Music We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Bye. That's all that down. Bring about. Stay down. Don't be out. Do you need a billion. I'm going to get into the free. That's the free. That's the thing. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. Come. But being a man, a man Thank you. Good evening. I'll go ahead and get us started. I'm going to call this meeting to order. It's a special planning and public safety committee meeting. Today, September the 14th, 2021. The meetings start at 512. Before we get into the agenda, We're going to ask everyone wishing to provide public comment. Please use the sign in sheet at the back that's on the table. Prior to going to the presentation, we'll collect the sign in sheet and then ask each speaker to come to the podium. When you come to the podium, please state your name and what council district that you live in. Each speaker will be given three minutes. speakers can dedicate their time to other public speakers up to 15 minutes up to four members to provide 15 minutes for the speaker we ask that each speaker exercise dequem in conducting himself or herself in a courteous manner and refrain from using unbecoming derogatory or abusive language and also refrain from making personal attacks or accusations Okay, so we'll go straight to the agenda. The first item on the agenda is accessory dwelling units, ADUs, overview. I will call Chris Woodall to the podium to get us started. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair. I just want to make the public aware that we have, the council passed a suspension of the rules that would allow all council members to vote on this committee on this special committee meeting. So it's not just the ten members of the committee, but all council members will be voting on any issues that come before it. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Chris? Sir. Good evening, Vice Mayor, Chairman Brown, members of the council. Let me introduce myself. My name is Chris Woodall. I'm the manager of long-range planning for the city. With me today, I'm going to have Chris Taylor, who is also with long-range planning. He is the project manager for our accessory dwelling units project. And then Director Jim Duncan, and all three of us will be here to answer any questions that you all might have. So I'm here to talk to you today about accessory dwelling units, which is a project that's been going on for about three and a half years now. this is an important housing option that provides flexibility for everyone in our community as family needs evolve and change particularly those who want to age in place those caring for members of their family who have a disability young professionals who are increasingly a priced out of our housing market it's a small but critical piece of a comprehensive housing strategy and it's one that's important for the ones it's important for now Lexington's growth challenges are unique given our strong urban service boundary but our housing concerns are the same as any other growing city people need places to live and housing prices are increasing nationwide during the development of Imagine Lexington our comprehensive plan the Senior Services Commission approached us to partner on an initiative to implement 80 use as a viable option in Lexington staff has taken this change and researched 80 you regulations nationwide to see the challenges the failures and the successes these efforts have provided a number of lessons learned but the primary takeaway is that the trend nationally across the board is to relax regulations to ensure that a to use are possible as opposed to further restricting them in fact staff was unable to find any evidence of a city that's relaxed those restrictions on adus and that's turned around to try to claw those restrictions back it's important to note that every restriction we place on the ADU ordinance reduces the pool of potential units that will meet the demand and this is a policy chain a policy choice that we need to make so now that we've covered a little bit of context we'll get into some of the basics and dust it off after a couple of years and let you know that ADUs are essentially a smaller subordinate and independent unit that's on the same lot as a single-family detached house and they come in essentially three types new construction which would be a detached unit conversion of an existing space within the primary house or detached building or in addition to either the primary house or the detached building so you all have heard me say these things before we're a growing city imagine Lexington projected that we have more than 80,000 additional people projected by the year 2035 and our housing demand study said that we can anticipate nearly 2300 additional housing units every year we are a growing city and of those 80,000 people nearly 30,000 of them will be 65 years of age or older and what we know about that population is that around 87% of those are looking to age in place now aging in place is not the only option for senior living but it does seem to be overwhelmingly preferred we've heard from many seniors that most of the other widely available options like nursing homes and assisted living facilities are very costly for somebody on a fixed income and really anybody for that matter so it's not surprising that the Senior Services Commission the AARP and other senior organizations are favoring this more cost-effective and flexible alternative to group housing but it's not just the seniors that benefit ADUs can also provide a stabilizing force in our neighborhoods by allowing owners to invest in their own property it provides for incremental investment that can delay wholesale redevelopment in neighborhoods and makes property assemblage more costly it can also create investments in neighborhoods that haven't seen it in decades providing additional housing opportunities and chances to build equity in their homes in some instances the supplemental income from these adus could allow longtime residents to stay in their home which is important with rising housing costs and costs of living. So this regulation change is meant to provide housing equitably in Lexington. No one area should bear the costs or receive the burden the benefits of additional housing opportunities alone. This is intentionally a wide-reaching regulation change. This ADU legislation also supports the council resolution on housing which acknowledged that it is incumbent to address housing scarcity in order to successfully address issues of displacement and gentrification as well as affordability in our community so these are ADU provisions that apply everywhere in the city allowing incremental investment into otherwise historically neglected neighborhoods provides units to address housing scarcity and increases the overall housing supply to address our housing affordability issues so though their initiative followed initial our initial efforts this proposed ADU policy mirrors similar proposal in Louisville that was a direct result of an equity review of their zoning ordinance a quote from their advancing equity document states barriers to provisioning accessory units reduce the afford availability of more affordable housing options the ability to age in place and an avenue for generating additional income. So the bottom line here is that this ADU ordinance is a very small, incremental, but nevertheless important step in the right direction for advancing equity and breaking down walls that have been put in place by historic zoning ordinances aimed at keeping people out of neighborhoods. It supports the Racial Justice and Equality Commission's report that calls for zoning policies to be rewritten to allow for greater housing density supply and affordability to keep housing affordable and stem the tide of gentrification so it's not hard to go back to the previous point i made earlier about housing for seniors again 87 of them are saying they want to stay in their current homes and their neighborhoods adus are useful in scenarios where seniors are at a stage where they need full-time care and need a professional caregiver or a family caregiver and who could live in the smaller adu unit they're also useful in situations where the senior doesn't need that level of care but wants to stay in their lot in their neighborhood in their home but wants to downsize additionally they can be helpful when a senior is on a fixed income but would like to continue living in their existing house the supplemental income would allow them to do that National data suggests that under more relaxed regulations that don't include an owner occupancy requirement, roughly half of the ADUs are income generating units. But of those, 68% of those ADUs are occupied by the owner, a family member, or a friend, and not a random tenant. The point of all of this is that ADUs are meant to provide flexibility for any stage of life throughout the evolution of the family unit. ADUs provide dignity and independence to seniors who want to remain in their homes or cannot afford the prohibitively expensive senior living alternatives. So again, this council action is the conclusion of a thoroughly vetted public process that's been going on for three and a half years. The Senior Services Commission has really taken ownership of this project from the beginning, and we're very thankful for that. We've spoken with a number of groups, used an AARP grant to develop an ADU manual to help people understand ADUs here in Lexington. In 2019, staff continued the educational campaign, hosting conversational-style public meetings, purchasing a thousand commercial slots and social media posts to advertise them as widely as we possibly could. In summer of 2019, the draft text of the ordinance was released and another public open house was hosted in August a public feedback form was also available during that time for people to submit comments in September of 19 we met with you all for the first time over in the caucus room to discuss the proposal that's before the Planning Commission and shortly thereafter the Planning Commission held their public hearing and they felt it was important to break it into two separate meetings in order to give the public a chance to speak and for an opportunity for the Commission to digest the information that they'd received on the second day of the public hearing staff presented changes to the ordinance based on that public input this included among other things the owner occupancy requirement the addition of a deed restriction to empower enforcement efforts as well as other checkpoints like a pre-application meeting and a zoning compliance permit the Planning Commission unanimously voted to approve the ordinance after hearing from the public and responding to their concerns then the next month the motion was made to put this regulation in the planning and Public Safety Committee and then two years later last month the brief presentation was made before you all and that led to this meeting here today So over the course of a couple of years of public education and outreach, we've heard a couple of common repeated concerns. First and foremost was a worry that ADUs would become an attractive student housing option that would grow into campus adjacent neighborhoods. However, over the last 10 to 15 years, there's been a significant investment in managed student housing developments that are addressing student housing supply but for ADU's the inclusion owner occupancy requirement is intended to address the remaining concerns the owner occupancy requirement states that the owner of the property must reside in either the principal structure or in the accessory dwelling unit we heard from some that ADU's would attract investors into single-family neighborhoods it's important to point out that you know we think every homeowner is an investor in their property and that an ADU is not a cheap or a small investment in a property but establishing clear ADU regulations can provide a vital incentive for neighborhood investment that can provide a stabilizing force in areas that may not have seen investment in a number of years another concern we heard was about the possible proliferation of short-term rentals in neighborhoods planning staff has been adamant from the beginning that we want ADUs to serve as a long-term housing and we took significant steps to ensure that short-term rentals would not be a factor in this ordinance under this proposal a short-term rental for an ADU would be required to obtain a conditional use permit from the Board of Adjustment which requires a public hearing and mail notice and that process is consistent with our existing regulations for bed and breakfasts in residential zones again whether it's a traditional bed and breakfast or an online transacted short-term rental these are commercial operations in residential zones and a conditional use process exists for exactly these types of scenarios we also heard concerns about the size and scale of accessory dwelling units and how they would coexist in neighborhoods. Throughout the project we worked with the planning commission to develop a set of minimal standards to ensure that the ADU, not just detached, would visually blend in with the existing neighborhood. But it's important to remember a couple of things. ADUs are going to be small. They're less than 800 square feet. A sizable majority are likely to be additions or conversions of existing spaces and that everything proposed in this ordinance is currently legal with the exception of the kitchen facilities. In discussing neighborhood context, the planning commission addressed setbacks for detached ADUs. Ultimately, the commission decided to keep these in context with other detached structures in residential zones, which are allowed to be at 18 inches from the property line. During the planning commission process, there were discussions at amending that setback to three feet. However, it was made clear that often that 18-inch area is a dead space that's unusable and hard to maintain, and that creating a larger three-foot dead space along a property boundary was a less desirable outcome. and also any change in the setback from detached structures would render decades of existing detached structures non-conforming. And so the Planning Commission insisted on maintaining the existing setback for all detached structures, including any future ADUs. And to ensure that the primary visual and built character of a neighborhood is maintained, three essential design standards are part of the proposal. First, any entrances to an ADU must be behind the primary wall plane of the original structure. second with any exterior stairs they must be located to the side or rear of the principal structure and lastly for any detached ADU the entrance must be located behind the deep the rear wall the principal structure so if you're looking at the image on the bottom of the slide you pretend that's what you're walking down in your own neighborhood street the parts in blue are the accessory dwelling unit but were they not highlighted they'd be difficult to notice at all again the purpose of these simple design standards is to ensure that any new ADU construction be even minimally visible from the street but We think it's also useful to point out that nationally there is a significant correlation between geography and detached ADU construction. While 53% of California's 26,000 ADUs over a two year span were detached, you can see that on the east coast the trend is markedly towards attached options. This is likely for a couple of reasons. First, the states with considerably more detached ADUs have larger metros with very mature ADU programs and much more relaxed regulations that make it easier to finance detached ADUs. The eastern states that are typically looking, you're looking at much older housing stock with smaller lots and those lend themselves towards attached ADUs. While there's been some concern about detached ADUs, we believe there's a clear data supporting that they will represent a much smaller share of our ADUs. Another concern that was raised was about sanitary and stormwater infrastructure. While we understand that concern, it's important to point out that physically all of the elements in this ordinance are already currently allowed under existing regulations. And while discussing with the vision of water quality, it was made clear to us that population assumptions in our sanitary sewer modeling more than covered any increased density from ADUs. And also that these units would be subject to review under the capacity assurance program and part of our zoning compliance review. And we think this is a really important consideration as well. That in many areas, after all of the major sewer projects that this city has undertaken, we're often left with issues caused by remaining sump pumps in neighborhoods on individual lots that are still causing overflows. and that permitting for an ADU may be the first opportunity for an issue like that to be addressed and remediated before any new construction. And lastly, we heard from some residents that there should be required parking for new ADUs, but at the same time, we also heard concerns about increasing impervious areas. This proposal does not disallow the construction of a parking space if needed or desired, but it also does not require one, since doing so really only serves to eliminate many potential walkable ADUs that are close to transit, commercial areas, and most importantly job centers. And so you have our one pager in front of you and we've put it at the back of the room for the public with this table of restrictions that have been put in place by the Planning Commission through the public process so far. And these are the responses to the concerns that are raised that we've discussed. The major restrictions that were added by the Planning Commission was that the owner occupancy will provide oversight of every ADU constructed. Additionally, short-term rentals aren't allowed with a public hearing and mail notice and will significantly reduce short-term rentals within ADUs and provide a public process for review of a commercial use in a residential zone. And also, the Planning Commission made sure to address the built single-family context through design standards and zoning regulations that ensure that ADUs fit seamlessly within our neighborhoods. Importantly, this ordinance takes a proactive approach to enforcement, starting with a pre-application conference that ensures applicants are fully aware of all regulations and considerations, followed by a zoning compliance permit that confirms that all aspects of the ordinance have been met prior to a building permit issuance. But furthermore, the deed restriction in favor of the government is an enhanced enforcement tool previously unavailable to zoning enforcement staff that will greatly assist in our efforts to regulate ADUs fairly and timely. So again, these safeguards have been heard through a public process over a three-year period, vetted and discussed at length across multiple government departments and then unanimously approved by the Planning Commission. But lastly, we often hear some wildly inflated estimates of what an ADU ordinance in Lexington might mean. And while our extensive research often leads us to national leaders in ADU construction on the west coast where large samples of data and trends are readily available, we also feel it's important to contextualize what an ADU ordinance might provide based on cities closer geographically and demographically to Lexington. While it's impossible to find a one-to-one city, we took a look at some other university cities with similar ADU ordinances, starting with Durham, North Carolina, which has around a 9% of its overall population being students. In Fayetteville, Arkansas, a smaller city than Lexington, but with a UK-sized student population, so around 32% of its total population is students. But this is a city that in 2018 removed its owner-occupancy requirement specifically to encourage greater ADU construction. And as we mentioned before, being a city with a major university has not been a deterrent from creating successful ADU programs nationally. The concerns related to student housing have been thoroughly discussed with the Planning Commission and were the primary reasons for owner occupancy requirements and the deed restriction. While we often hear concerns from residents about the ability to enforce the existing family definition and maximum occupancy in campus rentals, these are very different restrictions that we can document through PVA records and with the government having a deed restriction interest in the property we feel we are much better equipped to enforce. Nationally you can see here in northern states in blue and the sun what they called Sunbelt states in green showing that properties for sale with ADUs is now between three and a half and nine percent of all homes sold in 29 and all homes listed in 2019 this is a climb that's been steady over the last 20 years as cities across the country look to create housing options for an aging population you can also see clearly that year-over-year growth is really speeding up in areas where their ADU programs were started years ago and in areas with the biggest housing affordability issues but it's not just the huge cities it's the smaller metros around them as well cities all over are looking for solutions for housing seniors are looking to age in place employers are looking for cities where people can find housing and adus are desirable by homeowners and they're a growing part of cities housing options and so where does that leave a lexington ordinance there are dozens and dozens of cities across the country with ordinances nearly identical to what we've brought before you today and as we know from reporting that on the low end you'll see anywhere from 0.58 adus per 10 000 people to 5.8 adus per 10 000 people on the higher end for lexington that means that over a two-year period adu construction is likely to be somewhere between 19 and 190 units every city's adu program starts small and grows over time it takes time for the local building community to find the market for lenders to learn that fanny and freddie have specific guidance for adus and for realtors and appraisers to find ways to incorporate them into the products they know but what's important is that we get started so to wrap up I want to make it very clear the distinction between what is in this what this proposal allows and what can be done today today you can put an addition on a single-family home with no maximum square footage today you can build a detached structure equal to half of the existing single-family house today there is no limit on building additional parking today there's no restrictions on building materials or design on single-family houses today there are no requirements on the limits of the removal of tree canopy on single-family lots and today you can build guest quarters on single-family lots today it's legal to use the entire single-family home as a short-term rental today it's legal to build a kitchenette and with this proposal there's no change in the applicability of of ND1 restrictions there's no change in the applicability of h1 restrictions and there is no change in the applicability of private deed restrictions so what we're talking about very simply is legalizing a new housing option with no practical impact on what can be built in our single-family neighborhoods today this proposal was brought to us by the senior community thoroughly vetted from through a robust public process that resulted in significant changes to the text and was unanimously recommended for approval by the Planning Commission. We thank you for your time and will be available for questions at the appropriate time. Thank You Chris and Chris. Before we go into public input, Ken, Then the notice letter to Neighborhoods Association, can you explain what that is? Is that a notice that gets sent out when somebody applies for an ADU, or what is that that's in the packet? The notice letter that's in your packet, I believe, is the one that we sent out as part of the notice for this text amendment. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, so we'll go to the public comment, the public input session of today's meeting on accessory dealing units. Again, I'll remind you that when I call your name, please come to the podium, state your name in your council district, and you have three minutes. The first person on today's list is Mary Schmidt. And then after her is Gail Reese. Good evening, council members. I am speaking on behalf of the Coalition for a Livable Lexington. Ms. Smith, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, council district. Council district. Yes, ma'am. Ten, council district. Thank you. Sorry. I also chair the Senior Services Commission. The Coalition for a Livable Lexington is a coalition of organizations and community members uniting to make Lexington a sustainable, equitable city that houses all of our neighbors close to where they work and play. As we work to meet the growing needs of our community while simultaneously building a more livable city, accessory dwelling units are one of the many tools we should add to Lexington's housing arsenal. In addition to creating more diverse and affordable housing for all near-existing infrastructure services, jobs, and amenities. They provide necessary housing options for the older population close to the existing family and friends. Lexington is a city often found high on the list of best places to retire and best cities for new grads. And because of this positive recognition for its high quality of life, Lexington continues to grow. Although this growth can be economically beneficial, rapid population increase without corresponding housing supply increases can intensify housing shortages, much like we're seeing in Lexington. To accommodate growth, we have to change the way we think about housing options for our community and create opportunities that increase livability, accessibility, and affordability for all. 80 use are not the only solution to our housing challenge but are a small low impact measure that our city can take to help add desperately needed housing 80 use adding add housing options to existing neighborhoods while not requiring significant increases in services without a significant change the neighborhoods character this allows people to downsize but still in their neighborhood allowing young adults or the elderly to live near their family but still independently and gives people a choice of housing that is affordable accessible and one that isn't a single family detached house or an apartment in a massive complex additionally allowing adus can provide supplemental income to afford homeowners the opportunity to live in the neighborhood that they would otherwise be priced out of or to stay in a neighborhood they may be priced out of due to increasing property values gentrification adus help us work towards a more livable and thriving age-friendly community, allowing ADOs will assist in providing housing alternatives for those who wish to age in place by staying in their current homes and neighborhoods. Now more than ever, the pandemic has emphasized the importance of having these options to keep aging loved ones living close nearby and helps battle the feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression, and anxiety. ADUs would also allow a person needing to quarantine the ability to stay close to home and family without putting others at risk. ADUs are not a threat to homeowners. Am I out of time? Yes ma'am if you can wrap up. Alright. Neighborhoods or our city as a whole and portraying in them is a disservice to those who would benefit from having this option. Thank you for considering. Thank you. Miss Gail Reese and then next is Jenny Daly. Hello my name is Gail Reese thank you for having us I'm in council just I moved district so excuse me I'm in 10 I was I moved from the other side of town because to grandchildren so as a grandparent I need to say that I am being involved in senior issues for the last 16 years in the Senior Services Commission, ITM Bluegrass, and Friends of the Senior Center, I've seen firsthand people struggling to live, to age in place in their own homes. Also, as, so I'm going to be brief because I know you have a lot of people who are going to say I'm totally for the accessory dwelling units. As a fourth generation in the Lexington area, I think all of us know that there are accessory dwelling units all over town. People have apartments for their adult children, they have granny flats, they have guest houses, they have pool houses, they have all kinds of things that are already in place. So what I'm thinking is that as our housing prices and our land prices increase we need to share the benefit of having this additional housing option to other members in our community. Mr. Rick McQuakey has agreed that possibly, he would explore the possibility, explore only, of using the Affordable Trust Fund to help seniors with accessory dwelling units. So it could be another avenue to spread to other economic areas in our community and provide additional housing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. After Ms. Daley, Patricia El Piro. If I say your name wrong, I apologize. Thank you. Ms. Daley. Thank you. My name is Jenny Daley. I live in the third district. And first of all, thank you for having this hearing to be able to allow us to voice our opinions. I'm here to ask you to support the passage of a zoning ordinance that would allow accessory drawing units to be safely and legally built in Lexington. My support of this ZODA is largely personal as I'm interested in converting my own existing garage into a rental unit. I'm close to retirement and having an income producing unit will shore up my retirement income and make me more financially stable. Transforming my underutilized garage into a space that can provide affordable housing in a walkable urban neighborhood supports my own personal values of green living and smart growth. I have sat ringside on the ADU discussion pretty much from the inception and I believe this is a good ZODA and it's ready for prime time. However, my neighborhood is largely rental, I live in a campus neighborhood, and zoning violations abound. Currently, whenever the residents engage zoning enforcement, the result is virtually nothing. They have very little power to remediate any problems. Compliance with this ZODA, as written, is predicated on folks applying for a building permit. And I can tell you, most of the single-family dwelling homeowners in my neighborhood don't pull permits for the work that gets done. So, Lexington needs a system of registration, licensing, and inspection for rental properties. Throughout the community, all types of rental properties. But I'm suggesting that you or other bodies within city government set up a system, a licensing and rental registration system for ADUs alone to serve as a pilot project for perhaps a larger project that would serve the greater rental landscape in Lexington. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you. Patricia El Okay Okay David El Perro Okay Am I at least pronouncing the name right? Thank you Thank you Cleve Umaran. I'll give him a few minutes. I'll say the name again. Cleve Umaran. Cleve Umaran. Okay. Yes ma'am. From the third district. Okay. We had some meeting with Chris and Chris, and I have two concerns. I live on a property that has a shared driveway. It's a very small property, and mine is a little bungalow, and next door I have a bungalow. We have a driveway that comes down between our houses that we share. If one of us were to build a structure behind our house, it would be almost impossible to have a life there, particularly a structure that they say four people can live in that structure with no no rules about the size of a lot no rule about those people parking somewhere we have a lot of difficulty with parking on our street Aurora Avenue is a very old part of the city that's my major concerns if my neighbor I'm the neighbor I have right now probably would not do it but the house will change hands the next neighbor may decide building an adu in what is really our shared backyard I think that would be really intrusive I think you need to have a minimal lot size and perhaps people with shared driveways should be excluded from building adus thank you Thank you. Next we have, it's Marie Allison. And next behind that is Alva Mitchell. As you said, my name is Marie Allison. I'm in District 11. I am the mother of a 46-year-old son who has multiple disabilities and does not talk. in 1996 I got an ADU but I had to go through the process of having any homeowner within 200 yards of me say they did not oppose me adding a kitchen to my house for my son I had to hire an attorney and I had to go to the Board of Adjustment and it was a six-month period before I could get my ADU my son has lived in the ADU since 1996 and it's wonderful he doesn't talk I'm able to monitor him because he lives upstairs there's an entrance in the back it's wonderful I have many other friends who have individuals with disabilities that would like to either add a separate place or to remodel their house so that they can observe their individuals and yet give them the independence the amount of independence that they're able to to yield so I am in favor of it also I am hoping that when if this passes that my son would be able to rent that one of either rent to the person who takes care of him or rent to another individual he only makes 14,000 he gets $14,000 a year in Social Security and it would be beneficial to him to have extra income so I would like for him to be able to rent part of the house once I am gone I am the owner occupant and I will live there you know as long as I'm here so he'll be with me but I'm in favor of it I think it's very important for people with disabilities to be able to have this option and I don't want them to have to go through what I went through my son's brother was in high school at the time and it was very embarrassing for him to go to every house within 200 yards of our house saying is it okay if we add an extra kitchen and allow my son to stay in the house he's lived in all his life it was embarrassing and the cost of an attorney was not I don't think that was appropriate so so I really think that the ADU is a wonderful concept and I hope that you pass the ordinance thank you thank you miss Alva and after miss Alva Ashley McGuire good afternoon my name is Alva Mitchell Clark Covington and I'm the proud member of the district one Councilman Brown and I am here representing the Arc of Central Kentucky we are a body that represents and supports differently abled citizens of the Fayette County area and I happen to be a differently abled individual myself I have a vision impairment and I'm the proud mother of a young man who was a recent young adult who has autism and cerebral palsy I'm here to say on behalf of the Arc of Central Kentucky and our family that we vehemently support the ADU ordinance. It's important because it's a difficult thing for, as you've heard earlier today, difficult thing for individuals to find housing and one thing that's very important to help this population become more typical is to be more independent. So to find independent housing in a safe and supportive location is a unique opportunity and anyone who can take advantage of that i would strongly urge you to support the ordinance the adu ordinance on behalf of our community of the differently abled community if i could do a quick side note councilman brown is i wanted to also why i have the council members here is i wanted to do a shout out and a praise report for your therapeutic recreation group this past year during covet they had done an amazing job with programs to help the differently abled population Brent Claiborne Geo Farmer and the like they provided zoom classes to help our individuals have some degree of sanity during this COVID crisis so I just want to thank you and praise them publicly again please support the ADU ordinance Thank You Miss Alva. Next is Ashley McGuire and then Brittany Rothmeier. Yes ma'am. Brittany did you sign up as well? I did I should be next. Okay thank you. Thank you. Good evening councilmembers. Brittany Rothmeier I'm the executive director of Fayette Alliance. We are located in the second district and I personally am a member of the fifth district founded in 2006 Fate Alliance is celebrating our 15 year anniversary as a nonprofit dedicated to achieving sustainable and equitable growth here in Lexington through land use advocacy education and research in further events and furtherance of our mission we support the adu ordinance the 2018 comp plan through a process which involved over 10,000 community members weighing in identified infill development land use efficiency expansion of housing choice and enhancement of existing neighborhoods as primary objectives for our community policies going forward we must all work together to navigate the implementation of these policies in a way that both enhances our city and protects our community members we must be committed as a community to seeing it work by being open to change and progress in ways that we haven't seen in the past this is certainly difficult work as change always is but we know that Lexington is up to the challenge. We also know that Lexington is growing as we heard today. It was estimated that as of 2020, 23.8% of Fayette County would be ages 60 or older and that a significant growth in housing needs in our near future would be for aging seniors. Nationally, baby boomers are driving this growth and the number of households headed by adults between 65 and 74 rose 26% since 2011, meaning that there is a tremendous number of households in their 70s 80s and 90s in the coming years our city's demographics are clearly changing and diverse housing options are critical to accommodate these trends a recent study by the national association of realtors highlighted the national housing shortage to meet our population growth which we are seeing impact lexington as well and propose multiple solutions to address these issues which included specifically changes in zoning to accommodate more units in smaller spaces and converting underutilized commercial space to residential homes. These are solutions that Fayette Alliance advocates for as well and will continue to advocate for. As we know, there's no silver bullet to address our housing needs. It will take a combination of policies and innovation to address these challenges and benefit us all. Creating an option for more diverse housing options in an existing neighborhood, like an ADU, is not intended to destroy the character of a neighborhood. Instead, it works to create an opportunity for housing on a smaller and more affordable scale in a way that allows residents to enjoy the benefits for our established neighborhoods. The planning staff clearly did extensive research on ADU ordinances around the country before proposing, subsequently revising, and then proposing the ordinance again to the planning commission in 2019. Taking into account our neighborhood concerns, Fate Alliance advocated for changes to the original ordinance proposal. To reduce the risks of student housing and landlords utilizing this tool to increase profits without consideration for services and quality of life, we recommended an owner occupancy requirement in one of the residences and a limit on the maximum capacity of the ADU to two adults. We were happy to see these recommendations put into the current proposal and unanimously approved by the Planning Commission. Requirements were also added for pre-application conferences with planning staff, restrictions to be filed with the county clerk to put any future purchasers on notice of the rules to be complied with, and the prohibition of the ADU being used as a short-term rental without obtaining the conditional use permit, an additional approval process. It's also important to note that there is broad support for this ordinance among our community members. Fate Alliance is proud to be a part of the Coalition for a Livable Lexington, which supports ADUs and includes the following organizations. Age Friendly Lexington, Lexington Community Land Trust, Lexington Fair Housing Council, Human Rights Commission, Lexington United for Livability, and REACH. As a coalition, we obtain the signatures of 93 Lexington residents in support of the ADU ordinance, which we provided to you all as well for the public record. We believe that diverse community groups can come together to support forward-looking changes to benefit all of us, despite our differing missions. Our coalition work shows what can be possible and we look forward to working together on more solutions to present to you all. Fayette Alliance believes that the ADU ordinance as proposed sets our community up for success to allow ADUs to be utilized for their intended purpose. To responsibly and sustainably provide diverse, more affordable housing options for our fellow Lexingtonians. We are committed to being a supportive partner in re-examining this ordinance over time as it may need to change to continue to be in line with the goals and desires of our residents and our community. We know that all of you and all of our community stakeholders here have the same goal in mind, a better Lexington for us all. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Brittany. Next, we have Christy Stamball, and then after her, Margaret McCaskey. Hi there everybody, thank you. I'm Christy Stambaugh, Director of Aging and Disability Services for the city. Tonight I'm not speaking on behalf of the administration, but instead as a member of Age Friendly Lexington, the Commission for People with Disabilities, the Senior Services Commission, the Coalition for a Livable Lexington, and the Friends of the Lexington Senior Center. Because of COVID, many of our folks weren't comfortable coming into a crowded space, but But all of us in all of these groups strongly support ADUs as a housing option in Lexington. Neither the chair or vice chair for the commission for people with disabilities could be here tonight, but ask me to share some things. We know that affordable and accessible housing is in short supply. ADUs offer independent housing options for people to age in place, where there are simply not enough options to accommodate just the aging population. ADUs also offer an opportunity to make space universally designed and accessible for people with disabilities and the changing needs as we all age. Helping to minimize accidents and injuries caused by inaccessible spaces. ADUs can also be used for caregivers, offering the assistance needed for people to continue to live in their homes as long as possible. For a child with a disability as they become adults deserving more independence, and for those adult children who keep returning home. Additionally, ADUs are more affordable than other housing options and financially beneficial to both the owner and the occupant. The owner occupancy requirement, the short term rental clause, the size and height requirements, the lot restrictions, setbacks address many of the concerns posed and the misconceptions around the proposal. We, the Commission for People with Disabilities, support Lexington's ADU proposal and ask that you vote to pass it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Stamball. Margaret McCaskey, and the next is Ann Graham. Good evening, council members. My name is Margaret McCaskey, and I reside in Council District 10. I support ADUs, accessory dwelling units, and I will tell you why. As a retired geriatric social worker and a member of the Senior Services Commission, I believe that these structures will provide safety and a sense of belonging in the neighborhood, not only for the senior citizens, but disabled as well. It will create an increase in socialization, a decrease in depression, which equals an overall increase in health and well-being. And the pandemic has shown us what isolation can do, especially to seniors or disabled persons. I think it will foster a strong family unit, bonding of the family unit, which we have lost in many instances. It will create a respect for the seniors by all generations, not just seniors, not just the adult children, grandchildren, young people, which we need to get back to. I think this will help benefit that. As has been mentioned, accessible and affordable housing is in short supply in Lexington. this just makes sense to help our senior citizens seniors should be allowed to make a choice it should be their choice of their housing location and not be forced into unsafe or too expensive assisted living or retirement communities they either have too much income for assistance or too little to live in an assisted living or retirement community if they choose to do that. We know, it's been pointed out, that right now in Lexington, a true accessory dwelling unit is illegal. But as has been pointed out, they're all over the city. There's one at the end of my street. This means that they have not had licensed contractors, electricians, plumbers, it could be a handyman that has worked on these. So they may not be meeting code or the best safety practices to have individuals living in. So I think we would benefit from having them legal and we know what is being constructed within our city. I would like to close with letting you know that at 2015, Fayette County Housing Demand Study, which was done, found a significant growth of aging seniors between the years 2015 and 2025 would be upon us. Well, it's 2021. We are in this range now. So I think it bears consideration, strong serious consideration give these persons respect and consider accessory dwelling units seriously thank you for listening thank you next is Ann Graham followed by Carla Van Hughes masks are complicated I do have a handout thank you for letting us be here I am Ann Graham I live at 1225 Providence Lane in the 5th district and I am speaking on behalf of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council the FCNC sees a number of problems with the proposed ADU ordinance and ask that the planning and public safety committee address them before advancing the ordinance to the full council for for for further action one Lexington has approved applications for second full kitchen since 2012 and complete dwelling areas with full facilities not ADUs are already possible within single-family homes enhancing and publicizing the current policy would be preferable to a radical citywide change in zoning. Two, zoning enforcement in Lexington lacks the necessary authority, staffing, and budget to be successful. Council should not consider an ADU ZOTA without being able to assure that new requirements are enforceable. They are not. Three, establishing rental licensing and inspection is a much higher priority than permitting ADUs. This is a comprehensive plan and neighborhoods in transition recommendation, as well as a recommendation of the 2009 Student Housing Task Force. It has received no consideration. Without ADU restrictions like owner residency and an occupancy limit of two, plus any children cannot be effective. Four, ADUs are proposed as by right accessory uses. Council approval of the proposed zoning ordinance text amendment would mean that an ADU could go in next door. Following approval of a building permit. a building permit without neighbors even knowing about it. That could fail to give adequate attention to site specific issues impacting the near vicinity like flooding, sanitary sewers, compatible design, green space, and parking. Completely ignoring local neighborhood issues is unacceptable. Five, to judge from what has happened in California, Oregon, In Washington state, Lexington may expect if this ADU ordinance is approved, eventual elimination of the owner occupancy requirement. An increase in the number of ADUs permitted per lot and growing commercialization within neighborhoods. While displacement of long term residents is not the intended outcome of the ADU provision, ADU stand to have an adverse impact on areas near the city center. where the demand for tourists and student rentals is relatively high. This is not a desirable outcome for neighborhoods. We believe the Planning and Public Safety Committee should not take action on this ADU ZOTA as it stands. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name's Carla Van Hoos. I'm represented by Liz in District 5. I worked on the ND1 committee for many years. And part of our intention was to prevent what you're trying to do now. The single family dwellings that exist in my neighborhood function very well. They were designed to allow people access. We have people on my street from ages below one into their 90s. Part of what makes it so desirable the things you want to expand to other people like being able to walk to the grocery to know your neighbors as more people move in if this goes through the commitment to the neighborhood by short-term renters is not the same as people who own the property the property's not getting any cheaper in chevy chase i promise you and the addition of more housing there will not help that Some of you mentioned that cities seem to be able to do better and grow better with the infill. I've also done some reading about some of that where infill actually created over time more ghettos and not more affordable living for people of different races, cultures, and social status. status. In my neighborhood, on my street, if you come four houses down from the corner, if all the kids are home from school, there are 22 cars. That's without the illegal ADU in my neighborhood. There's no place to park. Emergency vehicles can't get through when they're parked on both sides. If you don't know that problem in that neighborhood, come to Oktoberfest and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. We do not have space for more cars on that street. Many people choose to use their garages or part of them for storage, and there's no place to park. The people across the street from me have five cars. I don't see that that's workable. I don't think adding more people is going to make that better. I certainly understand the need for people with disabilities or special needs of any kind and aging adults to be able to be at home. And I hope that we can find some way to do that. Whatever each individual decides, I think needs to be taken into consideration, the needs of the whole and the neighborhood as a whole, not just income or a desire or some way to make things better for themselves. So I'm opposed to this proposal. I don't think it's enforceable. I have reported illegal ADUs and was told that unless they advertised as having a kitchen, there was no way that they could be taken care of. And if it's not enforceable, I only see it getting worse and deteriorating a perfectly good neighborhood. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up, we have Chris Gibson. followed by Timothy Satale. Did I say that right? Okay, you're next. Thank you. Hi, I'm Chris Gibson. I live in District 12 and I am supportive of ADUs. I think what's really important is it really fills a void in our housing stock. That kind of, you know, there's social and economic barriers in terms of where you want to live in some of these neighborhoods and the ADU really breaks that down and ADU's aren't just you know for students they're not just for like granny pods they're for young professionals you know they're for newlyweds they're for young couples they're for retirees you should be able to live in the neighborhood you want to I think that's the most important takeaway that I have of the whole thing and as other people have already said you know they don't already not exist in this town it's not a new concept so please support the proposal for ADUs thank you thank you Timothy thank you next is Jessica winners my name is Timothy Sundell I live in the Northside neighborhood council district 1 I'm here to say that I strongly support this proposal in its current form i think it would be a great benefit to a historic neighborhood like mine where it would allow a reasonable and modest way to add housing density without negatively affecting historic structures more importantly it would benefit the many different kinds of people who have already been described by many of the other speakers i've heard it mentioned that this would cause problems with parking and that a proposal like this could benefit from a parking restriction if a parking restriction were added to a proposal like this it would make it functionally impossible for people like me in neighborhoods like mine to build an adu it would defeat the purpose of the proposal so I support it in its current form finally I wanted to mention that I think it's very unfortunate that a meeting like this cannot have an online or zoom option available and I think it's ironic that many of the people who stand most to benefit from a proposal like this older people people with disabilities people with special needs and caregivers are least well positioned to come out to a crowded in-person meeting I think it's worth bearing in mind the people who could benefit from proposal like this but are not able to attend a meeting like this under these circumstances thank you thank you next after miss Winters is Blake Hall and counselor do you know if anybody else is here to give you their time yes good evening council members I believe that Jennifer Braddock of third Street is also donating her time so with mine miss Braddocks mr. and mrs. L burns I should have 12 minutes yes ma'am my name is Jessica Winters I live in the first district and I'm here today on behalf of my client the nonprofit Lexington urban neighborhoods Alliance which is going by the moniker of Luna and it was formed in January 2020 to speak proactively for Lexington neighborhoods and to preserve and protect Lexington's existing neighborhoods in the face of mounting pressure for infill and redevelopment. The LUNA's membership actually consists of 12 Lexington neighborhood associations representing more than 15,000 homeowners. LUNA is opposed to the citywide zoning change to allow accessory dwelling units or second dwellings on single-family lots. This issue has not been addressed in public comment for almost two years so we're all just getting back into it and I hope to share with you some of their concerns this evening I did write a letter to which I sent to the council members earlier today and I brought a copy for it to be included in the record of this proceeding for the clerk okay basically the zone change will allow the owner of properties and any house lot in the city to add an ADU an apartment or second dwelling structure of between 625 and 800 square feet the planning commission did vote to limit adu occupancy to two people plus their children and to require an owner's permanent resident residence on any lot with an adu these are changes that luna is 100 supportive of luna actually supports responsible infill and redevelopment and increased affordable housing options these goals however must be balanced with the need to protect and preserve our existing neighborhoods which is a stated goal in our 2018 imagine lexington comprehensive plan as a result provisions that are protective of neighborhoods must be included in any ad zota adopted by the council the council should heed the problems with adus experienced by other cities which demonstrate that adus become short-term rentals and lead to problems relating to parking noise design and code violations in the absence of zoning provisions calling for administrative reviews relating to these issues the proposed adu zota does not contain any such protections luna supports and advances the arguments made by the fayette county neighborhood council in opposition to the adu zona most important we believe is for the least wealthy to have more opportunities and that comes with enforcement with teeth luna urges the council to require rental licensing and inspection to provide effective oversight of adus this is critical to preventing housing loss and neighborhood degradation hear this there is a current process which allows families to establish complete living areas with full kitchens within existing residences as long as they maintain open access to the rest of the home this supports our elderly community this supports our community for people of different abilities this council should promote and provide clear guidance for this current process and it does this without the burden placed on neighborhoods by the proposed adu zota luna furthermore argues that the proposed zota improperly allows second homes to be located on properties that are zoned single-family residential this is a violation of the express terms and intent of our zoning ordinance as a complete and independent unit the second dwelling is not accessory or subordinate or incidental to but is rather a principal use in addition any short-term rental of an adu qualifies as a commercial enterprise which is not appropriate in residentially zoned properties my letter that i submitted to you earlier today contains a detailed legal briefing on these two issues that i'm raising now but i'm going to just give you a brief overview of them and allow you to peruse through the case law on your own but our first argument is that attached adus are improper second residences on properties that are zoned for single-family use. The proposed ZODA defines the ADU as an accessory structure to the primary residence. However, the use and the structure itself are actually the same use and the same structure type as the main residence and cannot, as a matter of law, be defined as accessory. Accessory use or structure means a structure that is subordinate to the principal use of a building on a lot and serving a purpose that is customarily incidental there too. I cited you guys to the case of Hudson versus Terry where the Kentucky Court of Appeals held that a separate building built on a residential lot for the purpose of housing a workshop could not qualify as an accessory structure whereas a building used for the purpose of storing agricultural house household goods would so qualify. The court noted that the fact that a portion of the proposed accessory building will be used in a manner incidental to an accessory to the use of the principal building does not allow the remainder of the proposed accessory building to be used for any and all occupations imaginable which have no relation or relevance to the use of the main building the court utilized the definition of accessory use in that municipality zoning ordinance and noted that to determine whether a use of a land is permitted as an accessory use it is not enough to determine whether that use is incidental to the main use but the use must be habitually commonly and by long practice established as a reasonable use. Courts actually tend to construe accessory use provisions quite narrowly and I set this out in my letter brief to you particularly with regard to structures or uses accessory to residential properties. For instance in cases where living quarters were to be rented many courts have refused to recognize them as an accessory use reasoning that they dominated in a way as to reduce the building's role as a private residence to secondary status rather than being merely a byproduct of the property's main use as a family residence. Similarly garage apartments have been found not to be an accessory use either because the practice was not cost customary or because it involved a use that was more primary than incidental. A secondary building has also qualified as an accessory use when rented to a couple purportedly hired as caretakers on the grounds that it involved a principal use necessarily precluding its subordinate status and since the caretaking activities were too tenuously structured to characterize the tenants as house servants whose domiciling would have been a permissible accessory use of the building. Okay so the case law that I cite in the letter brief to you demonstrates that courts have historically found detached ADUs are improper second residences rather than accessory buildings again our second argument or legal position is that short-term rentals are not accessory uses or within the definition of a residential use you've heard from many today about the income generating possibilities of adus and in their current form now before you in addition to improperly authorizing multiple residences on single-family lots the current ADU ZOTA encourages short-term rentals which are also improper in residential zones. Although the ordinance says that short-term rentals are allowed only as a conditional use with BOA approval, what's the oversight for this? Who bears the burden of reporting violations? What are the penalties after an owner obtains a compliance permit to ensure that these are followed? Who checks on whether the ordinance is being followed? Zoning enforcement in Lexington is virtually non-existence. Registration, licensing, and inspection are necessary to give this ZODA any teeth. In the absence of a specific ordinance banning or limiting short-term rentals, courts have actually reached different outcomes about whether short-term rentals are permissible in residential zones. However, recent decisions by the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals indicate that our high courts view short-term rentals of less than a month as commercial activity that is not residential in nature and that such short-term rentals are the equivalent of hotels and I cited you to the case of Hensley versus Gadd in which this issue is discussed in detail and the court basically concluded to cut to the chase here that the courts are basically stating that anything that is within less than a month rental period is likely to be considered the equivalent to a hotel instead of an appropriate short-term rental in a residential zone and as such would qualify as commercial activity that is not permitted in a residential zone so that's something you need to think about when you're looking at the current ZODA to see whether that issue is addressed to your satisfaction. It's Luna's position that the ADU ZODA is currently drafted will permit the infiltration of pervasively commercial activity into our neighborhoods, thereby leading to the degradation and destruction of the historic fabric of Lexington. Luna urges the council to carefully consider protections that exist or that can be put in place to strike the balance between the need for increasing housing options and density while also protecting our neighborhoods and special places thank you thank you after Blake Hall we'll have I think it's Lauren Lowry I say that right lovely sorry about that my name is Blake Hall I live in the third district I'm also part of the coalition for a livable lexington with groups like the fate alliance age friendly lexington and lexington community land trust as well as other groups focused on housing affordability in lexington you've received the petition with almost 100 people asking you to support this ordinance i'm not going to waste time espousing the good things about adus i've done enough of that for the last couple of years as we've dragged our feet due to a bunch of disingenuous hand-wringing and pearl clutching. I call it as such because they argued for owner occupancy, short-term rental rules, and now suddenly that's not enough. Those are apparently unenforceable like and all our code enforcement just doesn't work apparently. Most of the arguments against ADUs fall when leveled against the most basic scrutiny. With the owner occupancy requirement, one neighborhood let alone one street will suddenly see a ton of 80 years not everyone will want to build one and of those that do not every lot will accommodate an adu and not everyone will be able to afford them they are the most expensive types of housing to build on a per unit basis Portland a city with Lexington with twice Lexington's population and a much worse housing shortage saw only 20 to 35 80 use permitted per year until they started actively incentivizing them expecting lexington to have more than that is simply absurd the parking concerns are as usual overblown again not any one place will suddenly see a lot of adus but even then there is nothing precluding the property owner from adding parking it is just not required there are complaints about the one and a half foot setback for detached structures setting aside that detached structures are the most onerous to build and therefore the rarest you can already build a detached bedroom at one and a half feet away from the property line do we hear complaints about that if not then why is it a problem to add a kitchen why is a garage not a privacy concern but a residence is there's also the fact that this is actually a re-legalization you will find adus in many of lexington's older neighborhoods we have some in my neighborhood of kinwick and they peacefully coexist their residents are our neighbors many of you have probably have some in your district or at least duplexes which are comparable how many complaints do you hear about them the expansion area allows for them if they're if they are such a scourge then how many complaints do you hear about them if everyone is going to build one how many have been built in the expansion area most if not all the opposition is coming from homeowners a good majority of which bought their homes decades ago when housing was more affordable they're pulling up the ladder on their kids and grandkids as they now seek to prevent anyone who can't afford a whole house from moving into their neighborhood in the name of preserving some neighborhood character well I believe neighborhood character is made up of characters and I would like my kids to be able to live in Lexington regardless of their job when they grow up we have a substantial housing shortage and this is literally the smallest step we can take to add more housing mr. Hall you out of time can you can you wrap up if we can't do something as simple as that as small as this then what hope do we have to address our housing shortage thank you thank you and after mr. lovely Bennett Clark Hello, my name is Lauren Lovely and I live in the 10th district. I am here in support of ADUs. After reading the proposal, I believe that it is very reasonable and thoughtful and it addresses many of the concerns that people have with its limitations while also allowing for smart growth. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lovely. Bennett Clark. then after mr. Clark is Andrea I don't want to say it wrong it's my name is been at Clark I'm an example of Asian in place I live in the Stonewall and when we bought there I was making $400 a month I used money I'd earned in the Navy and a paper route to pay for the lot which is way beyond what I could afford I just want to put in a word for old people that we didn't have it easy either that it takes a while to be able to afford this and I don't consider Stonewall in an elitist neighborhood it's a very viable neighborhood it's a great neighborhood it's and we raised our kids there my son lives in the neighborhood the concerns that I have about the EDA and I'm not going to take a lot of time but concern some technicalities with this and I hate to admit this but I'm a lawyer and I can't do anything about it okay but one of the items here it says the property owner is required to reside and either the main residence or the adu what does the word reside me I don't see it it's it's it's defined anywhere what the word reside means because folks reside in a given location and they may only be there two months out of the year, so I don't know what that means. I think that's a real problem because you can have people residing in the main residence for two months and renting it out the rest of the year and renting out the ADU for all the year and that may qualify under this because there's no definition. I think that needs to be, Something that needs to be done about that. And this was brought up by one of the speakers, but what does the term short-term mean? I don't know what it means. Apparently, either the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court has indicated anything less than a month is short-term, but I think that needs to be defined. And this one about children is a real conundrum for me. It says a maximum of two persons plus any related children may reside in ADU. How many generations of related children can there be in this house? You know, in Kentucky, we have people who are fifth cousins. And so I don't know what this term means. Children, because I'm not opposed to people having children. But the fact of the matter is, without a definition of what constitutes if there's a maximum limit, there may not be any problems now and believe me my heart goes out to people who have disabilities I represented a number of people in my practice who have disabilities and so I understand the problem and it is a problem I'm sure but I think this ordinance is fatally defective as it now exists because there are no definitions in here and there have to be are you going to end up spending an awful lot of time in court with this ordinance. Mr. Clark, I hate to cut you off, but you're out of time. Okay, well, I've had my say. Okay, thank you. I do think you need to tighten up this ordinance if you want to really try with it. Andrea. Then after her, Vita. Vita Liana. You said it best. I'm Andrea Strauss from District 4. A few of you know who I might be. I just wanna say as a person with a disability, I would like to be able to age in place. And I'm a homeowner, I'm a tax payer, I work full time job. But when it comes to the time and I'm not able to do that again and I need assistance in living, I would like to stay in Lexington and be able to have a caregiver things like this you you put it in there yourself accessible neighborhoods make put the cost on the homeowner not the city to make this accessible you know that's all they're asking for they want to age in place and be accessible and they would only the ADUs would only increase the value of the city because it's such so much more accessible and I think that we should all have a chance this is the first hundred years of deinstitutional station and as what we got to start somewhere for people to be independent and let them have this opportunity I am for this thank you thank you and then after miss Vita Chris Hustis hello my name is Vita Vitaliano I'm a renter in in the third district near UK campus, and I wish to speak about ADUs and rental property oversight. I first want to state that as an idea, ADUs seem like a potentially useful and viable idea. In practice, however, the city will have to tighten its regulation of rental properties in order to make ADUs work. An owner claiming on-site occupancy is no guarantee of responsibility. I, along with a majority of other area neighbors, are continually tormented by destructive tenants and hands off rental property owners who are facilitated by a lack of city oversight. We are also witnessing the homes around us physically deteriorating as the number of destructive elements grow. Most of us cannot afford to relocate to better neighborhoods. Our quality of life is mired in an abusive and depressing environment. I've been screaming into the void of the status quo for five years, seeking tenant rights and protections against the destructive elements in our near campus neighborhoods to no avail. Nothing substantial or effective has been implemented by the city council body as a whole. I have asked, begged, screamed, demanded, and consulted with law enforcement, the University of Kentucky, my council members, code enforcement, as well as property owners and management. While I have had productive and supportive consultations with some individuals, real change requires all influential entities working together as a whole in order to implement effective remedies. That cooperation is in the hands of the city council body as a whole. Given that the city hasn't done what's necessary to control destructive tenants in our rental heavy neighborhoods, why should anyone believe the city will do what's necessary to control disruptive behaviors that may occur in rental ADUs? The issues are solvable if acknowledged and properly addressed, but until we see effective code enforcement and regulation of rental properties, rental ADUs must not be allowed. It is a real concern that the inadequate property management currently deteriorating many of our area rental properties will infect all of Lexington's residential areas. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Chris Hustis. Then next will be Harding Dow. Good evening. My name is Chris Hustis. I live in Skycrest, which is in the 11th district. I agree with a lot of things that have been said tonight. I am for the ADUs. I am for development. In fact, if you want to buy my purchase or purchase my development rights on my property, give me $100,000, and I'm all for that. You've spent millions of dollars restricting development on the horse farms. I understand that. That's zoning. That's enforcement. This body, the council, you are responsible for enforcement of what goes on here in the city through all the different agencies in terms of what happens on people's property. The University of Kentucky and the neighborhoods around there are horrible neighbors. Just go down Waller Avenue, Maxwell Street, all those places are really fearful examples of what's driving some of this fear I think of the accessible dwelling units. Excuse me, this is problematic. So I think a couple of things could happen that are positive. I am a super host. I do Airbnb. My taxes go directly to the city and to the state and to the federal government generated from my property. Some of those taxes from rental real estate could be applied to enforcement, more enforcement. What people are talking about, what their fears are talking about is not something imaginary. It is real I've seen it I've seen it with Vita and I think all of you have seen it in different neighborhoods so a dedicated tax from real estate rental units from a from accessory dwelling units we we already pay if you're an Airbnb host host you're already paying taxes directly it comes out there's no there's no problem that I have no problem with paying taxes but I do have a problem with how those taxes are spent we spent an incredible amount of money downtown on Rupp Arena on this Hadrian's wall known as the whatever it's called down Vine Street and up Midland Avenue that's a very expensive development a lot of All the neighborhoods don't get anything. So having a chance to develop your own property and having extra income, I'm all for that. I have a friend in Kenwick. She wants to do the same thing. She's limited income and she needs a chance to do that. But do it right. Develop a vision. Thank you. Thank you. Harding. You good? All right. Yes. Hello, everyone. I'm Harding Dowell. I live in the 1st District. I'm here not only representing myself but as a member of the local architecture community. I'm a member and a board member of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. We have members who I think probably sit on both sides of this issue. We have those that work exclusively in historic preservation and in single-family homes. have those that work for developers so I don't want to say that that all architects think the way that I think but I just wanted to make two points that I think are important first I think we've heard tonight that there is a real abiding issue with rental enforcement in the city I think that that's a separate issue I want us to focus on the issue at hand which is giving homeowners an opportunity to either age in place to create extra income for themselves and And I want to bring up another point that was made earlier about this commingling of commercial and residential property and uses. I live in a historic neighborhood that is full of a mix of commercial historic properties and residential historic properties. The history of our city is one in which the best of our neighborhoods are those where those two things do work together. So I don't really see the impropriety of mixing residential and commercial activities in a neighborhood. I think some of our best neighborhoods are those that exemplify the best of both. So what I'll say is that Lexington is going to grow. We know that. We recognize that we need to increase the sort of carrying capacity of our city without expanding to grow up and not out. And I think that ADUs offer an opportunity for the kind of soft density that increases density across the city in small bits here and there rather than raising entire blocks, rather than building large apartment buildings, and allowing us to grow that density in an equitable way, in an evenly distributed way, without adversely affecting the character of these existing neighborhoods. I want to applaud the planning department who has spent a lot of time making sure that this is not a cookie-cutter ordinance, that it is tailored to the interests and needs of Lexington and its citizens. The smart adaptations that they've come up with I think are appropriate and that the public input that's been sought over the last few years has been valuable and has improved this ordinance and I recommend that you pass it as written. The last thing I'll say is that I've worked with Christy Stambaugh and I make it a point never to disagree with her and I would suggest that you all do the same. Thank you. thank you hardy and that the auto mind let's take that tibet's take a 10-minute break and they will come back it's 750 to yeah All right, all right, all right. Okay. All right, we'll get, we'll go back into the public hearing part of tonight's special meeting. The next person up to speak is Charles, Mr. Charles. Basher? Balsher? Balsher. Balsher. And then next is Patty Loxton. Thank you all for giving us this opportunity to speak. Please don't cut me off. This is a list of 399 homes in the Lexington area that have had sewage inflows into their interiors, raw sewage, at least one or more times in a period between 1979 and 2012. My home was one of those homes, as was my neighbor. My residence of 25 years is on that list. That list was provided to me as part of a lawsuit I brought against the city of Lexington back in 2012. and it resulted in a five or six year court battle. I'm a non-attorney. I represented myself because I couldn't afford to hire an attorney because I'd spent so much doing cleanup and missing other opportunities in life. So by statute, the LFUCG is required, and this is on point to the ADUs, okay? So don't think that I'm off on some tangent. By statute, the city of Lexington is required to collect, transport, and treat sewage. is not allowed to deliver it to your home. Make no mistake about that. The statute's quite serious. They don't understand that. Okay? So, yet the LFUCG repeatedly flooded mine and my neighbor's homes with hundreds and thousands of gallons of raw sewage at least eight times in 15 years prior to my filing suit. Neither of us ever received an apology, any help, or any compensation for the cleanup or damages to our property. Sorry, I'm a little confused. Now, when I look at my own situation, as I like to say it sometimes, I get a little hot under the collar when yet more sewage load is proposed for our sanitary sewer system that can't even perform adequately to serve fixtures that were permitted in 1961. For the last 24 years, I have been unable to safely use one of my two toilets and one of my two bathroom sinks. Yes, we had a consent decree that we spent almost $600 million doing cleanup, but all that money went was to prevent sewage from getting into the streams. none of it was targeted at keeping sewage out of our homes now there's something wrong here okay so until such time until such time as the LF UCG removes the threat of raw sewage and blues to not only my residents but the 398 other homes that are on this list I don't see how any of you any of you if you weren't here when all this was going on, but any of you in good conscience can actually consider expanding the load on our sanitary sewer system, which has over and over failed to adequately live up to its task. So it is long past time for this council, and I mean the council just is an organization, not you as individuals, to stand up and rescind any and all hold harmless agreements that you all have with property owners. It is unconscionable that you tell a property owner who has had sewage inflows of thousands of gallons into their home that, well, we'll put a backflow preventer device in, but you're going to be responsible for it. It is your all sewage. We paid you to take it away from our homes, yet you deliver it to it. So how can you, in good conscious, approve these ADUs when we still have this problem? So until you're willing to rescind all those hold harmless and step up and fix these problems, I don't see how we can add more load to existing capacity. So I thank you. And that's about it. So thanks for letting me speak. I'm sure I went over. Thank you, Mr. Bell. Thank you, Mr. Boucher. Does anybody know whose phone that is? Going on? Oh. All right. Miss Miss Patty Logsdon and the next is Jordan Lloyd hello I'm Patty Logsdon and I'm in district 8 mr. Brown there you are you got your seat I'm gonna keep this pretty short because you guys have heard I don't know if you guys all recognize me but I've spoken on this issue several times over the last three years and I am wholeheartedly in favor of allowing accessory dwelling units there's a lot of reasons that people have said they support them there's a lot of good reasons but my personal reason is I am the parent of a young adult son who has autism he's not really that young he's gonna be 29 in October and I'm 61 and so I need to be thinking about his future and and so we're fortunate to live in a good-sized family home that's been in our family for 40 years and I plan for that to be his long-term home and so what I'd like to do is be able to put a separate unit in there that he could live in now he could have his space for mom he could have privacy but I'm still there kind of keeping an eye on things and so you know that's kind of how I see that unit being used now in the future when i'm no longer around uh he could rent that unit out he could have a family move in one unit and he could live in the other unit he could either make money off of it or or have his personal support live in that unit so that's really all i have to say about it i appreciate it and i urge you to allow us to make this dream a reality for him And I could go into all the lack of supports available for adults with disabilities, but trust me that there's not a lot of residential options for our population, so this would really help our family and a lot of others like it. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Jordan Lloyd, followed by Jordan Hines. uh... uh... mr kratz are kratz uh... has it Yes, it does. My name's Rebecca Kuhn. I'm in District 10. I hate public speaking. I've just been writing stuff down, so it might be a little bit willy-nilly. Bear with me. Talking about new construction, the most important part of a house is the foundation. Lexington's current code enforcement and planning team need to get their house in order before trying to visit their current inadequacies on outlying neighborhoods. When we built an addition on our house, I'm on the Southland side, I don't know how many years ago, probably 20 years ago, we had to get signatures from everybody around us for an addition. And now, 20 years later, we're in a place where government employees want to allow my neighbors to put an apartment in their backyard without running it by the neighbors. That's insanity to me. You need to turn your phone off. I'm going to wait for that because that is maddening. Okay. And these same employees are the ones who probably don't live or pay taxes or know my neighborhood. You know, they're making decisions for me about an apartment amongst other things in the backyard. And I've been to a lot of planning meetings. I'm a lifelong volunteer. I'm the highest paid volunteer of my neighborhood association. And it took three years for us to get permit parking on a street. Three years to make one side of a street not a traffic bottleneck crap show. three years to get the right people to say, yeah, you know what? A fire truck can't fit down there. Somebody is going to get killed. Three years that took. So when I hear about, you know, we're going to really enforce this. We're going to really make sure I kind of call baloney. And the other thing, you know, people saying 87% of people want to age in place. Well, duh. Nobody wants to have to move. Nobody wants to go to a nursing home or downsize. Here's my deal. Why don't y'all work on expenses? Why don't you guys fix some of the problems like taxes being insane and cronyism and waste and sending a bunch of people out to Portland and saying, gee, we should do that here. They're broke. What a mess. I don't understand that. But it's the same kind of government that says, I have to wear a mask in here, but I can take it off here. And somebody can get this close and tell me we have to have a mask, but we can't. You know what? And you guys want to be in charge of my house? That's nuts. why not put energy and effort into doing what you guys do and maybe give old people a tax break or give people with disabled children a tax break instead of creeping out to the suburbs you know they say you can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber once you start jacking with suburbs and adding more and packing and stacking and you know creeping on in there you can never go back It'll never be a suburb again. You can't undo what you're fixing to do. Ms. Koontz, you're out of time. Can you wrap up? Don't do it, man. Not in reality. Thank you. Next is Kate Savage, followed by Susan... In-Low. What about Susan In-Low? Thank you, Ms. Savage. Kate Savage, and I live in the third district where I have lived for over 30 years. And my district has been buffeted and bruised by the university over that time frame that I've been there. The demographic has changed. The block, the 600 block on Columbia Avenue where I live, initially 15 houses, originally four were rental, 11 owner-occupied, now 13 are rental and two are owner-occupied, one of that being me. the impact of student housing and the lack thereof has really impacted my neighborhood and turned it into a rental neighborhood several years ago because of the the vinyl boxes that were being added onto the back of houses you may or may not remember I know some of you council members have served for a goodly while Diane Lawless was the council member for third district we had a Zota we brought in a ZOTA where there was fighting left and right just as there is over this we wanted the definition of R1 re rewritten so that they could no longer pack six unrelated students into an R1 home and call it a single family we got our way to some extent we had four unrelated individuals could cohabitate as a family. This went a long way to stopping the vinyl box building, but at the end of the day who's to say how many are living in there? We now are challenged in the neighborhood to go around counting how many unrelated people are living in these R1 homes. I don't like that. That text amendment, although it helped, just isn't enforceable any more than this ZOTA will be. How do we know there's an owner-occupant? What do we do to assure ourselves that there is? The Zota we fought for all those years ago basically will be voided by this new Zota. We got four unrelated people. Now we're back with where there'll be six again, plus kids, whatever somebody said that is. You are weaponizing the citizens. You are expecting us to be your enforcers and it's an unfair onus. I don't want to be a snoop and a snitch. It just doesn't suit me. The whole granny thing is absurd. I think that the argument is very skewed. AARP has plowed thousands of dollars into this and it's disingenuous. How many grannies are out there? 15% in Oregon is the number that apparently are living in ADUs. 15%. Why stick Granny in a shoebox at the bottom of the garden? If you really love her, build an addition on your house and have her right there in your home with you. She can have an extension. She can be independent in the annex, and no one has to trudge back and forth in the snow. Ms. Savage, I'm sorry, you're out of time. Can you wrap up? Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Susan Enloe. And then next is Jack McKinney. Good evening, council members. I'm Susan Enloe. I live in the 12th District. It seems like just a few blinks ago, we were here in the same setting where the need to build homes was going to consume our horse farms. And fast forward, here we are again with the need to build homes or dwellings about to consume our neighborhoods. I'm opposed to this ordinance as it is written. Initially, it was proposed by planning that this was to allow families to keep their loved ones close to home for a number of very good reasons. I don't see why planning couldn't have made a few tweaks to existing zoning laws that would allow a second kitchen and allow family members to live in the same footprint or add an addition, which would just expand the footprint and accomplish that. But however, suddenly this has now turned into we want to put rental units on our property, on single family home properties, so we can make money and we can have a great income at the expense of our single family home neighbors' peace and serenity. Neighborhoods take a while to gel, to coalesce, to bring neighbors together. And they don't just pop up and suddenly everybody gets to do everything they want to do and still expect to maintain harmony. I urge you to rethink this and keep the part that is good for family members to be close to their loved ones within the footprint of the house without destroying the entire neighborhood. I fully support the remarks made by the Fayette County Neighborhood Association and Luna, and I think you're well enough versed to rethink this entire ZODA and make it work for all the purposes that it was originally intended for. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Oh, did he? Sorry. All right, next is Henry Siegel. and then after him Tom Poskin I think it's a twenty second delay out in the hallway in the vestibule nobody moving alright so next is uh... so Henry Siegel next is Tom Poskin and then after him is brent brents uh... and rather this look for you you'll meet her stirred lots of mister thank you Hi neighbors, great to be here tonight. I'm Tom Poskin, I'm from the 5th District, I'm one of Liz's people. I live on Louisiana Avenue in the Chevy Chase neighborhood. I also happen to be a board member of the Fayette Alliance, and I have the honor of being a guest to the meetings of the Senior Service Commission. I guess because I'm getting older. I'm rather here because I have a brother who has early onset Alzheimer's. He also is inflicted with sundowners issues and it's hard. On the other side of the coin, I have a granddaughter who loves ice cream and she likes to have her grandpa come and visit and stay a while. ADU solved those problems for my brother, for my granddaughter, and for me. And I support the work that was done by the planning commission and the staff and I commend their good work. I'd also like to kind of say that we're having a great conversation here. I mean, the first ADUs in our city's footprint were probably constructed by Native Americans. They certainly were put here by our settling ancestors because they still are in the oldest neighborhoods in our city and they're being used. So ADUs are not new to Lexington. What the issue is to me is that our conversation of ADUs is strikingly like a father's conversation of sex with his daughter after she's pregnant. We're a little late to the topic here. what we need is exactly what you are doing for the last three years and that is making the ordinance making the regulations that will govern something that already exists in our community and I thank you for doing that and I fully support it I support a healthy vibrant safe and growing community and 80 use are an integral part of that thank you thank you Brent and then ginger Watkins thanks Brent stir locks in third district I teach architecture in the school of in the College of Design and I support the ADU zoning amendment for multiple reasons it's been a great teaching tool for us in the School of Architecture we've been able to bring to students issues of diversity equality and accessibility in the city and point to an ADU and this active moment in civic participation for one small way to better achieve that right as designers and architects and students who will who will become and fill those roles in the future so we've worked with the Senior Services Commission in the Planning department closely to hold a design competition. The one image on the top of your cheat sheet tonight was a student design that won our competition. And the reception among our students has been really positive. And again, it's been this tool for us to talk about accessibility in a historic urban district that wouldn't permit someone with, a wheelchair user, for example, to access a house that had been built in a previous generation. So that's one reason I support the issue. I think it does well for integrating a diverse community within an existing neighborhood, so while preserving the urban morphology as it exists. I think the planning team has done a really nice job at specifying a minimal amount of provisions to maintain urban character and allowing for architectural design diversity within that. My dean from the College of Design is also here. We missed the sign-up sheet, so she would love to express her support as well, not only as someone who appreciates and supports integrated urban environment, but also understands the needs of caregiving for an aging population in a constrained urban environment. So I appreciate your consideration and the time to speak tonight, and I hope we can support this initiative. Thank you. Thank you. After Ms. Watkins, Dana Manley. Did I get it right? All right. Thank you. You can go ahead. I'm Ginger Watkins. I'm in the 1st District, and I'm in support of the ADU ordinance. As it is written, I think we need this change now. a few years ago there's well there's a recent study about the number of housing units that lexington needs it's like 20,000 within the next few years and we're just not keeping pace with that need miss walkins i'm sorry can you pull the microphone down so we can hear you thank you could you all hear what i already said or no you can start over okay sorry um i'm in the first district and i'm in support of the adu ordinance as it's written i think we need this zoning change now. There was a recent study about the housing units needed in Lexington and it's something like 20,000 over the next few years and we're not keeping pace with produce producing that amount of housing and what what that's doing is pushing development into surrounding surrounding counties and causing sprawl and destruction to valuable soil in central Kentucky maybe I'll just do this ADUs are a zoning strategy that would permit many citizens to get involved in creating the extra housing capacity that is needed permitting infill development through zoning changes such such as the ADU ordinance can improve the resilience and sustainability of Lexington by increasing financial support for existing infrastructure amenities and businesses it can help people be closer to jobs and to school in addition it will help us preserve productive agricultural lands that we very well may need for food production going forward as California continues to burn suffer from drought and mine its aquifers I have a business here in Lexington called orb technologies and we are developing a construction system targeted at small energy-efficient homes made from locally grown plants and as a former staff member of Kentucky Habitat for Humanity I see the dual challenges of housing affordability and climate change as opportunities that we can use to drive ag tech innovation and economic opportunity here locally as well as at a national scale I ask that you support this needed update to our zoning ordinance so that our community may have the flexibility needed to solve problems without relying solely on developers to do so thank you thank you my name is Dana Manning I'm in district 5 what bothers me most about this proposal is that it seems to sidestep years of negotiations and agreements on zoning regulations and it does it just by renaming something an accessory dwelling unit is a house we lived in an 800 square foot house for years and it was just a house Calling it by a different name doesn't change that, and it shouldn't change the rules that apply. If I get a second vehicle, can I avoid the existing rules about insurance and speed limits by calling it an accessory driving unit? If Lexington really feels that it's a good idea to pass a blanket zoning change for the entire city, allowing two houses anywhere where there is now one house, then let's have an honest conversation. I believe it's a bad idea, but at least we would be clear on what we were discussing. Thank you. Thank you. Cassandra? Cassandra? I hope I'm saying the name right. All right. Sarah Eldridge. Ben Salika. Saliki? Yes. Yeah, that's it. I asked for forgiveness at the beginning. I'll keep asking. Is it Bev? Bev, yes. I usually say Sam when I order pizza. I should have written it that way. I'm in the 5th Council District. My name is Bev Salahy. And I certainly have no issue with the idea of providing housing for elderly people to age in place. I happen to be an elderly person myself, and I would love to age in place. I have no problem with having housing for dependent children, people with disabilities, or whatever. I think that's a great idea. I do have, though, some concerns about the plan. I wonder, I've been told that neighborhoods that have HOAs often have prohibitions against any accessory structure in their lots. And I wonder if the people who planned this project know how many of those neighborhoods would then be exempt, because I have a feeling that a lot of them have restrictions that would not permit accessory dwellings. and I think that means that the vast majority of these dwellings would be probably closer to the inner city like in my neighborhood and of course one of my concerns is student housing rentals I know someone said that oh you know the UK is providing plenty of housing they never are going to have plenty of housing I believe they're always going to need housing and I personally would would not want students renting in my neighborhood close by I get I live close enough and I hear a lot of a lot of noise already from the university the other concern that I have is there I believe there are neighborhoods where this is just not a very practical idea I I live in Chevy Chase a neighborhood of small houses that almost everybody has built on to so now it's a neighborhood that was designed for small houses and it no longer has very many small houses driveways have been expanded to accommodate bigger cars so in my neighborhood from what I can see and I've looked at a lot of aerial maps there's a tremendous amount of impermeable surface and as a result the first house I lived in in well the first house I lived in since we moved here in 2013 after living here for many many years 30 years prior anyway when we moved back here we moved into a house that in every significant rainfall became lakefront property basically and that was Chenault Road. Okay so we used to call it Lake Chenault. There are plenty of other neighborhoods in my, plenty of other properties and streets in my neighborhood that have the same problem. There's a, there's one street called, it's actually slashes I understand it's called splashes so there are a lot of you had a you're out of time can you wrap up for okay can I just quickly say that I believe that enforcement is that stormwater management is a big issue here and enforcement of code is another very big issue and I some of these things some of these requirements I don't believe are enforceable or at least not with the with the staff that exists right now in in the city so yes ma'am thank you next is Megan Brown I'm sorry Megan Bacon Megan Bacon Next is Dixie Moore after Ms. Bacon. All right, Megan Bacon, Dixie Moore, Jim Ryder, after Mr. Ryder, Joe Grayson. Thank you. My name is Jim Ryder. I'm in the 3rd District. I've lived there about 30 years. We live in a lovely neighborhood. It's a mixed neighborhood, a lot of single families, a lot of rental property, four plexes. There's even a local grocery store. It's exactly where I think Lexington wants us to be. But we're concerned about this. I'm for ADUs, actually for ADUs, but I'm against this proposal. I think it's ill-planned, ill-advised. I want to thank the planners. They've worked really really hard and I want to thank you all because you've heard all all sorts of Versions of this discussion. I think it's been a very good discussion. We're growing from it The planners have worked hard and they just even met with us not too long ago And we had very good good discussion about these things But I think one of the things that really troubles me is that on these very complicated issues one size does not fit all We don't all wear the same size shoes. It would hurt if we tried to And I think that's what's happening here. This should not apply to the whole city. It shouldn't necessarily apply to our district. It is actually already possible in much of the city. And I'm curious about how many building requests there are in those areas where it is possible. And if there is a firm demand for that, then perhaps it should be expanded. expanded, but until there is an overwhelming demand, until those demands can't be met by the areas that are already possible, then perhaps we shouldn't expand it to places where maybe it's not so wanted. We've heard both at the meeting that I attended a couple of weeks ago and in the newspaper today that this is actually an equity issue, and that's truly scary because what's going to happen to at least some of what's sometimes called the east side on the north side, some of those humble homes that are there, and even perhaps in some of the humble homes that are in my own neighborhood, is all of a sudden those things are worth a lot of money. People that maybe are paying unreasonable rent in some of those houses, those houses will be sold to somebody who wants to put in another unit behind them. Because now all of a sudden it's worth a whole lot of money. And those people will be forced to move to someplace where they don't want to go. And typically that would be out into the outer ring of suburbs. And some of those neighborhoods themselves are under a great deal of stress. Imagine living in a duplex out there and paying a very reasonable amount of money and all of a sudden the landlord says, well, I can put another house behind this duplex and raising the rent. This is a whole lot of change. And we haven't really heard from some of those people that are going to be affecting that change. I believe, this is kind of an overstatement, but I believe instead of being adequately planned, this is almost planning anarchy. Because now all of a sudden individual owners will be making decisions that will affect many, many, many people. Whereas I want to have my faith in the planners. I want them to be able to tell people where development should take place. I, for instance, think that ADUs could be restricted to corners, where parking perhaps isn't quite such a big issue, where there's more access, there's more sidewalk. There's that kind of thing. I think these people can inform us how to do that, but instead they're going to allow every individual homeowner to make that decision. I think that's somewhat misplaced. Sir, you're out of time. Thank you. Thank you. Joe Grayson. and then next is uh does that say amy clark amy clark thank you hi um let's put this down um my name is joe grayson and um i'm in i live in district 8 i've lived in lexington for um probably 10 years now um i just have a few points to make i am for this ordinance being passed. It's 2021. Change isn't bad. We live in a much different world than we did even just 10 years ago. So I just want to say that. But I also want to say I have a disabled child, so that's why I'm here. And it's proven that it is more cost-effective to the government for disabled people to be cared for by family and not be institutionalized. Disabled children become disabled adults who want to live as independently as possible and although many disabled people need and rely on the family that they live with, they also need to be as independent as possible in order to have their civil liberty to the pursuit of happiness met. So I think that's really important for you to consider this evening as you vote on this really important matter of accessory dwelling units I think it's really important for the elderly community that's it the disabled community and the community as a whole we've heard all of the arguments against it and we all of those arguments I feel like were addressed at the very beginning of this meeting when we had the presentation that was lovely by the way I feel like everything has already been addressed and so I feel like it's just important for you to understand the position of people who are disabled, their families, and for disabled people to have a voice in this conversation even if they're like my son and nonverbal and don't have a voice of their own. Thank Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Clark? Good evening. I'm Amy Clark and I live in the 3rd District at 628 Castle. You know, D.H. Lawrence said that the great American specialties were plumbing and saving the world. And I think there's a whole lot of plumbing in this one. And I'm not seeing enough salvation yet. It seems everyone now wants their own bathroom. There are a lot, a lot of fixtures in the student area. Now they want another kitchen too. It's a rather expensive sort of privacy and freedom and liberty, I believe. I'm here to talk to you not about code enforcement, which Vida Vittaglio did a really good job on but rather zoning enforcement and in particular I would say that the two best features added to save the ADU ordinance into adoption are the owner residency requirement and the limit to two occupants per dwelling to adult occupants. The question is can those be enforced. I live in an R1E which does not permit guest quarters and so forth. It's the smallest of the R1s and it was assigned to my neighborhood and a great many besides. Jack McKinney who had to leave has talked about this. We down zoned from R2 and it was something that the city recognized and I don't believe the situation has changed. That relatively speaking we are very dense highly occupied already and ad use i believe would send r1e neighborhoods such as mine over the edge in fact i think many are over the edge already what i want to show you here is what enforcement of zoning regulations on number of occupants number of dwellings number of parking spaces permitted because in our area in the infill area there's a cap on how many parking spaces you can pave into your yard how that works so that next slide please though may i do the next slide thing thank you what you're seeing there is if you count really closely there are four cars on one side there are at least two on the other and room for more and each of those is a single family dwelling with a cap on parking at two spaces per household so you're seeing over parking okay the next slide here this is a single family home and you can see it's counting a fifth bedroom upstairs this was on colfax street also student area that was 2015 next slide and if you look downstairs they re-reckoned they thought uh-oh we're one So you can see where bedroom one is crossed out and it's called a library. Next slide please. Well, this was adopted again on Park Avenue the same year and these are different, actually these are different owners. And what you see is bedroom one, two, three, four. Bedroom five is also called a flex room with a closet. Next slide please. Ms. Clark, you're out of time. Can you wrap up? Mercy, could I show you one more? One more. Okay, next one. And this is very sad. This is Duncan Avenue and this is 2020. And again, they're doing the fifth bedroom thing downstairs. It was actually the slide before. They're calling the closet a TV room. There is no enforcement. How can we have an effective ADU ordinance that's built on those restrictions and safeguards without better enforcement? Thank you. which would come with rental licensing and inspection. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Did I mispronounce anybody's name that didn't get a chance to speak? Did anybody show up and didn't get a chance to sign in and speak that would like to speak? Okay, I'll start with you in the front, and then I'll go to you in the back. I've only counted two. I've just like 35, 40 seconds. No, I'm suing you. Let me get to the folks that haven't spoke yet. Ma'am, if you want to go ahead, just come to the microphone, state your name, and council district, and you'll have three minutes. Yes, I am. Let's fix that. I'm Mitzi Vernon. I'm the dean of the College of Design at UK, and I am a citizen, and I live in District 6. And mostly I just want to make a suggestion. You know, I'm a fan of diplomacy, and I know it's probably really challenging for a council to be one of vision when you often have to be a council of grievance. I understand that. But as I've listened this evening, I wondered if it isn't possible, and I think maybe someone mentioned this, to actually do a pilot study and to ask for people to apply for that. and you have an opportunity to perhaps engage students and architects overseeing. You could run a competition that's just about giving their time so it doesn't cost anybody anything. You could run the pilot and run enforcement in that exercise. So you could test out the whole thing. Maybe that's a way to satisfy both sides of the issue. I can understand people have their concerns about their neighborhoods and maybe you pilot in it in a variety of places Small-scale but you you test out the ordinance or the change and then you can make amendments to that Anyway, I'm just throwing out an idea as someone who thinks that way most of the time with students and and the faculty So I hope that's helpful. Thank you Thank you The gentleman in the back yes, sir who else had their who else had their hand up then the new next sir Hello My name is Dennis Chaney. I Live in the fifth district new homeowner bought a home just March 2019 I Support the adu ordinance as is written. I feel that you know having Equitable development and affordability is so super important. I mean in the past decade Rent has doubled it's becoming more and more difficult for working people to afford to live the more opportunities We have to increase the supply of housing units should be supported and encouraged any way possible I Feel that you know with the 80 units You're gonna allow families to stay together as they age you're gonna allow for more density more walkable neighborhoods and you're going to be able to support local businesses you know and I feel like we should have more small businesses in residential neighborhoods I feel like those communities that you can have a store you can walk to is very important for having a community you know longevity and I feel that with increased density you're going to be able to have those walkable neighborhoods and more people that are walking it's a safer neighborhood thank you thank you my name is zach scubitz i'm from the third district i didn't span it i didn't plan to talk today so i'm underdressed uh i do want to say i graduated from transylvania university uh two years ago now my senior thesis and project were both on housing policy so I want to address one incorrect claim I've heard a couple times people have said that raising or allowing this will raise prices allowing more houses unilaterally universally lowers housing prices it makes it cheaper to buy a new house for first-time home homeowners and it makes it cheaper for renters like me to afford live in this beautiful city thank you is anybody else wanted to speak that didn't have a chance yes sir back there scott diamond district five i'm not going to take three minutes We're the ones that live on Splashes Road. I love that. Nobody knows how to deliver to us. Anyways, really quick. What I hear is 15% of ADUs, at least in Portland, are actually used for people with disabilities or who are old. Those are great uses. how do you rule out the other 85%? Because I have absolutely no interest in helping hotel people make hotels. I have every interest in helping families stay together. And if 85% of these in other cities, and I think we need to check that. I did not hear anything from the planning department about other cities. and that could be because I'm new to this. But if it is 85% for not the uses that are pulling on our heartstrings, and they do, I teach kids at risk. I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person. I like housing people with disabilities. I want to have myself age in place. I'm well on my way to doing it, unfortunately. but if it's 80% not that then this isn't about that and all the tugging on the heart strings is not actually true because 15% of something is a very small percent 85% is what it is what is that 85% in those other cities? definitely Airbnbs short term housing not relatives so if we are going to pull on our heart strings in the future I would prefer that we make it clear and honest that that pulling has to do with a very small proportion of what's being proposed because otherwise we're not really dealing with truth calling people who don't want ADUs against disabled people, well, that's an insult. I mean, that's offensive to me because I'm not against disabled people. I would love to have everyone be able to keep their disabled relatives and their old relatives, and I'll probably be both soon enough. But that's not what this is about. I think you need to figure out What is the other 85% and how do we not have that? Sorry for taking the time. Mr. Diamond, I'm just going to say you took three minutes. I know. It was your three. Guess what? I teach middle school and I'm a terrible liar. It was your time. Now, Mr. Boucher, I know it'd be against our council rules, so somebody would have to make a motion to allow you to speak an additional 35%. seconds i think we can suspend our rules and give him an additional thirty seconds of the if somebody make the motion unless yeah I would like to make a motion to the federal figure in one minute. Okay. All right. Are there any opposed? If not, Mr. Boucher, you have one minute. One minute. I'll leave some left over. Charles Boucher from the 11th District. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself before. Number one, OSHA says that if you're going to put up an extension ladder on a structure, you've got to have it for every four feet of height you've got to have a foot out from the wall so if you've got an 18 inch setback to the edge of the property you can only use have a six foot extension ladder if you're building two-story structures and I've seen some that are two and a half story 22 foot or 24 foot tall they've got to have five or six feet of setback and so I think that you all are violating what will be safety issues the other thing is number two on page 24 23 proposed ordinance says on size an ADA shall not exceed 800 square feet in any instance and then second says exceed 50% of the total square footage of the main residence or 625 seat feet whichever is greater so if I've got a 3,000 square foot residence I think I can have a 1,500 square foot adu according to that so you all may want to check your wording and the final thing is is if you want to see what is scary about these adus grab by 909 Celia Lane there is a single-story ranch it has a two and a half story adu in the backyard it is hideous to look at you know they shouldn't be able to exceed the height of the house in the front that's all I hope that was less than a minute thank you all thank you mr. Boucher and thank you everyone for coming out and sharing your thoughts and comments with us we take it seriously you know us having this special meeting and welcoming public comment is all part of the process now and I think the next part of the process is to open it up to council members for questions and discussion and planning planning staff I know this isn't a zone change with rebuttal and that sort of thing but maybe through council members questions you can maybe clarify some some things that were said and maybe answer some questions so with that the first one I have signed up as council member richard maloney well let me let me let me do this i'll come right back to you uh... disappointed clarification in this the definition clarification in regards single-family detached if you would Chris give us some guidance and maybe speak to that sure item sure so over the course of the last couple years we've consistently talked about ADUs as being applicable for any lot any residential zone lot that had a single-family detached dwelling unit on it and through review and actually miss Clark pointed this out to us at a recent neighborhood meeting and I spoke declaratively that our language did specify it had to be a detached dwelling unit but it does not and so in the definition provided some text to clarify within where it says a principal dwelling that it'd be a principal single-family detached dwelling and so I wanted to make sure that that was with the council so that they knew that that that clarification had been had been addressed but if you have any questions on it thanks answer So to give some clarification, the planning staff is making a recommendation to correct this just so it states that it is single family detached. And so this ADU ordinance wouldn't apply to duplexes? Correct. Or any other? Or townhouses. Or townhouses. Correct. Single family. The ambiguity was between single family attached or detached. detached. And so by clarifying single family detached, it eliminates townhouses, but it never included duplexes. Okay. To maybe address that question about putting it up so folks can see it, can you work with somebody to get that up? And then I'll go back to Councilmember Maloney for a comment. Councilmember. Thank you. My question is about the basement. I brought this up earlier about the basement. And to me, if they don't go outside the foundation, I think you shouldn't worry about what size that ADU is going to be in that basement. If it's 1,000 square feet in that basement, they have a right, as long as they're in compliance with a plumber and HVAC. I don't think any of our guys' building spectrum will go in there unless it's, I mean, HVAC, that would be the only thing that would go in there, but for plumbing and electrical, that would be the state would be in for the plumbing, and we have outside consultants to do the electricity. I just don't, I know that you all were talking 800 in the basement. I think it should be compatible, whatever that foundation is, as long as they say within that foundation they're eligible to build an ADU, it be 1,500 square feet or if it's 2,000 square feet, as long as it's not going outside the foundation. Now, if it goes outside the foundation, I agree. You should have a permit. You should have the build inspection. You should have all that, and you should go through the proper channel. But as long as it stays under that foundation, you should not go. It could be allowed to build any size as long as it doesn't go outside that side. And that's a fairly common provision in a lot of other accessory dwelling unit ordinances. Staff, if the council is comfortable with making a change like that, we have sample language that we feel could address that concern that basically says that, you know, there's no limit on the size of a conversion of an existing basement to an ADU so long as the conversion remains within the footprint of the original structure. So would that be an amendment that we need to add? We have that text available. if that's something that the council would like to pursue, we have that text available. I'm not ready for any amendments. I'm waiting to hear what everybody says. But to me, that's just logic that you should, as long as there are signs of the foundation, we should not worry about how big that room is. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Maloney. Council Member Plowman. Thank you, Chair. I had a question that someone had asked me. wanted to see if planning could make a clarification on that and that is why adus are not in the zones in the rural area well there's there's been there's long been provisions for what used to be called tenant houses in the rural area they're now called farm employee dwelling units and they act in many ways very similar to adus we did not want to confuse the issue and introduce another sort of accessory option into that it creates some confusion and that there's already something you know that solves that issue for the AG areas when we you know we mentioned it with folks and it was not something that that constituency felt like it was something they wanted to bring forward even when they were addressing the farm employee dwelling unit text there was discussion about waiting and letting a to use fill that role and it was determined that that wasn't really what what they wanted to do so as far as rural zone areas outside the urban service boundary that may be residentially zoned not AG zoned this would still be allowable pending their ability to get approval for a septic tank you know from the health department and that's that's tough to do it usually requires 10 acres and that's usually what not but probably not what a lot of the R1 zoned properties outside the urban service area are going to be zoned so while it would be loud under zoning it wouldn't like be likely under you know the health department's rules for septic systems okay so the smaller lots that do have the adus or do have a secondary homes or you know accessory use there are the there are other things they have to go through in order to make that allowable yes and the possibility would be okay i need to look out there and and see if you know what's what's existing that might meet that okay Okay, thank you for answering my question. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member McCurn. Thank you, Chair. A few brief questions here. Property taxes, how would this be assessed? Will it be similar to a regular freestanding or individual home? They vary based on each city's regulations. So, again, it's not going to be treated the same as it would a free and clear two unit, like a duplex, because it does have restrictions. The same way banks don't lend on an ADU application, the same with an owner occupancy requirement, neither for taxing purposes with the PVA. Now, I couldn't get more specific than that, speaking for David O'Neill, but I know that individual regulations on an ADU that further restrict it from being a clear second unit without restriction do have an impact on the valuation process. Okay. And you brought up the loan process there, and I'm curious now, too. how does that look and if you know by any chance through the banks do if this is a property that's going to be sold will the new homeowner have to go through a private institute to get a loan no fanny and freddy have specific guidance in their in their lending manuals for accessory dwelling units they're done as part of the regular mortgage application it doesn't kick into an investment property however it does change the bank's valuations and appraisals when there are restrictions on the property such as some of the ones that are proposed here it makes lending for full amount of the cost get makes it more complicated so a lot of times for an adu with an owner occupancy requirement the owner is probably going to have to bring more cash to the table because they're not going to be able to fully finance it under under those those provisions because they're not going to the appraisal is not going to say it's worth the full value of it that it would be without some of those restrictions sure okay um last question a gentleman brought up earlier tonight and i think just for clarification uh residency for owner occupancy what is that going to be looking like is it 181 days a year the sheet that we gave you has what we consider simplified language it's talking points to try to generally educate but the language in the ordinance says that it's the owner's permanent residence and so we again we would be working in consultation with the pva's office on we often get data from them to to locate whether it's owner occupied or whether it's rental occupied and where they receive their tax bills ultimately that's That's sort of the deciding factor on the permanent residence is where do they receive their tax bill. So that's where we would rely on that information. I guess my only concern really would rise after that point would be if I lived on the property but I decided to sell it and now somebody moves in there, how are we going to keep tabs on whether they're living there or renting that unit out and renting out the ADU as well? I think we often, when it comes to conditional use applications, we cycle through those periodically or I don't want to say it's annually or every couple years but every year or so our zoning enforcement staff goes through all active conditional use cases and verifies that the conditional use is still you know happening on the site because a lot of times businesses close or they change verify that the conditions for the Board of Adjustment are still being met that there is you know someone mentioned a pilot we really do believe that there's an opportunity to start sort of that registration and licensing type program with ADUs where we can follow up and check back on each of the properties whether it be annually or like in a lot of cities that do rental registration they do it biannually or every couple two or three years or like the tax rolls they update them every four years there's an opportunity to go back through check those properties verify the ownership and the residency and and check in with the homeowner on the leases and things like that we're more than comfortable we believe in and having with the administrative tools that we've put in place with this those are the things that we have easy access to check it's not like some of the definition of family where we don't have the right to enter the property. That's a different task for us. So we want to create regulations and provisions that we feel we can enforce administratively because those are the tools that we have. Well, and I hope you saying that right there helps ease some of the concern from the public. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Lagree. Thank you, Chair. And, Chair, I think that my question follows up on Council Member McCurron's question, his most recent question. So we've heard from a number of third district residents tonight. And I think that we're all aware that currently there are illegal ADUs that exist. And I guess we can't change those illegal ADUs. But right now it sounds like we have the ability to create an option that maps and tracks ADUs and potentially generates more controls. So like many of my constituents and you all, I want to make enforceable policy decisions while attempting to incrementally provide more housing. And that's something that I think is really needed in our community. So I guess my question has to do with that because I want to make sure that our city has the proper regulatory structures and personnel in place so that the proposed rules around ADUs can be enforced consistently and fairly. And you all have heard a number of my constituents share their concerns, especially in near campus neighborhoods. And what I'm hearing from my residents near UK's campus especially is that they feel as though the current rules and regulations seem to lack teeth and some residents feel powerless when dealing with current rental properties around them. But when they do take time to call in regarding zoning enforcement, as we've heard the number of unrelated residents in an R1 zoned unit for example. So in your opinion, what needs to change so that the city can properly and completely oversee and implement these new ADUs as part of the comprehensive plan? Council member Legree, members of the council, Jim Duncan here. Let me respond because I'm not going to say anything that you haven't already heard tonight, but perhaps just from a different voice and perhaps the words in a different order will help us to make sure that we are understanding what is proposed before you. As we have said, there are administrative regulations that support accessory dwelling units that will favor enforcement and make enforcement a lot easier to do for the staff. It will make it easier for other people to know how compliance is being handled. and we really we feel like for instance in the case of ADUs there are multiple levels of new administration that we don't have in place for other things such as the number of adults who live together so one of them is and probably the most important is the deed restriction and councilmember McCurron this goes to what happens when the property sales this is a deed restriction in favor of the government so whenever you buy this property with with the accessory dwelling unit on it, you know what this deed restriction says. You are informed. Unlike what we hear sometimes people who claim they buy in an H1 neighborhood, start to paint their brick, and then say, I did not know I was in an H1, and have to deal with all of that. In this case, you know when you're buying that residence that you have these deed restrictions, and you can, if you don't want to abide by them, then you pass that residence by. That deed restriction will state the maximum occupancy for the accessory dwelling unit. It will state the conditions under which that ADU can be used as a short-term rental, which requires a trip to the Board of Adjustment, a public hearing, notification to people 500 feet, and the opportunity for people to come and address the Board of Adjustment. And it also addresses the issue of residency. It requires that somebody, the owner of that property, live somewhere on that property, either in the ADU or in the principal residence. So those are all part of that deed restriction that makes it much easier to enforce than any other tool that's been given to a new rule that's been put in the zoning ordinance. And as Chris said, and we have met extensively with PVA David O'Neill to talk about how he interprets owner occupancy for property. And he says if they receive their tax bill at the same address, they are considered an owner occupant. Now, whether they spend the winters in Florida, that's not recorded in the PVA. There's only so much government can do to track down people in instances like this. But the government record that everyone has access to is the PVA record that says, where does the person who receives the tax bill live? And that's included in this as well. And by the way, I know I've used up all of your time, and I apologize for that, but a couple of things that are important. I want to say, in the event that we don't get to say it again, we concur with the need for a rental registration and licensing program. That has been needed in this community for a long time. Forty-five percent of your residents are renters. the ADU ordinance is not going to suddenly tip that to 85 percent of the residents in this community 45 percent have been renters for a long time and we fully support that it's going to be hard it's going to be hard to do that because there's going to be a lot of landlords who do not want to do that and there's going to be a lot of landlords who say I'm a good landlord and they are probably 90 percent are so why should I have to participate in a program that penalizes me well we're willing to work with you on that. We should have done it 10 years ago. If we don't get to it for another five years, then shame on us. We're still willing to work with you on that. And lastly, we would certainly commit to you on a time schedule of your choosing to give you a report out. This is relating to a pilot program. A report out on how ADUs are working in this community. And we can show you the problems and the successes and give you recommendations thank you thank you director councilmember did you have any other questions I do have potentially one other question but if you don't mind we can hear from some of our colleagues and if I could follow up maybe if it makes sense council members I'm inclined to give councilmember Legree a minute back so she go ahead and ask her question if y'all don't mind. Council member. Okay thank you chair. Thank you Mr. Duncan for that clarification. It sounds like a lot of the concerns I'm hearing are bound up in this question of potentially of a rental registry and regulation therein. Now do you think that it makes sense or that it it would be possible or in a way does this ZODA already accomplish the creation of a system of a registration and licensing and I guess the third thing would be inspection for these ADUs this is something I was thinking of when you're answering Councilmember McCurron's question this would not create a system of inspection that would still be done through our normal billing inspection process it doesn't grant us any additional rights it would create a registration just the mere fact of permitting and knowing where these units are is in fact creating a registration of accessory dwelling units we want to bring them under compliance they will have incentive to come in and get a zoning compliance permit for these because they'll want to be able to list them eventually when they sell them as an as a legal ADU and they won't be listed it and they won't be considered a legal ADU on our end if anyone calls and asks it's part of their due process and the title attorney calls and we get those all the time no zoning compliance permit it's not any it's not a legal ADU and so there is there is an incentive over time for people to come into compliance and get a zoning compliance permit we do feel that just legalizing these and creating a process for the permits is in fact a registration but it's not a license that's a that's a that's a different thing and it's not an enhanced inspection process those are again different elements they're different programs and and we cannot lump them all together for the purposes of saying that they're the same thing I'm good thank you thank you so much thank you yeah I'm gonna start getting a little strict on time so we're not here all night. Council member Reynolds. Thank you chair. I guess first I just you know I've heard from a lot of people on both sides of this and I'm really sympathetic to both sides but I think to be clear what what we heard tonight and what we know just correct me if I'm wrong is that currently the way things stand every single thing proposed in this ordinance is already legal currently to construct except for having a range and currently people can use any extra unit as a short-term rental there's not any restrictions on that right now is that correct the principal residence if there's just a single-family detached home that can be used as a short-term rental under as it's regulated in the code of ordinances today once a week there is no legal process for an accessory unit at all so if there's one that's being rented as a short-term rental now it's in an illegal ADU so we don't know where those are again unless there's a complaint we don't we don't know again that gets to the heart of trying to create a program to legalize something that we already know is out there and then create a path for a short-term rental if that's what somebody wants to do if they want to go through that rigorous process but I there is no approval process for a short-term rental in an adu today and I am interested I kind of echo some of council members agrees sentiments about being able to have policy around around adus because there are so many out there already some of my concerns well I have several concerns but one I wanted to ask in terms of the materials of the building it does concern me that there are no regulations around that because you could use metal when you have a brick house or a stone house and we don't want to have I care about aesthetics I don't want to have ugly structures everywhere and I know other people don't either is there a way that we could regulate that without it being too cumbersome that would that would be sort of a threshold change in our ordinance historically we have never regulated the materials in construction okay that might bring a whole new constituency from the home builders out in opposition because that would be sort of a stepping over the line into the future of regulating materials in such a way and that's not something we wanted to do we didn't want to antagonize a whole other constituency with starting to regulate those sorts of materials but again the owner occupancy requirement I think it's important for people to realize that there's the owners gonna live on this property and has their own incentive to make it a desirable and attractive product and while that our tastes are obviously very different you know we may not like the color of the shutters and the brick that our neighbors put in place but they ultimately are incentivized well I might disagree there because there's an instance in my district right now that I've been getting calls about but anyway all that just I was just curious so that that's helpful thank you very much and then the is there can you speak to this the stormwater and sewage issue that's another thing that my office gets a lot of complaints about and so I am concerned about how that I certainly can't speak to this gentleman's long history of specific you know issues related to sewage overflows I know that we've talked with the division of water quality we have asked them specifically about the modeling the assumptions that they use for average household size and single-family zones and what an ADU program would look like even if we had a wildly successful mass adoption ADU program and there was not a concern that on an individual level that these homes would generate enough sewage to that they wouldn't be able to function within the systems that said there are still areas in the capacity assurance program that are that aren't ready yet and we would verify that through that process but the division of water quality was much more I don't excited is the right term but they were they they liked the idea that it would be new construction in old neighborhoods that are lacking infrastructure that hasn't been updated over decades and decades and this would be a chance to make sure that when a new permit for something like this was pulled it would be a chance to modernize those connections redirect sump pumps correctly because those sump pump infiltrations are some of the bigger offenders in neighborhoods and they don't always know where they are and so they thought that that was a step in the right direction it doesn't obviously solve again I don't know what his specific issues are but water quality felt that this was was a positive okay thank you I was gonna ask one more thing but I can wait thank you councilmember next councilmember Sheehan thank you chair I feel like tonight we have heard many voices this evening from lots of different angles whether they're in support or in opposition it feels like there is a broad concern about our collective quality of life and what city we want to grow into right and what we want our future to look like here and i appreciate i want to say i appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this proposal i appreciate the willingness of everyone to come here and speak tonight and all the calls and emails and letters that we have received but i feel like i'm wearing a couple different hats here right so first as a representative of the fifth district we heard a lot from the fifth district tonight um on both sides but i'm we have a lot of very well-established neighborhoods and there are concerns about what how this will impact those when we don't have those hoa situations that would restrict this and unfortunately because these adus have been happening whether illegal or not whether it's an actual adu with a kitchen or not people have had some very personalized negative experiences right so those stick with us and those are very compelling and they they then create fear I think in our neighborhoods and I absolutely understand that and we've already started talking about some of the concerns that are coming from those so I'm not going to rehash them but then I'm also a member of the Senior Services Commission as a council member so I'm greatly concerned about the ability of meeting the needs of our like fastest growing sector in our community so people can age in place if they want to or have their support systems. But I'm also you know a parent and I have you know senior people in my family and I have a deep personal concern about the availability of affordable housing for people meeting the needs of families like we've been talking about. So I'm looking at this from all of these different angles. I do have some specific questions that I still feel like need to be addressed though in all of that and some of it has to do with this enforcement that we're talking about and how we are going to actually meet the needs of that enforcement and how kind of pitting neighbor against neighbor doesn't feel very community building you know I feel like those are real concerns that we have to address that affect our quality of life I want to go back a little bit to the short-term rental piece because that is a major concern that I'm hearing from my residents and in your first proposal like your first presentation you talked about how the short-term rental piece will be reviewed as if it like a like a bed and breakfast right now so could you talk a little bit about that and then I might have a follow-up well we have a process in our zoning ordinance for a bed and breakfast it specifies certain requirements that the owner live on site you know and that we there's language in the text that just ports over from the existing bed and breakfast and applies it to short-term rentals and again they're basically two sides of the same coin it's the same exact use except how you transact you know the rental and so treating them exactly the same from our standpoint again comes back to the equity issue of the ordinance like it's important to treat these uses the same just because one is done on an online platform so we're very comfortable putting the same exact restrictions for a regular bed and breakfast as we are on a short-term rental that is an onerous process and it really cuts down drastically the number of regular bed and breakfast we see applications for and again that's by design we think there is a perfectly acceptable use for people to rent overnight in there they're called hotels and that's a for it from a house from people who do housing for a living creating long-term housing options is our that's what we're tasked with doing and so we're not interested in creating residential commercial housing so that is a huge anvil on short-term rentals because all we have to do is if we get a complaint and that it's being run as a short-term rental we verify against the Department of Revenue's registration if it's not there or if they've had it even even have a legal ADU and then we can you know there's fines through the Department of Revenue you'll have done the heavy lifting administratively for us on creating that process so by us making it a short-term rental it's a simple check against that and if it's not there then then they're not in compliance so we feel like there's this is one of the easier things for us to enforce is a short-term rental with the provisions that are on here now and what does that look like for I know with the board of adjustment process for bread and bed and breakfast there's like a limit in a certain area is that a part of the consideration well the board can consider those sorts of factors as part of their deliberations that is something that the staff usually reports on as part of the process we would explain you know what other permitted bed and breakfast might be in the area same with again the short-term rentals talking about the density of a use like that would be part of the could be part of the Board of Adjustments findings for granting the approval but it is not a requirement in this in determining whether it gets approved or not there is no just by right approval from the board you know it's subject to their findings in their unique individual cases thank you thank Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. I just have a few questions. I'm just going to kind of rapid fire them because I have a lot. Okay. First, was a minimum lot size ever discussed? No. Okay. Any reason? Because it generally just does nothing but to eliminate lots that could potentially have one. That's something that cities and states do when they don't really want an ADU ordinance, basically. Okay. And I know we've talked individually about the setback being 18 inches. If it was to differ from any other current setback that we have, what would be a potential negative of that difference? Again, as I tried to point out in the presentation, if you change a detached structure setback for an ADU, then that means that an existing attached to you or detached structure could not be converted so that that would be a problem or if you applied it to all detached structures then it would make all of the existing garages and detached structures in the county non-conforming which makes it difficult for them to make any changes or enhancements or improvements over time once the structure is non-conforming it's very difficult for someone to do something different with it so that usually sort of a little cycle of decline in those sorts of situations so there are some negative impacts of changing one or the other but I mean staff would be if the council wanted wished you know that's not something that we're necessarily opposed to we brought it to the Planning Commission it was just their preference and I think it was good reasoning for keep keeping it as it was okay so we've heard several council members kind of throw this out there but I just want to kind of reinforce that everything that is proposed is allowed currently except for a kitchen. The full kitchen. A full kitchen. Correct. So if that's the case, then why propose a complete, a whole new ordinance versus just amending that part of the regulations currently? Like, why would we just do a blanket all over the place? Good question. The answer to that is because we want to encourage them, and that means legalizing them because they are small. they are incremental density and development in areas that may need it and we think that there's tons of national data supporting that these are desirable in the long run that once they're introduced and once they will see them they become desirable and so legalizing them is a way to make them easier more easily financed make them appraised meet me appraisals and we want it's a product we want to incentivize sure okay and then lastly if we pass this ordinance will existing structures be required to conform or how will we address that issue well like i said it's gonna it's gonna be a slow process for existing illegal ones to come into compliance or to come in for you know some we may never see because they may have been built in a way that they can't be compliant and so they'll always just be illegal structures for whatever reason and that's you know that's not typically uncommon but then again they won't be marketed and sold as such either. But we think that, you know, over the years, we will see, as properties turn over, we'll see most of them want to come in and get that compliance letter that states that it's a legal ADU. Okay, great. So I'm done with my questions. Just in closing, like, I have done so much research on ADUs. I feel like I'm part of the planning staff. Like, it's, I've talked to council members from other cities. Like, I'm really dug in deep on this one. So I really appreciate all of the work that planning has put into this, and I really appreciate your all's open mindedness to changing it and making it something that fits our community. I think someone earlier made a comment about developing a vision for our future. And I feel like this is one way that we do that. It's it's no secret that we have a housing shortage. It's no secret that we have an affordable housing shortage. Do I think that this is the end-all be-all solution to everything? Absolutely not. I have heard from numerous constituents. I mean, we're literally, I'm half and half on my district on how people are feeling about this. So, and my district is one that would be affected by it because we have huge slot sizes and very few HOAs. So I do see the benefit and I, but I do agree with some people that have spoken tonight saying that it's not going to be just used for for elderly parents or people that are differently abled like i understand that too but i do think that this could be an incremental way for us to move forward so i think we all still have more questions um but i'm willing to hear what everybody else has to say at this time thank you thank you council member Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair, and thanks to everybody who came tonight. And I think if it wasn't clear before tonight, it should be clear now that this is a very difficult issue for the community and the people of good faith see this issue differently for a whole variety of reasons. And I would say that on balance, I believe that we need to be moving in this direction, but I also believe that we've already amended what has been proposed a couple times and moved it in a direction that I think is more palatable to a broad, kind of the broad sense of our community. And so I'm interested not in cutting off the debate, but I'm interested in making some motions to amend and people can consider those. I'll start with, I've got three, and I'll start with the easy ones and then move forward. So the first, I believe, is the definition clarification, and I would move to support. Point of order, if I may. I was just going to ask if there were other questions to be asked before any motions could be engaged. Would you be willing to consider that, sir? I'd be willing to consider it, although I believe that questions can be asked as a part of the amending process. But if I'm just looking at the clock, I'll yield. There's only one council member I know that has not spoken yet, and so that was my only request. I'd be happy to yield the floor to Council Member Kloiber. thank you vice mayor councilmember clover thank you chair and again um i'm gonna i just want to echo a lot of the same concerns but i did have one somewhat unique concern so thanks for the extra time here um i know they talked about building materials and restrictions and obviously that but a lot of times when we're talking about zone changes we talk about the the context sensitivity how would this ordinance fit into that idea to make sure that these things do fit in with the neighborhoods that they're into in these situations so what what do we have in place to help with that well again without trying to regulate architectural you know the architecture across the community because our neighborhoods are so different architecturally we don't want to try to create architectural standards that apply all over the community what we tried to create were design standards that ensure that when you when you walk or drive down a single-family street that that you can't tell that it still looks and always remains by appearance a single-family neighborhood and so again it's about making sure that new entrances are not visible from the street that any stairs are off to the sides or to the rear of these structures it's about making sure that that that the new way that the ADU doesn't tower and loom over the original principal structure and so there's there's height restrictions that make sure that they can't be taller than the principal structure it's all about maintaining the scale of these structures the 800 square feet again the capping the size of these units is about making sure that they stay subordinate to the principal structure we feel like these are are broad enough to apply everywhere but specific enough to make sure that no matter where you put them that they're going to remain contextual so that's that's been our goal is to try to be as minimal as possible but have been sure that the core elements of a single family neighborhood are maintained so in keeping with that my understanding is there are design guidelines that we will be presenting people with but they are not submitting drawings or any kind of thing with their their permit process they would have to document compliance with these standards and that it often cases is going to mean some sort of rendering or site plan yes okay thank you councilmember Maloney was it was it questions that you wanted to step back vice mayor you mine and then I wanted to say some comments before we start making motions if you don't mind. The council member. The question I have is I went with Major, I mean Chief Wells the other day, driver around and he made me look where fire problems are. As I look at this setback at three feet like three feet from the fence and if there's a fire in front of these one of these units have you talked to the fire department? Are they going to be able to get back through between those two six feet in that fence? I'm just looking from a safety standpoint. When we met with the fire department, their concern primarily was making sure we had proper addressing procedures in place and that they were a sign off on the process they felt that it that the fire code and building code issues would govern you know if they want to build it at 18 inches that triggers certain building code and fire code expectations and requirements so just because we allow it at 18 inches or whether it's changed to three feet there's more than just zoning that's going to regulate the construction of those buildings and it's and those other codes are going to dictate if they want if they're willing to pay for fire rating or have certain windows and those sorts of things that that's part of the homeowners process and again you know I know we don't we have set for time here but part of the accessory dwelling unit manual that we created walks individual homeowners through these types of considerations and makes them aware that whatever you think you may want to build may not work on your site with your lot in every circumstance and that's part of the pre-application process is that we want to make sure that that a citizen developer is able to to understand those types of issues. All right thank you Councilmember Maloney and before I turn it back over to Vice Mayor Kay I just want to say that I appreciate all the comments and concerns that council members shared. I share some of them I think ADUs are a way to address some housing affordability issues in the city but like Councilmember Baxter said it's not going to be the if all say all to it. So I think there may be some amendments that we can make to the ordinance as it exists that could give us the opportunity to try to move this item forward. But just for the clarity and the public's sake, this is just a committee meeting. All council members have the opportunity to vote, but this item is still in committee, and if somebody makes a motion to move it out, it just moves it to the full council. So I just want to clarify that to the public. So with that, and then the other thing, some of the items in the ordinance addresses other issues that are before this council, and one of them is short-term rentals. I think it actually sets the stage for us to have a better, more informed conversation as we work to address some issues surrounding short-term rentals going forward. So thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair. So the simplest one is I would move to amend the definition clarification, Article 1, to add the phrase single family detached, as has been described by our staff. So move. All right, a motion's been made for definition clarification and seconded. Who was that, Council Member Baxter? All right, are there any questions on the motion? Council Member Lamb? Thank you. If you can either allow planning or if you want to, I mean, just to explain it a little bit more. It's a very, very small print up there. And not that I'm totally blind, but. The original text did not differentiate. Can you take your mask off? And talk slowly. sorry please it's been a long day the original text did not well it the original text created ADUs as a accessory use in single-family residential zones including R1T because there are some single-family detached in R1T that predates the ordinance it would not and so if it weren't in R1T it really wouldn't be an issue however since it is and in R3 we needed to make sure we did clarify this definition so that it was only allowed for a single family detached dwelling thank you thank you there any other questions on that amendment CNN I'll call it to a vote all those in favor please say aye any Any opposed say nay. It looks like that motion has passed for that amendment. Vice Mayor. Thank you again. Secondly, I would like to make a motion that reflects the comments that Councilman Maloney has made. This would be an Article D, I mean Article 3A, minimum ADU size 800 square feet, if we could get that put up. to add language which would say except in conversion. There is no limit on size for the conversion of existing basement to an ADU so long as the conversion remains within the footprint of the structure. Second. All right, a motion has been made to amend Option D, Article 3, as full basement conversion and seconded by Council Member Maloney. Is there any questions or Council Member Lamb? Again, I'm just going to ask for further clarification from planning staff just so that everybody understands. I'm sorry. Thank you. So, again, the maximum was an 800 square foot across the board. This allows for the conversion. Again, there's no limit for the size for an ADU for the conversion of an existing basement to an ADU so long as the conversion remains within the original footprint of the structure. So we're talking about the actual dwelling unit, whatever size of the basement that is. Generally, that's going to be 50% or less because it's not going to be the entire space, and very rarely are there basements that go bigger than the upstairs. So in general, that's a 50% of the structure or less. Thank you. It helps, too, to have these up on the slide that wasn't up there when you were talking, so just about. Thank you. All right. So that was clarification. Are there any other questions in regards to this motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes as amended. Thank you. I've got one more, and this is more substantive, so I want to talk a little bit about it. I think there's an interest generally in making ADUs possible, And there are some concerns about how the implementation would go out. So I'm going to propose an amendment that is a half step and it kind of reflects the interest that someone mentioned of doing a pilot. This would be a slower version. We would start with some limits on the actual ability to have an ADU. And the proposal would be to eliminate detached structures as a possibility. So right now there are four possibilities. One is new construction, detached units. Second, I've not got the right page. You can have an addition to your house, you can convert a garage, or you can convert your basement. So there's three options that would remain. It would give us a chance to see if in fact the implementation of ADUs actually created some of the difficulties that people have suggested might occur. But it also, it's a step forward. It's movement. I believe removing the detached units takes away not all the objections that people have raised, but a significant number of them. And it's much less of an impact on any particular piece of property. So my motion is to take all the language out that are in Article I that would allow for the construction of detached units to be used as ADUs. So move. All right. A motion has been made to amend Option A, Article I, and then also Option A, Article III, and seconded by Councilmember Plowman. I'll let you get that text up. Are there any questions on the motion? Chris? Yeah, this goes throughout the text, so if you don't mind, I'd like to maybe walk through the different sections of the ordinance, if that's okay, Vice Mayor. That'd be fine. I think that would be helpful. Okay. So, again, this starts with the definition in Article 1. It would remove the detached reference, and it just simply moves the attached language up into the regular text for the definition. The rest of the references then come in Article 3. There's references under certain sections where it says different provisions for a detached ADU. so under 3-12E you see the reference deleted in blue and that carries on over sorry I'm going to have to move it through and again it clarifies but there's no need for the language on for an attached vert so we delete that and it deletes the sections for detached same with the yard requirements so basically anywhere in 3-12 where it creates separate standards for a detached ADU and specifies an attached it just simply clarifies it down for the one type and then it refers back to the definition since there's only one type of ADU and those are those are the changes that they're limited to article one or article one of the definition and article 3-12 where we regulate them Council member Lamb? Yeah, councilman, I seen you first. Council member McKern. You assumed wrong. Thank you, Chair. A quick question for you, Chris. Would this be included, this remove garages as well from that language? It would mean that a converted, there could be no conversion of an existing detached structure, yes. It would eliminate the day to you from any detached. And I don't, Vice Mayor, I don't think I see that. That's not the motion I was making. Okay. Apologize. That is not the motion I was making. A conversion would still be allowed. So you're talking a new construction. I'm just taking out new detached structure. Apologies. Thank you, and I appreciate that clarification. But then to clarify even further, would a new garage with a new ADU on top of it be allowed? Would that be permitted? No. I think a new garage with a new deta- that had a kitchen in it would not be allowed. Okay. Okay. And that's what I was looking to clarify. Thank you. So, just for clarity's sake, so it would have to be an existing garage conversion, not a new garage? Yes, that's correct. And I apologize for the confusion, Vice Mayor. Okay. Council Member Lamb. Thank you. Okay. Okay, so we talked about how that this new, the new language is going to enable us to look at registration and start the registration process for new ADUs, but also to go back and begin on existing at some point. would this motion impact the ability to go back and look at existing illegal or not compliant ADUs? I don't believe so because the Vice Mayor's changes is to allow conversions of existing spaces so that would still there would still be an incentive for them to come into compliance or to make changes and modify so I still think that what we would see in those cases which it would just be like I said just not the new new construction but so yeah I think with the conversion still on the table we would still see opportunities to bring into compliance existing detached structures okay that that's really important to me because I want to make sure that we can go and capture the ones that are existing out there still even if we're not allowing new detached ADUs at this time so okay thank you thank you thank you councilmember councilmember Liguri thank you chair vice mayor this may be a question for you about this change you mentioned when you were making this amendment kind of that it's in alignment with the idea of a pilot program of sorts so would there there still remain the possibility to revisit based on the use and what we're seeing with the data, the idea of adding in this other option that we just removed. Well, that would always be possible. Okay. With any of our regulations, it's always possible to amend. So yes, that would be at a later time. Okay. Yes. That's all. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Worley. Thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor, I appreciate what your intent here is, and I think it's always when you're making large change, incremental change is valuable. But with this particular change, I feel like we create an equity issue here for folks that just happen to have a garage versus folks that don't. What's for the family with a disabled family member or an elderly family member that just doesn't have an old dilapidated garage to fix up? What can they do? So in that situation, that property owner, that family cannot take advantage of what we're trying to do here. And of course, we know there are going to be other uses, and we are concerned about that. But that's a primary use that we've talked about for years now that would be denied that family. And then I also think of just the logistical nightmare and the administrative nightmare for our folks who we hear may need to step up some compliance enforcement work. But this creates another issue for them because who's to say that someone builds a garage this year and gets that permitted and now they have a garage. And then they convert that into an ADU the next year. And so now they've, for all practical purposes, built a brand new ADU. So I understand the intent here to slow roll this a little bit, but I think that either we can't deny some people this opportunity and give it to others simply based on whether there is an existing old structure on the property. So I won't support the amendment. I appreciate its intent, but I can't support it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Worley. Councilmember Reynolds unless planning had any follow-up on that comment I'm a little bit concerned that the language that we that we worked up and provided was for the removal of fully of detached ADUs and I think just being fully transparent here I think we may need to tweak some things in this revision to make sure that it would specifically still allow the conversion of a detached structure so we may need some time to make that adjustment so I think that would be fine as long as you have the intent I think we still have time for you to do a craft and work on the exact language for this committee and council to consider yeah I would just say I think based on the whatever the record is after this meeting that certainly by the time of any report out at work session you will have the opportunity that we can do for sure councilmember Reynolds. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Vice Mayor, for putting something together that, yes, is a slow rollout or is a smaller step. I am a little bit concerned about this, and I am sorry that I'm asking for clarification because we've already been over this, but I'm still confused. So if I have a house and I want to add an addition to my house, and then I decided to put a kitchen in it with a range, would that be allowed under this amendment? You just described the situation where most illegal ADUs are constructed. Right. So now with this. Yes, that would be legal. That would be legal now. Correct. Under this ordinance, the proposal. With the amendment? Yes. Okay, that's what I'm asking. Yes, that was for an addition on an existing structure. In addition to a principal structure, it wouldn't change. It was just for the detached. Okay. So as long as it's connected to my house, I can add on and add a kitchen, and that's all legal now? Yes. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor, for bringing this amendment forward. I do agree with the intent of it as well, but I tend to also agree with Council Member Worley. I feel like this is going to create a lot of loopholes. And I feel like it's just a way for people to make it work for them. I feel like the proposed ordinance seems to be a little clearer on intent. I see it as a nice compromise between what the neighborhood's concerns are and what we're proposing. But I do have some concerns about it creating loopholes. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Maloney. I, too, have a question about your motion. If I have a garage that's already been exist, in a year from now, if this motion pass, will I be able to do the problem? Mike. I'm not hearing well tonight. I got sinus infection. I heard your motion. I'm confused about it, so just be patient with me. If I don't have a garage, I already exist, and I don't have any ADU or nothing in there. we passed the ordinance tonight that your amendment does that mean that I will not be able to go into that garage next year and put a range in there and build me an ADU in that house in that garage no no it does not what the amendment does not does not restrict conversion of garages it does not do that. All right, thank you. Vice Marquet, will you sign up again? Thank you, Chair. So just to be clear, what the amendment does, Because I think, is it removes some of the major objections that people have about ADUs. And it's permissive about all the rest. Now, I kind of appreciate the thought that this is going to be unfair some way in its application, but, I mean, let's be clear. Some people don't have basements and they can't convert. And some people don't have attics. And some people don't have the funds to add on to their house. So this is just taking one option off the table. And are there loopholes? Perhaps, but I would argue that it's worth taking that risk in order to move this forward and to have a community where some kind of ADU is permissible. Thank you, Chair. Thank You Vice Mayor. Councilmember Lamb. Thank you and I have really appreciated all of this conversation because I at first I wasn't going to, I didn't think I could be supportive of the what you were talking about. However, I think how could support it is as we've talked about it being reviewed and if we put the language in the ordinance stating that that for the at the at a year from it the time it's created that it comes back to the Planning and Public Safety Committee with a update or an overview of of how things have have how they have worked I mean if if we can put in there I mean it's it's great as long as we have people that will remember a year from whenever this is approved if it is approved that you remember that you're going to bring it back to the council and and but we might you know there might be lots of changes and there might be all new people and they don't remember to do it but if you put it in an ordinance and somebody pays attention to the ordinance which has happened in the past it's true that that you look at the ordinance and you say oh wait a minute we're supposed to bring this back so that that we can that the council can actually look at what this these changes have done and have have they there been instances where that that people have come to the planning staff and wanted to do something but we're not able to I think that that would be very important to be able to track the haves and have-nots. So I would like to further clutter things and add, in order for me to support this motion, I have to make an amendment to the vice mayor's motion and add the language into the ordinance that this will be brought back and reviewed before the Planning and Public Safety Committee within a year after it is created. I so move. All right, a motion has been made to amend the amendment to include a review timeline and seconded by Council Member Reynolds. Are there any questions on the amendment? Council Member Clover. Yes, Council Member Lamb. Is this envisioned as a sunset provision, as in the ordinance, or it's just to bring it back to review it? It has no bearing on the ordinance itself. It has no bearing on the ordinance whatsoever. It's just it's showing the intention so that a year from the time it's created that there's a specific timeline for it to be reviewed. And at that point, everybody gets to look at it and see. And if it's doing well, then that's fantastic. It stays. But if there are a lot of opportunities where the planning staff has said that they've had nobody wanting to add ADUs to their existing structures, but they've had 100 people wanting to build separate buildings, then it's an opportunity for a conversation. That's all. Okay. I mean, I'm definitely in favor of having the conversation and setting on calendar. I just don't, I didn't know if putting that into the ordinance itself was the proper course of action for that. And I will defer to those with more seniority on the council on that matter. Thank you. And I'll just say this as a point of reference. I think the Affordable Housing Fund ordinance has an annual presentation referencing it to council. So it's not that foreign. I think Council Member Worley was next. Are you fine? Councilmember Brown. I want to speak to the amendment. You know, if you've got an ordinance there, I don't think you have to put an amendment in there to bring it back. I think technically you could do that as part of the minutes of this meeting, but to put that in ordinance form, I think it waters it down to some extent that, hey, a year from now, all you people that have already started your construction, wait a minute, you can't do that because we're going to change the ordinance. So that's what I'm thinking. I just don't like that caveat in the ordinance itself. I don't mind the – I think it's good intentions, but I don't think it should be part of the ordinance. Okay, thanks. Council Member Maloney. My question, I understand where you're coming from, Councilmember. I'm just wondering, shouldn't we have already gone on to vote on this motion, the original motion, and then you come back and say, I'd like to put this into, this be studied in a year from now, instead of putting it out. I mean, I don't, I usually that's the way it's been done before. I just, the first time, I have to agree. I have not known that we put something in a zoning or regulation that we report. We would check it every year. I'm just trying to get clarification. From a procedural mechanism, even while I'm sure our administrator has it, I've got my notes. I know where we stand on how it's been amended. So I think we're good on that. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you. I do think I agree with Councilmember Lamb because this is such a complex issue with so many different angles. And I think that we need to say as we're doing this that we're going to look at it again in a year and that we are going to make changes in a year if it's not working, if we can improve it, if we can expand it, if we can say we're not doing it at all. I mean, because without making that clear and having a date almost of doing that, then we're not holding ourselves accountable. So, thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kay. Thank you, Chair. And I appreciate the intent of the motion. I can support the motion, but I will also say this. If a majority of this body thinks that it does not belong in the ordinance, I will make a motion before we adjourn to place it in committee for review in one year. Thank you, Chair. All right, thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Laguri. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Lam for asking for this addition. However, it actually does play out. I think it is important that we revisit this in one year if we're going to move forward with the amendment the Vice Mayor Kay proposed. Personally, I am in alignment with Council Member Worley on this, because I don't want people to be penalized who don't have garages or don't want them, but who would want a detached structure. At the same time, I do hear my neighborhood concerns from the third district council district. So I feel a little bit split and therefore, as representative of the third district, I'm inclined to support the amendment. But I feel very strongly that we should review this so we also review the option of bringing in the detached structure should this move forward thank you for that councilmember Lamb thank you and I know that unfortunately or fortunately my knowledge of the in-depthness of ordinances is probably a lot more in depth than a lot of people but I will say that there are sections within ordinances that are not codified in the zoning ordinance that actually spell out things that we and the government administration follows quite frequently there are times where there are instructions set out in in ordinances and resolutions so it's not something that is foreign to this body nor this government and it is simply a reminder because an ordinance is kept permanently and minutes are great and summaries are great but they're not always you know always at the forefront of what we're looking at so I just know from my significant experience that if something is in a ordinance or a resolution that it is going to be easier to track and again God forbid that there are a whole new set of people up here you know things happen so and I and to be further just pointed about it I Without the amendment, I cannot support. Without my amendment, I'm not going to be able to support knowing Vice Mayor's amendments. So, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lamb. And, Stacey, just for clarity purposes, I had mentioned an annual review just comparing it to the affordable housing, but you said that you had recorded it as just a review in a year's time. Yes, that's correct. I had it as just a review in a year from now, not an annual review. Okay. All right. Seeing no further questions or comments, all those in favor of the amendment to the amendment, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. I think the ayes have it. I think that motion passes. Yeah, we'll do it on a voting screen. We could do the voting screen. Yeah. All right, so it looks like that motion passes. So then we're back to the original amendment. Do we need to restate the original amendment? and it's to remove the detached, the detached, the new detached units from the ordinance. All those in favor of that amendment say aye. I'm sorry. I think the director had a clarification. Mr. Chair, I appreciate you allowing me to speak in the middle of a procedure like this. I will tell you that a lot of talk was made tonight about enforcement, and I am very concerned about enforcing a split responsibility like this. I'm afraid that I can envision a loophole where you get a building permit to build a garage in September, and you come back in November and seek a permit to make that garage into an ADU. So I'm very concerned about enforcement. I understand the sentiment. My recommendation is if we're concerned about detached, that we go all the way, rather than trying to split that. But I'm telling you that from an enforcement standpoint, Mr. Chair. Thank you for allowing me. Thank you for that clarification. My first inclination, Council Member McCurron. Thank you, Chair. director I appreciate you saying that because I believe that's exactly what councilmember really was saying from the get-go with it too and I would I would love to support this amendment but I would love to see if it's a new garage that comes in that they can have the ad you attached with it as well I mean that that's what I would like to see no is if it's just a standalone ad you then we take that part out but if we have a new garage or a garage that's currently in place, then you can build an ADU on top of it. That's how I would prefer to see it moving forward. If that's not the intent of the vice mayor, then I would like to move and make an amendment to this that we would have it as just that. Is that a motion? Sorry. Go ahead. I'll wait here for a second. Can you just clarify? I'm not sure I understand. So I'm looking for the, if you want to build a brand new garage, you get a permit for a brand new garage, and then you want to put an ADU on top of it, and you go through the approval process and everything, just like regularly, that should be okay. But if you want just a separate detached ADU, not on a garage, just a regular standalone ADU, that's what we are not allowing right now. And we come back and assess in a year. the garage is okay the addition is okay the attic is okay the basement is okay it's just a standalone structure that is not okay let me let me if you don't mind i'd almost like but just to just to kind of keep us moving forward i if we take a vote on the motion and ask planning to think about it a little more and see if there If there is truly an enforcement issue or maybe there's some wording that we can grandfather structures in to kind of meet the sentiment of the vice mayor's motion, then maybe we address that at our next meeting. But if you all think that's too cumbersome, then we can hash it all out now. Councilmember Klover was signed in to speak. That was just a suggestion on my part. Councilmember Klover. Thank you, Chair. just a quick kind of solution that might address all of this is if we put a date certain on on the permits or on the construction of said pre-existing buildings so that this adu didn't apply to any detached structures that were built or constructed after that date would that solve that enforcement requirement because then we had that specific date where any structures that existed before that would fall into this yes you could do something like that So did everybody understand that? It's kind of the same point, is that there's a way to grandfather in structures and then that way it still allows for conversion. But then also has the opportunity to eliminate loopholes as we look at what this looks like going forward. All right, if there are no questions on that, then I'll. Vice Mayor Kaye. I'm sorry. So I guess the question is, Council Member Clover, did you want to amend my amendment? Because that changes it. I have no objection. Yes, I wanted to see if there was any discussion, but if it's something that fixes the problem, as Director Duncan has said, then yes. I would like to make a motion to put a date certain for grandfathered in convertible units as opposed to moving forward. Second. All right, a motion has been made to amend the amendment to put a date certain for structures built. Is there any question to that? Council Member Worley? Thank you, Chair. And I brought up this loophole issue, and certainly this would potentially fix that loophole issue, but it doesn't fix the general equity issue of those who want to house an elderly relative or a disabled relative or try to supplement their income. And so it's not being offered to all of our residents. It's only being offered to those that happen to have a garage, regardless of what condition it may be in. So I can't support this version of it. While it fixes half of my objection to the Vice Mayor's original motion, I still see it unresolved. Either we have them or we don't. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Maloney? I want to echo what Council Member Worthy said. And what do you, I want to know when we ask the constituents why we took out, they can't afford garages. I mean, you're talking a garage can cost you $50,000 to $100,000 to $200,000 to people up to compliance. And they have enough money to put in one of those units for 800 square foot that could be $70,000 or less for their use. why are we not wanting that in there? Because to me that was the whole intention of ADU, what I've defined from the commission disability to all these folks have been calling me, they cannot afford a garage, but they can afford hopefully a unit in their backyard to take care of the person who's disabled or their elderly. Why are we going off track on that? I mean, that's my question, and I just want to know why we're not putting that in there, and how do you answer those people why we didn't put that in there, but we're putting garages in there. All right, thank you, Council Member Maloney. Are there any other questions or comments to the amendment? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and call the vote on the amendment to the amendment, and that's to add a date certain as far as permitting. All those in favor of that amendment, please say aye. Aye. Are those any opposed? No. I think the ayes have it. So I'll go back to the original amendment. All right. All right, it's on your screen. The council discussion, the men option A, article 1, option A, article 3, to eliminate references to detached structures as a possibility for new construction. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? No. Let's get a screen for that vote, please. All right, that motion passes. Are there any other conversations or any other questions or motions at the time? Is it the council's pleasure to move this item forward to the full council for consideration? No more. All right, a motion has been made. Second. When? So we have a meeting scheduled for September the 21st of this month, but I think it would probably be more appropriate to report it out in November at the November Planning and Public Safety meeting. November 2nd meeting. Just out of transparency, to turn it around in a week, When it's such a hot topic, I think would just give more folks the opportunity to take a look at it. Vice Mayor Kaye. Yes, I agree. I think people need to, council understands, but everybody needs to understand that moving this forward does not preclude further input from the community. That there'll be an opportunity, first there'll be an opportunity at a work session for about whether to put it on the docket, then there'll be an opportunity if the council moves it forward to the docket to have further input. So, but I think allowing some time to elapse would be a good thing. So if you're looking for a motion to move it forward to the, whatever the date is. November the second. November second. All right, a motion's been made, and Council Member Brown, did it still have your second? Or did you? I think the motion did not, the original motion did not have a date on it. I think they just need to add a date. Okay. So a new motion with a date made by Council Member, I mean, Vice Mayor Kay, seconded by Council Member Brown, or is it the other way around? Made by Council Member Brown and seconded by Vice Mayor Kay. Help me. I don't have any date, Chair, on mine. I would prefer the sooner the better. We've hashed this thing out for three years, and I think we've got pretty good consensus. Council Member Brown, I have the motion recorded as to report this out to the full council at the November 2nd work session as a PPS committee report. Okay. Who made the motion? I had Fred Brown make the motion, and I just. put the date on there when Vice Mayor Kay suggested the date. Is that acceptable, Council Member Brown? What date is that? November the 2nd. Okay. All right, seconded by Vice Mayor Kay. Are there any questions about that motion? Council Member Lamb? Yes. With all due respect to all that conversation, I know that there are times where we can report out at a meeting that doesn't have to have to be on the same day as planning the regular committee meeting and so in light of what I think has been I'd like to look at a date in October that that still gives a month But it doesn't wait two months down the road. So I would like to, here we go again, amend the motion to change it to report out to the October 12th work session. So move. A motion to amend the report out date to October the, what did you say, was it the 12th? October 12th, sir. October 12th. It was made by Council Member Lamb, seconded by Council Member Brown. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, so back to the original motion to report out this to the full council. Any questions about that motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion passes. I thank everybody for the patience and time, and I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. All right, seeing no objection, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.