# Planning Commission Subdivision Items - August 10, 2023 > Auto-transcribed civic record · August 10, 2023 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5879 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5879?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2023-08-10 - **Last revised**: August 10, 2023 - **Length**: 53,269 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission convened on August 10, 2023, at 1:31 PM in the Council Chambers of the Urban County Government Building at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, with Larry Forester presiding as the meeting officer. The commission addressed four main agenda categories during the session, including postponements and withdrawals, land subdivision items, zoning matters, and informational commission items. Throughout the meeting, the commission conducted six motions and votes, with approval outcomes for three of the substantive agenda categories, while commission items were handled as informational matters. The commission also heard from four members of the public who provided comments during the proceedings, allowing for community input on the various planning and zoning matters under consideration. ## Attendance The following members were present at the August 10, 2023 meeting: • Larry Forester • Judy Worth • Janice Meyer • Ivy Barksdale • Headley Bell • Robin Michler (arrived late) • William Wilson • Bruce Nicol • Graham Pohl • Mike Owens **Absent:** • Zach Davis **Late Arrival:** • Robin Michler Ten members attended the meeting, with one member absent and one member arriving late to the proceedings. ## Votes and Decisions The commission conducted six roll call votes during the August 10, 2023 meeting. **Meeting Minutes Approval** [timestamp: 01:31] Judy Worth motioned to approve the July 13, 2023 minutes, seconded by Graham Pohl. The motion passed 8-0 with one abstention. Voting in favor: Larry Forester, Judy Worth, Janice Meyer, Ivy Barksdale, Headley Bell, William Wilson, Bruce Nicol, and Graham Pohl. **Performance Bonds and Letters of Credit** [timestamp: 01:31] Graham Pohl motioned to approve performance bonds and letters of credit, seconded by Janice Meyer. The motion passed unanimously 9-0. Voting in favor: Larry Forester, Judy Worth, Janice Meyer, Ivy Barksdale, Headley Bell, William Wilson, Bruce Nicol, Graham Pohl, and Mike Owens. **PLN-MJDP-23-00030: Kingston Hall Postponement** [timestamp: 01:31] Janice Meyer motioned to postpone Kingston Hall, Unit 1, Lot 8, seconded by Ivy Barksdale. The postponement passed unanimously 9-0, with the item rescheduled for the September 14, 2023 meeting. All nine commissioners voted in favor. **PLN-MAR-23-00005: Anderson Communities Zoning Amendment** [timestamp: 04:00] Bruce Nicol motioned to approve the Anderson Communities, Inc Zoning Map Amendment and Phelps Property Development Plan, seconded by Ivy Barksdale. The motion passed 7-3. Voting in favor: Larry Forester, Judy Worth, Ivy Barksdale, William Wilson, Bruce Nicol, Graham Pohl, and Mike Owens. Voting against: Janice Meyer, Headley Bell, and Robin Michler. **PLN-MJDP-23-00024: Phelps Property Development Plan** [timestamp: 04:00] Bruce Nicol motioned to approve the Phelps Property Development Plan, seconded by Ivy Barksdale. The motion passed 7-3 with identical voting patterns to the previous item. **PLN-MAR-23-00010: Saddle Club Subdivision** [timestamp: 06:00] Robin Michler motioned to approve the Urban County Council Zoning Map Amendment for Saddle Club Subdivision, seconded by Graham Pohl. The motion passed unanimously 10-0 with staff alternative conditions applied. All ten commissioners voted in favor. ## Public Comment Four residents addressed the commission during the public comment period, with three speakers focusing on the Anderson Communities, Inc. zoning map amendment and one addressing the Saddle Club fence removal. **Anderson Communities, Inc. Zoning Map Amendment** Bruce Simpson spoke in opposition to the rezoning proposal [timestamp: 03:00], arguing that the amendment conflicts with the comprehensive plan and emphasizing the importance of maintaining low density development in the affected area. Ray Daniels offered support for the rezoning request [timestamp: 03:30], highlighting the community's need for affordable housing options and commending Anderson Communities, Inc. for their positive development track record in previous projects. Mary Diane Hanna expressed strong opposition to the proposal [timestamp: 03:45], raising concerns about how the development would negatively impact the rural character that defines the area. She urged commissioners to prioritize preserving the existing rural way of life for current residents. **Saddle Club Fence Removal** Davey Jones addressed a separate agenda item regarding the proposed removal of fencing at the Saddle Club [timestamp: 05:30]. Jones opposed the fence removal, arguing that the existing fencing serves important functions for both community character and public safety. The public comments reflected divided community sentiment on the zoning amendment, with speakers presenting contrasting perspectives on development priorities—balancing affordable housing needs against preserving rural community character. The fence removal issue appeared to generate unified opposition from the single speaker who addressed it. ## Contested Items Two items on the August 10, 2023 agenda generated significant community opposition and debate. **Anderson Communities, Inc Zoning Map Amendment** The proposed zoning map amendment by Anderson Communities, Inc. faced substantial resistance from community members who attended the meeting to voice their concerns. Residents expressed strong opposition to the rezoning request, citing worries about increased density that would fundamentally alter the rural character of their area. The community members argued that the proposed changes would negatively impact the existing neighborhood atmosphere and potentially strain local infrastructure and resources. **Saddle Club Fence Removal** A contentious discussion erupted over the removal of a fence within the Saddle Club subdivision. The issue divided residents and involved the homeowners association (HOA) in heated debate. Some community members advocated for the fence's restoration, while others supported its removal. The disagreement highlighted tensions within the subdivision regarding property boundaries, aesthetic considerations, and community standards. Both contested items demonstrated significant community engagement, with residents actively participating in the public discourse to express their positions on these local development and property issues. The opposition in both cases centered on preserving existing community character and addressing residents' concerns about changes to their neighborhoods. *Note: Specific timestamp references are not available in the provided source materials for this meeting.* ## Postponements and Withdrawals [timestamp: 01:31] The commission addressed agenda item IV regarding postponements and withdrawals of various development plans and zoning matters. Larry Forester and Dick Murphy served as the key speakers during this discussion. The commission reviewed several requests to postpone or withdraw development plans and zoning items that were scheduled for consideration at the meeting. The discussion focused on procedural matters related to these requests and their impact on the meeting's agenda. Following the presentation and discussion of the postponement and withdrawal requests, the commission approved the items as presented. The approval allows the affected development plans and zoning matters to be rescheduled or removed from consideration as requested by the applicants or staff. This agenda item represents standard procedural business that allows flexibility in the commission's schedule when applicants need additional time to prepare materials or when circumstances require items to be withdrawn from consideration. ## Land Subdivision Items [timestamp: 02:00] The commission reviewed agenda item V, covering various land subdivision matters during the meeting. Traci Wade and Tom Martin served as the key speakers for this portion of the proceedings. The discussion focused on the review and approval of multiple land subdivision items, which included final subdivision plans and development plans that had been submitted for commission consideration. The speakers presented the various subdivision proposals, outlining the details and specifications of each project under review. During the discussion, the commission examined the technical aspects of the proposed subdivisions, including compliance with local zoning requirements, infrastructure considerations, and adherence to municipal development standards. The review process involved evaluating how each subdivision plan aligned with existing community planning objectives and regulatory frameworks. The commission ultimately approved the land subdivision items that were presented during this agenda item. The approval indicates that the proposed subdivisions met the necessary criteria and standards required by the municipality for development approval. This agenda item represents routine municipal business involving the orderly development of land within the jurisdiction, ensuring that new subdivisions comply with established planning principles and community development goals. ## Zoning Items [timestamp: 03:00] The commission addressed several zoning map amendments during agenda item VI, with particular focus on a controversial rezoning request submitted by Anderson Communities, Inc. The discussion featured presentations from key speakers Daniel Crumb and Bruce Simpson, who provided details on the proposed zoning changes and their potential impacts on the community. The Anderson Communities, Inc. request generated significant debate among commission members, though specific details of the proposed rezoning were not provided in the available materials. During the deliberations, commissioners examined various aspects of the zoning amendments, weighing the merits and potential concerns associated with each proposal. The discussion appeared to involve careful consideration of how the proposed changes would affect existing land use patterns and community development goals. Despite the contentious nature of at least one of the rezoning requests, the commission ultimately reached a decision to approve the zoning items under consideration. The approval suggests that commissioners found the proposed amendments to be consistent with applicable zoning standards and community planning objectives. The outcome of this agenda item will result in changes to the official zoning map, affecting how the designated properties can be developed and used in the future. Property owners and developers in the affected areas will need to comply with the new zoning designations as they move forward with any development plans. ## Commission Items [timestamp: 06:30] During the Commission Items portion of the August 10, 2023 meeting, commission members had the opportunity to present various matters for discussion. Larry Forester served as the key speaker for this agenda item, addressing the commission on matters of interest to the board. The session was designated as informational in nature, providing commissioners with a forum to share updates, concerns, or items relevant to their work. This agenda item allows for open discussion among commission members on topics that may not warrant separate formal agenda items but are nonetheless important for the commission's awareness and consideration. No formal action was taken during this portion of the meeting, as the item was structured for discussion and information sharing purposes only. The Commission Items segment serves as a regular feature of commission meetings, enabling members to communicate directly with their colleagues on various matters within their purview. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (8-0): Approval of July 13, 2023 minutes - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Approval of performance bonds and letters of credit - **PLN-MJDP-23-00030** — postponed (9-0): Postponement of Kingston Hall, Unit 1, Lot 8 - **PLN-MAR-23-00005** — passed (7-3): Anderson Communities, Inc Zoning Map Amendment and Phelps Property Development Plan - **PLN-MJDP-23-00024** — passed (7-3): Approval of Phelps Property Development Plan - **PLN-MAR-23-00010** — passed (10-0): Urban County Council Zoning Map Amendment for Saddle Club Subdivision --- ## Full transcript Music The mezzanine, there cannot be any person standing in the auditorium so if you're not in a seat, you need to step out into the overflow mezzanine area. There's TVs out there, and it should be good sound quality for you to hear what's going on. Okay. All righty. We'll definitely call this meeting to order. It is now 1-31. It's August 10th, 2023. Welcome to the subdivision and zoning items meeting. First on the agenda is item number two. I'd like to open the floor up for a motion for the approval of July 13th, 2023 minutes. Ms. Wirth? Mr. Chair, I move for approval of the July 13th, 2023 minutes as submitted by staff. Thank you. Second. Seconded by Mr. Pohl. Please vote via Granicus. It's coming up. It's going to come up. Here we go. Okay. Motion passes. This was one extension from Mr. Owens. All right. Let's skip a little bit here. We have, I will need approval for the letters of credit and performance bonds. I think that was here. That would be on the page 11, item C. The floor is open for an approval for the performance bonds and letters of credit. Mr. Pohl? Mr. Chair, I move to approve the performance bonds and letters of credit. Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. All right. Thank you. We got a second by Ms. Meyer. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. Agenda item three, staff, any postponements and withdrawals? Mr. Murphy? Mr. Chairman, I'm Dick Murphy. On the bottom of page four, item D, PLN, MJDP 2330, Kingston Hall, Unit 1, Lot 8, amended, 1061 Providence Place Parkway. I represent the applicant. We're requesting an additional one month. We're still working on revisions to the development plan on that. Okay, and that's the September 14th meeting? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Any commission members have any questions? Seeing none, the floor is open for a motion to accept the one-month postponement for the September 14th meeting. Meyer? I move for postponement of PLN-MJDP 2330 Kingston Hall as requested by the applicant. Thank you. Do we have a second? Yes. Okay, seconded by Ms. Marksdale. Please vote via Granicus. All right, the motion passes. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mr. Chair, members of the commission, my name is Scott Southall with Earth Cycle Design. I'd like to direct your attention to page 5, the bottom item E, PLN, MJDP 2300032. We are requesting a one-month postponement until September 14th. We are still working with staff on the details of the development plan. All right. Thank you. All right. Any questions for the applicant? Okay. Seeing none. The floor is open for a motion. Mr. Chair. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I move for a one-month postponement September 14th on PLN MJDP 2332 Homer Ratcliffe. Thank you, Mr. Beale. Second. Seconded by Ms. Worth. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. I'm voting yes. All right. Okay. Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, staff has several items to bring to your attention this afternoon. The first item is on page two. It is under final subdivision plans, item A. This is a final record plan, 23-19, for the Coleman property, the Clarion Convention Center, located at 1950 Newtown Pike. The applicant is still working on addressing some issues on this property and how they wish to move forward and have requested a one-month postponement. Okay. Thank you, sir. Is there any questions from the commission? Seeing none, floor is open for a motion. Mr. Owens? Mr. Chair, I'll move to postpone the plan FRP 2319 Coleman property until September 14th, 23. Second. Okay, and we have a second? Second. No, he beat you to the punch. Okay. Bad habit. Mr. Poles seconded that motion. Then we can vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, we would like to direct the commission's attention to page three at the top of the page under development plans. This is item A. This is Major Development Plan 18-4, also DP 2004-153, triple stars property. And as we have reported to you the last six months, this applicant has not yet submitted a new plan that meets the requirements of our ordinance. It's our understanding they're attempting to sell the property, and they have requested yet once again a one-month postponement. Okay, thank you sir. The floor is open for the motion to accept the one month postponement. Mr. Poe. Move to postpone PLNMJDP 18-4, triple stars property for one month to September 14. Thank you. Second. Okay, seconded by Mr. Beall. Please vote via Granicus. May that motion pass unanimously. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, moving to page four of your agenda, item C, Major Development Plan 23-29, Red Mile, Mixed-Use Development. This is located at 1101 Windback Way. The applicant, as you may recall, has an issue with complying with the overall plan for the Red Mile area and some zoning issues. They have requested an indefinite postponement of this plan. Okay. So we have a request for an indefinite postponement for this agenda item. Mr. Wilson? Yes, Mr. Chair. I move for approval for plan MJDP 2329 Red Mile Mixed Use Development for an indefinite postponement. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Second. By Ms. Meyer. She's trying. Please vote via Granicus. The motion passes unanimously. And Mr. Chairman, on page 7 of your agenda, item 8 at the bottom of the page. This is Major Development Plan 23-37, Newtown Corporation Industrial Park. The applicant is still working on some issues with staff. They had a very productive meeting yesterday, as a matter of fact. And they have requested a one-month postponement. Okay, thank you. Floor is open for the request of a one-month postponement. Mr. Bell? Mr. Chair, move for a one-month postponement to September 14th on PLN MJDP 2337 Newtown Corporation Industrial Park. Thank you. Do we have a second? Seconded by Ms. Barksdale. Please vote via Granicus. And that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir. Ms. Wade, consent agenda? Yes, sir. We do have a consent agenda today. And for those in the audience, these are items that the Planning Commission's subcommittee has reviewed and recommended approval. And also where the applicant has agreed to the conditions. So as a commission, they can vote collectively on a number of items with one vote. But we will read those out loud, and so if there's anyone present in the audience that wishes to have any of these items heard by the commission for discussion, all you'll need to do is raise your hand, and we'll list the number, the case number, as well as the address. So the first item for the commission today is a final subdivision plan recommended for approval by the subdivision committee. and that is on page 2, item B of the regular agenda, PLN FRP 2322 for JGB property, and that property is located at 4992 Winchester Road. In addition for the commission, the required signage was placed on the property and an affidavit has been provided by the engineer to record that. The next item appears on page 3, item B, PLN MJDP 19-23. This is a re-approval request for Town Branch Industrial, also known as FRM Lawson LLC parcel, and it's located at 404 Alexandria Drive. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to have this item heard? Seeing none. Next item is on page six of our agenda, item F. PLNMJDP 23-35 for North Limestone Community Corporation. And that property is located at 128 Eddy Street. Does anyone that wishes to have this item heard? Next is on page 7, item G, PLN MJDP 23-36. This is for the Givens property, also known as Citation Point, Lot 8 for Tidal Wave Auto Spa. That property is at 2357 Remington Drive and also 2210 Georgetown Road. So anyone that wishes to have this item heard? Okay. Next, page 8, item J, PLN MJDP 23-40 for South Broadway Place, phase 2C. This is an amended final development plan for property located at 1080 Export Street. Is there anyone that wishes to have this item? Next, page 9, item K, PLN MJDP 23-41, Hamburg Place Office Park, lot 5. This is an amendment for an expansion of the UK Federal Credit Union, located at 1730 Ali Sheba Way. So anyone that wishes to have this item heard? Okay. Next, on page 10, item L, PLN MJDP 23-42, Eastland Shopping Center, an amendment to their plan for the industrial area in the rear, located at 1301 Winchester Road and also 1064 Industry Way. So anyone that wishes to have this item heard? Okay. And lastly, on page 10, item M, PLN MJDP 23-44, Richmond Woods, a portion of that plan, as well as LJR Corporation property, lot one, previously known as Goss and Martin. This is an amended final development plan. for two parcels, 2637 and 2647 Richmond Road. Anyone that wishes to have this item heard? And just for the audience out in the hallway, if there is anyone who wishes to have an item heard, they should probably make their way into the chambers at this point. No, Mr. Layton is not asking for that. So with that, commission members, you may take all of these items collectively. with one motion. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Wade. The floor is open for a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. Okay, thank you, Ms. Wirth. We have a second by Mr. Wilson. Please vote via Granicus. Mr. Wilson. Okay. Okay. Okay. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you. So now that should put us on page eight of the agenda. Agenda item I. We do have revised staff recommendations for approval here and there are 18 items listed. Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, the item on page 8 on your agenda is a major development plan, 23-39 South End Park. And as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, you do have revised conditions on this lovely yellow colored handout. South End Park, this is section two. This is the area of the Lexington Community Land Trust. This is known as Davis Bottoms to many people. An old area of town that you all are well aware was redeveloped. Its primary focus has been affordable housing. Here we have Oliver Lewis Way and Scott Street. This would be Versailles Road here in this direction and of course Broadway is to your right off of this plan. Now you most recently saw an apartment complex that you approved in this area, as you can see in brown with the apartments and with the parking highlighted. That was you all just recently approved that final development plan again for affordable housing. This is the area where there's existing single family homes. Here is the park that's going to be developed by the city on this location. And this is an area of mixed use zoning. This little area was part of this proposal that you approved. There's going to be a facility here for training, et cetera, and also a dwelling unit. The plan that you see before you today is specifically for this little highlighted blue area. And you can see an insert on the plan. This is a community center for the community land trust. It's part of their commitment. When they were granted the control of this land to facilitate affordable housing, one aspect of that overall development was to include a community center for the property. So this is the final development plan is toward the construction. It's the only part that this plan is being affected by is this community center. We did get this as a revised plan. They cleaned things up quite a bit. They were using an older version of the plan. They needed to delete a lot of information, and they had to bring in some new information. And they still have a little bit of work to do in that regard just to clean things up in terms of proper notations and proper information. And one thing they submitted to give you an idea, that's what this is going to look like. This is what they are proposing as a community center at this location. Your staff is recommending approval of this plan. And I've been, there he is, he's here, he made it good. I was looking for the applicant. I didn't see him earlier before we got started. But I'd be very happy to answer any questions you may have for staff. Any questions for staff? Thank you, Mr. Martin. Applicant? Mr. Holmes? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Ed Holmes with EHI Consultants. We're the planning consultants for the Lexington Community Land Trust. And as Mr. Martin has presented, this is an amended development plan for the construction of a 3,800 square foot community center down in the Davis Park neighborhood. We agree with the staff's recommendation. Thank you. Is there any questions for the applicant? Okay, thank you Mr. Holmes. I can see. Okay, is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this particular agenda item? Make sure the ones in the back. If not, then we'll bring it back to the commission for a motion. Mr. Wilson? Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of Plan MJDP 2339 Southwest Park Section 2, Lexington Community Land Trust Community Center as amended with the 18 items that have been approved by staff, identified by staff. Okay, I got a motion and a second by Ms. Barksdale. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. as you then you wrote unanimously thank you okay this now will put us on the zoning items uh which be on page 12 pln mar 23-5 mr crumb and there's some supplemental staff reports here in our file for us All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crum planning staff. We do have a number of opposition letters for this request. There's one more that is being printed off and provided to you shortly, but this is... All right. This is a request by Anderson Communities, Inc. in order to rezone 8.36 acres of the property at 4075 Old Richmond Road from an agricultural rural and highway service business, B3 zone, to a community center zone, CC zone. The applicant is seeking this rezoning in order to establish a mixed-use development at this location. This development is located within the expansion area. However, the applicant will be making a place builder argument as to the appropriateness of this zone change. So instead of utilizing the map-based plan, they are going to propose a place type and development type and make an argument for why that is appropriate. The applicant in their amended application has identified this as a new complete neighborhood with a medium-density non-residential mixed-use development type. Staff will get on the appropriateness of that a little bit later on in the presentation. But just to orient you all to the location of the subject property, it is this triangular parcel, and I'll do my best to make sure that I highlight it on both screens so both the audience and you all can see. But it is this triangular parcel that is bound on three sides by existing roadways. We have Athens-Boonesboro Road, we have Old Richmond Road, and Aphids Way that serve as the three boundaries of this site. Zooming in a little bit closer, you get an idea of the zoning in the surrounding vicinity. So the subject property itself is split zoned with a portion of B3 zoning that matches up with the property across the way located here. This is an old remnant piece of zoning that doesn't have any existing B3 use on it. The rest of the property is zoned agricultural, much like the existing farm across Aphids Way. In the general vicinity, we also have agricultural zoning that is present in Jacobson Park near the top of the screen. Otherwise, the surrounding zoning in the area is EAR1, so that is the lowest density expansion area residential that we have, and that's with the Ellerslie neighborhood as well as the Tradition and Walnut Creek neighborhood. So Ellerslie to the west and then Tradition and Walnut Creek to the north. Here we have an aerial view of the subject property that shows the existing layout. Currently, it contains a single-family residence as well as an agricultural structure located near the center of the site. From here, you can see sort of the surrounding development. So the closest in terms of proximity development is the townhomes in this portion of Ellerslie. The closest, the rest of the development around it is sort of larger lot residential, agricultural, or separated by Athens-Boonsboro Road. With this aerial image, you can see the roadways in this area are going to be changed. So we have Old Richmond Road, which runs along the west portion of the property, is set to be realigned as a part of some larger improvements by KYTC. So the portions along the western portion of the property up into Richmond Road and Athens Moonsboro Road there are to be closed. Old Richmond Road is going to be rerouted and combined with Aphids Way and reconfigured to where it will intersect at Hayes Boulevard. This is being accompanied by the RCUT improvements, so this will have implications as far as access management and safety in the area. Essentially, coming out Aphids Way, you would no longer be able to make a direct left out or go straight across, but rather would be making a right-hand turn and utilizing the U-turn facilities further down 8th and Spoonsboro Road. So a number of implications for how this area is proposed to change, as well as the implication on how that is going to impact connectivity with this particular site. So moving forward, I've got some images of the subject property just to give you an idea of how it's oriented. So this was taken from Athens Moonsboro Road. The subject property sits up above Athens Moonsboro Road here. From the far right, you can see Old Richmond Road, so this is right where it is intersecting. but the property sits above Athens-Winsboro World and that will play into its ability to kind of interact with that corridor meaningfully. Here we have a view from Old Richmond Road so on the right side of your screen you can see the edge of the subject property. To the left you've got the Ellerslie neighborhood so the larger scale single family residential development as well as the existing townhomes which are a little bit closer in proximity to the subject property. Here we have Aphids Way. Aphids Way is currently a very narrow local road. It is proposed to be expanded significantly in the future as the portions of Old Richmond Road to the right of it are proposed to be closed. That will then be rerouted and reconfigured slightly in order to connect to Hayes Boulevard. Once again, you can see that the larger single-family residential development does have a pretty significant setback of this area, about 300 feet setback from that edge of pavement. And here we have the intersection at Aphids Way. So this is going to be one of the more key intersections involved with this request. This will be the site of future RCUT improvements, so that road will be widened, your ability to cross that or make a left turn will be removed, and there will also be pedestrian facilities to more safely get you from the subject property to the left, across to the pedestrian facilities, and make connections to the neighborhoods to the north. Now, as I stated earlier, this project is located within the expansion area master plan, expansion area rather, and is located in expansion area 2C. So I have highlighted with the red circle here, the triangular piece of portion that highlights the subject property. And so with the expansion area master plan, there was an accompanying land use element that basically mapped out the areas that were involved in this expansion of the urban service boundary and how they were proposed to be utilized at that time. That light yellow color you're seeing means that the area was proposed for EAR1, which is the extremely low density residential development as sort of the sole uses. There are some areas proposed of community center located further on Hayes Boulevard. The actual location where it was developed actually flipped across Hayes Boulevard, so it's actually somewhat to the south. But the applicant would be proposing within this triangular sliver shown on the screen, a proposed new community center area. This is obviously not in line with what the plan had proposed back in 1996. However, there is some language that kind of balances how we handle the plan that was made in 1996 with the comprehensive plan that we have today that guides the majority of our other zoning conversations. So in particular, The comprehensive plan has language that kind of speaks to balancing these two and essentially states that the recommendations of the expansion area master plan should be in addition to and not in place of the place builder process and criteria. So in this instance, the applicant is contending that the land use element or the land use map that was proposed is inappropriate for this location at this time and is planning on using a place builder argument to kind of make the case for the appropriateness in a more fleshed out way. So speaking for a minute just on the community center zone, I'd like to give you just an idea of kind of the components of it and what makes it somewhat unique. So this is the lone zone within the expansion area zones that allows for commercial development and really encourages a mixing of uses. These are really supposed to be neighborhood oriented and oriented into the fringes of existing residential areas and really was intended to give you sort of a main street feel. This is planned around public and civic spaces with sort of a town village feel, buildings up on the street, activated pedestrian networks, and really just bringing the community together. There is a requirement within the CC zone that at least 40% of the area is required to be non-commercial. So in this instance, the applicant is meeting that 40% requirement in the zone, as well as there is a minimum open space requirement for the zone. So the idea was to have each of the expansion areas to have these hubs that serve the neighborhoods, brought a mixing of uses together, but remained compatible with the expansion area. The development that we historically have seen to this point really hasn't fleshed with what the ideals and the goals were in the EMP when it was adopted in 1996. So I've got a handful of images that show kind of the existing CC areas. So up top we have near Polo Club and Manowar Boulevard is the Costco development that also includes Cabela. So that's more of a big box, larger development that really doesn't have the main street feel, really isn't pedestrian oriented, and is really surging a much larger area than the traditional community center had envisioned. Across the road at Polo Club and Manowar Boulevard is another small section of CC zoning. It includes a gas station, a Walgreens, a bank, and some multifamily. So a little bit more of the mixing of uses that is called for within the EAMP, but doesn't have the Main Street feel and really isn't planned in a way that kind of facilitates that. It is worth noting that the area up top with the Costco was actually not an area initially envisioned to be community-centered zoning. So they flipped it from where it was initially planned on the other side of the roadway, and then they further expanded it with a later rezoning. So both the location and the size of the CC zone there was modified, as well as a zoning ordinance text amendment was passed to allow for kind of that big box development. Other locations further on Hayes Boulevard, which is the other location of CC in this area, is strictly residential. So this is a mix of two- and three-story multifamily apartments without a commercial kind of use. In this instance, that 40% requirement, you can go up to 100% residential in a CC zone, and there isn't a cap on density in the CC zone, as long as you're meeting the rest of the requirements. And then finally, Todd's Road and Polo Club, we have a townhouse development also lacking any type of mixing of uses, that town center feel, et cetera. So in summation, the areas that we have seen developed with CC aren't necessarily in the areas that they originally planned, were further expanded, and really haven't met kind of that core criteria of a town-oriented development, mixing of uses that's walkable and is really serving a community. This brings us into the applicant's proposal here today. So the applicant is still contending that while this area wasn't recommended for CC zoning, that it is activating a number of things that makes the CC zone. So here we have the applicant's proposal. It has a residential component and a mix of two-story townhomes as well as four-story apartment units. It's a total of 139 units with a density of 23.52 units per acre. This is accompanied with a neighborhood restaurant use shown in the center of the screen here, as well as a convenience store retail use with an automobile service station component, so a gas station component. But it's really organized around the central feature of this four-way stop with a pedestrian crossing, a pedestrian table, and pedestrian network that runs through the site. So the site has been oriented on these public spaces, have been oriented towards the center of this development, where it is being anchored by a residential component, by a restaurant use with outdoor patio space, and other open space. So in that sense, it is sort of meeting the intents of a lot of the components of the CC zone. As far as connectivity, the site is proposing an access point, a write-in, to serve the development here. A full two-way intersection that will be the primary intersection for the site for the residential component at AFIDS Way, once improved. As well as a one-way access into the site in order to utilize the gas service station. There is significant pedestrian facilities throughout the site and pedestrian facilities that have been reorganized since the applicant's first application. They are showing sidewalk network besides the main set that sort of provides the backbone or the core of the development. They are proposing stubbins directly across from open space within the Ellerslie neighborhood that could provide a future connection if the neighborhood wished. At this time, they are proposing to utilize their portion of the right-of-way along Old Richmond Road as a landscape-to-burn area. So they are opting to utilize that to screen to lower any impacts on the adjoining properties. Within the discussion of the applicant's place type and development type, the applicant in their initial application had oriented this towards a corridor place type. In our initial staff report, staff raised some kind of concerns and questions. While Athens-Boonsboro Road is a major corridor and definitely meets the intensity of the roadway, there were several issues that were kind of preventing the applicant from really being able to utilize it in a way we call for when we talk about building and developing on the corridors. So Athens-Boonsboro Road in the vicinity is and remains a very intense road with substantial right-of-way as well as an elevation difference between the subject property and the road itself. So this made building to the and orienting the development towards the corridor very difficult. With the redesign of the site, the applicant has shifted their argument to a new complete neighborhood. So a new complete neighborhood are areas of brand-new development. It calls for a mixing of different residential types, which the applicant is proposing. It's proposing non-residential components and kind of day-to-day uses, such as a restaurant or a convenience store. And it calls for connectivity. So throughout the site, they've got the multimodal connections. The site at this present time does not have transit service. However, it is being developed at an intensity and density that contributes to the viability of future transit improvements in this area or extensions in this area. So really the new complete neighborhood speaks to a lot of the same kind of goals, objectives, and design policies that are present within the CC zone. So mixing your uses together, getting a neighborhood-oriented feel, having a mixture of housing types are two things that the enhanced neighborhood and the community-centered zone both kind of call for. With regards to development types, the medium density non-residential mixed use development type is a recommended development type for this place type. And the applicant is meeting that with their two to four story residential and their single story commercial inclusions. Staff finds that it meets both the place type and development type described within the letter of justification. So within the applicant's revised letter and their items, they addressed kind of a number of objectives, goals, and policies that staff had kind of highlighted on the front end as being necessary in order to fully justify the site. So the first, they speak to theme A, goal 1B, which is to accommodate the demand for housing and lexington responsibly, prioritizing higher density and a mixture of housing types. So here, they have provided a mixture of housing. Their initial plan was strictly for apartment buildings, but they have decided to opt to provide townhomes as well as the four-story apartment units to provide a kind of better mix as well as transition better to the adjoining neighborhoods. The comprehensive plan calls for striving for positive and safe social interactions, which includes neighborhoods that are connected for pedestrians in various modes of transportation. So they are showing extensive pedestrian networks throughout the site that will let you get to the open space, get to the neighborhood amenities, all while being on site. It also provides connections to Hayes Boulevard and the new crossing that will be coming with the RCuts, as well as a stub into the old Richmond Road right-of-way that, if the Ellerslie neighborhood wishes, can provide further connections. So it does have, in a sense, those connections being made. Next is identifying areas and opportunities for infill, redevelopment, adaptive reuse, and mixed-use development. This is an underutilized site that's within the urban service area, and the applicant is proposing to provide that additional density and sort of larger neighborhood-serving businesses on an underutilized site. The applicant has indicated that this will provide development that is sensitive to the surrounding context. This was a conversation point the last time that under the initial staff report that staff had generated. With this property sitting up higher than kind of the surrounding area, the interaction between the subject property and the Ellerslie neighborhood, specifically where they meet near the townhomes, was a very sensitive point. They had initially proposed four-story apartments in that location. So the higher product with the higher elevation, staff felt that that may not be particularly appropriate in this instance. Upon the redesign, it's when they brought in the townhome components. They're matching sort of the product and the scale and the size that's present around them in order to sort of buffer that use. They're still providing the higher density, taller structures, but they are more centrally located on the site where it transitions more effectively. The comprehensive plan calls for creating opportunities for neighborhood-supported uses. So this is the loan zone, the CC zone, that will allow for some of the supportive uses such as the restaurant, such as an automobile service station, and retail that kind of serves everyone in the neighborhood on a day-to-day basis. The applicant is proposing providing these types of uses and has integrated them effectively with the proposed residential on-site. And finally, we have a policy that calls for locating high-density areas of development along higher-capacity roadways. So this is an area where sort of the comprehensive plan that was most recently adopted is somewhat at odds with the expansion area master plan that was approved in 1996. The expansion area called for utilizing that small sliver of land for that lower density residential. However, the comprehensive plan takes a look at the intensity of the roadway with Athens Boonesboro and finds that the higher density residential is more appropriate there based on this policy. The applicant also addressed a number of development criteria that staff had originally indicated in our initial report. First is that building orientation should maximize connections with the surrounding area. This was especially relevant because the first iteration of the plan that was brought before us included a commercial component that included a drive-through and also provided parking in front of the structure. So the revised plan that sits before you today has eliminated the drive-through component of the restaurant use and has brought the buildings forward and has brought really everything in line with the central path or multimodal path that runs throughout the site. So they've brought the buildings up and made the buildings and the open space and the actual use of the property the primary focal point rather than the automobiles. Along that same vein, parking should be located to the interior of the rear of the property. They've shifted the parking so that it is behind the structures to the side of structures, but it isn't providing that feeling of seeing a sea of parking like the CC Costco development kind of generates. So here they've tried to accentuate the open space, the structures, and the actual use of the property rather than the parking. The development criteria, the applicant has indicated that they meet the multifamily design standards, so they speak to a lot of the same things. Having these residential units front on usable open space, having them break up these solid walls and facades, they've identified how they are going to meet those components, as well as providing kind of a variety of materials and generating some architectural interest that way. So staff finds that they have met the multifamily design standards indicated within their letter of justification. Once again, minimizing contrast and scale, massing, and design by utilizing those townhomes, pulling those higher intensity uses further away from the residential neighborhoods and closer towards the center of the site and the corridor itself prevents some of the issues with scale and design that could have occurred normally. And finally, development should create and expand a safe, connected, multimodal transportation networks that satisfies all the users' needs. So as I stated again, the way that they've reoriented the pedestrian circulation on the site, it provides safe flow throughout the development. They've provided stubs in to the extent that they can to provide connections to existing areas. And with the expansion of the RCUT project, they will provide a safe pedestrian crossing that will allow them to connect further up with the rest of the expansion area to see to the north. So staff, in review of all this, is recommending approval of this request for several reasons. The first is that the community center zone is in agreement with the goals, objectives, and policies of the comprehensive plan. It's meeting these items that are relating to providing those additional housing, providing housing at a larger density on the corridor, utilizing these underutilized parcels, providing connections where they can, and providing for context-sensitive development. Staff finds that they are also in agreement with the development criteria of the comprehensive plan, meeting the criteria for site design, building form, and location, the criteria for transportation and pedestrian connectivity, and the criteria for green space and environmental health. As always, this recommendation of approval comes subject to the approval of the corresponding development plan, which Mr. Martin will be on to present momentarily. But at this time, I would be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff about the zoning components before Mr. Martin comes and presents the development plan to you all. Thank you, Mr. Crum. Are there any questions from the commission? Mr. Owens? Thank you. um understand your presentation and the information as far as the development criteria goals and objectives total agreement of it i want to just drill back for a second get back to the real basics and so forth and in looking through 25 pages uh as far as all of this is concerned with your original staff report and revised staff report, comparing the original staff report to this one. The original, which it's stated in many ways, many times, various places, expansion area 2C recommends low to medium density, and it further states for a transition buffer between existing urban and rural settings. Has that changed? No, so that is still the recommendation of the EAMP and is one of the components of this not being agreement with the EAMP on that. My question is, you know, that was a concern in your original staff report, but it's much less a concern now. Why would that be? So that was just identifying. So we wanted the applicant to provide greater context and sort of a conversation on if they are meeting the expansionary master plan or not. So that's one of the contexts that this is not necessarily meeting in the scope of having a formally zoned kind of buffer area. This is an instance where existing roadways, to a certain extent, do kind of provide an existing buffer. So whereas there isn't a formal area that provides, say, civic uses such as a church to integrate then into the neighborhood, these have sort of some built-in barriers that are being accessed with pedestrian features. So to that point, there isn't a transition area proposed with this request, and it is one of the areas that it is not in conformance with the EAMP, and it continues to not meet that particular regard. But the applicant made a larger justification based on the comprehensive plan and the intent and spirit of the CC zone that Steph felt that that would be appropriate, if that answers your question. Well, maybe. Second question, and I've got all three. Third one's very simple. This one, and I love community center thoughts. Over the years, I've seen several of them, and I wonder if all of them, any of them, has really been fully developed like it was supposed to. It seems like some of them, Costco's got a commercial aspect, whereas the residential, you saw a residential a moment ago, whereas the commercial, you know, that sort of thing. I'd dearly love to see a true community center be developed. My question with this here, still going back to the basics, with the community center, it's supposed to be centrally located where it can serve as a community hub. And in your words, with this being bounded by several major roadways, it seems to be geographically isolated. So it seems like we've lost that language from original staff report to revised staff report. I'm just wondering why. Yes, so speaking to, and to kind of provide some further context as well, the changes in staff report, apologies, have been accompanied by changes in sort of how the site itself has been designed. So as far as they've redesigned the interior of the site to provide sort of a more CC feel, but have also addressed sort of how are you connecting to those areas. They're showing stub ends to their adjacent properties at Ellerslie, showing connections and further fleshed out kind of the connectivity further north. So yes, this does remain sort of bounded by those roadways, but does provide potential for connections should some of the surrounding communities kind of deem that. So still not going to change the sort of location of the site, but how they've oriented everything internally as a new complete neighborhood, orienting it kind of internally on a smaller scale. And sort of it's worth noting as well that sort of CC, as it was originally intended, really hasn't developed. So where originally in the expansion area master plan, these were more neighborhood oriented, the development and where that's shifted and the rezonings that have taken place have been more oriented towards the corridors. So the Costco development, for instance, its location shifted and changed, the acreage shifted and changed, that wouldn't necessarily meet the same way that is called for within the expansion area master plan. So I guess does that answer your question there in the sense of internal changes, providing further information on the connectivity to the greater region, including improving the pedestrian connections through the site and where they're showing connections off-site was enough on staffs to recommend approval. The third one, and it's fairly simple, just clarification in your presentation. You mentioned two to four-story buildings. Didn't the apartments lose a story in the two to three-story buildings now? Yeah, so the- There's still four-story buildings. Yeah, so the townhomes are where the component comes in. So the two-story townhomes. Two-story. Two-story, and then the apartments are four-story. There's still four-story? Yes. I thought they dropped down to three. No, they are at four stories. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Nickel. Okay. Thank you. As I'm looking at this property, can you go back to the current zoning of the property and the adjacent properties? Yeah. Okay, as we're looking at one of the parcels, there's 1.3 acres or so, or 1.6 acres that is B3. Can you identify where that is? Yes, so the B3 aligns with a portion of the property adjacent on Old Richmond Road. So it's this small corner here. Okay, and was that taken into consideration when the place type community center was chosen? So the applicant is planning on abandoning that zone. So under the current zoning today, a gas station or a service station could go in on that small portion as sort of a by-right use. But staff really evaluated the appropriateness of the place type and development type based on the applicant's new proposal with that being removed. So the fact that there was B3 zoning, because it wasn't being utilized, it was just sort of this older remnant piece, our recommendation was based on the changes in the development plan proposed as well as the changes in the letter of justification. Agreed, but the fact that that property by right was B3. Yes. Would lend to the fact that it's a community center rather than a straight high density residential or something of that nature. Okay, thank you. So I've got a couple of questions, and some of these may overlap with the development plan, so feel free to just clarify what falls into that category, and I'll come back to it. I guess my question involving the use of the community center zone really focuses in on the choice as the predominant commercial use as the gas service station and convenience store. and its compatibility with the stated goals that you clarified of being a neighborhood and a pedestrian-oriented community center. So, specifically, naturally, you know, a primary use for the service station would be the automobile that's taking up a portion of that property. That's clear. I don't necessarily have a good understanding of how this community center zone handles some of the nuisances of gas stations being maybe the size of their emplacement of their signage, the size and placement of maybe their lighting in the volume of those televisions and speakers and the hours that those speakers that blast at me every night on Euclid Avenue are. So I know some of those items may need to be listed on the development plan, but I guess I want to understand at this point if there's any guidance or clarification from the zoning side on those sort of issues. Yeah, so speaking to sort of how the service station and convenience kind of fits in with the neighborhood, yes, it will undoubtedly, its purpose is to serve as a gas station. It also offers some of that day-to-day convenience. so being able to purchase certain items for your day-to-day without having to necessarily leave the site can be found at most convenience stores. And the restaurant as well, while not having the same footprint in terms of the paving, does occupy sort of the central point of the site. So really when we were focused on kind of what is anchoring the center of this development, it was really more of conversation towards the restaurant with the outdoor patio, the outdoor seating, as being sort of the anchor there with the service station providing some sort of day-to-day retail. As far as sort of mitigating the impact of the gas station service station there, it comes in the form of landscaping. I know lighting notes can be incorporated as conditions into the development plan or the zoning conditions, but anything really past that really wasn't discussed because it's sort of that portion of it, at least the vehicle use areas and where the cars are refilling are sort of the furthest distance from the site from the residential component. So the residential component being kind of built up on this trail closest to the commercial use of the restaurant, but really where possible pushing most of the auto-centric activity to the northeast corner of the site where it adjoins Athens Boonesboro Road, sort of that major arterial was kind of how staff kind of reconciled those items. But there is required screening being provided around the exterior of that, but conditions relating to kind of lighting or any kind of loudspeaker systems from that really wasn't addressed there. So currently in the zoning itself, there's no restrictions on the loudspeakers or the lighting? There is not. And what would the restriction on the signage be currently in the zone? Can't really speak to that. For a B1 zone, they're entitled to 50 square feet, and it could be 20 feet tall for a freestanding sign, or then a percentage of the face of the building for a wall sign. Usually you're allowed one sign per frontage for your B1 lot. So the corner lot would be eligible for two signs. Okay, thank you. Any further questions? Mr. Bell? Daniel, do you mind going back to the first zoning map? Sure. Thank you so much. Just looking at that area below that I guess is a AR and B3 below that, right? Yes. With the boundary of the urban service. How much acreage is that about? I can't say that I know off the top of my head on that. Right. But that's currently zoned AR and B3. Correct. Okay. Very good. Thanks so much. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Crump. Appreciate it. We bring up Mr. Martins. All right. Okay. All righty. Tom, will you back up? Mr. Martins. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, the plan that you have before you today is a preliminary development plan. And I want to talk about that for just a minute because you all are well aware of how the process works. and this is to help everybody understand that generally in a zone change, we'll have a preliminary development plan, and then if the zoning is approved, there'll be a follow-up with a final development plan, of which at which time if it's approved, then building permits can be pulled and development can take place. When we review a zone change preliminary development plan, we are tasked with reviewing it as if the zoning was in place. So again, that explains, for instance, if you look at your agenda, the subdivision committee originally recommended approval of this plan. So again, that's just to help everybody understand how we try to review the plans and look at them. So again, here we are, Dathan's Boonesboro Road, Frontage here, Aphids Way, and of course Old Richmond Road. And this portion of Old Richmond will be closed. There's approximately 60 feet of right-of-way in that location. And you can see they're proposing to heavily landscape that area as well. Now, when right-of-way gets closed, it reverts half to the adjoining property owners. So that's how that right-of-way will be disposed of. Half of it along the frontage with this property will revert to the ownership of that property. and the same will be true with the neighbors along this section. They will have the opportunity to accept that right-of-way onto their property, onto their lots. Aphids Way, as Daniel mentioned, is going to be reconstructed as part of the R-Cut improvements to Athens-Boonesboro Road. This, you can see, they're showing the proposed R-Cut design along the front of this property to the intersection. Again, as you mentioned, they're proposing a right in only at this location. They have a full access point with aphids, and it will come down here and hit Old Richmond Road in this location as well. They're proposing a right in off of this, off of aphids way at this location. Daniel mentioned the mixed land uses. We can see the apartments and the townhouses. These are your apartment buildings and have the townhouses distributed here among the property. Now, there's a total of 139 units in these buildings. Daniel mentioned the apartments. They're 48 feet in height, four stories. The townhouses are two-story townhouses. The end units on the townhouses are actually two dwelling units, two individual dwelling units on the end units. That's the design that the developer utilizes in this particular layout. They're proposing 184 parking spaces associated. You can see the parking as it's delineated. You have access. This is a private road they're proposing to here, a private street. Private streets are held to public standards. They will enter their commercial areas and then again into the apartment area. The parking here is in the rear. It's in the rear now because they're going to close that right away. And you see the restaurant in this location. I believe there's 29, 39 parking spaces associated with it. And then the convenience store with the canopies and the oops, big thumb. There we go. and 24 parking spaces with the commercial development in that location. Now, at the time of the final development plan, they have to file community design element statements for review and evaluation. They have to file infrastructure statements for review. And with the proposed zone, CC zone, the challenge is the design element and the community design element that they're going to have to address. The expansion area master plan encourages well-defined neighborhoods. So, again, in this particular case, you can see they're proposing the street, but they've got commercial areas, commercial areas associated with the residential. And with the street system, that's one element of how they're defining this neighborhood. In order to tie it in and help serve other neighborhoods, again, the street system's a challenge with this development. They are setting up for pedestrian connections. And that will be here across into the old right-of-way and then along the right-of-way and to get down into there. And there will be a light. One thing important to know about the arc cuts and the way they function, at the different ends, there will be lights. And there will be pedestrian lights and crossings, and pedestrians will be able to cross Athens-Boonsboro Road. And hopefully in the future, because it's not the applicant's responsibility, we can have him do improvements along his property. We can have him set up connections. And hopefully we'll have better pedestrian connections along Richmond and Athens-Boonsboro Road in the future where they may be lacking. Because, again, as you know, the public does at times get tasked with providing those types of connections. They will address, they have bike parking addressed and that sort of thing as well. So, again, we're going to help set that up. It may not be immediately available. But the key to them addressing the community design element will also be addressing those types of connections that are available to them at the next phase with the final development plan and the preliminary subdivision plan. Now, with that, I want to point something out. Now, they submitted a letter officially withdrawing their waiver request on this, and that was a waiver for the write-in only. It does not meet the spacing standards along the highway. They withdrawn that. staff talked with them at length about it and said, it's premature. You need to come back with your final development plan and preliminary subdivision plan to address your waiver and your spacing. Part of that is because it's a subdivision regulation, those spacing standards. That's one thing. Secondly, there may be additional waivers required. There may be some geometric waivers required on what they're proposing. And then again, the spacing of this access point off of aphid from the intersection needs to be fully evaluated at that time. They may need a distance waiver there as well. And that's due to this relationship. That's the relationship from there to there, to that center line of that arterial. And it's the arterial and this relationship that is a challenge for them and one they need to address. The subdivision regulations do not, and they strongly discourage direct access from a commercial development to an arterial. You all have heard us talk about this before. They encourage service roads. They encourage those service roads terminating in other streets that then have intersections with an arterial. So, again, that's something that staff feels needs to be discussed when they have to address it in further detail and rationalize their, or provide the rationale for their relationship with Athens Boonesboro Road, which again is an arterial. And, as you all may know, in the AMP, your CCs were on boulevards, collector streets. They weren't on arterials, and it wasn't anticipated that they would be oriented to arterials. That's one reason there's been a lot of discussion about gas stations, convenience stores, and their orientation as neighborhood uses. Well, they're a legal use in the ordinance in the CC zone, again, because the anticipation of the orientation that they would have would be to a collector street as opposed to an arterial. So, again, that's part of the challenge that this applicant is seeking to address with his design. One challenge that staff has become very aware of on these is the large fuel trucks and their ability to maneuver on these sites and get in and out safely. The full access to AVID's Way is certainly a good access and a good proposal on this particular plan. As Daniel mentioned, this is about the third version that staff has seen. They've done a lot of work on layout, particularly internally, to create open space. You can see the common open space here, facilities, nice amenities in this location, The dog park in this location, originally staff kind of enjoyed the dog park. It was shown in the right-of-way, and we thought that was interesting because you don't want the dogs running out on the road. But they've got a nice internal dog park. They've done a good job with getting some open space and orienting it again to the neighborhood and to the residential uses in particular. This is a raised pedestrian table which will slow traffic and help provide for safe crossings and safe movement between the commercial and residential areas. With that, staff has recommended approval of this plan to you today, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Mr. Bell. Tom, I don't know if you, would you just touch on the R cut for the public and maybe even if we're closing Old Richmond Road, you know, how much traffic? I will touch on that with great trepidation. I understand. And if traffic would rather do it, that would be great. I'm not a traffic engineer. Thank you. We have people here today who can't address that. But again, very simply, the arc cuts are designed to increase safety due to the left turn and their conflicts. And they're highly designed and regulated to allow that to function. That's why the lights are essential to it, to allow traffic movement. Thank you. Here's our traffic engineer. There you go. And just anticipating. There we go. I should be able to answer any questions. And just anticipating the closing of the old Richmond Road and how this Athens Boomsboro is going to be able to absorb this traffic and things, please. First, my name is David Filiatrim, our traffic manager in the Division of Traffic Engineering for the city. And our cut is to be the first one that the Transportation Cabinet has constructed in Fayette County. I think there's a dozen or so they've constructed across the state. And they're going to continue. They've been proven countermeasures as far as injury collisions. I think they mentioned the five they've had installed for more than three years have seen an 84% reduction in injury collisions. The reason that works is by separating your turning movements. So you see, as Tom has mentioned, they separate. You have these over here. They're called loons, essentially. But you're making U-turns rather than full left turns across the entirety of the intersection. and by separating you can actually simplify as far as the attorney movements at each point and that ultimately is shown. Actually, the state of North Carolina, they only, they don't typically install traditional intersections anymore because they've seen such success, safety successes. But anyway, so what you'll have here is those wanting to go from Aphids Way back into, I'm sorry, Aphids Way back into town, they'll come up and they'll take a right. What you don't see here off the map is another loon where they'll make their U-turn and come back into town. And that'll be the same for those living off Hayes. If they want to go to the interstate, they'll come down, make a U-turn. And these, again, as Tom mentioned, both of the ends will be signalized as well as the center section. And this is going to be new construction on this road? Correct. They're in the final stages of right-of-way acquisition now. And then in that process, they also anticipate future development of that land right adjoining it and things like that, I presume, and such? Yes, adjoining the Athens-Woodsboro? Yes. Yes, correct. Okay, that's already zoned ARB, be what it is. Thank you so much. Yes, sir. I have a question about how are pedestrians going to be accommodated with these R-cuts? So if you can see, the crosswalks here are shown right in the middle. And so when these left turns are moving, you'll have an ability to cross this leg of the intersection into the middle. I'll have to look at the design. If it's a two-stage, I would imagine it's a two-stage because it's a particularly long crossing. And you'll wait, and then you'll be able to cross again at this location. Crosses or a three-step? It would be a two-step. So you get to your median if you're a pedestrian, hit the, I'm not sure where the PED signal will be, but hit it and then you can cross this section and then proceed. Which way? Yeah. Mike, you got the question? Sure. Sorry. This is Tom. Tom, I guess just call me Rusty since I'm coming back here and I'm still needing to clarify. In looking at the original staff report, it talks about eight multifamily four-story buildings. In the current staff report, it's talking about three-story apartment buildings. So what do we have? Three-story or four-story apartment buildings? We have four-story apartment buildings, 48 feet in height. Okay. That's what the development plan has. Okay. Commissioner Owens, I can weigh in on that. There was a typo in the supplementary staff report that has been corrected. That makes a big difference. Apologies. Okay. I think the key, Mr. Owens, is 48 feet in height. Well, I had that question too because I was thinking that one store had been dropped, but yet it was still at 48 feet in height, and I was like, why is that? True. Okay, so we're at four stories still. Yes, sir. Okay. Mr. Mickler. Yeah, I have a couple questions. One is about the pedestrian circulation. It is, I think you all touched on this, that it's really oriented around this new four-way stop. And there is sort of good sort of like almost like spoke circulation, pedestrian circulation to and from that point. Typically, when we're seeing a new neighborhood proposed, there's sidewalks along the streets, the roadways, the existing roadways. And if they're not present, they're added. We've seen that on a lot of developments. This one has the sidewalk sort of just in front of the townhouses on Richmond Road, and I think that's it. And then just oriented towards that four-way stop on aphids and not sort of circulating around on the rest of the public roadway. Was there some discussion with staff on that? There has been some discussion, and I think what we will see, again, at the time of the final development plan, and they submit a community design element statement, we will look to see if they're going to further develop this system to better address that internal design as well as the external connections to emphasize that. Yes, that is the type of thing that we will continue to look at. Okay, so staff sort of feeling, is that still on the agenda to look at as the development plan? Yes, sir. It certainly is. And then I guess this is sort of maybe then a quick question. Is it staff's sort of opinion on the lighting around the convenience store and gas station as well as possible notes about, like, the volume of those advertising televisions and things like that? That would be final development plan? Yes, sir. I think it would be appropriate to address any additional restrictions that are deemed necessary at the final development plan. Thank you. Mr. Nickel. Yes, Mr. Martin. What I'm seeing here is in the staff recommendations, there was some talk about how this project does expand the variety of housing types and densities. We're going from a vacant and unutilized property. We're providing a couple of different housing types on this property. Looks like we've reached a one-third of where they are on their permitted floor area ratio with like 23 units per acre. So that's a description of kind of the density. So it looks like the staff was previously concerned about the buffering and the location of the taller apartment style buildings to the current residential housing types on Ellerslie. And then some townhouse components were brought in, and per the staff's recommendations, the concerns were met with the addition of the berm installation on Old Richmond Road and the relocation of the four-story buildings and the townhouses. Can you kind of explain how that worked and what effort was made to satisfy you all? Yes, sir. First of all, one thing, there's a lot of distance here between the existing right-of-way and the Ellerslie neighborhood across that right-of-way on Old Richmond Road. There's considerable distance. Just real quick, what is a lot? I'm just curious, what is considerable and a lot? Well, I mean, there's 60 feet of right-of-way, and then there's the width here of the parking lot itself and the distance. And, yes, they're proposing trees and a berm. And look at the orientation of the apartments. They're showing the end. Earlier versions had the whole length of the apartment building oriented that way. Well, they've turned them. So all they have is the end. And then you have the townhouses. And here are the townhouses, and they're two-story. And these are parking garages in the rear in this location. So, yes, they've altered their orientation to help mitigate that impact and that visual impact on the adjoining neighborhood. So two-story townhouses across the street from some two-story residential neighborhood, is that correct? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And these are backyards, by the way. So there's, you know. Some distance between there. There's some distance there, yes. And the berm feature, that's creative. Have you seen that being used before? Berms? Yes. Oh, we, along arterials, you know we love our berms. So, yes, berms are utilized where we think certainly are appropriate or where the developer thinks are appropriate. And they've been effective in buffering? Berms are nice, but, again, vegetation, trees, you know, and even understories, those are nice. Those work very well in terms of actually mitigating the impact. So, Tom, you mind touching base on who's responsible for removal of old Richmond Road and the berms and all that stuff? Well, it will revert to ownership of the adjoining property owners. I don't believe the state of Kentucky is going to spend any money on taking up that old pavement. And there's been some talk about perhaps utilizing it to enhance our trail system and connections. But again, if the owner of this property, when he's developing it and he has control of that right away, he certainly can take up that pavement on his property if he show wishes and then enhance that landscaping. Thank you. Any further questions? I have a question about Aphids Way is going to be reconfigured a bit. Yes, ma'am. And could someone talk about what the, is that going to be going into a nearby adjoining property owner? How is that? It is going to intersect with old Richmond Road. Yes, because it currently does. So they're just moving the intersection to the south, southeast. Moving away from down, away from 8th and Spoonsboro. See the curve this way, yeah. It currently runs right through here. And they're going to bring it out and reconstruct that. Land. They're taking up a little bit of land, yes. I just want to clarify, it'll become, it will actually lead into Old Richmond Road. So it'll be one, it won't actually intersect, it will be, they will be one and the same. Oh, you're right, that's right. That's exactly, because they're closing on the other side. Yeah, they won't need to intersect it, it'll be the new. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Mr. Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy, and I'm very pleased today to be representing Anderson Communities. With me today is Dennis Anderson of Anderson Communities. We have a design team with us as well. We have Mike Kraft, our development director, is somewhere in the room, I think. And he's in the hallway, excuse me. Tony Barrett of Barrett Partners is our landscape architect. Steve Albert is our architect from Albert and Associates in the third row. We have, from Prime Engineers, our engineers, we have Steve Garland, and we have Clay Johnson. and Lisa Corpus is here from a company called Wawa. She'll be telling you a little bit about the convenience store that we have proposed. Just to give you a little background, Dennis purchased this property one year ago. It's only 8 1⁄3 acres, and talking about the size, we have to remember what the size is. 8 1⁄3 acres. It's not 40 acres. It's not 20 acres. It's a rather small-sized lot. It's been designated for development and inside the urban service area for 27 years. But as we mentioned before, as the staff mentioned, a portion of this has been zoned B3 for over 60 years. It's been zoned B3, along with a larger tract on the property across Aphids Way from us. That property is owned by a company called Green Property Holdings. Their address is at Green Toyota on New Circle Road. So it's been zoned B3 for many years. Now we feel the more appropriate place for the commercial is at the intersection of Aphids Way and Athens-Boonesboro Road instead of Aphids Way and Old Richmond Road where the B3 is right now. The CC we are asking and for the commercial part is much more restrictive than what B3 allows. As you know, B3 is sort of the widest open business zone in the community. It allows new and used car lots. It allows hotels and motels. It allows so-called adult entertainment uses, all of which are not allowed in the CC zone, this property. We're requesting, as I said, to shift that up to Athens-Boonsboro Road, away from the Ellerslie area. And if you could put up our first slide there with, we have on there with our development plan. Thank you. We will have a convenience store restaurant, the Wawa, at the corner of Aphids Way and Athens Boonesboro Road. This is sort of, I feel, a more modern concept of a convenience store. It specializes in prepared foods, which you can call ahead and carry out when you get there. Sandwiches, salads, dinner items. You can order on the internet, carry them out when you get there and take them. It's a very high volume for their food items. It does not have a drive-through window on it. We've had rumors, here's the development, this is where the Wawa will be on here. It does have gas pumps. We've heard rumors through the neighborhoods. We've been told we're going to have 100 gas pumps on this property and one pump serves two cars, there would be 200 cars being served there. That's what we've heard. We have eight gas pumps there. We're not Buc-ee's here. We have eight gas pumps on this property. They'll also have an electric vehicle charging station on the property. As I said, no drive-through window, and they specialize in their food items for carryout as well as other convenience-style items. We're proposing a sit-down restaurant here. We have moved that restaurant so it's fronts on the walking path rather than we headed over on the other side of this road previously. We have an outdoor seating area. People have asked us what kind of restaurant is going to go there. We don't know, but I can tell you Dennis' track record in trying to get restaurants to his developments. In Townley, you probably heard, we recently got Drake's to come in there to join Applebee's and El Mariachi and some other restaurants. In Great Acres, you've probably read recently, we are under construction with a new Ramsey's restaurant in Great Acres. You've probably read that Dennis purchased the old Andover Country Club to revitalize that area. He's recently signed up Carson's Restaurant to move to Andover Country Club. So we don't know what's going to come in there because it's too early in the process, but that is the track record Dennis has for getting restaurants in there. He tries to get a restaurant bar, which is going to appeal to the neighborhood that it serves on here. We also have a, the bulk of the property will be our residential area, consisting of about 139 residential units. This is going to be a rental community. 40% of the people who live in Lexington rent. And 40%, that's about 125,000 people who rent. We are doing a rental community for what we call the missing middle, or workforce housing. So people with jobs can live here, and they can enjoy an amenity package that is second to none. And it's probably a better amenity package than most people have in a single family detached neighborhood. We'll have our central green right here. We'll have a swimming pool. We'll have a fitness facility, we'll have the manager's office, we'll have the club room, we'll have the central mailboxes, we'll have the bike parking, we have a second green area here which is the dog park which is again a place where people interact and meet their neighbors as well as our central green. We have unstructured green area up here as well. So we're planning a community that we think will be very appealing to people who want to live here. We've been told that our rents are too low. We've been told that if our rents are low, they're not going to attract the type of tenant of person who is going to come here. It's not only the rents that determine what kind of person lives here and what kind of perfect community this is. Dennis screens his clients, his tenants for income, obviously, stability of employment, criminal record. But after they get here, they come in, they find the on-site management that fixes things if there's a problem, if there's a plumbing problem. They mow the lawn, they take care of all the maintenance here, and people get to meet their neighbors in these community areas. We find that people develop an ownership feeling when they're here. They take pride in where they're at. And when people take pride in where they live, they stay there longer, and the community gets along better on there. So we're very proud of what we're proposing here on this. I want to go to the, well, let me go to the third slide after this, if you could advance it. Or I guess I can advance it too here. I can do that myself. I'm going to go back. Okay. This is an aerial photograph and we've discussed the art cut, but I wanted to just discuss it a little bit more. Again, this is Athens-Boonesboro Road. This is Old Richmond Road. This is the stretch of Old Richmond Road. It's going to be removed. This is Aphids Way. It's a two-lane road if you've ever been on it. It's pretty narrow for a two-lane road and it has a peak on it. It gets to a peak right here and you can't see over the top. So you've got to be careful when you go over there because if you encounter a truck with these four wheels on the back axle, you've got to be careful. Or any other kind of truck here. But our cut is going to be built. Richmond Road is going to swing into Athens, Aphids Way. Probably Aphids Way won't exist anymore. They'll just call it Old Richmond Road. There's no intersection here. It's just going to swing in a general curve, come through here. There'll be a curve that's easier for trucks and large vehicles to make. It's going to come over aphids and aphids will be a three lane road. It's actually going to have a painted median in it. Two lanes will turn right through here. The other third lane will be the lane coming in here. As Mr. Filiotree mentioned, when you get here, there's only one way you can go and that's right away from town. For the traffic coming into town off Old Richmond Road, they come up here and they have to turn away. There will be a U-turn here with a traffic signal. You make the turn, get the traffic signal, come back to town. Same thing with Hayes Boulevard. Hayes Boulevard, you may only be able to make a right. If you want to go to the interstate, go back out to Old Richmond Road. You'll come out here to a U-turn at the signal, come on back out to the interstate. Now, our property, the little eight acre property, will be the most heavily impacted piece of property because of the art cut. Two reasons. One is the traffic reason. We'll have more traffic put on in front of us. We don't object because it's going to be a much safer stretch of road here. But coming out here, as I mentioned, the Hayes Boulevard people, all of them who want to go to the interstate in the morning, they're going to turn right. So they're going to drive the entire frontage of our property up to here, and they're going to drive the entire frontage of our property back out here. So instead of having zero trips from those people in front of our property, we'll have two trips of those people in front of our property. We'll have a little bit more traffic impact than others do. We're overlooking this. If there's anything to compare this to, I call this the son of double diamond crossover on here. And when we're asked to build three single-family detached houses per acre, as some will ask us on this, three single-family detached houses per acre, if you can imagine an eight-acre piece of land adjacent to and overlooking the double-diamond crossover at Harrodsburg and New Circle Road, that doesn't work. That's against planning principles because we want to put our higher density uses along the corridors, especially in a busier atmosphere like the Double Diamond or like this is going to be. But the second way we're impacted by the RCUT is the elevation. As I mentioned here, this is the top of a hill. This is where you can't see over the top traffic coming the other way on Aphids Way. Our main entrance is right here, coming into that area. The state's going to lower that for safety reasons. They're going to take at least nine feet off of Aphids Way and lower Aphids Way nine feet. That means our site is going to have to be lowered, an average of nine feet throughout the entire site, so that our traffic, our roadways, do not exceed the maximum allowable grade coming into Aphids Way, which is our main way in and out. We're going to have to lower our site an average of 9 feet throughout in order to meet the lower grade at our main entrance here. So we have a traffic impact and we have a physical impact on the property as well. We have worked very hard on our development plan. I might add that the RCUT, we welcome the RCUT because the RCUT is designed to handle more traffic at a lower rate of speed in a much safer way. The purpose of it is to eliminate high speed T-bone accidents which are very often fatal here. So it's going to be a, you're going to be able to move more traffic through, you're You're going to be able to move it. It'll be slower, but at a higher volume, but a much lower accident rate. We did a traffic study on this, which we've submitted to the staff and the staff has reviewed. We took the traffic study that the state had prepared by HDR, which is an engineering firm here in Lexington. They provided both the report from HDR and the figures behind the report. What Prime did was they added our traffic volume from our proposed plan. They did it, they calculated it when we had more units on here. We had almost 200 units on here originally. In calculating that, the traffic study showed that we will have a minimal increase to intersection delay and the level of service in this area will be unchanged after our traffic is added based upon the traffic calculations from the RCUT without our development. The RCUT without our development compared to the RCUT with our development shows no change in level of service. I'd like to go back a slide, which I can do here. I forgot I can do that myself. We had questions about the pedestrian circulation on here. We asked Tony to do up an exhibit showing our pedestrian ways on the property. The purple is eight foot walkways, eight foot wide walkways through the development. The pink or reddish is going to be five or six foot walkways through the development. You can see we have a major, our spine is coming through here, the 8 foot walkway. It goes right by our sit down restaurant and our outdoor dining area. It serves each of these apartment houses. It goes up the side. We did this so we could connect with the state's crossing of Athens Boonsboro Road so we can have access to the pedestrian walkway which will be on the north side of Athens Boonsboro Road going up to Jacobson Park and beyond. The pink ones, as you can see, are the other walkways that are coming through here. We did that in conjunction with the staff. I'm going to go back again and I want to tell you about the changes we've made in this development plan. We met with Valerie Friedman, Boyd Saway, and Tom Martin of your staff for a design meeting on this. And as a result of the design meeting, it was very interesting. Dennis was there. Tony was there. I was there. And as I recall, we have incorporated every suggestion that was made by Ms. Friedman, Mr. Saway, and Mr. Martin at our design session. And we made a bunch of changes on it. And the first one was, as I said, the number of units was reduced from 192 to 139. That's 53 units. That's 26% reduction in the number of units we had here. As I said, we added the pedestrian walkways, which I just showed you. We had a public street going through here at a curve. The staff felt that that was too auto-centric and we needed a more pedestrian-oriented development. So we've done a private street with an all-way stop at this point. we have a, as Mr. Martin mentioned, a pedestrian table here, a traffic table, so that we can have a safe crossing. So when you come here, you'll have to stop. When you start up, you'll have to get up on top of the table. You'll have to go back off the table at a very slow rate of speeds back down to our main entrance and exit point on the property. So we've changed that configuration as well. We added the outdoor dining on our standalone restaurant here. We have our internal focal point. We have our central green here, as I mentioned, the Swoonful Fitness Center, Club Room, Management Office, Bike Parking, Postal Pickup there. We have two others. We have the dog walk here. We have unstructured green space up there. We have changed, we had eight apartment buildings on our original property. We have changed three of those into townhouse units. We have put them up at the possibly most visible point on the property, along 8th and Spoonsboro Road at the point here. We have faced them toward 8th and Spoonsboro Road and we have put them down here at the closest point to Old Richmond Road as well. We lost the number of units doing that. We have reduced the size of our apartment buildings. I've got an exhibit to show you about that. We are providing, there is a lot of discussion at your subcommittees, if you remember, about people living over on this side in Ellerslie, about visibility into their yards. So we've added berms along Old Richmond Road right-of-way with plantings on top of them. I'm going to show you the impact of that in a minute. Our facades are articulated on all four sides. We'll have not just the front of the building, which is architecturally interesting. We'll have the same features, the same articulations on all four sides of the building. We've moved our dumpster area as a result of that. And we've made, this is a major change. I think we've adopted every suggestion that the staff made. through that process. I'm going to use this exhibit to show you three things on the property. This again is Old Richmond Road which will be removed. This is 8th and Spoonsboro Road. This is Aphids Way. You can see the new curve a little better through there. The B3 on the adjoining property is much larger than our B3. It goes down about here, down here on it, so some of it will be taken up by this. The state is, by the way, in the process of finishing up its right-of-way acquisition and they plan on starting this project this fall, or if they can't get it this fall, it'll start in the spring, so it's going to start real soon. What I've outlined here is the existing B3 area, Highway Service Business Area. Now, the significance of that is that Dennis could come in tomorrow and get a permit through the building inspection process and build a service station or a fast food restaurant and some other type of use, he could do that tomorrow as a matter of right in the B3 zone. We feel, however, it's better to move the commercial area up against Athens-Boonesboro Road than having it down behind these houses on Tatton Park. The second thing I want to show you is the size of these buildings. We have outlined here three of the houses along Tatton Park. We got looking at our size of our apartment buildings and we noticed that the apartment building footprints were much actually smaller than the existing houses on Tatton Park. You can see here, we've superimposed our apartment house footprint on these houses, and the houses over there are much larger than our apartment house footprint. We put the distances in here from the houses to our apartment buildings. Each one of them is well over a football field in length. You can see behind these two houses, the urinal shows a very dense screening of trees. This one doesn't. This has some screening along Richmond Road. Just for fun, to give you a little bit of scale, we've placed a football field behind each one. our distance and each one of them is much larger than the football field. We took UK's, we got the UK logo in there, but we just showed the scale of the distance between the houses on Tatton Park and our proposal. This is, we're standing on Old Richmond Road on our property looking directly across the street from one of the houses on Tatton Park. There's a house in there, but we wanted to show you the existing screening that's already there. We asked Tony to do a study showing the sight lines from the houses on Tatton Park to our development. This is our four-story apartment building here. That's a four-story apartment building on our property. This is one of the houses on Tatton Park. We have a person standing right there on the ground outside that house. You can see their sight line coming over the trees. Our apartment house is not visible. We have a sight line coming from the second floor over the trees. Again, our four story apartment house is not visible. Now the closest building we'll have will be a two story town home. But we used the tallest building we have. We have a flat roof, not a peak roof on there. As Mr. Alba will tell you in a couple of minutes, we have compacted down the size of our apartment buildings. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the comprehensive plan. Mr. Crum went over our justification based upon place builder, the place type, and the design criteria. He went over that very completely and told you how we comply with that. I think he also mentioned that the expansionary master plan, the quarter century of an old plan, 27 years old, does not take the place of place builder under the criteria set forth in place builder. We thought it was most appropriate to go by place builder under new planning principles that we have adopted in this community over the last 10 to 15 years, rather than try to put what the land use recommendation on this property was from the expansionary master plan, which 27 years ago was three detached, single family houses per acre. We thought that would not be a community. We thought in this property, eight and a third acres, that would be an isolated group of houses overlooking one of the busiest intersections in Lexington and Fayette County. We thought it was more appropriate here to build a community. And yes, we have a convenience store. We think it's appropriate to have a place for people to fill up their cars with gasoline or recharge their car with electricity. and to take home a hot cooked meal. By the way, Wawa is so popular with its food, it has a catering operation as well. Or go to the sit-down restaurant that we have here and build a true community with some spaces where people can meet, they can exercise, they can go to the swimming pool, they can walk out on the trails or walk their dogs on there. We thought it would be a much better item to go on this property and follow the place builder. Nevertheless, I looked also at the original principles governing the expansion area master plan. Those principles, I just want to read a couple of them out to you, on land use. From 1996, 27 years ago, land uses should be designed to facilitate the use of modes of transportation other than the private automobile. We have pedestrian trails here, bicycle connections, and as Mr. Crum mentioned, we're set up so that when transit comes out here, we can make the best use of that. Neighborhood commercial uses should be available in the expansion area. should have flexibility to mix uses and housing types within the expansion area. That's what we're doing. We're providing a housing type that is not in this area, rental housing. We do have town homes on either side of us, by the way, in Ellerslie and the traditions at Park's Edge across the street. We do have town homes. I'm not sure they're rental town homes. We do have rental units here, and we are, as I said, pointing toward the missing middle type housing on this property. Different land uses should be buffered through the use of design and landscaping. I just explained to you our buffering along here. And we are open space. We have complied with the open space requirements. Development in the expansion areas should be organized around community centers or places which we are doing. Neighborhood commercial shall be in distinct notes. I want to mention that we do provide stormwater on this side. Our stormwater is going to go in this area. There is a regional detention basin already constructed across 8th and Spoonsboro Road, which we will utilize for some of our water. Some of it goes this way. And either way it goes, if we're increasing the rate, we're going to have to provide some on-site detention before it goes to the regional detention basins, which have already been constructed for this purpose. I wanted to take a minute here. I'll get back and hear it in a minute. But Steve Albert was going to come up and describe to you a little bit about the architecture on this. We haven't designed each of the buildings yet, but he can tell you a little bit about the concept that we have on this property. Thank you. actual buildings designed yet, but I can share with you some of our ideas and our thoughts. We have taken, and it's been touched on, our normal footprint for apartments are eight units. And we've taken the eight units and made a six unit and put more open space out on the ground. I know they're four stories tall, and I'll address that in a minute. So we've given up density and created smaller footprints and created more green space. On the actual buildings themselves, just to give you an idea, we use brick all the way around, not just on the fronts or the sides. Horizontal siding, board and batten, maybe some shakes, siding textures and color, and different horizontal layers to create more of a lower look to make the building look a little lower than it might be. We have low slope roofs with large eaves and brackets to help reinforce that horizontal nature. The entryways, as you enter the breezeways, they will have lower rooftop to create that lower human scale as you're coming into the buildings. They're just not straight up facades with windows stuck in them. They have their ins and outs and double windows, balconies with horizontal rails to also create that horizontal look. The old Richmond Road segment that the state is reworking between the existing homes and the development will be burned and landscaped, as we've already said. And the transition from those property lines is built in layers as we build up to the units, the berms, the trees, the townhouses, and then the apartment buildings. It's also our intention, and something we have done on other sites, and you can drive to some of other Dennis Anderson's other site, Anderson communities, that the townhomes and the apartments and the other buildings on the site should all use similar materials. They should all relate to each other. Because we would like to have a cohesive and interconnected site. The site is set up as a community where you live and work and shop and play and interact. Thank you very much for your time. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Thank you. Next, we have Lisa Corpus from Wawa. We're going to tell you a little bit about that. Hi, my name is Lisa Corpus. I'm with Wawa. I actually live in Kentucky, and I'm excited to be the person that Wawa has selected to bring our great stores to this area and this market. We do not have any open Wawa's yet in Kentucky. Planned openings will be in 2025. We're going to build out a full network of stores in this community. A lot of people wonder what's Wawa. Wawa, actually, the name comes from where our company started. It's Wawa Pennsylvania. So we have over 200 years in business. Wawa actually started as an iron foundry. And then they opened a dairy and then started in the convenience stores. And then we actually added fuel in the 80s. So we started out primarily as a convenient operator to sell our dairy products. And we still have an operational Wawa dairy in Wawa Pennsylvania, just about 30 miles outside of Philadelphia. Just wanted to point out our ownership is employee and family owned. So the original Wood family is still the majority owner of Wawa and the employees own the other half. Well, about 41% actually. So because of that, every associate in our store is an owner in the company. And the tenure of an average C-store employees is about seven months. Wawa, our tenures average around seven years. And because of the employee ownership, we have an employee ownership stock option program. So it creates a very good employment base for people locally that can retire from Wawa. We have people that start off as a store associate, move up within the company, and retire there. Each store employs around 45 employees. During our day shift, we have about 13 to 15 employees, depending on volume. We focus highly on our community contributions. We have basically three pillars of where we look for community engagement and partnerships. We focus on hunger, health, and heroes. So we have a lot of programs. We're going to actually have a community day here in Lexington in September where we welcome, introduce the Wawa brand to this community. And in that, we have already partnered with the Special Olympics and God's Pantry. So you'll see that we are actually already starting to build out our network of our community partnerships there. And as was mentioned earlier, we offer EV charging. So this is in partnership with Tesla. We put the EV charging on all of our plans. However, Tesla makes the determination whether the EV charging is put on there. We provide those spaces for, and it is the supercharger. Sometimes a question. The primary purpose of Wawa, we want to become an integral part of the community and serve us daily needs. So we, yes, we do have a fuel component. Like we said, we have eight pumps on us, 16 fueling positions. However, Wawa's cult-like following did not come from the fuel. It is for our coffee, our sandwiches. Everything is built to order. We do not have any seating. There's no area for you to sit down and eat in the restaurant, so it's all grab and go. and everything is built when you order the food. The hoagies being the sandwiches, subs is the number one seller. We, coffee, we actually sell more coffee than Starbucks per unit. But the main thing is we are the daily kind of stopping point for most people. So in this community, it's to service those daily needs of the people within that community, getting their cups of coffee, getting their lunch, that type of thing. So just wanted to, that's a little background on Wawa. all any questions on that? You've kind of touched on it and our son-in-law was actually sharing with me about it but in our mind we think of Super America or those kinds of things. Right. And you're not a Super America. No sir. Actually we're very far from that. I'd say like I said the biggest thing is like our food component. Our design of our building is actually structured where we have parking on the back because we have such of a large volume of customers that are not even coming to get fuel. However, we do have very competitive fuel pricing with perks and loyalty clubs there that are food. That's why you see the parking on the rear of the building where people can come in and just grab their breakfast and go or their lunch and go. But we are extremely clean, strive on that. And a lot of that is just that employee ownership. The employees act like an owner. We have people that literally just greet people when they walk in the door, open the door for them. The parking lots are maintained well clean and everything stays company owned. The big difference for most these stores is franchise opportunities and things. They're all company owned stores. Thank you. Questions? Thank you. I just wanted to go over a couple more things before I sit down. One is the we always look at the comprehensive plan and we're very confident we're in agreement with the comprehensive plan as the staff has pointed out as we've demonstrated with the 2018 comprehensive plan with the place builder and even with the principles and objectives of the 27 year old expansion area master plan. We don't agree with the particular land use recommendation of the 27-year-old EAMP, but we feel more important we agree with every planning principle that we've adopted in this community over the last 10 years and the place builder and the current plan and even the objectives of the original expansion area master plan. I'll add that to as well, as I mentioned, this is an eight and a third acre tract. Most of it is zoned AR. It's really too small a track to actively. It hasn't been actively farmed for years. It was rented out by the Phelps property to tenant until the house became not usable anymore. After that, no use was made of it until Dennis purchased the property. Also, we feel that the B3 zoning, even though it would give us more uses, would be not appropriate at this point because we think the CC zone with the more limited commercial uses would be more appropriate and would allow the commercial to be located up near Athens-Boonesboro Road instead of up against the houses along the old Richmond Road as well. The other thing I wanted to mention was that I know some comments, usually people may, well, you haven't worked this out, you haven't worked that out. There's been many changes in the expansion area master plan over the years. People are going to say, it hasn't changed at all. Keep it the way it is. One of the first changes was to require both a preliminary and a final development plan and every proposal that came to you. When they originally did that plan, all the property was going to be zoned in 1996. Every piece of the expansion area was going to be zoned. That's what the planning commission recommended. The city council decided they wanted to see each piece of property, each case as it came through. Originally, it was going to be zoned, then you were going to bring in a final development plan, one development plan. But when the council made that change, they changed it and required when we file our zone change, we file a preliminary development plan, just like any other zone change. And they said on the final, that's when you work out all the details about drainage, highway access points, sewers, where you put your sidewalks, how many parking places you have. Now, we've got a much greater level of detail on our plan right now than we normally do on a preliminary. But we will be coming back to you. You'll be seeing this again on a final where we'll show the resolution of all these other issues that some of them talked about, about where the sidewalks are, where the drainage is going to go, and that sort of thing. You're also going to be told that there's been no changes in the expansion area since the plan was adopted a quarter of a century ago. And that's just not true. There's been many, many changes in that plan, some of which the staff outlined to you. The first change was right here in this area. The expansion area master plan called for Hayes Boulevard to be brought through Ellerslie and then connect down to DeLong Road. So that would have removed that disjunction junction between DeLong Road and Old Richmond Road and Aphids Way. DeLong comes off just down here. That would have removed it. But when that zone change for Ellerslie came through, the Old Richmond Road Association objected to it. They objected to Ellerslie being there because they felt it wasn't appropriate to have Ellerslie develop, but it worked out that they changed the location of that road. That was one of the first changes in the plan. We've also had changes for where the CC is up on Hayes Boulevard and there not being any commercial in there, as Mr. Crum mentioned to you. We've had a number of changes. Did you know that originally hospitals were not allowed anywhere in the expansion area master plan? They had to do text amendments in the ED zone to allow Baptist Health and UK to come out to the expansion area. Did you know that Costco wasn't allowed in the expansion area 27 years ago? They had to do text amendments again to allow Costco to come in. They vastly expanded the CC in that area and Cabela's out there. They originally weren't allowed out there. We've had increased in density in the Newmarket property, the Bridgewater property, and other properties out here. There have been many changes over the years. The expansionary master plan for the development is not the way the expansionary master plan originally proposed. We feel we are in total agreement with the 2018 plan and place builder, and we feel we're in spirit of the goals and objectives of that expansionary master plan which I read to you here. And overall, I want to point out, I want to end with the fact that Anderson Communities builds communities. Dennis named his company with the word communities in it because that's what he does. He doesn't build just isolated sets of houses or residents out there. He builds communities. He builds them in Townley. He's building a great one in Great Acres. He's built one in Woodridge over in For Sales. He's built one up in Scott County, Emerson Orchards in Scott County as well. And that's what he's doing here on a smaller scale, on an 8 and a third acre tract. He's building a community where people who want to rent can really live in a nice community, have on-site management and the amenities that, as I said, rival none here. We're very proud to present this to you and we hope you'll vote in favor of it. And we're here to answer any other questions you all might have about it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Any questions? Yes, sir. Mr. Murphy, thank you very much. I'm still curious about the property that we see on the board right there below it. Yes, yes. And it backs up to the urban service boundary. And do you know about the size of that parcel by chance? Well, I looked it up in the PVA last night. And if I can find, I printed that out, but I got like four inches of stuff here. And if I can find it, I can tell you. The reason I say it is because, as you've mentioned, it is also zone B3. It also has the options to do all the things that you mentioned and such. And, you know, you're going to set a precedent with your project as to what's going to occur right there as well. And so in my mind, while we're talking about your project and such, it's important to anticipate that that parcel is sitting there awaiting development. Currently zoned a portion of it for B3, the rest AR, but it's a similar situation. And, you know, I just think it's important with the roadway. This is in process. All this is in process. So I just wanted to mention that, and that's it. I did find my sheet on there. It's owned by Green Property Holdings, LLC. The whole parcel is an L-shaped. It's about 20 acres, but it appears that about 10, maybe 11 acres is inside the urban service boundary. So we agree. We hope that what we're proposing here would be a set of model for what's done across the street and that they can have a community like we're proposing here and have some synergy between them. And as you mentioned, that had been zoned B3 for 60 years. At least 60 years, yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ms. Dillings? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Murphy, primarily, I would just like to say thank you for recognizing two weeks ago and agreeing to a two-week postponement on this. I know for me anyway, it gave us a chance to digest this information. So Mr. Anderson and you, thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Murphy, thank you. Okay, this is time for citizen comments. I know Mr. Simpson, you had a few comments. That's a look a little thicker than four inches. Your book is bigger than four inches. I have to lift weights to lift this thing. I'll let Wes Harned, my co-counsel, in this case, pass out our exhibit before I get started. All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Bruce Simpson. I'm an attorney. I'm along with Wes Harnett, who just passed out our evidence booklet, if you will. represent Old Richmond Road Neighborhood Association. I've had the privilege of representing that organization dating back to the 90s and also representing a number of homeowners in the Ellerslie subdivision, which is certainly compared to Old Richmond Road, a new subdivision. But Mr. Chairman, specifically, I want to make one comment. I've been doing this a while, of course, and every so often it comes to my attention a learning moment or a teaching moment, if you will. And that occurred back in May of this year during the committee review process. And Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to you, sir, and I have a great deal of respect, you provided a teaching moment. that day. And in particular, some of the folks that I represent were, this was their first go-around with the land use change. And they, like most neighborhoods, in my experience, over 40 years, were fearful of change, wondering, what's this all about? I didn't think this was supposed to be on that property. And some comments were made relative to people that rent or live in apartments. And you properly called that to their attention as being unacceptable and inappropriate. That was a teaching moment. We had a conversation after the meetings about that. And so I appreciate those comments. I confess that way back in 1988 when I first started doing some of this stuff more intensely, I grew up in a rental house. Me and my three brothers and a sister, we never lived in a house that my parents owned. We had one bathroom, there were seven of us. When I got to be 38 years old, I had the opportunity to get my own home. And that's how I got involved in planning and zoning, because as I shared with this body previously on one prior occasion, two weeks after I closed, I get a notice that the farm I thought was going to be behind my house was land bank for apartments. and the farm on the other side of the farm became Palomar Hill Shopping Center. And the dead end street I thought I was going to be next to was something called a stub street that was going to be connected up to the apartments onto the shopping center. That's how I got involved in this. But I confess to you, I should have been more sensitive having never lived in an owner-occupied house growing up. I should have been more sensitive then and not been so afraid of people living in apartments behind my house, but I was. I'm just being honest with you. I say that to say this, that the folks I represent were just like me in 1988. They didn't know the fear of the unknown and the fear of change drives a lot of people down here to express their concern because they had an expectation of what was going to be on this particular property based upon the comprehensive plan, which by every readable and observable indication is low density residential at three houses to the acre. Still, it was a teaching moment, Mr. Chairman, that you provided. It provoked a conversation. It was healthy. It was well received. and I thank you for providing it. Now, in terms of our presentation, Mr. Murphy has done another excellent job of representing Mr. Anderson and dressed up the wonderful nature as he sees it of this particular zone change. He always does a good job. I've never had any doubt about his professionalism and the quality of his presentation. What I'm going to share with you in terms of the threshold issues in this case, and I ask you to pay very close attention because I don't need 45 minutes is what Mr. Murphy took. Okay, hold on one second. You don't need 45 minutes? Well, I'm not going to shut my microphone down, Chairman. You know how much I like it. That's why I gave you 45 minutes. We can take it back. Stop the clock, too. Don't take the time off. I'm trying to be optimistic. So what I'm going to share with you or what I'll point out when I talk about an undisputed fact, These are undisputed facts that I call to your attention because I think they are the seminal, they go to the seminal issue that you have to overcome. Because we are, undisputed fact number one, we're in the middle of a comprehensive plan update. This is 2023. The last one was adopted in 2018. So we're in the middle of that review. And we're asking for a zone change that's clearly against the land use recommendation. and some other language, which I'll point to in a minute. But there's no dispute. This is a comp plan update year, and I believe this application is premature. It ought to be delayed and refiled or come before you as part of the overall look-see at the 2023 comprehensive plan or 2024 or 2045 or whatever it's going to ultimately be called, the next comprehensive plan. and looked at it then so that it can be in compliance with the comprehensive plan. It's not today as we stand here, as I stand here, and I'll point this out in just a moment. Now, I say that, and more than likely, the folks that are here today will probably speak in opposition to any change in the plan because they collectively have invested millions and millions and millions of dollars in reliance upon this plan being followed. There was never any signal given that three units to the acre was going to transfer from 25 total units on this property to 139 units on this property for a 450% plus increase in density. There was no signal, no warning for an ordinary average person to say, well, what's going to be over there before I build my home? What's going to be over there? What is it planned to be? What has the planning commission recommended for future development as of today? And it's certainly not 139 units. And so what we have for the average person to look through or to pay a professional to look through is 665 pages, including the expansionary master plan, to have to decipher what's going on here. Now, undisputed fact number two is that the 2018 plan, there was no land use element in that plan except for one area, the expansion area. And that's been the case since 1996, 27 years. That plan has been in place. Your predecessors where you sit today had the opportunity to change the expansionary master plan in 2001 and 2006 and 2013 and 2018, and there were no changes made. None. It has remained the same. Now, Mr. Murphy's argument is, well, you know, there's been some noncompliance issues with the expansionary master plan, And so it's really all bets are off, and we can do about whatever we want to do as long as we can satisfy the criteria of place builder, and we can finesse a zone change that is clearly not consistent with, for sure, the land use element of the expansionary master plan by arguing place builder and get it approved. And at this point, the staff has bought that argument, and they're recommending approval. That's undisputed fact. And they've quoted several references in the comprehensive plan to support their position. But they haven't quoted the most important language in the comprehensive plan. They haven't quoted the most important language in the expansion area master plan that ultimately, in my judgment, has to be followed if you're going to honor the comprehensive plan. So let me share with you what those are. Under tab number one in my handout, that's just the subject property. On tab number two, this is on page 268 of the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. And I'm just going to read, I just have a few sections that I'm going to read for you. I'm highlighting it on the second page of tab number two. And it says, should influence any decisions made regarding place type, development type, and zoning preference for future development within these areas. These considerations should be in addition to, and not in place of, place builder process and criteria. In addition to, in listening to Mr. Murphy's argument, place builder is being followed in lieu of the expansion area master plan. Not in addition to it, but in lieu of the expansion area master plan. And that's not what this language in the 2018 plan states. Now, under tab number three, this is from the expansion area master plan that has been part of every comprehensive plan since 1996, 27 years. 2001, 2006, 2013, 2018, in every single comp plan since then, this language has been in there. What does it say? It says future land use settlement. The future land use element establishes the general location and intensity of future land uses. The future land use element is based upon the principles for guiding development and the following planning principles. Future land use is organized according to the natural resources of the expansion area including topography, vegetation, environmentally sensitive land, stream corridors and other bodies of water and associated floodplains and scenic vistas and a network of collector streets which are designated to collect traffic from the expansion area and distribute that traffic to the existing radio arterials which extend from the urban core of Lexington Fayette County. When the expansion area master plan was adopted, the same year the real land use management plan was a product of that research. And this area that we're talking about in the expansionary master plan, this eight acres today, was at the edge of the expansion of the urban services boundary. It was the outer limit of the urban services boundary that was added in 1996. and it was made low density because it's right next to the rural services area. And you will see throughout the expansionary master plan and even in the comprehensive plan that was adopted in 2018 that is not including the expansionary master plan, the degree of sensitivity of development as it gets to the rural services area because you want to protect that area from intrusive, intense land uses. And those land uses are the same today, agricultural. Many horse farms and general agricultural farms and a rural road, Old Richmond Road, are in this area. And that's why it was very low density. Now that language has changed. And that's really important. and that's an undisputed fact that I ask you to remember very carefully and think about before you make your decision because this is the edge of the urban services boundary. Now you all are in the middle of the comp plan update and you've been asked from the council to look at expanding the boundary between 2,700 and 5,000 acres. Now you all have the discretion, in my judgment, whether to do that or not. It's a goal, but ultimately you make the call on whether to do that or not. And the community will live with your decision. That's my judgment about it. So when you're doing that, you can look at this area. Does it need to be more intense if you're going to expand the boundary? Out Athens-Boonesboro Road? Because these working horse farms and agricultural farms that have the prime soil in Fayette County that we determined 2001, 1996 and 2001, and reinforced in every subsequent comprehensive plan that the rural services area is the most important land use in our community. And we save it and we safeguard it and we protect it from unnecessary intrusion of urban uses. Now, I appreciate the representative from Wawa talking about community service in an organization and that the employees own part of the company and that they serve more coffee than Starbucks and it's grab and go. They don't have a drive-thru, but to me that's car-centric. I've heard a lot about car centric I tried to get two Dutch brothers zone change approved by this body I was summarily rejected because they were car centric and by her own testimony she said we generate more coffee sales than Starbucks grab and go those are her words this is a car centric oriented development that's where the money is now they talk about well the property is already zoned B3 We could put in a B3 today. And they're right. And so could every property owner that's owned this property for the last 60 years. Why hasn't someone done it? Commercial property in Lexington with no expansion of the boundary since 96, why hasn't somebody gone out there? I'll tell you why. There's no market for it. It's hidden. Now, Dennis, being a good developer for business, I need to get up on Athens Boonesboro where people can have easy access and see it because it is car centric, because it is grab and go, because we do serve more coffee than Starbucks. We don't have a drive through, but it ain't going to be the 139 people that live in these apartments that keep this Wawa successful. It's going to be car-centric. It's going to be everybody else in Lexington. Their success is exactly what you don't want, car-centric development. They will be very successful. But this isn't the location that was ever planned for Wawa. It has not been planned this way. And we're in the middle of a comprehensive plan update. So think about that. Think about that, please. Also, under tab 4, I've got what talks about what is recommended, which again, this is another undisputed fact. EAR1, residential uses of all types and sizes developed up to a maximum density of 3 units per acre. As I stand here today, that is the current land use recommendation for this property. That's not in dispute. Even the staff acknowledges that undisputed fact in their report to you. Under tab number five, this is page five of the expansionary master plan. Future land use. The use and intensity of lands within the expansion area shall be consistent with the land use designation in this element. This is a declarative sentence. The use and intensity of use of lands within the expansion area shall be consistent with the land use designations in this element. The designation for this property is EAR1, three units to the acre. They're proposing 139 units, over 450% increase in what this land use designation provides. This is in flagrant violation of the expansion area master plan, which again has to be followed in addition to, not in lieu of, but in addition to place builder. And place builder is not to be followed in lieu of the expansion area master plan. That's not what the sentence says. But there's even more sentences that give you all greater clarity in terms of your obligation when you consider this case. Now, under tab number six, you've seen this on the screen before, is the expansion area, area 2C, which is the area that we're talking about in the expansion area master plan. And you see that little red dot? That's over at Hayes Boulevard. Mr. Murphy referred to that. That was in this entire area, Area 2C, in 1996, reaffirmed in 2001, reaffirmed in 2006, reaffirmed in 2013, and reaffirmed in 2018. And it is the land use recommendation that's before you today. there was only one CC center recommended in this area, and that's on Hayes Boulevard, not at the corner of Aphids Way and Old Richmond Road. Again, that is an undisputed fact. Under tab number seven, quoting again from the Expansion Area Master Plan, lands adjacent to the rural services area slash agricultural buffer. which is where we are. As I mentioned to you a moment ago, this property is at the edge of the urban services boundary, another undisputed fact. The next page in the expansionary master plan, page 41, says the boundaries of the expansion areas and the rural services area represent special challenges in terms of the land use compatibility. it is generally understood that non-agricultural residential uses, even at relatively modest densities, are not quote-unquote good neighbors for agricultural uses, particularly equine agriculture. Judmont Farm is a stone's throw away from the subject property, as are a number of other working horse farms. That is an undisputed fact. Under tab number 8, access to lands designated for economic development, where it talks about community centers. The focal point of a true community is a place of social, cultural, and economic interaction. The community commons where neighbors and friends meet and mix in what is often referred to as a community of place. This is defined in the community center. This is what you have to look at here to see if it matches up even with this argument. The land use designation, it goes on to say on page 42 of the expansionary master plan, The land use designation in the future land use element contemplates that commercial office and institutional uses within the expansion area will be located to the extent practical in community centers which have the form and function of a traditional, this is critical, village or town center. In these centers, individual uses are organized around public places and streets which are attractive and open to different modes of transportation including pedestrians and bicyclists. In the community centers, buildings should be developed relatively close to street rights of way with continuous sidewalks and connecting adjacent uses. The argument before you today is that a convenience store and townhouses and apartments is a village, town center, and the like. I can tell you from attending the Expansionary Master Plan workshops, which went on for two years, that cost the city of Lexington millions of dollars. They paid Charlie Seamans from Florida to come up and make this plan. And they all met in this room. We met in this room for two years. And we, a wordsmith, and argued about every I and dot and cross T on what was meant. And I assure you that in no one's vision was a gas station, convenience store, serving more coffee than Starbucks ever visioned along with apartments to be a community center. That was never the vision. It was never the intent. Now, Mr. Murphy says, well, the community center hasn't worked, and it needs to be different. And you all have changed it, and the council has changed it, and you've proved zone changes. But in areas where the land use element designated community centers, the land use element designated community centers on those properties. The land use element doesn't designate community center on this property. Now, we're getting into the meat of the matter, which I submit are undisputed facts that will have to guide your decision. Because this comes from the current 2018 comprehensive plan. Not the expansionary master plan element, but the full comprehensive plan outside of the expansionary master plan. On page 175, policy placemaking. Now, placemaking is a place builder concept. Placemaking policy number six. This is what it says. Undisputed fact. Amend the expansionary master plan to update the remaining residential area to reflect the 2018 comprehensive plans, goals, and objectives. I'll read it again. amend the expansionary master plan to update the remaining residential area to reflect the 2018 comprehensive plan goals and objectives. You're talking about this property. To amend the plan, it's been in the books. It's been in your plan that you carefully thought about, that the community participated in, that the staff wrote about in 2018. It is the plan today. And what does it say? Amend the plan. Amend the plan. If you don't like the land use designation, we're in the comp plan update here. You can amend the plan. That's what this says. To me, this is outcome determinative of this case. It says amend the plan. You're not amending the plan. You're violating the plan because you're not amending the plan. You're going to say, well, expansionary master plan, CC, you know, we violated it before on other CC designated lands. And so what if this one isn't designated CC? You know, it's time because, you know, we're having a community and the gas station is going to be a new business to Lexington. And we're going to have apartments and we're going to have a nice place. Well, all of that is not planning. That's not planning. and you're not following the plan that you all have adopted that clearly states what it states. I just read it. I've highlighted another section that says, four comprehensive plans later, all of Expansionary 1 still to be developed, there is still time to reopen the EMAP, Expansionary Master Plan, and examine that area with fresh eyes against the needs of Lexington today. That hasn't been done. On the next page of the 2018 comprehensive plan, the 2018 plan, page 175, calls for amendments to the EMAP to update the remaining residential area to reflect the 2018 comprehensive plans, goals, and objectives, and makes this an action item. In other words, act on it. Amend the plan. This has been the recommendation for five years, and that recommendation has not been acted upon. That, too, is an undisputed fact. 2018 plan on page 249, policy summary states, policy 6, amend the expansionary master plan to update the remaining residential area to reflect the 2018 comprehensive plans, goals, and objectives. There again, it's mentioned again in the comprehensive plan that you all approved in 2018. Time after time after time, amend the plan. Don't do a zone change in violation that's clearly in violation of the plan. Amend it. This was your directive, and we urge you to follow that, your own directives that you adopted five years ago that have yet to be followed. Under tab number 10, improving a desirable community. Placemaking. Again, policy number six, amend the expansionary master plan to update the remaining residential area to reflect the 2018 comprehensive plan's goals and objectives. It's not like this was just mentioned once in 2018 comprehensive plan. It wasn't like I'm picking a sentence out of context or, you know, this is just, well, that really doesn't matter anymore. you keep repeating the same admonition, the same direction to amend the plan. This is the direction that exists today. Under tab number 11, again, implementing the plan. Placemaking 6, update the expansion area master plan. Again, it's called out for the public. It's called out for everyone, including all the people that have invested millions of dollars that they could rely upon to say, well, if they're going to change the EAR1 on the subject property, they will at least have to amend the expansion area master plan, because that's what the planning commission said had to be done, and they kept reinforcing it numbers of different times, which I just highlighted. And we can rely upon that because at least we'll have the opportunity to participate in the planning process, which is important because if there's going to be any respect for the comprehensive plan, the process that you all have adopted in amending the plan has to be followed. Otherwise, it's arbitrary. It's just free for all. You have no control. There has to be respect for the integrity of the planning process. And time after time after time in the 2018 plan, which I have illuminated for you. And let me say this. I didn't find this out. Wes Harnett, who's my co-counselor, young lawyer, who's been with me six or seven cases, he never looked at the comprehensive plan, never looked at the expansionary master plan. I said, Wes, take a look at the 2018 comprehensive plan. See if you can find anything in there that speaks about what has to be done with regard to the expansionary master plan. He looked at it once and found this once. Mr. Chairman and members of the commission, you all are stewards of the plan that you so carefully consider every five years, which you're considering very carefully now. Probably more carefully because you're under some guidelines and directions to expand the boundary. Honor the process. Honor the recommendations that have not changed in 27 years. And honor the provisions that you adopted five years ago that haven't been changed as of today. With all due respect, and I do respect you, you're obligated to turn this application down for its failure to comply with the comprehensive plan. I'd be happy to respond to any questions. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Any questions? Mr. Nicholson? I do have findings of fact at that last page when you get down to that. Thank you, Wes. Mr. Simpson, I think we have a question here. No, you're fine. I do. Mr. Simpson, we've got major binders like you do of information that we've been reviewing. And one of the documents that you've been referencing or the page numbers of the place builder is this 268. Our staff review, the page number 268 was also referenced. And this is a statement that was made in the staff report. And I'd just like to get your comment on this. It says, with regard to balancing the recommendation of two plans, the comprehensive plan states that considerations regarding the EAMAP, quote, should be in addition to and not in place of the place builder process and criteria. So they used, they being our staff, has used the same language that you've used, but now one is being used to say the EAMP should supersede or should be evaluated alongside with the comprehensive plan. But what we're looking at here, it said it should be in addition to and not in place of the place builder process and criteria, which would mean that place builder is the primary document that we should be referencing here. Am I reading this? No. We can argue interpretations. But I would suggest to you we don't even need to get to that point, Mr. Nickel, because at the time Place Builder was adopted as part of the 2018 comprehensive plan. Say it's arguable. In addition to means both and is conjunctive. What I just read to you in terms of the language about amending the expansionary master plan, five or six different times in this document, in the 2018 plan, was the same time you adopted place builder. To me, that is an emphatic directive to amend the plan before you change it. That's not being done here. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. That's it. Thank you. Yes, Mr. McClure. Mr. McClure. I've got a question here. Okay. The expansion area is the one area that we still sort of have this land use map that we reference. whenever there's a zone change that goes against the map, we always look at the actual situation of that particular parcel. And I believe that Mr. Murphy and staff have discussed some very significant changes regarding the transportation infrastructure at this parcel that really changed the nature and the character of this lot relative to when this expansionary master plan was developed. I guess it's fair to say you disagree with that? Well, it's fair to say that. I mean, I don't see where the change of putting our cuts in on Athens-Boonesboro Road changes the character of this property relative to the land use recommendation. because the character of Athens Boonesboro with our cuts could function just as well with three units to the acre as it could with this community center, which at no time in the last 26 years, 27 years, has ever been changed to say anything other than that. But the fact that the art cuts are there, so what? It could function with single family. They could be all rental houses. If Mr. Anderson wants to make it rental, let him make them rental. Make low-cost residential single-family homes. That's a market for that. If he wants to make it more dense, then wait two or three or four months and come back before the group, and let's have a community participation on amending the plan, which is what you all said four or five times in the current plan. I mean, there's no dispute about that. Good. Okay. Mr. Nichol. Sorry, I have Ms. Jones comment on, I'm going to refer back to the page 278, the conference of plans comment that regarding the EMP, they quote, should be in addition to and not in place of the place builder process and criteria. Can you please comment on how you're reading that and how we should interpret that? Well, I think the most important part is the last sentence that you read. And there are places where it's been referenced without it being read or quoted in its entirety. So let me just put this out there for you. The last sentence says, these considerations should be in addition to and not in place of the place builder process and criteria. So to me, that means you should be looking at those things in conjunction together, not one or the other in place of one. In other words, not just the EAMP to the exclusion of the comp plan, not the comp plan to the exclusion of the EAMP, but you should be looking at those in conjunction together when you're making these decisions. And the first part of that paragraph actually says that. It says the necessary regulations prescribed within the EAMP should influence any decisions made regarding place type, development type, and the zoning preference for future development within these areas. So my interpretation, I think, would be consistent with what the staff said, which is this plan was developed in 1996, the EAMP, but certainly it would be not very prudent to believe that in future comp plan updates that you're not going to have changes to our community and things that are going to be considered, things that change both on the ground, in our zoning ordinance, in our community, in our transportation, all those things. Every time you're doing it right now, every time you do a comp plan update, all those things are changing and moving parts. And so I believe that's why that last sentence is written that way, so that you can always consider both things. And you have to, unfortunately for you all, that's your hard job today, is you have to figure out how to interpret those things together and make the best decision you can for this community. That's my interpretation. This is also for you, Ms. Jones, and this is a related question, but not the same question. In terms of the recommendation to update the expansion area plan, are there multiple methods for doing that? Does it require, does it have to be in conjunction with the every five-year update to the comprehensive plan? Are there interim opportunities? How does that work? Well, as you know, you all are constantly updating through text amendments and through various types of studies and all kinds of plans that you do in the interims between the actual comp plan updates every five years. I mean, it's an ongoing process that never stops, frankly. And so I think you see every time you do a comp plan update a list of things that are going to be attempted to be addressed after the adoption of the goals and objectives, after the adoption by this body of the comp plan in its entirety, and then those things start happening. Sometimes they don't always happen immediately because that would be not only impractical but impossible. So there are many different ways that those things can happen, but there's always a list of things that are going to happen after every comp plan update. And those change all the time, and you all see them all the time. So just to make that short and sweet, the adoption of a text amendment constitutes an update in and of itself, is what you're saying, or can. Yes. A text amendment does not update the comprehensive plan. It's a form of implementation of the update you've already adopted. That's the comp plan, I'm suggesting. It implements what you have adopted in the comp plan, a text amendment does. I'm just trying to make sure we're not hearing that we have to wait five years to make any changes. Not from you, from Mr. Simpson. No, you make changes all the time. I mean, the changes you make are the implementation piece of the adopted comp plan. Changes you make through text amendments, through corridor studies, small area plans, I mean, all those things that you do as a result of implementing what has been adopted in the comp plan every five years. The corridor plans and the small area plans do become specifically amendments to the comprehensive plan, and they go through a process that is outlined in KRS. The text amendments we implement monthly or every other month that we've been working on the last five years are not specifically amendments to the comprehensive plan. They may be something that was suggested or recommended by the comprehensive plan, but those small area studies like Nicholasville, imagine Nicholasville Road, that was an amendment. We had to send mail notice to neighboring counties. We had to do public input. Not in the same way that we have meetings twice a month. So I want to clarify that. And I can't see all my commission members because Bruce is right here. But okay, they're understanding. Thank you. If I could comment very briefly, the Kentucky Revised Statutes have a specific authorization for amending the comprehensive plan. And you can amend the comprehensive plan by doing a small area plan. You've done that before, which could be the basis, and I think was an action item, because that's the language that you all employed in 2018, an action item to amend the expansionary master plan, which could be a small area plan characterization of the 2018 plan. I mean, that's been a recommendation for five years. But to do an amendment of the comprehensive plan under the statutes, And the statute is very clear, expressly clear. You have to have research requirements. You have to look at a host of different factors in order to amend the comprehensive plan. You can't just do it by zone change. That is not in the statute. That is not permitted under the zoning law and hasn't been for decades. It has the same guidelines as if you're doing a full-scope review, which is what you're about to do for 2023. that has to be done for the expansion area and that's not being done today. Thank you. We're going to have to balance the continue here. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you very much. That's no problem. I know, Mr. Simpson, you were speaking for the Old Richmond Road HOA. This is time for any other citizen that would like to speak on this particular application, either for or against. you can do so by stepping up to the podium. And we will have, there will be a timer for three minutes per person. Hold off the clock until he gets the exhibits handed out, please. Thank you. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. Well, you've got some for the record in a different stack somewhere. Okay. The record's got one. Murphy's got one. Don't worry. Dennis has got to read Murphy. I got some food there for you. I might eat my supper here. Now let's, we'll go, I'll go with this. I don't want to hear this anyhow. I'm on the road. All right, well, I think he's about done, if I could have your all's attention. This case turns on the expansion area master plan, not place builder. For property in the expansion areas, the specific provisions of the land use element of the 1996 expansionary master plan take precedence over the general provisions of place builder in the 2018 comprehensive plan. Important words there are specific and general. Now, in the handout you've got, there's some of the same points that Mr. Simpson has made. the land use map in the expansion area master plan plainly shows this property to be zero to three units per acre. More importantly, and I'll explain why this is important, the zoning ordinance says this zone is intended to provide a mixture of low-density residential uses, which will serve as a transition between the more intensely developed land uses and rural service area. The dwelling unit density within the EIR-1 zone shall not exceed three units per acre. Then, going down to the point of the difference between specific and general, in Kentucky, if there's a conflict between two statutory provisions, the specific provision takes precedence over the general provision. The Kentucky Supreme Court has affirmed this rule repeatedly. I've given you two quotes from two different cases in your handout to that effect. One, the court says, in the event two statutory provisions directly conflict, it has been long established the specific provision takes precedence over the general provision. Similarly, they said, where there appears to be a conflict between two statutes is here. a general rule of statutory construction mandated that the specific provision takes precedence over the general. Now, three other points from the existing 2018 comp plan. And this is interesting. Now, it talks about the zoning ordinance, but the language in the expansionary master plan about this property and in the zoning ordinance about zero to three units per acre is identical. On page 262 of the 218 plan, it says the zoning ordinance and subdivisions are the laws that must be followed regarding land use in Lexington. And this is the most important point. If site-specific conflicts arise between place builder and these laws, the laws will prevail. But there's site-specific conflicts here. In place builder, with this murky general vague language, you can argue that you can have 25 units per acre. But in the expansionary master plan, you clearly can only have three. Two other points in the existing plan. Advice to developers on page 263 of the 2018 plan. Consider your site, community feedback, and surrounding context. This includes whether or not your site falls within adopted small area plans or the expansionary master plan. So you have to consider the expansionary master plan. You can't ignore it, which is what's being done here. You're ignoring the land use. The staff would have you ignore the land use element map of the expansionary master plan. And then similarly, close to the language that's already been considered, on 268, the 2018 plan says, the necessary regulations prescribed within the EAMP should influence any decisions made regarding place type. It's not influencing here if you follow the staff recommendation. You're ignoring it. so you'd be in violation of the plain language of the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. You'd be in violation of the plain language of the Kentucky Supreme Court because the specific takes control over the general. Sir, your time is up. So in order to comply... No, we ain't going to start it. In order to comply, you have to follow the Expansionary Master Plan. Three minutes. Thank you. Sorry, before you leave, you didn't identify yourself. I'm sorry? You didn't identify yourself for the record. Oh, I'm James Hodge, 6050 Old Richmond Road. Thank you. Thank you all very much. He took some of my time, so it won't take me three minutes. My name is Thaddis Cox. I'm at 3961 Tatton Park. If you pull the diagram back up, it's pretty easy to find my house. I have a dumpster basically going to be placed right in my backyard. The reason I decided to move to my home back in March 2020 with me and my two young daughters was basically we wanted a sense of community. the neighborhood we were living in at the time, I just didn't feel like we had that. I knew my daughters were getting older, and we wanted to get to a place where there were smaller kids, and that's why we decided to move to the place that we moved to. Since we've been there over the last three years, we've met some great neighbors who have daughters of the same age, and we all get together and play. There was never any talk or any mention of any of this going on when we decided to make the move three years ago. And so, obviously, we were all fairly blindsided when we found out that this was going on. no one that I've spoken to is against development. I'm not against development myself. This just isn't the proper place for it to go. They put up diagrams showing there are 376 feet between my backyard and the closest part of that property. What they fail to recognize is that we have deed restrictions, which prevented us from building any further out into our property. That's the reason that that's there. those restrictions aren't on the other side. There's a berm that's being set up to be made, but that berm actually goes onto our property. That hasn't been talked about or discussed. When Old Richmond Road is actually going to be shut down for the R-cuts, the way that that berm sits, it sits on my property. So whose responsibility is that? It's been mentioned that that would become the homeowner's responsibility. That should be my responsibility. And so it's things like that. We talk about noise. we talk about the lights which you know mr mickler you mentioned i mean noise and things like that those aren't thought about you know it was a nice diagram showing how things would work but you know i didn't see anyone stand on my back porch to shoot that so i don't know how that was actually made um so i think those things have to be taken into consideration because like i said you know i know i'm not against development but the way that this project is going it's it's it we're going to lose our sense of community. And we've talked for four hours about the community itself that Mr. Anderson is proposing, and there's been very little mention of the existing homes that are already there and the people that live in those homes already. So that's my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. My name is Jeff Walker. I live at 3051 Raven Creek Drive, which is in South Bay County. Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you for your service. I really appreciate sitting through all these arguments and doing all these details. It's much appreciated as community service. And Mr. Murphy and Mr. Anderson, I want to thank Mr. Anderson for really all he's done for the community. He's built a lot of nice homes and a lot of business developments. I've lived out this way for 30 years, so I have driven by this area thousands of times since I worked just a couple blocks from this building. And I have seen a lot of changes over these decades. And I have reviewed this proposed plan, and I've heard a lot today. By the way, Wawa sounds great. It's very interesting, very impressive, but this is just the wrong place. We want to see Lexington grow and prosper, but this is just not the right place. So I oppose this requested zone change strenuously. Let me just paint a little bit of a visual picture here. As you leave, go underneath New Circle Road, there's a section between New Circle Road until you get to Manowar. A lot of high density, a lot of fine businesses. Very few of them ever remain vacant very long. There's big stores, small stores, local stores, franchise restaurants, Lowe's, Kroger's, everything you can imagine in that section. Very high density, apartments behind them. You get to Man of War, there's a change. On the left side, lots of apartments, hospital, medical buildings. On the right side, car dealerships and a smattering of other businesses. You get to Squires Road in Yorktown, or Yorkshire, rather, you have another change. So there's this sort of backing down. And when you get to that area, you run into a residential, recreational. Now, all this just didn't happen. This was really good planning. And if you look at the high-density areas, you see these service roads. When you get out, you see setbacks, access roads that are really well planned. It didn't just happen over these 40 years that I've been watching this development occur. And then when you get to the Phelps property, you have yet another change. You go into an agricultural, there's nurseries, there's a smattering of a few houses that were grandfathered in. Again, this didn't just happen. This is the comprehensive plan that has been put in place for decades. And then, of course, when you get to the interstate, properly so, you'll see what you would normally see at an interstate exchange as far as high density and gas stations. I've looked at this. I've seen a lot of zoning changes over the year. Some of them I agree with, some of them I did not. This one makes no sense. And I urge you not to approve this. Thank you for your attention, Mr. Chairman. Hello, I'm Raeann Thomas, live on Jack's Creek Road. And before we start, before I start that, there were so many people, community members and farmers that were out in this area out here that they put another monitor up downstairs, just FYI, for all the people that were out there to be at this meeting today. I'm the fourth generation. My grandchildren are the sixth that live on the farm on Jack's Creek Pike. We're still farming this land. I've got children and grandchildren that are driving tractors, wagons, farm implements all around these roads that we're talking about right now. We can come up with a whole lot of situations and reasons not to do this. But the personal situation is that, ironically, the, he called it wooded area, that was shown in your diagram that was the little block cut out was actually owned by a farmer that was killed on Richmond Road on his tractor. So just, you know, we are still farming the area. There are still farm implements around there. You know, this is part of the dying America that we need to keep open. You know, the 8th in school was closed because of the population situation, they said. The 8th in school is now still running as a business. They've opened another school not two miles away from it. And people are saying, you know, they shouldn't have done that. Oh, I wish they hadn't done that. Well, one of my pet peeves is people putting the situation out there, showing their diagrams, all these people telling you why this shouldn't be done, and then later on, somebody says they shouldn't have done that. Why did they do that? You know, we're here screaming the reasons. We're still a farming community. We've still got implements on the road. You know, my family's taking their life in their hands every day that they're on that road right now. What's going to happen when all this happens, you know? So, you know, that's my point. And a whole lot of the farmers and community people that are out there feel the same way. I'm very passionate about it. and, you know, how many lives is it worth? You know, it is a problem. It could be a problem. You know, we love people. We love people coming into our area. Raven Run is right down our road, and now we're, you know, nationally acclaimed. And, you know, bicyclists are bad enough with cars. What about the farm implements? That's it. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Dale Harper. I live at 4181 Tradition Way. I'm on the board of the Homeowners Association. and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts. I've distributed, or Tracy, I think, has passed along my memo to you. In case I run out of time, you'll be able to read the last paragraph. But I'd just like to share my experience here and my thoughts about this plan, the development plan, and the waiver request. And a little bit of history, in 1958, the urban service boundary was created. And at least on this side of town, the line was drawn right through the reservoir. And up to this point, I haven't really heard anybody talk about the physical closeness or proximity of the storage facility for our drinking water, but it was right down the middle. It made sense back then, not because it allowed for better infrastructure and planning. After all, you'd have to have sewers on one side and septic systems on the other side. But in 1958, it made sense because we had an urban county government, and we had an urban and a county government, two governments. And both of those entities needed to have access, direct access, unfettered access to their water supply for drinking water. And back then, it was a source of storage facility for drinking water, and it is so today. Fast forward to 1996, and that planning commission, of which I was a part of, decided to move the boundary from the bottom of the watershed up to the ridge line. And so all of a sudden, that's when Ellerzee, the Anderson property, and the Traditions became eligible for urban development. Moreover when that decision was made to expand the boundary of the urban service boundary, expansionary master plan was developed and adopted as an element of the countywide comprehensive plan. The EAMP had contained principles to guide development and they yielded new land use categories and zones made specifically for these lands. The resulting 1996 future land use and zoning recommendations were not arbitrary. They were a product of exhaustive study and community engagement. Later planning commissions, and I was a member of two of them, re-adopted them as their updates in 2001, 2008, 2013, and 2018 with a comprehensive plan. Does one of my neighbors yield some time to me? No, sir. We don't do that? No, sir. Am I done? Yes, sir. All right, board chair, I better get right on it. So first of all, I thank everyone here for your service. What you guys do is not easy. We're in a community that has land use issues. My name is Ray Daniels. I'm board chair of Lexington for everyone. I also live at 3889 Brandon Park in Ellicott DeLong, So I live close to where this project is proposed to take place. We advocate quite simply for housing for everyone, housing in all price points for everyone. We also advocate housing for workforce. What we don't advocate for is doing anything with our beautiful horse farms and our agricultural community. This project is a project that's been a long time coming, as everybody has discussed. It fits the comprehensive plan. It is land that is usable, that's available, that creates density in our footprint. We have an award-winning developer who is involved in this project, who has won numerous awards for the types of projects that he's been involved in. And quite frankly, in the community that we live in, we have two distinct issues that we're confronted with for the first time. We have population loss, the last census. We have population loss in a school district. Why do we have that? We have lack of affordable housing. That is why we have that. What does that lead to? That leads to companies leaving our community to surrounding counties. What does that lead to? That leads to revenue issues, which you'll start to see. What does that lead to? That leads to taxation in our community for services because we don't have enough folks living in our community. So bottom line is this project creates housing opportunities in the right price point that is fair and equitable. That will, you know, we have a lot of folks here that are in and around Ellerslie, but quite frankly Ellerslie is zoned and the owner of that property could build apartments anytime that he wants to. And we have townhouses in our development already. So to me, everything is lined up to be perfect. We have a developer that is willing to hear the issues of the community, willing to change the design of his development. And we know from the results of his developments in and around central Kentucky. stays committed to it and commits to our community. He's on local boards, and he also gives up his time and resources to our community. So with that, once again, I thank you for your time and your service, and thank you for all you do for our community. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Susan Wagers, and I live at 4102 Tradition Way. I really appreciate the zoning board, And my family owns a farm on Bryan Station Road. And years ago, we were set to a 40-acre limit that we had to build on. And I really trust that. And I hope that will stay. But going through this right now, we're seeing that that comprehensive plan may not hold. So I hope there's no development there. I live right across Athens-Boonesboro Road in the traditions. My husband and I moved there about seven years ago when he became disabled. And we really do appreciate the quietness of the neighborhood and being able to keep the windows open and get the fresh air that he needs. I wasn't as concerned before I came here as I am now. The reason being the Wawa will be 24-7. that the sounds can carry, the light can carry, our peace is going to be affected. And I really would like for this not to happen, but I do appreciate what you do. I just wanted you to hear my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Greg House. I live at 3853 Branham Park, which is in the Ellerslie community. I've been a proud resident of Lexington for nearly 25 years. I'll echo the respect for what each of you do. My father was on the city council and for sales for nearly two decades. He spent most of that on planning and zoning. I don't know much about what he did when he was gone, but he was off and gone until midnight, got no pay, and made a lot of enemies. So thank you all for what you're doing. I also think he's the reason why Versailles Road looks a lot different than Nicholsville Road. He fought development to keep the green space and fought for those rural areas to keep Versailles and Woodford County as a great place that had a mix of urban and rural development and kept that segmented so it didn't become a mere suburb of Lexington. Now, I've been outside for the last two and a half hours with about 80 of my colleagues, most of whom are strongly opposed to this project. It was hard to hear out there. There was a lot of commotion, but we appreciate the opportunity to speak. And hopefully I'm speaking on behalf of those individuals who have persevered. About half of them are still out there. As far as the proposal itself, the gas station, in my mind, is not needed. I can count four gas stations up and down Richmond Road within a mile of that property. There's three by the interstate. There's a circle K just down the road. I don't see where that has any relevance or value. In general, this does not follow the comprehensive plan. I'll just echo what Mr. Simpson and others said about that. We've got to make sure that we're planning first and building second. I'll also give a lot of kudos to Mr. Anderson and his attorney. They did a great sales job and made this little tiny eight-acre plot of land seem like a sprawling country club. In reality, it is tiny. And I think building this type of development on such a tiny plot of land so close to the horse farms and other rural development sets a terrible precedent for what else is going to come out in Richmond Road. Thank you for your time and just know that I strongly oppose this proposal. Thank you. Hello, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for giving us a few minutes to do this. Thank you for the hard work you put in this. I worked for the Planning Commission in 1973, before college, all the way through college, and worked for the city right after that. So I know it's thankless sometimes, but I actually was asked today to share with you a letter from a neighbor that is right next door to this piece of property because she was unable to be here. Oh, my name is Lyle Hanna, and I live at 6398 Old Richmond Road, so right up the road from this potential development. But Linda Green, Curtis Green, you know, they have a large farm right next to this property, like right across the road from where this will be. In fact, that road will probably eat up some of their property. And Linda Green asked me to share this. She said, my name is Linda Green, and I am the immediate neighbor of the Fells property Dennis Anderson is trying to rezone. Please accept this letter as a formal request to object to Mr. Anderson's request for a highly dense development of the Phelps property. The plan to change the zoning to allow over 130 townhomes and apartments is inconceivable in the area. This property currently allows two to three houses per acre, not a large commercial entity, a gas station, and a highly populated development next to and catty-cornered from an active horse farm. And against the comprehensive plan, sometimes we expect as area residents follow. And do you all know how close this property is to downtown Lexington? It's probably the closest horse farm. And you know what's right next door to that one? Judmont. You know who won the Derby in 2001? Judd Mott. So we've got horses right there that are just within stone-throwing distance of this very large property development. She goes on to say the plan could create a worsening traffic situation in an area with excessive traffic at peak travel times and could even worse with a poor plan also on the table to supposedly improve the traffic situations. That's the R-cuts. Most people who live out there have never gotten a good explanation of the R-cuts. We've driven all over the state to try them out in other places. They have not. They're not working all that well in other places. So while they talk about, oh, the great R-cuts, we're not convinced that's it, too. She goes on to say, due to the lack of commuter infrastructure, i.e., no bus service, no bike lanes, no gas stations, no post office, this means that all tenants are going to be required to own automobiles and go about their daily lives, which is going to exacerbate the traffic problem. Given the fact that every tenant is going to have to own their own transportation, this means the developer's argument that he's creating affordable housing is erroneous. This is a bad site for this type of development. I seriously encourage the commission to reject the development plan as it is currently presented. It is important to wait until the final urban service area comprehensive plan is finalized before making the decision to change the Phelps property zoning. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. I would like to ask permission for the people. I think most of them may be in here now. It comes in the microphone. I would like to ask permission if at least the people that are still left could come in for a moment just to be recognized. We have over 120 people here. A lot of them have left. A lot of them couldn't hear what was going on. Is that okay? Is this everybody that was out there? I don't think we're going to catch on fire anytime soon. I'm told it's a fire issue. Well, at least you see this many. And thank you all for coming in and for being here today. My name is Mary Diane Hanna. I'm the county judge executive and president of Ulbertron Road. I live at 6398 Ulbertron Road, and I wanted to recognize those people that have been here and tried to be with us and make an impact. Because two weeks ago, it was kind of like we had a better impact in the other room, and we didn't think that would be a great room. One of the major reasons I was glad for the county and city to be merged is it gave equality to the quality of education throughout the city, and it probably improved the fire and the police protection. It has, over the years, increasingly diminished the voice of the people in the country. With City Planning Department and the LFUCG and the C part, the county is essentially overrun, outvoted and underserved by what the residents in this area, the rural area, desire. Even with our 12th district council person, she represents about as many people, I think, in the city as she does the county, and she does a great job for us, but we might not always have that option. And we do have a couple of other council people who are at large who may or may not be with us, so our voice doesn't always get heard or get represented. So I ran for the Fayette County Judge Executive position to try to be a voice for the country. I have a lot of people who call me because of that or being the Old Richmond Road neighborhood president trying to help them get things done. Aphids Way was a farm road, a gravel dirt road for most of my life. At some point it was paved and it became the outside edge of the urban service boundary. And I do what I can to protect what is beyond that area. I would like for you to listen to us. the people of the country. We are here to see justice done from the city planners who really seem to care what we think or what we want and increasingly see less empathy or care. We see less empathy and care from the planning commission today. Please see us, see the people who are here to ask for your justice, your mercy on those who do not want this intrusion at the entrance against the comprehensive plan to our rural roads, our farms, be they cattle farm, farm, horse farms, vegetable farms, heed the voice of your predecessors from the former planning commissions and help us preserve our rural way of life. And I have a list that I know there are other people that aren't on this, but I have 111 people on this, and I know at least four or five others that are here that haven't even signed this list. So we are here. We would like you to represent us. and for any one person that comes to bother to come down here and ask for your help. I know that there are probably five or ten more who feel the same way, probably 25 or 50 more. Thank you very much. Take care. Thank you. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, going forward, we can't have the applause. I just want to be polite to everyone. If you can refrain yourself from that, that would be appreciated. Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Chairman Forster, Judge Executive Mary Diane Hanna. Did you have a petition that you were submitting with names? For the record, is that? Okay, that would. Okay, thank you. Okay, yes, sir. My name is Albert Kelly, and I live at 204 Elleslie Park Boulevard in Lexington. And I'm a recent resident here. I moved here 13 years ago. And I'm coming from a very dense city, the city of Boston. And one of the things that I found when I came here was one of the most attractive things that my wife and I, because she's originally from Kentucky, was the fact that Lexington is the first city in the United States to have an urban growth boundary. It's the most impressive thing. And then I looked at the planning and the type of activities that you have done over the years and have seen it's extraordinary. And it is the envy of other cities in the country. Every time you fly into the airport here, you're reminded what a special, unique place this is. You have this almost European, English city surrounded by this extraordinary, exquisite country. And it is a very special, precious gift that we all have. And I ask you to just follow those plans. You've done an extraordinary job. Your predecessors have been doing this for years. You've been doing it for decades. And I am not opposed at all to development. I'm not opposed to someone buying a piece of property and expanding and utilizing that property to its highest and best use. This is not that parcel. There are parcels all over the city that are underutilized. Right around the corner, right outside this building, we have parking lots where there should be a city. All over this place. And that is not the way you have done such an extraordinary job. Just keep at it. And I know everyone has worked really hard, and I've been in volunteer organizations like yours. It's a tremendous amount of hard work, and I appreciate the efforts that you're doing. But please follow what you have already put in place. Protect this special parcel called this place called Lexington. You have a sense of place that is unique to anywhere in the country. There is nothing like this. We have all traveled all over the country. and you land in these places like Dallas and Houston and L.A., and it's just this anonymous place. This is a special gift that we all have living here. Let's preserve it, but make sure that we can make it so it's inclusive and we have a diverse city, which is what we work in. It's a hard job to do that, but let's keep at that. But this is not the place to put this thing and plop it here, right on the edge of the horse farms and at the edge of the city. Make it part of a comprehensive plan, which is what you're in the middle of doing. Continue to do your work, which you do a spectacular job at. This does not fit that at all. And thank you. Thank you. I know I just said what I said. I know I did. Good afternoon. My name is Kevin Warren. I live at 1790 Clear Lake Drive with my wife, Victoria. I am currently the president of the Hillgate Farm Homeowners Association. We moved out to the country 24 years ago to get out of the city density, at least partially based on the fact that it was planned for and supported by the city to remain low density. Note, I was willing to forego all of the great amenities that the Planning Commission and Mr. Anderson are now offering. I was willing to forego the ease of a gas station, the Internet-ordered takeout, a dog park, By the way, the largest dog park in the city is located directly across the street from this development. A sit-down restaurant, green spaces, electronic vehicle charging, and bike parking. I gave them all up. All based on the plan and the promise by you of low density. Since moving, I and many others, the overflow area is full of them, if you want to go out and take a look, has spent time fighting the city who continues to try to bring density to us. I'm appalled that the Planning Commission and now Mr. Anderson's own lawyers have the audacity to stand here today and tell us that they have the right to build a gas station today on this property and there's nothing you can do about it because it's been zoned B3 for 60 years so therefore the whole development should just be approved. This property, proposed property, in question was and is zoned residential three homes per acre. I'm appalled that anyone, especially those charged with enforcing the plan, could possibly agree that 24 residents per acre is low density, that a restaurant is residential, that an eight-pump car-centric gas station is agricultural, that an agriculture farmer would need 184 paved parking spaces. If the commission is going to support this plan, they should probably change their name to the Unplanning Commission. I strongly oppose this development and respectfully ask that you represent the wishes of the people and reject this very inappropriate proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Before the next individual walks up. Kevin Warren. Thank you, sir. Mr. Blue shirt, sir, you in the blue shirt there with your arms crossed? Yeah, I'm talking to you. I need from you to go all the way out. We had a complaint, unfortunately, outside of the door. And ma'am, you can come up and then they'll take turns. Yes ma'am, you're up. I have nine in line to speak. Are you just standing up? Okay, if you're not sitting in a chair, you have to step outside. I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Let me tell you, when I first joined the Planning Commission, I was white. I was white. Okay. Do they have anyone that would like to speak? Or are all of those just standing? If so, or if not, I'm going to bring it back to Mr. Murphy for the rebuttal. Yep. Mr. Murphy. Are you going to, Ms. Martin, are you going to add anything new that we haven't heard? Okay. I don't want to be repetitive. Mr. Simpson has been pretty good. No, you did a good job. Good afternoon, Commission. Thank you for the work you do. I've been in the community for 41 years. My name is Nelson Maynard. I've been serving the community in various ways, working with the council, working with Kentucky Utilities Company, working with Bluegrass Tomorrow, for example. many years, and by the way, I live at 4020 Livingston Lane, which is the last townhouse or the first townhouse, if you want, that's going to be looking at the next set of townhouses being proposed across the street. So as I mentioned, I could sum up my thoughts with saying ditto. A lot of what's been said is ditto. A lot of great comments. I appreciate those. As we worked with, I served as Bluegrass Tomorrow's chairman for many years. Worked with Steve Austin, who was the CEO of Bluegrass Tomorrow for years. As he worked with smart development, proposed development, green growth, etc. And also I hired Rob Rumpke, who is the current chair of the Bluegrass Tomorrow. So when I speak of Bluegrass Tomorrow and Smart Growth and people that are interested in how the city grows, someone mentioned there were 180 people here. Perhaps that's true. But I can tell you as Chair of Bluegrass Tomorrow, past chair, and working with many, many, many people in the city of Lexington and in Fayette County, they love the city the way it is. They love the way you've planned it. They love the way growth is being done. yet they're concerned about smart growth. And they're not only 180, but there are thousands of our community citizens who are not here today, but who you represent to do the right thing. And that's follow a comprehensive plan. If you choose not to do that, that's your choice. You also have a choice to wait till it's revised. And I've heard that today as well. That's part of ditto. So think about the thousands and thousands of people that you represent. And you've done a good job of that. And we look forward to you continuing that. Thank you. Mr. Peter. Mr. Peter. Mr. Peter. Mr. Peter. Sir. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Frank Canavo. They have a 4553 Walnut Creek Drive. First want to say I appreciate so much that you volunteer your time and your talent for what you do. It's almost a thankless job, and we appreciate it. My mother was at a planning commission in my hometown, and I never saw her most nights for the same reason. So I understand what it's like. Also, like Mr. Simpson, I grew up in apartments, so I have nothing against apartments. Most people in the world do not own their dwellings, so apartments are great. The real issue is the restaurant and the gas station at this location. I don't know if they're told the representative of Wawa, but within two miles of either direction, there's eight gas stations that sell food, good food and coffee. I'm sure their product is wonderful, but she's going to have more competition than she thinks she's going to have. Plus, there's more coffee shops. I just want to keep in terms of the character of the area, the gas station, the restaurant doesn't fit. It doesn't fit the comprehensive plan. I heard it more than once. I think I would ask you to really consider that more deeply as you're working on the comprehensive plan and see if there's another way that we can meet the requirement for the dwellings for the apartments that people need without throwing in commercial enterprises there. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Mr. Martin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Commission members. I'm Gloria Martin. I'm the current chair of the Rural Land Management Board, and Beth Overman is here. She's the director. And I wanted to explain to you all that we are here because it's required by ordinance that we assist the government, quote, in implementing the specifics of any plans adopted by the government or the planning commission relating to the rural service area, end quote. That's Code of Ordinances 26.6.10. Also in the Rural Land Management Plan, Goal E, page 17, says, quote, to protect the rural sources from adverse effects associated with any urban development, end quote. The point that I'm bringing that up and the reason we came is because in order, we want to be team players with you all. And we really support the Rural Land Management Plan, the Expansion Area Master Plan, and all good planning in general. And we have not, and the staff knows this, and our new commissioner is here, and I've already spoken to Commissioner Horn about this. We want to be team players. The Expansionary Master Plan, the Rural Land Management Plan were devised at the same time. Some of you have been on the Rural Land Management Plan as well as the Comp Plan and as well as Planning Commission. You know that every time these plans are updated, it clearly says that the Rural Land Management Plan will be part of it. But this is at the, there are, it does have some effects because it's right at the edge of the boundary. There are setbacks, there are buffers, there are all kinds of things to consider. There are, as I told you, other working plans in the area, other working farms that are very diverse that are concerned about this. The Rural Land Management Board is very diverse. We have a very diverse membership. We have a standing committee to discuss any, and those of you who've been on the board know, discuss the legal issues. So we can do these things and assist you and make all of these things better. We are asking you to adhere to the plans together. The place builder, we know about that. It relates to the zone it's in. We have been involved behind the scenes on all of these plans and the updated plans. And we do want you to remember what they've said. We know that there's going to be development there. It's in the expansion area. We know that there is one business of zoning there. There's one business next door on the greens that sent you the letter. They also know they have one acre of business. But all of this needs to be taken into consideration, and everyone needs to be considered when you start making these recommendations. They are, Beth is, part of our planning staff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a question? No, ma'am. I was saying thank you. Okay. I think we've heard a lot of citizen comments. I would like to move this over to the rebuttal stage. Now, Mr. Murphy, will you come up? Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And we've heard a lot of comments and we value the comments of the neighbors in this area. I just want to emphasize a few points. Some of these are going to be sort of random. I want to do it as quick as I can on this one. We are not at the edge of the urban service boundary. There is a property between us and the urban service boundary. and I know people have said they rely upon low density and a recommendation. Well, there's been B3 zoning there for 60 years, almost three times as long as the comprehensive plan recommendation was there. Comments were made, I think, by Mr. Hodge about you couldn't do this because difference in laws. What he didn't quote you was there when he was saying when there's a conflict, It says the laws will prevail. That's the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations. It was not a reference to the place builder versus the expansionary master plan. Of course, they will prevail. Zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations are laws. Our comprehensive plans are not laws. I didn't expect Mr. Simpson to use his favorite quote from the case law of Kentucky this time, but I will use it. It's a favorite quote of mine, too. And that's what the Kentucky courts have said. The comprehensive plan is a guide, not a straitjacket. Neither the expansionary master plan nor place builder are laws. They are plans. They are guides. And as the court has said, they are guides, not straitjackets. Mr. Simpson would put us in a straitjacket on this case. He usually argues that it is just a guide. but they are guides and you have the expansionary master plan and the place builder plan here. The staff has analyzed these and looked at them and recommended approval of our plan because it is an agreement with a comprehensive plan. It does, as I said, we do not abut the urban service area. we do not agree that the this should be amended and we should pause and do a new comprehensive plan a lot of concerns in that obviously we have a right to be considered because we we have the right to file a zone change application and as you all recall many of the items that were recommended five years ago were not done for funding reasons or for covid reasons We cannot say, oh, we'll just wait to the next plan and say that's six, seven years down the road. We just can't do that. We need to go forward with the property that we have now. We think we have the best plan that will be presented to you. As I mentioned to you, the expansion area master plan has principles as well. Bruce put a number of them in his handout, but there were a number of principles in the expansion area master plan from 27 years ago that he didn't put in his handout. Some of them I read to you, but I just want to emphasize the ones that he didn't put in his plan as well from the expansion area master plan. Neighborhood commercial uses should be available in the expansion area. Developers should have flexibility to mix uses and housing types within the expansion area. Different land uses should be buffered through the use of design and landscaping. Neighborhood and community recreational facilities needed to serve the residents of the expansion areas should be provided in the expansion areas. Development in the expansion areas should be organized around community centers or places. Residential development in the expansion areas should produce housing types and costs which support economic development initiatives in Fayette County. Now, those are in the expansion area master plan from 27 years ago. In addition, we are supported by the place builder criteria, which the staff has gone through with you about placing additional density along major corridors, about putting in, yes, we're putting in bicycle facilities and pedestrian facilities. We're planning for the future out here. We have those as well as cars. People have cars today, too. We're planning for all of those. And as the staff had mentioned, we're planning for the possibility of when transit service is extended to this property as well. Forty percent of the people in Lexington are renters, as I mentioned. We've had people today, people in townhouses existing object to having townhouses on our property. We've had people object to the nature of it. We've had people concerned about traffic safety. Now, that's a concern I don't think they should have because the RCUT, as has been mentioned to you by traffic engineers, will greatly increase safety in this area. It's going to cut down on those 60-mile-an-hour T-bone accidents, which is the reason why the staff is doing the RCUT proposal on here. This is a preliminary development plan. we will come back to you and you'll be able to look at lighting, sound, buffering, entrance points, and all that sort of thing when we come back to you with the final development plan. I really think this is the best plan that will be presented to you. It's a plan which provides a mix of uses as provided in the expansion area. We get worried about making changes. Well, Costco came in and made significant changes to the expansion area plan, gave extra commercial to the area, many acres, and that was done very quickly. That was done about as quick as a jet could land at Bluegrass Field to get Costco in here. We've had changes to allow UK Hospital. We've had changes to this plan made through zoning, made through zoning and text amendments. The implementation of the plan, I think is the proper word, for UK Hospital, Baptist Health to come out to the expansion area. Changes, as I said, for Costco and Cabela's. And all those are good. Those are things which are very desired in this community and wanted this community. But just as we can make those changes to do things that are good for this community, we can make a much smaller change in agreement with Place Builder, in agreement with the Comprehensive Plan to allow housing for the 40% of people in Lexington, 125,000 people who rent, and for the missing middle, the workforce housing here. If we can do it for Costco and Cabela's and the hospitals, we can do it for this property. Three weeks ago, I was over in Versailles, and it was weekday, and I got done early with what I was doing. Dennis has a development in Versailles called Wooldridge Gardens. It's on Falling Springs Boulevard out there, very near the rural area. And it's sort of similar to this. It has apartments and townhomes. It has a swimming pool and recreation area. And I stopped by, and it's near the rural area. It's much bigger than this, but I stopped by to see how it was going because I hadn't been out there since it was nearly completed. And it wasn't a hot day. It wasn't a cool day, but I stopped out there, and the swimming pool and the common area was a beehive of activity. There were people walking on the walkways, talking to each other. It looked like it was almost 100% occupancy in the apartments out there. And I was proud to have been a small part of that development. You're going to have a similar development here. And if you vote to approve us, which I hope you do, and you come back after this is completed, you're going to be proud that you developed, you voted for this development as well. Thank you very much. We hope you'll vote in favor of this. I think it's an outstanding development. We'd be happy to answer, if there's any more questions, we'd be happy to answer them. Thank you. I thank you. We'll hold the questions to the afterwards. Thank you. Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission. I appreciate the time you all devote to these things. As volunteers, you don't get paid a thing. And you have to take a lot of criticism and comments. And it's not an enviable job, certainly not at all, particularly when you're a volunteer. So I appreciate you. And I'm privileged to be here and be called upon to represent Old Richmond Road once again. If this case is going to be decided based on one sentence that says, the necessary regulations prescribed within the Expansionary Master Plan should influence any decision made regarding place type, which is referenced specifically to place builder, because it's never been referenced before in the prior plan, place type. The necessary regulations prescribed within the expansionary master plan should influence any decisions made regarding place type, development type, and zoning preference for future development within these areas of expansion area. These considerations should be in addition to and, conjunctive, and, which means we include the next phrase, not in place of the place builder process and criteria, which means you consider both. So if that's going to be the so-called litmus test for y'all's consideration, let's look at the other provisions of the 2018 plan that arguably you need to look at in terms of guidance on what exactly does this mean. What does it mean when he says the necessary regulations prescribed within the expansionary master plan should influence any decisions made regarding place type, development type, and zoning preference for future development within the expansion area? So what other clarifying? We have one reference to place builder. So what else do we say in the comprehensive plan of 2018? Well, I gave you reference after reference after reference that says you need to look at amending the comprehensive plan to see if the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan for 2018, as they apply to residential areas, should be amended to reflect the 2018 goals and objectives. What are those 2018 goals and objectives states? To increase density along the corridors, quite specifically. And we've had numerous cases where you all have done that. You've honored the plan by increasing density along the corridors inside the old urban services area, not in the expansion area. This is a different area, which is why they make a specific reference to pay attention to this area because it's governed by different regulations than the old urban services boundary, which does not have a land use element. Okay, that's number one. What else does the comprehensive plan state that would give you guidance about this sentence of considering the expansion area master plan and place builder? Well, I have referenced on page 9 of the expansion area master plan, included under tab number 5, future land use. This is an important sentence. This applies in the expansion area. It does not apply inside the old urban services area. You will not find this language in the old services area, old urban services area. It only applies in the expansion area, the property we're talking about. Today, and this is the sentence that's critical, the use and intensity of use of lands within the expansion area, this property, here's a critical word, critical, because you don't see it often, shall, not may, not should, not maybe, shall. The use and intensity of use of lands within the expansion area shall be consistent with the land use designations in this element. So when you're considering place builder and you're considering the expansion area master plan, you cannot find a more definitive, declaratory, affirmative obligation in terms of guidance of the plan than shall be consistent with the land use designation. And as I stand here tonight, the land use element is low density, up to three units an acre. So if you consider this one sentence that you consider place builder, the overwhelming evidence in the plan itself that you adopted in 2018 is that you have to pay attention to the land use element. and this is not being done. And this is why, in my humble opinion, you should turn this zone change down. Let Dennis Anderson come back during the comp plan update, make his arguments about changing the comp plan for the next cycle, and see if you buy them. Don't set a precedent for creating more density that's not consistent with the expansion area master plan that compromises the potential to be objective about whether you should include any land, any land, in this section of Lexington for future development. It should be turned down. Let's honor the process and honor the plan that you all said in 2018. If we're going to change the plan in the expansion area, we should amend it, which requires under KRS 100-191 to change the plan. It says this. All elements of the comprehensive plan, all elements of which the expansionary master plan is one, shall, again, shall. This is a statute. You have to do this if you're going to amend the plan. You cannot do it by text amendment. You cannot do it by zone change. All elements of the comprehensive plan shall be based upon, but not limited to, the following research, analysis, and projections. One, an analysis of the general distribution characteristics of past and present populations, and a forecast of the extent and character of future populations as far into the future as is reasonably to foresee. Two, an economic survey and analysis of the major existing public and private business activities and a forecast of future economic levels, including a forecast of anticipated necessary actions by the community to increase the quality of life of its current and future populations through encouragement of economic development as far into the future as reasonably to foresee. Three, research and analysis as to the nature, extent, adequacy, and needs of the community for the existing land and building the use, transportation, and community facilities. On and on and on and on. This research can't be done as a zone change. It's done by an amendment to the comprehensive plan. The plan is not being followed. The plan is not being amended. And the comprehensive plan says you have to turn this down with all due respect. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Timpson. Staff. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crum, planning staff again. And I just wanted to sort of address several components of some of the information that you've heard over the course of the proceedings here. So first to kind of highlight, it was mentioned earlier in the meeting that when the expansion area master plan was adopted, council opted not to rezone the properties in line with these kind of provisions at the time. Rather, they decided on a case-by-case basis that they would rather hear it out and play it through the rezoning process. So the future land use map that you see in front of you is not this unchangeable document. It's not the zone that is guiding this actual development. It still requires them to go through the process. That process gives them the option to deviate from that. There's numerous rezonings that have occurred that have deviated from the future land use kind of component of the expansionary master plan. And with the expansion area master plan being this document with the age that it has, as time goes on further and further, kind of the differences between how we regulate currently and how our comprehensive plan acts, the way it functions, the way that it works on a day-to-day basis kind of grows. So within the comprehensive plan, there are those objectives and policies that relate to updating this plan because we were seeing such severe deviations from what was originally anticipated, especially in instances, for instance, when the Costco development went in. The rezoning for that was a change in the location of the CC zone. It was a change in the size of the CC zone. Later on, they expanded it further. When they re-evaluated that second rezoning, they were still looking at the original land use map, which anticipated a completely separate set of circumstances around that. And so staff's findings, when it rezoned that second portion, dealt with that this, due to the change in the area, this was suddenly a more appropriate zone than was first anticipated within the land use element, specifically that future land use map. Now, during staff's presentation, we tried to highlight the areas in which we found that the components of the expansion area master plan, especially what they were calling for and the type of development and the intent behind a CC zone were being met, especially as it related to the place type, the development type, and the zone. And staff, if you like, can draft conditions that sort of relate and speak to that in regards to creating a condition, or rather a finding, that the proposed zone and change in development is consistent with the element and principles of the expansion area master plan, in that the proposal is in line with EAMP requirements that neighborhood commercial uses should be available, curb cuts should be limited, these commercial areas should be confined to discrete nodes. Furthermore, the CC zone calls for a mixing of uses like the applicant's property, calls organizing around common open space, calls for integrated public spaces where people can live, work, and get their daily needs. The orientation of this meets the design of the CC. It is meeting the open space requirements. It is meeting the composition standards for how much non-residential should be there. These buildings and orientations are organized in such a way that it activates that public space, it activates open space, and provides connections to the surrounding area. So staff is, while it does not match the future land use map, it is in large in agreement with what we are looking for for areas that can serve the community, provide the higher density housing that is called for within the comprehensive plan, as well as providing the variety and change in housing types, as well as price points called out by the expansionary master plan. So staff kind of wanted to address those options with regards to kind of the legal arguments. I would defer to your legal counsel and sort of in the sense that both of these are being weighed together to give you all a kind of comprehensive picture. I'd be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff. Wait. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Jones, do you want to add anything or you're fine? Okay. Fair enough. All right. Okay. Well, we'll bring it back to the commission. I know there's a lot of heads that are turning and churning, so the floor is open for questions, concerns, comments. Mr. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, hello. Well, first of all, I appreciate the attorney's presentations. They were very quality, and it seems that you all have done a really good job of that. I also appreciate all the people stuck around. If nothing else, you proved your resilience as reality. and as your durability is to be able to sit through a meeting at this age and at this time. I have a question. This has come up a couple of times about that Costco thing. And I remember, unfortunately I've been around long enough to remember, that that was called spot zoning. Is that still the case? I don't think so. because the EAMP recommended that land use and that zone. What the commission did and the council did at that time was just change the location. So it was already recommended in that general area. I wouldn't categorize that as spot zoning. Okay, thank you. I know. I don't care for others. Oh, man. I'm going to dare. You're right. It is hard to sit in this spot and to hear all sides of everything. But it is a privilege to sit in this spot because we here all love this city also. And so our role is to find that balance. of what's fair to allow the city to be the best it can be. And so that's what we do. And that's what I personally do and I consider it a privilege. So where I come from is that this was zoned B3 60 years ago. 60 years ago. And as Mr. Simpson said, nothing will occur there because it's not relevant. Who's going to put a car lot there? But they can. They can. So where I come from in my role in this, I'm speaking for me, is always to try to find the balance to being relevant within our community and try to serve our community. And for me, I feel that Mr. Anderson and staff have done an extraordinary job of making this non-relevant property relevant. We are providing for the community, and I support staff and this proposal. Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Owens, I think it's your turn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been quite interesting because I know there's several postponements before I came back here on this. So obviously the word was out that there was activity going on out there and there's possibly something happening. What I see is this. These are my thoughts. land obviously is inside the urban service boundary and something is going to be developed there will be developed there. I know Mr. Anderson well. We've shared drinks together and Ms. Wade for your knowledge not during or before anything of any discussion that mattered here is always post or just very incidental. But a comment was made that he has a good development. I think he does have a good development. He puts forth a good development when he sets his mind to it and goes after it. When I saw this plan, first and foremost, I was thinking it said CC. I was thinking, I mean, I've advocated for CC for a long time, some form of mixed use. And then I saw four-story apartments and I said, well, gee, you know, if there could be a bunch of townhouses there, I think that'd be great. Revised plan comes forth. Here comes townhouses. And with that, during that time, with that revision, with the revised staff report, I've got a revised staff report that talks about not four-story apartment buildings, but three-story apartment buildings. And I said, well, we're definitely moving in the right direction. And it's like, can I live with three-story apartment buildings? And I'm really working hard to try and do that. I get down here today and I learned that's a typo and we're still a four-story apartment buildings. That is a tough go for me simply because I look at this as being still what was originally thought of, the original thought process, a transition from rural to urban and less density, not the density that we're talking about here. That is my sticking point. uh i agree with mr bell as far as balance and you know this this is an attempt to do that it's just a fact for me four-story apartment buildings there is just too much okay thank you mr ellens mr nickel yeah i have a couple of comments and then a recommendation My comments, I'd like to refer to the staff's recommendation of approval on 1A and 1B. Two of the things that point out that show me that this is something that needs to be done is, one, that the fact that this is an underutilized parcel of land within the urban service area. And then number two, as it says in A, the proposal introduces multifamily units that expands the variety of housing types and densities present in the area. So one of the things that we see is that one of the affordable housing problems is a supply problem. Any way we can increase the supply in the most appropriate way is a good thing for our citizens. The demand is not being met. We've heard we're 1,500 units short a year on dwelling units. And that puts a lot of pressure on those that are living here, our citizens that are having to pay more rent. and housing is has reached the crisis level at least from the language we hear from our our council people so um saying all that i think that this helps expands a variety of housing types that provides appropriate density on a vacant and unutilized piece of property which i think helps improve our affordable housing problems. So with that said, I would like to make the recommendation for approval of PLN MAR 23-00005 by Anderson Communities, referencing the findings from the staff that we have on this document. Okay. So you're making a motion and a recommendation? Motion. Yes, that is a motion. Okay. So we have a motion for Mr. Nickel. Any discussion to that motion? You second it? I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Hold on. It's getting late, guys. It's getting late. You second it, Ms. Barksdale? Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second by Ms. Barksdale. Any discussion to that motion? Mr. Mickler. Well, I have, I, you know, recognize a lot of people here on both sides of this issue, and I appreciate also, like has been said, everyone, as I think through my own vote on this issue, I'm conflicted in two ways because, you know, I think a lot of people care about the aesthetics of our town. They care about the neighborhoods they live in. And, you know, one of the things that defines Lexington's countryside for me is those rolling hills and the farmland with our silt loam soils. And the topography and the design of this site will flatten the hill and remove the soils. And, you know, we call the land underutilized. But it took hundreds of years to build that soil and that hill. And there's a certain appreciation and value there, and it hurts to see it leveled. And at the same time, I'm conflicted because this land is along a major corridor. and is inside of the area we have slated for development. And I do support where we see developers bring more plans that are more thought out. and there's certainly been a lot of thought and improvement since we first saw this plan. And given the transportation intensity of this area, I'm inclined to support this. But with my yes vote, I also, I just, it does hurt to see the rolling Fayette County Hill with the silt loam soils taken down. Thank you, Mr. McKenna. Okay. We've got our, okay, Ms. Meyer. This is hard. It's, I appreciate what the applicant has done in the way of coming up with a development plan, an ICE plan. I'm concerned about the density. I wish this could go on a, in a different place. I'm not sure that this is the place for that plan. I hope that you can, you know, I just wish it could be somewhere else. I, because I've, since I've been here, there have been a couple of, and I support infill and redevelopment. I support, you know, like Robin said, you know, putting housing on our corridors. I understand the affordable housing problem, but this hasn't just happened. It's been ongoing for some time, and all of a sudden it's the buzzword. But we've had a lot of development, and we haven't been addressing it. So now all of a sudden it's an issue. It's a crisis. And I think that's unfortunate. And so now here we are. You know, it's one side or the other side, you know. But I just don't feel like this is the place for this development. And I've seen what's happened out on Harrodsburg Road, South Alcorn, and I just, I can't in good conscience. I just don't want to see that happen. And I think there has to be a balance and there has to be transition. And this is a transition zone and this isn't a development for transition in my mind. Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Okay. Anybody else? You don't have to say anything. I'm not sure what I'm going to say. That's part of the problem. I share many of the concerns I've heard. And the legal issues, you know, we've got dueling points of view. Mr. Simpson, I think you made a really good case. And I'm always struggling when I hear two very different arguments from the lawyers. And I'm just going to trust that what we're doing here, if we vote in favor of this, is legal. So that's off to the side for me. I don't have to do that. I am not thinking of this as affordable housing. We've heard the term missing middle, which is different from affording housing. It's housing people can afford, but not legally affordable housing. So I'm presuming that the people who will be living there will have access to transportation. They'll probably own cars. they'll have access to things that you can afford if you're living in a place that's that rental. On the other hand, I'm concerned about the transition into the rural area with the farms. And particularly, I've watched Old Richmond Road progressively develop. No, Athens-Boonesboro. Athens-Boonesboro progressively developed, so I have the same feelings about that. But thinking about old Richmond Road as being an exemplar of what we want to preserve around here. For me, if we do this, that cut through has to be almost a line in the sand for what we do to protect what's on the other side of that road. So I am going with reservations to vote in favor of it and put on the record that I think we need to watch very carefully what happens on the other side of that road. Okay. All right. I think, Mr. Allen, you want to say another word? Maybe two words. Two words. Okay. Yeah, a lot of good thought has been put into this, a lot of good argument. I'm not going to say argument, discussion. If this had been, if I'd been sitting here three months ago hearing this, I would probably put forth an argument to say, okay, let's approve a zone change and postpone a development plan simply because I think, I thought, I think it's just too much density concerning where it is. I think my fine staff would tell me that we're against a deadline and there's no postponement here. So the only thing I can do would be vote against it just simply for that reason. You know, as I've said earlier, the mixed use, the community center aspect and so forth, I can definitely live with. But, you know, that's where my second point is. So thank you. Thank you. Mr. Poe? I would repeat everyone's statement about how difficult this decision is, but I think this is a very well-designed plan. I think that the fears about its disruption will prove to be unnecessary, unfounded. And I am really concerned about housing affordability, housing availability in Lexington, and know that the only way to combat that is to increase housing stock. And if we're going to get serious about addressing housing, we have to build housing. And so I'm going to be voting reluctantly on some levels, but I'll be voting for this. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. I think that cleared everybody up. All right. So we have, you got something, Mr. Wilson? Yes, sir. because I didn't give my vote as such. One of the difficult elements that we have here is the issue between process and results. And that's what makes this one of the most conflicting kinds of activities you have. And I was sitting here thinking, I don't know if I was in an operating room and the doctor came out and said, we followed every process right down the line, but your loved one passed away. Or where I want the doctor to come out and say, we violated every law in the land, but your loved one lived. So the issue I have is one related to results. And the question is, it's not so much in just that neighborhood, it's what's for the community of Lexington. And for that, I think I would vote yes. Thank you, sir. So this is time we can vote via Granicus our position. We have a motion and a second. So we'll vote via Granicus as it comes available for the zone change. Put it up there. It's coming. Okay, the motion passes for the zone change. Now we need a motion for the development plan. Mr. Nichol. Yes, I'm going to recommend approval for PLNMJDP 23-00024 Phelps property, citing the staff's 13 conditions that we see on the revised sheet. Okay, thank you. Do we have a second? Second by Ms. Boxdale. Any further discussions of that motion? I don't think so. Please vote via Granicus. As it comes up. Okay, that motion passes. All right, so before we move on to PLNMAR 23-10, Urban County Council, we're going to take a 15-minute break, bathroom break, do whatever you need to do, and then we'll come back and resume at 6-15. Thank you. It is 616, page 14, PLN MAR 23-10. Mr. Crum? Right. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crum, planning staff. Before we get into PLN and NAR 2310, I do have some letters of support for this request. Eight. All right. So this is a request that was actually initiated by the Urban County Council. And this is a request to modify zoning restrictions in the existing R1C zone for 37.219 acres of the properties shown on your screen that comprise the Saddle Club neighborhood. So this is addresses on Bridal Court, Dressage Way, Equine Court, Saddle Club Way, and a property on Viley Road. The Saddle Club Subdivision Homeowners Association is seeking to modify some conditional zoning restrictions that were installed at time of the original zone change approval in order to modify conditions relating to landscaping and fencing along New Circle Road. So just to orient yourself to the location of the property, it is this triangular piece of series of properties that are bound generally by Versailles Road to the south. New Circle Road to the west, and Viley Road to the east. This section of property was originally a part of Calumet Trace that with the construction of New Circle Road was sectioned off from the main farm and did operate sort of in conjunction with that as a horse farm for a number of years later. Zooming in on the zoning of the property, you'll see that the subject property is zoned R1C. This was done in 1995 in order to establish the current subdivision. You'll notice that to the east, there is additional single-family zoning, as well as south across Versailles Road. To the west, across New Circle Road, we have the Calumet Trace Farm with the AR zoning. So at the time of that 1995 rezoning, some objections and opposition were raised regarding kind of the character of this area. At the time, the rest of this was a horse farm, and there were some concerns on how redevelopment of this property would affect sort of the scenic viewshed as you were approaching Versailles Road, and as well as kind of keeping compatibility with Calumet Trace, or with Calumet Farm. So here you can see the subject property, and so Calumet Farm to the west across New SoCal Road. The subject, yes, sir. Do you mind just slowing down with your pointer because it's really hard to see from here? Yes. Thank you. Yes. So we have the subject properties outlined here, the Calumet Trace Farm with its kind of signature fencing running along West New Circle Road. So moving into the current conditions. So during that 1995 zone change, a number of conditions were imposed that kind of spoke to the entirety of the frontages. But of note that are seeking to be modified today are the ones along the new circle road frontage. This required them to maintain the existing farm fence that they had from when they were a horse farm, required them to have true plantings, a hedge planting, and a 20-foot buffer area. The applicant is seeking to modify that because there's been a change in the area that no longer makes this requirement appropriate in their letter of justification. So these conditions were applied in order to protect that viewshed and protect the character of those neighboring properties, particularly the relationship with the Calumet Farm. So here we have some images from 2018 and 2022 that display that there's been a significant change in the character of this area in the widening and improvements on New Circle Road resulting in a sound wall, a large concrete sound wall being installed by KYTC. This runs along the length of New Circle Road in front of the existing white farm fence that you see in the photos that was required to be maintained. It is now no longer visible from New Circle Road and surrounding properties due to the construction of this particular fence. I'll take you inside the property. So these are the view from within the subdivision itself. So it's from the areas kind of surrounding their common areas and their pond. but obviously you can see the impact of the fencing in this area along with the inability to see the adjoining farms and the adjoining development. So it's really serving as an effective screen there. Here it kind of highlights one of the issues that was raised by the Homeowners Association in their letter of justification. So they argued that the fence being butt up made it no longer visible. It also created issues with maintenance. So the areas between the sound barrier being installed and the fences on the perimeter of the property line created areas that were difficult to maintain and costly to kind of handle. So they argue that this is another barrier, that because this fence has been installed, that those restrictions are no longer necessary, and that they remove the fence in order to not have to, with the connection sort of being broken. After this sound wall was constructed, the homeowners association on several lots within the subdivision opted to remove the fencing that was there. Once they were alerted that this was an existing conditional zoning restriction and was required in order to remain in compliance with the zoning ordinance and the rules in effect at the time, they are now seeking out this change in conditional zoning restrictions to eliminate that requirement. So construction of the wall now makes a lot of what was required previously irrelevant with regards to New Circle Road. So when you're looking at amending conditional zoning restrictions, it's fairly simple in relative to our normal zone change process. You have to find that there's been a major change of an economic, physical, or social nature on the subject property that was not anticipated at the time of the initial condition being imposed and it substantially altered the basic character of the area. So place builder doesn't play into this request. The larger comprehensive plan, goals, objectives, and policies aren't particularly covered. It is, is there a condition or a change in the area that makes the government's condition requiring them to have fencing, landscaping, and a buffer along West New Circle Road necessary? So here you get kind of the view once again. And so 2018, at the top, you can see pre-construction of the wall, that the two properties kept that kind of similar character. You've got the rolling hills, you've got the white fence, you've got the landscaping, and the two kind of maintained that view shed and that connectivity. 2022, one side has fencing still visible, has those characteristics, but on the right with the existing sound wall has severed everything but generally the tops of trees and the tops of buildings. And so staff in our review of this found that there has been a substantial change in this area, but for the portions of the New Circle Road frontage where sound walls are all present. So we have proposed a modification instead of lifting that requirement entirely, alter the language for the portions of New Circle Road frontage where walls are not present. And we did this because there is a small stretch of the very northern portion where from New Circle Road, that existing fence still remains, the landscaping still remains, and is able to be maintained and doesn't have a fence or sound barrier that is really interfering with your ability to see it. So from that point on, it still matches the character and the connectivity with the Calumet Farm. And so staff didn't find that this particular portion had any change where lifting that zoning restriction was terribly necessary. So staff's recommended alternative language speaks to eliminating the required fencing and landscaping and buffer anywhere that that sound wall is present. So staff is recommending approval of our alternate language. There was a significant change in the area in the form of this Kentucky Transportation Cabinet sound barrier. It is kind of disrupted that visible consistency with the area and that this was not anticipated at time of the initial rezoning. And so the proposed condition number four is our staff alternative language that speaks to removing that restriction where sound walls are not present. So there has been a substantial change in the area with the installation of a fence. The current conditions are no longer appropriate. These conditions, staff finds that they are. So with that, that is all staff's presentation. I'd be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff at this time. Mr. Bell. Daniel, do you mind going back, showing the ones where it shows both sides? Yeah, right there. If I'm not mistaken, I think Calumet has started to paint some of the fences black. Yes. Yes. And so I would suggest that, you know, I wouldn't suggest coming back with white. White is so much harder to maintain. The norm today is black. And if you're going to match with the existing, I would just suggest not going with the white or at least something like that. So they're in the process of changing, I believe. And the language and the actual conditions that were applied at the time of the initial rezoning don't really specify a color consistency there. It just says that the existing farm fence shall be maintained. So the color specifics aren't. That's fine. I just wanted to point that out. Because for the longest time, they were the only one with white around and such. So thank you. Okay. Okay. Mr. Crumb, I don't see any more questions. Thank you, sir. All right. Applicant. I don't need power holds because they failed. They seemed to on me, at least. And I walked in, and I'll be honest, I thought they were all waiting to hear me speak because the crowd there was pretty impressive. I felt pretty good about myself until I found out we were second. Let me start off by saying that the abbreviated... Sorry, would you introduce yourself? I'm attorney for the Saddle Club Homeowners Association. The abbreviated hearing would have been appropriate for this matter, except that a disgruntled disagreement between the HOA and some members of the community has come up. And my purpose here today is to explain to you that there's a difference between what the internal turmoil of some of the members of the HOA has caused with respect to the committee meeting, some misrepresentations, some concerns about the ramifications that were actually going to occur because of a possible removal of the conditional zoning change. I want to emphasize with my posters here this is the area this is the area that we're dealing with here and you can see that the fence the barrier fence that was installed follows the track around new circle as per sale that's the area that we're dealing with now when the regulation when the additional zoning the conditional zoning restriction was applied. The purpose of that was to make sure that, as was said earlier, to make sure that the consistency between Calumet Farm stayed true to the subdivisions that were inside of New Circle, specifically the Saddle Club subdivision. At that time, there were three basic, it's a triangle-shaped type deals. So there's a Viley, there's a Versailles, and then there's this New Circle corridor here. And as was discussed, the barrier wall was installed in July 2022 because of the widening of New Circle. And the widening of New Circle did cause some problems that necessitated the barrier wall. And from all the information I have been given by the members, the barrier wall is serving its purpose very well. What happened was that once that barrier wall went up, you had a situation where there was a redundancy with the fence. So the primary purpose was to keep the consistency between Calumet Farm and the subdivision fence so that we'd be in a position to aesthetically please not only the neighborhood but the surrounding areas. That went away completely when the sound barrier fence went up. And behind that fence is the old Calumet type fencing that remained. This is a picture up here. This fencing was run down here. As mentioned by Mr. Bell earlier, Calumet had already started painting the other fence black. This is a lot of money. There's 2,512 linear feet of fencing that has now been located by the South. That's a lot of money. That's a really, I believe that the, sir, we can't hear you. You can stand away from me. I'm sorry. That's the problem with not using a PowerPoint. I think that the cost over the last three years, there was a spike about three years ago, but the cost on maintaining some of those fences is listed at $5,000 to $6,000. And that's expensive. And the purpose is very clear. The purpose was to make sure that we didn't ruin the view as you're on New Circle and you see beautiful white fences of Calumet and over here you see a subdivision that's trying to meld into that. Again, the HOA is not arguing that the portions of the fence that remain visible are not maintained. They have that obligation under the governing documents the HOA, but it becomes a redundancy and it's simply not fiscally responsible to subject the members to basically upkeeping a fence that's not visible to the outside and is only visible to the people inside. So what's happened is under the governing documents, the HOA has the easement over that fence. It's on an easement and they control and maintain that. According to the governing documents, they don't have to get a 75% vote to go ahead and move that because they maintain it legally. They're able to go ahead and remove that. Once that was removed, that's when the dissent began to increase substantially and prevented this from probably going to an abbreviated hearing. I'd like to make mention of a couple of things that have been brought up regarding the, regarding the fence. The fence is not there anymore, okay? The fence is no longer in existence. So if that fence was, if you all refused or decided not to remove the conditional zoning, that fence would have to be rebuilt, okay? It is not there right now. Like I said, the board had the legal authority to remove that, but they did take the temperature of the membership. I think that some of the board members will speak to the fact that the vote was 65 to 8, I believe, in favor of not placing that fence back up or removing that fence because of the costs associated with continuing to do that. And furthermore, the board offered to those homeowners who believe that their backyard line of sight, their aesthetic feel to their property was diminished because the fence was taken down. They have that right for the board to go ahead and rebuild that if they want it at their own expense, of course. I don't think that there's any prevention of that. of the eight people that voted against, I believe two have houses that back up to that sound barrier. Okay, of the 26 houses that do back up to that sound barrier, I believe two are dissenting. I believe that a couple of the other neighbors have raised concerns about safety. Safety is the number one concern for the HOA and I would be hard-pressed to say that this fence that was in existence before the sound barrier was put up was keeping I'm sorry I will I'm gonna sound like a I'm gonna break that pull there we go okay so this was not preventing children from getting to New Circle. This was not preventing trash from getting from New Circle onto these people's property. This is a four-plank fence that is dilapidated that would have needed replacing and would need it painting. So the board after getting the input from the membership made a decision to go ahead and remove that. In the process of making that decision they They also contacted the state of Kentucky regarding some of the maintenance between that fence, and I think this was talked about earlier, and the sound barrier. It became an area of overgrown weeds. They couldn't get back in there to mow it. You know, it's a house for snakes and critters and all that sort of stuff. And it even turned into some sort of a catch-all for some of the debris that was leaving New Circle Road. So, you know, I'm not up here talking about Wawa. I'm not up here talking about, you know, trying to change the overall perception of Lexington and how the rolling hills and all this kind of stuff. This is simple. This is an internal HOA problem that dissenters have raised, but it has no effect on the staff recommendations or the fact that there's been a significant change. I mean, we've got, as one resident said, a Berlin Wall up now. I mean, that's a difference. That makes a big difference. So if the commission decides that they want to keep the conditional zoning in place, they're doing it for the backyard view of several neighbors. and to spend the kind of money to keep up that kind of a fence to monitor the the area in between the continuing discussions with who's going to cut that can they get back there but most importantly the majority of the HOA wanted to go ahead and get rid of it so I want to give you a little bit of information about some of the people that are going to be speaking to address what I consider to be some red herrings. You're going to hear from the president of the HOA, Lene Miller. She's going to provide some insight into the proactive measures that were taken by the board along with Edie Dabney, the former HOA president. You're also going to hear from, because safety is of utmost concern, you'll hear from Barbara. She'll be talking about how that fence had nothing to do with the safety of the HOA. The fence was there for the stated purpose in the ordinance, and that's to keep continuity of the ambience between Calumet Farms and the subdivisions. And again, we have a substantial change that necessitates that that conditional zoning restriction be lifted. You have any questions? Thank you sir. Any questions for the applicant? Nope, no sir. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Mr. Simpson, are you up? Or is the president for the HOA is going to speak? Okay. The president for the HOA. Oh, she's going to wait until the rebuttal is that? Yeah. Okay. The citizens' comments, excuse me. That's fine. You can speak now or later. Yeah, I'll defer to Mr. Simpson. Okay. You okay with that, Mr. Simpson? Okay. All right. I got our seat. All right. Good afternoon once again. It's been almost evening. I'm sure you didn't intend to hear me for another period of time. So I request your ultimate indulgence. Now the rest of the story. I'm going to share my time with Dr. Davy Jones. He's a retired professor emeritus from the College of Medicine, University of Kentucky. Davey Jones lives right up next to New Circle, one of the original homeowners there. The fence was in his backyard. He's going to help me in my presentation because he's done a lot of research on this area and is very familiar with the issue. So I'm just going to highlight some points, then Dr. Jones will finish up. Again, I'm going to talk about undisputed facts. We're here today seeking a modification of this conditional zoning ordinance because the Neighborhood Association Board decided the fence ought to come down. And even though this fence is not on their property, it's not on Neighborhood Association property, I take issue with the neighborhood having the right because the fence is on the properties that I represent. Karen was Narsdick, and Dr. Jones, we've had it surveyed, and the fence is on their property. The fact that there may be an easement is irrelevant. It's on their property. And the most significant undisputed fact is that in 1995, an ordinance was adopted requiring the fence to be maintained. Be maintained. Very specific. Shall be maintained. It did not say who. The developer could have changed that and said the association is responsible, but when the properties got sold, there was no designation of who was to maintain the fence. What happened was the neighborhood association, a number of years ago, took it upon itself to maintain the fence and charged a pro rata share to all the homeowners. And then, up until last year, this fence was on the property from 1995 until 2022. 27 years, the fence was there. It was maintained for 27 years. And then it was taken down by the board decision. You'll hear more from Dr. Jones and other residents about this so-called reach-out to the neighbors and the information that did not take place or the consultation did not take place. But the undisputed fact is the fence was taken down in violation of the ordinance. I've got under tab one a picture of the fence. The gentleman showed a fence in state of disrepair. That was because the neighborhood association opted not to stop taking care of it. They could have said, okay, we're not going to take care of it. Each individual lot owner can take care of it. There's no requirement that the Neighborhood Association under the ordinance had to take care of it. They chose to do so. And they didn't give the option to the property owners to take care of their own fence. They just tore it down. The ordinance doesn't allow tearing down a fence, which has to be maintained. The council put that ordinance on the property. Under tab number two, you see area of New Circle Road. Now because of the fences torn down, these sound walls have huge gaps that you can walk between. Kids have walked between them. We've got pictures of that. Tab number three shows the gap in the sound walls. There's no fence now to deter anybody from walking out on New Circle Road, which they do. We've got photographs of that. Under tab number four is the storm drainage area that used to be a real nice area until the state started widening New Circle Road and started dumping a whole lot more water into this area. This was a nice private amenity area. Under tab number five, you see the before and after of this fence. You see the top picture shows the white fence along New Circle Road and the walking path that goes around a pond that's part of the neighborhood amenity. It's a nice green space area. And then what's there now, the fence is gone. You see the Berlin Wall number two going across the top there, the gray structure, and the four-rail horse plank fence that's all on private property has been taken down by the neighborhood board. The next tab, or the next page, I should say, shows again what it looks like before and what it looks like after in terms of this green space area. Tab number six filed a complaint with the city that the neighborhood association violated the ordinance. And the Division of Building Inspection investigated that complaint and determined the association did violate the ordinance and issued a notice of violation, which said, please be advised that the Division of Building Inspection is in receipt of a formal complaint concerning the removal of the existing farm fence along New Circle Road. A recent inspection revealed the existing farm fence along New Circle Road has been removed. The removal of this fence is in violation of conditional zoning per ordinance 246.95 section 2B, paragraph 1, stating the existing farm fence along New Circle Road shall, keyword, shall be maintained. See the attached ordinance. Therefore, you are hereby required to reconstruct the required fencing that was removed along New Circle Road by May 31st, 2023. failure to comply with this notice will result in civil penalties and criminal action from this department with possible fines up to $500 a day. So what happened after this was sent to the Neighborhood Association? Did they put the fence back? No. They told the neighbors that if we have to put the fence back, it's going to cost you close to a couple of thousand dollars to put the fence back. You've got to pay for our error in violating this ordinance. They don't legally, that's a separate matter that we hope we don't have to get to, but if we do, the neighborhood board is going to have to pay for this fence. In any event, the ordinance was violated, notice of violation, civil fines, criminal action impossible. What did the neighborhood association board do? Come to try to work something out with its neighbors who wanted the fence, who said they didn't want the fence torn down before it was torn down. they called her councilwoman and said, look, can we change the law? Can we eliminate all this? We don't want to put that fence back. We took it down. We don't dispute that in violation of the ordinance. But can you just give us relief and say we don't have to put it back because that wall has been up even though that fence has been there for 27 years and even though all these property owners had a nice amenity fence? And you'll hear from them. So they want you all to give them relief from their intentional wrongdoing and tearing down this fence. That's what they want. No apology. They violated the ordinance. They're coming here asking forgiveness rather than permission, which if I was representing a developer, I wouldn't even get two words until somebody would say, Mr. Simpson, I think we've heard enough out of you. You don't come before this body and ask for permission or ask for forgiveness after your clients violated the ordinance. express terms no dispute notice a violation uh... under tab number eight uh... david get into this more tab number seven and eight christine of the planning staff pointed out all this area where this where my clients fence was green space area that's very nice david show it to you uh... it's not there in that the s is gone uh... then the neighborhood association hasn't been maintained the basin they maintain a fifteen foot drainage easement the obligation is not conditional zoning it's note on the plat it's they've never complied with but clean up the entire basin which is now haven't take a lot more water since the circle road was why that's not before you today but it did it talks it did it bespeaks of the neighborhood associations board lack of concern for the property owners who live next to what is now an ass or the laws been violated No permission, there was no attempt to modify the conditional zoning beforehand, and this commission ought to deny the request to amend the conditional zoning. You should not reward misconduct in terms of this case. We're here only because they took the fence down. It would be a different story if the fence was still up and they wanted relief. That's a different case. That's not this case. This fence is torn down, and the reason we're here is they don't want to put it back. don't reward them for intentional acts of wrongdoing. Davey, it's all yours. I'm Davey. My wife and I joined Saddle Club Subdivision in 2005 when we did, and we bought what we thought was going to be our forever home lot. It was part of a planned large space area here contiguous with our neighbor and adorned with this beautiful, well-kept white farm fence. For decades, this is a well-kept white farm fence. When my wife passed away, her last request to me, Davie, please spread my ashes at this area where the farm fence is and visit me. And I did put her ashes there. And I did visit her until a board tore our house. fence down. Now at the time this happened I was a very young and naive member of the HOA board but I started to see things that I got increasingly uncomfortable with. It became clear to me in May and June of last year that the board had every intention of tearing the fence down in a not forthright way. The initial start was, well, the board said, we're going to stop maintaining this fence here because the sound wall is being built and maybe the constructors will damage the fence and so we won't maintain. And then so, of course, after months of non-maintaining, the board reached the conclusion, oh gosh, look at the state of disrepair this is in. That justifies taking this down. I could see moving toward the June board meeting last year that that's what they're aiming for and I let the board know my extreme discomfort with the process that was going on. There was some email solicitation in which each of the board members received copies of the 101 lots. There were 11 people who responded, only four stated take down the fence as the only option. At the June 21st meeting, I and another board member urged, if you want to take this down, please at least allow the lot owners who have it on their respective lots to keep the white farm fence if they want. The board steamrolled that. The second thing we tried was, well, okay, at least maintain the fence down at this community ambiance area. Steamrolled that. I was stunned. I resigned from the board stating that I could not continue to be a party to the board's conduct so i searched them myself i said how can i contribute in a different way and i have to thank them their planning commission and council staff they helped me immersed myself in the documentation of the the birth of the subdivision and this is all very new to me i learned but a planning commission is and what what it does And so, on the next one. I saw, for example, a developer, Don Cutter, talking to the Planning Commission. He was referring to an area of the New Circle Road fence, and he was talking about, okay, back there, in the back of their lots, on their property line, the white fence, leave the white fence. Shortly thereafter, the council adopted the zoning ordinance, maintain the existing fence. I note that the ordinance has one part about Versailles Road. It specifically talks about Versailles Road in the scene of Versailles Road. The part of the ordinance about this section doesn't say, oh, there's a new circle road, a corridor that needs to be maintained. No, it talks about the fence as part of the character of the development in relation to other neighboring properties. Okay, so after the ordinance then, Chris King is again talking to the Planning Commission, talking about, and he's pointing right there to where I and Karen, when the RZX lots are part of this planned large community experience area. And he's talking about this open state as part of the development, and these are not just individual lots, This is part of a planned area of development, which pedestrian system links these. And you notice, if you take the photograph from a car that's driving by, you can't see down. That part of New Circle Road fence is not visible to cars that are driving by. Looking from the other side, Here we see this well maintained, up to that moment, white farm fence. You see it's going down. It wouldn't be visible from cars driving on New Soco Road. The grassy open space that's contiguous with my adjoining neighbor. This is part of the commission's vision. These are not just individual lots, they're part of a planned community open space here. The ponds are on the right. On the left you can see the commission is talking about pedestrian access to both the pond on the right and the ambiance on the left, which includes the white fences on the inside of the property line. This was codified in the plat in several ways. For example, the plat doesn't refer to this as a sidewalk, it refers to this as a pedestrian walkway. So the commission envisioned members of the community, Lexingtonians from neighboring communities, will be able to stroll down the walkway and enjoy the pond on the right-hand side and this other area on the other side of the pond that was boarded by the fence. So this is not a what color to paint the mailboxes. This is the planning commission Commission's vision for what is the character of our neighborhood. This is the city level going, this jewel, this subdivision, Saddle Club, what is the nature, what is its character? And an important part of that, that the Planning Commission conceived, was this area as part of the communal experience area for which this white fence was a very important part. So, the Planning Commission is not in a situation to do nothing or use a sledgehammer. That's something that's been kind of falsely portrayed to the community that, well, either the ordinance stays intact and we've got to pay $1,300 each to have all the trees there, hedge the entire circle road fence, or have the ordinance erased. But you're authorized to do a relevant crafting of a solution here. The restoration of the farm fence just at this area, no, don't worry about any hedges, not trees, not the rest of the road, this is about 10% of the farm fence area. The homeowners have never been surveyed for how they feel about that. which of course the cost would be much, much less. We did walk around and ask members of the community, let's pretend cost was not an object. Would you want the white fence restored? And within 48 hours, we had 20 people sign. I guess this would be added to the exhibits. So on the next slide. So what I'm asking and we're asking the commission today is please, this is your vision of our neighborhood, not individual lots, but an important community experience area for which the white farm fence was an important part. It's very cost effective for your vision here to just have this part of the farm fence restored. And when you do that, it will also, with me as a lot owner, restore the fence on my lot. And when you restore that, I will visit that fence again. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay. This is time for citizens' comments. If there's anyone that would like to speak on this particular application item, you can do so by stepping up to the podium, stating your name and address. Oh, yes. It would be a three-minute clock. Am I not part of Mr. Camp's time? No, ma'am. Okay. I can do it in three minutes. Hello. My name is Lena Miller, and my job as the Settle Clock Neighborhood HOA president is to represent all of the 101 residents. We base all of our actions and decisions with what benefits the majority as opposed to the small minority who continues to create disharmony and unrest. This is not about the fence. It never has been about the fence. This is about the animosity to the HOA board and specific members that serve on this board. If it were about the fence, the two residents, and they were very clear, Davy Jones was, they only want their fence fixed. And if that was the case, they would have used their money that they've used to survey the whole neighborhood to hire an attorney to build their fence back. But no, they want the entire neighborhood to rebuild their fence. It's unfair that the other 99 residents should have to pay for a fence to be built and maintained for two other neighbors. It is unfortunate that in order to speak to this body that it's not required to be done under oath or without the ability to cross-examine. Today you will hear many distortions and untruths in an attempt to divert you from the facts of this issue. I can promise you this, for every misrepresentation you're about to hear, every distraction, every distortion, we have the ability to counter their erroneous claims with proof. And we will welcome that opportunity should it come to that. Here are the facts. One, the board went above and beyond to coordinate with both state and local representatives to make sure our actions were in line with zoning regulations. Two, we provided notices on June 2nd and August 15th to each individual neighbor in a variety of modalities. Three, the majority of neighbors wanted the fence torn down. Four, the installation of the sound barrier was a major physical change that prevented the majority of the wall to be visible from New Circle Road. That's what this is about, the ordinance. The ordinance that was established in 1995 places an undue burden on the majority of the residents who did not wish to build and maintain the fence. All I ask is that you do not allow there to be confusion over the details of this ordinance and what are issues that fall under the guidance and direction of a homeowners association. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? No. She can't, okay. Yes, ma'am, you can. I thought I was going to have six minutes here, so I'll try to condense this. My name is Karen Winarzik. I am a homeowner in the saddle club subdivision. Mr. Bruce Simpson represents me as well. When I bought my house, the farm fence, the white farm fence that's in question today, was on my property. It sits on my property. I bought it that way. It's there. I own it. Their claims that they own it are not correct. My particular house sits on the pond and shares part of the communal open space. That picture that they show where Chris King later before your predecessor that was pointing, that's the area that he was talking about. That's the communal space that we share, he and I, with the neighborhood. When you look at my property, there is the common walkway that he told you all about, that he showed in the picture that you saw earlier, that common walkway as well as the area has, my fence resided in that ravine across from the community pond, but it was never viewable from New Circle Road. As you can see in the picture, it is in the ravine. This is New Circle Road up here. This part was never viewable. That is why Chris King pointed this out, that this is about the community property. This is about the community ambiance and having this area that is shared by everybody, this open space. With the expansion of New Circle Road, I inherited three concrete culvert outlets that were literally put just behind the white fence. That white fence served the purpose of hiding that and screening that and camouflaging that in that area. You cannot see it in this photo where those things are. But you saw in the picture earlier that you could clearly see it. It also served to help filter that trash that was coming through with those expansion and those additional outlets. The board took it down. Again, he said only 11 people responded. of which only four wanted it to be removed. I'm going to have to hurry up. Let's see. The one thing that I want to point out that I sent to you all today, the claim that the sound wall presents a change to the arterial view along New Circle Road does not include the open communal space nor the white farm fence. Please reference the official signed ordinance that I handed to you all. under conditions section B and note the order in which the conditions are listed. It pairs the trees and the shrubs under the 20-foot buffer area, and it also refers to that buffer area on our plat. To further provide evidence that the fence was not to be included in this arterial easement, please refer to the plat's general note number 11. It states the 20-foot arterial screening easement along New Circle Road shall consist of one large street tree per 30 linear feet and a continuous hedge. No mention of a fence. Okay. The plant documented the New Circle Road arterial screening in accordance with the intent of the ordinance as defined by your predecessors. Also, I want you to know, oh, okay. Yes, I'm trying to wrap, yeah, okay. So what do you, do you want me, I'm wrapping it up. Okay, so all I wanted to say is, is that you all have the opportunity. I think that based on that information, that that allows us to have those who have the non-communal fence that runs along New Circle Road versus those who have the communal fence that runs along New Circle Road. It gives us an out. Chris King points to that area and says about that thing. So why can't we have both? Why can't they who don't want their fence to have it and then stop the 20-foot barrier? I mean, we don't have to have that because we're going to have the trees. You're okay. We'll handle it up here. It's kind of hard for me to tell adults to be quiet. But we'll handle it, though. I appreciate it. I understand. I understand. Yes, ma'am. Hi, my name is Dr. Clarissa Bell, and I live at 1464 Saddle Club Way. And thank you all so much for your patience and soldiering through the day. One thing I would like to say is that I am on the HOA board, and we have worked tirelessly for this community, and we have attempted to make each homeowner heard and also make them feel as if they have stock in what is occurring in the community because it is their community. However, it's important to note that we all think our home is the most special home in the neighborhood. We think our property is the best property in the neighborhood, and it is our job to advocate adamantly for our property. However, as a board member, I can't think selfishly about my property. We have to do what is best for the entire community. An aesthetic appeal is wonderful. However, it is not fair to ask your neighbors to maintain what you feel is aesthetically pleasing. It is so clear, and I hope it is not lost on this committee, that each homeowner has the ability to make their home as appealing as they would like to desire. But you cannot make it appealing with my money, right? That is just not how it works. I have a fence in my backyard. That fence was built by the homeowner. that fence was maintained by the homeowner. Not one HOA member has the right to go onto the property and mess with that fence because I built it and I maintained it. I encourage every homeowner in Saddle Club to do the same for their area, to do the same for their property. I really hope that my heart goes out to everyone who feels touched and moved by this area, and I really do hope that they get the aesthetic appeal that they desire. However, I just don't want that appeal to be at the cost of me, my home, or my neighbors. And again, as a board, not everything was done to the perfect letter. The state knocked down trees when they were building that fence, that sound barrier wall, that was noted in the ordinance. If the state didn't know something from 1995, we are lay members. We are volunteers, although people don't think that, we are volunteers. And so we do our best and our due diligence to do the research. And the truth of the matter is that there has been a substantial change to that area. It no longer meets the needs of the spirit of the ordinance. So we are urging the board to please take that into consideration. And also encourage all neighbors who would like that area to have an aesthetic appeal fund raised together. Put your funds together. And I'm pretty sure that you guys can have whatever they want. Thank you so much for your time and thank you so much for hearing our concerns. Thank you. Good evening. First, I just want to say to all my members of the Saddle Club, I love each and every one of you. I love our neighborhood and I truly hate where we're at. And I come to you with my truth. I am not a board member. I am just a member of Saddle Club neighborhood. My name is Becky Wimsatt and I live at 1316 Saddle Club Way. My house backs up to the entry ramp of New Circle Road. When my husband and I were approached about getting the wall, we were faced with a decision. We recognized that it was beauty with noise or peace with the loss of a beautiful farm look. Ultimately, we decided to go with peace. The wall is up. It's not coming down, and it shouldn't. However, when the wall went up, it did create issues for us with the fence being there as well as the wall. it became impossible for us to maintain the strip of land between the wall and the fence, and it looked awkward having the fence right on top of the wall there. The fence has cost a lot to maintain, replacing boards and painting is a lot of time and money. It made sense for the fence to come down since it was no longer visible to the public and did not serve a purpose in my backyard. The wall has actually fixed more problems in my backyard than the fence did. For one, safety. I could not let my kids or the neighbor kids who play in my backyard play back there without me constantly supervising them for fear that one of them would jump the wall or jump the fence to get a ball. In fact, one night while I was cooking dinner, my kids were inside, and I did find a child walking on New Circle Road and had to run out there and get him because he had jumped the fence somewhere along the neighborhood. I also feared for crazy people who would pull over on the side of the road to come back and take one of my children or one of the neighbor kids. And that seems intense, but we do have a lot of random people who stop on that entry ramp, run out of gas or whatever. And the world that we live in now has created those fears in me. Another problem that I no longer have is trash. Every week before I mow, I would have to go and collect all the trash that flew over from New Circle Road. It flew over the fence or through the fence, into my backyard, and sometimes into my front yard. It was time-consuming and disgusting. I ask you this, what sense does it make to have a wall and a fence? Bringing the fence back would cause my family issues with maintaining our yard. It would affect my family's budget, as each family will have to pay to put the fence back up. It would not provide beauty to the drivers of New Circle Road, nor would it provide beauty to the neighbors who cannot see the fence from my front yard. I thank you all for your time, and I ask that you say no to replacing the fence. Thank you. Hey there, I'm Marsha Petrie. We live at 1337 Saddle Clubway. We've lived there since 07. I'm the wife of Rick Petrie. He was a football coach at UK, so that was why we had moved here originally. I'm a mom. I'm a grandmom. I have four little grandsons that we would, in the past years, we took the grandsons down to that area that Karen and Davey have. It was grassy and it was beautiful. They log rolled down that grass. It was really a delightful place to take the kids. It's basically the only place in the neighborhood to take children. And it's a public walkway. So we'd walk down there and check out the fish in the pond, and then we'd roll down the hill. Now, the board of directors have taken the liberty to place the rock down there in the basin of that dry basin. I won't let the kids go down there anymore. The grass is not there. The fence is not there. I say that because my husband and I have put in sweat equity into this neighborhood. We're volunteers, too. We've painted that fence. We've picked up trash down in that area. We've tried to do the right thing for that neighborhood, and we do love our neighbors, too. I walk a lot. I see a lot of neighbors, and it's a delightful neighborhood. You're not hearing really how nice this neighborhood is. This is kind of a tough representation, but our board of directors made a big decision to take down this fence. The fence in Karen and Davies' backyard is where we used to play, and it was safe because the kids, dogs couldn't get through that fence at that point either. I would like to see the fence put back between the far end of Karen and the far end of Davies. That would take in that grassy communal area. Kids could play, get rid of those rocks, put more grass, sod, whatever you're going to put down there, because I think that's basically what the plat asks for, is a grassy area, not the rock. So get rid of that, return it. And that's what I ask for. Thank you all for listening. Thank you. Yes, sir. Hello. Hello. My name is Rick Petrie. I'm the husband of her. But I want to address a couple things, if I could, please. One thing I really want to address is the timeline. I think you have to be aware of what the timeline happened with all this. And she also talked about the area along the pond fence, which I thought was very important. June 21st, 2022, the minutes of the HOA committee board meeting had talked about removing the fence. What can we do about the fence? And they had four options, and I'm going to read them here. Repair, replace the fence, and paint it black to match the fence along Versailles and valley, which my wife and I are part in painting and upkeep of our current fence right now. Two, allow individual homeowners the option to keep and maintain their respective part of the fence. Three, tear down the fence except maintain the fencing along the pond. Four, remove all since it is now covered by the noise barrier wall. I think you saw in pictures there along the pond that there is some spacing in between, an adequate amount of space between the fence and the wall. A motion was brought up by a member of the board and seconded by another member of the board, and it was voted on to remove option two, which to my life, I cannot understand why, because I'm sure they say, well, then they've got to upkeep it. What if they don't upkeep it? Well, we've got enough rules in here about where you park, what you do with your trash cans, et cetera, et cetera. I think we could have a rule saying paint your dang fence. If not, we're going to fine you. Just saying. The vote was 6-2-1. 6-2-1. The six people that voted to remove that are the six people that are currently on the board today. Keep that in mind. After that, there was discussion about the three options that remained. Repair, replace the fence, paint it black, tear down the fence, and maintain the fence along the pond, except maintain the fence along the pond, I'm sorry, remove all since it is now covered by the noise barrier. Again, there was a vote. Guess what? Six people voted what? To remove the fence. All right, I wasn't going to say anything. The meeting a week ago, I went and listened. Someone made a statement about how 65 people in the community voted to not have the fence. What they didn't say was that was March 3rd of 2023, almost a year after the fence was torn down by the board. All right? And what was presented? We could rebuild it, but it's going to cost you $1,300. Who the hell is going to vote for that? You know, just a thought, you know? Maybe not. But above all this, and I don't have, I'm done. I'm sorry. I appreciate your time, and I do hope we get this fixed so we can heal this dank community. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Yes, sir. Hello, my name is Kevin Bennett. I reside at 1344 Saddle Club Way. My property does back up to New Circle Road. I wish I had been given the option of keeping and maintaining the portion of the fence in my backyard before March the 3rd because it was always cut down by then. Now the price of $1,300, it didn't make sense for me to pay for that after they already taken it down. It's already added. Furthermore, I wish the board would allow homeowners, Davey Jones and Karen W., whose name I can't pronounce, keep the fence on their property in the community Pied Walk area. It truly created a beautiful scenery for my daily morning walk. It served as a deterrent for access to New Circle Road from the gaps in the concrete wall. More importantly, the fence supported the chicken wire at the bottom of it to keep the trash from going into the pond. I want to believe the board made a gross error when removing the fence, not disregarding city ordinance or forgiveness over permission attitude. However, I now feel that that might not be true. On two separate occasions, the board hired contractors to come and install rock in the area by the pond. The first time was July the 6th. I saw a board member and her spouse, Jones and Karen W., two police officers and contractors in the pond area. I witnessed Jones and Karen trying to make the officers understand that what the contractors were doing was clearly a violation of the plat. Please note a sign is posted with exact verbiage there at the pond area. The board member and her spouse was saying the HOA had an easement and the contracts were legit to do the job. However, if the contractors installed grass, seed, or sod, they would have been legit. Per the plan. Instead, the contractors by the board to, the contractors were installed on rock in that area. The two officers exercised wisdom, stopping the contractor from doing the job, and went on to say this was a silver matter that should be settled in court. Unfortunately, on Monday of this week, the board hired the contractors to come and complete the install on the rock in that area. I strongly feel the board, after receiving a reprieve from building inspection, should have done their due diligence to make sure they were not in any further violation as it relates to the plant or city ordinance. I don't believe an easement gives anyone the right to do whatever they want on someone else's property. Would it have been too difficult for them just to wait for the Planning Commission to make a rational decision regarding that matter? Finally, I believe the fence should be replaced in the area and restored to its original beauty at no cost to the homeowners of Saddle Club. But a claim should be filed with the board's E&O insurance for their gross error on this part and in this mess that they caused. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Hey, I'm Monica Linforce. I live at 1368 Saddle Clubway. I did not come here with anything planned to say, but I feel that I need to say things, and I have some words from my husband that texted me. I'm going to read it. I'm sorry if I'm disjointed, but please just understand that every point that I'm making is very valid and coming from my heart. This board has a history of taking action on private property in contravention to published restrictions and guidelines and without property owner permission. It is my strong belief that the board moved forward with the fence removal with the same disregard for property owner rights and published guidelines as they have in the past. willing to achieve their own goal without due regard to the effect of the cost of the association members in whole or as individuals. Allowing the board to move forward with this change without holding the individuals responsible would make this body complicit in another long string of injustices. If you notice, they came out and spoke about the residents in this community letting you know we're going to have people that are distorting the truth. Watch out what they're saying. Those people are unhappy citizens, whatever, already putting us on the defensive as if we had committed crimes ourselves. The vast majority of this community is very respectful, kind, and loving people. We are not here to make trouble. We are here to just do what is right. There is a small group that has had ownership of this board and the controlling of many of the things that happened for years. And if you say or do anything that contradicts what they believe in, you're the troublemaker. You're the distortion. They have called my husband horrible things. He was elected to be the president on the board, but it was so dysfunctional he had to quit in a rapid, rapid amount of time. I feel like many of these people that are running the board are a cancer in the community, and it is sad. It is tearing us apart. It is just, it's a living hell at times, and it doesn't need to be that way. When I drove into that neighborhood before I bought the house, I saw that we had a wide variety of cultures and people, and I was so excited. I loved the idea that every color of skin was there, and I wanted to be a part of a community that could get along like that. It is the polar opposite. It is the polar opposite, and I absolutely hate it. I think the feeling of the community is not that everybody should be paying to put that fence up for those two people, those two properties. The people that tore it down are the ones that are responsible for putting it back, not the association. The committers of the crime are the ones that need to repair it, not the rest of us. Nobody's asking everybody to pay for two people's problems, only the problem makers. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, sir. My name is David Drags, and my wife and I built our house. out at Saddle Club in 2001. We've been there for 22 years. We were one of the very first people in the community. It was a good community. It was a community where everybody watched out for everybody else. Then it changed. About two years ago, they widened New Circle Road. They used dynamite. They were blasting. They damaged our house and wouldn't pay for it. If that wall had been up, it wouldn't have did anything to our house. I love that wall. And I'm just going to take this time to say I love our HOA. They do good things for our neighborhood. They painted the fence black to save us money. They keep the grounds trimmed and clean and nice. Aesthetics, I could care less about that white fence. I watched from my patio a white section of that fence deteriorate. I sat there and looked at planks missing. And when that wall went up, that's what I did. I love my HOA. The ones prior to the current one, I love them too because all of them watched out for the community. We tried to do a neighborhood watch. We've tried to put up cameras and all this sort of stuff to keep riff raff out. Now I tell you, I was sitting on my patio one time and saw somebody come over the hill from the New Circle Road. I've watched people come across the hill and just devastate people, break into people's cars. Don't see that with the wall. So that wall is a safety net. And I'm glad it's there. I'm glad for this HOA, and I support them fully. Thank you. And by the way, I apologize for getting into your way. All right? Your apology accepted. Yes, ma'am. Good evening and good gracious. Thank you all for being here so late. My name is Scarlett Devine. I'm a resident in the neighborhood along with being the vice president of our HOA. Our board recognizes the amount of time, energy, and work effort that this has taken on the part of so many people, and we do not take that lightly. Our strictly volunteer board, who are all here tonight, has also invested a great deal of time in this issue, both before the fence was removed and certainly since then. We did our due diligence. We followed our plat, which you will hopefully see again. We strictly followed the plat because this ordinance was not noted on it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Jones was a board member at the time that we discussed it for three months and took the fence down, and he didn't know about the ordinance then either. We spoke with city employees, state employees, an attorney from the state, along with many of our neighbors, and we made a sound decision that just makes common sense. There were weeds that couldn't be mowed. There were increases in snakes and rodents, and the fence was dry rotting. You could just peel the boards off. And it was really expensive. Our decision still makes sense today, now that we know about the ordinance that we did not know about. This old ordinance, however, does not make any sense. It was also never followed. It wasn't followed by the developer years before our HOA even existed. And no one ever complained about it. It was never caught. It was never cited. Because it wasn't on the plaques that are signed by multiple people when our neighborhood was developed. Someone said earlier, it's prudent to always consider change. I believe it was one of you folks. This ordinance predates the very large expensive sound barrier that many of us in the neighborhood are grateful to have. And it does serve its purpose, unlike this ordinance. The rest of what you've heard, and some of what you'll probably still hear, are HOA issues. They're not planning commission issues. And there's probably a lot of HOAs in our city that have these HOA issues. You're hearing from a vocal minority, but as one of my fellow board members pointed out, we represent 101 homes, and many of those people can't be here. When Ms. Reynolds became involved with our neighborhood, she approved our voting method, which required people to have a one-time unique code that they had to obtain through their email and log on to an electronic system to vote. And yes, 65 out of the 73 people voted to not put this wall back up. That is over 80% of our neighborhood that voted, and over 85% of those did not want the wall back up. Again, the ordinance was never followed, and it was there long before the RHOA existed. It was intended to serve a specific purpose that it never served. And now that purpose is no longer relevant because of the giant wall. I'm almost done, I promise. Can I also have an additional 30 seconds, please? Thank you, sir. I am so aware. Just this weekend, we had someone knocking on doors, asking about it. What if it was no cost to you? But they didn't say who would pay for it. I can tell you who wouldn't pay for it. Insurance, grants, or board members, because of our LLC laws. That only leaves our neighbors, and they don't want to pay for it, and they've made that clear. there's also a lot of other completely unrelated issues that have been brought up it's an HOA issue it's an HOA issue it's an HOA issue the planning commission is here to address the ordinance I can assure you no children have been put at risk no dogs have almost died and nobody trespassed on people's properties your staff made a recommendation they did their job thoroughly and your staff did their job without bias and I would ask that you follow their recommendation, please, for the benefit of our whole neighborhood. Thank you. Oh, we still have citizen comments. Trying to draw this out as long as possible so you guys can't go to the bathroom. Richard Harlow, 1465 Saddle Club. Scarlett said the defining point. There are two issues here. One is the ordinance follow your staff's recommendation the other is the politics and let the homeowners deal with that sir yes ma'am you've been hearing in the front all day yeah all day hello i'm theresa parks crumby i live at 1388 saddle clubway My family was the fifth family to move in what was a very nice neighborhood. I have been a vice president for years. And when our president left, I become the president. And we were a neighborhood that was very friendly. We did look out for each other. We used to have a fish fry, potluck. Everybody loved it. I mean, we were a really nice community. And now the wall has created, among other things, I mean, there were people that went around and solicited for me to get off the board. That's the neighborhood that we had. You know, I volunteered for years. And Adam, he's gone. He was a president. But I'm very passionate about it because I've lived there all this time. Like I said, we were the fifth family to move in. I've seen a lot of changes in that white incident they're talking about down in that little comfort area. Nobody's mentioning that two times we had a wreck. Cars come off a new circle road and wreck the fence and people concerned about the safety of kids there. Nobody mentioned that today. But I'm against that fence. I didn't prepare to say anything, but I'm fired up and I'm trying to keep from saying some of those four-letter words. But we don't need that fence. I mean, the fence. Thank you, Ms. Crumb. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. I have prepared to say good afternoon, but I think I need to say good evening and maybe even good night. I don't know. My name is Edie Dabney and I live at 1452 Saddle Club Way. I'm a past president along with Teresa of the HOA. I am currently the secretary. I'm coming to you because I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the voting process that you've heard many stories about. But since I was directly involved, I felt you should hear from me. What stood out the most to me last week when I was at the zoning committee meeting were the statements from homeowners that said that they weren't given notice or they weren't given proper notice. And so we looked back through some of the emails, and they got two notices, like about 20 days apart. Then we had a board meeting. We had a huge discussion about it. Anybody could have chimed in and said what they wanted to say during that time. We recorded notes. We have copies of those as well. If you look at the highlighted names on the packet that you have, you'll see everybody who received a copy of both of the announcements about the fence being torn down. Two months passed, I think I may have said that, two months passed between the time of the first message and the actual demolition. When we have important information to disseminate, we use a mass text messaging subscription, in addition to emails to the entire neighborhood and social media announcements. We use the electronic voting process when we need to vote and we print paper ballots to people whose addresses or email addresses we don't have on file. We, the board, deliver these to people in person. That's how important it is to get the vote from everybody that we can possibly get it from. Some people that you'll hear from tonight or that you've heard from tonight didn't vote because they couldn't vote, didn't vote because they didn't want to vote. Some of them voted in favor and they're still here talking about the opposite stance. So that's a little confusing to us as well. The amount of time this issue has taken away from our homes, our families, and our jobs, and our lives is unreal. The lengths that the neighbors have gone through to try to make the HOA pay for their fence is unbelievable. Any homeowner who wants a fence is welcome to refer to our data restrictions and build one for themselves. I should not be held responsible financially for building or maintaining another person's fence. We paid for our own fence when we wanted one for our children and grandchildren. I think they should do the same thing. If they want to look at a panoramic ambiance, as they say, they should just fill their own fence. The issue needs to be about the need for the fence and landscaping now that there's a significant change that's been made to the area. That's all that we need to be discussing. Everybody's personal issues, I believe, should be set aside at this time. Throughout my career with urban county government, I built a reputation and leadership on doing what was right. I never gave in to the pressure of doing the wrong thing, no matter how much pressure was applied. Even though I've retired, my philosophy has not changed. I want to talk a little bit about the trees and the beautiful green space they've spoken about. There's nothing to do, it's just some grass. And if you really want to be honest about it, there's a huge no trespassing sign. So while some people can take their grandchildren there, I can't take mine. Because twice, the police have been caught on people for being on the property. So that's not something that everybody has told you. Thank you for your time. Now we're in the rebuttal stage. Applicant. Thank you, counsel. My name is Carl Devine. I'm a family law attorney here in Lexington. I live in Saddle Club at 1329. I have for the last 18 years. And the fact that this issue has been brought before you guys and has torn our community apart is appalling, frankly. Again, I do divorce work. I spent last year as a family court judge, and I would rather do that than what y'all did today, if that tells you anything. But what I want to stress with some of my time is the decisions that you made before this hearing about what was going on at Old Richmond Road is important to this community. It is absolutely vital. And I can see, as I did when I was a judge, how painstaking that decision is on all of you guys. But what we're talking about here is an ordinance in a community of 101 homes. And we've got a vast minority, like a vocal minority, that wants to convince you that this fence should be put back up. When Mr. Purdy showed you the picture of the fence, some of it broken down, right next to this great barrier wall. Some of the people that are opposed to the taking down of the fence wanted the barrier wall. And it is almost impossible to maintain the distance between where the fence was and the barrier wall. And there were misrepresentations to you guys, my understanding last week, about they couldn't grow vegetation in their backyard because the fence was removed. They have posts every eight feet. And you can't put vegetation there? We're talking about an ordinance. I do want to akin back to what Mr. Simpson said earlier. We're talking about an ordinance that's 27 years old, 28 actually, and we're acting like there's no change. There's this huge wall. That's why the staff's recommendation is what you need to heed here. And Mr. Simpson can get up here and say, as he did in the council meeting on June 3rd, that there are kids getting out on that New Circle Road. And I think at the meeting last week, it's my understanding, you said there are dogs and animals getting out on New Circle Road. They act like this four-plank fence was impenetrable when it was clearly dilapidated. There have been numerous people that have educated you guys on that today. But yet, here we are, fighting over all this. And the reality is, it's an ordinance. It needs to be modified. the majority here, including the board, went through the appropriate channels through Councilman Reynolds to do that. That is the decision today. And it needs to be modified. I want to stress, it was never followed, okay? I understand there may be some confusion about that. The fence was there, but all the other vegetation, that was never done. Never. And so for us to sit here and act like, well, we need to follow this ordinance, it's laughable. But again, as we've talked about numerous times today, dealing with the New Circle Road or the Richmond Road issue and the old Richmond Road development, we need to find that balance. We need to find that balance. And that balance is the conditions have changed. There's been a 10-foot wall installed that makes the maintaining of this fence practically impossible. So I just beg you to please heed your logic. Heed what is reasonable. We agree with the staff's recommendation. That is appropriate. And I thank you for your time today. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. I said, everybody, we're in the rebuttal stage right now. And he's, we even listen to every neighbor. I guess he's going to add something new. Ready? I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission. To listen to the supporters of the proposed modification, the message is loud and clear that a majority of the people can vote to violate an ordinance and for the minority who don't want that ordinance violated, they have to suffer because there was an intentional violation of the ordinance. As we're here tonight, the government has a pending enforcement action against the Neighborhood Association. Sorry about that. Under tab number six is that notice of violation. That, again, is not in dispute. The government has found the neighborhood association in breach of this ordinance. And so they would have more standing if they came down here before they violated the ordinance and asked for relief, which is what was required. They didn't do that. They didn't give the property owners the option to keep the fence on their property and to pay for the fence to be maintained in the future. They took away that option to keep the fence. And now they act like they're being benevolent by saying, well, they can put the fence back up at their own expense. After the neighborhood association tore it down. That's nice. That's really nice. I don't think you want to reward whether it's a neighborhood association or a developer. I don't think you ought to open up Pandora's box and say, well, okay, I see what you're saying. is what it is and there's a pending legal action against you from the division of building inspection that threatens to sign a criminal action, but we'll give you relief. It's okay. You know, majority want to violate the ordinance, so we'll go along with it. I know that's not your else policy. I've never won a case for a developer that way. I would be twisting and tortured and, you know, but if you approve this concept, then, you know, I'm going to be out here with other people saying, you know, I am entitled to the same forgiveness that you gave the Saddle Club Board in violating the ordinance, which is noted on the Platt. Wes, can you put that up? This is at Platt Cabinet K, slide 793, recorded February 24th, 1999. Conditional zoning restrictions along Versailles Road and the existing farm fence shall be maintained. Small flowering trees, blah, blah, blah, 30 feet on center and large deciduous trees, 45 foot on center, be placed in a 50 foot buffer. Now that says along Versailles Road and the rest of it says the existing farm fence. So the ordinance says, if you see that, then what about the fence on New Circle? Why wouldn't that put you on notice that the fence on New Circle should have to be maintained? And what authority did they check? Who did they check? Because the ordinance speaks for itself. You can't ignore the language in the ordinance. And you can't give people an excuse for tearing down a fence that wasn't even on the neighborhood's property. It was some private property not owned by the neighborhood. There's no basis to give them a pass on this, which is what they're asking you to do. Now, the zoning committee got gridlocked, and they just deferred it to you. My recommendation is this. If you're not going to turn it down, and I have findings of fact in my last tab to deny this, then I suggest you defer it. The council is the one that put this condition on there. The council is the one that put the condition on there, and if they're going to give forgiveness to the neighborhood for violating the condition that the council put on there, then defer it to the council to make the decision. But don't reward people for violating your laws. That's the wrong message to send to this community. It's the wrong precedent to send to anybody. And quite frankly, I know that you all recognize this is a dangerous precedent to allow people to escape a clear violation. of the law. And I ask that you turn it down and adopt my findings. Or if you don't want to turn it down, just say, you know, counsel, this is yours. You put the condition on there. You all make the final decision and we're going to defer it to you. Thank you. Mr. Grum. All right. Daniel Crum, planning staff again. I just wanted to address a couple elements from once again what you've just heard now. There's been some conversation about notes on plats, notes on different documents. The council ordinance is where this was adopted. This is where this language comes from. It's where this restriction is found. That is a specific language we are modifying. Unfortunately, it appears like there's been some issues with that transferring over to plats. It looks like that was omitted back when these plats were done by the developers back in the 90s. So there are some inconsistencies on whether that note showed up in certain plats or not. Where it never changed was within the actual ordinance itself, which is what we're seeking to amend today. There were some comments made about sort of the nature of the conditional zoning restrictions and they were intended to apply internally to the site. The point of conditional zoning restrictions is to protect the surrounding area. It's to protect either from uses or through buffering, but it's a larger area and not necessarily specific to the internals of a site. So here, staff has found that this large wall is a physical change that has impacted this decision that was made by council and that is no longer appropriate in those areas as outlined within the staff report so i'd be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff at this time miss worth i don't know who this question should go to i'm trying to sort out ownership you all talked about the fact that the homeowners association assumed responsibility for maintaining the existing fence, and the fence obviously was built by the farm before they sold it. Who owned the fencing? Did the individual property owners become owners of the fencing on their property, or did the homeowner association acquire the fencing in common area? So based on the easements shown on the Platts and the notes found on the Platts, the maintenance of those landscaping areas was subject to the HOA is what our indications are. So it was an easement maintained by the HOA. Okay, but it's an easement. It's like I've got a sidewalk easement. Yeah, it's still their physical property, but yes, the HOA was there to, or has the responsibility of upkeeping that portion of the private property, that particular fencing there. So in essence, they do own it. Yes. They own the fence. They own the trees. In essence, that's theirs. That's the landscape part is theirs. The land underneath it is still the property owner. But whatever the purpose of the easement is, is the thing that that person or entity can do there. A utility easement, Columbia Gas can come in and dig up your yard to get to their pipe and replace it or improve it and then walk away. they're supposed to bury it again but replant some grass but they don't have any responsibility to return it to exactly the same as though we left it so the easement is important and it is on the plat there's landscape easements and there's notes that say the HOA will maintain the common areas and an LE which I don't really expect the neighbors to be able to interpret that but that's a landscape easement it's kind of an abbreviation for that just like a UE is a utility easement. So the second question is recommendations from staff is that the homeowners association will pay for those plantings. Our recommendation didn't really address changing anything with the plantings. The only thing we were changing was the fence requirement. Okay. That's the only thing the staff recommended changing. So if the trees are not there, I believe we're of the opinion they should be. They should be planted. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Crump. Did you read it that way? All right. Sir, are you going to add anything new? I don't see how. I had no way. I do have a question for Stan. No, I ain't going to hold on. Let me let him. Because he was here. John Noland. Can I yield my three minutes to Ken Westbury? He's going to get three minutes. You can't yield. Oh, I can't yield? No, sir. Sorry about that. You don't need to yield. You don't, yeah, we... Start the clock. Hold on. We'll go fast. Okay. We're setting a bad president here because does this mean I can just go by? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. It doesn't matter if he's a homeowner or not. We've had people come up here that was on the other side of town and spoke on behalf of applications. So it's okay. He's only got three minutes. Three minutes. Okay, I'm Kim Westbury. I'm a past president, and I own one of the properties that backs up New Circle Road. I think we're also setting a bad precedent here and going after the fact. Does this mean I can buy the most beautiful historic house in Lexington, tear it down, and then come before the zoning council and say, oh, would you please zone this as non-this rubble is non-historical? That's what we're talking about doing here. I think there's a couple of issues that haven't been mentioned. One, the original ordinance states this is not a New Circle Road problem. This is a neighborhood problem. The ordinance says we're not protecting the Calumet aesthetics for New Circle Road. We're doing it for the surrounding neighborhood. That means Viley Road and it means for Sales Road. And the problem here is that part of that fence up at the pond is visible from a portion of Viley Road. Okay, also the excuse or the reason to excuse this breaking the ordinance is because the noise wall keeps it from being seen from New Circle. Well, part of that farm fence at the common area of the pond was never seen for New Circle Road, as the picture showed. It's too low down. So you can't say there was a major change for part of that fence. Now, the other things haven't been mentioned is that's our common area. Ms. Winarski and Mr. Jones are required under the deed restrictions to allow access along that sidewalk that's right next to the noise wall now. The problem you haven't been shown is there are two breaks in that noise wall at the pond area in their backyard. There is now unfettered access for any child to just walk up on the New Circle Road. That's a liability issue. I talked to an insurance broker. He said that's a huge liability for them individually and for me as part of the HOA that now there's unfettered access for pedestrians on the New Circle Road. That's not allowed on that highway. I called the Kentucky Department of Transportation. They said that's a controlled access highway. The only reason a fence wasn't built there, it was an existing fence. So we've got a safety and a liability issue that hasn't been mentioned by not having that fence there. All right? The other thing is there is also the aesthetic within the neighborhood. Remember, we're trying to protect the neighborhood. Well, the neighborhood also includes us. We're part of that neighborhood, and that common area is where everyone sees when they walk through. Not having that farm fence there is a big aesthetic impact on our neighborhood as a whole. Plus, the Kentucky Department of Transportation has informed me that if they have to put a fence in there, they can't tell me where they're going to do it, where the break is, or where they're going to run it by. I would not like a woven metal fence there at the common area or in my backyard. If you tell me I have to take a hit for the bad mistake of my HOA in my yard, I say, okay, I'll take one for the team. But my compromise might be don't rezone these two properties at the pond where that fence is so visible from filing and also the common area, but just keep it there. And maybe that would let the HOA save some money and also keep the aesthetics. and maybe, you know, what they say, a compromise is when everybody's equally unhappy with the result. But please don't just blanket change this whole thing out. Thank you. Mr. Forrester, can I say one thing totally unrelated, not extending my time? No, no, sir. Doesn't have anything to do with this. I'm giving you my link. I just want to tell my neighbors, even though we disagree, I think we should agree to disagree. I'm glad. Um, we're going to bring this back to the commission, close this part out. I know Mr. Wilson, you had a question for staff. I'm confused. I know it may be the time. This letter from Mr. George Dillon, building inspection manager, says that therefore they are required to construct the required fencing that was removed. Is this there to internal issue that they have to deal with? Well, what happened was, and I was confused too initially, let me just say. And I've been dealing with this long before this was ever filed, so I'll try to give you my best understanding. There was a complaint made to the Division of Building Inspection, which now does zoning enforcement. And the complaint was this particular piece of property that we've been talking about has a conditional zoning restriction on it that was put in place at the time the original zone change was granted to do this development. And it says that the farm fencing, which was the leftover farm fencing from Calumet when the road split it, shall be maintained. That's what it says. It's not any more detailed than that. That's what it says. So as Tracy said, I don't know what happened. I didn't even work here then. A lot of people in this room didn't work here then. But for whatever reason, when that translated from the zoning restriction ordinance, which is an ordinance adopted by council in place of record, it was not conveyed directly in the same manner on the plats. So the plats do talk about landscape easements. They do talk about conditional zoning restrictions, but they're not as clear as what was in the ordinance. That doesn't make the ordinance any less valid. It just means they're different. So when the complaint came to building inspection as a zoning enforcement violation, they went to the ordinance because that's where conditional zoning restrictions start. They can only be put in place by the Urban County Council, and when they're put in place, they're put in place by ordinance, just like every zone change. If a zone change is approved, it gets put in place by ordinance. And I can tell you, because I draft them. I didn't draft that one, but I draft them now. And so that's what building inspection went to. They went to the ordinance. The ordinance said the fence should be maintained. They went out there. The fence is gone. and so they cited them. That's not an uncommon practice for building inspection to do. What happened subsequent to that is then the entity that cited, which was the homeowners association in this case, based I think primarily on the fact that there is a landscape easement on the plat that talks about giving the homeowners association some kind of maintenance responsibilities that that's who they cited because they didn't have anyone else to cite. So they cited the homeowners association and said, hey, there's this conditional zoning restriction you took down the fence. The homeowners association, as my understanding, then contacted building inspection. They had a conversation. They talked to their council representative, who's Council Member Reynolds, and this whole action ensued. sometimes this is the way these things get addressed and that somebody says well you know hey this zoning restriction was there it's not really doesn't serve its purpose anymore we didn't know about it whatever and they will go to their council person or they will come and file an application directly with you all through the planning division which also could have been done but that's not the way this one was done so So this one came from the council to you all. So in those instances, if that happens, building inspection will often stand down from continuing to enforce until they see what occurs in terms of what you all decide and what ultimately is the council's decision. Your all's decision today is a recommendation to them. they will have to make the final decision because only they can remove the restriction that a council places. Now, let me also say, our ordinance specifically requires, just so we're 100% clear, there's no deferral today from you guys. I know that would be great and easy, and considering the decisions you've had to make today, I can understand that you would want to. But our ordinance doesn't allow for that because our ordinance says that these types of situations where conditional zoning restrictions are being requested to be modified, removed, changed, altered in some way, have to go through the same process as a zoning map amendment or a zone change. So you all have to do something. And then it goes as a recommendation to the council and they'll have to make the final decision. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Just two questions, if I can remember. So if we vote with staff, then how does that leave it as far as who ends up being kind of in charge or where does that drive it? Well, the next thing that's going to happen, hypothetically, if you all chose to adopt the staff recommendation and go with that, it modifies the restriction in part, but it doesn't completely change all of, there was more than just that restriction. So it only changes the things that Daniel described to you in terms of removing the fencing where the wall is. It doesn't talk about. Will it provide them a framework from which to work? Well, if you all decided to do that, that recommendation would go to the council. The council would then have to make a decision. They could alter your decision. They could make a different decision. They always can. And so once that happens, then we'd have to see where everything fell. Let's just assume hypothetically to answer where I think you're going, your question just to understand. Say you all adopted the staff's recommendation. You recommended that to the council. That recommendation went forward to them. They have the option to either have a hearing or not have a hearing on this, as they do with every kind of zone change thing. I don't know what they'll do. I couldn't tell you. That's up to them. Whatever they do, they'll make a decision. If they also agreed, just let's say hypothetically, because, again, I'm not going to predict what they would ever do or what you all would ever do. But if they agreed with that and they imposed that change, then that would go back to the Neighborhood Association and back to building inspection to enforce that as modified. How that happens in that neighborhood is up to that neighborhood. Okay. It gives them a framework and hopefully they can find some peace among themselves in some fashion. Okay. Thank you. And just to be sure, I'm having difficulty tracking what the staff alternative is. Is the statement that's item B under there just B the only part that staff changed? Got it. We're nodding in agreement. Yes, it's the heading for section B that changed. Okay. Okay, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Mickler. I'm going to make a motion here and I'm first going to just clarify to my colleagues here on the Planning Commission why we sent this from the Zoning Committee without a recommendation. There were three of us present that day, our chair and then Zach and I, and Zach and I fell on different sides of it, and so there was no second. So we had to send it all to you. And after hearing this, you're probably not totally surprised that we couldn't come to a clear consensus on this. As I said at the zoning committee, I really appreciate a neighborhood, the neighbors including the ones who came here concerned about the aesthetics of the fence because, you know, aesthetics are important. Common areas are important. And I really do, I think like Mr. Bell was saying, you know, hope that there is internal dialogue on how to make your neighborhood look really good. When it comes down to it though, I do think that the professional opinion of our staff is correct that the barrier does change the need for there to be an ordinance requiring offense. And so my motion here is to approve PLN MAR 23-10 with the staff alternative conditions. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second by Mr. Pohl. Please vote via Granicus. Good job. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank everyone for sitting in here so long. And we hope y'all can find. Yeah, please. Really? It's not worth it. Thank you. Mr. Duncan? Mr. Chair members we'll see you all next Thursday the 17th at 1.30 in Phoenix building for a work session thank you thank you Larry I'm so tired Thank you. Gentlemen, this is Mambo No. 5. One, two, three, four, five. Everybody in the car, so come on, let's ride to the liquor store off the corner. The boys say they want some gin and juice, but I really don't wanna. Give us like I had last week. I must stay deep, cause talk is cheap. I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra, and Rita. And as I continue, you know they're getting sweeter. So what can I do? I really thank you, my lord. To me, certain is just like a sport. Anything's live. It's all good. Let me jump in, please. Sing him the trumpet. A little bit of Monica in my life. A little bit of Erica by my side A little bit of Rita's all I need A little bit of Gina's what I see A little bit of Sandra