All right. Good morning, everyone. It is now 10 o'clock, and we're going to call this meeting to order. It is August 29th, 2023. so just welcome everyone again happy to see you pass this around so first up staff I think we have you here for the building of the map so mr. Duncan you're up I like the shirt too nice color man okay thank you mr. chair and thank you all for being here we've got the full complement of the committee so we appreciate your all's commitment to this we're going to go ahead and get started we sent to you all the draft maps that you all at last week's meeting asked us to work up so what you have before you what we sent you yesterday and what you have in your packets are the maps that you all ask us to work up and then we have some notes about those we also have chris dorich with our gis here so that we can start we can provide more information or fine-tune these maps more if you want to. But what I'd like to do first is to show you what the staff has worked up first just to give you an idea of what you asked for, how that looks like in a mapping exercise. And if you don't mind, if you'll let us just go through these kind of quickly, then we can come back and spend as much time with each of these as we need to, and certainly we can switch to Chris George's version so that we can be a little more interactive. so in the just to kind of get to the bottom line here in the depiction that you all ask us to work up we have eliminated and not worked with several of the sewer ability areas that were presented to you earlier and are just focused on areas 2 3 6 and 7 10 and 12 and 13 and 14 areas 2 and 3 are separate maps. Areas 6 and 7 are one map. Areas 10 and 12 are one map. And areas 13 and 14 are one map. And when I say one map, they're one map for purposes of calculating the acreage. Even though 2 and 3 are shown on the same page, they are separate maps. In this depiction, there is a total of 4,847 gross acres identified in these sewability areas and the surrounding areas. So we'll start with map with area two for orientation. This is the Bluegrass Airport just south of Versailles Road, Manowar Boulevard, and Parker's Mill coming in from the top intersecting with Bowman Mill. Area two, the sewability area is depicted as the blue line, and that shows up underneath the red checkered line. So starting at Parker's Mill and Manowar, the sewerability line follows along Bowman Mill and then comes down south and goes on around. In the staff's depiction, we have followed the sewerability area until we hit a property line. So the sewerability area extends beyond property lines and splits a property and leaves a considerable amount of that parcel outside of the sewerability area. We pull that back following property lines. We go outside the sewer building area briefly, abutting the Helm Place PDR farm that is also abutting the urban service area, and then pick back up following Manowar around Dunbar High School, Manowar again. Area 2 is also bisected by an area floodplain. So for purposes of this map, area 2 has 515 gross acres. Taking out the floodplain, we have 482 acres. Area 3, just adjacent on the north, again, Manowar Boulevard, Parker's Mill, splitting area 3. We follow this along Manowar. The Sewer Ability area is again the blue line, cuts into the Wellesley Heights neighborhood, into the city's Cardinal Run North Park, hits Parker's Mill, and then follows along behind the Harrods Hill Beaumont development. In the staff's depiction of this, we have pulled the line just to the other side of the Sewer Ability so that we can follow the parcel lines. So it notches here at Manowar, follows parcel lines, and then joins back in. at Wellesley. We have left Wellesley notched in, although we do believe there needs to be more of a conversation about that. It may not make sense to leave several parcels out of Wellesley into the urban service area and exclude the others. So part of the discussion we want to have with you all at some point is, do we pull that line down here if this is where you want to go, or do you pick up all of Wellesley? But that can come later. In this depiction, the city's park is taken out as net acres for a total of 405 gross and 384 net acres for Area 3. Areas 6 and 7 are depicted as one map, so we're on the northeast side of town now. The sewer building area for Area 6 starting at the southern split for I-64, I-75 follows along I-64 to Royster Road and then extends south and then cuts into Winchester Road following Winchester Road. and then it notches around a city pump station and a KU substation and then follows Hume Road until it joins the interstate again. This also includes several hundred acres of floodplain, the rural settlement Utengertown in Columbus, and on the southeast corner, several Piana Key smaller lots. but then it also includes several large lots in here. And then added, so in this depiction, the entirety of Sewerability Area 6 is included, and we have squared off along this notched area around the city's pump station and the KU substation to bring that into the urban service area. In addition, you asked us to look at two portions of Area 7. You will recall that Area 7 extends beyond this map, comes back in, and then crosses North Cleveland Road, back in Winchester Road, and then comes in behind Greenbrier. You all ask us to work up the areas just south of I-64 adjacent to I-75 and south of Winchester Road. So in this depiction, we pulled in Area 7 west of Hume Road. So Hume Road now would come through the middle of these two areas. And then we pulled in the area south of Winchester Road. Here we bring this into North Cleveland Road as a boundary and pull that down. So we're pulling inside the sewerability area, following property lines to stay within the sewerability area, and then adjoining the urban service area. So this area has two large parcels and several smaller large long lots, and then this area is fairly unencumbered with smaller parcels. Together, areas 6 and 7, again depicted as one map, is 3,041 gross acres. Removing the floodplain, that takes it down to 2,798 acres. and I should have pointed out Royster Road which again is the northern or the eastern boundary of Sewer Ability Area 6 and the western boundary of 7 is also the dividing line between two PDR parcels here that are adjacent to Royster Road on the eastern side alright our next depiction is areas 10 and 12 For orientation, this is Athens-Boonesboro Road heading east, Interstate 75 heading south. This is the Childsburg neighborhood. This is the area we affectionately call the Nose right now. It's not included in the urban service area. And the Brenda Cowan Elementary School is right here in pink, adjacent to Edith J. Hayes Middle School in Childsburg. Sewer Ability area. Haley's not getting me as well. That sounds better. Okay, thank you, Haley. All right, Sewer Building Area 10 is contained entirely within this triangle piece, and in the staff's depiction, it is included in its entirety here. Sewer Building Area 12 straddles Athens-Boonesboro Road with a good portion of it following along Interstate 75 north of Athens-Boonesboro and including the northwestern portion of the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. And then it cuts off here at the top. In staff's depiction, we are including all of Sewer Ability Area 12 that is north of Athens-Boonesboro Road. To fill out the triangle, this portion, this pond property at the top is not included in the Sewerability Area. However, if we were to leave that and not include that, it would be isolated property. There is no way to connect it in to Childsburg, so the recommendation is to pull that in as well and complete all of the land in this triangle as part of this depiction. In addition, we have looked at Sewerability Area 12 south of Athens-Boonesboro Road. it extends out over these large lots and comes in and bisects some PDR property. For purposes of this map, we are showing the extent of it following the boundary, the long-established boundary of the Rural Activity Center. This is the only depiction that we're showing where we're splitting a parcel and we're not following property lines. However, the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center has been long established. The area south of the red line, this is where the soccer fields have been built and will continue to be built out. This area just north of the line is where the soccer stadium will be built. So we feel that this is settled land use for the foreseeable future and are comfortable recommending splitting this parcel at the Rural Activity Center boundary. There's a portion of the Rural Activity Center that cuts off here. We follow property lines to fill that in to sort of make a proper squared-up area down here. So for purposes of maps, areas 10 and 12 as one map, the total acreage is 765. And then removing the Brenda Cowan Elementary School property, that brings it down to a net of 726. And then the final map that we have for you is in the same vicinity. on the other side of Interstate 75. So this is where we were just now looking, the soccer stadium and the soccer fields down here. Interstate 75, Athens-Boonesboro Road. Now we're on the east side of I-75. Area 13 comes down to just above Athens-Boonesboro and follows this blue line and goes around like this. If you ask us to look at a portion of Area 13, We have done so by including, we're following the property lines that are in the vicinity of the northern section of the Blue Sky Rural Activity Center. So the bulk of Blue Sky is here and further east. We follow that northern boundary of the Rural Activity Center across and then following property lines, seal it up at I-75. Coming down then we include the rest of Area 13, which follows along Canebrake Road. This area to the east of Canebrake is not included in the sewerability area, but we square it off as part of the Blue Scribe Rural Activity Center boundary along that and then are depicting these two large undeveloped lots as part of Area 13 to be included. Area 14 following this southern boundary includes the northeastern portion of the commercial center of Blue Sky Rural Activity Center north of Athens Boonesboro and extends down south of the Rural Activity Center into this area and back up. In our depiction we are including all of area 14 to join with this portion of area 13. So you have the portion north of Athens Boonesboro of area 14, the rural activity center where there is a defunct hotel included in the southern portion of area 14, and then the balance of the land in area 14. This doesn't get you a whole lot, but the gross acreage is 121 acres and there is nothing to take out of that. So just a reminder, a review, this is what we just showed you, areas 2 and 3 on the west side, areas 6 and 7 on the northeast, and areas 10 and 12 and 13 and 14 on the southeast. Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to address any questions about orientation or methodology, or we can also then ask Chris George if he can pull up interactive maps and we can start working on these. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. The floor is open for questions for Mr. Duncan. Yes, Mr. Johnson. Jim, you started before I had my pen ready. Could you repeat what the total acreage was for these areas that you just went over again for us? Yes, the total acreage, and it should be on this map. Oh, okay. But the total acreage is 4,847 gross acres, 4,550 net. Okay. The other question I had was like the example you just went over there for area 14. These areas that are being brought in that are already developed and active, and on the first map I believe you're talking about part of a neighborhood, did you all count those in gross acreage, or did you deduct that out because it's already developed? No, the gross acreage includes that. The net acreage includes environmental features or publicly owned land. So floodplain or city, state, Pepe County public schools land. That's all that's included in the net. Okay, thank you. You know, we keep talking gross and net. I looked at the charges. I'm not sure exactly what our charge is relative to are we talking net or are we talking gross. I don't believe city council specified that we, and therefore I'm assuming that the net limitations that we have, 2,700 to 5,000 acres, are based on gross and that we're not cutting out, for example, floodplains all over the area or schools or whatever. Is that a wrong assumption, or have we resolved that issue? Because I think that's very important when we start talking about what our recommendation is going to be in terms of size. Good question. We have four council members on this committee, so I think they'll be better suited to answer that question. Thank you, Chair. Well, I'll just give my opinion, my interpretation. If we're talking about looking at land for development, then I think net is something that we definitely need to consider. Because if we're saying gross and land is not developable, then how are we addressing the council's charge? So I think we need to look at, I think net ought to be something that we take into consideration, but that's just my take on it. Vice Mayor? Chair. Ms. Plumlee. When we talked at the council table, we said tract. We said parcels. We didn't use the word net. Our charge was to look outside and find parcels with some of the stipulations we have. So in my mind, we were looking at gross. We're doing what we said we were going to do. We have X amount of acres. They are outside in the RSA, and that was, in my mind, that was our charge. Vice Mayor Wu. Not to offer yet another different opinion. I don't think we, in the language of goal three, it does not specify gross versus net. It just talks about acreage. So in some ways it may become a philosophical argument about what exactly we're trying to do. I would argue that the entire point of goal three and the entire point of identifying land for expansion is developability. So if it's land that can't be developed, that's not what we want to look at to begin with for this whole process. So that's kind of where I land on it. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. I guess I give my opinion. How did we look at it in 96 when we looked at the 5,400? Do we look at net or gross in that when we said that? Council member, we'll need to check for sure on that. But the number that's always been reported is gross. I can tell you when we talk about land that is vacant and when the staff reports vacant land, we report that excluding flood plain. So if we say there's 5,000 acres of vacant land, then there's probably another 300 or 400 acres of flood plain on top of that. So if we're talking about developable land, we're talking about flood plain, because you cannot build in the flood plain. That's why. But other land can be redeveloped. Even land that's being used for a house right now can be consolidated with another parcel and redeveloped. I would like to hear what 96 was, but in my take on it, I look at this as the 5,000 would be gross, and that's how I would look at it. We look at 5,000 gross, then we come back to the net. I don't think we go over 5,000 because then we're actually going into 6,000 to get back to 5,000, and I think the 5,000 was kind of what we said at, and there was going to be something taken out of that. Yeah, because there's a question of what we mean in a very broad sense in terms of developable. We put this kind of acreage, gross acreage in, there may be undevelopable, technically undevelopable land, but I can tell you there's a lot of land that's undevelopable that we use, for example, for parks. And it may be in a floodplain, and I'm sure that if we're talking 3,000, 4,000 acres, the recreational and park system will include lands that otherwise you couldn't build a house on perhaps, but they could still be used for community services in some other way. And so I think we're parsing a little bit here, but I think if we start down this road of, well, you know, now we need buffers and because there's a floodplain, and we're talking about a 500-year floodplain or 100-year, and I'm sure planning has that, and how many parks are we going to have, and will this be a nature preserve area, as we've often done with some lowlands, for example, in stream systems. I think we're asking ourselves or putting ourselves in a position to do a lot of meticulous carving, and I caution that that could get very time-consuming and meticulous. is there i think the for me it's really hard i'm looking at this and i'm seeing what is expected land use um commercial residential industrial it would be really much more useful also to see kind of vacant what is vacant and what kind of contiguous land is available because if i'm looking down at the down on eighth and burnsboro you know for me that is very much screaming industrial use. And so there are, you know, lot sizes that economic developers and site selectors are looking for. And I'm having a hard time seeing if that's even feasible if there are current industry in those areas. Also with the school being in one of those areas that obviously I'm assuming is not going to be developed anytime in the near future. So something that could tell us vacant versus currently occupied. Thank you, Chair. I want to kind of clarify my view on this whole gross versus net thing. I think because it is not explicitly stated in Goal 3, and even with four council members here, I don't think we want to try to interpret what that is. I think it's the purview of this committee to make that determination of whether we hit these numbers in gross or that that was my next question maybe for legal can we go ahead and determine and by a vote are we going to look at gross acreage or net acreage as a committee this is a legal question um are we able to do that right now i think you can but i think you need to consider that however the the council sent that forward, the limit is 5,000 acres. So we've been interpreting it as gross. But if you all want to have that discussion, so everybody's on the same page. But I think it would be problematic if you start looking at net and it puts you in a place where you're looking at 6,000 acres or 7,000 acres because the limit's five. Right. And right now we've got 4,800 acres gross based on the current maps. Is that correct? 4,847 acres. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. And I appreciate the conversation around gross and net, but with this recommendation and us eliminating areas for consideration, and the numbers that we're looking at now are within the range, do we need to look at, you know, other factors or other things other than the net or gross acreage about why areas should or should not be included? Because I think we're at a – personally, I think we're at a good starting place. And I think since we're in the range, you know, what other factors should we be talking about in regards to elimination or addition of acreage? So I just wonder if that net and gross conversation is one, or that decision is something that we need to make at this time, just because we're in the range that council specified. Just a couple of things kind of along the lines of what Council Member Brown was just saying. I think we're within about 300 acres difference of the net and gross right now. So I think we're pretty good on that. And I don't disagree with what you said about the floodplains and the usefulness within development, but I think we're talking about I think there are two distinct types of properties or situations we're looking at. We're looking at environmentally sensitive areas that are vacant that can be absorbed for a particular use, like a park or a trail system or something like that, versus like in Area 14 and in the first example, Well, what my question was pointed to, these areas are already developed. We cannot get any net or gross really out of that for any benefit of the community because it's already there, it's already built on, it's already done. If we take in the other part of the neighborhood that Mr. Duncan talked about in the first part, you know, consideration if we need to take more, we don't need to take any of it, those already have houses on it, people are living there, there's nothing going to be developed in that. So I think we're talking about two different types of property. Maybe if it's developed like this area in 2014, it's netted out, and it shouldn't be counted, in my opinion, toward any gross acreage because it's already developed. Even if it's brought into the area, it's already developed property with a use. That's just my opinion. I wanted to point out what I saw as the differences in maybe what we were talking about. Mr. Chair, it seems to me like right now we're talking about two different questions. One is how many acres, the other is where do we get those acres. And it seems to me it would make sense to do how many acres and then start doing the drilling down. Then we go looking for where those acres come from. So given what we've heard about getting over the 5,000, I would suggest that we consider doing the gross acres and then start doing the drilling down. No, that's fine. Actually, if that's in the form of a motion, I'll second it. I haven't opened it up yet. No. I was still waiting on the questions but I will I think Mr. Johnson does have a good point if it already is developed and we are bringing in and how much of what we're bringing in with what your numbers would be part of that Councilmember Ellington we have not done that analysis to see whether the lots have a house on them or there's a commercial use. So we haven't done that to know how much land that encompasses. Because I think that does have some bearing on here if they already have been developed, that they're not really going to be, we're not bringing in new stuff to develop. Two points. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Brown brought up, are there other things we need to be looking at? And yes, I represent the 12th District, and I will tell you the roads out there, the two-lane roads that wind around, cannot accommodate a lot of traffic out there, and I think that's an important factor. And the bottom line is, how much will it cost us to develop out there? We're looking at needs over and beyond what we're looking at. School, fire, police, the condition of the roads. It costs a fortune to fix some of those roads out there. And who do we know that wants to sell? I mean, how do you net that up? You'd almost have to go out, are you going to sell your property, or would you consider in the next five years, ten years? We don't know that. So we can't take it for granted that just because it's out there and we're bringing it in, that it's going to be able to be accessed. So there gives you another whole perspective on that. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, Larry, I mean, I respect what Chuck says, but we've already had a school district or a school, a fairly new school, that's already been cut out. How many other areas are going to have to have school, fire stations, police stations, refuse, that would, you know, they're developable, but we're going to have to have city services on them anyway, and so they're going to be cut out. So if we start speculating what's going to be cut out, because we know, if we can find the money someplace because nobody's asking how much any of this is going to cost we know that there's going to be a lot of developable land that's going to have to be cut out just for as we did in that one picture uh with the school and so you know i think you've got to stay to gross because otherwise you're going to go down a rabbit hole of gee how many schools are going to be here how many uh police stations or fire stations that are going to be cut out from housing and those kinds of residential development or commercial developments. It seems to me that we just need, I mean, we have such little time to do this, and that if we start parsing around like that, it's going to just take forever, and we may end up with 7,000 acres. Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair. Director Duncan, at what point do we conduct cost of service studies? Like how do we use those studies? Vice Mayor, we will get some of that information during the master planning process. So once the land is laid out for the land uses and the various services that we need, then the master plan will make some estimates of those costs. Okay. So I, you know, I brought up this analogy a lot during goals and objectives, the idea of cart before the horse. So I don't know if you have thoughts on the idea that we're identifying land for inclusion before we have that kind of information, that kind of cost of service study. Because I know, like, the consultant and the planning staff and commission will do whatever it is that we charge them to do once the land is identified. I understand that part, but is that going to be, you know what I mean? Like, are we going to end up identifying lands that cost more to serve because we don't have that information in front of us now? Vice Mayor, we won't know until we get into that. But certainly what we do know is that there will be the need for additional public services in these lands. and the school system will be part of that conversation to have an idea of what they'll need to do. Park land will need to be identified, and a lot of that can be done through the floodplain, or some of it can anyway, but other active parks as well. So, yes, there will be a number of community services that will have to be identified, and we will just be able to provide estimates through the master planning process at this point. Okay. So I do echo a lot of the concerns that committee members have expressed. It feels to me that we want more information and we don't have enough information to make sort of better decisions. So I'm also kind of agnostic on do we go with figuring out acreage first and then identifying land, or do we keep sort of kind of zooming in on criteria for this land? and get it closer to like what lands are the most appropriate. And then maybe that informs how much acreage we end up with. I could see it going either way. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Johnson. I would support what Todd brought up. And I think what Council Member Ellinger was saying about the developable land. How much time would that take you, Mr. Duncan, to look and tell us what already is in use in these areas that we've identified? Is it just the Blue Sky property? Are there other areas that have some housing development already on them that may have been grandfathered in? Well, certainly all of those, as we call them, piano key lots, if it's identified, and particularly in Area 7, likely have a house on them. And so there could be 20 or more acres that just has a house on it. So do you consider that? And that is a principal use in the AR zone. So it's not considered vacant for analysis purposes, but it is certainly underutilized for urban development purposes. So that kind of analysis quickly could be we'd look at aerial photography and just see what can we see there. That may not capture everything, but that would be sort of the quick analysis that we could do of what is there that's a principal use already on that property. Okay. So we did have, I'm going to go back. to the portion where we had a motion set. So, Ms. Wirth? To get that question answered so we can continue the discussion, I move that we accept as gross acres the council's charge to us to identify 2,700 to 5,000 acres in this process. Okay. I second it. Mr. Phillips. Any further discussion to that motion? Mr. Brown? Council Member Brown? Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Worth, for the motion. My only concern is I would be fine if both either the gross and the net fall within the range. I would have concern if the gross was at the lower end of the range and it made the net developable land fall outside of the 2,700 range because I don't think that would meet the intent of the council. So I'm thinking the way the motion is stated that that could be the case. If our gross is 27 and the net is less, then I don't think that really meets the intent of the council, so I won't support the motion unless it can be amended to address that concern. Okay. Thank you, sir. Any other questions, concerns? That's a good point. Mr. Wilson? I'm sorry. Just as a matter of process, he could offer an amendment. I know. I was trying to think about the best way to word it. And if anybody's got any better words to word it to meet my intent or address my concern, I'd entertain it. I think if you said the net has to be over $2,700, then that would take that in consideration. I'll make that amendment to the motion on the floor. Okay, so we would take your amendment first. Okay. But we need a second to Councilman Brown's motion. We have a second to the amended motion by Mr. Wilson. Any further discussion to that motion? Mr. Phillips. You know, I've got a comment. I would just like to point out to the committee that we still have almost half of the land from our, was it 96? Almost half of the land from 96 remains undeveloped. So if you're looking at the spirit of what the developers and builders and as reflected through the city council won, there's still 25, almost 2,500 acres out there to be developed in addition to whatever we do. And I just make that point because I think it's very germane to how much we push out given the lack of time and lack of data we have. Thank you. Mr. Duncan, is the voting capabilities, are we ready here to do that? Yes, you can vote electronically. Okay, so. Would you please restate the motion, the amended motion? I'm going to let Mr. Brown restate his amended motion. So we're voting on the amendment. Yes. So the amendment is that the net be greater than 2,700 acres. Okay. equal or greater to 2,700. I think it was a minimum. Okay. Thank you. All right. Now, just we can vote on the machines here in front of you. So you got yes, sustain, and no. So please cast your votes. Okay. We have nine yes votes and no, four and no votes. So that amendment motion passes. Thank you. Chair, can I ask a procedural question? Yes. There are 14 members of this committee, right? Does everybody have to either vote yes, no, or abstain, or can they not? There was, I counted 13, if it was nine and four, so just making sure. Mr. Chairman, you voted on the committee. Mr. Chairman, you voted on the amendment. Now you've got to go back to the main motion. The original motion will contain the amendment that you've offered. Yes. Okay. Ms. Worth. Remember how to do this. I move that we accept as gross acres the 2,700 to 5,000 with the understanding or the agreement that the 2,700 must produce at least 2,700 net developable acres. Does that cover it? Yes. Okay. Thank you. So we have a motion. We have a second to that motion. need a second thank you mr. Phillips okay now we can vote all right so we have 11 12 13. is that me nope make sure everybody hits their uh motion now we have 14 thank you so that motion passes 11 to 3. all right okay mr duncan you have your charge indeed yes sir thank you thank you so what's next yes mr brown councilman brown thank you and i i don't know what the plan was or what we're going to go to next but a couple of meetings ago i'd ask the question for clarity on infrastructure and easements on land outside the urban surface boundary in the rural area, whether or not we could put public infrastructure on either PDR property or outside the boundary. And so I was asking to see if we had legal clarity on that. And I guess, well, the reason that I'm asking that is some of the areas that I think we're considering, some of the consideration is based off of current sewer needs and how we address those. But I think we could have a better conversation if we had clarity about whether or not we could put infrastructure outside the boundary. And I think we had conflicting information the last time that we had this conversation. So that's why I asked for clarity. So have we got any legal clarity on that question? We have some. if it's a pdr easement on a piece of property and there it's contained you know there's a whole lot of moving pieces here so i'm going to try to hit them the best i can if i don't answer your question let me know if you're looking at an pdr easement and say even with whatever is decided ultimately which isn't going to be decided for some time but whenever the ultimate decision is made as to where the expansion of the boundary goes If you're talking about whether PDR farms land inside that, which they shouldn't, or outside that, can you then run lines or easements through those? It depends largely on what that PDR easement says. I will tell you that a majority of them say no. And if they say no, it means no. because, as you all know, particularly those of you on the council, we've partnered for many years with the federal government to obtain match funding. And so we are required in those easements where we use that match funding, which is a large number of them, to meet terms that they specify, one of which is we don't want you digging up farmland we've paid for to preserve and maintain as agriculture and be digging up, putting pipelines, easements, sewers and other things through them. So that is definitely something that will have to be considered. You know, hopefully those farms by their criteria and their selection may be far enough out you don't run into that problem. But if you do, that easement is going to control. It's filed. It's of record in the county clerk's office and they're in perpetuity. The other question, and Charlie Martin may have to help me out on this one, is in terms of, as I understand it, as a matter of policy right now there is a council resolution that talks about not locating infrastructure and sewer sewers and things outside of the urban service boundary i'm assuming if that boundary is expanded in part that solves that to some degree you know i mean the task from the council if you read it is to identify and bring into the urban service area 2700 to 5000 acres so if you bring something inside the boundary well then that policy or resolution from the council isn't going to apply because your boundary has been extended and now like what might currently be a problem under that policy won't be because you will have expanded the boundary now if you run into the same concern where you expand the boundary but then you're still looking at do we need to put some kind of infrastructure outside the boundary i mean charlie you can come a bit i mean they followed the policy the council set years ago on that i'm assuming they're going to do that unless it gets changed i'll add to that um to my knowledge the only infrastructure that we have that's outside the existing boundary or has ever gone outside the boundary was predicated by a council resolution that permitted it either we were serving a facility that had failed such as blue sky or as part of the 201 plan that was done 20 plus years ago there was a sewer line that was allowed to go outside the boundary because of topography but typically we do not well not typically we never put it outside without getting council approval first All right. So, Tracy and Charlie, thank you for that clarity. And the reason that's important to me is in regards to how we think about this or how I think about it is because, you know, I think there are several factors while we're looking at certain land. And if one of the factors and the main factor is infrastructure, but it doesn't necessarily tie into or is correlated with the potential future use of the property, then installing that infrastructure may not be enough reason to consider an area. But it sounds like the council has flexibility in allowing for infrastructure to be placed outside the boundary, taken into consideration or not the PDR easements, allow for it or not. So that helps me. I don't know if it helped anybody else, but I appreciate the answer. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Excuse me. Director Duncan, can I get a clarity on some numbers? I was looking at the old Area 6 from our previous meeting versus the new Area 6 plus 7, where we added those two little chunks of seven. So for my own benefit, I was trying to see how much area was added. And the numbers I came up with, I had a higher net number than gross, and I don't know if that's my mistake or I'm missing something. From my estimation, when we pulled in those two little chunks of seven to be kind of together with six, we added 687 gross, but 877 net. So I don't quite get that. And I'm looking, I'm comparing the two numbers from the map from today with these several areas and then the total score sheet from last week. Vice Mayor, let me try, and we may need to ask Mr. Dorage to help us sort this out as well. Certainly there's a considerable amount of floodplain in area six and a portion of seven and portions of seven. So that gets deducted as far as the net goes. The only thing that we added to six that was not part of the sewer ability was in the area around where Hume Road comes out, and that's those little notches around the city's pump station and the KU substation. That should be de minimis amount of land, so that shouldn't make that much difference. But certainly the floodplain calculation, I believe, would make the difference in the net if that had not been part of that original calculation. If I might add, our calculations to arrive at what we call developable excluded the 10-acre or less rural residential lots. We started with the assumption is that they were probably not developable, that there was a house there. We did try to caveat that, at least in my initial presentation, is that in some cases those may be a small house that could be torn down and redeveloped. But at the level of study we did, we couldn't determine whether or not that was someone's mini farm versus a small home. But that, I think, is probably the bigger difference, is that we excluded the 10-acre parcels, 10 acres or less parcels, from our gross to come up with a developable number. Okay. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how we added a couple of areas, but we ended up with what we added had 90 acres more net than gross. That's what I'm kind of trying to figure out. Thank you, Chair. I have a comment before we get into the particulars of mapping out these areas more than a question. Keeping in mind one of the goals of this committee to maintain and provide affordable housing in the expansion area. Areas 2 and 3 present a very particular impediment to the development of affordable housing, and that's their proximity to the airport. The noise pollution that comes from proximity to airlines is typically something that federal funding, home funds, FHA loans, Fedi-Frani loans does disallow. Not in every case, and not in every case in our city where we're building affordable housing are those particular sources of funding necessary? But a second impediment, just to be frank, housing in those areas is not particularly affordable, the adjacent areas to areas two and three. And I think you would find a tremendous amount of nimbyism and fight back to try to develop affordable housing in those two areas. Now, I don't think that necessarily means that they're not eligible for the other goals of this committee. It's just a comment, and it does make up about 18% of the gross acreage. of what's presented so far. Thank you for that information, Zach. Yes, sir. Actually, this is to Charlie. Charlie, we've got the addition in six, adding the little caveats to seven, or adding the little pieces of seven, both to the north and then the southeast. Have you been able to run a cost estimate of what the six with the two sevens? I know the sewer ability study had some costs, and I know six was pretty high for installation of those areas, but now we've added the nooks and crannies of seven. I don't know whether that might provide a cost savings or an additional expenditure, and do you know what that would be at this point? Unfortunately not. a week turnaround time is always difficult on us to be sure come up with that number I was joking with somebody is that we're not making margaritas so we can't just stick it in the blender and come up with a different number so we'll work on that I was really interested to see what the committee decided about these amended boundaries because then I would direct the consultant to go back and put some numbers to that I do want to point out that if you remember those that was a high number but remember there was a a fairly large amount of LFECG participation involved in that as well, and that partly is reflective of why that number per acre was so high. Okay. Well, if you could, I think that's valuable. I mean, nobody's talking about costs on any of the services, but sewer ability, we have the best data, thanks to you and your team. And I would, if we're going to consider amending that area to include those chunks of seven, And then if you could come up with some numbers and delineate them however you wish, just so we get a realistic picture of what that cost is going to be. Yeah, we intend to do that with all of those areas. Okay, thank you. All the ones that have been amended. Thank you very much. Thank you, Larry. Thank you, Mr. Phillips. Just kind of getting a, I want to just ask one question, Vice Mayor. In the warm fuzzy or not a warm fuzzy, are we ready to look at the maps right now or AMAP? Just as a consensus or we think we need to go back to staff and let them provide us with some more information on these maps. Because we can sit here all day going back and forth. But if we're not ready to kind of dig down into the weeds, I don't want to waste your time today. No, no, I think you're right back now. Council Member Brown? I didn't even stick my hand up. You brought the microphone down. To me, all this conversation and what we're talking about today I think is helpful. Personally, I'm not ready to go to the maps. I think there may be some more information we may ask them about. You know, the question, and I second the question. I can't remember if it was a motion or we asked them to do that. But I think pulling out the land that has already been developed in some of these areas, I think that would be good to know. to see where we're really at in regards to gross and net. But I like the questions that folks are asking, and I think this is beneficial, but I'm just not ready to go to the maps yet. Well, this is why I asked that question. I can't say it myself, but I want to collectively. Mr. Phillips got good points. Ms. Davis had good points. I mean, Vice Mayor Wu had good points. So up to you. Thank you, Chair. I would echo Council Member Brown's notes on that. I think there are so many outstanding questions right now, and I feel like there's a lot of thought to what other sort of metrics or criteria or scoring do we need to look at before we really get there. And I really appreciate Mr. Worsham's note about affordable housing. I feel like that conversation has been missing from our last couple conversations. I would be curious and you would know this better than I would certainly, aside from just sort of notions about you know, what HUD funding wants to support and doesn't support are there criteria or ways that you would grade potential areas for expansion for their likelihood or you know, what areas would be better for affordable housing and worse Do you have ways of measuring that? That's a fairly complex question, and there's not any particular metrics that push this result. I'll tell you, there's some factors that are going to push other affordable housing developers like ourselves into certain areas. One of them is going to be the ease of the planning process. These projects run on particularly thin margins, and so spending tons of money on a fought-out planning fight is difficult. So that leads me to say areas where existing affordable housing has already been developed in our city, proximity to that makes things easier. Now, there's a school of thought probably that income diversity across our community is important, but it's difficult. So to go into a high-income area and develop affordable housing is much harder. And if that leads to a long and drawn-out planning fight because of neighborhood opposition, that's going to typically be something that pushes us away from that. Any particular geographic concerns is really difficult to pin down. Here we work with the Kentucky Housing Corporation for various sources of funding, and their criteria changes every two years. So I don't know that there's any geographic or neighborhood-centric concerns. Affordability of land is important, again, because we run on extremely razor-thin margins. So the process of making expansion in and of itself is beneficial to the development of affordable housing because there's a supply and demand question. If there's more land available for market rate developers, there's more land available at a cheaper rate for affordable developers. My comments to areas two and three were just simply that we've got almost 20% of the acreage that this group is looking at that is probably not going to see any affordability. It's probably going to end up being single-family neighborhoods just based on the surrounding area, and because of the proximity to the airport is going to be difficult, and the land's probably going to be expensive. I don't know that that's because affordable housing is not the only goal. I don't know that that's necessarily relevant, and the inclusion of that land, to my point, does drive down land costs in other areas of town. You know, of course, folks don't want to live out, and I think this is probably true for anybody, folks that want to live out in the middle of nowhere, especially in apartment communities in the middle of nowhere. so Proximity to the major transit areas and other neighborhoods and amenities important, but I think through the process There will be new development that will you know spur more amenities for Affordable developments because we're probably going to be the last in because our processes takes so long it takes an average of 18 to 24 months to Identify a site and then start construction on an affordable development in most cases. I don't know if that's helpful but no it's very helpful and in your estimation based on the new map that we're working with today aside from areas two and three are there any other areas that give you pause or concern in regards to affordable housing areas around blue sky would give some pause or concern not to me personally I think that affordable housing should be built in your job centers and certainly not to make a comment to planning staff but we've had a recent development that it was discouraged from the Commission and the planning staff to build affordable housing in proximity to job centers and so there's probably a couple different schools of thought there but by my estimation it's unlikely that you're going to see an affordable housing development a budding blue sky and that's based on some recent experience although again there's a school of thought that being within a couple hundred feet or a quarter mile of an industrial industrial centers probably healthy for folks who are looking for access to jobs but also Lexington's not a place where people don't have cars so it's not completely necessary like some major urban areas but I appreciate that thank you thank you sure thank you so I'm having I apologize I have not been up here up until now. This process has been fast and I had some business travel for the last couple weeks, but I guess I'm having a hard time not including my own bias in this discussion because we're not using a lot of other parameters to define this. So for me, the affordable housing, I'm very appreciative that you said that. To me, it just looks like a big map of gentrification where we're trying to find places that are far away from the city center for people who are lower income to live. And I'm having a hard time with that. And then as I'm looking at the map, again, with my lens, it is very clear in each of those areas to me, as you know, I'm an economic developer and an agricultural economist, what exactly those land uses will be. So out by Man of War and Harrodsburg Road, that will be housing and it's not going to be for affordable family, for affordable housing. It's not. I mean, so it's going to be, is this the purpose of this is so that we create additional $400,000, $500,000 homes, which does not solve a whole lot. And you look down by Blue Sky, and again, I don't see that being, for me, I don't know the administrative issues, but for me, that's not a place, again, it's near job centers, but I don't know if that's attractive because the amenities aren't near there. And then, so then you're left with the Winchester Road area. And to me, that's the only place where I could see any mix of land use going into play. But I also see that as being really important prime farmland. So it's really hard for me in the absence of other data to have any kind of decision making except for what I know from analysis of the area from prime farmlands for, you know, cost of development. But it seems as though those factors are not allowed to be introduced here. And that's really challenging for me then to go into a map and sort of have a hypothetical and say, well, let's pretend this could be any land use, and we really have affordable housing at the goal of our heart here. It's hard for me to make those decisions, and so I'm really at a crossroads right now. Thank you. Mr. Phillips. Yeah, Dan's going to, Mr. Roo is going to cringe when I say this, so my apologies. I worked a lot with wildlife conservation in the past, and we've developed over time a system of basically transfer credits, which is, I think, perhaps applicable. I know that all we do at the end of the day is make recommendations to the planning staff and ultimately to the consultants that we inquire. but I think affordable housing, it was clear in the goals and objectives that this is a really important issue for us. Even though the language was aspirational and has almost no real teeth to it at all, it's still nonetheless very important. I'm looking at Mr. Peoples there and know that this is the heart of his concern. So even though we are only recommending, is it possible, and I throw this out generally, and Mr. Johnson, I look at you too on this issue, to have sort of a recommendation which basically says that in exchange for so many single-family units, and this is much more complicated, I'm simplifying it tremendously, in exchange for so many single-family units that developers and or builders will be required to cause to be built, because I doubt they would be one and the same, a certain number of affordable houses within the urban service area, sort of a conditional expansion, if you will. because building affordable housing on the outskirts is just not very feasible for a lot of reasons. And we could cram it in, and I know we probably will to a certain extent because we're almost required to, but it really isn't very practical. They're two different things to a large extent. Mr. Brown and I have talked about this extensively. So I'm wondering if we could recommend to the Planning Commission and ultimately to the consultant that city council develop a program wherein a certain number of single-family houses or however we want to define it in these expansion areas will require a minimum, maybe 500 to 5, something that we would deem reasonable. of affordable housing, because I'm afraid if we build affordable housing on the outside, we're going to just be creating another problem down the road. And I would like to see housing exchange authority recommended, if you will. And I don't know if that's practical. And as Mr. Wu has suggested, it's probably outside of the scope of our authority, which is just to find size and where. But I think as a practical matter, that's the only way we're really going to get an effective way to have affordable housing in this community. Thank you, Mr. Phillips. Mr. Worsham. Just a response to the two-part response there. To one point, building affordable housing in the outskirts of Lexington is not necessarily impractical. in practice, sorry. Anyway, it's not necessarily impossible and it's not necessarily undesirable. One of the challenges that we have as a city is not just a lack of affordable housing units, it's also a lack of units with quality, safe, affordable, clean. And so people will move further away from town if they have a better option. That's something we found. And the other thing, in most of our affordable communities, I think it's a large misnomer that people who are living in affordable housing don't have cars. Almost all of them do. So maybe with the exception of some elderly properties or folks who are living in our downtown core, but outside of town, most people drive to work. So I don't know that given a better option, most folks, and I don't have any data to back this up, but given a better option out Winchester Road, I don't know that most folks wouldn't move 20 minutes, 30 minutes away. I drive 30 minutes to work every day. I have no problem with that. So I don't think it's a completely true statement, but I do understand the concern. And second, there are a number of large cities, particularly that require, in certain parts of their communities, require a percentage of any multi-housing development to be affordable. I find that to be somewhat ineffective because it gives market rate developers the opportunity to play a little bit of a game and sweep up city money, and you end up with 300-unit property with five units that are considered affordable. And there's some caution I would advise to that concept. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. I appreciate all the points. And the one thing that I was going to do before the question came, I guess, pointed my way a little bit was, I think we have to realize where we're at and where we're going and how long it's going to take to get there. I think a lot of these discussions are very aspirational today, given the fact that Zach and I have talked, and one of the key things for his funding mechanism is to get the federal dollars to help support his work. That can't come and fit into the formula until the right transportation services and other community amenities are there. Sitting here today, we're at least eight years away from anything coming out on anything we haven't defined today. And then it's going to take time to get those services, community services, and everything built along to support any type of housing or industrial use that's coming out of the ground first. I'd like to sit here and be able to write the story and get it all right. I don't think it is our charge to be talking about that in this committee. But I think we've got to realize exactly where we are. We're a decade away, really, from Zach or any other person who does the work that he does. It requires a federal mechanism of funding to come in to have the support there that he will have to show in the area he's wanting to develop to get those matching dollars, which are key to his projects, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong, Zach, but that's one thing that's tough about where we're at today is we're so far out for anything that will happen on what we're trying to identify for future use. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. That's a fair point. Typically, there are proximity to amenity criteria that the Kentucky Housing, Housing Urban Development and other groups look at but I do think just the expansion and I've said this I think already but I support this expansion because I think just the addition of supply of land is going to drive down the cost and already areas inside of the USA that will make our projects more feasible. So I think just the action that the committee is taking of selecting land ultimately, and not necessarily in 10 years, will drive some more affordability in the city, even not in the areas we're selecting. Yes, Mr. Peoples. I really appreciate that we're finally getting around and having a full housing discussion. And I hope we're serious about this. I've been doing this long enough to know that in the past, when we run up against what appears to be the obstacles, then we turn those obstacles into excuses. So that's what I mean when I say that we're serious about it. and one of the things I've always said about our community is that we are a can-do community and we usually can do whatever we want to do and I am appealing to this committee to be serious about the affordable housing issue and let's, as he's saying in sports, Larry, let's strap it on and get in the game. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. I like that analogy too. Is there anyone else want to add anything? Mr. Duncan, that you wanted to add? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, just to remind you all of the schedule, also, this is August 29th, our fourth meeting of this committee, and our schedule has us completing a draft map next Tuesday, or you instructing us to complete that map on September 5th so that we can make this available for public comment on September 12th. 12th. That does give you two more meetings on September 19th and 26th than to come back and respond to the public comment or to additional information that you've asked from staff to finalize the map. But we are less than a month and hour away from finishing this map so that this committee can make a recommendation to the planning commission. So whatever information we can provide you, we want to make sure we do so efficiently, but we do have a schedule that you all have agreed to, and we're going to We want to try our best to meet that. Yes, ma'am. If we're done discussing affordable housing, because I don't want to take us away from that, if we need to say some more about that at this point. We've talked a little bit about maybe looking at scoring criteria again, and I'm wondering if there's a way we can backdoor our way into some information that might eliminate some of the other costs besides sewer development costs. And I'm thinking about looking at the areas that we've talked about and looking at how close they are to cities' infrastructure like police stations, fire stations. We've already talked about the fact that Brenda Cowan is in one of those areas. are there ways to look at this in terms of what's in there now in terms of those services because there are some fire stations out in the rural area or what's close that might be able to serve the area and make some decisions about which of those might require more of that kind of development versus which ones wouldn't miss worth i think what we could do is certainly provide an inventory, but I don't, professionally, I don't believe that would be an indicator of how those services that are there would support future development. I think anything, whether it's schools, fire, police, anything, is going to have to be addressed once the new land uses are identified and once the land starts to develop. What's there now is not waiting to serve new people. So that analysis can certainly be made. I just don't think it will be that informative. Council Member Brown Thank you, Chair Kind of along the same line of Ms. Wirth's point Would it not be helpful to this whole process To maybe generally throw out potential land uses For the areas that have been identified on the map that we're looking at Or do you think that would get the public riled up? Would it not be helpful? But to the point about public infrastructure and services, I think if we, you know, and I think, you know, I can look at the map and kind of think about it, but I just wonder if it would be helpful to the committee to think about, you know, what the potential uses would be, or is it too soon for that? Mr. Council Member Brown, I believe you hit the right chord when you said, would we get people riled up because I'm concerned if we say anything in a format like this that it becomes repeated and becomes gospel and it becomes outsized. I can just remind the committee that the council asked us to look at this considering affordable housing, market rate housing, and housing for low-income people. So kind of three levels of housing. The workforce housing would be the affordable housing, the market rate would be for everybody else, and certainly the low-cost housing for people who have low incomes. But then also, and this was the word that's used in the goals and objectives, a wide array of jobs. So it's not just housing, but it's also looking at what's the job opportunity here. So, Council Member Brown, let me try without making a commitment, but I think if you look at areas where you see job development already, then that may be someplace that you want to build on additional new job development and places where transit service can be sensibly and easily perhaps extended and there are already other services and jobs there. Perhaps that's where you think about the fullness of the housing. And so I think in every one of these areas that you all have identified, there can be some measure of that that's addressed in those areas. I don't think any of these areas would be lost in fulfilling the council's goals at wanting a wide array of jobs and a wide array of housing. Okay. The other thing I'll say, too, is, you know, to Mr. Phillips' point earlier about really getting intentional about affordable housing and how that could be done in regards to this. And, you know, that was the council's charge to the Planning Commission, is to take a look at this and come back with some recommendations for some policies that we can adopt to help and encourage affordable housing with this. So I think we've sent a pretty loud and clear message about that. Yeah, I think the map, like I'll say it again, I think the map is a good start. I think some of that information that we requested can help me think about how and what type of map that we adopt going forward. So I think we're on a good path. Thank you. Mr. Duncan, I know with your staff they have a lot of things going on, but are we able to receive this information as a committee? It's a holiday weekend, right? Are we able to receive that this week? Thank you for reminding us that we have a lot going on, Mr. Chair. And just to make a plug, we do have a public input meeting Wednesday night for the comprehensive plan. Not this process, the comprehensive plan. So we do want people to participate in that as well. I'll look at our staff, Chris and Chris, if we're looking at, say, trying to identify what of these smaller parcels are already used for some other purpose. Is that something that we can do in a matter of a couple of days? I think what's being asked for we can give some generalized information on but we're going to for the veterans of this process every five years you know what the vacant land analysis looks like and what that discussion spurs. It just leads to the next series of questions about what is available, what is vacant. Is it developable? There's a reason that Director Martin took out the 10-acre tracks. There's a reason that we put them back in. We can have this discussion any number of ways, sliced any number of directions, and still ultimately arrive at the same question of what is gross, what is net. We're happy to continue to slice any number of ways, but it's ultimately not going to really change the question in front of you. but we are happy to provide that context, understanding that we still don't, we will not know what the timeline of development, what the property owners are looking like in terms of their willingness to develop. There are things that we could not have predicted in 96 about the last 30 years of development. We had no way of knowing, and we will have no way of knowing for this. That is just the nature of how this works, but we are happy to come back. What I'm hearing is we have one task, which is related to the uses, what I need to make sure we have a really good handle on is if there's anything else, because we do have a very important time to get to a consultant to do the very important work of the things that you all are identifying. And those things are critical, and we have to preserve that time. So I want to make sure that we give you what you need as quickly as we can, but knowing that our timing is limited. So we can try to get that to you by the end of the week, but we may have some caveats on that data when we come back to you to talk about it on Tuesday. understand that's why I ask yes sir I wanted to add you know from the sewer standpoint mr. Phillips asked us to go back and update our you know cost per developable acre as he pointed out you know is that we're depends on which one you use whether you pull out the 10 acre lots or not but the the timing of development I mean we provided that really as a metric to try to allow this committee to help screen the whole 14 areas and maybe drill down to what's affordable or what's reasonably affordable or not they're not hard numbers because ten years down the road there'll be something entirely different Thank You mr. Martin mr. Ford's got some member okay thank you chair I said this is my excuse my really the second meeting but it was my first meeting because we were out of town this is really important work and I know this deadline was put out there from the very front but if we can't get it done if we can't have done in the best way can't we add a couple more meetings on that the consultant has over a year and I don't know if we've even chosen the consultant yet councilmember Plumman in in my experience working with consultants on these kind of projects for for my career a year is no time to do this master planning up to 5,000 acres, that is a massive project. And there will certainly need to be a number of public input processes, reports back to council. We need every minute of a year to do that. And to do anything less than that would be a disservice to the master plan. As we've told you all, there's a lot of information that we're hoping to come out of that master plan that will fill out many of the questions you're asking. And if we don't give the consultants the opportunity to do that, we're not going to have a good master plan then to take into the next eight to ten years. You know, I don't have any problem with the acreage in terms of what we come up with. But I am not, you know, I'm very apprehensive about where. And I think all of us have a very important charge. And just like the consultant needs time, I think we need time. And so I would hope that we add a meeting, two meetings. And in between now and then, that's the information we need. That's just how I feel. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Plumlee, are you willing to meet during a week or add a week? Add a week. Okay, I was just asking. Because I know something, I mean, you're busy too. And everybody's busy. So I'm just curious. It may be easier if we add a day during the time that we have, you know, and not adding a week, extending the week out, but add, I say we do Monday and Tuesday, if we have to do that, instead of moving the date back. If that's the committee's field, because I have a day job too. Mr. Phillips. Oh, when we were talking about the cost of those things, you know, there's a hard cost, and then there's a – and I just want you to understand that I appreciate there's a hard cost and there's a soft cost. We have, for example, the police question and what it's going to cost and whether we're putting a new police station out there and having to buy more cars. We're already 100 policemen down in the city. we can't even police what we have. Did you say you were like 11 engineers down or 10? No, I said I was 11 and now it's 13 industrial mechanics. Okay. So these are illustrations of things that, you know, we can talk about the hard costs, but they're going to be tons of soft costs with this expansion. And that makes it even more difficult and I sure hope city council members that are on this committee understand we're talking huge costs for the city coming down in the next 10 years as we we push out and not just hard costs but also labor costs and from refuse to police to more school teachers and everything like that That was just an observation because I do understand the hard costs are themselves hard to predict, let alone the soft costs of labor. Are we still on the discussion of whether we're going to add a meeting or not? If we are, I'll wait. Mine is not really germane. And although I was going to comment that I am a little bit concerned that we didn't get further in our discussion today about the map as we kind of all anticipated, and that's all put on one meeting before a public hearing, is that what I understand, that we're going to be having to finish the work of the map next Tuesday? Yes, sir. So I do have a little bit of concern about that. But that's not what my comment was going to be in total. So if you want to finish that, Chair, I understand, and you can come back to me if you'd like. No, I just wanted to ask Ms. Plumlin kind of what her thoughts were about adding an additional day or week. Just wanted to get her field on it. So, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair. I want to add to that this whole meeting question. It sounds like, Director Duncan, the intent of the input session is to be able to present to the public our proposed map and then get feedback from that. Is that correct? Yes, Vice Mayor. What we propose for the public input meeting on September 12th, which is an evening meeting in the council chambers, 6 o'clock, is that staff would make a brief presentation. We would give the background of what the council has asked, what the committee has done, and certainly walk through the maps and have those available, and then invite the chair would invite the public to come and address the committee who we would hope would be interested in sitting in the horseshoe with you all. So, Director Duncan, do you – I kind of lost my train of thought now. I feel like if that is our goal – actually, no, now I remembered. Have we given public notice for this September 12th meeting yet? We have not. Okay. So I can see this going one of two ways, that if we want to lock down September 12th as input, if we add any meetings, it has to be between now and then. So it would have to be an additional meeting somewhere in the week. If we wanted to just add a week to the end of our sort of run and keep doing this on the same days, we would probably have to push back the input one week. That would be, that to me seems like the two options. Does that sound right? Yes, that could be. Also, Vice Mayor, we don't have a meeting scheduled for the morning of the 12th, although we do have another activity that I'm going to talk to you all about for that time. But that time is available. But Vice Mayor, if you don't mind me extending on end, the mayor has recommended that the committee view the sewer ability areas and the mapped areas that you all are considering. So we were looking at reclaiming the time on the morning of September 12th, which you do not have scheduled for a meeting, and using this same time at 10 o'clock for a tour of these areas and take the committee together on a bus and go around the community and look at those areas just so you can see the areas that you are considering for future expansion. So that would be the morning of the public input meeting. Take the public input that evening and then come back the next two weeks to finalize the maps. Thank you. That's all I have on the meetings. I have other stuff, but we can get to that. Thanks. So I know we're not going to get a lot of consensus on whether we go forward or not, but this is a committee. We have a majority. So I guess I can ask and open the floor up, do we want to move forward with addressing the maps currently as a group, or do we want to get some of these questions asked and put more work on Mr. Taylor over there? And if we do do that, then the next question will be going back to Council Member Plumland, Vice Mayor's Wu, by adding another day or extending the week. Then we get into the weeds and stuff. But we need to have that addressed. Just my thought is that we stick to the schedule that we have before us, and then we can make that decision after next week's meeting, whether or not we need to extend. Who knows, we might come in and just start rocking and rolling with the map and get to a point next week. But that's my thought. I think we try to stick to the schedule as presented and see where we end up next week. And if we need to add an additional meeting, we do it. And if we need to push off the public hearing, we do it. Thank you. So as of today, Council Member Brown, where do you stand right now? personally I'm done for the day I think it's been a lot of information I think we got some things that we have asked him for and then I think we just pick up next week that was my feeling too based on I got some eyebrows looking at me Mr. Phillips do you have anything are you good no I'm pretty good with that I would urge people to go out if this bus tour is arranged because, you know, I think it's improper for us to sort of pick and choose winners, but you'll get a sense of the land and, of course, where certain horse farms are, where certain agricultural farms are, and what we're talking about. And so I'm much appreciative of the mayor trying to encourage that because I think it's valuable. We're making some big decisions here on the future of this city. Thank you. Thank you. So can I ask one quick question? The public input meeting, is there something that states that at that meeting it is our recommendation that they are evaluating kind of the rough draft sort of selection from us? Or are they just looking at this? I mean, right now the parcel, you know, the spots are not that many for them to respond to. Why can't we ask them, given what you see here, what's your thought, as opposed to picking the exact parcels at that time? Why are we rushing to get to them a perfect answer for them to come back and have their input and us maybe start all over again? Dr. Davis, the question of whether to do this has already been settled. The council has decided that. Right. And so asking the public where we should go on a blank slate would give us all time. Not a blank slate, but if you gave us six or seven different places, we're obviously having a very hard time even getting to that. Why are we then going to them with the exact locations for them to evaluate without any additional information? Why can't we just give them these six locations and get input from that? Well, I think you'll get that anyway. In my experience, you will get comments that are outside the draft map that is presented. You will get comments saying, why didn't you consider this, and it's not even in the sewerability area. So we will get those comments anyway. But it's also important, I think, for this committee to know that if you are indeed considering land and there are strong feelings in the community about that one way or the other, that it gives the community an opportunity to respond. It gives you more information as you're finalizing your decision. Right, so I would like to know community input before we finalize our decision. Yes. Right, but I feel like we're trying to finalize our position and then giving them sort of all the input and then having to reevaluate again. I'd rather get their feedback first before we have a really hard discussion. Again, in my experience, it's good to give the community something to respond to. And so these maps that you all ask for could do that and still give the committee the opportunity to make changes to that. So if there's not any other business, yes, ma'am. You're first. No. I'm first? Yes. This is on a list of things, but I don't want it for our next meeting. I'd like some information about the rate at which we've been absorbing land and rate whatever acres, however you can. I know it's not available right now. It will take some time to put that together. But I think having that information in context of the decisions we're making would be helpful. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. So, again, going back to I thought we would be getting more in according to the agenda and what we had talked about into the more of the map discussion and the land discussion. and we've been looking at particular areas that have been defined. Is it appropriate to consider other areas that haven't been put to us on a map for discussion in this committee? Is it involved in this sewer building study, Mr. Martin? Well, the property that I would like to propose that we talk about, I believe, has some sewer advantage for the city. Bring it up. So in our discussion when we were looking at this through our organization in places that would be suitable for development and would provide housing that meets a lot of the criteria that's been put forth, not every bit of it, is a section of property out Todd's Road. The addresses are 4200 and 4582 Todd's Road that are adjacent to the urban services area. They back up to the interstate. there's multifamily development on one side and residential development across Todd's Road from it and I believe that there's some sewer advantages for the city on that property from what I've been told and I just wanted to know if it was appropriate to look at if that is a possibility to be considered or at least run it through the scoring matrix to see how it pairs up to everything else we've been looking at so will that be added to areas 10 and 12 one of those areas some of the orange tab if I may mr. chair yes we've talked about this a little bit from the last meeting when it became apparent that that one property the remnant property at the top of the nose if you bring up area I guess it's 12 the map for area 12 stop that while she's doing that is that that pond property or what what mr. Duncan defined as the pine pond property a few minutes ago it actually drains across the interstate towards those very parcels okay so we've talked about that already and then I would have a tendency to agree with mr. Johnson is it it's worth considering because it does have some benefit not only to that internal parcel but it's very it's right adjacent to some existing development that has has pump stations on it already. And so I've said, I think I've said to this committee and others before, is that if we're talking about adding something that's adjacent to the boundary that trades a pump station for a pump station, that's a zero sum game for us. And so from an operational standpoint, it doesn't put any new burden on us that doesn't exist already. Because the old pump station would go away and the new one would take its place just further downstream. That's where it sits right now. So here's the pond property in the sewer building, within the area that we need map for you. And I believe the two parcels that Mr. Johnson mentioned would be this one and this one. That's correct. On the east side of I-75. And then, as Mr. Martin said, the drain, the flow, going this way. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Chair. When we start talking about adding things that were never on the original surability maps, can you, Director Martin, can you give us an insight into, I think for the most part we know why you chose these areas, but why certain other areas that other people might bring up weren't chosen to be on this for consideration? It's a good question. Remind everybody, we started with the areas that were defined in the 2006 study. That was our benchmark at which to start without clear direction. We modified the areas that were in that study to better reflect contour lines, because that's obviously what we want is contour lines draining into the bathtub, along with a little bit of tweaks to address consent decree issues that have emerged that didn't exist in 2006 before the consent decree. But largely what the driver was was the 2006 study and the areas that were defined. Areas like Todd's Road were not in that study. Okay. I get a little bit wary of the idea. Well, let me back up. I like the way that we have approached sort of our starting points with these maps because they're areas, and I'm very, very leery when we start talking about either parcels or properties. So if we're starting to potentially add things to the map for consideration, there's been talk about the idea that we don't want to pick winners and losers when it comes to property owners, and that feels like we're starting to edge into that, and that makes me a little bit weary. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Phillips. No, I would echo Dan's comments on picking winners and losers. If we get into that too much, we might also end up talking about buffer zones for certain agricultural areas that will become obvious on the tour. And I don't really want to get into that either. But if we start picking and choosing winners like that, that's going to be the logical sort of counterbalance, if you will. And I may lose on that, but that's okay, because I do think there are equal considerations for taking land out that is in when we start talking about agricultural buffers or other kinds of buffers, too. So I was looking at it myself. I was thinking, I don't know how many acres that may be, just without looking at it all, but maybe that's an opportunity to add and subtract from something else that we feel comfortable with. But then listening to Mr. Martin's comment that the cost-effective, and Mr. Phillips, you had mentioned cost many times in the meetings, sounds like that would be one area that would have more of a cost-effective way of expanding. But just my thoughts on that, too. Just trying to balance it out between everyone. Hold on. Vice Mayor, please. Mr. Johnson. Me? Okay. Yeah, just kind of to add to that, you know, we're below the threshold right now, and we know that we're going to find areas just that you described that are probably going to be cut out of that. So I think if we're going into this, and, again, this is something I intended to bring up today looking as we were to be building the map, we should go in with every option that we've got that makes sense. And this property certainly makes sense from a lot of standpoints and where it's the proximity of it, the sewer ability of it, and things like that. So I would rather see us go in with more knowing that we're going to have to reject some out so we have the full picture as we start our work and actually putting it to the paper. Can I ask Mr. Johnson a question? Yes, Vice Mayor. The properties you've identified off Tots Road, what's the total acreage of those two areas? I'm not 100% sure, but I would think it's probably 250 acres, something like that. It's a little over 300. A little over 300. The two parcels combined. Gotcha. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Is there anyone else? Anything else additional? Added comments? Okay, Mr. Duncan, so it looks like any additional information you want to provide to us, or it looks like we'll be seeing you next Tuesday. So, Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure that you all want us, just as you asked us at the end of last week's meeting, to work up the areas on the map, you want us to work up these Taz Road properties. Is that right as well and bring that as a... I think we need to look at it. I mean, in my opinion, I can't speak for the committee, but just trying to address Mr. Phillips' statements and address Mr. Johnson's statements, I think we should include it. At least consider it. I don't want to say include it, consider it. And so we've got that, and then we've also got the, we're going to look at, as Chris Taylor said, as best we can, an analysis of land use, particularly on the small parcels, to see how they're being used and try to provide some feedback on that as well. Director Martin, is there anything else, I think to Todd's point, are there any other properties that were outside the scope of that original study that seemed to make sense to you that we may need to put on the table for consideration as well? Maybe on the other side of Todd's Road or anything in that area that wasn't identified originally? It's a qualified, I don't think so. You know, when we went through this, number one was driving me was the consent decree because I have too well spoken about issues that I don't have a solution to because of the existence of the boundary. Some of the other places where I don't have operational problems, I probably didn't look at it super close, this being one of them, is those pump stations that are out there right now, they're not really causing me a problem. But if the committee decided that they wanted to consider that land, what I would answer is that the sewerability part of it seems to be very efficient. And so that would be why I answered any other properties that any committee member wanted to bring up. We would just look at it and say, does that put an additional burden on the sewer system or not? And that was what I was trying to say about this when it doesn't. Mr. Duncan, I'm a carryover. Carry on. And Mr. Chair, we haven't worked up the Todd's Road property. So in looking at that, we'll see how that fits in with the proximity of the other sewer ability areas. So we may look at that again, working with Chris Dorge and Charlie Martin, and maybe even have a modified recommendation for one of the other areas as well. We may not, but we want to look at that comprehensively if we can. So we'll have that ready for you all. And again, this being a short week, we'll try to get that information out to you all on Friday. And then back here on Tuesday the 5th at 10 o'clock, that is a scheduled meeting for the for the map building, as we said. And then and I apologize, Vice Mayor, I stepped on your comments earlier to plug something else. But I do want to go ahead and state that we are looking at it, although it's not inked, but we do have the option to go ahead and have a Lex Tran bus take us out at around 10 o'clock on September 12th and view these areas and what we I think what we would do is try to Come up with the tour that would give us much as view of these areas as we possibly could Probably take about the same amount of time that we would put this meeting So we'll be finalizing those details and getting that information back to you all so that so that you all can plan for that as well And then at this time, we do have the public input meeting scheduled for that evening, September 12th, Tuesday, at 6 o'clock in the council chambers. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Hope everybody will be able to make the bus tour. Mr. Phillips, are you going to be narrating for us? Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I wanted to also make a couple of other plugs. We do have the Sewer Ability Study on our website. So if anybody wants to check that, and then, of course, the information that we're providing to you all is being posted on the website as well. So we encourage you all to check that. Thank you. Thank you. With that being said, I call this meeting close it out, and we see everyone next week. And have a good holiday weekend. Thank you. Thank you. All by myself Don't wanna live I'll never, never, never Be there before Thank you. Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights where the latest neon promises are burning bright. Past the open windows on the darkest streets where unseen angry voices flash and children cry. Past the phony posers with the worn out lines, tied new money dressed to the nines. The low-life dealers with their bad designs And the dilettantes with their open minds You're out on the town, safe in the crowd Ready to go for the ride Searching the ice, looking for clues There's no way you can hide The fire inside Well, you've been to the clubs and the discotheques Where they deal one another from the bottom of the deck of promises Where the cautious loners and emotional wrecks Do an acting stretch as a way to hide the ideas And the lights go down and they dance real close And for one brief instant they pretend they're safe and warm And the beat gets louder and the moon is gone The darkness scatters as the lights flash on They hold one another just a little too long And they move apart and then move on On to the street, on to the next, saving the knowledge that they try. Making the smile, hiding the pain, never satisfy. Fire inside. Fire inside. Thank you. guitar solo You hear his car pull away in the street Then you move to the door and you lock it When he's gone for good Then you walk to the window and stare at the moon Riding high and lonesome through a starlit sky And it comes to you how it all slips away Youth and beauty are gone one day No matter what you dream or feel or say It ends in dust and disarray Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass Waves rolling in with the tide Dreams die hard and we watch them erode But we cannot be denied But fire inside Fire inside Fire inside Burning you up Burning you up Fire inside Thank you. guitar solo For one another Today we'll join our hearts eternally And this moment I'll always remember All the words that mean so much to me And you're my only love My only love And I just thank Lord for you each day I can't believe the way I feel You're so special, you're so real And I know you'll always be my only love Listen closely to the words I'm saying I know I've never met them anymore Oh, your love only I've been praying You and I are what this love is for And you're my only love Why all we love And I just thank Lord God For you each day I can't believe The way I feel You're so special You're so real And I know you'll always be my only love I know you'll always be my only love I'm not alone. It seems to hide deep inside your mind. All alone I have cried. Silent tears full of pride. In a world made of steel, made of stone. Where I hear the music, close my eyes, feel the rhythm, wrap around, take a hold of my heart. What a feeling, feels believing I can't have it all, now I'm dancing for my life Take your passion and make it happen Pictures come alive You can dance right through your life Now I hear the music Close my eyes, I am real In a flash, it takes hold of my heart What a feeling, feels believing I can't have it as you're dancing for the night Take your passion and fade in heaven Pictures from alive now are dancing through my life What a feeling What a feeling I am moving now Feels for believing I am moving now Pictures come alive You can dance right through your life What a feeling I can't really have it all What a feeling It's just every night when I'm home I can't have it all I can really have it all. Have it all. It's just coming. I want to cry. Come, come, come, come. What I feel. I can't hold it all. Beers for leaving. Beers for leaving. Take your passion. Take your passion. Make it happen. What I feel. What I feel. Thank you. On this edition of Lexington Now, FUSIS, Safety City and a new commissioner. I'm Neil Noah and welcome to Lexington Now for the week of August 28, 2023. Lexington police have integrated a new tool in the fight against crime. And this is one that anyone with a security camera can help with. It's called FUSIS. Today, I'm excited to announce the integration of the FUSIS platform. This new technology will help unify all of our public safety assets, like flock license plate readers, traffic cameras, and other cameras operated by private entities who opt in. With this technology, we will be able to solve crimes quicker and provide real-time information to officers. Technology does not replace good police work, but instead it is another tool for our officers and detectives that they can use for safer and more efficient investigations. We will still have officers talking and engaging with the community and following up on any leads. The FUSIS platform also allows businesses, the community, and our partners and residents to engage with us in a more efficient manner and help keep us and our community safe. We are taking an exciting step forward that will make our community safer through technology. Our investment in Flock License Plate Readers has been an enormous success. That is why I proposed back in April that we take the next step and establish the Real-Time Intelligence Center with an additional investment of about $150,000 annually in video-based intelligence software known as FUSIS. We're now ready to begin using FUSIS in our community. It allows us to combine our existing technology assets, including alerts from FLOC license plate readers and video from traffic cameras, while also allowing the voluntary addition of private security cameras from partnering businesses and even residential cameras. cameras. Starting today, businesses and individual citizens here can choose to have a direct impact on the safety of our community through this technology partnership. The software combines these assets into a single source. It's an investigative tool and a resource we can use to streamline emergency response and incident management with real-time information for our first responders. Technology is the future, some say. It's here now. We started this on July 1st, and after about two months, we're almost close to being fully implemented. We nearly have all of our traffic cameras loaded into the system, but our site is live. Our site is connectlex.org. That's where the community can go to register their cameras and or integrate their cameras into the Real-Time Intelligence Center. Registration is voluntary and it's free. So that's where we see most of our residential cameras. We would like to just know you have a camera in the area. It's good for us to have that ability to go directly to you and also reach out to you electronically to see if you had any video that may be related to a criminal incident that you wish to share. If you are a business and you want to integrate your cameras into the real-time intelligence center, it allows us to be efficient when we respond to your business in or around your business if a criminal act is occurring. There is a small fee associated with that. That fee allows you to buy the purchase of the core device, which will integrate your cameras, and then there is a yearly subscription thereafter, but that is a nominal fee of $150, I believe. The good thing about it, you don't have to replace your camera system. It integrates with most every camera system that's out there, So it's just literally a plug and play option that usually can be set up within a week's time once the order actually received. Fuses will then get on the phone until you had to connect that. Plug it in and you'll be integrated right with the system. One of Lexington Police's most popular services to the community is geared toward teaching kids how to stay safe around traffic. Safety City. So there was a lot of kids that were nationwide that were being injured during like walking down the streets, riding bicycles or traveling on school buses. These could have been prevented if the kids had just been educated on situations and how to prepare themselves better when they were doing these activities. So the Bluegrass Junior Women's Club proposed a program to Mayor Scotty Basler at the time, 1987, to combat this problem and to educate the children in safety through positive means of explanations, demonstration, and practice. The Safety City Project was born and opened in May of 1990. The goals are the opportunity to intervene in the lives of young students and instill lessons that keep them safer throughout their adulthood as well. And through educating students on the importance of pedestrian, traffic, bicycle, fire and gun and personal safety. And it should travel with them throughout their adult life as well and they should learn messages and prepare them for issues that they will face on a daily as they grow. So I teach the PowerPoint. It's about 45 minutes and I really like it because I can interact with the kids, I get them going, they can yell the answers back at me. Let's see if you guys know what this means. Roll! Roll! Roll! Roll! Roll! Stop! So we have a lot of fun with it and then we get to play bingo. So we also have an Eddie Eagle video that we play for the kids as well. Eddie Eagle is basically a cartoon that they watch and him and his friends come across a gun in a park and then they sing a little song and the kids get it. It's a little jingle. I'm not going to sing the song for you. It's a little jingle and the kids like it and basically they learn how to don't touch the gun, go tell an adult, stay away from it. Then at the very end we get to do a little dance with the officers so we get up there and we do a dance and we teach them from their left and their right. And then we get them prepared to go out and drive the cars. They'll go outside. We have 10 little Toyota cars that we have. And we'll line them up and then the kids will get out there. We'll explain to them that they got to properly put their seat belts on. We'll have them look inside the car. So they'll look inside the car. Then they'll get in. They'll properly put their seat belts on. We all check for safety. And then we turn the cars on and then we tell them how to stay on the right side of the road to stop at stop signs, to stop at stop lights, and to yield the pedestrians that are also out there, their classmates that are practicing the pedestrian part of it. Pedestrians learn how to cross in a crosswalk. They learn how to use the pedestrian box at a traffic light. And then we have bicycle safety as well and the kids will go out. They'll learn how to get a bicycle that properly fits their body style, their height, and then they'll learn how to properly wear their bicycle helmet. And then they'll learn how to properly maneuver their bicycle along the road, on the right side of the road and everything, like they would if they were riding in their neighborhood with their friends or family. So right Right now we primarily are serving second and third graders and these students are throughout Fayette County and surrounding counties. Go online to the Lexington Police Department webpage and go to Safety City and then the request form is there. Fill it out, hit the submit button and it will come to me and we'll get you started. So I think that the impact that Safety City has is that we get to make a positive impact on the young kids. A lot of people, when they come across the police, we're coming to them when their whole life is kind of in a crisis. So they're looking for us to kind of put together their life that's kind of falling apart. Well, with these kids, we get to have fun with them. And we get to do things that are fun. And we kind of make a good positive impact on them so that they understand that the police are here to help you and we're here to teach you so that you learn from us. So that's kind of how I feel about it. We introduce you to one of Lexington's newest commissioners after this. Welcome back to Lexington Now. We had a conversation with one of Lexington's newest commissioners to get to know her and hear what she envisions as her role in Lexington. My name is Liz Rogers. I am a fairly newly minted Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer for LFUCG. I started back in May, and it's been a flurry of activity since then. It's been really exciting to join. My background mainly has been with state government. So I have just under 22 years working with state government in various different roles, starting out with the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet. That's where I began my career. And then ultimately with the central IT organization, the Commonwealth Office of Technology. I had taken a little bit of a break from the public sector. I pursued an opportunity in the private sector, actually, and that was a remote position. It was ultimately kind of difficult to not see the fruits of my labor. That was something that really always resonated with me as a public servant, where you knew you were making a contribution that was greater than yourself. and the opportunity to experience that again was really an exciting one and with it being at the local level rather than the state level you're one degree closer to all those people in the community that that you seek to serve. I'm from Frankfurt originally so I grew up there and that's the state government connection to both of my parents were career public servants. I I went to school, graduated from UK in 2000, and lived in Lexington for a little while, but my home is still in Frankfurt right now. I impact the community, my team and I, by primarily by delivering services to our colleagues across LFUCG, so that they can deliver their mission critical services to our residents and the community. So the Department of Information Technology comprises several groups. We've got the Division of Enterprise Solutions, which makes PeopleSoft do all the things that it does in the accounting and finance and HR space. We have the Computer Services Division. We have our GIS team, which delivers all.