# Planning Committee - August 19, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · August 19, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/570 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/570?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-08-19 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: March 2, 2026 - **Length**: 17,115 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Council Planning Committee convened on August 19, 2008, at 1:00 PM with CM Gorton presiding over the session. The committee addressed four agenda items during the meeting, taking action on multiple planning and policy matters affecting the urban county. The committee took six votes throughout the meeting and heard one public comment from a community member. Three of the four agenda items resulted in approval actions, including a smoking ban ordinance and a streetscape plan, while the Downtown Master Plan was presented for informational purposes. The committee also approved various items that had been referred to them for consideration. The meeting demonstrated the committee's active role in urban planning and policy development, with members taking decisive action on public health measures through the smoking ban and infrastructure improvements via the streetscape planning initiative. The informational presentation on the Downtown Master Plan provided committee members with important context for future planning decisions in the urban core area. ## Attendance The Committee meeting on August 19, 2008 had full attendance with all members present. **Present:** • Gorton • Blues • Gray • Ellinger • James • Beard • Stevens • Stinnett • Crosbie • McChord **Absent:** None **Late:** None All ten committee members were in attendance for the meeting, with no absences or late arrivals recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The Planning Committee took action on six motions during the August 19, 2008 meeting, with five passing unanimously and one passing by voice vote. **Committee Referrals and Removals** Dr. Stevens motioned to refer the Clean Air ordinance issue to the Services Committee and remove it from the Planning Committee, seconded by CM James. The motion passed unanimously [timestamp: 00:00]. CM Stinnett moved to remove the Tax Increment Financing issue from committee, with CM McChord providing the second. This motion also passed unanimously [timestamp: 00:00]. CM James motioned to remove the Eastern State Hospital Site Plan from committee, seconded by CM Beard. The committee voted unanimously to approve [timestamp: 00:00]. Vice Mayor Gray moved to remove Constructed Wetlands from committee, with CM Ellinger seconding the motion. This passed unanimously as well [timestamp: 00:00]. **Downtown Streetscape Master Plan** Vice Mayor Gray motioned to endorse the Downtown Streetscape Master Plan on the condition that an oversight committee be established, with CM Crosbie providing the second. The motion passed by voice vote with one dissenting vote [timestamp: 00:00]. **Committee Meeting Schedule** CM Blues moved to schedule an extended Planning Committee meeting for Tuesday, September 23rd starting at 11:00 a.m., seconded by CM Beard. The motion passed unanimously [timestamp: 00:00]. All motions were approved, with the committee demonstrating broad consensus on removing several items from their agenda and scheduling additional meeting time. The only contested vote was on the Downtown Streetscape Master Plan endorsement, which still passed despite one member voting against it. ## Public Comment [timestamp: 00:00] Gene Williams addressed the committee during the public comment period, speaking on behalf of downtown merchants and property owners. Williams expressed strong support for the Downtown Streetscape Master Plan and advocated for its implementation as a catalyst for downtown revitalization. Williams specifically urged the council to move forward with converting downtown streets to two-way traffic, emphasizing that this change would be beneficial for the downtown business community. His comments reflected the perspective of local business stakeholders who view the streetscape improvements and traffic pattern changes as essential elements for revitalizing the downtown area. No other members of the public spoke during the comment period. ## Contested Items The primary contested item during the August 19, 2008 committee meeting centered on the Downtown Master Plan and its relationship to the Center Pointe development project. **Downtown Master Plan and Center Pointe Development** Community members expressed significant opposition and concerns regarding the perceived disconnect between the Downtown Master Plan and the Center Pointe development. The nature of the disagreement focused on the apparent lack of influence that the master plan had on the Center Pointe project, which led to public disillusionment among residents and stakeholders. The controversy highlighted tensions between community planning processes and actual development outcomes. Residents who had participated in the Downtown Master Plan process appeared frustrated that their input and the resulting plan seemed to have little bearing on how the Center Pointe development was proceeding. This disagreement represented broader concerns about the effectiveness of public planning processes and whether community input was being meaningfully incorporated into actual development decisions. The public opposition suggested that residents felt their time and effort invested in the master planning process had been undermined by development decisions that did not align with the plan's vision or recommendations. The meeting did not indicate a clear resolution to these concerns, with the community opposition representing ongoing tensions between planning ideals and development realities in the downtown area. ## Smoking Ban [timestamp: 00:00] The Committee addressed agenda item 1 regarding amendments to the city's smoking ban ordinance. Dr. Stevens led the discussion, presenting draft amendments to the existing smoking ban regulations. Dr. Stevens proposed that rather than making immediate decisions on the amendments, the matter should be referred to the Services Committee for more detailed review and discussion. This approach would allow for thorough examination of the proposed changes before bringing them back to the full Committee for final consideration. The Committee approved Dr. Stevens' recommendation to refer the smoking ban amendment issue to the Services Committee for further deliberation. This procedural step ensures that the amendments will receive appropriate committee-level review before any final action is taken on modifying the city's smoking regulations. The specific details of the proposed amendments were not elaborated upon during this brief discussion, as the focus was on the procedural matter of committee referral rather than substantive debate on the smoking ban changes themselves. ## Streetscape Plan [timestamp: 00:00] Clete Benken presented the Streetscape Plan to the committee, focusing on opportunities to enhance Lexington's identity and strengthen its economic foundation through the development of more pedestrian-friendly streets. The presentation emphasized how improved streetscape design could serve as both an identity-building tool for the city and an economic development engine. Benken highlighted the importance of creating walkable environments that would benefit both residents and businesses throughout Lexington. The plan appears to address the need for better pedestrian infrastructure and street design that would make the city more attractive and accessible to foot traffic. This type of development is typically aimed at encouraging local business activity, improving quality of life for residents, and creating a more cohesive urban environment. The committee approved the Streetscape Plan following Benken's presentation, indicating support for moving forward with initiatives to make Lexington's streets more pedestrian-oriented and economically beneficial to the community. ## Downtown Master Plan The Committee discussed the Downtown Master Plan during agenda item 3, focusing on its role in guiding future development projects in the downtown area [timestamp: 00:00]. Harold Tate served as the key speaker for this discussion item. The conversation centered on how the Downtown Master Plan functions as a framework for directing development decisions and its potential influence on specific projects, particularly the Center Pointe development. Committee members raised concerns about the extent to which the Downtown Master Plan should guide or constrain individual development projects. The discussion explored the balance between following the master plan's vision for downtown growth and allowing flexibility for specific development proposals that may not align perfectly with the plan's recommendations. The Center Pointe project was specifically mentioned as an example of how the master plan's guidelines intersect with actual development proposals, highlighting the practical challenges of implementing comprehensive planning documents in real-world scenarios. This was an informational discussion item, meaning no formal action was taken by the Committee. The conversation served to clarify the master plan's role and address questions about its application to current and future downtown development projects. The discussion provided Committee members with a better understanding of how the planning document influences the review and approval process for downtown developments. The agenda item concluded without any specific resolutions or directives, but established a foundation for future discussions about downtown development policy and the implementation of the master plan's recommendations. ## Items Referred to Committee [timestamp: 00:00] The committee reviewed various items that had been referred for consideration during this meeting. CM Stinnett served as the key speaker for this agenda item. The discussion covered multiple topics that required committee review, with two primary items identified: • **Tax Increment Financing** - This item was brought before the committee for evaluation and discussion regarding its implementation and potential impacts. • **Eastern State Hospital Site Plan** - The committee reviewed plans related to the Eastern State Hospital site, examining the proposed development and planning considerations. The committee conducted its review of these referred items, with CM Stinnett leading the discussion on the various components requiring committee attention. The items represented ongoing municipal business that needed formal committee consideration before potential advancement to the full council. Following the committee's review and discussion of the referred items, the outcome was **approved**, indicating that the committee completed its evaluation process and moved the items forward appropriately within the municipal governance structure. This agenda item represents the standard committee process for handling items that require detailed review before broader council consideration, ensuring proper vetting of municipal business through the committee system. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Refer the issue of Clean Air ordinance to the Services Committee and remove it from the Planning Committee - **Motion** — passed (0-1): Endorse the Downtown Streetscape Master Plan on condition that the oversight committee be established - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Remove the issue of Tax Increment Financing from committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Remove the Eastern State Hospital Site Plan from committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Remove Constructed Wetlands from committee - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Have an extended Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday, September 23rd starting at 11:00 a.m. --- ## Full transcript and begin. And today is August the 19th. And the first issue on our agenda is five minute, I guess we would say, introduction by Dr. Stevens about the smoking ordinance which we can take up in greater depth at our next meeting. So, Dr. Stevens, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you. Thank you very much, Mrs. Gorton. Last week at the work session, we distributed to all members of the council and sent copies to other parts of the government, a draft of some amendments for the Clean Air Ordinance or what some people call the smoking ban. These, over the last six months, we've been having some meetings with the health department, with the county attorney, and with members of the urban county government to discuss the smoking ordinance which was passed on, I think, July 3rd, 2003, and was kind of an early rendition of what urban communities around the country have passed. Since then, new national standards have been established which are being adopted around the country. And these standards were a little bit beyond what we had in our original ordinance. We had some problems with its enforcement, particularly in the definition of what a private club might be. We also, around the country, most recently in Kentucky, in Scott County, in Georgetown, and in Louisville, they've adopted a new ordinance and we have patterned our changes somewhat after those. The major changes are the procedural ones which will help with enforcement, the definition of a private club, and extending the Clean Air Ordinance to include workplaces. These are all have been prepared by Mr. Sanner of our law department who's with us here today, and it was in the draft that was distributed to the council. I would propose that we maintain this in our planning committee, which the council approved last week, and plan on having a meeting about it, either at the special meeting or at the next meeting of the planning committee, at which time the public may have an opportunity to comment. Of course, if the planning committee recommends that it go to the full council, then there'll be opportunities for public meetings during the council meetings, or we could even have a special session for that purpose if it appears to be indicated. That's all I have to say, Madam Chairman. If there are any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer. All right. Thank you, Dr. Stephens. Are there any initial questions about introducing this? I think I heard you say then you'd like to hear it full-blown at the next meeting. Yes. If possible. I have a question. Council Member Crosby. I noticed that you handed out a memorandum requiring that we have additional planning committee meetings due to the high volume of things that we're taking up in planning committee. And last time we discussed this, it was brought out, I think, at our council work session that this was out of the services committee, I think, last time I was on council at that time. Is there a reason why this maybe shouldn't go through services where there's maybe a lower volume of things to be discussed? Because it seems like we have a high volume of things on planning committee where we're at. It looks like now we have to add on additional meeting sessions where maybe we can't take it through the committee it originally came out of and handle it during normal meeting time versus adding on additional meetings to handle the quantity of things we're dealing with in planning committee already. Two different issues. I think this smoking ordinance can be heard either here or in services. It's up to the council members. We will have to have, I believe, extra meetings to handle all the issues currently in planning. So it's kind of two different issues. This won't impact my request for you to consider an extra meeting. Council Member Ellinger. Since it did arrive in the services committee, if you all would want to, I would accept it in the services committee if that would help your workload. Council Members? Dr. Stephens. That would be fine with me. Would Council Member Ellinger think that his service committee would be able to take care of this at their next meeting? So Council Member Ellinger could hear it in September. Okay. All right. Would someone on the committee? That would be the 8th of September. Okay. Would someone care to make a motion to that effect to ask services committee to go ahead and hear the issue? I will make that motion that we refer the item of the clean air ordinance to the services committee and remove it from the docket here in the planning committee. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second to transfer the issue of the smoking ordinance to the services committee to be heard in September. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. That takes care of that. Thanks, Dr. Stephens. Now we'll go on to the streetscape master plan, which committee members should have received a copy of the downtown streetscape master plan, what we think might be the final draft. And Dr. Stephens, I know you introduced this into committee. I don't know if you have any comment at this point. I believe, am I correct, that is Mike, are you and Kevin Wente going to present this or are you going to present this? I'm here with the team that worked on the master plan. We prepared a presentation at our last meeting with the planning committee. The plan was not complete. We were having some problems with bike lanes on Vine Street. Had to do some additional work, which brought us really until after the council break, summer break. The plan is now completed. Cleet Benkin with KKG is here. He'll do a final presentation. Okay. And just make sure you're aware of the updates that have been added to the plan. Then we have Mike Willem with Strand and Phil Osborne with Preston Osborne, here to address any questions that you have. Okay, very good. I think with that said, we'll go ahead and hear the presentation and then take questions. And I know there is some public input when we go through those things. So take it away. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for giving us some time to update you on the progress that we've made since our last presentation. Do you mind, again, to state your name for committee members? Certainly. Who've been on break. Sure. My name is Cleet Benkin. I'm a principal with Kinselman Klein Gossman, landscape architects, architects, planners out of Covington, Kentucky. I did have a question for him before he begins, if I could. Yes, Dr. Stevens. Last week or so, we received a document dated August 2008 of the downtown streetscape master plan. Is this the current revision that you're going to present us today? Yes, I'm going to be presenting that today. So this is the latest? That is the latest. I have three inserts I'm going to hand out momentarily for you. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. The presentation that you see on the slide projector is just a way to summarize the work that's been done since the last time that we presented to you. As Mike mentioned, we had to spend quite a bit more time and give a lot more attention to the strategy for the improvement of Main and Vine streets. As you know from the prior presentation, one of the overarching goals of the streetscape plan is to take Main and Vine and make them more pedestrian friendly, more inviting, streets that are reflective of the vitality of a city versus streets that seem a little bit more like highways. And in order to do that, we have proposed some significant changes to the character of Main and Vine, including the reduction of the lane width, the reduction of the pavement section out there. We've proposed the development of a pedestrian promenade along Vine Street and the development of similar improvements on Main. I'll go into some detail about what all of that involved, but suffice it to say that we worked closely with staff, with Mike, Harold with the DDA, and even had a bike task force meeting to discuss the updates and the options that we were presenting. This plan has obviously been an effort that goes beyond the consulting team, and we've received comments from far and wide here within LFUCG, within stakeholders from within downtown and outside of downtown, and we've been taking those comments and this last edition of this plan is really the first chance we've had to, in a thorough way, make sure that those comments are being reflected in the recommendations and the text and the descriptions of all the attributes of the downtown streetscape. What you see in that draft master plan is a lot more narrative than was in the prior version. That narrative reflects the comments and the observations, the recommendations from the public meetings, from the site surveys, from all of the boots on the ground work, if you will, to understand what the influences of the downtown streetscape system are. In that item two there, you'll see that I've listed out the fact that we've simply described some of the things that we've talked about in public meetings before, put them into words, and added them into the document in pages 35 through 42. This is a graphic that was not in the prior document. This describes the, I guess I'll call it the psychological map of downtown. It shows all the major public open spaces and event spaces, talks about the opportunities for the development of those spaces. This is getting back to the comments that we've received and to the work that's been done over the last several weeks related to Main and Vine. It has been a goal of this plan, and as a follow-up to the College Town Plan, the Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan, and the Downtown Plan, to accommodate bicycle mobility throughout downtown. As part of our work, we've looked at what can be done with Main and Vine and Upper and Limestone to create a system that runs north, south, east, west to connect the two universities and downtown and connect both ends of downtown with a bike lane. We have, let's see, can't get it to go backwards. We've looked at several options, some of which are standardized options that are accepted by the Department of Transportation here in Kentucky. Others, which are more, at least in a local sense, less accepted, more experimental, but on a national scale, are more accepted and are in practice right now. Among those are sharrow lanes, which are, it's a type of bike lane where you actually share the road, it's another name for that, with the motorist. We've looked at sheltered and buffered bike lanes. And we've looked at something that is emerging as a facility in bike mobility circles called a floating bike lane. It's a system that's being utilized in San Francisco and now in Baltimore. And the advantage of them is really related to parking and the businessing of downtown. This is an example of the kinds of analysis that we have done. This happens to be for Limestone. It shows the fact that all across the board we have limited right-of-way, limited pavement section, and we really have to be practical in our approach to dealing with bike mobility to move curbs and all of the associated utilities and storm drainage is very expensive. So our first preference is to look to options that deal with the street as it is today and to find creative ways to accommodate bicycle mobility without a complete overhaul of the entire street network. Okay. This is, these are two sections, one for Vine and one for Main, looking at the existing conditions there. We have in excess of 60 feet of pavement area on Vine Street. It is a very unfriendly street from a pedestrian standpoint, simply because it's so doggone wide and it carries so many cars. Main Street, less so, but also, especially at peak hours, a rather intimidating place to be for a pedestrian and with, we think, great opportunity for improvements even if in the short term we're not able to change the one-way configuration out. This is one of the two options that, toward the end, we had been holding up as preferred options for the accommodation of bicycle mobility on Main and Vine. This section happens to be on Vine Street. The green blotches that you see from where you're sitting along the sidewalk area are where we would infill the bays of parking that are there today and in those places be able to integrate rain gardens, bioretention areas, street tree planters that green the street. I honestly believe, and I'm here to tell you, I think that Vine Street can look much more like something you'd see in Portland, Oregon or in Greenville in the Carolinas than what you see in places like Detroit or you name the Midwestern city that isn't quite as attractive. So it's a really an opportunity to have a dramatic transformation of Main and Vine and still accommodate the necessary traffic movements that you have to have in a downtown area. Excuse me. Yes. We have a council member who wants to ask a question about that particular slide. Okay. Clete, I didn't want you to go too far with regard to that since that's really a hot button for me is bikeability and pedestrian accessibility. One of the questions that we've had kind of knocked around up here is when we do this, it's phenomenal. You can get around in downtown and so forth. How do you see connecting this to our other corridors coming out towards the suburbs and so other folks can come into the downtown via bike or by running and so forth like that? Is there anything that you're building into this to kind of address that? Yes, Councilman, there is. We have made recommendation and we think well-reasoned recommendation to employ a bike lane that will connect to both the north-south and east-west axes of downtown. So the east-west axes obviously being Main and Vine, the north-south being Limestone and Upper, where we can connect from UK across downtown all the way up to Transylvania and to the 4th Street proposed legacy trail connection that would run across there. Over time, it's possible that other streets could become sharrow-marked streets or other types of facilities. But that is something that we recommend be looked at on a case-by-case basis as the strategy to improve the bikeability and the walkability of downtown streets matures. In the section on street conversions, there's quite a long write-up about how to go about that, but that all plays into that. You're welcome. Thank you. This is an example of a floating bike lane. You might ask yourself, why would we consider something that hasn't been applied here in the state of Kentucky before? And the simple answer is a floating bike lane provides us with the opportunity to maintain the on-street parking inventory that is here today. As a matter of fact, on Main and Vine, it allows us to add to the downtown parking inventory. We talked to Republic Parking, your LexParks consultant, and they drew the comparison that if every car that parks in downtown in an on-street condition spent $10, so all occupants of that car in total spend $10 per visit into downtown Lexington, that one parking space, that one trip can generate $7,000 a year in additional revenue that will go towards, you know, the tax base of the city. That translates to $1.2 million annually in parking revenue if we employ this scheme and we look at the additional spaces associated with the scheme. There is a direct benefit to providing on-street parking to the local economy, and there's a mathematical relationship to that. And for that reason, and also because of the ability of parking revenues to fund ongoing maintenance and to fund a lot of other things that are important to a municipal budget, we think that this deserves strong consideration. As it so happens, we presented all of the options that we prepared, and there were one, two, three, four, five, six that you see up there on the screen. We presented as recommendation three of those to the bike task force back in July, and two of those were discussed seriously as deserving consideration. At that meeting, the bike task force stated a preference, those attending that meeting, stated a preference for the floating bike lane. They felt it was the best situation for bikers, or for cyclists. It also happens to be the best situation in terms of revenue generation for the city. This is another... Sorry to interrupt you. Do you remember what page, I know that's in our plan, what page these are on, since they're a little bit difficult to... Let's see. Council members may want to flip to the... Back up, because I think I may have stated it up here. Those are pages 24 through 29. Thank you. You're welcome. Perhaps the next biggest component of our work since our last meeting has revolved around fundraising efforts and the funding plan and the budget for the development of the streetscape. This is a diagram from the beginning of our work that talked about the PR and fundraising strategy, and Phil Osborne is going to speak to that in a little while. But we have maintained contact with stakeholders, including corporate stakeholders, people in philanthropic circles, and obviously with city county staff to understand how this master plan can be realized over time. This is a budget that is based on the concepts that are contained within the streetscape plan. These are not budgets that are based off of detailed drawings for every street. We're just not able to get to that level of detail with a study area of this size. So these should be considered as working budgets that are based in reality, based in contractor pricing for projects of this type. And you'll see that over seven miles of downtown streets, 14 miles of urban sidewalk, you're looking at a construction budget of approaching $50 million for all of those streets. And the first question that you ask is, well, geez, what's included in all of that? And if I can get the slide to work, I'll show you. Council members, this is page 24 of your planning packet. Now, I'm going to break momentarily and pass out. I've got some updates to three sheets. Okay. Those are three sheets that we would ask you to please insert into your packet and replace the corresponding page in the document. There were some corrections that needed to be made. There were some typos and some images that were improperly placed. So those are intended to correct that. I made mention of the limitations of the budgeting. There is great flexibility in terms of how the streetscape master plan is implemented over time. Certainly, it's going to be contingent upon funding. It's also going to be contingent upon things that you would typically see in streets and the redevelopment of streets. Other projects that come to bear are going to have an influence on when certain streets can or should be improved. There will need to be detailed engineering done to take any one of these recommended phases into implementation. And if we are going to make substantial strides with the improvement of Main and Vine before the World Equestrian Games, as has been proposed, we will have to work diligently to stay on schedule to be able to do that. The budgets that you see in front of you show the costs for the development of new curb and sidewalk throughout the downtown street network, including the development of ADA-compliant curb ramps, obviously things that you would expect to see in a streetscape like site furnishings, but also things like rain gardens and bio-retention areas, trees and landscaping, decorative pavements, the things that make people feel good about a streetscape environment. These estimates are based on the survey that the city purchased and had prepared. However, that survey does not pick up a lot of things that are underground. So there will need to be some more work done to quantify some of the underground routing. It does not include things like road resurfacing. It doesn't include storm and sanitary improvements. It doesn't include infrastructure other than overhead utility relocation and some of the collateral utilities associated with that, where you have phone lines or cable television or something running above. We expect that the budget will include those kind of minor utilities that are associated with electric. The budgeting doesn't include annual maintenance, doesn't have a reserve fund to pay for that. It doesn't include the replacement of traffic signals, and it doesn't include anything on private property. All of the estimates are based on 2008 costs and would need to be adjusted for inflation as time goes by. These are, again, are the priorities that have been developed over the course of this plan. They include the improvement of Vane and Vine, the improvement of the Cheapside Old Courthouse Square area, the Limestone College Town Corridor, and also the conversion of Short and Second Streets from one-way to two-way traffic. I'll go through these quickly. These are just some examples of what the recommendations are. Here's Main Street with new configuration of brick paving and the employment of rain gardens, bioretention areas, very generous planting areas. This is Vine Street where we've shrunk the pavement section of Vine, given over the parking bays to landscape and to green infrastructure, taken the outboard lanes of traffic, and made recommendation for the development of non-peak parking bays. During peak times, during rush hour, that parking would drift away and you would have through lanes in those areas. This, again, is just a graphic showing the vision for Cheapside. Here's Limestone and College Town, and here's just an example of the recommendation for Short and Second. With that, I should say that the funding strategy is obviously where the rubber meets the road on realizing a vision and realizing a master plan. There are several ways to fund projects. I think it's obviously important that the city take a leading role in the funding of that, and Phil will have some comments that speak to that. In terms of how a municipal government is going to fund these kinds of things, you can pull money out of the general fund, you can bond for it, you can apply for state and federal grants, you can use municipal road funds, you can use transportation enhancement funding, and we can work with the EPA and the city's own environmental department to find grants for the development of things that benefit the environment, like rain gardens and bio-retention areas. On the private side, or the quasi-private side, tax increment financing, which you're all talking about and getting your arms around, is an excellent way to fund the kinds of improvements that we're talking about. Special improvement districts, which we highly recommend, are not something that is typically used for the funding of capital improvement projects, and certainly one of this scale would be difficult to do solely through a special improvement district, or also known around these parts as a management district. Those are very good tools, however, to use for ongoing maintenance. Private funding, with that I think it's probably best to turn it over to either Harold or Phil to talk about the funding strategy and how we would engage the private sector. Thank you very much. Council members, if you're not logged in, please log in, and if you have a question, please indicate so on your screen. There may be a couple questions before we hear from Phil about what you've already presented. I don't know, council members, I know Vice Mayor Gray has a question before we go on to Phil and the funding strategies. Yeah, a couple questions. Cleet, what I'd like for you to do is step back a little bit and lift up and tell us thematically what it is you're trying to accomplish, or we might be trying to accomplish through this plan. Okay, so, you know, I sometimes say maybe too much, some of my colleagues may think that the last thing a fish can describe is water. You know, you've gone into the detail on this, a lot of detail of how to execute and what you've got here. You've done projects like this in other places, so tell us why this is important, and please don't hold back. Yeah, well, I would love to do that, not to hold back, and I won't, but in the interest of time and in your budget, let me just say this, the introduction describes the unique opportunity that this city has in front of it. I firmly believe and my colleagues firmly believe that you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change and improve the identity of the city of Lexington. You've got an opportunity to say to the world, Lexington is not only a great place to live, but Lexington is a great place to invest. Lexington is a great place to start a business. Lexington is a great place to live, work, and play, and we hear those words a lot and they've almost become cliche, but if you look at what St. Louis, Missouri was able to accomplish not long after the turn of the century, the last century, if you look at what's happened in the Centennial Park area around Atlanta, if you look at what's happened in Sydney, Australia, and I bet you if you look at what happened in Beijing after this games, people will look back and say, look what we were able to accomplish through an event, and the event in this case, I guess maybe the catalyst, maybe even for this plan was the World Equestrian Games and the build-up to that, but there are several events that are happening almost simultaneously in Lexington right now, and we believe that the streetscape, the environment, the public realm is the glue that is really going to pull a lot of these initiatives together. It's not the end-all, be-all. It's not the only thing you have to concern yourself with, but it is in fact the stitching. It's the glue between private development initiatives and public initiatives that are going to influence people's perception of downtown for generations to come, and make no mistake, downtown is the economic engine of the region because of the two universities and because of all the businesses in the downtown area, and we've heard people come to public meetings and almost say in one voice, we agree with that, that downtown is important to the region and the economy, and we can't slight downtown because of somebody feeling like, geez, maybe we should spend more money over here on some other side of the city. Well, downtown is everybody's amenity. It's everybody's resource. It's not the domain of just one neighborhood, and so this is something that you should seriously reflect on because what you do or don't do now is going to leave a lasting impression on folks that come for the games or people that just happen to fly in for a business trip or happen to want to go to a horse race or something like that. Could you comment on the schedule? I mean, I'm concerned about schedule as we sit here today, getting anything meaningful done by September of 2010. Yeah, well, you're concerned with good reason. We're also concerned. If this drags on, if we're not able to reach consensus on what you want to do in the short term, we won't be able to accomplish some of the short-term goals. That said, we would not have made a recommendation for the short-term goals if we didn't think they could be accomplished by April 2010. Or I'm sorry, 2000, what's the date of the games? Duh. So, you know, it's before us. You can do it. We can accomplish it. We're going to work really smart, and if we run into an obstacle, we're going to work smart to avoid the obstacle, maybe to modify the scope of work. So if somebody wants to put a utility in under a street, maybe we're not going to do that section of street. But there are ways to accomplish the goal if we get started now. And when I mean now, I mean really this fall. If you want to do this, we're going to have to start moving some of these projects into documentation in the fall. Thank you. Council Member Beard also has a question before we move on to Phil. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Chairlady. You mentioned when you kicked this off that you had queried stakeholders both involved in downtown and outside of downtown. Can you give me a little better feeling, and I'm more concerned about the ones outside of downtown. That's where the 175,000 people live that we want to get downtown. And in the past, they have not been involved. And, you know, I don't think this will work, them being the taxpayers, a large portion of the taxpayers, unless they have a very strong voice in what's going on. Councilman, that's a question that we receive in every city we work in. Every time we're doing a significant capital improvement project in a downtown area. And the answer is always the same, to be frank. If it's in the downtown, sure, you can say it only benefits the downtown. I had a conversation with the mayor before we got started at the downtown Lexington I was with a businessman's group, the Businessman's Association. I'm sorry, the name isn't rolling off my tongue right now. The DLC Luncheon. And we talked about the need for leadership and the need for the people that are elected to the position of responsibility to take a stance because they know what's important for the citizenry. Because Mrs. Jones that lives in Aylesford or somebody that lives, you know, in one of the remote areas of the city, far away from downtown, doesn't ever drive to downtown, has very little interaction, quite frankly, isn't going to make it a priority of theirs to come to the public meetings that were advertised in the paper. So we do about as much as we can to engage John Q Public and to give them an opportunity to speak. We have certainly gone above and beyond the call that we typically do to engage decision makers near and far, corporate stakeholders, the philanthropic organizations. And those people obviously have, like you do, a finger on the pulse of your constituents. And we trust that the best way to plow ahead is to engage those folks that are responsible and are beholden to a constituency. And we leave that significant responsibility, unfortunately, with you to make those kinds of decisions. I'd also like to respond to that because when we were here in June, I believe it was Councilmember Beard and Councilmember Stennett both brought that issue up. So we did a couple of things. One is we have done a survey that we've mailed out to people outside of downtown. We've gone back, we've looked at our sign-in sheets from the public hearings that we had to see if maybe they had a business downtown, but they lived out in the suburbs and there were some instances on that. And then on the 4th of July, we set up a booth right outside of the Phoenix entrance. And there were three of us for about two or three hours. And then after that, I remained and right up to the parade. It was constantly people coming in, wanting to see the drawings, wanting to ask questions. And it wasn't just people here in Fayette County. We had people outside of Fayette County. And we had the survey there. So people took the survey, did the survey as well. And it was interesting because even the people from outside the county said, we don't live here, but we come downtown. And, you know, we appreciate the input and appreciate the excitement that they were seeing from the drawings. So we've tried to go out and reach as many more people as we can. We felt we were pretty successful, especially that day itself, because we probably got about 35 surveys that day alone. Plus, like I said, it was a constant flow of people coming up asking questions, wanting to try to get a better understanding of what the project was. The concept of it being a green project really, you know, highlighted a lot of interest in people because they liked that movement that the city was trying to do something that was environmentally friendly. Okay. Council Member McCord has a question and then we'll move on to Phil. I think I want to, would like to reiterate what Congressman Chandler had said a few months ago about that for his district, which encompasses multiple counties in central Kentucky, that downtown Lexington is the most important thing to his district. That the success of downtown Lexington is not only important to all of Lexington and the suburbs and areas like I represent that don't touch the downtown, but actually to the counties that surround us. So I agree wholeheartedly with you, Cleet and Harold, that we absolutely have to do this because it's something that is a shared resource for all. My question is, or a lot of times we'll have presentations like this and council is left with, okay, now what are we to do? And I think that I am asking you that question, is if we're bumping up against a tight time frame, if we're looking for consensus, if you're looking for leadership, then what is it that we're being asked to do and what is the process from here forward? Well, that's a wonderful question and I, please go ahead. I'm looking at your recommendations and the first one is, I think, where we need to go. Right. I was going to say after Phil speaks, or we can jump ahead if you like, we'd like to talk about the near-term recommendations and that's really going to get the ball rolling. Okay, thank you. We're not going to ask you to take a stance on some of the longer-term ones simply to say, geez, you know, we think this is a reasonable strategy. So we'll deal with those point by point momentarily. And we're, just for housekeeping, we're trying to end this presentation about two o'clock with questions and everything. Not to rush you, Mr. Osborne, but thank you for being here. You're welcome, pleasure to be here. The private sector strategy that we're trying to employ looks at tier one, tier two, tier three giving levels. And if you look at item number three on your slide there, the tier one level are the large donors that we try to nurture and solicit would be the business and corporate stakeholders and then many of the larger property owners. The tier two would then be the philanthropic organizations, institutional partners, and other property owners. Tier three would get down to the general public where I may choose to buy a brick on one of the pavilions. So obviously we start at the top with tier one. Our concept was rather than approach individual companies to try and aggregate an industry. For example, rather than go to 45 thoroughbred farms, we go to the thoroughbred industry to try and aggregate so that they could get their membership behind it as kind of a follow the ambassador program. Same thing with financial institutions, general business community, the legal profession, etc. Well, timing is everything and my timing is lousy. Approach somebody in the thoroughbred industry the day after 44% of the yearlings at Fasig-Tipton didn't meet reserve. We talked with someone in the financial community a week after the IndyMac bank collapse. So the situation right now with the overall economy of the country and the state is having some impact on us. They're all interested, but they want to reserve any kind of commitment until they see the health of the economy start to right stuff. And obviously that won't happen until after the presidential elections before we see any movement at all on that. Again, with that being said, there is support for the downtown community and support, I think, financially from the private sector. The one question, though, that comes up consistently, which may be one of the questions you all have to answer today or very soon, what is the city's commitment to it? If it's a public-private partnership, what's the public component of that? So when you're looking at a $50-$53 million project, you know, the city's going to have to take off a significant chunk of that before the private sector is going to be willing to step in and step up. So that's the kind of feedback we've gotten right now. The overall strategy is to just kind of tread water until the economy starts to correct itself and then go back to those groups after they've seen some successes in their own industry, after everyone's a little less nervous about bank collapses and things of that nature, and start building the blocks then. By that time, it's our hope that the council will have taken this on as a priority initiative and will have identified at least some funding to get the ball rolling on that initial 2010 recommendation. Council Member James has a question. Yes, ma'am. I'm not really sure to whom this is directed, and it may go back to Cleet or Harold, one or the other. I'm sorry, I was out of the room with computer problems. One of the questions that I'm hearing now, I have a lot of my district is within the downtown area, specifically from 2nd to 4th, which is an area that has been identified in some of the plans. And I actually do have several residents who, now that it's come to planning and now that it will probably move forward to council, now have input. What are we to do now? So someone seeing this for the very first time, they have input. They want audible crossing signals at 4th and Limestone. They want to talk and have more in-depth discussions with their residents and neighbors about two ways versus one ways and bike lanes. They want to talk about why does this end at 4th Street when we are going to run into, if there's a proposal for changing the two-way, what do we do at 4th Street where it ends? How do we take into account the congestion management study, which shows that the most crashes along Limestone are at 6th and 7th Streets? And how can we, they want to make sure that this plan, as going back to what Vice Mayor asked, what is your ultimate goal of this plan? And I think, I thought the ultimate goal started with sidewalk safety. I thought that's where some of this began. And if I'm wrong, please tell me. And now some of our residents are saying, okay, how do we implement public safety and how do we look at that as we're looking at this plan? It might look pretty, but how do we know that this is the best thing for overall public safety and passability of sidewalks? I'm sorry to go back to you, Clayton. Those are excellent questions and thank you for bringing them forward. We're not done with public engagement. For any one of these projects to move into implementation, we'll have to have stakeholder meetings to involve people that have a stake. So, if it's toward your neighborhood, we're going to be meeting, we'll call meetings to review the concept plans as they mature into more detailed plans that will eventually become bid documents. We'll have to do that for every corridor because there's too many private sector issues that also arise. So, public engagement isn't done and there's all kinds of opportunity to allow people to have a say. Relative to the safety issue, safety is at the foundation of this plan. ADA compliance, safer streets, traffic calming, those kinds of things are at the core of a good streetscape plan and a strategy for the future improvement of the street network. Strand Associates has been involved from day one in this, making sure that the recommendations that come out of this plan are satisfying the criteria for good, sound traffic management and traffic calming. Okay. Is there any way to identify the things that you just said regarding that it's at the core? If it's at the core, a lot of times at the core you don't see it. Is there any way that throughout the plan that you, where you have the diagrams of Main Street or Limestone and you give reference to the sidewalk cafes, that you show that you implement the ADA compliance as far as the dimensions there? That's in the standards that are published in the booklet. Okay. The overall standard. Yes, it talks about maintaining clear zones on all sidewalks, for example. Can that be shaded or highlighted and identified on the different drawings? Because one thing I noticed that folks do is they may not look at those standards or cores, but they'll look at the picture of the area that they know, you know, the chairs from the sidewalk cafe already go out near the street and they already have issues there. So they're looking at Limestone only. They may not go to the first page of the plan and review that. Yeah. You know, I'm like a lot of folks. I look at the pictures first before I read the text and some of the captions for the photos actually speak to that issue. Great. So I think if anybody were to glance through, they're going to see that we are certainly thinking about safe, clear access. Okay. And going, when you talked about more stakeholder meetings, and I think that's wonderful that you're offering that the meeting thing, though, I think maybe something I prefer to see a direct mail to where we can identify particular folks that we've either not heard from at all, or we know that there's going to be major changes in that in that area near where they are, their businesses or where their home is specific. I'm thinking about the residents specifically along the 300 block of Limestone. That's an area I don't know if they've come to the meetings or not. I don't know if they're even engaged in their neighborhood associations to have that representation, but I do know that they're going to be impacted by the changes. As an example, and I think that's very realistic to be able to do that, we took Covington's downtown master plan, their streetscape master plan. In the first phase of implementation, we not only sent out direct mailers, we actually knocked on doors to get people to, you know, to be aware that there was a meeting coming up and that we wanted them to attend. Okay. So that is something that you're looking at doing? We would certainly do whatever we can practically do, but I think direct mail is a great way to do that. And there could be some good things that come from that. I received an email from one constituent. We dropped flyers to notify folks that this meeting would be going on today and in hopes that they would attend. And we received an email back, one in particular, that talked about that their neighborhood may be willing to set up a management district to help fund the underground utilities on their block. So I think the more direct resident contact that we can have, it's not, you know, some people fear a lot of input, but I think in this case, resident input can really be helpful, especially when you're talking about funding and fundraising. If they're willing to manage that, that could be helpful and bring in some funds and resources that we haven't identified yet. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. I think Harold has something to say. I just want to let you know, we have been talking to the committee that Councilmember Blevins, I believe, works with people with disabilities, because we had some issues currently about the sidewalk cafe. So I've been working with them. We've done some letters to restaurants, but we'll continue working with them. They've been very helpful to us in terms of type of ADA requirements for not just wheelchair, but sight impairment. So we will be continuing working with them. And once we start the actual design, we will have to meet with those property owners one-on-one, because there could be issues from storm drainage to utilities or whatever. So those one-on-one conversations will continue. Okay. And then I had another, Harold, you may be good to answer this as well, one other constituent that had offered some critique in the first meeting when you all presented, and I gave you all copies of his questions. And one thing that he stated as his concern about this plan is he feels like that we've kind of strayed from some of the plans before where we had tremendous community involvement. And he wants to know, how do we know that the streetscape plan, once we give all this energy and all this funding, how do we know that this plan will be implemented as the specs show? One of the things the consultant did from the very beginning was to look at every study that was out that already had been worked on to make sure that compliance was agreed with on those, so that sort of those planning elements continued on into the streetscape. So other plans that have already been done and completed were reviewed and tried to be incorporated within the current streetscape plan. And I think in the document at the beginning shows what those documents were. Okay. And so as Cleet mentioned earlier, if there's a need to scale back or if there's a need to maybe not do a particular block because of time constraints or financial, who then makes that determination of what's skipped and what's funded and what moves forward and when? That's going to be a lot of people involved in that conversation and we'll be keeping you all up to date. We're working with utility companies because, you know, utility companies have concerns as well if they can meet their requirements too. So that's why when you look at phase one, it was broken up the way it was because we all felt that main corridor from Elm Tree to Broadway Vine, from Broadway to Lime and Limestone, from Euclid to 3rd Street, 4th Street, could be accomplished within that time period, but that may change as we continue moving along. So that's why, just like you all, we're concerned a little bit in terms of that timing component. But so that may alter a little bit, but we're trying not to alter it any more than we have to. I would like to make the suggestion that as this moves forward, that we have a monthly report of the projects that are identified with any change in any timeline. It doesn't have to be necessarily a formal presentation to a committee, but to this committee, a report be given of how everything's going and if you're on task and on target with things. Could it be like a written report to you? A written report. Again, if necessary. Just a spreadsheet or something to that effect where there's glitches, because in some ways we may be able to, as a committee, be able to help facilitate certain things, certain projects that are identified and they may cross over with other things we have going on, like small area plans and such. Okay. Thank you, Harold. Thank you. Harold, before you sit down and cleat, I'm on page 69, which is really the heart of the implementation. And it seems to me that what once the discussion here, this is the third time this committee has seen this report. It's been redrafted each time. And it seems to me that a potential course of action for the committee here would be to approve the plan and then make the first, your very first recommendation is the need for an oversight committee and to enable the vice mayor to appoint that oversight committee, because we need to get started somewhere. And then will there be point people on each of these items, because each one of these is big, within government, who will then take the ball and go with it? Is that your idea? Right. I think the thinking on that was there is a subcommittee that had been created. It's made up of various people in the private sector and within the urban county government that would continue overseeing this so that if there's a traffic engineering issue, they're aware of it at that point that can be addressed. I know we have somebody from engineering itself, somebody from planning. And then we have some people outside, such as I think Renee is on that committee as well from DLC and some other private outside agencies. So I see that as the model that we're looking at that would continue overseeing this. But the council could have an oversight committee, just as we do with stormwater or sanitary sewers, to be sure that from council perspective things are moving along and to have some sort of oversight and regular reports. I mean, I'm not sure what was meant by this first assemble a design review committee and then it calls it an oversight committee. But I think somewhere within the council there needs to be some sort of continued oversight to move. This is a lot of recommendations to move these forward. This could take 25 years if people drag their feet. Well, I think kind of like what you've done in Newtown Pike where you have Andrew come back and do periodic reviews. I mean, something like that. Right. That'd be no problem at all. Okay. Council Member Beard and then the vice mayor. Thank you, Harold. It's for you again. How do you see you've been sitting in on some, if not all, the TIF meetings? The proposal for doing streetscape improvements as relates to Main and Vine Street and Lime and Upper in that area, do we not have to adopt a design scheme because we're going to be on a different time frame for the TIF than we would be for getting this done? Right. And, you know, I don't see us having two different types of streetscapes. Well, and I think that's one reason why we're hoping that you all will like what you see today and you'll maybe move it forward to the full council because we do. We need to start, if we're going to start targeting certain areas for design, we need to know what those are pretty quick. So we need to know what the standard that this is the standard we want to apply to those areas of the streets you just mentioned so that that becomes implemented in the way the streetscape plan has proposed. So that doesn't present a problem, you think, as relates to setting a route for us as to how we get where we need to get for the Streetscape program. It's going to take coordination on a lot of people's part but yeah I think it's possible. Definitely it's possible. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. A couple things I want to pick up on what Councilmember James had to say about the accountability model and as I look at the activities cleat and correct me if I'm wrong here but as I look at the activities or the projects I'm assuming that each one of these will be considered as a project and so it will have activities each of these that's crazy as the phases will have activities and they'll have schedules and so forth and I I'm trying to be careful as I say this but I think that the anxiety of the council is that having seen projects managed and the challenges that we have in managing construction projects or other change projects we haven't been all that effective so we're looking for accountability system that doesn't over committee the administration but that allows us to stay informed educated and able to intervene when and if appropriate so I get a question to you is in your experience on other projects that are similar in size and scope what's been the model accountability the accountability model with a project like this or as you've aptly stated several projects like this certainly there has to be an administrative link somebody within public works or engineering that is quote-unquote the daddy of the project the one the buck stops here kind of person here to date Joe and Harold and Mike have have been very involved in all of the activities of this plan and from a consultants point of view and from the point of view of somebody that manages projects like this into implementation if we can keep that kind of chain of command in place even if the bodies changed out a little bit and other people slid into those roles I think we could have a very smooth and effective transition into implementation and that's not to say that there won't be bumps in the road there will be but I think having that buck stops here kind of person involved from the urban county government is important thank you councilmember James I forgot to ask a question one of the constituents referenced a wayfinding study or design sponsored by the visitors bureau are you familiar with that we are did you look at that and consider that as wayfinding because in my in the residents perspective what's in the plan they felt like they felt like the visitors bureau one was more appropriate to Lexington for some reason maybe it's horse something to do with horse related I'm not really sure but the wayfinding effort I think is is separate and distinct or maybe not completely distinct because how can you say that about graphics in the urban environment but the wayfinding initiative as I know it and having seen what Kevin wenty and others have presented publicly and Phil has been involved in that is about orientation getting folks to understand where destinations are how to route in and out of the city it is primarily a vehicular system there there is a pedestrian scale component to it but it is not trying to create a uniqueness to the downtown event and gathering spaces and the districts that really make the the soup taste good you know when you talk about good food there's a lot of spice in good food and the downtown needs to have districts that have different personalities and different flavors so we have proposed a kit of parts for place-making that is a little different than traditional wayfinding that is aimed at creating a spirit in a sense of place for the various downtown districts and that is supplemental and additive to the wayfinding system it is not necessarily a component piece of that wayfinding system so you will you believe that in in conjunction with the other wayfinding initiatives going on by different groups that maybe this could just be used as just the the place identities kind of the branding of those particular yeah it's not proposing to replace any of the other it's it's it's additive okay thank you vice mayor gray Thank You madam chairman excuse me for interrupting and we do have a member of the public who still would like to speak okay in view of the of the how much work that's actually already been engaged on this cleat and my observations I think other council members who have been either on the periphery or directly involved you know it's been some really good thinking and good thought and imagination and work and a lot of collaboration actually gone on and and recognizing thankfully to what you had to say and to reassure us that this will can will be a continuously engaged project process in which a very active effort to engage our citizens will occur any good project has that dynamic to it I think in view of that and that we have now seen this presentation three times madam chairman I'd like to move that that that this committee endorse the downtown streetscape master plan the concepts and themes that are represented here realizing that this is a plan a guideline that a lot of details have to still yet be worked out and there'll be a lot of engagement in doing that I'd like to do I'd like to make that motion on the condition as well that recommendation number one that the oversight committee be established I have a motion and a second to endorse the downtown streetscape master plan with the condition that the council establish an oversight committee do I have comments and then we do want to hear from our public because I know we have at least one person who wants input so councilmember James then councilmember Stevens then beard thank you customer Gordon my question has to go back to that the further stakeholder involvement and if we adopt this to move forward and we create the oversight committee what role who's going to play that role in that direct mail in that feedback from those directly affected vice mayor has a comment about that councilmembers I would think that with the in just imagining that your question forward that the projects that are identified in the list that that specific the specific activities that you're describing as a for example those would be activities that would be included in the project schedule deliberately intentionally and that's one of the things that the oversight committee can then ensure accountability on that's how we would go up that's how we would proceed in engaging those activities that confirm that feedback that and the engagement that you're describing okay we do get it intentionally we get it on the project schedule okay thank you councilmember Stevens councilmember grade is your motion include the implementation plan that's on page 69 yes so you're for adopting the schedule of implementation which they have proposed yeah again dr. Stevens I think you know it was it was a fellow named Eisenhower that said plans are made so they can be intelligently changed and as we go through this we will find issues and opportunities that we will or projects that we will find full agreement on unanimity and we may find some projects that we won't and we can't engage for whatever reason but this represents in my view at least a vision document is that a fair statement clear okay yeah I would agree that it's a vision but when you get down to the implementation priorities it changes from a vision to a project and and president Eisenhower also had a plan that or a requirement I'm told that he would not receive from his staff any directions or information unless it was on one page from one piece of paper and we've got now over almost how many pages almost a hundred here of very detailed information and I thought we were going to hear a little bit about the implementation plan when we stopped discussing a while ago and I I'd sort of like to know a little more about that I think it's it's it's good governance to ask that very question you know I think if you look out the crystal ball some of the really big opportunities that we've identified in this plan have all kinds of influences that go beyond our ability to predict and to make plans specific plans for the implementation of those today and those are the ones that we can kind of carve away right now and say no there's a reason that they're called medium to long-range priorities those are the ones that other dominoes have to fall into place and those dominoes are called out in the document a lot of them are having to do with other projects and and things that you're also working on like the Newtown Pike extension is one example on the short term I think everybody can point to a goal because I can't pick up a newspaper or a brochure or can't turn on the television almost without seeing something about this great event that you've got coming in 2010 and that's not the only reason you're doing this that's that's one of the catalysts but it's a great rallying call and I think it's a great goal and frankly a responsible recommendation to say let's try and get because it's not the consultants recommendations those aren't our recommendations that you see up there we guide consensus toward recommendation but that's what we're hearing from the stakeholders that have been involved let's try and get main and vine done let's try and get limestone done and let's convert short and second those are some really tangible goals we've put great study into the feasibility of those goals and are here to tell you that we see no reason that you shouldn't try and accomplish them now that all assumes that you can put the funding in place and that you have consensus amongst yourselves to do it but the ones that that are there and I guess it's the first one two three four five bullets five or six bullets up there are the ones that are really necessary we need to do some traffic studies to acquire permits from the transportation cabinet Kentucky Department of Transportation to to employ some of these recommendations so we we need to get busy and do that and then if we get those permits as we hope to and expect to we'll be able to to move forward toward those implementation priorities I've certainly that's a help thank you and I would support this motion I believe that we recommend to the council that we adopt this plan with the caveat that we appoint an oversight committee of the council well and one of my observations is that almost every one of these implementation steps will need to come before council with funding so the council will have many more opportunities at this I don't disagree but sometimes in isolation we get these things and with the tech price tag on them and there's not much chance to really debate them or to review them or to rearrange them yes councilmember beard and then I have a member of the public thank you again madam chairman I have not had an opportunity to go through this page by page we just got six pages while we were sitting here I don't know how in all good responsibility we can vote and send this to council when we have nothing but a string of assumptions where the money is going to come from how we're going to get in touch with all the stakeholders and on and on and on of the things we're gonna do and that could influence what this plan looks like so I can't support it I'm sorry that's fine now mr. gene williams would like to comment thank you thank you madam councilmembers will you just state your name and address and I'm a three minute okay gene Williams I'm one of the owners of Natasha's Bistro and props gallery on the corner of Main Street in Esplanade and I really just wanted to come to let you know of some activity that's on the street something that's going on and this is really a work in progress so I hope I'm coming back with with updates but this activity on the street is really born out of an urgency and a fear that this won't happen and an urgency that we really want it to happen and we don't represent a group an organization and we're not really official we're really just a group of property owners and merchants and I can just give you a quick profile there's two architects one finance person seven restaurants one theater two comms three retailers and one hair salon and this makes up 17 businesses and the reason there's only 17 businesses on this petition that I'll read for you is I only went to 18 and I am on the street we're getting an overwhelming support for what you're doing so really the reason I'm coming is to just support you if you get into trouble just call us not for money but now wait a minute here but let me read this real brief petition we felt that was the best way to represent ourselves I mean if you can just imagine myself there's Joe Rosenberg there's Barney Miller there's Tommy there's Lucy Sloan we're all here we have over 200 employees just in these 17 businesses and believe it or not most of our customers come from the suburbs so in truth this is representation of Lexington downtown so we simply said we represent a diverse group of downtown merchants professionals and property owners who want to urge our civic leaders to focus their collective energies on the urgent need for continued progress on the downtown revitalization process we strongly urge the immediate implementation of critical elements of streetscape master plan a number of elements will create catalysts for positive changes in downtown and will set the stage for investors entrepreneurs business owners and developers to enhance the downtown environment we urge you to start with the change that has the most impact on us changing downtown streets to two-way traffic we urge you to begin with the most critical of these changes altering main and vine to accommodate two-way traffic the change and a few other streetscape projects will provide the staging for further accelerated accelerated revitalization of downtown and so I would like just to end by saying the real fireworks happen next because the real burden is on us as developers as entrepreneurs as business owners because what happens next is the money we spend on the development of downtown so we would like you to give us the chance to do that thank you thank you very much mr. Williams now we have a motion on the floor to accept the downtown streetscape master plan with the condition that we the council establish an oversight committee will all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed thank you very much I want to thank Mike Webb and the consultants Harold Phil we've been at this for three different meetings and I really appreciate everybody's hard work on this and look forward to moving it on to council thanks so much our next item is the downtown master plan so councilmember to camp move this into committee and we have about 25 minutes to spend on this and I just would like to reiterate with council members this is an adopted element now of the comprehensive plan the Planning Commission did incorporate this into the comprehensive plan but councilmember to camp and I also felt it was very important for the council to take a look at it so do you want to say any words of introduction before we hear from mr. Tate again no I just was wondering I mean although it's been included in the you know the the planning phase of our government whether the downtown master plan I think there was some surprise that one of the more recent proposed developments downtown and we made reference to it yet it had not been approved on this level or on the council level so it was my it was thought of many people that we should get a process going here and that it should be approved in concept you know at least by the planning committee and the council as a whole so that's why I put it in the committee and hopefully we will continue with this process okay thank you very much who would like to go ahead Harold I believe the last time I was here is last spring about seven to kind of give you an update where we were and the reason why I did that was because at that point the Planning Commission had reviewed and approved the comp plan at that time and Paul put in your pocket today I believe it's right after the page 41 the first were the summary of the Planning Commission work session from September 21st 2006 and at that point the Planning Commission reviewed the plan and what they did was they recommended that the plan be approved with the as you can see here it states were Chris King and I reviewed the 16 proposed recommendations and they are listed here and it was the consensus of the Planning Commission and the core principles in a DDA's downtown master plan subject to further review and discussion our principles that the Commission will support as part of the comprehensive plan and I think what part that brought about was some of the things that the DDA board was a little bit concerned one was the one-way versus two-way and the other one being establishing the form-based guidelines as well but what has happened and I think I've informed you all in the past is that the Planning Commission and council both are in the process of approving these principles as we move along one of the things that we talked about you know we talked about creating a parking authority well some of you all weren't on the council at the time but about three years ago we did do further study and recommend to go ahead and create that parking authority which was done we talked about the invest in a pedestrian network we just had a presentation on the streetscape plan we start investigating what we could do with that pedestrian network while Milton Dehoney who is the CEO was here when we started using neighborhood bonding money to start making some of those improvements so what we're doing is we go through and we continue as we move forward looking at these recommendations and doing something with them and some that are things that really you can't approve or disapprove but we are doing increased residential development as you're aware we've added a thousand units over the last three years in downtown so we're moving in that direction maximized density and in our downtown sites we're averaging 55 units per acre downtown versus the three to four acre or four units per acre out in the suburbs create a community center museum site for the history of the East End neighborhood Andrea James with her assistance and with the Lyric Theater they've taken this on themselves to make that the site where that will occur so I think it's going to be one of those things that we're looking at as we continue making progress we should be able to go through and include all these recommendations as we go along but what I hope you remember though is that in the master plan itself there were some key components that were used and approved and that is they looked at each sector downtown Bell Court the downtown core Wilbert Heights because what they were able to do is look at each of these sites and look at what potential density could occur in terms of residential units in terms of retail or whatever and that's a very useful planning tool that the city being planning traffic sanitary sewers whatever uses to look at monitoring the growth of downtown so in the back you have some pretty impressive numbers showing what that growth can do downtown and how we can use as a model to look at doing additional growth in our downtown area we've been working with the infill and redevelopment committee they took a lot of the components out of the master plan and kind of recognize that those are important elements that they need to address not just downtown but pretty much inside the infill redevelopment area as well vice mayor created the entertainment task force and they took a lot of the components from the downtown master plan as well because they saw that as a key role what can be done to help improve the downtown area so that's kind of in a summary where we are at this point it's not a final there's there's no limit in terms of when we'll stop because it's a work in progress and I hope that what we'll do this documents is in its third year I hope you know that we start looking at about 18 months start reviewing it again just like we do to comprehensive plan because a lot's changed since we started this documentation your economy is different we've been very successful downtown we have a lot of businesses that are open you know Natasha's that gene just talked about prime example where they're doubling their space over the summer for new entertainment venues open up in the downtown area so I hope it's something that will continue to review and will continue to update because this is been a great tool to guide us in our redevelopment of downtown councilmembers do you have questions councilmember James Harold I'm looking through my master plan is there any reference in here to height restrictions for downtown developments there was a component is called established form-based guidelines do you know you don't know what page that's on by chance to you tell you in a second it is page 30 thank you is recommendation number two and that was established form-based building guidelines I know the DDA board and I believe correct the Planning Commission both this is a new concept like when I when I would go out to neighborhoods and say established form-based guidelines I get this glaze look over my face you know what is that what are you talking about cities are starting to go in that direction where they start looking at the percentage of building will sit on a block how much frontage along the street that a building should should have so it's a way to start looking at how projects fit within the urban fabric itself so the Planning Commission and the DDA board felt we need some more information on this before we go any farther and one of the components that some cities look at is height as well so these were examples of what has been done in other cities and DC where the consultant is from they have a 15 story high so that's what that's the basis that they were looking at okay so on page 30 where it has core mixed-use and residential our core would be our downtown area yes and these and the numbers that are listed beneath are the recommendations for the master plan they're examples that they that they use for this establishing form-based guideline okay Thank You Harold councilmember beard thank you again madam chairman Harold as you probably have been hearing from me for the last three years are better the item convert all one-way streets to two-way I cannot in all good conscience support that in any way shape or form or any document that has that in it if it was changed to some of because I do believe that we can handle some of them and then we can go to school on that and see how that works and and go forward from there as opposed to a blanket all and I don't know whether you want to I would propose changing that all to some and I could support the document then I got no other problems with it at least the ones that I haven't talked to you about previously you are not the only one who has that issue and that's why in the plan what we stated is that we we stated a phase conversion not doing all at once start looking at some and that's why at y'all requested that we do a preliminary traffic analysis which we did the traffic analysis showed short and second it doesn't matter if it's one way or two way the other ones they did have some issues with and one thing you got to remember when we did that model it didn't take a lot of factors into consideration it didn't take pedestrian movement it didn't take bike trails or stuff like that so it was just a kind of a not a quick and dirty but a fairly quick analysis of what the situation was like and that's why I like in the plan we don't say you know by this year had this done by this year had this converted but we said we should keep it open in terms of as time goes through and we start seeing improvements we start seeing changes like Newtown Pike extension being open or whatever if that opens some venues that allow some of those streets go back to two-way we should do that so that's why I was written the way it was written well the Vine Street for instance I've seen now four or five different iterations of what Vine Street might look at or look like rather and the one-way two-way issue as far as Vine Street is concerned won't necessarily work with some of those iterations so I don't know what we do about that because we haven't settled on any of them but to say all again just bothers me somewhat because I somewhere along the line it's going to be thrown back in our faces well you've approved this and I just don't see doing that at that point if we don't truly believe that's what we want to do and I truly believe that's what I do not want to do and but I don't want to diss the whole plan just because of a one-line item but if I have to well well and if I might add the now the plan we just moved forward the downtown streetscape master plan does say that the when the study was done it was shown that main and vine probably shouldn't be converted to two-way it's in the streetscape plan so I think all of that is certainly for future discussion councilmember blues thank you madam chair Harold I've got a concern that I think arises out of the out of the previous discussion of the streetscape master plan which and it's and it's this I you know with the majority of my colleagues I recommended that we send that plan on to the full to the full council and I do hope that it's a plan that step by step piece by piece it can go forward in some you know in some productive way and yet I worry as I look at the downtown master plan that something can come along and completely throw it out of whack as has happened I think with the downtown master plan and what I wonder is and I'm very pleased that certain certain recommendations in the downtown master plan have you know have already moved forward you mentioned the downtown of the the parking authority the developments in you know in the in the in the East End and so on but I'm wondering why is it why is it that the downtown master plan had no influence whatsoever no bearing on and no relation to what we're faced with now the center point that is to say a project that is it would seem to me as I read the goals of the master plan it has no relation to any of them it has no relationship to the very first recommendation in the in the downtown master plan think of each property in relation to the entire downtown system now it's true though the plan had no force but why did it not have any influence especially since as I understand it major developer of center point said on television a few weeks ago that he he wasn't aware of the downtown master plan had never read it and I'm really concerned about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on plans that can be parametrically set aside much to the detriment in this case of our downtown my reaction to that is that the plan is a tool to redevelop our downtown to develop our downtown but there are other tools as well there's the comprehensive plan there's zoning there's traffic there's the courthouse overlay district there's other components too and one thing that when you do like a small area plan which is kind of like what the downtown master plan is it's not gonna it's not gonna identify and address every issue I'm sure at the point when the center point project was talked about that was probably something that nobody thought would probably occur when this was done four years ago but why is that why in other words if we we have the plan we have the you know downtown development Authority why is it that this plan was not at least somehow in the mix in a real discussion you know what I'm sorry in a real discussion in other words in in some kind of some kind of consideration on the part of those who were working by all accounts completely separately from any public input to bring forward the center point well you know when we were working on the master plan we had a committee steering committee made up of 35 members and the meetings were open to the public we also had smaller groups such as the farmers market group we worked with we had a subcommittee of developers we had a subcommittee of historic components we had a subcommittee of neighborhoods and all those concerns and that everybody brought up is what came back to address the plan so you know one thing you got to realize a master plan like this is not gonna address I mean just by sheer amount of information out there it's not gonna be able to address every need but it's going to try to address as many of those needs as they possibly could and I think that's what the master plan did well you know I guess I guess again what I'm what I'm concerned about is and I realize that you know a master plan can address every right you know every every detail but when there is as you say you know significant public input that went into this plan and now frankly speaking significant public disillusion and despair and pessimism and turning away from you know from from from the entire scene and saying why did we do all of this why were we so involved why were we so committed I think it's been a failure here and I I worry about how going forward as we like to say we're going to avoid another such failure in the future not only with us with this plan which I think has already been damaged but also with the streetscape plan and that's the reason for my questions and and the reason for my concern thank you thank you councilmember to camp you know it's certainly been brought forward because of the new developments going downtown everybody said well look at the master plan well all of a sudden we were looking at the master plan and there was no really kind of approved plan and I think that probably the problem is that it should have never been called a downtown master plan it probably should have been called recommendations to develop a downtown master plan or whatever it may be I mean I think we got the wrong idea or many of us did thinking that it would be more specific as to restrictions for the downtown which the which we felt would create a better downtown and so in in my estimation the frustration has come that when I needed it it wasn't there and and yet I would say if something's entitled a downtown master plan and it should be I just think we put the wrong name to it because it really isn't a downtown master plan it's recommendations for future downtown developments only recommendations and I hope that we can take this and take it a step further where we can I mean obviously you can't put everything in a master plan that's going to happen but you can put I think some stronger elements in there which do make create some control on future development of the downtown which we feel as a city is going to create a better downtown than we have now and so I just think that the names are wrong you know and I think you know and an effort was made by the people who put it together because they've done university things they've done other things for us and I think they're familiar with the city but you know my disappointment as a council person came when I had had really a chance to use it and when I wanted to use it it wasn't there and so I I think we just have to take another step and maybe explain exactly what we meant by a downtown master plan and then it's create a process by which we can take it a step further I would like to make an observation ask maybe Chris King to comment on it though one of the zone change hearings which we received we received the packet either last week I guess it had to be for last week our first week back and it did refer to the fact that this followed the downtown master plan so from my perception given that the downtown master plan is being used as a document by which to guide zone change hearing zone changes etc so I guess I'd like to hear maybe a comment from our planning folks about that I mean I think you are using it as a a document on which to rely and Chris King welcome I was going to welcome you to make any comment you'd like but I also have this question I was perfectly happy to sit in the back I can tell you that first thing I think we need to be careful when we comment on any you have a case that you're going to hear tonight the one you're referring to so we probably better just not talk about that at all but in general context we are using the recommendations of the plan as they were adopted into the plan the information in the plan to help inform our decisions on recommendations there's no doubt about that but I think it's important to understand is as councilmember to camp has already said this is a different kind of a document it's a different kind of plan and it's not going to be the kind of document and the kind of interpretation where you like the old days you went to the map if it was that color it was okay if it wasn't that color it wasn't okay we're more sophisticated than that now it's harder frankly it is and and it involves a lot more give-and-take it involves a lot more interpretation and and in that regard it probably suggests that we need different processes perhaps the kind of planning that we do now the processes don't meet well and I think if anything has come out of this I think it's clear probably from everybody's point of view that when this process on center point has played itself out which is still ongoing frankly we we have the appeals coming to the Planning Commission in September so again I don't want to get overly involved in that because we're in a quasi judicial role on those appeals as well but I think it is clear that that a thorough and exhaustive discussion of what worked what didn't and what might work better is something this community owes itself as soon as it can do so after the dust settled a little bit what is that something a process that would be coming through your office or how how would how would that be accomplished I don't know you the Planning Commission and others in the community I think will certainly want to contribute greatly to to that effort I would just strongly suggest that it does need to happen it would probably be wise to have it be a coordinated type of thing rather than individual bodies and groups having those conversations well I would agree and I guess I I do have a question going back to something that councilmember beard or councilmember to camp referred to and that is the height question is anyone anywhere in Fayette County looking at height or is that totally off the table it it can't really be off the table it is a part of the zoning ordinance inherently and you as a council there are two bodies that basically can initiate a process to review that that you and the Planning Commission I mean that's just a fact of law that you can initiate a text the change of the downtown zones to either leave it as it is which has no height limitations in two of the three downtown zones or impose other types of limitations well councilmember beard mentioned changing the downtown master plan but since the Planning Commission has at least in concept accepted it how would a change come forward other than a text amendment that's really the only way you can really effectively change processes or the restrictions and remember what happened when just at the time the the plan was being adopted this same idea got some resident residents through the infill and redevelopment task force process so rather than moving forward just in the downtown there was conversation at a bigger and wider level extended through those recommendations even to the ends of the urban service area so right now we are taking all of those recommendations coalescing them into a manageable number of projects coming back to the infill and redevelopment steering committee to get their okay in reviewing those as which projects are priority and this whole form-based discussion changing land use and changing those things was clearly one of the highest priorities recommended out of those task forces and therefore will be a process that we assume will proceed forward at a staff level and and above is it your sense that the that this committee should weigh in on this master plan at this point in terms of any kind of support or I mean at this point it seems kind of after the fact I think that's your prerogative certainly to comment as a council I would only point out and I'm not the attorney you do not adopt the comprehensive plan that's right that that is a fact of Kentucky law it is the Planning Commission the citizen body that is charged with that and has that authority you of the ultimate trump card in that you adopt the regulations you adopt the ordinances so again that's part of that checks and balances that we have within our system here in Kentucky so if the council through this I think the vice mayor intends to form a task force to address some of these issues so if the council felt strongly about something such as height specifications it could go that route through a text amendment absolutely at any time okay thanks so much Chris councilmember beard thank you again Harold you know that as you as you know and will remember I was at many of those meetings myself I think where my disappointment lay as far as the process was concerned was that air sink growth even though they heard varying opinions about certain elements of this it was their story and they were sticking to it and they would come back and there would be no change whatsoever and one specific one I think I remember quite quite clearly was the conversion of all surface parking lots to some type of primarily mixed-use but some type of buildings including the American founders parking lot which probably at that time it was first security parking lot and I had more involvement with that than American founders anyway and then Tim was chairman of the committee and he looked over and saw his parking lot at election Herald later was a building on it also and there seemed to be no reasonableness or give in the input that we got we gave to air st. grows it was their story they were sticking to it and that's the way they did it in Washington and of course Washington is not Lexington Kentucky neither might I say are the cities that were mentioned by the previous consultant San Francisco and st. Louis and Chicago they are not Lexington Kentucky by a long shot and 55 million dollars in that case might not mean as much to them as it does to us it's a pretty large number to just swallow I just wanted to the rest of the group to maybe some of which were not at that meet those meetings to know a little bit about how that process seemed to work and that I guess I'll surrender at that point thank you thank you very much and our planning team back there thank you very much we really appreciate it councilmembers we need to flip over to the very back page of the packet and I thought maybe we could go down through here quickly in the last 10 minutes and look at these issues that are outstanding in committee and see if there are any of these that have already been attended to we've agreed to see the Liberty Road and the Loudon Avenue in writing with updates and we're having Newtown Pike updates regularly councilmember Stennett you have the tax increment financing in committee do you want to keep that in committee or do you think it's going to come in another way I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure it's going to come another way so I'll make a motion to remove that from this committee okay all right a motion in a second to remove tiff financing from committee all those in favor say aye anybody opposed all right thank you and buffering in the ED zone is still being worked on development plan adherence we'll keep in committee now councilmember James the land bank is that the same issue that's coming to budget and finance or is this a different issue I don't know what issue you're talking about to budget and finance the motion you made last week no the trust fund that's different different that's the task force trust fund Harold is here Harold do you have any information on land bank I know that you had been working on some component of that and maybe it's just the contact person that we need to to check on this is something that could come forward if we're hoping to bring back a final product for you all in the next in September okay September October something like okay very good who's working with that you on that Harold Paula Chris King and myself have been working on that okay thank you okay thank you student housing issues is in a task force social services report I believe we will be having up that come forward soon fence regulations needs to be heard mobile home trailer park quality of life do we we may have something coming forward I spoke with you briefly about the relocation ordinance that will come forward that came from the build meeting and there's a group working on that so I'd say within the next couple of months we'll have an update on that okay yeah what about the Eastern State Hospital site plan is that something that needs to be in our committee I would make the suggestion at this point to take it out of committee I move to remove the Eastern State Hospital site plan from the planning committee doing okay we have a motion in a second to remove Eastern State Hospital plan all those in favor say aye any opposed constructed wetlands vice mayor gray is your issue still in committee do you want to move to remove it would you do so please I move to remove constructed wetlands thank you we have a motion in a second to remove constructed wetlands all those in favor say aye anyone opposed infill and redevelopment committee recommendations councilmember to camp has left tree protection ordinance is something coming forward councilmember James on that we are working on something for that okay streetscape I imagine once the council has moved on that we can take that out and the downtown master plan let's keep moving on down these are all fairly new recommendations so they'll stay in the committee now council members I put out a memo to you what I'm thinking and you may or may not agree with me on this is that it might behoove us to have an extra meeting I know that that's not anybody's favorite choice but if we could have an extra meeting for or even two in the next two to three months for the planning committee we could clear out our list of issues outstanding and it seems that every issue in planning is a long involved one so on the memo I had suggested September 9th which is no longer a possibility because it's my understanding that council will be getting a legislative briefing and September 18th is not a possibility because I understand that the planning commission is having a public hearing on center point so I'd like for you to consider and maybe you can give me your input September 11th from 5 to 6 30 p.m. would be right before a council meeting when we could attend to a couple of our issues 5 o'clock to 630 September 11th what do you think about that and then the other possibility okay councilmember Ellinger do you have a Tuesday you could recommend in September the other possibility is Tuesday October 7th from 11 to 1 and I'm thinking if you would be willing to have two extra meetings one in September and one in October we could clear this out some September well councilmember Ellinger suggested we not have it on September 11th but that we have it on a Tuesday in September do I hear a suggestion what about October the 7th from 11 to 1 p.m. I see a lot of head-shaking yes and so on the 23rd quarters is 1130 so there's a suggestion to go at 10 o'clock or 1030 in the morning is that what you're thinking which one 10 to 1130 till quarters what date was it do you all want to we need to look for a sooner one than October I think we might could ask quarters to move what would everyone think of a longer meeting on the 23rd of September instead of starting at 1 perhaps starting at 1130 if the chair of quarters would be willing to switch his quarters date dr. Stevens we're looking at having some extra time for planning committee to dispense with some of our issues and the suggestion was made for September 23rd not to put you on the public spot but if quarters were willing to move to a different time we could start planning at say 1130 I think the next Carter's meeting is scheduled for September 18th is that right Paul that's a Thursday when is the next quarters meeting September 23rd we well we can see about that we only have two people on two council people now attend and one of them is not on this committee okay very good all right well we'll all work on that with dr. Stevens and bring back some information to the committee how you can do on 23rd if you want whatever the committee wants all right council members does 1130 or 11 o'clock sound better on the 23rd let's do 1111 okay I hear sentiment for 11 o'clock September 23rd do I hear motion second all right those in favor of having an extended meeting on September 23rd from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. for planning say aye any opposed thank you very much I really appreciate your help meeting is adjourned