# Planning Commission Zoning Public Hearing - January 27, 2022 > Auto-transcribed civic record · January 27, 2022 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5512 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5512?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2022-01-27 - **Last revised**: January 27, 2022 - **Length**: 32,090 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission held a meeting on January 27, 2022, at 1:30 PM via video teleconference. The commission addressed three main agenda items during the session, including the approval of minutes from a previous meeting, consideration of a zoning map amendment request from Harrodsburg Road LLC, and the initiation of a zoning ordinance text amendment. During the meeting, the commission conducted five motions and votes on various matters before them. Three members of the public provided comments during the public comment period, offering input on items under consideration. The commission approved the meeting minutes and moved forward with initiating a zoning ordinance text amendment, while denying the Harrodsburg Road LLC zoning map amendment request. The meeting was conducted remotely, reflecting continued adaptations to public meeting formats during the ongoing pandemic period. ## Attendance The following members were present at the meeting on January 27, 2022: • Headley Bell • Janice Meyer • Judy Worth • Vaughan Adkins No members were reported as absent or late for this meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The commission took action on five items during the January 27, 2022 meeting. **Minutes Approval** [timestamp: 00:30] The commission approved the minutes from the December 16, 2021 meeting by voice vote on a motion by a Commissioner. **PLN-MAR-21-00020 Postponement** [timestamp: 02:00] The Chairman moved to postpone the zoning map amendment request for 340 Legion Drive, with a second by Ms. Meyer. The motion passed by voice vote, postponing the item to February 10, 2022. **PLN-MAR-21-00016 Zoning Amendment** [timestamp: 03:00] Mr. Nicol moved to approve the zoning map amendment for Harrodsburg Road LLC, seconded by Mr. Penn. The motion failed on a roll call vote, with only Mr. Nicol and Mr. Penn voting in favor. **Development Plan Postponement** [timestamp: 03:30] Following the failed zoning amendment, Mr. Nicol moved for indefinite postponement of the development plan for Harrodsburg Road LLC. The motion passed by voice vote. **Zoning Text Amendment Initiation** [timestamp: 04:00] Ms. Meyer moved to initiate a zoning ordinance text amendment regarding family childcare facilities. The motion passed by voice vote. All voice votes passed without recorded opposition except for the Harrodsburg Road LLC zoning map amendment, which failed to receive sufficient support despite having two commissioners voting in favor. ## Public Comment Three residents spoke during the public comment period, all expressing support for a zoning proposal under consideration. Scott Sandberg addressed the board first [timestamp: 02:30], voicing his support for the proposal that includes townhomes and density that complements the existing neighborhood. He indicated the development would be compatible with the surrounding area. Carl followed [timestamp: 02:35], also expressing support for the same zoning proposal. Like Sandberg, he emphasized that the townhomes and proposed density would complement the existing neighborhood character. Sam Dunne concluded the public comment period [timestamp: 02:40] by expressing support for the proposed development. Dunne specifically cited the proposal's compatibility with the neighborhood as a key reason for his endorsement. All three speakers focused exclusively on the zoning proposal, with no opposition voiced during this portion of the meeting. The consistent theme among the commenters was support for the development based on its perceived compatibility with the existing neighborhood and appropriate density levels for the area. ## Contested Items The January 27, 2022 meeting featured one primary contested item that drew significant community opposition. **Harrodsburg Road LLC Zoning Map Amendment** The Harrodsburg Road LLC Zoning Map Amendment proposal encountered substantial resistance from community members during the meeting. The primary concerns raised by opponents centered on two key issues: potential traffic impacts and questions about the proposal's compatibility with the existing neighborhood character. Community members who spoke against the amendment expressed worries that the proposed zoning change would generate additional traffic in an area already experiencing congestion concerns. Residents also questioned whether the development that would be enabled by the zoning amendment would be appropriate for the surrounding neighborhood context. The opposition appeared to be organized, with multiple community members voicing similar concerns about the traffic and compatibility issues. This level of coordinated community engagement suggested that local residents had been actively discussing and organizing around their opposition to the proposal prior to the meeting. The structured nature of the community opposition, focusing on specific impacts like traffic generation and neighborhood compatibility, indicated that residents had conducted their own analysis of the potential effects of the zoning change. These are common concerns raised in zoning amendment cases, as community members often worry about how changes to land use regulations might affect their daily lives and property values. The meeting materials do not specify the ultimate outcome of this contested item or whether the commission took action on the Harrodsburg Road LLC Zoning Map Amendment during this session. ## Approval of Minutes [timestamp: 00:30] The commission considered the approval of minutes from their previous meeting held on December 16, 2021. A Commissioner presented the minutes for review and approval by the body. The minutes were approved without recorded discussion or amendments, indicating no concerns were raised regarding the accuracy or completeness of the December 16, 2021 meeting record. **Outcome:** The minutes from the December 16, 2021 meeting were approved. ## Harrodsburg Road LLC Zoning Map Amendment [timestamp: 03:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-MAR-21-00016, a zoning map amendment request from Harrodsburg Road LLC to rezone property from Agricultural Urban to Highway Service Business and Planned Neighborhood Residential. Key speakers during the discussion included Bruce Simpson and Hal Baillie, who presented details about the proposed zoning changes and addressed questions from commissioners. The request sought to change the current Agricultural Urban zoning designation to allow for both commercial Highway Service Business uses and residential Planned Neighborhood Residential development on the property. This type of mixed-use rezoning would enable different types of development than what is currently permitted under the existing agricultural zoning. Following discussion and consideration of the proposal, the Planning Commission voted to deny the zoning map amendment request. The denial means the property will retain its current Agricultural Urban zoning classification, and the applicant would need to submit a new application or appeal the decision to pursue the proposed zoning changes. The specific concerns raised during the discussion or the reasoning behind the commission's decision to deny the request were not detailed in the available information, but the outcome represents a rejection of the proposed zoning changes for this Harrodsburg Road property. ## Initiation of Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment [timestamp: 04:00] The council considered a staff request to initiate a text amendment to the Zoning Ordinance concerning family childcare facilities in residential zones. Ms. Meyer presented the item on behalf of staff. The proposed text amendment would address regulations for family childcare facilities operating within residential zoning districts. Staff requested the council's approval to begin the formal amendment process, which would allow for further development and public review of specific regulatory changes. The council approved the staff's request to initiate the zoning ordinance text amendment process. This approval allows staff to proceed with drafting the specific language for the amendment and scheduling the required public hearings and review procedures. The initiation represents the first step in what will be a multi-stage process to modify how family childcare facilities are regulated in residential areas within the municipality's zoning code. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of minutes from December 16, 2021 meeting - **PLN-MAR-21-00020** — postponed (0-0): Postponement request for zoning map amendment at 340 Legion Drive - **PLN-MAR-21-00016** — failed (0-0): Zoning map amendment for Harrodsburg Road LLC - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Indefinite postponement of development plan for Harrodsburg Road LLC - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Initiation of a zoning ordinance text amendment regarding family childcare facilities --- ## Full transcript Thank you. meeting, planning commission meeting. We call the meeting to come over. And the first item on the agenda today is the approval of minutes. Does anybody have any changes to the minutes? Sorry, did we check with Lex TV? They are. Lex TV, we are live now? We are. Thank you. Does anybody have any commitments to the minutes or a motion for approval? So I'll move. Seconded by Mr. Fnell, Commissioner Penn and Commissioner Fnell, thank you so much. All in favor? Medits are approved. Postponements and withdrawals. Do we have any postponements or withdrawals today? Sir, we have one hand raised. Mr. Zach Cato, Billings Law Fund. Would you like to bring him in? Good morning, Mr. Cato. Mr. Cato, you've been brought in as a panelist. You can go ahead and start your video. Good afternoon. I'm here with regard to request postponement for item 2A on page 5. This is PLN MAR 21-20 Calgill at 340 Legion Drive. We had reworked this plan a little bit and had made some changes to get rid of a variance request. But because we will need a conditional use permit, we needed some additional time to get the notices out under the statute. That's been done. So I think now we would be set a request to be postponed to the February 10th planning commission hearing to be heard at that time. Thank you, Mr. Cato. We have a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that the CAV will be postponed until February the 10th. Allow them to finish their work. Thank you, Mr. Smith. We have a second. Ms. Meyer? Thank you so much. Motion and a second. All in favor? So moved. Thank you. All right. Now we will begin on page two, zoning items, and the first item here at for Road, LLC. Miss Worth is having some technical difficulties. Miss Worth, I believe that you need to be on screen to participate. If you would like, we can just delay just for a second to see if you can join on. All planning commission members should have all their videos on during the entirety of the zone change discussion for the public hearing today. Stephanie, do you see if she's in the panel? She's not. She's an attendee. reverse up. And she's not even going to send it. Yeah, PC. Ms. Worth, we're getting you promoted right now. There you are. All right. Thank you very much. And you are still muted, just as a heads up. I have a new operating system on my computer, and everything is not working as well as it used to, but I'm working on it. Sorry. Thank you very much. And, sir, I will. Ladies and gentlemen, this is PLNMAR 21-00016, an application submitted by Harrodsburg Road, LLC. C. This is a zone change for the property located at 4085 Harrisburg Road. The applicant is seeking a zone change from the agricultural urban to two separate zones, the B3, or the Highway Service Business Zone, and the R3, or the Planned Neighborhood Residential Zone, for a total area of 11.76 net at 13.125 gross acres. The petitioner is proposing this rezoning in the hope to develop two separate sites or portions of the property to allow for the construction of the continuation of the commercial shopping center located on the corner of Manivore Boulevard and Harrisburg Road, known as the Fountains of Palomar. This continuation of the shopping center would include six outlots for retail sales. The development proposes to have access from an internal connection to the neighboring commercial center, as well as direct access to and from Harrodsburg Road. Additionally, the petitioner is seeking to rezone the rear of the property to that planned neighborhood residential zone to allow for the construction of 21 single-family dwelling units, blending attached and detached units. This residential development is proposed to be completely separated from the commercial development with sole access from Serenda Drive. Just getting into the location of the site, we are located along Harrodsburg Road, just south of Man of War Boulevard. This is as we are traveling south out of town towards Jesmond County. We are located close to the Urban Service boundary located along here. Jumping in a little bit closer, we get an idea of what the current zoning of the area looks like. It is a blend of residential and commercial zoning. The residential zoning is comprised of single-family detached homes in the R1D and R1C zones, as well as some within the planned neighborhood residential or the R3 zone located to the north. There is a bit of R4 zone, the high-density apartment zone, located across Harrodsburg Road with a small portion of R1T within proximity of the property. There's also a remnant piece of agricultural urban across Harrodsburg Road, and there has been a fair amount of restrictions placed on some of the more recently rezoned properties through conditional zoning restrictions. This is an aerial of the property. It gives a little bit better of a view of the land use that has developed over time. While this photo is a little older, a little bit more has been constructed within the Bountains at Palomar development, you can see that a large portion of the area is single-family detached with lesser amounts of the multi-family and single-family attached in the area. Jumping into the property itself, in this center photo we have a view into the property from Harrodsburg Road from the current access point, and then also a view of the structure that was utilized for the Masonic Lodge and prior to that utilized as a residential structure. The photo on your left is the right of way that fronts along this property of Harrodsburg Road going into town, and then on the right Harrodsburg Road going out of town towards Jasmine County. On the photo, on the bottom of this slide, you see the development that has occurred across the street, across from Harrodsburg Road. You can see that there's a fairly dramatic grade change as you get into some of the single-family detached and the multifamily in the area. There is that second access point into this site that the Stub Street of Syringa Drive is located on the western portion of the site. The bottom photo is the picture of the access point into or the end of the sub street into the subject property. The top portion looking down Syringa towards the future connection with the development that is occurring, the Eppington property, and then the two neighboring single-family detached properties. The overall area does have those two stub streets, the one located on Fountain Blue and then the one located on Syringa Drive. Those are meant to connect into the property to provide access per the land subdivision regulations and the zoning ordinance. There is also that proposed connection that will bring in Captain's Court and the Syringa Drive right-of-way at this location, creating a flow of traffic that would be able to access across this area. In terms of this application, staff believes that it is important to kind of understand the flow of how things have gone. This application had its initial pre-application meeting in July of 2021. It had been filed in early September and then went through the normal procedure of the subdivision and zoning committee in October of 2021. At that October 7, 2021 meeting, the staff recommended disapproval. The zoning committee recommended postponement with a request for more information. The applicant postponed this application from following, directly following that October 7th meeting, and it has been postponed until today. During that time, there was a neighborhood meeting that was set up with the applicant and the neighborhood and staff on December 20th of 2021. I will add that this afternoon at 12, the applicant submitted a supplemental justification for this application. Due to the late submission of this supplemental justification. Staff was not able to review this. Staff has a long-standing procedure that is published in a lot of our materials that indicates that should an applicant want to supplement or add to their application, that should be done at least 48 hours prior to the public hearing. There will be some, in all likelihood, some differentiation between what staff is presenting today with our materials and the applicants' materials. However, staff will be able to discuss some of those issues during the rebuttal following the applicant's presentation. In terms of a zone change application, it is important to look at the different hierarchy of the goals and objectives, policies, and in the case of Lexington, the place builder with the place type and the development criteria and development type. In this case, the applicant has suggested that they are meeting the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. First, the applicant indicates that they are expanding housing choice, the NAE goal one, by accommodating the demand for housing in Lexington responsibly, prioritizing higher density and a mixture of housing types. While the applicant is proposing to include a housing choice, mixing attached and detached single-family residential, they are not providing a higher-density residential. Staff disagrees with this portion of the supposition of the applicant. Next, the applicant indicates that they are supporting infill and redevelopment throughout the urban service areas as a strategic component of growth by identifying areas and opportunities for infill, redevelopment, adaptive reuse, and mixed-use development. The proposed development is not an integrated mixed-use development. It does not adaptively reuse the existing structure, nor does the proposed development seek to construct at a density or intensity that might be reflective of a major corridor in Lexington. Next, the applicant indicates that they are respecting the context and design features of the areas surrounding the development, and they are seeking to develop design standards and guidelines to ensure the compatibility with the existing urban form. The applicant does not expand upon this context and design features that they are seeking to promote. Commercial opportunities in the area actually are more intense than what the applicant is proposing for this at the neighboring fountains at Palomar. They are seeking to actually decrease the intensity of the development along this portion of the corridor with their proposed rezoning and project. Further, the applicant indicates that they are supporting and showcasing local assets to further the creation of a variety of jobs. No information has been provided by the applicant to what forms of jobs might be created through the development of this subject property. Finally, the applicant indicates that they are improving a desirable community by supporting a model of development that focuses on the people first kind of situation of development to provide and promote accessible communities, facilities, and services to meet the health, safety, and quality of life needs of Lexington, Fayette County's residents and visitors. The applicant has not provided information regarding the facilities to be incorporated into the proposed development, and the proposed development is not pedestrian-oriented and is completely separated from the surrounding residential context. With the review of this application, it is also important to look at the place type that is being proposed by the applicant. In this case, the applicant has indicated that they are developing within a corridor place type. The corridors are Lexington's most or major roadways focused on commerce and transportation. The overriding emphasis of the 2018 comprehensive plan was overhauling some of the intensity along these corridors so that the corridors would be the areas of the most intense economic, residential, and kind of commercial opportunities that would be located within Lexington. This was also meant to add a mix of different land uses, both commercial and residential, and is represented by many of the zones that are recommended within this place type. In this case, the applicant is located along Harrisburg Road and specifically called out as within a corridor place type. This is the lone place type that is identified specifically with a map in the comprehensive plan. However, there is a bit of discontinuity with what the applicant is applying for. The applicant, the front portion of the property, staff agrees, is a corridor place type. It is associated with the established commercial development, the Founds at Palomar, and is interacting with the corridor itself. The rear portion of the property, however, is distinct and separated from that corridor and from the commercial development. The applicant has not in previous applications or materials submitted any other justification or any other place type. This portion of the property, specifically that residential in the back, is more readily associated with the adjacent neighborhood. Next, staff reviews the place type that the applicant is seeking to apply. In this case, the applicant is seeking to establish a medium-density non-residential or mixed-use development type. This development type is meant to be primarily community service, commercial usage, services, places for employment, and a mix of other mid-rise structures with a higher FAR or floor area ratio. The mixture of structures is meant to include the option to allow for not only commercial opportunities, but multifamily residential units to occur. However, the comprehensive plan, specifically the place builder and the medium density, non-residential or mixed use development type does not require residential development to occur. The applicant, And this is one of the aspects of the 2018 comprehensive plan in being focused and flexible, allowing for the intensification of our corridors, but also allowing for the applicant to apply without having to include certain elements into their application. There is a real focus for this medium density, non-residential or mixed use development type on trying to get a little bit more of integration with the multimodal connections, pedestrian access, and then orienting our buildings along the street and avoiding over parking. A lot of that parking is meant to be internal to the site. It is not meant to be the primary focus of development. That is meant to be the architecture, the buildings, and the activity that occurs therein. The applicant has provided no information regarding the medium-density non-residential or the mixed-use development type within their application. The commercial portion of the site is low density, low intensity, and does not meet the description of the medium density non-residential and mixed use development type. In fact, the FAR proposed for this development is less than the neighboring commercial development and is far less than the average commercial development along Harrodsburg Road. Furthermore, the residential portion of the site is a low-density, low-intensity development and does not meet the description of a medium-density, non-residential, or mixed-use development type. Single-family residential is explicitly described within the comprehensive plan as a low-density housing. From there, we move into the recommended zones. In this case, there are six recommended zones within the corridor place type and the medium density non-residential mixed use development type, five of which are meant to allow for the mix of uses of residential and commercial, but do not require them. The only zone that is strictly residential is the R4, the high-density apartment zone. In this case, the applicant has not applied for any of the recommended zones. The applicant is seeking to apply the Highway Service Business B3 zone and the planned neighborhood residential R3 zone. With that in mind, the comprehensive plan does allow for flexibility in choosing different zones. However, it is incumbent on the applicant to go ahead and justify the types of zones that they are using and how it is meeting the comprehensive plan and how it is meeting the development criteria. The applicant has not provided additional information regarding the proposed rezoning and why it is the preferred zone and how it is in agreement with the comprehensive plan. The proposed zoning differs from the established zoning in the area, and the applicant's justification for the neighboring fountains at Palomar was one that included a fair amount of restrictions that tried to move out some of those zone types or those uses that would be incompatible with the neighborhood and the development that has occurred in the past. As of 11 a.m. this morning, no such restrictions were recommended by this applicant. From the review of the zoning, it is important to jump into the development criteria. Within the application material that is supplied to the applicant during the pre-application meeting, there is an instruction on how to make their justification. included in this is asking the applicant to go through the development criteria associated with the place type and development type and indicate what they are seeking to do on the property and show how they are meeting the comprehensive plan by the application of the criteria. The development criteria are a distillation of the goals, objectives, and policies of the comprehensive plan and therefore show agreement with the comprehensive plan through their integration with development plans and the applicant's justification letter. As of this morning, no review was provided by the applicant. The staff thus needed to go through and look at some of the development criteria that were not addressed by the applicant that could be applicable to their development. I will not go through all of these, but you will see both on this slide and on this slide, there was a significant amount of information that was lacking within the applicant's justification and on the applicant's development plan. As such, there was a significant amount of information that the staff requested directly following the October 7th meeting of the Zoning Committee that had not been addressed until noon today. Okay. Involved in all zone change, staff has, and the 2018 comprehensive plan has pushed for greater neighborhood engagement regarding zone changes. In this case, the applicant did meet with neighborhood representatives prior to the submission of their application. While this is what staff would like to hear, there are some concerning aspects of what was done prior to the submission of the application and some of the information that was provided by the applicant following the submission of the application. The applicant proposed two separate development types to the neighborhood, a multifamily residential development type. This is information that was provided by the Palomar Neighborhood Association to its group. And then a low-density residential and commercial option. There was the impression given that the staff preferred a recommendation or preference regarding a specific option, specifically the one focused on higher-density residential. This was not staff's impression to give, nor did staff ever review what was the multifamily residential option as proposed by the applicant. So that does allow, it does behoove us to go ahead and talk about what this application is and what this application is not. This application is a rezoning from the agricultural urban zone to the B3 and R3 zone. This is a zone change for low-density residential and low-density and intensity commercial development. This is not an application for rezoning from an AU zone to an R4 and or an R5 zone, nor is this an application for high-density residential. The applicant's letter and their actual application with the B3 and the R3 does not allow for high density residential to occur on this site at all. We bring this up in the fact that you do have many letters of objection within your Google Drive and serve in your packet here today that oppose this zone change, stating a opposition to high density residential rather than a discussion of the B3 or R3 zones being presented today. With that, staff is recommending disapproval of this application. The requested rezoning of the property from AU to the Highway Service Business B3 zone and the Planned Neighborhood Residential Zone, or the R3 zone, are not in agreement with the 2018 comprehensive plan. The requested zones are not recommended zones within the proposed place type of the comprehensive plan, and the applicant has not provided sufficient information as to how the zone fits with the proposed place type or development type. Additionally, the requested rezoning is not in agreement with the goals, objectives, and policies of the 2018 comprehensive plan for the reasons that staff brought up previously. In addition, the proposed rezoning and the associated development plan does not improve the traffic operation strategies of this area. The proposed development does not meet the intent of the medium-density non-residential or mixed-use development type, as established on page 271 of the comprehensive plan. The requested rezoning is not in agreement with the development criteria of the 2018 comprehensive plan, as enumerated here and here. And then finally, there have been no major unanticipated changes of an economic, social, or physical nature in the area of the subject property since the adoption of the 2018 conference plan, and the applicant has not provided evidence as to why the current zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning is the appropriate zone for this location. With that, there are two other aspects of this presentation, the development plan and then a review of the traffic impact study. But if you have any questions regarding the zone change application, I would be happy to answer them now. Mr. Penn. Al, when was the last time you all had a meeting with this applicant? There were several meetings with the applicant. There were in-person meetings that occurred throughout the submission of this. There were at least two in-person meetings, specifically with the applicant post the October 7th deadline. And then there have been numerous phone calls between staff and the applicant's representatives asking for further information and requesting that information that frankly came today. Thank you, sir. Monday was the last request. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Bailey? If not, Mr. Martin. I will need it. Well, can you verbally tell? Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, for the record, the chat box is not an appropriate area to add public comment. It is not part of the public record. It is actually more for anything that is for a technical reasons for our members here. So please do not add anything into the chat box. Please save that for your public comment, which will be held after the applicant's presentation. Mr. Martin? Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, the Associated Preliminary Development Plan with this zone change, let's see, am I? You're sure. I am sharing. Okay, I wanted to be sure I was sharing, Mr. Penn. Thank you. I want you to be sure to share with all of us. Yes, sir. You should have before you a revised staff recommendation. To me, it's blue. I don't know what you have in terms of color, but we did prepare a revised report for you, a staff report. Again, we are located out on Harrodsburg Road. You can see the location, the frontage of Herdsburg Road at the bottom of the screen. Palomar Boulevard, Syringa Drive, as it comes up in here, as Hal described in cul-de-sacs. To our right, or to the east, would be the fountains at Palomar, the commercial development that was previously approved, with the Fountain Blue access easement that stubs into the property that you can see they're extending. through the middle of the property's location. This particular plan proposes a right in right out from Harrisburg Road as well. This particular revision, which was submitted on, I believe, January 3rd, as Hal has described to you, proposes a residential portion in the rear with the townhouses and the single-family homes. There are 23 townhouse lots and eight single-family homes. You can see areas of proposed detention. This reflects the topography in the area as well as this area of detention in this location. They are proposing six commercial structures. They dropped a number. That one says seven. There's only six. We have six buildings. These, as you can see, are perfect rectangles here in the rear. We have a larger building proposed here, two buildings. This apparently appears to be a bank or a similar institution. You can see the drive-through. There we go. And then this building as well seems to be proposing the drive-through. The traffic study, which will be gone over by Mr. Kern shortly, has three drive-throughs. Staff was able to determine where the third one would be. Again, they have shown with this revised plan, there's landscaping along here to buffer this commercial use to the residential. They've added some pedestrian connections into this residential area as well. You can see a patio area here and here on these rear commercial structures, as well as an area here. They're showing a two-way circulation around these particular commercial buildings. Again, this is a preliminary plan. Should this plan be approved, there are issues that would have to be addressed in terms of not just landscaping, lighting, functionality of location of the dumpsters relative to the residential neighborhood. There are notes on the plan that do reflect concerns that staff addressed on previous developments, such as facade presentation to Harrisburg Road, increased landscaping. Again, as an example, the Eppington and Eppington, which is down Harrisburg Road towards towards South Elkhorn in that direction. I'm sure as you recall, we recommended, and it was adopted by you, that they utilize the Manor Ward landscaping, again, orientation to Harrisburg Road, those types of issues. Now, as staff reviewed this plan from the beginning, including this revised plan, there is an overriding concern with the access and connectivity as proposed on this plan. And this issue is the paramount issue on this property and on its impact to the neighborhood and to the adjoining developments, as well as its impact on our roadway system. Now, I know this body's heard a lot of talk recently about connections, roadways, access. Well, as you all are well aware, the comp plan as adopted is emphasizing arterial development. And that heightens the need for good access control, for good access management along our arterials. It increases the need for connectivity. As you all may recall, again, those of you that were on the Planning Commission when the fountains at Palomar, when that was approved, they requested and were granted over staff's opposition an access, a full access with a stoplight. Does not meet the stoplight spacing standards. Did not meet the access standards. And additionally, and this is very important because it applies to this commercial area as well, they got access from Manowar and to Harrisburg Road, two arterials. That access is discouraged. I won't say it's an absolute. Staff, your regulations, your plan understands that there can be exceptions. However, it is the only commercial area that staff could come up with that has nothing but access to arterials. The exception might be North New Circle Road, which is going to get a hard look by the state and others to control that access. That's a historical situation that happened many years ago, and that would be the exception. across the street, across Manowar, that existing development, the access is to two collector streets, and then they access the arterial, Manowar and Harrisburg Road. Now, I'm going to go into my professor teacher mode just slightly. Reminds me of a discussion I had before this body, because we talk about your street hierarchy. We talk about arterials and collectors and local streets and service roads. And some people kind of go, what are you talking about? Well, very simply, and it is actually simple when you stop and think about it. It is the established hierarchy based on engineering principles incorporated into your land use regulations and into your zoning ordinance on how a transportation system functions. Arterials, you have expressways, obviously. I-75, we're not going to, arterials and their function. And that's important here. That is very important here. Your arterials are defined as the second rank in the classification under expressways and should be used only for the movement of vehicles and preferably should not provide for vehicular access to adjacent properties. Interruption of traffic flow should be permitted only at street intersections, which should contain medians, deceleration lanes, and left-turn storage lanes. It goes on in this definition to state that principal arterials carry the major portion of trips entering and leaving the urban area, as well as the majority of through movements desiring to bypass the central city. But again, through movements. It also goes on to state that they exist to provide traffic out to our suburban areas. And obviously it does that. but again they have to function for everyone for the entire public for all users the through traffic the good people from jasmine county danville would those that are using harrisburg road as you all well know we have a net influx of traffic every morning people coming to work in our city people come to visit the doctor people come to shop these streets again our streets are designed to efficiently handle this traffic as much as possible. The further definitions of the roads goes on to talk about service road, which in effect, Fountain Blue Easement does provide. As it goes through the fountains property, it is in effect a service road, which is required under your regulations. By extending it through here, it is going to function as a service road. Now, a service road, as defined, generally has two or more open ends connecting at intersections with streets that run perpendicular to the service road and its adjacent street of higher classification. Now, the purpose there is to provide access to the properties but reduce the conflicts and the number of access points actually out on that arterial. Now, these definitions have been with us since 1965 when they were originally codified. And as I said before, they're based on engineering principles, and we know engineers, they love their efficiency and their mobility, and that's important because we're dealing with vehicles. We're dealing with cars. We're dealing with a lot of traffic and a lot of public safety issues. And that brings us to the right in right out that they're proposing. It does not meet the standards in your regulations, in our community's regulations for access space. In addition, this development would, in essence, create a right turn lane from Man of War down to the Ramsey's development. And to Madrum, which would take you into the Ramsey's development. Well, what that creates, when you have a right in, right out, although they can function and do function well in certain circumstances and have been approved on arterials, you're creating one long conflict point as people exit and then try to cross those other lanes. Again, with high volumes of traffic, higher speeds, which is the purpose on arterial. It is supposed to carry more traffic. People are supposed to travel at higher speeds. that's why we have connectivity that's why we provide options that's why it's important that those individuals who wish to make shorter trips can make shorter trips and utilize other aspects of our public street system and not have to utilize an arterial and hop out and hop off of Harrisburg Road. But with that, staff believes it is imperative that there be a vehicular access to Syringa. Now again, it's not always advantageous. It's discouraged in many cases to put commercial traffic through a residential area. However, due to infill considerations, the fact that development happens in stages, it does happen. And when that does happen, we look at traffic calming and other issues or methods to help address that. This would, in fact, provide an outlet for traffic to move on and as Hal demonstrated before. And do I, if I, let me do this. There we go. Here's an overall view of what the system could be. This is Fountain Blue. You continue the connection. It comes to Syringa. It comes through the approved development and approved connection out to Madrone. Functioning in effect as a service road and relieving the traffic and the pressure off of Harrodsburg Road. That is to the benefit of everyone who would be traveling on Harrodsburg Road. Everyone, including the neighbors, including the people that we know become concerned about traffic through their neighborhoods. I have been driving my coworkers a little crazy with another example that I happen to find very, very educational and instructive. And that is you could travel from Ramsey's, and we all, people, we love Ramsey's. And you can travel from Ramsey's all the way up, all the way up. You can cross Man of War online to the amphitheater in Beaumont Center. You want some live music? I happen to enjoy live music. I know a lot of other people do too. That would allow movement and not have to get out on Harrisburg Road, not have to deal with the heavy traffic, not have to deal with all the traffic signals. And that's their purpose. That's the purpose of connectivity, and that's why your staff beats that drum. We do. We beat that drum on connectivity and on access management. This plan does not address those. It does not meet your zoning ordinance, which clearly speaks to this. It speaks to harmonious development. it speaks to the need to have reduced pollution, reduced congestion. And by the way, the biggest cause of air pollution of vehicles is when they're sitting still and the motor's running. And that's going to go to the level of service and issues that Mr. Kearns can discuss in the traffic study. Now, staff is aware of the concern about cut-through traffic. And there's a statement from the applicant stating that the neighborhood has expressed concern about cut-through traffic being excessive and maintenance of their pavers being an issue. Frankly, staff's not sure how to measure excessive. A traffic study can. it will measure it in terms of number of trips and by delays and traffic those delays by the way are measured in seconds because we all we all like to keep moving we all don't want to sit at a traffic light very long however maintenance costs on pavers well frankly i don't know how to distribute that cost. That strikes me as quite a challenge. Is it due to just the neighbors use and their large vehicles, large SUVs? Is there, does one neighbor have a large truck, you see? Or is it the pizza delivery guys that are actually creating this excessive wear on the pavers. So again, I'm not dismissing their concerns. I'm just stating you make a choice. You have pavers. You want to maintain them. They are going to wear out. How you distribute that is quite, in your staff's estimation, a challenge. How you would determine exactly who does more wear and tear. But again, this comes back to the fact that this development plan does not address appropriate access or conductivity as your comp plan and more as your regulations require. And again, for that reason, we're recommending disapproval. And I know you all don't hear that from staff very often. But this plan does not meet your zoning ordinance, as I stated. And you can read it does not meet your land subdivision regulations in terms of spacing and land use access. So there are some conditions on the back that should you approve this plan. We are recommending, along with your standard sign-offs on a preliminary, that the Harrisburg Road access be removed from the development plan. It can, and again, it can be reconsidered at the time of a final development plan should this zone change be approved. We would like to clarify the proposed number of drive-thru facilities and potential traffic conflicts. Again, more and more vehicular oriented businesses could locate out here. That's going to exacerbate the problem. It's going to create more traffic. We need to get a handle on exactly how many drive-thrus. You all may recall we restricted the number of drive-throughs on the spring site for that very reason. And then we have a condition to revise the plan to provide vehicular access to Syringa. That could be continuation of an access easement. It could be that you can revise the entire plan. But we believe, again, your staff, that that access is vital. And unless it's provided, this plan is not meeting your ordinance or your land subdivision regulations. There's a couple other cleanup conditions addressing that would be to identify. And I'm going to go back if I can. Oh, thank you, Mayor. Oh, there we go. Again, there are existing trees on the site that they've identified. You can see some areas where there's some conflicts with them. They need to clarify if those are actually significant trees so that, again, if this plan is approved at the time of the final development plan, we can determine how best to protect those or if it's not possible under these circumstances. And again, another little cleanup item would be just to denote your typical townhouse size and lot sizes. Again, those are just kind of typical little cleanup conditions that should this plan be approved. So again, I will reiterate that staff is recommending disapproval of this preliminary development plan and would be happy to answer any questions you may have for staff. And then Mr. Kearns will be presenting the traffic impact study. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Do any members of the planning commission have questions for Mr. Martin? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Martin. Mr. Kearns. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. There was a traffic impact study that was filed in conjunction with this zone change request. Just in general, I do agree with the methodologies and the findings of the traffic impact study as far as traffic impact studies go. I do have at least a couple points of disagreement. Second verse, say with this first, it's the access to Herdsburg Road and connectivity to the neighborhoods. And I'll be talking about that a little bit more as I get into it. So, before I really kind of get into the study itself, I just want to talk about existing conditions in the area. Harrisburg Road, it's a four-lane divided minor urban arterial, 55 mile per hour speed limit. Interestingly, the last count that they've got on Harrisburg is 2019, 32,000. actually down from about 34-4 in 2016 when Palomar came in. By the same token, Man of War, four-lane divided principal arterial arterial speed of 45, had a 80 DT of 16315 in 2018. That's the most recent count they have, and that's actually down from 18,700. So we're actually seen traffic volumes along these arterials dropping. The real interesting thing about it is these newer counts are still pre-COVID, so it's going to be really interesting to see what happens out there with the next counts. There's a lot of changes going on with the travel behavior. The existing intersections in the study area, of course, include about five intersections along Harrodsburg Road, Wellington, Manowar, the Fountain Blue access, Palamore and Stedman, the Drone Way and Old Tigby Hill, and of course there's the proposed access. Trip generation. Of course with proposed development the AM and PM peak hour, you're getting about roughly 240 trips total and 291 trips total in the a.m. and p.m. respectively. This is after accounting for things like pass-by traffic. A lot of the commercial development is going to have some pass-by traffic trips that are already on Harrodsburg Road that are going to be turning into and out of the development. It also accounts for about a 5% to 10% internal capture between people visiting one site and then going to another site. So in terms of just new trips going into development, that's what we would be looking at. The other thing that this study does take into account, looking at a full build-out scenario of 2029, it also takes into account the Ethington Heights and Fountains of Palomar traffic. it applies a 1% annual growth rate to Harrisburg and Manowar and also assumes about 7% truck volumes on Harrisburg and Manowar. And then the trip distribution and assignments are based on the existing Harrisburg Road and Manowar peak hour traffic at the traffic at the intersections. Now the study looks at existing and full build out peak hour conditions at six different intersections along 68, the five existing ones and the one proposed. And it also looks at three different scenarios. It does look at a full access to US68, which is not currently being proposed by the developer, but they did look at it. And that's without connection to Syringa. In the second scenario, they look at the right in right out access with no connection to Syringa, which is more closely to what you're seeing in the development plan. And then the third scenario, they look at it with no access directly to the site that would be accessing via the fountains and a connection to Syringa, which is really what the staff would like to see. See a chart here with the level service criteria for both signalized and unsignalized intersections. Of course, the study itself, when you really get into the meat of it, they're going to give you specific seconds of delay for each approach and each individual turning movement. I find that it's really better to just focus on the level of service because you're not going to consistently get the same delays at the same place at the same time every day. there's going to be a range. So, you know, in your afternoons, you're going to have between C and F, depending on the conditions. So, I think it's just better to focus on the level of service. So, that said, I just kind of want to go through each of the intersections and talk about what's going on out there now and what we can expect to see in the future. So, Harrisburg Road at Wellington, the existing conditions out there in the morning, overall, the intersection is about a level service B. Obviously, the side street movements, Wellington Way, are a little bit harder from those approaches. They're operating at E. Going northbound on US-68 is fairly easy. uh same going southbound um and uh it's really not too difficult to get through at least go through on harryford road this time of day uh in the evening pmp a little bit more congested overall goes from uh b to a d to the uh of course these side street volumes and uh movement are an f uh still fairly easy to get northbound on 68 and then C going southbound. So looking at the full build out, the conditions are basically the same regardless of the scenarios. Overall intersection is C in the morning and overall is D in the afternoon. As you can see, very similar conditions to the existing as far as the crew volumes. Now Man of War, this is probably the most significantly impacted of all the intersections, of course, and it all already operates at a fairly degraded level of service in the afternoons. In existing, you have an overall morning level service D and your movements on 68 are at C. Man of War is at E and D. And that's just because a lot of the traffic signals are timed to really give preference to people that are moving on 68 getting into town. In the evening, of course, things drop down to level service E and D. Looking at full build out and again about the same for all of the scenarios, you're getting a slightly degraded level service and everything's going down to about E and an F on all movements. Okay, Fountain Blue. As you can see, we've got the, this is the main access to the fountains of Palomar, not the most up-to-date picture. Of course, this has recently been signalized. And you can see the connector road into the subject property would be through here. this intersection pretty much operates overall at a level service A. It really doesn't affect movement on US68 itself. The biggest issue at this intersection is just there's a little bit of delay in the morning, evening peaks, just turning out from the development itself. Now, looking at the full build out, under scenario one, the level service or the overall intersection is a level service B, and it's the same for scenario two and scenario three. In the a.m., in the p.m., you get a slightly lower level service for scenarios two and three. Fountain Blue remains at a level service B turning out, and the movements on US-68 in the morning are fairly easy, a little heavier in the afternoon getting through here. And then finally the southernmost intersection, existing intersection, is Harrodsburg at the Drone. As you can see, it's got an overall delay of a level service of B in the AM and PM. This drops to an overall intersection of level service of C under all conditions in the future. Really the worst movement is the eastbound approach from the drone in the mornings at this point. And then now I want to talk a little bit about the Carysburg Road at Palomar. This is currently an unsignalized intersection. Probably one of the biggest issues at this intersection is the side street movements. Being unsignalized, it's very difficult during the peaks to make left turns from Palomar out on Harrodsburg Road. Because of this, this really pushes a lot of the Palomar neighborhood traffic more back towards Nanowar and Lion Drive. Because you really, for a significant part of the warning, it's very difficult to turn out here. The signal or the intersection itself does not yet meet signal warnings. It's close, but it has not quite reached that point. Certainly a signal at this intersection would help that situation. Probably my first point of disagreement with the traffic study has to do with the amount of traffic that was assigned to this intersection under scenario three with the connection of Syringa. The distribution of traffic is very subjective and you can with this connection, I think what's happened here is they've really put a lot more traffic on this intersection than you would really expect to see. In actuality, the majority of the site-oriented traffic is going to go up and it's going to enter at the main access point, well, the access point from at Fountain Blue and then work their way into the site itself. Another concern that was brought up, of course, is cut-through traffic. Really, daily cut-through traffic would not be an issue, even during the peaks. It's really, it's still faster to stay on Harrodsburg Road and Man of War if you're driving through. The real benefit to having connections is going to be to the neighborhood itself. You know, a lot of people to get to an alternate access point, not stuff to come out at Palomar itself. The other benefit is that by making that connection, you do get a little traffic coming back to this intersection and it would push it to levels that would warrant signalization. And then finally, let's see, the issue of the proposed site access. As as discussed, the developer is seeking a write-in write-out access. I really disagree that this is needed. The access at Mountain Blue is perfectly capable of handling the site traffic, and especially if you make the connection through Syringa, But there's plenty of capacity to handle what would be generated here and without going to Harrisburg Road itself. And then finally to wrap up, just open it to any questions you might have. Thank you, Mr. Kearns. Are there any commissioner questions? Commissioner Micklein. I need to unmute him. No, he's going. Just thanks for your analysis on this. One question I have about the right in right out access to you and the way that they're showing it designed. Is is there a concern about pedestrian safety with that sort of swing and swing out sort of design and and in that in that format that's on there. Certainly, that's not something that was looked at in the study itself, but that is something that we would be concerned about. We're generally concerned with pedestrian access for the site overall. There's really not a good way for residents of Palomar to access the site without getting into their car and driving on Harrodsburg Road. So basically, if you wanted to walk there, you would have to walk out on Harrodsburg and walk down along this continuous right turn lane. So, yes, we wouldn't be concerned about the impact on pedestrian traffic. Thanks. Mr. Bell. Mr. Kiley, I live out in this area. We live on Bowman's Mill Road. So the amount of traffic that has been pushed down Bowman's Mill is quite remarkable over the years to cut through to man war and such. And so I come out on my drone often. And as you likely know, or maybe don't, but there's going to be a Chick-fil-A right there on the corner. And when you say Chick-fil-A, you say traffic. Yeah. And so when I think about, you know, the grades that I saw for the existing and thinking about the grades that are going to be forecasted for 29, I struggle with understanding pushing all this traffic to Madrone or whatever that other parallel road is behind Madrone, you know, that's perpendicular to Madrone, pushing it out and stuff like that. I struggle with just pushing all this traffic onto these roads, you know, and it's just, it's hard to fathom a solution, really. I mean, I remember I questioned Mr. Martin about the drone. He said, oh, it's a connector street. It's all good. I struggle with thinking about it because there's a church, there's a school that feeds onto that road right there. you've got this shopping center that's going to feed there from ethington and that property is in the residential as well and now you're getting ready to feed more traffic from these two developments of a fountain and this new property and so i struggle honestly with it i'm not being able to see in the future but trying to anticipate it seeing again how but man how bowman mill really is is a country road and it's no longer a country road you know so just anticipating i'm just I'm giving a warning that I struggle with understanding it. I do understand what you're saying. This is actually my commute. I live in Jessamon County, so I drive through here. Okay. I do understand. I do stand behind the need, though, for connectivity. And the more connections you have into the neighborhoods, the more you're going to be able to disperse this traffic. and a lot of the sites, a lot of the through traffic, you know, people that are driving through on Harrisburg and Manowar, they're going to, unless there's an accident or something really significant, they're going to stay. Even under some of the worst conditions, you're going to stay on those main roads. You're not going to cut through. And most of the people that are going to the site are going to use the access point. What the connectivity really benefits is the people in the neighborhood itself. It gives them a lot more ways to get in and out of Palomar. If there's ever an accident or a fire, it gives the first responders a better way to get in. Of course, you've heard me talk about these things many times before. We're getting first reading tonight on our SRA regarding these issues. But I do understand. Well, if I'm in the neighborhood, I'd be I'd personally be concerned with how much more traffic you're pushing into the neighborhood through these connector streets that didn't exist before relatively. And I'm not suggesting that having a light or I don't have a solution, but I'm just anticipating thinking these connector streets and how much traffic is going to be pushed to them. And I don't have a solution, but I'm just observing. Because I do know, I don't know if you've ever go Bowman Mill or not, but that has become a key source for getting over to Manowar to avoid the traffic on Harrisburg Road. And so it's just, it's remarkable how much traffic there is. That's all. That's my observation. So I just bring it up to so note. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Curtis? Thank you. Do we have anything else from staff? No, sir. We're ready for the applicant. All right. We will move to the applicant. If the applicant and their team can go ahead and raise their hand digitally, we will bring you into the meeting. Mr. Sinson, do you have someone named Mr. Scott Sandberg as part of your development team? I'm sorry, who? Scott Sandberg. No, I've got Mr. Helani, Mr. McCain, and Mr. Sewell. All right. Mr. Sandberg, this is now time for the applicant's presentation. The public component of our presentation will follow their presentation. So if you can go ahead and lower your hand now. Thank you, sir. Mr. Simpson, I believe your team has been promoted. All right. Can you all hear me? Yes, sir. Good. Well, good afternoon. It's now 2.45, so we've been at it for about an hour and 15 minutes. Let me make a couple of general introductory remarks about this application just to give you some background that hasn't been shared yet. because I think it's important as you all deliberate, not only this case, but other zoning cases that come under the comprehensive plan, particularly this comprehensive plan, which has a lot more features and requirements in it than previous comprehensive plans. But the folks that I represent, the Webbs and the Greers, who I also represented in the fountains, they undertook on their own, consistent with really one of the principal focal points of the 2018 Comprehensive Plan, was to reach out and have a meeting with the leaders of the neighborhood almost a year ago. And it wasn't a meeting where they came out and said, this is what we're going to do. What do you think? It was an open-ended meeting in which the folks, the neighborhood folks were advised that we're contemplating acquiring this property and we're looking at development options, thinking about development options. But we worked very closely with the Palomar neighborhood during the Fountains zone change. And we wanted to continue that relationship. Now, I wasn't at this meeting. This was told to me by neighbors that were there and meeting with the folks that I represent. And so they had an extended conversation. In fact, they had really two additional meetings in which they discussed development options, development opportunities. it was it became crystal clear that the the neighbors in palomar were looking for much the same kind of development that adjoins uh the palomar hills neighborhood 560 feet to the south of the subject property that's the location of what's called the ethington property It is a zoned commercial and residential with commercial facing Harrodsburg Road, then townhouses and then single family homes back up to Palomar. Palomar. Our application, as it's been amended, is exactly the same model as what the Palomar residents said they wanted and would accept in the zone change of the Ethington property several years ago. So this is not a new kind of venture. This is something that the neighbors have given a great deal of thought about, and of course you'll hear from them shortly. So they had this meeting far in advance of any filing and far in advance of them even deciding, making a decision, because quite frankly, they knew and learned and respected these folks, and what the people that live closest to the development, who will be most impacted by the development, are the ones that really ought to be given greater deference in terms of what the usual consequences of the development are. Traffic, noise, lights, incompatible development, too tall of buildings, what have you. I've represented neighborhoods more than I've represented developers. In fact, my very first zoning case was against 30 years ago this year against Dudley Webb and his brother Donald Woodford's dad in connection with Palomar Shopping Center. The second zoning case I had was representing a neighborhood against Phil Greer and the development of the Walmart out on Richmond Road and Man of War. In both of those skirmishes, if you will, and in subsequent skirmishes that I had with them subsequently, the one thing that I shared with others, even neighbors and planning staff and those that I shared this with can certainly attach to it, that the webs and brears have always lived up to their commitments, lived up to their promises. We settled both of those cases. There was never an incident where I had to come back and file anything or write a nasty letter or make a phone call or anything. Not one thing. Both very controversial cases. And I never had to call them once. And the same is true with the families. That case was resolved with the neighbors after careful meetings and plannings. So in my judgment, in representing neighbors, there's two things and zone changes that you hear. You hear a lot of discussion from a lot of people that don't live there, that might want to live there, but they don't live there. The people that are most impacted are the people that adjoin the property and those that are behind them and close by that live in the general area. Those are the people that are going to have to deal with increased traffic, noise, and the like. Quite frankly, most neighbors would prefer that the property just remain green and vacant and let the property owner pay to maintain it. because they have a nice sea of green, as they've had since Palomar was developed in the late 1980s. They've had that sea of green for these houses that have joined this property and enjoyed that viewshed for a number of years. And then, so that's why we reached out to them to say, what is it that you want? What would work for you? And, of course, what would work for us? and they came up initially with a proposal for single-family houses backed up to the proposed retail that's shown on the development plan. However, after meeting with the staff a couple of times and listening to what they have to say, we made a change to incorporate some higher density townhomes in the area where single-family houses were going to be. So we made that change after the initial filing, and that was based on our meetings and consultations and listening to the staff, which is what we always do. We've had several meetings with staff in connection with this application, and I'll get to the initial meeting in a moment, but what I want you to understand in these zone change cases for neighbors is that, and I ask this question frequently when I'm speaking to neighborhoods, representing them or filing a case in which they may have opposition. And that is more than 90% of them have no idea of the impact of the comprehensive plan on their homes of where they live. Now, I know the comprehensive plan, they talk about 10,000 people participated, and I don't dispute that. but I had a show of hands just this past Tuesday night of the folks in, in the Palomar, we had a final meeting. And there were three people out of about 70 that raised their hands that even knew what a comprehensive plan was or its importance. Now they've learned it, you know, through, through this process, but before we got started, none of them knew anything about it. which is to say this. None of these folks, when the comp plan gets evaluated, the neighbors, unlike us, that deal with this every day, they don't get notified that there's a tract of vacant land and we're doing a comprehensive plan in which we may recommend high-density development on that site. Nobody got a notification that this was going to be considered or taking place. They should. In my judgment, the comprehensive plan is an important guide. And if you're going to look at it with a view toward increasing density, I think that neighboring property owners who have joined vacant land, they ought to get written notice that, hey, we're looking at changing the guides, the guidelines, the guide that we go by, our comprehensive plan, to make it more dense than what it has been recommended for, and that you might want to participate because it comes up in a hearing like this, and they talk about the comprehensive plan from start to finish. But the people, they don't know that relevance or that importance. And so I ask that it's important to consider in this case, because one of the strongest provisions of this 2018 plan is community engagement, neighborhood engagement, not just this is what we're going to do. Anybody got any questions? But just like the Web's and the Greer's did, they actually reached out and met with these folks several times. What is it that you want? This is what we think we need. And we come to an understanding of the people most impacted by this development. One thing was crystal clear from the neighbors, and that was we've got a tenuous situation with our school system, and we want to limit residential density because it has an adverse impact on their schools. and they cherish their schools just like all of us as parents have in the past. We can say it's not relevant, but in our heart of hearts, when it comes down to making a decision, a choice of where we live for our children to go to school, we pay attention to that district and we pay attention to those schools. Now, the truth of the matter is the impact on schools is never considered by this body in any zone change. the school board operates independently and so school impacts never get brought before the planning commission but i can tell you in this particular instance it is of critical importance and you will probably hear that uh from the folks that that in the in the neighborhood who will offer their comments they're very concerned about uh getting too overcrowded at the school system in this area and thereby causing their children not to be able to go to the schools that they thought they would be able to go to when they purchased their home. The other reality is this. Apartments are necessary. Apartments are, most of us have lived in them at one time or another. I have. But I will say this in the context of representing neighborhoods for 30 years and probably every contested zone change case I know from 1991 until 2001, where there was vacant land next to a neighborhood. I never had one neighborhood president or one neighborhood board or anybody's neighborhood come to me and say, Bruce, by all means, you have got to get higher density apartments next to our single family neighborhood. I have never been instructed that way. I have never been asked to fight for that. And I don't believe I ever will. Now, is that selfish? Is that wrong? I don't believe so. I've never had to apologize for anyone for representing them before this body or the Urban County Council based upon their determination of what was important to them and their families with respect to his own change. And I ask you, when these folks speak before you with, I suspect, the passion that you will hear, that you ought to bear that in mind, because their values are no less important in the consideration of this case. In fact, as I've said, I think they're more important, because they're the ones that feel the direct impact. So all that being said, after my folks met with the neighbors and they came up with a proposal, its initial filing was for single family with retail. Met with the staff. Now, I didn't attend that meeting. I wasn't engaged yet to meet with in this case. But Mr. Helani and Mr. McCain attended that meeting. And they will tell you, if asked, that in discussing what the staff suggested or thought would be appropriate on this property, it was high-density residential. Now, we asked for this feedback. I asked for it in every pre-application. What is it the staff would find acceptable? Because I want to know. Why? Because as a lawyer representing a party in a zone change or even in opposition to one, one of my first goals is I want to get the staff's approval for the position that my client takes, whether it's for or whether it's against. So we always reach out and ask, what is it that you all see acceptable? What do you find most appropriate there? And the response was high density residential. Does that come as a surprise? Of course not. Why? Because the comprehensive plan talks about, in some sections, increasing density along the major corridor. So it's not like the staff has reached out in left field and came up with something. There's actually language in the comprehensive plan that says that. Now, there's also language in the comprehensive plan repeatedly that somehow didn't get mentioned in the staff's presentation. Not once was it mentioned, and that is context sensitivity with respect to development. Is the development you're proposing going to be relatively contextual and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood? I never heard that mentioned once in the hour and 15 minutes the staff took to make their presentation. Now, I don't know why it wasn't mentioned, but I can tell you it is critically important to the people that live next to this development that the proposed development be compatible with their single family homes. This property is surrounded by single family homes. There's not any apartments. There's not any duplexes. There's not any fourplexes. They're all single family homes. And they've been there from the late 80s up until now. they had an expectation that whatever was coming from what they've shared with me that it would at least be compatible and they would not have to deal with multi-story apartments looming over their backyards because that is the nature of increasing density you have to go up And in the staff's criticism of our case at the fountains, they criticized us because we were 80,000 square feet less in commercial space than what they wanted. The same goes here. They criticized our plan here because our commercial space was not dense enough. Now, I can tell you that if a real estate developer believed that they could utilize increased density, they would do so. They are not doing it because they are going to lose money. They're not doing it because they will lose money, because there's no market for the vertical increase in density of the commercial space. Al talked about that this was very low density, least dense than anything else on Harrodsburg Road as far as commercial property. That may be true. But you can't have increased density when no one wants to shop there. I'm going to have an expert here in a minute, a commercial real estate broker, who knows more about the retail side of Harrodsburg Road and the commercial leasing of it and what's available and what's needed and what people are looking for right as we speak than anyone in Lexington. And he will tell you there's a high demand for retail in this corridor and that it is almost 100 percent locked up. There's no vacancies, less than 2%, in fact, from Beaumont subdivision, a commercial subdivision, all the way down to Belle Reve in northern Jessamine County, just across the Fayette County line. They're all occupied, and people want to locate here, but there's no land. Well, my clients are making available some land for this demand of commercial uses. That will allow these neighbors not to have to go to Nick was still road or Richmond road to get something to eat, to get a service, to purchase something that they could purchase a lot closer if there were more commercial uses available. I include myself in this. I live in this corridor and I have for 30 years. This is where I live. And I can tell you, there is a lack of restaurants to go to and other places to go to. And frequently, I'm getting on New Circle Road and fighting all that traffic, get on Nicholasville Road or having to go to Hamburg because our area is undersupplied with retail, as Mr. Phillips Sewell will tell you in just a few minutes. So I'm kind of weighing the context of where we came from with all this. And we believed it was a workable plan because it was context sensitive to the neighbors. We weren't going to have big, tall buildings. We were going to have one story buildings. We were going to have single family houses later amended to townhouses. We were going to have a screening barrier all the way around the property with an eight-foot fence enhanced by landscaping and brick columns spaced every so often, just like we did with the fountains project, the same kind of landscaping. And so that the neighbors would have a nice place to be able to access by pedestrian connectivity, which I'll show you in just a minute. And we thought it was a very worthy project. Now, I can tell you, the staff has never liked it. It wasn't dense enough, and they did not like the fact that Syringa Drive, the current Stub Street, was going to be extended into the development, but only to serve the residential. it wouldn't have mattered how many changes that we made in our justification for this case the staff we could never overcome their position that we have to increase density Bruce you're too you're not dense enough your commercial is too low in density you don't have enough density in the residential and I had to shake my head when I heard Stuart was talking about and and even to respond a little bit to to healy bell and nobody likes traffic but if the policy of the comprehensive plan is to increase density particularly along the corridors uh to have high density residential on the corridors i'm not sure why we even have traffic studies anymore because the truth of the matter is we're going to have more traffic we're going to be waiting longer at the stoplight. We're going to be waiting longer everywhere if we wholesale adopt a policy of maximizing density on every square inch along the corridor. That's not what the comprehensive plan says. The comprehensive plan says you look at it on a case-by-case basis. Yes, increasing density is important, sure, but what is the context of the property in which you're seeking to do that? Well, in this case, you've got extremely low density residential completely surrounding the property. And it's been that way since the late 1980s. Why would you want to put the highest density looming over these people's homes and doing double or triple tier retail that will never have any tenants that will sit there vacant? Why would you want to do that when, number one, it's not equitable to the people that have invested time and money in their homes and to go to schools, have children go to schools there, and then just to take that all away when they never even got noticed that this vacant land was suddenly going to be the subject of a radical change in the potential increase in density? because I can tell you, you can ask everyone that comes before you today whether they knew this was going to happen because they're changing the comprehensive plan, and I'll be shocked if you find one or two that even anticipated that they would be facing this one day because they never got notified that this was of such importance. Now, I want to share a couple of things. Jihad or Mark, if you would, show the – Y'all have seen this before. This is just to illustrate our property, of course, is 4085 right in the center. And you can see you've got Palmetto Springs Way, you've got Santee Way, you've got Palomar Boulevard. Completely surrounding this development, except for a little bit down at the front, which goes into the fountains, a commercial site. But you're completely surrounded by the single family, low density residential development. This is a site of our development plan that we revised after talking with the staff. And it was decided, well, we'll just do a mirror image in terms of a template like they did an Ethington property 560 feet to the south. We'll have commercial up front. We'll have townhomes. Then we'll have single family residential. Now, the truth of the matter is we have a little more retail than what they have 560 feet to the south, but we're increasing commercial density to meet that aspect of the comprehensive plan, at least in terms of the retail. And we're asking for B3 zoning, which is a wide variety of uses. um hal mentioned we hadn't asked for any limitations uh when we asked for limitations and conditional zoning in the fountains we were criticized for doing so um it was brought up during the hearing that why are they eliminating so many uses we want more uses well now we're criticized because we don't have conditional zoning the truth of the matter is all the uses in the b3 are neighborhood-oriented type of businesses. The two that really aren't are, of course, adult uses, but we're offering in our proposal to eliminate those, but they couldn't be put here anyway because they're within 500 feet of a residential zone. The other one is pawn shops. They can't be here because none of them were in operation as of 1990. The rest of the B3 uses are general neighborhood-type uses, and they provide a lot more variety of potential employment and goods and services for people more intensely along the corridor. That's why we thought it would work. Now, that zone is not referenced in the comprehensive plan. I submit that's a missing element, but it doesn't mean that we can't ask for it. the thing that is often missed in this is that the comprehensive plan this document that we spent three or four years two years anyway coming up with under the law it is a guide it is an aspirational document under the law it is a guide it is not a straight jacket to get down into the minutiae of all these building criteria and say you've got to address each and every one and satisfy most of them to warrant approval to get your zone change is not what the law requires. In fact, the law states this very plainly. Even if a developer comes before you and he is in compliance with a comprehensive plan, in every respect, the urban county council can turn it down and the courts have said, just because you comply with a comprehensive plan in a zone change case, you are not entitled to get it approved you're not entitled even if you're in compliance this is what the court says this this is a 20 year old court decision so it's a guide but i think in in my respect in all due respect in these proceedings we tend to look at it like a straight jacket and we get into all these finite minutiae but the application that we filed uh based on the goals and objectives and the policies was perfectly suitable to get this development approved, perfectly suitable. Now, I had conversations with Hal, and he suggested that I address on the backside where the residential component is, that I say something about making that enhanced residential component, which I said, you know, okay, I can do that. I don't believe I need it, but I can do it. And so I filed it today. No deadline about filing anything. That's the first time I've ever heard of a 48-hour notice. I could have just talked about it today. I did it just for the sake of the record, because we didn't need to do it. Because in my judgment, based upon the application that we filed, our extensive consultation with the neighbors who are most affected and the principles that we outlined, we submitted enough warning approval of this own change. Now, what I did do is go ahead just for the record, because I know this is going to the council. I wanted them to see how this stuff looks and how lengthy it is. And so I filed. Hal says, well, I didn't get it till 11 o'clock. Well, I brought it today. I have to know, ironically, that an hour after Hal gave his presentation, he sent me an email saying, oops, I forgot. Apparently, I just came to my attention. You didn't get a copy of the staff report on the zoning or the subdivision plan. And then he said, you know, it's really just some an update or whatever. I haven't had time to look at it, but I only got an hour after he delivered it. So let's not get too picky eunish about who gets a report when frequently the staff will come up with itemized conditions an hour before we meet with you guys. So the truth of the matter is you can come to this hearing as we are today and set forth your argument, and that is the evidence upon which a decision is based. Now, as I said, it wouldn't matter how much I change the application, the staff and our side simply were not going to be in agreement based upon how we judge the application of the comprehensive plan. I judged it much more holistically and deferentially based on the language of being context sensitive to the neighbors than the staff asked. They wanted this intensity of development, which I believe that this site surrounded by all these single-family homes is not where we got to max out our density. We ought to do it in some reasonable fashion, which is exactly what our application shows. The next slide is, where are we now, on the next slide? This is the proposed screening. We've taken a great deal of pains to illustrate to the neighbors our commitment of compatibility and having a privacy fence around the property as well as enhanced landscaping. And we've committed to them that this would all be done at the final development plan stage so that we can fine-tune this screening for every home around the property, just like we did at the Fountains. We had special arrangements with each property owner to fine-tune what they needed in terms of screening. Some of them didn't want as much as others. That is a commitment that my folks made early on, and we will stand by it just as they've always stood by every commitment, at least I've ever heard they made. All right, so the next slide. This is an illustration of green space, which is talked about extensively in the comprehensive the plan. Yes, they talk about density, but they also talk about green space within these developments. And the areas that you see outlined in red are adjustments that we made in the plan to incorporate green space. Truth of the matter is, in this development, there's about 50,000 square feet of green space incorporated for these residents and the people that will visit the shopping center. I'll show you a little slide show here in a minute of how this green space is going to be utilized because it's a pretty cool development for the people that will live there and the people that will shop there. And it's exactly what the comprehensive plan encourages expressly. So next slide. This is, I'm going to take you on a little brief tour. Now we engaged Mark Arnold, who's a landscape architect. And I said, Mark, what I'd like for you to do is draw something to scale. Now, we aren't looking at the houses and the townhouses of how they're going to look. They're going to look much different and much more upscale than these buildings. These are placeholders. But just to show you, get a flavor for, what is it we're going to see? And so this would be coming off the Syringa stub street that you've heard comment about, which will be extended. It's not just going to be permanently stubbed. It's going to be extended in this development. And so we'll just take a little journey down Syringa here, extended, to see how it ultimately fits. We have plenty of street trees, of course. And if you just want to go through, Mark, all the way down to we get to the cul-de-sac where it kind of turns toward the townhouses. If you look on the development plan, you will see how the townhouses turn to development. The area that Mark is circling right now is one of our many parks we've set up conceptually, assuming that, you know, the customers, the clients want it. A little playground for kids to play, a little gathering spot for the neighbors to gather, to get to know one another, centered right in the middle of a development, dressed up nice. The trees, Mark, if you'll identify those, we hired Tom Kimmer. You all have heard Tom before. He's an arborist at University of Kentucky, highly regarded. We asked him to come out and survey all the existing trees on the property and to let us know which ones should be saved, which ones were truly special, unique, and should be saved. So we rearranged the entire development. We arranged the entire development to preserve these four trees. And we're including those in the first mini park, you know, where the children will play in this development. We thought that was taking advantage of provisions in the 2018 comprehensive plan that urged creativity to develop a sense of place, to develop a gathering spot where social interaction could take place, to develop pedestrian connectivity throughout the development. And this was part of the accumulation of those efforts. The next slide is what I would call a mini part two or gathering place number two. This is part of the pedestrian connection that will go on into the retail side. So the next slide should show that connection. So this is actually two connections that we'll see. If you look to your right, those are the rear yards of the homes in Palomar. You can see there's some significant green space on the other side of the fence where we're buffering these residential low-density homes from the commercial uses. Now, we'll have covenants and restrictions so that people don't get acting out of line as well because we want to make sure that the Palomar residents, that their quality of life is preserved. and we can still offer up a high-quality commercial site on a corridor that definitely needs it. And so this is our second pedestrian connection. We come up, and this is kind of a highlight of our third little mini park or social gathering place. This is in the commercial side. This is actually we took out a building to make this a destination where people would either get an ice cream cone or, you know, have a workout at a boutique gym if they wanted to put another one here or something similar where they could just kind of come down, eat their ice cream, have a chat. It's integrated with the commercial and the residential. It's integrated with Palomar. These are going to be accessed via bikes and pedestrians. They'll be wide enough to accommodate both. We thought this was a creative opportunity to take advantage of what the comprehensive plan encourages, and we sacrificed the building to do just that. So this is a broad view looking at the Palomar and all these are to scale, all these houses in Palomar that you see, those are to scale. This is what it would look like, you know, as looking over the rooftops toward the development. And the second slide. This is where I need Philip. Are you on? Philip Sewell? Yes, sir. All right, Philip. So, you know, you're a commercial real estate broker. Very briefly, give the Planning Commission a brief background of your education, where you went to college, what you majored in, and then what kind of work you've been doing for the last, I don't know, 30 years. Yes, sir. I picked up my real estate license in 1986, graduated from Center College in 1988, and started into commercial real estate at that point. Worked with Isaac Commercial Properties for 12 years, worked with a local developer, Jim Hughes, Bell Reef Development for a year, and then decided that I should start my own business and have had that since the year 2000. specializing in retail. My office has been located when I was with Isaac, as well as now in Corporate Center, right across from Beaumont. I live at 108 Crosswoods Place, right down Harrodsburg Road. If you're driving south on Harrodsburg Road, you can look almost into my living room. I am right before the Southland and the Crosswoods Baptist Church there, a little court with five houses. And I faced Harrodsburg Road in the back and have been there since 2005. I've worked on the Bell Reeves Shopping Center that's out there by my house and leased there. I have worked and probably done the majority of leasing. I represented Kroger with all of their retail, sold the lot, the last lot that was developed there to KCOMS that has an oral surgery office that's there in front of Kroger that many people probably just started to see here in the last year. I think we got it open about six to eight months ago. and leased the remainder of that building to a very large salon. Then moved over and worked on a 9,400 square foot spot owned by Mike Tedderton, who owns CLS that's now CLC that's in the old former Kroger. And that was a 9,700 square foot project, which we leased during COVID. It took about a year because of COVID, but it is 100% leased. And I think you have on the screen here, and I myself was maybe a bit shocked. I know that this quarter has always been a quarter where additional retail is desired from our clients and retail clients and brokers across the state. But we found out that Beaumont is, what, 99.5% full. and from all of the retail from Beaumont South, Palomar, all the way down into North Jessamine County, where Belle Reve is, I'm pretty sure we're at 97.9 or 98% occupancy. And frankly, anything over 95% occupancy and for your all's information is considered 100% because obviously tenants don't stay forever and tenants can't move in on the heels of other tenants. So it takes a few months between tenants expanding and moving, et cetera. So this retail Harrodsburg Road market is 100% occupied. If a client calls me right now and looks for space, I think there are two small suites available in South Elkhorn. And I'm pretty sure that Jamie Schrader representing the shops there at Beaumont up in front that Haymaker was a part of. I think they have one or two suites available. But that is all recognized on these, what you've got on the screen now. So, Philip, you get calls from people, businesses that want to locate on Harrisburg Road. Is that right? Consistently. And I've had signs up and been marketing for over 21 years. And what kind of demand are we talking about? Who wants to come on Harrisburg Road? Pretty much what you can think of, but everything from Steak and Shake to Biscuit Belly, Chick-fil-A looked around for three or four years that I'm aware of, maybe longer, and finally worked their way into the property down the road. um tied dry cleaners out of cincinnati dollar tree in the last uh year we've had six separate physical therapists um two pediatric physical therapists that have looked for space and i think only one has been able to be incorporated um chiropractors katrati studios dance studios nail salons a florist uh that was really frustrated that they couldn't get into anywhere dentist, med spa, local neighborhood pharmacy. Truly, I actually appreciate the opportunity to at least let the world know we receive calls from regional, local, and I guess you could even say national brokers. We have calls from brokers from Louisville. We have calls from brokers from Cincinnati. And very rarely are we able to incorporate their clients' desires. What you think of is, you know, there may be a space or two free, but those spaces, those premises don't, cannot be defined in a way that these potential tenants would like to be incorporated. It's too small, too big, just not set up right. So this is a very, very tight market and has been a tight market ever since I've been doing this since 1988. A lot of this wasn't even down through here, obviously. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you, Phil. If there's anything else that you feel is important the Planning Commission needs to know other than the significant need for additional retail space, that there is a demand for it that's not being met. There's a strong demand, and I will say this, from looking at this proposed plan, the commercial that is proposed does meet the requirements of the majority of the potential retailers. We quite often, one might look at South Elkhorn Plaza and say, well, it used to have some vacancies off and on. Well, it's going to just because it's basically going only to appeal to what we would consider local or maybe mom and pops. The nationals want exposure. They have to have exposure in order to be successful and they want readily access. And so I see from this proposed proposed plan, I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to see that even with the right in, right out, even though it's not a stoplighted front, this would still fill the needs of the real estate directors that you can just imagine that real estate directors have a 21 point checklist with KFC or whomever. else it is, steak and shake, etc. And when they want to locate in an area, they just can't go so far off script that they don't meet certain parameters that they have found overall. their many years experience that are successful. And so I beg every developer that I work with, I included my own operations when I develop, that we make sure that we try and make sure that if we do develop and we do have commercial space available, that we're within the constraints of being able to entertain and provide for the type of retail that we want to be serviced. The only other thing I find interesting is, and I might bet this is true, but it's just a guess. When we talk about the reduced traffic on Harrodsburg Road, I'd like to know what the traffic count is on Brannon. Because I've lived out there since 2005, and we drove Harrodsburg Road a thousand times a day. We homeschool. So we're always on Harrodsburg Road, and we're constantly coming into Lexington on Harrodsburg Road. But with the development of Brannon and all of the new potential and existing retailers out there, Brannon Road, we turn half our time left now where we never turned left before. And I do find that interesting as we were considering all of this. Because people are leaving to go elsewhere when they could find something closer if there were retail spots available. Is that right? Correct. Okay. All right, Phillip, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Okay, finally, just to wrap up, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission, as I said, we worked tirelessly with the neighborhood to come up with an accommodating plan that was sensitive to the surrounding houses and their investment over these many years and their expectations of what they might encounter in the future and be deferential to them. while at the same time increasing density to the maximum level that it would be marketable, successful, with the B3 commercial zoning along Harrisburg Road and the single-family houses in the back. Now, we can quibble over, is that dense enough? And what I'm asking you to do, and our justification as well, is that you just don't max out density everywhere. You have to look at the site and look at all of its features, what's around it, how long have those people lived there, what kind of homes are they in, are there apartments around, duplexes around, or fourplexes around? The answer to that is no. They're all single family. And I think it's fair and equitable to accommodate them with something similar in height, in scale, and location. And in this plan, we've done that. And that is in compliance with a comprehensive plan. based on the goals and objectives alone that we filed initially with this application. Now, as I said, I filed a supplement today for the record. I don't need to get into all of that, but suffice it to say, and looking at all of the development criteria, we complied with almost 90% of them. The ones where there is a discussion was density. How much density is needed? How much is too much for the particular site? And I think that's a threshold question that you all have to ask in connection with this application. Now, you can approve a zone change based upon the comprehensive plan. You can also approve a zone change under KRS 100-213 under a different provision. It's totally different. And it's really simple. And quite frankly, in my judgment, in this case, it is very easily to determine. And that is the applicant has to show that the existing zoning of the property, in this case, the property is zoned agricultural urban, is inappropriate. and the applicant has to show that the proposed zoning of B3 commercial and R3 residential is appropriate. So we have to show the existing zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning is appropriate. It's two-pronged test. So what do we look at with respect to the existing zoning? AU. What does AU allow you to do? Well, it's in the ordinance, if you read it, AU says all of the uses in the agricultural rural zone. All of the uses in the agricultural rural zone. Well, the agricultural rural zone is only located outside of the urban services boundary. This property is located in the urban services boundary. It's in the part of the urban southwest core for urban development in Lexington. This is not agricultural land. It's not suited for agricultural uses, but that is what this zone provides for. Now, just to give you a little bit further clarification on what this zone is about, if you read the intent provision of the agricultural urban zone, It provides that this ordinance is intended to control the development of rural land within the urban services area over a period of time so as to manage the growth of the community. In order to avoid premature or improper development, land should remain in this zone until public facilities and services are or will be adequate to serve the urban uses. Well, this property, I can tell you because I've lived out this way, has not been a farm for at least 60 years. The Masonic Lodge owned it for 38 years until it was sold to the Webs and the Greers last year. Prior to that, it was a single family residence, 11 acres. I know that because when I went to high school, I tried to date the girl that lived there and I never could be successful. So I know what the use has been because I've seen this property. The second part of this is this. If you look at the land that's available to be used in the agricultural rural area, it talks about traditional farming and typical equine and that kind of thing. There is an additional feature, however, in the agricultural urban zone that talks about it's appropriate for use for farm tours and hay rides in the agricultural urban zone. That's specifically delineated. Well, there has been no farm tours. There is no farm tour that can take place. There's no farm on this property. and the notion of a hay ride, there's no hay on the property. So by definition of the ordinance itself and its historic uses, the existing zoning is inappropriate. You're not going to have cattle being raised. You're not going to have horses being bred or boarded or trained. That's not compatible. I've heard it many times that horses and that houses, kids and dogs next to farms don't mix. It is is been the principal reason for denying those kinds of developments next to rural land. It's just incompatible in terms of the use. Now, the this land, a U-land, is being held until, according to the definition of the ordinance, until public services are available. Well, water's available, sewer's available, electric's available, gas is available. All of this is available to serve this site, and no one disputes that fact. It's undisputed that these services are available and can be made to serve this development. The time is now to do it. So, the current zoning at agricultural for farm tours and the like, it hasn't happened. And it won't happen. It's just land sitting there. There's an empty house. It has been a target for kids in the vicinity to do vandalism on it. So, it's become an attractive nuisance. The existing zoning is inappropriate. The proposed zoning of residential and commercial is exactly the same as what's 560 feet to the south. You just heard Philip Sewell talk about the need for more commercial space, of how successful it will be. And it will be successful here. It is dense within the context of being compatible to our neighbors in Palomar. You can disapprove or you can approve this zone change on that basis alone. You don't even have to fool with the comprehensive plan. It is so crystal clear that the existing zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning is appropriate that it compels a finding in that regard. And that's why I have two sets of findings. One, that you can adopt in favor of the comprehensive plan. And two, finding that the existing zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning is appropriate. That concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to respond to any questions. I think at this point, there's probably a number of neighbors that have been waiting for some period of time that would like to speak, I think, in favor of this application. I don't expect everybody to speak in favor of it. I encourage them to speak their mind for or against. That is a relationship we've had for going on three and a half years now with the webs and the greers that we've been very straightforward and candid and what they like and what they don't. So I may be surprised, but I don't think so. I'll be happy to respond to any questions. If not, that concludes my presentation. I thank you for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Before we move on, could you please email Ms. Jones your findings of facts so that they may be distributed to the members of the Planning Commission? I sure will. All right. And now, do any members of the Commission have questions for Mr. Simpson? Commissioner Penn? Bruce, I was very interested in your presentation. But I was kind of concerned why you never mentioned much about connectivity. Density seemed to be your strong suit, and connectivity seemed to be the staff's strong suit. So I don't need a 15- or 20-minute dissertation on connectivity. Are you pretty agreeable with the staff on the connectivity issue? No, I'm not, Mr. Penn, and I won't give you a 15-minute dissertation, and I know you'll hold me to that probably to three minutes or less. And that came about, it was really historical information that actually came up during the zone change hearing of the fountains when the neighbors expressed grave concern about cut through traffic on Harrodsburg Road. I went out there and looked at it. Do you need a traffic study? One of you can go out there and just park on Palomar Boulevard and look at the stream of cars coming off Harrodsburg Road, thinking they're going to have a shortcut by having to wait at the light at Harrodsburg and Man of War. they'll cut through Palomar all the time, a stream of cars. So all of the neighbors that live on Palomar Boulevard can attest to the nuisance and the dangerousness of these cars. And the Palomar streets, the Palomar Boulevard down to the first stoplight is a straight shot. These aren't narrow winding streets that can slow the traffic down. They encourage speeding, And that's a danger to the residents and a danger to the kids in the area. So connectivity, opening up Syringa to commercial space and have people doing an alternative cut through when it's not needed. There's pedestrian connectivity, bicycle connectivity from Palomar, existing Palomar, Palomar and the new homes in this residential subdivision that we're going to create so people can walk there. They don't need to drive the car there. There's no need to open it up to the potential for people that don't live in the area to do cut through escape and evasion tactics to bypass the heavy traffic that's on Harrisburg Road. That traffic is going to grow every year. Why? Lexington grows about 35,000 people every 10 years. We don't advertise. They come and they live here, and our population grows. We're not having any more land developed to spread out. They're all here, and they're going to be on Harrisburg Road. You've answered my question. That's why. Now, the second part of that question is this. Is this development plan a placeholder to get the zone change? you know if you recall we had it we had a you and i had quite a discussion back in the fountains and i think you made the observation that you've heard a lot about uh development plans but not much about zoning uh so by uh my intent was i'm not going to talk about the development plan this time because i know frank will be on me immediately well the truth of the matter is this this is a preliminary development plan. It is an indication of conceptually what we propose to do. Now, it is true that we propose that Syringa be limited to that access, but the other fine-tuning of the development plan, that comes later. This is preliminary. The zoning is what's important at this point. Bruce, you understand that I need to get both those questions on the record. I understand, Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, sir. Commissioner Mickler? Yes, I've got a couple of questions. The first one you mentioned you had Tom Kimmerer come out and do a survey of the trees and you selected four in sort of the residential part to save. I was looking at the application package. I didn't see a report from Tom Kimmerer or any information about the trees on the property as a whole. Is that included in there, and am I missing it? I don't think we included it. These would be typically issues that when we get, if zoning gets approved and we get to the final development plan stage, when we get really in the weeds, pardon the pun, to get in details about all the trees and which ones ought to be preserved and that sort of thing, that we would have Mr. Kimmer come and talk about that. We've had the Urban County Forester has been out and identified, he identified these same four trees, by the way, that were the most worthy of saving, and so we realigned the development to save those trees. Okay, because when I'm looking at it and and using some of the language you use with context sensitive. I haven't, I'm not questioning that, the evaluation of which trees, because I haven't seen it, but as a, as sort of a concern about the aesthetics and the look of the corridor, that property possesses some large and significant trees that would take many, many years, if not decades up front close to that Harrodsburg road corridor, including the driveway to the historic house that look to be interfering with the placement of the buildings in the parking lot now. And it was in that context that I was concerned the trees being saved a little bit further from the corridor as far as visual significance to that corridor. Excellent question. and we did survey those trees. Mr. Kimmer did, as did our own urban forester, and some of those trees are in not very good condition, not expected to have much of a life expectancy, but the time and place to get into that level of detail, in my judgment, not to really cloud up Ural's threshold decision on zoning was at the final development plan stage. And I really, I kind of learned from Fountains not to get too detailed on the development plan. Frank was right about that. And then, Brink, coming back to just that connectivity issue, it seems like you are responding and respecting the position of residents regarding traffic with the connectivity question to Syringa Drive. Cutting off that connectivity, I think, was noted by the staff that it means that all of those residents that live off of Palmetto and Palomar would have to go on to Manowar or Harrodsburg to access this development, including a new resident from Syringa, unless they were walking. And so, but part of my question, it seems like comes down to and this is interpretation, I guess, where you all disagree with staff. They are, and because I kind of put myself in the shoes, if I'm entering this from, if I'm driving out there, I'd be entering from Harrodsburg Road, either directly if you get your access or from Fountain Blue. I wouldn't be going into the neighborhood. It does seem like this access would primarily serve the neighborhood and then justify the lower allocation of trips that staff is maintaining, whereas you all are maintaining a much higher allocation of trips into the neighborhood? Well, you know, you make good observations. This is one of the, a case of unintended or unforeseen consequences that has been proven to establish. My first case back at 1988, Max Conyers, who used to be with the planning staff, educated me about escape and evasion in situations where there was ever-increasing traffic on a major corridor and people were looking to escape and evade it. And sometimes people think that they're making progress if they're just moving when in fact they're taking a longer route. We already know there's a major cut through from Harrodsburg Road to Manowar through the Palomar neighborhood at excessive speeds. The thing that we don't want to create another case of unintended consequences is people that aren't familiar with the neighborhood coming through Syringa, going to and from, doing likewise. There's just no need for it. This is set up so that as a comprehensive plan encourages, in many instances, provide incentives for people to walk. And so we've got two really nicely designed pedestrian and bike paths to this development for the folks in Palomar. They don't even need to drive a car to get to this development. So are you in agreement that the trip count to this development would be primarily off of Harrodsburg Road regardless of the connectivity and you're concerned about unintended consequences which should not and would not be in the traffic impact? Well, to answer your question, yes, because I would say no traffic study contemplated the amount of cut-through traffic that takes place right now in Paloma. No one ever thought that would likely happen. I'm not sure people even save time doing it, but they do it. And as you will hear from the people that live on that street, you know it's interesting in terms of the traffic numbers and the traffic counts on the one hand as I heard Stuart who I've known for a long time and highly respect talk about the increasing level of service that with this development if we put in 250 apartments if we maxed out dense in every respect you're going to see a whole lot more degradation and level of service. This is why we believe that keeping it dense, which we believe the commercial is, but the residential component, relatively low, is what we have proposed, is a compromise of conflicting policies in the comprehensive plan, but applied to a situation that begs for that contact sensitivity because you're surrounded on three sides by single family homes. I mean, there ought to be some deference to a reasonable expectation of what a future homeowner is going to face and not high density. It's just not on the horizon. Just to clarify, my question did not have to do with density of the housing. But thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Meckler. do any other commissioners have questions for Mr. Simpson just just a clarification of which argument we're in as I understand it the planning staff is not arguing against a zone change it's a matter of if there is a zone change what's the correct zoning is that correct Mr. Bailey. Ladies and gentlemen, this is zoned AU. The property is set up for a zone change at some point in time. The applicant has supplied an application that staff responded to in association with a development plan. The staff found that application and the associated development plan lacking in agreement with the comprehensive plan and therefore is recommending disapproving. Thank you. Are there any other questions before we move on to citizen comment? Seeing none, we will move to citizen comment. I would ask that everyone maintain respect, and we will limit comments to three minutes each. Ladies and gentlemen, if you could go ahead and raise your hand digitally now, we will start to bring people in in the order that their hand is raised. So don't lower your hand until after you have provided your comment. We will start with Mr. Scott Sandberg. Mr. Sandberg, we are going to promote you now to a panelist. You may start your video and address the planning commission. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Yes, sir. All right. I'm Scott Sandberg. I'm a Palomar resident, 4028 Saniway, backed up to the new development. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I'm not a study on a map or an analysis on a PowerPoint presentation like we've just seen. I'm just a 30-year resident and businessman that's raised three kids here, lives and experiences the subject area every single day. I, and by the way, based on the piggybacking on Bruce's comments, if you don't believe that Palomar, Santee Way, and Palmetto are not cut through, I suggest you sit on my porch every day and observe it. I know change is difficult, but it's necessary. My Palomar neighbors and I understand that. Without change, a business, a company, a city, a county, or a neighborhood becomes stagnant and will eventually fail. None of us desire that result. As Bruce said, we'd love for this area to be stay a green space. We don't, that's not realistic and we don't expect it to stay that way. implementation of change requires negotiation and compromise for sure amongst all parties not just a one-way street either direction without compromise the changes are received by all parties involved as directives creating conflict and most importantly creates a total lack of trust. We all want what's best for our community, though we all must cooperate and compromise. I negotiate for a living. Frankly, the tone of some of the presentations I've experienced this afternoon are concerning. I believe that a reasonable compromise can be reached. The 2018 comprehensive plan, Imagine Lexington, is to be applauded. I think everybody in Palomar would agree with that. I'm glad that some creative thought has gone into the city planning, though it must be understood that this is a guideline for development. We do not live in a black and white world. At least my world is not black and white. It cannot be viewed or implemented as a non-compromising set of rules or laws as portrayed in the presentations that started this meeting. Without consideration of how it affects the citizens of Fayette County, in this case, families of Palomar. Every circumstance is different and must be looked at individually. There are no absolutes in my world or in your world or this world. I feel strongly that the subject property development applicants plan is a well thought out compromise and addresses the comprehensive plan, goal of increased commercial and residential density, diverse mix of community infrastructure and financial return on the developer's property investment that's important too for all of us to stay in business thank you and to support the residential community goals of neighborhood livability neighborhood aesthetics and beauty safety traffic flow emotional investment and financial investment yeah thank you thank you Mr. Sandberg, we will move on to our next individual who would like to speak is Mr. Carl Hockroft. We will be promoting this individual. Okay. We are now promoting. Mr. Hawk Robb, you have been promoted and you can start your video and address the planning. We see that your video has been started. I'm going to ask you to unmute. There you go. There you go. Is that okay now? Yes, sir. Okay. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. I'll get straight to the point. I'm absolutely against any solution that includes apartments. I'd like to voice my support for the proposal. I've learned a lot today, a lot of good information. I want to voice my support for the proposal that includes townhomes and garden homes or a mixture or a blend thereof. I think that's the best solution to provide density that complements the neighborhood, the existing neighborhood. I've heard a couple of terms like compatibility to the Palomar community. I've heard some information about connectivity as it relates to traffic flow through the neighborhood. I've lived in Palomar since April of 1994. I relocated here with Toyota. I'm retired from Toyota. I spent my career with them in planning and preparation for production. And incidentally, one of the things that I wrote for Toyota when I did some time in the corporate safety department is I wrote a standard for vehicle and pedestrian separation. So I see the intention of the plans that Mr. Simpson represented on behalf of his clients. I overall think that that proposal is just a better fit for the existing Palomar neighborhood. the type of homes, the residents, they, in my view, that seems to, that will integrate better into the existing neighborhood. And I also like it from the standpoint that we're talking about homeowners, whether it's a garden home or a townhome, and even those homeowners could even consider becoming further integrated into the neighborhood as far as even joining the neighborhood for some of the amenities that are here. I know that's a whole different topic, but I've lived here since 1994. I was a townhome owner in Palomar before becoming a resident on Amberwood Court. We like the neighborhood and everything it offers. We understand the changes in all the traffic burden. And I echo the same comments that have been made about the dangers of high-speed traffic from people that don't live in the neighborhood, that choose to cut through the neighborhood in the ways that have been described. Also, Mr. Headley Bell, when he commented about the burden that's increased burden on Parker's Mill that he's noticed. So anyway, that's fine. I'm voting for offering my support for the proposal today. Thank you so much. Next, sir. You're welcome. Mr. Sam Dunn. Is he wanting to do it? Yes. Oh. Yes, sir. Mr. Dunn, you have been added to as a panelist. You may start your video and address the planning commission. Hi, I'm Sam Dunn. I'm a lifelong resident of Lexington, and we moved into Palomar in 2000. I'm on the board of the neighborhood. We have an active neighborhood board association, and we are very concerned about the character of the neighborhood, and that's one of the reasons we've been active with the developers in the area, and we appreciate the opportunity to be able to contribute and give comments to that. We are in favor of the proposed development, mainly because we believe that there's compatibility with the single family and the townhomes. We also see the retail as an extension of the Fountain Project, which we supported as well as the South Arocorn Village and Ethington Heights. I do take a little bit of the traffic studies don't really tell the whole story. We're seeing a transition in our neighborhood over the last eight to 10 years of more kids. The neighborhood is getting younger. And we talk about pedestrian safety on Harrisburg Road. But I will tell you that when you look at our streets of Palomar Boulevard and Palmetto Boulevard, we have a clubhouse on Palmetto, which is a major thoroughfare. And we have our pool. We have our playground. We have our tennis courts. We have kids on bikes. We have pedestrians walking to and from. And the the the proposal of the traffic going through Syringa and the cut throughs, that's a real concern for us because of the safety of the pedestrians here. I agree with Healy. There is no easy solution, but in my mind, Harrisburg Road would be better prepared to take care of the traffic than Syringa or Palomar or Palmetto Drives. Thank you for your time, and once again, we support the plan that has been put forward. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Next, Caitlin Colvin. Ms. Colvin, you have been promoted to a panelist. You can start your video and address the planning commission. Hi, my name is Caitlin Colvin. I am a resident of Palomar and I live right on Palomar Boulevard. We bought in 2016 with a then three-month-old, and we specifically bought in Palomar because the surrounding neighborhoods that we wanted are all cut-throughs. Rabbit Run, Beaumont, Harrods Hill, all are cut-throughs and all are burdened and put kids in danger. My three-month-old is now a five-year-old, and I have a two-year-old, and the danger is very scary. I walk my kids every day on the sidewalks and already it is a cut through. So Bruce's plan is very respectful and very conscientious to the Palomar neighborhood. I think it is a great proposal that is congruent with the 2018 comprehensive plan that increases density with commercial use. I believe that anything that would have high density would once again put the neighborhood in danger and would put an extreme stress on the beautiful green spaces that Palomar already has, including our parks that I use almost daily as well with my kids. We could very easily fit the 23 homes that Bruce's proposal has into Palomar, and it could once again, like other residents have said, easily be integrated. And the conductivity with the pathways once again is extremely uh respectful and conscientious the pathways that we already have at the fountains we used every day this summer to go to poppies and we love the pathways uh the foot pathways um i just wanted to once again uh as a very concerned resident of doing anything higher than the 23 proposed houses. I think Bruce's current proposal is wonderful for the integrity of this neighborhood, and I yield my time. Thank you so much. Next is Gerald Pearson. Mr. Pearson, you've been promoted to a panelist. If you would like to go ahead and start your video, you may address the planning commission. Oh, hi. My name is Gerald Pearson. My wife, Catherine Wong, and I and our three children live right at one of the houses adjacent to the Syringa Gate. In fact, you showed a picture of our house a little bit earlier in the panel's presentation. We support the proposal, and let me just explain why. When we moved in there, we obviously thought at some point there would be some kind of development there. We hoped it wouldn't be too bad. And the proposal that's been given isn't too bad. It fits in with preserving the character of the neighborhood and the quality of life. We support this plan and the zone change that would come along. The thing with the current number of proposed residential units, that's 21, I think homes altogether, we figure that would add about maybe 40 to 60 people living in that area. We can handle that coming down Syringa. It's a great increase. I think right now there's eight individuals, counting the people in the different houses. What we're very much worried about is Syringa becoming a cut through. When we talk about connectivity, you know, through a Fountain Blue to Syringa to Captain to Ramsey's. Well, that's all well and good, but the value of us getting a back way to Ramsey's does not, it's not worth it, the amount of traffic. We've got major problems, I think, right now with the amount of traffic that goes in and out at the Harrodsburg-Palomar exit. I won't go through that way. I go to Lyons because I think it's too dangerous to turn left as it is right now. I worry with commercial traffic from the fountains, if that's connected going through, there are people looking for back ways. It's going to cause even worse problems. I pulled up some statistics. Since we moved in in 2014, there's been 41 collisions at Palomar and Harrodsburg Road. There's been 51 at Lyons Drive, but, you know, I think there's a lot more traffic that goes through there. We're just concerned about people using it as a cut through. Syringa and then the connection to Harrodsburg Road right there. We don't want anything worse than what is being proposed. So we support this proposal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pearson. Next is Marty and Bill May. Marty and Bill May, you have been promoted as a panelist. You can go ahead and start your video and address the planning commission. Hello, my name is Marty May. I'm here with my husband, Bill. We built our home on Santee Way in 1991. And we're here to support the current proposal to the planning commission. We have major concerns about the traffic cut through as everybody's talked about. We live right on Santee that backs up to the proposed property, and we see every day kids and other people cutting through and zooming down our street to save some time. They've taken out several mailboxes on our street. There's been accidents on our street, and we can't imagine having tons of people living up there on the corner. We know that the small amount of properties that are proposed could be incorporated into our neighborhood easily and safely. But we can't even imagine having 500 people or 500 cars on that corner as residents. And we support being able to walk to those stores that they're going to put up there. A lot of people in this neighborhood right now walk and ride bikes, but we don't want the extra traffic coming through our neighborhood. That's all I need to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. and Ms. May. Next is Brad Kirkoff. There are two hands raised for Brad Kirkoff, so I don't know if I should bring them both. Do you want to bring a vote? I don't know. We'll do the first one at the top. If that doesn't work, we'll bring it. Mr. Kirkoff, you have been promoted to a panelist. You may start your video and address the Planning Commission. If you're actually the other Mr. Kirkoff, we can address for that. I'm going to ask you to want to move. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jay Connie. I'm a resident here in Palomar. I had to take over. We're in the clubhouse at Palomar Hills, and there are three of us here to speak, and Brad will speak if he can get back in time. He had to pick up a kid. I guess I'll start. Thank you for giving us this opportunity. My name, as I said, is Jay Connie. I live at 2032 Glade Lane in Palomar. I back up to the Fountains Project. I'm a systems engineer for over 50 years. So dealing with some of the engineering difficulties and the traffic planning difficulties, I certainly can appreciate as a challenge. I want to say that I support the plan. I appreciate Bruce Simpson's presentation. Every time he presents, I learn a lot. And I think he's done a very thorough job of raising the issues, the historical context and the current context. I also support his point and the others about the need for more commercial restaurants and other shopping. I'd certainly like to see that closer. I'm looking forward to the Starbucks opening at the Fountains, which has been proposed, and there's a place there. My second major point is the cut-through traffic issue is the primary issue. one gentleman said it's hard to measure how heavy the traffic is and how big a problem is others have suggested just sitting and watching I suggest looking at it from an engineering perspective is wait times look at wait times at each of the intersections for going into and out of the neighborhood and that would give you some useful data I think that would help clarify the facts of the matter. My third point is about the comprehensive plan of 2018. You know, I understand it's a statement of philosophy as a guide to raise questions that should be considered. But as others have said, it's not a dictatorial rule that must be obeyed thoroughly. Bruce Simpson made the point about its status in the decision-making process, which I understand and appreciate. Taking into account the local as-built conditions is critical. This is not the summit. A gentleman commented on the former country road that's being turned into not a country road. Well, yeah, that goes with development. It's inescapable. Former is the operative word. There's a comment about drive-throughs and some concern about that. In this day and age, there's more and more demand for drive-thrus and I imagine as these properties get sold or at least whether a drive-thru is necessary or not for the business to operate effectively is something needs to be considered in that narrow context. I don't think a general statement about not wanting drive-thrus is appropriate. And then the schools issue. I know in this neighborhood a primary attractor for people coming in is access to the schools here. So that has to be considered as part to be a responsible evaluator of our context. So those are my points. I also say that the webs and the greers and dealing with me as an adjacent neighbor to the fountains have been very good in working with us and talking to us about every aspect of it. And they've done a beautiful job of putting up trees and hydrangeas as a screen between my... I'm sorry, sir. We've hit three minutes. We need to move on to whoever else would like to speak. Thank you. We have two other people here. Do you want to come up closer? Perhaps bring a chair up or stand here. Whatever. Good afternoon. If you would please state your name. Joan Tackett, 4032 Santee Way. My husband and I have lived here for almost 32 years. And this is not a corridor to us. This is our home. We've made major investments in interior and exterior to our home all in an effort to make it a home that we love and to keep the standards high. We believe that if apartments are placed in the development, this would be a detriment to our property values and also the traffic and everything that we've already discussed today. we are there are already over 1,000 apartment units surrounding Palomar Hills including Palomar View which is directly across the road from our entrance at Palomar Boulevard and we feel that the plan for the city should take into account the owners of the property that are already impacted by this, that are already present in a well-established neighborhood where we pay. We are a deed-restricted neighborhood, and we pay a monthly fee to maintain the quality of our home. I do I am opposed to the placement of apartments and the property behind us and I do support the development that has been proposed thank you. Thank you so much Good afternoon if you would please state your name My name is Chester Tackett you just heard from my wife My wife and I live on 4032 Santee Way in Palomar. Our backyard joins the former Mason Lodge property under consideration here. We've lived here at this address for nearly 32 years, long before the current comprehensive plan was ever developed. It's our forever home. We have invested, like my wife said, a great deal of money in our home over the years. Most recently, over $80,000 to our backyard, which is the most impacted by what is developed on the property. Our backyards of the 24 homes, including ours joining the property, are all small. They're very small. therefore our homes will be extremely close to whatever is developed on the property the planning commission's decision to what is developed on this property we have a very limited impact on the city of lexington but could have a very real negative impact on the palomar hills residents especially those 24 homes joining the property. Therefore, as a very concerned longtime resident of Palomar Hills in Lexington, I would like the record to show that I support the landowner's proposal for the former Masonic Lodge property and would very much appreciate the Planning Commission's approval. I believe it's the best option for our community. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Mr. Tackett. Next is Casey Wiesner. Ma'am, are you looking to speak in the room? We don't have anyone else in the room here right now. Brad might come back after he picks up his kid. Thank you. I'll mute now. Ms. Wesner, I believe that you've been promoted. If you would like to unmute yourself and start your video, you may address the planning commission. Hey there, I'm Casey Wiesner. We live at 4024 Santee with my wife and two daughters. Born and raised in the area in Herod's Hills and then moved to Palomar. I went in 96 and graduated from Dunbar in 99 and now I've moved my family back there. So I am very active in the neighborhood and in several of the other neighborhoods as a real estate agent. My family's been in the area for 45 years. And there's a lot of demand right now for single family homes, townhomes. There's hardly nothing on the market. I also represent a builder in Eddington Heights where we're selling homes and getting a lot of traction. So to have this additional housing as a happy compromise between the neighborhood and the developers is something that I would support. Just this last week, we had a house in Harrods Hills that had 60 showings on it in three days with 14 offers and sold for way over less price. So we have the demand. another thing on Santee you have a lot of cut through traffic and I have a nine-year-old daughter that plays with a lot of young kids and they cross back and forth on the street and it's been some close calls but in the morning you have all those cut throughers come through Santee and the light at Man of War backs up sometimes all the way to the clubhouse and that just shows you how much traffic is cutting through the neighborhood but I have been very appreciative of Bruce and the developers and the way they've handled this. They've tried to work closely with the neighbors. We're the ones that live there. We know what's going on. I know you're, you know, whatever your 2000 comprehensive says, but I'm going to have to argue that some of that stuff is outdated as far as the traffic patterns. The traffic is not minimized at all, but I do appreciate y'all's time and thank you for your service. And I'll leave that back to you all. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Reisner, Victoria Bradley. Miss Bradley, you've been promoted. If you would like to start your video and unmute yourself, you may address the planning commission. Okay, I think I'm on. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. So I'm Victoria Bradley. I live at 4017 Palomar Boulevard. We've been here since 1988. I've raised three boys and I'm now raising a 14-year-old grandson here. I am a nurse, and so I'd like to speak to the culture of promoting exercise and health and promoting safety within our community. I am speaking in support of this rezoning and the proposal. I echo what other people have talked about in terms of the concerns over the increase in traffic. It's very dangerous now. It's not safe to walk and bike in the morning when people are going to school and going to work or when they're coming home. I was not aware of the comprehensive plan. I hope the comprehensive plan speaks somewhere to promoting bike paths and walking paths, and that I hate to think that 30 years from now, we'll be coming back through this neighborhood and finally putting one in. I would like to hope that as areas are developed, that they're included in the development and not an afterthought. right now. We would love, and we do, sometimes it's very risky to take our bikes across Manowar to go over to Beaumont where we can get to bike paths. There's no way I can get across Harrodsburg Road. It's way too scary. So again, I would like to speak as a nurse who's worried about the welfare of our children and of our seniors that we're promoting exercise every day. and we think this proposal will help promote that and I'm definitely against increasing density in that area. I think this is my first planning committee that is very informative and I think I need to do more of this. Thank you very much. Thank you Ms. Bradley. Before we hear further comment. Are there any citizens in opposition? So, Brian Wellman, you're up next. Mr. Wellman, you have been promoted to a panelist. You may now unmute yourself and start your video to address the planning conditions. Thank you. Am I coming through okay? Yes, sir, you are. Wonderful. So again, yep, my name is Ryan Wellman. I was born and raised in Lexington, and I live at 4016 Santee Way with my wife and my three young children for the last six and a half years now. I'll be honest, initially I was apprehensive about moving into this particular home because the backyard is pretty small, and it's sloped, and it's not conducive to running around and playing outside, but I ultimately relented with the idea that my children could grow up utilizing the large field behind us kind of as an extension of our own yard. I have since come to terms with the idea that that dream will never be our reality. And while that's immensely disappointing to me and breaks my heart for my children, the idea of backing up to single-family homes would, at a minimum, still at least align with the culture that attracted us to this neighborhood to begin with. It would allow us continued access to the same school district, which we love, and it would not dramatically impact the traffic that we already see up and down our street in the mornings and evenings. So thus, it's a compromise that my wife and I find acceptable. And I would say that if a citizen is eager to utilize high residential living on this particular corridor, then I would encourage them to look across the street and take advantage of the already existing high density apartment complex that exists there today. So I'd like to formally go on record and in support of the development being proposed today. And thank you to the Planning Commission for your time and allowing me to speak. Thank you very much, Mr. Wellman. Our next participant is Mr. Tom A. Mr. Tom A, I believe that you have been promoted to a panelist. You may unmute yourself and start your video to address the planning conditions. I think you just came in. Mr. Tom A? Yes. Let me start the video as well. Okay. I'm a former professor in the Department of English at the University of Kentucky. My wife and I moved to Palomar in 1997, and we very much enjoyed the neighborhood. I will not take a lot of time here except to lend our voices in support of the rezoning to R3 and B3 in support of the proposal made and so carefully explained by Mr. Simpson. We have the same concerns that have already been voiced about the traffic in the neighborhood. Sometimes it's impossible to get onto Manowar via Palmetto and Lion Drive in the morning without waiting through two or three changes of the light. Traffic is already heavy. We fear that it would become much heavier if a high-density proposal were enacted. So I will stop with that. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Sir, will you provide your full name for the record? Yes, my name is Thomas Adler and my wife's name is Elizabeth Adler. I live on Mangrove Drive. Thank you so much. Allie Keener. Miss Keener, you have been added as a panelist. you may go ahead and start your video and unmute yourself to address the planning commission. Ms. Keener, you're good to go. All right. Sorry, that was my toddler. But yes, this is Allie Keener, and I live on Palmetto Drive at the bottom of Santee. Both streets that will be significantly affected by what is developed on this property. We're actually within 500 feet of the development area. My husband and I purchased our home in it was September of 2020, knowing that it's a single family home, really nice neighborhood. I grew up in Lexington and it always has been. We have a three year old toddler and many of the families in our neighborhood have young children that we plan to raise in this neighborhood in a great public school district. It's the same school district I went to and the reason why we moved to this neighborhood. I'm strongly in favor of the proposed plan, including single family homes and townhomes both, as I think it keeps with the makeup of Palomar Hills neighborhood. The need for single family homes in this 40513 zip code is huge, along with surrounding zip codes. If you look at 40514, 40504, and 40503, there's just not many homes available right now to purchase in our area. I know this because I have many, many friends looking to move to this neighborhood and area, and they just keep saying there's not really anything out there. Also, there is a need for townhouses, like the plan proposes, for baby boomers who are downsizing. downsizing. My parents and many friends of my parents are looking for townhouses just like these in this specific area. The proposed plan, including single-family homes and townhomes, will be the best fit for the Palomar Hills community and the City of Lexington. Thank you to everybody on the commission, Bruce Simpson as well, and I'll yield the rest of my time to the next speaker. Thank you so much. Next is Cindy Greathouse. This great house you've been promoted to a panelist if you would like to start your video and unmute yourself, you may address the planning commission. I'm going to give you a little bit of a nudge and ask you to unmute. I'm not sure what is happening here. Ms. Greathouse, it seems like you shared your screen. You want to start your video. It has a start video with a camera next to it. I can also ask you to start your video. We'll see if that works. Well, it went in and out. All right, now we are going to ask you to unmute. And Ms. Greathouse, if you could say hello to us and we'll see if we're connected. Yes, can you hear me now? Sorry. Yes, ma'am. We can hear you now. Go right ahead. Okay. My name is Cindy Greathouse, and I live on Santee, and I actually back up to the property in question. I am just calling in to say I'm in favor of the proposed. Mr. Simpson's been so great and kind to try and really incorporate what we want as a neighborhood there. And also, I would just want to say that to have that as a cut through all the way, Syringa as a cut through for cars all the way through to the fountains, I think would just be very detrimental. It's it's it would be even more unsafe to go out there between the hours of three and five in the afternoon with kids on the street. So I just want to go on the record saying I do support the proposed plans without the cut through as a road. The cut through with the walkway is great. And that's all we need for the access as a neighborhood resident. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, we have M. Poop. Thank you. allowing you to speak. M. Pope, you have been promoted. If you'd like to unmute yourself, your video seems to be on. if you would like to address the Planning Commission. Em Pope, why don't you go ahead and say hi. I think you are connected with us. All right. Hi, my name is Melissa Pope, and I'm a 10-year resident of the Palomar neighborhood, living at 4081 Palomar Boulevard with my husband and 13-year-old son. I thank the Planning Commission and Mr. Simpson for meeting with the residents of our neighborhood during this process. I agree with the current development plan. If a higher density plan is approved, I vehemently oppose access to Syringa Drive from the front corridor commercial and higher density residential. I witness each morning as I take my dog for a walk, people turning left from Harrodsburg Road onto Palomar and immediately turning right onto Santee and right. Even though there are multiple signs encouraging people to drive 25 miles per hour, this does not occur. I presume there would be even more traffic if a higher density plan and access from the commercial front corridor is approved. Again, I agree with the current development plan and appreciate the developer working with our community. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you so much. Brad Kirkoff. Mr. Kirkoff, I believe you've been promoted. Will do. All right, I'm the real Brad Kirkoff. Sorry for that. We have bus shortages this week, so I was picking up my son at Beaumont Middle School. I'm actually the president of Palomar Hills Community Association. Just wanted to state that we were in support of this plan. We were heavily involved, multiple meetings developing the plan with the entire neighborhood, several meetings. Had a meeting on Monday or Tuesday with the neighborhood where we went through this same plan. With about three days of notice, we had 72 people within Zoom and in person, basically all in support of the plan. I want to talk about a couple of things that we're concerned about. The traffic, the traffic has heavily increased in this neighborhood. I moved in here in 2004, my first house, bought my third house here as well. Lots of more kids have moved in, so a lot more child traffic on the streets. There's 662 houses in Palomar. About 14% of those are duplex or townhome. So there's quite a few people that live here, guessing between 1,500 and 2,500 people if you're looking at that number of houses. So there's a lot of traffic. The walkability in this neighborhood is actually better now than it's ever been. We've got wild eggs across the street we can walk to. We've got poppies and the fountains we're walking to. We have a brick oven pizza. We have Ramsey's, all these places we can walk to. And we're concerned that the traffic's continuing to increase. We just added a new access road last year. First time we've added a new street coming through Palomar in the 30-something years we've been here. Very concerned that we could be adding another one, possibly two, in that short of time. Seems like change management that's coming at us really, really quickly. More and more kids on the street than ever. We support the plan. We have desire to bring that part of the neighborhood in as part of Palomar. Worked well with the developers on that. You know, the webs of the Greers have built all across Lexington for a number of years, and no one's ever accused them of being afraid to build more intensity. That's never been an issue for them. The fact that they're not wanting to do that tells you there's not really a market for that right now. And the last thing we want is empty spaces around the neighborhood. That's a high security risk. We already have increased security issues that are in our park, in our common areas. We're actually putting in about a $30,000 camera system this year because of that. So we're highly concerned to get the right mix in there, something that complements the neighborhood well. Since I've lived here, we've had three or four different developments go in. The fountains, the initial property, I think the Hackers and the Webstead, where Poppy's is now. We have the Eddington property. All those have complemented what we have here very well. And we're just hoping that we can continue to keep that flow going. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next is Farzad. Togadosi? Farzad Togadosi, you have been promoted. You can unmute yourself and address the planning commission. Yes, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Go right ahead. Well, first, I want to thank you for this opportunity. My name is Farza Tagadossi. I'm a resident of Alamar Hills. We have been living there with my wife and two kids since about five, six years ago. and I am actually in a very unique position to be for my house being at the corner of both properties both the new development proposed and also the Palomar fountains so I would like to start by saying that I strongly support the plan put forward by Mr. Simpson I did listen to this you know, I joined this meeting right from the beginning and I listened to the planning staff presentation and I understand the need for increase in density in the city, but at the same time, I feel that any kind of development should be sensible and also integrate well with the community. Just the same way that, you know, I think we don't allow a high rise to be built in an area where there are only single families, right? So it would be completely out of place. So in the same sense, I think Mr. Simpson's plan is a very logical compromise between the needs of the developers to build something that they can make money and also the concerns of the neighborhood. I want to mention that I want to appreciate the openness of Mr. Simpson and his team in not just listening to residents concerns, but actually implementing their concerns and incorporating them in their plan. So maybe many people would listen, but, you know, actually implementing them is extremely important and valuable to us. I had a very good experience working with them when they developed the the Palomar Fountains. We had several meetings and they really listened to my needs and my demands. And I was quite happy with the outcome from that. So again, I'm supporting the plan proposed by Mr. Simpson. And I appreciate the opportunity to provide my feedback. Thank you. Thank you so much. were there any other citizens who would like to speak? We do have one phone caller and I'll tell us how they can move. If the individual on the line would like to raise their hand, I believe it's star nine. All right. We have a last hand thrown up there. Would you like to promote? Sure. Mr. Schatz, you have been promoted to a panelist. You may start your video and address the planning commission. I ask that if there are any other members of the community that would like to speak on this application, please raise your hand now so that we don't have trickles in as we go along. Mr. Schatz, go right ahead. Yeah, I appreciate your time and the opportunity to speak. My name is Daniel Schott. I live at 4029 Santee Way. Again, not directly backed up to the property, but I am across the street. I just wanted to voice my opinion here and let you know that I am an approval of the zoning change that Mr. Simpson presented. it. We've lived here for six years. I've got a nine-year-old and a six-year-old. And to be brutally honest with you, I don't let them play in the front yard because of the traffic. It is hazardous and scary that the people that come through here and cut through currently, the speeds that they go at and the inconsistency of the way they drive. So again, the concern around traffic is huge. You know, the connectivity to be able to drive, as once somebody said earlier from Ramsey's to the amphitheater scares me a lot because that means all of that traffic is driving through our residential neighborhood, which I don't care what committee or planning or anything else, you don't want to see higher traffic in a residential area that makes no sense to me. So with the single family homes and townhomes that are on the proposal, I certainly agree with. I appreciate all your time and the opportunity to share. Thank you. Thank you. Dan Keener. Mr. Keener, you have been promoted to a panelist. You may start your video and unmute yourself to address the planning commission. Mr. Keener, can you give us a hello? Unfortunately, Mr. Keener, we can't hear you right now. um go ahead and try unmuting yourself again sir all right give us a hello um mr keener could you check your volume for the speaker typically you can go into a settings I'll probably delete it. So. Mr. Keener, we're going to leave you on here, and we're going to check back with you after our next speaker. Sir, would you like to- Karen Sandberg. Ms. Sandberg, you have been promoted to a panelist. If you'd like to start your video and unmute yourself. There we go. Okay. I think I got it. Go right ahead. I just want to say I'm in support of the plan. I live on Santee Way. We've been here almost 30 years, raised a few kids here. And I know they say with the traffic study that people will stay on the main arteries. They don't stay on the main arteries. A lot of people cut through here, going to Dunbar and Rosa Parks and whatever. whatever. But I feel like Bruce Simpson and his clients have done a very good job of working with the community to try to come up with a plan that maintains the quality of the community and the quality of life that we have, you know, here in this neighborhood. And I support what they're doing. It seems like a good mix. And that's all really just want to say I'm for it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Kral, you've been promoted through a panelist that you would like to start your video and unmute yourself. You may address the planning commission. I'm sorry, Mr. Kral, I'm going to ask you to unmute. Okay, how are we doing? There you go. Go right ahead, sir. Okay, thanks. Appreciate the time. I live on 4008 San Teeway. I'm right on the corner back up the property. And I've been here for 32 years. Love the neighborhood. Love the neighbors. And my wife and I love to walk. And we really have to watch traffic. I tend to live on a corner San Teeway. And I've had my mailbox taken out twice. my neighbor down below me has had two cars in the front yard. And most times these are kids going to Dunbar. They cut through Santee Way off of Harrisburg Road. And bless their hearts, during the wintertime it gets a little icy and they just can't make the corner. It's gotten to a point where when I go out to my mailbox, I have to hide behind a tree when a car is coming around the curb. So an increase of cut-through traffic, people who don't listen to stop signs and speed limits does concern me. Secondly, the right only coming out of Harrodsburg Road has been considered. Even if there's not a cut through, people turning right, they're not going to be able to do a U-turn on Harrodsburg Road. So if they go the other direction, what are they going to do? They're going to turn right on Palomar Drive, and then they're going to come right back to the CMT Way. So I don't like the right only coming out. There needs to be a light. They can go down to the new light that's just been put on. I think that would work adequately. But to have a right only doesn't make any sense. I support Bruce's. I'm playing. I think they've done an excellent job of working with the neighborhood, trying to keep us involved and give us something that improves the neighborhood, improves the livability of the neighborhood, and that type of thing. So thank you all for listening, and have a good day. Thank you so much. And we're going to make a try at Mr. Tiener. All right, Mr. Keener. Video's on. I'm muted. There you go. Okay. So I have two forms of technology here. My name is Dan Keener. I live on Palmetto Drive right near the corner of Santee. I'm really going to be brief. My wife kind of spoke for both of us, but I support the proposed plan. There's a father with a young one here. The traffic is already pretty bad on Palmetto, especially people coming down the hill on Santee. So we would just really appreciate the lower number as low as possible. We appreciate Bruce and his team always trying to keep us as informed as possible. Thank you. Thank you so much. At this time, we will now move to the petitioner's comments. Mr. Simpson. Oh, wow. Brevity is your friend. I think the neighbors, honestly, I've never seen this many neighbors come out in support of a zone change application in all my years of doing this. It's very impressive. I think they spoke from their own personal experience. I would certainly request that you listen to their pleas and be responsive to their needs. And the proposal that we've come up with, time after time, the Planning Commission, the Urban County Council has admonished developers, lawyers, to work with the neighbors, come up with something that you find acceptable. It is a long process if you're serious about it. And I'm fortunate in that I represent Dudley Webb and Woodford Webb and Phil Greer and Lee Greer, who have always given me whatever amount of time I needed to meet with the neighbors, so many times and listen, make adjustments in the plan that we finally have today. I think it's a plan worthy of acceptance. I think it is supported by the comprehensive plan. And I clearly believe that based on the evidence in this case, we've established without question that the existing zoning of agricultural is inappropriate and that the proposed zoning of commercial and residential is appropriate. I think that is a clear finding that you all can make, and I've sent that to Tracy Jones for her review. And I would ask that you support us and support the neighbors in what's been a year-long process to get to this point, and I thank you for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. At this point, are there any citizens objectives? Is that where we go? Well, yeah, we should just see if there's anything. Is there any rebuttal to what Mr. Simpson just said? Seeing none, Mr. Bailey. Thank you very much, sir, and I will try to be brief. I think there are several comments that Mr. Simpson made on behalf of the applicants that needs clarification. The first part of this is in 2018, a comprehensive plan was adopted. In that comprehensive plan was the place builder element. The place builder element was meant to allow for the application of the goals, objectives, and policies of that comprehensive plan to be reflected in the application of a zone change. In this case, the applicant neglected to do that work. Many of the things that the applicants in the neighborhood have talked about, better pedestrian connectivity, better and safe access to businesses and to residential, clear distinctions between commercial areas and into residential areas are outlined within the comprehensive plan, and the applicant chose not to make any of those statements. The applicant applied the corridor place type across the entirety of the site. There was a member of the neighborhood who said, this is not a corridor, this is our home. That neighbor is completely correct in that residential portion. The applicant did not make an argument for anything but a corridor until today. Staff reviewed this application and then provided comment and then a recommendation based off the applicant's information that was provided. Prior to today, the applicant had not made a recommendation for an enhanced neighborhood and low-density residential development, even though it was discussed at the pre-application meeting in August of last year. There are also various different elements of the applicant's presentation that are quite interesting. The applicant had a real estate specialist that talked about medical facilities, that talked about other types of facilities that would be rentable, that would produce some kind of value along the Harrodsburg corridor. Those were aspects that the planning staff and the applicant discussed several times. The applicant said that those were not applicable on this site. There are a few other elements of the contextual review of this development. ADS 4-2 that recommends that new construction is in context with the neighborhood. The recommendations of staff for the single family into the townhouse development and then into slightly more dense and intense commercial zoning was a recommendation by staff. That transition, that contextual design is called for within the comprehensive plan and was discussed by staff in the staff report. There were several other comments about high-density residential that has never been part of this application. During the pre-application meeting, there were several conversations about what was to be developed on the site. the applicant indicated that this area was not their goal to provide high-density residential. In this case, they applied for a corridor development type or place type and a medium density non-residential development type. We are not seeing that with this application for the B3. The applicant within their findings that they have presented on screen did not provide any conditional zoning restrictions for the property. And there is no sight of that with this application as of yet outside of their letter of justification. That would be a necessary element for the Planning Commission to adopt this. Furthermore, the applicant has not provided substantial evidence that the B3 zone is the most appropriate zone for this location. The B1 zone, and with a form-based project is a recommended zone by the comprehensive plan and is also an allowable zone for all the proposed uses that the applicant is going forward with. It is neighborhood-oriented. Its intent in the zoning ordinance is to provide greater connectivity with the neighborhood. The B3 zoning is specifically focused on highway services. So the staff is, while the staff is supportive of an enhanced neighborhood and transitioned from a neighborhood to a commercial complex. That was not discussed by the applicant during the pre-application meeting and then in the following meetings. That was presented today. Staff still has concerns with the B3 zoning on the front of the property and not meeting or being in compliance with the comprehensive plan, specifically for things outlined in the staff report and the findings that have been presented for disapproval. Things like direct pedestrian linkages to some of these buildings, bike and pedestrian safety, amount of tree plantings along street frontages to create a vertical edge. These are elements that many of the neighborhood representatives here today discussed, but are not represented within this application. So it stands by our recommendation of disapproval based off of the information that was found within the applicant's application. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. And Ms. Wade has one second. I would thank you to Mr. Simpson for forwarding his findings to Ms. Jones. We printed those out for her as well as the chairman here. And if we need to, we can share them on the screen for the Planning Commission members who are on Zoom to see. What I would just point out is Mr. Sensen made his presentation. he talked a bit about notice and I just want to be clear for the record that the notice that's required for zone change is to property owners within 500 feet for Bayette County requirements. KRS requires just adjacent parcels be notified so Bayette County already goes above and beyond for this process. We also notified neighborhood association, but he was speaking to the comprehensive plan process and I just want to say again Bay County goes above and beyond what the state requires for notice in terms of public hearings for a for the adoption of the comprehensive plan and that's not really what the question here so I just want to make sure there's not any notice question that we need to address. Thank you, Mr. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Mr. Martin. Just very quickly, I'd like to address a couple of things, or reemphasize perhaps. I neglected a piece of housekeeping that I like to do in these circumstances, but it was a little different. And that is when your planning staff reviews a development plan from the subdivision development plan perspective, we review it as if the zoning was already in place. And I know those of you that have been on the Planning Commission for a long time have heard me say that because I've I had to explain that because there are times when I have recommended approval of a plan when the zone change has been recommended for disapproval. So I have to and I want to explain that because, again, in looking at the development plan. is if the zoning is in place, it does not meet the zoning ordinance, and it does not meet the land subdivision regulations. In terms of access and connectivity, which was stated in the report, didn't address green space, screening, that sort of thing, those elements are on the plan, those elements can be further developed on a final development plan. But in terms of non, this is a ministerial action. It is. This is a legal action. That access as proposed is going to require this body to grant relief from your regulations. Access spacing have standards clearly stated and required. Why is that? Same reason, by the way, they require service roads. It's back to the connectivity issue. And it's back to our hierarchy of streets and our roads and how they work for our entire community. And I just want to state that connectivity respects everyone's needs. Residents, those nice people that live in that neighborhood, that live every year, connectivity respects their needs. It also respects the needs of the people that are traveling on Harrisburg Road, whether they live in our community or just work in our community or happen to be going to Harrington Lake. Our street system and connectivity has to respect all users. And I just want to emphasize that. And by the way, cut-through traffic is never going to go away. It's only going to increase. It increases with growth. And Mr. Bell, I believe Bruce did answer your question, that growth is going to create more and more pressure on Bowen Mill. It's going to create more and more pressure on these local streets, non-cut through, just as it has on all the existing neighborhoods. Have seen traffic increase over time with the growth of our community. So again, I just want to make that point that connectivity is the principal issue in reviewing this development plan. Thank you, Mr. Martin. I'm now going to close the hearing. The commission members have had three and a half hours of information and opinions. Do any members of the commission have any statements or questions? Can I ask, are questions appropriate at this time? Yes, ma'am. So this is my unfamiliarity with the zoning and the procedures. Mr. Bailey talked about B1 being perhaps a more appropriate zoning for the plan that was presented. If this were zoned B1, would it address some of the issues that the staff has raised with the current plan? That's my first question. My second question is a procedural one. If the applicant decided to apply for B-1, would they have to withdraw the current application? Would that have to be ended and start through a whole new process, or could there be a postponement and an amendment? There would be able to be a postponement and an amendment regarding the B1 zone. That is a recommended zone for the corridor playstation. It would necessitate a change from the applicant's proposed development plan, largely because of setback requirements, as well as some of the proposed kind of interaction with the buildings and the streets. and many of those do are called out within the place builder development criteria. Thank you. Ms. Meyer. I'm sorry, Ms. Meyer, you are muted right now. That's me. There you go. This is my concern. Ms. Worth has raised. I'm in agreement with the zone change, but I think that Mr. Bailey's rebuttal spoke to a lot of issues that need to be addressed before we can move forward with this. Thank you, Mrs. Meyer. Mr. Mickler. Well, I can, I certainly appreciated all of the people coming out to this hearing and speaking, and I can definitely appreciate the concern that they have about cut through traffic that is too fast and better suited for an arterial road. I did hear what traffic has to say, and I also am aware of the importance of connectivity in our comprehensive plan. And I do think that we are charged with keeping local neighborhood traffic off of the arterials. and if we don't require a connection to the neighborhood then all of the local vehicular traffic will be pushed on to man of war in harrodsburg and there are quite a few houses in this development that while i appreciate the pedestrian and bicycle connectivity will probably still choose to drive to the retail and restaurant amenities in this development And looking at this plan, I think that as these come up, this plan and others, I think that it's important to connect our neighborhoods to our retail and shopping. And this does not mean that we separately should not address ways to limit and control and reduce speed and reduce the appeal of people cutting through our neighborhoods that are not going to local amenities because they do belong on Harrodsburg Road and Manowar, in my opinion. But I do think the connection is really important in this plan. Thank you, Mr. Beckler. Mr. Penn? Mr. Penn, I'm going to give you a nudge to unmute. There you go. We went through three and a half hours here today, and we could have solved a lot of these had the applicant worked with the staff from the technical committee on, from the subdivision committee on, and from where we are today. A lot of these issues that are here, and I'm referring to place builder, and I'm referring to whether it's the right zone or not, and I'm referring to the connectivity. A lot of those things could and should have been worked out before we spent three and a half hours here today. I will give Mr. Simpson credit and kudos for his presentation. I will also give him credit for working with the neighborhood. But when you use high density zoning mean apartment houses as the fall, if you don't do this, you're going to get this. I have a problem with that, Bruce. And I will tell you that my concern going forward with this is, is that I don't know whether B3 is the right zone or not versus B1. I think that discussion should have been had. and I don't really agree with the fact that you gave the place builder much consideration and place better is a big part of our comp plan and I would like to see more consideration to that and if your answer to that is well I sent it in at 12 o'clock today and it's not an issue now I'm just making a statement here I'm certainly not asking for redirect but that is my problem with what we're doing here today Thank you, Mr. Penn. Mr. Nichols. Yes, I'm just going to say I agree with Mr. Penn there. The retail space or the non-residential space in the front, the B3 argument, I think, was overlooked. I think there's a great need for retail on that corridor and the in and out needs to be, or the access needs to be better addressed. And I think we can all get to a yes, but you got a frustrated planning commission, I would assume, after three and a half hours talking about how people don't want apartments and they would rather have 24 single family residences. That's only a portion of the overall development plan and only a portion of the overall process. So I wish they would have spent some more time on this before they brought it to us so we could have easily made a decision to help them move forward with the neighbors considerations and their considerations. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Does anyone have anything further or would anyone like to make a motion? Ms. Maher? Okay, I have a question about, okay. If we continue this, do we continue this discussion? And if, you know, do we have the ability to do that, not act on the zone change today? And the applicant has given the comments by the planning commission. You know, what's the time frame that the applicant has to respond to, you know, how do we proceed if we were to continue? I think that's a good question, Commissioner Meyer. Generally, the Planning Commission has 90 days to consider an application. The zone change was filed in September, so the Planning Commission is really out of time. I think we could ask the law department if they believe by Mr. Simpson submitting a revised or supplemental justification if that somehow extends your 90 days, since he just did that at lunchtime today. I think if Mr. Simpson felt that there was a compromise in the future, that he and his clients might consider agreeing to continue the hearing to another date. Okay. So, you know, I'm, I'd like to hear what, how, you know, what our law department has to say in that respect, and what Mr. Simpson's response is. Okay. Let me say this is complicated somewhat by the fact that this application was filed and has come before you during the course of the emergency order that was issued by the governor because of the pandemic. However, in saying that, I do, I mean, that order still is in place because it's been extended by the legislature. However, planning has been moving things forward as normally and as quickly as we can under the normal 90 days that you would have. So it would be somewhat out of the norm if we were to do that, but there was probably some latitude to allow you all to do that. because of that order still being in place. Secondly, in regard to whether or not submitting the justification that came in today at noon, I don't know if that is a circumstance that this commission wants to be into doing. that could allow for applicants to submit justifications right before hearings. But at the same time, that also doesn't serve their interest in moving forward. So I'm not giving you a very clear answer because I don't have one. There may be some opportunity to do that because of that if you choose to do so. So I don't know. My impression from the applicant was they wanted to move forward today. However, I don't know if their position on that has changed or not. So you have a couple of alternatives, but they won't be following the normal custom and practice of what you've been doing during the pandemic or recently since you've gotten back on track. And of course, you know, we left Zoom, went back in person. Now we're back on Zoom. So nothing is ordinary right now. But that being said, I think you have the latitude to do it. But I do want you to be aware it's going to be somewhat out of your norm and out of the practice that you've been engaging in for the last few months. any further comments questions or motions mr bell bruce i'd like to hear from you your thoughts we would like to hear from you your thoughts well we certainly didn't scare anybody that's an insult to the people that testified to think that they would be bullied or intimidated by apartments. I've always been candid with neighbors about any development I was here. And the truth of the matter is, property is so expensive, probably the next application would be apartments. It's not going to be single family houses. We put on a case today that the staff never rebutted one shred of evidence that the existing zoning was inappropriate for this property. No rebuttal whatsoever. None. They didn't rebut the fact that the proposed zoning was appropriate because it met all of the criteria for providing retail services as well as residential. So we believe we brought to the commission an application that really is undisputed in terms of being justified for approval. Now, if you want to get into the comprehensive plan and we make judgment calls on how much density is needed and whether B1 is appropriate or B3, we're going to be bogged down in that for I don't know how long. We've spent so much time trying to get this resolved. We're never going to get resolved with the staff. They want much more density than the neighbors are willing to accept and much more density than we've promised the neighbors that we would deal with in this application. So, again, you have unrebutted evidence. I don't know how you can turn it, do anything other than approve it based upon our case that the existing zoning agricultural is nowhere near appropriate for this property. and there's a commercial need on this property and there's residential need and we've produced that. This is the way to move this forward. The development plan issues with regard to access on Harrodsburg Road and even on the, you know, it's a preliminary development plan. All this is preliminary. It's not set in stone. We still have a lot of work to do after zoning on the development plan. on access issues. That's when we consider all of this. We're talking about land use and zoning. And if based on all the evidence and the clear unequivocal proof that this property is inappropriately zoned and we got an appropriate zone recommended that's unrebutted under the law, I don't know how you can do anything other than approve it, quite frankly. And I've presented, I've given Tracy findings to that effect. Mr. Nickel. Okay. I guess my only real frustration about this is the fact that we couldn't come to some sort of conclusion with the staff. I understand that the staff, if this was, we're just a decision whether or not we had R4 multifamily, the rear of the property, or R3 townhouse lots, that would be a much easier decision to make. I feel like the connectivity was not as addressed as necessary. I understand that comes with the development plan, but we're still looking. I need to know the argument why B3 and not B1 really quickly, Mr. Simpson. And I know you said you didn't want to get into that because of the, I don't know why you didn't want to get into it, but if you don't mind, just give me a quick explanation why you think a highway services business is better than a B1 business zoning for the front portion of this property. Because we've heard a lot about the back property. I want to know why you were unable to resolve the zoning in the front of the property on Harrisburg Road with our staff. well well we weren't able to resolve the front part of the zoning is because we didn't make it dense enough that was the threshold question our proposal was too um light it was not dense enough we heard that time and time again that our proposed density was not uh in compliance with the comprehensive plan it needed to be more intense there's no market for vertical uh commercial the the density comes with a variety of uses that are allowed in the b3 zone those are all neighborhood type business uses uh you have a little bit more flexibility on some things but they're all you know businesses where the neighbors go to to shop fountains is on b3 uh part of beaumont is on b3 it's not like a foreign zone up and down harrysburg road Bellarive has kind of got a B3 zoning. So, I mean, we're not talking about some odd zone that's never touched the pavement of Harrodsburg Road. B3, in fact, is more common than B1 in this section. It provides more opportunities for increasing business. And if you want to talk about intensity, we're in complying with the plan in that regard, as opposed to B1, which is less intense. It's highway service business. We're on a highway. I haven't heard once the request for more dense non-residential. Well, ask the staff, because that's what they told me. Your four-year ratio is nowhere close. Bruce, let's hear from the staff. Al, would you speak to this, please? So within the B3, a lot of what the staff said within these, oh, our TV is getting tired. Within the B3 zone, part of what Mr. Simpson is saying is incorrect. The B1 is actually more flexible and focused on those uses that are associated with neighborhoods. It does allow for similar type uses, but are focused on neighborhood orientation. In association with Mr. Simpson's density statement, what staff is responding to is the development type that he has applied on this site consistently, which has been a medium density, non-residential, and mixed use development type that is described within the comprehensive plan. And then staff has gotten into those kind of elements of what is a corridor development, what they are proposing here, and proper transitions into neighborhoods. What we heard today is that the back portion is more neighborhood oriented. Staff agrees with that. With the front portion, what staff is looking for is either an agreement with the comprehensive plan or a justification that shows agreement with the comprehensive plan through the development criteria. The development criteria lay out certain elements that get to the best type of development for neighborhoods for the users of these properties. So it is somewhat problematic for Mr. Simpson to say that the staff has not refuted anything to the B3, whereas the staff report in its entirety has gotten into a lot of the conversation as why the B3 is not appropriate as being proposed. Well, I'm just going to have to disagree with Hal because he's told me on more than one occasions, your proposal is not dense enough. Your floor area ratio is the lowest on the Harrodsburg Road corridor. It's always been about density. The staff has always wanted more density than we want to provide for these neighbors and the location of this property. Now, I'm telling you, those are the facts. And Hal is confused about the standard of how a zone change gets approved. It's not just the comprehensive plan and getting into, you know, all these development criteria. If we put on proof under the law that says the existing zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning is appropriate and there's no rebuttal, we're entitled to get approval. staff hadn't rebutted any of that they want to mix it up and try to confuse you but they're not dealing with the specific point that i'm making about appropriate and inappropriate but the bottom line is on trying to comply with the plan we are not going to be dense enough to satisfy the staff that has been the case from the very time we've started this project we can't make it dense enough mr chair so not to get in there back and forth may i just quickly respond to one hour yes And thank you very much for your clarification. I do want to clarify my role. I am a staff member. I am the representative of staff. I do not make recommendations. The comprehensive plan makes recommendations. What I presented today was the knowledge of a whole staff of 30-plus individuals backed by the recommendations of the comprehensive plan. So while Mr. Simpson might be stating certain things, these recommendations presented today are the recommendations of the comprehensive plan as adopted by this body in 2018. Mr. Mickler. um well what what i'm hearing is that the applicant uh um did not uh request for us to continue this hearing for another day and while i agree with uh commissioner nickel that this seems like it could have been close to a yes. At this point, I'm willing to put forward a motion to deny the application for the reasons that staff gave. Commissioner Mickler has made a motion. Is there a second? Mr. Penn? Any discussion? Yes, I would like to explain why I really don't want to do this because it didn't have to be this way. But I think we're in a situation now where this is not a court of law. We are dependent upon our legal staff to guide us. We're dependent upon our planning staff to guide us. And we have means of working this out without having these type of debates within our body after three and a half hours. So I feel like we've been forced into this issue. And I don't know the exact reason why, but enough is enough. We need to make a decision. And I seconded Mr. Mickler's motion because it's time to make a decision. All right. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Mr. Mickler made a motion to disapprove PLN 2116 Harrisburg LLC. Mr. Penn seconded it. Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, we can take a vote. Well, I'd just like to make the comment, discussion or comment, but we had a lot of citizens speak today. And I think to a person, And they spoke beautifully and, and I'm sure they're very confused. now and that and that's unfortunate and you know we can point fingers um and but we won't get into that but this system does work um and we're in the process of doing that and i promise you i believe every commissioner heard um heard their citizens today so we'll just have to come back on that and And to Mr. Penn's point, it's unfortunate because we tried to provide a platform of compromise here where we didn't have to do that. And I support Mr. Penn and Mr. Mickler. Thank you, Commissioner Bell. Anyone else? There's a motion on the floor. It has been seconded. Yes, Ms. Bergen. I was just going to say to sort of reiterate in different ways that we are all agreeing that not only have we heard the neighbors, but going forward, whatever proposal might come again, we will continue to take into consideration what those neighbors have said about the future of their neighborhood. Very well put. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Ward. Anyone else? Seeing none, we will now take a vote on the motion. All in favor of Mr. Mickler's motion to disapprove PLN 2116 Harrisburg Road, LLC, please raise your hand. And it is unanimous. So now. We do have to have a motion on. We have to. For the development plan, we need to indefinitely postpone. We need a motion to indefinitely postpone the development. I move that we indefinitely postpone the development plan and hope to get to work on a different time. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Ms. Worth seconds. All in favor or any discussion? All in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you very much. That is unanimous as well. before mr duncan i think we have a commission item already i was going to ask mr chair if you could keep moving because we're going to lose our live feed in 30 minutes so if everybody can just hold on and get through the the uh the next item that i think we can wrap up all righty and so that was commission items anything else yes very quickly thank thank you guys for your service on this i know it's a long afternoon. I appreciate it. Thank you, Bruce. All right. Staff item. We My arms aren't long enough to stick. The staff would like to ask the planning commission to initiate a text amendment. We received notice just before the end of the year from our Kentucky APA chapter that there was an amendment passed in the legislature last year that related to family child care facilities. And this is something our former board of adjustment members have probably dealt with several times, Jan, Larry, was family child care where someone holds child care in their house and the owner of the home, the resident of the home is one that operates that the change with the state needs to be incorporated into our zoning ordinance, and so we do need a text amendment initiated in order to accomplish that. I do. Commissioner Meyer? I move that we initiate the text amendment as presented by Tracy. Thank you. Second. And Ms. Moore, second? Any discussion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. And Mr. Nichols. And that is unanimous as well. Just checking. Thank you all. All righty. Is that it? Mr. Chair, if I may just have one final word. First of all, thank you all for Yeoman's work once again. You all just prove what assets you are to this community and your dedication to the staff, and to the community, and we appreciate that very much. I wanted to let you know that our next meeting will be a week from today on Thursday, February 3rd. We're into February already, where we'll have our committee meetings at 8.30 and 1.30 in the afternoon. We'll see you all again then. Those will be by Zoom. And then to also let you know that today is Debbie's last official day with the zoning side of planning. Debbie is still staying with the Division of Planning, but she's moving to the transportation planning section, so she'll be assisting them with the MPO. We may see Debbie from time to time over the next month as we try to find her successor, but we do appreciate Debbie's been the zoning administrator since 2016, I believe, so almost six years now, We appreciate all that Debbie has done for the Planning Commission and wish her well. And we're grateful that she's not going far, just around the corner, still with us. Mr. Chair, that's what we had. And to Mr. Chair, thank you for stepping in today and leading the Planning Commission. You are a natural. So thank you very much. You're very kind and you're a liar. Thank you. All righty. Good to see you all. See you in a week. We are adjourned. Stay well, everybody. We'll give it a shot Oh, we're halfway there Oh, living on a prayer Take my hand, we'll make it out square Oh, living on a prayer Living on a prayer