The ¶¶ Thank you. I was not given the presentation to look over, so I have not, my name is next to this, but I did not have a chance to have my input in this item, so I will be making some comments afterwards, but I just wanted to make that clear. And then I wanted to thank Mr. Brock for all of his hard work on this item, as well as Global Lex and the administration for including it in the budget. This is a huge progress. So I just want to say thank you to all of you who worked on this item. Thank you. Good afternoon. For those of you all who don't know me, my name is Nick Brock. I'm the Digital Content Administrator for the City of Lexington, which is a fancy way of saying I manage the website. And so today I'm here to talk to you all about the translation feature that we worked on getting added to the website. So a little bit of background about the website and translation on the website is in 2016 when we relaunched LexingtonKY.gov, we launched it with the Google Translate feature. Unfortunately, in 2018, Google stopped supporting that module, and so it became a security risk, and our vendors who do the coding and maintain the code base for the website recommend we remove it. And what their solution was was to have the website just be translated by browsers and by mobile devices. So when people selected their languages on their browser or their mobile device, they would automatically translate into that language. However, we were missing people who, A, were using public devices, and so they couldn't set their default language, and we were missing people who may have older devices or older browsers that may not know how to update them. So, we got together, Council Member Reynolds, CAO Hamilton, and Isabel Taylor, Director of Global Lex, to have a meeting to talk about how we can improve that. And so, from this meeting, it was determined that we needed the support of an actual translation feature on the website. And so, we engaged with our vendor, Apex, to get a quote for the translation feature. uh the quote was then received when we received the quote we sent it to the cao and to council member reynolds and the rest of council and the mayor's office and also during this time we reached out to global lex let's call 3-1-1 and e-9-1-1 to get information about the top languages spoken in lexington and those languages are spanish swahili French, Nepali, Kenyawanda, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Luckily, the translation feature made it into the FY23 budget. And then beginning in September, we started the configuration of the module on the website. So actually getting the translation feature up and going. Also during that time, we did some research around what other cities throughout the country were doing. and kind of picked out the best practices that we saw. So what we noticed was cities around the country were having their top spoken languages as the first languages on the list, followed by all the rest of the languages that they were offering in alphabetical order. So we followed that model when we were designing our translation feature. We also looked at how other people had their translation features appear on the website, and there were a few that we really liked and we stole the best bits from that, but, you know, best practices, we don't call it stealing. So while all of that was happening, we then launched in December of 2022. We quietly launched the feature the first weekend in December, and a reason why we tend to not make big announcements about features is we want to make sure that they're tested by users quietly we want to make sure it's the right user experience we're looking for feedback from people and we also use this time to see if it's broken anything else on the website because when you put new things out on the website even if it may not have anything to do with you know an X part of the website it could still have something that breaks so after a a couple months of that testing um we're hoping you know we're going to make some posts about it on social media and get it out there more also in december after it went live we made the announcement in the weekly cao report i think that went out the first or second week of december so before some of of you all were on council, it went out that way. So a little bit about how it works. We have 81 languages that can be translated into the website with the potential for more. You can access the translation button from anywhere on Lexingtonky.gov. So if you Google something and it takes you to an interior page on the website, you will still have access to translation and you can translate it into any of the 81 languages. One of the downsides of the translation feature though is that it does not translate pdfs and so we've been working with departments and divisions throughout city government to take any information that could be key that lives in pdfs and put it on a web page somewhere that way it can be translated and then to use it it's pretty simple either from a desktop or a mobile device you click or tap the translation button scroll through the language list click or tap the language that you want to use and the website will translate to that language for 24 hours and this is done through a cookie system that was that set up through the technology that we have implemented and then the next day it'll revert back to english so i'll do a quick little demonstration of how this works. So here's Lexingtonky.gov in our Google Chrome browser. We've got our translate button right there. Click translate. As you see, the top languages are right there. Unfortunately, one of the top languages isn't available through our module, so we had to leave that one out. And then from here, you can see we've got the rest of the 81 languages. And so to use it, like I said, you just click the Spanish button. Will you Spanish in this instant? It automatically translates the page, and then you can navigate through to any page on the website. click on a new story it translates that new story and it stays this way until the next day or just by clicking the translate button again and clicking English and it can go back. So moving forward we've got a couple different things that will happen. We're in the middle of adding analytics to the language, to the translate button. That way we know how many people are clicking through, and we'll also be able to see which languages they click into. So that would be really helpful in knowing, you know, who we need to target with some marketing or anything like that. Also, we hope to get more languages added. We do have a barrier, and as I understand it from our vendors, we need people who speak the language to do the programming for that language to be added into the module. So, for instance, if someone speaks Dutch, then that coder, if we want Dutch on the website, the coder who programs it needs to program it in Dutch. and then it will get uploaded to the module and then we'll have to run an update just like you do on an app. And then we'll have Dutch added to our list. So with that, I'll open the floor to any questions. Thank you, Mr. Brock. Any questions from the committee? You are signed up. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Nick. This is an immense amount of work and I appreciate it and I think it's a great resource for our community. I don't speak any other languages so I'm not very knowledgeable about this but is it a problem that the button that says translate is in English and if you're coming here to try to use it that you're using it like is that the best is that what people do another site because i've seen sometimes like little flags or something like that that's like a visual cue that what has been the advice on that part what we've seen around the country and what other local governments are doing it's mostly just a translate like the words there's a few that do have the flags and uh... we can implement that if know we want to spend the time doing that and i'm happy to do it so thank you you're welcome thank you chair thank you uh vice mayor wu hi uh thank you brock for for this work and this is uh certainly an effort that's really important to me as well so i have two questions and actually now three following up on councilmember sheehan's question um in the course of my campaign my campaign website was translated, unfortunately, by Google, but this was the best we can do into the top nine spoken languages. And I had a word that said translate, and I had little tiny flags, those top nine flags. So I think any sort of visual cue would certainly be helpful. In terms of, you mentioned one language that wasn't available. Was that Kenyarwanda? Yes. I assume? Okay. What, how do we make that happen? I can talk to our programmers with Apex and see how we can make that happen. Like I said, to my understanding, it would take someone who speaks Kenyan Warren to actually program that language, or at least someone who's fluent in it. So I can look into it and get back to you all. Okay. I think that would be great. And then when you talk about adding analytics, we're talking about the amount of traffic, many times people are clicking to certain languages? Yes. Is that correct? Do you have any of that right now? No. I was actually demoed how it's going to work this past Friday. And so I'm hoping by this Friday it'll be launched in a part of the website and I can start running numbers moving forward. And have we done any sort of outreach to these English language learner communities to let them know that this functionality exists now? Not yet. Not me personally. I know that Global Lex has used it as a resource with the different communities and populations that they work with, but outside of that, no. Thank you, Ms. Brock. You're welcome. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Legree. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Nick. What a great step forward in terms of access, and thanks for all of your work to make this happen. And thank you, Council Member Reynolds, for being a key part of moving this forward. I just had a follow-up question about analytics. Vice Mayor Wu just asked a little bit about that. But I was just wondering what all data will be tracked and then also if we are able to see where our users are, not only in the city but in the world, just in general. Yeah, so through analytics we can see where they're coming from in the world. I don't think we can get as granular as different districts of the city. but we can definitely see which languages they are clicking through, how many times they're being clicked, and on what pages they're being clicked on. So we can get pretty granular in that respect. Okay, that's really helpful. I would be curious to see as we're able to gather more data a little bit more about what pages people are using and what languages. And I think this is a great step, so thank you. I agree, yeah. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much once again, Mr. Brock, for doing this and working with us. I think that the site overall works really well. The only other language I know in Spanish, it translates and reads very, very, very smoothly. And so I'm really grateful for it. And I know we've been working on this since COVID, saying we want to get emergency information out to people. how do we do that and now we just had this storm and we want might want to get information out how do we do that and I think this is going to be a wonderful resource so I'm very very happy about it and with it I would like to echo my colleagues concern for the word translate I did do some research on what some national even governmental websites are doing and things like that in world health and a lot of them have like a little globe that's at the top and instead of using the word translate they use the word language because that's more recognizable so I was just wondering if there was a way to change the word to language and then put just a little insignia of a globe next to it yeah we could sure do that that's easy we can make it say you know that word can be whatever we want it to be and I think if that's the route we want to go absolutely we can add the little icon and add the language that would be great thank you so much did I see is is Arabic on there yes it is okay I didn't see it in the first group but I might have missed it okay well thank you once again I think this is a big step in the right direction and I see CAO Hamilton and I want to thank her too because she really helped get money in the budget for this as well so thank you thank you all thank you mr. Brock y'all have a great day Absolutely, and thank you, Councilman Reynolds, for highlighting that for the committee and for your work. Next, with our amended agenda, will be a vacation leave balance increase proposal for someone from Human Resources here. Come on up. Thank you. I'm Eric Howard, Deputy Director of Human Resources, and I want to present to you this series of slides with a proposal at the end. The agenda is going to cover what our current leave categories are in which employees accrue leave time, the exceptions that were made during the pandemic, where we are currently, and how we compare to some other state and local entities or agencies, and then what our proposal will be. We have four major leave categories for classified and unclassified civil service employees. Those are vacation, sick, holiday, and comp time or compensatory time. And all of these are outlined in the code of ordinances, but I'm going to give you just a little bit of detail about these in this slide. The way leave is accrued and banked. Sick leave is accrued at 10 hours per month for every fully completed month of service. And then, of course, employees are paid out for any accrued leave once it's above 600 hours in January of each year. Holiday leave is earned a variety of ways. The first is employees are provided two swing holidays each year in January. Those can be used at the employee's discretion. They select when they want to use these swing holidays. The other way, the second bullet covers holiday hours, all of the holidays that LFUCG schedules and recognizes are based on that schedule. And then employees are granted those holiday hours as they take that holiday time off. And then finally, employees may carry over 80 hours of holiday each year with a cutback being performed at the end of the pay period in which December 31st falls. And lastly, on this slide, excuse me, is compensatory time, which is granted to exempt employees who earn one hour for each hour worked over 40 hours in a week. And employees may accrue and continually carry a maximum of 120 hours. And just for the record, that number was increased from 80 hours in February of 2021 to 120. So what we're talking about today is vacation leave. And based on the code of ordinances, section 21 for classified civil service employees, all full-time classified civil service employees earn 10 hours of vacation leave per month for their first 10 years of service. And once they've reached that point, then they accrue 14 hours of vacation leave per month. Full-time unclassified civil service employees are afforded that same benefit under the ordinances in Chapter 22. Per this same section, employees are allowed to carry over 168 vacation hours each calendar year. And that cutback is performed at the end of the pay period in which December 31st falls as well. The exceptions that were made during the pandemic essentially granted the extension of the cutback. So there were ordinances created different years by the council to approve employees the opportunity to carry over all accrued vacation hours. So first, December 31st, what should have been cut back December 31st, 2020 was extended to December 31st, 2021. In 2021, an ordinance was passed to create the extension of cutback to December 31st, 2022. And then again, an extension was created and scheduled so that cutbacks that should have taking place December 31st 2022 will take place December 31st this year 2023. The council also approved an ordinance that provided employees the opportunity to carry over all accrued holiday hours for 2021 and 2022 with one ordinance that extended the cutback from December 31st 2021 to December 31st 2023. So this is where we are today with 1,439 full-time classified and unclassified civil service employees. We have 902 of those employees earning 10 hours per month right now. And we have 537 earning 14 hours per month. current leave balances based on that information with the caveat that employees are currently still earning leave balances each month. Employees will continue to accrue vacation leave and considering the employees who have been employed for at least 18 months we currently have 342 employees, 28%, with the following balances as of January 26th. I don't know that you want me to read it to you but the range is anywhere 15 employees with over 600 hours of vacation leave down to 196 with 200 to 299 hours of vacation leave so that's the breakdown for comparison we looked at what some other local government agencies are doing in Louisville Greensboro North Carolina and Knoxville Tennessee as well as the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And as you can see in the table, their vacation carryover varies to some degree. It depends on the length of service. And I guess I should add, there's an asterisk there that says that any entity that used or measured carryover in days, we convert it to hours just because it matches our system. So for the purposes of this table, looking at what each of these agencies does. You'll see that it varies from 240 hours up to 560 hours depending on the agency that employees are allowed to carry over. The payout can be different depending on the agency as well. That's what's shown in the notes. So So with that, our proposal is to let you know first that we're comfortable with what we do and where we stand with regard to policies for sick, holiday, and compensatory time. We're not proposing any changes to the carryovers that are currently in place for those leave accruals. What we do propose is to increase vacation leave carryover from 168 hours to 336 hours and to cap vacation leave payouts upon separation at 336 hours. This proposal allows any employee who separates prior to December 31, 2023 to receive payment for all accumulated vacation per the code of ordinances. It also allows that all employees would be cut back to 336 hours at the end of the pay period in which December 31st, 2023 falls. And finally, employees would then continue to accrue vacation leave at their normal rates going forward and would receive payment for up to 336 hours of a vacation leave upon separation. So that's different than what we currently do, and it's up for your consideration to move forward as a proposal. Are there any questions? Thank you, Mr. Howard. Council members, I'm sure we have some questions. Council member Plumman. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I just had a question. What was the impetus for this? Was it an awareness that other cities were doing this more generously? Or was there someone that came to you about this? I just wondered where it came from. To be honest, I don't know my assumption of Director Maxwell. I'm locked in my mind. Director Walters and Kasheen Wayne were our benefits manager. Sorry. I can tell you why this all came up. We were worried about two things. One, what was going to be the cost of our payouts at the end of this year because we knew these vacation leaves had really accumulated. And they had accumulated for a very good reason. When we came to you at Council before, people in that 20, they weren't taking any leave because there was no, I mean, you couldn't go anywhere. And as the years went up, as 21 and 22 happened, we lost so much staff that the staff that we had on really couldn't take all this vacation. And they just didn't have the time. We needed them too much. So it accumulated at such a big rate that we said, you know, we better start to really look at this now. And so for the last month, we've been looking at it and to see, number one, how much money we possibly may have to pay out at the end. But our problem was, when you look at how many people are carrying these big balances, they can leave. they would get more money if they left rather than capping it at 336. So we wanted to come to some kind of middle ground to either, you know, at least come up to 336 to help. Because, and I'm going to make it real clear here, I'm one of these people. And I don't want to, I want to make sure I got to talk in the way I feel and not about myself. so I'm not going to take any of this regardless of however we decide. But this is worth a lot of money to those people that are up there at those high levels. And, you know, we've asked to run some figures of, wonder if we just took all those people where they are now and paid them out to the top cap, to $336,000. You know, because they earned it. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, they earned it. That's about $2 million. I think I'm saying that right. That's about $2 million. But we have to do, if we came back to $168, which everybody else is higher than we are, we really are going to mess over a lot of people. Good. Thank you. Glad we did this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. CIO. CAO, I'm sorry. Just to make sure that I understand. So we have 68 employees currently with 10 plus weeks of vacation. And we're saying if we had done a payout currently, that only up to 336 hours is what you said would be the $2 million. Is that what that number is? Yes. Every year I have the authority to say to somebody, you can carry over more than 168. I've only done it twice in 10 years. Okay. Because once I started, I'm a dead duck. So I don't do it. Okay, and then we are saying that those individuals who have more than 336 hours have until the end of the year to take it? If you go out right at the end of the year, before December 31st, we're going to pay you for everything you've got on the books. If you've got 600 hours, that's it, because otherwise we'd be changing the rules in the middle of the game. What we're saying is after that, you can only earn up to $336,000. Okay. Thank you. And then looking at the comparative entities, do the other cities that we're comparing to, do they offer the same types of benefit packages for sick and holiday and all that kind of jazz? We felt that there is a tremendous difference in our sick leave policy that we have versus other places. They don't have that. And so that's why we didn't touch the sick leave because, you know, we pay out after 600 hours on sick leave every January. So that is not seen anywhere else. There are rollover provisions and everybody has a different way to do it. But we felt our sick leave policy was really quite good on the payout. Our holiday is good and the comp time we raised from 80 to 120 before. So that was all good. it's this one we thought was out of kilter. Okay. Yes, it looks like we are very generous in all of our policies. And then real quick, just for everyone's knowledge, and especially the public, compensor, compens, compens, I can't even say the word. Thank you, that word, comp time. That's C word. Yeah, the C word. Can you give me an example of an employee, like how they would earn that time? Okay. We have, you know, exempt employees and non-exempt. and i get my words wrong the exempt employees don't get it they're exempt from overtime okay so an employee that's not ex that can get comp time they're working their eight hours let me let me go to somebody that's over in the streets and roads or we have them all the time so like look at this what just happened to us all those guys that are out there they're they are going to to be on comp time. They're out over if they're not being paid overtime. Most of those guys, I take that back, were paid overtime. Rob Allen would be comp time. The rest of them are overtime. Okay. So let's just use the example of commissioners or directors that stay late for council meeting. They're going to get comp time, but they're going to have to stay regardless. They're going to pay more. Okay. I'm not worried about them. They're I'm not by concern. I'm just making sure I understand. It's those other people. Okay. All right. I think that's all I have for now. Thank you, Chair. Thank you all. Thank you, Council Member Baxter. Council Member Legree? Thank you, Chair. I know that we're not talking about sick time necessarily right now, but I just was curious about, you know, on our final slide when we were talking about the overall proposal, And we're talking about the fact that if an employee separates, they can get paid out for, based on this proposal, up to 336 hours of vacation leave upon separation. Are they paid out for any sick leave upon separation? I'm going to ask, yes, and I'm going to ask once I make my statement for him to really explain. For instance, if I went out, I could get paid for all my sick leave regardless any time because I have in my retirement 15 years. 15 years. So I can get paid if I'm taking that retirement. Also, if you're going to Social Security, now I'm going to really get out of my lane. Tell them. I don't remember the exact wording in the handbook either, but if you have a certain number of years of service and you're at a certain age, you can receive the sick payout even if you're not retiring. Okay. Well, you would be retiring, but you're not really, I'm sorry, say that again. Yes. It's based on years of service. Yeah, it's after so many years of service and a particular age. Am I saying that right, Christine? No? Benefits manager, Kasheen Wayne. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Wayne. Good afternoon. So at the point of retirement, you can be paid out for sick time, but that's based on your years of service or your time. You can also have a social security retirement, which is 65 years of age. And you can be paid out for your sick time at that time as well. But if you just separate, if you resign or whatever, you cannot be paid out for your sick time. That was my question. So that was helpful because that provided multiple multiple contexts for how that question could be answered. Now, just to clarify though, what it said here is that all employees who have above 600 hours each January of sick time are then paid out for that extra sick time. So that's accurate, but your separation could play out via the various scenarios that you shared. And are they paid out for their sick time in January at the same rate as their employment rate or how they would be paid out for a vacation? Yes, same rate. Okay, thank you. That's it, Chair. Thank you so much for those answers. It's really helpful. Thank you, and I have a few questions that I want to make sure I have clarification of how this is working and make sure that I'm correctly stating why the administration's wanting to do this. But I want to first say, so this item, like most items related to these policies, could have just been blue-sheeted, put on our regular work session packets, and gone through the process without this sort of presentation. And so I really want to thank the administration who came to me as the chair and asked to be put in committee so that there would be an opportunity not only for us to ask questions, but for our employees to hear this presentation and have an opportunity to get their questions. answered as well. So to give a little bit more air to this, because am I correct in that this is, while we're increasing time, this is going back to a previous policy of cutback at the end of the year that was in place prior to the pandemic. Is that correct? Yes. So this is not a new cutback. This is not something new for the employees. This is just going back to the way things were previously done. That's right. If we don't make, if this proposal isn't carried out, then we would cut back to 168 hours. And so the previous ordinance had delayed the cutbacks until the end of this year. So the cutbacks would start back again at the end of this year anyway, but then this proposal is to cut back only to 336 as opposed to 168. Is that correct? Okay. And then for those who may not have the time of service in, they can have the opportunity to accrue up to the 336 moving forward. And then I think this was answered, but to any employee that chooses to separate from the government, from their service here, they still will be paid out all of the time that they've accrued before the end of this year, this change notwithstanding. That's right. Okay. And then again, just for the, I think for everybody's benefit of why this is coming forward and the policy reasons to do this, it might understand that if there is no change, then the continuing unlimited accrual would be an unknown and unbudgetable, difficult to budget liability for the government. Is that fair to say? That's correct. And then the current, as it is, if not addressed, could be an unmanageable budget situation for the government. And what we were trying to do was to come to some kind of middle ground between worrying about a budget and worrying about those people. Because the ideal situation is they'd like to be paid out what they are owed, how much vacation they have right now, and then start afresh. But as I said, we were just trying to come to the middle. Thank you. And then just for my own benefits, I appreciate Councilmember Baxter's comments about when employees have to stay late for meetings, because it does highlight a reason that we try to keep these meetings as efficient as possible. There is a cost to the public for us to be here. And you think little things, even hours of our employees that are sitting here waiting to answer our questions. So, as you all know, this was put on this agenda last week at the request of the administration to move this forward quickly, so that if this ordinance change does go into place, employees have opportunity to make their plans accordingly. So, with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the proposal of the administration related to vacation accrual. If a motion is second, is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. And then we'd ask the administration, is there any reason that this would need to be moved forward out of committee today, or can it wait the normal course? I really think it can wait its normal course as long as the employees are hearing that they need to start thinking about their vacations. And we will put out an email saying that this is the proposal that we have that's in committee and start to do that, to think about things. Now, if you would, it would be even better if we could just move it forward. Is that okay? Thank you. Sometimes I'm just a little dense about this. Yes, we would appreciate it. Thank you. You can still report out. We can put it on as a report out. Typically, if it went through the normal process, it would be in May. But we have had motions where we can do it earlier. Okay, thank you. I mean, without a motion, where would we be? And I'm sorry I wasn't on the mic there. So that being back to the administrator, or Ms. C.O. Hamilton, I think you would like to go ahead and move this. I certainly would, and thank you. All right. Chair would entertain a motion to have this reported out today. Second. There's a motion to second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes, thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Howard. Our next item on the agenda is the short term rentals ordinance that council member James Brown and council member Sheehan have been working on. Council member James Brown, this is your item in committee, would you care to introduce it? Thank you, Chair. And I'd like to start off by saying that we've been working on this item for quite a while, myself and Councilmember Sheehan. And I'd just like to thank our internal group, our council aides, our council staff, the law department, revenue and planning. And also our stakeholder group. We've had a stakeholder group made up of operators and neighbors that have helped us have conversations and think about this policy as we move it forward. I will reiterate that this is one of the early steps that we're taking to address this issue. Hopefully we can, if this committee so approves, we can move it out of committee today. It still has to go to the council. work session, council meeting for first and second reading in the form of a resolution to go to the planning commission for the ZODA. And then our intent would be to table the code of ordinance piece of it that would make, that applies to revenue to hopefully address both of those at the same time going forward. So we're going to continue to take feedback and input on this. We look forward to hearing from the committee members today. And then And Councilmember Sheehan, you got some comments in regards before we turn it over to Kendra? Sure. I also want to extend my thanks to everyone for their participation and input as we have moved through this process. Councilmember James Brown and our internal working group have been going through every piece of feedback that we have received through phone calls and emails and meetings and the special committee that we had in November. So the draft proposals that have been brought forward today are really a reflection of the balance that we have tried to seek by considering the perspectives of neighborhoods in our residential areas. I know for my district, there are neighborhoods that have concerns about short-term rentals, particularly when they have had a bad experience. But it also brings in the perspective of operators in our community that have been responsible and frankly, our neighbors too and our business owners in the community. So they take their role very seriously. So we have really tried to look for the most consistent feedback coming from either side, work to incorporate points to protect our residential areas and preserve our neighborhoods while allowing for respectful short-term rentals to operate. So I am confident that we have produced a balanced, common-sense approach in the drafts that are before you today, but I'm interested to hear everyone's feedback and excited to hear Kendra's presentation. So thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Some of you might remember previous conversations we've had regarding short-term rentals. Most recently, we held a special Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting on November 29, 2022 for the purpose of hearing feedback on a draft ordinance for short-term rentals. We also heard feedback on a draft zoning ordinance, which was the missing component from our efforts in 2019. Based on this feedback, we revised the two ordinances. Today, I will present highlights from these ordinances and point out changes to address some of the concerns. I'll begin with the review of the timeline. The item of short-term rentals was placed in the Planning and Public Safety Committee on June 11, 2019. On February 18, 2020, the committee approved a draft ordinance for short-term rentals and referred it to the full council. Following further amendments, the ordinance was approved in work session on March 10, 2020. The ordinance was scheduled to receive first reading on March 17, 2020. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the impending government shutdown, the item was tabled until council could return to in-person meetings. A work group led by Councilmember James Brown and Councilmember Sheehan began to meet in March of last year to resume these efforts. And again, most recently, we presented a draft ordinance and a draft zoning ordinance in November last year for the purpose of hearing feedback. As you can see here, the internal work group consisted of the two council members, representatives from the law department, Division of Revenue, Division of Planning, and Council staff. The work group brought together local operators of short term rentals as well as representatives from neighborhoods where there is a concentration of short term rentals. Including meetings with stakeholder groups, the LFUCG work group met 15 times between March last year and February this year. Throughout this process, there was open dialogue, which allowed staff to consider feedback in the process of developing regulatory options that will hopefully support responsible short-term rental operators in Lexington while addressing the concerns of neighborhoods. The purpose of this regulation change is to establish short-term rentals as a legal use and to find a process for approval and enforcement. Four key areas of this proposal are fee structure, licensing, enforcement and appeals, and zoning regulations. Any short terminal regulations must be addressed in the code of ordinances and the zoning ordinance. The draft ordinance includes definitions which can be found in section 13-76. You will also find the requirement for owners or operators of short term rentals to have a special fees license. This fee is $200 annually for the first unit and $100 annually for each additional short term rental. The license applicant shall be required to provide information as part of the application process specified in Section 13-77. As part of the enforcement for short term rentals, the Division of Revenue will issue citations with the ability to revoke the license for substantiated violations. Keep in mind the type of enforcement depends on the violation. For instance, code enforcement may issue a citation for a nuisance violation or Lexington Police Department may issue a citation for criminal activity. The Division of Revenue may obtain subpoenas for the administrative hearing board in order to determine whether violations have occurred. A A penalty structure and an appeals process have also been established. We have put in place requirements for the collection and payment of transient room taxes and occupational license fees. Staff is here today from the Division of Revenue and the Law Department to answer any questions you might have about the collection of those taxes and fees. The duties of a licensee section outlines the basic safety standards for short-term rentals. And finally, licensing requirements have been established for online advertising. In the draft zoning ordinance, definitions can be found in Article 1. These definitions match those found in the Code of Ordinances. Regulations were drafted to outline the number of allowable short-term rentals on a property based on zoning category, such as single-family residential, multifamily residential, and business zones. There are two classifications of short term rental. Hosted is a short term rental in which the dwelling unit utilized as the short term rental or another dwelling unit on the subject property is a primary residence. And a primary resident, as defined in the code of ordinances, continues to occupy the property during the short term rental period. This type of short term rental would be allowed as an accessory use. Unhosted is a short term rental in which the primary resident does not occupy the property during the short term rental period. This type of short term rental would be allowed with a conditional use permit from the Board of Adjustment for most zones. These would also be allowed as a principal use in business zones that allow dwelling units and hotels. The maximum occupancy limit for accessory and principal use allows for a maximum of two individuals per bedroom, per bedroom plus an additional four individuals or a total of 12 individuals whichever is less any host or permanent residence of the dwelling unit present during the short terminal period shall count toward maximum occupancy a detached structure may be used as a short terminal only in a permitted detached adu short-term rentals shall not be used for private events in which the number of participants exceeds the maximum occupancy limit to prevent no private events shall occur between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. and special events for a commercial purpose shall be prohibited at all times finally for short-term rentals regulated as conditional uses the Board of Adjustment guidelines for consideration have been established staff is here from the Division of Planning to answer any questions you might have about the zoning ordinance This graphic is meant to provide a visual understanding of the types and number of short terminals allowed by zone as discussed on the previous slide. You can see here that the first column lists the zones where short terminals are allowed. The second and third columns differentiate the use based on whether it is hosted or unhosted. And the fourth column shows the number of short terminals permitted. I want to note here that we added B4, I1, and I2 zones, and these will be allowed as a principal use with no maximum number of units allowed to be utilized as a short-term rental. Additionally, in response to feedback regarding ag-related zones, we are requesting that the Rural Land Management Board review this and come back with a policy recommendation. This chart shows feedback received from operators and neighborhoods regarding the code of ordinances and how we are addressing this. To clarify and better define hosted versus unhosted short-term rentals, the definitions of hosted short-term rental, unhosted short-term rental, and primary residence were changed. This change clarifies that to be a hosted short-term rental, a dwelling unit on the premises would have to be the primary residence of the owner, the operator, or an individual who otherwise consents to be an agent of the owner or operator for the purposes of the short-term rental regulations. To clarify that it won't only be the director of revenue investigating, we have modified section 13-77, adding subsection K to clarify that other divisions will be working with the division of revenue when asked. There will continue to be a process in place for members of the community to submit complaints. There was some concern about providing the owner's contact information, specifically in cases where a property management company is operating the short-term rental. To clarify this, we have modified Section 13-79A so that contact information is required for either the licensee or the operator and will require an emergency contact within 25 miles, if different from the licensee or operator. We have had several requests for a grandfathering clause. To address this, we are offering a six-month exemption period for licensees or operators to get into compliance with the Code of Ordinances. separately the division of planning will treat these unhosted short-term rentals existing at the time the regulation is passed as not requiring a conditional use permit however if the license is revoked after the exemption period they will need to reapply for the license and they would also need to apply for a conditional use permit for those who are facing revocation the licensee may appeal providing evidence to show why the action should not be taken before the license is is revoked. However, once the license is revoked, they must wait one year before reapplying. And overall, we have added greater consistency between the code of ordinances and the zoning ordinance. Similar to the chart on the previous slide, this chart shows feedback received from operators and neighborhoods regarding the zoning ordinance and how we are addressing this. There was some concern about the definition of hosted and unhosted short-term rentals in the zoning ordinance. To clarify this, we added language to the definition which now ties to the definition of a primary resident in the code of ordinances. There was confusion about the allowable zones and the number of units allowed per lot in these zones. So we modified section 3-13b to add B4, I1, and I2 zones and clarified the number of units allowed per lot in each zone. While we were mindful to put an occupancy limit on short-term rentals in our last draft, we realize now that there are ways to get around this limit by putting beds into additional rooms, such as an office or a library. To address this, we modified section 3-13C, so the maximum occupancy is now two individuals per bedroom, plus an additional four individuals, or a total of 12 individuals, whichever is less. To address the concern of special events, we modified section 3-13F to read that short-term rentals shall not be used for private events in which the number of participants exceeds the maximum occupancy limit. No private event shall occur between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., and special events for commercial use shall be prohibited at all times. To address density concerns, we added language in section 3-13G that gives guidance to the Board of Adjustment for considering the number of short term rentals within 1,000 feet rather than in the vicinity in the review of conditional use applications. There was some concern about losing the conditional use on a property when the property sells or transfers. To address this, we modified section 3-13H, removing language that states the conditional use permit shall become null and void upon the sale or transfer of property, which allows the conditional use to transfer with the property as long as the new owner has a special fees license in goods pending. And with that, I'm going to turn this over to Council Member James Brown to review next steps. Thank you, Kendra, for that. We know there's a lot of thoughts and folks that want to weigh in today, and our agenda doesn't have public comments. So today the committee is going to, I guess, ask questions and hopefully move the ball down the field for the next opportunity for public engagement. But to alleviate concerns, we want to point out that this is not a policy that's going to go into effect immediately. When it's approved, when or if it's approved by council, The council initiated zoning ordinance tax amendment will go to the planning commission for consideration. There will be time for public input at the planning commission, public hearing, and throughout this process. Our intent today is to move the code ordinances and the council initiated zone ordinance tax amendment forward to the full council out of committee. since we do not have another committee meeting until may we would like to report the zota out today for work session so the planning commission so the planning commission can begin their review the planning commission will have 90 days to return this to council for the amendment and when it returns to council we will work on a final adoption of the zone text and the revision of the code of ordinances if this committee so chooses so with that chair we'll turn it over to to you for questions. Thank you, Council Member. Council Members, if you'll please log on. First, we have Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. I just need to reiterate that I said back in the fall that as a host, actually super host for the last three years, that I will, I am proud of my 5-0 status. So that I will not be participating and recusing myself. And according to our Council rules i'm not allowed to participate in the discussion either thank you thank you council member council member lynch thank you chair my question is um can you flesh out um if a neighbor or someone wants to make a complaint about about something going on at a short-term rental what does that process look like um what avenues will be available to the public if they desire to make a complaint and kind of what's the chain and how will it be elevated? Councilmember Sheehan, and I'm going to ask Evan or Revenue, somebody from Revenue to come and speak to it, or somebody from our internal working group. So the way we have it presented in the proposed ordinance now, it's up to two substantiated complaints. And when we're talking about substantiated, kind of how we defined it is not just a call into the police or our police department or our code enforcement. They will actually have to come out, write a report or a citation, if it's code enforcement, that doesn't get addressed and gets elevated to the next cycle. So two of those will start the process, and the property owner or the operator can't appeal that before replication. Evan, did I say that sufficiently, or is there something I left out? I think so. I was thinking of formulating my answer, so I wasn't listening all that well. I apologize, but I think you're right, council member. And as to how neighborhoods and neighbors will be able to file complaints, I think that's still in the discussion process. Part of the draft ordinance defers enforcement for six months after it passes, so that's still a discussion piece. But I imagine it would look something similar to how neighborhoods and neighbors can report such things as nuisance problems, I think. But those are all in discussions as it presents out, and there will be more information as it gets closer and closer to enforcement on ways the neighbors can file complaints and move that forward. And just to add to that, we're working and looking at software that could help us to congregate or delineate the complaints to who they need to go to. but we would still ask neighbors to call in those complaints and we would ask revenue to take a look at them and work to substantiate them. Council members, anything else I need to add to that? No, I would just add that any complaint that comes in is going to go to the appropriate division. So some of those would be through our police department if it's a safety concern. Some of those will be code enforcement. Some of those have to do with zoning. So those, the particular divisions or departments would have to review that complaint to substantiate it. So it's going to go through the normal channels. Like somebody could call the police department if it was a safety concern, or you could call 311 to report a complaint, just like we do now. But the technology that we are looking at would make this process more efficient and allow us for better tracking of those complaints as they're coming in. Yeah, I think if we can streamline it, I think that would be very, very helpful to the public, just streamlining that whole complaint process. But that sounds great. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. I have a few questions. I think my first is about the conditional use. I don't know if this is for Director Duncan or whom to say, but when we talk about under certain zones, they will be conditional use. They will have to go before the BOA and ask for conditional use. What criteria are they going to be looking at? So somebody could just say, okay, that one, but not that one. or I know we talked about the 1,000 feet, but so they are supposed, they're allowed to be within 1,000 feet of each other or they're not, or I just don't want it to be too subjective. Sure. The way it's written now is that the board should consider other short-term rentals that are operating within 1,000 feet. It's not a hard distance requirement that there can only be one per 1,000 feet. It's just that they will look at the concentration within that 1,000 feet, see how they're operating, if they're operating, you know, like what their rates of occupancy are, if there have been complaints about the others, if there's sort of a feeling that the character of the neighborhood has changed in some way because of the concentration of short-term rentals that are occurring. The board does have a fairly wide latitude of what they can look at when they're evaluating a conditional use request. So I guess my concern is just that how that's being decided overall. Are there more guidelines beyond that? So there are the typical sort of conditional use guidelines that we look at with every conditional use, making sure that there are appropriate services in the area and that sort of thing, and that a change in the character of the neighborhood will not be brought on by that use. and then there are some additional things that we're building into this zoning ordinance text to encourage the board to look at other things like that 1,000-foot area and the applicant, whether or not they have other short-term rentals and if there have been any complaints related to those and that sort of thing. And so there could be a large uptick in conditional use permit requests now once this goes into effect. It is possible. We are, I think, as Kendra and the council members mentioned, we're looking at the six-month period of time for the licensure process and that any short-term rentals that are currently operating would essentially become non-conforming uses and would not have to go to the board if they are currently operating. The burden of proof is on them to provide to us that they are currently operating sort of under the existing interpretation of what a short-term rental is. So beyond that, any moving forward would have to go to the board. So it's a little bit hard to predict what that number would be, taking into account that hopefully the ones that have been operating will be able to continue to operate. Okay, thank you. And then in the previous draft, there was a lot about inspections and all of that. So can you state how we're going to handle that now? That may be part of the code of ordinances. I'm not sure. so typically with a conditional use those are inspected annually by a zoning enforcement officer to ensure that they are still meeting the conditions of their approval and then also if we receive complaints that they're not meeting those conditions of approval then a zoning enforcement officer would go out and investigate that I think there may be some separate investigation or inspections related to the licensure process okay I see I see Evan There isn't any current inspections required under this licensure program. At the time of applying for the license, they're required to fill out a couple of affidavits basically swearing that the requirements of the ordinance are being fulfilled as to the safety requirements, such as the fire extinguishers, the parts about emergency exit plans, etc. And obviously then if we hear a complaint that maybe that's not the case, then we can take action on that based on the code as it's drafted in your packet. Okay, thank you. And then real quick, currently this does not prohibit HOAs from prohibiting them inside their HOA, correct? That's correct. Okay, thank you. I just want to really thank Council Member Sheehan and James Brown for working on this. It's not easy, and I really like this version much better than the last one. So thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. I'm not entirely sure who to direct this question towards, but I assume somebody from the work group. Do we know how many short-term rentals we have in Lexington? And is this whole process part of this process to maybe help us identify what those numbers are? I'm not sure who to call up for this one. Wes. I think Wes is going to come to address it. Our director of revenue. We don't have an exact number right now, and one of the things that we've been talking about is what types of technology tools, like council members mentioned, that would really help us get a handle on this. Currently, we've had voluntary collection agreements with Airbnb, VRBO, Expedia Group, and they've remitted to us the transient room tax that has been owed, but that's also shielded a lot of the information about short-term rentals that we may have had access to. They're still supposed to be registered businesses, and so some of them may be, but I don't think it's the whole universe of what's out there. And so really getting a tool that's going to help us identify that will probably get us a better number. Thank you. My question is informed by the fact that so much of what the impact of this, either fiscally or in terms of enforcement, is going to depend on what numbers we're talking about. Is it 500? Is it 5,000? Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Legree. Okay, Chair, is Councilmember Savigny, because he's not on this committee, you'd like me to go? Okay, sure, thank you for the opportunity, thank you Councilmember Savigny for getting in line. I have a question about private events and then I want to build on that private event question to talk about unhosted properties. So just for my own clarification, when we're talking about private events and the number 12 as the maximum occupancy, that would be what I see here. Can you talk to me about what would constitute a private event? If someone had a bachelorette shower, would that be a private event? If someone had a dinner with extended family, would that be a private event? Sure. And Director Duncan just reminded me to introduce myself. I'm Autumn Goddard, I'm with the Division of Planning. So yes, private events would include things like a dinner party or a baby shower or a bachelorette, that sort of thing. What we're looking for with the commercial events that would not be allowed would be ticketed events, things like concerts or large parties, that sort of thing. So we're really looking at limiting this to the maximum occupancy so that there is a bit of flexibility that if someone maybe has a small home and they want to have a baby shower or something like that, that they might run a short-term rental. That's something that some of the operators indicated was of interest to them, but we do want to be very cognizant that these aren't becoming sort of party houses or anything like that. So it sounds like with some of this cap, it's about balancing, for example, a neighborhood feel and a gathering of some sort and making sure that if there were a short-term rental where someone wanted to host an event, that they would cap it at a smaller number. and would that be the case for hosted, unhosted, and short-term rentals in any of these zones? The number 12 is the same. Yes. Well, there is a provision for the ones that are regulated as conditional uses that does give the board a little bit of latitude to increase that number or decrease that number. So if it is a hosted short-term rental that's accessory use, we're at that 12, or based on bedrooms, whichever is fewer. If it is a conditional use, the board does have some room to establish a maximum. an alternative number other than 12? Yes. So that was one of my follow up questions. If there were say an unhosted short term rental that already existed and it would be legacies in or grandfathered in as we're saying in this language in the packet, would they be beholden to that same event number standard of 12? How does that work? So when it's a large property. The way that the interpretation has been for short-term rentals, which this has been very hard to enforce, unfortunately, and it's why we're going through this process to hopefully get these licensed and go through a process. But the interpretation is that they are a dwelling unit. And in a dwelling unit, we have a definition of family, and that's limited to four unrelated individuals. So any short-term rentals that are currently operating should not be having any greater than four unrelated individuals staying at one time. So looking at that, if you were to be grandfathered in or a non-conforming use, you would be coming in and having that four unrelated individuals. So you would be bumped up to the 12. Okay, I understand. Because it's becoming less restrictive in that regard. Okay, that's interesting. That's helpful. When I'm thinking about the reporting, as you mentioned, as Council Member Lynch mentioned, And I think it would be so helpful to have some of this technology that you all have alluded to, to make sure that if the burden were on the neighborhood or others when trying to report violations of use, that they would have one place where they could put all of that information. And then it could be streamlined in terms of our tracking processes as well. I just wanted to reinforce, I think that would be really helpful. I had one other question, but I just have 40 seconds. Are there any parking restrictions? Okay, no regulations on parking. That's it for now. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Member Plumman. Council Member Civicney. You're going to get there soon. His poor name has been going down this list. All right. I have some questions. and comments about the AR zone, agricultural rural. And right now, this ordinance will not address AR zones, correct? I don't know who's going to be answering that. So right now, this does not address the AR zone, and our recommendation is to get a policy recommendation from Rural Land Management Board. Okay. All righty. So it will remain a prohibited use right now. So I guess just to be technical, all short-term rentals are prohibited use according to our zoning right now. They're not prohibited. They're regulated the same as a single-family dwelling unit, which is defined as being a weekly, monthly, or longer rental to one family. So you can have up to 52 short-term rentals a year, so basically on a weekly basis. And again, that is limited to the definition of family. So I think that that interpretation would still exist in the AR. So those short-term rentals that are in the AR zone then would be in violation? Really, everything is in violation until we get to this ordinance that doesn't include AR. They could have 52, one per week. So for a total of 52 a year, limited to one family at a time. How are we going to communicate this out to our short-term rentals, like in the AR zone? I don't think we're there yet. Okay, is that rural land management board, that responsibility would go there? I think that would be part of once the ZODA gets through the process, sort of how the messaging goes is just submitting that information. Okay, and the process that the rural land management board will be up to them, what they do? Yes. And will they come back to the, do you know if they'll be coming back to the committee or to the planning commission? Have you thought that out yet? I don't represent the Rural Land Management Board in any way. I can't answer that question for them. Would we not want to have that direction to either or? I think we are interested in leaving that to them to decide whether or not this is something that they are interested in pursuing. It would eventually come to planning in the form of a ZOTA. but the council members have not indicated that's the direction we should be going just trying to follow the flow there because it's a different animal out there alright, thank you chair to clarify that council member I'd give council member Brown some of your time if it's helpful but it was my understanding that ag zone is not contemplated in the draft but we want to have a policy with the ag zone the proposal would be to ask the rural land management board to give their recommendation to the Planning Commission during the Planning Commission's process. Is that correct? Okay, thank you. I hope that's clarifying, Council Member Plumman. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Just adding insult to injury here, Council Member. I just have a couple of clarifications. The fee structure that we're talking about, the $200-100, that is per property, not per owner or operator. Yes, it's 200 for the first and then 100 for property after that. All right. And then do all short-term rentals have to exist on some type of platform? No. No. Okay. Because there was a definition and I was trying to. A posting platform? Yeah. I didn't know if, like a for sale by owner, if that was a thing with short-term rentals. I think you could potentially, speaking a little bit out of school, I've only ever rented them. I haven't hosted them. But I think you could probably make your own website, too, if you wanted to. Like to have your own, kind of like bed and breakfast, have their own website. You could probably make your own website, too. Sure. So this just brings me back to, and I've heard it from several people, just enforcement in general. You know, if we don't have, if every individual is not operating their short-term rental from a platform, that's a checks and balances that we can utilize, right? So I think this is another plug for any type of software or program that we can use to help with enforcement. I think we're only as good as what technology we have to assist us, because obviously we don't have the personnel that is available for enforcing something else. So, like I said, just another plug for some type of software that could help our employees. Thank you. me. Even though I am not a member of this committee and I've definitely felt like I'm not. So I've got several questions. I've got four minutes and 45 seconds to say them. Is there a reason why in the definitions of primary residence we basically now are allowing me, if I am renting a place, some place, I can rent a room in that place, and I'm not the owner of that place. Is there a reason why we move to allow renters to basically do an Airbnb of a room in their place? Or if I can just basically go rent 10 houses and then Airbnb those 10 houses? Without getting too much into the legal arguments as to why we would do this, I'd just like to leave it at there are legal reasons potentially to avoid problems with out-of-state property owners. Okay. And I would add, too, if you don't mind, I think the intent isn't necessarily for the renter themselves to use the facility they're using as an Airbnb, but the owner of the property, if they wanted to Airbnb a room out or an adjacent unit, that they could as long as they had a long-term tenant. And realize I'm coming late to the game here, and I know you guys have done a lot of work, and I really, really do appreciate it. The hosted versus unhosted, I would agree with the other council members who have mentioned that it may be difficult to enforce that. Could someone just explain to this novice, is it an accessory use? Does that actually go through any sort of approval process? So if I'm basically doing it in my home, it's an accessory use? It would not go through any sort of approval process other than that it would be going through the licensure process. And I think that what we're looking at, whether it's through software that's a new tool or something that we already have, that the Division of Planning would be effectively a sign-off on any license that comes through. Okay. All right. I can see that being kind of rife with some issues there. But the density, the same thing as Council Member Reynolds discussed, I do think it's the thousand foot rule. It seems it is very, I guess you would call that subjective. And I'm kind of just generally worried about when something is that way, it tends to be arguable by a person who wants to put an Airbnb in. that, you know, like it's my right. I'll sort of direct that comment back to the council members who have been sort of steering where this draft is going and that that is what we were directed to put in there. Okay. I think there can be further conversation about that. I can take it up with them afterwards. And then also the transfer of conditional use. It looks like we're allowing transfer of conditional use. with the way this is drafted, and we change that. And it seems like there's a lot of other things that we don't do that with, and I would think that if, especially if you're looking at density, there's this concept of, hey, I'm next door to an Airbnb. They basically are selling a business now in a residential zone, and I should have a right to, I should be able to get in there before they get that transfer of ownership in. So the default for conditional uses is that it would transfer to a new owner, any sort of conditional use that exists in our ordinance. The default is that it would go to a new owner. The board does have the authority, and they do this from time to time, to add a condition of approval that says that if the ownership changes or the operator changes or something like that, that it becomes null and void. So they have the power to do that, but it's not typical. Okay. And then my last thing is the six-month grandfather, the way it reads, it doesn't read. It just reads that they have six months to comply. And what I've heard twice is that you said that you guys have said that they have, we're going to allow everybody who's got one that's nonconforming now into the system. The six months is to get the license. Right. But I don't see this in an amount of time. Yeah, I just didn't see any ordinance where it basically gave people permission to run. Like once we have this in place, it seems like they have to comply, and therefore they have to go through the conditional use application. So, again, that goes back to sort of how nonconforming uses typically work. So if a new use is established that has been a principal use and becomes a conditional use in a zone, at the time that that changes, that use does not have to go to the Board of Adjustment because it's already been operating. So that is sort of typically how that would work. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair, and I'll be quick. and Wes, correct me if I say this incorrectly, but I just wanted to highlight that the fees that are being collected for the unit, the $200 and the $100 fees, are a special license fee, and those are actually required to go back into the regulation of this. So when we're talking about enforcement or we're talking about the technology piece, those fees can be used towards that effort. Here comes Evan. If that was a question, then yes, regulatory license fees have to go towards the regulation. It's not a money-making venture in any way. You have to use it for the purposes of the regulation. Thank you. That's it, Chair. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. This is a follow-up to something that Council Member Legree mentioned, and I think this might be a question for Autumn. And will you tell me how to pronounce your last name so I get it right? Gotterwiss. Gotterwiss. Okay. Easier than I thought. So this has to do with events. So I'm going to give you a hypothetical. So let's pretend I'm Council Member Ellinger and I own an Airbnb. I'm renting. I'm a super host with a really good rating. I'm renting one of my rooms out to a guest, but then I have a birthday party where I invite 20 people. Is that allowed? And is there a difference between me having that birthday party with 20 people while I have a rental guest and while I don't? So when you don't have a guest, I think that you could have that party as the primary resident of that dwelling. if the the occupancy cap does state that it any primary resident who is hosting a hosted short-term rental does count towards the total occupancy so hosting a party while also hosting a short-term rental that's a bit of a tricky one and I don't think I have a really good answer yet okay I just wanted to make sure because because I think in this issue we're looking at kind of so many different people's rights and permissions and stuff. And I want to make sure that as an owner or as a host that I'm not limited in what I would normally be doing, which has really nothing technically to do with my rental. So something, yet another little thing that we need to sort out. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And Council Members, I have a few questions and comments. And I would say, Vice Mayor, what are your hypothetical? I would argue that what we're doing here is creating a use category and you as the owner of the home, you would still be just living in your home. You could, I think, host whatever you wanted to host. I think it's related to the room or dwelling unit that you are renting that would be subject to this regulation, at least is how I would interpret that. So one of my questions was about some of the definitional issues throughout here and I I don't know that in this stage we really need to go into all of them. But there are, in my opinion, some definitional things that need to be a part of this ordinance. And that can go through the process with the Planning Commission when it comes back to us. But there are things like that may be in some parts of the code of ordinances defined and in some parts of the zoning ordinance defined. But as I read through here, to me, there are some items that don't follow definition. So I'm not going to go through all that given our time because this was going to come back to us several months from now. But I guess when it comes to allowing for the parties, the events, which I think those may need further definition, if not otherwise defined in the ordinance, Am I understanding then that because we've defined a short-term rental as a dwelling unit and hosting to the public, we can have a private event, that's generally not encompassed in a dwelling unit? That's not a – am I right there? So we're kind of acknowledging that they're used for this and trying to regulate it, but the definition of dwelling unit doesn't really help us there as it is. Is that – Right. I think that's right, that you would not be normally renting these spaces for private events. for a commercial purpose essentially at that point. But we do recognize that that is what happens in these sometimes and I think that's really why tying the occupancy max to the allowable private events is really key. Thank you, that helps my understanding. So going through some of the, one, a follow up to Council Member Reynolds' question about the Board of Adjustment and what criteria they should consider. So, one, I think it's good that we're putting some criteria in here because otherwise, KRS 100 generally just says that the Board of Adjustment should make sure that the decision made in the conditional use permit doesn't adversely affect the surrounding area. And there's not much other. And so every conditional use permit that's requested in all use categories, that's really the only criteria, and the board uses its judgment. So I do think it's good that some criteria have been added. Why would we make it a conditional use as opposed to a principal use in B1, P1, MU1, MU2, and MU3? Because these are by and large commercial use categories. I mean, obviously there can be residential in these categories, but that's not usually their primary use of those zones. So the path that we took with determining with the mixed use and commercial zones as to whether or not it would be an accessory or conditional use was whether or not hotels were also allowed in that zone. Or if they were a principal use in the zone, then we considered this to be sort of equivalent to that and that this type of use would also be appropriately considered a principal use in that zone. But in zones where they're a hotel or an extended site hotel might be a conditional use or not allowed, We sort of took the tack of treating those more like the residential zones. So, and I'm not going to make a motion to amend it. Again, it's got a long process. In my opinion, if it's generally commercial uses within a zone, then they should be allowed as a principal use. I think the issue here, the whole purpose of this regulation is to protect neighborhoods and primary residential areas. So I would think that if the zone envisions more commercial uses, that it should be a principal use. I hope that the Planning Commission will take that into consideration when we move forward. Was there any consideration given to making exceptions for infill and redevelopment areas? We see adaptive reuse project, industrial reuse, and entertainment mixed use. But we have a large section of our city that have very different regulations even than the zone that they have because of the infill and redevelopment area. That did not come up in the conversations that we've had. that could be something that we could discuss further? I would think so because we have everything from floor area ratio differences. What can and can't be allowed in a zone is vastly different in the infill and redevelopment zone than it is out area. So I think that should be taken into consideration. When I'm looking here, it says 25% max. help me understand max of what is that floor air ratio is that total units so if you have a hundred unit apartment building 25 of them could be short-term rentals okay i think that's also a definitional issue if it whether it's units floor air ratio i understand that you're you're envisioning units and i think that's fine my time's run up but i haven't spoken twice and so if you all i think I'll give myself another opportunity. There was a mention of if the license is revoked, you have to wait a year to come back. I think that's a little harsh depending on the reason why it may or may not have been revoked. I want to make sure, though, that doesn't apply to lapsing, correct? If you didn't renew your license, you don't have to wait a year then to renew. I think that's an Evan question. Because the only reason I ask that is, again, keep it to definition. When we use it one time, we should use it equally throughout the ordinance because there's a section that talks about revocation or lapse in one section. But in this section, I think you're only saying revocation. Because somebody shouldn't have to wait a year if they just forget to pay the fee. Yeah, you're correct. And then answer me in, let's see, I've lost my note. I've kind of gone all over the place here. In section, why in, when we talk about the R3 zone, Why are we cutting rooms and borders as accessory uses now, as existed? Because a room and board is not included in the definition of short-term rental as we've got it here. So they're two separate uses. Why are we cutting that as part of this? I think we considered them to be substantially similar to what this is doing, and that sort of room or border is sort of an older-fashioned, for lack of a better term, sort of use that we don't really typically see as often and it is more of this is what we're seeing so we're trying to modernize i guess i understand that i think if we're going to explicitly exclude room and board from short-term rental then we're talking about two separate things so saying that they're substantially similar i understand that but they're in our ordinance they've not so i think that's again a definitional issue that needs to be considered and i want to make sure that we're not taking away a potential use from a property owner inadvertently as a consequence. I want to make sure while we regulate these uses that we're protecting all the property rights that are out there and allowing people to use their property as they see fit within reason in our ordinance. And the last thing I had, I think you mentioned, Council Member, that it was 90 days. I was always under the impression it was 60 days for a council-initiated 60. So this will go after, if approved and resolution form, then we'll go to the planning commission and they'll have 60 days to bring it back. Is that correct? All right. Those are all my questions and comments. So what is the committee's pleasure? Council Member Brown. Chair, I just had a few comments. And I appreciate all the questions and clarification today. I think our intent is to move this forward out of committee to get it along its path. I think the fact that we have short-term rentals in our community and don't have a pathway for operators and don't have a place for residents or neighbors to address the issues they may or may not be having with short-term rentals, I think this will get us somewhere moving forward. just to kind of explain the conditional use kind of where we landed on that is the the other end of the spectrum is coming up with distant density and distance requirements a lot of our neighborhoods in our community are different some neighborhoods have the capacity to have more short-term rentals and be fine than other neighborhoods so we wanted to give the operators as well as the neighbors an opportunity to have a say in what they would like to see and how their neighborhoods grow and changed so that's why we went with conditional use. The other thing was the events. I think most of the platforms prohibit their short-term rentals to be used for events but what was shared with us is that sometimes when folks come into town they may want family to come over and if family doesn't or any visitors don't exceed the occupancy limit for the unit whether it's you know per the reservation or not as long as they can stay into that that that gives them the opportunity to do that without being in violation so that's why we made that change but all in all i think there's some things and council member you brought up several that we may need to continue to look at and to address but i think we have a policy that's good enough to continue to move forward and to continue taking input as we try to get something in place going forward so with that if nobody else has signed up to speak i'll make a motion to move forward to the full council for consideration the short-term rental zone ordinance text amendment as well. Shall I do them one at a time? Let's do them one at a time. Zone ordinance text amendment. So moved. The motion is second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Council Member Brown, do you have anything else? Yes, sir. I also make a motion to move forward the code of ordinance in regards to short term rentals to the full council for consideration. To report out today. To report out today. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor, is there a second? Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion on that? I have a discussion. Could you please put me as recuse? Thank you. Any other discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Chair, and then I'd also ask for the same consideration to report out today for the zone ordinance tax amendment as well. So moved. Second. Is the motion a second? Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Our administrator keeping up with the record, everybody good on that? All right, thank you. Then just very quickly, items that were referred to committee, I think it would be appropriate to leave this matter in, Council Member, that are operating that. Are you comfortable with that? To leave this matter in committee currently? And then Council Member Reynolds, given the presentation today, do you want to keep that item in committee for further presentation? or are you satisfied with the language access website review? All right, if I could have a motion to remove that, please. All those in favor? Any opposed? Council Member Baxter? Yes, Chair, I just have a procedural question. When we're leaving this item, the short-term rental item in committee, when it comes back from planning commission, will it come back to committee or will it come back to full council? That's a good procedural question, and you're right. it will come back to the full council and then would need to be put back in committee. So my comment of keeping it in, we can do it for informational purposes, or it may be appropriate to remove it for the time being, and then if the council sees fit to put it back in committee after it comes back from the planning commission. I'd leave that to the council member that proposed it. My thought would be to leave it in committee for informational purposes. That's fine. I just wanted for my own. The action itself would require a motion to put back in committee. Okay. All right. Thank you. And then the vacation leave policy that I placed in committee, we heard, could I get a motion, please, to remove that? No, I'm moved. Second. Motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. That carries. And that's the end of our agenda. We stand adjourned. I'm sorry. While Levon, Levon slowly dies He was born a father to a pawn on a Christmas day When the New York Times said God is dead And the war's begun I've been tossed in a heather's son today