. Good afternoon everyone. Just welcome. I'd like to call this meeting to order. It is now 1.30 December 14th, 2023. Welcome to the Urban County Planning Commission subdivision and zoning items meeting. And first on the agenda for the commission, we have approval of minutes. We have four sets of minutes. And I do know that Mr. Owens had a correction. I want to make sure that those was corrected for staff. Mr. Owens had a edit to the minutes earlier this week. Was that taken care of? Yeah. OK. All right, thank you. The floor is open for a motion for those minutes. Yes, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of the minutes as presented with corrections as indicated. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second by Ms. Worth. Ms. Meyer? Okay, all right. Please vote via Granicus. Do we have everybody? Two, three, Zach, Ivy. Okay, thank you. Motion passes. All righty. Before we go to postponements and withdrawals, I'd like to bring up the performance letters, excuse me, performance bonds and letters of credit. That is on page 7 of the agenda. I'd like to bring that forward to get a motion for approval of the performance bonds and letters of credit. Ms. Meyer? I'd like to move for approval of the Lawrence Bonds and letters of credit as presented. Thank you. Do we have a second to that motion? Second. Seconded by Mr. Owens. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. Agenda item three, postponements and withdrawals. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You step to the podium. I'm Tom Larkin. I would like to request a postponement of my text amendment 00004 until the February 22nd meeting of next year. That item is on page 16 of your agenda. Page 16? Yes, sir. And that date is February 22nd of 2024. Yeah. Thank you. February 22nd of 2024. Thank you, Dr. Larkin. Do we have any questions or concerns? Okay. The floor is open for a motion to accept the postponement. Mr. Chair, I'll move for a postponement. Plan Zota 23-04 until, I'm sorry, what date was that? February 27th. 22nd. February 22nd. 2024. Thank you. Second. Seconded by Mr. Pohl. Any further discussion to that motion? Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, my name is Matt Carter with Vision Engineering. If you turn in your agenda to page 3, item C, PLNMJDP 23-64, Belmont Farm Citation Center. I'd like to ask for a two-month postponement. I believe it's on February 8th. We just need more time to work on this plan. Okay. Staffs, okay, with that date, February 8th, 2024, have a two-month postponement. Does the commission have any questions? If not, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Chair, move to postpone PLN-MJDP 2364 until February 8th. Thank you, Mr. Pohl. We have a seconded by Ms. Wirth. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. One additional item on page six of your agenda, item H, PLN, MJDP 23-76, Shriners Hospital, Masonic Temple Association of Lexington. On this one, I'd like to ask for a one-month postponement. I believe it's January 11th. So we have time to work on our open space and parking on it. All right, thank you sir. If there's no questions, the floor is open for the motion. Ms. Meyer? Mr. Chair, I'd like to move for postponement of PLNM JDP 2376 Schreiner's Hospital to the January 11th meeting as requested by the applicant. Thank you. Do we have a second to that motion? That's a second by Mr. Wilson. Please vote via Granicus. Motion passes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, I'm Rory Cayley with EA Partners. On page 13, item number four, this is the zone change request for Botts Cravens Home Builders at Paradise. We request a one-month postponement to January 25th, 2024. There are some issues about off-site improvements that need to be resolved. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cayley. The floor is open for a motion for that postponement to January 25th, 2024. Mr. Mickler? I move to postpone PLN MAR 23-20 to January 24, 2024 as requested by the applicant. Thank you. Seconded by Ms. Wirth. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Tracy. Good afternoon Chairman Forrester, members of the commission. We do have a fairly lengthy consent agenda today. In fact, I think it's the rest of our subdivision and development plan items that do qualify to be heard or to be acted on by the commission with one action. But we'll just ask if there's anyone in the audience, any of the design professionals or any of the commission members, if they wish to have any of those pulled off, we're happy to present them today. So what I'm going to do is read through our consent agenda. And if you're here for one of these items, if you would raise your hand and indicate whether you want to speak today, okay? So the first item appears on page two of our regular agenda item A, and it is PLM, MJDP 2341, Hamburg Place Office Park, Lot 5 for the UK Federal Credit Union corporate office expansion. That property is 1730 Alley Sheba Way. Is anyone here for that item? Okay. The next item is on page two, item B, PLNMJDP 23-59. Coleman property, Newtown Pike Hampton Inn and Suites. This is an amended final development plan for property located at 1880 Newtown Pike. Is there anyone here for this item this afternoon? Okay. The next item on your agenda is page four, item D, PLN MJDP 23-68. Hamburg Place, the B5 and B6P highway commercial development for a new out lot, out lot 14 for a Chipotle restaurant. And this is an amended final development plan as well for 2200 War Admiral Way. Is anyone here for that item? Okay. The next item is also on page four, item E, PLN MJDP 23-72, Tuscany, Unit 10, Lot 2. And that property is located at 1820 Meeting Street. Anyone for that item? Okay. Next page five, item F, PLN MJDP 23-73, Turflin Mall, a redevelopment of Outlaw E for Parlor Pizza. This is an amended final development plan as well for 2099 Harrodsburg Road. Nobody for that. The next item is on page five, item G, PLN MJDP 23-75. For Rose H. Brigden and Mark McClure property, Tracked A and also Cadentown subdivision, previously known as the Gentry Farm. That's for property located at 2819 and 2833 Liberty Road. Anyone for that? Moving on to page six, item I, PLN MJDP 23-77. For the A1 service center and Edster property, this is an amended final development plan as well. For property located at 763 Newtown Pike. Okay, and last item is on page seven of our agenda, item J. PLN MJDP 23-78 for Santa Barbara subdivision, lot three. Also an amended final development plan for property located at 708 Miles Point Way. Is there anyone that wishes to have any of these items removed from the consent agenda today? Okay, seeing none, Chair Forrester, I believe the Commission, unless you all want to hear any of these, can be considered with one motion this afternoon. Thank you. The floor is open for a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. Mr. Wilson? Mr. Chairman, I move that we accept the consent agenda as provided by staff. Thank you. We have a second by Ms. Worth. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, the motion passes unanimously right now. Thank you. Okay, so that should put us on page 8 of the agenda and this is a continuance PLN MAR 23-11. Please keep in mind that we did hear this back in August so we're not rehashing any old information only new information. It was brought to my attention that maybe an individual from the school system, Mr. Myron Thompson, that will be speaking as well as Mrs. in as well. Just want to put that out there. The staff? Yes. Yes. Go ahead. I just need to make a statement for the record that I was not in attendance but did watch the video presentation so I will be participating in this hearing. Mr. Forrester. Yes ma'am. I was not in attendance for the August meeting, and I have reviewed the video as well of the meeting. All right. Thank you. So I'm participating too. Mr. Nickel and Ms. Meyer has reviewed the video, and they want to put it on record that they want to hear the application and be able to vote for this application. So thank you. Thank you both. Okay. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crone planning staff. I'm just going to provide a quick refresher on just some of the base information for this particular application. I'll adjust the microphone here. And then a quick summary of the proceedings where this was sort of continued last. So this is a request by Clear Optics LLC. It's rezoned the property at 1617 Clay's Mill Road from a professional office to a neighborhood business zone. The applicant wishes to utilize this property for a restaurant slash coffee shop with an accessory drive-thru facility. This location had previously operated as a bank with an existing drive-thru facility. The applicant has placed this in an enhanced neighborhood place type and a low-density non-residential mixed-use development type. Staff agreed with both of those items. Just to orient ourselves, this subject property is this parcel here, which is located generally near the intersection of Harrodsburg Road and Clay's Mill, both of which are arterials. It is also bound by McCubbing, which runs to its south side. Historically, this area was zoned single-family residential. However, in the 70s and 80s, this central portion began to shift. The subject property itself was zoned P1 in order to accommodate the bank, while the zoning to the north was to accommodate briefly a drive-through restaurant as well as other commercial uses. So existing B1 that previously had drive-through uses to the north however the subject property has operated since that time as a professional office use here we have a aerial of the subject property so you can see the existing bank building we have the technical school here and then existing residential neighborhoods kind of bounding both sides on clay's mill road as well as harrisburg road here we have views of the subject property so that is as you're looking on Clay's Mill going I guess east, Clay's Mill looking west as you're heading towards its intersection with Harrodsburg and this is a view of Harrodsburg itself as you head into town and this is the the inverse view of that same direction. Here we have the development plan for the subject property largely keeping existing elements in place. It reconfigures park or what were previously aisles for the drive-through for the bank are being reconfigured into parking but are otherwise keeping the existing footprint of the building the same largely reusing it and then adding some outdoor patio space as well as some pedestrian amenities on site there to sort of activate the the outdoor of the site a little bit more effectively staff and their review of the application we recommended approval finding it was an agreement with comprehensive plan goals and objectives as well as the development criteria that relates to the enhanced neighborhood and the low density residential or non-residential session mixed-use development type recommended approval of the corresponding development plan staff presented this information at the hearing there was a fair amount of neighborhood participation at that hearing and largely the conversation was directed towards sort of accessibility so this particular use what impact would it have on traffic in the vicinity how were individuals that were living in the in the adjoining neighborhoods going to safely access the site so it was at that time based on those discussions that the applicant opted to have the meeting continued in order to give them adequate time to meet with the folks at transportation here as well as have some larger conversations with the neighborhood staff has not received any additional or supplemental information at this time so this is the existing staff report as it was presented at the initial meeting but but then would allow the applicants and the neighborhood to kind of indicate how those conversations have sort of gone. Thank you, Mr. Crum. Do we have any questions for staff from the commission? Thank you, sir. Mr. Murphy? Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm Dick Murphy. Of course, I represent ClearOptics LLC, which is a LLC containing two members, Chad Volkert, who is here with me today, and Jeremy Corbett, and Tony Barrett, our designer. I'll just give you a little summary of where we are and what's happened since your hearing, which was actually four months ago on August 24th. As you all know, these two properties to the north of us are zone B1 where the dry cleaner is and the physical therapy facility in the triangle where Clay's Mill Road enters Harrodsburg Road. There used to be, as Mr. Crum mentioned at the original hearing, a restaurant on the property, G.D. Ritzy's Restaurant. comprehensive plan where that had a map on it they we used to have a map part of a comprehensive plan as we mentioned four weeks ago from 1980 up to 2007 all designated this property for commercial or retail development not for professional office but for commercial or retail development this is the property that has the deed restriction on it it used to be a chase bank it's restricted for ten years two of those have run out of it but the property's actually been vacant about five years of vacant buildings sitting there but for eight more years we have a deed restriction that says this property cannot be used as a bank as a credit union any type of financial institution like a Edward Jones financial advisor can't be done can't have a check cashing business there can't have ATMs and that sort of thing there's strict deed restrictions put on the property we have added bike racks to the plan we have an outdoor dining area to make it more inviting and and and make it aesthetically more pleasing to have an outdoor dining area this is the adaptive reuse of an existing building it will retain the existing streetscape with a one-story facade it will reduce the carbon footprint as you know when buildings are torn down and rebuilt there's a tremendous carbon impact by saving the building and reusing we really reduce the carbon footprint of this. It will be at a neighborhood scale, as I said, remain at a neighborhood scale, one story. It will provide a place for positive and safe social interaction. The state improved Clay's Mill Road a couple years ago, as you know. Now, they made major improvements. Right at our place, it's a four-lane road. The state added bike lanes on either side, so they improved it with bike lanes. What they didn't do was make the pedestrian improvements that I'm going to talk to in a minute. But I want to point out that we are not maximizing the footprint of this property. I think the existing building is about 2,300 square feet. We're keeping that building. If the building were torn down, we asked Tony to do a study. We could put an 8,000 square foot multi-story medical building or some other similar building on the property if the building were removed. We're trying not to remove the building. We want to keep the building and adaptively reuse it. As Mr. Crumb mentioned, the staff has recommended approval, and the staff has found that we totally agree with place builder criteria. Now, what's happened since the hearing on August 24th? In August, I think the discussion got to this point. we were required in place builder to make this property as pedestrian friendly as we can and we did we're required to make this lot as pedestrian friendly as we can as the staff has mentioned we have sidewalks going to the property to the north the businesses to the north and connecting with the school board property to the south that's the vocational technical school. Now, I understand we have a representative of the school board here. I don't know what's going to happen to that building two years from now. If it remains a school, we have excellent pedestrian connections to it. If it's declared surplus property and sold for residential purposes, we have excellent pedestrian connections to it. But the discussion got to the point, it was sort of used against us by the objectors. They said, well, you're required to make this pedestrian friendly, which we have to the greatest extent possible on this lot. It is pedestrian friendly. But the argument was made, well, I, on the other side of Clay's Mill Road, have trouble getting there because they can't cross Clay's Mill Road. And that's true. The state didn't make provision for it. However, since that time, we've had a number of discussions with the neighbors and with the Division of Traffic Engineering. Chad Volkert has met a couple times with the neighborhood. Some other uses were thrown out for this, such as having a bar here, something like that. He met with the Division of Traffic Engineering, and I've been involved in a couple of those meetings with Mr. Philiatrue and others. But as a result of those discussions, the Division of Traffic Engineering initiated a multidisciplinary road safety audit of this area. Mr. Filiotreau is here and he can tell you a little more about that. But it was a study conducted by the Division of Traffic Engineering and other divisions in this government to see what could be done to improve both traffic and pedestrian safety in this area. They came up with a number of recommendations. I think there's about 18 or 20 recommendations. Most of them didn't exactly pertain to this property, although the major ones did. And I think the major recommendation coming out of this, and I'll preface this by saying they haven't made a final decision on this yet, but one of the major recommendations is to make a pedestrian crossing of Clay's Mill with a raised pedestrian refuge, raised pedestrian refuge in the middle as part of a crosswalk across Clay's Mill Road. That could be in the location of this business, could be a little different. There's been other discussions such as putting up a median barrier at McCubbin Drive and Clay's Mill Road with bollards or other medians so that the right turn only would actually be enforced. I think traffic engineering indicated there was some neighborhood resistance to that. Another has been discussed as putting a traffic signal at McCubbin Drive and Clay's Mill Road. So the result of the activity which has happened since you postponed it and as a result of our initiative has been a study which is probably going to result in a new pedestrian crossing of Clay's Mill Road. My clients, as I mentioned to you four months ago, had agreed to pay for some adjustments to the intersection at McCubbing Drive and Clay's Mill Road, even though that was technically off-site to our project. They have agreed to apply those money and pay them to the city to help fund the improvements they're going to make as a result of the multidisciplinary road safety audit which they conducted of this property, since you're hearing. There's been discussion of traffic on here, and obviously this property has been a derelict property. It's been graffitied and stuff like that for the last five years. My clients have gone and painted it out when it happens, but there's been no traffic here, virtually no traffic. So obviously anything that goes in here is going to increase traffic from this property. But I want to point out to you that the level of traffic we generated is so low, we were not even required by ordinance to do a traffic study. So low wasn't required. we are have four lane highways on both sides of us those highways have plenty of capacity to handle any additional traffic created by this property we're going to have a sit-down restaurant here it will have one drive-through window we have 40 seats inside it'll be a sit-down restaurant is what we're planning and it's we're planning a breakfast lunch brunch restaurant and i want to to point out that there will be zero traffic in the afternoon from that restaurant. We had before a bank, a busy bank with four drive-through lanes on the property and we think any traffic we generate will be not any appreciable change from what was there before with the bank and pointing out that there is no traffic in the afternoon on this. obviously observing we have four-lane highways on either side. So, in conclusions, I'd like to save some of my time for rebuttal from whatever new is brought up. I didn't think anything new was supposed to be brought up except what's happened since your hearing four months ago. But we have excellent pedestrian connections. Before all this issue came up about crossing Clay's Mill Road, staff had found we agree with Place Builder. We have made our property as pedestrian friendly as possible and that is the goal of PlaceBuilder. But now we have gone beyond that partly because of our initiation and your postponement of the zone change. It has prompted the study by the Division of Traffic Engineering which has come up with a number of things in the area. But especially a pedestrian crossing for Clacemill Road. And we will help fund that pedestrian crossing. The state has a bike lane there. We're on transit routes. as we mentioned four weeks ago, and it's an excellent reuse of this building. We agree with the comprehensive plan. We agree with Place Builder, and we think it's a good idea to have adaptive reuses of existing buildings. So that's what I'm going to conclude right now. Like I said, I'd like to be able to rebut anything that comes up later on, and we'd be happy to answer any questions on you. Chad Volkert is here. and Tony Barrett is here as well. Mr. Murphy, thank you. Do we have any questions for the applicant? We have a couple. Mr. Wilson. Just to review, since this has been a while, what are the operating hours proposed? Well, I'm going to look at my client, I guess about 7 a.m. to about 3 or 4 p.m. 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. I was getting hand signals from my client in the back. Mr. Nichols. That was the same question that I was going to ask, trying to figure out if the hours did line up with previous professional uses, and it looks like they may. Thank you. Mr. Pohl. Mr. Murphy, could you clarify what you would anticipate, what the likelihood of the pedestrian crosswalk at Clay's Mill actually being accomplished, and what the timing of that might be relative to the timing of the conversion to a restaurant, should it go forward? I think the result of the study that was done and the input has raised this up to, has got it well on the radar screen of the city, and I would anticipate that this is going to be done. You can ask Mr. Filiotru about that and as far as a time frame as well on that. But after all the discussions we have, I feel it's extremely likely that this will actually be done. So presumably there's not any kind of timeline because we can't be sure that it will be done. I don't know the timeline, but from working in the government, I know that this zone change will keep it on a high level of priority. My concern is if, say, we just postpone this or turn this zone change down until those improvements are made. I used to work here, and I've been hanging around City Hall for many years, and I know that there are many things that have priorities in this government. And having this zone change approved will keep this at a very high level of priority. I'm concerned that if this were postponed or not approved, then it immediately drops back down because we don't have the issue of the zone change hanging over us. They know it's there, but there are other things that have closer deadlines to accomplish. So I think by approving this zone change, that will keep this project of doing the crossing at a high level of priority in this government. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Thank you. You're welcome. next we had Ms. Lynn Flynn Hello, I'm Lynn Flynn. I live at 518 Spring Hill Drive, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Piccadome Neighborhood Association. I appreciate the opportunity to comment this afternoon. We have a PowerPoint with videos of traffic in the area of the proposed development, and it looks like it's not up yet. Is it going to go up? It's coming. Okay. I'll just let you know we'll be running the PowerPoint as background. I won't be talking about it per se and trying to tell you exactly where we are and exactly which direction you're looking in counting the cars This is just background for your information. We do have several folks here from the Piccadone neighborhood. You'll be hearing from a few of them a Little later as part of our organized presentation and the staff have passed out comments copies of some of our comments for your information I would like to run through a few key points and then address pretty specifically the work on improving the traffic in the area and I must tell you that most of what mr. well that most of what mr. Murphy said this afternoon is news to me in terms of the outcome of that traffic study which we requested of traffic engineering after some information from some members of the Planning Commission that that was a possibility for us we honestly didn't know of it as a possibility and it was mentioned in several planning commission meetings so we appreciate that and we also appreciate mr volker's involvement in working with us once or twice on potential improvements so let me let me go on now some of the key points of the neighborhood's concerns the traffic in the area of the proposed development is already very challenging and potentially hazardous there are four public schools within less than half a mile that add significantly to pedestrian school start times these are the problematic traffic times the problematic traffic times are not at 10 30 in the morning or two in the afternoon they're when school starts particularly and when school gets out last time we heard from the applicant we understood that the restaurant would be closing at three o'clock which is before lafayette high school's ending time now I learned it's going to be four o'clock and I can guarantee you there will be a lot of students making their way in that direction and again potential hazards there the proposed restaurant and its drive-through here I am I've already said this they'll be operating at the peak morning hours which is our problematic time when we've got a lot of little kids on the sidewalks walking to Piccadome a lot of big kids driving their cars without much experience driving their car the restaurant insists on a drive-through and it's kind of ironic because the ZODA that you're going to be looking at this afternoon will prohibit new drive-throughs in the B1 zone we don't know the projected volume of the drive-through mr. Murphy didn't include that information in this presentation we've been asking for that information since the August 3rd subdivision committee meeting and I believe a member of the Planning Commission also asked for that information in the last well in August meeting when it was postponed. We've talked about pedestrian crossings. The current pedestrian crossings are half a mile away. As a person who lives in the area, I'm very excited at the possibility of having a safer pedestrian crossing kind of in the middle of the area of Clay's Mill Road where the other two pedestrian crossings exist. With respect to the pedestrian friendliness of the restaurant in addition to having to cross Clay's Mill Road which is currently a problem which has a potential solution on the table pedestrians once they get across Clay's Mill Road will have to cross the parking lot and drive-through lane before they can get to the the restaurant I recently did that at a restaurant on Harrodsburg Road and it was quite terrifying crossing that particular drive-through lane we really can't exactly quantify the traffic impact of the restaurant with the information we currently have it's also very difficult to really figure out how it can be made safer for this particular site with all its environmental challenges I do want to talk about the efforts to identify interventions that might improve safety the beginning of that was the suggestion the entrance and exit on clays mill road should be eliminated or limited in some way and that sounded like a good idea but it kept fire and garbage from getting into the restaurant so it wasn't feasible mr. Volkert was kind enough to meet with us and to work with traffic engineering to identify options that might improve safety at that time the neighborhood got in touch with traffic engineering and said let's do a broader more comprehensive approach to traffic and pedestrian safety. Let's look not just at this zoning change. Let's look at Clay's Mill Road. Let's look at Lafayette Parkway. Let's look at everything that's happening in our challenged neighborhood to see what we could come up with to improve safety and perhaps mitigate the effects of the proposed zone change and development. So we met with traffic engineering in October to request a neighborhood road safety audit. Lexington traffic engineers have been in the neighborhood several times since then to look at our situation my understanding as of yesterday or the day before was that the report is still being completed so again I was not aware of what mr. Murphy shared with us about the potential for a safer pedestrian crossing there and I'm delighted about that we think it's important not to change to a business zone that allows more intensive uses that can increase peak hour traffic or to add a development that will worsen the situation unless we have the interventions identified and ready to implement and you know as i said i've not seen the report i don't really know what's been proposed although this restaurant will be closed for certain hours of the day it It will be operational during the hours that are most problematic for safety in our neighborhood. The use is permitted in a professional zone or less likely to have a negative impact on traffic. If they are able to keep the building, which they clearly want to do, most professional offices the size of that building have a relatively modest volume of traffic spread throughout the day. Many of them don't open until 9, which takes us out of those terrible morning hours when kids are coming to Lafayette, parents are dropping their kids off at Picadome, and rush hour is occurring. I just have to tell you, quite honestly, that with the information I have today, I'm not in a position to support this development. Okay, I think that does it for me. we do have several additional speakers who are going to be part of our presentation and i will just ask if brandy if brandy's in the room i apologize brandy if you're here i can't pronounce your last name okay i don't see brandy jumping up so lori field lori fields is our next speaker my name is laurie fields i live at 411 picadone park and i live in the neighborhood and very near where this school traffic is i looked at the the wording for the justification for um for this that it's justified it implies that it the business um is agreeing with the 2018 comprehensive plans goals and objectives of growing successful neighborhoods by supporting infill and redevelopment it the project is claimed to be a neighborhood oriented restaurant that features extensive connections to several pedestrian networks and neighborhoods the point that I want to make is that I think that it is not neighborhood friendly and accessible. It's simply not true. A drive-through is not a neighborhood restaurant. There's been a lot of talk already about how difficult it is to walk to it. And that would be changed tremendously by putting it in a crosswalk. So it's basically a drive-thru, and the timing is, as Lynn had mentioned, at the peak hours that we have traffic, parents getting their kids to school. The final concern that I wanted to bring up about changing the zoning to B1 is what will happen to the site if this business does not succeed? will it be turned into something that will provide even more traffic and problems within our neighborhood. So that is a concern that I and many neighbors have. Thank you. Thank you. Lynn, you had, is it Steve Davis? I'm basically want to talk about pedestrian safety and I'd like the proposals about having a safer crosswalk. My family has owned the property at 525 McCubbin Drive since 1952 and for the past 71 years we have witnessed an evolution of growth not only in the area adjacent to the proposed restaurant at 1617 Clasmo Road but also the development of this side of Lexington. It was this exponential growth that necessitated the recent expansion of Clay's Mill Road. In the 1950s, Piccadome Elementary School had a school crossing guard at Clay's Mill Road and Woodbine Drive to help students cross Clay's Mill Road in the mornings and the afternoons. That was in the 1950s. Piccadome Elementary School, of course, is no longer there. there's a technical school there in my opinion this neighborhood is not the pedestrian safe neighborhood of the 1950s it was safe to cross glazemo road back then i do not think it is safe for pedestrians to cross glazemo road during the proposed restaurants opera hours of operation and reading over the minutes of the august 24 2003 meeting of the planning commission i read that several commission members expressed concern about pedestrian safety around the proposed restaurant and i want to voice my concern about pedestrian safety in this area thank you my name is Steve Davis and I live at 511 Woodbine Drive see Woodbine's like large oak is right where the intersection is I'm at the end of the street I've lived there since 2014 when we purchased our first home Piccadome is a lovely neighborhood it's a great place for kids it's a great place for seniors it's a just a lovely place to live and I want to thank the Commission for preserving it over the years and previous commissions mr. Murphy It says that the primary topic of conversation should be access. We don't want access to this business. Because we don't want this business. Mr. Murphy says that the conversation should be about traffic safety. That is true. traffic safety is important I would agree with mr. Murphy on that regard I would also ask mr. Murphy to consider the following ratio this is common sense you don't need to have a degree in traffic engineering to figure this out if you increase the volume of traffic in an already dangerous area you will increase the number of injuries and possible deaths to the pedestrians to the motorists to the cyclists to the dogs and cats in this neighborhood I was at the August 24th hearing. And at that hearing, I mentioned that I had been hit by a car. That was in March. I was walking my daughter to school. And it was about 7, let's see, no, we were walking back 7.40 in the morning. And I was hit by a large SUV. It was a hit and run. Thankfully, I wasn't injured. How much time do I have? Is there a counter? 50 seconds. 50 seconds. Here's the police report, or the letter I got from Detective Brandon Pitcher. I'm not going to rake LPD over the coals. They have a difficult job to do. They've got more serious crimes than this. This was a hit and run. I appreciate that Detective Pitcher reached out to me. But when I spoke with the traffic police, there's no cameras anywhere. So there's nothing to do about my case. The last thing I want to mention is when I was at the August 24th meeting, I mentioned that my wife was in an auto accident. So these are, let's see here, this is the original bill of sale for our Subaru. And then in the back we've got the assessment after it was totaled. She injured her wrist. Sir, your time is up. I don't mean to interrupt. Lastly, I just want to thank the commission for doing the right thing. This is an easy call. You guys make a lot of difficult calls. This one is an easy call. And I thank Mr. Murphy for presenting his arguments. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Davis. We're in that portion of the citizen comments. Mr. Murphy, step up for the rebuttal. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. WELL WE CERTAINLY REGRET ANYONE WHO IS INVOLVED IN AN AUTO ACCIDENT ANYWHERE AND WE REGRET AN AUTO ACCIDENT IN THIS AREA BUT I DO WANT TO POINT OUT THAT THAT WAS DURING THE TIME I ASSUME WHEN THIS BUILDING WAS ABANDONED AND NOT BEING USED FOR ANYTHING. It will have some traffic generation, but it won't be appreciably larger than a bank with four drive-through lanes on the property, which it was before. And I know some of the neighbors said, we don't want to use this business. That would imply a highway service business zone, a B3 zone with even more intensive uses, but that just relies on automobile trips in and out. We don't want to do that. to keep the building here we want to reuse this building the traffic the state spent a lot of money to improve traffic i know in the video traffic did keep moving and flowing it's an issue of pedestrian safety whatever goes here is going to have an impact on that and we've made a good start but we have complied with all the city's requirements and comprehensive plan requirements about pedestrian accessibility but we've gone beyond to do off-site things my clients are contributing to the off-site improvements. Chad is here, Chad Volkert, who I think would like to make a couple summary remarks to you as well. Chad is one of the two owners of the project. Mr. Volkert, step up to the podium. Can you hear me? Hi, my name is Chad Volkert. I'm one of the owners here. I want to thank you all. After the last meeting, I was just as surprised as the rest of you all to learn that after 15 or 20 years of planning and tens of millions of dollars spent, that Clay's Mill did not have a crosswalk. So I was one of the ones that met with the, or I'm the only one that met with the neighborhood to discuss these things, and I left that meeting telling them that I would advocate for their concerns regarding both a crosswalk and some traffic calming devices. We had come up with one of the options there to do that we were willing to do at our expense, and we were told that the neighborhood but didn't particularly like it. So at that point in time, we turned it over to the city and that we would provide those funds to do it and to do that. We believe that this will increase traffic anywhere from two to 20 trips at peak hours on roads that currently have four lanes and roughly 40,000 cars a day driving down them. So we don't believe it's a really appreciable increase. We thank you for your time and ask for your approval. Thank you Mr. Volker. Ms. Flynn, you're the representative for the neighborhood. Do you want to come up and rebut? Do you have a rebuttal, remarks? Okay. So I was at the meeting with, what's your name again, sir? Volker. Mr. Volker. Yeah, I was at that meeting. And Mr. Volker said that there were individuals who were supportive of the restaurant. I deliver the leaflets that the Piccadone Neighborhood Association puts out, I don't know, every month, every couple months, keeping people aware of different things in the neighborhood. So I talk to a lot of people. No one is supportive of this. No one. Mr. Murphy. raises the issue of spending all this money out of the generosity of the owner's pocket on these traffic calming measures. We met with your wonderful traffic staff. I believe at least one person is here today. We walked the entire neighborhood. We identified several problems, and they were good enough to suggest several really good solutions. You've got a fantastic traffic department here. They really know their stuff. They're good. And what they recommended is going to be a lot more than Mr. Murphy and his client can afford. But that's what's necessary to bring safety to the neighborhood. But the last thing I'll say, I want to keep things brief because I know you guys got a lot of stuff going on. Mr. Murphy. Mr. Murphy really wants to change the conversation. And I understand that law is an adversarial profession. and he is representing the best interests of his client. The conversation is not about necessary traffic calming measures that were identified by the traffic department. That's not the conversation. The conversation is volume, volume. And I'll go back to my statement earlier about the ratio. It's common sense. You've got a dangerous situation, cars are the danger, and you're increasing the number of cars. You know? You guys get this, I'm sure. Look, we're not opposed to businesses. We're not trying to end all businesses in Lexington. My wife was banked at Chase Bank. It was great. It was really nice to have. He never walked there, but it was great having it close by. It also was the sleepiest bank in Lexington, and that's why Chase closed it. And that usage was okay with us, because it didn't increase the volume. Last thing I'll say, and I don't want to take up too much of your time, where's the business plan? Every investor's got a business plan. We haven't even been told the name of the restaurant. My attitude is this, if it's so necessary to have cars going through a drive-thru to make a profit, if it's so necessary to have cars going through a drive-thru to make a profit, and this is a business that is making the majority of its profits at 7 in the morning, that's a drive-thru, that's a fast food restaurant. Unless I hear otherwise. I'd love to see the business plan. I'd love to hear the name of the business. You know, you guys take oaths, right, when you assume the position. And I think you all take those oaths seriously. You want to make Lexington a better place. You want to keep it the way it is, where there's positive development. You want to preserve that. This is an easy call, I think. I mean, I'll leave it up to you all. you have good judgment but as far as I'm concerned the neighborhood does not want this there is no one in the neighborhood that I've met that wants this and I'll rest my case thank you thank you mr. Davis All right. Daniel Crum, planning staff, just wanted to kind of summarize and kind of touch on planning staff's position again. So the subject property is undoubtedly kind of constrained by its existing kind of configuration with two RTO roadways kind of adjoining it and then bound on the third side by another roadway. But it has historically been utilized as a drive-thru use since the mid to late 70s. It adjoins existing B1 zoning that has also had a drive-thru use. When evaluating the drive-thru use, one of the things we look at as far as capacity and the ability for it to function is stacking. The way that the site is currently constructed greatly exceeds the amount of stacking that's generally required. and while staff recognizes that there are much larger traffic concerns in this area, we are recommending approval of this finding. It's an agreement with the comprehensive plans, goals, objectives, policies, and development criteria and would be happy to entertain any other questions, but staff recommends approval. Thank you, Mr. Crum. For the commission, do we have any questions for Mr. Crum at the moment? Mr. Wilson and Ms. Ware. Just one clarification. One of the members from the community indicated in a point, said the restaurant insists on a drive-thru, even though Zota prohibiting new drive-thrus in the B1 zone is being considered later today. I've been trying to figure that where that is. Is this something that are we considering that? So there is the UGM Zota, which is later on this in the application. But as this, due to the time when this was applied for, it's sort of under the old comprehensive plan. So these are the old goals and objectives, the existing framework, and kind of how it operates currently. Thank you. Ms. Wirth. This is a question for a member of the committee, subdivision committee, not Mr. Crumb. Can we hear from Traffic Engineering? Yes. I figured I might be needed. So I did. We again, it was myself, three others from traffic and then another from our bike plate ped coordinator that met with the neighborhood. We did come up with a list of different different improvements potentially that actually covered a lot of the neighborhood. Not just this intersection. There were three alternatives I sent. I did send them to the neighborhood to Miss Flynn, but it may have gotten lost in spam or whatnot. And so when Mr. Murphy, he asked me, called me Wednesday and I basically just forwarded the email I sent to Miss Flynn. So now all that to say is we don't necessarily have some alternative ideas, but I wouldn't say anything is selected or approach. So once we determine what improvements we would like to make, we would then pursue funding. If it's a cheaper improvement, we might already have funding. If it's more of an expensive improvement, then obviously we'll have to do. And so to say that it's set in stone, I certainly wouldn't go that far. But we do have some good ideas, and I certainly think some things will get done. It's just I think that's still developing. So I wanted to clarify that aspect. I just want to understand this, though. From your all's perspective on traffic, you all are committed to working towards a pedestrian. If we were to approve this zone today and approve this for a neighborhood business currently proposed to be a restaurant, you all would work towards making a pedestrian crossing from the neighborhood to the side of Clay's Mill where there's a restaurant. Am I understanding that correct? Well, I wouldn't necessarily say that. It would be outside of what's going on here. You know, we have operational tasks all the time, so it's an area that could use some attention anyway. So regardless of the outcome, I think we're going to work towards potential improvements at that intersection. So it's just something for you to consider. But I wouldn't say it's certainly not dependent on the outcome. By improvements, I mean, they also called making it four lanes with no crosswalk an improvement. So I want to clarify what the improvements we're talking about is. There were three alternatives we had looked at, or I had looked at, I should say. One was just a median, whether that's concrete or some other physical separation. Another would be potentially a concrete median or a refuge to actually help facilitate crossing. and a third will be traffic signal. Traffic signal will be pretty effective, but it's also very expensive, and currently there's no signal warrants, so there would have to be a balance. That doesn't mean you can't do it, but again, we typically try to follow the warrants if we can. And to your point about as far as the cross-stitching existing road, this was designed probably early to mid-2000s, and those were design aspects that were common today. I think if this had been built in the late 90s, you would have no sidewalks because it would have been designed in the 80s. So we're always developing and progressing. So all that to say that we can still come back and make things to our liking at this point too. And that's kind of what we're trying to do with the RSA, or one aspect of the RSA. And a signal, as you point out, is expensive, but the representative for the applicant discussed contributing funds towards a crossing. Could you just clarify from your all's perspective how that would work? Obviously it could be anywhere not just at their site Correct. It would be in conjunction. So we'd have to pull all the money at it So when we ask for certain things from applicants that kind of got to be proportional, you know Which is also with naturally subjective as far as how much one is offered but So Depending on the scope of it We may have some existing funds that we can pull with the applicant And so how that would work as far as the zoning process is they would have a note on the development plan that says either a certificate of occupancy or the time they pull building permits, they would remit payment to the city. Traffic engineering would have an account. We've got probably six other developments that's done similar. So we've got it on our budget. We go over each month. So that's how it would work. And then we would just build it into our operational process from there. Thank you. Do we have any more questions for traffic? That? We'll bring it back for the commission. Any further questions for the commissioners on this application? Seeing none, I'll open it up, open the floor up for a motion. Oh, Mr. Nickel. Nobody said anything. All right. Well, I'd like to make a comment first, and I'm going to reference this 1975 staff report when the original zone change occurred from R1C to P1. One of the concerns at that point that staff made a recommendation on approval based upon was that the professional office uses are offering limited business hours and relatively low traffic generation would not adversely affect the surrounding properties and would not be adversely affected by the high traffic volumes on the adjacent arterial streets. that and understanding that we're dealing with limited hours of operation leads me to want to make a recommendation for approval if there are no other further comments. Well, I would comment that looking at the streets and the traffic and the video that the neighborhood has put together, I think you all have made your point well that this is not a pedestrian-friendly environment, and it likely won't be when this zone change, if it goes through. But one thing we do have to look at here is piece by piece, as we see proposals and options For things like neighborhood businesses that are in walking distance to neighborhoods, those are opportunities for us to add businesses that people can walk to. And I really think that with the discussions that have started with the city increasing and making that crossing crossable and having an additional business to serve people that can get to it without an additional car trip is the direction that we're asked to follow with the comprehensive plan. So like Mr. Nickel, I'd be inclined to support it, but not because I don't see what the neighborhood is showing us with the traffic on Clay's Mill in Harrodsburg. If I may for the commissioners, we do have the representative from the school system, Myron Thompson. I didn't see you back there, Mr. Thompson. I apologize. I would like to hear him. He had a comment, and he wrote us a letter as well, so I would like to make sure that his voice is heard. Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to share out a little bit. I did share a letter with the commission with the school board's perspective on this. The community is well represented. the traffic issues i don't even know if it clearly paints the picture of what happens in the mornings in particular at picadome elementary with the backup of traffic and how that impacts commuters to and from i worked on spring hill drive for about 10 years so i'm very familiar with the area and i think what the issue here is from my perspective is that there's been businesses there there are businesses with drive-throughs there's been other restaurants things like that but what i think is sort of the issue and the dilemma here is that the particular business is sort of targeting that morning breakfast which makes it very very unique in terms of consumer behavior because if you bank or you do dry cleaning or you want to go to a restaurant if you're familiar with the area you're not going to show up during the morning commute you're just not because it's too much traffic and with this particular business proposition sort of catering to the breakfast community it's going to put not only additional traffic which is not really my my concern is the traffic stopping the traffic stopping to get into and out of the facility and what impact that will have on our commuters and our kids getting to and from that location. So I think that's what makes this particular unique. We are pro business. We want to support businesses. You know, if it was an evening or afternoon situation, really no big deal because you know, after about an hour, it clears out and it looks like a completely different road. But in the mornings in particular, when you're commuting and you're coming down Clay's mill if drivers are traveling north and have to turn into that business and stop I'm afraid of gridlock and what that's going to do and what that's going to mean for our buses what it's going to mean for our people trying to get to and from Lafayette and Scapa in particular so I just wanted to make sure that that was just shared with the Commission I know it's a tough situation but I think the dilemma is that wanting to capture on that breakfast crowd coming in 40,000 cars cycling some of that off it's just what does that traffic do not only just getting in and out of there but just stopping and creating gridlock so again don't envy you in terms of your dilemmas but appreciate Jim and getting the letter to you folks in terms of the school board perspective and just want to make sure that we share that so thank you mr. Johnson thank you okay so we're bringing back to the Commission now do Do we have any further comments on this application? Okay. Well, the floor is open. All right. I'd like to make a motion for approval for PLN MAR23-11, Clear Optics LLC, referencing the staff's recommendations for approval. as stated in our packet. Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Nickel. Do we have a second? I'll second the motion. Okay, we have a second by Mr. Owens. Any further discussion to that motion? Okay. Okay, please vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes. For the zone change, now we have the... Subdivision. I'm making a recommendation for approval for PLNMJDP 23-43, First Security National Bank, located at 1617 Clays Mill Road, referencing the subdivision committee's recommendations of approval with the 14 conditions. Okay, thank you. We have a motion by Mr. Nickel. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Owens. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes as well. Thank you, everyone that attended for this particular application. Now that will put us on the second item. That will be PLN MAR 23-16, and we do have revised staff recommendations on the green sheet for the commission. So we have a zone change here as well as a preliminary. Chairman Forrester, before we get started on this case, I would just note we have one other item that is continued from last month that you may want to complete before we move into a new hearing. And then we also do have one item that may qualify as an abbreviated hearing, whereas this one does not. Okay, can you point me in the directions of the one that's continued from last month? Sure, I know you weren't here. So that appears on page 11, and it's PLN MAR23-19, Black Soil, Our Better Nature, LLC. Okay. At that moment, I wasn't here for that meeting, but I was able to review the video, so I'll be in place to vote today as well. Mr. Crum, do you have a brief update for the commission? Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crum, planning staff. As just identified, this was a continued item, so I will very briefly go over some of the core components of the presentation and then kind of leave you with where the applicant has indicated those conversations with the neighborhood have sort of gone. So this is a request by Black Soil Our Better Nature LLC. It is a rezoning request in order to establish a neighborhood service business, B1 zone at the properties at 760 and 762 Florence Avenue. The applicant is seeking to establish a grocery store use at this location. This is a location that previously held a non-conforming retail and grocery store use previously, but that use was discontinued, so they are seeking to add a grocery store use back at this location, which requires a zone change. The applicant's choice of place type and development type, staff agrees with both an enhanced neighborhood as well as a low-density, non-residential, mixed-use development type. Just to orient ourselves here, we have the subject properties with these two parcels shown in white. This is at Georgetown Street, and then Florence Avenue is interior to that. Otherwise, with the exception of this proposed rezoning, the entire area is zoned R2 and consists of single-family residential uses. Here we have an aerial view of the subject property, but to get the full extent, you really need to kind of see the site. So the site kind of feels and operates like a commercial use. It is a long-standing store that had been operating at this location. However, that store was eventually abandoned, and because it had R2 zoning, in order to reestablish a commercial use at that location, they are needing to seek a zone change. Here we have a view of Florence Avenue, so this is just a local road. There are several transit stops in the vicinity. It has existing sidewalks that create some connectivity. As a part of this application, the applicant is seeking a variance for a buffer between what would now be a business zone to the adjoining residential zone. The existing buildings limit their ability to provide that landscaping in that area. Landscape Review Committee recommended approval of the recommended a recommendation of approval for the requested variance. But it is necessary to develop. The site does have connectivity to a kind of community garden amenity in the back, and the cross-connectivity between the parcels played a role in the applicant's justification, and that connectivity is something that staff would like to see kind of maintained with this request. Here we have the development plan for the site. Not much changing, with the exception of removing the vehicular use area out front and converting that into patio space. So no on-site parking is currently required. but they are maintaining the existing historical path. It has sort of had connectivity between those two areas. They are seeking a variance to the side portions here. Staff is recommending approval of that variance, finding that there was sufficient justification there. Staff is recommending approval of the request as well, finding it to be in compliance with conference plan goals, objectives, policies, and criteria, specifically providing for these neighborhood-scale uses that have adequate connectivity and provide that sort of neighborhood-oriented service. At the previous meeting, there was some neighborhood representation, and there was concerns that were voiced regarding the full breadth of uses in the B1 zone. There was a question raised on whether or not there would be more appropriate to include conditional zoning restrictions. Now, the size of this parcel does limit it for many uses typically found in the B1 zone, However, the Planning Commission, as well as the neighborhood, wanted additional time to kind of talk through the listed uses on the site and to see if there could be some common ground made. The applicant sent this information over to us. So this is a list of proposed zoning conditions. So there was some back and forth communication between the neighborhood and the applicant. The first 10 are agreed upon conditions that would be prohibited in this particular location. The last is an area that they disagree with. So essentially, the applicant does not have an issue in prohibiting liquor stores or the retail sale of wine or beer or spirits on site. However, if they have the, in the future, if the grocery store use leaves and a restaurant comes on site, they want to preserve the ability for those restaurants to serve alcohol on premises. While we do occasionally see the restriction on kind of the retail sale of beer, wine, or liquor, the restriction on not allowing it in conjunction with a restaurant is somewhat rare. So this is sort of the point where the applicant has given us information, so I would let them kind of detail how those conversations went. but this was the list provided to us. Staff does not have any issue with the prohibited uses 1 through 10, but would be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff. Staff was recommending approval of the zone change development plan as well as the corresponding landscape variance that was previously talked about in our last meeting. Thank you, Mr. Crum. Do we have any questions for us? Yeah, and I can hand that as well. I have paper copies of the proposed from the applicant as well. Did everyone have a chance to review? Do they have any questions before Mr. Crum takes a seat? Thank you, sir. Okay. Applicant. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission and staff. I'm Chris Clendenin. I'm pleased to be here again from last month representing the applicant, Black Soil. Ashley Smith from Black Soil is here with me. and also mr tony barrett from barrett partners who is our designer on this project i don't know what i can really add to what mr trump has given you this plan the staff is recommending approval of both the zone change and the development plan as you recall we were here last time and it's you all asked us to continue the hearing so we'd have a chance to to talk with the neighborhood, which we did do. I know there's representatives here from the Neighborhood Association. And we were able, as you can see from the list, to reach agreement on basically almost all of the restrictions they were looking for. We have one area of disagreement. And again, Mr. Crumb provided a good explanation. We understand the issue about serving alcohol, but we don't want to get into the point where we so overburden this that it's totally restricted other than the grocery store, and that was the issue the last time. Just to reiterate, the applicant and the property owner are 100% committed to this grocery store working. And I think the Neighborhood Association is in agreement with the grocery store and has been from the beginning. And so I think that it's important that this is just in the hopefully unlikely event that the grocery store doesn't make it for whatever reason. Things happen, things come up down the road beyond people's control. this is just in the event that A, the grocery store would fail, B, the property owner, after that event took place, didn't seek another zone change down the road, wanted to continue with B1, and then wanted to have the ability for either this owner or a new owner to possibly have some sort of cafe, restaurant, something, where somebody who wanted a beer with their hamburger could have that, or a glass of wine with their salad, in the event that all of these things took place. Before we get there, we'd have to have a lot of things happen before that. I understand the rationale from the neighborhood association. We've discussed it. I'm sympathetic to the reason. I'll let them advocate for their case. But does anybody have any questions about what we've agreed on or what's written here? If it's any confusion or anything like that, that I can clarify. Do we have any questions for the applicant? Ms. Worth? It's my fault because I was busy trying to read what was on the screen and I couldn't read it. so i missed an explanation of how many neighborhood members were represented in discussions here oh okay um there were several members there were several meetings that took place but as far as this candidly i did was i dealt mostly with one representative from the neighborhood association just for the record that's the georgetown street area neighborhood association miss wolfock and she's in attendance here um when we entered with this i you know let her know that i need you to understand that i'm happy to deal with you but you're representing to me that you're representing the opinion of the neighborhood and the entire neighborhood association so she and i engaged in back and forth and i my understanding and you could ask her i will um is that she interacted with the association and various people in the in the neighborhood that's what was represented to us thank you mr clandina all right mr chairman i'd like the opportunity to rebut if i if i can't if i could later on yes sir thank you sir Do we have the Neighborhood Association contact? Will you step up to the podium, please? Hello, Rolanda Wolfhard, Georgetown Street Area Neighborhood Association Vice President. Ms. Moore, will you pull your mic down a little bit? Thank you. All right. Do I need to repeat that? Rolanda Wolfhard, Georgetown Street Area Neighborhood Association Vice President. second district we had 300 flyers that went out to the neighborhood 150 responded back with concerns we had two meetings in public we had 50 at each and some sent in there on the qr code that we sent them the reason why the neighborhood doesn't want the alcohol sales is because we have on that street alone five sober living houses and we're not trying to mess with our sobriety in the area itself within the three streets are connecting to the area we have a total with the five on that one we have a total of nine altogether sober living in the area so that's the reason why we're like hey we're trying to help them out as well and we got children on that street as well, small children, to help out them with their sobriety and get to where they need to and not have a deterrent. We already have two liquor stores at the end of Georgetown Street, one on the left-hand side, one on the right-hand side, and then just a ways up is the pub that we have that sells liquor also on Lima Drive. And then we got three gas stations on up the street across New Circle. Our neighborhood is unique. We have a total in the corridor itself. We have 48 sober living homes. So that is a lot to us, and we want to help them move forward, and that's our goal for our community is safety and having a productive community. Thank you. Thank you. You're okay. yeah go ahead mr wilson you got a question for me before i did i i'm sorry first of all let me say that how much i appreciate the time and energy spent from the neighborhood working with the staff related to the conditional additional conditions because i think whether we had the sticking point the last time we didn't know what the community wanted as such the question about the restaurant as such and i understand i think can empathize with what you're saying there but my question fundamentally is is this a deal breaker it's not a deal breaker not a deal breaker um hopeful that um we can help these people with their sobriety but it's not a deal breaker to to them, to the community. Because we really, our partnership with Black Soil has been tremendous. We've been doing this for almost, going on four years now and getting Black Soil in there because it was us that initiated this to happen because that's what that location was and it was a perfect fit for them to be in the neighborhood to provide instead of us keep going back and forth. it was a vacant building why not bring them home okay thank you any other questions mr yes sir so um obviously we're down to one point here it looks like alcohol or no alcohol i guess my question would be for legal and it looks like she's working very hard and done she'll need to try and get to an answer here what's the possibilities you know where's is it would it be better to say no alcohol and if it gets to that point let the applicant come back and ask for removal of that restriction or hope hope that it never gets to that point well it depends on what you want to do because right now what you have is a list of 10 uses that are going to be prohibited by conditional zoning restrictions from occurring on the site number 11 includes two different things it includes one is a restaurant cafe grill or pub and then the other part of that is whether or not they can serve alcohol so i'm assuming from the conversation that you're saying you don't want to prohibit a restaurant use, but you do want to prohibit a restaurant that serves and sells alcohol on its premises. That's my thought right now. So, I mean, if you do that, that is a restriction on the use, which is permitted. However, if you impose that and the zone is passed with those restrictions, then yes, that would be binding, and the only way you could change that in the future is to go back through this process to remove it okay so i don't know if anybody caught caught all that in my thought i just i just had one question on that yes sir because most groceries sell alcohol currently so this wouldn't affect the grocery store right that's my question because i mean just about every grocery store i know now has as every alcoholic beverage you can find? Well, I think it depends on how they get licensed. I mean, a lot of them sell beer and wine in the grocery store, and then they have a separate store that sells liquor and other things. So if it's not prohibited, then I would assume they're going to be allowed to sell that. I can't remember. I don't know if those were prohibited in the uses or not. No. You can say it, but no. So I think what a grocery store could get a license to sell. Well, no, it says no retail sale of beer, wine, or liquor. So you'd be limiting the sale of all alcohol on the premises. My thought would be adding an 11 which would allow a restaurant, grill, cafe simply without the possibility of selling alcohol on the premise. That would be my thought. I'm just throwing it out there right now. Yeah, just a comment after hearing that thought. Move it forward. Yeah, we're in open. We're in conversation. That sounds like the sticking point. But before we get too deep in it, we haven't went to the rebuttal stage yet either with the applicant. So you want to wait a little bit? You don't mind? Okay. Mr. Clint Dennis? You kind of see what we're chewing on up here, so maybe it'll help you out a little bit. Okay. I understand. Appreciate that. Thank you. Like I said, I'm sympathetic to the sober living issue. But as Neighborhood Association pointed out, there's already three places down the street where if somebody wants to break their sobriety, they have the opportunity to do that. If we have a restaurant, again, we're agreeing no retail package sales, no beer at the grocery store, no alcohol being sold at the grocery store. We've already agreed to that. We've already agreed that in the event the grocery store fails, we're not going to be opening or trying to open a liquor store. We've agreed to that. We're talking about on-premise sales limited in conjunction with eating a meal. And I think that we're being more than fair and granting and trying to accede to the wishes and work with the Neighborhood Association. And again, we are sympathetic to the sobriety, but if we have a restaurant there that allows someone to purchase a drink, a beer, or a glass of wine with their meal, compared to there's a liquor store here, there's a liquor store here, there's a gas station here, I don't know that we're going to be the cause of someone breaking their sobriety. And, again, we're sympathetic, but, you know, I think we're being more than fair here. And if we were to say the restaurant doesn't have the opportunity to financially benefit from alcohol sales, I think that puts that restaurant owner at a disadvantage. I don't know if any of you have ever worked in the restaurant business, but restaurants make a lot of their revenue from alcohol sales. and that's how a lot of them survive. So I just think that that would be unfair. I understand the reasoning behind it. I do. But I would ask that you consider what we have offered, what we have agreed to, and look at it as to, you know, is the applicant really, really jeopardizing someone's sobriety in this neighborhood? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Glendon. Ms. Wolford. Yeah. On Roosevelt, we have Grimes Chicken Restaurant, and it thrives. And on down, we have Creole's Restaurant, and it thrives. Then we have Zeke on down the street, just a little bit further, and it's thriving with no alcohol. On down the street, we got Georgetown Cafe. It is popping. And we got rallies on down the street. No alcohol. We don't have to have alcohol just to eat. Thank you. Thank you. Staff, any additional comments? Staff didn't have any additional comments at the time. Thank you. We'll bring it back now. Mr. Nickel? my comment was to say that we've had incredible neighborhood support our neighborhood representation and this reminds me of the situations when we're dealing with neighborhoods that want to put over a h1 overlay on their neighborhoods because once these decisions are made here they are binding for all applicants and when they come back to make adjustments to conditional use it adds more time and more expense so if we make a decision that limits the sale of alcohol that's a it'll be hard to overcome in the future so if that's your all's desires i hope you understand it's a process to get those removed so thank you thank you mr nick okay mr share my what the reason i started down this rabbit hole was the fact that from what i'd heard on this up until now we were being presented with the idea of a grocery and fresh market and so forth and then restaurant alcohol did not come in play so that that's where i am with that um i i can go either way and you know neighbors may be wishing one thing but did also hear that it wasn't a deal killer so yeah okay there's no further conversations about it floor is open for a motion on this one Mr. Chair, since I started in a rabbit hole, I'll close it. I can find my paperwork here. It's all got messed up all of a sudden. Somebody else is giving it to me. Mr. Chair, I'll move for approval of Black Soil's plan MAR23-19, Black Soil, Our Better Nature, LLC, for the reasons prevented by the staff, which are four, and do we do the conditional restrictions now? Along with conditional restrictions, which was posted up on the screen as being one through ten. Okay, Mr. Owens, thank you. We have a motion. Second. We got a second. Am I Mr. Pohl? Chairman Forrester, I just want to make sure for our conditional zoning restrictions, we do need to have a finding that they're appropriate and necessary. I believe there are findings appropriate and necessary. And a reason. And the reasons for the betterment of the neighborhood. Okay. So it's findings that are necessary and the reasons for the development of the neighborhood. Is that what you're going with? Yes, sir. All right. Mr. Pohl, you still second that motion? Yep. All right. Just a clarification, is that 10 or 11? 10. He said 10. No 11. He said no 11. Yes. Okay. I was going to open it up for discussion after that second, so now it's open. Mr. Wilson. I want to get clarification. Are we saying that they can open up a restaurant, they just won't sell alcohol? No, you're saying they can. They can. Yeah, he's taking it out. okay he's okay he's left it just one in ten yes just one in ten one in ten okay okay you're good i'm confused about number 11. in other words they can't well right now there's no restrict they can't open up a restaurant right now correct they can eventually if they want to okay and so if they do they can also sell alcohol because you're not restricting i got you okay thank you All right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Please vote via Granicus if there's no further discussion to the motion. And second. You think you're hard? Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I'll move for approval of the variance. Motion passes unanimously. I needed to say that before you. Thank you. Jumping down a rabbit hole again. I know. I'll move for the variance requested for the reasons provided by staff. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Do we have a second to that motion? Second. Second by Mr. Pohl. Please vote via Granicus. Motion passes. Mr. Chair, I'll move for approval of Plan MJDP 23-70 Galbraith Subdivision Lots 19 and 20 for the 12 reasons provided by staff, changing 13 and 14 to resolve and deleting 15. Okay. We have a motion by Mr. Owens. Do we have a second to that motion? Second. Second by Mr. Wilson. Please vote via Granicus. Paula, Ms. Worth, she – Oh, yeah. On a variance. Thank you. Motion passes unanimously as well. Thank you, Mr. Clendenin. There should also be a variance associated with this request. Yep. I would just like to say thank you for your efforts on behalf of your neighborhood. I know there are a lot of people out there who, if they want to drink, they're going to find a way to get a drink. but I appreciate the effort you're putting into to be supportive of all those sober houses in your neighborhood. Okay, so next up, we're going to move to page 15. It's number five, Turner Management, LLC. Yes, sir. I believe that item, we didn't have anyone sign up to speak, but let's just ask, is there anyone present in the audience that wishes to speak about the case titled Turner Management, LLC? for property located at 5447 Tates Creek Road. Okay, seeing none, we can take this item in an abbreviated fashion. And then we'll get to the full hearing. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Once again, Daniel Crum, planning staff. This is a request by Turner Management, LLC, in order to rezone the property at 5447 Tates Creek Road from an agricultural urban, AU, to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone. The applicant is seeking this rezoning in order to construct a single-family residential development. The applicant, in their discussion of place type and development type, have chose to identify this as an enhanced neighborhood and a low-density residential development type. Based on the subject property's location, staff finds the choice in both place type and development type to be appropriate. Just to orient you all to the subject property, it is this parcel shown in white. This red line is actually the county line, so the property itself is part of a larger property that is bisected by the Jessamine County line. So this is out Tate's Creek near the culmination of Fayette County. Zooming in a little bit closer, you can see the respective zoning of the area. So to the northwest and kind of on the west side of Tate's Creek Road in general are a series of single-family residential developments, zoned R1C, constructed, basically forming a wall of development that it kind of extends to the northwest there. So this is sort of the remaining parcel on this side of Tate's Creek Road that is yet to be kind of more fully developed. Currently, the subject property is zoned AU and has historically been utilized as a portion of a horse farm operation, the larger portion of which is occurring kind of within Jessamine County here. Across the road, we have AU zoning as well, agricultural uses with single-family residences. Here, we have a view of the subject property that's an aerial. So the subject property currently has a sort of tree-lined farm road that extends back to the rest of the operation within Jessamine County. Here you see the adjoining residential development to the northwest. There is a stub street that stubs into the property. So Tykes Pass is a public roadway with sidewalk pedestrian facilities that stubs into the property here. Here we have some views of the subject property. So this is looking into the property from Tates Creek Road. So you see the current farm drive as well as the existing mature trees on both sides that are flanking the pasture fields. A little difficult to see, but this is an existing area of vegetation, an existing spring, and other natural features that are preserved to be retained with this request. So the development on this side is really focusing on an interior green space, interior open space that we'll go over in the development plan shortly. Here we have a view of Tate's Creek Road in the vicinity. So this is sort of heading south or looking north on Tate's Creek Road, seeing the existing traffic situation, and then south. Here we have Tykes Pass as it stubs in. So once again, a stubbed roadway with pedestrian infrastructure on both sides that connects to kind of some larger interconnected neighborhoods with R1C zoning. Here's an idea of kind of what that style of development, single family detached primarily, but connecting to existing pedestrian networks. Here we have a development plan for the subject property consisting really of two different types of development. We have townhome units shown with the red color in here, and then a number of single family residential lots that connect to Tykes Pass. Those are nine single family lots with the remaining development occurring on site being attached townhome units. There is also a stub here where the development will continue on to the Jessamine County side that we'll have to proceed through those processes as well. But within the letter of justification, the applicant touches on providing additional housing, providing context-sensitive transitions, so transitioning from single-family lots here along Tights Pass and continuing that to kind of a denser product, kind of further away from the existing neighborhood. They are preserving key green elements, existing natural features are being preserved, and are minimizing parking on site. The applicant did a large amount of sort of engagement with the neighborhood, reaching out to several in the vicinity, including those outside of the notification area. So some significant outreach. Staff has not been notified of any opposition to this request from the surrounding neighborhood. As always, Mr. Martin will be on to discuss the development plan a little bit more fully. But staff with the existing residential context nearby agrees with the enhanced neighborhood place type, The low-density residential is a recommended development type, as is the applicant's choice and zone. So for all of those reasons, staff is recommending approval of the request, finding it's in line with Imagine Lexington comprehensive plan goals relating to providing housing and retaining open space, and doing so in a way that facilitates safe interactions between neighborhoods. We find it's an agreement with policies that talk about connectivity, providing additional housing density, and retaining natural features. And find that it's an agreement with the development criteria as it relates to site design, building form and location, transportation and pedestrian connectivity, as well as green space and environmental health. As always, it's subject to the approval of the corresponding development plan that Mr. Martin will be on momentarily to discuss, but staff is recommending approval at this time. I'd be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff. Any questions for staff? Not seeing any, Mr. Crump. Thank you. Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, The preliminary development plan associated with this unchanged is on page 16 of your agenda. Again, as you saw with Daniel's presentation, we have Tate's Creek Road in this location running south, and we intersect the Jesmond County line at this location. Again, Tykes Pass is a public street, stubs into the property. The applicant is proposing to extend that public street to a T intersection. They're proposing a public street in this location intersecting with Tate's Creek. As you can see with the townhouse development, they will be served with access easements in these locations to the townhouses. Daniel referenced the open space. Here's your open space in this location. That's the spring location. It all drains into this area. There's a sinkhole as well down in this location on the property. The applicant changed their plan to include these in public streets. Initially, there was a lot of discussion about the appropriateness of whether or not these should be access easements. As you're aware, they had proposed a gate at one time or gates. Those have been removed. They're proposing public streets to serve the nine single-family lots. And, again, the access easements will be anchored to the public street and serve the townhouses. There is a pump station in this location that will eventually serve this development. Oops, again, I pushed the button. They may need to relocate that. That's a significant engineering question that they'll have to answer at the next stage of development. Again, stormwater will drain over towards Jesmond County. That's not unprecedented. That's happened with several other developments along the county line where you take advantage of that natural drainage. Again, this is a preliminary development plan. They have the option to come back with just a preliminary subdivision plan. You can see their indication is they're going to subdivide these properties. Or they can come back in with a final development plan slash preliminary subdivision plan. They can do that if they like. At that time, with that approval, should the zone change go forward, when they bring in that subsequent plan, they can build the public infrastructure at that time. So with that, we have a recommendation on the plan that, again, it's a preliminary development plan on your agenda. There are some conditions they need to denote that access to Tates Creek Road shall be determined at the time of the preliminary subdivision plan slash final development plan. There's a couple of issues there. One is, is this going to be a local street? Locals are strongly discouraged from accessing Tates Creek arterials. In addition, that's going to require KDOT approval of access. So that question is best determined at the next stage of development. In conjunction with that issue, they had submitted a waiver. It was premature. Staff talked it over with them, said if it's, again, depending on your subsequent plan that you submit, then would be the time to discuss potential waivers, whether it's spacing, whether it's street type due to land use, or even the cross section. Again, as you see, they want a nice boulevard cross section. That's not a standard cross section. It may very well need a waiver as well. So again, that is something that's best determined when access is determined to Tate's Creek at the next level of development. They will need to denote that stormwater detention will also be determined at that next plan stage, again, because that's when they're going to be pulling permits. That's one of the detailed studies, but they're going to take advantage primarily of the lay of the land that you can see. And the same will be true with the sanitary sewer. Whether or not it can be served and serve this development in that location or has to be relocated will be something that will be determined with detailed engineering studies at the next level of development. With that, you can look at your agenda and you can see item 11 says discuss use of access easements. That's been solved. They withdrawn the proposal for access easements, so you can delete that. But staff will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Do we have any questions for Mr. Martin at this time? Yes, sir. What about number 12? It says discuss place builder. But that's place builder, which you've had that discussion with Daniel. Okay, so we can strike that too. Okay, thank you. I like that tie too, Mr. Martin. I like that tie. Thank you, sir. Yeah, yeah. Mr. Wilson, I'd like yours too. Well, it's a tab. Mr. Billings? Good afternoon, Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the commission. As you know, my name is Nathan Billings with Billings Law Firm. It's my pleasure to represent Turner Management. With us today, we have Mr. Troy Turner, as well as Bill McGalpin and John Hill, our design professionals. We agree with the revised staff report on the zone change and the prior revised staff on the development plan. And unless you have other questions for me, the only additional information I would put into the record is that, Mr. Owen, we went back to UK and tried to pull from the archives your report on whether this property could economically be sustainable with tobacco and cattle farming. And we concluded that paper was no longer obtainable and that cattle and tobacco were not economically viable on this property any longer. Okay, thank you, Mr. Billings. Do we have any questions? Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Billings. No questions. And this is an abbreviated hearing, so I'll bring it back to the commission for a motion. Yes, Ms. Meyer. I would like to move for approval of PLN MAR2321 Turner Management LLC. It's recommended by staff. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second to that motion? Second. Seconded by Mr. Owens. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Mr. Chair, I'd like to move for approval of PLN MJDP 2374, GDK Farm LLC property with the 10 conditions having deleted 11 and 12. Second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please vote via grant. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Billings. So now, Ms. Wade, I can go back to page nine and call staff. Now we're agenda item two, PLNMAR 23-16. Okay, here we go. All right. Mr. Crum. Thank you. Daniel Crum, planning staff. I just wanted to let the commission know that you should have a handout at your desk. This was provided to us by the historic preservation staff. It is an update to an inventory of the properties that are going to be featured in this particular proposal. But it just provides contextual historical information for those particular properties. I've also provided the chair with the list of public comment that was obtained in response to this particular request. But this is a item, PLN MAR 2316, a request by Stavroff Land and Development, Inc. And it is to rezone the properties you see on screen. So this is 201 through 235 East Maxwell and then 245 through 251 Stone Avenue. This totals slightly over 2.1 net acres. And the applicant is seeking this rezoning from their current R4, medium density residential zone, to a downtown frame business B2A zone in order to construct a multifamily residential development. The applicant, in their discussion of the place type and development type for this application, identify this as a downtown place type and a high-density residential development type. Staff, in their review of the place type and development type, agree with the applicant's contention, but we will go into further information on that a little bit later on in the presentation. But just to orient you all, this is the section of properties that we are looking at. So these properties generally front on Maxwell Street and Stone Avenue, so basically comprising the block face from Lexington here to Stone Avenue here. East Maxwell runs in this vicinity here, and in the larger vicinity, we have sort of the downtown core located to the northeast of the site, with High Street kind of running parallel here with Maxwell. Zooming in a little bit closer, you see the surrounding land uses and existing zoning as it exists today. The vicinity of this property is overwhelmingly residentially zoned, so you're seeing a mixture of R4 and R5 zoning, with the exceptions being as you go essentially a block to the northwest there on Martin Luther King Boulevard, we have P1 zoning as well as B2A zoning that the applicant is currently seeking. So approximately three properties to the northwest there, the B2A zone, and kind of that extension of the existing downtown core is present. The UK's campus, while having R4 and R5 zoning, is its own separate land use. They are not held to the same zoning restrictions. So essentially the opposite side of the street of the development here is the University of Kentucky and the corresponding land uses associated with that. We'll go into this and a little bit more information later on in the presentation as well. But this along Rose Street here, this hatched line that you're seeing indicates a H1 overlay district. So this is Aylesford. And so the significance of that will get touched on a little bit later in the presentation. But the subject properties are not currently located within an H1 overlay at the local level. level. As far as the zoning history of the site, there was a recent request to change the zoning of the subject property. In 2019, there was a request to obtain this zoning in order to establish a multifamily residential development. Almost all of the properties that you're seeing today were included in that request, with the exception of one parcel here. So it was a different development plan and a much higher intensity proposal. That ultimately was not classed by the recommended for disapproval by the planning commission and did not go through council but there is sort of the the background of a attempt to rezone at this location staff recommended approval with some conditions that limited the use of the property as well as the height on certain locations in order to kind of establish some compatible development if the application went forward. Here we have an aerial view of the subject property. It's due to the kind of development in the area. It's a little difficult to see, but you've got Hagerman Court. Runs through this direction here. It exits out into Maxwell. So the subject properties are mainly individual dwellings that have originally were single family, but then over time converted into largely student housing, but a number of individual dwellings on each of these individual lots with a rear portion kind of devoted to parking along Hagerman. With regards to the H1 overlay, so what you are seeing in front of you right now is the extent of the Aylesford H1 overlay. This was established in 1998. Here are the subject properties outlined in the yellow and red color. The Aylesford H1 establishes, by virtue of being an H1 overlay establish restrictions on how you can develop a property. So this was kind of a community-led effort to preserve the historic structures in this area, essentially work removing or modifying or changing the character of these historic buildings requires a certificate of appropriateness, it requires going before the board, and requires further review. When this was established in 1998, the area including the subject property here were considered for its inclusion. However, at that time, they were not opted to be included when the H-1 overlay was finalized. As such, any of the properties outside of the H-1 overlay shown that's not located within a separate H-1 has the ability to modify their structures, to demolish their structures, to change the land use on the property without requiring review from the Board of Architectural Review or Certificate of Appropriateness. So the larger area is located within a National Register Historic District. So at a national level, this area has generally been concluded to be that architectural significance. However, these individual properties that are shown within this request were not individually listed. So in staff's review of this, we evaluated that based on the context of the development here, which is outlined in the packet provided to you by historic preservation, and found that generally these styles, this timeline, this period of development was being replicated and was present within the larger Aylesford and was being preserved within the larger Aylesford H1 overlay from Rose Street on. So that just provides kind of a background on the kind of restrictions on the site. So essentially there's nothing prohibiting the applicant from demolishing the structure with the appropriate permits from the Division of Building Inspection. Here we have views of the subject properties. So this is just supplementary. So this is from Maxwell Street, so to the left would be the intersection with Lexington Avenue. But once again, we've got single-family dwellings that were then modified to become multifamily largely. We've got a period of development that I believe spans from the late 1880s to the early 19-teens. But consistent with the surrounding area, you have sort of detached residences, each with their own separate front porch, two to three stories in height, with Hagerman kind of bisecting the development here. We have an existing, or most recently used as a fraternity house here at the corner, and then as you round the corner, this gets into the development on stone. Once again, all of these properties being listed in the sheet in front of you. As far as kind of the current status of the roadway, East Maxwell in this vicinity is considered an arterial. so this is one way in its vicinity with existing on-street parking located along the left side here we have the properties that are being considered with this request that front the left side of the screen here moving on we have this is the view onto lexington so we a less intense roadway with existing development but further down lexington are areas with existing b2 zoning as you go further down that block phase here we have the view onto stone so you see The existing fraternity house here, another directly adjoining to the side. Existing sidewalk networks, and once again that development that is somewhat consistent, two to three stories with the surrounding residential components. Hagerman Court would be relocated under this request. So this is sort of a narrow roadway that serves in cuts from High Street, curves in to serve some residential units and then is a one-way out onto East Maxwell here you can see Hagerman Court as it relates to kind of the existing parking areas so uncharacteristic of a lot of downtown development the rear portion of these properties actually have fairly large parking areas usually in the downtown and especially further up Hagerman here parking is really limited to on-street so while these larger dwelling units have sort of occupied the property, the rear part of the site has been sort of underutilized relative to its location in the downtown context. Here we have a view of the rear portion of the structure, so you see that while these structures do have their, are old enough to be considered historic, there have been a number of additions because they were not located in an H1 overlay to allow for increased use as a residential. So under R4, they are allowed to utilize the property for multifamily residential and could tomorrow if they wish put in a plan to demolish these structures and build new apartment units in their place here we have a view of one of the more significant aspects of the development so here to the being split by the driveway for the subject properties is development that is within this proposal and then adjoining development on Lexington that is not so this under the new proposal that we'll get into momentarily with the development plan on many of the or many sides of the development the development is being buffered by a roadway so whether that's lexington whether that's stone whether that is east maxwell a separation that is sort of built in to help mitigate any impact or partially mitigate the impact of kind of increased development here this is where the subject properties adjoin existing residential uses to the rear and so sort of in evaluating this request and at how staff evaluated this request the relationship between these structures with the kind of two-story residential here and then the existing residential that actually sits a little higher and kind of looks down the existing development how that would change or how that would be sort of implemented and transitioned with any plan that comes through the site here we have a view of the development plan for the subject property mr martin will be on to speak into it a little bit more detail, but you're looking at a large multifamily residential development. This is going to be incorporating sort of a base level of parking that will be actually, you would go access onto Lexington here, so you would go down, it's located on the very bottom floor, and the topography is generally higher along Maxwell, kind of sloping down as you go further into the neighborhood. But it would have access to the parking garage along a rerouted Hagerman Court. So rather than continue as a single lane sort of alley that cuts through approximately right here, it would continue to be one way for the existing development for the north, but at a point where it hits the subject properties, it would be widened into a two-lane road and rerouted to Stone Avenue there. One of the consequences of this is that the number of curb cuts along East Maxwell are now going to be removed. There will be no vehicular access directly from our arterials. Moving forward as far as the use itself, we have a access, primary access to the Maxwell side is going to come in sort of the centered on the center of the property, leading into an amenity area, so that is the interior offices, interior gym, any type of amenities being offered. This, we also have two more entrances onto East Maxwell here and here. They are proposing to increase the width of the pedestrian walkway on Maxwell to eight feet, so eight feet throughout here with new pedestrian crossings located at the intersection with Maxwell. The proposed height of the building is 75 feet along much of the frontage here, with the exception of in this portion where it adjoins the house I highlighted earlier here, so there will be a sort of a step back in height, So it is 45 feet here, transitioning up into 75 throughout the rest of the development. There are some different things that are being done architecturally that will be shown in some of the renderings staff will provide for you that speak to kind of how that 75 feet is sort of being addressed and softened in order to kind of maintain a pedestrian-friendly experience as well as to try to provide a better transition into the adjoining neighborhoods. But Mr. Martin will be on to discuss a few of these proposals or a few more aspects of the development plan a little bit later. One thing that has changed recently in the most updated version of the plan, originally the house that sat on this parcel here, the most northern most portion of the property, was proposed to be retained. That is now being removed and is going to house the trash compactor, the trash facilities for the residents there, and then screened in with landscaping, a little bit difficult to see because of the color choice, but landscaping where it adjoins the residential uses there. Here we have an initial rendering, so I'm going to show both the initial submission that was brought forth to staff as well as the revised edition to sort of give a kind of context between staff's initial recommendation of postponement in our first staff report and what changed between now and then to lead to us recommending approval of the request. So this is the initial East Maxwell rendering. As a multifamily residential development, the project has to comply with the multi, it has to demonstrate compliance with the multifamily design standards. And that speaks to a couple things. It speaks to making this sort of maximizing door, I mean, entrances, making this accessible for pedestrians, really engaging the street front, avoiding these kind of homogenous block faces, and really just trying to create visual interest and compatibility with surrounding areas. The first attempt at rendering for this site is what you see in front of you. There's some articulation, but along almost all of the street frontage, you have that entirety of that 75-foot building height. There's not really any attempt to kind of hide or conceal the parking that is sort of occurring underneath the residential units and are not really showing any real activation of the pedestrian frontage. In addition to that, the residents that we pointed out earlier, we would be located generally here, would be directly adjoining that full 75 on essentially two separate sides. The revised Maxwell rendering kind of attempts to address some of these concerns. So where previously it had sort of a long monotonous facade, They've broken it up both in terms of stepping the building back from the street as well as modulating the height. So here we have sort of two-story elements being added, stepping back the structures here, here, and here, in order to kind of create not just a homogenous wall face, but rather something that feels a little bit more pedestrian scale for those individuals that are walking along Maxwell Street here. There also is some changes in ADA compliance, so adding ramps, adding areas for people to sit and really more meaningfully utilize the road frontage along Maxwell. Here we have the rendering from that opposite angle that hits Maxwell, also Stone. Once again, we have the full breadth of the 75 proposed feet developments without really any way to break that up. As far as openings and really activation of that road frontage, there really isn't anything present. One of the things that staff kind of took a look at was the kind of the front porch feel or the way that having numerous houses along East Maxwell sort of had their own individual porches allowed for individual units. The revised Stone Avenue rendering incorporates townhome units, So seven proposed townhomes, a long stone, which would serve each with their own balcony slash entranceway, as well as this facade articulation to sort of delineate the areas being used for the townhomes, and then moving up into the student apartments sort of above that. So with this, we got the parking structure was sort of hid, so it was no longer visible. instead of a blank facade we got additional patio space space for entrances just a much more activated streetscape we got buffering and step backs that sort of mitigate that feel of the height by sort of stepping it back from two stories using those architectural features using a greater variety of materials and really in improving upon the design especially as it relates to pedestrian scale but also helping to kind of scale it back in transition from that higher height than is what is present in the immediate vicinity to something that's a little bit more compatible as you get closer to the street face. So overall, staff found that they were in substantial compliance with the requirements of the multifamily design standards. Now, with regard to the place builder, it's alluded earlier that we would have sort of a larger discussion over the choice of place type. So the applicant has decided to place this within the downtown place type so this is really speaking to the the most highest dense areas within our community the areas surrounding comprising and surrounding our urban core really recommending that high density residential development and recommending kind of a range of zones the but essentially the the b2 which is our downtown zones the b2a the downtown frame and the b2b which is also another downtown zone as well but really pushing for this higher density development whether it's residential or mixed use. There has also been some discussion as to whether this could be a second-tier urban development. So these are the areas surrounding the downtown, both the downtown core and the surrounding downtown development. Under the current place builder, there's not a land use map, so there is some flexibility in how these arguments are sort of made and portrayed. A second-tier urban like the downtown place type also recommends high-density residential. The main consideration is that the highest it goes is R5, whereas the downtown place type allows for recommending the downtown business zones. To give sort of context to staff's agreement with the applicant as to why this is appropriate as a downtown place type, here we have a map. This was included as a part of the downtown master plan. Here we have the locations of the subject property. So this kind of took not just the downtown core, but also the surrounding areas and what was considered under the context of that particular plan that was done in the early 2000s, subsequent to the Aylesford H1 overlay that occurred there. But essentially, the subject's property along a major arterial roadway, its proximity to the physical downtown core, as well as its proximity to other B2A zoning in the vicinity. As we stated earlier, B2A zoning is present along MLK, kind of to the northwest, as well as further down Lexington as it connects to Stone here. So the proximity to the downtown core, the proximity along this major downtown corridor of East Maxwell, as well as its inclusion in some of the downtown guiding documents, led staff to be comfortable with the downtown place type. It is worth noting that even with a second-tier urban place type, if the Planning Commission found that to be more appropriate, these are just recommended zones and development types. So the high density that can be appropriate in an enhanced neighborhood is equally as appropriate for a downtown place type as well. And given the comprehensive plan's kind of emphasis on not just intensifying or increasing the density within our downtown core, but also doing so along our arterials and our significant corridors. With regards to the goals, objectives, and policies in this request, the revised plan speaks to kind of a number of goals, objectives, and policies that staff find is being met with this request. so goals that are speaking to providing for the additional density and a mixture of housing types. We have goals and objectives that relate to respecting the context and design features. Here we have the attempts to step down the building height where practical, implementing architectural features and implementing other ways to reconfigure the site in order to mitigate or limit those direct contrasts. One thing to note with the renderings you saw earlier, the applicant would be held to substantial compliance with those renderings at the time of final development plan. The planning commission could, if this rezoning was to proceed and be approved, and a final development plan to come through, if they did not demonstrate substantial compliance with the items kind of shown on screen, the planning commission and staff could reject them at this time. But so just kind of to keep in mind as you kind of review these plans, the revised proposal provides for safe interactions between neighborhoods So this increases the pedestrian accessibility of the site. So this is widening Maxwell. It is removing curb cuts, which are generally not super safe on an arterial roadway, providing for additional crossings and providing additional units into this area to help anchor in this portion of the downtown. It prioritized multimodal options. There is sort of a bare minimum of parking being provided on site. When we as a community decided to remove the parking minimums, one of the things that we looked to do was remove instances where unnecessary land which is needed for housing is being instead allocated for vehicles. So the applicant is proposing, I believe, 175 parking spaces on site for this 700 bed development, with the rest being provided off-site or promoting its connectivity to the University of Kentucky and existing pedestrian networks to encourage individuals to live there and not have their car on the development. When we look at objectives or policies, we find that the request is meeting goals that relate to multifamily residential design standards. So speaking to creating that pedestrian-friendly context, to utilizing a variety of materials, providing this architectural detail, and generally increasing the way that this is interacting with the streetscape, essentially. We have policies that call for locating high-density areas of development along these higher-capacity roadways. So here we have a downtown roadway. We are trying to intensify our downtown. We are trying to accommodate this necessary housing. and generally this is most appropriate on these higher capacity roadways. And then finally, utilizing the underground parking removes the kind of car parking area issue that was present on the current site where approximately half of the subject properties are currently being used to house the cars for those developments. So intensifying the use of the property but doing so in a kind of a context-sensitive manner. With regards to the traffic impact study, there was a traffic impact study and then a revised study sent forth. These were findings that were generated from URL's transportation MPO staff. Essentially, a traffic impact study takes the proposed use and the scale, so looking at a 700-bedroom development based in this location with its proximity to the university and its downtown core, is anticipated to generate 112 new vehicle trips at the AM, and then at the peak hour, 182 vehicle trips. It's important to kind of keep this within the context of these higher capacity roadways. So where this is impacting most is the intersection of East Maxwell and Lexington, where it will create a delay from 30 seconds to 39 seconds. So essentially existing traffic would be impacted most, and that's nine seconds during those days and during those hours. Essentially, the staff found that it was capable of handling the traffic generated by the proposed development at an acceptable level of service. They just provided a couple of additional trip generation graphics that kind of explain the impact at different times, as well as kind of at different hours. Once again, the biggest jump in level of service is from a D to an E, and that occurs during the PM hours and is a delay of nine seconds. So while this is introducing new traffic to the area, it is doing so on streets that are able to kind of accommodate the traffic. Any other additional questions about kind of the methodology behind traffic impact studies? We have David Filiatru present, and I believe as well as the applicant's engineer that can speak to some of the methodology. But essentially the level of services in this area as a result of this area based on the traffic impact study should be minimal. so with this staff is recommending including conditional zoning in this request this is due in part to the subject property's location as well as sort of the the goal behind the the rezoning so the applicant and the comprehensive plan are calling for providing this higher density residential development and to that we are restricting some of the uses so uses one through 7, and 7 actually should read automobile and vehicle refueling and service stations, so we want to kind of eliminate some of the auto-focused use, some of the uses that wouldn't really contribute to housing, and to ensure that the housing that we're getting at this location is sort of indicative of a downtown context along a major arterial in the close proximity to that downtown core, we have recommended a minimum density of 93 dwelling units per acre, which would approximate to 200 dwelling units at this location. The applicant under their current proposal is proposing 275 units, so this gives them a little bit of breathing room to implement sort of a more mixed-use development if they wish, but still holding them to a higher density residential product that is being called for within the place builder criteria. We find that those conditions are necessary in order to maintain the character of the East Maxwell Street corridor protect the adjoining residential uses but while meeting the comprehensive plans push for increasing the density in the near downtown and along arterial corridors so staff is recommending approval of this request we find in its agreement with the comprehensive plan the newly adopted comprehensive plans goals and objectives as it encourages the expansion of housing choices it provides for a compatible development with what's existing in the area this is providing for a safer pedestrian experience along Maxwell Street and is indeed emphasizing these single occupancy vehicles by promoting a development that prioritizes multimodal connections, prioritizes having pedestrian connections on site, and minimizes the amount of parking on site. With regards to the policies of the comprehensive plan from 2018, as this was applied prior to the the new policies being adopted. We find its agreement with the multifamily design standards. It increases residential density on a major corridor. It mitigates the parking impact and reduces the parking available on site, creates walkable streetscapes by incorporating the elements shown in those renderings, whether it's the townhouse units, landscaping, articulating the facade, or creating those step backs. And then by limiting the amount of parking on site, it encourages these alternative modes of transportation and promotes walking. Staff finds that it's an agreement with the development criteria of the comprehensive plan. We find it meets the criteria for site design, building form, and location. It's creating this vertical edge along the arterial roadway, mitigating the impact of the parking, and significantly increases residential density in our downtown area. We find it meets the transportation and pedestrian connectivity as we improve the pedestrian network, provides that same vertical edge, improved connections to the University of Kentucky and the adjoining neighborhoods, widens and reroutes Hagerman Court, and reduces the number of vehicular access points and curb cuts on Maxwell Street. Staff finds that overall it meets the criteria for green space and environmental health as it preserves two of the existing significant trees along Stone Avenue, provides for clearly delineated open space, and incorporates street trees along all four frontages to create kind of a walkable streetscape. So this is made subject to the conditional zoning restrictions we mentioned earlier, amending item 7 in order to reflect service stations as well. That's the terminology we actually use for gas stations and the like, subject to that same minimum density for the reasons outlined earlier in the presentation. So at this time, I would be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff. and then Mr. Martin will be on directly afterwards to address any questions regarding the development plan. Any questions for Mr. Crumb? Yes, sir. Mr. Mickler. Yeah, I have some questions to maybe help on the understanding and deliberation on the place type criteria. Could you go back to that slide? So you stated that you all agreed with the downtown place type, and as I read that, that's the epicenter of commerce and entertainment. and you sort of stated that, you know, one of the discussions items could be that this could also be interpreted as a second-tier urban neighborhood, which allows high-density development as well. Well, certainly looking at the diagram right there and looking at the built environment of where we're at, that column certainly jumps out as more in alignment from my perspective with what we're looking at. I don't think that we're looking at the epicenter of commerce and entertainment. and I think we're looking at a neighborhood around the downtown core, which would align a little bit with that downtown master plan that you showed as well. The second tier urban says high-rise opportunities are not precluded, provided they are context-sensitive. And the proposed zone is not listed, but as you said, we not infrequently review zones and add conditions to ensure that they match the place type which from what I understand you were doing with some of those conditions there's a couple of categories that are a little bit I wanted to ask you a bit more about so you said we could do they could do our for today because that's what they have medium density we also see that based on my interpretation r5 is a zone that fits the place type as I would interpret it. What are some of the differences between an R4 and R5? Obviously one of the differences is allowed business use, but they're not asking for business use. So what are some of the built environment differences? Sure and to just touch on sort of the initial comment as well. So this is just sort of a helpful graphic kind of found within the place builder. It does go into greater detail and greater discussion on the downtown. So where it discusses sort of the transition, I mean, so the downtown place type, that description really applies most directly in the urban core, but the downtown place type itself also includes discussions of the surrounding areas where you step it down to match the kind of adjoining development to the side of it. But with regards to your question about the R4 and R5, one of the significant implications is sort of the allowable height. So in instance, under the current R4 zoning, the maximum height is actually a sort of height to yard ratio. So that's two to one. So for every two feet you go up, the setback of that building increases. Within an R5, that goes from a two to one to a four to one. So it allows for sort of a higher density, higher intensity development that sort of is allowed to encroach closer. With respect to the applicant's proposed zone, that really solves that, I mean, that eliminates that aspect of it completely and just allows for that 10 feet and allows for height as approved by the Planning Commission. So the really large implications really relate to the height as well as floor area ratios. but under this proposed development the the 10-foot setback that they're showing is only accomplishable because of the B2A zone. And in looking at this trying to sort of look at some of the other criteria we had a pretty in-depth discussion when we passed our recent open spaces ZODA where we called on the R4 and R5 to have certain percentages of usable open space and vegetative areas and we talked about the downtown as having that traditional commercial business wall to business wall and not not requiring that where this proposal is entirely residential and outside of that downtown core was there any discussion or deliberation from staff on adding conditions that they meet some of those vegetative areas or open space requirements that are found in some of our high density residential so there was discussions about the the open space the green space required on site the subject properties location kind of relative to existing parks so they meet the threshold necessary in order to exclude some of these elements so kind of the walkability of this area this downtown core that the proximity to those parks staff found that that was sufficient to meet the requirements that kind of govern open space on that and one thing to note as well the B2A zoning does not necessarily have to be directly adjoining the the kind of existing downtown core the cut stone property on Midland and the development kind of across the street from that once again on a an arterial roadway, kind of a significant distance between it and the adjoining existing downtown zoning. So really the conversation on place type and development type really should kind of focus on kind of that relationship to the roadway, that relationship to the core, but not necessarily in a, this has to be directly next to an existing kind of zone. And one of the aspects, though, to those developments are they have a significant, or at least they have a commercial component. As we get outside of the downtown area and potentially increase building sizes, one of the things we were trying to do with that open space ordinance is also give flexibility to developers and how they green buildings that's why we created bonuses for rooftop gardens and community gardens and spaces like that cherry-picking that sort of more commercial oriented downtown zone eliminates those requirements and hence also the incentives to do some of these more green infrastructure type projects is it is it possible to add those back in as as elements or I'm gonna defer a food chain on this it is if the Commission desires to have a particular percentage of open space or other open space elements on the development plan that would be appropriate it's not really a conditional zoning type thing that can be addressed but it can be addressed on the development plan that's a it would be on the development plan it would not be even though it's part of the zoning ordinance it would be on the development plan itself and then i have in terms of my questions i have just i have a couple more the downtown master plan if you'd go to that for a second one of the things I saw on your staff report was the inclusion in the downtown master plan so I did look that up and I just want to put on the record that the The downtown master plan did call for, if I'm not mistaken, 40 foot or 45 foot maximum heights in the residential areas and called for building areas on the properties to be between 40 and 60 percent. And then in the downtown core going up to 80 to 100 percent. So while this area is included in the downtown, and then the additional thing is they called the downtown master plan calls for these properties to be preserved and identifies other properties as infill and redevelopment. So since you added the downtown plan, I do want to add that it contradicts a lot of what is in this current proposal. And then sort of my last item to ask you was in our interpretation of this, up of going to this higher density business zone where it would clearly add especially with the condition on the number of units it would clearly add a lot of housing units you know in a walkable part of town to both transit downtown and campus I want to understand a little bit about the interpretation as it relates to the comprehensive plan in the staff report you talk about the land the current properties they're being underutilized most of the current properties there are as you pointed out historic sort of a and the historic complete streets with people living in them. I visited people in a couple of those houses. They look a lot, while the current owner is not particularly maintaining them particularly well, they look pretty similar to other houses. And when I walk in a house like that, I don't typically think, wow, this is underutilized. So what is, I guess my question to get to the point is, is that necessary that we call these underutilized to justify going to a downtown zone? Or does that make sense? or can they be fully utilized and we decide whether or not we want to go to a downtown zone anyway? Yeah, so the underutilized is a reflection sort of of that development pattern as a whole. It's not besmirching sort of single family residential or the multifamily that's there, but really a reflection of here where you have the development that's historically kind of operated, but an equal amount of open surface parking adjacent to our downtown. And so as we look to kind of develop and obtain this density, areas like this, I would say, are being underutilized. So it's sort of a balance between providing that density and try to create a walkable environment, partially by limiting these surface areas. And what we look to do when we implemented the ZODA in order to eliminate parking minimums where does this make sense, especially downtown where we have our densest transportation network, where we have the most expensive bicycle and padded connections, to kind of utilize those portions of properties for a better use, in this case residential. So not a reflection upon necessarily the multifamily is there, but rather sort of that development pattern, especially as it relates to the large amounts of parking. Thank you. Can you go back to the map where it showed the different neighborhoods, please? Let's say I had a forward. All right. Thank you. Okay, so I want to talk about College Town, where the site is located. And that leads to the question. And so if you had interaction with the University of Kentucky and what their student housing requirements may be and how they plan on meeting these significant bed requirements that they are showing? Yes. So the, I think the applicant could probably address some of those questions a little bit more accurately. They submitted some, I believe a letter from the University of Kentucky that kind of outlines, understanding it's the university's policy that they're increasingly relying on off-site, off-campus development in order to accommodate the the load of students that are being educated there. I can't speak to the exact numbers at the University of Kentucky or whatnot. Generally we're looking at this as housing in general and if this is exclusively student housing it frees up what was previously student housing elsewhere to be utilized you know for a larger purpose so I can't speak to specifically the University of Kentucky or its position on it but I think the applicants had conversations with them especially with them being such a close neighbor in terms of proximity. Absolutely I've anecdotally spoken with the University of Kentucky about some of their housing requirements and some of the numbers I've heard is a deficit of 4,000 beds so it's a significant issue I'll be interested to see what the what the applicant has to say about that and how those needs could possibly be fit in this area. Okay, thank you Mr. Crone. Thank you. Mr. Martin. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, the development plan that is associated with this zone change is at the bottom of page 10, continues on your agenda to page 11. but we have handed out to you in this lovely green paper some revised conditions on the particular revised plan that you see before you today. Now, I would stress a couple of things for you. This is a preliminary development plan. Should this zone change proceed forward, be approved, they would have to come back to you for a final development plan, at which time with the final development plan, once it was approved, of course, then they can proceed to the building permit stage and actually start construction on the site. In addition, we, on your staff, review these plans as if the zoning was already in place on a preliminary development plan. So again, just to remind you of those things, let's take a look. I can do it this way. I'm catching on. I want to turn back. So again, and Daniel explained to you many components of this. We have our Maxwell Street frontage, and here we have Stone, Hagerman in the rear, and then Lexington bordering the property that's proposed to be redeveloped. developed. Now, they are proposing 275 units and 700 beds in this particular development. The square footage varies on the floors for various, several reasons. One, you can see this amenity space that is centered here in the building and on the entrance that you saw on the renderings with the big entrance and the landscaping and the various levels and all that. That will bring you into an amenity area that Daniel described. As you go up on multiple floors above, you have residential square footage. You also have, as you can see, with these green areas, these are open space areas. Now, the open space that they're currently proposing is 4,800 square feet of open space contained within these courtyards in the building. As you go up the four floors, again, the building is primarily 75 feet in height, but it does drop down to 45 feet in this area. So that changes the square footage on the fifth and sixth floors. There's less residential square footage up there to accommodate that setback in that building. However, oh, and the garage is 64,000 plus just right over that, about 64,500 square feet. The best way to visualize the garage is like a basement. There's a grade change from Maxwell to Hagerman. And as was pointed out, they're proposing access at this location and access at this location into the garage as well as access here. Now, they have stated that they anticipate there may be some changes in the circulation necessitated with that garage layout. Hagerman itself in the rear, as it comes to the property, should this be approved and go forward, the council will have to release that public right-of-way because Hagerman is public right-of-way. They will have to go through that process, release it. Then they'll have to reestablish and construct Hagerman. As you can see here, as a two-way portion of the street, this would remain one way, and that would become two ways. And then the option remains for them to dedicate that actually as public right-of-way, and so to maintain its status as a public street. This plan does show the property on stone, as Daniel mentioned, with some open space area here. this would be the mechanical area and the solid waste compactor dumpster however the service is ultimately performed and what they need again you would anticipate they'll generate a considerable amount of solid waste with with a apartment of this size and with students so again that would be the area where that would be served they are anticipating and this will again if this moves forward if this is approved they will be evaluating in detail any kind of stormwater considerations that they may have on this property there's been no problems identified at this time in this particular area of our community but they are required under your stormwater manuals to address stormwater now it's an it's an infill redevelopment project since it's already developed there's considerations given to the calculations that they have to meet in terms of stormwater runoff. They're anticipating they will do that as required with a vault in this area so they could then continue to utilize the surface above that vault either for parking and again to allow access to the mechanical area and the solid waste area. As Daniel mentioned, there's going to be improvements done. Oops, there we go. Get the right button. Along this frontage. The townhouses, you can see they're proposing the townhouses have entrances coming off of stone. And they are two-story townhouses. However, again, there's residential above. This will still be a 75-foot part of the building. I know that can be misleading. You think, oh, two-story townhouse. Well, yes, that's in the facade. That's with entrances. independent entrances and step into the building but again it'll still rise up they'll have residential above that there'll be units above that as i stated there's a slight reduction on the fifth and sixth floors due to the offset for the 45 feet along the the lexington side of the building now again this is a preliminary let's see they have i will tell you that the cumulative square footage on the site is over 425,000 square feet with all the residential, including the garage. With that, there's considerable lock coverage and FAR on the site. They're maximizing the site as much as they can. There is landscaping required back in here. One of the conditions that we had them that we're requiring them to do is on the final development plan. This is a rendering of the final development plan, and they've blended some of these things, is they have to have a 10-foot setback here. And the development plan had shown five. They've adjusted it on this rendering. They'll need to adjust it on the final development plan that they submit to staff to show a 10-foot. That's a required setback in the zone. They had put a five foot set back there, but no, that's not allowed. So they've adjusted that. There was some confusion. They're doing street improvements, primarily pedestrian along this front. They've mislabeled one of their cross sections. That'll have to be corrected if they make that clear that which cross section is getting the appropriate improvements and those that aren't. Those types of things can happen on these plans. With that, really, again, a preliminary development plan. We told them to delete the word approximate, just like if we see plus and minus on figures. We see that. We tell them, no, you don't get to give us plus and minus. Just give us a dimension. Give us a number. The same is true when they indicate these types of areas. We want to see what you're proposing. At the final, if they find a need, do they need to adjust and make some changes? well, they'll bring that back to us and to you, and they can be evaluated then. But with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have for staff. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Any questions for Mr. Martin? Mr. Pohl. So looking at this plan, I don't see any suggestion of the offsets that we're seeing in the elevations. And they have to put a statement on here that they will comply. And, Graham, what we ask for on a two-dimensional, you know, flat plan like this is to show offsets where they can, where they can graphically show them. And generally on a final development plan, the hub might be an example where they had an outside seating area. They showed that because they could. They could draw a line and they could show that. And they can do those sorts of things, particularly on the pedestrian level, and show those. it's a little more difficult to show those again on this dimension, that height dimension. It's hard to show that. So that's why we get the renderings, and that's why we have a statement placed on there that they shall comply, substantially comply with those. In our framework, when we talk about substantially comply, we expect them to meet the offsets. We expect them to meet those types of features that they've shown, but we will allow them some leeway with materials because that seems to be the most common issue we run into as these things are under construction, is they may end up having some availability material issues or cost issues. So how do you assess what those offsets are if you don't have a plan that shows the offsets? Well, at the time of the final development plan, we could get an exhibit. The best example I could give you is with our mixed-use zones that actually have some required dimensions to those offsets. So that is certainly something that we could have them provide. And, again, we can show that where it's applicable on a site plan. It's just some of that doesn't lend itself to being well-represented on a site plan. And since you brought up materials, what do we know about what the back of the building looks like? They are showing some alterations and changes and have done some things on the renderings, and they could fully expand on that for you as well, what their intent is along that rear of that building. regarding the materials there's a lot of difference between materials yes and so who makes that call when the applicant comes back and says oh I can't get such and such but you know so who makes that call we work with them for commitments because we're on shaky legal ground under KRS as to what we could actually require. Now, were they in an H1 zone? Well, then certainly you can require those types of materials. So it's a collaborative process to get them to commit to the appropriate materials. 700 bedrooms is a lot of trash. One of the, we saw a lot of positive changes on the development plan, which you've sort of gone through since the first edition. But I'm going to ask you about, I guess, one of the more concerning changes, which was the location of the trash compactor right next to those three properties, the two on Hagerman and the one on Stone. I went by and saw that especially that, well, that those property lots are pretty small and the buildings are pretty close to that line. I also looked online and ended up reading a review of a Broadway play where the sound engineer recorded the trash compactor in his apartment to use the sound to generate anxiety in the play. He talked about in the New York Times article how it starts, the trash compactor sound starts off quiet, and then as it gets more and more compression on the garbage, the sound gets louder and louder. I also looked at some of the other projects. We have like the Hub and the Lex. It seems like they also use trash compactors, but they're internal to the building itself. In your review, in terms of managing and mitigating some of the impacts of 700 rooms waste on the adjoining properties, What's your perspective on getting that moved to internal basement parking area? That's an interesting question. You're correct. We see a lot of those on the interior. There's several factors that would go into that, and that, again, of course, is the grade change, the height of the ceiling for that internal parking or basement parking, as it were, the level. because another factor that's going to enter into that is our public safety people's ability to get into that garage if they need to. So the height, obviously, and the utilization of space could play into that, which I think would be a good final development plan discussion, as well as our solid waste people then weigh in on their abilities and their thoughts to serve it because their access is important. And, again, any additional screening that may be required on anything that was external would be also something we'd want to talk about. But I think, again, they're trying to provide parking, so they're careful about how much parking they can provide on site. But that would certainly be a good discussion at that time about whether or not they envision that ability. They obviously are not showing that. Would it be fair to at least ask that the designation be removed from the preliminary development plan so that we can sort of have a full discussion at the time of the final as to the location of the. As a matter of fact, solid waste is not a sign-off on preliminaries for that very reason, because we deem it to be very appropriate on a final to make sure that it does function correctly, it's located correctly, can be serviced. So I understand correctly we could, if we decide, ask that that be removed on the preliminary and move to discussion on the final. Yes, sir. Absolutely. And then also just as a follow-up, I guess because my other question to Daniel got booted to the development plan, sort of in thinking about, you pointed out that this building sort of takes up a pretty high percentage of the land. And in thinking about balancing those elements of the comprehensive plan where we're trying to increase units, but we're also trying to watch out for, you know, the heat island effect and keep the greening, We had a lot of provisions in that vegetative areas that allowed for vegetative areas to be counted on rooftop decks or patios or things like that. If we were to ask that a vegetative area of a certain percentage, say like the R5 or the R4, 10 or 15 percent be added to this, you feel that that could be met with a large building given those parameters? I think it's possible and it's worthy of discussion to how much open space is appropriate and how it could be met, because there are different ways to meet that, and that would certainly be an appropriate discussion for that. We don't require certain green things, but that doesn't preclude them from being done. Well, they would be required in the recommended zones for the second tier urban neighborhood, correct? There is some open space required in the B2A, yes. I'm talking about the vegetative areas specifically. Well, the requirement's a little bit different. The open space can meet the vegetated areas. I see. Thank you. I have a couple questions, but they may be more appropriately for Mr. Crum. One question is, is there any concern about approving a downtown place type outside the downtown core? Well, again, from my perspective, I accept it at this stage of my review. That's more of a zoning question and whether it is appropriate. My task is to take a look and say, okay, will this meet that? And so that's how I evaluate it. Does it meet the B2A? I guess I would like to hear Mr. Crumb's response to that. And the other question I have, well, if you could address that, then I'll ask my other question. Yeah, so as I indicated kind of earlier in my response, a direct adjacency isn't necessarily required. We're kind of looking at the holistic of the situation. So, for instance, the development on Midland we approved in this past year, it is across the street from existing B2A and use that downtown framing in order to get approved. Other than that, I think that section of development is 1,000 feet removed from the next kind of downtown zone. So in an industrial area separation, but really the contiguous connector that was midland, so this large roadway with that pedestrian connection, really served to help tie it to downtown despite it being somewhat removed from the inner urban core as we kind of look at it. Here is a very similar situation where Maxwell, being this arterial roadway, this downtown arterial roadway, its direct proximity on that, its massing on that, its relation to these larger structures, kind of more indicative of more intense downtown development, as well as being on the same block as existing B2A zoning. You know, from the subject properties, you can see the Lincoln mural at the end of, you know, Lexington. So the proximity, the intensity of the roadways kind of holistically along with its location within some of the other documents as pointed out within the downtown master plan led staff to be comfortable with a downtown place type. But once again, the place type, development type discussion is nuanced and there's different room for interpretation with that as well. but staff both now and in the 2019 rezoning that was previously brought forth at these locations found the the choice in place type and development type in zone to be appropriate so looking ahead when you look at the the plan that shows the college town versus urban core it would appear to me that if you were to if the project goes forward as proposed that one could expect that the area between Maxwell Street and High Street in the college town neighborhood if you will will ultimately be more like downtown core then about then like the ailsford neighborhood for example does that make sense oh I mean we can't predict future development but as under this current proposal the the sections kind of from Maxwell kind of north they already adjoined existing like the close I mean the absolute downtown unquestionable downtown core there so there'd be I assume growth pressure kind of from both directions high street also Also, we've got an arterial roadway adjacent to the downtown core. So each and every rezoning that would come before you, we would have sort of this similar discussion on what is the context, what is the intensity of these roadways, what is near it, what has sort of happened since these guiding documents sort of happened. So I can't predict the future, but if the downtown place will be evaluated at each and every step, essentially, and the applicant would have to successfully make that case. So my other question was the staff justification for approval includes the statement that the project is in substantial compliance with multifamily design standards. Could you describe some multifamily design standards that are not being met by the project? Let me grab my report. We really harked on the ones that, I mean, it's substantial as in there were very few, if any, that were not being met with this request, but do we have anything on top of it? I would think that the pedestrian aspects of it are being met. There is one aspect of those designs where you're generally dealing with a complex and several buildings and you want them oriented on an internal street system or on a green area, an open space area, which obviously when you're dealing with a single building, you can't really do that. So that's one aspect of the multifamily that I wouldn't say they're not meeting. It's not really applicable to a single structure in this location. But that was an incredibly important component in those standards was their orientation to to a street or something that simulated a street along with green space but but this one they've gone to great efforts to try to provide those pedestrian facilities and amenities and the doorways and the orientation to the streetscape that they have. Thank you. Okay good questions. Thank you Mr. Crum. Thank you Mr. Martin. Mr. Woodall. I've been up there for a while. You want to take a couple minutes break? Pass these out. I was going to take a break after you get done. Okay now you're putting the heat on me. Thank you. All right, let's see if I can make this thing work. Okay. Are we good? All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the commission. I appreciate your patience today. My name is John Woodall. I have the pleasure of representing the applicant today, Stavroff Land and Development Incorporated. me today I have our developer representatives Mr. Michael Fite and Mr. Sevi Stavroff as well as our design team, Jahad Helani and Matt Carter with Vision Engineering. It is my pleasure to present this application. We've worked hard on it and we've been in front of you all quite a bit either in committees and so forth and as it's been referred to, you know, some of you saw this, you know, similar application four years ago. What I want to do is take you through the binder that I've given you and I'll have some kind of some comments along the way. First of all, the renderings you see, these are a culmination of what I feel like is how this process is supposed to work really from start to finish. So this is as Mr. Crum alluded and I will try to limit my comments where I can due to the very comprehensive presentation that he and Mr. Martin gave but these these renderings are in stark contrast to where we started and we'll tell you kind of why and how we got there. Commissioner Nickel asked about university engagement and frankly that was a big part of where we started because of the very obvious and and much reported problem that the university is facing now in terms of a lack of student housing that is an issue that has been very much in the news as I said and it's not going away we've had several meetings with the leadership at the University of Kentucky to gauge their interest in our project and how we might help meet their needs to help satisfy the shortfall. Frankly when we first when we started out and the initial renderings that you saw were based in some regard on some of the buildings and and at least the architectural nature of those buildings on campus. So ultimately, Mr. George Ward, who's the AVP for Economic Development Real Estate at UK, wrote this letter in support of our project. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. The project, as Mr. Crum alluded, we're seeking a zone change from medium density residential R4 to downtown frame business B2A. our building is to be no greater than 75 feet in height and we've got a step down of 45 feet on Lexington Avenue if you'll recall the prior iteration of this project was some 10 stories and I got into that at the council level and there really wasn't any amenability whatsoever to move from that by the applicant at that time, which made things very difficult, and to where we are today, which is a building which is much smaller in scale in terms of height, much different architecturally and geared directly towards students. Just in terms of the timeline of our application, our first pre-app meeting with staff goes all the way back to June. I want to talk about the public engagement side of this that we had. And you'll see a section at the end of our binder that has to do with our public engagement. But initially, we scheduled a meeting. Now, of course, we've got the one thing we've got going for us here, one of the things, we have the benefit of hindsight coming into this. Having been through the process before with what are the hot button issues, we absolutely knew that a 10-story building was not going to fly at this location, hence the significant reduction in height. So with that backdrop, we met with staff to lay out where we would be again. Nothing would change in terms of our place type or our development type. That stays the same. What we ran into, however, is we found out the hard way that the former president of the Ailsford Place Neighborhood Association is not the president anymore. tried to we mailed her directly notifying of the august 31 meeting and when no one showed up for that meeting i realized we had a problem so then turned around and emailed miss winter not to be confused with miss winters and did not receive a response at that point i emailed miss winters and then after that i was not contacted by her i was contacted by a representative of aylesford and that's how we got to the meeting on october the second with several neighbors and then that's when we realized that a reduction in the height of the building that wasn't enough either there was a lot of resentment and i think maybe a lot of people that feel this way maybe towards the university that this is a university created problem not a neighbor created problem not a resident of Aylesford or Transylvania Park created problem but they're having to deal with it because of the fact that there is a housing shortage that's true but we realized that the renderings that we had we brought to that meeting were too institutional and dorm like and then we brought those same renderings to our first committee meeting and we're told they were I've talked about this last week not architecturally nuanced so you know what it's time to take a pause the process is working and let's postpone things and go back to the drawing board a little bit which is what we did and that brings us to today and and the recommendation of approval what you see in your latest staff report I won't go through all the imagine Lexington the comp plan issues these are directly from Mr. Crumb's report and he hit that a lot better than I can and just a word about that quickly one of my mentors who was a judge told me a long time ago that good judges aren't always right but smart lawyers don't ever tell them when they're wrong so it's kind of that way with staff they do an incredible job and And as far as I'm concerned, they're always right, even when I don't agree with the outcome. But in this particular context, there was a whole lot of work I know they did on this project in trying to direct us and trying to make sure that we checked all our boxes and got all our engagement done and came here with a plan that we could all be proud of. And I think that's where we are. As far as we talked about the place type, look, this particular property sits, if it's, I grew up in this community. I used to ride my bike to pedal power bike shop all the time when I was a kid. This was downtown. Maxwell Street was, because I got in trouble when I did it, and my mom found out about it. But I just, I can't accept the argument that this is not a suitable place type. for this particular development. The truth of the matter is, when you look at the nearby structure, and that's good Sam, and I'll talk about that in a second as well, UK structure, the University of Kentucky boundaries are right across the street from this development. And I know that we all want to say that we're not campus. Well, we are campus. And the reason that I placed this slide here is because this is from the 2013 master plan for the University of Kentucky. And what they talk about is North Campus, this exact vicinity. It's a renowned residential district that bridges the gap between campus and downtown Lexington. Increased residential density will provide the critical mass of students necessary to sustain the urban vitality imagined here. and two strong north south north south corridors define this line and it also said this is an area where private developers would likely lead implementation here we are this was in 2013 as recently as this week dr. Eric Monday when speaking and I don't think this is a a secret by any means announced that Good Sam Hospital will be decommissioned. And this is all with the view of softening the transition between the University of Kentucky campus and downtown Lexington. Like a lot of campuses have. Ours is a very hard transition. And this development is in perfect keeping with the University of Kentucky master plan. And when we, I'll go back to that in a second. the actions we've taken. I think it's important to... Uh-oh. Oh, okay. These slides were put here for a reason. These are the property owners that are just outside, inside and just outside the 500-foot search ring. I'll submit to you folks that over 95% of those are in rental property LLCs or corporations. Campus is already here. it's in the form of rental property very few single residential properties most of us don't own our properties in corporations so with that backdrop we come forward with this project we know we're not going to please the neighborhood members they live there most of them don't want this project at all. But that does not remove our obligation to try to do whatever we can to fit in. And so that's why we tried to de-institutionalize the plan that we had, went back to the drawing board, and you have what you see now, which is much softer, more street activation, more of a front porch feel, more entrances directly off of Maxwell where you you feel like you're more a part of a neighborhood instead of a part of a dorm that was the idea and we worked hard to get there and I talked about our public engagement and that went right up until this Friday when meeting with the with who is now the interim president of the of the Association and miss miss Winters I'm sure I'll have plenty to say shortly but this has been a long work in progress and as I said I believe in this process I really do and it does not offend me whatsoever that it's hard that it takes a long time and that you get asked to do things you don't want to do that's the way it's supposed to be that's that's the kind of community that we live in some people say well it's too hard to do business here well sorry it's the way it should be it's the way it's supposed to be um there's a lot of emotion tied up in this but folks there's Those are 12 properties that are under common ownership. Okay? They didn't fall into disrepair under our watch. It was a prior owner, but my client owns them now. And this, there's going to be a project here. And you know, another way that we engage is that we pay attention to social media, both with the neighborhood and with historic preservation to hear what folks are saying. We read what they write. You know there was a the someone with the trust wrote a nice op-ed some good points made and tried you know wanted to compare this project with a Kimball house. This isn't the Kimball house and it won't be. It doesn't fit and the one other thing I would say about that project is the people that did it unfortunately they lost about everything they had and foreclosure is not good for anybody to what it is today but this is it's it is just not in keeping with the highest and best use of our of this particular property to try to incorporate these older homes in it frankly in my opinion they ceased they ceased being at their highest and best use the day they were were turned into multifamily housing. So this is where we ended up. What you see at the bottom is the townhouses on stone, but face stone, and the much different feel than we had with the original iteration of this design. but in answer to some of the comments that were made to staff you absolutely have control over our plan you sure do and we know that and that's been made very clear by staff to me and to my clients they know what they're signing and on to and we're just we're fine with that if the University of Kentucky was building this project you wouldn't have any control over it but but you do with us and and we're here today having participated in this process and in as good of faith way as I know how to do and we want to do this and like I've said before in committee meetings I live in this community and I want to be proud of this this this project too I'm proud of I'm proud to be a part of it and I want to see it come into fruition because it is the highest and best use for this property and our community needs it and the university needs it at that I'll I can take any questions you have and if I can't answer answer them I'll drag you hot or mad up here. Thank you, Mr. Woodall. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Worth? Just out of curiosity, the floor plan, the development plan. Yes, ma'am. Shows the open-air courtyards, and we've talked a lot about green space. Do you all have a rendering that shows what the interior of this property might look like? Is it too premature to ask that question? I can answer that. preliminary development phase, plan phase, no ma'am, we do not. Okay. Yes, Mr. Nickel. Yes, Mr. Woodall, we're looking at a project here that's over 400,000 square feet, almost a couple hundred units. What type of, what's the overall development cost, what's the overall impact, economic impact on a project like this in our community? Well, you know as well as I do where we are since COVID with materials prices, how they've skyrocketed. But any project of this magnitude is well over $50 million. You know that. Did you say $50 million? Yes. $50 million. Okay. Has there been a project this size since City Center, or what's a comparable project that you could compare this to? Well, student housing, I would say probably the hub. The hub. Or the university's own development, you know, not too far across the street. So something like the hub and... And the university's buildings, which this one is considerably softer than what they've built. Very good. They don't come along very often here in Lexington. So it's interesting to see a development this size gotten this far. part of our challenge commissioner was to as staff said to set the context for this area and as I said that makes sense when you consider the decommissioning of Good Sam which is right down the street that's going to be something significant when I hear the word decommission I hear that to me means we're going to change you to something else that makes more sense that we need and University's building a new hospital as you know out man or or out hamburg so yeah I've got a couple of questions that sort of echoes some of the questions I head to staff but a little bit more with the design and the layout probably as I as I said I think there you know there were improvements from the first rendering to the second one of the things I mentioned to Tom was that we did from the first rendering to the second or from the first development plan to the second we did lose the additional house and the proposed garbage compactors right adjacent to those three neighbors what was Some of the constraints as to why you all feel that that can't be incorporated inside of the parking area. For the record, my name is Jihad Hallani with Vision Engineering. I agree this is something we can discuss at the final development plan, and we can have maybe the compactor inside the parking garage to fit it there if this is direction we proceed on. And the reason why we have it is during TRC meeting and we've told that we cannot have it inside the building, but it sounds like there's some precedence that has been inside the building. It's something we can investigate farther and incorporate it at the final development plan stage. So you would be maybe open at least to removing the indication on the preliminary so that those details could be worked out on the final? One of my concerns about the downtown zone here is I do feel strongly as we do come out into residential neighborhoods, whether they're dense residential neighborhoods or not, green infrastructure and plantings are important, especially as we start to see buildings take up a large footprint. Because it's not required, it's not on the development plan, can you give me some idea of what percentage of the footprint you think would be planted with plantings of the property? We have a couple of things that are going to be kind of improved. We have East Maxwell. We are adding the 8-feet sidewalk, and there are going to be some tree planted in that area. and there's an opportunity in that location to mimic three boxes, similar to what you see in downtown settings that can be considered as a green infrastructure. The other thing we can include as a green infrastructure, which is we're already showing it, but it has not been highlighted. It's the underground detention basin, which is going to be underground, and on top of it it can be vegetative or something kind of green that's considered as green infrastructure as well. And then the same thing apply for Stone Avenue and Lexington Avenue. Lexington to a smaller extent just because our roadway frontage is very limited. But on Stone, we have the opportunity to have some adding some tree cover and tree canopies. And also inside the court, inside the building, I know we have to go with minimum because this is the zoning requirement. So it's required to have 5%. I think we are 7.1%. The other thing that's unique about this property, different than any other property, we are close proximity to three major parks. You have Woodland Park, Triangular Park, I believe, and the Courthouse Park. They are within less than half a mile, plus there are a lot of green spaces within UK campus. They are less than 1,500 linear feet. They are close to the site itself. And also this sidewalk connectivity and possessing connectivity able to make all this kind of for the resident to have access to all this green infrastructure, I mean green spaces. The open air courtyards, are those going to be designed so that they will support vegetative plantings? I don't know the answer because we're not that far into that design. They would be. They would be. that was okay and one more thing is that on the fourth floor we have this setback of 25 feet this is also a common open space area is going to be on the top on on the fourth floor also designed to support vegetative plantings yes sir thank you mr. poll you mr. poll you asked about the rear Here it's the same, the same components. Same material as the front. I guess in terms of the one material, you can't really see from the renderings. In Ural's explanation, you did list materials and you wrote vinyl slash hardyboard. over time you know it typically it seems that Hardy board looks better over time than my final is could you clarify is that I think this is going to be a very rigorous final development plan stage in term of that given what we've talked about from the beginning the predominance of this building in our community. And also it's going to be a combination of stone, brick, and no vinyl. So there will be no vinyl. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions for the applicant? Thank you Mr. Woodall. All right, thank you. Citizen comments and I know we had Miss Jessica Winters. You're requested to 30 minutes. I got some eyes looking at me. I think they need a bathroom break. So it is 5.03. Can we be back in here by 5.13? Ten minutes. 5.13. 5.13. 5.13. Yeah, I know you was going to leave. I know. I'm back. It is now 5.13. Ms. Winters. Good evening. Good evening, Planning Commission members, and thank you for your time this evening. My name is Jessica Winters of the Winters Law Group. I'm here today on behalf of my client, the Ailsford Place Neighborhood Association, to voice its opposition to the proposed zone change. There are several members of the community who are also here to object to the proposal for various reasons in addition to those that I am articulating. I've distributed our position statement, which sets out our legal argument and discussion of the comprehensive plans. And I've also submitted a copy for the administrative record. I've also distributed proposed findings of fact, which I will review in my closing. I'd like to definitely reserve time for rebuttal and closing. Please also include this PowerPoint presentation and the dozens of letters objecting to this proposal that have been submitted to you over the past week, the official administrative record. Simply put, this requested zone change is not appropriate for this second tier urban neighborhood and does not satisfy the goals and objectives of the 2045 comprehensive plan. Alesford Place further holds the position that the design proposed by the applicant is not consistent with the 2018 Imagine Lexington comprehensive plan. First, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the Alesford Place Neighborhood Association. Sorry. Here we go. Ailsford Place has worked to maintain the character of the historic Ailsford Place neighborhood while supporting responsible infill development. The Ailsford Place neighborhood represents both the old and new of Lexington. While Ailsford's first homes date to the early 1800s, 1900s most residential and commercial development occurred between 1880 and 1930. Today, Aylesford is one of Lexington's most complete walkable neighborhoods. This slide shows the boundaries of the Aylesford Place Neighborhood Association. Aylesford Place encourages efforts to increase density and expand options for mixed use and mixed type housing in a responsible way, while maintaining the historical and pedestrian friendly character of the neighborhood. Ailsford Place has long been committed to preserving the tree canopy in the neighborhood and promoting pedestrian activation and alternative modes of transportation. Since 2003, Ailsford Place has planted nearly 100 street trees in the Ailsford neighborhood, including along the Maxwell Street corridor. All labor was voluntary and often UK students and neighbors worked together. In 2009, Ailsford Place worked with the city to procure a federal transportation grant to replace curbs, ride in sidewalks and install bike lanes on East Maxwell Street. And Ailesford Place contributed several thousand dollars to this project. Ailesford Place does not haphazardly object to zone changes. In 2013, Ailesford Place did not oppose Kroger's Euclid Avenue zone change request. Although Ailesford Place had concerns, many of its members recognized the importance of a full service grocery store to the health of the community and the neighborhood. Alesford residents met with Kroger's development team, who made many design concessions to result in a structure that fit more appropriately within the neighborhood. More recently, Alesford Place supported the zone change request for Woodland Christian Church, allowing for development of senior living residences. In fact, if this same development before you today was being proposed on any of the surface parking lots on High Street, just one block north and also within Alesford's boundary, opposition would have been less likely. Again, Ailsford Place is not opposing development, density, or student housing. Only the appropriateness of this place type and the scale of this development on Maxwell Street. Here, the legal standard applicable to the requested zone change has not been satisfied. All zoning is mandated to follow the comprehensive plan. Kentucky statutes provide that before a zone change request is granted, the Planning Commission must either find that the request is in agreement with the comp plan, or that the existing zoning classification is inappropriate and that the proposed zoning classification is appropriate. This commission must hear all the evidence, including expert evidence, and then weigh that evidence to determine whether the legal standard has been satisfied with substantial evidence. Granting a requested zone change that does not comport with the comprehensive plan, and which will directly and negatively affect the property values and uses of adjoining property owners, represents the taking of those properties without just compensation and deprives the owners of those parcels of equal protection of laws. Let's take a look at the 13 historic structures that are slated for demolition in connection with the requested zone change. These are various properties along Maxwell. And also various properties along Stone. this is the streetscape of Maxwell Street in the area of the proposed project you can see how narrow Maxwell is along this corridor these are the two properties that will bookend the project two to two and a half stories tall this property will adjoin the project immediately to the rear and only 10 feet from the structure. These images demonstrate that the area surrounding the project and the subject properties is historic and residential in nature. Currently two and one and a half story houses dominate the Maxwell streetscape. The remaining houses adjacent to and across the street from in the complex will be dwarfed by the development. The B2A zone is not appropriate within a second tier urban place type. The applicant seeks a zone change from R4 to B2A so that a 700 bed student development can be squeezed into what is currently a block of properties that are all residentially zoned. The proposal seeks to demolish 13 historic structures within a national register district. The proposed structure will crowd and overshadow adjoining properties and destroy the predominantly historical context of this portion of Maxwell. This is drastic up zoning that prioritizes big box development at the expense of all other considerations. Under our comprehensive plans, 2018 and 2045, one of the first steps contemplated by PlacePilter for zone changes is the designation of place type. The designation of place types specifically informs discussion of what zones are appropriate within the proposed development area. And place builder lists the zones suggested for each place type. Importantly, the requested zone change to B2A is only appropriate if this commission determines that the applicant's selection of a downtown place type for this neighborhood is appropriate under the comprehensive plan. This is because the zoning ordinance at section 8-18 specifically states that the B2A zone should be located and developed in the downtown place type. Here the applicant and the planning staff assert that East Maxwell Street, which is separated from the downtown core by blocks of residential zoning, and does not contain any of the zoning or development that is typically associated with downtown, fits best within the downtown place type. The place builder indicates that an applicant should consider site, community feedback, and surrounding context in determining place type. Here, community feedback and context were wholly missing from the analysis. The applicant claims that it contacted the neighborhood about a unilaterally scheduled meeting pre-application and that no one from the neighborhood attended. But the fact is that no one in the neighborhood received notice of this meeting. This meant that the neighborhood didn't get to give any feedback as to the downtown place type designation. crucial step in zone change applications. An analysis and a common sense view of the neighborhood simply does not support the designation of the proposed site as a downtown place type. Imagine Lexington describes the downtown place type as the urban epicenter of commerce and entertainment. It says the core should be anchored by high-rise structures with activated ground levels. They are surrounded by mid-rise buildings that increasingly offer dense residential uses and a mix of uses and a variety of transportation options should be prioritized. This should be contrasted with the description from Imagine Lexington of second-tier urban. The second-tier urban is where significant infill and redevelopment opportunities exist in order to complement the urban core. While not expected to be as intensely developed as the downtown core, high-rise opportunities are not precluded provided that measures are taken to to address the adjacent context. Furthermore, Imagine Lexington outlines a specific priority regarding second tier urban for development to ensure that it includes a mix of uses, economic development and job creation, and is in relation to the historic context. The comprehensive plan indicates that in a second tier urban place type, such as currently exists in the proposed development area, B1, MU1, MU2, MU3, R4, and R5 are appropriate zones. are appropriate zones. Notably missing from this list is the B2A zone. High density residential is needed and it's already contemplated by and permitted in the current zone. Designation of the proposed development area as a downtown place type paves the way for a conclusion that the B2A zone is appropriate. If instead the proposed development area was designated as a second tier urban place type, And it would be clear that the requested zone change from R4 to B2A is inappropriate. This is particularly so because as I just mentioned, while Place Builder indicates that other zones can be considered with proper justification, the LFUCG zoning ordinance at Section 8-18 specifically states that the B2A zone should be located and developed within a downtown place type. It is clear here that the proposed development area and the surrounding neighborhood are overwhelmingly residential in character. This is an overhead view of the area and the surrounding neighborhood. While there are higher intensity zones sprinkled throughout the neighborhood, the context and visual narrative are residential and historic. As you can see in this zoning slide, I will highlight the area at issue here. The proposed properties are surrounded completely by residential zoning. The elements set out in a comprehensive plan and place builder that describe a second tier urban neighborhood, fit the Ellsford Place neighborhood and the proposed development area like a glove. Maxwell Street is a minor arterial walkway. Walking down Maxwell, one quickly realizes that the narrow roadway cannot and should not support developments of a scale similar to those placed along major corridors, where multiple lanes of traffic and significant infrastructure for cars and pedestrians exist. Maxwell Street is not being widened in connection with this proposal. As you can see from this map, the subject properties are not located within the downtown Lexington Management District, which is Lexington's first property tax business improvement district and is composed of downtown businesses and stakeholders. Maxwell Street is not included. The map relied upon by staff to designate this area as downtown place type is from 2007, And it was not persuasive when this commission previously considered this very same issue. Also, as Mr. Mickler noted, it's contrary in many regards and does not provide support for the current proposal overall. In fact, the Planning Commission found in 2019 that the downtown place type was not appropriate for these parcels. And it denied a request to rezone to B2A, the same thing being sought now. That proposal that was denied in 2019 was for 500 beds. This is for 700. So this is a higher density and a higher intensity and it's only on two acres. In 2019, a different applicant sought a zone change from the existing R4 zoning to B2A to construct a student housing development very similar to the proposal now before the commission. Key to the applicant's argument that the request was appropriate was the applicant's assertion that the area qualifies as a downtown place type. This commission disagreed. As these excerpted minutes from that meeting reflect, upon motion made by Carolyn Plumlee and seconded by Graham Pohl and carried by a 6-3 vote, the commission denied the zone change request, finding that it was not in accordance with the comprehensive plan. In so doing, the commission made a specific finding of fact that the requested downtown frame business, B2A zone, is not appropriate for the subject site and that the site is not adjacent to the existing core downtown business zone or land use. Although the zoning ordinance indicates that the B2A zone is meant to allow expansion of the downtown, the subject site has not historically been considered a part of downtown. A specific finding of fact made by this commission relative to the exact same zone change request that you're facing today. The planning commission also found that the existing high density apartment, our four zone is appropriate in that it allows high density residential land use and has for over a century at this location. The current zoning permits renovation and restoration of the existing structures which can continue to provide necessary housing for the community. The findings of the commission in 2019 regarding the same properties and the same zone change request represent administrative rest judicata and set precedent that this commission should follow. While the 2019 zone change was considered in connection with the goals and objectives of the 2018 comprehensive plan, those same goals are advanced with the 2045 comp plan. It is furthermore undisputed, there has been no change to the subject properties or the Alesford neighborhood since 2019 that would justify the application of the downtown place type all of a sudden. The neighborhood is now, as it always has been, a second tier urban neighborhood and B2A zoning is not appropriate. The commission must ask, since the current R4 zoning permits significant development and increase in density, why does the applicant need the zone change? The applicant needs the zone change to fit more units. The applicant argues that 700 beds are needed to justify the development. Also, the requested zone change avoids the two to one height to yard ratio in an R4 and permits taller buildings and more units. The zone change will also allow destruction of the tree canopy. Under the existing R4, 30% tree canopy is required. Under the proposed zone, B2A, 0% post-development. 0% post-development tree canopy is required. It also avoids vegetative area and open area requirements that are currently in place to protect R4. The proposed zone change is not in accordance with the goals and objectives of the 2045 comprehensive plan. And I'm sorry to interrupt my presentation. I just don't have a clock here, and so I have no idea. Can I have a timer, please? I haven't been able to judge my pacing. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, there we go. Okay, so the 2045 Comp Plan goals and objectives apply to this application. Under theme A, growing and sustaining successful neighborhoods, goal one, expanding housing choices. And you can see the listed objectives here. The requested zone change is being sought to allow the construction of a monolithic box structure. The applicant hasn't provided any facts in connection with its proposal that would support a conclusion that the proposed development promotes energy efficiency, is creative in any regard, or is sustainable. The proposal does not provide for any mixture of housing types. Sorry, I clicked head too soon. Instead it proposes to demolish an entire block of residential structures with varying housing choices in favor of a by-the-bed rental concept at above market prices for a homogenous population. The applicant says that it will incorporate townhouses, but the plans do not show this, instead reflecting that this is just a facade treatment, not actual variation in housing types. The current proposal does not provide housing for aging or disabled populations. The proposal does not qualify as affordable housing. While the proposed zone change will allow for a development with higher density, this This ignores the fact that higher density and sustainable development is possible within the current R4 zoning. The current zone is appropriate. Goal two is to support infill and redevelopment throughout the urban service area. This goal emphasizes infill redevelopment, adaptive reuse, and mixed use development. The proposed zone change is being requested in connection with a proposal that seeks to demolish existing viable housing stock. It is therefore not infill. It's not infill of vacant lots or unusable property. It does not propose to adaptively reuse properties. It does not provide for mixed use development. Respecting the context and design features of areas surrounding development projects is also listed as an objective in the new comp plan. The proposed zone change will permit the development of a box structure that closely crowds the sidewalk and overshadows adjacent residential properties, thereby destroying the context and historic design of the neighborhood. Green space, the proposed zone change will allow for the obliteration of front and rear yards. The proposed development incorporates very little green space, no open space that contributes to the community. The zone change also allows the applicant to avoid open space requirements. In bills should take advantage of available development incentives, that's a listed objective. The proposed zone change ignores the availability of historic revitalization tax credits for the properties at issue. Rule three, provide well-designed neighborhoods and communities. Objectives relating to the preservation of existing neighborhoods and expanding options for mixed use and mixed type housing are not met here. The zone change is being sought to allow for the destruction of a well-established historic neighborhood with replacement by one type of housing serving one population and no mixed use component. The objective of minimizing disruption of natural features when building new communities is not met by the requested zone change. The B2A zone has a 0% post-development tree canopy requirement, as I previously noted. The zone change in proposal does not encourage the use of neighborhood-serving enhancing elements, such as neighborhood-serving businesses, gathering space, and other types of community focal points. Goal 4 is to address community facilities at a neighborhood scale the zone change is being sought to facilitate the construction of a development that does not offer schools libraries parks greenways or other community focused educational and recreational facilities the proposal does not establish and promote road network connections the zone change will not promote the efficiency of emergency services it will result in overcrowding of extremely narrow local streets and will impede the efficiency of city services and the accessibility of of emergency services. Goal five is to ensure equitable development and to rectify Lexington's segregation by race and socioeconomic status. Here, an actively anti-racist approach to land use is called for that promotes integrated neighborhoods, protects housing affordability, and expands low and middle income housing across the city. Encouraging affordable housing is prioritized. The zone change is being sought to demolish varied housing stock currently being offered at varied rental rates, which is integral to a diverse neighborhood. Several of the houses that will be demolished in connection with the proposal are sober living houses that serve those needs in our community. This is going to be replaced with a by-the-bed student housing offered at above market rate. This is gentrification. None of the objectives of this goal and our new comp plan are satisfied by the current request. Theme B, protecting the environment. The request for the zone change from R4 to B2A is not accompanied by any discussion of the manner in which the listed environmental objectives in our comp plan will be met. There is no proposal for green building or a development that will minimize greenhouse gases. Goal 3, apply environmentally sustainable practices to protect, conserve, and restore landscapes and natural resources. The zone change request from R4 to B2A will permit the complete destruction of the tree canopy, once again not meeting comp plan objectives. The proposed development does purport to incorporate some street trees, however the types of trees are not identified and the location of the trees and barely a five-foot wide strip of soil between the sidewalk and the building will not support significant growth. The proposal diminishes the tree canopy by 10% at least, even with these trees, which was acknowledged by the staff report, and several mature trees will be destroyed. There is no proposal for green infrastructure. The open space called for in the plan is all surrounded by the proposed building and does not contribute to the green space of the community. Theme C, creating jobs and prosperity. The zone change from R4 to B2A is being sought to build a student housing development that does not create jobs and does not promote tourism. It does not include any business, community, or entertainment space such as retail or restaurants. The zone change will therefore not create jobs, improve opportunities for small business development, provide entertainment or quality of life opportunities, or encourage minority businesses to locate in this area. The comp plan calls for land development that attracts, expands, and creates jobs. The current proposal accomplished none of these goals. Theme D, improving a desirable community, goal one, work to achieve an effective, equitable, and comprehensive transportation system. The applicant and planning staff assert that the zone change and accompanying plan for development meets this goal, because it provides for fewer parking spots than beds within the development. This alone, however, does not achieve an effective, equitable, or comprehensive transportation system. There is no provision in this proposal for ride sharing, pick up, or drop off. There is no provision for bike racks or bike accessibility along the entire frontage of the development. There are no connections with public transport that are being called for. And there's no plan for providing infrastructure to support or encourage electric vehicles. Adding 700 residents to a city block with only 175 parking spaces and no associated infrastructure for other types of transportation will result in traffic congestion and safety concerns when these activities are occurring, but they're occurring in the middle of Maxwell Street. The proposal crowds already narrow side streets, thus raising additional safety concerns. There is no plan for connecting this development with alternative modes of transportation, only for reduced parking spaces. This is simply not feasible or effective. I would now like to call an expert witness to further explain how the proposed zone change and accompanying proposal do not comply with the comp plan present expert testimony of Zack Leonard good evening mr. Leonard thank you can you please describe your background and your experience for the Commission sure I'm a historian and historic preservationist I've consulted for several city preservation offices and nonprofits and I have experience in producing national register nominations historic structure reports and adaptive reuse proposals and as the historic man preservation manager at the bluegrass trust i create educational content oversee our direct services and i'm currently supervising the rehabilitation of our historic 1814 hopmont building mr leonard our cop plan indicates the historically significant structures should be preserved can you explain the significance of the structures that the applicant proposes to demolish in connection with the current proposal yes so these buildings were all constructed between the the 1880s and the 1920s and they represent fine examples of local Queen Anne, Prairie style and Tudor revival architecture. And as such they are contributing resources to the Southeast Lexington Residential and Commercial District which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Many of these properties originated as single family homes and were only converted into student housing in the 70s and 80s. The supplemental staff report indicates that they have been modified such that their historical significance is compromised but this is not the case most retain their architectural integrity and character defining features despite recent owners lackluster upkeep they do not appear to be structurally compromised or unsalvageable our cop plan indicates that development should utilize opportunities for adaptive reuse and utilization of available tax incentive programs what incentives are there that that could be utilized in connection with an adaptive reuse project at this location? Sure, so these national register properties are eligible for generous tax credits at the federal and state levels. And we've received an official letter from the state historic preservation officer that confirms this. Since these would be income generating properties if rehabilitated, a developer could subtract 20% of qualified expenses from their tax burdens. And recently, the state of Kentucky has massively increased its allotments for historic tax credit projects. So my question to the developers would be, have they seriously considered integrating the historic houses with new construction? Are there any successful nearby examples of infill developments that have incorporated historic resources while increasing density and providing housing for a diverse demographic? Yes. So the Kimball House Square... Development has already been mentioned. That's a few blocks west and there a handful of neglected Italianate and Queen Anne homes were rehabilitated into condominiums and they were subtly connected to a new mixed-use section in the rear. A separate structure with housing units and garages was also built on the parcel and obscured from view and I at least believe that replicating this model on East Maxwell and Stone Ave would ensure the integration of the historic buildings into the site plan while maximizing the use of that vacant space behind them as we've already seen and all that is required to do this is a bit of architectural ingenuity our comprehensive plan encourages the preservation of existing neighborhoods dialogue with stakeholders and a collaborative development process how can this be accomplished with respect to the properties at issue yeah so these properties should logically have been included in a local historic district and protected from demolition but hostility from an influential landlord a couple decades ago made that impossible. However, over 2,150 people, as indicated by our petition, opposed this radical move to physically erase Lexington's history. And they believe we can preserve the city's unique and irreplaceable historic fabric while allowing for sensible infill. So I would suggest actively working with interested parties in Lexington to identify feasible solutions because these citizens will need to live with the repercussions of any zoning changes for decades if not for generations thank you mr leonard please remember the current r4 zone allows for high density residential development aylesford place does not oppose increase in density but rather argues that such increases should be contextual and well thought out in accordance with the comp plans directives multi-level residential housing is not precluded in the current zone the current zone would in fact potentially allow for several story truck structures with the appropriate yard to height ratios which are two to two to one in the r4 zone the requested zone change is only necessary for a proposed development of this scale because the change allows for a development with less restrictive yard to height ratios and destruction of the tree canopy and green space there is no There is no demonstrated need for this requested zone change. The applicant and planning staff assert that the requested zone change and the accompanying development are needed due to the shortage of housing on UK's campus. This goal can be accomplished within the existing zone and with development that it respects the character of the neighborhood and there is no demonstrated need for the change. Other similar developments in the area have vacancies despite the housing shortage on UK's campus. This is not a quick fix. It should be noted that while facing a shortage, UK has instead acquired further residential land along limestone for their health complex. And they even sold off a student housing complex on limestone. UK has 13 to 14 acres of cleared land where two 17 story Kerwin Blanding complexes used to be. And now the plan is to replace them with eight lower residential buildings with fewer beds than the current proposal. UK's negligence and failing to provide sufficient housing for its students is not a problem that should be foisted upon the shoulders of an adjacent thriving neighborhood. UK in fact has a greater opportunity to site major housing on their own land. They have not fulfilled their responsibility to their own students on their state land and the city of Lexington has neither the land nor the capacity to site the housing on Maxwell instead. This commission serves the entire community and its welfare. Granting a zone change to permit destruction of more than a dozen historic residential structures to be replaced by high cost student housing, does not balance housing opportunity or a variety of housing choice. To use the words of Frank Penn from the last time we were here on this same zone change, this zone change request attempts to cram 10 pounds of flour into a five pound sack. It's too drastic. It's too much for this community. Please vote no. Welcome any questions, particularly if you have any regarding the neighborhood engagement by the applicant, which was completely lacking. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Winters. Do we have any questions for Ms. Winters at the moment? Okay. I do know that we have some citizens that would like to speak. Just be mindful if you could not repeat what Ms. Winters has said would be helpful. because she had a really extensive presentation. It was really good. And you sound better than Mike Penn, too. So I'll make sure I tell him, too. It's live. I would tell him. So I read off the list here, and if you choose to speak, please do so. First is Kathy Reynolds. Yes, ma'am. Do you want to step up to the podium? I'm Kathy Reynolds and I live at 138 South Hanover. And I'm here because I'm on the house board of the sorority house across the street from this property. We have owned that property, the sorority has, for the last, since the early 50s, so almost 70 years. Several years ago, we spent a lot of money renovating it, making sure that it stayed in compliance with the neighborhood. We insisted that, well, first of all, the house itself is pre-Civil War. We made sure that the original house was kept intact. Other additions were removed from the back, and a new addition was put on the back. It was all done to keep it in line with the character of the neighborhood, with the architecture. We didn't interfere with any pedestrian. We didn't take up street space. We worked very hard to do that. In addition, most of the properties on the north side of Maxwell have been renovated and look great. When I lived there in 1968 to 70, those properties were well maintained. They were landscaped. It was a cool neighborhood to live in. Ever since Mr. Lear started buying them up one at a time, they have done less and less maintenance on the outside, which is why they're kind of the ass where they are now. I grew up in Lexington. I was born here. contrary to what Mr. Woodall said Maxwell Street or at least that block of that section of it from Limestone on east has always been residential and to take a plot of two acres and make it downtown but set it in the middle of a residential area makes no sense to me at all and that's the way I ask you to vote against it thank you thank you Okay, I'm going to call out three names, and you can line up if you don't mind. David Eggers, Jonathan Coleman, Jackson Osborne. Thank you. My name is David Eggers, and I am the founder and CEO of Simple Solutions Behavioral Health. We help people overcome substance use disorder. When our clients come in, they get a psychiatric appointment. They see an advanced practice nurse, a counselor, they have a social worker. And we have peer support specialists who have overcome addiction and have dedicated their lives to helping other people working for us. Our office is right next door, we're right here on 300 East Main Street. We are restoring lives, we're making a difference. I heard somebody say it's underused, this area. We are in the business of saving lives and we are good at it. We've got 10 people with over a year in sobriety. We've been open for 18 months. We are good at what we do. We're talking about bed counts, or what did I hear you say? There's the only thing stopping this is the zoning. Well, I want to talk about human lives. Human lives. I bet every person in this room has been affected by addiction in one way or the other. So human lives, how do you put a price on a human life? Anyone? Human life. Your son, your daughter, your mother, your father. These people have trusted their lives in me, and I'm going to fight for them. And I saw an analogy of what's somebody overcoming addiction. It's like a twig, right? Easy to break. You put two, it's a little bit harder. Three, four, it's a lot harder. You get 63 and you are strong. They want to tear this. They want to come from Ohio, somebody just, you know, for money, for some dollar bills, and in effect take our entire community. I've got six houses, five of them. 251 Stone Avenue, 247 Stone Avenue, 249, 245. It's not up there. 243 Stone Avenue and 201. Now they're leaving me one house. It's going to be right next to the dumpster. So on the 106 Hagerman Court. We are making a difference. We are actually transforming these properties. We have had neighbors that have been complaining on the rental company that oversees them for years. They came up, and this woman started crying. She's like, you guys have flower beds. You guys have guards. Thank you for what you're doing to our community. Thank you. So I'm here to fight for my community. And we need your support. There are many, as this lady over here said, there's many other places where UK can fill their beds needs, but please don't destroy my community. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, commissioners. I'm Dr. Jonathan Coleman. I'm the executive director of the Bluegrass Trust. And for almost 70 years, our organization has advocated for the wise stewardship of our limited historical resources in central Kentucky. And I'm glad to say we have successfully led campaigns to save buildings on the chopping block that are now some of the most beloved and cherished buildings, environments, and neighborhoods in this city. And our work is supported by thousands of central Kentuckians. This proposed development made possible by this zone change is one of the most egregious examples of demolition of historic resources that our organization has faced in a considerable while. Whole block clearances, like the one that's called for, are reminiscent of the poorly considered urban renewal plans that were implemented 50 years ago and resulted in some of the loss of Lexington's most significant buildings. And I think we can agree those were pretty poor decisions that are lamented by the city to this day. For example, in the 1970s, the Bluegrass Trust fought tooth and nail to prevent the raising of West High Street, which included Kentucky's first National Register District. Unfortunately, we were only able to save one building, the Adam Rankin House, which is now the oldest surviving in the city. And what replaced that block? A parking garage and an office building. We fought in tandem with numerous other partners, tooth and nail, to save West Main Street. We were able to save the Mary Todd Lincoln House, but we lost numerous other buildings. The Bluegrass Trust at that time even demonstrated how those structures could be implemented into the site's development and create a cultural hub for the city. But we lost that one. What went there? That asphalt sea of a parking lot by Rupp Arena that you see today, which of course is now being redeveloped into a cultural hub for the city. Scholars have frequently noted the negative social, economic, environmental impacts of these wholesale clearances, how they decimate neighborhoods, but honestly we don't need the scholars to tell us that. We know it, we feel it. That regret lingers. In such a development as proposed today, it harkens back to those frankly regressive and alarming trends. In the past several years, Lexington has witnessed the rise of sprawling block-wide apartment buildings that radically dwarf their neighbors and take off the historic fabric. There's no attempt to integrate these National Register historic buildings into the site plan, despite there being successful examples of how to do that with some thoughtful development. Surely today, learning from the regrets of our past mistakes, more precise and collaborative strategies were warranted. Let's weigh the interest of our neighborhoods over the interest of out-of-state developers. Thank you. Thank you. Next up behind the next guest is Severins Staroff, Michael, and Kate Savage. They're here. Okay. Hello, my name is Jackson Osborne, and I am the Community Outreach Manager for the Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation. As you just heard, Jonathan Coleman gave a great argument on our behalf. Early on, when we learned about the plan for the Maxwell properties, we reached out through social media, which I believe the other side mentioned earlier, with a change.org petition to raise awareness and gainer support from the community who wants to save these houses and is for responsible infill. Since John has laid our argument out, I will share what they wrote also on the change.org. The history of our country, as evidenced by small-town homes, should be embraced and celebrated, not demolished. I support sensible infill solutions that would rehabilitate and integrate these tax credit eligible properties into a site plan rather than permanently damaging the historic fabric of the neighborhood. Removing houses such as these gut neighborhoods and remove the unique and interesting character that creates an identity for community. I care about retaining the historic fabric of my community. I don't want to see so many historic homes destroyed for disposable new construction. And, of course, Lexington should be proud of its historic properties and neighborhoods. Thank you all. Thank you. I'm Kate Savage, and I live in the 3rd District in what used to be Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association. I live in my house that I bought 35 years ago. When I bought my house, the 15 houses in my block, three were rental. now today out of those 15 houses two are unoccupied and I live in one of those houses this is what has happened as a direct impact from UK's inability to face their housing crisis the students have taken over my neighborhood we no longer have a neighborhood association we therefore don't really have a voice people like myself will come and speak independently but we don't really have representation as a neighborhood I was asked in the meeting we had earlier this week as a group just kind of cobbled together of concerned people who live in that area to talk about the balance of student housing in a neighborhood I have been impacted. This new construction proposed 700 beds. I mean, that's a joke. 700 people on Maxwell Street in that one block with 175 parking spaces. Try living on my street where there's no parking, late night parties, trash. They continue to nibble away at our core downtown, our unique character of our downtown neighborhoods. This has to stop. UK needs to address this issue and stop pushing it off on the people who are trying to live a decent life Be a neighbor. I have no one I can go and ask for a cup of sugar. I mean, that's kind of the definition of a neighborhood. It doesn't exist on my street anymore. And that's a shame. And I resent not having a voice. I'm angry that I don't have a neighborhood association. And all of this has been stolen from me because the housing needs of students that come in every year, more and more and more of them, are not addressed by UK. This is not a solution. This is a lousy idea. Please vote no. Thank you. We have Wendy McAllister, Bill Johnston, Peggy McAllister, and Jenny Daly, and John Mickler in that order. Hope I can do this. They're just JPEGs. Yeah. Well, let's see what we have. Yeah. Yeah. Mine were numbered. Yeah. She hasn't put it up yet. Sorry. Stand by, everybody. Yeah. Back one. Yeah. Perfect. Wendy McAllister. I live at 225 Stone Avenue. Wikipedia describes infill as the rededication of land in an urban environment, usually open space to new construction. I agree with the concept of reducing urban sprawl through responsible infill. Notably, the cut stone that we talked about over on Midland seemed like a really good responsible infill. But I argue that this particular development concept does not support responsible infill. Not only is it not vacant land, but it is also way too large for the neighborhood. As you can see, on Maxwell Street, from the very beginning of it at Versailles Road to its very end at High Street, it is predominantly two to three-story buildings, and the notable exception to that was Good Samaritan, which they showed you before. And it goes through three historic zones. so one could conclude that the context of the maxwell street corridor should not exceed the height restriction of the current hard floor zoning to stay in context with the streetscape of maxwell the stack staff recommendation stated that this development would create a new context which is a fancy way of saying that this development could never be harmonious with the neighborhood at the height they are requesting they suggest instead that everyone should conform to them. No matter how many materials and gigas you add to the outside of the building it is frankly too tall take away the fancy renderings and you will see that the height the height inequity here I mean take away all the stuff right the the lower section is twice the height of the house and then it still goes up to 75 feet. On Maxwell Street they drop it to six stories are twice the height of the surrounding buildings. They also intend to put it five foot off the street. Look at the right side versus the left side. That's a major change and and this is not you know the renderings they show you are really close to not show you what that change really looks like. On Stone Avenue they are planning on going all 75 feet with just a facade for a townhome and you know there's you can see the inequity here and they say they're gonna save those two trees but they're gonna dig a vault right next to them and you and I know that those two trees are gonna die this I think everybody's kind of gone over this one you know clearly the waste is a problem I actually thought this was on Maxwell Street but it turns out it was on stone but I just wanted to show you on the the rendering you know there's overhead power lines on on Maxwell Street. So they actually say on the plan that the trees are going to have to stay small trees and they've got them at 30 feet tall. All that vegetation up there is optional. So anyways, what I'm saying is, this is a bad idea. Hi, my name is Bill Johnston. I live at 171 Old Georgetown Street in the historic western suburb. I came to Lexington over 55 years ago from Cincinnati via Louisville. I've lived in the downtown area for over 50 years. For at least the last 40 of those years, I have happily lived in a historic overlay. For the last 35 or so years, I have been active in downtown issues, neighborhood issues, historic preservation, and have totally rebuilt several very severely neglected historic houses. I love Lexington, especially its history and its historic areas. It's with this background that I'm here today to voice my concern over the potential demolition of the 13, now 14, 120 plus or minus year old houses on East Maxwell and Stone. If it wasn't for objective from previous objections, rather, from previous absentee owners regarding this stretch of properties, they would be part of the Aylesford local historic overlay today and not subject to demolition. These houses are identical to the houses further east on East Maxwell that are in the Aylesford Historic District. Some of these same houses were built by the same people and designed by the same architects. It is impossible to discern any historic differences between the properties that were included in the Aylesford H1 overlay and these properties. If anything, these properties are probably older and finer since they were built closer to downtown. This particular stretch of properties were all owned by the same absentee owner, who was and still is a prominent local and influential real estate lawyer. He agreed to not fight against the historic overlay back in 1998 if these properties were excluded. Thus, these houses were left unprotected so that the rest of the street could become protected by the creation of the Aylesford H1. East Maxwell is a very prominent Lexington artery. These unprotected properties, which if kept, will continue to extend into the long line of equally historic protected houses that are part of our very unique East Maxwell streetscape. These sturdy, prominently located brick houses dating from the start of the last century are an important part of our Lexington heritage. In the texture of old Lexington, they should be kept and rehabilitated, not razed. We don't need any more out-of-context, oversized buildings interrupting our historic streetscapes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, my name is Peggy McAllister. I live at 225 Stone Avenue with my sister. We've been there for almost 30 years. A lot of that time we spent renting out properties on our house and also another house down the street. And we found in that whole time that everybody wanted a car. This idea that people don't want a car is ludicrous. Even if there's not even enough spaces in that development for one person per unit to even have a car. So there's just simply not enough space. There's too much building for the neighborhood. As you can see from the picture here, the fraternity that's on the corner had eight spots originally. They had to expand, they're not all parked up, but they had to expand their parking area, Because they couldn't fit everybody in. Everybody in the fraternity had their own car. So you could also see Lex Park there is there daily because they make so much money on illegal parking on our street. So this was me just driving down the street yesterday and there they were. So they're there every day. Overnight parking is impossible. After five o'clock you can't find a spot on the street. That's not even possible. There's inadequate parking. I mean, would you want to be someplace where you couldn't have a car or way to get around how are 700 people going to manage all the things that they need to do it with no place for deliveries and what kind of traffic impact does that have on our our street i've got another picture here i was just showing you the back where there's sufficient area for more development here you can see blind corners at the corners especially on stone avenue it's a very Very narrow street, people have to stop to let another car pass. So it's very narrow. All that access from Hagerman, Stone, and the development, they're all supposed to pour out onto Stone, which is not even a full two car widths. Why? Delivery vehicles pull up over the curb onto the grass to deliver. It's not enough space that you would have to take away parking, which is sorely needed. So you can't take that away. It's just too much to try to jam all that traffic and parking onto those streets, those side streets. They should, if anything, they have to go out on Maxwell. I mean, it's just not, it's ridiculous to put them on these small side streets. Emergency vehicles would have to get over onto Stone and then turn again to get onto Maxwell. There's very thin roads where you have to pull halfway into the intersection in order to see. So it's not a good place. And since Hagerman's one way, everybody's got to go that way. They don't have a second way to get out. And I didn't see stone on our traffic study, so it also, they didn't want to point out that it's too narrow to handle all this extra traffic. So thank you, and please do consider denying this request. Thank you. Thank you. Do you need to call up more people? Yes, ma'am, you go ahead though. Go ahead. You're fine. My name is Jenny Daly. I live at 136 Burley Avenue. But I'm here today on behalf of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council, which I'm sure you all are aware of. It's an umbrella organization representing neighborhoods throughout the entire county. The Fayette County Neighborhood Council supports the concerns of the Aylesford neighborhood and asks that you deny the request to change the existing zone. We believe that the proposed B2A downtown frame business zone is inappropriate for the subject property and would be detrimental to this longstanding, healthy residential neighborhood. The current R4 zone serves the neighborhood just fine. We share many of the concerns that the neighbors have, especially added traffic, unrealistic parking plan, loss of tree canopy, massive building overshadowing, emergency vehicle access challenges, design incompatibility, and so on. Overcrowding, 700 beds in an area that now probably offers less than 100. We concur with attorney winners analysis of why the downtown business zone is not applicable to this block or for any other part of this neighborhood. Also, when this same zone change was proposed four years ago, the Planning Commission and City Council agreed that this zone is not appropriate for this property. Look, this block of Maxwell Street is not the same or even close to the type of residential high rises that we see on Main Street. Those are B to A high rises, like the Park Plaza behind the library. 500's on Main across from the Civic Center. I think it's called Rose in Main, across from Commerce Lex. And there's myriad more up and down. Those are B2A, they're wrapped with business district amenities. Both the applicant and the staff admit that this proposed zone change would set a new context for development, and that's what's scary to us. It's important that we, Lexington, I'm talking you, us, everyone, get and interpret and apply the placeholder zones appropriately. Because what happens today with this neighborhood will have ramifications for other residential neighborhoods that are close to, but not really part of, the downtown business district. And that's all those neighborhoods that were on Mr. Crumb's map that border the downtown business district. So note, FCNC is not opposed to the B2A zone when correctly applied. We know there are better solutions to upgrade and further densify this block of Maxwell. We urge you to deny this proposed zone change and send this idea back to the drawing board. Thank you. Thank you. After Mr. Mickler, there's Ian Height, Maureen Peters, Jim Dickerson, and Blake Hall. Thank you. I'll be brief. I agree with Ms. Winter's presentation. One of the things I like the least about this situation is being at odds with the staff. But I do think what trumps this particular thing is this development being so large and out of character and out of scale with the neighborhood. So I urge you to vote no on this zone change. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. My name is Ian Haight. I work for Winsong Rentals, and I oppose the zoning change. The following is a statement by Kevin Benzie, the owner of Winsong Rentals, who unfortunately could not be here today. My name is Kevin Benzie, and I am the owner of six houses on Hagerman Court, immediately behind the subject properties on Maxwell and Stone Avenue. Speaking as the closest neighbor of the project, I call upon you all to recognize a zoning change for the following reasons. Community. This would seriously affect local people who have invested in the community and university. Hagerman Court is its own small community and has been for many years. This is a neighborhood. The building would be six stories on the Hagerman side, just 10 feet away from one- and two-story houses. In the last project before this council, it was referred to as an endless wall, and that remains true for the current project. Ask yourselves if you would like a 75-foot apartment building built immediately next to your house and in your neighborhood. Some of my tenants would quite literally be living in the shadow of the proposed building for much of the day. For one of my properties, the massive wall would be to one direction and just a few feet away, and then to the other direction, a trash facility the size of a house would be present. The noise, the smell, and the traffic, it's very difficult to see how anyone would want to rent a home in that environment. This building would be completely inconsistent and incompatible with the existing neighborhood. And the students don't want it. In the years that I've been renting to college students, they have expressed to me how glad they are to be able to rent entire houses and not have to rent cookie-cutter apartments, which are offered in other campus areas. Many students appreciate these old houses. They appreciate the sense of community. Some of my long-term tenants have even asked me in serious concern over this development. And lastly, parking. Parking is already a serious problem in the area. There are around 70 people currently living between 201 and 231 East Maxwell. Hagerman Court has only 36 off-street parking spaces and three small parking lots for 80 plus residents. To add 700 more residents and only 175 spaces, students will bring their cars too. It's a nice idea that they will bike or walk, but in recent years, even with incentive not to do so, the number of students in the area with cars has gone up, not down. Hagerman and Stone are packed bumper to bumper every day, and this proposal would only make things worse for all involved. I strongly urge you all to vote against this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Maureen Peters. I'm at 276 Lexington Avenue. I am opposed to this zone change. It will be sad for Lexington to lose such a large number of historic houses which surround the downtown core. These historic structures, while not located in a local historic district, are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The nomination indicates there are 393 contributing structures. Every one of these buildings is listed as contributing. A loss of historic residential properties this scale hasn't happened in downtown since Lexington clear-cut South Hill for the Rupp Arena parking lot in the 1970s. I'm also opposed to the zone change because B2A is spot zoning, inappropriate and out of context for the surrounding residential neighborhood, which is mostly two or three-story houses and apartments. This should be a second-tier urban place type per the comprehensive plan. Maxwell Street is a narrow two-lane road with parking on one side. There has been no traffic data and no information on the new preliminary development plan provided last week for deliveries, ride share, or food drop-off services. I have followed the process and the results for several off-campus student housing projects and the negative impact they have on surrounding neighborhoods. I listened to developers and supporters say students won't bring cars, but the Herald-Leader article following the hub development on South Upper confirmed developers have paved additional blocks blocks away from more parking, and the illegal double parking on neighborhood streets brings traffic to a standstill on a regular basis. Lastly, I have a personal concern for the development as my husband and I occupy and have owned the adjoining house for over 30 years. This historic house is a one and a half story building listed on the National Register nomination form as a former outbuilding, probably for the Higgins Mansion, which was in the block mid between High and Maxwell. This means it's one of the oldest buildings in the neighborhood. The back wall of our house has an average eave height of 15 feet and the plan calls for the new development to be 10 feet from our back wall at a height of 75 feet. This means the development as planned will cut out all sunlight to our house for nine months each year. Planning staff seems to believe the articulation shown on the facade of the renderings will make everything all right. complexity doesn't change the fact they are trying to slap lipstick on a pig which is just too big thank you for your consideration thank you good afternoon and i love this new mic system that we have my name is jim dickinson i'm a long-term resident of lexington since 1985. i'm also currently a member and the chair of the board of architectural review consequently i have an intense and lifetime interest in maintaining the historic present preservation of lexington that said i'm speaking on my behalf i'm not speaking on the behalf of doar before the planning staff recommended approval the staff in suggesting that this matter be postponed stated the plan should respect the context and design features of the area surrounding the development projects and develop design standards and guidelines to ensure compatibility with the existing urban form in my view and in the view of many people who have made their presentations they have not done that i would like to give you my reason why i believe that as an attorney first of all this is an arbitrary and capricious decision to decide that they can call this a downtown development area as opposed to a more appropriate b2 the consequently the b2 designation is completely inappropriate for a second tier neighborhood area from an economic point of view this dormitory and that's what it is it's a dormitory is replacing housing with more housing that may ultimately not be needed it's not adding in any way to additional economic development of the street as has been mentioned by them we also have vacant housing already in the area that's not being used and consequently there may not even be a need for this much space most importantly while the street is not within an h1 overlay although it should have been when the Ellsford history district was created the houses fronting Maxwell have been an integral part of Ellsford since the early 1900s although neglected they have good bones and they're solidly built what is going to be replacing it is a building with far inferior materials and i cite to you the example of the courthouse apartments that are now currently falling apart and needed substantial rehabilitation in my view this plan is ultimately a much too large too many house too many beds as was observed five three years ago at a prior iteration of this meeting 500 beds you cannot fit a 10 pound sack of flour into a five pound sack i urge you to disapprove this application In closing, I want to thank you for your time. I know how hard it is for you all to do this kind of work. It takes a lot of time and effort. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Blake Hall. I live in the third district. I was here years ago to talk about the last development and I'm pretty much going to say most of the same things again. This is exactly the place we should be adding density. Right next to campus and downtown, close to Target and Kroger, down the street from a great city park. This adds housing to an area with access to many great amenities. It's not over parked and is highly walkable. We should not allow a few people to benefit from the amenities just because they bought in decades ago and don't want any change. There's been a lot of talk about whether it's downtown or not. That downtown map was from two decades ago. grow and evolve, borders shift. Woodland Triangle, the hole in the donut that is the Ailsford H1, did not come out of farmland as a multi-story commercial node. It grew over time. There's multiple seven-story buildings within a block of this development. It isn't a trailblazing development. If anything, it's catching up. There is nothing historic about these buildings. They are merely old. Calling them historic is to expand the definition to the point of uselessness. It's architectural hoarding at that point. Why have historic districts if their boundaries don't matter? What would we be preserving these buildings for? Who benefits? Certainly not the 700-plus people who could use the housing, 700-plus people who will then compete for existing scarce housing and drive up rents even further. Those people aren't going to disappear just because you don't build the housing. It's unconscionable to say no more housing because it's moderately tall or some dilapidated buildings are old, especially in the context of our massive housing shortage. If not now, when? Is it reasonable to expect an area right next to the downtown core and a major university to forever be a low-density two-and-a-half-story area? because it's mostly two and a half stories does that mean it's all everything has to be two and a half stories it's understandable that they would want to be to a zone change because the r4 zoning has insane setback and far requirements that would require the entire block to be leveled to get any moderate height that's how you get the towers in the park that you see further down virginia and whatnot where they're further away and surrounded by a sea of parking No one is going to restore these back to single-family homes. The land is too expensive for that. The development was denied last time, and nothing changed. So if this does not go through, the buildings will continue to deteriorate, housing prices will continue to go up, none of the buildings will be saved, and there will be another slightly altered, maybe eats up more parcels development, in another four to five years. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so that's it. Mr. Woodall, we're going to move it on to the rebuttal stage. That was it. Yes, it's five minutes max. Yes, that's the max five minutes for... Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We've been here a long time, so I'll also try to be as brief as I can. Thank you for the positive comments of the last speaker, but the first comment I want to make is that, you know, like I said, I really believe in this process, and I believe in the neighborhood and the residents' right to be heard and to speak about this. I do. and it's an emotional situation and one of these days I think I'm gonna get involved in a zone change that sells teddy bears or something to kids that everybody likes but till that happens the neighborhood arguments are an empty wagon and here's why that here's why the wagons empty it assumes that if you disapprove this zone change that these houses are going to be saved it's not They're not going to continue to deteriorate because they're going to cease to be there. Because it's not the highest and best use of the property and they're owned by a common owner. And there's going to be a development at this location. Their last slide said, do an R4. That's what your zoning is. We don't object to that. Well, the problem with that argument, the fallacy there is, This commission then ceases to have control over what goes there. It's a matter of filing a demolition permit and a development plan. And we're looking at a parking lot, we're looking at all the things that we don't want. At least it sounded like we don't want. Whereas the zoning process that we've embarked upon and that we're in now on the way to with the request for B2A, you do have control over. In very large part, not only on the zoning, but with our development plan, which as I admitted will be a rigorous process. So while I very much respect the comments that we heard, at the end of the day, this is not an H1 overlay area. Maybe it should have been, I don't know, I wasn't involved in it. But it's not, and it's not going to be. And that's exactly right. Mr. Penn, a man I greatly respect, known a long time, he did say that. This is 10 pounds of flour in a 5-pound sack. It was then. This isn't. This is a building that is a lot less in scale than the 10-story building that was proposed the last time around. It is needed. Whether the university is at fault for not predicting or planning for the increase in students, I don't know if that's true or not. I just know that conditions are what they are today. And I've got two college-age children, and if I showed up on campus on campus and I expected them to be in a two-person room and all of a sudden there was four people, or you told me that you were, my child called and said they told me I have to go to a hotel for for a month. I think I might be as a parent upset about that. Well that's the reality there right now and it's going to continue to be for a while until this levels out and projects like this in this area are part of that, part of the solution and that's the solution we're trying to provide. We've just gone through a very, I don't have to tell you all, rigorous urban growth management process we're going to be in the middle of. We're going to continue for a while. Infill was a big part of that. Heard the arguments over and over again. How can we expand when we still have projects that still have property in the urban core that hasn't been developed. Staff is right. This is an efficient use of this downtown property. It's an efficient infill project. It's a high density residential project. This project is not more dense than what was proposed before, what kind of forgot there. We've added another property altogether to this, which allowed for 150 beds. So it's not necessarily an increase in density. Is it going to be drastically more density than the 12 or 13 homes that are there now? Yes, but it has to be. That's what our planning calls for in this community right now. Do we have to be sensitive to the surrounding neighborhoods on our way to these infill projects? we do when we've tried to be. So to close I would say that we will we we once again greatly appreciate not only your support through the process but staff's assistance and we agree with staff's comments as well as the conditions that they seek to impose. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Woodall. Ms. Winters. We don't have closing, just rebuttal. Okay. Can I have my presentation back before I begin? I'm sorry. I just want to get to the end here before I get going because I didn't get to talk about the proposed findings. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. I talked during my main presentation about how the comp plan does not support the requested zone change. But for many of the same reasons as I stated in the zone change discussion, the proposal also does not comport with the comprehensive plan development criteria. I just wanted to note that planning staff initially recommended postponement and directed that the applicant should address several items with their revised submissions. The revised submissions, however, failed to address many of the key areas of concern that were initially noted by planning staff. including the fact that the developments under our design standards should improve tree canopy. The supplemental staff report actually acknowledges that the proposal diminishes the tree canopy, but suggests that this is acceptable because there's no tree canopy requirement in the BTA zone, and there is little tree canopy in the downtown place type. When one considers, however, that the area is not a downtown place type, and that approximately 30 000 square feet of mature mature tree canopy will be destroyed it is clear that the proposal is not appropriate for this historic neighborhood of residentially zoned properties many of the concerns that we have that we've heard about this evening relate to the historic structures that are proposed for demolition it's been suggested that because these properties are not in an h1 overlay and are thus not protected from demolition that the demolition of historic structures doesn't matter that's simply not true under our comp plan there are multiple pieces of our comp plan that promote adaptive reuse historic preservation maintenance of a historic character of an established neighborhood all of those design guidelines guidelines and policies goals and objectives apply whether the properties at issue are in an h1 or not so historic preservation does matter in connection with the zone change request we wouldn't be here talking about these historic properties if the applicant was not seeking a zone change from r4 which currently allows high density residential development to a b2a which allows greater building that is out of context for the neighborhood in connection with demolition and no adaptive reuse also development along major corridors should provide for ride sharing pickup and drop off locations considerations for any needed or proposed park and ride functions of the area the supplemental staff report actually acknowledges that the proposal does not provide these items the staff concludes that on street parking spaces along maxwell street will sufficiently provide for the ride sharing pickup and drop off needs of 700 additional residents living in a building with 127 parking spaces this simply does not make sense especially when one considers that the available on-street parking along maxwell is always completely full day and night the traffic impacts and safety concerns caused by ride share and pickup drop-offs and occurring in the middle of the street can't be overemphasized new construction this is ads42 should be at an appropriate scale to respect the context of neighboring structures the proposal will result in a 25-foot tall buck structure that towers above and overshadows adjacent residentially zoned properties and and eliminates the front and rear yards of the existing structures and crowds the sidewalk. There's only a ten foot buffer between the 75 tall rear side of the structure and neighboring properties. You can see here the 75 feet that's being suggested in relation to nearby buildings. Should the zone change be approved, Ailsford Place is in agreement that multiple conditional use restrictions should be utilized. And we support additional restrictions than those stated in the planning report, which are listed on the final pages of our position statement. And we have also submitted proposed findings of fact, urging you to vote against the zone change. Our proposed findings are that you find that the proposed development area is a second tier urban place type, downtown place type the btu a zone is not appropriate within a second tier urban place type the existing r4 zone allows for high density residential development in fact the r4 zone is referred to as a high density apartment zone in the zoning ordinance multi-level residential housing is not precluded in the current zone the current zone would in fact potentially allow for several story structures the requested zone change there's no demonstrated need the comp plan's objective of increasing diverse housing options can be accomplished within the existing own and with development that respects the character of the neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Staff. All right. And can we bring the... Thank you. Okay. Daniel Crum, planning staff. I just wanted to kind of touch on a couple different things. There was a number of different speakers, so kind of a considerable amount of information you all had to digest this evening. I'd kind of like to start with sort of the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. And it was pointed out that some of these do relate, as well as the policies on development criteria, do relate to historic structures. And just wanted to kind of provide some nuance to how staff kind of looks at and evaluates this and presents the information to you all as the planning commission. So to bring up a previous graphic from earlier, which includes the borders of the Ailsford H1 overlay. There we go. So as we discussed kind of the historic context of this site, it was mentioned earlier that the development that is present on this portion of East Maxwell is mirrored and replicated in those areas within the Aylesford H1 overlay, these areas that were selected to be protected when the process occurred in 1998. When staff takes a look at that criteria and looks at a development, it's not just a matter of how old the structures are. It's sort of the overall context. And when we look at historic preservation, it's a question of are these properties indicative of a development at a time and a period that is being kind of preserved and retained. And I think the answer from the historic preservation information given to you and then provided by staff is that the development that is present here on these sites is replicated, found, and really sampled in sufficient quantity in the existing Aylesford area. So when we look at these properties that don't currently have the benefit of an H-1 overlay, as it was indicated earlier, those could be demolished really at any time without any input from the government side of things. In a year since the H1 overlay was adopted, there hasn't been any movement to open that up or to expand it, to include those properties, or to include this development. So when we look at that, it's a more nuanced question than is it in an H1 or not, is it a particular age or not. Especially as we look to our downtown, when we talk about goals of intensifying our downtown, of providing additional housing in our downtown core along major arterials, In the areas where it makes most sense, is most easily accommodated, and has done so with the fewest amount of greenhouse emissions, it really becomes just a more holistic question because the parts that need the development the most also happen to be the oldest parts of our community. And so that really, the balance between the two is what staff was trying to identify within the report. When we looked at these properties initially, there was conversations about how are these transitioning because our comp plan unequivocally is calling for this increase in density. It's calling for this increase in housing. It's calling for meeting these needs, not just from UK, but just overall in our community. And so as we look at that, it's a matter of how is this integrating in the area. Staff found when we looked through the revised plan and when we pushed the developer to provide more information on how they were meeting these objectives, we found that there were several things in agreement with the comprehensive plan that they did. The stepping it back, how do we integrate this housing that no matter at what scale gets completed, even within the bounds of an R4 would contrast with this area. So to that extent, we pushed the applicant to provide a better design, to commit to some of these instances that would make the development more walkable, more able to kind of integrate. There are existing conflicts there. Staff is in complete agreement there. But overall, those are kind of weighed against this need from an entire community's side. There was some conversation about kind of transit and how transportation in general. The development is required to have bicycle parking. It is noted on the development plan. The proposed development is one block away from a transit stop that's noted on the development, I mean, that it's included within the staff presentation. It increases the scale of the pedestrian infrastructure that is available on site and provides kind of crossings across East Maxwell that really aren't currently present. So staff, in looking at this, found that this was increasing the transportation and connectivity criteria in this area. We did note that in the proposed development, they would be losing some tree canopy coverage. This is a consequence of losing those large parking areas to the rear that were currently just being used for the substandard parking. So two significant trees would be removed with this request. They are proposing to retain one significant tree, rather. Two significant trees along stone are being retained, and so staff found that holistically with the added new street canopy trees that this was being met. So staff is recommending approval. We find it's an agreement with the comprehensive plans, goals, objectives, policies, and are recommending approval at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, okay, so we're bringing it back to the commission. We've had some long faces sitting on this right now. So I'll open it up for any further questions. Mr. Mickler. Daniel, I've got one. In Ms. Winter's presentation at the end of it that she passed out, there was should the zone change be approved, a PNA is an agreement that multiple conditional restrictions should be utilized. there's a list of prohibited uses that is longer than staff's list did you all review that or have any we did not see this prior to then when it was sent in so after the staff a couple stood out to me when I was looking at that that seemed to agree with sort of your all's assessment at 20 I'm on page 23 stadium and exhibition halls and adult entertainment establishments are either or both of those allowed in the proposed zone if we do not restrict them yeah let us look that up real quick I know the adult oriented businesses also I believe have a no that they have a distance requirement in the B2A yes I believe that the adult establishments have a residential separation requirement but Ms. Wade is looking at the instances there. There is some kind of crossover, just taking kind of a first glance at trying to remove some of the auto-centric uses, but it looks like condition B is a pretty significant divergence from what staff looked at as far as just prohibiting those uses. So adult arcades, massage parlors, adult bookstores, adult video stores, adult cabarets, adult dancing establishments adult entertainments and sexual entertainment centers are all grouped together and they do have a spacing requirement from residential and agricultural uses as well as schools and parks and other similarly regulated businesses I would note that that's possible to be varied by the Board of Adjustment and so that may be why Ms. Winters asked that that be added and yes stadiums stadiums and exhibition halls are a principal use in the b2a therefore also the sorry in the b2 zone and therefore also the b2a zone okay yeah do you want a stadium or exhibition hall no that either they're good with that? Thank you. Mr. Wilson then Mr. Nichols. Okay just a couple of clarification. The proposal said that there are 175 on-site parking places. What is the recommendation related to if you've got 700 bids what's the recommended number of parking places you should have? So recently the the Zota that was put through we eliminated those parking minimums so really it's it's a by a development by development basis the applicant has indicated that whatever research that they have indicates that that number is appropriate normally planning staff is operating from the position of having to talk down the developer from providing too much parking and really freeing up parking for residential units for open space really was the intent behind the zoda so it really fits in with the context of a downtown development in the sense that not all of your parking is going to be provided on site that's sort of a a foundational aspect in how downtown's function because doing it otherwise would be just seas to seas of parking and it would just conflict kind of with that core principle so there's not a particular number the applicant has indicated that's the number of vets both between on-site and with agreements through several other locations that they are able to provide and it would be really i guess up to the market to determine if that was fee if that was successful or not okay thank you yes i've got a question about kind of the proximity to downtown looks like it's a walkable a thousand feet to downtown lexington is that correct it is very short distance as I stated earlier the the Lincoln mural that is just sort of the backbone of these buildings there is visible from the street looking down Lexington so it's a very short distance and B2A zoning is present at the end of Lexington on the opposite end of the block and the reason I'm bringing that up as we've seen over the years here that there's been an effort to increase housing in our downtown core which provides activity energy economic development social interaction so to me a thousand feet from downtown is a great place for a large-scale development so I just thank you for pointing out the fact that housing developments in downtown do have a major part to play and how the whole system functions. Mr. Mickley. This is a question that I guess hasn't come up that much, or maybe I missed it. But in regards to the parking, I know we eliminated the parking minimums, but then developments of a certain size usually provide some parking report. Did we get that or did you all get that? Yes, so as a part of that discussion, the applicant provided the number, both a traffic study, which goes into kind of the projected trips, the supplemental information as to where they were providing that off street, as well as kind of the listed number on that. And staff found that that to be appropriate, this location. Just to clarify, in the B2 zones, a parking demand study is not required. I see. Okay, thank you. okay miss meyer if um mr woodall said something that caught my attention about if this is a if this status is an r4 zone would you walk us through somebody walk us through um uh you know say you know there's somebody that wants to do a development um i'm assuming that there would be a development plan that would come before the staff and would it potentially come before the planning commission? It would only come before you if it was multiple structures. A single structure could go straight to BI in the R4 without a development plan. So you would see a development plan if there were multiple structures planned in the R4. Okay. Is that all up? Mr. Owens? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank everyone as far as their comments. This is the second time that I've heard this, been here whenever it was, four years ago, five years ago. Times have changed somewhat. want. We hear the need for housing all the time in various places. We know students are coming. We're not going to stop them. I can, you know, we can go back to the Elizabeth Street vinyl box. Box is being put on the bungalow houses that we finally got hands on and somewhat under control. Ms. Savage talking about her columbia avenue the changes there that is strictly student rental and so forth uh the way i see this is if this doesn't occur there's going to be more rentals all the time spreading out taking up single family houses and i you know that's something i don't want to see The residential units that were single family 100 years ago have become multifamily. They haven't been taken care of like they should. And I personally think it's time to do something about that. Mr. Penn was mentioned on several occasions or at least a couple today in his famous analogy of 10 pounds of flour and a 5-pound sack. I believe he would say today that that has changed somewhat. We're not talking about a 10-story building. We're talking about a six-story building. And it's more in accord with the area. Good Samaritan is six stories. I'll bet that it's probably coming down in the near future and something bigger will probably be built there. It's a time that I feel like we need to adjust and simply move forward. I'm going to support this, and I appreciate everyone's concern, but this is something that I think we need to support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Owens. With that being said, I'll close this portion out, just bring it back to us for any further discussions or a motion. Ms. Wirth. I would like to make a comment. I live here because of the beautiful, not only the green space, but also the beautiful architecture here. I chose to stay here when I came here to go to graduate school. That was 1971. I've been around a while. That said, we have a housing shortage here, and it's not just UK. We have a housing shortage in this community, and I chose not to live in the place I grew up because their solution to housing shortage is sprawl, and I do not want to see sprawl in this community. I think that will also eliminate what we think is best about this community. I would love if you folks from the historic preservation community could tell us that there is a white knight, historic preservation white knight person ready to ride in and buy these properties and preserve these properties. But the H-1 overlay went in in 98. There was an opportunity ever since then for somebody to come in and try and do something with this property. The attempt to develop in 2019, there's been no effort to preserve this property from somebody. who's got the money and the ability to do it. So I don't see that happening. And I think that given the situation we're in, I used to live on Linden Walk, and that street has been destroyed by the alternatives for student housing over there. I think if we're going to deal with our need for increased density in housing, what's been proposed here is a much better alternative than what we've been seeing. So I'm going to support it. Thank you, Mr. Worth. Mr. Meekler, you're making a motion? Well, I was going to make a comment. Go ahead. I grew up on Maxwell Street, as you all know, and know many of you as a neighbor. and I also have taken part in the discussions that the other commissioners have mentioned about our goals and objectives with the comprehensive plan and do genuinely believe that this is a location that is walkable close to transit close to transit and close to downtown and it's and and I I think it is a good location for a lot of people to live I think some of your all's concerns highlight some of the deficiencies maybe in our categories and comprehensive plan And one thing that I struggle with is R4, as people from both sides point out, doesn't allow us to achieve the kinds of things that these developers want to achieve, and I think that the comprehensive plan calls for. And so we're grabbing at a downtown zone that doesn't require any plantings, green space, or tree canopies whatsoever. It requires zero. And I think that highlights going forward that we as a community do have to figure this out if we're going to increase density in the areas peripheral to our downtown that are walkable how do we answer that and still have a green and livable city that has beauty that is not just architectural beauty of steel concrete brick and iron or vinyl siding even and we're looking at a building that's four 425,000 square feet and has 700 beds and since I've been on the commission there's not a lot of examples like that. Well, I have to say that when the first proposal was proposed, I had the same gut reaction as I think everybody did. And I think the developers have come a long way in what they showed us today, with the increase in pedestrian connections to Stone Avenue and on Maxwell Street. doesn't mean that when you build a 75-foot building our normal rules of ten of six feet fences and shrubberies really do much as a buffer and it doesn't mean that a fence around a dumpster area is the same as a fence around a trash compactor for 700 people and so I'm gonna support this zone change today because I do think this is the direction and because I want people to live in the neighborhood that I grew up in and that I live in and I want people to be able to walk and not drive and not have to have a car that's the future that I think our comprehensive plan calls for but as we go to the final development plan we you know the questions I asked the the applicant today and the staff, I think we really need to push past this idea that in a dense 425 square foot building, zero green space requirement is an option. We have to look at these green infrastructures that I think the developers have indicated they're open to. And we have to look as a community as we as we leave the downtown into the second tier urban neighborhoods how we can achieve dense buildings like this while keeping our city green space and aesthetics that we also want mr. Michler thank you really appreciate your comments thanks any other comments and i tend to agree with robin i i would add to that my concern that the comprehensive plan calls for developments to respect the context and design features of the surrounding area and while i think they're struggling toward that here i still don't think they're there um and uh i noticed that as winters suggests a conditional use of max calling for a maximum height of any structure or portion of a structure with frontage along east maxwell lexington avenue or stone avenue shall be three stories or 35 street which is 35 feet which is supported by section 818 of the zoning ordinance i'm sympathetic with that as a conditional use i think it would need to be clarified with a statement as to the depth of those volumes that front on those streets be it five feet ten feet before the building steps up but we can see in the renderings that the applicant is already moving toward that particularly along stone avenue where they're showing two-story porches at every other townhouse and um offsets for each townhouse element which really goes a LONG WAY TO GIVING THE GIVING HUMAN SCALE TO THAT ELEVATION TO THE EXPERIENCE OF THE BUILDING ALONG STONE AVENUE SO I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A CONDITIONAL USE THAT ADDRESSES THAT ISSUE IN SOME WAY thank you mr bull any further comments okay chair forrester floor is open can i just clarify that i think ms winter's information says conditional use but what we're talking about are conditional zoning restrictions the conditional use is different so thank you conditional zoning yes thank you miss we Mr. Owens? Mr. Chair, if you're ready, I'll make an attempt at this. Okay. I'm going to add one other thing. I appreciate my colleagues' comments very much. And with Mr. Pohl, I just fear that this puts too much of a constraint. This would put too much of a constraint on this possible development for it to go forward. With Mr. Meckler's, I'm very much in favor of whatever we can do green space-wise, whatever we can do trash compactor-wise being internal. And, you know, I will say, I think I failed to a moment ago. From four years ago, I think, one, this is a much better plan. from the time that they brought this back one month, two months ago, whatever it was, I think there's been a lot of work done, and it's, again, much better. The look of it, the feel of it is much better, and I think with their willingness, which they've indicated, that it should get better at the final development stage. So with that, I'm going to move for approval plan MAR23-16 Stavroff Land Development Company for the, did I see five reasons provided by staff, which includes the conditional zoning restrictions that they mentioned, which is seven of them. Seven being prohibited, but there's one, two statements under the conditional zoning restrictions, if that makes sense to you all. Commissioner Owens, is that with the staff's modification of the vehicle refueling to include vehicle service stations as well as recommended by staff earlier in our presentation? Yes. Okay, thank you. Would you all consider the two that the applicant agreed to add in the stadium and adult entertainment? Stadium and what? Adult entertainment. Yeah. Yes, I would very much be okay with including stadium exhibit halls and adult entertainment as being prohibited. Okay. All right, we have a motion by Mr. Owens and a second by Mr. Wilson. Could I suggest two more? I'd like to add that the trash compactor be moved interior to the building, and I'd like to add that the development include 10% vegetated area. so those are going to be development plan issues as opposed to when they're being the final and we can address them at the final yes we can address that at your final development plan right okay we talked about the vegetated area issue it's not a zoning issue it's not allowed to be a conditional zoning restriction We can use conditional zoning restrictions for zone-to-zone buffering or protecting tree lines that existed along the edge of a property, but that's not used for open space requirements on the property itself. Will we also be able to address setback kinds of issues, volume issues in the final development plan? Mm-hmm. So you withdraw your addition? No, I withdraw. No, you're fine. It's fine. Okay. All right. Everybody's okay? In effect, you're stating the motion now. That's official. Yes. And then, so the motion has been made by Mr. Owens, seconded by Mr. Wilson. Any further discussion to that motion? Okay, seeing none, please vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes unanimously for the zone change. Mr. Chair? Yes. I'll move for approval of Plan MJDP 23-62, the Maxwell-Lyndon-Hurst subdivision. With the revised conditions that's listed on the green sheet, there's 11 conditions we can delete number 12. Okay, thank you, Mr. Owens. We have a second by Mr. Wilson. Any further discussion to that motion? Okay, please vote via Granicus. Okay, a motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everyone. I should put us on page 16. We have our Zotas, PLN Zota 23-6. Mr. Bailey, I don't know how fast you can talk, but stop talking. Yes, sir. I will go as quick as possible to give a little bit more credence to this, but I will say way to go, new zoning planner, better than the old zoning planner. Before we get started, I would like to hand out the letters that were sent in both support and opposition, while also there is some set of comments. Many of these have been provided to you before today's meeting, but here you go. This is PLN ZODA 23-6. This is what we have commonly been calling the Urban Growth Management Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment. With all zoning ordinance text amendments, it is within the context of our urban service area. It really guides a lot of our conversation about how we grow as a community. When talking about what growth means for Lexington, it really falls down to the concept of opportunity. Opportunity for new development, opportunity for reuse and infill. And when we are talking about how we plan for a new development or growth, we are talking about it in two different scales. The first being infill and redevelopment, much of what you have heard today, and then the second being expansion. When talking about infill and redevelopment, the vast majority of our conversation since 1983, when the zoning ordinance was originally written, has been focused on modernizing our text to make sure that it fits the needs and wants of our community. as outlined in the comprehensive plan. If we think about the context of the original zoning ordinance that we've been building on over time, it really is focused in the 1980s when land was a little bit more abundant and much cheaper. It also doesn't take into account the wants and needs of our community that have been outlined with our most recent comprehensive plan. The most recent comprehensive plan really does focus in on equity of development and then the environment, making sure our new development is done in the greatest way possible and not impacting our future generations. In terms of this, we have been working since the 2018 comprehensive plan to go through the major changes to upgrade our zoning ordinance to bring it in line with best practice. We have gone through some elements of the top six that we hear of quite often, eliminating our minimum parking requirements citywide and then legalizing accessory dwelling units and legalizing greater amounts of home-based businesses in this text amendment you will see that we are looking at reducing or eliminating some of the reducing our minimum lot sizes and then legalizing multifamily in many of our commercial zones the other part of growth within in any community is expansion with the adoption of the goals and objectives in June the urban County Council made that mandate you as the Planning Commission went forward and accepted a map that would lead to the master planning of potential growth areas outside of our current urban service area so what does this proposed text amendment seek to do it really is a realignment of our priorities within our zoning regulations lexington cannot afford to build for the next 20 years of development the way that we have done for the last 20. our code needs to be representative of the modern practices and the wants and needs that were clearly expressed in the comprehensive plan we are seeking to connect people to places and to jobs as well as to others while also seeking to do smart sustainable growth for the city. Over the course of the past four months we have had many meetings with many different individuals to come to you with the greatest language possible. With any zoning ordinance text amendment we start from best practice from a national standpoint we move to the wants and needs of our community as outlined in the comprehensive plan and then we try to dig deeper ensuring that we are meeting with the individuals in our community that had the most to talk about with these different elements as you can see we've had many different meetings with many different individuals from the Fayette County neighborhood council to the building industry associates see pal we have tried to hit it all we've also had many meetings with on one-on-one levels with affordable housing providers trying to gauge what they need to get the best possible development going forward so with within our proposed text amendment here we are looking to modify three residential zones create one new residential zone and then modify two of our commercial zones the real focus on this text amendment is realigning some of our housing intensities and densities promoting our affordable housing incentives seeking to provide new housing types get that greater amount of transit demand within our community and then also make sure that we are adequately differentiating between our commercial zones making neighborhoods feel comfortable with businesses being in their neighborhoods while also making sure that we are providing opportunities for our commercial developments along our corridors to prosper over time so why have we looked at these zones each of these zones within a residential context have been proposed because they are a lower percentage of our infill area of our urban service area however they have the greatest possibility to impact any expansion of our urban service if we were to expand in the future the proposed text allows for moderate increases in density increased flexibility in housing choices and the inclusion of different housing types that can meet the needs of all ages within our community over the course of the past two years we have heard from numerous members of our community that we need the ability to enter into neighborhoods and then age in place this necessitates us looking at the options of housing types being able to buy your first home move into something larger and then be able to downsize all within the same type of neighborhood provide opportunities for people to stay in place and space over time within the context of the zoning ordinance the typical trend is to build upon the density and intensity of the lower intensity zones to get to greater and greater density over time we have a discontinuity within our current zoning ordinance within the r2 zone the r1t which is our townhouse zone which is a single family product is actually a far denser and intense use than our r2 zone currently what we are proposing with this is a realignment of our zoning ordinance to allow for that natural crescendo of intensity and density to occur by realigning the r2 zone we will be seeking to provide a missing middle housing option this will be done through the inclusion of attached dwelling units and then low level multi-family residential by including minimums and maximum restrictions on lot sizes this will allow us to include different housing types without deviating much from what is currently allowed within those areas it also realigns into that crescendo of intensity and density over time and with the modified height restrictions it blends from the r1t standards into the r3 standards correctly we are also proposing some modifications to the medium density residential r4 zone and the high density residential r5 zone with the previous conversation that you just had the r4 zone is more a suburban style of apartment development however it does allow for a mixture of housing types from our single family detached housing type all the way up through a medium density multi-family type when looking at At the R4 zone, we needed to look at the setbacks, how things were orienting, and making sure that we are getting a more urban-type R4 zone that doesn't force all of the development into the center of the site. There is also a review of the height of the structure. Within the FAR discussion that we had many years ago, there was a conversation of the R3 zone being the three-story zone, the R4 the four-story zone, the R5 the five-story zone. In reviewing our zoning ordinance, we are clarifying that, making it very explicit that the R4 zone is meant to be a four-story structure, the R5 a five-story structure. We are also seeking to include the CN zone. That would be the next step in that crescendo of intensity, and I'll talk about that a little bit more in just one moment. There is also an inclusion for the R4 and the R5 of the additional conditional uses. The additional conditional uses would be incorporating the B1 principal primary uses into the zone as a conditional use. That will allow for individuals to apply with a public hearing the ability to have a new business to organically develop within neighborhoods. It would not necessitate a zone change, but it would still require the public hearing. It would still involve public input, and it would still involve a ruling on whether it was appropriate for that context and space. Finally, within the R4 zone, there is a required variation in housing type. While the R4 allows the single family through the multifamily, staff would like to ensure that we get the type of variation that is called for within the comprehensive plan and allows for individuals to age in place and space. Within this context, every five single family dwelling units, detached dwelling units, would have to have a new housing type incorporated. So that would get either townhomes, low-level multifamily, or the integration of a larger multifamily into place and space. When looking at the corridor node zone, this is primarily focused at ensuring that we have transit-oriented development within our community going forward. We have in many of our corridor studies, the Nicholasville Road Corridor Study and the New Circle Road Corridor Study, locations identified for potential transit-oriented development. This is the type of development we're seeking the hub type development it is dense intense it is focused on providing housing options within our community that would draw transit to it and that would get the greatest amount of demand for any expansion area we need to ensure that if we are seeking to provide new housing and housing options not only to a market rate but affordable housing options that we are drawing transit to those new developments the cn zone is imperative to the expansion and establishment of transit options outside of our current urban service area affordable housing is a major component of our goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan and many of our policies that were developed in 2018 and the 2045 comprehensive plan the staff is recommending a density bonus that would allow for individuals that were providing housing at 80 percent of the area median income to utilize the density requirements of the next zone up this allows for a moderate increase in density within a zone that would allow individuals to get into new neighborhoods within our community 42 percent of our urban service boundary is currently made up of r1 zoning it is exclusionary and it's in its essence in the fact that it only allows for one housing type by allowing for a moderate increase in housing type with townhouse developments this would allow an in-kind development to occur that is deed restricted and allow individuals to get to new schools get to better parks get to to better situations this is an important element of our comprehensive plan this is an important element of providing equity within our community in addition to the affordable housing density bonus we spoke with our affordable housing providers and they indicated that because the money is so tight for their projects they are looking to offset some of their costs by providing a higher rental price specifically a workforce housing price what we have categorized at 120 percent area median income the affordable housing providers said that if you provide that mixture of 80 percent and 120 that can offset their cost sheet that can make go make a project going from being very difficult we're trying to get that funding to oh we can do this in this site we have heard time and time again the two elements of our affordable housing problem that our housing providers have are money and then also land this gets at a significant way of trying to decrease the cost of land to allow for them to build the housing density that we need within our community to try to get people into housing next we look into our business zones our commercial zones as you see on the left and right we have very different contexts one you're looking at nicholasville road the other you're looking at north limestone on the left you have mcdonald's the right you have minton's these are vastly different contexts they are the same exact zone within our b1 zone we re-evaluated all the uses that were being proposed here eliminating drive-throughs and gas stations within neighborhoods was a priority this is what we have heard from neighborhoods time and time again that they do not want just looking at what you just reviewed the conditional zoning restrictions eliminated some of these elements gas stations and drive-throughs so when we're talking about trying to do our neighborhoods in the best possible way when it comes to commercial development it looks at complete compact walkable neighborhoods that don't have to compete with cars everywhere they go and put in improve that pedestrian safety many of the removed zone or uses within that zone were really important to take out they were outdated we did a fair amount of consolidation of uses while also simplifying the language so that our zones are easier to understand at the same time we needed to differentiate the corridor businesses or the B3 zone. This zone is necessary to the economic vitality and use of our community. That does not mean that it wasn't necessary for us to make sure that we were differentiating between uses and making sure that we were separating or providing conditions for some of our inefficient uses along our corridors. A major element for our businesses and our commercial areas is the need to include residential within their areas. The B3 zone does not allow for residential to occur currently. This is an area in which we are trying to promote ridership on our transit opportunities, trying to promote a greater amount of density and residential opportunity. By adding residential into the B3 zone, we are seeking to promote many of the characteristics of our comprehensive plan trying to get people off of the single occupancy vehicle and into a little bit more options within the ridership way finally there is a connection to the corridor node zone in areas in which there are b3 zoning and they meet the elements of the corridor zone meaning that they are identified within the comprehensive plan or on a corridor study the two that we have right now they would be able to move up in density and intensity and apply the standards of the corridor node zone this is a very intense and dense zone it is really more focused on residential opportunities but this would allow us to again focus in on transit focus in on ridership focus in on compact environmentally sustainable development again why these zones one element of the neighborhood and community outreach that we did was talking to our commercial providers and making sure that we were not taking away many of their rights what has established over the years when we have been saying that the b3 zone is not particularly a recommended zone is that people have gone to the b1 zone to apply the b1 zone because people will get behind it staff will get behind it this creates an issue because they have a vested right in their properties including gas stations and drive-thrus in those locations that have gas stations and drive-thrus staff did not want to remove that opportunity for those users we want to make sure that they are being upkept and that they can continue to flourish in our community so you'll see in your language that there is some leftover if it was established prior to the date of adoption they can continue to move forward with that use staff's hope is that over time these uses will trickle through or if they want to get greater utilization of their site along a corridor zone they might seek a zone change to a b3 staff also believes that with the modified uses and many of the recommendations of this zoda staff can now find that it would be a recommended zone within the corridor place type going forward i would like to thank everyone that participated in this outreach this took a significant amount of time and a significant amount of work i would specifically like to uh thank those individuals from the many organizations listed up here who came with real and effortful types of recommendations the status quo within our community will only result in the continued development of our community from the 1980s and early 1990s we need a modernization of our zoning ordinance to ensure that we are getting the most equitable and environmentally sustainable development going forward not only for our infill and redevelopment but most definitely for any proposed expansion area for these reasons staff is seeking uh rec is providing a recommendation of approval of this text the proposed text amendment is seeking to include greater amounts of housing within our community both from a varied housing type in the r2 and r4 but also focusing on greater multi-family residential opportunities within the R4CN and R5 zones. The proposed amendment allows for a greater inclusion of a variety of housing types meeting that missing middle opportunity. It will allow for B1 neighborhood developments or neighborhood businesses to be more incorporated into our areas while also allowing for organic growth to occur outside of the commercial areas in our residential spaces. The proposed corridor node will seek to provide that mixture of land uses, but primarily focus on the high-density residential area and high-density residential land use. It will also help to promote a compact and intense development that would be environmentally sustainable and references the need for the growth of transit within our community. The proposed affordable housing and mixed income density bonuses are essential to the equitable development of our community and starting to break down the restrictions that were placed on our community that kept people out. It would allow for safe, accessible housing and provide the potential for generational wealth for other parts of our community that have not been given the opportunity the proposed affordable housing and mixed income density bonus will also provide some flexibility giving those providers the ability to find the land that they can build these projects on the proposed text amendment realigns both our b1 and our b3 zones trying to differentiate them so that they could be included within a neighborhood and recommended by the comprehensive plan along our corridors with all that staff is recommending approval if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer any questions for mr. Bailey yes sir well how this is just to sort of put this on the record we had a discussion about and there was a couple of public comments as well about the sort of switch from requiring 30-foot setbacks to mandating no more than 20 feet given that different streets have different traffic levels some streets have power lines some people want large trees and you prepared a version here in front of me that just strikes the maximum and gives the people a little more flexibility so I was wondering if you could just say a couple words to that maybe yes a staff would be supportive of that modification really looking at what that maximum was meant to do was a discussion of trying to create that more urban type characteristic with doing this and also with the modifications that we've already made to our parking ordinance staff believes that providing that flexibility is a good idea within this and would be supportive of striking the maximum within the R2 R4 and R5 zones thank you how pardon my density but could you describe how a developer takes advantage advantage of the affordable housing density bonus yes sir so we actually have had these types of requirements within the zoning ordinance previously it would typically be outlined within a deed so up above you would see the modification that mr. Mickler referenced removing the maximum of 20 feet off of the front yard it would just retain the minimum five feet and And honestly, we might want to strike the minimum front yard minimum. It just might be best if it said minimum front yard, five feet. And that would be the same for the R5 zone. And we have minimum front yard, five feet. And there's the R5 zone. The last was the R4. Minimum front yard, five feet. all right there we go but uh mr poole uh just speaking to the affordable housing uh density bonus what that would be is a deed restriction on the property that would be deed restricted to the government for a period of four or for 10 years for any affordable housing project and 15 years for any uh mixed income project so that would lock it into place for a period of time essentially guaranteeing that and when we look at kind of the turnover of housing that two households would get advantaged by that or if a household stayed in place over time they would get the full advantage at 10 years when reviewing some of the the deed restrictions from the government it's generally between 15 and 30 years and from a uh from a habitat for humanity it's at five years so when looking at that if there are tax credits given it is going to be much larger than this or longer than this and they would incorporate some of those other deed restrictions but this would come up in any title search going forward and that would be geared towards trying to make sure that we're keeping this going for a period of time all right well i want to stay on on the section three six on the mixed income and affordable housing bonuses section. As a group here, we've been trying to figure out how to provide more equitable opportunities for our citizens and one of the ways is to line up our zoning ordinance and policies with what is being offered by the federal government and other programs that are helping for affordable housing to be developed. And so we're getting into some technical jargon. We have area median income, and then we have average incomes. As we'll see on our section 3-6, if we could pull it up. Sir, would you like the section 3-6 that you have produced? Yes, the section 3-6 that I've produced, and I'm going to pass these down as well. So this is some text that's been produced with the help of the staff and providers of affordable housing in our community. And one of the recommendations to make was to change the language from mixed income to workforce, which then broadens the overall demographics of those that can be served to 120% of the area median income, which we found on an equitable basis is still below the average income of our community. Our community has a very high average income and our median income, there's a gap where we need to be able to expand bonuses to affordable housing providers so that they can fill that gap between 80 and 120 and it matches up with the federal and state programs that are out there. So Hal, if you don't mind taking a look and walking us through this modification. Yes, sir. And most importantly, the conversations that you've had with the providers, not me, but your conversations with us. Yes, sir. So what Mr. Mickler, I'm sorry, what Mr. Nickel is providing here is a shift in which currently we are recommending a percentage, a 60, 40 percentage of affordable to workforce. This would eliminate that percentage difference and allow for affordable housing providers to provide slightly less, slightly more, play around a little bit more with their percentages. Or in this case, it would allow for just a straight 120 AMI project this was a significant amount of converse this was part of a significant amount of conversation with the urban county council with review of the goals and objectives they indicated that they wanted to focus not only on affordable housing a deep focus on that for any expansion but also a conversation of having opportunities for workforce housing within our community which workforce housing again defined at that 120 mark the staff would be supportive of this change it still allows for our affordable housing providers to have some greater flexibility it does not create a rigid percentage distance between them and it could provide a little bit more flexibility to other other providers that would not necessitate any additional funding Thank you very much for helping me with that. Thank you. Unless we've, Mr. McClure, got another question. Well, I have a question on that, just from my understanding here. The workforce and affordable housing bonuses, it says rental or purchase. Yes, sir. And then it gives a time frame. can you just educate me as someone who's not in there how when how that would be regulated I guess yes so with the purchase of a house a mortgage the way that we have discussed with other individuals from the affordable housing spectrum they any purchase they would look at the monthly cost of the mortgage and play that in almost as if it were a rent so in our community uh 80 percent of area median income for an individual is 1181 a month for rent it would that be would apply to a affordable housing or a mixed income or i'm sorry a mixed income or workforce housing kind of project along those percentage bases there is a workup that our government provides that gets at a lot of these numbers the affordable housing funds application guidelines for housing production acquisition and preservation that gets into a lot of those numbers and how they are administered so for those initial per for those initial years if someone purchased their house they would be restricted by what the mortgage rate of an eventual purchaser would be? Yes. So if the, I'm just understanding, so if the interest rates went up, theoretically the price they could sell the house for would have to go down? So the interest rates are baked into a lot of the purchase of the property, but most of our affordable housing providers actually deal with other banks to lessen the interest rate so that it will not extend beyond certain elements our conversations with Habitat for Humanity has just they've discussed how they try to keep the interest rates down try to make sure that they're working people in to that process I think mr. Forrester would have a better idea on some of the banking aspects of this but it does get played into how they are working through these deals it also the increase in interest rates does impact some of the bottom lines of many of the affordable housing providers would this be like a balloon mortgage where at the end of that ten years the rate could go up no ma'am they work through that so that it would not be a variable rate over time Abby you want to comment and my comment was just to kind of humanize some of these are talk about some of these numbers so area median income around is for Fayette County let's just say 75,000 for a family of four 120% of that put you at 85 something like that 86 and our average income in our community is $100,000. So we're still trying to fit that, provide benefits to those that are making less than the average income in our community. It's the missing middle, it's the gap, it's the hard problem to solve, and this is just an added benefit that can be determined in the form of a bonus. Mr. Mickler, there's ways that banks get certain credits that you can buy down a rate, but you have to meet certain criteria, go to different counseling. So certain banks may have different programs, too. So I only can speak on the ones I've been involved with. But if you go through certain programs, you can sometimes get your rate a little bit lower than the market right now. If I can. And one, something that has come new to Kentucky is a program by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America called NACA. And their focus is on the area of average income. And what they do to make things affordable is that they have a negotiated rate that is always below the market rate. And then they make it easier to buy down the rate as well. And it features no down payment, no closing costs. And it's funded through a class action lawsuit from 35 years ago. And so it's new in Kentucky, so we're seeing what it does. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. If we don't have any further questions, don't see any. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. Citizens, do we have any individuals? I know, Brittany, you were listed. Do you want to speak today? And I have a – I may be missing some folks, but after Brittany – and who else was on there? Mr. Murphy. And Mr. Nicholson is walking up, too. Sorry. And you, sir. I didn't get – Okay. So is that Jason Sams and Sam Cornille? No, I have Brian Clark and Brittany Rothmeier signed up for this particular item. That's my last two. Okay. That worked. Obviously, we can take comments from people who didn't sign up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all enjoyed being here, though, as much as you all have as well. Chair, members of the commission, thank you all for, I know, how difficult these long meetings can be. So thank you all for hanging in for all of this. Brittany Rothmeier, of course, on behalf of Fate Alliance. As you all know, 2023 has been a very difficult year of decision-making and work for the staff and the commission. And I think here with this SOTA, the commission really has an important opportunity to create a new foundation for responsible and equitable growth. So we were really pleased and excited to see all the hard work that the staff did on this. Fate Alliance, of course, has been transparent about our disagreement with the actions of the council and the way in which they mandated expansion. but the commission is really thoughtfully and responsibly moved forward with us with this mandate and so we just want to express our appreciation for that. I think now the question of how we utilize our existing land inside the urban service boundary or in any potential future expansion areas is going to be the most important question. Maximizing housing production at the most needed price points that our research tells us we need, creating jobs, infrastructure, transit, walkability, accessibility, sustainability and protection of our prime agricultural soils can really all be achieved by officially using the land that we have and this soda represents creative and responsible policy changes to our current zoning code to support these goals so we really commend planning staff for their hard work on this proposal and are excited to see what the impacts can be the updates in the soda support more diverse housing types re-legalize missing middle housing incentivize affordable housing opportunities, support walkable and transit oriented development, and accessible neighborhoods and commercial areas to serve that. And we hope that at Fade Alliance that this is really just the beginning of a series of positive changes to the zoning ordinances and that next we'll see changes to address existing expansion areas as identified in the 1996 expansion area master plan. Because unfortunately, thousands of acres of vacant and undeveloped land that is left over from the 96 expansion are not impacted by the soda. So we're hopeful that again this is just the beginning of a series of more positive changes. And I think staff really thoughtfully points out of course that compact walkable and mixed use development is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. But we would always emphasize that where that development takes place is a large part of what makes it sustainable and what really makes it affordable. And as we've said all along, development on the outskirts of our community and in potential new expansion areas, past existing suburban and undeveloped areas really doesn't track with our goals. But there are many opportunities inside the current urban service boundary that this, where this ZODA can make a big impact. So as it's implemented, I think working closely with existing neighborhoods and businesses who are gonna see a lot of impacts from this is going to be really critical to the success of the ZODA. But the staff's hard work shows that we can still employ smart and tested planning practices and principles that really take the long view, which is what our community has overwhelmingly asked for all along. So Fate Alliance supports this soda, appreciates the work of the staff, and recommends its adoption. Thank you all. Thank you. Mr. Murphy. Mr. Murphy your time is up. After six hours please. I'm Dick Murphy and I have, I'll say congratulations staff that's all because I don't have more time to say congratulations. two little items on the board up there the second one i think is just a housekeeping item which i run by the staff i think the staff is agreeable with this is in the b1 principal uses the service station items there was a something that fell through the cracks if you had a plan approved it had not yet been built so i'm asking for section 15b to say this is for service stations shall not expand the number of vehicular locations for refueling beyond eight excluding EVs unless previously approved for a greater number I think the staff agrees with that I'd like to move on my big thing which is micro distilleries over the last five years I have a couple inquiries every year about people who wanted to micro bourbon distilleries this ordinance allows neighborhood breweries and brew pubs but it doesn't mention micro distilleries since distilleries and bourbon are our brand I think it's important that we allow those on an equal footing with breweries and brew pubs I love beer as much as anybody else but beer is not our brand bourbon is our brand and it's a an experience that the disorders I've talked to want to have a place where people can taste the bourbon, they can check the aroma out, they can be taught about the background of bourbon and establish a link between the bourbon they try here and what they will buy when they go back home to wherever they live. The ordinance allows neighborhood breweries which can brew up to 10,000 barrels a year, 10,000 barrels a year for a neighborhood brewery. A micro distillery is less than 1,000 barrels a year, so I think the scale is the same. I want to emphasize I'm not asking for rickhouses in here. You know, the storage facilities, that's been the controversial item. I'm not asking for rickhouses in here. I'm just asking for the micro distilleries because as I said it's a major tourism draw and it's an experience item that people want to experience and we need to get that close to people as we can and I think it's important to get it as close as a neighborhood brewery or a brew pub that is allowed to brew more quantity than a micro distillery is. So I think they ought to be treated the same. So just ask you to top one is just add one word to section 12. That's in the B1 ordinance, 16, excuse me, 8-16B. 12 and 15B is also in that section, the minor change that I think the staff has agreed to. Thank you. This is a question to staff. Do we have micro distilleries defined in the ordinance? So we actually added micro distilleries within the ordinance in the I1 zone. Within this proposed text from staff, we are proposing to add it as a conditional use into the B3 zone on page 30. No, I'm looking for do we have a definition of what constitutes a micro distilleries. Micro distilleries are actually defined by the state. It's actually a Class B license, and it has a certain percentage of development. Which is what I mentioned to you, less than 1,000 barrels. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Yes, sir. Oh, I don't know who that is. Good evening. First, I want to thank the commission for the opportunity to speak. We value our ability to work with local planning commissions and our local government partners across the state. I'm Brian Clark. I'm the executive director for the Kentucky Petroleum Marketers Association. Here on behalf of the KPMA and the Kentucky Grocers and Convenience Stores Association, KPMA alone supports more than 100 businesses in Fayette and Lexington and 2,000 jobs here with approximately $171 million in taxes collected. To be judicious with the Commission's time in this late hour, I just wanted to state for the public record that we have filed formal written comments on the proposed text changes on today's agenda under the item for Part C2, and we filed those back to you on November the 16th. We were present at your last meeting as well and were ready to speak, but the item was postponed and deferred. So included in our formally filed comments were specific requests for clarification as well, specifically in response to the plan Zota 2306 amendments and various articles. These outline our industry concerns and on the proposed provisions. we formally sought some clarification on and in accordance with the required process. To date, and as of today, we have received no communication or responses back from the planning and zoning staff or legal. Additionally, at your last meeting, I was able to attain the revisions to the document, but regretfully, none of those revisions addressed the concerns or negative impacts to our industry. And in fact, some even further narrow definitions to specifically assure changes are targeted at our retail locations. While I have verification of electronic delivery, I can only assume that some of those have been provided to the Commission for consideration in either revision or postponement of the proposed sections that will negatively impact our industry. I am requesting on behalf of these trade associations that remit significant tax revenues and support local jobs and are part of not only Kentucky but specifically Fayette-Lexington's critical infrastructure that the commission, if it's not done so, please consider the comments filed due to the potential legal and significant impacts that the proposed amendments will have. On behalf of our local members, this is a critical concern for us, one which we will continue to monitor and remain engaged on. And again, I want to thank the commission for the opportunity to be acknowledged and speak for the record. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you want to say something to have, Mr. Bailey? Okay, cool. Find me. Yep. If y'all want to ask any questions. Yeah, just a question for staff. Do we have those? We have not received any communication. We would like to find out after this public comment where the email was sent to, whether that was imaginelexington.com, provided comment on our website, or sent a letter to our legal department. Yeah, we specifically submitted them on November 16th per the instructions on the website, and also those were sent to Mr. Larry Foster as well. Forrester. Oh, I'm sorry. Is there a typo? Is there a typo? I don't know. Everything goes illegal. Would you repeat the section numbers that you're referring to? Yes. Amendments to articles. It's specifically 1, 3, 8, 9, 12, and 17, the amendments that are there. But our comments, and I've got copies of them here if you like. I'd be happy to leave a copy. Yes, sir. Yes, yes. Because we did it, we emailed them when we were surprised to not have heard anything. Staff can say that we have not seen these comments. We will check all of our information systems following this. However, at this point in time, we cannot speak to the specific regulations that the individual is requesting comment on. We have worked with many of our commercial property owners in town and have made specific changes to the requirements of this zoning ordinance per November 14th to ensure that all current gas stations and petroleum places in town are protected and can continue to be utilized and updated over time. So staff would have to look at exactly some of the comments that were made, but we have not seen this. And I don't know if law can say if they've received anything. If we've received it, it didn't come to me in our department, so I don't think we have, because if it says anything remotely close to planning, it's coming to me. You can get calling my email quick, because I'm at a bank, so if you look suspicious, we're going to block you i don't have nothing to do with that part though i don't know how you have my email anyway but i would like to make sure that we get it done we do apologize we would greatly appreciate your considered consideration of our concerns and i did at the last meeting we picked up a copy of those further comments and uh further edits and we we do feel like there were further questions that we have not heard additional response on obviously so we would greatly appreciate the commission's consideration of the comments. And I will say just as this continues forward since this is a legislative process it does not end with the Planning Commission we will continue to work with all members of our community to seek to create the best ordinance possible going forward. While we're doing that do we have any other questions at the moment for Mr. Clark okay thank you mr. Clark good evening Nick Nicholson you all know I represent a whole lot of residential commercial developers associations that have been following this ZODA very very very closely working with staff we were some of those entities that kind of Hal was referring to earlier I wish I had more time because I would have a whole lot of praise for a whole lot of aspects of this soda I think it is absolutely imperative that we move forward with this we know that time is of the essence with regards to their timetable and so we'll continue to work with staff continue to work with the council as this soda kind of passes through it should tell you something that truly I only have two comments like total to kind of make in the remotely negative context and they're not really even negative we do have concerns with regards to the distance requirements in talking with a lot of the commercial developers they've they've seen in other communities distance requirements don't actually achieve the goal of actually in you know discouraging those uses in fact they just make sure that like if you're talking about car lots on kind of north new circle they're just going to hold out even longer because if they ever go away they're never going to be able to come back because of those distance requirements and so we encourage you all are encouraged council to look at site restrictions for those uses in order to kind of achieve the the total goals that you're looking for as opposed to just distance requirements the other main thing is actually a case in point was what happened earlier today we would encourage that a drive-through still be allowed as it only a conditional use in the B1 zone any time you deal with a zone change whatsoever it creates a lot of fervor especially when you're talking about around a neighborhood we just saw B1 to a P1 create a lot of fervor it's not easy to jump from a B1 to a B3 in any way shape or form B3 scares the living daylights out of anybody in a neighborhood and so we have great concerns about just entirely eliminating drive-throughs because it sends the message that a bank and a pharmacy is no longer welcome in our neighborhoods that doesn't make any sense and i understand that this will work for the areas that have not yet developed as we kind of move forward when we're talking about kind of the urban growth management but for the b1 properties today there are a lot of kind of just of uses for drive-throughs that do make sense conditionally we've gotten really good at turning down b1 drive-throughs in this town and i'm convinced that we're able to keep on basically doing that if they are allowed to stay as a conditional use because like whenever board of adjustment notices go out and it's a drive-through but it's just for a bank you don't see neighborhood uproar and so it's it would be a shame to basically eliminate banks and pharmacies from future neighborhoods entirely because they can never meet that drive up window definition because of federal security requirements that's truly all I have to say I love so so much about this text amendment thank you guys Thank you Mr. Nicholson. Discussion? Okay. Blake Hall, District 3. I actually live in an R2 zone place. I'm here fully in support of everything, the Zota, even the original maximum front yard. Nothing about my current single family house in Kenwick wick is zoning appliance too close to the street too close to my neighbors my lots too small my lots too narrow if I did the math if you were to try to reproduce my neighborhood or at least my block with the same zone but to meet you'd have to meet the new minimum standards it would balloon to get the same number of 30 properties on a block it would balloon to from seven acres to ten acres for no reason other than empty space so fully in support of that my neighborhood is a mix of my block is a mix of adu single-family houses duplexes we have small apartment buildings all of them are my neighbors we all coexist perfectly fine Speaking to the B1, I know some of you were on the, oh, it was a Zoom call, for the Red Mile and Versailles, a proven of the Speedway in which I think literally everyone was against it, but it was a development plan, it was already zoned, so not what we could do. We hear it time and time again, any time the most modest of B1 rezoning is proposed, oh, just a tenant what after what about after that what if somebody wants to put a drive through in here what if somebody wants to put a gas station gas stations and drive through are inherently anti-pedestrian people do not want them in their neighborhoods and it is a common concern whenever even whether it's a cafe or a walk-up grocery store it's a common concern this allows an actual neighborhood service commercial use to exist and assuage a lot of those fears and speaking to there's too much to go over in three minutes but speaking to the affordability aspect that's probably the single biggest thing that the city can do about affordable housing rather than buying property and building it themselves and we're not going to I mean I doubt we're going to be implementing inclusionary zoning or anything like that so this is a huge step forward in cutting out that six to nine month even if it's an uncontentious zone change and allows a better use to benefit more people. Yeah, that's it, thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else? All righty. Mr. Bailey. And staff will just touch on one element, and really that is to do with the B1 and the B3. The constant conversation that we have when we are looking at zone changes or trying to apply some of these new developments within communities is, honestly, a drive-through, a gas station, is not appropriate for the middle of the neighborhood. And one of the largest issues that staff has had with the B3 is that it hasn't been doing enough for our corridors. The proposed text amendment that you see before you would do both. They would make things more applicable to a neighborhood context, while also promoting the B3 to something that staff, the comprehensive plan, and the planning commission would be able to get behind. Alleviating the concerns of future development to say, oh, well, I need to do a B1 zone on a corridor would be a major element of this. Trying to make sure that we are trying to get the corridor development, the drive-throughs and the gas stations that are part of our community but making sure that they are appropriately located. Gas stations don't want to go into the middle of the neighborhoods but every single time we talk about a B1 zone change that is what a neighborhood is concerned about. We zone them out through conditional zoning restrictions. We're the only city in the state that is allowed to do that type of thing but that also gives us a metric to say what is not appropriate in our neighborhood context and what is appropriate. We also do need to take that next step by making the changes to lot coverage, to making the changes to having some distance requirements between some uses. We are now promoting the B3 zone to be something that individuals can get behind as we are trying to densify our corridors, create more intense development on our corridors that promote the types of things within our comprehensive plan. can get behind some of the modifications to the refueling stations however staff is greatly concerned with the inclusion of a micro distillery in a neighborhood that is really because it would be a print as presented it would be a principal primary use within a neighborhood context we are recommending it as a a conditional use within a corridor and it hits its first principal primary use within an I one zone so staff would not be supportive of the inclusion of a micro distillery within a v1 zone thank you thank you y'all want to say anything additional all the individuals that were speaking miss rothamire mr clark mr murphy oh yeah you coming I think the staff is agreeing with my minor modification of the drive-through. On the micro distillery, again, principle use B1, the micro brewery. We don't see any reason not to allow a distillery. We're not asking for rickhouses. Those are the controversial parts of distillery right now, the rickhouses, not the distilleries. this is our brand in the community people tourists I don't think are going to want to come to an I1 zone blue sky Parkway or Nandino Boulevard to go to a bourbon tasting they want to go to a small retail area which you have in a shopping center and be one that's what we're asking for thank you thank you mr. Murphy okay I'll bring it back to the Commission Oh, Mr. Clark, you can, okay. Thank you. I did just want to add, I do have proof of a timely filing on November 16th that I'm happy to provide proof of electronic delivery if that would be assistance to the commission. We were not suggesting that the individual did not. What we were suggesting is that we did not receive it either through electronic communication kind of filtering or something else. Staff is still willing to work with any and all individual within our community that has concerns regarding this text amendment. We appreciate that greatly. Ms. Clark, thank you for that. Thank you. I'm going to make the body aware. Oh, here's your, no problem. Okay. I'll bring it back to the commission. Ms. Worth? This is a process question. I don't remember if I got this information from Bill Wilson or where it came from before the meeting. in terms of our options here I think I recall we basically have four we can move to accept the ZODA as presented to us we can move to accept the ZODA with whatever modifications we choose to accept we could accept all of them or we could specify which ones we want to accept or we can move to postpone some portion of that for further discussion or we can say we move to accept it and recommend the council address a piece that's unfinished business have i correctly identified what our options are yes so making them all right yeah go ahead mr nick nick are you gonna do it i can try it yes Okay, what I would like to do is to try to make, or I am going to make a motion to approve Zota 23-00006, the amendments article 13, 8, 9, 12, and 17, to implement the conference the plan. What I would like to include would be the modification to the front yard setback that was identified by Mr. Mickler and then addressed by the staff. And then also the section 3-6 change from the workforce, change from mixed income and affordable to workforce housing bonuses that was proposed by me so those are the two recommendations mr. Mika did you want to include I guess clarification with the gas stations that have been approved electric pumps that staff was in agreement with with mr. Murphy yes I would like to include that thank you for thank you for Including that, yes. So it looks like, thank you. And not the microbreweries or with the microbreweries? You're suggesting that change to 15B at the bottom of his handout be included. We will include the proposed revisions to B-1 principal use section 8-1, the 15-B, and the 12, which includes micro distilleries along with brew pubs. I appreciated the comment that this is our brand, and it deserves as much respect as the beer does. Thank you. Okay. So we have a motion. Did we catch that motion? Okay. All right, it's long. And we have a second to that motion? Ms. Barksdale is seconding that motion. Any further discussion? Mr. Mickler? Well, this is new, so I'm not sure how I really feel about the distilleries, the micro distilleries. My concern is that if I understand correctly, what staff is trying to do is they're trying to create a B1 zone that people would feel comfortable living next to without much qualm, and I don't know that we've gotten any feedback from any groups on whether that interpretation, whether people's comfort level is there yet on distilleries. And if I may, my understanding is that the staff is proposing that would be a conditional use in the B1 zone, is that right? Staff is proposing that it be a conditional use in the B3 zone. It is not referenced within the B1 zone currently. That's why we up here to take a vote. So we take a vote on it. Right. We can vote on the existing motion, which currently includes that, or we could have a motion to amend the motion. We can see how the existing motion, see how that turns out, and then come back either way. Could I ask staff, what is the difference between a micro distillery and a micro brewery that causes you to want to isolate the micro distillery? So staff is not recommending a micro brewery within the B1 zone either. Staff is recommending a neighborhood brewery, which would have a much smaller scale and footprint than a microbrewery. The difference between a microdistillery and a distillery is the jump between, and I'm going to throw some bourbon names out there, the jump between Town Branch, which is off of the Breadbox and the I-1 over near Wessex. That's a microdistillery. It can also include something along the lines of a Luxe Rho in Louisville. And then jumping to a distillery, you're looking at your Woodfords and something like that. So there is quite a bit of a difference between the two, but it's still producing quite a bit. Okay. Everybody's comfortable? At least enough to make a vote one way or the other. I know. All right. We got a motion, Mr. Nickel, and you're including the motion with 12 and 15B for Mr. Murphy. Correct. Correct. And that included the front yard setback. and a change in mixed income? Yes. Okay. All right. And you're going to keep the micro distillery inside 12? Okay. All right. And we have a second by Ms. Barksdale. I just want to make sure I went back over it. It's a lot. Okay. We can vote via Granicus. All right. Okay. That failed. Now the floor is back open. Want to try again? Yes. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Thank you very much. This is a good way for it to happen. Okay, what I'd like to do is recommend approval for PLN Zota 23-00006, and I would like to include Commissioner Mickler's recommendation for the front yard setback reduction and the workforce and affordable housing bonus that was shown on Section 3.6, and then 15B from Mr. Murphy, not including micro-stilleries. Okay. Okay. We got a motion and a second. Please vote. Be a grant of kiss. I said you're not going to repeat that. No, I'm not repeating that. I figure everybody heard of this time. Thank you for getting me out of that. Okay, that motion passes. Okay. Can we do like a five minute? I mean, it's 8.16. It's five minutes ain't going to hurt us. No, I'm good. You're fine. Okay. Bathroom break. What are we doing now? We still have the bottom of page 17. Yeah, we still have things at the end. All right. Commission items. Unless y'all want to plow through. All right, let's plow through. Let's go let's go let's go yes, sir. Let's go Let's do it. I do I do think they'll be quick. Yes, just when you thought the long nightmare was over All right Mr. Chairman members of the Commission. We have a couple of waivers for your consideration Women I can do it this way remember. Oh It's not moving Pardon? Oh, okay. I thought it was ready to go. All right, there we go. Okay. All right, so the staff received a consolidation plant for a farm out on Briar Hill, north of the interstate, not too far from Haley. road. The interesting aspect about this is this area right here. This is a 16 acre track with a large, large farm pond on it and some structures that is currently accessed by an access easement and completely surrounded by a parent tract, a very large parent tract. To further make this situation interesting, this farm is in several tracts, some of which extend into Bourbon and Clark, not just Fayette County. But the subject of this consolidation plant is to take that center tract, that 16-acre non-conforming tract with no frontage, consolidate it with a portion of the parent tract, and leave this tract here remaining. The two remaining tracks, one exceeds 80 acres and the other one is 192 acres, are conforming in their acreage. However, the frontage along Briar Hill, currently it conforms for the large parent track, but by creating these two tracks, one will have a little over 450 feet of frontage and the other one will have 340 some feet of frontage, give or take a little bit. So they both have adequate frontage to serve the farm function. They both have adequate frontage for access for emergency vehicles, etc. And we remove this odd 16-acre track with the farm pond. And of course, farm ponds are essential to farm operations. So this is actually a better configuration for the agricultural uses on these tracks. staff is recommending approval of the waiver to you okay any questions happy to answer any questions i know that the applicant is okay with everything okay sorry for keeping waiting so long we can make uh ready for a motion mr work mr chair i move for approval of the waiver waiver for healing in SUB 2354, Graves and Family, LLC. Okay, we got a second. Ms. Barksdale, please vote via Granicus. Yes, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All righty. One more. this is for Eastland shopping center we just saw this not too long ago and you can see the property up here in the corner we had it rezoned and then we were coming up and doing shops a special trade this being industry road here and Eastland Park way back here Winchester Road up here when they got out there and we're doing the work we're talking street geom good street geometrics I'm sorry when they got out there and started to work on trying to put the sidewalk on to the property because that's what we're looking for on sidewalk connectivity on everything there's a steep steep slope that comes down from the property heading down towards the street it's all the right of way so to be able to locate the sidewalk in this right away what we're doing is we're changing the street dynamics just a little bit if you look at the report there's some utilities and underground and so to be able to avoid those utilities we're shifting the sidewalk and raising it so it kind of is at a plateau and then it goes back up to the rest of the property so just changing it but we're getting our sidewalk so the staff recommends approval Any questions for staff? None. Mr. Barrett, are you okay with everything? Thumbs up. Good law. Okay. Floor is open for a motion. Ms. Meyer? Mr. Chair, I'd like to move for approval of the waiver of the land subdivision regulations for PLN and JVP 2342. We have a motion. Second. Seconded by Mr. Pohl. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes unanimously as well. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chair, your work for 2023 is finished. Merry Christmas. Meeting's adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.