Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to say welcome to the public hearing, zoning public hearing for the Planning Commission, the August 28, 2008 meeting. As you can see, we have an overflow crowd here in the council chambers. We also have, I believe, chairs set up downstairs. and we will recognize those that are sitting downstairs if they choose to speak. We will allow time for them to make their way up the stairs. Of course, as the day goes on and cases are cleared from the docket, possibly that will free up some seats here in the council chambers. So please be patient with us and we will be patient with you as well. So with that said, we will take at this point approval of minutes. We have two sets of minutes, and I'll ask the commission for action of those minutes. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of the July the 10th meeting and the July 31st meeting as presented to us. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. All those in favor, please acknowledge by saying aye. All opposed? Please say no. Motion carried. I did want to, before we go much further, two things I wanted to do is introduce our three newest members to the commission. Those members are to my left. The viewing audience is right. The far end we have Patrick Brewer. Sitting next to Mr. Brewer is Marie Copeland. And then next to Mr. Penn here is Mike Owens. So we'd like to say welcome to the planning commission. And as always with new members coming aboard, we have members that also leave and give of their service. Is Mr. Mahan in the audience? Okay, I do not see Mr. Mahan. We did have a presentation for Mr. Mahan and we will catch him at the next meeting. So, okay, with that, do we have any postponements or withdrawals? Commission will consider any requests for postponements or withdrawals at this time. Afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I do have three requests for postponement. The first appears on page 8, item number 8, Multicon Development Company Zoning Map Amendment and Angliana Subdivision. The staff had recommended a postponement in this case. We agree with that recommendation in order to try to work out some development plan issues and would request a postponement to the 25th of September. Okay, thank you Mr. Simpson. We have a request for a one month, I guess, is it a one month postponement? One month. One month postponement for MARV 2008-25 Molten Development. This is the property located at 474, 475, 497 Ingliana Avenue and 701 South Broadway. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this request for a postponement? Thank you. Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, move for one month postponement of the MARV 2008-25. Second. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second for postponement of MARV 2008-25. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Also, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission on page 9, item number 9, Multicon Development Company Zone Map Amendment pertaining to Scott Street. That is a companion type of zone change request to the previous one that was postponed and we would ask that that be postponed to the September 25th meeting as well. Okay, thank you Mr. Simpson. We have a request for one month postponement to the September 25th meeting for MARV 2008-26 multi-con development property located at 300 307 313 315 317 319 321 322 324 325 and 328 scott street and 701 south broadway is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this request for a postponement seeing none the chair will entertain a motion Mr. Chairman, I move for one month postponement for MARV-208-2008-26 to the September 25th meeting. We have a motion and a second for a postponement. All those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Finally, Mr. Chairman, on page 12, item C, this is a zone text amendment that was considered today for a public hearing. We had been in touch with Jimmy Emmons, who's been working closely with Chris Westover in the preparation of this particular matter. And we would like to postpone that until the September 11th meeting. And that, to my understanding, is in agreement with the staff. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Is that correct, staff? Is that? That's correct. Staff has no objection. Thank you. We have a request for a postponement until the September 11th meeting for ZLTA 2008-6. This is the amendment to Article 8 to expand the allowable uses included in the adaptive reuse of buildings in the B4, I1, or I2 zone. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to this request for a postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I'll move that for postponement of ZOT 2008-6 until 9-11-08 meeting. Second. We have a motion and a second for postponement. All those in favor of the motion, please signify the saying aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Chairman, I'm Dick Murphy. on page 1, item 1, Tates Creek Heights, LLC, Zoning Map Amendment, and Pinnacle Lot 1, Amendment Zoning and Development Plan. We're requesting one month postponement. This has been postponed a number of times, but we hope to have a fully revised version to you next month to consider on that, and I have been in touch with neighborhood representatives on that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. We have a request for a one-month postponement to the September 25th meeting for MAR 2007-9, Tates Creek Heights LLC. This is for property located at 1093, 1097, and 1099 Duvall Street. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this request for a postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I make a motion for a postponement MAR 2007-9 for one month. We have a motion and a second for a postponement. All those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. And on page 7, item 7, Southern Industrial, LLC, Zoning Map Amendment, and Metathorpe Community Business Center, Unit 1, Halifax Land Company Zoning Development Plan. I represent the applicant on that, and staff has recommended postponement, and Metathorpe Neighborhood Association, whom we're working with, has requested additional time, additional more time and we need some more time to get our proposals to them and to the staff so I think we've all agreed on requesting a one-month postponement on that case as well. Thank You Mr. Murphy we have a request for a one-month postponement to the September 25th meeting for MAR 2008-24 Southern Industrial LLC this is for property located at 1447 Antique Drive and the Associated Zoning Development Plan 2008-108 located at 1447 Antique Drive. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to this request for a postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move for a postponement of MER 2008-24 in the ZDP 2008-108. We have a motion and a second to postpone. All those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, are there any other additional postponements or withdrawals at this time? Okay, I would ask the staff at this time, do we have any that qualify for abbreviated? Zoning hearing? Mr. Chairman, I'm glad to say a few of your remaining items would qualify for abbreviated hearing if there's no one present today who wishes to address the commission on those items. Okay. The first remaining item, number two, on page three, we understand there's a considerable number of citizens here wishing to comment on that item. Okay. The next item would appear on the top of page five of your agenda, Item number four, MAR2008-21, a request by JFG Enterprises, Inc., for rezoning from AR, Agricultural Rural, to B5P, Interchange Service Business. This is for property of 5191 Athens Boonesboro Road. The staff would ask at this time if anyone's present in the audience who would like to comment or object to this proposed zone change on Athens Boonesboro Road. Seeing none, Mr. Chairman, this could be our first abbreviated item this afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Salih. I should mention the item ahead of that would qualify, but we understand the applicant has a lengthy presentation they wish to make to you on that item. Okay. All right. The next item that may qualify appears at the bottom of page 5, MAR 2008-22, a request by Rose Hill Properties, LLC, for rezoning from I-1 to B-6P planned shopping center. This is a zone change proposed for property 3851 and 3885 Mall Road. Again, at this time, we would ask if anyone's present today who wishes to comment or object to this proposed rezoning on Mall Road. Seeing none, Mr. Chairman, this could be our second abbreviated item today. I think the only other remaining item that hasn't already been postponed, there also is a number of citizens here today who wish to comment on that, and that would be the Planning Commission's proposed zone change in the Chevy Chase neighborhood area. I believe those two items, Mr. Chairman, would qualify for a briefed hearing. Staff will set up and be ready to present them to you in just a moment. Thank you, Mr. Salli. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, for the record, while the setup's going on, I did ask Mr. Martin to go downstairs and verify that there is no one downstairs that has issues with those two items as well. Thank you. So while we're setting up, we'll assume not, but if someone does come up, we'll certainly respect that. Acknowledge that, certainly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go in here. Ready, Ms. Wade? Yes, I am. Thank you, Chairman Vaughn, members of the Commission. I do have one matter, a letter to enter into the record for this proposal. I believe I would qualify it as a letter of opposition. I'll give the original to Stephanie but pass a copy around so everyone can review it during the hearing. Ms. Wade, before you get started, did Mr. Martin verify? Mr. King, was there anyone downstairs? I see him in the back. Mr. Martin, did you have? No, I'm going downstairs. Okay. Thank you, sir. Ms. Wade. Okay. This item appears on your agenda on page 5. It is item 4 and can be found behind tab 4 in your notebooks. This is a zone change request from an agricultural rural zone to an interstate service business, which is the V5P zone, for approximately 6.7 acres of property on Athens-Boonesboro Road. The subject property. Is that on? Is that on? Subject property is located on the north side of Athens-Boonesboro Road, and for your purposes, Athens-Boonesboro here, with the interstate running north-south at this location. And the subject property is just a fraction of a mile to the west of the interstate, and is, again, approximately 6.7 acres. The subject property is located within the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center, and it is proposed to be redeveloped for a restaurant and a hotel, which are both principal permitted uses in the B5P zone. In this general vicinity, the Rural Activity Center not only encompasses some property on the west side of the interstate, but also encompasses a large industrial development on the east side. There are also some other hotels and restaurants on the east side of the Athens-Boonesboro Interstate 75 exit or interchange there. There is also a small package treatment plant to the north of the subject property and shown on our color up here just with a kind of small pond looks like and colored in the AR zone, which is the green. The history for this property, as part of the 1996 Comprehensive Plan, the applicant made a request that the subject property be added to the Rural Activity Center, and at that time there had been considerable community debate about expanding both the urban service area and the rural activity centers, and the Urban County Council adopted goals and objectives with one specific goal addressing expansion of the rural activity centers. And that goal stated that states that maintain the boundaries and soundly manage land use in the established rural activity centers. With that action, they also adopted an objective which stated that the rural activity centers should be limited to their existing boundaries. But through the comprehensive planning process, the Planning Commission considered the applicant's request to add this property, and in order to accommodate that request, the staff made a recommendation or a suggestion that the petitioner remove a similar number of acres on the south side of Athens-Boothsboro Road in this vicinity in order to, I guess, facilitate sort of a swap of property, adding 6.6 acres into the rural activity center and at the same time removing that approximate acreage in close vicinity. The petitioner owned or leased that parcel or a portion of that parcel at the same time, and they agreed to that land use change swap with the understanding and agreement of the petitioner that they would down zone the companion parcel at the same time that they requested that this parcel be rezoned to a B5, presumably a B5P zone. The companion property is also on today's agenda and is being requested for down zoning, but the applicant is requesting that that change be denied. The 2007 comprehensive plan, and I've added that as an overhead for you as well, and again for the Planning Commission, the property is located here along Athens Boonesboro Road, kind of a triangular property and for the audience here on Athens Boonesboro. The 2000 Comprehensive Plan has a future land use recommendation of highway commercial slash interstate commercial. And for the subject property, because it is located within close vicinity or proximity to the interstate, the B5P zone is considered to be appropriate and in agreement with the Comprehensive Plan at this location. The applicant has not submitted a traffic study, although their proposed hotel and restaurant does generate just under the threshold for requirement for a study, under the 100-trip threshold. Finally, there was some concern during the review process that the existing sanitary sewer package treatment plant would not have enough capacity to handle a full build-out of this side of the interstate, including property on the south side of Athens-Boonesboro as well. The this also provided some justification for the 1996 land use decision to facilitate a swap the staff is recommending approval of this request and the Zoning Committee also recommended approval several months ago of this request And the staff has two findings or one reason for a recommendation and then another requirement, and that is the first one is that the interstate service business or B5P zone is in agreement with the 2007 comprehensive plan because the plan does recommend highway commercial and interstate commercial future land future land use for the property and the property is located at an interstate interchange in the rural blue sky rural activity center and the B5P zone is intended to implement this comprehensive plan land use recommendation. This recommendation as always is subject to to approval and certification of the companion development plan prior to it being forwarded to the Urban County Council for their consideration. That must be accomplished within two weeks. I'm happy to answer any questions at this time. Thank you, Ms. Waite. Would the Commission have any questions for Ms. Waite at this time? Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. The development plan for this zone change can be found on page 5 of your agenda, CDP 2008-94, JFG Enterprises Incorporated. This is for property located at 5191 Athens-Boonesboro Road to the northeast of the intersection of I-75 and Athens-Boonesboro. The proposal for this development plan shows a three-story hotel, 110 rooms, and a 7,100-square-foot restaurant on the site. Indicates 147 total parking spaces with access shown on Nathan's Boonesboro, as you see at this location. the subdivision committee recommended approval subject to seven to 18 conditions but as you see on the one of the white sheets in front of you we have revised staff conditions it has 17 conditions including the resolution of 15 16 and 17 that will be resolved 16 will be resolved at the time of the final development plan this time I'll be happy to answer any questions you all have Thank you, Mr. Taylor. You said there was revised? Yeah, there's a white revised sheet. Oh, I see it. Okay. One of a couple. Right here. Okay. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for Mr. Taylor at this time? So our agenda shows 18, but the revised now shows 17. Okay. Deleted 15. I apologize. Deleted 16, left 15, 17, and 18 on the original agenda. Okay. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for Mr. Taylor at this time from the Commission? Thank you, sir. Petitioner? Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I'm Rena Wiseman. I'm here today for JFG Enterprises, Inc., the owners of which are Phil and Steve Wilson, who are here today. We are in agreement with the revised conditions that have been submitted and we are in agreement with the staff recommendation on the zone change. Just a couple things I just want to put in the record is an affidavit from Mr. Wilson. They have controlled this property under a long-term lease since 1968 and purchased it in 2003 and this goes to the viability of the six-acre tract for agricultural uses. It hasn't been used since before 1968. The second thing is a letter from our engineer Jim Buckles with regard to the private treatment plant. It has a capacity of 70,000 gallons. It's currently using 4,000. With the addition of these two uses, it will go to 10,000, leaving a reserve of 60,000. So there's adequate capacity. I also have a letter dated August 11, 2008 from the State Department of Environmental Protection saying that the plant is in compliance. This is not connected, never has been part of the Blue Sky Treatment Plant, so please do not confuse the two. And there is also a note on the development plan. JFG owns the treatment plant, and this note is very similar to what you're going to be doing under your capacity assurance program, that before any use can get a building permit, the plant operator has to certify that there is capacity remaining in the plant. So that goes forward on the development plan. But with those two things to put in the record, we agree with the conditions, ask your approval, and we're here to answer any questions. questions. Thank you Ms. Weisman. Are there any questions at this time for Ms. Weisman? I just just have one Rena. Has staff had an opportunity to review the letters from the Natural Resource Environmental Protection or? I'm not sure that we've seen those Mr. Chairman. In answer to your question, yes, we have received a copy of the letter and we have reviewed it. Yes, I have. Thank you, Ms. Martin. Ms. Weissman, thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Weissman at this time? Okay. I do want to ask again, is there anyone out there, I know that this is an abbreviated case, but we have a lot of folks in the audience. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this in favor or against? Okay, seeing none. Staff, do you have any additional items you'd like to add at this time? No, sir, but thank you. No additional? Okay. All right. We have a recommendation from the Zoning Committee for Approval of MAR 2008-21 JFG Enterprises, Inc. This is for property located at 5191 Athens-Voonesboro Road. Staff had recommended approval and had provided two reasons for that approval. And we also have the Associated Zoning Development Plan 2008-94. it's 17 conditions as indicated on our revised white sheet here so at this time if there are no further questions, comments discussion, the chair will entertain a motion Mr. Chairman I move for approval of MAR 2008-21 for the two reasons provided by staff Second. We have a motion and a second for approval of MAR 2008-21 JFG Enterprises for the reasons provided by staff. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I move ZDP 2008-94, subject to the 17 conditions as approved on the revised staff condition in the white paper. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve ZDP 2008-94 with 17 conditions as noted on the white sheet. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Wade. All right. Good afternoon again. Again, the next item on our agenda is abbreviated, and it can be found on page 5. It is item 5 and is behind tab 5 in your notebooks. This is MAR 2008-22, a request by Rose Hill Properties, LLC. This is a zone change request from a light industrial zone to a planned shopping center zone, which is from the I-1 zone to the B-6P zone for approximately 6 1⁄2 acres located on Mall Road. The subject property is, again, located on Mall Road, but the general vicinity, Manivores to the south, Nicholasville Road to the east, the inner, or not the interstate, the railroad track, Norfolk Southern Railroad Track, to the west of the subject property. And in order to get there, you would traverse West Tiverton Way, take a right onto what used to be West Tiverton Court, and it's now been renamed Mall Road, and the subject properties are on the west side. There are, again, two properties that are approximately six and a half acres. Currently, the properties are utilized for many warehouses on one property, and the other has, I guess, open vehicular storage for RVs, boats, and other vehicles. The applicant is proposing the zone change in order to redevelop the property with retail space and also a small restaurant and a branch bank. The applicant did file a very similar application, actually pretty much the same application, last year. However, they withdrew their application prior to the Planning Commission's recommendation being forward to the Urban County Council. And if those of you who were here at that hearing, there was much concern about sidewalks and pedestrian access. And the Planning Commission actually voted to approve the zone change but held the development plan. And in that time, the applicant withdrew their plan completely. The comprehensive plan for this location does recommend retail trade and personal services, and on our large map, here's Nicholasville Road, Man of War Boulevard, and West Tiverton Way, and the subject property is located adjacent to the railroad with Shillitoe Park across the railroad there. And this is again south of Fayette Mall and also south of the Fayette Mall expansion And also north of the Lowe's and the Walmart in this area So we know that it is very commercialized in terms of retail trade and personal services already And on the comprehensive plan you can see that basically from Lexington Green south to Man of War And between the railroad track and Nicholasville Road, that whole area is recommended for retail trade and personal services by the plan. And again, the predominant zoning in this location or this area is B6P, although there are some B3 zones as well. The applicant has submitted a traffic impact study with this proposal because of the nature of the zone requested and the intensity allowed on the property. it did cross that threshold of generating 100 new trips. And so Rob Hammons from the Transportation Planning Section and MPO will provide a brief report following the development plan. But I will say that the Zoning Committee and the staff are recommending approval of this zone change request because the request is in agreement with the comprehensive plan, and the B6P zone specifically is in agreement with the retail, trade, and personal services recommendation. and as is the redevelopment proposed for this site. And of course the recommendation is made subject to approval of the associated development plan being certified within two weeks. Thank you, Ms. Wade. Thank you. Are there any questions from the commission for Ms. Wade? Thank you. Thank you. That's right. Mr. Taylor. Development plan for this zone change can be found on page 6. It's ZDP 2008-107, Fayette Industrial Park, Lots 6 and 7. Ms. Tracy oriented you. This is the Fayette Commons development. This is the Lexington Athletic Club on this side. This development proposes a 46,800 square foot retail section, as well as two 5,000 square foot buildings for a restaurant and a branch bank. The access shown here as well as in this area where the right-of-ways to be released for the old court for the turnaround there as the road now cuts straight through. Development plan shows for 272 parking spaces. In addition, it does now indicate sidewalks along the full frontage of the development plan. The subdivision committee recommended approval subject to seven conditions as shown on your agenda. There were no resolution or discussion issues at the time, so if you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Are there any questions for Mr. Taylor at this time? Thank you, sir. Is petitioner present? Okay. Oh, I'm sorry, Rob. I overlooked you. Excuse me. All right. Good afternoon. My name is Rob Hammons. I'm a senior planner with the transportation planning section. My purpose today is to look at the level of service impacts and the traffic impacts of the development. As we know, this area can be kind of congested at times. and the I need to pass these out. Let me get somebody to help me out here. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. this area. The study was done by Brad Johnson, the Wilbur Smith Associates, professional engineer. And a lot of the traffic impact study review staff report is an overview of what you've already heard. What I'd like to do is ask you to turn to, it would be page Page 5, it's the three tables in the back. We're going to take a quick look at the intersection level of service analysis. And as you may be aware of, level of services is a grading system to look at the impacts. They do an overall level of service impact for the turning movements at key intersections that are identified early on in the study area delineation at the very beginning of identifying these areas. What I'd like to do is what we looked at was the 2007 existing peak hour, which is on page 5. And as you look down the left side of the page, you'll see the different intersections. Mall Road, Roget, Mall Road, West Tiverton Way, West Tiverton Way and Nichols Park Drive, Nicholasville Road, West Herodon Way, Manowar Boulevard, Nichols Park Drive. Now, this table and the following two tables are laid out the same way. But first of all, if you look at table two, down in number four, I've got a box around these level of service, level of service F service numbers to point those out to you. You know, we like to maintain a safe and acceptable level of service D. We're aware that it's congested in there, but at the same time, we have that in other locations. And we will, as this thing, if this is approved and we proceed, we'll look at other measures along and work with traffic engineering and try to hammer out some of those details. But you'll see in the existing, if you've got the two areas that's boxed in showing level of service F and E at Nipplesville Road, and West Tiverton Way. You've got level service E during AM, PM, peak hour for Manowar Boulevard and Nichols Park Drive. Next page, please, table three. This is the future no-build level service summary. This basically is the site trip generation and background traffic. The calculations look at those intersections, And as you look at the five different intersections, you'll see in items four and five the same area. There's still level of service F and E at that location. So there's some problems there. And our main job is to point those out to make you aware of those. And on table five, which is on page seven, the last page, you'll see the level of service for AM and PM peak still being bad there. So I just wanted to point that out to you. As you know, Nicholsville Road is a very busy corridor, and the study that was done by the consultant was well done. They come in and, you know, and worked with us to make sure they had all the right inputs into their level of service analysis. But as the study shows, you've got some level of service issues. And do you all have any questions? I'd be glad to take them at this time. Thank you, Mr. Hammond. Mr. Penn, you have a question? So, Rob, you're telling us that even though it's level F and level E at Tiverton Way and Nicklesville Road, you all can make that work? Well, here's the existing issue is from the projections look like will be the future issue. And if you're aware of that area right there, you know, you could say that it is congested, but at the same time, they're making turning movements there. Everybody has to come to a complete stop. So that, you know, it's not a high-speed congestion issue. So, yeah, there may be some other options, and I believe traffic engineering is here, and that's kind of on those we usually look at those in more detail as we move forward when and if this is approved. Thank you, Ms. Hammond. Mr. Holmes? Yeah, I'm not sure if I see it in the report. Are there any recommendations for improvements to improve that level of service? If you look on page four, they basically brought out the point that 2010, that they really didn't have any major recommendations. and to be honest, I haven't spoke with a consultant in the last few weeks, but mainly they're wanting to work with the staff and the traffic engineering section to see what else they can do. It's an existing situation, so it's a bad spot. The level of service shows that it's bad, and it's something that will have to be worked out in the final development plan if approved. Rob, let's go from Man of War to where it comes into the mall road. I guess now it comes down in front of Lowe's on your left, Walmart on your right. Is that a public road or is that a parking lot that we just use as a road? Or how did we ever – I know where we tied into the mall, we were assured at the mall that that road would always be open. But I'm just wondering about, you know, how do we control any of that traffic that goes, that I guess is just collateral damage that now goes in front of Lowe's and Walmart after they come around that stoplight there at West Hiverton and take that right? I mean, what I'm wondering, do we have any control over that? Well, that's a great question. We have been looking at the Mall Road through several other developments, and we have the right of way for Nichols Park to run through Walmart. Other details on what we can and cannot do, I'm really not sure of it this time. Maybe traffic engineering can answer that question. We can look at it further and get back with you on that. But originally the Mall Road Study looked at improving the road from Reynolds Road all the way south to Manowar. And, you know, development pressures and other factors, that's what you have now. And maybe we can talk to traffic engineers and see if there's anything else they know. But that's all I know on that right now. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hammonds. One quick question. If I read the table right, what you're saying is that if you don't do anything in this, it's going to be bad. If you do the build that's proposed, it's going to be bad. Is that correct? That's correct. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Brewer. All right. At this time, we'll ask the petitioner. Andy Holmes Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I'm Andy Holmes with Midwest Engineering, and we're representing Rose Hill Properties in this application. We're certainly in agreement with the staff recommendation and analysis of the issues, And we're also in agreement with the development plan conditions that have been proposed. And I'd like to thank Mr. Brewer for pointing out it's not our project that's causing a level F. It's going to be that way regardless. And that's about all I have. Unless there's any questions, I'd be glad to address them. Okay, thank you, Mr. Holmes. Are there any questions, Mr. Holmes? Okay, thank you. I will again ask, since we do have an overflow crowd above and below, we are discussing MAR 2008-22 Rose Hill Properties. This is for property located at 3851 and 3885 Mall Road and the associated zoning development plan. Is there anyone that may have come in late that would like to speak in favor or against this particular proposal? Okay, seeing none, this time staff, do you have any additional things to add? No additional items? Okay. No, sir, thank you. We have a zoning committee recommendation of approval as well as a staff recommendation for approval. staff has provided two reasons for that approval and we have the associated zoning development plan with seven conditions as indicated on the agenda. At this time, the Chair will entertain comment, question, or motion. Well, let's see if I can get this right the first time. Just on the recommendations, I propose approval of MAR 2008-22 Rose Hill Property, LLC. For the reasons provided by staff. For the reasons provided, yes sir. No problem. All right, we have a motion and a second to approve MAR 2008-22 for the reasons provided by staff. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. And if we could get a motion for the Zoning Development Plan. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of ZDP 2008-107 with the seven conditions. We have a motion and a second for approval of the Zoning Development Plan. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we will, I guess, begin with our first application and full hearing and give staff time to set up for that. Mr. Chairman, before we set up, we understand there may be one other additional item that's requested for postponement this afternoon on your agenda. Okay, all right. We just learned of this during your last case. Okay, would that applicant like to come forward with that request? Okay, we'll wait a second. Okay. Oh. I didn't mean to say oh. Hello. Thank you for having me. Mr. Kaley, good to see you. Good. Rory Kaley with EA Partners and trying to speed up everyone's day. I would like to postpone item six on page six. This is the Thomas and Corbett LLC zone change request and the ZDP 2008-109 reserve at Tates Creek. We'd like to ask for a one-month postponement. Okay, thank you, Mr. Cayley. We have a request for a one-month postponement for MAR 2008-23 Thomas and Corbett LLC. This is for property located at 1060 through 1097 Bridalwood Lane, 5200 through 5205 Tykes Pass, 5121 Middleton Place, and 5397 Tates Creek Road, as well as Associated Zoning Development Plan 2008-109. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to this request for a postponement? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I saw Mr. Martin go out the back. I trust that he's heading downstairs. We'll give ourselves a minute or two. No problem. I see Mr. Martin in the back. No objectors to this request. Okay, all right. Chair will entertain a motion at this time. Mr. Chairman, I move for postponement. Bill, is this September 25th? I believe that's what Mr. Cayley requested. I move for one month postponement to MAR 2008-23 to the September 25th meeting. I'd also like to include the zoning ZDP 2008-109 September 25th meeting. We have a motion and a second to postpone MAR 2008-23. All those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I'm going to leave now. that's fine understood you have my sympathies tremendously anymore these days even if you try right Ms. Wade. Yes. Our next item is MAR 2008-14, a request by Kevin Krause, Premier Villages. And it's found on page 3 of your agenda, item 2, and behind tab 2 in your notebooks. I've given Mr. Brewer three letters of opposition or concern that we received as a staff and given Stephanie the copies for the record. I believe there's also another letter at your place from Dr. Larson, and she asked that each of you have a copy. This zone change is a request from an agricultural urban zone, which is the AU zone, to a planned unit development PUD 1 zone for approximately 25 acres of property located at 4500 and 4524 Old Schoolhouse Lane. The subject property is located on the east side of Harrodsburg Road, directly across from where Military Pike now makes an intersection with Harrodsburg Road. The subject property, again, is comprised of two parcels, one that's approximately an acre in size and one that's approximately 24 acres in size to combine for a 25-acre site. The subject property extends back and has Twain Ridge, which is a collector street that stubs into it from the rear. And it includes a portion of this is, I believe it's the drive-in tributary of the South Elkhorn Creek that comes from the south in Jessamine County, north along the rear property, area of the property. And then the South Elkhorn Creek comes from the east and also converges with that tributary here on the property and then continues to the north and then under Harrodsburg Road towards Military Pike in that area. Actually, it goes north even further. In the vicinity, we do have other AU zoning to the north. There's two parcels that remain, actually several more over here, that remain zoned AU for agricultural urban. Much of the other property in this vicinity has been rezoned for residential use. Across Harrodsburg Road, we have the Firethorn neighborhood, and that's zoned R3. There is a B1 area to the northwest where Ramsey's is located, and there's a small shopping center there. To the south, we have an R3 parcel adjacent to the subject parcel where there's a church, and the rest remains vacant today. However, there is a preliminary subdivision plan proposed by the adjacent property owner for single-family residential use. on the rear of that property. Then the next tract that was developed was the English Station Subdivision, and it exists today. And then there is a vacant or agricultural tract that remains undeveloped, and then I believe there are several more residential tracts that developed, and a majority of this to the south is, I believe, the Dogwood Trace Subdivision. Across the creek to the east where Twain Ridge comes in, This is the Watts property and was developed by Ball Homes several years ago. And Old Higbee Mill Road comes towards Harrodsburg Road north of the subject property. The applicant is proposing to develop the subject property with 193 townhome units for a density of 6.97 dwelling units per gross acre or 7.76 dwelling units per net acre. The applicant is requesting the PUD zone in order to utilize the design standard flexibility that that zone allows an applicant to use, which is they want to use that in order to create a unique townhouse community for Lexington. The PUD 1 zone was created in 1983 and provides an opportunity for the applicant to develop their own design standards for their proposed development. And, of course, those standards are subject to review by the Planning Commission. approval. The following standards are negotiable through the planning process. They are minimum lot size, minimum front yard, and the front side and rear yard dimensions. In addition to the design standard flexibility that the PUD 1 allows, it also requires several things including development plan certification by two design professionals, a site inventory and restrictive covenants if proposed have to be submitted with their application, the roadway system on the plan needs to be adequate in order to serve residents and neighboring residents, including an extension of any collector street as designated on the comprehensive plan. The development design has to be responsive to a site inventory and especially the natural and historic features. And then lastly, the ordinance requires that there be an innovative design technique utilized. So this property, this subject property, the comprehensive plan recommends, let me relocate us again on the map here, Harrodsburg Road, Man of War Boulevard, and as you go out Harrodsburg Road towards Jesmond County, here's where Military Pike intersects with Harrodsburg Road, and the subject property is shown bisected by a dashed line here with the dashed line, meaning that's where the connection of Twain Ridge and Agape are proposed on the subject property. And let me show you a few photographs before we get too much further into the comprehensive plan. The subject property shown on this aerial view is outlined in kind of a purple color, and you can see where the creeks are located on the east side of the property, here along Harrodsburg Road to the rear. And the property has been used for agricultural purposes, So it does relatively look vacant, but I believe there are a few structures on there, a house and at least a barn. And the smaller tract did have a home located there, but it was removed in the recent past. Chris switched pictures for us. This is one of our pictometry pictures showing where Military Pike now comes and intersects with Harrodsburg Road at this intersection. And, of course, from 2007 it shows the widening of Harrodsburg Road there. Here's the existing residents on the larger tract in the barn and the adjacent historic schoolhouse, which has been converted to a residence. This is the large estimated to be 300-year-old Burr Oak. Oh, whoops. Sorry, we'll go back to this one. Another aerial of the property showing barn and residents looking towards the north. We'll go to the next one. This is the large bur oak that was mentioned in the Herald-Leader this morning. And you can see an LFUCG vehicle park next to it. I think that's the Urban Forester's truck. And it is a significant tree per the zoning ordinance. This one. This is just a ground photo of the Military Pike-Harrodsburg Road intersection. and you can see at the top of the hill here where that baroque sits. And the construction or the widening of Harrodsburg Road did provide Old Schoolhouse Lane, which eliminated access for several residential and subdivision areas and created basically a service road so that they aren't all entering onto Harrodsburg Road individually. and Old School House Lane then provides the address for these properties and access. And then this is just kind of a colored version of our zoning map and a larger, so it shows existing zoning in the area, the R3 zones, R1C, R1E for the English station area, and then, of course, AU for our subject property. The applicant's proposal with 193 dwelling units. I'll have you switch to the next one, which is just a zoom in of the comp plan. The applicant's proposal for 193 dwelling units is within the range recommended by the comprehensive plan, which is, again, medium density is recommended for 0 to 8 dwelling units per gross acre, or 5 to 10 dwelling units per net acre, and they fell within, in terms of gross, very near 7, and in terms of net, about 8 units per acre. The comprehensive plan also recommends the extension of Twain Ridge and Agape, and I failed to add that layer to my map, but Agape is planned to come here, and then Twain Ridge to extend across the property and intersect with where the military pike intersection is proposed. And it is, of course, on our larger comprehensive plan map here with the dashed lines. These two collector streets would facilitate movement between established neighborhoods without necessitating the use of the arterial roadways, which is currently the case. The applicant has provided a preliminary development plan with a design that is innovative in the staff's opinion. It proposes a large number of residential units fronting onto common open space, being accessible for vehicles only from the rear via alleys. The applicant has also developed design standards for the proposed development, which are very similar to the R1T and R3 zones, with the exception of no access being to the front of the building. So the front yard or the frontage is all on open space rather than a public street. The applicant has now provided the required site inventory plan and text for the staff's review, and they also provided documentation that two design professionals have helped prepare the plan. The site inventory documents existing natural features on the property, including the South Elkhorn and drive-in tributaries, and they've utilized the natural grade or the topography, which does change from Harrodsburg Road towards the creek in a downward grade or slope towards the creek. and they've utilized that to their benefit in terms of using or creating walkout basement units. They've also protected the 7.3-acre area designated for open space, and the staff did notice in their site inventory they did not mention or they documented that there were no historic features or anything on the property. However, they didn't mention the adjacent location of the old schoolhouse, which is, again, very near the subject property, just to the north, and I'll show here, northeast corner of the property. And also no mention was given of the bur oak that we showed the picture of. The applicant might, through the development plan process, be able to mitigate the loss of that tree to some extent. Since the original filing, the applicant has revised their development plan to allow for the continuation of both collector streets. Originally, their plan did not show that, but they are showing the continuation of Agape and Twain Ridge. However, the Twain Ridge connection is not being proposed to be constructed at this time because it is a bridge that would have to cross that creek, and the applicant has stated that that would be an unproportionate expense for their development to bear. And in light of case law that LFUCG has with another developer in this area, the staff had to agree that that is the case. However, providing for a right-of-way and an optimal alignment for the bridge, we felt was a requirement based on the ordinance, The zoning ordinance specifically requires the collector streets, and since the bridge cannot be built or won't be built by the developer, at the very least, to meet the ordinance, we felt that the alignment and the right-of-way was necessary. The applicant, let me see, proposed extension of Twain Ridge west to Harrodsburg Road, including its proper alignment with the existing military road and Harrodsburg Road intersection and steep slopes in the area are limiting factors in keeping the burrow tree. However, other treat areas the staff believes should be protected on the property and the applicant and planning commission could consider mitigation of the bur oak, but that some protection and mitigation should be provided on site. And the staff is prepared to make a recommendation for conditional zoning to that effect. Lastly, the applicant's proposed development should respect the historic features immediately adjacent to the property, including which specifically is the old schoolhouse, and the conditional zoning is proposed to do that as well. Originally, the staff had recommended maintaining an earthen berm and providing a 40-foot buffer, and I'll point you now to the blue sheet that you have at your place, which outlines our revised recommendation. After meeting with the applicant and reconsidering or having further consideration of the topography along the front of that property, very near the historic schoolhouse, the staff was ready to recommend or is ready now to recommend a 30-foot wide buffer and not maintaining the berm. basically the berm would create a it's already a man-made berm would create kind of a little hill that the applicant then proposed putting a retention wall next to and we felt that that would really lose the effect of the berm if it were only half a berm with a retention wall along it so we were agreeable to changing the width and are now proposing an average width of 30 feet and a tree protection area provided along the common property line of 4420 Old Schoolhouse Lane, which is the Stringer property and the location of the historic schoolhouse. Further, the existing trees within 20 feet of the northwest property line. I'll show on my map again here, that corner, extending for a distance of 150 feet to the east and then thereafter 10 feet of an area from the property line shall be preserved with the buffer and all trees with a greater than 3 inch diameter shall be maintained and only diseased or dead trees can be removed within the buffer. And then secondly that a solid fence or wall be proposed along that area as well at least 7 feet in height to mitigate the the removal of the earthen berm. And lastly, I would just say that the Zoning Committee did refer this request to the full commission, but the staff is recommending approval of the zone change for two reasons. The planned unit development one zone is in agreement with the 2007 comprehensive plan for two reasons. The medium density recommendation of zero to eight dwelling units per gross acre is in line with what the applicant is proposing. With that range, the development on this property could be up to 221 units. The applicant is proposing 193 units, which obviously is below the 221, for a density of 6.97 dwelling units per gross acre. And then the request complies with the intent of the PUD zone and substantially meets the requirements of this zone, although the Twain Ridge connection cannot be built or mandated by the Planning Commission due to case law, right-of-way and optimal roadway and bridge alignment is necessary to meet Article 22-A of the ordinance and the applicant is agreeable to providing those two things. And again, number three, the provisions of 6-7 of the zoning ordinance allow for conditional zoning and we are asking for or recommending landscape buffer along the Stringer property. And this restriction is appropriate in order to protect the character of the historic schoolhouse as well as to minimize impact of future development on this property, which is the structure is located very close to the property line. Be happy to actually, I'll let Chris, do you have another picture or no? Lastly, point to where the proposed... Maybe. Okay. Different photo, but that's okay. Where the proposed or the recommended buffering would be right along this property line here, back from Harrodsburg Road to the east. And the 30-foot wide buffer would be required to be at least 20 feet wide for 150 feet, and then the remainder of the property at least 10 feet wide. But that gives the applicant some flexibility as to the width in certain places. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ms. Wade. Thank you. Are there any questions? Mr. One, do you have a question? Ms. Wade, if you would, just for clarification purposes, maybe on this map, point out where the tree is. Where the tree is? I think the lower plan here is more helpful. This is their site inventory map, and it shows all of the existing trees mapped. And here's the significant bur oak tree that's approximately 300 years old. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Ms. Wade? I did have one question on the solid fence. Can you give me an orientation, I guess, on the development plan, the solid fence that you have noted as a conditional zoning? It would be here along the, this is the Stringer property. Okay. Where the historic old schoolhouse is very close to the property line. So this is where we would anticipate the fence being located. I see. Okay. All right. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Ms. Wade? Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, good afternoon. The preliminary development plan that's been filed in conjunction with this zone change appears on the top of page 4 of your agenda. This is ZDP 2008-61, Old School House Lane. This is a preliminary development plan. If I can take just a moment to orient you to the location of the property. As Ms. Wade has mentioned, it's very near the intersection of Harrodsburg Road and Military Pike, the signalized intersection, just immediately to the west of this location. Old Schoolhouse Lane is a service road that is opposite that intersection and parallels Harrodsburg Road along the frontage of the subject property. As she mentioned, the property is approximately 25 acres in size. A significant portion of the eastern portion of the property, not quite a third of the property, is in a designated HUD floodplain. It is located at the confluence of the driving tributary, which flows from the south into the south Elkhorn Creek, which flows from east to west across the corner of the subject property. Of course, the development plan does not propose any development in the floodplain. We also have a copy of it on the overhead. I'd like to step over to Sam just a moment and point out some of the features of this development plan. The preliminary development plan is proposing 193 townhouse units, and they're generally parallel to Harrodsburg Road for the most part, although two bands of the townhouses are parallel to the property edges. One of the major design features of this development plan is the townhouses' orientation upon green open spaces. That is why this development is being proposed in a PUD1 zone versus many of the other zones that you have seen over the years. This is the first time in about 15 to 20 years that the Planning Commission has been presented a zone change request for a PUD1 zone. There is also, as part of the development plan, a clubhouse proposed near the northwest corner of the property with an associated pool and off-street parking lot that is proposed from the Collector Street extension opposite the Military Pike intersection. You can see that Old Schoolhouse Lane is proposed to remain along the frontage controlled by the Highway Department, and the existing driveway is proposed to be abandoned. One collector street is extending eastward from Harrodsburg Road Military Intersection, and a southward collector street that would, as anticipated, line up with Agape Drive in the English Station subdivision is proposed as well. staff is only aware of one other development such as this where townhouses are proposed more oriented to open spaces than public streets that is a very small development on central avenue between old park and old lafayette where about 13 units were developed i believe in the late 1980s or early 1990s where units actually orient to an open space with parking alongside. The access to these particular units are proposed through a series of alleys that parallel the open spaces. Those alleys are identified on the development plan. Here there's a series of four that will connect the local street proposed along the south edge of the property to the collector street proposed along the northern edge of the property. What is on the overhead now are the restrictions that Ms. Wade mentioned in terms of lot size, lot frontage, coverage that is inherent in the PUD1 zone. These are proposed by the applicant. applicant, the staff has reviewed them. The staff is in agreement with these design standards with one exception. We would like the lot frontage to read that that frontage is on open spaces. That is primarily for the ones not proposed to front on public streets, although there are open spaces associated with those as well. But that's to indicate that their orientation is to the open space and not to the system of alleys that is proposed. The staff at the start of the meeting passed out to you two handouts. One is on a green sheet with a revised recommendation. The other is the document that we just had on the overhead for you with the proposed design standards of the applicant. This item was reviewed by your technical committee and at least two occasions by your subdivision committee. The development plan that's before you today was submitted in mid-June. It was reviewed at your July 3rd subdivision committee meeting. Your subdivision committee has recommended approval of this preliminary development plan, and for those new to the commission and in the audience, that review is conducted as if the property is already zoned, and that way we have distinct and separate recommendations on the development plan portion of the application differentiated from the zone change portion. The staff has discussed the proposed plan as it's been revised in June with solid waste, and we believe that some of the conditions associated with their review can be revised. There are some other conditions that the staff is recommending be revised in order to provide some clarity and clarification to the development plan. The first is per the tree inventory information that Ms. Wade mentioned in her response earlier. One is that this tree inventory information be applied directly to the development plan. That is an ordinary requirement of the ordinance for a preliminary development plan such as this. In talking about the large bur oak tree very near the right-of-way, that tree is approximately 15 feet from the current state right-of-way. And early on, the staff reviewed that tree to see if there were alternatives to moving the proposed collector street in a way that that tree could be avoided. There is no ideal or apparent means to do that that would comply with your subdivision regulations in terms of the horizontal curves and so forth for collector street. That said, the staff is still willing to work and review that issue should it be important to the commission. As Ms. Wade said, that is a significant tree. Also, as you saw from the photograph, however, there is a very large elevation difference, and it's possible that even if the tree could be saved from the alignment of road, that the grading necessary for that road could still impact the tree. It looks to be very difficult to try and maintain that. But the staff is willing to still consider it if this proposal goes forward. Condition number 11 on the revised recommendations not proposed for change but addresses that issue. In looking at condition number 12, that's the one resolved by solid waste through this latest amendment. The staff would propose the substitute that I mentioned to you a moment ago about having the standards reflect that these units will front on open space, the 20 feet of frontage. In looking at condition number 14, at the time of the final development plan, the staff would ask that there be further review of two other features of this development plan. There are two detention basins proposed along the eastern, pardon me, the western edge of the floodplain area. They're conceptual in nature, showing that the development would be west of detention basins that would then be oriented to the floodplain. In addition, there is a corridor, if you will, that is available for the possible future extension of Twain Ridge Drive. That is an issue that the staff felt very important about. At the time of a final development plan, we would like to review this particular corridor just to make sure we have the optimal alignment of that street. As Ms. Wade mentioned, we do not feel we can ask the developer to bear the cost of that improvement. We've provided in our handout to you some information we've gotten from the applicant and also a cursory review by the Division of Engineering for the cost of that bridge-type facility. Condition number 15, we are also proposing to be revised the need for a stub street to the church property. We have adequately addressed through your committees. However, there are a few of these buildings that do not comply with the proposed standards. They are shown in purple. They show on the overhead as well earlier, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, about 10 buildings. They need some very slight modification to meet the side and front yard requirements that are set out in the design standards. That would be an ordinary type of development plan revision from the staff's perspective, but we did need to mention that. Also, condition number 16 is not proposed for change. There is currently a very small bridge crossing on the southern end of the property, the southern end of the drive-in tributary on this property, and the staff does realize that there may be a need to coordinate pedestrian connections into that floodplain and greenway area, and we would like to see more detail on that, certainly at a later stage in the development plan process. Finally, Condition 17 is a rather routine condition when we have conditional zoning proposed, as we do. that that be added to the plan. In this particular case, the staff drafted that condition mindful of the historic property to the northwest of the subject property. We have heard from the owner of that property who originally was in agreement with the staff's recommendation about conditional zoning as it appears on your agenda. With the revision, they have informed the staff they're concerned about some unintended consequences of our recommendation. We've highlighted some of that in yellow on the form, I believe, the blue page that was handed out to you. One is the 20-foot width proposed. The other is the fact that trees less than three inch in diameter could be removed from that area. And then finally, with condition B, requiring a fence if the berm is not maintained, there There is no prohibition on that from it being on the property line. Certainly the staff will be able to address those as your hearing progresses if the Commission would like to revisit or revise any of those parts of the conditional zoning recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Saleh. Any questions for Mr. Saleh? I would just say in closing, Mr. Chairman, this application did not require a traffic impact study. The trip generation in the peak hour is estimated between 90 and 99 peak hour trips, which is under the threshold. Under the threshold. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Okay. At this time, petitioner? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is Bill Lear. I'm here with Rena Wiseman on behalf of the applicant to seek your support for the staff recommendation with which we agree in its entirety. I could stop and simply sit down, but there are other issues that need to be addressed, and I think you all recognize that, so I'm going to take a few moments to go through those. When I say in its entirety, I mean including all the conditions on the development plan and the proposed conditional zoning condition intended to buffer the schoolhouse property to the north, which is now used for a single-family residence. I might ask, if I could, that I be able to hand out some copies of an aerial photograph. Thank you. By way of introduction, actually just two or three things. First of all, you can see that this area is largely, not completely, but largely developed out. And I've got a larger scale aerial photograph that you can see the extent to which this area has been developed out, particularly across the road and south of the subject property. This is Twain Ridge, and you can see that it comes in to the – you can't fully appreciate the size and depth of this ravine back here where the creek is, but it is significant if you look on the topo maps. What you see across from the subject property is the very extensive work that was done to eliminate a sort of spaghetti junction on the other side of the road, which resulted in military pike being straightened and aligned to come out in a vertical fashion toward Harrodsburg Road. One of the things that we expect to occupy some comment today based on our own discussions with staff as well as area neighbors is this tree. And the difficulty that the developer is having to face is that that tree sits straight across from Military Pike. I will tell you that when the developer first approached the Department of Highways about this development, the developer proposed a plan that would allow access along here where the current driveway goes down, not unlike the kind of access that goes up to English Station into the service road. They were advised by the Department of Highways that the road needed to come straight across for at least 100 to 150 feet from the access point at Harrodsburg Road. You also know from the pictures there is a significant elevation difference between the level of the service road at the point it intersects with Harrodsburg and the top of that ridge just a few feet away where the tree is. The other issue that the developer has dealt with is the alignment for the collector street. This is a collector that goes back all the way to Clay's Mill Road, and there's an intersection on the property of another collector. You can't see but a little stub of it. It's Agape Drive. That is supposed to come onto the property and tee into Twain Ridge and then go out to this point at or about Harrisburg Road. Therein lies the problem with the burr oak tree. This is not a developer-created issue. It is an issue created by development decisions, frankly, by a lot of right-thinking folks trying to deal with transportation connectivity, trying to resolve difficult traffic issues on the other side, trying to create a collector system that would go from Clay's Mill over to Harrodsburg Road. And the problem is that it's very difficult to save the tree or avoid the tree and build the roads that are shown on various plans or are required by various government officials. It is not, I repeat, it is not the developer's desire to threaten that tree. I think I showed you where our first alignment of the road was, but it is our obligation to follow dictates of plans and government officials that have the authority over such things. This proposal is in complete agreement with the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan calls for medium-density residential development. But it has called for that since at least 1980. So the fact that it would be developed as residential and in the densities proposed should not be a surprise to anyone. As a matter of fact, in 1980, the overall density included high density as well as medium density. And since, or rather in 1973 and since 1980, I think it's been medium density throughout. The kinds of development. expected. One of the things specifically referenced in the comprehensive plan and medium density development is townhouses. The type of townhouse development that is proposed is innovative. It is a classic example of neo-traditional or new urban development. It's a grid, townhouses that are primarily alley-served, that open on to green space. It is exactly the kind of development. We have said for some time that we want to encourage in Fayette County. This is a forward-thinking proposal that puts that type of development into place. On most of this development, people will enter their houses through a garage in the rear. When they come out their front door, they'll be opening onto a courtyard area, an open space area with a path, a sidewalk in the front, and they'll be seeing the fronts of their neighbor's house. They won't be seeing their neighbor's garage out front. Some of the other issues, aside from street connectivity, that have come up in regard to this development, I just want to give you a heads up on an issue that is likely to be discussed at final development plan, and that is solid waste. We have requested the Division of Solid Waste to allow roll carts. I won't go into our rationale for that. We think the ordinance would allow it. Solid Waste has required that we put in pads for dumpsters at various locations on the plan. We have done that to make provision for it, although I can tell you that the residents and the developers would prefer roll cart service. It frankly will make the development more attractive. The way it works now is if you're in a development such as this, you can pay your taxes for solid waste pickup and not get any solid waste pickup by roll cart. You can have a private developer, a private waste provider or waste company pick up your roll carts, but if you want the urban county government to do it, it has to be in dumpsters. We will address that issue probably at the council, at the commissioner level, but I just wanted to give you a heads up about it. The alleys, originally the alleys were a little narrower. We met with the Division of Fire. We satisfied them by widening the alleys so that they are now supportive of the size of the alleys. The Division of Sanitary Sewers has calculated the sewer impact of this development, and according to them it would constitute a nominal percentage of the flow in the system. As you know, there is nearby a pump station that's being upgraded, the South Alcorn Pump Station, and that pump station will be upgraded by the end of the summer in 2010, which will be before full build-out of this development. I've already addressed the screening and buffering. I understand Mr. Stringer is here represented by Council, and he may have some things to address. As regards the two points that Bill Sally mentioned in the conditional zoning condition, we have no interest in cutting down any trees in the nondisturbance area, whether they're three-inch caliper, more or less. And that nondisturbance area, from our perspective, can say that no trees will be cut down, and that's fine with us. Likewise, we've had a number of discussions with emails and several discussions with Mr. Simpson about attempting to reach agreement. We haven't done that, but one of the things we have agreed is that the eight-foot fence we're willing to put up, privacy fence, will not be on the property line. We're happy to have it at the inside of the non-disturbance zone. And if we get into more discussion of that later, you'll see that because of the grade differential, what has to be done to accommodate the road, the clubhouse will actually sit below the old schoolhouse, and an eight-foot fence at the end of the nondisturbance area will basically block, just about block, all view of the clubhouse from the property next door. So I think even though we ask for additional time, Mr. Chairman, in light of the number of things on your agenda, I'm going to wrap up fairly quickly by reiterating that this is a proposal that's in complete agreement with the comprehensive plan. This is a proposal that responds to all of the dictates regarding connectivity of streets and other things that are applicable to the PUD zone and are shown on the comprehensive plan for any development in this area. And that we have worked diligently over a period of several months with the staff to satisfy them on a variety of issues raised that they have raised over time. I will say one other – let me add one other thing, and that is in this area where we've proposed the bridge to go, that is about a – potentially, if that's a single span, that may be as much as a $3 million bridge. One thing I will tell you is I don't believe it will ever be built. We handled the case involving the Snyder development that was a little bit upstream from that, which established the precedent that you cannot require a single developer, particularly of a small track, to bear the burden of a major infrastructure improvement intended to benefit several thousand residents in a very large area. That case was consistent with Kentucky precedent, went to the Kentucky Supreme Court ultimately, and they agreed with the developer that you can't force the developer to build the bridge. The urban county government had an option once that case was over. It could have built the bridge. It chose not to. Not much has been heard from these folks over here. I've heard from one or two of them while this has been pending, and the only conversation I had was with one who said, the only thing I care about is I don't want that road extended over the bridge. I will predict that faced with a $3 million expenditure, faced with opposition on this side of the creek to extending the bridge, that it will not be built. The decision whether or not to build the bridge is not the planning commissions. It's ultimately the Urban County Council. This zone change is going up to the Urban County Council, and that may be the point at which it's answered. But from the developer standpoint, what we have done, as we're required to do, is respond to the comprehensive plan and the staff that has operated in good faith with us throughout. And we've shown this location for the bridge. The best place to build it, if it's going to be built, should be determined by the Division of Engineering, and that's something that can be done at final development plan stage. I will also say that I have been in meetings with the staff where we've looked at how this intersection could be adjusted in order to try to avoid the Burr Oak. And they have not, they have looked, the problem actually is that if you move it this way, you get more into the Burr Oak than if you move it that way. But if you move it that way, then you run up right next to the historic schoolhouse. So if it's going to be moved at all, it has to come this way, and once you get away from that alignment at Harrodsburg Road, you run into issues with the transportation cabinet. With that, I will let you know we have engineers. We have Kevin Krause who's here to answer questions, and we'll be happy to respond to anything that comes up in any other presentations. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lear. I did receive your request for additional time, was willing to grant it given the circumstances, and certainly appreciate your brevity on the – I might need it for rebuttal. Okay. We'll grant that. I guess at this time, do we have any questions for Mr. Lear from the Commission? Are there any questions for Mr. Lear from the Commission? Okay. Can I get just a brief show of hands who may be here to speak in favor or in opposition to this proposal? Okay. I'm going to lean to my commissioners. Are you needing a break at this time? Commissioners? Okay. All right. At this time, we'll take those that wish to speak in favor of this proposal. Is there anyone here to speak in favor? Okay. See none. Those wishing to speak in opposition. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is Bruce Simpson. I'm here today on behalf of two property owners that live directly to the north of the proposed development site. They are Jeff and Jenny Stringer, who live at 4420 Old School House Road, and Jonathan and Mimi Porter, who live at 4350. old schoolhouse road. Tony's passing out a green book. Mr. Simpson, can I ask you, can you point out those addresses? I will, absolutely. Okay. I can see my laser printer here, pointer. The porters and the stringers, the stringers live right here. This is As staff referenced, the schoolhouse that actually was constructed in the late 1880s, a one-room schoolhouse, and they have, as you will hear a bit later, spent a considerable amount of their money and time refurbishing this so it is now a habitable building. They live here on a one-acre tract. This property here is owned by Jonathan and Mimi Porter. They've lived on this property since 1972. Mimi's parents had it before that time you will also hear testimony that this property too is historic and I will have evidence to that effect, in fact it's listed in my little green book all of this property that I represent the owners, all of this property to the north is agricultural urban property it's not zoned, it's not like the property over here or the property in Firebrook, which is over here, or the property over here where Twain Ridge is on the other side of South Elkhorn. It is agricultural urban. It has been agricultural urban property since that zone was foisted upon it by the government in 1969. It has remained relatively unchanged since then, and in fact, the evidence is that the properties there have remained virtually unchanged, particularly the Porter property, the property further north, since even before or at the time when Kentucky was a state in 1792. So we are talking about an unusual situation for this body to address. and I hasten to add that it has been a challenge for me as an attorney representing folks that live on a one acre parcel and a 15 acre parcel to help convince them, if you will, that based upon the last two years community debate in Lexington and the decision by this body not to expand the urban services boundary and the policies that went with that of growing, if I may say, up and not out and focusing on rebuilding and fixing our dilapidated infrastructure, that they need to embrace density, more density. It's been a challenge because, as you can well imagine, having lived there in the case of the Porters since 1972, 36 years, and in the case of the Stringers since 1983, 25 years, to try to talk a client into saying, well, the community decided it was best to have this increase in density, but it just happens to be next to you. We are not going to complain, however. Now, I'm saying that. My clients may take the microphone away from me and say, wait a minute. I'm complaining about the density. Having the privilege to represent neighborhoods in this community for the past 20 years, I never had a single neighborhood say to me, in connection with any zone change, that Bill and I ever had on opposite sides of the case with one another, Bruce, if there's anything that you absolutely have to do in this case, is that you have to get more density next to our neighborhood. That was never a marching order that I received. It, in fact, was just the opposite. But you will not hear from me today that we're objecting to the density. You will hear from me that this application is not in compliance with the PUD zoning ordinance, but because of the increase in this density as next to these historic properties that have very low density, that there is need of greater protection than has been recommended by the staff and that has been offered by the applicant. And because of that, and I will go through the provisions in the law that address what I just said, we believe that this application cannot be approved. Now, we're not coming here being unreasonable in my judgment. We're here to say we don't believe the application complies with the PUD and cannot be approved, and we're asking you to turn it down. But I'm also mindful that you're looking at ways to be accommodating and fair and equitable, and so in the alternative of you not turning it down, I do have a proposal for conditional zoning language, which we believe offers more protection for these two properties, these historic properties, that will allow them to be and remain historic to encourage the current owners as well as future owners to maintain these properties for the benefit of our historical inventory in Fayette County. As I said, this is an unusual case. It is a direct conflict of a decision that the community made, at least in a general sense, of increasing density, coming head on with property that's been agricultural inside the urban services area for over 200 years. It's an unusual case which begs discernment, judgment, equity, and fairness in terms of how you apply the zoning ordinance with respect to these properties. John and Mimi Porter and Jeff and Jenny Stringer will tell you they have no intentions to sell their property to any developer. They have been approached innumerable times. Those of you that have been involved in development cases know that the developers, many of whom I represented are always on the lookout for vacant land inside the urban services area to develop and they're paying a high dollar for it and the stringers and the porters have said no, we want to keep the land as it is. The porters in light of this application have been given a wake up call to a significant degree and they have about 15 acres and they're seriously considering putting their property into a conservation easement that would forever preclude it from any kind of development. They're not there today as we speak, but when they talk to you later on in our presentation, you will hear the seriousness and their genuine feelings about their stakeholder they've committed in connection with this property that at one time was Mimi Porter's father's property. So that's the basic issue that we're here today. We're not here to say that you have to reduce the density by 25% or 30% or 50% or that these houses aren't compatible with our houses. That is an argument that will not be made. In fact, what we're suggesting is if you accommodate our conditional zoning features, you can have the same density, make the units smaller or move them around and shift them, than you're asking for today, but at least give, at the end of today's proceeding, at least give a sufficient amount of buffer, we're asking for 30 feet along the common boundary line, a sufficient amount of buffer that does its best to act as a buffer between conflicting land uses of units that you will hear in a moment are really 10 units to the acre on the developable property in this area, which is not the flood plain, with respect to these historic properties. So I've got my little green book that I have passed out. I've also got some exhibits that I'm going to put on overhead just to speed this presentation along. The first slide, which is also under tab two in the book, is just an illustration of what I just stated a minute ago. The staff has pointed out, and as an attorney that practices planning and zoning law, I understand that density is averaged over the entire property to be developed. And as such, I think their density is somewhere around 6.8 units to the acre. But that also considers property that they can't build on, which is floodplain. And so if you just look at the land which is actually available for development, and that's even accounting the detention basin, which doesn't have any units on it, detention basin here and detention basin here. Again, the porter property is all along this area here and back across. They get out on Harrisburg Road. and their stringer property is this old schoolhouse of one acre right here, also close to Harrisburg Road. It gets out via schoolhouse road. But the density is actually 9.89 units to the acre. The reason I point that out is all of the density in connection with this case in terms of adjoining property owners is directly impacting the porters and the stringers, more so than any other property. The bill has mentioned and the staff has mentioned that one of the unique features, and I'm using their characterization of unique features, is that this property is oriented toward green space. Well, that's true. All the green space it's oriented to is the Porter Farm and the Stringer Schoolhouse, which has substantial green space. There are 41 units along the common boundary line toward the Porter property and the Stringer property, 41 townhouse units. Bill indicated in his presentation that one of the selling points, the innovative design features of this PUD zone change was that the residents, when they walked out their front door, they wouldn't have to see garages. They would have little courtyards to see when they walked out their front door. Guess what the stringers and the porters get to see? They get to see the garages of 41 townhouse units. So the asset for the future neighbors on the property becomes an unattractive nuisance for the property owners that have been there between 25 and 36 years. That's why I believe we have to have more buffering and screening than what's been offered by the staff and what's been offered by the applicant. The next slide. And actually, I've got a, it's not really good. It's also in tab number three. It's not going to show up particularly well here, so I'll just have to explain it to you. Tab number three is an exhibit that's been prepared by Tony Barrett, a landscape architect with Barrett Partners, and Tony is here today. To illustrate again the lack of harmonious relationship between the property that's being proposed for development, which are these townhouse units, and the porter property, which is here, is that particularly in regard to the porter property, which starts about here and goes the entire length of the subject property, is that the elevation of the porter property is at 916 here. Then it drops off to this field where their horses are. They have three horses. to 906. That's a 10-foot drop. And then even further down to where their house is, the drop is to 899. So that's 17 feet difference in elevation. Now, in the applicant's package, they have indicated that the townhouses could, in all likelihood, will be two-story and could be, under the zoning ordinance, 35 feet tall. So if you have a 35-foot tall building, should they go that high, with the elevation difference of 10 to 16 feet, then you're talking about radically changing the viewshed of property that's been relatively undisturbed since Kentucky was a state. I suggest to you that while density is an important component of future development, it does not mean that we wholesale apply it without a certain sense of fairness and equity and encouragement of historic properties to remain historic so that someone will keep them, maintain them, and perhaps even put them in a conservation easement for the benefit of future Lexingtonians. The next slide, you can take that one down. We get into just a very brief discussion of some of the historic evidence that we have. The staff has indicated that Stringer property is, in fact, a historic schoolhouse. It's a South Elkhorn schoolhouse. It's under tab number four of your booklet. This school was built approximately about 1887. It's a one-room schoolhouse. It was an operation up until the late 30s, early 40s when Fayette County basically closed all those one-room schoolhouses, consolidated into larger schools. The next slide is what the schoolhouse looks like today. The Stringers bought this property in 1983. They spent considerable time and money fixing it up. They did all the work themselves. every single construction they did, Jenny and Jeff. The significance, the next slide, the next slide is significant because, just to show you the juxtaposition of the schoolhouse, the Stringer home, and where the boundary line is for the subject property. This is their home. The boundary line to the subject property, the proposed development site, is 15 feet. So the buffer that's being talked about, and we'll go to the next slide, is 20 feet from the tree line here, and there's Jeff standing there. This is 20 feet. As you will see, Jeff, in fact, has planted some trees on the property that actually Ann Robinson still owns and did so years ago with Conn Robinson's consent, but they planted several ornamental trees, small trees in this area here. But you can see in this 20-foot area, there's not that many trees. There is this tree line along the boundary line, but if we're talking about just moving at 20 feet, this is what we see. Now, the next slide is 10 feet. You will note in the staff's recommendation for the conditional zoning, they recommended as the property gets back further, as the boundary line and the proposed development site gets further back to the Stringer property, in fact, the buffer becomes 10 feet. And this is back behind their garage in the proximal location where that starts. Again, you can see through here this is relatively tree-free. Most of the trees that will be impacted are past the 20-foot line that was shown in the previous slide. But this is where the fence would be in connection with the rear of the Stringer property. It's a significant approximation to where they've been living, and I would also point out that the Stringer property lines up directly parallel to the proposed clubhouse, the swimming pool, and the parking lot for the swimming pool and the clubhouse. The building is approximately 30 feet away from the property line for the clubhouse. The swimming pool is about 36 feet away from the property line, and the parking lot is about 36 feet away. That's a significant amount of activity, which is why we believe additional land ought to be included for a buffer in order to give the Stringer family the benefit of some additional breathing space and encouragement for the future sale of their property as a historic property. The next slide. These are also listed in order and sequence under tab number four. The next slides are trees that will be removed. These are trees beyond the 20-foot setback that the staff has recommended and that the applicant has agreed. I will just quickly ask you to go to tab number nine. Jeff Stringer is a Ph.D. professor in the Forestry Department at the University of Kentucky who lives in not this house but in the schoolhouse. and Jeff inventoried the trees that would actually be removed beyond the 20-foot proposed buffer by the staff and the developer has agreed. And what Jeff calculated in terms of this area adjacent to his house was that the current proposal would destroy 13 trees 1 to 3 inches in diameter and 19 trees between 5 and 16 inches in diameter. That's a significant removal of an existing tree stand, which is why we believe the 30-foot additional buffer and fencing and pine trees, what we recommend in our conditional zoning, is more appropriate and more equitable. The next slide is where the porters live. This is the John Higbee House. I'm sure many of us have heard about driven on Higby Mill Road. This was the home of the gentleman that had actually Higby Mill. There was a mill as a part of this property that was constructed in the late 1700s. We have this house as part of the Kentucky Heritage Council's historic inventory in terms of housing. That's identified under tab number 7 in your handout. This house has been restored by Jonathan. It has much of the original material in the house. The next slide, you should see the original floor joists back in the 1700s. It's now part of the ceiling for the first floor. They live in this house. The next slide shows part of their farming activity, which includes beehives. Next slide. As I mentioned, they have three horses. Now, these aren't racing horses or breeding stock. These are personal horses that Ms. Porter and Jonathan take care of. They board one horse for a friend of theirs. some of you may know that Mimi Porter is one of the nation's leading equine therapist that works on a number of horses all around the country in central Kentucky is a faculty at Midway College, teaches the subject, has spoken hundreds and hundreds of times at seminars all over the country with respect to her craft and skills and is widely sought after needless to say these horses, these animals, this farm which is part of her father's farm, remained very precious to her, and that's the reason we're here today. Next slide. This is a shot of the horses from the subject property side in terms of a portion of their farm. Next one. This is an area looking, their barn is on the right-hand side where they keep the horses. The fence that you see there is part of the subject property, which is right next to the port. That's the site of one of the proposed detention basins right on the other side of that gate there. And if we could back up just one more, Chris, on the previous slide, one before that. This in part shows you the grade elevation. This is about 10 feet at this point in terms of this level of grade, which is the proposed townhouse units versus where we are in the porters right here where they take care of the horses. These are all deciduous trees. They're screening now, of course, but that dissolves quickly in the late fall, winter months, early spring, and clear visibility to the other property, which is the site of the proposed housing development, and there's 41 units that are going to be here. One of the recommendations after giving this a whole lot of thought and debate and trying to help folks understand the policy that the government has adopted about increasing density is that density can be more acceptable, at least on the fringes here, where there is a direct conflict between a rural use, even though it's in the urban services boundary, and a clearly urban use, which is the proposed development, is on these houses along the perimeter of the Porter's property and the Stringer's property. We have no objection to the houses being there. We just strongly believe that those houses ought to be one story, that we should not have to look at two-story houses with balconies and decks. Right now it's proposed that those units are 30 feet away from the property line. You have an 8-foot deck. We're 22 feet away. We've got an elevation grade change of 10 more feet. You can well imagine, having looked at this property and the people who owned this property for the previous 200 years, all of a sudden to see 41 townhouses at 20, 30 feet tall with that great elevation is a major intrusion. It's a major change that warrants some kind of equitable adjustment, and we believe one-story units would be fair and equitable in connection with this development. Okay, we'll skip two more slides. That's, I'm not going to say anything. I think the Burr Oak controversy will be addressed by others. I just wanted to put a picture of it in there. We can skip, well, one thing I will say about this slide, this is just for illustration purposes only. This, really the staff's recommendation looks like this. This needs to be filtered in. This will be part of the no disturbance zone. It's 20 feet along through here. And then it gets back. You saw the picture of the garage. It becomes 10 feet at this point. This is the townhouse development that you see this portion overlooking the Stringer property to the rear of their property. And then from here on down east is all the Porter property. The staff is a recommendation of 20 feet or 30 feet on the average. the problem with allowing the average is that you have all these gaps in here and here in which the average could be substantially less than 30 feet at various points along the way. We just believe it's simpler, it's easier to enforce in terms of building inspection with respect to conditional zoning to make a uniform 30-foot buffer all along the common boundary line between the Stringer property and the Porter property. I think that's the last slide, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. With respect to the handout material, I just want to call your attention. Tab number five is a document from the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation, reflecting recognition of the Stringer property. That's a schoolhouse property as part of their historical inventory. inventory. Under tab number six is a part of a chapter of a book, Adaptive Reuse in Lexington, in which the Stringer property is featured in terms of the design, the creativity to maintain historical quality and attributes of this schoolhouse that was built in the late 1800s. They're featured in there, discussed. You can see pictures of the old house, part of the work in progress that the Stringer family did, the both of them, what it looks like today. Under tab number seven is the Kentucky Historical Resources Inventory maintained by the Kentucky Heritage Council in Frankfort with respect to the John Higbee property that is the Porter property. That's one of the earliest homes still standing in Lexington in the late 1700s. I have also included under the next tab, number eight, an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader that was written by Betty Lee Mastin in 1968 in connection with work that she did in which her research indicated that there seemed to be some evidence that one of Abraham Lincoln's relatives used to own or live on this property, perhaps even his father or his uncle or cousin. Suffice it to say, it is historical. The millstone for the Higbee Mill is in the front yard of the porters to this day. I just think at the end of all of this that while we did adopt the change of growing up and not out, and while we did say we were going to encourage increase in density, it did not say, I don't believe you all intended to have a uniform application of that principle without some consideration for historical properties. We're losing historical sites in Lexington. This is an opportunity. It's a precious opportunity, and quite frankly, it may be the last opportunity to give these properties the benefit of future preservation. I do have the stringers here to talk to you if you have any questions about what they have to say and what they would like to see. Likewise, the porters are here. If you want to ask them any questions about what they've done, their efforts to maintain their property. But that's the summary of our case and the summary of our evidence. We'll be happy to respond to any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Do we have any others wishing to speak in addition to the porters and the stringers? Okay. In the essence of time, we do have time limits here, the commission, and we'd like to keep those to three minutes. Okay. I will allow the porters want to add something new that Mr. Simpson did not provide as a representation for you all. You're welcome to do that. But if you could keep it to three minutes, we'd certainly appreciate it here. If you could give us your name and address. I'm Jeff Stringer at 4420. I have the old schoolhouse, so I'll keep it brief. We purchased the house in 83, back when we were young and no kids and didn't have any sense. And so one of the attractiveness of that property was it was historic. And the nature of that being a schoolhouse was very, it became quickly sentimental to us, and it was one of the reasons we bought the property. Tab 6, I didn't know we were going to have this here, but Tab 6 outlines a chapter in the Adaptive Reuse publication that UK did. and it gives in writing some of the reasons why we bought the property and what we've done there. And I won't go over those other than say that we've tried to be good stewards of that property. The time when we got it, it was worth literally $10,000, $15,000. That structure was about gone. We were able to rehab it. We did ourselves. My wife tells me not to say this. We lived in a 23-foot Coachman RV for a year and a half with a plank going over to it, and the toilet froze inside and all that kind of stuff. So we probably did that illegally, but we did it. And we rehabbed this. We did things, for example, all the walls and the floors, seeing all that original wood is still there. We've maintained the siding, which is underneath vinyl siding that we put up, just because I couldn't stand the thought of painting at the time, and it's still there. And we want to stay there. Our parcel is just one acre. as long as we're there. I mean, we're going to keep that house intact. We even added on to that house because we have children now. And when we did so, we did it in a way that connected to the schoolhouse in a way that you could rehab that schoolhouse if you wanted to. And so we've been very mindful of that. We want to continue to live there. When Harrodsburg Road was widened, we got a wake-up call because we lost 30 foot off the front end of our property. Nobody even knew we were there. They know we're there now, and we're trying to deal with that screening right now. I can't do anything until all this mess gets cleared up. We want to maintain there our houses very close to the boundary. I wished it wasn't. If we'd had three acres, I wouldn't be here. I'm 15 foot, and we need that screening just to maintain the historic nature of that historic tree line. The incursion in the backside of that tree line is 10 foot from the line. That's more than halfway under the drip edge of those trees, and we're real concerned about that. The visuals and all those things in our quality of life certainly is important to us, too, and we'd like that to be considered. So we thank you for your time and your consideration to this. Me and my wife, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Stringer. Hello. I'm Mimi Porter. My property makes the long northern boundary to this proposed development. And my purpose here is just to put a personal face on this rather abstract concept of infill and density development. As Bruce said, my father bought this land. He was a physician and had the dream of retiring and living there. We couldn't live there at the time that I was a child because the property was too far from Lexington, and he couldn't get into the hospital in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, he died before he was able to retire and live on the farm, and that's how I came to own this property. Now this property is so close to town that we are now part of what's considered an infill possibility. And that concept so flies in the face of the beauty and the peace of the land that we live on. My husband and I have lived there for 35 years, and we've made improvements to the house. We have organic gardens that provide food and flowers for lots of people, our friends and family. And we enjoy the freedom and the peace that a little bit of land provides you. We've seen a lot of habitat destruction with the developments that have sprung up around our property. and we feel like this one could perhaps be a final blow to one of the more beautiful areas of the bluegrass. So I'm here to oppose it and to remind you that infill means taking away things that we hold dear in the bluegrass region. Thank you, Ms. Porter. I think we have some other folks. If you could come forward, give us your name and address, please. If you could keep the comments to within three minutes. All right. Thank you. My name is John Yoswick. I'm the 4860 Bud Lane, Lexington, Kentucky. I'm the president of the Neighborhood Association of Dogwood Trace, and we have a few issues. Unlike the stringers and the porters, our issues are based on the density. Okay, first of all, we've heard that the staff said that they satisfied the requirements for medium density. Our problem is that of that 27.7 gross acres, 36% of those acres are unusable acres. So I think that that computation has been highly inflated by using 7.3 acres of the floodplain plus another 2.8 acres that goes out to the middle of Harrisburg Road, which is now a four-lane road. So you're obviously not going to be developing on either of those areas. If you take away those areas, the computation really is 11 units per acre, which is way above the medium density calculations. So, yes, our concern is the density. And that feeds into the next issue, which is traffic flow. If you've seen all these pictures all day here, The connector road or collector road, as it's called, is agape that comes from Dogwood Trace, upwards through a piece of property that's yet undeveloped, then through English Station, and another one is Hampton Springs, as well proposed, into this development. Today, agape empties out 63 residences in Dogwood Trace. If you add on these other developments, that number is going to go up to 330. Now, the staff recommended adopting without doing a traffic analysis impact. I think that's needed. It needs to take into account not just Premier Villages, but all those other subdivisions. They're all waiting to hook into Agape. And that's really the traffic we're going to see. Another point is Agape, where it ends today, it's only 30 foot wide or less. Okay. And I think that's not even wide enough to be a collector road, considering now you're going to have 330 residences coming out there. So that's our concern. We understand medium density with the comprehensive plan. That's fine. but we just think that this exceeds medium density and we need something smaller, you know, units per acre to not inundate us with traffic coming through. The other point here also, as Mr. Allure mentioned, the chance of that bridge being built to feed into Twain Ridge is probably slim to none. If you're talking about $3 million that Fayette County's got to fork out to pay for it, it's probably not going to happen. So it says the only collector road going into there is Agape. So there would be no relief from anything going out through Twain Ridge. And the last thing I just want to tie in with this whole thing about volume, density, is about storm sewers and sanitary sewers. The staff report itself singles out the problems with the South Elkhorn pump station during peak flow times. and now if you add on another 193 units, what's going to happen to that? And we realize that there are some plans in place to remedy that situation, but I don't know if it's going to be remedied by the time this stuff gets built. Thank you. By the way, I have some petitions here. I want to leave to somebody. 445 people oppose this proposal. Thank you, sir. you can give those to the staff. My name is Kim Crosetti. I live at 4785 Rima Way. I am the chair of the Dogwood Park Committee. The Dogwood Park is just upstream from the proposed development. I don't think you can see it on this picture. It's a little tiny corner down at the bottom of the picture. The reason Dogwood Park is important to this information is that the park is the trailhead of the South Elkhorn Greenway system. And in the Greenway plan, the greenway will come behind this property on a nice trail set in. The neighbors have really put a lot of effort and volunteer time and have also brought in a lot of grant money to begin this trail system. We put over $100,000 of improvement at Dogwood Park, and we've also looked at the stream improvements for the quality of the buffer zones. We've even designed large natural no-mow zones in the wetland of the park. And the reason I mention this is to show the dedication and the involvements of the neighbors in this area. The South Elkhorn Greenway is currently a beautiful area. There's lots of large trees, lots of wildlife, and many natural springs that feed into it. We have two natural springs in the park, and there's one in a property just adjacent to this that we just found a couple weeks ago. So the area is a very sensitive area. I'm very concerned that the beauty and the health of the stream, floodplain, and greenway will be compromised by the proposed development. They talk about the nice green look when they look out, but when I look at the plan, and I see more rooftops and road than I do green. And that's where the concern is that with this larger density, with all that runoff, you're going to have to have a very large retention basin, which they have put right up against the greenway. And I'm concerned that that's going to destroy the 25-foot riparian buffer zone that needs to be next to the creek. Here you're going to have the riparian zone 25 feet, and then you're going to have a green wall going up that is a dam for the retention basin. and it's going to ruin the look of the greenway. You're going to have a beautiful preserved section and then a wall, and that's not what we want a greenway for. We want the natural area. So we would request that we look at a lower impact area, which lower impact also means lower density. Another concern is the amount of fill. We don't have a grading plan to show the contours of the land, but I have heard that there's considerable fill in this plan, And that will decrease the access to the greenway. You're going to have a large area raised up above, and it'll be harder to get on the greenway. And that brings potential crime problems to a greenway. If you have a tunnel effect with little access, it's not going to be as easily patrolled. So to have a nice greenway with a trail system, we need to preserve the sides and the accesses of the greenway. We oppose the zone change and subdivision plan. This is a very sensitive area where lower-density housing should be built. This will allow more for the natural grade of the land and less disturbed and lower the impact of the sensitive balance of the riparian zone. A beautiful, well-planned greenway with easy access, natural vegetation, and large trees will increase the value and improve the water quality. But a poorly planned greenway with destroyed vegetation zones, difficult access, could increase crime and it could increase the risk of flooding and poor water quality. And I would like to add, too, this is a very large flooding area. That park is just totally covered with water at times. And I know there's problems with flooding down at Ramsey's. Whatever we do, we have to be very, very careful that we don't increase the flooding. Thank you, Ms. Ozzie. My name is Beth Chambers, and I live at 4756 Rima Way, and I also wanted to address the issue of protection of and access to the greenways. In the Zoning Ordinances, Article 22, Paragraph 1, the intent states that because customary standards are to be relaxed in these zones, the PUDs, close government scrutiny will be necessary to ensure that the overall standards for the health, safety, and welfare of the community will be maintained. And so this being a PUD, I do understand and I prefer to see infill as opposed to building out in the country. But I do want it to be responsible infill. And so if the thing that's up there now, can you all see it? Yes, you can see the yellow area that I've highlighted. That is an easement that will go, as Kim said, from the park. I'm sorry, I should be speaking here. From the park up to the floodplain area. That whole back area is floodplain, and it does flood. And the way the development is designed now, even though that's called green space for the residents of that area, they can't get into it. So regarding that, there needs to be access. And if you can put number three up. Okay. This is an example of a PUD that was done. It's Wyndham Downs, and they do have green space, but it's the park over on the other end, and all the houses in that area don't get access directly to the park. They actually have to come out to the road, go across the road, and then go into the park. If there had been easements put in in various places, you could see that those residents would have had pedestrian and bicycle access instead of having to go out to a main road, and that's my little yellow highlights. Also, the area behind that or above that on the slide is designated to be green space. And again, there's no direct access from those residences to the green space. Go ahead and put up number two. I'm sorry. Well, that's the park. Put up number four. Sorry about that. So the people in those houses, instead of having green space, have large areas of parking and asphalt as part of their view. I recognize that this development has improved that, but those are very small green corridors. So the last thing regarding the park access and the green space access, and this is number five. When, oh, if you can turn that sideways, that's Dogwood Park, the big park we've been talking about. And we put the trail in that, not the little round one, but there's a trail that actually kind of goes along the edges. If when Dogwood Hills had been developed, they had put in more access points, people would not have had to go all the way out along the road and come back. There is only one current access there, the little bridge. There is also an easement that goes up from the park to the property that's going to be developed. And I would like to see the requirements are put in the PUD, again, custom requirements, that would ensure that residents as well as people that come to the park can get to the greenway and get through the greenway and use this as a pedestrian access and a bike access instead of having to go so much on the roads. So I think there need to be custom, whatever you would want to call it, custom things that would emphasize these aspects of developing this property. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Marvin Mills. I want to make just a couple of short points. As we project to the future, rest of 10 years ahead. we're now talking about a few acres there are many other acres there how many houses will be in that area ten years from now if so, one question what would be the impact on our schools has that been planned the impact on our sewers, has that been planned if not, I would suggest that we look at those types of things because we're talking about not the year 2008, but 2018 Thank you. Thank you, sir. Chairman Vaughn, members of the commission, we appreciate your time. My name is Dan Danford. I'm an attorney with Stites and Harbison, but I am not here in that legal capacity. I'm here as a resident of Dogwood Trace. I live on 4709 Scenic View. A lot of things have been said already. Basically, I'm sitting standing in the back and listening, and what I've heard is that you all are faced with a tradeoff. And that tradeoff includes one dead 300-year-old tree, which should not be killed. And what you get for that is high-density property that nobody wants and nobody needs in our area. Now, it may well be. Excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Danforth. Ladies and gentlemen, we will not get through the afternoon if we have these interruptions, please. Let's be respectful of the gentleman trying to speak. Thank you. I didn't pay for that. Oh, I understand. It may well be. Of course, I don't do zoning law, and I'm not burdened with an in-depth understanding of our comprehensive plan. So it may be that density is something that we favor, and that's all well and good. But density for density's sake is not good. Density must be in the correct spot. What I've heard today is that this is not a spot for this dense of property, and for a number of reasons. not just the borough, not just the property of the folks who've got up and spoken compellingly about that, but also from my angle of things, I have two young children. And Dogwood Trace, you must understand, is a wonderful family neighborhood. Lots of kids all over the roads and sidewalks. It's a very active, nice neighborhood, which really only has one major ingress in and then one other that goes out towards Kroger's and a number of other stores, and it's a nice easy way to get south of town. So you allow 193, at least, units, and then I understand there's perhaps another development that wants to do more, and then you also have the English Station, which has a number of homes already, that all get fed through Agape. Most of that traffic is going to go straight through this neighborhood. In my opinion, that will irrevocably change the character of our neighborhood. Now, you've got a dead tree, you've got a neighborhood that should not be changed, you have neighbors on the other side whose homes should not be changed, their views should not be damaged, and what do you gain by this, folks? What do you gain? And the answer is you gain low-density homes, or high-density homes, rather, medium, whatever they end up being, that nobody wants or needs. This is not another time in our area of this county that we need this kind of housing, especially there. Actually, I didn't plan on saying anything today, but I got drafted because they said I was tall and relatively respectable looking. But anyway, I'm supposed to read a letter from Mr. Rob Ramsey, who is the owner of Ramsey's Restaurant, which I hope you've had the pleasure of eating at. He has addressed this to you, and he could not be here today, so I'll just read it. And by the way, this is not my letter, so please, if you don't like what he says, don't shoot the messenger. Several years back, I appeared in front of the Planning Commission, opposing a zone change affecting my Harrodsburg Road restaurant, a location which ultimately resulted in the development of South Elkhorn Shopping Center. I opposed the zone change out of fear of flooding of my restaurant due to drainage from shopping area running towards Elkhorn Creek and having nowhere to go. The zoning request was passed, the shopping center built, and in September 2006, my restaurant was under four feet of water. My insurance company paid because it was determined that flooding was caused by drainage backup from the center. Water was not able to drain because of the rise in the creek. The creek did not directly cause the flood. The Urban Services Report for the above-mentioned zone change states that, quote, the Harrodsburg Road, U.S. 68 improvements in the immediate area most likely changed the flood plain somewhat. This is an understatement of the year. On three occasions since 2006, I have stood in the back of my restaurant, watching Bowman's Mill go further underwater, trying to decide whether to close my restaurant for the safety of my patrons. Each time, one more inch of rise would have created the necessity. For the Planning Commission to again allow further asphalting and development in this area without a conclusive flood study is unimaginable to me. As a neighbor of South Elkhorn Creek, I assure you it will flood again due to the development you approved, and it will flood again sooner if you approve more development next to South Elkhorn. That is signed by Robert Ramsey. I would also add that in kind of response to the gentleman that came right before me, that I really hope that you don't do this because it probably will bump my child out of her school zone and she would probably shoot me. So please take that into consideration as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Hello, my name is Jim Schaaf. I live at 140 East Hatai in Berea. I'm here on behalf of Kentucky Heartwood that has quite a few members in the Lexington area. I'm here because of the tree. I'm going to speak specifically to that. My first question, though, a show of hands with the commission. Have any of you actually visited this tree? So as the two of you or the three of you are aware, those pictures didn't do it justice. It's an enormous and beautiful tree. I haven't had the chance to visit with a tape measure, but my essence is probably about 18, 20-foot circumference. Have you measured it? I imagine it's about right. I'm also a landscaper and a certified arborist, and I spent quite a bit of time looking at the tree today. It's a very healthy tree, especially for its age. It doesn't show any sign of rot along its root crown. The canopy of the tree is very healthy. It has some dead branches, but no more than would normally be expected. It's a wonderful specimen, and as hopefully you're aware, an increasingly rare specimen tree. We talk about historic buildings, the Stringer's Home being historic as it is, but this tree was 200 years old when that was built. This tree is historic just because it's a living being and a plant. It does not make it less historic than a building that somebody built. And to say that removing this tree can be made up for by saving a few other trees on site is like saying it would be okay to bulldoze the clay estate because some houses that were built in the 50s nearby are going to be retained. I think that from what I've seen from these plans, it seems that the original plans of the developer actually maintain that tree and that the problems have to do with this large feeder road on the north, this feeder road that is largely designed to connect to a road that it will never connect to, which makes this whole thing even more ridiculous and regrettable. I have opinions on high-density developments, developments, particularly that it can decrease the impact on the land by having more people on a smaller acreage. But on that, I will defer to the residents of the area as I feel that I should. But it seems to me that if this development were to go through, that it should be a self-contained development and that the schoolhouse road that comes into it now could feed that development on its own and that development should not have a feeder road that is intended to connect to a road that it won't connect to or connect other neighborhoods to its south, but instead should follow the schoolhouse road as it is that goes out without destroying the hill, regrading a huge hill, and destroying this tree unnecessarily. I think that that would deal with a lot of these traffic issues that people are concerned with. It would mean that the problems getting out of that intersection are still with the people that chose to live in this development, and it would retain the tree. I also want to say that that's pretty much what I want to say I do want to say that I support the Porter's and Stringer's efforts to maintain the beauty of their property I think that's a very important thing to give deference and respect to the people that have lived on these properties for a long time before these other developments came in I do have to point out the irony though that Mr. Stringer is happy to clear cut 800 acres of public's property but has problems removing some trees out his back door. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Christina Dudak, and I live at 2604 Waternole Court, which is in the Firebrook subdivision. And in the interest of time, I do have a letter from the board for the committee, but I will just give that for you to read at your leisure. I also have petitions that have been signed by the residents of Firebrook that are against the development as planned as far as the density is concerned, and also against the destruction of the tree. And I have four little children, and three of them made posters for our neighborhood for the tree. And I think that that really says something about how emotionally we become involved with what's around us. And if they can see the importance of saving a 300-year-old tree in their 8, 6, and 5, I think that we as adults need to preserve those things for them. So that's really all I have today. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. If you could, yes, okay, give that to staff. Hello, I'm Fred Wolstein at 4765 Remo Way in Dogwood Trace. I'm going to be brief and paraphrase materials that I've already prepared because I know you're growing weary of hearing arguments and repetition. But I just want to quickly address that the petition filed by Mr. Krause with Premier Villages specifically referenced Kentucky Revised Statute KRS 100.213, where we use that as justification for his petition to make a change in the property classification from AU to PUD1. And I say that Kentucky court cases that have previously determined that accordance with the comprehensive plan in itself is not adequate for an automatic grant of rezoning, of a rezoning request. Also, a case that I'm sure Bill Lear is familiar with, the Court of Appeals opinion which affirmed the opinion of the Fayette Circuit Court sustained the City Council on the denial of a rezoning, it stated the following, however, just because the zone change request complies with a comprehensive plan or meets the criteria set forth in KRS 100.213.1a or b, does not mean that the zone A or B does not mean that the zone request must be granted. And I'm going to skip where it says, the governing body is given authority to decide each application on its own merits and its impact on the community. And then skipping again, you have copies, down to the last sentence, making these decisions is the function of the appointed or elected officials. Their responsibilities include looking at the big picture and making tough decisions. Hence, I humbly request that the Commission consider the relevant evidence presented by those in opposition to the zoning change to determine the big picture and render a decision based on all facts presented. Key facts of the opposition are the lack of a traffic impact assessment, impact on historic Harrisburg Road corridor, lack of sufficient conservation of physical characteristics, the borough, no pre-blasting test performed if necessary, which could affect the underground springs previously mentioned. Development will affect the dynamics of the existing community. previously mentioned the Twain Ridge Drive connection which will not be realized in the near future and was referenced under article 22a. The flood plane issues that have not been sufficiently addressed, the sewage treatment plants which are already over capacity during peak periods, and then the green space and bluegrass identity which will be destroyed specifically the South Elkhorn Greenway. And I have another letter that I gave to the attendant over there that they weren't able to read it themselves. I'll just quickly point out that they wanted me to read the quote that Bill Lear was quoted in the paper this morning saying, what has happened is that a number of planning decisions have been made over the years and that they have been made in ignorance of the location of the tree. His statement specifically mentions of the tree, the 300-year-old burrow tree, which will be destroyed for a road that has been maintained to be built by the state, which by all understanding and case precedent will not likely occur. Then what is the point? Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ray Waits and I live at 2200 Old Higby Mill Row. As reporters have pointed out, they've been there a while, but they're newbies to the neighborhood. We've had this land in our possession for over 150 years. and we've seen a lot of things occur out here with y'all's condolences that didn't go along with us. But now that it has happened, I've been sort of a semi-caretaker of the property for Ann Robinson. She's allowed me to use it. I've used it for my cattle. Now, the cattle are not in vogue in the middle of town. But we've had tremendous problems with trespassers. These folks that move in out of Agape, the rest of them, they use the end of Agape for a dump. I had to go clean motorcycles and stuff off the end of one of my neighbor's property up there. It serves, that's what happens when development occurs. But I'm here to request on record that I have a security fence between approximately 700 foot of my common line with Ann or the Krauses, however it goes here. It hasn't been necessary with Ann because, like I said, I was using the property. Now, it will be sold and used for possibly the best use. That remains to be seen. But as far as how that neighborhood was developed, B-E-E is not the way Higbee was spelled. On our deeds, it's B-Y, like our great cousin. That was a cousin of ours that owned the mill before my great-great-grandpa owned the land adjacent to it. But I do need a six-foot chain-link fence along that approximately 700 foot. I've even offered to, quote, maintain it if I can get my tractor to it as long as our family owns it. But I have experienced a tremendous amount of vandalism, excess of $20,000 the last tract that was developed. We caught them, but the city let them, the courts let them go. When we call about trespassers, time the police respond, they've done their deed and left. But watching out for my own liability, as they call attractive nuisance of that 700 feet along that creek, I do need to have a place that I can at least prosecute once they come across. And that's about all I've got to say about it. I understand where John and Mimi are coming from. They've been great neighbors for all these years that they've been there. But like I said, we had it before her dad got to it. But it does need to be addressed. It's a fine neighborhood. Most of these streets that they're referring to, those streets were planned many years ago before any bus got to move in. But I do want to request on record that I be granted my security fence with an upgrade type, basically, because there's going to be a lot of people and there's a lot of children that are going to be attracted to my little backyard. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Waits. Hello. Can you hear me? I'm Julian Campbell. I've lived here for 30 years in Kentucky, Lexington. I've recently become a citizen. And from my opinion, Lexington's gone downhill in the 30 years I've lived here, with a few exceptions here and there. I'm a bit of a tree hugger and environmentalist, if you like, and although most people may not have shared my opinion, I think the growing interest is out there that Lexington is losing its natural heritage, and this is one small example. Well, maybe it's not just a small example. I mean, the last tree standing is a symbol, perhaps, of a little bigger problem. If you look at the area around that bridge, the crossing of Harrisburg Road and South Elkhorn, I mean, it's pretty obvious there was quite a bit of potential there 20, 30 years ago. maybe there still is some potential to do something better than simply infill. It's very regrettable, I think, that we've seen all this miscellaneous development. Obviously, a hodgepodge of decisions have been made. We've all come at it from different angles, perhaps, around the intersection here. And the best solution has not occurred, partly because people haven't gotten together. Government hasn't really fostered an integrated solution. But what little is left, perhaps something can be put together. So I would urge you to do what you can to slow this down and to take more time and to try and get a better outcome here, to tie together the historic structures, the big tree, the corridors, the greenways, etc. Two real specific things, just briefly on the tree. Well, about 20 or 30 years ago, I made a little map of the best little beauty spots of Lessington area and the urban services area, and this was one of them, the Firebrook area, where there was about 20 or 30 big trees out there, because they're mostly all gone. One was surrounded by a deck at the back of the house of Firebrook. You used to drive by that for about 10 years, and then that was a crazy idea. Who wants a big tree like five feet from your back window? But, you know, we can't live with its jam-packed high density and close to these big trees. It's not going to really work. And these remnants are disappearing. And, you know, every year we lose one or two more. We're down to just a handful of what was a few dozen when I first came to Lexington. And lastly but not leastly, you know, this particular tree, there's been a little press about that today, I think, in the Herald Leader. You know, these individual trees, you may say they're big and wonderful things and that's all they are, but they actually have history within them. The tree ring history in those trees is very, very interesting. We're just starting to learn fascinating things about the environmental history that goes back centuries of this area, what it was like before Dan Yaboon came, and maybe some ideas about connecting tree growth and climatic change are also there. If you talk to Ryan McKeown, I think his research was mentioned today in the paper. I've helped him quite a bit. But there's a lot more that doesn't quite meet the eye. Maybe most people don't quite get it yet in Lexington, but it is certainly something that hopefully you can do something about. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on behalf of this proposal? Okay. We're ready for rebuttal. Mr. Lear. Thank you. I have... I'm sorry. Was there someone else? I want to give everybody an opportunity. This gentleman raised his hand. I didn't see it, I guess. And then we'll take rebuttal from Mr. Lear. Thank you. Sorry. My name is Robert Patti. I live at 2500 Sun Gale Court. When I first heard about this, I thought, this is going to be unreal. Because on my back deck, I see that beautiful tree, and I can see the hillside there, and I have never had the opportunity to go and look and see what any of that land looks like because I don't like trespassing. But just the thought of tearing down that whole hillside, and I know what blasting's like. I'm a retired Department of Transportation employee working for Traffic Division, and I wasn't involved in any of this changing of Harrodsburg Road, but I sure was involved in the blasting because my house felt it, my animals felt it, My next-door neighbors felt it. We all had damage. Just the thought of tearing down that hillside, which is so pretty, and putting up all this other, I just don't understand. I was very much involved in doing traffic surveys. At Palomar, we did four traffic surveys in five years. They were never able to get a stoplight. If this goes in now, they'll never get out of Palomar unless somebody puts up a stoplight. Traffic has gotten so bad that during most of the day, if we didn't have stoplights there, you can't make a right out of any intersection to there unless you're extremely careful. So I'm just saying that people need to think about what you're doing before you jump into it. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Now, Mr. Lear. First, a very broad observation. In 30 years of dealing with planning and zoning cases, my first zoning case ever was Clemens Heights, believe it or not. In 30 years of dealing with these, I have marveled that the people that don't want us to expand the urban service area and are vociferous in protection of our horse farm never seem to be in the same room at the same time with the people who don't want us to grow up, and vice versa. There are more people here today speaking against density in our part of the county than spoke from a neighborhood position in favor of expanding the urban service area to allow more area for development during the entire time you considered it. Firebrook I suspect that the last gentleman who spoke I know that the lady who spoke all in wonderful candor don't remember what the view from this property across Harrodsburg Road used to be 20 years ago I can tell them what it used to be because I used to drive up and down it used to be a horse farm owned by the Firestone family hence the name Firebrook it was a beautiful view. A lovely creek running down through it, a beautiful white house, which is now their clubhouse. It was a horse farm. Now it's Firebrook. I think Firebrook is a wonderful development. It's a little bit hypocritical, though, to have converted a horse to live where horses used to roam and then say, I want to keep what I look at just the way it was before. Dogwood Trace. I remember driving the road and looking out to the left. Dogwood Trace. I don't remember it was a horse farm. I think it was a cattle and tobacco farm. Density. Every property up and down that watershed, and I've been involved in several of the zone changes, and so has Bruce. Every one of them has used the same method of density calculation that the staff has used in estimating the appropriate density for this development. You do take in the greenway. I dare say that the density that could have gone on Dogwood Park went one side or another of the greenway. We've heard from Rob Ramsey that there are concerns about flooding. We heard from another speaker that there are concerns about our detention basin. It would seem you can't have it both ways. The detention basin is there because the staff has said we need to put a detention basin. We would be happy to let the flow go straight into the creek. That is not what the staff has told us to do. That's not what the development plan rules and regulations and engineering say we should do. It will actually help detain water. It will help preserve the greenway. Those who are concerned about retaining the greenway should consider that the percentage that's set aside on this property, upwards of 30 percent at seven plus acres in green in the back, is about as big as, if not bigger than, the percentage that any other property along there has set aside in the greenway. There's nothing about this project that would interfere with the greenway save the construction of the bridge, and that won't be our call. All we've done is follow the rules and align the road or provide a right-of-way for the road. where it can be built and connect up to Dogwood Trace if need be. The trail system I've mentioned. Somebody was concerned about the level of cut and fill. Other than the cut and fill that's required, the cut that's required to get in the front, if the road goes in that location in that fashion, there's very little cut and fill on the property. We have stepped down townhouses toward the back as it begins to bend down toward the greenway so as not to have to do a lot of cut and fill. Schools. The comprehensive plan is supposed to take into account schools. That's taken into account as a part of the studies when all of the densities are determined for these properties. One of Bruce's arguments was that the real density, if you forget the way we've calculated, the way he's calculated, I've calculated, the staff has calculated it for ever and ever. Even if you forget that, Bruce says that the density is all the way up to 9 point something. Well, 9 point something per net acre, which is what you have to talk about if you don't take into account these other areas, is still within the range of 5 to 10 units per acre that's allowed in the medium density residential category. I delivered to Raymond Waits before. We've had some conversations with him about the fence he wants. I delivered to him a letter before the meeting indicating that the developer, assuming the zone change is granted, will build the fence he requests. We understand his situation, but remember that the kinds of things he's talked about, the dumping, the vandalism, the other issues incident to development have not been caused by this property. They've been caused by existing development out in that area. I wouldn't suggest it's any of the speakers here today, but the fact is they're all a part of the existing development out there and are saying don't allow these folks near us. the one thing that wasn't mentioned here today I'm sure out of political correctness but which was number one on the zoning change alert that was passed out in the neighborhood and generated a lot of these signatures is and by the way it's the only one in bold type why should you care first bullet decreased property value there's some of the things being said today that are merely red herrings or stalking horses for a concern that somehow this development, which may be viewed by them as not as nice as theirs, is going to decrease their property value. That is not an appropriate consideration in planning and zoning. Now, the thing that I want to turn a little bit of attention to with the use of the overheads is what Bruce has argued in terms of an enhanced conditional zoning restriction. He says he's not against density, but what he's requested would eliminate 36 units out of this development. By putting a 30-foot buffer all up and down the property line, including the Porter's property line, that would eliminate all of the units that are on that side of the collector street. And if we can, I can just point. Pushing all these units up 30 feet basically eliminates this entire line of units. Now, what are we backing up against? Over here, the Stringer property, we agree that it is legitimate to have concern about buffering the school. That's why we agreed with what the staff proposed. You can see, I'll show you up here. This is the area of the old schoolhouse. That's why we think that the staff's proposal is appropriate. Once you get back here, you're talking about an AU, Agricultural Urban Field. This property line is approximately 300 feet away from the porter's house. It's a long way. The zoning ordinance, which takes into account these sorts of things, has no provision whatsoever for buffering between a residential development and an AU because the zoning ordinance and the comprehensive plan operates under the assumption that ultimately an AU tract of this type will be developed, maybe not by the porters but by someone else, but by extending a 30-foot buffer all the way back here. And by the way, I'm going to show you in a minute why that's not necessary. You can see a little bit up there. You eliminate all these, all this line and all this line. So when Bruce says he's not against density, what he proposes would significantly decrease the density of the development. This is the property line in here. That's a porter's house. There is a very dense, very dense hedgerow in here. Now, we're willing to put in a V-mesh or diamond mesh fence. That's a horse farm type fence. It's more secure and better than a chain link fence. We'll be happy to put it in on this side, our side of the property line. But you can see there is a significant amount of screening in here already, and it goes all the way up beside this property. The issue with what Mr. Simpson is recommending about pushing that further up in the area of the stringers, again, is this road. Because what happens there, the road has to come in at such a grade that this has to be graded back, and the further away you push it, the more you eat into the grade that has to be put in place as a part of getting down to that road. I want to show you, Rena, if you would do the one that shows the juxtaposition of, yeah, that's the one. This is the Stringer's house. This is the property line, and there are significant trees along the property line. This is the undisturbed zone, and there's another 10 feet beside that in the staff's proposal. What happens because of the grade change is that the clubhouse, which is what is adjacent, ends up set down. It will actually be lower than that house. An eight-foot privacy fence erected here, which is where we said we would be willing to put it, creates a situation where, and they didn't want to see our windows, where they can't see the windows. What they'll be looking at, contrary to what Bruce suggested, they'll be looking at the trees, the trees in the background, and the privacy fence. They will not be looking at the clubhouse in the area beside their house and in the backyard. Put up the, yeah, one other. This is a little harder to see, but again, this shows you the entrance and what happens with the elevation. Because of the need to construct the road at that elevation, the clubhouse comes down. This is just a broader view, but you can see that there's screening in place. there and that this ends up being higher than the clubhouse, and it's not the kind of situation that was described where you're looking up the hill. It's something that's very tall. Now, one other thing I will say is that one of the things that Mr. Simpson has suggested you do, in my view, you cannot lawfully do, and that is as a conditional zoning condition, limit the structures to one story in height. I have a little bit of history. I was the legislative sponsor of the conditional zoning legislation by the General Assembly. I've dealt with it ever since it was adopted. You can only deal with architecture in areas that are zoned historic. This one is not zoned historic. So limiting them to one story is simply above and beyond the power of the Planning Commission or the Urban County Council as a conditional zoning measure. I think that's – I hope I haven't taken too long for a rebuttal. I think my time is still fairly well intact. I'd be happy to answer your questions. Let me just conclude by saying that every time you try to do a development that is different in any respect from one that's already there, every time you try to do one that has any density in an area that hasn't had density, you're going to get some opposition of the type that you've had today. The only way, the only way for us to hold firm on decisions that were made in the comprehensive plan is for us to respect those opinions but not be guided by them. The guiding principle is the comprehensive plan. The hours that went into the decision of the comprehensive plan that says we're going to use these tracts of land, we're going to put housing on them, we're going to allow our population to grow up and not out, are now the foundation for the comprehensive plan. There is a lot of language in the comp plan that says this is a no-expansion plan. This is a plan that is going to cause us to use our parcels to their fullest. We're not overburdening this land. Even with all of that, this proposal suggests, this proposal proposes to build units at the same density that's been on the comprehensive plan for 20 or 30 years. So it's not overreaching in any respect, and we believe it should be approved and request you to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lear. Mr. Simpson? Three basic points, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. And I call your attention again to the guiding law in this case, which is a PUD ordinance. It's set forth under tab number one in my little green book. The applicant has submitted himself to parameters and provisions of this ordinance. This ordinance implements your comprehensive plan. This is your guide, if you will. And the critical part I've underlined twice, two different sections. The seminal part with respect to the intent of this ordinance and this application for your consideration today is as follows. It is further intended that the plan new development zones, the PUD zone, are established to encourage innovative design and the use of qualified professionals to provide for flexibility which would not be possible using traditional techniques to promote the efficient use of existing and proposed facilities to minimize land use conflicts and promote development compatible with surrounding land uses and promote development compatible with surrounding land uses. On the second page of the provision of the PUD set forth in 22A, relationship to surrounding uses, boldface language. This is to indicate to you this is important. The plan unit development zone shall. The important part there is the word shall. Not may, not discretionary, shall. The plan unit development shall have a harmonious relationship to their surrounding land uses. Certain uses may be limited to specific locations within the PUD1 zone, or other restrictions or requirements may be made as necessary. Now, our suggestion is as follows. We have not objected to the density insofar as it can be adequately buffered. Bill contends to you that our proposed buffering of 30 feet on this 25-acre parcel, 30 feet, strips his client from 36 units as if he's entitled to those units. No one is entitled to anything. We come here as applicants. We come here as objectors advocating positions because you all have the discretion under the guiding principles of law, which I've cited for you in the law book, to make a decision. No one's entitled to anything. As the gentleman said, the Kentucky cases hold that just because you have an application that is in compliance with the comprehensive plan does not mean that the applicant is entitled as a matter of law to get approval. You all have the blessing or the curse to hear these cases and to entertain opposing points of view and decide matters of precedent and important public policy. This is a very important presidential case as we go forward in the application of density inside the urban services boundary. We have the undisputed facts of two very historic pieces of property. We have an obligation and an opportunity to institute minimal buffering provisions to protect them. They can retool and redesign their development to take the 36 units that Bill says that we're stripping away from him. Locate them elsewhere, make them smaller, make them fourplexes, make them sixplexes. The PUD zone allows for those kinds of creative uses. All the green space should not be provided by the only agricultural uses adjacent to this property, which are the porters and the stringers. Our suggestion is, if the application cannot be modified by conditional zoning, then based upon the law that I've cited, set forth in a PUD zone, this is not harmonious and you have to turn it down. So if you don't want the conditional zoning provisions attached, then turn it down because we've demonstrated they're not in compliance with the mandatory provisions that it has to be harmonious. I would suggest to you there is no reasonable way. There can be 41 townhouses 30 feet away from a farm with decks 8 foot off of those, 22 feet away from those horses, that that is harmonious under any set of circumstances, under any set of reasonable interpretation of the PUD ordinance. Adopt our conditional zoning provisions or turn it down. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Staff, do you have rebuttal at this time? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two rebuttal points. However, first, the staff has received some additional communications during the course of your hearing. One is a letter of objection from Ms. Patricia Roof, who resides on Dogwood Trace Boulevard, and another from Mr. Tom Curler, a resident of Harrods Point Trace Subdivision who had to leave earlier. I would like to distribute these and circulate them to you at this time. Also we received a copy of the petition. I believe this is the one that I handed out to you earlier in the meeting. I'm going to circulate it to you just in case it is different. The two points that the staff would like to make in rebuttal, the pump station was mentioned that is located northwest of the subject property. Again, this is Harrodsburg Road. The intersection with military is here. The pump station is on Bowman's Mill Road, which is immediately north and west of the subject property, right at the edge of the urban service area, immediately adjacent to Helm Place. This pump station, the staff understands, is scheduled for improvement in the next 12 to 18 months. So we thought that was germane to your hearing today, given the earlier discussion about that. The other item that the staff wanted to clarify is the dimension of Agape Drive, wherein one of the roads in the proposed development is aimed at. The comment was made that that is a local street. In terms of geometry, that is correct. That is a street with a 50-foot right-of-way and a 31-foot pavement. Under the subdivision regulations, that is the width of a local street and not a collector street. However, as Ms. Wade mentioned to you earlier, the comprehensive plan does consider that connection as if it were a collector street. So it may be a matter of geometry versus connectivity. I wanted to clarify that for you as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Salih. Okay. At this time, I'll entertain any questions from the commission. I'm sorry, close this portion of the hearing and then entertain any questions, comments from commission members. You've heard presentation as well as rebuttal. Mr. Cravens. Yes. Can we make a can we make a ruling to change the state what the state's ruled where the access has to be? Can we could we say we don't want to do that we want to go around it maybe your first access that you had? Well, the state ultimately has the authority over that. I think you can make a recommendation to the state or you might require a different alignment subject to approval by the Department of Highways. but as I think legal counsel will tell you, when you're dealing with access to a state road or a U.S. highway, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has the ultimate authority. I just had a question also on that. I guess this old schoolhouse road, did they turn that down or did they make the determination that wasn't a viable access point? I'm sorry, you mean the route that we originally proposed? Yes, yeah. We simply submitted that to them and got the response from them that the route needed to be straight back rather than the curved route we submitted. We can resubmit. I just don't, the only thing I would ask that you not do is put us in a situation that says it shall be this way and then the state says it can't be that way because that effectively eliminates any access option. Mr. Lear, can you just, for the commission, just revisit that curve, just show that very quickly, the curve entrance route? Yes, if you put the aerial up, if you just look on that, do you see the existing access to the property? The existing access is via a driveway right here. And the access, that access is probably steeper than your subdivision regulations will allow. So if you want to suggest that, we would probably need some waiver of grade in there. But that's pretty close to, I think that's right, Kevin, that's pretty close to the route that we initially suggested, right up where the cut for the old route. And it's not much cut, actually, for the old driveway. It swings around in a circular fashion. Those of you that have been out and looked at the tree probably had to drive up that driveway to get to it. So if we made a suggestion to revisit that subject to the final approval of Kentucky Highway. And that could be a matter deferred to the final development plan. Right, right. Remember, this is a preliminary development plan. This is not the last opportunity that this body will have to review that. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? Just for, again, the neophyte here, the procedure on that, we can approve this subject to that possibility? Or is that just postponing a difficult decision? Well, what I think the way in which that would be presented is the final decision, number one, final decision on the access would be deferred to final development plan. Number two, the probably be a note that says the preferred access is via this route subject to approval by the Kentucky Department of Highways. Now, one of the things that I think everyone should be aware of, and traffic engineering is probably going to jump out of their skin if I don't say this, that is not the way you would do a collector street. I mean, you could do a local street, and that's kind of how English Station originally has been done. but it would not be wise to continue to ask that to function as a collector street with the plan that it connect back there and over to Agape and come in in that fashion because you're assuming a lot more traffic going up and down a curve and a steeper than normal access. Thank you. Mr. Cravens? Yeah, I don't know who this might be for our law. Could we approve the zoning but not the development plan? We have discussed that possibility, and in essence, the zoning ordinance talks about the fact that a development plan has to be certified within six months of the approved zone change. So we feel that, yes, that is a possibility. But you would, I think, be considering the zone change request with the associated proposed design guidelines because that is part of the PUD zone change. Okay, so the fact that it's a PUD doesn't prohibit us from splitting those two apart? That's correct. So then the zoning development plan would either be a postponement or as far as going forward? That's correct. Okay. All right. This is for staff. Is there a way that we can, since we're figuring that bridge is never going to get built, change that from a collector where Twin Ridge runs into what's now the bridge so we would not have to make this up to collector status on this side of the creek? In the end, the Planning Commission would have that authority and the approval of the final development plans for the property to look at those options and make that ultimate decision. Because, I mean, we could, I think, take care of a couple objectives. One was the people from Twin Ridge that are afraid of that traffic possibly be able to build the road on this side of the tree if we're not having to make that a connector or a big road. So that's just an observation. I went out there and looked at it today. Actually, the grade that comes in the driveway right now, to me, looks like it's not as steep a grade as it would be down if you had to go down by the tree. So there just seems like a lot, you know, sometimes we've just got to sit here and not think back these things back, back, figure out what's going to be the best way to handle it. And if we can do that as a commission, then I'd like to see us kind of move in that direction. Thank you. Ms. Phipp, I'm sorry. Following up on that, if that's the case and we can do something that would prevent this from being termed a connector, Would that still require state approval for allowing the access to this proposed neighborhood? Yes. Regardless of the level of classification on the street or even if it were some type of private driveway that didn't connect to any other property, the State Highway Department does have the ultimate authority on that access, granting it. I might help by reading a section from the comprehensive plan. It says that the land use plan shows appropriate locations, this is for collector streets, that will be refined during the development review process. While good connectivity is essential, connectivity is not appropriate in all cases due to safety and other unique considerations. So there's language within both the ordinance. The language of the PUD also includes a statement that says, where possible, the streets should follow the natural terrain. Thank you, Ms. Lear. We have some other questions. Ms. Phillips, do you have a question? I just wanted to make a comment. In my 20 years of serving as a practicing planner and my understanding and application of the planned unit development concept, the idea associated with the PUD is to relieve the developer of any kind of very rigid restrictions associated with the traditional Euclidean zoning that we have in place in other areas of the county. And the PUD is supposed to be used on pieces of property that have some sort of natural feature, some sort of value, some sort of structure, value, historic amenity that we need to plan around. And by creating a rigid cookie-cutter type pattern that we tend to foster in other zoning categories within our zoning ordinance, that would in some way compromise that natural asset, historic asset, whatever it might be. In this case, it appears to me to be a design that was done without any acknowledgement of natural features. I don't see anything that's particularly innovative associated with this property. The only thing that I see that speaks to the natural stream feature is that it is set back away from the stream and out of the floodway. But, y'all, we would require that anyway. We don't allow development in the floodway. And the rigidity, the uniformity of the alleyways, of the townhouses, this could be any other zoning district other than PUD. What we were hoping to see in the zoning committee is something that speaks to the terrain, that speaks to the historic features on the property, including that bur oak. And I don't believe that this development plan really complies with the intent of what our PUD is there for. And with that having been said, I'm ready to make a motion to disapprove the rezoning. Okay. You have findings, findings in fact for disapproval. Okay. All right. We do have two actions here, obviously. First is a zone change, and I think Commissioner Phillips is prepared to make a motion for the zone change. Is that correct? Okay. Mr. Chairman, I move for disapproval of the rezoning MAR 2008-14 from the AU zone to the PUD zone. based on the section of our zoning ordinance, section 22A-6, parentheses I, which speaks to relationship to the site inventory. Specifically, the section which I would like to cite states, the design shall not necessitate excessive grading, filling, the destruction or alteration of the natural features, and where possible, the street shall follow the natural terrain. This design shall provide adequately for any historic feature on the site, as well as any existing structure, which is to be retained. I'd also like to cite Section 22A-6-L, which speaks to the relationship to the surrounding land uses. The planned unit development zone shall have a harmonious relationship to the surrounding land uses. Certain land uses may be limited to specified locations within the PAD 1 zone or other restrictions or requirements may be made as necessary. Oh, excuse me. I was just corrected. It is J. The first one that I read from is parentheses J, not I. I need to get my glasses cleaned, I think. Thanks. Okay, does that conclude your motion or it does? Okay. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Okay, we have a motion and a second to disapprove. I'll call the question in a second. We have a motion and a second to disapprove. We're ready for, I'm sorry, yes. I've just been instructed I need to amend my motion. I need to amend my motion to include rationale for why I feel that it does not comply with those two sections. I don't feel that it complies with those two sections because I don't perceive anything innovative associated with that design that speaks to the borough, the historic schoolhouse, the old Higby Mill house, nor the natural features, the natural water features on the property. Okay. You second that amendment? Okay. Okay, we have an amended motion and second to that amendment. Call for question. Mr. Cravens? I'd like to have some more discussion, I guess. Okay. The floor is yours. You know, I agree with a lot of what she says about this plan, this particular plan. I mean, it's not how much density you have, but it's how you make it dense. and it doesn't look like they tried to use all the criteria to design it. But I am for the zone change. So I was opposed to the development plan, but I would be for the zone change to a PUD. Okay. And her motion is for opposing the zone change. Okay. All right. Any other comments? Okay. I would like to say that I'm too for this zone change. I always think that there's an opportunity, and I think there's some attempts been made for the development plan. there's been meetings upon meetings in committee and I've been part of those committee meetings and I would be it would be remiss of me not to say that not to put forth some other forces to say come up with a better plan although today is the zone change and we have the force of preliminary zoning development plan so with that I would say that I'm for the zone change thinking that there would be an opportunity to work out this particular plan. One more clarification. We can vote in favor of the zone change and still have some control or some say in how the development ultimately looks. Is that correct? That is correct. But first and foremost, the motion on the floor is to oppose the zone change. That is correct. And it's my understanding, too, that by denying the zone change, that would precipitate redesign of this site. Okay. We have a motion on the floor to oppose the zone change and a second. I did not get all of that, what you read, into the record, which I'm sure is into the record. And we'll take a vote at this time. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. Okay. Motion died. Okay. Chair will entertain another motion at this time. Mr. Chairman. I'd like to make a motion to approve the zone change, MAR 2008-14, for the reasons staff have stated, number one and two. Are you going by the revised recommendation on the blue sheet? Yes, the revised recommendations. The buffer and, okay, revised recommendation. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second, and Mr. Craven just quote correctly, as is, given by staff, right, presented by staff. We have a motion and a second to approve MAR 2008-14 as per the blue revised recommendation provided by staff. Okay. This is a call for question. Yeah, I'd like some clarification. On item three, does that get to the development plan when we start talking about the landscape buffer? Because I still think there are some issues with the development plan. Other issues can be dealt with in the development plan, but by adopting this conditional zoning, that will be a minimum that will have to be complied with in whatever development plan is ultimately approved, whether it be this one or a subsequent plan. Okay. Okay. Yes. If we do the PUD, then it's my understanding that we've got a lot of flexibility with the density, all the way from zero to eight. Is that right? I mean, we can't tie ourselves up here in a knot. Correct. The PUD zone would give you a lot of flexibility with the density. you would have the final control over the number of units, arrangement of streets and structures on future development plans? Okay, so we would respond to the site as far as historic or natural features or whatever we want to do. We would still have flexibility to go to the state with the entrance. What about, there was one other question. Are there certain buffer requirements to PUD? Not inherently. Okay. So we're flexible there. You do have some buffer requirements inherent in the motion that is on the floor, and as Council has said, those would be the minimum. You would have the ability to review and require others. Okay, so we could add to it. Yes. Okay. On the development plan, but not as a conditional zoning restriction. Thank you. I hope that's clear. I think it's, unless it's not clear, we need to clarify that. Does everyone understand? Okay. Any other questions, comments? All right. We'll call the vote. All those in favor of the motion to approve as per the revised recommendation on the blue sheet, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Zoning development plan? I'll do it. Mr. Chairman, I move to indefinitely postpone. Indefinitely postpone? Postpone for six months? I think that would be acceptable. Again, if the council grants a zone change, you have six months to have the development plan brought back and make your final decisions on that preliminary development plan. So, Mr. Chairman, I move to postpone indefinitely ZDP 2008-61. We have a motion and a second to indefinitely postpone ZDP 2008-61. Call for question. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, we will take a quick break. before we resume the next application. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh I'm wild again, beguiled again, a simpering, whimpering child again. Be which bothered and bewildered am I? Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep When love came and told me I shouldn't sleep Be which bothered and bewildered am I Lost my heart, but what of it He is cold, I agree He can laugh, but I love it Although the love's on me I'll sing to him each spring to him and long for the day when I'll cling to him. Be which bothered and bewildered am I. Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered Am I? The look of love is in your eyes I look the time can't disguise The look of love It saves so much more than just words could ever say And what my heart has heard when it takes my breath away I can hardly wait through, feel my arms around you How long I have waited, waited just enough, now that I have found you Oh, God, the look of love, it's on your face. I look the time can't erase. I try Let this be just the start of some early nights like this Let's take a lover's bow and then sing it with the king I can hold you with your arms, feel my arms around you How long I have waited Just to know Now that I follow you Don't ever go Never go Never go Never go Never go Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. We've got to do that. We've got half of the JFG. JFG, yeah, the other half of the JFG. And then we've got the ND1. So I think you can cut out on me, man. You got to leave? Yeah. I got to recuse myself from that. Yeah, you should. You should. You should. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. Well, you know that... Thank you. Hey, Bill. It'll be from my presentation. From an old, old Planning Commission meeting. Well, I'll mention it in my... More paper. Ms. Wade, are you ready? Yes. Okay. If the Commission's ready. The next item on today's agenda is found on page 4, and it's item 3 and behind tab 3 in your notebooks. It is MAR 2008-20, a request by JFG Enterprises, LLC. This is a petitioner's request for zone change from an interchange service business B5P zone to an agricultural rural AR zone for approximately 6 acres of property. The subject property is located on the south side of Athens-Boonesboro Road. and is located about a half a mile from the I-75 and Athens-Boonesboro Road interchange. And again, access to the property, well, it doesn't have frontage on a public street. It actually currently has access via Athens-Boonesboro Road, a private road, which is Recreation Drive, and then I believe potentially access could be gained via farm road and then possibly across the property adjacent to it. The subject property, again, is about six acres, and this is, I mentioned earlier, sort of a companion to an earlier zone change request. The Athens-Boonesboro Road area does have the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center in the area. Blue Sky Parkway has the industrial uses, and that's on the east side of the interstate. And also there are several hotels and restaurants in the vicinity as well on the east side. And two gas stations on the west, which are up at Athens-Brunsboro Road, also on the south side of Athens-Brunsboro Road, and then I think a Wendy's on the north side. The subject property again is zoned B5P and the development plan associated with this zone change shows it being reverted back to AR zone. So no development is shown in that area because presumably the agricultural rural zone don't need a development plan for area that you're going to use for agricultural. So certainly the development plan is in line with the request for rezoning. Although a down zoning is not uncommon for the Planning Commission to consider, one where the applicant is asking you to deny their filed request is, I believe, unprecedented in recent times. The subject property has a little bit of a history. It was rezoned in 1968 to B5 and was well beyond the city limits at that time. And a golf course was planned again in 1968 for the property. Later a revised development plan just depicted future proposed roads and no development or other improvements on the property. And after that time, the city-county merger occurred, and the zoning was updated to the B5P zone, which is the interchange service business zone. As part of the 1996 comprehensive plan, the petition made a request that the property on the north side of Athens-Boonesboro, which was earlier recommended for rezoning, be included or added to the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. and again that's the parcel at 5191 8th and Spoonsboro Road. Through the comprehensive plan process, the Urban County Council adopted goals and objectives, including Goal 18, which is maintain boundaries and soundly manage land use in the established rural activity centers, and Objective C, which states that the rural activity centers should be limited to their existing boundaries. And I've distributed minutes from 1994 is the first three pages where the discussion centered around this particular objective, number C or letter C, that discussed limit rural activity centers to the existing boundaries. And Mr. Wilson, one of the applicants, did come and express his concern about that and opposition to that restriction. Although these goals and objectives were already developed at that time and they were adopted, they were developed in response to pressure on the rural activity centers and the urban service boundaries. Through the comprehensive planning process, the Planning Commission did consider this case of adding 5191, and that occurs on the next page of the minute handout I gave you, where the Planning Commission first heard a presentation for the Mark Gentry property. And again, Mr. Wilson represented a request on that property. And at the end of that hearing, the staff made a recommendation that there be what I will call a property swap. That is, if the applicant was agreeable to taking out the property here, the subject property, six acres, that they could, in fact, maintain the rural service area boundary if they added in those six acres at the top. In other words, you were taking out six acres to add six acres. And the Planning Commission felt that that did first accommodate the petitioner's request, but still meet the intent of the goals and objectives at that time. The petitioner on the next, if we flip again to the next page of the minutes, in December of 1995, item 38, JFG Enterprises, the Terrell property was considered at a hearing by the Planning Commission, and the staff presented at that time their proposal. And Mr. Wilson stated that he was in agreement with this swap, and he went on to say that he believed that the piece of land should be included, and in order to facilitate it, they were willing to make an adjustment with an agreement to down zone or downsize the zoning as stated in their letter, which I didn't provide a copy of. But as he understood it, if they moved to zone one portion of the land for interstate service type use, then they would agree to down zone the other back to agricultural rural. So I just wanted to include that for the record. The comprehensive plan, or let me go through a few photos of the area before we jump to that. The photo that's up on the overhead right now on the screen shows the subject property on the south, although it's not outlined with a white line like the rest of these are showing properties because it is a portion of a larger parcel, but presumably is located very near this corner. And as you can see on the development plan, it's location in association with this larger development. And it is a treed parcel. Next photo. This just shows the two gas stations up at the north on the south side of 8th and Spoonsboro, but the north edge of this subject property, and it shows where Recreation Drive enters the property as a private road and would provide access back to that corner of the parcel. Next photo. This shows the existing zoning in this vicinity. Again, most of it is zoned AR because it is in the rural service area. You can see the extent of the B5P zoning as it is today. And then to the edge on the east side here where the light industrial zoning appears. Next. Let me get into the comprehensive plan and I'll address that. The 2007 Comprehensive Plan does recommend have a future land use that hasn't changed since the 1996 Plan, and that is for core agricultural and rural lands. I'll point to it on that Comprehensive Plan here. The Rural Activity Center at 8th and Spoonsboro and the Interstate with the Blue Sky area, and the subject parcel is located here. And it's hard to tell, but it's just basically a little notch out of the what would otherwise be the edge of their parcel on that comp plan. And although the requested zoning of AR would be in agreement with the comprehensive plan for the core agricultural and rural lands, the application that's been submitted with the application, the justification states that the petitioner would like that request to be denied. Again, this appears to be rather unprecedented, but the petitioner contends that they should no longer have to comply with their agreement from late 1995 of about 12 years ago because the eastern edge of the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center was expanded in 2001. And let me just point to where that occurred. In 2001 there was a very small parcel, actually about six acres, that was added on the edge of the Rural Activity Center to accommodate the Guilfoyle property. And that boundary adjustment was made because the Guilfoyle property was being impacted by the KASP auto auction significantly. And eventually it was rezoned, and it became part of the KASP auto auction. The addition of the Guilfoyle property was seen as an adjustment to the rural activity boundary. and the applicant feels that that adjustment makes their original stipulation no longer valid. The staff would argue that it remains valid and that we would point out in 2001, the comprehensive plan goals and objectives were changed slightly, although it still says, this is from the 2001 comprehensive plan, goal eight is to still manage soundly land use and maintain the boundaries in the established rural activity centers. objective C was added to. At this point, we changed it from just limiting rural activity centers to their existing boundaries to add an exception, except for consideration as part of the comprehensive plan or a small area plan process, and upon full consideration of issues outlined in the rural land management plan, and it includes several issues there. And we flip to the next one. In 2007, the goals and objectives, again, were adopted. It became goal nine this time, but it is verbatim the same objective as was stated in 2001. So rural activity centers can have their boundaries adjusted, as it was in 2001, happened for the Guilfoyle property as part of the comprehensive plan. In any case, this small addition was on the opposite side of the rural activity center, nearest Athens, and has a small frontage on the Athens-Boonesboro Road and was also associated with some industrial development, all of which make it not similarly situated to the subject parcel. Lastly, the petitioner states that in their justification, the appendix note from the 1996 comp plan doesn't appear in the 01 or the 07 comp plans. The lack of a very specific notation on the current comp plan does not make it null and void. and the adjustment to the rural activity center boundaries approved in 1996. The note provided at that time in the appendix was important to document that agreement. Also, there is still, or we documented, some concern about the existing sanitary sewer package treatment plant, not at its existing capacity necessarily, but as the property shown already zoned for B5P develops, if it were to develop in uses as allowed in the B5P zone, hotels and restaurants, that that allowable or the capacity at the existing treatment plant could be used up fairly quickly, considering the hotel and restaurant on the opposite side of the road will utilize 6,000, I guess gallons or a million gallons per day of the capacity. Lastly, the petitioner's original agreement to down zone should be implemented, and especially given that the subject property is still appropriate for agricultural use, considering it is not developed on yet. In addition, it does not have steep slopes. It has about an average 8% slope on the property, which does allow for, I mean, certainly agricultural uses and may make it less suitable for development even. The Zoning Committee did refer this application or the case to the full commission, and the staff is recommending approval of the down zoning from B5P to AR because the AR zone is recommended and in agreement with the Comprehensive Plan. And there are several reasons provided on both your agenda and our staff report. and as always this is recommendation is made subject to approval of the development plan. I'd be happy to answer your questions. Thank you, Ms. Waite. Any questions for Ms. Waite? From the commission? Thank you. Thanks. Good afternoon. And if you all want to turn to the bottom of page 4 and the top of page 5, we are looking at the Zoning Development Plan 2008-95 Boonesboro Manor Interstate Park amended. This plan, as Tracy explained, is asking if a zone change from the B5P to the AR zone. The property is located at 5354 Athens Boonesboro Road, and Tracy described it as out off Athens Boonesboro to I-75. This shows you here, I-75, your Athens Boonesboro as you're coming through. In this lower corner here is what Tracy was explaining to you as the property that they want to rezone to the AR. The reason for this is they want to remove this section of the BP land by rezoning the land AR. The subdivision committee recommended approval with four conditions. conditions with four conditions that the Urban County Council rezones it and just a couple other one from the engineering and a couple cleanups. With that do you have any questions? Thank you Ms. Galt. Any questions for Ms. Galt? Thank you. Petitioner? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I'm Rena Wiseman. I appreciate that, especially for the new members, that this is unprecedented. I promise you I don't usually come and ask for a zone change to be denied. That usually happens despite my best efforts. As I said before, I'm here for JFG Enterprises, Inc., which is Steve and Phil Wilson. And we're here to make the rather unusual request that this down zoning be disapproved. But I need to give you some background. And we are not here to say that we didn't make this agreement in 1996. We certainly made that agreement and have had every intention of following through with that ever since that was committed to this commission in 1996. But as I'm going to go through, the rationale in 96 for not adding the six acres on the north without an offset on the south, which just fortunately our clients on both sides, was that there was a new goal and there was not to be any addition to the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. So the analysis was if you bring this in, you have to take it out. But there was really not consideration given to the merits of either property in terms of whether they were suitable for agricultural uses any longer or whether they were suitable for commercial. So we're asking you to really to consider the merits of this in the light of the fact that the next time the comp plan came before you, you did consider an application on the merits as to whether the boundaries should be adjusted. Mr. Guilfoyle, and I represented Mr. Guilfoyle on that application, and you determined that his situation warranted relief and that it should be, the boundaries should be modified to include him. And we are not saying that we have the same exact fact situation as Mr. Guilfoyle, but if the reason was to keep the boundary exactly the same, that didn't happen in the next time, So we felt like we should ask you to at least consider allowing us to keep the six acres within the current zoning. One other thing before I go through the history, we did bring this to the staff's attention when we met with them about coming in with the zone change on the north. and as Tracy said, the only way you would know if you looked at the comprehensive plan that these two properties were tied together is if you looked at, I think, Appendix D of the 1996 comprehensive plan where there's the note that says if you bring in the north, then there has to be a down zoning on the south. Now, the same people own the property, but if they had sold that property to somebody, they never would have known that because that note is not carried forward. And so that's why we brought to their attention. It was really with the question of, is it still necessary for us to do this since the boundary has been altered? And they said, yes, it's necessary, and so that's why we filed it. But we would like you to consider that it could stay as B5P. Now, the background of this is that both of these properties, when I say both of them, what I'm referring to is this was a 23-acre parcel that was part of a larger farm that was severed by Athens-Boonsboro Road. This is not the widened one, but when it was, quote, new back in the 60s, because Athens-Boonesboro used to take another route, something like that. So this was 23 acres that were severed by the Athens-Boonesboro Road, and this was 75 acres on the south side. The same family had an interest in both of those properties, and they sold it to a Mr. Gilbert in 1969, had under contract for him, and he's got a zone change, and this was when it was Lowe County. This was before we had city zoning, we had county zoning. And they asked for a zone change to what was called B-5, and they went to the fiscal court, and the fiscal court approved the zoning for all of the 75 acres here and this foot, which is highlighted there, to the B5 zone. And the finding that the fiscal court, who was the legislative body at that time, made was that the land is unsuited for agricultural purposes as it is on an interstate highway interchange and therefore the original zoning was inappropriate. Now, the interstate was just built in 1964, so by this time, that was something that had changed the nature of this area. So they found that it was inappropriate. But in addition to that, the owners of the property, the Terrells and the Gentries, submitted an affidavit to the fiscal court about trying to farm that property. And this, again, goes back to 1969. And what they said that, first of all, the 22.6-acre tract was completely severed from the large farm by I-75 of the new Athens-Boonsboro Road. It contains numerous... Thank you. It contains numerous deep ravines and depressions. It's an extremely rough land not suitable for agriculture. That was on the north side. On the south side, the 75 acres, they said that it also contains numerous deep ravines and depressions and is extremely rough land. Limestone rock appears on the surface or very near the surface of practically this whole 75-acre tract. And I've been out there with the Wilsons. That's true. It's rock is right on the surface. Our experience and the experience of our predecessors has been that this land is not suited for agricultural purposes. This is the most interesting sentence of the affidavit. This has especially been true since the advent of the use of farm machinery instead of mules, horses, and manual labor. So in other words, if you want to take a mule out there and farm it, you might have a chance, but otherwise this property was not suitable to be farmed, and that was the finding that this support made about this entire 75 acres in 1969. And I have an affidavit from Mr. Wilson who also says that it has not been farmed since their ownership, which goes back to 1968. Well, this has been zoned then since 1969. B-5 and then B-5 key once the Irvin County government was created. We had joint planning. And in 1980, the rural service areas were formalized. We had these rural developments, but they weren't formalized until the 1980 Comprehensive Plan. And the drawing that I'm showing you is from the 1980 plan. I don't have a laser pointer. I'll just use my pencil. This is the 75 acres, and this is part of the 23 acres. It was all brought in except for about six acres. And this is another drawing to show that that was left out. The orange part was left out. So it was always something that the Wilsons never understood why. It didn't follow property line. It didn't follow any sort of natural feature. It was just six acres that was kept out. And so that is why they approached the Planning Commission in 1996 and asked that the property be included within the rural activity. Center known as Blue Sky. Well, Tracy gave you the minutes, and if you go to those minutes, what they tell you is that the staff was concerned about expanding the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. In fact, the first report we got from the staff in November of 1995 was that we're recommending denial of your request to add the six acres on the north. Now, it wasn't because this was not suitable for farming or it was suitable for farming. The reason was it requires expansion of the boundary of the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. So that was the reason given by the staff. It wasn't the merits of these properties. It wasn't the soil. It wasn't the topography. topography, it was that we didn't want to add anything and therefore we're going to turn it down. So when the proposal about swapping came up, Mr. Wilson said he agreed with that, but he also said, this wasn't highlighted, he initially felt that the track could stand on its own. The six acres, excuse me. It had been his contention all along that the north parcel, on its own, should have been brought in because it's a six-acre site, severed from the farm. It was not even complying with the 10-acre minimum in 1996. It certainly doesn't comply now. The soils are poor. Again, it's also rocky, and it was not feasible to be farmed. And he felt that on the merits, that property should have been included. But the agreement was it can come in, but the other thing is that you're going to have to take six acres off. So six acres was lopped off the corner, as you see here, just basically lopped off without, you know, deciding is this good for farming or does it fit into anything? It's just it's about a six acre site. Now while I'm over here, this is the property that was called Boonesboro Manor that's been zoned since 1969. There have been different plans for this property and it has been before the Planning Commission ten times. There have been amendments to this plan shown as late as 2005. And every time that's been brought in, this area has been shown as future development. These streets were extended. So it's been appropriate for development because it's been shown on an approved development plan, recognizing we would have to come back to get that approved. The idea with this has been to do more of an integrated development, and the Wilsons have been very conservative about how they want to do this side because they want it to be, do not want to do this piecemeal and so have kept it in that fashion until they can assemble the right users. So, but that was fine and that was the understanding. And that changed when the decision was made in 2001 to allow Mr. Guilfoyle's property to come in. And ironically, it had six acres as well. Now, really what we're telling you today is that when Mr. Guilfoyle brought his property in, he had a terrible situation. He had a six-acre farm that he'd lived on or his family had lived on, and he was surrounded on two sides by the auto auction operation, which is noisy and loud, and they basically had made it impossible for him to live there, to farm there. And so the commission agreed that he needed relief and included him within the Blue Sky Activity Center. That was the only request that was ran that year. But the merits of his proposal was considered. And what we're asking today is that you consider the merits of this proposal, that when you made the decision to lop off the six acres in 96, it was to keep things balanced. But you made a decision in 2001 that didn't keep things in balance, and you did it because you looked at the merits of that application. I don't think planning is just about accounting. It's not a balance sheet. It's whether you look at the merits of the property and whether it is appropriate or not appropriate. So our request to keep it in the B5P is because it's not suitable for farming. It hasn't been suitable. It hadn't been used for farming at least since prior to 68, I guess since mules were last used in farming practices. The soils, we have the soils map. They're salviso silty clay loam, which is 6 to 12 percent slopes. It says although the hazard of erosion is very severe, cultivated crops can be grown occasionally. The other part of it is salviso silty clay loam, which is 12 to 30 percent slopes, and the soil is not suited to cultivated crops because of the effects of erosion. So it's not suitable for any sort of agricultural use. It's six acres. It doesn't meet the minimum lot size. It hasn't been farmed, and it is suitable for B5P because it's been shown, and it's been intended to do that for many years. the difference between the again what we're saying and what we're asking you to consider is that if you looked at the merits of these properties then I think you would conclude what's the appropriate use what is the appropriate use if we came in today with a shopping center next to us or hotels because remember this is zoned and someday this property will likely be in the same condition as Mr. Guilfoyle because this will develop. We have five interchanges with the interstate and Fayette County that can have development. If you think about it, most of them are fully developed. Newtown Pike, Winchester Road, North Broadway, Man of War, and this is the last one. All of those interchanges are almost fully developed in terms of hotels. We aren't going to create any more interchanges. These are the only places where we can serve the traveling public. I-75 is the second longest north-south interstate in the country. And in Fayette County, it carries on average 67,000 cars a day. In 1996, when this decision was made, it carried 51,000 cars a day. And it will continue to be widened and contain and have more traffic. And this is the last place to have interstate commercial to serve those. Again, we're talking about limited uses, restaurants, gas stations, hotels. We depend on tourism, and half of our hotel rooms are at the interstate interchanges, half of them. We very much depend on this to serve people who come to visit this community. And so if you consider it in that light that it's not suitable for agriculture, what would be the next appropriate use? We would say the limited interchange commercial. And there aren't going to be any other places to put this because we're not going to have any more interchanges on the interstate. I doubt. We talked about one at Georgetown. I don't think that is ever going to happen. So that's basically what we're asking. With regard to the sewers, I do have the same letter that I presented with the first one from Tetra Tech. And the note I showed you is the same note that's been on this development plan since its inception, which is that we have to monitor the capacity and we have to have a certification from our plant operator before anything can tap onto it. So I don't agree with the staff as the sewers being a reason that this was excluded from the rural activity center. It was a matter of six go in, six go out, and we agreed with that. But now more have come in, six acres, and we felt that we should bring this to your attention, that now the merits of our land ought to be considered on its own, whether or not that six acres is suitable for agriculture. We don't think it is, and we would ask you to deny our zone change for that reason. I have findings that basically go through what I've testified, I mean, what I've told you about, about the finding that the fiscal court made in 1969, the soils, and the other history. So that is the presentation that we have. we would ask that you disapprove our zone change. Thank you, Ms. Weisman. Commission members have questions for Ms. Weisman? All right, I guess the next week gets to ask the first question again. It's currently zoned what you want it zoned? Yes. Then why are you asking for it to be rezoned and denied? Because we made a commitment in 1996. To not develop. Thank you. I got you. That's right. Thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Wiseman? Okay. I believe there's someone in the audience that would like to speak to this application. Is that correct? Okay. There's no one? Okay. All right. Chairman Vaughn, I think we anticipated a full hearing because of the applicants. Long presentation about and request for denial. That's why we did a full hearing versus an abbreviated. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. That's why we did a full hearing rather than an abbreviated. I see. Not because there were objectors. Gotcha. Okay, thank you. Okay, let's see. Is there any other staff, any other comments, rebuttal? Just one statement that planning is not just concerned about the accounting of six acres here or there, but also the potential to develop on property that does have limestone rock near the surface or near deep ravines, that that could potentially be more impacting than the agricultural use for the property and also the potential to allow an urban use and zone outside of the rural activity center. which could set a poor, I guess it's not the zone because that exists today, but the use potential in the future could set a poor precedent for our rural activity centers. Okay, thank you. Any questions, comments from Ms. Wade? Okay, Ms. Wiseman, you have anything else you'd like to rebuttal? Okay. We'll close this portion of the hearing and turn it over to the commission. Mr. Cravens. Yeah. How old are the trees on this? No. They won't even grow on it, will they? How do you access that property? I mean, just say it was, I can see how it could be accessed if it were in the B5P because you'll develop to it. But if it were AR, how would anybody get to it? It would be landlocked, wouldn't it? It comes through. I can't find all this plan, but you come in where there's a road, farm road that comes off what's called recreation drive, and you work your way that way. Well, so if you were developing the B5P, you have to provide some access to it or what? Yes. Well, or, you know, that's another problem. We don't want to belabor it, but putting it behind commercial areas is problematic in how it would be maintained. No one's going to want it that owns this. But the only access, the only frontage for this is on Athens Boonesboro. So it would have to have access somehow. Could you build a house on it? Well, it would have to be subdivided. It's part of this track now. You'd be creating a nonconforming parcel because the minimum lot size in the AR zone is 40 acres. So typically you're not allowed to create non-conforming lots. And so you couldn't do that. Thank you. Any other questions, commission? Okay, we have the zoning committee obviously recommended referral to the full commission. staff recommended approval for the reasons provided. We've heard from Ms. Weisman representing her parties asking that this be denied and has provided findings for the disapproval. Has legal looked at these findings? Have you glanced at it? I've been trying to go through them with staff from the time that I got them. I don't think we've completely reviewed them. Okay. All right. Is there a motion? Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir, Mr. Owens. I'll attempt this. I'll make a motion. I move for approval of MAR 2008-20 JFG Enterprising Incorporated for the reasons, three reasons, that the staff recommended. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve MAR 2008-20 for the reasons provided by staff. Call for question. All ready for the vote. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. No. Okay. Motion denied. Is there another motion? Well, do we need another motion? Doesn't it just stay B5P? I mean we denied the zone change to AR doesn't it just stay B5P yeah yeah it just got disapproved Why make another motion? Other motion? I can, I mean, if the, I can make another motion to rezone at the B5P, but it's already that way. The motion to do that would be to deny the zone change. And we're discussing whether another viable option that might not put findings on the records would be to request the applicant to withdraw it. So we're just being a little open about what we're conversing about. Sure. Well, it happens frequently that you apply for a zone change and it is denied. And then that means that the current category remains. And as you know, I've been there. That's what happens. You're there right now. Makes sense. Makes sense from this end. I guess. I'm going to defer to legal. Okay. Yeah, we don't need to do anything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. that you have, but if the typical thing for the Planning Commission when this happens is to state a motion in the positive. If you do choose to do so in this case, we do have concerns over the precedential nature of some of the proposed findings by the applicant. We would be glad to indicate to you which those are if you would like us to do that. Sure. We have some concerns over C under Item 1. which we think could have some precedential implications in other cases. And under two, we have some concerns about A and B as being more generally applicable to other properties as well, versus C, which is specific to the site in question. Okay. Okay. So under item one, subset item C, and then I think on page two, item two, subset item A and B, and then those are the three, correct? Let's see if there's other concern. If you could give us a minute, I think we can. Yes. If you want to make a motion for disapproval, I think we can come up with some findings based on what Ms. Wiseman has provided us. Okay. All right. I think we had a commission member wanted to, is that correct? Mr. Cravens? She wants a motion. Well, she's working on the findings. Okay, so the chair wants a motion to disapprove ZDP 2008-95. I thought that was, I asked if there was another motion on the floor, not necessarily a motion for disapproval, but if there was another motion on the floor. The motion that was made failed. Right. And I ask if there was another motion. I don't know what motion to make. I mean, it's still zoned B5P. I don't know how I can make a motion to zone it there. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cravens. I have the applicant's findings. Have you had time to look? I mean, they've gutted a lot of them here. Okay. Based on the evidence and testimony presented, the Planning Commission finds that the application to rezone the property located at 5354 Athens Burns Burrow Road, from the Interstate Service Business B5P zone to agricultural rural zone, six net acres and gross acres should be disapproved based on the following. Do I need to read all these? Yes. Yes. I went to Brian's station. I have a hard time reading. Here goes. The proposed agricultural rule AR zoning is inappropriate and improper because A. The property is part of a larger tract which was rezoned from Agricultural A1 to Interchange Service Business B5P in 1969 based on the finding by the Planning Commission and the then Fiscal Court that the land is unsuited for agricultural purposes as it is on an interstate highway interchange and therefore the original zoning was inappropriate. The evidence before the Planning Commission and Fiscal Court in 1969 included an affidavit from the then-owners of the property who attested that they had owned the property between 1950 and 1966 and that the property was not suited for agricultural purposes. All right. And then we're omitting the rest of that number A. And B, the six acres contain soils which are not suited for crop production based on the Fayette County Soil Survey. About one half of the property is SCE2, which is not suited for cultivated crops because of the effects of erosion. And the balance is SCC2, which is also the hazard of erosion but occasionally can be used to grow crops. C is omitted. D, the property is part of a 75-acre parcel, which is subject to an approval. Final development plan, title Interstate Park, Boonesboro Manor. The property is shown as future development on plan, which also provides extension of two streets into the property. The property is joined on two sides by the remainder of the interstate park development, which can be developed as hotels, restaurants, and service stations. E, the only access to the six acres is through the balance of the B5P acreage. if the proximity of commercial uses will make farming operations difficult because of the security concerns, such as increased potential for trespassing, particularly since the only access to the property is through the balance of the B5P acres. And then under number two, A and B are omitted, and C, the property is situated such that it can be developed as part of the 75-acre tract, which is on B5P as demonstrated by the approval final development plan. Then under number three, there is no compelling need to rezone this property AR due to the poor soils and topography that the property is not suitable for farming and has not been farmed for 40 years. And the rest of this is omitted. I so move. Thank you, Ms. Cravens. Is there a second? Second. You have a motion and a second to disapprove. And you heard the findings of fact. All those in favor of the disapproval, please say aye. I'm sorry, excuse me. Call for question. Mr. Owens. Mr. Chairman, if I may, just a point of clarification. If this motion is denied, we're in essence increasing the Rural Activity Center. Is that correct? you're putting the AR back into the B5P, leaving it as is, right? Yes. Yes, but rezoning the property on the other side of the street, we're still increasing the rural activity center. The net effect of the two zone changes is to increase the non-agricultural zoning. the boundary of the Rural Activity Center can only be adjusted through comprehensive plan action. But in essence, that is what would be happening. In essence. In essence, that's correct. Okay. Mr. Cravens? I guess I made the motion, and with these facts, but is that to leave it B5P? So we would vote yes for the motion I just made, if you wanted to leave it B5P. Okay. Okay, you've heard the motion for disapproval based on the findings of fact. We have a second. Any other question, comment? All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. Motion carries. Thank you. I'm sorry. Oh, the zoning development plan, yes. Can we get a motion for the zoning development plan? No, we don't. Yeah, there's no. Mr. Chairman, ordinarily the Planning Commission will indefinitely postpone the development plan pending the decision on the zone change by the Council. Thank you. So we need a motion and action on that, right, Mr. Salley? Yes. Yes, a normal action would be to indefinitely postpone it with a disapproval recommendation. Okay. I move to postpone the development plan indefinitely for ZDP 2008-95. We have a motion and a second for indefinite postponement of ZDP 2008-95. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Say no. Motion carries. Thank you. started, I'm going to announce that I need to recuse myself from this next application, so I will turn the meeting over to Mr. Day, and I believe you still have a quorum. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey Tracy, I had to borrow, I had to borrow these from Bruce Simpson. I was like, I don't know. You don't own a pointer? I don't have a pointer because I didn't. They don't use those in bankruptcy. No, I don't. But anyway, good to know. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, the staff has received one request for additional presentation time. That is by an attorney who is representing a total of five property owners in this area. He has requested a total of 15 minutes speaking time, and the alternative to not granting that request would be all of his clients would have three additional minutes. So we've provided you with a memo recommending approval of that request for 15 minutes of time. Mr. Chairman, I have three clients that might need a full extra time, not a great additional amount of time, but I do have three properties with 10 buildings that may take a little additional time to discuss. Well, normally we'd be talking about nine minutes, so you tell me 12. All right. Is everybody in agreement with the extensions? Okay. Chairman Day and members of the Planning Commission, our last item on today's agenda is MAR 2008-27, which was an initiation by the Urban County Planning Commission, and it is a zone change to add a neighborhood design character overlay zone for the Chevy Chase neighborhood area. I'm going to enter into the record. I've actually given Stephanie the originals already. I have two stacks of letters or correspondence sent to the Division of Planning regarding this request. There are 18 in support and 29 against. So I'm going to start some of them over here and some of them over here. This item is on page 11 of your agenda today, item 10 and item tab 10 in your notebooks. The subject property is an area generally bounded by Tates Creek Road here, Cooper Drive to the south, Chinoaay Road to the east, and the rear property lines along Fontaine and Chenault to the north. And there are a few areas that are excluded from that, including the two schools, Fayette County Schools, which are Morton Middle School and Cassidy Elementary, as well as the church properties in the center of this area, Christ the King, and the newer church that's located here on Colony. And then the commercial areas, both along Duke Road and Romney Road, and that would include the post office as well as any of the other commercial and professional office uses in that area. The area is predominantly zoned R1C. There are, I believe there's just one lot that's R1D on Cooper. There are a few properties zoned R1T, now two properties zoned R2. and a multitude of properties that are zoned R3 in this area. Another exception was the R3 properties along Cochrane Road, as you would enter a portion of the neighborhood. Generally, streets in the neighborhood include Hart Road, Cochrane, Colony, which comes down here, north-south, Duke Road and Romney, which are very familiar to many people because of the commercial development, as well as Dudley and Ridgeway, Andover and Garden Roads, Cassidy Avenue, Old Cassidy Avenue, and East Over Drive. There might be a few others I missed, Louisiana, Cross Lane, and then Chenault. The area is comprised of over 600 individual residential properties and includes over 130 net acres of property as well. The church-owned and Fayette County school properties and the commercial properties are excluded because the ND1 zone does only apply to residential land use and residential zoning. Chevy Chase was originally developed in the 1920s and 30s with additional homes built into the 40s and 50s, and it was originally constructed with the mixed-use neighborhood, including single-family and multifamily residential uses. The majority, again, of the neighborhood is R1C. Outside of the subject area, we have on the other side of Tate's Creek to the north, south, and east, more churches, other institutional uses, businesses, and additional neighborhoods in this area. The neighborhood, their application to the Planning Commission to initiate this request for the ND1 zone Did go into many of the aspects of the neighborhood that were important to the neighborhood And created a unique character for the neighborhood And there's a quote that I wanted to read into the record that was included with their application The neighborhood's application describes the area this way The streets in Chevy Chase tend to have a visual continuity with the manner in which the neighborhood was developed, almost a park-like appearance. There is a rhythm and a beauty to the manner in which the homes relate to one another and their design cues in setback, building heights, eaves, and scale that link adjoining properties into unified block faces and in creating a distinct character. This visual continuity is a critical factor that helps create the unique identity of Chevy Chase. The neighborhood has experienced some new residential development, including teardowns and what they call pop-ups, the new additions that are in many instances out of character with the historic neighborhood and its character. In order to protect the neighborhood and protect it from more inappropriate or incompatible development, the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association and specifically its Design Review Committee developed standards and requested an ND1 overlay from the Planning Commission. The purpose of the ND1 overlay is to establish a design framework to conserve key features and for visual and natural characteristics of an interested neighborhood. Although the ND1 overlay has been applied to just one other neighborhood, that being Greenbrier, this is the first instance in which the design, specific design characteristics or structures have been proposed to be regulated. The ND1 zone is designed to be administered in a way similar to properties that have conditional zoning restrictions. Article 29.3 does give criteria that at least one of seven criteria must be met by a neighborhood in order to qualify for an ND1 overlay. In this case, the Chevy Chase petition states that the neighborhood would like to maintain the overall character of the neighborhood and that they have established a need to protect the visual characteristics that give their neighborhood its distinct quality. And that's definitely based on the recent changes that they documented. The neighborhood has requested the ND1 overlay with seven distinct regulations or standards, and those are included on the staff report in your notebooks. The neighborhood, one of the seven standards that the neighborhood requested was that the Division of Building Inspection require 1 8th inch scale drawings for any improvements proposed within the ND1 overlay. And the staff had to, well, review the ordinance and found that this particular standard is not an allowable standard through the zoning ordinance. Although it would be helpful for the Division of Building Inspection to utilize scale drawings, it is not something that the ordinance allows be added as a ND1 standard. So the staff has recommended that that particular standard be deleted. And for your, if you're following along, it would be the proposed standard number five. The neighborhood did identify two conservation and design goals through their study process. First, to promote new construction that is in harmony with the scale and physical character of original buildings, and secondly, to encourage the use of existing buildings through adaptive rehabilitation in a manner that's appropriate to the scale and physical character of the original buildings. And the remaining six standards that they developed were based on those two goals. The first standard deals with a minimum rear setback, and they are asking that it be established at 25 feet or one-third of the lot depth, whichever is greater, and this is to help maintain green space and building scale in the neighborhood. The rear yard would only apply to the principal structure, not to accessory structures. The second restriction would be to building heights, that they have a maximum of 28 feet at the tallest ridge and a maximum eave height, which is generally thought to be the gutter line of the second-story ceiling height. This regulation is aimed at keeping homes in scale with the neighborhood and will, in combination with the third restriction, prevent three-story homes or even two-story homes with dormers. The third proposed standard would require a minimum of a 7-12 slope for the primary roof structure, and that is the principal structure on the lot. The neighborhood has defined some exceptions to this regulation to allow some variation, and those would include, let's see, dormers. Flat roofs would be allowed on single-story additions. A roof pitch could be constructed that matches an existing roof pitch and also then allow a different roof pitch for any type of projection, such as a bay window or a covered porch, et cetera. The fourth standard proposed is that a minimum of 10% of any wall plane of new construction have openings such as windows and doors, and this is similar to an existing infill and redevelopment standard. This would help ensure visual continuity, and the standard should only apply where the wall plane is at least 150 square feet in size. The fifth standard would apply only to single-family attached, which is townhouses, and multifamily residential development. And that standard would be to require all parking in the rear of or behind all buildings on the property, and that is to prevent an intrusion into the existing streetscape. This standard also added that garage doors shall not face the front building line but excludes detached garages, so just as part of a townhouse or multifamily development. And then the last proposed standard is to limit the size of accessory structures to a maximum of 700 square feet in terms of a footprint or a lot coverage on the property, and also to limit these accessory structures, such as a detached garage, to a maximum height of 19 feet at its tallest ridge and a maximum eave height, again, or gutter line, of 12 feet. And the neighborhood wanted to note that the earlier roof pitch, the 712, wouldn't be applied to accessory structures. So the neighborhood requested these restrictions in order to maintain the sense of place and architectural integrity currently found in Chevy Chase. In terms of the 2007 comprehensive plan, the land use map isn't as important in this type of decision as the goals and objectives that are stated about this type of thing. In the 07 plan, the neighborhood protection overlay zoning provisions are recommended to be implemented for establishing stability and protection in existing and especially older neighborhoods. And that's goal 15, an objective I. And more generally, the comprehensive plan suggests that preserving, protecting, and maintaining existing residential neighborhoods in a manner that ensures stability and the highest quality of life for all residents is important. and it's one of the eight overriding themes of the comprehensive plan. Therefore, it follows that the ND1 overlay zone in the Chevy Chase neighborhood would be in agreement with the comprehensive plan and specifically its goals and objectives. In conclusion, the proposed ND1 regulations will help to maintain the existing character of the Chevy Chase neighborhood, ensuring that new development or additions to existing homes will be compatible with the surrounding existing development. The neighborhood did study the early and present character of the neighborhood and found that incompatible development is occurring and threatening the identity and unique fabric of the neighborhood. Should this neighborhood not be protected, it might be altered to the extent that the quality of life of residents would be impacted. The staff, in reviewing the restrictions or the standards that the neighborhood proposed and that were initiated by the Planning Commission, we found, again, that number five wouldn't be allowed by the zoning ordinance. But there were a few, what I would call, or the staff would indicate as tweaks after speaking with the Division of Building Inspection that would clarify or prevent things that the intent of the committee, the design committee that proposed these, was trying to do. So the pink sheet identifies the staff's recommended standards at the bottom half there, and anything with an underline is what the staff proposed adding to the restrictions. And the first thing we proposed to add was a note saying that unless otherwise noted, the proposed standards shall only apply to single-family detached residential dwellings. So that means item number 1, 2, 3, 4, and then what would be 6 would only apply to the single-family detached homes. And that was the intent of the neighborhood, although it wasn't stated in their neighborhood or their design standards. And then item number 5 would be the only one that would apply for either townhouses or any multifamily development. Other changes proposed by the staff or recommended by the staff would be for number one, that the rear yard setbacks be applicable to the principal structure only, and it wouldn't include a covered porch or deck and that sort of thing. In terms of building heights from the original proposal, there was added excluding new additions, which may exceed 28 feet in order to match existing ridge lines. So if you do have a structure that already exceeds the building height, you would be able to match that as you made an addition. In terms of number three, adding the word primary, so it would indicate just for the principal structure on the lot, and to add some language to allow flat roofs on single-story additions, allowable projections per Article 15 of the zoning ordinance. Number four, in terms of wall openings, there was added that exclusion. And so if it's less than 150 square feet in size, it would not apply. And also there's a requirement or a stipulation that no opening shall be required if building code requires fire protection or fire rating. And then number five, the neighborhood had originally proposed that restriction be applied for specifically R1T and R3 zones, but the staff felt it would be more encompassing if it was for single-family attached, which are townhomes, and multifamily dwellings, which would encompass if there are any nonconformities or any future uses or rezonings for other zones, such as an R4 or an R5 zone. And no parking shall be permitted. The staff wanted to clarify. with previously it said no parking in front yard just to wordsmith it a bit shall permitted in front or side yard because the applicant or the neighborhood did specifically say that no or all parking would be in the rear of the lot which in speaking with building inspection wanted we wanted to make sure that the intent was all parking in the rear therefore nothing in the front or side yards. And then the last clarification on number six that the staff was recommending, calling it accessory structures, not just garages, and making sure the roof pitch required was not required on accessory structures, which was at the request of the neighborhood. The staff is recommending generally approval of these restrictions for the neighborhood with the exception of one property, and we're recommending that that property be withdrawn from this application. The property address is 315 Romney Road, and it is currently zoned B1, and it was thought at the time that the use on the property was residential. However, the current property owner came forward and let us know that it's been an office use for several years, and therefore it's not a nonconforming use, and it's a business zone, so it would be inappropriate for an ND1 zone. So the staff is recommending withdrawal of that one property, but approval of the rest of the application with our recommended tweaks. Because it would be in agreement with the comprehensive plan in terms of the goals and objectives, it helps to implement those goals and objectives. And then the Chevy Chase neighborhood has completed a detailed design character study and helped to define the existing character. And those standards were developed based on that study. In terms of these restrictions, since they are much like conditional zoning restrictions, the staff wanted to provide an appropriate reason for the restrictions, and that was also on the pink sheet. These restrictions are appropriate given the extensive study undertaken to identify the existing neighborhood character by the Chevy Chase neighborhood and are important to maintain the existing character of the area. I would be happy to answer any questions. Actually, there were a few points. One other point I wanted to clarify. There were questions earlier, at least at the zoning committee, about how a homeowner might appeal an ND1 standard, and we wanted to clarify that on the record that because these are like our conditional zoning restrictions, basically you would need to do a zone change to remove or change your ND1 overlay standards. There's not a variance procedure that is allowed in our ordinance today that will allow you to vary any of those things. And then the other thing I wanted to mention was, as always, with any requirement in the ordinance and with these, if there's a stricter standard, that would always apply. The only thing I can think of right now is in terms of garage size or height. there's a restriction for an allowance of only 625 square feet at a minimum. So if you have a small enough house, you may only be able to get a permit from building inspection for a garage of 625 square feet total. So that's the only instance where I could think our zoning ordinance is more restrictive in certain cases than these restrictions here. Oh, and one last thing. Building inspection asked that I put on the record that an ND1 overlay, that zoning overlay may lengthen the time of review for a building permit application. They didn't indicate how long, but I'd be happy to answer any other questions. Yes, Ms. Gannon. Yes, ma'am. Tracy, it seems to me that Chenault Road and Louisiana are already in H1 zone, aren't they? Actually, they are not, no. The ordinance, if there was an H1 overlay, would not allow that area to qualify for an ND1 overlay. Do they have any kind of special zoning? No, ma'am. They don't. Okay. They just have strong neighborhood? Yes. clearly a strong neighborhood. I think the nearest H1 it may be the, is it the Aylesford or area? Any other commission members have questions? Ms. Wade, what if a property owner within this ND1 overlay zone could not comply with the terms of the ND1? What would be the process for getting an adjustment to the rules? That would be a zone change. They would have to make an application to the Planning Commission for a zone change and then have it go to the council for final approval. There's no provision for a Board of Adjustment variance? Any kind of adjustment at the Board of Adjustment level? There's not. Go ahead. I would just add, we explored that possibility with the Law Department when we were creating the ND1, And at that time, the law department's opinion was that since the only way an ND1 could be implemented were conditional zoning restrictions, the statutory rules regarding conditional zoning would have to apply. And it does not provide for those to be revised or amended by the Board of Adjustment. And that, I think, speaks to how important it is that the neighborhood did a study and that the standards reflect the character of the neighborhood. So building inspection has to oversee all this work? The review, I mean, on a daily basis they review building from an application. Okay, but do they have to enforce it? I mean, some neighbor calls and says they're not building by these. Presumably, I mean, any neighbor that is building a garage or an addition to their house has a building permit. Okay, but who enforces that it's built to the ND zoning? Building inspection has to enforce any building permit. Okay, and then you took out the scale drawings. I guess Bob Carpenter knows. You have to have scale drawings to get a permit. What do you say? Yes. Okay. For a new structure, I mean, a brand-new house, you definitely would. I mean, I guess if you're going to have to review them and see if it complies to this, they're going to have to have scale drawings. You just didn't want them in the zoning. The ordinance, the zoning ordinance doesn't allow that type of. But they will have to have scale drawings to do that. Exactly, and Bob and I spoke earlier. if this were a standard that were blanketly applied, I mean, we wouldn't want someone to come in for a deck permit and have to have scaled drawings of their deck in order to proceed. Well, but that's the building inspection rules, whether they have scaled drawings or not for a permit. Today it is, but if they were to apply that standard to the whole ND1, and there could be requirements for drawings for, it doesn't say, for everything. Secure a building permit. If you were to build a deck, you could build it over an easement where it didn't comply with these. It looked like you'd have to have a drawing to see. You can't draw it on the back of a napkin and take it down there and let him approve it. I mean, you have to have some kind of drawing. I hope so. Anyway, any further questions for Tracy? All right, thank you. Thank you. It's been very educational. All right, we're going to… I'll just say Rachel Phillips with Strategic Planning is here also this evening, since it's evening now, and she worked with the neighborhood to develop their survey and then also to do the analysis of the data that they collected. the neighborhood designed their standards. But she's here to answer any questions if they come up to you. And Rachel, do you have anything you want to add at this point or? Since I've made it this far, I'll add one thing. This is a neighborhood driven process. However, strategic planning is assigned to any neighborhood that is wanting to look at an ND1 to provide any facilitation to be used as a resource. And this process started a little over two years ago. June 2006 was when we first met with the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association at their request and really started from that point through some focus group exercises and trying to gauge neighborhood interest and then met with them on a pretty regular basis just on trying to keep them organized and get through the process of developing their standards through their survey and data analysis. So really that was the role that I played as well as strategic planning. And with that, if you all have any questions on that, I'd be more than happy to answer your questions. If not? Thank you. All right, we're going to start the hearing process. I'd like to do the same as Randall did, if you'll raise your hand if you are here to speak in favor of the ND1, and here if you're opposed. Okay, we've got about the same number, it looks like. I'll just tell you that we're all here together. Let's keep this civil. You're all neighbors. We'll try to do the best we can, and we'll start off then with whoever wants to lead off speaking for the neighborhood for the proposal. Good evening. My name is Brad Hawkins. I'm here on behalf of the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association. I want to thank you for staying late to hear what's a very important issue for our neighborhood. I also want to thank Tracy and Rachel. They've been fantastic over the last 24, almost 30 months, answering piles of questions and giving us direction. And a tremendous resource to get through what we understand is kind of the first neighborhood to seize the ND1 beachhead. This is the first neighborhood to ask for this sort of overlay to this extent. Green Bar neighborhood did it a number of years ago, but to the extent that we're asking, we're the first ones in. It's not a new tool that hasn't been used in other cities, but it's relatively new here. So I want to walk you through a presentation that I gave the gentleman over here. Thank you. I'm going to step over here in a minute, then I'll take it, okay? I think it will help me stay focused and get to the heart of what I think is important, which is the neighborhood support. It's been tremendous. It's extensive. It's really overwhelming what you're going to hear about here. I'll also say there are some photographs I'm going to show the neighborhood. They're intended to be examples of size and scale issues. That's what this whole thing is about, is size and scale. They're not meant to be comments on what's good or bad design. That's not what ND1's about. It's about maintaining character and integrity of the architecture. So none of these photographs are meant to offend anybody. They're not identified by address. They're just used as examples. The journey started back in 2006. There was, I guess you could call it an uproar in the neighborhood about some teardowns and pop-ups that neighbors felt were out of character, out of scale, and that they were changing what people felt was the identity of Chevy Chase. We became aware as the Neighborhood Association of Article 29, which is the descriptor for the Neighborhood Design Overlay, which has guided our efforts for the last 30 months, we understood it to be a way to proactively manage new and redevelopment in the neighborhood. We also thought it was a way that we could help people and encourage and promote new and redevelopments that were in harmony with the neighborhood. We've later found that this same tool has been used in the cities I've listed there, all over the country, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Nashville, Knoxville, Bloomington, Indiana, Boston. It's a tool that neighbors can use in a very democratic way to design and marshal their neighborhood forward into the future to see that it maintains what people invested in originally. I'm going to talk a little bit about the volunteers who got on this committee. It was probably those of us who were too stupid to sit down. But young and old, married with kids, singles, professionals, self-employed people, students, a whole breadth of experience that was really relevant to this effort. We've got two architects, Jeff Duncan and Tom Burke. Henry Jackson's a professional urban planner, worked with the city for a number of years and all over the country. Carla Van Huse is a medical health professional. Mary Margaret Bell's a realtor. Susan Lewis is one class away from her master's in historic preservation. And I spent a good period, a good much of my time restoring Arch and Crafts bungalows. So we had a good bandwidth of people, had a good experience, maybe the perfect storm for our neighborhood association to have this sort of volunteers willing to do this work. Like Rachel said, we started with focus groups. In July of 2006, a number of neighbors showed up at Christ the King, and we sat down and broke into micro-neighborhoods, if you will, by streets and identified assets issues and what the future vision was that people saw for Chevy Chase. The assets were obvious. I think everybody understands about old interurban neighborhoods. They're walkable. They have mature landscaping. There's nearby conveniences. The overwhelming issue that everybody was in agreement with, no matter where you lived in the neighborhood, was the quality of the infill or the size, scale, the design, and the architecture of what was happening at that point in time. And the future vision was everyone wanted to figure out a way to maintain that sense of place of architectural integrity that everybody invested in and everybody appreciates about Chevy Chase. So with that findings from the focus group, it was the committee's charter to go forward and figure out if this Article 29 was a tool we could use. We did three things. We did monthly meetings, and I'm going to be referring at times to our application and our letter requesting initiation. Appendix B in the letter requesting initiation shows all of the meetings that we held over the last 24 to 30 months. There were about 16. There might have been more. All of those meetings were noticed. Homeowners had agendas hand-delivered to their residences in advance of the meetings. There were yard signs. There were e-mails sent out. Always, if ND1 was going to be discussed, it was on the agenda, and people were encouraged to attend, and we had pretty strong attendance at those meetings. Simultaneous to those monthly meetings, we undertook, and we were mandated to do this by Article 21, was an architectural analysis of the neighborhood. It was extensive. It was volunteer-driven. And if you look at Exhibit B and C of our application, you can see the forms that we used and the information that we generated. We looked at 761 structures in the neighborhood. That was described by Tracy, although we also looked at both sides of Cooper and both sides of Shinaway. And what we did was we did walking evaluations noting exterior architectural details of those structures. We photographed every structure, and we built an access database so we could go back and look at it when we started to develop these standards that are listed in Article 29. That was the longest period of time that we spent working was doing this analysis and compiling all the data and coming up with ideas. And then starting in January of 2008, the committee was meeting nightly. All through February, March, and early April, it could revise and come up with these standards. At the same time, we were going to monthly meetings with neighbors, telling them about our progress, what we were talking about, what we were thinking about, and trying to describe to them what we felt Article 29 could do for them as a neighborhood. We then felt it was proper for us to gauge neighbor's support for this effort. So we undertook an extensive, what I would call, outreach and petition drive. It's in Appendix A of our letter requesting initiation. We spent, from April 8th through May 7th, not only educating neighbors but passing out information, the proposed guidelines, which were drawn up by Tom Burke, an architect. We handed out forms of frequently asked questions to handle what we expected to be the queries about ND1. And we spent time with neighbors. And after the first week of answering questions and really kind of spreading the gospel, we then went back with petitions trying to gauge support. We used, and I'd like to put this into the record. I don't think it's been submitted yet. But we used what I'll, can I give this to Mr. Brewer? Is that a good place to start with this? We used what I'll describe as trained volunteers. We developed a volunteer handbook. We wanted them to play an educational role. We wanted them to maintain neutrality like Switzerland when talking with neighbors about NT1. We asked them to work some sensible hours, will name tags, carry with them forms of frequently asked questions to hand out, and leave the guidelines with homeowners to review in their leisure. These guidelines were the diagrams we're going to go over here in a minute with the commission. Some people were contacted at least ten times. there were some homeowners we were never able to contact. Either they were away or didn't answer their door or for some reason didn't want to talk with us. Those homeowners or property owners or absentee property owners we sent two letters to, and we even got responses back from them. So what we tried to be, as I've described all along, is open and transparent and inclusive and make this an educational process to secure support so we could come to the Planning Commission and ask for your support. Once we decided what area was going to be petitioned, and we left off the outside of Shinoah and Cooper, if you understand what I'm describing. We didn't petition both sides of the street. We did 675 total petitions. Of those, we got 61% said yes, or 413 people, property owners, said they were in favor of the proposed guidelines that we eventually submitted to planning for approval. 11.4% said no, and then you can see 27.5% had no response. What I think is significant is if you take out the no response, and it's hard to gauge if either they didn't want to take a position, they were neutral like Switzerland, but if you take out those and you look at those responders, those people who engaged us and talked with us and asked questions and understood what we were doing, 84.5% of those property owners said, yes, this is what I want for my neighborhood. It achieves my goals as a homeowner, and it's what I want going forward in the future. And I think that's something the Planning Commission can feel comfortable about, that this isn't a small group of renegade homeowners who have an ax to grind. This is overwhelming community-wide support for an effort to enhance where we live, make it a better place going forward, and use the tools that our city council has given us to do that, which is Article 29, 84.5%. The stated goals of ND1, I think Tracy included some of these in her materials. It's in our materials. There's six of them. I've listed the first three. The last three I didn't think pertain to what we're trying to achieve. But the first one, the stated goal is to protect against the destruction, degradation, and encroachment upon neighborhoods. Places having a special, unique, or distinctive character. And that's what we've identified Chevy Chase to be. I'm going to go over some of the history of Chevy Chase in a minute. Encourage, and I think that's an important word. What we're trying to do is we're trying to encourage things. We don't want to stop. We don't want to limit. We don't want to restrict. We want to encourage the use of existing buildings through the use of adaptive rehabilitation. And we want to encourage construction that's appropriate and in scale with the physical character of the original buildings, something that everybody can be proud of and everybody can be happy about. Why Chevy Chase? It's not a unique neighborhood in terms of its age. There are lots of neighborhoods that I think Article 21 is appropriate for. We're the first ones to take it by its tail. I think there's some others in the pipeline now. But Chevy Chase does have a significant part in Lexington's history. I think many people know it used to be part of Henry Clay's estate. It started its development in the 20s. It continued after World War II at a very high rate because of the returning GIs. Cochran Road was known as GI Road. A lot of those homes were built under special permits for the GIs. But what it developed at over time, as opposed to Ashland Park, was modest-sized lots, modest-sized homes, all with very fine architectural details. And that's what we have in the neighborhood. In the next couple slides, let's show some examples of these structures that were developed. This is showing a Cape Cod before World War II and then one after World War II. You see where they started to add dormers. The architectural survey and then the standards analysis I'm going to talk a little bit about. We were obligated, Article 29 is very specific about what a neighborhood has to do to make this application. And you have to go back and do an architectural analysis of the early character of the neighborhood, the present character, and what you predict the character will be going forward without ND1. It's a lot of work. and we took it on with volunteers. We identified 701 single-family homes with all these different architectural styles. I would point out we identified a type of Cape Cod that we named a Chevy Chase cottage. It has kind of an L-shaped to it with protrusion into the front yard. We identified as that was something kind of unique to Chevy Chase. You see it in other parts of Lexington, but it was unique to that Cape Cod style. So we also noted, and I've bolded some of the important things, because our mission we felt was size and scale. We stayed away from guidelines that had to do with exterior building materials or certain types of window materials. We tried to stay away from those guidelines that we felt would increase the cost of new or redevelopment in the neighborhood. We didn't want to create a class warfare. What we wanted to do was address those guidelines in Article 29 that deal with size and scale. So although every home in the neighborhood is brick, stone, or has some type of lap siding, we didn't exclude vinyl siding, for example, or we didn't come up with a guideline that mandated that a certain ratio of new development have brick or stone. We tried to just focus on those things that dealt with size and scale. And what we found was 450 homes that we surveyed were one-and-a-half story, while only 11 homes are two-and-a-half story or taller. That was telling to us about the present character of the neighborhood. 90% of the lots, over 90% of the lots are 50 by 150, again, very modest-sized lots. In 2006, the average size home in Chevy Chase was less than 2,000 square feet, and 81% of the homes are still 2,600 square feet or smaller. I don't know if the commission finds those to be surprising numbers, but it definitely caused us to consider harder what guidelines we could use to allow people to invest in their properties and enhance them, enlarge them, but still staying within character, and I think what you're going to find is we've achieved that. Tracy talked about some of our findings, the visual continuity consistent with the early development. It's almost like a park when you walk through Chevy Chase. The rhythm and beauty and the setbacks, heights, and eaves that create this distinctive character. What we're seeing, and this slide illustrates it, is some of the recent new developments and redevelopments are starting to interrupt that visual continuity. because of their size and scale, and you can see the contrast here in these two houses. Again, this is a very strong contrast in what we're seeing in Chevy Chase. It's an early trend, but as it trends forward over time, we're predicting that the fabric of Chevy Chase as we know it will change without guidelines dealing with size and scale. Again, the top photo shows the continuity of the housing and how it was developed, and the bottom shows what's happening with the new development on the left. The trends we're seeing are larger-scaled homes and accessory structures. The last few years, there's been eight additions. There's been more than that, but we've identified eight that averaged 1,600 square feet just for additions. That's on a 50 by 150 square foot lot. That's a large addition to an existing structure on a relatively small lot. So we're predicting that with current building codes enabling bigger, taller homes and bigger, taller garages, that it's going to disrupt that character, it destroys the visual continuity, diminishes green space, and it's not something the focus group or the neighbors told us they wanted. They said they wanted something else. Remember, 84.5% of the people said they wanted these guidelines, and so that's why we're here today. The goals we wanted to achieve were promote new construction in harmony with the original character of the neighborhood and encourage the use of existing buildings, again, within the original character of the neighborhood. The first one that we suggested is a rear yard setback, and it's not a setback that hasn't been used in other parts of Lexington, but as Tracy said, we're recommending a 25-foot or one-third the lot depth setback from the rear yard. The photograph you see here is a view of a house that I think is about 10 feet off the rear lot, and you can see the sort of visuals or sight view that neighbors would have if we had these setbacks. In your materials, you can see these diagrams that were prepared by Tom Burke, the rear yard setbacks, showing examples on the left of what is permissible today and on the right of what we're suggesting. Now, what does that mean in reality? Well, a typical lot I'll use as an example would result in a 50-foot setback, the 50 by 150. Current building code would give you a 70 by 34-foot footprint. That would allow you to build with a 50-foot setback a 2,380-square-foot one-floor building. You could add a second story and get a 3,500-square-foot building, a story and a half. You could add a second story and get 4,700 square feet. If you wanted in Chevy Chase under this guideline to build a full basement, you could have a 7,100-square-foot home. So the point of this slide is that this is a generous guideline. We're asking the homes to be set back, but we're still allowing people to enlarge their homes, enhance their investment, and build for the way their families need to live. This is in stark contrast to some of the National Home Builders Association numbers on average-sized homes and what the U.S. Census Bureau tells us the average-sized family is. We think this is extremely generous. It's a guideline. It won't allow people to build a house larger than what I've shown here, but for the size lots we have in Chevy Chase and what the neighbors are telling us, we think that's generous. Building heights we think are very important to the way the neighborhood looks and feels and what the character is. We're suggesting a 28-foot maximum building height. You'll see on the top is a type of development we've seen in Chevy Chase. You can use my pointer here. You can see this is the original structure here, this two-story structure. And what we're seeing are these large masses off the back up to 35 feet. We're asking that that addition off the back be 28 feet at a maximum, which still allows, in our opinion, for people to do very creative, very tasteful, very fine work and enhance their investments. Again, it's a modest proposal considering what is currently in the neighborhood. There's only 11 homes that are 2 1⁄2 stories or larger. It does encourage the conservation of existing character. Lots of different roof designs could be used. It encourages all different sorts of design elements. and addresses the size and scale issue that our neighbors want us to talk about. Roof pitches. The norm in the neighbor that we gathered from our survey was a 7-12 pitch, and we're asking that that be applied to new and redeveloped homes. We think it's fair. We think it's reasonable. Allows us to achieve the goals that our neighbors want us to achieve, and at the same time allows homeowners to enhance and improve their properties. Number four is the wall openings. What we found in our survey from what our neighbors were telling us are some of the new and redevelopments were building sheer walls without any human elements like doors or window openings. And so we're suggesting that, and staff has supported this suggestion, that 10% of that wall plane on each elevation, new construction, have a door or a window. We are excluding wall areas less than 100 square feet, such as a modest porch off the back of a home, and sidewalls of dormers. Again, it's illustrated here. You can see we're not suggesting they be in any proportion. and that's just an example in this drawing. They could be masked in any part of that wall plane, but we are seeking to eliminate this visual that we're seeing, which is totally out of character. It's not in context with Chevy Chase. And one suggestion I think that Tracy included, it was to exclude the chimney from the square footage calculation for that wall area. I think we've had some discussions. Mr. Cravens, you brought up a good point about the drawings. We're hoping that, although it's not being suggested by staff, but we're hoping that building inspection requires it in every instance because we're wondering how something like this could be enforced without plans. They're full of professionals. I'm sure they'll get it done. parking for single-family attached to multi-family dwellings when we originally submitted our our proposals in our application our language was parking applies to r3 and r1 t zones only and that was our intent for for and it would be rear yard parking it's been modified to include side yard parking i'm not sure we objected it to the original language but we'll leave that to planning and staff, but we again think this achieves the goals, definitely addresses pedestrian-friendly environments. It's very reasonable, and it's the only one that we've applied to multifamily property owners. Otherwise, we've excluded those properties from these guidelines. We think that's imminently reasonable. Number seven, the accessory structures. This has been a big point of discussion in the neighborhood, and I know there's some people here tonight who are going to object and want this to be changed. But we tried to come up with a suggestion and a guideline that allowed people to build an accessory structure of some generosity bigger than a traditional two-car garage. We've allowed 700-square-foot footprint gives you still some room for storage or a workspace and a two-car garage. Or you could make a decision to have a one-bay garage and storage or workspace where the other bay would be. I think the days of requiring a car to be garaged overnight is a bygone era. I mean, the way they build cars, you don't even need to garage them. So we think this guideline is very reasonable. We think it addresses character. There was a clear frustration in neighbors of very, very large accessory structures, some of them being 1,500 to 1,600 square feet being built right on rear property lines. We think this 700 square foot footprint is going to encourage some very creative designs Where people like you see in the photograph below decide to have a one bay garage And have a workspace or office on the second bay And it's going to force homeowners to make some choices about what they want on their property You can't under these guidelines have everything We're allowing 7,100 square foot homes We are limited in accessory structures But we want people to make choices And we think they're fair choices And we think they're reasonable So what's the practical effects of ND1? Well, it's been true democracy, as you see it tonight. We've had people in favor of it. People are opposed to it. We think it's going to promote and encourage new and redevelopment in scale with the existing neighborhood. We think that it's going to address the size and scale issues. It's going to preserve the architectural integrity of the neighborhood and maintain that sense of place that everybody has invested in. There are three things that we're seeking clarity on. The required drawings, I think that's already been discussed tonight. I think there could be a text amendment to Article 5 where that could be applied across the city for any new ND1. The review process, for many, many months, it was our understanding that a variance was the review process. It wasn't until Monday that we were notified that it wasn't a variance, that it is a zone change, and you can imagine that was a huge surprise to us. We'd like some clarity. I know the Home Builders Association, who is in favor of this, ND1 overlay and Chevy Chase, they also want some clarity on this issue. I suggest a text amendment to Article 29 if that solves the problem. But no one in the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association intended when this started to handcuff homeowners into some inflexible rules that wouldn't allow them to work with their existing properties. And a zone change seems like that's one of those inflexible rules. You guys deal with that all the time. I don't. But a variance we thought was fair, a review by you or the Board of Adjustments seems fair. That's what we want some clarity on. I know the law department's rendered opinion. I've read Article 7 differently. I think it does allow the Board of Adjustments to make those decisions, so I don't think the issue's really been put to bed. Smart people sitting over here, but I think that needs to be clarified. I don't think it should stop the approval of this. I think it can be walked in tandem, and that can be clarified later. And then there's been some question in the neighborhood about, well, what happens if I have a nonconforming building and it burns down or a hurricane knocks it over? Well, Article 4 allows those people living in homes that may be taller than 28 feet or might have a bigger setback to rebuild them as they existed. So I think that clarifies Article 4-4 of the zoning ordinances. So I think that's clarified. There has been opposition. Our petition told us there's 11 percent who are opposed. I know there's some lawyers here on the clock who are representing some multifamily property owners who are opposed to the parking restriction. In the past 30 days, we've become aware that some people want smaller rear yard setbacks because they want bigger homes, they want taller homes. They don't want any minimum wall openings, and they want larger and taller garages. Well, that's great. What we would like the Planning Commission to query about is do you have an architectural survey analysis to support those ideas? Did you do the sort of work that the Neighborhood Association did to come up with it? Do you have any support for those ideas? You know, we really lost control of this process when you adopted this as the petitioner in late June. And so July 31st, when we became aware of this opposition, it really was out of our hands to be able to do anything about it. We think the guidelines that we've asked for are imminently reasonable and fair. They allow for some tremendous creativity and redevelopment. development. But I'll leave you with a few last slides. What we think going forward without ND1 are developments like you see here, very large, out-of-scale homes, right on back property lines. We think what we've proposed in terms of generosity with the garages, you can build 7,800 square foot of covered structure, which is huge. Plows for creative designs, solution-driven, addresses the size and scale issues. It does not increase the cost of new or redevelopment. It's stayed away from exterior building materials, and it's widely supported. 84.5% of those property owners who we contacted spoke to support this. That's tremendous for an effort like this. The Blue Glass Trust, I'm told by Foster Pettit he was here earlier, but he has submitted a letter. He left a couple of copies for me. Blue Glass Trust supports Chevy Chase. ND1 overlay. The Fayette Alliance supports ND1 as a land use policy. I think Knox Matt Nagel submitted a letter. I'll submit a copy of her letter. Although they don't specifically support our effort, they think the ND1 overlay is a great tool for planning here in Fayette County. And the Home Builders Association, specifically their remodelish councils, they support our efforts. Chip Crawford's here. I know he wants some clarity on some other issues about the review process, but we think we've got not only neighborhood-wide support, but we've got community-wide support for this effort. We need the Planning Commission support, and that's why I'm here. We think with MD1 we can continue to maintain Chevy Chase as caretakers like we should. As I call it, it's a non-renewable resource. Once it's gone, we can't get it back. And we're obligated as homeowners and caretakers to take care of it. So we need your help. We want you to join us in this effort. We can make a difference if this gets passed. It's a good thing for the community. It's a good thing for the neighborhood, and we urge you to pass it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Sure. We're going to remind you all now there's a clock right up here, so I'm asking you all to remain after three minutes because whatever one side says, the other side is going to get an equal amount of time. So we've sat here until 2 o'clock, so it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to tell you it's going to be even. All right, who would like to speak next? Excuse me, Mr. Day. If you have any questions with me, I'll be available. Mr. Burks here, he's the architect. He's the technical guy. I'm sorry. Any questions, we can. I have a quick, wasn't sure what the protocol of asking now or not. I'm very impressed with the effort that went into this. And, Mr. Hawkins, I'd like to know, with what we have on the table now, Does that address what your group has petitioned? I know there were several things that you were seeking clarification on. Can we approve this and seek the clarification in parallel, or is that something that has to be done now before this meets the needs of the group? Is that a question for me? It's a question for you. It's a question for anybody who can answer it. I'll take a first shot at it. I think what we have proposed and what planning staff has recommended that you approve approve and what Zoning Committee recommended that you approve achieves the mission and the goals of the Chevy Chase Neighbor Association, which is address the size and scale issues, while at the same time promoting and encouraging new and redevelopment that allows neighbors to enhance their properties. These clarifications, I think, can move in a parallel universe or in lockstep, and I think that there's no reason not to act on our petition, our initiative this evening, those things we can clarify later. That's my position. That's our neighborhood position. Any other questions? Thank you again. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. If you'll just tell us your name and address, please. Yes, good evening. I'm Susan Booker. I live at 125 Old Cassidy Avenue, and I live in the house that my parents purchased shortly before my fifth birthday. So I have spent many years in Chevy Chase. I've lived in other places over the years, but Old Cassidy is home, and I'm glad it's been in my family for more than 50 years. You can see my home on the screen. That's the way it looked when my parents purchased it in 1951 in December. Growing up in Chevy Chase in the 1950s was wonderful. The 20 children who lived along Cassidy Avenue and Hart and Cochran Roads around the corner were all friends and playmates. We were active, outdoor children in a safe, child-friendly neighborhood. Our houses were individualized and full of character. Our parents chose to live in our neighborhood because of Chevy Chase's good qualities, safety, quietness, private yards, mature trees, and proximity to good schools, shopping, churches, and entertainment. They also chose our houses because of their quality. They were soundly built, comfortable, modestly scaled, and attractively and individually designed. Chevy Chase was a great place to be and to raise a child. You can see the child that I was standing in my backyard. It is still a great place, but Chevy Chase's traditional charm and character are threatened by increasing numbers of ostentatiously enlarged, out-of-scale remuddles, which overwhelm the modest neighboring homes while completely changing the original design, size, and appearance of the remodeled houses. Such houses are not in our neighborhood's best interests. These ungainly houses inflate our property taxes while adversely affecting not only our neighborhood's character and our viewscapes, but also the sanitary and storm sewers, a major concern in a flooded basement-prone Chevy Chase. I've had up to three and a half feet of water in my basement, and it's not happened only once. And it's happening more often in the last ten years. I can remember one flood during my childhood days, four within the last ten years. The proposed zoning overlay will do much to alleviate these problems while retaining the historic scale, charm, and traditional character of Chevy Chase for years to come. Correctly and sensitively done, renovation and restoration can enhance our neighborhood, and this will be allowed and encouraged by this overlay. But without it, Chevy Chase's traditional character will continue to be threatened by out-of-scale, poorly designed, ill-fitted structures, which are built without consideration, of our neighborhood's best interests. Next slide, please. This is my backyard when we moved in. Of the three houses you see, all three have been remodeled. The one that you see, it'll be on your right, is completely changed in appearance. The one in the middle behind the hemlock trees is currently under construction. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And the one on the left has been done by an architect, and it looks great. It can be done. That's what I still see when I look out in my backyard. into my backyard. Just as in the 1950s, today, close to 20 children live on my street or just around the corner. Passing this zoning overlay will ensure that today's children and the children of tomorrow and their families will enjoy the same simple blessings that yesterday's Chevy Chase children, four of whom you see on the screen, enjoyed. I know I'm one of those Chevy Chase children of yesterday, and I still call Chevy Chase home. Thank you so much for your interest and for supporting our neighborhood and what our wishes might be. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Booker. And if anybody has any questions about what I just said, I'll be glad to try to answer them. No? And all of those pictures, plus a few more, will be going into your records if you'd like to see them. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Would you give us your name and address, please? I'm Graham Pohl. I live at 239 South Hanover Avenue. So I don't actually live in the neighborhood, but I am an architect with Pohl Rosa Pohl, and we've been working in the neighborhood for 15 years. We've done, I don't know, dozens of addition remodels in that neighborhood. I currently have three clients in the neighborhood. I'm here to support the application. I have watched the process unfold. I attended two of the open meetings and was very impressed with the professionalism and the democratic nature of the meetings. My interest is always design excellence. That's the whole thrust of my firm. And so I see the ND1 overlay as being a way to help preserve what is predominantly a condition of design excellence in that neighborhood. I do have one reservation about the requirements, and I'm going to bring this up because I think you're going to be hearing a lot of people who are going to have little nitpicky concerns about bits and pieces of it, and I'm going to be one of them. I want to preface this by saying that even if my nitpick isn't remedied, I still would support the ND1 overlay because I think it's the right thing for the community. I think it's the right thing for the neighborhood. And that said, let me tell you what my nitpick is. It has to do with the roof pitch requirement. I support every aspect of the ND1 overlay. And, you know, being someone who's designed many projects in the neighborhood and currently involved with three, I know what's going on in the neighborhood, and I understand what the design issues are. My concern with the roof pitch requirement is that it doesn't allow for shed roof designs as the main form on an addition. And the problem with that is that it doesn't allow for a contemporary response on a two-story addition. It forces a traditional response. if you have to do a 712 pitch on a on a two-story edition you're into a traditional vocabulary that may not strike you as being problematic but if you're familiar with historic preservation guidelines we do a lot of work in areas with historic overlays in historic overlay zones and if you're familiar with historic preservation guidelines they very specifically say that new work should be clear about when it's built. It should not mimic old work. It should be of its own era. And the shed roof form is very much of today. It's a contemporary form. I can tell you that the shed roof form can be used very effectively with these residences and in very sympathetically. It's not like it's going to stick out like a sore thumb, particularly if these guidelines are followed, if the rest of these guidelines are followed, because the scale issues, the texture issues that are promoted by these guidelines would enforce a kind of a sensitivity to what's there that would make a contemporary response seem even more appropriate and even more fitting. So that's what I have to share with you. I hope you will support the overlay. You know, I guess, you know, if there were an opportunity to tweak the guidelines in some way, I'd love to see that caveat. There's already a caveat for dormers, for example, and other caveats, but I'd love to see that happen. Thank you. Thank you. And commission members have any questions? Thank you. My name is Phyllis Jeunesse. I own property at 360 Garden Road. I've been there 34 years, very happily. I had lived in three or four other neighborhoods before I moved there. When I landed on Garden Road, I knew that I had found my place. except for a couple of timeouts for surgery. I've walked in Chevy Chase virtually every day in those 34 years, so I know the territory. When I began to see these remodeling, remodeled houses springing up, it caused me to think more specifically than I had about why the houses on Garden Road, for example, are so attractive to me and why these new ones are so ugly and have isolated three things. They're huge. They occupy so much of the land, which is certainly not attractive aesthetically, and I think I'm right in saying that eventually it will cause flooding problems, and Lexington certainly has no lack of those. Not only that dimension, but they are so tall. Again, aesthetically not pleasing, but they cut off light and sun to their neighbors, which is certainly not friendly and may even be detrimental. I was talking to a man the other day who lives right next to one of these that had just been finished, and he said his flowers are dying because they're not getting any sun. And then the third thing, I think Chevy Chase is so unique in its trees, many trees, many of them very old, very beautiful. And I'm sure that in order to build these monstrous houses, they have to knock down some of those trees, which I think is a tragedy. I'm a transplanted Yankee, but I've been in Lexington more than 50 years. and I'm very devoted to this community and I've tried to make some contribution to it. When I see people putting their self-interest ahead of the good of the community, I think this is not the Lexington that I want. So I urge you to approve this. Thanks for listening. Thank you very much. Chip Crawford, Hi. Thank you, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Chip Crawford. I'm chair of the Lexington Remodelers Council. We understand and agree with the overall intent of this ND1 overlay. We do have a couple of concerns, one of which has already been brought up. The fact that there's not an existing review or appeals process written into Article 29 does mean that the only way for a homeowner to get a change to this is an actual zoning change, and that's pretty arguous, especially when dealing with a conditional overlay. We're also a little concerned about the burden that this is going to put on building inspection. Currently, all the plans are going to have to go through building inspection for this review process and enforced at building inspection. When we're looking at the fact that there are multiple other neighborhoods that are looking at this particular ND1 overlay and enacting it currently without a review process or an appeals process in place, it's going to put a pretty big responsibility on building inspection. Any time you take a design standard and impose strict definitions to them without a review or appeals process, they become extremely limiting. That's my only concern is that there are things out there that we can't even foresee about properties that exist that may not fit these specific requirements, and you don't have any kind of other review or appeal. Other conditional zones such as PUD, H-1, the courthouse square, all have either review processes in place or an appeal process written into the article. Our suggestion would be to postpone this actual ND-1 until an amendment to the Article 29 is written that addresses either a review or an appeal process, which would solve a lot of these problems. Other than that, we are very much in support with the intent and the idea behind the ND1 overlay. Any questions? Thank you. Any questions? Hello. Thanks for having me. I'm David Medley. I live at 333 Dudley Road. It's in Chevy Chase. I've lived there for over 21 years. I'd like to talk just about support of this application of ND1. Over the years, I first discovered Chevy Chase when friends and colleagues said, great neighborhood, you should live there. And sure enough, when we lived there, we found out how great it was. And early, the renovations that happened seemed to be the kind of renovations where people were trying to improve the quality of their life, adding a master bedroom downstairs. But in the last five or six years, we've seen those large remodeling that people have already talked about. It happened next door to me. The house that was next door was a one-story, two-bedroom bungalow. This couple had lived there for over 50 years. They both died in their 90s. the house was sold by the estate. And what we saw was the roof came off. The back of the house came off. Up it went and back it went. As a homeowner, I just want to tell you, without any controls, you're sitting there with a lot of anxiety. Your property is going to change. We had a patio back there. All of a sudden, we see two windows being put right smack smack to look into our patio. At our request, the renovator did, in fact, eliminate those windows. So we were lucky. But what happens with the people who couldn't do that? The accessory building. This tall building and the accessory building changes your landscape. It changes your view of your property. What I'd like to do is ask you to think about that and realize that we need some kind of control over this. We need to know the property owner that lives there needs to feel like, okay, when a renovation happens, it's not going to destroy my home. I was walking on the street the other day, and the neighbor next door to one of the big ones, he basically said you know I was going to live here and I was going to retire here now I only think of this piece of property as an asset it's not going to be my retirement home I'm not going to be retired next to this monstrosity so I really just ask you to think about that and think about this as an opportunity to give us a community and to maintain the character of our neighborhood Thanks a lot. Hello, I'm Kay Cannon. I live at 373 Colony Boulevard. I moved to Chevy Chase about six years ago. I lived in lots of other places in Lexington, some of the suburbs, big, huge houses, a whole bit. When I came to Chevy Chase, I felt like I was at home. I love to walk. I get up almost every morning. I walk three and a half miles. And as I walk, it's like I'm in a park. And occasionally I would see a house that would be torn down. And I'd go, oh, my God, what are they doing? And then you see this huge house coming up. It's like, oh, that's so sad. And then you would see the top of the house gone, and boom, there was this pop-up. Well, I was kind of sad about that. And then two years ago, my next-door neighbors, she was 92 and he was 89. They built their house in 1945. They both died. And I was faced with the grief of losing my neighbors and at the same time scared to death at what was going to happen to my next-door neighbor's house. Am I going to be living next to one of these huge monstrosities? So I ask you to please think about what it's like for somebody who has their home there, who wants to have a garden, who wants to be able to walk in a park-like setting, who wants to be able to have a wonderful relationship with their neighbors, and not have these huge houses all of a sudden pop up when you have no control whatsoever. So thank you very much. Good evening. I'm Carla Van Hoose. I live at 110 Louisiana Avenue. I would like to refer back and add a point. Brad mentioned the Fayette Alliance letter that you have. It not only talks about the idea of ND1, but also that it meets the comprehensive goals, planning goals, and that it does, in fact, create a win-win situation for builders and for the community. I also would like to draw your attention to a letter that was sent to you from the Lansdowne Neighborhood Association. They say at the end that the reason for the Board of Directors for the Lansdowne Association supports the application of the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association for the Neighborhood Design Overlay, and they ask for your support of that. The other thing I'd like to do is to show you what I see. My house is on this side, And my neighbor's new garage from the street is absolutely beautiful. It's well designed. It's attractive. It's tasteful. As someone has mentioned, we can't legislate taste. So I'm very fortunate that my neighbors have good taste. What I do see is that the buildings are getting higher and higher. And what that does for me is that it interrupts the visual character in my yard, and it changes the way that the homes relate to each other. Prior to that addition, I could see down the street. I could wave at my neighbor, Jane Wine Gardner. I can't do that now. So one of these in a neighborhood is not much of a big deal. I can wave at Jane from the front. But if you put two or three or four of them in a row, you've truly eliminated a great deal of airspace, of sunlight, of a connection in the neighborhood that's contained. You want to show the other? So this shows you a little of the height difference. The larger garage is just above 19 feet by, I think, 9 inches maybe is what I was told. If you think about adding 1, 2, 3 more feet to that, there's going to be a lot of space taken out. So I would like to encourage you to respect the limits that our standards have set. And to also recognize that we're allowing people to expand. My home in particular is 1,750 square feet. At one time, eight people lived in it. And under ND1, I could double the size of my house and my garage, which I think is plenty for a lot of 150 by 50 square feet. So I'm asking for your support. I appreciate your time and interest. and certainly that of Tracy and Rachel who have helped us and the legal staff for the work I know they've put in on this. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. My name is Paul Winther. I live at 328 Ridgeway Road. I just want to say something to you nice people. I am total awe of all of you. And the reason why is because for about 3 hours and 45 minutes, none of you left your seat in the afternoon. Incredible. So either you are very dedicated, you're glued to your seat, or you're masochistic. Now, what I want to say, periodically I go out and I walk in Chevy Chase. Sometimes I do it very early in the morning, sometimes at noontime. Anytime I have a chance, I'll do this. And I look in Chevy Chase, I see a lot of very, very small houses. Very well constructed. Most of these houses have been developed or built, rather, in the 1930s and 1940s. Single-family houses. At that time, they were big enough for the desires of people. One thing I noticed also, they all have nice backyards. And I come home at this walk. I feel nice. It's a nice place to live. I sleep well at night. It's pleasant. But then something happens. I don't know. must be something I eat or I'm in a bad mood, I'm paying my taxes, I don't know what it is. But then I take on the persona of a developer. I take on the mentality of the developer. Not any developer, but a developer who just wants to make a fast book. And when I take that walk around Chevy Chase, I look at that neighborhood in a totally different light. All those small houses, they're fantastic places that I have a chance, I can buy those places and I can just put up a real, real big, big, big vinyl box. There's nothing that prevents me from doing this. That to me is a nightmare and I think the nightmare has happened. It's right across the street from us. It's the house that you saw on those slides. The slides don't do it justice. There's nothing that prevents that kind of structure to be created any place in Chevy Chase. If that could take place, it can take place anywhere else. I don't have any rules or regulations about that. Now, I would do that, and I would say, I probably wouldn't really try to make it very attractive. That house is not very attractive. I don't have to worry about that because I'd be really, really delighted because University of Kentucky is expanding the student population, 6,000 to 8,000 people, students. those students are coming towards Chevy Chase. For some kind of mechanism, and I think this is what happened, I can rent it to anybody. Anybody. And when this happens, and the quality of the neighborhood is gone. And so I would suggest, please, please, I'm not really for development. I should say, I'm not really against development. And I'm sure I'm going to agree with some of the objections that are going to be raised very, very soon. but the fact is I don't think anybody wants that kind of a dwelling to be constructed in our neighborhood without any kind of regulations whatsoever and there are no regulations and you say that well I'm exaggerating I'm not exaggerating if that could have been built and the person was able to do what they've done with it it can happen again so I want to have some kind of regulation I need to have some kind of control not just me, but all of us, have these kinds of constructions all over the place, it makes Chevy Chase a thing of the past for sort of unconcerned. So I ask you, Mr. Cravens, and you, Mr. Copeland, support this thing. Without it, what's going to happen? Bad things are going to happen for all of us. And so I'll shut up and sit down. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Harvey Coggin. I live at 166 Louisiana Avenue. I've lived at that address for 27 and a half years. You've heard much this evening about the charm and character of Chevy Chase. I think any of us who've lived in Lexington for some number of years recognize and appreciate that. I do support the ND1 overlay for what I think it will do to help to continue to maintain the charm and character of our neighborhood. I appreciate very much that this is a neighborhood effort that has been in process now for over two years, and just thank those volunteers who are my neighbors who have gotten us to this point. Thank you. Thank you. Any other person would like to speak in favor of the ND1? Well, I'm going to ask my colleagues, we've been here a while. Do you want to take a break? Are you ready to trudge on through? Okay. We'll still go. Mr. Murphy, by my count, we've been 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. About 11 people spoke at three minutes each, so that's 33 minutes and a 33 to start. So we'll start you off with an hour and three minutes for the opposition. An hour and three minutes. Great. You're welcome. I guess I'll get the honor of going first here. My name is Dick Murphy. I represent a number of owners of multifamily housing in this area. I represent three groups of people who own ten buildings between them, approximately seven or eight pieces of property. I've got some things to put on the oval. I just put up a map here showing you where we're at on this. And this is the, looking at this map here, I represent clients who are around the commercial area, the Kroger-Romany Road area right over here. This, bearing in mind on this map, all the areas that are in color are excluded from the overlay zone. If it's in color, it's out. We own some of the area that is not in color that is directly around the commercial area right there. I represent Harry Jones, who owns 310 Romney, which is right here. This is Romney Road here. This may be a little oriented, a little different from your map here. This is Providence Lane. This is Duke Road right here. Of course, Cooper Drive down here. So I think north is heading up toward the top on this. Harry Jones owns the property right here. Two properties with one address. There's three buildings on it. Harry ridiculously thought he'd be speaking before 8 o'clock. He had to go here, but he's not here. He was here for us. And along Duke Road, I represent the Shubert brothers, Allen and Charles, who own the property here at 258 Duke Road. And then I represent Penny Campbell and Ben Campbell. Ben is here with me in the second row, who through an estate, through the estate of Penny's parents, who are Jack and Ruth Fife, own a few properties, and individually they own a few properties as well. They have 300, 310, excuse me, 310, yeah, 320, 340, and 360 Romney Road. So those are the groups of people I represent. We are asking you to eliminate the R3 properties from the overlay zone, which is being proposed to you. We do not know why those properties were included to start with. There's differing versions about they weren't in originally, then they got in, and nobody knows how they got in. But they are in this draft, which is being presented to you. Now, it's originally starting out a question of fairness. If you can look up at the area on Cochran Road, here's Tate's Creek Road. Here's my landmark, Billy's Barbecue. And the multifamily behind there is all in color. What that means is it is not in the overlay zone. Now, my clients represent properties around this commercial area, which is multifamily and is placed in the overlay zone. Now, on June 26, when you all initiated the ordinance to change the zone, I was here on something else, and Frank Penn asked the people, well, why is the Cochran Road property not in? The answer was, it's multifamily. That was the answer. It's not in because it's multifamily. Now, we question the fairness of putting our multifamily in here and excluding the area on Cochran Road, which is the gateway to Chevy Chase from Tates Creek Road. If it's not important to have the multifamily at the gateway in, why is it important to have the multifamily next to the Kroger parking lot in the overlay zone down here? So we feel that we have, as well, 66 lots around Fontaine are not in. I heard today they don't consider that part of the neighborhood. That's fine. 13 in Cochran are not in who are multifamily. And I question why. The difference is that if you're not, the side yard parking, we cannot, nobody can do front yard parking in multifamily residential. It all has to be side yard or rear yard parking. Unlike the commercial area, which we're next to, we cannot do front yard parking like they do. But if it's okay to have side yard parking here in the gateway to Chevy Chase, why is it not okay for us to have side yard parking here when we're next to commercial establishments that have front yard and side yard parking? So we feel it's unfair, and legally the way we say it's unfair is it's arbitrary. So we think it's arbitrary to have our property included but not have the property on Cochran Road included. Now, substantively, we oppose this because we are a transition area between the commercial and the single-family residential. Transition areas are, of course, areas that buffer one another. We buffer the single-family residential. And as a transition area, you have some characteristics of the property you're transitioning from and some characteristics of the property you're transitioning to. We are residential, like the property we're transitioning to, but we request side yard parking, not front yard parking like the commercial area is allowed. to give you an example if you could put the first picture up there the first photograph this is the property right next to Mr. Jones' property this is, if we can brighten that up on Romney Road next door this is an office building with total front yard parking now Mr. Jones' property is right next door to it and we see no reason to not allow him to have side yard parking, which would actually be farther back than the front yard parking on the offices next to us. Mr. Jones wanted me to point out that all the screening that has been done between this parking and his property, he has done on his residential property. If we can go to the next photograph, this is bluegrass shade, which is next down the street, as you can see. This is commercial, but I'm telling you what the nature of this area is. It has front yard parking. If you can go to the next photograph there, this is the Wheeler's Pharmacy, of course, which has all front yard and side yard parking. If you go to the next photograph, this is property across Romney Road from Mr. Jones' property, which has front yard and side yard property. That's across from his residential property. and going to the next photograph i think i'm showing here that we do that i asked the staff about this and they said well nobody has side yard parking in this area right now well we do have side yard park in this area this is mr jones property right here at 310 romney which has those three or four parallel parking spaces on the side if we could go to the next one This is the, we're going over to Duke Road here. This is the Arnett Pritchett home, which I am not representing, but is in the area of R3, which has both nonconforming front yard parking and side yard parking. I have never heard anybody object to that. We certainly don't object to it. It hasn't been a detriment to the neighborhood. Going to the next slide, this is the Shubert property, who I represent. You can see this is at 358 Duke Road. They have side yard parking in there. And if we could go to the next photograph, this is the, I do not represent this, this is the apartment complex behind Wheeler's. Here's Wheeler's. They have the apartment complex, says all side yard parking. And finally, I do not have a picture of the Campbell property at 300 to 318 Duke Road, but they have side yard parking as well. So there are five, at least five instances I could find pretty easily of side yard parking in the area, which we have right now. When the staff was discussing this parking issue, they said it was to prevent intrusions into the area. Well, we allowed side yard parking at this point. We have side yard parking at this point. and this would not make a change in what is allowed and what is actually on the ground at this point. As transitions properties, we do bear the brunt of the juxtaposition to the commercial, which we're not complaining about. Everybody likes the commercial area in Romney Road, but the Campbell property, if you could go back to the map there that I have, The Campbell property and the Shubert property is right here. What's directly across the street from it? Well, we have the old, I guess it's a nonconforming GTE wind stream building, which is unique unto itself. We have the parking lot. This is total parking, front yard, side yard, rear yard of the Kroger and the Kroger entrance out into Duke Road, adding traffic here. We have the office building with front yard parking. We have the post office here with side and rear yard parking. The Schubert property and the Campbell property here faces that, and we don't think it is correct in a transition area. We can't do front yard parking, but we do think it's proper to do side yard parking in that transition area. The not allowing us to do side yard parking also impacts the architectural style here. As you can see along Duke Road, most all of the buildings here, you can see them outlined, have their short dimension towards the road and the long dimension going back. Now, there's some areas in the area which that's not the case, but most of them along here do have that. Now, if we're to ban side yard parking, what that's going to do, it's going to encourage everybody who remodels or whatever to do this, to do it along the front. And the reason they're going to do it along the front is because you can't park in that side yard anyway. They need to use that for the building, and they have to get the parking behind it. So it will encourage the long dimension to be along the road, which will be more monolithic structures, and the short dimension to be away from the road. We feel that the rhythm and style along Romney right now has the short dimension toward the road, and we think by banning side yard parking, we are unintentionally taking away from that, and we'll be encouraging people to put the long dimension along the road. Same thing over on Romney Road. Excuse me, I'm getting Duke and Romney mixed up when I talk about it. I was probably talking about Duke Road back there. If you could put up the ordinance, too, I just want to emphasize that these are treated as conditional zoning restrictions. Under Article 29.4C, design standards, that sort of got wiped out there, but it says the following are categories of design standards that shall be eligible for overlay regulations and may modify existing zoning or subdivision regulations, which is what you're doing, as conditional zoning restrictions. And the importance of that is if somebody wants to request side yard parking in our case or one of the other variances, they cannot go to the Board of Adjustment, which is normally a 30-day process. You apply and are heard 30 days later and have a decision. We have to go through a zone change process, which is a minimum. I think the world speed record for a zone change is four and a half months. A typical zone change takes six and a half months to go through, and it can last quite a bit longer, as you know, up to eight months, something like that. I tell my clients to allow at least six months to get a zone change through. And that's what it's going to take for somebody to request a parking space on the side of the building. a six-month review period going through you all, going through the council, and that sort of thing. We don't think that is appropriate because we have established we have side yard parking now, and it works. And I guess the biggest thing is that we are a transition area, and a transition area is the one that buffers the commercial from the residential in our case. And this is the prototype transition area. This is the area that everybody comes in and tries to model their subdivisions after. It works. I talked to Ben Campbell just a minute ago. He's an appraiser, as you all know, and I said, I assume that you have a very low vacancy rate of apartments in this entire area. And he said, that is right. We have a very low vacancy rate. This is an area which is attractive, which attracts tenants, is working, and is working the way it is intended to do. We ask you not to take one tool out of the toolbox because it is working. By adding restrictions, all we're doing is putting some more restrictions on a transition area which is working today and is the best transition area in the community. It does not need any more restrictions to continue working properly. In other words, it's not broke, and we don't need more regulation to fix it because it is working well. It is working today. So I'll sum up on that and simply ask you that we would like the R3 properties taken out of the overlay zone, just as they are on Cochran up here, or in the alternative to allow side yard parking for multifamily structures, as is done in this area right now, and I haven't heard anybody objecting to that. And it works in this area. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. You made it right under nine minutes also. Next person in opposition, please. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Good evening. My name is Tom Bunch. I live at 402 Dudley Road. I'm a resident there since 2001. I wish I'd been there even longer, or before that time. I also am an attorney. I'm at Bunch and Brock, and I do represent several homeowners on Dudley Road and others in our neighborhood. Amajeen Tussie, who's now Mrs. Hammer, as we know her and her husband, David Duboc, who's here in the room, Grant and Kathy Yeager, and some others. I don't need to go through everybody, but thank you for having the time. And, again, I have never been before you before, so please bear with me. I don't do this kind of work at all. I do a lot of bankruptcy work, commercial litigation, and so I'm a fish out of water as well, just like Brad Hawkins said about himself. Why did I get involved in this? And I don't want to start off and say I don't feel like I'm leading the opposition group at all. I'm leading some people who have some grave concerns, and I'm going to address those issues. If you'd begin with the first thing I would like to bring up, let me address one issue, and this is the letter that was received from the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association. It appeared on my doorstep Monday, August 26th, that evening. It was dated the 25th. I'm sorry, Tuesday is the 26th. It was drafted, I guess, on Monday. This is all along. I had concerns and remembered back to I took one class in planning and zoning and law school. That would have been about 1987. and I remember conditionals. I remember PUDS. Good grief. You all were dealing with this today. There were cases we read on that. And here, this letter, and I kept going, this is conditional zoning, and you know there's no appeal for this. And Graham Pohl made a comment about that. And we do have some great concerns. This letter came out telling everybody, oh, at the last minute, by the way, for 19 months we've been telling you you could get a zoning variance. Well, no, you can't. Sorry. This is the procedure you've got to go through. And particularly, I think this would be important to fix before we proceed with ND1. But that having been said, I'm going to move on because that's not a topic I want to dwell on. I think the commission has heard about this. So if you would move to the next slide, please. One of the things that was happening in our neighborhood, and you've heard about this. I'm not going to dwell on this either. If you'd slide it down a little bit, this is the house on Ridgeway Drive that started this whole process. This got everybody together. I agree. Everybody agrees. We don't like this, and we don't want it. How do we stop it? If you look down the side and the lower part of the photograph, it doesn't, I agree, it doesn't do, this photo doesn't do it justice to show you how long that is. It is within 15 feet of the back line. I knew Tommy Schaub, who lived to the left of this house, and after it was, he said that one day, he told me, somebody came over, the elderly lady that lived there next door came over and said, I've sold my house. And he goes, oh, okay, I'm sorry to see you move. And the next thing he knows, this house that she had quadruples, I mean, good grief, and Tommy moved. After that, he couldn't stand to live there anymore. They played soccer and Henry Clay back in the 80s together. We don't want this. And if you go to the next slide, oh, and I'll tell you something about that. I go on walks in our neighborhood, too. There's vodka bottles hanging out in front of this house. This is rented to U.K. students. I know the owner, and I mean, I know his name, and I've spoken with him before. After this was built, it sat on the market for several years. He could not, I think he built it. I have no idea. I mean, I suppose he built it thinking he would make a lot of money. He chose poorly, and the marketplace is punishing him for it because nobody's been able to buy this, is willing to buy this house, and he has to rent it to U.K. students. So one day there was vodka bottles. Another day there was an aquarium sitting in the front yard. And that same time, I'm walking with Charlie Stone down. We're walking together, and there was also plastic pulled from a Jeep that was, like, stuck in the door of the Jeep, and it was pulled. It was just nasty. I'm sorry to say that, but I'm going to say it. It's a fact. Next slide, please. Now, you've seen photos of this as well, and I don't live in that area. That's the 300 Cassidy, and I was really not even aware of it because I don't drive down Providence Lane very often at all on that side because I'm on Dudley. And when I saw that, I was quite surprised. This projector doesn't do the color photo justice. This color is getting a bit washed out. So it is quite a large structure, and again, this may be something we don't wish to have, and I want to go on the record and say that. So why did I get involved and begin doing this? Well, I talked to several neighbors, and we got the letter. If you go to the next slide, it's that letter, hey, guess what? We're doing a zoning change in your neighborhood, and here's who it involves, and here's what it says. And so that was July 25th. Shortly after that, if you go to the next slide, I began talking with Tom Burke, who was an architect and on the ND1 committee, and I had a lot of questions because I someday was going to do a garage, and I wanted to build something with a small, you know, something very modest with an art studio in it for my wife. She did a horse mania horse back in 2000. She needs the space to do it. In the meantime, we've had children, and our household has grown, and I've not been able to build it. And to this day, it's not been built. But I began to realize that, wait a second, I'm not going to be able to build what I want to build. And that was part of the deal when I bought that house. I feel an obligation to my spouse. This is Dudley Road, and this would also be shown here. I took it from this. that is the green would be all the people who voted in favor of it. There were 31 in favor, and I believe there were five against. The few blanks you see, you slide it up, 31 in favor, five against, and nine not available. After we got that letter and the neighbors started talking, we started expressing our concerns. If you go to the next slide, you will find I begin an opposition petition. The undersigned Chevy Chase homeowners are in receipt of your letter dated July 25, 2008, and oppose the requested zone change. A checkmark indicates the undersigned originally signed the petition in favor of the requested zone change, but now oppose it. Not all those are checkmarks. If you flip the page, it's stapled there. There were more signatures. I even got a few on Cheney Road who wanted to sign the petition, So if you take that off. So after you back that out, here is how our street, if you slide it down just a little bit, there are now 18 in favor on Dudley Road and 24 against and three not available. And if you look down below along Shinaway, there are the three people who signed who knew that I had concerns. There was a shift after receiving the letter and discussion and people learning about this, a huge shift in people going, I want this. It's been represented to you by Mr. Hawkins and others here before you that this is necessary. This is part of the charm. We agree. Nobody here is disagreeing. Chevy Chase has some wonderful charm. That's why we live here. There was a major shift in thinking among people who originally said, I want to sign that petition, and now, wait a second, we've learned a lot about it, and we don't like the way things are drafted. And I'm going to talk about that and what we can change, and I'm going to propose some solutions here today. day. I'll say I live right here, 402 Dudley. These are all my neighbors up and down. And I look out into this. I want to tell you something. I look out into this court. It's not a courtroom. Sorry. This council chamber. And these are my neighbors. These are my friends. These are people I live with. You know, I know we all walk. We walk the neighborhood. I see people walking the neighborhood. And, you know, we all have the same common concerns. We don't want what happened on Ridgeway. We dislike certain – we dislike the thing that happened on Colony. And how do we solve it? Let's solve this without stepping on other people's rights and needs. And we'll talk about that. I need to first address who my opposition group is and who I started talking with. Because since getting that letter, I only had three weeks or three and a half weeks, really. What was going on? Well, I needed to talk to other people. I started communicating with others. And my little ad hoc group consisted of me, Tom Bunch, who I'm an attorney. Joe Lenny sitting behind me, retired planning and zoning. I got to talking with him. Jeff England, who lives over on Louisiana. Steve Slade, who still, bless his heart and his wife, they're still in the back after seven hours here today. And Brian Sawyer, and Brian is still in the back. He's an architect. So this was our little ad hoc group. Brian was the last to join us. It was just this week found us. And we started talking, and we were going, what do we need? What do we want? What needs to change about this if it's going to go forward? So that's what I intend to discuss. We are not fundamentally against ND1, but there are changes need to be made. And here's what we've got to do. Before I get into those changes, I want to point out, this petition, as it went around, You can say that when one homeowner signs for a house, it becomes green, or one homeowner says, no, I won't, it's red. Well, I don't know. I don't subscribe to that. When I got all my signatures for those red, I got everybody to sign it that lived in the house. My wife and I signed it. That's why 402 Dudley Road shows up. On this petition, I counted 433 people that signed it. I think it said earlier 420-something, but there are 868 owners on this petition, so they didn't meet half. And if you back out all the people that have changed their minds just on my street alone, I don't know that you meet it. I don't think the support is as broad as it's been represented. Nevertheless, I want to make some proposals. Next slide, please. The first proposal was minimum rear setback, the 25 feet or one-third of the lot depth, whichever is greater. One-third is 50 feet. There's a 30-foot setback. My home, along with most homes, pretty much 1,600 gross feet. Mr. Hawkins talked about it being 1,700 or something like that, And he talked about when you started growing the home. But we're looking at just the footprint right here. You're looking at a pretty – when you take a third of somebody's lot off the back, that's pretty significant. It's more – I don't have to tell you all, that's a pretty restrictive career setback. If you go to the next slide, this is Grant and Kathy Yeager's home. It's 436 Dudley Road there. Grant bought this from his parents, so I don't know how many years they've been there. He bought it in 95. It's beautiful. Here's his backyard, and here's what you need to know about this. His backyard, he's got a 100-foot lot. Unlike everybody else in Dudley Road, who's 150, he's got 100. The back 50 feet was sold originally when the neighborhood was laid out, and this white house faces Cochran, and that's in his backyard, so to speak. He's got a, from the back of his house to his line, it's 27 1⁄2 feet. So if proposal number one goes into effect, this man, this family could never build a modest little den. They never have. They have three children. But I would tell you that this space is insufficient, although he could right now build maybe a 17-and-a-half-foot addition on the back. If you take it 33, it's a 100-foot lot. You take 33 and a third feet off, you're basically at the side wall right here where he couldn't build from behind it. And so there is virtually no way he could do anything. And so I told Grant that I would appear here and plead his case that his house should be excluded from this, from proposal number one, just so that he would someday maybe be able to do it. He couldn't and wouldn't want to build up, and he surely wouldn't want him to build out to the side. But I would propose, but for the Yeagers, I would propose that we add the words not to exceed 40 feet, so that if you could go back to my slide just before this, not to exceed 40 feet on a 150-foot lot would pick up just 10 more feet right here. I think that would be still a fairly restrictive rear setback line, and I believe that's appropriate. I live there, let me tell you, my next-door neighbor is Rick Nunnally. They doubled the size of their home long before I bought it. And when I bought it, I looked at it and I go, that's a beautiful addition. And, you know, yes, he's got a bay window and some side and a porch on the back, and it's longer than my home. But I look at that and I think that that's a beautiful addition. I can't say anything other than that. And I would say here on the record that it is beautiful. But I think you've got to say that a 40-foot maximum rear setback is just an appropriate setback so that you don't have – we don't take too much flexibility away from the owners here. We believe 40 feet would have solved – or 40 or 50, it wouldn't matter – would have solved the problem on Ridgeway. And had this been in effect back then, we wouldn't be here today. That's real simple. Nobody would be here on Indy 1 had the Ridgeway Home never been built. Next slide, please. And you can see, oh, okay, here we go, yes. I would like to also point out Brian Sawyer, who lives over, our architect. I'm, man, this is all, the color's all washed out on this. I'm really sorry. That's a much better photograph than what it appears. Brian Sawyer provided this picture to me today. He lives on Andover. I'm going to need to point it this way for you. This is Andover. This is Cooper Drive. This is Garden Drive. And this is Providence. And so here's Andover. And these lots are much larger than those over on Dudley and Ridgeway and Louisiana and Chenault and you name it, anywhere else. This is a different scale size of homes. These homes are mostly ranches, and these homes are mostly one story with attached garages. Now, here's what you need to know about this. If you take these homes are on a 40-foot setback from the road, 40 feet, not 30 like on Dudley and Ridgeway. Now, when you take 40 feet, and he drew the line for us, then he took the size, and he took one-third off the back. What these people on Andover and Garden may not really understand is that right here, here's the one on Garden. The rear setback is already in the middle of their house. They could never build an addition to these homes. Most of these homes would, maybe there's like 10 feet, Brian has told me, behind them. And some of them, like right over here, would not be able to ever be built with a one-third setback. So when you do one-third, you're really messing with these people's ability to ever add an addition onto the back, and not a lot of them have. If we could move on, I am trying to make this fast for you. I would like to point out the next two proposals I'm going to take together, the maximum building height of 28 feet from grade to the highest ridge in the roof, and the minimum roof pitch of a 712 slope, with those exceptions that have been discussed. If you would scroll through this, this is Tom Burke's home on Dudley, on the corner of Dudley and Hart. It's a 30-foot high structure, and he's told me it was 30 feet, and that's from grade up to the top ridge of the roof. So he's over 28 feet, yet he's a one-and-a-half, maybe, I guess you'd call that one-and-a-half or two-story. It's a beautiful home with really great curves in the roof. There's nothing like it. Next slide. You'll see there are several homes. Again, these photos are awfully washed out. They're not on my page. These are homes. The top photo is a picture of Dudley Road on the 300 block. And looking down, maybe you could whiten it or lighten it just a bit. It's not. Go ahead to the next. You can tell I'm disappointed. More Dudley, the top Dudley Road. These are all structures, 30 feet, maybe 31, 32. The lower one's on Ridgeway. You can keep going. I want to give you all a sense of what we have on Ridgeway. The top home, that's two doors down from me, and four doors down from me on the lower photograph. These are all homes. The top one doesn't really, again, give it justice. That one's probably a good 30 to 32 feet tall, the home on the bottom. And then one next to it is they're also very high two-story homes. These are all Dudley Road. You can keep going. What's the purpose of my showing you this? These homes, Chevy Chase is not just one-and-a-half-story homes. There's a bunch of them. And my criticism is that many of these homes as originally built were in excess of 28 feet in height. I would propose that we just go to 31. Let's take it from 28 to 31. That will give us enough pitch, and here's what I'm concerned about. I have a concern that if you put this kind of pitch, a 712 pitch on this, and you cap it with a height. The pitch alone isn't the problem or the height isn't the problem. but you put them in tandem together and you're crunching down the size of these homes. Any addition, not these homes, but any addition or renovation or a pop-up we're talking about, there's going to be a limitation in terms of the square feet. Now, why am I concerned about that as a resident? I think it's important to be able to have some space in your home. When these homes were built in the 20s and 30s and 40s, they were three-bedroom homes. It was one bedroom for the parents, one bedroom for the girls, and one bedroom for the boys, and they had a bathroom. Maybe if they were lucky, they had the half bath. Today's families need larger homes. That has always been the case. I need it. You know, I have three children. We did an addition and added a fourth bedroom. It was the best thing we ever did. Grandpa was my architect. but to limit the limitations that are being asked are severely restrictive and I just think we need to crank it back just a little bit and it's still going to solve the problems that we're here on and that's the Ridgeway home and the colony home. That's why we're here today. The next thing I want to address, I would skip minimum wall openings. I think those are some good ideas. Number five, the required drawings of floor building plans. You're not going to have them because it doesn't fit within ND1, and planning and zoning has pulled that. But those are great ideas. I'm not against those kinds of things. Mandatory rear parking, that's not an issue. I'm a resident. Let's talk about garages, and then I will sit down. The accessory structures are – this is an example. These are several examples on our street, on Dudley, where the garages are some of the original. I have one pretty much like the lower one. It was actually a two-car garage. But if you could flip to the next slide, you'll see these are what was original to the home. This home is across the street from me, two doors down from Mr. Hawkins. And they've been through a beautiful renovation in their home, and they still have a garage that probably someday somebody will want to do. 19 feet sounds, it's 19 feet. When I talked to my architect, it was insufficient to do the second floor studio above the garage. Who was my architect? Graham Pohl, who spoke with you here today. It's 20 and a half feet. And I also found out, I said, Graham, what's the square footage on this? It's 830 because I need two cars, a little bit of storage space, and a shop in the back. And, you know, with this ND1, I can't get it. So my proposal to you just to tweak this and fine-tune it would be to take the 700 square feet. Let's move it to about 830 or 850. That's adequate for the kind of space that we need. And move it from 19 feet to 21 or 22 feet. And if you'd show the next slide, I want to show you what 22 feet, 21 feet looks like. Here's a house on Providence with a garage in the back. Well done, beautiful, architecturally sound. Matches the house to the left that it benefits. And that one stands at about 21. If you'd go to the next slide, here's the house next door to that on Providence. It, too, is a rebuild, and it stands about 20. And so that's just slightly out of a little higher than what's being proposed. Let's go to the next slide. Carla Van Hoos had a picture off of her backyard, if you remember, and she was talking about looking over and that that garage is a little too high. But from the street, it really looks appropriate. And this is Jeff England's home and garage. and I actually was in it about two weeks ago talking with Tom Burke and looking at it. It's at about 21 1⁄2, maybe 22 feet tall. We were trying to measure and figure that out. Most people who want to do an addition to, I mean, add a garage and put that little second floor romper room above it need about 22 feet to get from grade to ridge. And that's a good scale, a good size, and it is not inappropriate for our neighborhood. I live in Chevy Chase. I love it. I don't want to see the negative things that have happened. You heard a lot of emotional issues from people who had some things happen to them or next door to them. I don't want to diminish or belittle that at all. I would feel the same way as they do about it. But these are within scale. The house they were talking about or the garage that they were talking about, I misstated, the garage, there's a garage on Dudley that two people who spoke tonight, there were, it's 30 feet tall. That's the monstros, I don't want to say monstros. That structure was so huge, it is far out of scale. It was as tall as the structure, as the primary residence. We're not advocating that that's appropriate. 19, 21, 22, I think those are all within line and good design standards. Let's stop 30 and 32-foot tall garages. My proposal to you as the commission would be to look at what I've handed out to you. There's a small numbers I'm asking for a little bit more, and I think we can get there. Thank you very much. Do any of you have questions for me? I have one question, please. If I read this correctly and understand what you said, three, four, five, and six, you're now taking off. Is that correct? On the solutions I proposed. This is okay as proposed. You said that number four was okay. I'm confused as to which of these stand and which don't. Okay. If you're looking at my amendment that I've prepared, okay. Okay. Number one was the proposal that matches with the number one. And I've added in bold and italic, not to exceed 40 feet. So we're just capping the rear setback at a particular number. Two and three. Okay, number three, the slope is okay. And I've talked to the ND1 committee. We're okay with the slope if we could take the maximum building height from 28 to 31. Proposal number four, there was an addition of the word and chimneys, and I had understood that that was going to go into planning and zoning's proposal. If it didn't make it, then maybe I need to mention that. Jeff England pointed out, he's an engineer, and he pointed out that there are many surfaces, what's his word, lingo was wall plane. There are wall planes on existing structures where they don't quite meet 10%, but if you take out the chimney, that's an architectural feature, and you don't let that count towards the calculation of what's in and out. You're a lot closer to getting at 10%, because chimneys take up so much space vertically. Proposal number five was the building floor plans that's been deleted, so six became five, and that's the mandatory rear setback, and seven is the garage structure. So I'm asking for technically three changes. Proposal one, not to add the words not to exceed 40 feet to cap it at a number. Number two, to move the maximum building height from 28 to 31. And in Proposal Number 7, we want to change the height of the garage from 19 to 22 and extend the maximum building footprint from 700 to 850. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is John Bryce. I'm here on behalf of the owner of 311 Duke Road, a multifamily residence. The owner was imaginatively named by me, 311 Duke Road, LLC. He was formed by Franklin Gray, principal of Gray Construction Company. Our objection is based much the same way as Mr. Murphy explained on the arbitrary inclusion of the R3 properties on Duke Road and Romney Road in this overlay process. The properties on Cochrane-Chinault are carved out, the R3 properties. The properties that are along Fontaine that run between Ridgeway and Chinoaay are also out of the Overlay area. They're clearly within the Chevy Chase area, but there was some conscious decision made to pull those out. It's clearly inconsistent. The explanation given to Mr. Penn, as Dick mentioned at the initial presentation to the commission, was they're multifamily dwellings. They're on both sides of the street. Well, there's no difference between the multifamily dwellings on both sides of the street on Duke Road with Cochran and Chennault. More importantly, Mr. Gray contracted to purchase this property in November of 2007. During his due diligence period, I attended the January 29th meeting of the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Association with regard to this overlay process and specifically asked whether the property of 311 Duke Road was going to be affected or included in this process and was told no, that there are going to be no restrictions with regard to the R3 properties. Mr. Gray, based on my representation, went ahead and closed on the property, purchased the property, and didn't find out until last week that this property was now going to be governed by the overlay, specifically with regard to side street and front street parking. Well, I'm not saying that anyone deceived me. I'm saying that the process changed without notice to my client, without any request to my client as to whether he wanted his property considered as part of this overlay. Now, the association, I want to compliment the association on their presentation, on their survey, on the packet of materials they originally delivered to the commission, but even a cursory review of those materials sees they are totally focused on the single-family residences in the Chevy Chase area. There's not one picture of a multifamily residence. There's not one mention of a multifamily residence. They are out to preserve and conserve the single-family residence nature as it exists in Chevy Chase. it's not applicable to the multifamily properties, particularly my client's property. It's not a fourplex. It's a 13-unit apartment building on Duke Road, surrounded by other multifamily dwellings and commercial properties, backed up with multifamily dwellings and commercial properties. It's in this, I refer to it, and I refer to it as a transition area. It is not the same character as everything else in the Chevy Chase area. The inclusion of these R3 properties is totally inconsistent with the exclusion of other R3 properties and is totally inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood that they're trying to preserve. So we request, first of all, that our property, 311 Duke Road, be removed from the process. We didn't petition for it to be included. We don't recall having received any requests that it be included and specifically told it was not going to be included. But we think it's more appropriate to be fair to the other R3 properties that all of the R3 properties that lie within the proposed overlay area be removed. I don't want to continue to repeat what Dick said. it was as if we compared notes, and I appreciate him providing all of the photo materials, but it's just not, putting this overlay on our properties will not foster the goals of a neighborhood design overlay area. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Questions? Thank you, Mr. Price. Next person. Hi, folks. Thank you all for staying here so long tonight. My name is Susan Slade. My husband Steve and I live at 1405 Tates Creek Road. We're on the corner of Tates Creek and Providence Road. We have lived there 15 years. This is a home that my grandfather built in 1939. My grandmother lived there until she was 94 years old. The last four years of her life she spent on the first floor of the property. There's no bedroom or anything on the first floor, but she insisted on staying there and slept, made us move her bed into the dining room, and took bird baths in the tiny little half bath on the first floor. We have, over the last few years taken on a meticulous process of trying to restore the home and have spent a good deal of time and effort to replace the windows with custom windows. We recently undertook a restoration of our slate roof. We care very much about this neighborhood. We love this neighborhood. We love our neighbors. We love our home. We do want, we hired an architect several years ago to come up with a long-range plan for us because we would like to add a first-floor space. We don't want to add a huge two-story vinyl-sided box on the back of this house, which by the way we probably could do under these ND1 standards as proposed, but we would like to add a one-story addition that would give us some first-floor living space so that hopefully we can live there through the duration of our life. Unfortunately, in our architect we hired had a historical preservation background and designed a beautiful preliminary design for us for this addition. Our main issue, and we support Mr. Bunch's requested changes to the plan, our main issue probably for our house is the rear yard setback. Our lot has several unique features. It's trapezoidal in shape. Our house, as well as the other houses along Tate's Creek Road, have a 60-foot setback from the front sidewalk versus a more typical 30-foot. The typical 90 percent of the homes have a 50 by 150 footprint, and they're 30-foot back or so. Ours is 60 back. If we are required to allow the one-third setback from the rear, we won't be able to do any of the proposed designs. will be very severely restricted on what we're able to do. We've already gone to some expense to develop a portion of a bag with a porch that we have added of very high-quality materials. When my husband, when we first learned what the specific standards that were being proposed was, it was in April, and we got the specifics. We'd been following the process along, and my husband went to the meeting and specifically asked about the possibility of a variance for someone whose specifics of their lot was a problem. and was told that, you know, that shouldn't be a problem, you can get a variance. You know, and we were a little iffy about it, so in fact did not sign the petition, and were concerned about what that process would be, and we just yesterday got the notice about the requirement that we actually would have to request a zoning change, which would require hiring an attorney and going through the whole process of going before you all. We think that the addition that we've designed is far more beautiful than what we could potentially do under the ND1 proposals as proposed. And I can't imagine our neighbors would have any opposition to it. But we just would like to put a halt on, slow down the process, perhaps go back and relook at some of these things. I don't know if there was. I don't know if there was a process whereby the initial proposals were made by the association, and then everybody had an opportunity to comment back and address these issues before it actually got to this point. It doesn't seem to us it was. If it did, we sure missed it, because we would have liked to have not just given them that feedback, but to have been able to discuss maybe modifying some of these before we all came before you all at this point. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Commission, my name is Brian Sawyer and I'm an architect. I moved to Chevy Chase in 1953 from Good Samaritan Hospital. I've been here the whole time. I'm not sure I like the moniker of opponent because I actually endorse this. I'm in favor of this. I just think we need to revisit a few items and tweak it a little bit and try and make it right. The neighborhood I live in is Andover. Andover was developed, the initial plat was in 1959, and the houses were basically built in 1960. Very few of them on that street have a 7 and 12 pitch or anything that's steep. They basically are 4 and 12, 5 and 12 pitch roofs. These are very much 60s houses with split levels and ranch style. The lots are usually 90 foot wide as opposed to 50 by 150. It's really a bit different. One size fits all for the ND1 overlay is a bit of a stretch. and it's a stretch because we have no way to redress this to any adjustment board or anybody else that can let us revise the application based on special circumstances. Next slide, please. These are just examples of several of the houses in the neighborhood and what the roof pitch and what they look like. there are um there is one detached garage on the entire street all the houses were built with attached garages it was part of the uh deed plat at the time there have been some new work this house was uh completely um i think they did take all the brick. It had Bedford Stone, actually, and came back with brick. They didn't do a bad job. They kept the scale. It is in harmony with the neighborhood in terms of scale and setback and most materials. It's something that could have gone the other way. I do believe the ND1 overlay has a place and that we need to do that and we need to look at it. I just think we need to adjust it a little bit. That's my house. It's a split level. It's a lot of stairs. The main body of the house is on the left, and I would like to build an addition back there and have a little more house on the main floor. The problem is that it is a wide lot. It does have a 40-foot setback on the front, and a 50-foot rear yard setback allows me a very small addition on the back of this house. And there's numerous properties on Garden and Andover that are in the same boat. With the height restrictions, I can't take it up any higher. I don't need to go any higher. I need first floor. That's, you know, my interest in it. Go ahead, next slide, please. Just more examples of what, you know, the neighborhood looks like. It's very much different from the rest of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s Chevy Chase development, much more recent. Okay. Okay. Okay, this is the garage I wanted to build on the back of the house. I, you know, have an attached garage, and I have a wood shop and tools and quite a collection of motorcycles, and it's full. I can't use it for anything, and I want to build a garage back there, and this is the garage I'd like to build. It's 20 foot 6 to the ridge, and I can't do that under these guidelines. It would not be allowed. Go ahead. You know, the eave height is in keeping with the requirements. It's the ridge height. It's just a couple of feet above it. I think much as Tom Bunch has described, amending some of the heights on the ridge line, that would be a totally reasonable thing to do. Okay. This is the garage I could build under the ND1 overlay. it's ugly, but it complies. I don't want to do that. I wouldn't do that. But I think if the effort here is to maintain some character in the neighborhood and try and address the kind of scale of things that we want to do, we need to address some more parameters in the design phase as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. There are other speakers in. Given the late hour, I'll just speak briefly. My name is Joe Lang, and I live at 341 Colony Boulevard, and I've been living there for 21 years. It's been a while since I've been down here visiting with you folks, but I'm here to just support Tom's bunches, what he's proposed to you. We think there are minor tweaks. We think the ND1 committee has done a great job. We appreciate their hard work. We think there just needs to be a little tweaking, as we've mentioned to you about some of the items that they were proposing. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Joe. Hello, my name is Tom Burke, and I am a member of the committee. And I'm speaking in a position here of, an enviable position of having to, want to tweak some items as it relates to the accessory structure. The proposal as it's written has some unintended consequences, sort of what Mr. Sawyer was mentioning. There is language that just, again, needs some tweaking. I would propose to strike a balance. This is just the three items there are a high-level overview. I'm going to walk through the analysis of garageology, as I'll call it, and show you why those items need adjustment, and then the actual exact language I have at the end. Basically, as Mr. Sawyer's image shows, you end up with the guideline at 19 feet. With garages at somewhere around 700 square feet, you've got 28 by 25 equals 700 feet. It creates a very squashed, mashed object. And there's no provision right now written into the guideline that prevents you from having shed dormers, shed dormers on either side. I'll call it a double shed dormer, if you will. Basically creating what would be basically a two-story box, 19 feet high. That would be allowable in the guidelines. I'd like to find a way to enhance the quality of the architecture of accessory structures. while maintaining what we know the neighbors want. I'm an architect. I deal with customers every day. I've designed many additions and many garages, dozens in the neighborhood, and I hear their wishes and wants and dreams every day. And so I feel like I'm in a position to be able to address this issue. Next slide. This is just a little fun for 8, 9 o'clock in the evening here. The problem with unintended consequences. And there's Dr. Frankenstein with a monster on the table. So we can go to the next slide and start the evaluation process. Basically, the dotted line that you see above these two structures, I'm comparing and contrasting the proposed guideline versus a suggested guideline of 22 feet in the alternate scheme here. You see the shaded area would represent an area of a possible garage that can be built today, which is based on mid-gable heights no higher than 20 feet. We won't get into the geometry, but it will yield that dotted line that you see hovering above these two proposed garages. Less by the committee's standards is better, but my view is that the proportions that you get out of a 22-foot garage is more in keeping with the style and character of the neighborhood, just strictly from a proportional standpoint. Next slide. This is the said Louisiana garage that we've seen a couple of times this evening. And that garage, I think we've gotten the math pretty well right, that garage stands at exactly 21 foot 9 inches. And it's measured, by the way, from the slab and not the grade line. And I propose changes that you'll see later that would require that the guideline be written that it's taken from the slab dimension, not the grade dimension, because depending on grade, you wouldn't want to be shackled into a grade condition, not allowing you to have it measured from the slab. Next slide. This is a view of that same garage and a neighbor next door showing their backyard and the kind of sense of space that you get there. I think it feels reasonable. It is a subjective opinion, but I think there is just an example of what that garage looks like in the space. Next slide. Okay. This is a diagram of the section through it. Garages, it is very possible under the guidelines to build a 19-foot garage. in height and still maintain a seven-foot garage door space to allow the garage door to operate, your floor system, your eight-foot ceiling, et cetera. It's just a smaller space. Your knee wall heights will be lower. Your mechanical lighting and insulation areas in the ceiling of the 19-foot will be less, I think not very desirable. On the one on the right, you get a slightly larger space, a little more usable, livable area. You can tell by the figure images there of the scale of the space. Next slide. This is the plan of that second floor. The only way in order to get a garage second floor space is to have the stair along the side of where the two cars are or along the back of where the two cars park below. That's why the 700 feet is allowing for the stair. So that's where the calculation of a 28 by 25 garage was allowing for stairs to either be on the side or in the back. Next slide. The shed dormer is a necessary element for that stair to occur either in the side or on the back. You cannot climb up a stair without getting basically to the corner of the structure. And so with that, shed dormers are almost a necessity if you're going to have these spaces work. What I'm showing here is diagramming that sight line, say from the backyard view of the neighbor behind, six-foot person, 40 feet away. That is basically the sight line that you would get. The point I'm making here is regardless of whether it's a 19-foot garage or a 22-foot garage, the sight line from your neighbor is really unchanged. What's really the controlling sight line is the eave height at the dormer. Next slide. This is a view of that garage from the back, and you can see there I tried. I didn't exactly measure myself. I just backed off about that same distance, and you can see there that with my camera shot that the ridge and the gutter line of that dormer is equating about what you saw in my drawing. Next slide. This reinforces another way of analyzing it is the bulk plane of that rear elevation of that garage is somewhere around 18 to 19, depending on exactly that gutter line. Both of those garages, both 19 and 22, yield a bulk plane that are equal at 442 square feet. So, again, I'm still trying to figure out what it is about the 19-foot garage that's really yielding any benefit to the neighbor in the back. Next slide. To the front, you saw the earlier image of the Louisiana garage looking at that view there, the front elevation. Dormer proportion is important in architectural design. the 19-foot garage would require to lower the dormer down to a window height, the head height of a window at about 5'10", just to make that proportion feel anywhere near reasonable. And in the proposed 22-foot garage, that proportion of the dormer seems to fit more proportionate to its roof element. And on that particular garage, we did lower the head height, of the window to 6'4", to reduce the scale of that dormer just a little bit. Okay, next slide. Can I interrupt just a second to tell you? There's a three-minute limit. You're all within five minutes of your hour and three minutes total, so I don't know who else wants to talk. Can I just finish this just right here, and I'm done. The current language is drafted. You've seen it before as the first item. The new language is to be considered. proposing to maximum to 22, measured from what you see in bold italicized letters, measured from garage slab to roof ridge, and changing the maximum 12 feet to eave to 10 feet to eave. I think lowering that will help the proportions of the garage, with the exception of dormers at the second floor ceiling height, meaning I want provisions in there that truly speak to shed dormer. and that a maximum of 50% of the roof square footage be allowed to be shed dormers in order for those stairs to work. Thank you. Yeah, I think I did. He's asking me to be sure you understand that I am, Tom Burke, a member of the committee, ND1 committee, speaking in support of but wanting refinement to the language. Thank you. And I did appreciate all that. Hi. Yes, ma'am. My name is Blanche Horseman. I live at 317 Colony Boulevard. I am a native Lexingtonian. I grew up in Ashland Park, and I have lived in Chevy Chase for over 35 years. I am concerned about this ND1 plan. I think it is far too restrictive. If it is compared to our comprehensive plan for the city, it does not fit in at all. I do know that there are some structures that they have been showing tonight that are, they call monstrosities. If you look at the total number of homes that they're presenting in our Chevy Chase area, which is, what, about 643 or so, there are only about three or four that they have been pointing out as being out of the norm for an attachment to our homes. since all this word came out that we were going to have this meeting today I have had friends who have told me they have property for sale in our Chevy Chase area and when people have come to look at it they say now when is this new plan overlay supposed to come in if I buy this property I'm going to be so restricted I won't be able to do anything with it And so this is going to affect the value of our property in the Chevy Chase area. And this is something that we as citizens and property owners in Chevy Chase need to look at. As well, in my opinion, I have not approved of it from the get-go. I did not sign any petitions for it. I have felt that what our planning restrictions at this time in our city are adequate and you all are doing a great job in what you're doing. I'm an educator. I do what I do. I'm not a planner. I'm not an architect. And I don't think it's my job to come and try to tell you how to tell me to do my property as long as you're doing it within the norm. So thank you very much. Thank you. We've got time for one more. Okay. I'm Russ Milburn, and I live at Dudley Road. And just wanted to clarify one thing. Can we still park our front yards for home football games? Or does this pass, that's still in? Get a clarification. Just real, real briefly, you've heard everything tonight. And I think that this lady made a great point. I heard Rick Queen say out front that two of his contracts are in trouble because of the possible overlay that people are concerned about. The restrictive covenants that have been put in seem to be even far in advance what several architects have talked about tonight, Graham Pohl being one of them, no provision for any shed dormers or any allowances. and I think that being that this is not a one-size-fits-all community, that each of these houses, these folks on Takes Creek in Providence had a beautiful plan, it won't be able to be built now because of the possibility of this overlay passing. I think that the philosophical arguments are wonderful. We want our neighborhood protected, but I think it's incredibly important before it goes further that appeals processes or variances or some mechanism that folks wouldn't have to go through a zone change. Because I tell you, I'd rather go through a root canal than come down here and get a zone change in this place. You guys are the gatekeepers of our community, as it should be. But a six-month process for thousands and thousands of dollars just to add a foot to the roof of your garage or to connect your garage to your house with a walkway or, you know, possibly some of the minor tweaks that these proposals aren't entertaining. So I appreciate it, and thank you all. Thank you. All right, if there's no one else to speak, anyone else? I do want to say one thing. Okay. I'm P.J. Blackburn, 200 Channel Road. I've seen, I've heard a lot of talk. Everyone's concerned about expanding so big and covering the whole postage stamp lot. But no one has ever spoken about just taking the structure, the foundation that you have right now, and having a two-story home. Ever since I've lived 23 years at my home, I would have loved to have a home. I didn't have a chance to remodel that way 23 years ago. But Ron and Marilyn Smedley have a lovely two-and-a-half-story home, and I would have loved to have done that. But these people are going to take away my rights to do that. I'm just on the original foundation, and it's not fair. Therefore, it's arbitrary. And that's really what I wanted to say. I'm tired of my rights being taken away, and this has taken away a lot of them. I don't want to. Thank you. All right, if there's no one else that needs to like to speak, we're going to call this hearing to end. Excuse me. I thought we've had that. Any rebuttal? I'm going to hear it from the staff, but I didn't know what. Oh, it's always a good idea to ask the in support or in opposition for that, too. Thank you. I'll be very brief. I think everyone in this room senses the difficult task that was undertaken over 24 months ago. So you've heard a lot of what we've been hearing for almost 30 months is what it is. Very, very difficult task. We've had to make some very hard decisions, and now with these guidelines, homeowners will face hard decisions about how they choose to enlarge and enhance their properties. I want to refer you back to the rear yard setback issue. The numbers speak for themselves. These are extremely generous guidelines that we're asking you to implement. The rear yard setback, which, by the way, is the same rear yard setback that exists in over nine square miles around downtown on the infill and redevelopment, which allows a 50-foot setback on a typical lot. You could build, and bless her heart, she'll be able to build a two-and-a-half-story home. Not a regular two-and-a-half-story home. Not with the guidelines. With a full basement at over 7,100 square feet of living space. A giant home. If you do the calculations, the way we've drawn that out. But some of the ideas you've heard are very good. Unfortunately, we didn't hear a lot of these ideas before you adopted this petition in late June. They came to us. You've heard even amongst our committee there's different ideas, and they're all great ideas. But at some point, the neighborhood has to say, this is where we're drawing the line, and these are the guidelines we're asking for. The trends have started long ago. it's just not one or two houses. If you drive through Chevy Chase and you walk through Chevy Chase, it would be very apparent to you that it's not just one or two houses. What I'm asking is, when does the neighborhood decide to use the tools of Article 29 that the city gave them to make a stand about how that neighbor is going to develop going forward? At some point, is it after 20 houses? Is it after 50 houses? Is it after 100 houses? That's the big question. We decided to act Five years after Article 29 was enacted, we're the first ones asking for the Planning Commission to implement it. And these are extremely generous and reasonable guidelines. I want to address the multifamily issue Mr. Murphy and Mr. Bryce have. In my comments, I urge that we were very happy with the original language restricting front yard parking on multifamily structures. That was what we submitted to planning, and that was in our application. and I have a sense that might satisfy their clients. That's what we're asking for, just no front yard parking on multifamily structures. That was our original language. Let me give my last remaining minutes to Henry Jackson. He's got a couple more comments and we'll be done. Hi. I'll try to be very brief and succinct on this. My name is Henry Jackson, 310 Cochran Road. I'm a member of the committee. I'm just going to try to respond to the different things and just be very much to the point. If you recall, someone had said that rule number two that's being proposed discourages third floor, pardon me, that does not permit or prevents third floor is very much to Brad's last point, while number two discourages third floor construction. It does not prevent it. Next item was that staff had a concern that these rules would lengthen building review time. I had worked with the city for several years, was heavily involved in the infill and redevelopment area. You may be familiar with that. That covers an area of about nine square miles. There are rules now in the zoning code very similar to these rules, and arguably those rules are even more restrictive. and staff might be very pleased to hear that in the six years that I was intimately involved, I never received a single complaint from anyone that it had taken more time to get through the building department on a review. On roof pitch, we just wanted to clarify in terms of this entire discussion about shed roofs that if you look at that rule, there's no restriction on roof shape, and you are in fact allowed to do a shed roof. So that's pretty much that. The gentleman's comment about the building placements on Andover, that would be permitted, as we've mentioned in several of our comments, if you could do a variance. Those lots, particularly on the side closest to, opposite the Romney commercial, are in fact in the middle of the lot. But given that they have 40-foot setbacks and given the legislative intent and the fact that they back up against commercial, they would certainly be very eligible for a variance. And very much to the case of a lady who has the oversized lot at the corner of Providence and Tate's Creek, all the other lots there would be able to work within the rule. But that single lot across from Wharton School is, I don't know, 20, looking at the map, is about 20 feet deeper. That certainly would be eligible for a variance I would think is a hardship that's not self-imposed. I'm just wanting to. Oh, and with respect to the roof height, I'm trying to remember back to which. Oh, with the accessory or the garage roof heights being at 19 feet, we felt that that was reasonable because more than the design, we were trying to prevent the mass and scale from being overwhelming. They are rear buildings, and in fact, my house, I have a one-and-a-half story. It's 23 feet to the peak. 22 feet, while it would permit that additional room, would be comparable to the size of many principal structures in the district. So really what we're trying to do is reduce the mass. I mean, that was the general idea of that particular rule. And with respect to ugly garages, you know, in a lot of these types of things, you can talk about what is the worst case or what if. I would suspect that a lot of people would not design buildings like that. I mean, it might be an unintended consequence, but I would submit for your judgment that people taking pride in their property would not build stuff like that, although I think the two architects have showed those drawings. I mean, it is plausible that somebody might do that, but I think there's a lot of things that might be plausible that really aren't practical. We talked about the shed roofs. You can build a two-and-a-half story. And then I think the very last thing that I'd like to broach is the question about whether or not variances would be permitted at the BOA. we when we had originally written the nd1 ordinance on staff we had assumed that you'd be allowed to go for variance and this really came as new information just this past monday we're not familiar with that we did go to the city ordinances we did go to krs 100 and we really couldn't locate that that prohibition and for a conditional zoning in fact we found very little on conditional zoning in general, and perhaps Council would like to address that for a specific reference, but we'd like to get more information about that. But I think, as Brad had indicated earlier, if there was any sort of a way that we could find a way to statutorily amend something to be able to do that, because we had never envisioned, even going back six years ago when we started talking about this, of having a code like this that would not have the flexibility to deal with these cases, because these are designed standards, not guidelines. And I think that really sums up our additional comments. If you have any questions, we're trying to answer them. Thank you. Any other rebuttal? Any other comments? If not, I will close the public hearing of this, and we'll go turn it over to staff. Tracy? I will, at this point, only address the variance thing because I respectfully disagree with former colleague Mr. Jackson. We did know that you cannot amend conditional zoning restrictions through a variance procedure with the Board of Adjustment. I mean, that is just a basic threshold that is a result of the laws that we work with, the state statutes we work with. And when we were developing the ND1 ordinance over the two years we were working on that, that was one thing that our former counsel was pretty clear about. So, again, it may be just a little bit of memory difference or a different way of looking at it when we were doing all those things. But let me say this about the variance procedures. There certainly is no objection on the staff if there is a way that under the statutes we can legally change the process or change the ordinance to give the Board of Adjustment authority over some aspects of the conditional zoning restrictions. As a staff, we are more than glad to explore that. There is obviously, though, a great concern about the threshold question of the Board of Adjustment being able to vary or change conditional zoning restrictions put in place by council. You had zone change earlier today were those proposed. We've had zone changes for over 10 years where various conditional zoning restrictions were put in place, and it was well understood and clear in the ordinance that the only way those restrictions can be changed is through application through the rezoning process to the Planning Commission and council. So, again, I just wanted to, rather than get into an extended legal treatise on why things are the way they are, suffice it to stay they're the way they are because of the state law that enables zoning, which gives us a very narrow playing field in this area. Second, the way that we could implement a neighborhood conservation district using the technique that only urban county governments have of conditional zoning. And again, third, we are not adverse to exploring that, but it would be an involved and lengthy process both to have the statutory analysis and if we decided that there is a different point of view now that we could proceed to initiate a text amendment and get that done. Thank you, Chris. I'm going to grab the microphone and go over to the projector. The handout that Mr. Bunch provided, I think the only technical issue that we had with it, and I apologize, I used an orange highlighter, and evidently that doesn't show up very well. Now, the staff in conversing with building inspection found that the term building our wall area is not defined by the zoning ordinance, and it could be problematic, and they preferred to use the term wall plane because it is defined. and we wanted to accommodate that in order for them to better be able to review these permits that are applied for, building permits. So we would argue that while playing needs to remain in the language, and then just to help the Planning Commission make their decision, And I can give this if someone wants to make a motion or anything, added the language that Mr. Bunch showed to the staff's alternative just to include our changes and his changes. But I didn't include Mr. Burke's because I didn't have a copy of that if those want to be included as well. And then just for clarity, in reviewing the multifamily and single-family attached proposal, the way it came to the Division of Planning and the Planning Commission, originally it said no parking in front yard, all parking in rear lot only. And then there was a second part which had to do with garage doors. Again, in our discussions with building inspection, there was a question about side yard parking, and we looked at what was initiated and made a determination that that was intended to restrict side yard parking as well. If the neighborhood didn't intend that, that's fine. We wanted to maintain the existing character as the ND1 is the point of that is. So if, in fact, the Planning Commission decides to allow side yard parking for multifamily dwellings, this is what we would propose that kind of a first sentence read, no parking in front of the front wall plane of the principal structure on the lot, which would prevent parking in front of the structure itself, but not to the side of it or behind it. And then leaving, of course, the garage door language on that one. And then lastly, the only thing that we would want to, I guess, correct or clarify, Mr. Hawkins said in the infill and redevelopment area that the existing standard, I believe he said, was 50 feet or something for a rear yard setback. It's for any infill and redevelopment lot. The small lot provisions actually call for a 20% of the lot requirement for a rear yard. So if you have a 100-foot yard, you'd need to have a 20-foot rear yard, where in the R1C zone, for example, there's a requirement for 10 as it is. So in the infield redevelopment, it's 20%. And then their proposal, of course, is either 25 feet or a third percent, or a third of the property depth. That's all from the staff. We can answer any questions about that. Just want to note that we're here to help you all make your decisions, So if you want us to write anything up or help with motions, we'd be happy to. Thank you. All right, I'm going to turn this over to my colleagues for your comments or questions. Mike? Yeah. I understand what they're trying to do over there. and most of these things are not unusual what you'd find in deed restrictions, like in a new neighborhood, something like that. But the thing that bothers me is the appeal process and the building inspection department being able to decide whether, you know, your plan meets its criteria. I mean, it's just going to be a – I know billing inspection, I don't want to say too much about them because I have to work with them. Maybe the billing inspector looking at it misses something. I mean, we saw all kinds of architectural renderings and drawings and things here, and even architects disagree with each other on some things. So without that and no appeal process, and maybe something gets through there, you're going to have a lot of controversy. I mean, you're putting the billing inspector in the position of enforcing deed restrictions, basically. And then I think the 25 feet is enough for a rear yard setback. I mean, in new houses, we only get 10 feet if we can get that much, you know. And then I think as a real estate broker, I hate to give away property rights that I have, your bundle of rights. And I don't know what it does to the value. Maybe some could argue that if the neighborhood looked more coherent, it would be worth more. I don't know. But I don't like to give away rights that I have to do what I want with my property. And I could be opposed to this, or if the neighborhood wants it, I guess I could be for it. It doesn't matter to me if it's what you all want. But there's some point in here. I mean, we've got 28 feet. We've got 31 feet. We've got 40. We've got parking in the side yard, no parking in the side yard. We've got garages that, you know, you've got all kinds of things that you're doing to yourselves over there that it's okay if your neighbor can't do it. But when you want to do it, you know, you want to do it. I mean, you want all these put on your neighbor instead of yourself. And I could postpone this, move to postponement until some of these things are worked out. Or maybe I'd like to hear from my other commissioners. I think my major concern is the fact that you can't come for a variance. I understand from the staff. I do understand that. But I do think that is something that we need to pursue. We're talking about an awfully lot of houses in a pretty large area with a lot of different dimensions. And I think this is a – I don't know if there's anything we can do about it, but I think we need to look at it a little bit further and proceed with that. You know, that has been my major concern. I don't know whether postponing this – I'd like to hear from the staff. They made some recommendations in regard to the proposals for height and all that I think maybe we need to discuss a little bit further. I thought we could work with those. Yes, ma'am. Don't you think that if we could come up with an appeals process that a lot of this will sift out, and then we could come back or they could come back knowing that there's an appeals process and not feel so boxed in. But isn't it the state? I mean, aren't the regulations already there? We need to hear from the legal side of this maybe a little more. I was not involved in any way in drafting this. You're probably well aware I've taken over this aspect of the planning process fairly recently. I certainly do agree that the Board of Adjustment has never had any jurisdiction to review a zone change decision made by the Planning Commission. And in essence, if they are put in a position of being able to alter conditional zoning restrictions that have been imposed by this body, that simply is not authorized under the state statute. You know, I certainly, as Mr. King said, would be happy to look into whether there is any way, considering this is kind of a unique entity to the urban county government anyway, if there's any way that authority can be delegated or it can be structured differently. But I think this was researched fairly thoroughly by Chris Westover in the process of drafting this, and I think she legitimately believed that as conditional zoning restrictions, they just simply could not be altered by the Board of Adjustments. So we can look into it and see if there's any way on earth to get around that within the current statutes, but I can't sit here and tell you that we're going to find a way. There just may not be a way. Well, I, for one, am dead tired. Haven't been here since 1 o'clock, so I wouldn't judge a whole lot about my decision-making, But I think what I've seen with the Neighborhood Association working with staff is yeoman's work, and I think it's extraordinary. And I think Chevy Chase is an area that deserves preserving, and it looks like, to me, the preponderance of people in the neighborhood agree. I can't speak to the variance issue. It sounds like that was a curveball that was thrown to the Neighborhood Association at the last minute, too. So I would be reluctant to vote on something that I think all the parties involved really still have a fundamental question about. So I'd look to guidance from some more seasoned members here as to how you deal with that. Is there a contingent vote that we propose? Is there something that – I don't want to derail this because I think this four-year effort or whatever it has been is extraordinary, And I think the staff should be commended and the Neighborhood Association should be commended. But that one having come up at the ninth hour seems to be something of substance that needs to be addressed. And I'd like to do that in a way that does not stop what I think is an excellent effort. Mike, did you? Yes, thank you. You know, in listening to everyone, particularly the opposition, you know, I heard tweaking more than once, probably a dozen times. It seemed to me that a lot of the opposition or, you know, wasn't in total opposition. They, you know, they did have some problems and, you know, wanted to try and find a solution, it sounded like. and as Mr. Brewer just mentioned, the length of time that has been worked on two years or four years or six years, whatever it is everyone's got to be commended and I'd hate to see it go out the door at this point in time without possibly a little bit more work, I guess The question as far as legal or staff, if this is continued to some future date and they do come back with a different set of guidelines, standards, can this legally be continued or do we have to rehear the whole thing all over again? I think procedurally you can continue this hearing so that evidence would be restricted to new evidence or testimony. There may be an issue raised depending on what kind of changes are made in the proposed design guidelines. You may require a whole new notice process because any significant changes, even though this is a continuance and everyone is here to know when it's continued to, you might end up coming back to this next hearing with totally different proposed guidelines. that people that maybe didn't have objections and didn't appear based on this notice may have problems with any other proposals. So, you know, you may get into the new notice guidelines, but you certainly procedurally can continue it. I'm going to put in my observations, and this just comes from, I think the thing that concerns all of us is the review process. I don't think that when you all came and proposed this to us three or four months ago and we moved forward with it, it sounded like, you know, best thing since sliced bread. The initiative was great. We thought all the ideas were right. But we were unaware of the no review process. I think even today when people told me that, I said, that can't be right. another thing I think that in my experience down here a lot of times it's like nobody really gets involved until it really gets down to the last minute so even though you say well we were all saying there was no opposition this is going to be great well it's like anything we've been here enough years or seen enough hearings that all the things that you think are just going to be a piece of cake they don't end up being that way because finally somebody realizes that maybe the sky is falling. So you get a lot of people involved, and I think that's what we've had tonight. My biggest concern is how do we carry this thing on without having another hearing? I mean, that's the way we work, the way this process works. If we don't pretty much act some way today, we start back from ground zero. and I'm looking for some guidance. You know, again, I think our biggest concern is the no review part with that. And if legal is telling us that we can't change that, then I don't know what tweaking there's going to be done because I don't know how you can tweak a no review. That's my comment, and I'll refer to everybody else. I was just going to ask. I'm willing to take the gamble that we don't have to have a new hearing because, like my colleague at the end of the row here, my brain is mush. We've been here for eight hours plus. And I don't feel... mentally competent at this point to be rendering decisions on 19 versus 22 feet of height. But it sounds to me that you guys are close enough that you could work together maybe and bring something back. And like I said, I'm willing to take a gamble that it will be close enough that we won't have to follow through with a new hearing procedure. And in the meanwhile, maybe we can try to find some way to create some relief for individuals who cannot comply with the guidelines per se. And I don't know what it is because I can't think real well right now. But if the group is amenable to a continuance or a postponement or whatever the appropriate terminology is, and we reconvene, let's say, I don't know, in 60 days if we can do that, or 30 days? I would suggest 30 days because of the notice issues. You may be aware of the statutory notice and the signs. That is a tremendous effort to do that. I think we would be comfortable that we could, with a 30-day continuance of this hearing, that we could probably get along with where we are. I think, you know, I'm looking at the issue areas falling into three areas. Certainly the review process is one that is 100% on this side of the table, okay? And we've talked to council, and in the 30 days, if this is what you intend to do, and remember this is at this point your application technically, so you are in control of it. we would certainly do the most exhaustive research we could do within that 30 days and let you know if there are other options. Again, that aspect of it is on our side. In terms of the restrictions themselves and the numbers, we would comment that that always has been largely neighborhood-driven by their design review, And we'll be very frank, the design expertise within the neighborhood exceeds that on the staff. I mean, there's just, we're the first to admit we have no architects. So, again, for the most part, our role has been to help the neighborhood work on how they come up with that character and facilitate the conversations that they've been having within the neighborhood. And I'm sure that if there's guidance that this commission could give to them if they, over the next 30 days, want to review the proposed tweaks and the comments that have come up here, certainly I'm sure they would be appreciative of any guidance you might give as to where your thought processes are right now, if anywhere, at this stage of the day. I think the third major issue area seems to be the one of the question of the R3, which really may be a subset of the tweaking. If I understood the conversation correctly, the primary concern of the R3 owners was not the front yard parking, but was the issue of the side yard parking. and if I understood the neighborhood's lead representatives to say they really didn't feel strongly about that. And as we've already said, we have a tweak to the language we feel could accomplish that and perhaps with that kind of tweak understood as being something that all are generally in agreement, perhaps those R3 owners would reconsider whether they have any problem being in or not. Anyway, that's kind of the summary of where, from the staff level, we see the key issues that came out here tonight being. I guess I'll throw one other thing out and then hope to go to bed. Could we make a proposal that encompasses that, that says that we have one major issue, two minor issues that need to be addressed, but that in principle we approve this, that this is something we support. The vast majority of the neighborhood is in agreement with it. There are minor tweaks, as I would agree. I think that the difference here that you're talking about is minor. I'm sensitive to what the Neighborhood Association went through, and it sounds like an exhaustive process. I think that could be ironed out pretty quickly. But I would hate to have to go through this again. From start to finish. I mean, we've heard the arguments. We know what's out there. We see the major stumbling blocks, one of which is, I think, unanswerable at this point. But once again, not knowing the process, I would like to, if it's allowed, propose something that would allow us to rule. This is the right thing to do to preserve this extraordinary neighborhood. there are two outstanding issues that have to be ironed out by staff and avoid going through another four-hour hearing. So is that a possibility, Mr. Chairman? I don't know. I mean, from my side, we're in this position, whether you like it or not, it's either yes or no. And we can't, you know, none of us, I don't think we can sit here tonight. You'll find out as you get into different on our subdivision committee meetings and everything, trying to tweak things among ourselves is not going to do justice to any other people here. So we either have to decide we'll continue it, we'll postpone it, we'll go up with it, or we'll go down with it. I think those are our only options. I don't think that we just can't be in a position of we'll work on it. That's just for my seven years on here, that's always the way it's been. Are you ready for a motion? I would like to move that we postpone this for 30 days. Excuse me, it's a continuous. We recommend continuing the meeting. Thank you. Okay. Continue until the September 25th meeting. And if we could ask the Neighborhood Association, and there are enough lawyers and architects, and, yeah, you guys can get together. and come up to some sort of happy middle ground that we can probably agree with. And hopefully it won't be so dramatically different from what it is that we've reviewed tonight that we do have to go through the notification process again, which involves hundreds of individuals having to be notified. But I would move that we continue the hearing until the 25th of September and, what, a week beforehand to maybe try to get the information? Is that a reasonable thing if you guys could get us something a week or so in advance so that we can take a look at it and not be surprised or blindsided? All right, there's everyone understand the motion? All right, we will continue this process until September the 25th. All in favor, excuse me, all in favor, please stand by saying aye. Aye. Opposed by a like sign. Joe. Would it be possible that we could be put toward the front of the agenda instead of the back, like we did this time? So maybe we'll be fresh with whatever we come up with. We'll make every effort, and I'd also like to commend you all. In my seven years, this is probably the second or third longest meeting we've ever had. And to set through this, at least you hopefully have a little different view of planning. Is there any other business that needs to come before the Commission? No, sir. We are adjourned. Thank you. Well, if you didn't mention it, they might not.