridor development it had a interplay with the development that was occurring on that corner specifically of man of war and harrodsburg road and fed into the development as a whole for that area so staff saw that as an opportunity for corridor type development to occur specifically a higher density residential in that case it met the medium density residential type which was a four four story structure okay thank you for that um i you know i i i venomously disagree with the administration or the the staff recommendation that wellington away was a corridor which the staff said it was. So I think it's pretty obvious that the property on Nicholasville Road is, I mean, it faces Nicholasville Road. It's hard to argue that it's not a corridor. And I think the question would be, from what you just said about the planning staff, the Planning Commission viewed it as on a corridor, but a lesser degree of a high-intensity corridor? Yes, ma'am. And in this review, the planning commission was looking at the context of that neighboring residential and the surrounding development specifically up nicholasville road as well as into edgemore edgemore unlike wellington way is a local road it provides a little bit more residential feel and traffic kind of circulation when it came to the development at this corner the planning commission thought that it was in a uh too intense and took away from the neighborhood character at that location they found that it would remove the context of that situation okay i appreciate that and i would also argue that i think wellington way abutted behind neighborhoods that were very much a collector road and i completely disagree with that assessment um and that's okay that's my my opinion it's just mine um i lost that vote on this council if you recall they they joined the majority joined with that being a corridor development that needed high density residential i would have done anything for p1 i would have done just about anything as would my neighborhood have but that is okay that's not we're discussing tonight we're discussing whether or not that property is a is a zone change appropriate and i think it's it's a challenging environment so i I appreciate your, it's a little bit nuanced of a space. It is close to Southland Drive. There's a lot of development around it that is obviously commercial in nature. And I also want to ask the question, as a step down, it seems to me that we have done our best to have a high intensity and then lower that density as it gets close to the neighborhood. how is a P1 at that step down not appropriate considering there's P1 other business be one around it that also abuts a neighborhood from the Planning Commission's perspective from a staff perspective from a staff perspective it is the it is presented as the lowest intensity commercial zone so going from across the street which you're seeing your highway service business zones and neighborhood business zones moving across to this primarily residential section the staff saw this as a good step down for much of staff's review we are looking at for higher intensity and density than this but in this case the applicant went through a neighborhood process in which some members of the neighborhood vehemently objected but some members saw this as something that was not as out of line so when staff is reviewing many of these things we do want to make sure that we're taking the neighborhood context and discussion into account i appreciate that thank you i'm out of time thank you thank you council member maloney uh you can stay up there i need I understand the P1, how it came up, even though it's not in, but the placeholder was able to get it in there somehow. And you know, I asked a similar question in the horizon change a couple weeks ago. And my question to you is, on that corner lot, an acre lot, which is a lot of land inside the urban service now, as we know, and we don't want to span the boundaries, and we're all pushing for infield redevelopment, if you want residential what the maximum of residential can go on that piece of property so in terms of the current zoning the property could develop four single family detached residential properties on it in terms of alternative zoning whether that is the r4 r3 r4 or r5 it It really depends on the type of development that is occurring and the density of that development. For an R3, typically you're seeing anywhere between a three and four story structure. Depending on the room count and depending on the dwelling unit count, it could vary in what would fit at that location. Additionally, we do make several kind of considerations within the zoning ordinance that allow for basically a little bit more space to be used. Parking reductions for infill and redevelopment are an option through a variance request, as well as just outright for any affordable housing or mixed income housing, they would be able to drop down the required amount parking that would kick up the availability of density all of that being said it really does depend on how an applicant would situate the building on the property it could be used in various different capacities from that r3 r4 r5 zone i do want to say that there is the potential for our mixed-use zones like the professional office or the neighborhood business zone to include some sort of residential as well the zone change we had a couple weeks how many acres of that one acre and we put 80 units on that okay it was 88 to me that's a different scenario from traffic I'm looking at a traffic I'm just curious I'm just trying to see what the worst scenario and I don't want to be there but I just know that some people will come in and I just want to be sure what's best for this neighborhood in the future. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Councilmember James Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And Hal, I've got a question for you as well. I know we're not here to discuss the development plan, but when is the access to the property determined? Because it sounds like there's some concern about the access being on Edgemore as opposed to Nicholasville Road. Yes, sir. So with review of all of our corridors, we are trying to remove access points from those locations in when we see major conflict between other vehicles and especially at this location in which there is a tapering down of the roadway there is a major concern of vehicular kind of conflict with any development in which there is a an adjacent road or an access easement we would like to see from a safety and welfare perspective moving off of those main corridors and into those side roads now when looking at this proposed development there wasn't a concern for the need for a traffic impact study because it did not add those new types of trips for staff's review when looking at what was opposing the subject property there is an access point into that that p1 office bank facility that's on the other side and when staff looks at those kind of uses we would rather see it off of the main corridor and into the side roads there okay well that answered my question but you know i i don't know how to i don't know what to say to address the concern i just you know depending on what happens with this application before us tonight i think the planning department ought to be mindful of the concerns with traffic to that residential road on edgemore yes sir okay thank you thank you vice mayor thank you councilmember sheehan thank you chair um i'm a little unsure of the um how to ask this question because i know we have been talking about what we can and can't say about the development plan in the past zone change hearings that we've had we've been allowed to talk about the parking requirements are we allowed to do that here yes ma'am i i believe that that gets into some of the concerns about traffic as well in this case it is one space for every 400 square feet of the apartment the building and that is a requirement now as this application is located within the in defined infill and redevelopment area which is the outline of our oldest urban downtown they are allowed to ask for a variance request to reduce that required parking in this case with the initial submission of this zone change the applicant was asking for greater intensity of land use at the property and an associated variance the applicant withdrew that variance request and limited some of their intensity on site to what they are presenting for land use now well in that when we're looking at the P1 zone it talks about parking requirements dependent on the use of the building so I do have a concern about housing right and and we've already discussed how this would reduce housing but one of the uses in the P1 is housing that impacts also how many parking spaces are here so I'm trying to figure out the question to ask like on this plan there were exactly i think 55 parking spaces so what was used exactly to determine that number um because i'm looking at all the different in the p1 like all the different potential uses and then they're depending on the uses there are exact numbers of parking that are required so yes ma'am so within the p1 zone there is a just overarching category of office and that is how the use that was presented by the applicant with their submission and justification in the case of adding residential dwelling units to any p1 or b1 which are those mixed uses in which it needs to be on the second floor or behind if it's a single story structure it would be one parking space per dwelling unit it doesn't have the same kind of impact in parking that you might see with an r3 r4 or r5 zone but at that point at this point that extra spot has not been incorporated correct they have not right now they're showing the entire building all of their square footage at a professional office level if they were to go to a residential level it would likely decrease the amount of parking necessary just because of the square footage required for an apartment typically you see it ranging for a studio anywhere between 500 and a thousand square feet with that it would only require one space if it was professional office it would require two and just to follow up on the place builder and the types some of those mixed use types would allow the zones would allow for housing as well correct Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. And then I think I'm going to ask Mr. Billings to follow up. But to talk about the entrance off of Edgemoor versus Nicholasville Road, I'm going back in my mind. is there a difference between it being p1 and residential as to why that is requested that way because i was thinking of tates creek road which has been back three years ago or two and a half years and and we did allow it but that's a different corridor where i realized but can you explain and speak to that please specifically all properties need to are required to have some sort of access into their property with tates creek with some of the development that has occurred and specifically some of the zone changes that have occurred over the past four or five years that property did not have access to a side road therefore it is a a legal requirement that they be able to enter that property in this case there are two frontages uh we staff recommends that uh those the lesser intensity road be utilized for access many of the time that's very good point i forgot about that there wasn't an access road next to it and mr billings did you follow up so Council member there are three existing access entry points to the property today. There is one off of Nicholasville Road and there's two off of Edgemoor Drive. And so the one on Nicholasville Road if the property is rezoned, it's staffs comments in our agreement to have an either a right in or right out or any access off Nicholasville Road considering the narrowing of the road there and Edgemoor seems to only compound a potential traffic issue at that point. And and because there's currently two entrances edgemore we agreed that there should only be one entrance into and out of the property just because the side of it is not a 15 or 20 acre development it's only one acre second the property to the south the two u.s bank properties there's actually and it was in miss winner's presentation if you all may have saw while we originally filed this that those two properties didn't allow access all the way over to jessalyn that's actually been changed now and and it's not an, I hate to call it an alleyway because that's not correct, but it is a driveway that basically accesses Edgemore Drive Canal access down to Jessalyn to turn at the light there, as basically what amounts to an access easement. I think there was opposition from the neighborhood to allow that at some point, and I believe that US Bank was able to get, I didn't follow, but maybe a variance or some requests from the city to allow that to occur, which I think is a relief valve for your questions about the parking on the property and the potential reuse into at least the lowest professional use. Thank you. And the problem with the bank property is they didn't get the proper permitting, so that was the problem there. So just for the – all right, thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I don't really have any – I don't have any questions, but something that's been resonating with me tonight, and I just wanted to make a statement, is that just the appropriateness of a P1. We've been hearing reference tonight to the glut, the high vacancy rate that we see in P1s. And I think, and actually, Mr. Billings, you mentioned in the best interest, and that's what came home to me, in looking at our community and our needs and moving forward. We've been in a pandemic. We're still in one. And you look what's going on with the rethinking of space, a personal space. And so you've got these large office buildings all over our community. And do we know if folks are going back into those? Do we know what that glut's going to look like? No. But I will say it's not going to be the same as it was before. So it's one more that we really don't know what the future's going to look like. So because of that, I don't support it. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Are there any other questions for any of the, either the petitioner or the opponents or staff at this point? If not, I have one or two. Mr. Bailey? Yes, sir. The first question is, how was the typology set? or may actually let me back up half a step what is the use of the typology why do we have a typology the use of the typologies context uh in the past comprehensive plans specifically the 2013 comprehensive plan which removed the land use map there were a fair amount of com there was a fair amount of conversation about how overly flexible it was there was no real direction that was being provided by the comprehensive plan with the adoption of the 2018 comprehensive plan the place types were meant to be more focused and direct an applicant would have to justify why they are locating at this location and it is meant to be a negotiation between the neighborhood because so many different place types can overlap it also allows for a fair amount of change many of the comp plans that are out there specifically ones that use a land use map are very rigid this allows for the city to change over time those place types to change with an evolving landscape and built environment okay and then how is the um that determination made who who sets the uh what the what the designation is going to be it is meant to be a negotiation between the applicant the neighborhood the planning staff the planning commission and ultimately the urban county council so that that context that uh that situation of the property is meant to be a discussion ultimately uh coming to a decision okay and so it it is it fair to say that the designation itself is flexible yes sir okay um i guess secondly there are a fair number of residential properties both adjoining and in the in that kind of going down the block and there are other sections of nicholasville road with the same thing as the case does this zone change set a precedent and does it make it in any sense easier to then request and receive zone change zone changes on those other residential properties when reviewing zone change applications there is it is not a precedent setting uh review it is based off of a justification evidence that is given and then also the review from staff planning commission and ultimately the urban county council so uh when it comes to neighboring or adjacent land uses and zones yes it does play a small impact in the fact that we do not allow for spot zoning to occur in our community in which there would just be a lineup of one single type of zoning a shift to a more intense zoning and then a shift back down there is a continuity aspect of both land use and zoning in all of our review okay and then if i can i'd like to kind of go back to the basics as i understand it and you i want to make sure that i understand correctly there are really three criteria for a zone change is that are we starting in the right place with with any zone change it comes from i and and correct me if i'm going off target here it starts with the comp plan if it can't meet the comp plan then it has two other elements that it can hit for a zone change application. That would be, and tell me if I'm going in a different direction. No, no, no. I want to step through them. Yes, sir. And if I can, let me just say it seems to me that of the three, no case has been made that there's been a substantial change. That's not a basis. So what we're left with, well, and go back to the first criteria, it has to be consistent with the comp plan. That is correct. That's a yes or no. If it's not consistent with the comp plan, then it can't be considered. Is that fair to say? That is incorrect, unfortunately. If it is not consistent with the comprehensive plan, then an applicant can try to apply the two other applications for a zone change. Okay. And if it is consistent with the comp plan, that does not mean it then is automatically approved. But that's a threshold question. First, you have to meet that criteria. and then the question is in my mind the second criteria which is is the present use the an appropriate use and is the proposed use itself a better use unfortunately sir no that that is incorrect um so when looking at a zone change application it starts with and this is the overarching perspective is it in line with the the adopted comprehensive plan if it is not then the applicant is able to make a justification about the appropriateness of the proposed zoning and the inappropriateness of the current zoning, or they are able to go ahead and make an argument that there has been a substantial fiscal, social, or economic change since the adoption of the most recent comprehensive plan. So in terms of arguments, that first tier is the comp plan. if it can't meet the comp plan the applicant can make either one of the others so in this case is it fair to say from staff perspective what we're really looking at is the question of whether it is consistent with the comp plan and all of the various and sundry pieces that we've heard in evidence about why it is and and all evidence that it's not yes that's what we're balancing that is the question that is before you not the other two criteria okay that's very helpful to me thank you uh councilmember bledsoe mr bailey we were just discussing real quickly the council of the council adopted the goals and objectives of place but or did we not did we not embrace all of place builder the council adopted the goals and objectives of the overall comprehensive plan the place builder is an element of the comprehensive plan which is reflective of the goals and objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan so the place builder is a reflection of those goals and objectives that you adopted that's a roundabout way of saying that yes yes that's what i'm looking for okay thank you thank you uh once again i see no one else I have just signed up for questions that will allow us to come to the last portion of this hearing. And first, I need to say that the hearing is now closed and there will be no further evidence submitted. It is time for council to deliberate on the evidence and then to entertain motions. So if council members at this point have comments to make, we'd like to hear them and then at a certain point I'll entertain motions pro or con. So please sign in if you'd like to speak. Council member Lamb. Thank you, Vice Mayor. First, I want to thank everybody for coming down tonight in COVID times. We've waited for a long time to have this hearing so that we could have it in person. And I appreciate those of you all that have taken, masked up tonight and come down tonight from the neighborhood and for everybody being so patient during this time. You know, these are never easy decisions. and I wait and I go through and I listen to everything I hear tonight presented. I try to ask as many questions, but I will say a few things and then I'll see if any other colleagues want to say anything. But there's been talk about a corridor versus neighborhood tonight, and a corridor to me is defined as what's the address. the address is nicholasville road that's a corridor property i know this is going to be major changes in our they're really not major changes they're just thought processes and how we deal with our corridors versus our neighborhoods that are inside of the corridors so i have to say that i know that that this house has sat and there are some that think it's viable i think it's set empty I think it's set underutilized it's almost two acres of a property and you know I mean I can see I've watched the Tates Creek and no you didn't put my five minutes on there that's what's gonna keep me from talking too much I have I have watched the Tates Creek townhomes be built and an anticipation of watching and seeing what that was going to look like once it's done and I I think it's going to be a nice development on a corridor that's going to add housing. I look at this property and I think, gosh, it could hold some nice housing on the corridor again. But that's not what's before us here tonight. It is. It's P1. That's what is being proposed. So I do think that I have, you know, I'm perplexed at when neighborhoods, you know, we're going to have to accept changes. we're going to have to sit down at the table and we're going to have to talk through things and we're going to have to agree to be to compromise in many times on our corridors as we move forward on all of these new plans and and looking at the uses on our corridors and I know it's not I know that there's concerns with precedent setting I know there are concerns but sometimes we just we have to take chances and so I think that there are opportunities before us to take chances and I you know I'm I'm I support the pedestrian and transportation connectivity that is going to be brought to this I think that I think there's opportunity here that being said, you know, I have a neighborhood sitting here and they have asked for my support. Technically, Ms. Butcher is a constituent too. So, you know, these are tough decisions and I don't take any of it lightly. So I'm going to see if any of my other colleagues want to say anything before I move forward with the motion. So thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Blitzo. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think, Council Member Lamb, you articulated the challenges very well. I think we've been on this council, you and I, for seven years, and we've had a number of zone changes that were just terrible. And it's hard. Infill and redevelopment is hard. It's really hard, and it hurts. You're balancing a tension between trying to grow and follow the comp plan while also maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood and how we handle traffic and how we handle development, quite frankly. And it's a tension to be managed. It's not going away. This is what we're going to continue to be doing as we have done. And I think what's tough about Place Builder is we have, over the years, said, please, developers, go talk to neighborhoods early. Go meet with them. Find out what to do so we don't end up here trying to negotiate a final deal, which is what we did in the very beginning of my tenure it felt like we got to the end then we're trying to get everybody to compromise and find a yes at the last minute at this place and that's that's really hard to do and so we really encourage the place builder for people to meet on the front end but then we get to the end and we still have everybody on the same page and that's really hard so I commend the fact that you try to do that and didn't go for the high-density R4 that happened in my neighborhood and my my district would love P1. R4 was in the corridor plan and so it was approved. I actually respect the fact that you're trying to do a step down that makes sense. I think P1, I completely understand that we have a lot of P1. I get it. I do. But from a residential neighborhood perspective for development as a less intensity step down, it is. And I think that's a very respectable thing on that corridor. I don't think it dominoes to the point about precedent setting or the next step. The farther you get from the corner, the less infill you should have, the less intensity I would think you would have on the next block, the next house, if you will. That's on the corner right there. It makes sense. So if we're going to go for the development and we're going to go for corridor development, I think this is an example of trying to be sensitive to both things, which is what we're trying to do and it's it's not that it's not we all want sometimes it's just not but I do think it's that it's it's this balance we have to try to do both just my two cents thank you thank you right now there's nobody else signed up to speak but I think I'll take the opportunity first echo what my colleagues have already said anybody who watches this I think understands the difficulty of the situation. Lexington is at a crossroads and we're trying to figure out in a number of ways how we grow without compromising our quality of life we've had four zone changes this is the fourth with a question of the designation has been an issue and the question of which direction you want to look has been an issue in each one of them if you look in one direction it looks like the zone change is a gimme makes perfect sense you look in the other direction it's not so clear and so we're trying to balance the question of growth with the question of preservation I think I know which way this zone change is going to go I don't always read my colleagues correctly but I think I have an understanding but maybe I'm wrong but I'll just weigh in with with It's kind of where I end up. I look at that piece of property as it has been described as a cornerstone of that neighborhood. It's the opening. And I look not just at that piece of property, but I look at a number of places along Nicholasville Road. And I made this argument when we were talking about the overlay for the Penn Moken Park. I look at Nicholasville Road, which is clearly a corridor. I look at that property, it clearly fronts on Nicholasville Road, but that's not all it does. It's also an integral part of that neighborhood. And I'm concerned that if we can't protect the few places on our corridors that are really integral parts of neighborhoods, that we lose some of the quality of life for some of our residents. I think we're always going to be in a situation where there are trade-offs. And I'm not sure that my colleagues and I have ever, when we thought about running for office or serving, thought that this was going to be the hardest thing we had to do. it is every single one of them there are competing legitimate interests and we have to balance them I end up on this particular case thinking that the preservation for the neighborhood for this one piece of property is going to turn out to be pivotal for a bunch of other decisions that this council makes and I've been an advocate for infill and redevelopment pretty consistently and I've tried to make the case that there have to be adjustments and they have to be accommodations and I continue to believe that in this particular case I come down on the preservation of the neighborhood so anybody else who wishes to speak. Councilmember Lamb, are you prepared to make a motion? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I make a motion to, and I'm going to make sure I say this right. Okay, I'm sorry. Councilmember Lamb, let me first explain where we're at. Make the motion and then I'd like to explain what how it's going to work because it's a little tricky yes sir I make a motion to approve the findings of fact for disapproval by the Planning Commission for the plan mar 19-0 0 0 16 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road. I so move. I have a motion, is there a second? Second. I have a motion from Council Member Lamb and a second from Council Member Plowman and now before I entertain discussion, excuse me, discussion of the motion I need to explain to Council and everybody else who's here how this operates. The The ordinance as proposed is always in the affirmative. And so the ordinance reads approval of the zone change. The motion that Council Member Lamb has just made is a motion to approve findings of fact, I believe, that would support the findings of fact from the planning commission. So if you want to, eventually, if you're going to vote in support of the Planning Commission, a yes vote on these findings of fact is the first step. When we get to the ordinance, because the ordinance is in the affirmative, If you want to uphold the findings of the Planning Commission, you have to vote no on the underlying ordinance. So, first the findings of fact. And if the support for the findings of fact as have been proposed, then we would move to the underlying ordinance. Are there questions or comments about the proposal that's on the table, the motion that's on the table? Council Member Fred Brown. A yes vote is for the Planning Commission's decision, right? A yes vote is to affirm their findings of fact, which are to oppose yes. So if you're staying with the Planning Commission, it would be a yes-no vote? You'd be yes on the findings of fact and then we'll get to the ordinance and you'd be a no vote there. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, would you give us an electronic screen and then call the roll. Ms. Baxter? No, ma'am. Ms. Bledsoe? No, ma'am. Mr. Fred Brown? Yes. Mr. James Brown? No. Mr. Ellinger? Abstain. Vice Mayor Kay? Yes. Mr. Kloiber? No. Ms. Lamb? Yes, ma'am. Ms. Legree? Yes. Mr. Maloney? No. Ms. Plowman? Yes. Ms. Sheehan? Yes. Since that is upholding, I believe that reflects passage of the motion. And now I'll entertain a motion on the underlying ordinance. Is it? Do you have a point of order? I'm sorry. Does it require eight for the findings of fact or is it? fact or is it it does not require this is upholding the findings of fact and I believe it just simply requires take a votes to overturn what the Planning Commission did so it it doesn't have to be eight votes so it would be if you were going to overturn what they did. And I don't, you really just have to vote on the ordinance next. You've already given it second reading. Now that you've adopted these findings of fact. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion on the underlying ordinance. I have a motion. From Councilman Fred Brown, is there a second? Second. I have a second from Council Member Plowman. Discussion on the motion. And again, just to be clear, if you are voting to support the recommendation of the Planning Commission and the findings of fact, you would want to vote no on the underlying motion. We have to, Madam Clerk, if you could call the roll. Ms. Baxter? Yes. Ms. Bledsoe? Yes. Mr. Fred Brown? No. Mr. James Brown? Yes. Mr. Ellinger? Abstain. Vice Mayor Kaye? No. Mr. Kloiber? Yes, ma'am. Ms. Lamb? No. Ms. LeGree? No. Mr. Maloney? Yes. Ms. Plowman? No. Ms. Sheehan? No. So procedurally, I believe what that reflects is approval of a failure to overturn and so by default, by law, an upholding of the planning commission's decision. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Thank you. And before I entertain a motion to adjourn, let me add my thanks to everybody who's come out and worked on this so hard. And I wish everybody could be happy with the result, but that's never the case. So thank you all for being here. Thank you, council members. Thank you, staff. Is there a motion to adjourn? A motion and a second. Without objection, we stand adjourned. Thank you.