The End It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, a regular crowd shuffles in There's an old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin He says, son, can you play me a memory? I'm not really sure how it goes. But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete when I wore a younger man's clothes. La la la la la la la la la Sing us a song, you're the piano man Sing us a song tonight Well we're all in the mood for a melody And you've got us feeling alright Now John at the bar is a friend of mine He gets me my drinks for free And he's quick with a joke Or to light up your smoke But there's some place that he'd rather be It says build life on you Thank you. Board of Adjustment hearings, happy pie day. If you're expecting a small slice of pie today because of the small docket, you're going to be disappointed. Let's see. I don't need to agree with anything. I used to do that. Okay. First thing on the docket is the approval of the minutes. Did everybody get the minutes from January 10th and February 14th? If so, I will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move approval. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Motion made and seconded to approve the minutes. All in favor, vote. Oh, let's see, we're raising hands, aren't we? Raise your hand. We have, looks like, unanimous minutes are approved. Thank you very much. The next thing we're going to do is to swear all the witnesses. So I can't remember how we did this. We had unmuted all of the potential witnesses so that we could ask anybody in the audience who expects to testify today to raise your right hand and repeat after me. Do you solemnly swear and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? And let's see. can they indicate electronically? I'm not sure how that was working. We have a, we're allowing them all to talk if they raise their feet. Okay. We're going to assume for the record that everybody swears to tell the truth that is present and on the service. Okay. The next thing we're going to do is to sound the agenda. That means I go through and call each case to make sure everybody's here that wants to be here about that case and to determine if there's opposition or anybody who wishes to speak in opposition to that particular case. There are only three cases on the docket today, so the sounding of the agenda will be short. The first case is PLN VOA 22-6. Carter and Kathleen Schumacher, are the applicants present. Yes, sir. Okay. Mr. Schumacher is here. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Oh, this is one that's recommended for disapproval by the staff. And so because of subject to our procedural rules, this will go at the end of the docket. Because there's opposition. The next case is BLN VOA 22-4. Angela Shaw, is the applicant present? Yes, sir. I see you on the screen. Is there anybody here who wishes to speak in opposition to Ms. Shaw's application? We ask at this time, if you're not present to speak on this application, to please lower your hand electronically? If you wish to speak in opposition to Ms. Shaw's application, raise your hand electronically. We have one person who has raised their hand a couple times, but now it's down again, so I don't think they're in opposition to this application. They're back. Yeah. Okay. We have at least one in opposition, so Ms. Shaw, you'll be heard at the end of the docket as well. Third case is CLN VOA 22-5, Step Works Recovery Center. Is an applicant present? Yes, sir. Okay, an applicant is present. Who said yes? Nick Nicholson, I'm not sure if I'm on camera or not. But I do hear you. And I do believe there are a fair amount of neighbors that are in opposition to this, so I believe we are. I have two wishes to speak against this application. Please raise your hand electronically. Yes, sir, we have several hands up. So, so StepWorks Recovery will be heard at the end of the docket. there's some humor in that because uh each of the three applications are uh have oppositions so the first one to be heard will be the first one on the docket that is her and catherine schumacher and since they're the staff is in opposition we'll ask the staff to go first and tell us why they're recommending this for disapproval. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Cumm, planning staff. Let me... All right. So the first item on the agenda here is PLN VOA 22-0006, Carter and Captain Shoemaker. They're requesting a variance in order to increase the allowable hive of fence in a front yard from four feet to five feet in a single-family residential R1D zone on property located at 300 Stratmeter Road. Here we have a vicinity map showing the location of the property. The property is shown in blue. It is located center of the screen, and it is bound on three strides by Stratford Road, Woodweed Road, and Marymount Drive. It's located between Bryan Station High School as well as Northern Elementary School. So if you're a little bit closer, you can see the layout of the property. It contains a single-family residential dwelling as well as a detached accessory structure. The subject property fronts on Strathmore Road, and so this portion of the property here is considered the front yard. So the applicant is requesting to construct a five-foot tall ornamental aluminum fence to enclose the yards of the property. Here you can see the site plan showing that it is present in all four yards. The applicant has indicated in their letter of justification that the intent behind this was twofold. One was to stop people from cutting through the front portion of the property by installing a barrier. The second was to enclose a future pool as anticipated for the rear portion of the property. And so the ordinance limits fence height based on its location on the property. And specifically, any fence that is located in a front yard is limited to four feet height in residential zones. Going back to the applicant site plan here, the applicant is showing five feet around the entirety of the property. Any portions that are located in a side yard or a rear yard, a five-foot fence would be permitted by right. However, a variance is needed in order to construct it in the front yard. Staff, however, finds that there isn't sufficient justification in order to approve this variance. There's not any circumstances that are unique to the property as a four-foot-tall fence could accommodate the applicant's required goal of preventing people from coming through the yard. And Kentucky Building Code allows for a four-foot fence in order to enclose a full enclosure. And the staff is recommending disapproval for the reasons outlined in the staff report and shown on screen. And we would be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff at this time. Anybody on the board have any questions of Daniel before we let him sit down and hear from the afternoon? I'm going to stop sharing. Okay, let's see. Any questions? I don't see any. Mr. Needham, you're muted, but go ahead. Unmuted. Yeah, hey, Daniel. Nice to hear you. Okay. This is somewhat unique just because it kind of looks like it's kind of out there. It doesn't really have a house that backs up to it. But I guess the front of the house, I just wonder if there's any special circumstances because this sits kind of out on its own peninsula. So in this instance, the applicant could build up to the front point of the house, regardless of the, they would be allowed to construct the fence at the required height. with the other road frontages that it has, but the street that it fronts on is the one that it has to obey that front yard. So even though it does have those streets, the other streets involved in this aren't actually constraining them. I mean, it's the one that they directly have frontage on. Okay, so he could take the fence five feet around, all the way around, except up to where it faces on Strathmore. Is that right? That is correct. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. He could also take it, except for the fence around the front of the front plane, he could take it up to six feet. Yes, that is correct. The applicants could go up to six feet on any portion of the fence that it's not in front of that front wall plane. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Okay. And you'll have a seat and we'll ask the applicant. Mr. Schumacher, what's your justification for seeking to have a five-foot fence in front of the front plate of the house? Yes, sir. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to speak with you all today. My justification for this is, you know, I bought this property two years ago and have completely transformed this. This was a rundown, dilapidated property that we've turned into what we think is a beautiful home and a great asset to the community. There was a fence already around this property. I can share some pictures here in just a moment, or you all may already have those. And it shows just where, you know, we're talking about a five-foot fence now where there was 10 foot of overgrowth that you couldn't even see anything at that time. as far as a special circumstance i think it's a very unique property that sits in between as was said a middle school and a high school and on any given school day if you come to this property you're going to see an enormous amount of kids walking down these roads my main reason to try to get this fence up is because i have three young daughters i want them to be able to be safe and play in their own yard as well and this was four lots that i had to do a plot consolidation for to even begin renovations on this property so now that i've consolidated this to one property i think that's it's it's kind of it kind of lost the purpose if i can't enclose the entire yard and make it usable for my daughters do you own all four of the lots yes sir anything else that you'd like to add to that as far as you know i understand your justification i also included on there the pictures of numerous houses that are having you know six foot privacy fences even on front planes and i'm not trying to do anything crazy or anything that looks bad But also, you will notice that the two people that my property faces on Strathmore Road, who is Jan Yankee and the other one is Linda and Don Robinson, they have both sent in letters to the zoning board stating what we've done to that property and saying that this would not be an eyesore or any kind of inconvenience to them. And I think that speaks volumes as well. We do acknowledge and we did receive the two letters in support of your application. And those will be part of the record as well. Thank you for that. We didn't have any letters from neighbors in opposition. The only opposition was from the staff. Does anybody on the board have any questions for Mr. Schumacher about this application? Mr. Schumacher, this is Mr. Clark. I'd like to ask why a four foot fence in the front plane would be inadequate. Seems like four foot would be adequate to keep people out of your yard. I would agree with you most of the time. But after I started pulling down all the trees, all the shrubs, all the debris that was on an existing four foot fence, I was still on a daily basis having kids jump over that fence and go through my yard to get down toward the Brown Station High School. why would they go through yard since the street goes straight to the to the high school so where they're coming down if you'll see where the middle school and the high school walk down strathmore instead of going all the way down strathmore and cut down they'll cut it's an open area i can see that yeah thank you Any other questions for the board? No questions, but I did just want to mention we've had quite a few of these regarding the height in the front yard and in particular whether there was a differential between the the four foot and the five foot as far as safety and keeping people out. And I think it's been determined several times that there's not a real distinction as far as a deterrence in between the four foot and the five foot or even some of the six foot that we've had some applicants request. So, but what we're saying here is you could do five foot around all of the lot, but just that portion that's in the front, it's facing Strathmore, correct? and that's a staff question I guess in front of the as I understand it it's any part of the fence that is in front of the plane the plane of the front of the house and you can tell you can look at the map that was submitted with the application for the front plane of the house is that's not the setback line it's the front plane of the house so you could build a five or six foot fence all the way up past the setback but as long as it doesn't encroach on the front across the front plane of the house it would be okay but if it does encroach and the four foot fence is all that's permitted all that's allowed is that right Daniel? That is great. Mr. Schumacher, how much property do you have with those four lots together? It's a little under two acres. I think it comes out to like 1.7. 1.67. Thank you. And I will like to add that now that you're talking about that front plane, I think where that's going to come into those columns doesn't pass the front plane of that house if that's the way that you're explaining that the only thing it would go in front of would be additions that are set back let us bring up the side point again now let's look let's look at this picture again Okay. Under the screen share, if you go kind of hover up there, there's a tool that come up and you'll be able to highlight it. There you go. Under annotate. Yeah, annotate. And spotlight. Spotlight. Okay. So this portion of the fencing here, all the way around essentially there, is the point where the fencing can obviously be at four feet. Everything behind that can go up to six feet in height. So you're saying even on the right and the left, it can't go past that plane is what you're... Yes, along that road front is there. Yes. So in other words, I'm losing the front portion of both of those lots then if it's, if I did not fence, I see what you're saying. Yeah, the front plane of the house is not, is not marked. The setback is marked, but really the front plane is you have to extend that line from the front plane of the house all the way to the property line or to the fence. anything in front of a house, anything that's in front of that front plane of the house must be four feet. And we've had, like Raquel said, we've had many of these cases before us in the past, and we very rarely find one that has exceptions that we think are significant enough to allow us to approve offenses taller than four feet. In fact, we almost routinely, at least six or eight times a year have an application like this that we disapprove simply because of the requirement that the four foot fence is the maximum for the front of the house. And you can build, you know, if it doesn't go past the plane, behind the front plane of the house, you can build a five or six foot fence around as much as you want on your lot. and that would include each of the four parcels that you've consolidated. You're not limited to the front plane of what might be a house on one of the other four blocks. So since you've consolidated, there's only one front that we're concerned about and that's the front on the existing piece of property at 300 Stratmore. any other questions uh for staff or for mr schumacher before we vote any other questions to anybody from the board hearing none i'll entertain a motion i move for a disapproval of plnboa 22-6 carter and katherine shoemaker's request for variance to increase the allowable height of a fence in the front yard from four feet to five feet in a single family residential zone on property located at 300 strathmore based on the staff's recommendations. Thank you, Ms. Carter. We have a second. It looks like Ms. Pittman seconds. All those in favor, raise your hand. It looks like all hands are raised. Mr. Schumacher, your application is denied. That doesn't mean you can't build a five-foot fence around the rest of the property, but you can't build it taller than four feet around the front. okay all right all right thank you very much thank you thank you sir the next case is next case with opposition is the plnvoa 22-4 angela shaw request for a conditional use to establish a family child here uh shaw you can unmute yourself and we typically hear from the applicant first where there's opposition from the public. So tell us about your application, if you will. Well, basically, I've done child care for 20 years. I started off in-home and I was approved to do a license in-home because of a Board of Adjustments hearing and then we were shut down because it stated that I had too much traffic on the street. And my hours were 24 hours, seven days a week, helping young mothers that were going to school, had two jobs, things of that nature. Now that I've shut down our license type one facility, we are renovating that into a social rehabilitation facility for young women with special needs. I bought the facility or the in-home child care home to accommodate. Now I have grandchildren. And just in case they have non-traditional instruction and school shut down, their parents still have to go to work. I want to be able to bring my grandchildren home to be able to work here. But basically, I'm going to be doing a six to six, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule with. But my goal is to work with nurses, doctors, because that was my initial clientele when I was in home because they work 12 hour shifts. So 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. And then on Fridays, we shut down at 4 p.m. No activity on Saturday or Sunday. And then again, open back up on Monday, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. I have off road parking. We have the ability for four cars to park in our yard. We're quiet neighbors. We don't bother anybody. We have a fenced in backyard neighborly, you know, as far as that goes. I'm a rule follower, so I haven't started any type of care here other than my grandchildren that are here with me until I get the pieces put in place to do it properly. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Staff has recommended approval. Yes, sir. Thank you. There was at least one person. Well, let's see before that. Anybody from the board have any questions for Ms. Shaw about her application? I think Ms. Shaw answered. I wasn't quite clear if you were currently operating less than six, because I know there's that number. Okay. Ms. Shaw, this is Mr. Clark. I admire you for doing this. This is very good. A couple of questions. From the Google map, it looks like there's a heavy tree line on one side. Is that tree line actually fenced there? Because you couldn't see. Yes, sir. Actually, all of the trees in our backyard, the roots kind of, we had to dig them up because it was getting into our pipeline. our plumbing lines. So there's actually no trees in our backyard, our chain link fence, there's trees in between that and our privacy fence. And then of course the back of there's new housing back there. So they put a really tall fence in the back of our backyard. So that prevents really anybody from seeing over. There's not the buffer that we used to have with the tree line because nobody ever knew for years. And I went through the proper channels to have the in-home childcare here. No one ever knew for years because they couldn't hear anything because the trees would absorb the noise. So the way that it's set up, it's very safe back in the backyard. I've been doing this for years, but I now have grandchildren. And even before that, my children that were raised in this home will be here, have lived here for 24 years, July the 31st of this year. And we've made improvements to our home as far as outside to even make it even more safe with a gated fence. So there's no safety issues in regard to that. Good. Thank you. One other quick question. Now on the Google map, it looked like there was a above ground pool there. And that concerned me. That's gone. That's gone. Okay, good. And the reason it's gone is because my family didn't want to take care of it. So I politely took it down. And then I decided that I wanted to do this. So that was nothing to be concerned of. But thank you for asking. Good. That's great. Thank you very much for your comments. Yes, sir. Any other questions for Ms. Shaw from the board? yeah i have a question and mishaw i think really um this is good work i think that you know the biggest concern when i read over is just kind of the increased traffic when you're going from uh you know a smaller a smaller uh scope to a larger scope you know it obviously that's been the concern from most of the letters we've received in opposition. So maybe you can just talk to that. And as well as I've looked at, it seems as though, I mean, how many additional employees do you need to operate this in an enhanced manner? I would go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You can handle it. I'm going to have two separate age groups, the infants, which I only am going to take four infants because I'm going to participate in a program called STARS. In my licensed type one facility, we were five star rated. That's the highest that we can be. And the reason that we do that is to hold the lowest ratio and receive benefit of partnering with outside resources to where we can get learning materials for free. We can get food programs involved where they reimburse us for meals. We get to partnership with other local agencies that work with educating young children. And so we want the smallest group. I'm not trying to do this to make a gazillion dollars because I've been doing it for 20 years and I'm still not rich. I do it because I want to help the kids and I want to make sure that the children have a safe place, not only to go and be cared for, but also learn and be ready for school. And I've been doing this, like I said, for 20 years. Even I've provided opportunity for some of the neighbors' grandchildren to work with me in my license type one facility. And, you know, I'm kind of shocked because some of the people that are opposing, they have found benefit in the programs that I've had because I've worked with their young people in my child care facility. but I'm holding a very small ratio and I'm holding spaces that are not going to have children just in case they go to NTI I have four grandchildren that are in elementary and school and if they're if it goes to NTI they're not going to have any place to go to be able to do their learning if their parents have to go to school that means their parents are going to have come home and find alternative ways to make income to provide for their family. But if their GG has four spaces that if school shuts down, they can come and have a space to stay that's safe. Their parents don't have to worry about where they're going to go. They'll just come here. So basically, it's going to be eight kiddos that I will provide contracts for. And then I'll leave the other four spaces open just in case they go to an NTI format and my grandbabies will have a place to go. So my children and their spouses will have an opportunity to continue to make gainful employment for their families. Okay. All right. And so there was no increase in staff for that kind of smaller increase of scope? they'll be me and then there'll be two other people okay all right so three my my yeah my son comes up the street his house is on halifax my son walks to work so there's no uh traffic in regards to him unless it's freezing cold outside and then he'll drive up with his children and those are two of the children that take up the spaces one is an infant and one is a four-year-old preparing herself for kindergarten. Okay. All right. I think that's all of my questions. Thank you, Mr. Needham. Anybody else on the board have any questions for Ms. Shaw? I don't see any hands raised. Okay. In that case, we'll open it to the public. There was at least one person that wanted to speak about this application, perhaps in opposition. So if there's a member of the public who wishes to speak in opposition to this application, let's see if we can identify. Raise your hand or unmute or vote. Someone named Renee. Go ahead and promote her. okay and if you'll unmute Renee so we can hear you okay hello tell us your name please Renee Park Mooney okay i live at 34 37 wallingford court uh about four houses away from miss shaw's home i sent in a letter of opposition and um i've lived there for 35 years and i'm concerned that back when miss shaw had the child care center 15 years ago or wherever it was 2007 that she did not follow conditions that were established by your planning board and staff and what started out to be a child daycare which included her own six kids she was only supposed to have 12 and she ended up having a lot more a lot more traffic it was 24 hours a day on her vehicle there was a sign that said it was a teacher training center and so student teachers were coming there therapists all kinds of people were coming there and we objected to that and and they decided to pull back the conditional use for that particular daycare so now she's looking to try to do it again and our concerns are very much the same that you know I'm glad to hear Ms. Shaw say that the kids that of the 12 children that could be there only eight would be not related because she talks about NTI days but I'm I'm a teacher and there's more than NTI days where she would have those grandkids that would be fall break, winter break, spring break, and all summer. And so all those times there would be, I'm assuming these four grandkids there along with the eight non-family kids. So while the kids are in school, there might not be as much noise. I don't know. If she only has kids under five because the kids are in school, I don't know how many kids would be there if they're mostly infants or they'd be little toddlers out in the backyard laughing and screaming and having a good time. I just want to make sure if you guys approve this that it does clearly state that of those 12 she can only have whatever number beyond her own grandkids who would possibly be there for many months like I'm like I'm saying during breaks and summer breaks and one of the complaints of some of my neighbors is we've got a lot of retired people on the court and they really don't want to listen to a lot of screaming and yelling and no noise in the backyard when they're you know we we moved on to a quiet residential court and it's not supposed to be as far as i consider it wasn't supposed to be a you know business zone business district so i guess i asked the question i know she had another place on snow road and now that's no longer going to be there which then leads to the question about the respite center for women that she's opening um i don't know so back to the original thing is just i just want to make sure she doesn't have any more than 12 kids and that she doesn't have any more than two staff i think the conditional the conditions i read from the staff state that pretty clearly i just want to emphasize if you approve this there will only be two staff there nobody else other than people dropping off their kids and uh and uh the noise is the problem but uh with the and that it doesn't become a teacher training center like like she did 15 years ago all of a sudden student teachers are there and i i did talk to the staff planning staff and i said well what can we do as neighbors if we see violations of the conditions like all of a sudden people are coming and going throughout the day and people are kids are are being dropped off at night and sleeping over and that sort of thing which is what what happened last time and and they said that we could just avoid you know call up and voice a complaint and then it would be investigated so and I also saw that you would look at look into this six months later to see whether or not if she's following all the conditions, although I guess the first time this happened, that did not happen. It was, for some reason, the six-month evaluation didn't happen until later. So we want to make sure, you know, what I'm saying is everybody, at least 35 percent of the people I know, and that's not even including the state work people behind her, don't want this. It's going to be a lot of noise in the backyard. and on the court. Now, I love children. I'm a teacher, but I don't want to listen to them screaming all summer on my court because it's a residential area. We didn't buy houses next to a school. So I just want to make sure it's clear that a lot of the people on our court just don't want to hear the noise. And I retire in October, so I will be around all day long too. And at 6 a.m. there's going to be a lot of cars coming dropping off kids that I'm going to hear and then again at 6 p.m. So back to the respite center the respite center hours overlap with the opening and closing hours of this daycare so I don't know how Ms. Shaw is going to be able to manage that if she's got staff that's going to take care of that because the daycare hours are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The respite home that she's opening is opens at 5 p.m. and closes at 7 a.m. So there's an hour overlap there. I'm not sure where she's going to be. If she's going to be at her home during those on that hour in the morning and the hour in the evening or some staff is going to be managing that. So that seems to me to be difficult. I don't know how she's going to manage So I just know at 6 a.m., you know, the respite center closes at 7 a.m., so I'm not quite sure how she's going to do that. And the respite center opens at 5 p.m., but her daycare is still open at 6 p.m., so there's an hour there in the morning and the evening that I'm not quite sure how she's going to be in two places at once. let me see if there's anything I can't I can't find my letter that I actually sent about some of the issues I think that's all those are all the main issues that we had and I I don't I oh yeah there was one other thing we also have another daycare already on our court of 20 houses we only have 20 houses on our court it's very small and she runs an in-home daycare with six and under so there is traffic coming and going in the mornings and evenings with that daycare also dropping off picking up kids but that is only a six that's not 12 kids that's six kids and so it's just more traffic when in the past when she had the other one open I witnessed people driving very fast in and out of our court her home is at the very end of the court people would drive very fast in and out because they were either late dropping off their kids or they were late picking them up and we have a lot of kids that live on our court that play in their yards and I just yesterday had to stop my car coming into my court because a ball went rolling across the court so I stopped my car and a couple of little kids were playing in a yard two houses up and I just waited and a little girl she was probably about 10 ran she looked at me and I waved her on to go get the ball and then let her go back and she waved you know thanks but I was aware that kids play their kids on our court and they play and I've had to stop numerous times to let kids get balls or they just run across the street not paying attention so it really concerns me to see cars driving, speeding in and out of our courts, pick kids up at the very end. And I watch them and they're not looking at all. They're just trying to get to the end of the court, pick up their kids or drop them off. So I'm very worried about speeding, speeding drivers who are, their kids are at that, that daycare. And that would be eight, possibly eight kids in addition to the grandkids. And I also, we also worried about, as far as traffic goes, if there are only two people working there and they park in the driveway or next to the garage, then there should be no additional traffic on our court. Our cart is very small. I watch emergency vehicles, delivery trucks, try to get in and out of our court. And boy, they have a hard time. And then I did mention we had a fire a few years ago at the house that's right next door. And there were 11 fire trucks, emergency vehicles trying to get to that house. And the house basically burned down because they just couldn't really get in there and turn things around. So I think those are all the issues I wrote about. And I've been there for 36 years. six years, and I just like to have my court be a residential court and not be a business district. So that's really all I can say at this point. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Ms. Mooney. Michelle, would you like to respond to anything that Ms. Mooney brought up? Yes, sir. I appreciate Ms. Mooney's concern. if she feels that way she she feels that way I remember the day that my neighbor's house caught on fire their grandson was at work and he worked at the child care so I put him in the car and I drove him home the neighbors that live next door to me part of the difficulty for them getting to their house is because they keep in an abundance of vehicles in front of their house. Right now, there's probably eight cars out there. All of our cars are always up in our yard or in our garage. I had 24 hours here, seven days a week. I no longer do that. The reason that towards the end of our 24-hour, seven-day-a-week child care here, the reason that we had teachers coming in and out is I was training them for the license type one facility that I've had for over the last 15 years. So those teachers were going there. As far as her concern about the respite center or the social rehabilitation center, I'm just going to be owner. I'm not going to be operator. So that facility and the hours of operation and that, that is going to be something that I'm hiring someone to do. I'm not doing that for, for me to be able to go to the facility and work at the facility. I've done that so aging parents of children that have special needs can have five days of the week that they can go to work, they can go to school, they can take a nap in the middle of the day, and then on Fridays pick their loved one up and bring them home for the weekend and then bring them back Sunday evening. As far as the level of noise and as many children that are in this court, uh, the people that live next door to me on the right facing, they have no children. They're all adults there. The other couple living next door to them, they have no children at all. Older couple, Ms. Linda that lives next door to them. All of her children are grown and gone. The house next door to that there's, um, no one in it now it's it's it's open it's vacant the people that live next door to them i hardly ever see those people come out the house is next door to them they're just now moving out and that that house did have children in it but i've never seen any of those kids come out without adult supervision unless they're directly in their front yard if they get out of their front yard there's an adult that's with them the house is next door to that i don't see any children going in at that house. The houses at the end of the court, there's no children in that house. Across the street from them, that's the houses across from my son's house. There's only adults that live in that house. The house that's right next to them, that's another older couple that used to teach my, both two of my sons give piano lessons. That's the waves. The house that's next door to them, there's a young couple that just moved in there that had very small children. so none of them are out without supervision there's another couple that lives next door to them the the lady that's done in-home child care since I've known them their husband was my children's coach so I've known them for a long time and uh in football within the community next door to them um we're starting to get it back towards my house she has no children she lives alone then you have Miss Renee's house Miss Renee Mooney's house there are no children there other than when her grandchildren come and then next door to that that couple's moving out that only has one child that cannot go outside without supervision and then we're back to my neighbors who their grandchildren come and they play in my yard they ride their bikes in and out of my driveway to no issue their kids as far as being able to come down here and turn around it's the configuration of the port. And if other cars that are not parked up in their driveway or in the road, which is a public place to park, you can park there. That is going to be an obstruction. But that isn't the reason why the fire department couldn't get to the people's house and put it out because there was cars out on the road. Their house caught on fire and it was unfortunate that they couldn't put it out. It wasn't because of anything that I did or that they did. Nobody would want that to happen. It was devastating. And their great grandchildren and one of their grandsons was with me and somebody called me and I told him, get in the car. I'm taking you home. And I bought him back for us to watch their house burn down. So Miss Mooney is not the only person that has a stake in this as far as being here for a long time, her being here for 35 years, getting ready to retire. I've never been an out loud neighbor. My children are very mannerable. My grandchildren are very mannerable. We keep our situation to the backyard. That's why blocked in so we can have our time. I provide a Sunday dinner for my family. I have seven children plus several that I've raised. So sometimes on a Sunday, we have a lot of cards down here because mama's making dinner and we eat, they get their to-go boxes and they go home. I moved here to be able to provide for my family. These are different times now. And this is an opportunity not only for me to give back and to do what I've been doing for 20 years, but to be able to be home with my own grandchildren. That's very special to me. I am over the moon that Miss Mooney had enough courage to come on here and voice her opinion. I heard her very clearly, and I want to assure her that I'm going to be the good neighbor that I've always been, and I'm going to be responsible. And as far as breaking the rules that you guys put in place for me, that did not occur towards the end when I was training for the other, because I had not planned on closing my in-home. I wanted to still be here doing in-home and open up a facility for the community. But I found out that the regulations with child care won't allow you to do that. You have to either be a licensed in-home or a licensed type one out of your home. So we shut the whole kit and caboodle down here and I started a licensed type one facility. If Ms. Mooney has any questions, comments, or concerns, she's always been welcome to knock on my door. As a matter of fact, I believe I bought her some flowers for Mother's Day last year because I know that times have been hard for everybody and I just wanted them to know I was thinking of them and it was way before us doing in-home child care. I just try to be as neighborly as possible. Don't have to buy anybody. I just see where there's a need and people are hurting and people don't have support, I just try to let them know that sometimes there's sunshine at the bottom of the street. Michelle, there are two other people who wish to speak. Let's recognize them. We saw another hand or two raised. Is anybody else who wishes to speak about this application? We have two hands. Okay, let's take the first hand. I will promote Burtis Pennington. It's not working. Why don't we allow the other person to ask you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Mei-Lin Chi, and my address is 609 Saybrook Point. Kentucky 40503. My house is one of the 18 newly built houses by J. Perry Holmes in 2021. I'm also a retired person moving from California to this house in April 2021. I enjoy the quiet and beautiful neighborhood on the side of Sabre Point and Sabre Road. My only regret is that I need to have long-term endurance in a house whose backyard makes constant noise that penetrates to my living room, kitchen, and bedrooms. There is a person groaning and moaning for hours and hours, playing on the swing on the other side of my backyard all year round. I have sympathy with that person. because that person cannot control the reaction or expression from what that person has inherited by birth. But I will have zero tolerance for people who like to make decisions which do not keep their neighbors' concerns and complaints in mind. to operate a child care center with 12 kids in your house and use your backyard as their playground will make unbearable noises, not only to your backyard, but also to my entire house. My dog will bark like crazy nonstop when he hears someone or something moving even beyond the wooden fence from my backyard to your backyard. My entire house will be filled with kids' noises, dog barking, which will make my life miserable, full of disturbance and unrest. the value of my house will go down to the drain. Who would like to buy a house constantly, hearing noises all year round from the daycare center in their backyard? Your program is good, but not just in the right place. I strongly oppose this selfish, inconsiderate, and this graceful idea of making a daycare center in the middle of this private residential neighborhood. This neighborhood is not a business court or commercial property. Your consideration is highly appreciated. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Key, for speaking up. There was somebody else who wished to speak. I think Mr. or Ms. Pennington, are you still with us? I have not been able to promote. But, yeah, for whatever reason, we're not able to promote that attendee. We've both tried. Oh, there went. Yes, no? Yes. Okay. I don't know why. I'm kidding. so can you Curtis Pennington can you can you hear us yes I can hear you I don't think y'all can hear me we can now we can hear you yeah I just wanted to touch actually this is Tommy his son who my mother and father have been here since 1966 we're next door to them and one we're the house that burned down are you able to still hear me? Yes we can hear you go right ahead Mr. Pennington what's the address of the house your house 3449 it's 3449 we're right next door All right. Go right ahead. Yeah. She stated that the house burned down because cars parked out in the street. Actually, we got 11 inches of snow that day and the fire trucks couldn't get up the hill to even get to the house. I don't know what her memory is, but she is totally incorrect on the situation. Secondly, she stated every kid on the street. She's so wrong on that. I live here too, and there are kids playing all up and down the court. The house that she talked about, her next-door neighbor, they plan on having children. They're a young couple that's moving in who plan on having children. The fourth house sub, she said nobody's in. They actually had about five kids there, but it's for rent, so we don't know if kids are moving in it or not. the house that she said that had kids that somebody moved in and has kids in the yard yesterday the next door to me the child that's they're moving but a man bought it who has children I don't know the age of the children but a man bought it who has children so her saying that there's not kids going up and down the court very incorrect I really one of the things that i'm concerned about is the smell oh yeah she said something about eight cars in front of our house i think there's two that's an out on the street not eight but um the smell uh her herby is feet away from our house probably maybe eight feet from our property line and with just the kids she has we can smell it it smells like dirty diapers you had eight children under the age of five what's that going to be 200 diapers a week and our sewer system our sewer system got maxed out with the 18 houses behind us and she's having a roto-rooter or whoever it is over there at least once a month and i just uh i like michelle i really do she is a good neighbor i don't want no problems with michelle neither do my parents it has nothing to do with liking her it has to do we don't want to daycare next to us i mean her kids greatest kids you ever want to be his neighbors they're very good neighbors like i said she is a very nice woman and our family thinks very highly of her we just don't want to daycare next to us she's saying uh her other daycare got a five out of five what i read on the internet it got a 1.6 out of five I mean it's like 200 reviews on it I just don't know if that's what we want here if what she had at Snow Road is what she's planning on putting here please don't please don't thank you Mr. Pennington like I said we love her we love her as a neighbor her son, Evan I think very highly of him he's just a great guy just in a daycare next to us we've been here for 50 56 years I think that would count for something other than having a daycare built next door okay thank you so I don't know if y'all heard me because I'm not very good at this social stuff but that's really all i got we got to say and thank you for listening okay thank you hey tommy i'm sorry this um um raquel just real quickly um maybe jones like me we're licensees real estate licensees and i just need to state for the record i'm getting real uncomfortable we're talking a lot about kids and where they can live and not kids and familiar status is a protected class and this is not a conversation we should be having. I know it's separate from the daycare issue, but a lot of people that have actually expressed some opinion here is actually contrary to what is legal, you know, regarding to fair housing law. So not daycare related, but residential related in particular. So I'd just like to, if we can't stare away from that conversation, I think we probably allowed a little too much of that to go on. I agree with Ms. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Carter. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Whitman. Thank you, Mr. Glover. Yes, thank you. Are there any other comments from the public? Anybody else who wishes to speak? I didn't see any other hands raised. So I think we're done with public comments. Any other questions from the board to Ms. Shaw or to the staff or to anybody that we've heard from? I'm hearing I see no hands raised, so board are you ready to vote? I'll leave a motion. I move for approval of PLN BOA 22-4, Angela Shaw's request for a conditional use to establish a family daycare for up to 12 children in a single family residential zone on a property located at 3450 Wallingford Court based on the staff's recommendations and subject to the six listed conditions. Ms. Carter, is there a second? Ms. Whitman second. I second the motion. Ms. Whitman second. All those in favor. Mr. Chair, before we vote, can we ask Ms. Shaw if she agrees with the six conditions? Ms. Shaw, as a condition of approval, you have to agree to the conditions I assume that you do unless because you've submitted this application and the application is always issued with those conditions as conditions. Have you read the conditions? Yes, sir, I have. But I just want to let you know that we do participate with STARS in the food program. So sometimes they'll have to come in and do a review for us. so I'll make sure that that's on a day where one of the staff members don't come or something so there's not like an extra car in the thing or maybe I'll shut it down I don't know how to do that but in order to partner to to get children you know things that they need or to get reimbursed for meals these people have to come in to look at the program to make sure that I'm serving the meals that I say that I'm serving and everything lines up accordingly these are like state regulations or regulations in order to be able to even take children that get child care assistance, you have to participate in these two programs. And that's just part of the regulation. So I wanted to make sure that I was clear in stating that. Ms. Shaw, I think you can work with the staff on that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Sorry, Tommy, I thought it was important. I can't work with her after the fact. Yeah, are you talking about something other than the conditions that are in your application? This is with child care, in order to be able to be recognized by the state and take state assistance for families that cannot necessarily afford to pay on their own, you have to be participating in the STARS program and the federal food program. So those are two things that I have to do. so those those agents agencies would have to come to my facility to look at my program just like a light uh the licensing people they have to come and they have to look at my program to check their boxes off to make sure that I'm operating in compliance with what the state regards as minimal licensure requirements so it'll be the federal food program they'll have to come in and make sure that I, you know, that my refrigerator has the monitors in it, that I'm measuring my food appropriately, that I'm providing the meals that I say that I'm providing and things of that nature, because they reimburse you for that. But that's a part of making sure that children are being fed properly, that you're not feeding them junk food, you know, and, and as far as being a part of STARS, you have to, you have to participate in the STARS program in order for those types of families to be able to receive funding to come to your program. So those two agencies I have to partner with because of the regulatory statutes. And how old are they? They're not employees. No, ma'am. They're not employees. They periodically come. And sometimes they come because a neighbor may call and say that, you know, we heard some child screaming and we're concerned. so they'll come over and they'll see that the child was crying because they were sleeping and they'll say okay we just came to see thank you they'll check it off and they'll leave um but i think there's a there's an easy way to fix this concern if we add uh some minimal language to the conditions if you look at uh at condition number three uh uh visitors to the property shall be limited to residents and employees and picking up and dropping off. If you add language that says something like and regulatory agencies, that would probably cover the concerns of those of you who have that concern. Would that be acceptable? Ms. Carter, you made the motion. Yes, I would amend the motion accordingly. Okay, let's make sure staff has that language. The language would be during hours of operation. This is number three on the conditions. During the hours of operations, visitors to the property shall be limited to residents of the dwelling, employees, regulatory agencies, and individuals picking up or dropping off children. Does that language suit you? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The second was Ms. Whitman. Did you second that motion, that amended motion? Yes, I second the amended motion. All right. Thank you. Okay. Now that we have the full motion on the floor, we can vote on it. All those in favor, raise your hand. Any opposed? Mr. Gross and Mr. Needham are opposed. Motion carries. I think it was four, five to two. Three, four, five to two. Thank you very much. Your application is approved. Good luck. Thank you all. Have a great afternoon. I can leave now? You can. Bye. All right. The next application is PLN VOA 22-5, StepWorks Recovery Center. Is the applicant present? Yes, I just promoted Nick Nicholson. Good afternoon. My name is Nick Nicholson. I'm here on behalf of StepWorks. Melissa Concar is also available on Zoom. Together we can answer any questions that you all may have. For the record, we have read the staff report and are in agreement with the conditions that are listed there. I do want to kind of briefly go through what StepWorks is and the kind of plans for this facility, as I do know that there are members of the public that are here right now that are in opposition. So I'd like to share my screen with you all. That'd be fine. Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. Go right ahead. Okay. So the StepWorks Recovery Center, it was founded in kind of 2003 as the first physician-owned residential treatment center here in Kentucky. Since that time, we've opened up, I believe, four other locations and two more are opening, hopefully, this year as well. And the kind of main goal of the facility that we are here to talk about today is to stabilize the patient over a 30-day period and then transition them into long-term treatment or sober living. Most of the patients tend to stay basically in between kind of a 30- and 60-day period. and we think that this facility in particular is just kind of perfect for what we are proposing as there are already two existing buildings that have basically served as the hospice office facilities and this will allow us to basically have separate facilities for men and women. We are proposing 50 beds for men and 19 for the women in those separate buildings. We're going to have up to 26 on-staff employees there at one time, and never less than six employees will be there 24 hours a day. All of our patients are basically supervised by staff, by physicians and nurses that are monitoring them throughout their stay with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There isn't instances where there's any type of kind of unsupervised time alone for them outside of this facility. There are areas for kind of therapy, group treatment, and office spaces, and also kitchen facilities. This program is entirely a voluntary facility. We don't work with the Department of Corrections to offer programs for individuals that are basically, you know, forced into any type of rehabilitation by probation and parole. A lot of the kind of concerns that we heard from neighbors were based on kind of court order therapy that people were not actually wanting to be there. Instead, they were just being forced there by the court. And that is not what is going on at the Step Wars. All of our patients have chosen to seek help and they want to be there and in treatment. Here is the kind of residential schedule that we have. And if you're only seeing the PowerPoint, like you're still in the program, we're not seeing the slides. We're only seeing, we're only looking at your first slide. We just see the first slide, like within the PowerPoint program. There we go. Does this work now? Yes. Okay. Okay, well, for the record, I guess here's what I had shown up there with regards to the StepWorks kind of recovery centers with kind of where it started, how many facilities that there are, and kind of what we are, you know, basically our kind of mission on how we are trying to transition them into sobriety and reorient them into their lives with kind of the healthy recovery skills. And this was just the quick overview that showed 50 beds for men, 19 for women with 26 employees on site, no more than a minimum of six. And again, kind of always supervised. And here is the residential schedule to kind of give you all a clue as to how many are like basically how their days are organized, because we want to make sure that it is basically a very strict schedule. We want it set up similar to a typical workday in order to try to reintroduce regimen into our patients' lives to address kind of the physical, psychological, and social needs of residents on their path to recovery. Here are a couple other programs that StepWorks is involved with. There is kind of outpatient treatment, but that is not occurring on this site. The only actions that are occurring on site is the inpatient residential facility. And so the only type of traffic that is coming here are basically the daily traffic to the facility by the employees. It's not outpatient treatment where people can come to get any type of basically temporary treatment. We also do not offer any type of visitation right now once our patient checks into the facility. Here is a quick just example of some of the other facilities that StepWorks has. And so we honestly think that this will fit in kind of perfectly with where the historic hospice buildings are located right off Alexandria. We do think that this is a great location. So often with this kind of type of a conditional use permit request, we're talking about a former church or school or community center that's located at the very heart of a residential area. And while we are adjacent to residential, this is a long-term commercial use for this site that is mostly next to and part of kind of office parks and commercial uses that is only a couple hundred feet away from New Circle at Ericsburg Road. And so being able to locate in a commercial area on our kind of arterial systems, we think that this really is a perfect location to have this type of facility. uh we've also agreed like the property already is very well screened but the staff recommended that we get rid of an access point onto gulf stream as that street is a majority of residential uses and we are happy to get rid of that and add even more screenage you'll hear about a daycare that is adjacent at the 2245 address that's kind of right across gulf street from us and we'll be basically adding in the landscaping there and removing that access in order to kind of further buffer the daycare that is right there. The reality is... Nick, you're talking about the access from Gulfstream onto the property? So there are two access points right now, one on Great Stone Point right there and Gulfstream Drive. Staff has recommended and put it as a condition to eliminate the access onto Gulfstream, and we are happy to comply with that. The reality is, you know, our community of Lexington, we claim to be a community that cares, and our community has a very real problem that we've allowed to go kind of under-addressed. It is not a surprise to anyone on this board. I know you all have sat through these types of hearings before that Kentucky very much has a problem. Year in, year out, Kentucky is in the top five in the country in drug overdose deaths. And this problem is increasing at an absolutely alarming rate. The stat where we've increased 49% of the overdoses since just 2019 is absolutely alarming. Last time I have had to look at these numbers, it actually, in the 2016 overdose fatality report, the increase had only gone up basically by 40% over a three-year time period. And so we're now talking about even a larger increase in just a single year's time. And so what we have been doing is just simply not enough. We can see that this is hitting our basically prime working age of our society. It is a huge economic impact on our entire community without even having to look at the health care costs. You're just looking at the individuals that are basically completely taken out of the working kind of populace. And it's not just, you know, that prime group. This is something that is hitting every single age group, every single, basically, ethnicity and race. It is a problem across the board. Per capita, unfortunately, Kentucky is way above the national average, and unfortunately that gap is only increasing. And to those people that are kind of thinking that this is not a Fayette County problem, this very much is. Just last month, the Herald-Leader did a kind of large spread that kind of focused the entire Sunday edition on this growing problem that we had. And it showed that, There were 133 overdose deaths in Fayette County in just eight months' time. The reporting data is always kind of lagging because it is taking time to do the official autopsies. That's why we aren't able to present the entire numbers for 2021. But at the end of the day, we know that Fayette County is an epicenter for this issue, and it's something that we have to start doing differently to actively address this problem. it sounds harsh but i can just say that as a community we're just we're not doing enough and i'm sure that we're going to hear from neighbors that are genuinely sympathetic to this problem but still just don't want this type type of treatment facility near them and while i understand that this is a problem that it touches every single neighborhood in our town it touches every age group it touches every race touches every income level this is something that does not discriminate. And so in order for our community to truly address the underlying problem that we have, we must do more than what we have been doing. When you see the statistics like the increase by 49%, I think it just speaks volumes that we are not addressing this problem adequately. We need more facilities like this one, and that's why we do fully support the staff's recommendation of approval and kind of agree to abide by those conditions. If you will permit me, I'm going to show two quick, just kind of one minute long videos. So you all get a little bit more of a feel for StepWorks directly from their employees and patients. When I first arrived at StepWorks, my life was different. My life was unmanaged. Well, I knew that part. It was in the midst of chaos. something was telling me not to take my chances with this coming out of recovery. So I knew I need some kind of reinforcement. We offer them a place to stay. We offer them structure in order to go to meetings, get sponsored, find employment. It gives them the ability to buy purpose in life. One thing I really respect about this program is that we're working on coming together as a community. and then something happens, we hold the person accountable, but then we kind of blah, blah, blah. I've seen a few people, they make mistakes, and then they come back pinched on. That's the biggest thing. That's the biggest thing about sober living. You know, if you make a mistake, you're going to have accountability systems that bounce you back. It's sometimes on the other side, debating about sober living really would ask them to look within themselves. Are they ready to figure out who they are? If that's you, then sober living is definitely for you. When I first arrived, lots of people think the opposite of addiction is being clean or sober. We don't think so. The opposite of addiction is connectedness. We're all step works, but we have our own identity. We have our own philosophy that we stick to that serves as the guiding principle to everything else we do. And so our work, obviously, is tribe. It's kind of based in the idea that most of the time, even before they began to do substances, they had just this inner feeling of emptiness and loneliness and separateness. I think a lot of them come in and they're sick and they're physically sick. They're emotionally sick. Slowly but surely, they stand at the fringe of our tribe and they watch what we do. Something starts to take and they start to see it working for other clients who are here and other clients being positive about their experience here and telling them, you know, this place is different. Slowly, the evidence starts to mount. Wait, maybe this is a place I can get help. Maybe they really do understand. Maybe they really do care. At that moment, recovery becomes possible. Connection becomes possible. together we can do what a problem that cannot do. Lots of people think they are. So that was just to give you all just kind of a brief look into what let me stop sharing. A brief look into the StepWorks program. We are very excited about this location. We think that this is ideal for what we are using. We are, we very much understand the neighbors' concerns. We think the staff's recommendation of the conditions will go a long way towards addressing them, and so we certainly were happy to agree to that. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions, as I do know we're going to hear a lot from some neighbors. Yes, sir. Mr. Nicholson, and this may be for Ms. Concord. Walk us through how the outpatient works, and then also how the time of operations for the outpatient services, are they seven days a week or are they just Monday through Friday? And kind of explore that a little bit with us. So I apologize if I wasn't clear with the kind of snafu that happened with the presentation. There are no outpatient services here. This is only in-house residential. And so we don't have former patients coming to the site. There isn't any type of outpatient-esque treatment. StepWorks as a whole, as a company, does offer that in partnership with UK and Baptist Health. I see. I must have misunderstood your letter, Mr. Nicholson. That is on me. That is certainly not on me. Well, I appreciate that kissing up. It goes a long way. That's my question for now. And the other question, well, the other question I have, this is for staff, on the closing of Gulfstream Court and the screening, what type of, and Mr. Nicholson, you can jump into, what kind of screening is being proposed since it is along the front? I guess technically that's a front street. It is a kind of side street. Yeah, but either way, I know there's some possible restrictions on what could be done, so I'm just curious, and I'm sure the audience may want to know what kind of screening is being proposed. As far as the Gulfstream side, I think condition number four addresses that, Brandon. I guess either Mr. Nicholson or staff can expand further. I guess I'll, let me ask you, what is, what do you plan on? What does the applicant plan on putting in? Because under four, you can put some pretty small shrubs in there and wait for them to grow to get maximum. Are you guys going to maybe put in something a little bit more thicker out of the gate or do you plan on putting things up? We're certainly happy to do that. It was, it was going to be basically left up to staff as far as, you know, if they had any specific requests, but we're, We're happy to agree to basically increase the size of shrubs or anything like that. That's all within play. Okay. I'm comfortable with leaving that up to staff, and they can come back to us if there's an issue. Any other questions from the board to Mr. Nicholson? I've got one more. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Bruce. I know. I've been silent all afternoon and I just got spoken on as everyone on the... Somebody push your button. Go right ahead. That's right. Well, no, no, no, no. I've been saving up. I've been saving up for Mr. Nicholson. No, the question is, as many people on the board, Mr. Nicholson knows I'm in the real estate business and I know that there are issues with facilities related to loitering. and smoking, et cetera. I know you guys said this is supervised and there's no outpatient, which takes a lot of that off the table. But I do have a question about the condition on the smoking area being in the middle. And I see you guys have a smoking canopy and wanted to see if, is there going to be two smoking areas, one for each building or, and only because in my experience people are lazy and um i you know are they going to walk from the main facility all you know all the way in the rain and the snow to go smoke a cigarette when they can just walk outside smoking flicking in the parking lot if there's going to be an opportunity for a second potential facility for that use i think the intent of the staffs uh basically the condition there is that any outdoor activity, regardless of kind of what that is, occurs around our buildings and not across the parking lot by the residential, the kind of property lines. And so we will have kind of dedicated areas on the site that are around the buildings. But I do want to be very clear, when I say supervised, I truly mean no one is allowed outside of the building without staff with them. And so it is not something that you can come and go, you know, get a pack of cigarettes and just go outside by yourself. It is set times and with the actual staff, they are present. There isn't any ability to kind of come and go from this facility. There isn't any kind of just alone outside time whatsoever. So it is, I think this, I don't want to put words in the staff's out, but I do believe the way that that condition is drafted, it's basically keep away from the residential side of that property and stay around the commercial structures. That satisfies me and satisfies me that you and planning staff will work through exactly the locations. I'm comfortable with that. At the end of the day where the two buildings are located, there is a substantial parking area that already exists along with landscaping and screening before you get to residential side so we're more than happy to keep folks close to the buildings and not uh the kind of parking areas uh in the residential landscaping area okay that finishes my questions for now mr glover turn back over to you mr nicholson uh the application says 50 men and 16 women and i thought i heard you say 19 women did i misunderstand you then that that that probably was a typo on my part 16 is the application number. Melissa, is that correct? Yes, that's correct. I think I just had an upside-down dyslexia moment and added nine instead of the six. In looking at, without, you know, I'm not familiar with the inside of these buildings, but it looks to me like you have 50 men residing in the smaller building and 16 women residing in them. It's the opposite. The 50 men will be in the larger structure. The night team will be at the smaller. There is also going to be office space and kitchen facilities located in the larger building. You anticipated that part of my question. What else is located in the larger building? So it is kind of group therapy area, a meeting space, office space for the employees, administrators, and also the kitchen in order to kind of help add structure to the patient's kind of day and responsibilities so that they kind of can learn to start taking care of themselves. Yeah, classrooms and such. Yes. That's all I have. Yeah, Mr. Nicholson, this is Mr. Clark. Yes, sir. So it's easy to say that, you know, these patients will not have the kind of ingress and outgress, whatever that word is, because everything is planned. But there are times when things are not planned. And so I think the neighbors are going to say, well, what about times? Will these patients have access to the neighborhood, I think is the general question. Yeah, they will not. In any part of the day. They will not. And I know that a lot of the kind of fear was that there would be some type of patients kind of escaping and trying to get a fix is what I kept on seeing some of the neighbors say. And that simply is just not our experience with the other facilities. I believe in kind of a follow-up email I had sent the board that in January, out of the 106 total missions across the five, there are only four elopements that actually occurred. And those were not individuals that were basically leaving this facility. Those are people that had to be transported to the hospital and then did not come back for whatever reason. an overwhelming majority of any people that basically that do not complete the program here are basically kind of voluntarily discharged and we don't just let them walk out the door in any way shape or form they have to be driven off site to like a known location but anytime that really there are people that are kind of escaping so to speak as some people have said that's coming from planned doctors visits or hospital visits when those people just aren't coming back to our facility. All right. Yeah, that answers my question. Thank you, Nick. Any other questions to attorney Nicholson? Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. We have several people who wish to speak. of the people who was opposed to ask for a short break before we take opposition testimony. So with permission of the board, let's take a 10-minute break and we'll come back at 12 after 3. We're adjourned for 10 minutes. Thank you. A few people who wanted to speak about this in opposition. And the first one, I believe, is Ms. Winter. Ms. Winter, are you present? She is, and she does have her hand raised. Just for our attendees, as we bring you in to speak to the board, I believe the Zoom will ask you a question if you want to be promoted to a panelist. And in order for you to speak and have your video on, you will need to say yes to that question. So as we bring you in, it will ask you to be a panelist. And then once you're finished speaking, we'll remove you from the panelist section and put you back in as an attendee. Or you're free to, I guess, leave the meeting at that point, too. I promoted Ms. Winters. Okay. Okay, so when we promote you, you have to agree to it on your screen. Okay, so Ms. Winters, are you here? There you are. Okay, you're up first, Ms. Winters. You can unmute yourself. What say you? Yes, good afternoon. It's my understanding, not to throw things off, there's another attorney here to speak on behalf of some folks, and he has messaged me to see if he would mind if he went first. I don't know what the timing restrictions are for him, but I'm fine with that. I believe it's to accommodate him. John Talbot? John Talbot, yes. Okay, John, I recognize your face when I see you. Yes. Mr. Talbot, you've been promoted to a panelist. You can unmute and turn your video on if you'd like. Turn your video on too so we can see you. I am. I just am finding the correct button. Thank you. Yeah, we got you. Okay, go ahead. Okay, good. So I'm John Talbot. I'm an attorney here in Lexington. And I'm here on behalf of Bob Cole and Steve Bean, who are property managers of several adjoining buildings. I listened to the presentation and, you know, I just frankly feel like the KRS 100-243 is pretty, you know, is pretty applicable to this. That the one of the conditions is that there should not be an unreasonable circumvention of the zoning ordinance by this application. and the reduction of in the ordinance if i'm reading the ordinance correctly there's a 500 foot buffer that's required from a resident from a rehabilitation home to a residential zone in the p in the p1 and here we're going from 500 to zero we're taking that right out of the ordinance that's pretty unreasonable circumvention i think we're not going from 500 to even 100 so with that though i'm i'd like to turn this over to um to mr um bean who's going to speak first and then to Mr. Cole. I think you've misinterpreted the statute. There's no such requirement that I'm aware of. There's no variance proposed today. Yeah, this is a conditional use application. This is not an application for variance. Yeah, Daniel? Yes. So, yes, so in this particular zone, rehabilitation homes are a principally permitted use. However, when they are located closer than 500 feet to residential zone, it's a conditional use. So the applicant is not seeking a variance or trying to circumvent any provisions of the zoning ordinance. It just requires this additional review. So this is not a variance. They're not circumventing anything. They're going through the prescribed process in order to do this. For a conditional use permit. Yes. Yes. Okay. But we're going from still going from 500 to zero. No. I won't belabor that, but. That's what the conditional use is for. Yeah, that's why they're, that's where we're going through this process. Right. So, okay. Is that all you had to say? So, well, but with that, I'd like to turn it over to Steve Bean, who's going to speak first as an owner of property, owner, manager of property in this area. okay Mr. Bean I just promoted Mr. Bean okay Mr. Bean you're promoted and you have to accept the promotion working on that okay I think I've got it can you hear me well we can hear you and we we can see you but you're sideways let's turn it this way there you go how about that much better I can see more of you all when I was turned sideways I represent and am a part owner in 2333 Alexandria Drive, which is directly across the street from the subject property. And I'd like to start with a couple of quotes. And the first quote is directly from StepWorks website. It says detox is the process your body goes through when you stop putting addictive substances into your system. Detox can produce uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous symptoms for drug and alcohol withdrawal. So I think they're already they know the process that they have to go through is a very serious process. And then from the American Addiction Centers, drug addiction is known as a relapsing disease because to relapse is common among people in recovery. The American Addiction Centers research statistics show that more than 85% of individuals relapse and return to drug use with one the year following their treatment. But drug addiction, a chronic disease, is characterized by intense drug cravings and an inability to control drug use despite the negative consequences. And, you know, I'm really, I think we all struggle. And we all know that drug abuse is a terrible disease. And you say, but do I want it in my backyard? um i have some experience um i represent another property owner here in lexington and about three years ago it's a professional office building a very similar setting in a professional office park we uh lease space to a behavioral therapy group and we heard about how good everything was going to be and how all their patients were going to follow all the rules. Well, that's not the way it works. It's not the experience that has occurred in the building that we leased three years ago. They've used the stairwells as bathrooms. We find drug paraphernalia more often than not on a weekly basis in the bathrooms. The smoking issue is an ongoing issue. We built one of the shelters for them to smoke in. They use it sometimes. They don't use it sometimes. They smoke in front of the building. They smoke on the side of the building. They throw the cigarette butts down. It's a constant battle to try to maintain. And this is maybe a group of no more than 10 to 15 people at a time, much less to have 66 people in a facility directly across the street from a daycare and adjacent to a residential center. You know, I own property there across the street, as I said, with about five other individuals. that the the office market commercial office market has struggled because of covid and then you put another behavioral therapy group across the street it just doesn't help our efforts in trying to lease additional space in our buildings when we have these things working against us but just the biggest issue is just the numerous problems that have occurred and again we had all these assurances that none of this was going to be happen that everybody was going to be supervised well what's said and what happens is typically in my experience is two different things I just think a behavioral health group that deals with drug and alcohol addiction and even in their website they say how dangerous it is and with the relapse that goes on and you put that 50 feet from a daycare facility right across the street it's a recipe for disaster and I just wish you all would really consider and don't make the same mistake that I made and turn down this conditional use request. Thank you Mr. Bain. We appreciate your comments. Any questions by the board? Mr. D? Okay, thank you. Our next person to speak, let's see, Mr. Talbot, did you have somebody else? Yes, Bob Cole, who manages the Paragon Buildings at the corner of New Circle and Harrodsburg. Okay. we will promote Mr. Cole and Mr. Cole you are promoted yes we can see you and hear you go right ahead fantastic thank you so much I appreciate being given the opportunity to speak here on behalf of our owners 4 Plus Corporation at 1 and 2 Paragon Center, which is 2525 Alexandria Drive and 2343, 2525 Harrodsburg Road and 2343 Alexandria Drive. We also have one other asset in our park there at Paragon Center, the Cygnus buildings. We do not manage that asset at this time. It is owned by a group of doctors. over half of that building is a medical facility. We have been active, my company, in one form or fashion or a previous company that I worked for, the original developer, have been involved in this corner for 30 years. We've been a great corporate citizen. We've been a great corporate neighbor to the garden side folks. We've watched that community grow and prosper. We take our ownership and our management of these assets very seriously. To follow up on what Mr. Bean said earlier, we're deeply concerned about the facility being placed in this location across from a professional office park that, as many of you know, working in those environments, is made up of men and women who work all hours of the day and night. We've had great success with this facility. Our owners have been long-term owners. I think the neighborhood would look upon us favorably in the investment that we make on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. We have over $20 million worth of real estate in that park that we maintain and are tax-paying citizens to this community. I am personally, I've been here since I graduated from college. I am a Lexingtonian by transfer. My wife, my children, we've all grown up here. So we too have a say in how we operate and maintain our community. This particular location concerns us from a standpoint of being able to maintain a first-class office park. The pandemic has been very difficult on everyone, not wasted on us as well. This park has had an occupancy of over 90 percent for the last 30 years of my stewardship. As of today, we have a 35 percent vacancy. The building directly across from this location that is being considered by the Board of Adjustments is currently 25,000 square feet vacant out of 40,000 square feet. We cannot look at an investment like that in comparison to the lives of the people who need to be treated. I'm 22 years sober. I understand addiction. We have family members. Most of us have a family member who's been received or in some sort of treatment for addiction as we speak, or you know someone. I've had four personal friends whose children have been lost to this horrible affliction of heroin. I understand it. I see it, but it doesn't need to be in this location. If I was one of the homeowners that this was so close to, I would not be as professional as I'm being today. If I were the daycare operator and I had children going there as a parent, I would be horrified. These folks need help. There's no question about that. And yes, me too. I'm saying it. Not in our backyard. I think there are places and locations where these type of recovery centers fit. I'm for the recovery of these folks. I think you need to think long and hard about the placement. I will close with this. We've been managing this long enough that we now have had to put cameras on our properties because the open door policy of being a calm neighborhood where we never have any type of infractions, unfortunately, that doesn't exist in today's climate. We back up to New Circle Road. That's of concern. We now have to monitor these buildings, not because of issues that we're experiencing from this park currently, but from the whole community. And so we're on a heightened alert for safety, security. And now by adding this to this particular location, to this community, we will all be on, you know, be on edge. So, again, thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm sorry I took so much time. I do appreciate the work you all do. I appreciate the work that StepWorks do that is doing. But I just wish that you'd think of another location and it wasn't this one. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cole. Mr. Talbot, did you have anybody else that you wish to present to us? I do not. Just thank you all for taking the time to listen to us. And I hope if you have any questions for us, we're glad to answer them. Thank you. Any questions to Mr. Talbot or any witnesses? From the board, I see no hands. Okay, the next, thank you, Mr. Talbot. The next speaker, I suppose, is going to be Ms. Winters. Are you, Ms. Winters, are you there? We see you. we promoted you and we see you and hear you go right ahead okay wonderful good afternoon board of adjustment i just wanted before i get started with my presentation to let you know that first of all can everyone hear me okay yeah we can hear you you're a little uh you're a little fuzzy i'm not sure whether that's on your end or our end uh with the volume is sufficient but uh but maybe the connection is a little fuzzy. That's something that you may want to address. And before you go, Ms. Winters, how long do you think your presentation will take? I think about 30 minutes, if that. I can call in if you think that the quality of the sound isn't sufficient. I can keep my video on and then also call in on the landline, I mean, by my cell phone and do the audio that way. Say, Tommy, I can hear and she looks fine on my screen. Yeah, I think we're okay. It is a little fuzzy, but I can understand. Yeah. We can understand you as long, probably as long as it doesn't get too loud. So maybe you don't get too close to your microphone. See if that works. So the other reason I asked you about how long you're, because Ms. Carter is going to leave us at four. or shortly before. Is that right, Ms. Carter? And so I want to make sure. Shortly after, right around 4. Yeah, right around 4. Well, Ms. Carter, technically you could do Zoom by your phone and just take you with us. Worried about the video, you know, the video drive-in. Yeah, right. All right, thank you. Go right ahead, Ms. Leonard. Okay. So I did send earlier today a position statement, a written position statement on behalf of my clients, which we're referring to as the Beaumont Woods neighborhood. And the position statement had attachments A through I. And I asked that that position statement and the attachments be entered into the official record of this proceeding. I hope all the board members have received that. And now I will be presenting a PowerPoint as well that I will then figure out with staff how to get that a copy of that to you all so it can also be entered into the record for today's proceedings. So I'm going to share my screen now and go ahead and start this presentation. I hope I don't have the same. Problem is Mr. Nicholson here was starting the slideshow. Let's see. Okay. Are you all seeing the actual slideshow now and not just the various slides? Yes, we are. We see it like you're supposed to see it. Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay. So my name is Jessica Winters. I'm an attorney here in town. And I'm here today on behalf of 29 residents. and these are the neighbors of Gulfstream Drive and New Market Way in the Beaumont Woods neighborhood. We're here to object to the application seeking the conditional use of 2240 Gulfstream Drive as an alcohol and or drug rehabilitation home. And when I say that I'm here on behalf of 29 residents, these are residents who have officially engaged my services and have paid money toward legal fees. They are members of Beaumont Woods neighborhood, which is not, it doesn't have an official neighborhood association, but it is a group of folks who live on the two residential streets that will be directly impacted by this application, who have come together to voice an opposition through legal counsel. I have a couple slides here just to kind of give you an idea that the opposition to this application in the neighborhood is universal. On the New Market Way and Gulfstream Drive streets here, we have a listing of my clients, which I won't speak into the record, but are contained in my position statement I submitted for the record. but just to show you that there's so many on the Gulfstream and New Market Way that are objecting to this proposed use. In addition to my clients, more than 130 people have signed a petition in opposition to the proposed conditional use. That those petitions are attached as Exhibit B to the position statement. The petition signatories include other area residents, the parents of more than 50 of the children attending Tots Landing Daycare Center, and many owners of businesses in the nearby professional space developments also oppose the proposed use, including Allison Copps, DDS, with the Lexington Smile Center, Bruce Barton, MD, with body spectrum plastic surgery, Marianne Fox, Kevin Hoang, Mike Floyd of Floyd & Associates, PSC, Donna Horn of Horn Richardson & Associates, and Luther Hargis. The petitions and copies of 17 letters that have been submitted to the board in opposition are attached, as I said, to the position statement. I understand that there have been additional letters that have been forwarded directly to the board, but I wanted you all to make sure you had the copies of the ones that I had been provided with as well. We do have them. Thank you. Thank you. please. Okay. 100% of the neighbors of the subject property on New Market Way and Gulf Stream Drive who were polled opposed to proposed conditional use. And I only include the language who were polled to point out to you that there was one residence that organizers could not get in touch with the people who lived there. So I didn't want to say an unqualified 100%, but what I'll tell you is that 100% minus one resident, residents that we were unable to get in touch with of the neighbors of the subject property are opposed to this proposed conditional use. And I think that this is a factor that the board needs to consider in hearing today's application. To summarize our argument, which we'll cover in detail, we are requesting that the Board of Adjustment recognized that while the subject property is in a P1 zone, it is adjacent to and across from residential properties on two sides and is directly across the street from Patch Landing Daycare Center. Two school bus stops are within 500 feet of the subject property, one directly across the street and another one block away. Gulfstream and Newmarket Way are primarily residential with the P1 uses being located only on the corner of Gulfstream and Alexandria Drive. Maps reflecting the zoning and the location of the subject property relative to the other nearby properties are also attached to as an exhibit to the position statement but I'm going to go through a few of those here so that you can get an idea of the location of the subject property. This is a neighborhood overview, an overhead neighborhood view. And can you see my cursor on your screen there? Yes, we see it. So this is the subject property here with the parking lot here. And this is the current entry onto Gulfstream, which has been proposed to be closed off in connection with the application. but that closing the app this entrance off doesn't address the concern that it's directly the subject property is directly across from Tox Landing daycare here and then this street here is 100 residential and then the adjoining cul-de-sac here is residential but uh there's one bus stop right here in front of Tox Landing and then the other bus stop that I referenced just a second ago is right up here at the corner of Alexandria way, Alexandria drive and the next street up. And I might have a, I'll have a map view of that here in a minute. Here's another overhead view of the area with the subject property here. You can see the residences that back up to the subject property, many of which do not have fences across the backs of their yards. And there's this green space through here that connects the subject property to the rear of the houses at the end of the cul-de-sac on New Market Way here, which would allow direct pedestrian access to the neighborhood from the subject property. The zoning map demonstrates that the area around the subject property is residentially zoned. and then this image over here this will show you where the other here we have Gulf Stream Tots Landing subject property and then just one block up at the corner of Azalea and Alexandria Drive that's the location of the other school bus stop. It's the neighborhood's position that the close proximity of a proposed inpatient drug treatment facility to areas where children live play and wait outside for the school bus poses a safety threat to the neighborhood. Furthermore, evidence of increased emergency calls and crime at sites with similar facilities, which will be described in detail, supports the neighborhood's position that such facilities increase crime in the neighborhoods in which they are located, thus establishing that the neighborhood will be adversely impacted by the requested conditional use. In addition, the proposed use has been associated with reduced property values and is exponentially more intense than the prior use of the subject property as administrative offices and counseling space because it will be residential and will thus be occupied 24 hours a day rather than just during regular business hours. These are some images of properties on New Market Way and Gulfstream. Beaumont Woods neighborhood is a quiet, walkable neighborhood. It consists of 35 houses with two streets, being New Market Way and Gulf Stream, the ending cul-de-sacs. The streets are primarily residential, as I said previously, with the PY Muses located only at the corner of Gulf Stream and Alexandria. The neighborhood residents range from young families with children to the elderly. Some of the residents have been in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years. The neighborhood is close-knit and the houses are well-maintained. The average tax value of the homes in Beaumont Woods neighborhood is approximately $240,000 and sales range significantly higher, with one recent sale at $336,000. This is an upper-middle-class neighborhood whose families have made a significant investment in their homes and in their neighborhood. this is an example of the homes that you can see through the current screening on the subject property on these these slides more than 15 single-family residences are located closer than 500 feet from the subject property top's landing daycare center is located at the front of the neighborhood directly across the street from the subject property and great stone point which is adjacent to the subject property on the south where the proposed entry and exit will be if this conditional use is approved, is home to several professional offices ranging from dentists to doctors to accountants. The fact that New Market Way and Gulfstream are cul-de-sacs is of concern because of the possibility that foot traffic will be concentrated up and down these streets without the possibility of an outlet to the surrounding neighborhood. The next slide will show you a video of the area surrounding the subject property, just so that you can get a sense for how it fits within the neighborhood as you drive down the streets that are adjacent. This is the approach from Alexandria Drive turning onto Gulf Stream. And you can see how close the residential uses are to the subject property directly adjacent. Okay. This is the approach on Alexandria Drive towards Harrisburg. Again, just showing the residential character of the neighborhood. There's Tox Landing and then we'll get to the subject property is right there. This is showing just the proximity of the subject property to Tox Landing. Just showing you by video that it's directly across the street there. there. And then this is the approach from New Market Way onto Gulfstream. So New Market Way is the cul-de-sac that runs essentially alongside the parking lot of the subject property. So once you turn off of New Market Way, you're turning left on the Gulfstream, and then the facility and the subject property are up here on the left right before you get to Alexandria Drive. Then this is, as seen from the subject property, the houses that are directly adjacent to the parking lot and the existing landscaping screening there. this is an image of a crime statistics map that was taken from communitycrimemap.com. And you can plug in an address and then a date range, and it will show you what crime has occurred in the area over the time range that you have requested. This map shows that, although the image isn't great, that there were two incidences anywhere near to the proposed site. the Beaumont Woods neighborhood was virtually free of crime in 2021 for the last year reports of crime in the area are noted with flags on the images there was one car break in as you can see in this image which is reflected in the green flag there and one commercial burglary there's been no crime in the past year reported on Gulfstream right here or New Market Way right here. No incidences of crime in the last year. So we're starting with the concept that the proposed use is in an existing neighborhood where every owner of a residence fair is in opposition to the proposed conditional use, and the neighborhood is currently virtually crime-free. we certainly do not oppose drug treatment facilities the applicant and the staff justify the requested conditional use however with reference to the drug epidemic in kentucky and the increase in overdose deaths the neighbors do not discount the import of these issues or of the need for drug and alcohol treatment and recovery centers as a general proposition. Placement of residential drug treatment facilities, however, should be context sensitive and considerate of the welfare of surrounding neighborhoods, particularly when the use directly adjoins residential properties, child care facilities, and bus stops. Neither the applicant nor the staff discusses the presence of other similar facilities in the area. This is a search of drugsrehab.org, which revealed that 47 drug and alcohol treatment facilities currently exist serving the Lexington area. This image here, all the purple flags there show the locations of these facilities vis-a-vis the subject property, and a summary of the search results and a detailed listing of the nearby facilities are attached to the position statement. Importantly, none of the existing drug or alcohol treatment facilities are located within 500 feet of any child care facility. and I should also point out here as you'll see in the detailed listings attached to the position statement that the listing for StepWorks of Nicholasville states that it serves the Lexington market and is only 10 miles from Lexington Neither the applicant nor the staff have discussed whether there are empty beds or waiting lists at the existing facilities or even the existing residential facilities. We do not know the occupancy rates at the numerous facilities and thus the need for this residential treatment facility in the location being proposed has not been established. The proposed use here will adversely impact the neighborhood. The first reason for this is that the proposed use is significantly more intense than the prior use. The staff report recommends approval of the requested conditional use partially on the grounds that the use requested is no more intense than the hospice facility that was located on the subject property previously. The staff report states that the proposed use should, quote, be similar in size, hours of operation, and intensity as the previous hospice use at this location. This is actually somewhat of a misstatement because the proposed use, the prior hospice use, the buildings were constructed for hospice as a bluegrass, which now goes by care navigators. And these offices were used as administrative offices and as sites for grief and bereavement services. The buildings were not utilized for residential purposes or even for inpatient services or care. And this is supported by a Bluegrass Care Navigator's email correspondence that I attached as Exhibit E to the position statement for you to see. The response detailing the uses of the subject property when hospice was there are specifically addressed in that email correspondence. So we are contrasting a use of the subject property that was administrative offices and grief and counseling services. sorry about the sirens, with the proposed use, which is to locate 66 individuals plus staff on the subject property 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This use is exponentially more intense than the prior use. The influx of residents to this neighborhood and the impact it will have can be placed into context by considering that there are approximately 57 adults residing in the neighborhood right now. Setworks is proposing an increase of more than 100 percent, 66 beds. The noise, lights, and unexpected movement associated with this use will be constant. I know that the applicant is stating here that based on their current business model, There will be no unsupervised outside use of the subject property by patients, that there will be no visitation, that StepWorks is not working with any penal institutions for placement, meaning that it's 100% voluntary, and also that there are no outpatient services currently being considered for the subject property. However, this is all at the whim of the business model currently planned to be imposed at the facility and the subject property without additional restrictions on any conditional use that may be approved by the board. All of these things can change in an instant. You could be dealing one day with a facility that has no unsupervised outside use and no visitation and that all the folks are voluntary and that there are no outpatient services. And then based on a simple change in business model, the next day you could be dealing with a facility that has unsupervised use of outdoor spaces, that is including folks who are going in voluntarily and also by court order, etc. And so the conditional use that is being requested is that for a rehabilitation home that is within 500 feet of a residential zone. And so you need to be considering the potential impacts of the proposed use, which is as a rehabilitation home, and not only give credit to what is being planned at the site, but what could also happen at the site if those plans change down the road. I think we should compare the proposal that's before you today, which is to place 66 beds on a property that has two and a half acres with other StepWorks facilities. The StepWorks facility in London, Kentucky has 26 beds on 55 acres, and the StepWorks facility in Bowling Green has 24 beds on 15 acres. The person per acre weight and use of this property is exponentially higher than other StepWorks facilities in the state. It should be noted here that there's no real green space at the subject property, And that may not matter if residents are not planned to be enjoying any outdoor recreation. But in the event that they are, the board should understand that recreation for patients who are at this facility will occur on the neighborhood streets. It will occur by walking, going for walks on the two cul-de-sacs directly adjacent to the facility, and which are home to the objectors who are here making their concerns known today. the staff report states here that the impacts to the neighborhood will be alleviated through the closure of the galt stream drive entrance to the subject property but the closure of this entrance and the funneling of vehicular traffic to Gravestone Point does not mean that the residents of the facility will refrain from passing through the minimal landscape barrier, which is all that stands between the subject property and the neighborhood. The applicant does not propose the installation of a fence surrounding the subject property or a guard shack at the entrance to address security concerns or control ingress and egress. Pedestrians will have direct access to the neighborhood from the Grapestone Point entrance because there is an adjacent green space corridor that connects Grapestone Point to the rear of the residential properties and Beaumont Woods, many of which do not have fenced yards, as I mentioned earlier. Adverse neighborhood impacts will therefore not be eliminated by closing the Gulf Stream Drive entrance to the subject property. There are also problems common to treatment centers that must be contended with. For instance, emergency services calls made to other StepWorks facilities, as we'll get into here in a minute, indicate that the neighborhood can expect more 911 calls. It is also likely that the patients of StepWorks will exhibit mannerisms and demeanors that are disconcerting to those around them, such as smoking in outdoor spaces, congregating in larger groups outside of the facility, possibly asking for money for rides or for use of phones from the neighbors in the area. While the staff report recommends that approval be subject to a condition that outdoor congregation areas such as smoking areas should be limited to the middle of the site away from adjacent properties, the neighbors will have no real feasible way to enforce this condition, and there is nothing in the staff report or applicant statement to indicate how this will be monitored. Finally, it must be considered that because the facility may house, if the business model changes, involuntary patients referred by the penal system, it could turn into a facility that is in many regards characteristic of a penal institution. The placement of such a facility in the middle of a neighborhood and nearby to both a daycare center and two bus stops is entirely inappropriate and detrimental to the neighborhood. Research, in fact, demonstrates that increased crime, emergency services, and decreased property values are all associated with the proposed use. For instance, CommunityCrimeMap.com reveals that the areas near to several nearby treatment facilities have much higher crime rates than Beaumont Woods neighborhood. The area near to Resurrection Treatment Center, 1.75 miles from the subject property down Alexandria Drive, had dozens of crimes reported in the last year. Compared to the Beaumont Woods neighborhood, which has had zero incidents of crime on New Market Way and Gulf Stream in the past year, higher incidents of crime are also associated with the areas near to the Hope Center and the Chrysalis House. There are reports of thefts, vandalism, burglaries, assaults, sexual offenses, and numerous other crimes. Studies and articles that can be found through a simple internet search also support the conclusion that substance abuse and crime go hand in hand. statistics collected by the u.s bureau of justice which i have attached to the position statement reflect that a majority of arrestees test positive for drugs and an estimated 17 to 18 percent of federal inmates report that they committed the crimes for which they are incarcerated in order to obtain money to buy drugs the research indicates that these that those who do commit crimes to obtain money for drugs are more likely to commit property crimes, and property crimes include robbery, burglary, and motor vehicle theft. These are precisely the types of crimes that will adversely impact not only residential neighbors of the subject property, but also businesses in the area. Medical doctors whose offices are located on Great Stone Point, the proposed entrance for the subject property, have expressed concern that patients of the proposed facility may target their medical offices as a source for drugs, or that their clients may be harassed as they enter or exit their professional offices, which are located next door to the subject property. Documents obtained pursuant to open records requests, which are attached as Exhibit H to my position statement, reveal that more than 30 911 calls were made requesting emergency services to the StepWorks facility in Nicholasville, Kentucky, over the course of a year. Increased emergency calls will directly negatively impact property values if the Beaumont Woods neighborhood is perceived as blighted by crime in comparison to the other neighborhoods with fewer emergency calls. And I've attached those documents as Exhibit H to the position statement. we also contend that the proposed use will directly negatively affect property values and we cited the board to a comprehensive study done in virginia using a large mls data set the study showed that substance abuse treatment centers are associated with an average eight percent reduction in neighboring property values and that reduction of property value grew to 17 percent in relation to treatment centers that focus on opiate addiction. A copy of that study is also attached to the position statement for your review and reference. The Board of Adjustment must give weight to the neighborhood opposition here and consider the context of the proposed use. Article 8 of the zoning ordinance states that in a P1 zone, a rehabilitation facility is an accepted use if it is located more than 500 feet from a residential zone. This provision recognizes that rehabilitation facilities can adversely impact residential areas simply by virtue of proximity. The use within 500 feet of a residential zone is permitted as a conditional use, but only if accompanied by a finding that the use will not adversely impact the neighboring property owners and the neighborhood. The BOA must, therefore, do more than give a cursory review to this question. A true consideration of the manner in which the requested use will impact the neighborhood is required. Pursuant to 7-6A of the zoning ordinance, the BOA may only grant a request for conditional use if the request, quote, would not have an adverse influence on existing and future development of the subject property or its surrounding neighborhood. Courts have noted that in determining adverse impact, the focus should be on the particular characteristics of the locality involved around the proposed site and these particular characteristics, which may significantly exacerbate the problems inherent in the placement and operation of the requested conditional use of the site. I've cited you all to several cases in the position statement supporting this proposition, which has been entered into the record. Here the particular characteristics of this locality is that the subject property is directly adjacent to 15 residential properties. It is directly across the street from a daycare center and a school bus stop and less than 500 feet away from yet another school bus stop in the area. The board needs to consider the adverse impact of the neighborhood that can result from the placement of such a facility in connection with such neighborhood and residential intensive uses. While the case law in Kentucky is sparse on this issue, courts and other jurisdictions, which I've cited you all to in a position statement, have noted that the proximity of schools and daycares to the potentially disruptive proposed use should be considered. and I've also cited you to case law supportive of the proposition that the concern of neighbors is sufficient to constitute substantial evidence that the contemplated use is detrimental to the welfare of the community. This is because at this stage, expert testimony on the issue is not possible. The proposed use is speculative. It is therefore appropriate and even necessary for the BOA to consider the interests of neighboring property owners in reaching a decision regarding whether to grant or deny a conditional use, and the opinions of the neighbors should be viewed as constituting substantial evidence on this issue. Here, the community concern and opposition to the proposed use is nearly universal. More than 130 residents and business owners within a two-block radius oppose the requested use, citing concerns for the safety of themselves and their children. These concerns are well-founded in light of research demonstrating increased emergency services and crime in areas surrounding other such treatment facilities. As set forth above and in this presentation, research and studies provide evidential support for the neighbors' concerns. we respectfully request that the board of adjustment deny the requested conditional use for the subject property at 2240 Gulfstream drive for use as a rehabilitation zone home if in fact the board is inclined to grant the requested conditional use i believe the neighborhood would be supportive of additional restrictions relating to supervision of patients outside of the facility of the subject property, fencing security personnel, eliminating visitors to the site for patients, eliminating outpatient services rendered at the facility, and stating that the services that will be the placement of patients at the facility will not be through penal institutions or through the criminal system. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Winters. Does anybody on the board have a question for Ms. Winters? If you will, Ms. Winters, stop sharing your screen so I can see all the other board members' faces, so I'll know who has or may have questions for you. Any questions for Ms. Winters for the board? No, but Tommy, I've got to dip out now. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Glover, I don't have a question for Ms. Winters, but I do have a question for staff regarding something Ms. Winters brought up. I mean, it really has to do with the potential of the change of the particular rehabilitation home uses in the future. and two items come up. Number one is is the staff's interpretation that underneath number one that what Mr. Nichols has said in his letter of justification today on the record, that's what they're going to use this for. So if they were to come in and do penal type uses that we would have an issue and the neighbors could come back to us regarding that. Is that the staff's position? I believe so, yes. Okay. And then the second question is, what is, if you could, while other questions may be asked, maybe on an aerial show us where 500 feet from the residential area would be? Because people hear 500 feet, but it's not that much. and I was just curious if we could see what you think a 500 foot area would be and I think that's the only two questions I have based upon what Ms. Winters has brought up at this time I think we can provide that just bear with me a minute yeah that's fine I think she has an presentation I think she had some aerials, but I don't know that it was a 500 foot. And I may have missed it. Basically, you could think of a football field in a half. I could still run that. For the margin. Barely. Right there. Yep. That was good. Uh-huh. That was the last one. Six seconds. Two or three on the right. Is that it? Oh. Might have to close that PowerPoint. Can you all see that map? Yes. that's all i had tommy i appreciate it all right thank you brendan um give me a second i want to look at that map as well that includes a daycare center and several of the properties behind Mr. Glover, I forgot. I do have one more thing. I know. But it's only three. I get three wishes for each applicant. I'm ready to be an applicant and the proponent. On the conditions, I too have some concerns about the potential changing nature of the rehabilitation home. I'm comfortable given that the justification letter of the testimony will keep the applicant within a certain range. Is there, I know there's a way, we don't do that very often, is to make this conditional use permit specifically not transferable, so that if someone else wants to come in and do a facility after StepWorks were to leave, they would have to come back to us and request a permit. I think that would make me feel more comfortable. I don't think there would be any objection from the applicant's side of things. I do want to inform the board we are purchasing this property. This is not something we are leasing. So we are truly purchasing the property. So I don't see where we would be transferring this to another entity. So I don't see any objection to that condition at all. Perfect. If the staff would be so kind as to possibly draft up something for us. Okay. Now I promise, Tommy, those are my three wishes. Appreciate it. Hey, Brandon, we let you go sort of in the middle of what our process was. I was going to ask if Mr. Nicholson wanted to respond to any of the testimony that he heard. Well, first of all, I'm sorry, there are other people who wish to speak, and I guess our procedure ought to be get through all the people that want to speak about this. So who else? Benjamin Harborson is first. Okay, Mr. Harborson. He's been promoted. And then for reference, we have Donna Horn next, Tracy Sayers, and then Pamela Goodrich. You're ready. Just to let you all know, Pamela Goodrich, I believe, I believe has several folks with her who will also be using her screen. So once she goes, you might have four or five people that will be using her computer to make comments. Okay, and I want to stress that the comments that we hear from the general public should not repeat any of the comments that we have heard before. just in the nature of making our presentation efficient. So if there's an issue that you wanted to bring up that you've already heard, we ask that you defer to that speaker that's gone before. We've already heard it once. We don't need to hear it over and over again. Thank you very much. So Mr. Harbison, you're next to speak. So unmute yourself. We can see you, and I think now we can hear you. Go right ahead. Thank you, Mr. Glover, and I appreciate you all having me this afternoon. My name is Ben Harbison. I represent the building ownership and management of 2400 Great Stone Point, which currently houses the UK Health Care Main Pediatrics Clinic and the UK Health Care Interventional Pain Management Clinic. It would be our position to oppose the use of the center for addiction recovery. solely based on some of the, and I don't want to repeat myself, but on the comments by Attorney Winters that we would be a medical facility that would be opposed to this as we do house many of the medications that these patients would be in recovery for. Not to, and again, not to echo other comments, but if this was approved, we would also have to entertain adding multiple layers of security into the facility as well. So I do have a concern about the controlled substances on site and the commingling of the patient populations that already exist at the UK healthcare facility. Just again, it'd be our position to not commingle these patients with a large, large volume of pediatric patients and the patients that currently come in for interventional pain therapies and treatments. I also have a concern with operational procedures of the StepWorks facility in the event that there may be a fire alarm, emergency evacuation, and all of those patients go out to the parking lot with no security protocol or anything that I've heard mentioned today that introduces that patient population directly into the community. So those are my stances and my concerns. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Harbison. Who did you say was? Donna Horn. Okay. She's been coming. Ms. Horn, let's see, we promoted you and we can see you and now we can hear you. Go right ahead. Hi, my name is Dr. Donna Horn. My doctorate is in experimental psychology in the division of cognitive psychology and I own an office at 2412 Great Stone Point. We've been there for 32 years And if you've driven by my office, you are likely to see little two-year-old kids that are learning to walk in the green space. We were the only office that UK referred to during the pandemic with kiddos right out of NICU. We have severely multiply handicapped children that we see along with children and some adolescents with autism. Absolutely. I am retired from the business now, although I still own the office and I work as a consultant both for that practice and also with UK. I have severe and grave concerns about this particular facility going in. By the way, we also provided services for hospice patients throughout the pandemic. I have those concerns based on two basic components. The first is as a neighboring business and the kind of children that we are out and about. That 500 feet that you all showed, that encompasses my business along with the several physicians that have offices along with our business. my concerns about being within that 500 foot range go back to the issue that you cannot lock patients going through addiction recovery in a facility in intensive inpatient procedures. So there is no way to put a fence up, nor is there a way to lock any of those patients within that capacity, nor should there be. So those patients, and again, to be CARF certified, they have to have outdoor and recreational facilities. They will be walking across my sidewalks, across my office building, interacting with my pediatric patients and my kiddos with autism that we are working so hard to integrate into the community. That is not a good place for Horn & Associates and Rehabilitation to be located, nor for the pediatric group over at UK, of which we also share patients to be located. Secondarily, I don't believe that this is an evidence-based practice. And 56 in the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association has white papers on what are the best kinds of programs that we can offer and what are the least and basic programs we can offer. One of which is you don't put 60 people there and don't have homogeneous issues together. A horrible procedure. And if you're going to look at providing good intervention, that's going to be successful, not at the 30 to 40% rate with relapse. As you look at what are the three components of those people that would be entering that particular facility. The first is they need medical detox. That is the first and number one component. Who is going to be there throughout the day and at night? There was no indication that there's going to be a physician on site. Will those patients go through medical detox? Secondly, the patients that go into that intensive type of program, treatment program, are those that have already had a relapse and have a high risk of continued drug and alcohol use. This is not an intensive outpatient program. This is an intensive inpatient program for people that likely have not been successful elsewhere. There have been many components of saying that it's not a penal type issue. It's not going to be referred from the courts. My experience with the courts and my other office, by the way, treats people with brain injuries that also have sometimes have addictions. And that is that the court order may be you can voluntarily go into a facility or we will consider other options. So it's not a one or given all. And so the penal type issue is secondary to, I think, the type of patients that would be right across the street on the sidewalk that my patients are practicing learning to walk and learning to talk. Thirdly, the most successful programs are not programs that have more than 60, not even over 20. A review, a Cochrane review, which is how you can look at the success of different kinds of medical interventions, looked at 26 different programs and found the relapse rate to be very, very high as you increase the numbers. Our most successful programs have community inclusion. That means that we might house five people in a community where they can walk to a grocery store and they can cook their own meals and they can ride on a bus line. There is no bus line over to Great Stone. That's been a problem, by the way, for me when we've tried to serve people that don't have transportation. There is no way that this program is going to successfully help people who are at high risk of addiction be integrated into the community. There's no step-down program. There's no bus. There's no grocery store that these clients can walk to. There is no Walmart that they can go to. They are going to be stuck in the middle of this residential and small business and daycare program with no place to go. That's not where I would put my loved one when I did look at residential programs for my loved one. It just doesn't make sense. Thank you, Dr. Horn. Appreciate your comments. Are there any questions from the board to Dr. Horn? I'm happy to provide copies of the white papers if you all are interested. If you'd like to, we will certainly accept them and make them part of the record if you choose. I would like to do that. Thank you. and the next person to speak is Tracy Sayers I'm sorry the name again Tracy Sayers Sayers, okay and the next again we have Pamela Goodrich then Robert and Lisa Coleman Marianna Fox and then someone with the following letters P-O-P-S-T. So, Ms. Sayers, we will promote you. Can you hear us? Yes. We see you and hear you. Yes, we see you and hear you. Go right ahead. Great. Welcome to our home. I'm Tracy Sayers. This is my husband, Tim. We live at 2229 Gulfstream Drive, which is within that 500 radius of the visual that you guys saw earlier. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to voice our opposition to this. First, I want to say I am no stranger to the effects of drug abuse, and I understand the need for rehabilitation. and I have seen family members die of drug-related diseases that it's just awful. So I'm not opposed to the rehabilitation process. However, knowing what I know and the experiences that I've had in my own life, I do understand, especially the intensive first 30 days that we're talking about putting in this location, that's when you get the most erratic behavior that's when you get the unrational thinking as their bodies decide as their bodies are retraining their minds on how to how to find their new normal while the drugs are going out of their system and I personally run alone and I take my dog for walks I don't have an option but to go past that location there's there's no you know I can go down Azalea, but I'm still right there on the corner of picking where I go. I anticipate being more anxious. Should that be housed there? Because I don't know what's going to come at me. And my dog is going to be the same way. She's pretty protective. You know, then I'm in a position of, do I not walk my dog? Because someone could come out and try to talk to us. And I'm not unfriendly. I don't mean it that way. But, you know, if someone's panhandling on the corner, I go to the other corner. I try to not put myself in a situation to need to use the mace that I carry with me or to have my dog have a confrontation with a person or another dog. So that to me, it's it it not only affects my property value and the things that have been mentioned, but it affects my quality of life. I want to be able to walk up my street and on my running path without having to be concerned. Is someone going to come through the bushes? There's no amount of hedges that you can put up that's going to keep someone who wants to get out, out. So that's my three minutes. And my husband is here as well. If I could also speak while we're all connected here, if that's okay. We can see and hear you. Go right ahead. I also am no stranger to this disease. I lost my brother some years back to this. He was probably the most kind-hearted person I'd ever met. My sisters often said he struggled with prosperity. He would work and get paid, and once the money came in, the addiction always reared its ugly head. In a moment of weakness, one point when he was unemployed, he actually opened an elderly woman's mailbox, Fox removed a application for a credit card and filled it out, changed the billing address and sent that in. He instantly had a $10,000 line of credit, which he exploited. It was years for our family to overcome that, for him to overcome that. And I'm very concerned. I'm very concerned like everyone in my neighborhood. What happens during the next moment of weakness when we house 66 people battling the same addiction there? Does it cost someone financial loss? Does it cost property loss or does it cost a child their innocence who's right across the street? To me right now, this feels like this board is about to recommend a plague of locusts be set upon my neighborhood. And that's terrible. I can't I there aren't words to describe what we're feeling right now. So it's been stressed several times and I want to just make the point again. We are totally and completely in opposition of this. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Sayers. I think next up. Ms. Coleman? Pamela Goodrich. Goodrich? Pamela Goodrich. She's promoted. Ms. Goodrich, we will find you and promote you. Okay. Can you, I guess the video, let's see. All right. So I've got at least a couple of people here. I can see you and we can hear you. Okay. All right. So I'm pointing it over here. Do you see Bob over here on this computer? And I'd like you to identify yourselves before you start speaking, please. Okay. Yeah. So you're on. All you have to do is talk, Bob. Tell him who you are. Good afternoon. You have to say your name. Good afternoon. My name is Bob Payne. My wife and I live at 2220 New Market Way. We are concerned about the safety if the rehab is approved. We have lived at 2220 New Market Way for 22 years. During that time, we have had no incidents of a break-in, a robbery, a shooting, or any forms of crime. So any form of crime or unwanted incidents from the center would be more than we currently have had had in 22 years. We live in the spring and summer with our doors and windows open. Our great grandchildren playing in the streets, riding their bikes up the hill on gusts stream with no fear or concern. If the rehab is approved, it all goes away. I am 81 years old and my wife is 83. There is a lot of senior citizens on our streets along with children. We fear that we would not be able to protect ourselves if an unwanted incident occurs. Lastly, I like to say that you see people on TV every day complaining about crime in their neighborhood. This is your chance to prevent it here before it even starts. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Payne. Ms. Goodrich, who else have you got there? Okay. I'll let Larry speak. Hello, my name is Larry Goodrich. I live at 2244 New Market Way and I've lived here for 28 years. I'm one of the houses that touch directly to the property. Our five houses are eight feet below the parking lot, making the parking lot observation deck for our backyard. We don't have any privacy and the bushes do not give us any privacy. That's all I have to say. Thank you, Mr. Goodrich. Hello, I am Joanna Level Green. I live at 2239 New Market Way. My major concern is I have an 11-year-old and I do not want her to be afraid to walk up and down that street to go to school in the morning and to come down in the afternoon because it is take just one incident with someone to approach her and then the kids in the neighborhood be scared. So that's my opposition against this. Thank you, Ms. Green. All right, I think I'm the last person. Pamela Goodrich, 2244 New Market Way. I am one of those houses that is directly behind. So my area backs right up to them. I've lived here for 28 years. You could add a fence, a gate, a guard shack, and that still would not make this acceptable. Increasing the number of the staff or hiring security would not make this acceptable. In fact, I can't think of anything that would make it acceptable. It's just not the patients that I'm concerned about. You don't know and you cannot control the behaviors of their friends or any criminal elements that are bound to come around once this moved in. You address traffic concerns, but not safety and security. And that makes me wonder if you truly understand that addiction, mental health issues, and crime go hand in hand. I'm not convinced that StepWorks is really prepared to put a 66-bed facility inside a neighborhood. Mistakes are made, but don't make the mistake of approving this. This neighborhood is a model community. You have the ability to preserve it or destroy it. Approval will certainly endanger the health, welfare, and safety of all the residents. Approval would also set a precedent that would affect all the neighborhoods in Lexington. So let me say one more time, no amount of mitigation can make approval a good decision. Thank you, Ms. Goodrich. And who do we have next on the list? Robert and Lisa Coleman. Okay. Robert and Lisa Coleman, we're going to promote you. Ms. Goodrich, you can turn off your video. thank you and uh miss coleman let's see if we can get you up on the screen there we've got video and we've got audio good all right good afternoon my name is robert coleman i live at 2241 gulfstream drive lived here for 12 years we are in the property directly across Gulfstream Drive from this facility. As others have mentioned, the property is raised, the parking lot is raised above the street level. And so one of my main concerns is the difference in use, this proposed use versus the hospice administrative building. The hospice offices were just eight to five Monday through Friday businesses, which didn't disrupt our neighborhood. But because of the raised nature of the property, any activity at night, cars driving through the parking lot, people in the parking lot, the lights shine right into our bedroom windows, and it could be a huge disruption. Any activity over there with 24-hour occupancy is bound to disrupt our lives. My other concern is that I have two daughters. One is barely 10 years old. My daughters frequently play in the front yard. They play in the neighborhood. They ride their bikes. I think there's a major concern here, a safety concern, that would really change the way we live our lives. so not to make things personal but i i would ask that as the board reviews this that you would think of it from our perspective if uh you had a 10 year old daughter and we're within the 500 foot radius of this property how would you feel thank you mr preldman um thank you uh and does your wife wish to speak. I would just like to reiterate everything that everybody has said. We understand that this is a definite need in the community. However, all of the points that have been made are very legitimate points, you know, and we are directly across from the place. We are right next door to the daycare. We do have a privacy fence up, but with this facility being elevated, you can see directly into our backyard, into our neighbor's backyard, into the daycare yard, there will be no privacy for the people directly across or directly behind, regardless of the shrubs or the four-foot fence or anything else that is put up. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Coleman. I think you said the next person is named Fox, isn't it? Yes, there he is, Fox. Ms. Fox, we're going to promote you so we can see you and hear you. Ms. Fox, can you hear us? Ms. Fox, we see you on the screen, but you have to accept the promotion on your screen, and then you have to unmute yourself and your video. There you go. We see you. Now unmute yourself. There we go. Now we can mute. Okay. Thank you. My name is Mary Ann Fox, and I'm actually here on behalf of my elderly parents, Joseph and Mary Fugate. They own the property at 2402 Great Stone Point. They bought it in 1993, so they've been there 29 years. It's an office property. And my family, as opposed to the StepWorks appeal, we believe that it's not appropriate or safe to house patients with severe psychological problems so close to a residential neighborhood. I think if it was safe and appropriate, then the city code would already allow it. This proposed facility would create dangers and a variety of chronic nuisances for the neighborhood and the property owners and their tenants, including the tenant of our property. It would decrease the desirability of the neighborhood and thus decrease our property value as well as our ability to attract tenants. and we ask that you deny the conditional use appeal. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Box. We have two more people with their hands up. The next person is listed in our, our list is P-O-P-S-T. And then next we have Alex. Okay, which of the ones you wanna, who you wanna take next? We did the pop ST. I don't know how to put that. Let's see. Okay. We'll promote somebody and see who identifies themselves. We did promote the user who has their name listed as pop ST. If you would turn on your video and your audio so the board can hear you. pop st turn on your unmute your audio and your video so we can see you there we go now we can see you and perhaps we can hear you can you identify me now yes can you identify yourself please my name is charles toy i'm the one that sent in two different objections to this proposal. I'm not going to reiterate what Ms. Winters has said because I agree with everything she has said. The only thing I would like to add is there are middle school children and high school children that walk past this facility twice each day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, to the bus stop that's 250 feet away from the facility. That's putting a rehab center that close to where children, middle school children and high school children, are walking to their bus stop is not a good idea. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Joy. Let's see, somebody is sharing their screen. I'm not sure who's, there we go. There we go, back to you. Okay. And who else was wanting to speak? The next person who has their hand up is just identified themselves as Alex. They just promoted. Okay, Alex. Alex, if you will, promote yourself. There we go. We can see you. And I think we can hear you. Tell us who you are, please. My name is Alex DiBiase. I live at 2204 Gulfstream. I'm going to make this very quick because I'm not going to reiterate all the other points. But I just want to just emphasize that the calls to the 151 Coconut Drive, Nicholsboro, Kentucky, Step Forks facility averaged two to three per month. And that was only a 15-bed occupancy of strictly females. You could quadruple those numbers when you start thinking about 66 occupants to also include males. So the number of calls per month will grow exponentially. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. DiBiase. Is there anybody else whose hand is raised? We do have someone else that either left the call or... Okay. Tracy, is there anyone waiting to participate by phone? It was my understanding that some of the neighbors might be calling in. Usually those show up as phone numbers, and I don't have anyone in our list with a phone number. Okay, very much. Very good. So that concludes the public comment. Mr. Nicholson, we're going to put you back on for rebuttal if you'd like to say something to those many witnesses that have testified against you. Yes, sir. I do have a couple of points I want to make. I guess kind of first regarding Mr. Bean's facilities concerns that he described for property that he leased. He was referring to an outpatient facility where basically patients come and go. And that, again, is not what we are. We are buying this facility. We are not leasing this facility. There is every reason in the world that we will be maintaining our facility just like all of these neighbors have maintained their property. We have security cameras inside and outside these facilities with personnel monitoring. If anyone is coming onto the property that we don't know, we have staff there to address that situation. From an intensity standpoint, honestly, we are an ideal user from a traffic generation standpoint in comparison to other P1 uses. A max of 26 employees only for an office park that has over 120 parking spaces, and we are agreeing to basically remove a residential entrance. We certainly are less intense from a traffic standpoint than the hospice facility. There's no evidence whatsoever to say that we're increasing noise, lights, or unexpected movement. We are proposing additional lightings. We're not changing the exterior of the structures. We have hard curfews, so there isn't nighttime activities from our folk in parking areas. We do not allow patients to take walks throughout the neighborhood. With regards to the density in comparison to other towns, I wish Lexington had enough vacant land to allow us to develop uses at one unit per acre. But I think everyone here knows that we don't have that luxury. We are a community that does need to take advantage of the infill and redevelopment opportunities throughout our entire community. Now, Ms. Winters claimed that we could just change the user or conditions governing this property. It's simply inaccurate. I believe Ms. Gross's request addresses this, but this board would have to approve any changes that are fundamental to what we have put forward to you all today. And so I certainly think we can address that directly through the conditions. These patients, they're voluntarily seeking treatment. They are voluntarily seeking to be in this facility. There's an immediate assumption that our patients have ill intent to neighbors and that they're a danger to children as opposed to individuals that have realized they need a change in their lives and they want to rejoin our world. This isn't a homeless shelter. It's not a prison. It certainly doesn't house locusts. This is a medical facility for people seeking help. This is why patients are monitored by nurses, doctors, and the staff. We are licensed facilities to offer treatment that we are proposing. We have four board-certified physicians. We have two psychiatrists on staff. The purpose of this facility is to get patients physically and mentally ready to enter long-term treatment and sober living. If the patients want to leave for any reason, we can make arrangements for them to leave this area. These people are not caged up trying to escape. And the Nicholasville calls, that includes all calls about medical treatment. That is not police-related thefts, incidents, or things like that. That is for also medical treatment. Now, I know we talked about it, but this is a community problem, and we must make these decisions from a community standpoint. You know, it's easy to say, but we don't need this use in this specific location. Let's just kind of push these to other areas of town. I think you all remember a hearing, I think it was last year, where the community center on Martin Luther King, We heard from Council Member Brown and Vice Mayor Kaye saying that the first district is oversaturated with the community services that are trying to help our problems. Our community, we can't simply push these facilities to what people consider bad neighborhoods. This isn't a problem that is contained in those neighborhoods, and the solution can't be contained in them either. It wasn't a surprise that we heard that these facilities should only exist in other neighborhoods that have crime and then point to the existing crime near those existing facilities as a reason to deny this facility. It's the great circular logic that serves the not-in-my-backyard mentality perfectly for this type of use. I will say I was not expecting that we should just let Nicholasville handle all of Lexington's problems as well. Our community can't afford the liberty of saying that this is a different neighborhood's problem. This isn't our neighborhood's problem. Ms. Wainter has pointed out that there are 47 treatment facilities in Lexington. I'm not sure if that's true, but it's clearly not working. Our numbers are doubling, so 47 is not enough. There's a reason staff is recommending approval, and we believe that those conditions can address any perceived adverse impact. This board does not lose jurisdiction over a facility if approved. The conditional use permit is always under scrutiny to ensure compliance with the application and the information we put for this board today. StepWorks is not speculative. We've been in business for over 20 years, and we have facilities in neighborhoods just like this. LFCCG and the board has the tools to ensure that StepWorks is living up to the promises that we are making today, and we simply ask you to listen to the staff and approve this recommendation as they propose. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. Does the board have any questions for Mr. Nicholson? Arie, you have to unmute yourself. I'm sorry. Thank you. Mr. Nicholson, this question keeps coming up about the patient's options. And we've said that these are not people that are assigned by the law to this facility. But clear this up for me and others. if they're given an option of, say, incarceration or a facility such as this, do they have that option? Is that part of how this works? So if they voluntarily want to be in our facility, we will let them come. We have set up situations in the past that if there is any type of kind of monitoring there with regards to compliance with a court, we have it situated where we can contact attorneys, judges and probation officers if there's any type of kind of, you know, any type of situation where they want to leave. Because this is a voluntary program, I have a feeling that a lot of the court mandated treatment, we probably wouldn't count for that. But if it is a situation where they are voluntarily seeking treatment, we will allow them to come in. But it's not one of those, like, there are several users here in town that have situations with Department of Corrections with probation and parole that are basically set up to allow people to get out of prison in order to come to their facility. That is not what we are talking about in any way, shape, or shape. So it's not an option of jail or this facility? That's not what we're talking about. What's that? I'm sorry? That is not what we're talking about. All right. Thank you. Mr. Nicholson, the question came up of patients of this facility might be walking around the neighborhood. I thought I heard you say originally that the patients don't go outside unless they're supervised. Is that correct? Correct. We do not allow any type of walking throughout the neighborhoods. Okay. So you don't allow them off the property, even if they're supervised? No. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Nicholson? I don't see none. Okay. What is your preference, board? Has the staff had an opportunity to come up with another condition that I've spoken of? so that at least the applicant can look at it before we... Yeah, I've got to read you something. Thank you. I have, should the applicant no longer own or operate the rehabilitation home, the conditional use shall be null and void? Is that... Works for me, if that works for the applicant. We do agree. Thank you very much, Autumn. Any other concerns of the board? Any other questions that the board might have? Harry, I see you pondering there. Well, I have some concerns. I'm not sure how effective they are, but I worry that there are so many patients in a small place, small in terms of the property itself, and how it affects the quality of life in a neighborhood. I just have to be concerned about that. And I know that some of the comments we've heard are totally irrelevant, like traffic, for instance. And I think there's no reason to assume that crime would be prominent because of this. Not necessarily at all. It's probably irrelevant. But I just kind of feel like this is the wrong thing in the wrong place. I keep thinking that. And I just, I put myself in the position of these people who live in this neighborhood. I have visited most of these houses in this neighborhood and both of these streets. They're both dead ends. And I knocked on their doors because I was running for council. And I was amazed that this neighborhood was there. I didn't even know it was there, but I thought on the list and I thought, I'll go by and visit. Well, it's a really quite, quite a wonderful neighborhood. And I understand why these people are concerned. so I just have to express my concerns and I it's and I also think about the fact that the law the law says we have to have a conditional use if it's less than 500 feet and I keep thinking there's a reason for that we look at that we look at those boundaries of 500 feet and that that takes in most of the property that that we're talking about in these two these two residential streets. So, you know, I understand the NIMBY concerns, but we can't take that lightly, because I think there's definitely an impact on this neighborhood. And is that right, given the concerns of the original law and its concerns for impact on our neighborhood and the things that might affect. I just have those concerns. And I'm not expressing how I would vote one way or the other, but I just have to express those things, if you don't mind. Thank you, Mr. Clark. You know, I have some concerns as well. I have tried to look at this application and the people who are objecting to the application. I'm trying to look at the big picture. My viewpoint of this facility, this proposed facility, is one of how would I feel about this facility if the application were for a hospital? Because essentially that's what's been described to us. If it were a prison or if it were a criminal halfway house or something like that, those concerns might be valid. But the way the project has been described, in my understanding, is more similar to that of a hospital or a doctor's office or a surgery center or something like that, where people with addiction issues go to be cured or to be helped. and so with that in mind I understand the neighborhood's concerned if this were being described as a halfway house or some other facility but but this is there's no there's no suggestion of criminal activity by the patients although there is a link between drug addiction and crime, the description of this particular facility is one of treating patients who are in need of medical help. So with that in mind, that alleviates some of my concerns. That's not to say that the concerns of the neighborhood should be dismissed because this facility backs up to a residential neighborhood. It only backs up to the residential neighborhood. The rest of the three sides of the facility are small business and other such. And so that's my thinking. But anybody else on the board care to weigh in on that? uh chad yeah tommy i mean i this is tough i mean i think everyone's both sides are well represented and and um we deal with this and we've dealt with this before uh you know mike i have the concerns if i was a neighbor and the same concerns and i would have um but i also see the other side of it that, you know, we all bear this and, you know, I get it, but I do think that, that, you know, at least this is an opportunity to, to have a, have a place that, that can provide this service. Again, it doesn't, we don't know exactly what it's going to be, but it's probably in my eyes, it needs to have the opportunity to try to be good neighbors. And again, we do have a conditional use, this can come back and be evaluated. You know, I think if there was one request that I would have, if I was a neighbor, I probably would want, you know, I would probably want to fence around at least the area that is adjoining all the back property owners and have a height. You know, I don't know if we can, you know, we can ask for that. And I don't think that was overbearing, but, you know, this is a big thing to ask. And there's a lot of people that have responded, so I think it's an easy ask. But other than, and I'm not saying that's going to address their issues, but I do think they should be given the opportunity to try and be good neighbors. Thank you, Chad. And Joan, I think you had a comment or wanted to say something as well. Yes, this is a difficult one because of its location. it's needed it's desperately needed and we all know that we hear frequently the problems with drugs, alcohol I think we have to remember that there's a lot of people who are addicted and aren't criminals they just have gotten a hold of wrong substances and those substances have gotten a hold of them and hopefully this facility will be a real asset to the community instead of a liability. I know it's needed. Whether it's needed right here in this particular spot or not is up to us to make that decision. But we do have a big problem here in our community and all over this nation. Thank you, Joan. I'd also like to add that I thought Mr. Nicholson did a great job and my comments are not negative in terms of his presentation. I just want to make him aware of that. I had a friend who might have benefited from a facility like this. Perhaps I'm in thinking about her when I consider this application. I know there are other people who who have had incidences where they have had a friend or neighbor or a family member who might be in need of this kind of facility. So those are just my thoughts. Any other comments that the board wants to make or questions that they have of either of the lawyers who are present? Any questions that you have or you want to take the next step? What's your pleasure? Chad Walker we hadn't heard from you you wanted me to get in before Brandon started talking I know Brandon had his flicked off first you go ahead bud I was going to ask just Chad Needham and staff and Mr. Nicholson about the fence that was brought up on the screening personally I'm ready to move forward and I plan on requesting approval. So as has been mentioned, there is a slope grade change at the rear of the property, but I'm happy, you know, we're happy to work with staff to see if they fit as feasible back there. Truly, we have no problem with that whatsoever. Chad, unmute yourself. Chad, I need him. unmute yourself so we can hear you. There we go. Okay, Nick. I mean, I think it's, it's in a reasonable ask again, you know, if there's any, any outside pedestrian traffic that can get away that at least it can't go that way. And I know that you're going to, you're going to kind of get the, you're going to drop the entrance as well. So, so I would personally like to see that if I was an adjoining neighbor. Sure. What about a four-foot fence along Gulf Stream? I know that it's probably a side yard so you can go higher, but then you have to worry about being so much width from the sidewalk if you go too high. But I think something like that to at least corral people. Once again, I'm a big believer that people are lazy and they'll take the path of least resistance so if you do have a way to cross through a shrub um somebody will so i'm on the same page as mr needham on that yeah we uh staff is working on some uh language right now um give us a give us a couple of minutes i don't think we need to go off camera because they've been they they're where they're way ahead of you They're looking at the regulations or writing down stuff. The change of slope is truly only behind the property. It's not along Gold Shore, so I don't think there's an issue there whatsoever. The residential abutment is what I understand the primary concern. Is that right, Chad? I heard Brayden say along Gulf Stream, I think. Was it Gulf Stream or was it – I think we both had a point. I think Chad was talking about buffering the residential areas, and I think my point was we may want to buffer a Gulf Stream with a fence of some sort, a hard scape rather than a soft scape, just to keep people from walking through the parking lot. And also just to keep, you know, this would also keep the neighbors from walking to the applicant's parking lot. So I think in this instance, it would benefit probably both sides if there was a hardscape there. I mean, we, yeah. So similar to the various we heard earlier today, it's a residential or office zone. The fence can be four feet in the front yard. And then in the side street side yard, which is gulped stream drive, again, it can be four feet if it's adjacent to the sidewalk. But if it pushes back three feet from the sidewalk, it can go up to six feet tall. You can either leave that to the applicant or if you want to designate a particular height along the right of way. the backyard which would be adjacent to the residential properties it can be six. What's your preference? Brandon, I mean I guess I don't know I could go I could go either four or six if it's six I wouldn't want a wood fence it'd be nice to have a metal fence. I would agree. So there's some so you could see through it Just given where it is, and I think that once again, as we've heard testimony in numerous cases, vision is the best thing for security. And so having a six-foot fence may not be – a wood fence may not be the best. So I would say if it's going to be six, that it needs to be opaque. But I'm comfortable with either one. The previous applicant probably has some extra five-foot fence. So I guess I'd ask the applicant, what would the applicant prefer? And then I'm not sure if the proponents have – Ms. Winters wants to say something as to their preference, but I think either one could work. yep so again we're we're more than happy to put up a kind of fence along uh gulf shore and those kind of residential uh some parcels that are right behind it um it is entirely up to the board's discretion if you all want to mandate a height um or material i don't think we have a true preference on either of those we are more than happy to install the fence well in that case i think i I prefer a six-foot metal that people can see through, not chain length, but metal. I think that would give the Gulf Stream neighborhood a little bit of class going down their sidewalk versus a wood fence. Well, and that height would have to only be in the rear, I think, in understanding what Tracy just said. And along Gulf Shore, it would need to be slightly, I think, either four or depending on if it was all three feet, five. And I could live with horses. So Gulfstream Drive is the side street side yard. So if you push the fence at least three feet from the right of way, then it can be six feet tall. Okay. Okay. I apologize. And Mr. Gross, you mentioned you were asking from the neighbor's perspective as far as material. I think the neighbors would agree with you that along Gulf Stream, where it basically fronts that road right across from the daycare center, that the see-through material would be preferred. But across the back of the parking lot, where it adjoins the rear of the residences, I think there was a lot of concern about privacy, especially given the elevation change between the subject property and the residences. So perhaps consider a different, you know, non. Oh, I agree. I think that fence along the residential area there should probably be a wood, wooden solid fence. And I think the applicant would agree with that. Whatever the board's preferences is fine. We're writing and rewriting and revising. as we hear comments from the workers and from the applicant and others. All right, let's see if this meets your specs. The applicant shall provide a six-foot ornamental fence along Gulfstream Drive and a six-foot solid fence along the rear lot line. That's fine with me. Fine with me. Applicant? Yes, sir. All right. Perfect. And that would be condition number five. And six. That would be number six. We're going with the null and void. Oh, yes. Okay. I'm sorry. The null and void. six is a fence. Okay. Does the board understand what we've done? I understand it. Mr. Joe, I understand. I think it's interesting that we're talking about fences. I do too. I think so. Because, you know, we don't have any concerns, but let's put up a fence. Yeah, right. I understand. Okay. Well, does anybody on the board need that reread to them? I think it may be helpful for the members of the audience to hear it. Okay, we're going to read five and six, the one through four in your printed materials. All right, condition number five would be, should the applicant no longer own or operate the rehabilitation home, the conditional use shall be null and void. In the proposed condition number six, the applicant shall provide a six-foot ornamental fence along Gulfstream Drive and a six-foot solid fence along the rear lot line. Thank you, Autumn. I'm ready to move if the board is ready. Go ahead, Brandon. We'll entertain your motion. Yeah. And just before I make this movement, I will just say a couple words. I think I know I'm an attorney in town and I know all the attorneys on the phone call. And I know, I think every one of us has lost somebody close due to the scourge of addiction in the United States overall. And I agree that we need more of these facilities throughout the community. And I think that in this particular instance, this looks like a pretty good facility to potentially have such a project. And then with that being said, today I'm going to move and the applicants can be bound by these conditions. And if they don't follow these conditions, the public has the ability to contact planning services who will get them in touch with appropriate personnel for a complaint to be filed and it to be reviewed by us on whether the conditions are being met and can't be satisfied to the staff's consent. So this we don't lose, as Mr. Nicholson said, we don't lose jurisdiction and we do take the conditions we give people seriously. And we have revoked conditional uses in the past for people who don't follow the rules. So they're subject to annual review. That's right. And they're subject to annual review. So I just want the public to realize that we don't rubber stamp these items. We do take it seriously, which is why I propose some additional conditions to help at least alleviate some of the concerns that were raised here today. So with that being said, Mr. Chair, I hereby move that we approve PLNBOA 22-5 Step Works Recovery Center's request for conditional use to establish a rehabilitation home within 500 feet of a residential zone property in the P1 zone located at 2240 Gulfstream Drive, based upon the recommendations of staff and all the testimony that we heard today from all the parties. and subject to the four conditions set forth in our reports and in the two conditions that were read aloud during our hearing. Thank you, Mr. Groves. Is there a second? I second the motion. Ms. Whitman, second. All those in favor, raise your hand. One, two, three, four. Four, anybody opposed? One, two opposed. The motion carries. Good luck with the project, Mr. Nicholson and Ms. Concar. Thank you all very much. All right. Are there any board members, any member of the board, which presented be heard this time? I think we have elections, Tommy. he was trying to get past it again Tracy it's like Vladimir Putin wait a minute no more elections Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, let's have an election then. Go right ahead. What offices are up for election? So we have a chair, a vice chair and a secretary. Currently, I believe you are the chair, of course. Mr. Needham is our vice chair and Ms. Whitman is our secretary. I believe that your term of service with the board is up in just a few short months. It's up at the end of the meeting in June. So I would expect that you may not want to continue for such a short time. I don't know if there's anything that prevents it. I would like to continue until my term ends. And you all can have another. I don't think it'll be any hard detriment to you to have another election after I leave. But I would like to continue to the end of my term as president. So that's my campaign. so um well if unless law is otherwise opposed um and this is not mr horn saying he is so um and this is not saying no one else could nominate but i'd be willing to nominate a slate rather than going through one by one and asking for nominations, but that's assuming that nobody except for Mr. Glover, Mr. Needham, and Ms. Whitman want to run for any of the offices at this time. I'll remind you that last time we talked about this was a year ago or more. Ms. Carter and Mr. Needham were pointing at each other for vice chair and they reached some kind of understanding back then, but I don't know whether that still holds or Carter's not here to defend herself. Or to get volunteered, Chad. That's right. She asked me to volunteer her. Mr. Hoare, do you have any legal to add to us? What can we or cannot we do? That's a very broad question. You can certainly do that. I also don't have a problem with if you're going to be elected for the till the end of your term. And obviously, that'll have to be addressed when it's time to figure replacement after that point. That's just what I said, right? OK. I'll be glad to relinquish my position if Chad or Raquel or anybody else would like to have the honor of signing the minutes It's a big honor isn't it Joan? Yes it is, it's a big honor If Harry or Chad want to get in I mean, I'm comfortable with any of my board members serving in any of these capacities. Joan has done such a good job. I think we want to change in the middle of the stream here. Others do good jobs, too. But we could definitely put Raquel in her spot if. or chad could switch and go to secretary all you do is sign and raquel could go to coach could go to vice chair chad let me ask do i have to read them no well you do it the next meeting yeah you review and make sure everything looks right then you sign it yeah yeah you you don't you don't sign until after they've been approved That sounds like better responsibility. I think I'll stay where I'm going. Okay, I was going to say, but don't worry, Chad, your lips won't get tired. There's not that much reading. You won't have to worry about what you say. All right, how do you want to proceed? Let's get on with it. All right, well, if Joan wants to step down, and if Chad and Harry don't want to volunteer, then I'll add Raquel to the secretary's spot, and then we'll address officer spots again in July. after or even June. I'm not sure we'll talk with planning services. You should probably do it at the end of the June meeting. I would think so. Make yourselves a note. Yeah. And then we should have. Yeah. And so with that being said, I hereby move for the approval for the officers for the 2022 year to be Chairperson Thomas Glover, Vice Chairperson Chad Needham and Secretary Raquel Carter. Second. Mr. Clark seconds. All in favor, raise your hand. I don't see any other slate being proposed, so that was famous. Staff get all that? Yes. Why won't Raquel be surprised? We'll break it through gently. We'll break it here gently. There's a song about that. Lex and monsters. Okay. Any items that the staff wishes to bring forward this time? Yeah, next month we'll plan to have a few presentations that you had requested previously about the zoning ordinance in general and then an update on some of the ordinance changes since the comp plan was adopted. that affect the Board of Justice. That'll be great. How long will those take? Half hour. Half hour. Plus then your question. We anticipate the question. Very good. All right. That being said, our next meeting date is April 11th. Put it on your calendar. Be there or be square. Any other business? If not, meeting's adjourned.