and our planning committee will go ahead and begin we do have a quorum and first of all i want to thank dr stevens because yes you because he agreed to change the corridors committee so that this planning committee could have a marathon meeting to try to attend to some of our issues. So thank you for changing the corridors committee meeting. We like to make it easy to get down the road. Very good. We have six items on our agenda, and we will work as long as we need to until the work session at 3 o'clock, with a break at some point in here, depending on where we are in the issues. We'll take a little break so people can get lunch. So without further ado, we'll start with our first issue, which is development plan adherence, which Council Member Myers put into committee. And do you have any brief introductory comments, or shall we go to it? Let's go right into it. All right. I like it. And so it's my understanding that perhaps Kevin Wente is the lead person on this. The information in the packet is pages 1 through 39 on development plan adherence. Welcome, Mr. Wente. Thank you, Councilmember. I'm actually going to rely very heavily upon the directors of public works to answer any questions you may have. I put this package together a little over a year ago. I think upon your request, Council Member Gordon, for information regarding specific items. So, Mr. Myers, if you have anything specifically, we've got members from planning, engineering, building inspection here to answer any specific questions you may have. Okay. I guess to start out, you know, a long time ago, it's been more than a year ago, I guess, we had a couple of zone changes that people were awfully interested in. And once we approve the zone change, if we did, can we hold the developer to developing what they say they're going to develop? And I know that that's virtually impossible to do because changes need to be made at times. But how do we get to a point at which, and is there a way that we can get to a point in which some of the things that they talk about have to be done or can't be changed without coming back to this body or another body, whether it be Planning Commission or this body, to approve or to reapprove it? Through the means of inspection or just in the process of their development as a whole? I think both. And then I think there's a couple examples up here that we've passed zone changes. They said they were going to do certain things and they haven't done them. And then who holds them accountable and how do we hold them accountable? And how does that accountability take place? Is it automatic? For example, another issue is the church issue that we talked about and put into stormwater oversight. There's a development plan that's been agreed to and then at some point a change is made. How do we make sure that that change will suffice for, for example, stormwater mitigation? And how do we make sure that the developer is held to account for doing the things that they're supposed to do? I'll turn to my selected panel of guests. If anybody has an answer to, as far as oversight is concerned, I would appreciate any help. Since I was closest to the podium, I stood up first. The questions that you've raised, Councilman Myers, really do span over many different types of plans and processes. And I think it's important to remember, and in looking at the packet, there are really – you've used the generic term development plan adherence, but some of the issues that have been raised are really what are termed improvement plans under the law, some of them subdivision plans and then there's development plans. They are all different kinds of plans administered in somewhat different fashion and have different outcomes. And we'd be glad at some point to do a little bit of a presentation on that. Probably a workshop type format would be better. But the issues as I understand that you raised, for instance, when you are hearing a zone change. There is usually what is called a preliminary development plan that the developer has filed that has been reviewed by the Planning Commission and go along with it. Usually very conceptual, very general, and generally come along with every zone change. If the zone change is granted and then the developer proceeds, they must go through other processes through the Planning Commission to finalize those plans, be they development plans for commercial type development or subdivision plans for a development that results in streets, roads, and lots types of things. So each of those is a little different process. In any of those processes, there is Planning Commission oversight of the overall process. In the case of the improvement plans, which involves the construction of storm drainage facilities, sanitary sewer facilities, and public street facilities, that is administered by the Division of Engineering. It's a subset of the subdivision process, so those are reviewed by engineering. And then again, in the final analysis before buildings can be built, things of that nature, the Division of Building Inspection approves building permits, and those are reviewed as well. So in any of those processes, the laws do allow what are called plan amendments and allows an applicant or a developer to come back in and to seek approval from the appropriate body, be it the planning commission, be it the division of building inspection in some cases. In other cases, in the case of conditional zoning restrictions, They may have to come back and ask the council for certain relief from conditions in their place, and you have done that on a number of occasions. So in each of those cases, there is a process and there is a review. Then you have an entirely different case where you have a plan that has been done, has been approved, and a developer or a builder just goes out and builds something else entirely without getting any approval for that change or violating some, and that's an enforcement issue administered by building inspection. So I hope that kind of gives just a broad overview of all the processes that might be in play. And, again, we're here to try to illuminate any of those that are of particular concern to the council. I think Mr. Blues has a perfect example, and I think it's been mitigated, but a perfect example of one of the things we're talking about. And, Council Members, if you have a question, will you weigh in on your electronic system, please? Council Member Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Myers is referring to a problem that came up fairly recently with reference to a zone change that the Council approved. and certain things were supposed to be done in a certain order and they were not. I was informed of the problem by the affected neighborhood and building inspection responded immediately and took care of the situation, which was excellent. but absent that kind of communication from out there to a council member to Lex call, whatever how then do we I guess we can't always assure guarantee that but how do we kind of monitor how do we catch the bad guys or in some cases it's not a question of a bad guy but there's been some failure to follow the rules. But I'm taking it in the case you're describing, I know you've given some generalities. In the case you were describing a landowner that got a zone change then did not follow the laws, did not perhaps get a final development plan, just went ahead and used the property or was using the property in a way that not consistent with what was required? Using the property in advance of a development plan and in advance of doing the necessary construction that called for under the development plan. The fact of the matter is that the first level of enforcement is, of course, the private developer doing what they're supposed to do. And if they don't do what they're supposed to do, then it's a question of how do we catch them, how do we learn about it, and then what action, what steps happen after that. In this case, what you're telling me is the neighborhood was our best field staff. Again, in planning, we have no field staff, we have no inspection, we have no citation authority on anything, period. The Division of Engineering has some and the Division of Building Inspection does. And again, I would invite them if the issue is what are their practices to try to catch violations of this type. Maybe they could speak to what their staffing levels and their practices are. Maybe that would be informative to the council. In the case I'm referring to, of course, there was neighborhood concern about the entire, you know, the zone change and so forth. So the neighborhood was pretty cognizant of the situation. That's not always the case, though. That's not always the case. Zone changes are approved without public hearings, without contention. And so I think that's the area where we need to. So there you're looking at, do we have teams of inspectors out there on the street every day looking for people doing bad things in violation of zoning? That seems to be the bottom line question. And again, I'll ask Dewey and Marwan since their agencies have enforcement authority over different aspects of the process and we don't. I will invite them up to perhaps address that and I'll stay in the bullpen. Thank you, Chris. Mr. Myers, who would you like to hear from? I think both Mr. Crowe and Marwan. Okay. And just to kind of reiterate, I guess part of the question is, are we proactive or are we reactive? Because the particular zone change that Dr. Blues is talking about, there was a lot of conversation about the buffering that was supposed to go into place as part of that development plan. And what ended up happening is the zone change was made, that was solidified, codified, and then the person went out and started using the land with an accordance to the zone change, but they did not do the developments that they were supposed to do. The community wanted to buffer their use. And so our question is, and I'll go ahead and lead in, because this is going to be my My next question is when we look at a zone change, should we look at a development plan or should we not look at a development plan? Because if we don't have, if we pass a zone change based on developments that are going to happen in a development plan but they don't come to pass, we would not probably have done that zone change if it had not been for the development plan. So I'm not sure what that noise is. Someone wants in. Someone's trying to get in. So as you answer your question, can you be thinking about can we look at a development plan and then hold that developer to that plan, or should we look at a zone change based on a parcel of land with no development whatsoever on it and no even conversation about what the development's going to be? As Chris King explained, there's the process of going through having a zone change. Ultimately, if there's a development plan or conditional zoning attached to that, it becomes part of that zone change. The conditional zoning can come in by the Planning Commission when the development plan is developed. My understanding is we normally don't have, you'll have maybe a preliminary development plan as part of the zone change, but you won't have the final development plan. We normally are not necessarily involved in that completely, although we are at planning commission meetings when those issues are coming through and we do have input into the development plan process and the zone chain requests at that point. Ultimately, though, as to what gets done there, we don't get involved until all that is complete on an active basis. In other words, once the development plan, a final development plan is put forth and they're ready to construct the building, then they come to us with their plans for that building, with their site plans and how they're going to do it. All of that then has to be in compliance with that approved development plan that the Planning Commission has certified. We then, if what they propose does not meet the development plan, we can't go any further with the permitting process. It basically stops at that point and they are directed either to submit a proposal that is in compliance with the development plan or go back and seek a change or an amendment to the development plan from the planning commission. So as far as anything adherence to the development plan, that's the initial stop, is with us during the review process for what they propose to do. If it's not in compliance, it goes no further until they either alter the proposal or they bring it into compliance. The instance Mr. Blues referred to, basically it has, they had got through the first step of that process, of the initial process, was getting the zone change. They have not complied with any of the conditions attached to that zone change, such as doing the site improvements, screening, I believe berms. There were several requirements placed upon that, and a development plan. It's my understanding, and as best we can tell, none of that has been accomplished or done, and that's what our inspectors on site yesterday verified, and in fact, nothing had been done and in fact they were utilizing the property without any of those conditions having been met or any approvals from our office. And they are being basically requested to cease the use of that property in that manner until all those things are accomplished. So when you look at a zone change being conducted and we're looking at a conditional or preliminary development plan. Maybe the question is do we need to look at that plan based on the fact that it's just a preliminary plan and it can change and sometimes change drastically and still be within the zoning. Should we just not look at the development plan at all? Again, that would be. That's a question more for Chris. I'm sorry. Yeah, and that's a question that has both practical and legal connotations when you really break it down. I know back, way back when, been around here a long time, the yardstick was generally to when the council was evaluating the zone change, look at the worst thing that could happen in that zone and then see if you could live with that. In the more complex world that we have now where we do have a lot of development plan usage as tools to deal with issues, we have here in Fayette County conditional zoning restrictions that sometimes are tied to a development plan. And it's much more common for a neighborhood and a developer to negotiate with each other to see if they can find something that they're happy with as a practical matter it's somewhat hard for you to ignore the development plan that said i think in the back of your minds though you should always understand some other council planning commission or someone else that developer might seek change that what they intended to do originally They may not actually do. And, you know, the range of things that might be covered from that could range from the actual use of the property. You know, they say, well, I intend to have a professional office. Instead, they develop, you know, a school or something like that in the end. Unless it's restricted, they're allowed to develop anything that's allowed within that zoning category. They can come back later and ask for that change. And if they need to change the buildings and layout to accommodate that, there's a process by which they can do that. And therefore, screening or other restrictions may also be addressed. So, you know, the level can run all the way down to very detailed type of things that are shown on the DEVELOP plan, like, you know, walls, plantings, where the parking lots are versus where detention basins are versus where buildings are and things like that. The point is there are processes that govern that. And once a developer or a landowner has the right to zone, they do have a bundle of rights that comes along with that. And that's where the legal question comes in. And the legal aspect of how much latitude is there when someone comes and proposes a change. And there are some standards in our ordinances that address what yardsticks the Planning Commission uses when evaluating those changes. But, again, the biggest bundle is what can you use that property for, what types of uses. And that one, unless restricted through conditional zoning restrictions, you pretty much assume they can come back and do anything that that zone would allow. Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. Where the rubber meets the road is in those cases where the developer and the neighborhood come together in the meeting and discuss certain aspects. And that's actually what happened in the change that Dr. Blues talked about. The community said that they were, at least they could live with this zone change if these certain things happened. So that, to me, is the biggest issue and why I really put it in the committee is because once that takes place, the council does not have the ability to hold the developer to what they agreed to do, at least conceptually, in that zone change hearing. That is true to some degree and to a fairly large degree. So you need to take that into account. But again, remember, I think the case that, as I heard it, and I know I don't think you all want to talk about a specific case in great detail here that you're experiencing, But I would call the situation, if this is the one that I've been aware of through a couple of emails in the last couple of days, this is just a property owner violating everything. Right. They're using the property, and they shouldn't be, and they've been called to task on it. And this is a simple fix because all they have to do is go in and do the improvements that they said they would do, and it'll be fine. Right. And it's another issue if he comes back. Let's say that developer comes with the final development plan. and says, you know, I've changed my mind. I don't think I want to do that screening. I don't think I want to observe that setback requirement, things like that. Now, in this case, I don't know if any of those were involved in conditional zoning restrictions. But I will tell you that when those things are on the record, we as the Division of Planning staff will bring them up. We will bring that up to the Planning Commission. We will say they committed that this would be X number of feedback. They committed to this kind of screening and buffering. And we will always recommend, or in 99.9% of the cases, unless there's some outrageously extenuating circumstance, they'd be held tasked for that. Again, the Planning Commission is a citizen body of 11 members who will hear then staff's take on it. They will also hear the applicant's take, and they will hear the neighborhood's take on it. as well. You know, we've had cases where all those parties come back and agree to changes. The problem is where people don't, they feel like they've been had or conned. And those are the things that the process should try to avoid or minimize at the very worst, in my opinion. If I could maybe have Mr. Horn come up and help you out here. If you could stay there though, Chris. Chris, if you could stay there. It might get kind of cumbersome to have zone change hearings where we always try to put those agreements between the developer and the neighborhood or whomever the other party might be into a zone restriction. But is that something to look at? If we're going to look at these development plans, preliminary development plans, and then allow the two parties to come together and reach some type of compromise, how do we codify that in a way that in order for any change to that compromise to happen, they've got to come back before, I guess it would be the planning commission. Or could it, or the council? You've got the wrong attorney for this question. But from what I understand about conditional zoning, I don't know that some of that couldn't be covered in the conditional zoning requirements. I'll practice law without a license. I do it all the time. He's here to back me. I would always advise the council that if the restriction in play that is very important to the parties is one that is allowable under a conditional zoning restriction, the state statute gives us a very narrow definition and a very narrow playing field for conditional zoning restrictions, try to do it through conditional zoning. And there's two levels of council addressing that. You can put that conditional zoning restriction in place and put any change in it under the purview of the Planning Commission. You can do that under the law and where there would have to be a hearing in front of the Planning Commission, not just a development plan amendment, but a real zone type hearing with zone change type notice. And certain things, if you're serious enough, you can leave it under the purview of the council, so that it could only be changed after coming all the way back through a process, through the Planning Commission, and then ultimately to the Urban County Council. When we've had conditional zoning restrictions changed, which hasn't happened too often, I think all but one case did take the route all the way back to council. Of course, it ends up being a different set of council persons that usually hear it than the ones that put it in place the first time, sometimes different neighbors, sometimes a different developer because those kinds of things change. Development is a very fluid process. Okay. Thank you. Are you finished? Yes. I wasn't looking necessarily for a resolution on this today but to begin the conversation so I'm through with my question at this point. Okay. Councilmember Stennett. Thank you, Chair. I want to expand on what Councilmember Myers was speaking about. I think that the crux of this whole argument is how do we protect citizens. And I think, you know, Chris just pointed out some of the ways, but, you know, during the development process or zone change process, we are showing these nice development plans that kind of entice us to vote for the change. This is going to be better for the neighborhood. This is going to be, you know, here's what it's going to look like. And ultimately, I think it's very important that citizens understand who makes the final decision on the development plan. And that's the planning commission, as Chris pointed out. So I guess going back to the question Council Member Myers asked to Keith and to Chris, is there anything we can do with a new resolution, a text amendment, to ensure more protection for citizens, given the fact that if we're shown his own change and the citizens say, yes, we come to this own change, we support it based on what we've been shown, is there anything to put that in concrete? any way to say, hey, they'll abide by it based on a citizen's input? Because I think that the problem at the end of the day is citizens buy in, developer changes his mind, citizens are frustrated. I think basically the answer to that lies, it's the same kind of thing. There's a practical answer and there's a legal answer. The legal answer is probably you could amend the ordinance, not permit any amendments to development plans, period. Now that would probably stop 90% of development because usually I can't remember hardly any development that hasn't as they got further along in the process needed to change something, something big or something small. We can certainly think about that. We can certainly have a conversation with the law department to see if there's any ground that fits somewhere in the middle that might give a little more tightening into that process or change the procedures, change the yardsticks that have to be met. In the end though, you know, in any of these cases it's going to be the decision of a citizen body that's going to make that final decision probably. Unless you just say, you know, once the plan commission approves that first developed plan, that's it. I don't think we would want to say that, at least from my seat, but I think we would want to look at is there more procedures, additional checkpoints we can put in place during the whole process. I know we're looking at that on the sanitary sewer and the EPA side. Sure. But I think of the overall concept, just, again, to protect the neighbors on what they bought into, make sure the developer fulfills his promises. And I agree. I don't think anything's more important for the credibility of the process. So I think that's a good issue, well raised. We'd be glad to have conversation with law. I'd say look at other jurisdictions, but we know pretty much in Kentucky we're the only one that has conditional zoning. We're the only one that really uses development plans the way we do here. But perhaps we always have to be cognizant of what statute lets us do, which in Kentucky is different. Well, let me ask you this. But we'd be glad to look into that a little further. What happens when they change the development, say they take out a tree line or move their buffering around or narrow it down? Is the neighborhood folks notified of that again, and does that decision come back before the planning commission, or can the developer just elect to file with you all not to do it and move on? That's not a one-size-fits-all answer. Sometimes it depends. There's a lot of development plans where people were concerned about issues. there is no inherent requirement for notice for an amendment. But there are many cases where there was enough concern, the neighborhood said, hey, you know, we'd like a note on the development plan saying that before there's any change, the neighborhood would be notified or something like that. We've got some of those we've been doing for 25 and 30 years, and people go, huh? Why am I getting this letter? But some of them, it is very active, very alive. and has been a good tool to let people know and be engaged in the process. But the development plan processes, and this gets a little legal, our subdivision processes are much more ministerial in nature than they are at the time of zoning where you have more latitude in your judgment of whether to give the thumbs up or thumbs down. Again, usually once zoning occurs, there's a bundle of rights that the landowner has under our laws that they'd have some expectation to be approved unless it was demonstrated conclusively that doing that would cause some kind of harm, health, safety, and welfare kind of issue. I think you just touched on it, though. Surely there's a point in the process when an amendment is going to be requested, or if there is one, that we either notify the council member of the district or you all notify any people that were objecting on a neighborhood president or somebody, because right now they're not getting notified. I think that may be the crux of it. In some cases. I think people would be more understanding if they were led to participate in any changes versus changes just happen and they've got to live with it. Again, I think, though, the important thing to remember, too, and one of the frustrations neighborhoods have as well is on both sides, all three, government, developer, and neighborhood, is in those situations when there's notified, but there's not, because of what's ministerial, there's no opportunity for really meaningful input. That's frustrating for everybody. It slows down the development process, costs a lot more money, and frustrates neighborhoods and everyone. So trying to find processes that allow meaningful input on those issues is the real key. But you do need to understand that, yes, requiring those things and requiring notice will increase the cost of application, will increase processing times, will create roadblocks and slowdowns in the process. And, you know, any time you propose those, this room will be full of people coming and telling you that you're increasing the cost of housing, you're increasing cost of development, things like that. And so I'm not here to make a value judgment. I'm just saying this is the world you're getting into and the issues you're getting into when those kinds of things come into play. But if the council deems that that's the best thing to do, we can tell you how to change the laws to make that a requirement. Well, but what I would say to that, the cost wouldn't be increasing if they weren't changing their plan. And if they stuck by the plan that we all saw and the neighborhood saw and bought into, then that's their own fault for going back and wanting to change the plan. That's where they're slowing themselves down. I wouldn't say the input slows them down. Yeah, to some degree. I agree with that 100%. But there's a quantum leap between what they show you at the time of zoning and how much investment they make in their development plan before they know if they can even do it. You know, after they get the green card of zoning or the green ticket, pardon me, green light, that's when they go out and spend a lot more money because they feel they can. And a lot of times these changes occur not through a plan amendment per se, but between the concept, the idea they have when they're here selling the zone change to you, as you already know, no one's ever brought you a bad, ugly, you know, troublesome zone change ever. But between the preliminary development plan and their first final development plan, there's a lot of times where a lot of those details happen, a lot of those changes are made. So, you know, that's even before they've really done that very deep investment in designing a plan, and then, you know, there's usually changes down the way. So we can look at those stages in the process as well and how those are handled. And, you know, a lot of times, you know, we have at the time of zoning, there's an agreement to notify the neighborhood when they submit the final development plan or things like that. We can look at regularizing those. That emphasizes, too, that the quality of the body of the Planning Commission and who's on that and the quality of your department in terms of the work you're all able to do and the tools you're given because, I mean, obviously you're the watchdog pretty much over the whole process. And anything you can do to change that process to make it more user-friendly on both sides, you know, that's what we're looking for. That's the gold standard. Right. That is our standard, hopefully. And I just do want to commend yourself and Mr. Crow. I know you all are starting to give us a little bit more notification after we talked about it last year about the building permits that are being issued in our districts, the processes on yours, that are planning approvals. That's helped a lot because, you know, when citizens call into our offices, now we kind of have a better idea of what changes are being asked of different properties, and that helps a lot. So thank you, and please keep that up because that is helpful. We will. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to ask Vice Chair Blues to take the chair because I have some questions and maybe comments may sneak out opinions. And so would you take the chair, please? Vice chair is happy to take the chair and recognize the chair. Thank you very much. Chris, I have some, I want to take a little bit of a different tact. And first, the vice mayor had to leave. So his question was, what would be the venue for routine discussions weekly or every other week? or when are the discussions held among the staff as to the flow of this process? That was Vice Mayor Gray's question. Management. I think he's getting toward management of the process. Okay. We want to get down to those nuts and bolts. The process is driven by the annual. Let's talk about the processes we administer. It's the only ones I can speak to. I can't talk about building permits. I can't talk about the subdivision improvement plans. I can only talk about matters that are formally filed for either action by the planning commission or the board of adjustment. So let's take planning commission. Now we've got a number of different kinds of applications that we have to manage. I can talk about five or six different categories of those. Let's talk about zone change requests. request. Map amendment request. Again, remember the Planning Commission adopts annually a meeting and filing schedule, sets out the dates of their meeting and backed up from that are the filing deadline dates on which certain types of plans must be filed with the staff so that we can distribute them, we can do our reviews and make our recommendations. So let's break this down and first talk about zone change requests. Once those are filed, we administer a process of, first of all, reviewing the notice letters, the application for completeness and correctness. Sometimes we reject them. We sent one back this week because the applicant hadn't done everything they were supposed to do. So there's a first intake process by which we do that. And is that an actual, is that going across a person's desk, or is there an actual meeting of people to do that? That goes through individual desks. First, our administrative staff reviews it. If they have any questions, then they engage the planning staff, Mr. Salee's folks, and to head off any questions. usually if there's serious interface that has to have with the developer as to whether they've just basically met the requirements of what they have to have in the application to be submitted. Mr. Sally usually handles that contact in writing and says, you know, you're deficient here, here, and here. We'll give you a day or two to get it correct. And if they don't in a timely fashion, then we send them a letter saying, we're rejecting your application because of this, this, this, and this. If you get this, this, this, and this corrected, we will be glad to put you on the cycle for the following month. I think his question. That's just even before we say you're officially filed. Right. I think his question, I don't think he intended for you to go through every single detailed piece of the process. I think it was more of a broad question of the management process being a regular process. It is a regularized process. With zone change requests, all staff are invited, and we have full staff discussions about zone change requests on a monthly basis at the very early stage in the cycle where we use the team brainpower of our division to look at issues, look at things we want to explore. We did that this week for the monthly cycle coming up for the October cases. And I very much favor a team approach. So rather than assigning that case to one person and only one person looking, talking about that, we have all our sections are invited, and usually those are mandatory attendance by at least one represented from each of our sections, usually attended by much more than that. Is that weekly? That is monthly. Monthly. Because the cases follow a monthly cycle. So most of our processes for this type of application is set up on a monthly cycle. Okay. That would be similar also for our subdivision and development plan reviews. However, those we don't have the full staff sit down as much. It is a team of the people within Mr. Sally's section. And we have a certain key point in the month when we do our most intensive level of review, which is just prior to the technical committee review, which is after staff intake and staff review is the first committee step in the subdivision or development plan review. And that is one of our toughest challenges because to lock down those folks and put them away, then they are not accessible to the citizens and developers and everybody who's in for other things. But we do our best to protect them so that they have enough time and quality time, sometimes irritating some folks, to do the research, do as we call it the detective work on each of those plans, begin to identify potential issues that are then brought to the technical committee. At the technical committee, then you have the interface, and this is on a monthly basis, of over 20 urban county government and private utility agencies, highway department, Fayette County schools, everybody who might have an interest in an issue that they would want to raise or a recommendation. And so the case goes through that filter. And then all of that is coalesced into a written recommendation, which is then presented to a subcommittee of the Planning Commission. their subdivision committee, and then goes on, that committee makes a formal recommendation, which is produced in writing, goes on the agenda, and then goes to the full planning commission hearing. As far as the technical committee, you said it meets monthly. Yes. And there are 20 entities? At least 20. At least. So you said Fayette County Public Schools, the utilities, LFUCG. Who in LFUCG is involved? What division? Engineering, traffic engineering, parks, sanitation, urban forester, traffic engineering. I think I mentioned them. Is fire involved? I know at one point they weren't. Are they now? Yes. And what would you say is the actual point of the technical committee? What's their charge? Their charge is to review and put input and to identify issues that they have with the design of that development. Recommendations that they might want to change. Sometimes you have conflicting points of view among those and part of what our job is to facilitate the conversations between the urban county government folks and also with the developer. and try to find an agreeable solution to all. So with this technical... In most cases, they do. Okay. With the technical committee, you said that, I believe you said sanitary sewers is involved, or are they? And the reason I'm asking is now that we have a consent decree, well, that's out there, and that we're doing things a little bit differently in terms of water quality. How does the water quality and the EPA issue figure into the review of a project? Bill, I mean, I'd be glad to answer that. I mean, they are represented now, I believe. We have sanitary sewers since the department changes and things. Sanitary sewers is there. I believe the Environmental Quality Office is also. Mr. Redmond? attends as well. So they are all in the room. I can't speak to how any of those individuals conduct their review and what things they think about, but they are all at the table and all are invited to make comments and recommendations on the application and Bill can explain any of the details. And like most issues in reviewing subdivision and development plans, if there is a known problem in the vicinity of the proposal, So usually those are flagged and raised as an issue that either need further study or, in some instances, need some resolution for the development to proceed at a future stage. I guess my question now will go back to some of the things that Councilmember Blues and Councilmember Myers were talking about, and I won't mention any specific zone change, but how is it that a request could come all the way through the process when the surrounding neighborhoods have, and I'm thinking of stormwater and sanitary sewer, have current existing stormwater slash sanitary sewer problems, how could a development plan get all the way through this process and not address that? When the feeling among the neighbors is that the new development will impact their sewer problems. Now you're talking about engineering standards and guidelines, and I probably should leave the podium. But generally I would say the laws say what the standards are that must be met when a property develops in terms of stormwater detention. Now we're moving more into quality, becoming more of an issue all the time, and I know that there will be more to come and more regulation on that. And on the sanitary sewer questions, I would just have to speak to, you know, I'd have to defer to Charlie Martin or somebody like that in terms of. And Mr. Rayon, our engineer, is here. The reason I ask it is because I personally and I suspect other council members find it extremely frustrating to be brought a zone change when, in fact, there are multiple existing problems in the surrounding neighborhoods that don't appear to be going to get better. I mean, this is my concern. So I'd like to hear from our chief engineer when you're... I would just comment that, and we can talk about this, the standard for development when you have, and we're seeing more and more of this because we're doing more and more infill. So we're dealing with more and more areas that were developed when there were either no standards, the old county standards, very lax standards, and so there are a lot of problems out there. the general legal standard particularly in storm drainage has always been that it would not make worse, it would not aggravate. You cannot make a developer fix what is the city's problem essentially but we can make them not make it worse. And that's, there are stacks of engineering manuals that are supposed to be the guidebook to what does or doesn't meet those criteria and that's where I have to Okay, that's fine. We have multiple folks here. And welcome. Thank you. Mr. Rayon. Again, repeating what Chris said is the development, our rule is it should not make conditions worse downstream or for the surrounding areas. when the development gets to the point where we review plans, the engineer for the developer is supposed to design it in such a way that it does not increase rate of runoff. And that's the only guarantee that we have is that it is designed, that development is designed to not make it any worse for the people downstream from them. Do you sit on the technical committee? No, but I have people from the new development section who are involved in this, and they attend those meetings. And when in this development process does engineering get the developers' engineers' report on stormwater runoff and sanitary sewer impact? At what point in the process? Okay, we're actually involved, or engineering is involved, in the implementation of that development, in the implementation phase of that development. In other words, we get the construction plans. So you don't get anything ahead of in the planning process? We're involved from the beginning, okay, and we send people to the technical committee. But as far as the review of plans, okay, we review the construction plans to make sure that everything is constructed in accordance with our rules and regulations regarding infrastructure, such as roads, storm sewers, sanitary sewers, sidewalks, et cetera, these things. And so we're involved at the end of the process, which is the building of the process. We also have inspectors that go out during the construction of that development to make sure that things are done according to those accepted plans. Okay. Mr. King, may I ask you another question related to this? over the last, say, five years, and I know this is kind of unfair, but I'm going to ask it anyway, what the heck, just a guesstimate, and I know you could give me specifics. How many in this process and going down on page two and looking at these flow charts, getting to the technical committee, How many or what percentage of development plans would you say have been rejected at this point at the technical committee level? Because something doesn't seem right. The technical committee has no authority to stop. Okay. Okay. There's a due process right that an applicant has. When they file, the laws say that within 90 days, they either get a thumbs up or a thumbs down from the Planning Commission. Okay. The technical committee has no authority to unilaterally stop that application, withdraw it. So what happens? What they do is make a recommendation. Okay. Can they recommend that the developer go back and change something? Absolutely, and they do. That's where the condition list begins. How often does that happen? Every case. The technical committee? Every case. I cannot think of a case that the technical committee just said approval, no conditions, no changes, no sign-off approvals from other agencies. I can't think of any. I administered that process. It's been many years. Does the technical committee have minutes of their meetings? No. We have no. What we do have is staff in the room when we have, we take the notes, and their recommendations Recommendations and comments are then put into the written recommendation, but we aren't staffed at the level that we could do minutes of the technical committee. And usually, to be honest with you, it used to be, it's been an evolving thing. The developer never used to come to the technical committee back in the 70s and 80s, very rarely. Usually it was just a highly technical discussion and coordination meeting between, you know, the gas company says, oh, I need to go here. The utility, the power company goes, well, I need to go there too. And then the traffic engineer says, wait a minute, I need a sidewalk there, you know, and trying to work through those kinds of things. But it's become more and more involved as the laws become more and more involved and the nature of development becomes more complex. So now the developers are there often. It is an open meeting. Anyone can come and attend. But, again, as far as having staff that we could take minutes, we're just. So if every development gets sent back, I'm looking again at this. chart from the technical committee review, is there a, is that a, the block of time between when it goes from there to the subdivision committee? I'm looking on the right right now, or it could be the left column, either one. Is there generally then a break there for the developer to go back and make the changes between the technical committee and and the subdivision committee review, is that when that happens and then it comes back with changes? It can happen. They come back with revisions. Sometimes it happens between the subdivision committee and the planning commission. It can at any of those stages. And then sometimes, you know, the applicant says, no, I just disagree with that. I'm not going to do that. And we argue it at the planning commission. Okay. But most of the cases, it is ministerial. it is technical, and usually those issues are worked out. May I comment on this flow chart that's in your package? Yes, and I have one more question about the flow chart, too. Because I think it's a good flow chart, but it's not in its proper context. This is a page from the engineering manuals, and it shows relationship between the engineering manuals, the improvement plan process, which is basically most of the things on the right side of that. And this is a pretty, this is a slice of the pie pretty far into the thing, to be honest. Okay. Well, getting back to what Mr. Rayon said, if you go down about, after the technical committee review on the right-hand side, one, two, three, the fourth block down then says, urban county engineer certifies the plan. So on what is that based? And I guess I should ask the engineer. You said Mr. Rayon, because... If in fact your job is at the construction end of things... That's why I think this flow chart is woefully inadequate to show you what really goes on. Well, if I could ask Mr. Rayon on what do you base your certification of a plan if... This is only a final subdivision plan we're talking about here. Yes. Which is a large part of things but is only dealing with a development whose product is lots, streets, and things of that nature. But, you know, this is all in the overarching question of what gets finished and what impact does it have on neighborhoods. And, you know, if this is one of the processes, I guess I just would like to know on what basis they're certified by the engineer. I think that's an excellent question. That's not my bailiwick, although I do know what the ordinance says. Right. Mr. Ray, I can talk about that and more. Just to clarify this, actually the Urban County Engineer certifies the plat. This is after the infrastructure has been completed and surety is obtained. So it's not at the... Okay, so the Planning Commission's had its hearing and the development is, this is at the platting? Yes. Point? Yeah, the very end of the... very end. Just before they start constructing homes. Okay, thank you. Now, on page four in our packet, and I think this is Mr. Wente's responses to those questions. The question was, it's about, it's the second question on page four of our packet. Should we hold developers or their engineers responsible if the manual's development plans are not being followed, and then it talks about sanctions. There's a statement about midway through the answer that says since the spring of 2005, fees in excess of $20,000 have been collected, and the success rate of collecting violations has been very positive. what does that represent that $20,000 do you see where I am yeah I see what you're saying does that does that represent one violation does that represent 20 violations what is that I'm not sure about this And how many violations have we had? Okay, this is the aggregate of all the violations, and those would be violations or citations, fines from citations for sediment erosion control plans and things like that. Okay, so is that spring of 05 until today? Yes. I mean, not today, but whenever this report was written. Mm-hmm. So that's the Infrastructure Hearing Board has heard those cases, has reviewed those, and those folks have been cited. That's correct. Okay. Is it possible for me to get a list of those at some point? Not today, but I'd like to see that. A list of all citations? Yes, I'd like to see that report if you don't mind. Sure. Okay. And then on page 7 of our packet, now this is the Appendix A Infrastructure Development Agreement. Number 8, obtain all local, state, and federal permits. Who attends to that? The Division of Engineering does. Division of Engineering. And I'm thinking of a rather high-profile case recently out off Childsburg Road. And I guess I wonder, what's the process for making sure those permits are all, where in the process is that reviewed? And how are we ensuring that they're all obtained? Before the developer is allowed to begin construction of the infrastructure, he has to submit to us all these permits, if they're required. So how, okay, how do you know if they're required? Well, the developer's engineer has to determine whether they are required or not. Now, if they are not required, they have to let us know why they're not required and have a waiver from the agency that issues those permits. For example, the Division of Water or the Corps of Engineers. We have to have a letter saying that they have been waived by these agencies. And so how often are those reviewed? Are they reviewed in any kind of a committee? or? We're supposed to get them and they'll be in our file. Are you talking about permits? What's the process? For instance, planning has a process where you said monthly you have a committee that does review. You've got your technical committee. What's the process for these sort of permits for engineering to review developments and find out whether or not the information has been submitted, the waivers have been granted? When we receive the plans, these developments are assigned to certain individuals in the new development section. That person will be responsible for making sure that all of these documents are obtained, are in the file. Okay. Do they regularly do that or do they wait for the developer's engineer to initiate that? No, we require those at the beginning, at the very beginning, and we're supposed to have them. So you proactively ask for them? Yes. Okay. You don't wait for the developer's engineer to offer it? Well, they can't start on a certain section of that development if they don't have these. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out what the process here is. And then I wanted to ask someone about the Georgetown ordinance that's on page 26 of our packet. I guess this would be a planning. Chris, is this you or who is this? this has to do with violations and how they deal with entities that are delinquent in violations and then what happens to the property can somebody speak to this ordinance come on don't be shy I'm Barry Brock. I gave Mr. Wente the information regarding this ordinance. I'm on the Planning Commission in Georgetown, so I have access to this type of information. I guess in a nutshell, the ordinance that the city of Georgetown passed was if a developer is in violation of any erosion control issues, design issues, if they owe back taxes, for example, that developer would be prohibited from having any plans reviewed or be prohibited from obtaining any permits. For any future? For any future development, yes. Okay. Now, once the developer corrected the problems or paid the fines or paid the taxes, whatever it may be that caused that prohibition to go into effect, then that would be dropped at that point. Okay. I noticed this was put into effect in 2006. Yes. Has it been used? Yes. Do you know how many times it's been, just approximately, or maybe you don't remember? I couldn't say exactly how many times it's been used. Now, the one thing you need to keep in mind is when this ordinance was enacted, you had people that would change corporation names and things like that in order to sort of get around this type of thing. So it has some loopholes, maybe. As does any ordinance, I think. Yes. Right. Good point. I was just curious about it because it is certainly one way of perhaps dealing with some of these violations. I don't know how well it would work here. And that would be something for the council to discuss, I think. but I can think of one example recently that we had in Georgetown where there was a violation because the detention basin had not been completed, and there was another application turned in for that same property, and we postponed that application until the problem was corrected. Well, the problem was never corrected, and essentially the Planning Commission denied that application. Okay, so there is a process, it seems, that works at least to some point, to some degree. Thank you very much for explaining that. Mr. Vice Chair, I think I'm finished. I'm happy to relinquish the importance of the chair. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe my questions are for Chris King. And just clarifying questions. First of all, I do recommend a complete flow chart if you're saying this is not really showing us the full process. I would recommend if you could help to maybe work with engineering and see if from the planning aspect and engineering could work together to show us really what the process is. That would be helpful. I didn't provide this response. That's okay. But I do have, and I even brought some flow charts today, but we'd be glad to do that. Sure, sure. And as Council Member Myers said, this is just discussion. I don't think there's any action today that we're looking for, but it will help add to our conversation in the future. Glad to do that. Um, do you, can a plan or has it been that plans have changed from planning commission to council? If something had to come forward from planning commission to council as with regard to zone, is the way that our statutes are written or the way that our procedure is, can a plan change that comes before council and be a different plan than the planning commission saw and that the planning staff have seen? No. If you're talking about the plan that goes with the zone change, if the planning commission approves the development plan, which on most of the zone changes it recommends approval to you on, it does, not always. That plan is signed, certified, met all conditions before the zone change comes to council. Okay. And that plan cannot be changed by the time the council is acted. But after the council acts, they can come back with final development plans or plan amendments. And we've even had cases where the planning council has said, well, we'll do it. We'll approve it. We want to tell the planning commission we want this changed in the plan. We've had that happen. This street connection will not be made. This building will not be built or something like that. And is that binding the change that happens for that zone change within council with that development plan? If we say this road will connect or will not connect, does that then follow through with the rest of the process? The planning commission will give due deference to the council's wishes, but it is not necessarily bound to do what you do. Okay. Say, in all cases. Okay. We're talking in highest percentage generalities, legal issues here. And are there different attendees or different components or members of technical committee versus subdivision committee, or are all the same divisions of government represented? At the subdivision committee, a lot of them do come, but you need to think of the subdivision committee much like the planning committee of the council. It's a subcommittee of the planning commission. Half of the members serve on that subdivision committee. Two voting members are the traffic engineer and the urban county engineer's representatives. That's correct. Still the only two voting membership that's not actually a planning commission member of the subcommittee. Okay. And is waste management part of the technical committee? Yes. Okay. What about urban forestry? Yes. Okay. Are trees considered infrastructure when you're looking at a development plan? I know Marwan mentioned something about streets and that sort of thing. Are trees considered infrastructure? Probably not considered infrastructure at this point. Okay. They are definitely viewed as site amenities. They are, sometimes if they reach a certain level, they can be designated as part of environmentally sensitive area, which kicks in a certain level of review and discussion. We have a whole tree ordinance that really governs how trees are handled that is administered by the urban forester as a part of that process. So in each case, it's reviewed in the context of the development. Okay. Okay. So let me say something through and you tell me if this is the way it is or not. So urban forestry is part of the technical committee, and they're looking at a development plan which has the appropriate number of trees there, which would represent the adequate tree canopy that should exist from the tree protection ordinance. and at what point do we know whether that happens or not? Does urban forestry go back out again once we go on through the flow chart and say, hey, yeah, everything's good to go, the tree canopy's there? Again, I can't speak to that enforcement aspect. That would be the urban foresters, whatever they do to certify it. The plan that's approved will show and will have requirements that will meet the dictates of our ordinance. Okay. And he will have signed off that he has reviewed it and sells us, yes, this combination of new trees and protection of existing trees will achieve the standards in the ordinance. We have that sign off in writing, I believe, on about every case. It's usually, I think, attended to every case. And is that on the development plan or on the construction plan? It would be on the development plan. So as far Okay, so the development plan does not indicate where utilities will need to go necessarily. It's just the drawing. Not necessarily, no. So say where the development plan indicates a tree line, and that tree line, that ends up being where all the utilities need to go. Who then says, if you know, okay, that's where all your trees were going to make your canopy, where are we going to have to revise this plan in order to get the tree canopy that's required part of the tree protection ordinance? And those kinds of processes, at least on the ones, the kinds of plans and developments that go through, are the kinds of questions that are asked and conversations that are held even at the technical committee level at the earliest stages where you have the representative of Kentucky Utilities in the room, you have the representative of the water company, the gas company, and the urban forester all there. And again, at that point, You're probably not talking how deep underground overhead, but you're talking generally what corridors, what areas are those utilities going to need to go into. And a lot of times they do work to resolve potential conflicts, make decisions about that. From your experience working with the development plans and then the actual development from your aspect, But do you feel like that there are changes that need to be made to ensure that we are adhering not only to the ordinances, but to what citizens believe are going to occur and what the intent of council during our zone changes and the planning commission and intent? Do you feel like there's a hole between the intention and what ends up being? If the bottom line is, do you think that processes can be approved? I always believe you can improve any process. And I think a lot of it has to do with education, defining the expectations, understanding the laws and standards, because you're dealing with so many conflicting things when you're trying to put together a plan, the needs of traffic, the needs of utilities, the needs of citizens, the needs of the natural environment, and all those things. And it's very, you know, it's not rockin' science, but it's very complex, and there are a lot of oftentimes conflicting, well-intended aims that all have to be massaged through that process. And, again, I always believe you can improve those with review, outside review a lot of times, and a fuller understanding of those processes. Okay. Well, I do encourage you to utilize this committee to have those discussions because it sounds like we're going to have to pursue some state changes. and I think that this is a great committee to really work and vet this process through, but we need to hear kind of the difficulties, the challenges, the potential changes, and bring people together to have that communication, make the process extremely transparent as much as we can because you've got a vast amount of knowledge that we don't even have. We just hear from, you know, our zone changes and after the zone changes. You only hear the failures. We only hear the failures. So we need to, I'd be interested in having you work with this committee on how can we advance to make sure that, you know, if we need to look at making things more strict, if we need to look at the state law and go through that and see, especially if it's just really geared towards us, it seems like we could be, we could really author that and edit that to what would serve our community best here in Lexington. We would very much enjoy having that conversation continue with this committee and anyone else. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Marwan, if I could ask you a couple of questions. and they concern your engineering standards and the manuals and how they're developed. You know, many of the things that we are seeing now that we're having to deal with in relationship to the Clean Water Act and sump pumps being connected to the sanitary serrors, gutters being conducted to or downspouts to the sanitary sores, things of that sort that were, I guess, a practice at one time and then have changed. Do we move to the minimum as these things change nationwide, or do we develop what we think are best practices that maybe go beyond that? How does that whole thing happen? And I'm sure standards vary depending upon climate. and they bury laterals a little deeper in Alaska, I'm sure, than they do in Kentucky. But how is all of that communicated, and how does that change, and do we have options to go beyond the minimum? We have, like you mentioned, our standards are in a set of books, which are called the engineering manuals. And they have set what we consider to be the minimum standard that they have to meet. Now, to go beyond that, okay, of course we encourage that, all right? Now, whether we can legally force developers to go beyond and above those minimum requirements that we have in our books, that's a question, I guess, for the law department to answer. But those standards were developed based on nationally accepted standards as far as road work is concerned, storm sewers, sanitary sewers. Those are accepted standards, and they are probably – when they were developed and accepted in 2001, there were already nationally accepted standards available. For example, road work, the AASHTO, for example, the AASHTO, which is an acceptable standard. We took some of those standards out of that and we put them in our manuals. We took certain things from the state, we put them in there, other cities and so on. There was a lot of research that was done to bring in the most accepted standards in the nation and put them in one set of rules or books. Okay. Again, we, although they, the word minimum doesn't really give it, it's not a fair thing to call them, but those are the accepted standards all over the nation. Well, you know, let's talk about a lateral. And the standard is a four-inch lateral or whatever it may be. That is correct. And we say we would like to have a six-inch, and we impose that. Can we impose that upon them? We impose it, tell them to replace a four-inch. To a developer? Well, of course, we can ask, but whether they're I mean, they can always go back and refer to the manual and say, this is what you require 4-inch, I'm going to put in 4-inch. Now, if they want to cooperate for some reason, if we have a legitimate reason for asking that then we may be able to force the issue, but if it is just some arbitrarily choose 6-inch. Well, except for the fact that over the last 40 or 50 years, the standards have progressed. And if you're always at the minimum, that means that 10 years from now, you're going to be behind. Well, again, the use of the word minimum here is misleading. It's taken into consideration future additional sewage, for example. That would be taken into consideration because Because that doesn't mean if we use a four-inch, that doesn't mean the four-inch is going to be totally filled when it is in use. Okay, there's always a safety factor or a free board that would be allowed, and it's inherent in the design. Okay, when we specify, for example, storm source, we specify a 18-inch line. That doesn't mean it's going to be full whenever it rains. Okay, there's always that safety factor that is inherent in the design. Somehow we always seem to have 100-year reigns about three times every two years. Yeah, this is beyond our control. For example, detention basins, when they're designed, there's always design freeboard with these so that the dam or the outlet is not run by runoff. One other question that involves is a curiosity I've had for some time. In some neighborhoods, you will see the sidewalks where they obviously have the mix of the concrete has been such that there's spalling going on, or it's grainier than maybe other sidewalks in other adjacent neighborhoods. And you assume that the developer cut corners somewhere along the line. How do we catch something like that? They are warranted for how long are they warranted for? Two years? Sidewalks. Part of the warranty, which is how long is that guaranteed? One year or two years? One year. Okay, we have one year, okay, to go back to the developer and have them replace that, or whoever built that sidewalk to go back and... But in most cases, it may take eight or ten years before spalling will occur. Well, at that time, I think if it has been turned over to the city, okay, then we would be responsible for it. If it goes eight years or ten years. Okay, because most homeowners feel like we impose the fact that they're responsible for the sidewalks in front of their houses. They are. Yeah. But we still would take responsibility in that case. Well, what I'm saying is we're responsible to make sure that it is done. Okay? In other words, code enforcement, if there is a broken sidewalk or a spoiler, or if it is a hazard to the public, then code enforcement enforces the rule for sidewalks. But we do know interim inspection. We're pouring sidewalks today, and somebody will go out and inspect to see what the mix looks like? Our inspectors are there to make sure that it is done right. Now, if weather conditions are such that they're going to damage the sidewalk in the future, there's no guarantee there. But we have inspectors on the job. looking at these things yes okay thank you councilmember blues thank you chair I do have one crest question for for Chris the in a recent I'm familiar with the recent procedure in which there was an application for his own change which the staff in making its recommendation to the Planning Commission recommended postponement because of anticipated stormwater problems. Now did staff get that information on which they based their recommendation from technical committee proceedings? I'll have to ask Mr. Salih where the origin of our knowledge of that. And I'm afraid I don't know which particular case you're referring to. There's not one that comes to my mind either that isn't automatic, but most likely that would have arisen at the time of the technical committee and been carried through the subdivision committee and perhaps even on to the planning commission. My question would be then, the issue came up in technical committee presumably, and And yet the applicant continued with the application, you know, brought it to the Planning Commission. Yeah. And staff says, you know, let's hold off on that. And so is that? It's part of our burden in that we have no authority as a staff to unilaterally stop an application for whatever reason. Once the applicant has filed, they are on a track to be heard by the Planning Commission on a certain date, and they will be guaranteed to be on that docket and be heard regardless of the state of their application, whether there are problems associated with it. And then our duty is to, of course, argue, make our best decision. Usually the zoning issue you wouldn't have tied directly to storm drainage. I'm trying to think of what case that might be. Usually that might be the development plan associated with that zoned application. Quite often there may be issues or concerns that we would have, but usually the actual rezoning itself doesn't result in a problem or an exacerbation of a problem. That's exactly right. But I don't want to get into the specifics of that. Sure, yeah. We can talk about that. For obvious reasons. But what I think this does illustrate is how crucial the technical subdivision committee processes are because we're going to really rely on the staff input as the planning commission would as well in making decisions about whether an application should be heard, approved. Yes. Again, we make our recommendations, and frankly, postponement recommendations are the toughest for us because we don't know whether the Planning Commission will agree with that recommendation, so we always joke about what we have to have up our sleeve in case we go and say, please postpone, and they say no. a lot of times it may be that the neighbors have come down. You know, they've already taken off work. They don't want it postponed. So, you know, those kinds of things happen. But it's part of what we deal with as professionals. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Blues. Are there other council members with questions or any motions? Council Member Blues? Thank you. If there's no further discussion at this juncture, I do have a couple of motions. Okay. To make one, I would move to ask the internal auditors to expedite the engineering audit. So moved. Do I hear a second? I second it. Okay, there's a motion on the floor and a second to ask the internal audit folks to expedite the engineering audit. Is there discussion? I presume you're thinking that would be information that could be used in this discussion. Absolutely. Okay. Any discussion of the motion? Council Member Beard? I guess I need to know a little bit more about what the audit department qualifications for doing an engineering audit. Okay. The motion came from Stormwater Oversight, as reported last week, that the Stormwater Oversight Committee asked the internal auditors to perform an engineering audit. As you know, that won't be a financial audit. Right. And so I'm presuming that you think, do you want to explain what you're thinking? I think that we want to address the process, I think, in two areas. A, before we get to the Planning Commission, as in the example I just cited, and also in the aftermath of Planning Commission approvals and Council approvals as well. So having as much information that we can, as soon as we can, we can move our discussions, deliberations, and conclusions forward. And I guess my question might be that under those circumstances, maybe an outside consultant would be more equipped to do the right kind of job we'd want. Well, it's my understanding the internal audit board has already met and agreed to put engineering on slings. That's fine, but I guess my further question might be that maybe there's going to be another step after that. Oh, that possibly could be. We never know what the future steps will be, do we? Okay. Any other discussion of the motion? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That motion has passed, and I will communicate that information to the Internal Audit Board. and then I see Mr. Blue's hand again. Madam Chair, I'd also move that we request the Law Department to draft an ordinance similar to the one we looked at to which you referred to the Georgetown ordinance on page 26 of our packet. Okay, do I hear a second? That would be for discussion purposes. Yes. So there's a motion with a second to ask law to draft an ordinance similar to that of Georgetown, as noted in our packet on page 26, and that draft ordinance would be for discussion at a future meeting, at the next meeting. Is there any discussion of that? Yes. Yes, Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to, I don't know if the law department would need to do this or if our staff would need to take care of this, but I'm interested in the loopholes that Georgetown has found with their ordinances and if we could address that before or in conjunction with the law department's draft. Okay. Thank you. Very good. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Also, if we could ask the law department to include in there the language that Councilman Stenet and I talked about with respect to development plans. And the conversation we had with Chris King about how to tighten that up. Councilmember Blues, do you want to amend your motion to include that? Councilmember Myers is not a member of the committee, so unfortunately he can't amend. This is an inclusive motion, and I would certainly accept Council Member Myers' suggestions, as well as Council Member James. Okay, so specifically, what are we looking for in that ordinance to give law some guidance? Chris, could you come up? The discussion we had earlier about development plans and tightening up whether we do it by zoning restrictions or just tighten up that law so that when the development plans are looked at we can more formalize. I know you said you don't want to make the law where that you can't have any change to development plan once it's passed. But there are ways to maybe tighten that up. None of them come to mind to me. I mean, you have a very specific motion. Let me just comment. Very specific motion. Model something on the Georgetown ordinance. Try to avoid the loopholes where people create different partnerships and the same people come to you under a different name is, I guess, what Barry was talking about and finding a way if there is to create that loophole. The other issue is is much more broader and less difficult to pin down, more difficult, excuse me, to pin down. I don't know what I could advise law at this point to put in that draft ordinance. I think it's a good topic to explore, and I think you should. You may want to separate that as another motion and perhaps ask us to put, Let's see if we can put a range of at least just some rough ideas on the table to bring back to you that then you could have a conversation about That would be satisfactory rather than trying to actually draft an ordinance and we really don't know what direction we want to go I think it's a great idea however I'm not a member of the committee so I look for somebody else to make that motion Yes, thank you That's an excellent recommendation I think So councilmember Bluce what does your motion entail right now? We'll move back to my original motion. Okay. Which is to ask the law department to draft an ordinance. An ordinance similar to or on the model of the Georgetown ordinance. All right. And which would note and attempt to deal with loopholes in that ordinance. And that would be for discussion purposes. Okay, very good. Any other discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Anyone opposed? All right. And we have two legal eagles here who will carry that back, I'm hoping, to the law department. And then is the request to ask planning to bring back some recommendations that we could consider for closing some of it, for tightening up the process? Okay, very good. All right. Now, with that said, it's 1235, and I appreciate everyone's patience, including the people in the audience and our staff. The council members are going to take a 12-minute break. How's that sound? Do you want to make it 15? 15. I hear 15. This is going to be a recess. We're not going to adjourn. So we will be back here to start with the mobile home issue on page 40 of the packet in 15 minutes, which will be 10 to 1. Thank you so much. We'll be back. Let's see. We have a quorum. So at this point, the planning committee will address the issue of mobile home park quality of life, which starts on page 40 of the packet. And Council Member James brought this to committee. So if you want to go ahead and do a brief introduction, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. Within the packet, pages 40 through 42 is a draft ordinance, which we'll be discussing, but I wanted to bring your attention to pages 43 and 44. And that is actually, those two pages are the subcommittee meeting minutes. We have had two subcommittee meetings dealing in particular with the proposed draft ordinance that is included in the packet. And I wanted to be sure to include our discussion so that you know the committee was really asking some good questions, and we did thorough review of the ordinance. There was an ordinance prior to this draft. We had one that we reviewed on July the 28th, which is referenced, and then on September the 11th, there was a slightly revised version, which was reviewed and answered to from some of the folks that are here with us today. So at this time, I will just refer to the folks that are here that have been part of the relocation group, working on behalf of the mayor's office to answer some concerns of relocation and let them tell you a little bit about the history of how they came to be and what this ordinance is intended to do. Okay, and I think it's my understanding that Keith Horn from Law and Cheryl Talbert and they're fine. Maybe Paula King. We'll see. Welcome. Thank you. We'll start out with the history. The BUILD organization, I'm not sure if you all are familiar with that particular group, but it's a group in town that tackles issues in the community that they feel like need to be addressed. And one of the issues that they took on was they wanted to look at mobile home parks and what happens to individuals if those parks are redeveloped or rezoned. So they had their meeting on back in April. There were over 1,000 people that came out for that meeting, And they charged urban county government, particularly the mayor, with developing an ordinance that would protect individuals in redeveloped and rezoned areas. After that meeting, there was a group of internal individuals that got together from social services, from law, from planning, and from building inspection and community development that sat down and had some intense discussions on how we could meet what the request from BUILD was. and we continue to involve build in this process throughout as we developed our ordinance and had discussions with them. And so what you have in front of you is the final document that we developed on behalf of what our obligations were for the group. And after meeting with the Mobile Home Park Quality of Life Subcommittee as well. So, yes, Council Member Jones. I was just going to say that I believe, and the other members of the subcommittee can tell me or tell us if it's different, but I believe that we pretty much approve of the ordinance in this current revised draft. Some of the questions that came up, as you'll see reference, have to do with funding, and we talked a lot about funding, and there may be some, an identified source of funding. I've seen an email come forward that someone may want to speak on today. But as far as I know, as chair of the subcommittee on mobile home parks, we were in agreement with this ordinance, with the proposal. Thank you. We have some council member questions. We'll start with Dr. Stevens. Thank you. I interpret this ordinance it really applies to any tenant of any kind of structure and not just to Pre-manufactured housing. That's correct And what is the current is there an appropriation in this year's budget? I didn't Have a chance to check out the budget for this kind of take it or program. No But you do have relocation funds don't you in the social services? We do have relocation funds, but those are specifically related to condemnations that are brought on by actions from code enforcement. This is a totally separate program from that. But this could apply to condemnation too? No. No. Just for redevelopment or rezoning. Change in use of property. Why couldn't you change the other ordinance for relocation funds to be more inclusive? Those funds are very limited as is, and we utilize all of those funds. And I think with the fact that code enforcement is more aggressive in their work now, we're seeing more and more uses of the relocation funds. So that certainly wouldn't encompass what we're trying to accomplish here. This is something totally separate from that. So there will be two relocation funds then? Yes. One for houses or structures that are condemned and one for this particular purposes, these particular purposes. Yes. For people who are displaced from affordable housing, low-income housing, because of changes in zoning, changes in redevelopment, or change in use of property. And do you foresee this to apply to mobile homes too? Yes. It's written specifically to apply to mobile homes. Are there any pending to be rezoned? I don't think so. So how do you see it'll be, if it's not pending, why do you need anything now? Because we're trying to be proactive in our approach. What we saw with the Ingleside development, that was what sparked a lot of interest in something being developed to assist individuals. And so I think as you'll read through the ordinance, we've got a lot of proactive approaches put in there. Planning and zoning has even added a few questions to their application process to kind of give us a heads up as to what's going on in the community so we're not caught behind the eight ball trying to scramble and assist people in crisis. But Ingleside was a condemnation action? No, it wasn't. It wasn't? It was a rezoning. Oh, okay. Well, I think it's a good idea just to specialize appropriations by ordinance for problems sometimes. Thank you. Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Chair. As a member of the committee, I, with my colleagues, we worked through this couple of drafts of this ordinance, and I think it's a very progressive step to assist people who are suddenly find themselves displaced by the sort of thing we had with Ingleside. I do have some questions still about Section 5107. And the first one, I guess, is how we read the first sentence, subject to the availability of funds, the LFUCG shall appropriate at least $50,000 annually to the relocation assistance program for tenants. How the availability of funds, how is that determined? I mean, don't we usually determine availability, so to speak, in the budget-making process? In other words, don't we determine whether those funds would be available within the budget that we craft? My question then is, that's what availability would refer to? It can't refer to something else. I think ultimately you are correct. Council decides whether or not funds are available for the program. The intent is to demonstrate the Council's intent to fund this program as indicated in Section 5107 of the ordinance. Now we cannot pass an ordinance that would say the Council will absolutely and without failure allocate X amount. You could but as with any ordinance you can amend it at any time or any future council could amend it at any time. So you'd still be determining whether or not the funds are available. It would take an extra step for you to in a particular year amend the ordinance and say this year we're not going to put funds into this program but it could be done. So I'm just wondering if this is the best wording for referencing the funding since we do determine whether we're going to budget it or not. I just don't know the answer to that question, but I think it's probably one that we ought to discuss. Thank you. Councilmember Crosby. Thank you Chair. My question also revolves around section 5107 and Dr. Blee asked one of my questions, but I guess going to just any ordinance that we have, do we have any ordinance besides the economic contingency fund that would require us to put a specific amount of money into a fund. Can you name any other ordinances that we have? Nothing comes to my mind. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but I'm not aware of any. And then I believe Council Member James had stated that there might be something that comes before us regarding some of the budget questions. Can you please, do you know, Andrea, what that was regarding? Because I have questions about when I read through the minutes, the same things that Councilmember Senate did. You know, if we pass this ordinance, you know, midway through the year, when will the funding start and where is it going to come from? Do we have that information? If you're talking about in reference to this particular one and passage of this this year prior to the next fiscal year, is that what you're talking about? Yes. There is a proposal coming forward. The UDAG funding, which is an item in budget and finance, and we dealt with, I don't know, for the streetscape, and they got the 1.4. There is a potential to use $50,000. There's a proposal to use $50,000 towards funding this, which would be a qualified UDAG project with some remaining UDAG funds. that would be for this if this were to go into effect prior to the next fiscal year. And that's just a possibility. Yeah, it's a proposal. Okay, thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Back to 5-107. As a practical matter, what I would see would be that as funds are built up, and let's say theoretically it gets to $100,000, that all of a sudden we may find that the $50,000 appropriation funds won't be available because the council will choose to use that $50,000 somewhere else and we'll be able to fall back on the fact that, well, there's $100,000 there and we've built it up and we haven't been using it, obviously, So why build it to $200,000 and kind of cut the legs out from under that whole process as a practical matter? Is there any way to stop that, Keith, as far as mitigate the possibility of what I'm sure is going to happen? Again, I think if you prefer this to say that you will make this a problem, appropriation annually, it can say that. Now as I said, any council sitting in the future could amend it. Sure, could amend it and take it away, yeah, that's right. I can probably make this reflect nearly anything you want to do as long as it's legal. So if you prefer to make this less qualified, I can do that. I can make it a mandatory appropriation. We can change and part of the reason why the amount of the fund building up was built into the ordinance was the very reason that you're talking about is that after it reaches a certain level it is likely that council members would think well do we need to put any more money in there this year. So that the idea being that for this council or future councils when it reaches, if it reaches a certain level then it has a built in release valve on it so that you can, you and decide not to appropriate that $50,000 into that. And my guess is that somebody will utilize their own release valve prior to the $200,000 being obtained is what I'm guessing. And, you know, we never know what's coming around the corner, and we may need $200,000 at some point. We may need more than $200,000 for that matter. but I guess you have to pick a number somewhere and 200,000 is as good as any but it will be interesting in the future to see how that actually plays out thank you Councilmember Blues would you take the chair yet another added responsibility yes please just for a short while because I want to be sure I my comments are not as chair I first want to thank you all and thank Councilmember James because I think that being proactive on this kind of situation is really important and we got caught behind the eight ball so to speak on the situation that did happen with the mobile home park and so I really am I'm very supportive of the work that you have done. In Section 5-105, I liked especially the Section Part B under there. It seems to me that the $1,000 limit, at least right now, would go a fair amount toward these sorts of expenses that people probably can't afford just right out of the blue. And I like that you make these payments directly to the vendors. I really applaud you for bringing this to us. My only concern is what other council members have expressed in that section 5-107. I'm not sure why we need the first sentence. and I'm actually I would be supportive of voting to put money in the budget during budget hearings I think it's potentially very problematic that we would mandate by law when we don't mandate storm water money we don't mandate street and road resurfacing we don't mandate parks money We don't mandate any of our other of those sorts of issues in terms of mandating an amount. So I want to ask you what the discussion was centering around that, because I noted in the minutes from July that number Section 7 discussion, this is on page 43, went directly to this question. Someone apparently made a comment that we cannot commit a future council, that social services should be responsible for submitting their annual budget request. So how, with that sort of discussion, how did it come about that this first sentence is in there? Can you give me some highlights on that? I think that when this was originally drafted, the first draft we ever went through, it was mandatory. a mandatory appropriation. After some of the council members looked at it with the question of do you want to commit future councils, what we tried to do was qualify it, put some qualifying language in to say subject to the availability of funds, you're going to make this appropriation each year. So that's how that particular language came about. The idea of a mandatory or an annual appropriation to the fund is that you don't end up in another situation where you have a major redevelopment or major change in use of property and you have a lot of people who are displaced from low income housing with no funds available from the rest of the government to assist those people with relocating and finding affordable. How is this different from other programs that we have in social services to assist low-income families and low-income folks. We don't mandate those funds be put in the budget, or we don't say they are shall, they shall be appropriated by ordinance. How is this different that we would want to put that we... You mean in a legal aspect? Yes. It's not. Okay. It's not. It's the working with the civic organization that was pushing for this type of program. they wanted to make sure that it wasn't a program that existed for one year or two years, that it existed for a long time, that it would be around to help people when they needed it in future years. The only way to probably come close to guaranteeing that would be that there is an annual appropriation to that fund. It can be handled just like every other social services program, which is it's presented in a budget request yearly as every other program, if that's how you as a council want to deal with it. Well, I think the rest of this section is really good. I mean, it's not that the first sentence isn't good. I'm not trying to say that. I'm just looking at how we put together the annual budget. And I think if somewhere in here it could say the goal is, rather than saying LFUCG shall appropriate, instead, you know, go at it from the goal is to have X amount of funds annually appropriated, and then the rest of this sets forward how it can remain in the program and how it shouldn't disappear into other funds and that sort of thing, that would protect it. The only part I have a real problem with is saying that we shall appropriate, because other than the Rainy Day Fund, our economic contingency fund, we don't do that by ordinance. And I think if we start doing it, it will lead to potentially all kinds of requests to put in ordinance amounts of funding. And I see that as problematic. And if that's the change that you want, that's easy enough to make. I mean, if we set a goal, then other councils would have to look at that and say, oh, well, the goal is this. But it would be also incumbent upon social services to request the money, just like every other division and every other year. It's just my opinion. So I'll wait to hear others if Council Member Blues gives me back the chair. I'll gladly return it to you. Thank you. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. just to clarify a little bit of what, of why I supported it in the current language. And it had to do with during our council links, we often, you know, are kind of grabbing at straws at how much to give towards particular things. And a lot of time that's based on, you know, what the director tells us or the previous year, that sort of thing. And I think for this first go around, this is a good approximate. If I think about how many folks were relocated out of Ingleside, I believe that this amount would have been adequate to cover. So I think we needed to have a starting point. I do agree with you that the reasoning and intent does need to be clear, and I think that should be clear on all of our ordinances. And I think I would support something, some kind of language such as in order to, I don't know, fill in the blank, it is recommended that this amount of money be appropriated for relocation. I think it's important to clarify and not get this too mixed in with what Cheryl's camp does on a regular, everyday basis, because just as Dr. Stevens referenced, well, doesn't your office get money for relocation already? We don't want it lumped in. It definitely needs to state that this is, in particular, dealing with relocation due to redevelopment and rezoning. So I think it's important for us as a city, as infill and redevelopment is one of the most happening things right now in our city. this may end up dwindling down at some point. So 10 years from now, you know, if something changes with the way that we develop our city, the infill and redevelopment, the pressure in the urban service boundary may not be as great. We may not have the land to redevelop, nor the need to redevelop within a certain area, which is now zoned something different. So I'm fearful for, and now I just thought of another thing. If we lump this somehow with what social services does, and they get a line item, and we add this to whatever they get now, I don't even know, but say they get $50,000 now, we lump this $50,000 in with it, then when we're looking at the budget, it looks like they get $100,000. And we don't necessarily know what that's used for. And if every year they come back and they're asking for the same amount of money or even a growing number, if this is not separated, that this is used for development purposes and relocation of development or rezonings, then we stand the risk of not being clear there. So I think it's important that as we have purposes in government that we allocate and appropriate for those purposes and have specific agendas. That way we can monitor and see how we're doing. We'll know how many people are going to Cheryl's in need of application of this ordinance. And we'll know if we do a separate line item, how much will be for this particular one, how it's being utilized, what we need to do to assist those residents, and the types of developments that are happening. So I think it's important for us to define it. I do agree that the language could be a little bit different, and I'm hearing what everyone's saying. And I would be open to changing that subject to phrase that's there. But I think it's very important that we clarify that this is in particular for relocation due to redevelopment or rezoning. And be sure that we in our minds and that we in our language of our law make that clear for future counsel. Thank you. Councilmember Crosby. I understand completely what you're saying about this being a relocation based on infill development or rezoning, but we're still basing it on the fact that it's any person whose family income is no more than 40% of the median income, and we're also offering financial assistance, which is done through your office. So my question relates going back to this came up as a result of an issue we had with this relocation of infill and development with Eagle Side. During the budget process, did social services consider asking for a line item in the budget to handle these situations in case an ordinance did not pass? And we were already aware of this problem. Was it even discussed during the budgeting process to try and ask the council for money for these types of situations? We didn't ask for it in the budgeting process, but it was certainly on our minds. And what we wanted to do was work with the entities within government that handle these situations to make sure that we're all communicating and we're all on the same page to get an understanding of how it actually happened and how the process actually works when somebody presents to redevelop and rezone. So no, we didn't, but it was certainly on our minds, but we thought it would be best to discuss with individuals on how this actually happens and takes place, because if we're coming forth to ask for something, we certainly need the support of others and have to have the data to support the need for it. Can you administer the program without an ordinance? No. You cannot administer this program without the ordinance. You cannot distribute funds. You cannot find out who's in financial need without an ordinance. The programs that we administer now is specifically for emergency financial assistance because people have lost their income for some reason or another. This ordinance is separate from that. It's because an action is being taken and they don't have the means or the ability to be able to move or relocate. I may have a follow-up question in a second. Council Member, Dr. Stevens. Thank you. I'm certainly in sympathy with this effort, and I think it's necessary and would be an improvement over what it has been. But I, too, share the misgivings about mandatory appropriations and ordinance for separate programs. So I would move approval that the committee endorse and approve this ordinance. but with the amendment that subject to the availability of funds, the LFUCG may appropriate at least $50,000 annually and so on and so forth with that paragraph. So I have a motion. Do I hear a second? I have a motion and a second. And the motion is to approve this ordinance as written with the one change in Section 5-107 that would say subject to the availability of funds, the LFUCG may appropriate. So substituting may for shall. So the motion is on the floor, and the floor is open for discussion. Council Member Blues, Dr. Blues. Thank you, Chair. I see the point of this motion. If Dr. Stevens hadn't made that motion, I was going to suggest that another wording, which would be, I didn't mean to set this in concrete, but to suggest that the law department consider a wording similar to the following. So that Section 5107 would begin something like, because the central purpose of this ordinance is to create a fund that will be available to meet emergency relocations due to development and redevelopment. Funds appropriated to the program shall remain available to it in subsequent fiscal years. And that would get around the problem of specific amounts and would also address the issue of making sure that this, you know, that it's a designated fund. It's separate from the emergency relocations due to condemnation. So that's, I don't know if I want to tag that onto your motion, but I would. Do you mind reading that one more time, please, Herr Professor? Now remember that I was... As food for thought. This would be a suggestion that the Law Department work along the lines of this wording similar to it. Because the central purpose of this ordinance is to create a fund that would be available in advance in emergency relocations due to development and redevelopment, comma, any funds budgeted to the program shall remain available to it in subsequent fiscal years. That would be the idea. But you're not making a motion to amend. No, I'm saying that this is what I would have recommended if Dr. Stevens had not made his motion. Okay, thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you. I'm still struggling a little bit with getting to the $200,000 level. This is not going to be an actual fund, is it? A separate fund? like the urban services fund and all the various sanitary sort of fund do you have the capability to carry money over or does it if it's not used at the end of June does it just not drop into fund balance and has to be reappropriated from scratch I don't think I know the answer to that I think that if you put it in the ordinance that it probably impacts the general way that that operates to say that this money is going to remain in this particular account, fund, line, however. Is there any other parallel in government where that would do that? You mean from like a general fund account? Yeah. Which is a specified... Where we can carry it over without having to go through the reappropriation process? I think I may be able to answer that. Okay, let's find anybody who can. I'm thinking I didn't have any capital funds that rolled over from when capital funds were available for council members in their particular districts. Right. Those rolled over and stayed in those same. They were reappropriated. So there is a process, but they are for that particular purpose, and I'm not sure what the process is. They are reappropriated, though. You have to go through the reappropriation process for what's already there, what's left over, in other words. And then if you want to add to it, that's another process on top of that. Yeah. So there's two steps that have to happen. Yeah, we can take those. To build that up to some number above 50,000. Yeah. And this may not be a problem. I don't know. I just think it's another opportunity for somebody to take a shot at it, to be perfectly honest, and in future councils, and not reappropriate the money that was left over from the previous year. Well, I have a comment about this. In this Section 5107, it does say, I mean, the intent, I think, is with this any funds appropriated to the program shall remain available to the program in subsequent fiscal years. that assumes it would be reappropriated. Does it not? No. I would certainly think so. Will you get close to the microphone, Keith, please? Any dedicated fund is created by statute or ordinance. And that's where I'm struggling with the question about the reappropriation of funds. Fundamentally, I think you're correct. If it's not a dedicated fund, then it will have to be reappropriated. What I have not done is talk to budgeting about this. So the other thing I want to say about this language is if I think I understand what you're saying about the beginning of this paragraph. And if you all trust me, I will work with that and change it to reflect, I think, what you're saying. I am asking for your trust. Yeah. Well, I've got no problem with that. And you can incorporate the changes. I just don't think this is a finished project process on this one item. And I guess that's just kind of the feeling of the whole group, maybe. Well, there. These are just a little bit more work. There is a motion on the floor to accept the ordinance as written with that one change of May, shall to May, in Section 5107. So is there any more discussion about the ordinance, the motion, Dr. Stevens? Yes. I think there's a good deal of confusion here about what we want to do in paragraph 5-107, and I would move that we table this until the next planning committee meeting so that the law department, the budget department, and other appropriate entities can make their comments and we can work out new wording for this that will be acceptable. So there's a motion on the floor to table this discussion until law can meet with budgeting and come back with some reworking. All those in favor, that's a non-debatable motion. In favor, pardon me? It was seconded. Yes, it was. Council Member Ellinger seconded it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Thank you very much, and we'll look forward to you bringing that back to us. Thank you, Councilmember James. And then, so moving right along, our next issue is the electrical inspector's fee schedule, and the documentation starts in the packet on page 45. and So council members you have the background here, so I Trust that you've read this documentation and we'll have a brief introduction by Councilmember McCord who brought this into committee, and then we'll move forward Thank you madam chair. I'm going to have Mr. Steven Vickroy give the background to this basically was approached as as this item has been something that has set out there for a number of years and was wanting to be relooked at as far as the fee schedule, and so that's why we're here today. And so if you would, Mr. Vicroy, would you please let folks know where we've come from and where we are today? Thank you, Mr. McCorn, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. Just briefly, I wrote you all a letter. Excuse me. Some of the council members wondered who you are. Oh. I am a local attorney. I practice law here in town. And the electrical inspector, Commonwealth Inspection Bureau, is a client of mine. And you are Mr. Steve Vickroy. Stephen Vickroy, yes. Thank you. My apologies, Madam Chair. No problem. And in that letter, I kind of attempted to bring this situation to light for you. Over the past 15 years or so, this ordinance has governed electrical inspections. Since 1998, I believe that these have been performed solely by one single company for Fayette County. Unfortunately, this ordinance is adopted and can only be changed through the legislative process with this Urban County Council. And obviously, it has only been changed once in the past 15 years. As you know, costs have increased tremendously. Just the fuel alone in the past six months has been an unbelievable burden. And I'm sure this council has obviously seen that. So with that in mind, actually my client, Marshall Jones, Jr., the president of the company, has been attempting to try and bring this matter to the council's attention for quite some time. But unfortunately, due to some other circumstances beyond everybody's control, This matter has been stopped before it got to this level. And I am happy to note one of the reasons why it had been stopped before was because of a lawsuit that had involved the actual bid process for these services. That lawsuit has now been resolved by the Kentucky Court of Appeals. It has not been taken to the Supreme Court, so that matter is now final. The bid that the urban county government sent out a request for proposal on and awarded the contract has been upheld. There was nothing wrong with it. So with that, Commonwealth Inspection Bureau has obviously brought this matter to the attention of the committee for its consideration. In the documents that I provided to you, you're going to see in Exhibit 1 the existing ordinance and in Exhibit 2 the new proposed ordinance. You're going to see, unfortunately, some increases in prices. And also, I want to bring your attention to the fact that some prices will not increase. increase. As you look at that exhibit, some of the larger contract electrical jobs that are performed here in Fayette County, some of those inspection fees would be the same under the existing ordinance as they would be under the prior ordinance. We're not going to deny the fact that these increases are probably larger than what you would have expected to see in certain circumstances. The fact of that matter is these fees have not been changed since 2001, I believe was the last time and the only time this statute was amended in the past 15 years. and hopefully now that I brought this matter and my client has brought this matter to the attention of the committee we might hopefully in the future be able to bring this if there is a need for this increase in the future that we bring it to the attention of this committee and the urban County Council in a more frequent and in a less, I guess, severe increase request, perhaps tied to changes in the National Electrical Code, which happen I believe every three years. That might be more appropriate. The situation that we face today is both economic conditions, which have resulted obviously and less construction as well as increased costs have made this fee schedule jeopardize the quality of the services that we are getting. And with that, they could jeopardize that because Commonwealth Inspection Bureau has to maintain contract requirements in the bid proposal. And to continue to do that and to meet those service requirements and to then cover the costs that are involved, maintaining a fee structure that is based on pre-2001 costs as well as pre-2001 economic conditions is getting to the point where Commonwealth Inspection Bureau's services may suffer. We do not want that to happen because it is the safety of the citizens that are protected by these services. And so with that we have proposed the new ordinance. We have given you some examples in Exhibit 3 and Exhibit 5 of some, just some minor and major electrical inspection services both in Fayette County under the old and the new ordinance in Exhibit 3 and then in Fayette County versus other counties in Exhibit 5. Mr. Vicroy, I wonder if you would speak to, before we have Councilmember questions, to how the proposed price on page 59, these are the, I believe these are the current Fayette County prices and the proposed prices. I noticed that some of the proposed are higher than Louisville, which is on page 79. So I wonder if you could explain for us how these were determined. Well, I will ask Mr. Jones to speak to that. But with respect to each of those, they looked at the components that were involved, both the cost of individual circuit inspections versus prices that involve actual trips to it. So, Sandy, if you will, come on out. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Well, to start with Louisville, and Louisville, they have their in-house inspector. Would you mind standing right in front of the microphone? Thank you. And will you state your name again, please? Marshall Jones. Marshall Jones. Thank you. Louisville employs their own electrical inspector. The city of Louisville? That is correct, ma'am. Thank you. That is correct. They're not a private entity. And I don't know how they came up with their price, ma'am. we requested that this is, I don't know, it's a few months old that this price schedule is from all these counties. And since that time, Georgetown and Franklin County have called me wanting a copy of ours because they were going to put a proposal up to get a price increase also. and ma'am I just did a price schedule from their price fee there on these jobs and I cannot answer how they come up with that price. I don't know. I don't know if that answered the question or not. Okay. On the page 56 of our packet, Mr. Vickroy, this is Exhibit 2, stated, I believe these are the proposed fees. So who actually came up with these? I did. Oh, you did? Yes. Okay. Yes. Oh, okay. All right. Council members, do you have any questions? Council member James. I do have a question. Thank you for coming. Yes. In the packet, we have several letters that you sent to government asking for an increase. Have you received any responses in writing? I have not. Not. Have you received any responses verbally? I have. And what were those responses, what were they saying over the packet? Because that's a large leap to go, but it's from seven years of trying to get the request fulfilled. The last verbal response I got was from Mr. Kelly. I sent it in. Which Mr. Kelly? I'm sorry. Non-Kelly. Okay. I'm sorry. And I got no response. I called Mr. Crow and asked him would it be appropriate if I tried to set up a meeting to come to his office, Mr. Kelly's office, and he'd think it would. So I did. Mr. Kelly, they set up an appointment. And I went in, sit down and talked with him, and he just verbally told me, he said, you know, there's nothing I can do for you. He said, you need to redo it, maybe take it to the council yourself, because he just thought the timing was wrong. Okay. But you had not sat down with anyone prior, because that was either this year or last year, if you spoke with Don Kelly. So previous to that, from 2001 to 2007, you've never spoken with any, come in and talked with anybody about it? No, other than doing crop. Okay. Did you have something to add? I could, Council Member. There's a section in my cover letter where I discuss the previous efforts. Okay. Okay, we just wanted to go through that just briefly to show that, you know, there had been some efforts made. and some of them were cut short so that the efforts that you had questions about probably were decided that they would not be successful even if they followed through after a first letter and a phone call. Okay. So with that, we weren't here to point fingers or anything, just to let you know that we got cut short and Mr. Jones did not know exactly how to tackle the issue. Right. And I'm not asking you to point fingers. I was only asking for clarification of just the process, because it does seem like this could be an internal process that could be handled without coming to committee, maybe. So that's the only thing I needed clarification on. But, yeah, other than the letters and the phone calls and in that one individual discussion, I believe that's been it. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Blues. Thank you. So I can certainly understand that over the years, prices are going to go up and certainly our list ought to be re-evaluated. I'm wondering whether there is within government an entity that would have the expertise that I think all of us lack to be able to say, is the proposed list here, is that a fair increase, fair price range that the customers will be getting good value for their money? Maybe Dewey, you could answer that question, you know, whether within the urban county government there is sort of, you know, whether your shop or another would. To the best of my knowledge, purchasing would probably be more in a position to determine if prices such as that it affects services were appropriate or not. Our only method is to compare what's being proposed or what we currently have with other jurisdictions. And we've done that. I did that initially when Mr. Jones first brought this forward just to see where his initial proposals were falling. At that time, just in a general survey of contacting Louisville and adjoining counties and cities within Kentucky, just to see what kind of pricing structures they have. And what he was proposing fell pretty much in line, I felt, with what the other jurisdictions were asking, that we were under, significantly under them in some cases, and certainly weren't charging what appeared to be the market level for that type of service. But other than that, I don't have any more definitive method. And again, if anybody does, it would probably be a division of purchasing. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that what we've heard is that there have been numerous attempts to try and meet with the right people and do this the right way and certainly try to adjust fees accordingly since 2001. and what I would like to do is just make a motion if I can to have the administration meet with these gentlemen and come back to this committee in the next 30 days with their recommendations as to what we should do. I have a motion and a second to ask the administration to meet with you all to come up with some sort of recommendation and bring that back to us at the next meeting, that would be. Okay. Is there any discussion on the motion? No discussion? All right. Those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion passes. So I'm looking at Mr. Crow, if you will carry that message forward, and then this committee will take up the recommendation that you bring forward to us after meeting. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is number four item is penalties and fines for zoning ordinance violations. And this information starts on page 97 of the packet. and it's also actually in the earlier information when we discussed development plan adherence. So Council Member Henson, I was about to give you a new last name, Council Member Henson brought this forward to the committee. Do you want to say a brief introduction and then we'll hear from staff? Welcome. Thank you. Excuse me. I met with the staff of the law, building inspection and planning over some issues my constituents or concerns my constituents had. And the answer that I received was we really couldn't do anything. So I still wanted to bring that before the planning committee to be examined further. And I can go into more detail if you'd like. Well, I think that we might hear from our planning folks first. Okay. And then we'll get into the nitty-gritty. How does that sound? Thank you. Okay. Mr. Chris King who's been with us since 11 from my end of this it really just talks about the zoning ordinance and the penalties that appear in the zoning ordinance the civil penalties for any violation of the zoning ordinance the maximum fines are set by state law in KRS chapter 100 So a local government like the urban county government does not have a lot of leeway in terms of how those are addressed. So that's basically my report on that aspect of it. Our zoning ordinance has kind of a graduated proposal or, pardon me, graduated fine schedule for any violation of the zoning ordinance. But as you can see, the maximum is up to $500 per day. No court jurisdiction to any of our knowledge has ever imposed those kinds of maximum fines because, as I understand it, and you really need to hear from the enforcement folks, but I was at the meeting that Council Member Henson had as well, that each day is a separate offense. You have to process that as a separate matter. So what we find, and I'm sure Mr. Crowe could speak to this better than I, is that the penalties, having not been changed in well over 20 years at the state statute level, maybe even longer than that, a lot of times are not any deterrent to someone who's violating the zoning ordinance. They are making more money violating the zoning ordinance than these fines inconvenient them, and they just kind of work them into the cost of doing business sometimes. Mr. Crowe, do you want to make some comments here? Well, Chris is exactly right. The levels of the fines are, in my opinion, much too low to be an effective deterrent. And, in fact, we have had folks that we have charged with violations of specific sections of zoning ordinance basically make comments to the effect that it's just the cost of doing business and it's far cheaper just to let us charge them, take them to district court, pay the fine, and basically continue to do what they were doing. So to that, I do feel that those fines do need to be increased, and I would certainly support our efforts at the state level to get a state statute changed to raise those. I think that would provide certainly a much more deterrent effect for those cases where we have to go to district court. So in our packet on page 99, section 5-8 at the bottom left, penalties for violations. So just as an example, part A there, which really when I read this I laughed, because the fine can be not less than $10. $10 is kind of a pitiful fine, and that you are saying is set by state statute. That's correct, and Chris could probably address that more. I believe it's KRS 100 that deals with that and sets up those amounts, and then as local governments we are bound by what the KRS has established for zoning violations. And again, as Chris stated, to get multiple charges, and it goes on to say each day of the violation shall constitute a separate offense, basically we have to charge them and file a new charge each day for that to take effect. So in practicality, what normally happens is we file a criminal complaint for a violation. Well, that gets treated as one violation. And although it may have been ongoing for some time and may continue ongoing until the matter is brought before the court, Again, then it's still considered one charge, and it's within the judge's discretion as to whether it's the $10 to $500. And do you know, maybe you said this and I missed it, do you know when these fines were last reviewed at the state level? No, I do not know. Mr. King, do you know when these fines were last reviewed at the state level? please don't tell me 1970 1988 that's when that section was changed we don't know if they actually changed the fines at that time we just know that's the last time the legislature amended any part of that section so 20 years ago at least 20 years ago we have a couple of council members who have questions council member Beard thank you Madam Chairman I'm not sure exactly who to ask this question. I guess doing. Do we have any other tools to create a bigger stick with the developers? I like pulling their license to do business. Actually, we are now making progressively greater and greater use of the civil penalties provisions that are available to us now for zoning ordinance violations. That came online probably late last year. There were some issues with getting the board set up and things like that, but we are now effectively using civil penalties for zoning violations. And that process works very similar to Code Enforcement's civil penalties program, where it's progressive. You know, if you don't correct it within a certain amount of time, another penalty is leveled at a greater level, and it goes on and on. At a certain point, once you reach and there is no compliance, ultimately we can place liens on that particular property to get compliance. We are making heavy use of that anymore, and that does seem to be more of an effective deterrent because of the escalating amount of the civil penalty. There are, however, certain types of violations that we still must use the criminal complaint district court process and are bound by the penalties there. Can you at any given point pull someone's license to do business? Is there any mechanism in the law? Are you speaking of the license issued basically through revenue or if we don't have anything in place? I don't believe there's anything that allows that to be done is my understanding, and I don't know if somebody else can speak to that or not. I guess that's nobody in this room. Is there anyone else who can speak to that? Rochelle? There is nothing in place that would authorize taking someone's license. I figured as much. We might want to look into that, though. if we have somebody that is just thumbing their nose at us and you know they don't really need to need to do business in Fayette County as far as I'm concerned we can certainly look into that we would probably have to determine for one thing whether the appeal and review process available through that administrative board would be sufficient review and appeal process as far as was yanking someone's license or whether we would have to institute a new process that when we give someone notice that their license is about to be revoked, would we then have to have another administrative hearing process? There'd probably be some complications that would take us some time to look at, but that's certainly something we could get started on. It may also kind of tie in, perhaps, with that Georgetown ordinance you were talking about, because that was also a notice of violation. And I think it's the first time I'd seen that ordinance, but I think it had something in there also in terms of preventing a developer that was being listed in violation from obtaining any other permits or approvals or such. So those two things may kind of tie into where our research might kind of overlap and help us out with that too. Outside of this arena, if someone has a business license to go door to door and sell full of brushes or whatever, and then doesn't deliver product or doesn't do something, can you not pull a license for that reason also? We have some specific licensing schemes that include revocation processes. But to my knowledge, only those specific schemes. For instance, I think adult businesses has an extremely comprehensive regulation system, which includes revocation of licenses and suspension offenses and things like that. We have the same thing in place for private impound towing companies. We have suspension and revocation, you know, violations that will justify suspension or revocation, and there are appeals processes and all that kind of thing. In connection with that, there may be others, but it's only where it's specifically laid out an ordinance and the process for a suspension or revocation is laid out that I'm aware that it exists currently. So it's not totally impossible, Lynn? No, I don't think it is totally impossible. You just have to do special legislation pointed toward the problem. I think we just need to make sure that we satisfy all the due process requirements that may be connected with revoking someone's license to do business. Thank you. Dr. Blues? I've got a question, I guess, for Chris. Are our penalties now at the same level as the states? are we are at our allowable limits under KRS I think you mentioned one 100 yes in the progressive fashion that had been laid out here yes so we're they go from the minimum to the maximum we've gone as far as we can go yes thank you Councilmember Henson. Mr. Crowe, I have a question. I know when we met there had recently you had made some changes within buildings inspection as far as the route you took for the violations, correct? Like you had said that instead to be in criminal, it was civil? Oh yes, that's back to my earlier statement. There is a civil penalty process now in place and where we can go after certain types of zoning violations with a civil penalty process, yes. Okay, and that process seems to go quicker, correct? Yes, our experience so far has been that we get a much better response with that, although there are some instances again where we're forced to go back to the criminal complaint process because the civil penalty process will not work or cannot be applied. Okay. Through my frustration of dealing with one incident, it was a year before the Sheriff's Department served the papers for the criminal offense. There have been delays on service of criminal complaints. Right. And see, I see that as being very unacceptable. So I don't know. I want to work through this. And instead of saying we can't do something, I want to see what we can do. Okay. Thank you. We have two more, Council Members. Councilmember Blues and then Councilmember James. Chris, Councilmember Beard, since you'd answer that question about whether our fines are the same as the state's, he asked whether our minimums are the same. So, and since he was too shy to ask that question, I thought that I would do that. If I recall correctly, I think Article 5-8 pretty much parrots the exact language and statute, and Rochelle is not, yes, she has a copy of the state statute here, and it's the same. So we can't raise our minimum up. That's correct. Thanks. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. kind of to add on to what where I think Councilmember Blues is headed is we may be with where the state is now, but can we do anything to advocate or to champion an increase in that? So can we have our state person that goes to lobby our legislators in Frankfurt to advocate for an increase in that? And I see someone coming, Chris, coming forward to the mic because I think, you know, we hit brick walls all the time for different reasons, and we've got to figure out that we hold the hammer sometime. And maybe we have a way to bust through this by utilizing who we should be utilizing through this committee. And I welcome your comment. I'll just give you a point of information. The administration has asked directors and urban county government staff for suggestions for a legislative agenda of items to advance and consider at the legislature. And I just wanted to let you know this is an issue that I put on the table with Ned Sheehy, and I think Dewey probably did as well. So we've advanced this idea to the administration consideration. Since this has statewide impact, we certainly suggested that there be conversation and coordination, if possible, with other jurisdictions in the state, see what they're experiencing, what their feelings are, groups like the Kentucky Chapter, the American Planning Association, and others. So, you know, usually do a little better if it's a coordinated type of effort. That's our suggestion. And thank you for offering that information because that's where I think if we had said that in the beginning, not that it was your responsibility to say it, but had we asked, then we would know that this is on the radar of Ned Sheehy, who is our representative in Frankfurt, and that maybe we need to take a role as council or as a committee to say that we advocate for looking into an increase in these fees. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Dr. Bluse. Thank you, Madam Chair. In the light of this discussion, I would like to make a motion that we request that our state legislative delegation bring this matter forward and ask for higher fine limits and also to work with other delegations. Louisville, for example, Owensboro, see if we can get some movement on this. And we as a government might also want to communicate with Louisville, with Owensboro, with other municipalities in this effort. We have a motion and a second to request our state legislative delegation to work with Louisville and other communities to seek increases in the fines at the state level. Does that state your motion? Is there more discussion about the motion? If not. Yes, if not, those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So thank you very much. Now, Council Member Henson has brought issue number five, Restrictions on Building Permits When the Applicant Has Violated the Zoning Ordinance. The packet starts on page 97 for this issue. Council Member Henson, do you have any preliminary comment? Also when I met with law building inspection, I got the same response for this, is that really there's nothing we can do. So I again would like to have open discussion because I think there are things we can do. And I don't take no for an answer very easily. Thank you. Is there anyone from the staff who wants to make a comment on this to get us going? We need a jump start. Yes, Council Member, and then I think Mr. Crow will. Just to enlighten you a little bit, this comes from a constituent, well, several constituents that had concerns about a business being operated out of a home and that person that was in violation had not received had been not served had the paper served on him of the criminal complaint. In the meantime he was given a building permit to build a rather large structure on his home property. So I just didn't feel like that's something that should be happening. Mr. Dewey Crowe who's also been here since 11. Currently there isn't anything in the building code that lets you tie a violation here to the issuance of a building permit here. Basically, everything stands on its own. If this proposal meets A, B, and C, then we basically have to give them D, which is a permit to proceed with what they're asking to do. There is no provision to look at what they may be doing wrong elsewhere or what they might do with a particular project. And until they do something with that project that creates an illegality, then we have to let them move forward. There's nothing that ties that together, that makes us look at what may or may not be wrong someplace else. So is there anything in our ordinances we could do to tighten that up? I mean. Me and Rochelle were just discussing whether there is some link can be made with compliance with zoning versus obtaining a building permit, and I guess that's kind of questionable, and Rochelle may be able to speak to that better than I am. And with this, going back earlier in our meeting a couple of hours, the Georgetown ordinance when we were talking about development plan adherence and the Georgetown ordinance that our law department's going to do a draft for us, could we do something similar to that? I think these issues may come up as we're researching that ordinance. it's going to be kind of complex to try to restrict something as basic and elemental as a building permit only because, you know, just kind of going off the top of my head, sometimes a building permit is necessary to remove a violation of the zoning ordinance. You've built this structure too close to the property line. You're in violation of the setbacks. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I'm applying for a building permit now to demolish and rebuild and correct that problem. There can be a lot of other circumstances I'm concerned with. Also, what if someone has code violations? They've been cited by code enforcement for serious violations on their property. You've got to go in and do this construction work to bring yourself up to safety code, and then we turn around and say, oh, but you're in violation of the zoning ordinance. We're not going to give you a building permit. So it may become extremely complex and intricate to determine. I mean, we may have to be in a situation where we have to look at what are you asking for this building permit for? You have violations. Can this be tied into remedying a violation? Administratively, it may be difficult. It certainly is worth looking into, and it probably will come up when we look at that Georgetown ordinance because, as we've recognized, I think perhaps it did talk about barring applications for anything of that sort if you have risen to a point where you're being noted as being an offender of record. So I think all these things may come up in connection with that. And as we do the research, I think we can determine what avenues we can take to remedy. But there are going to be complications that we'll have to be able to address. Okay. Council Member Henson. Is there any way in the ordinance that you could stipulate, like for instance, in the incident we're talking about, it was a violation of operating a rather could be hazardous business in a home, in a residential home. This person was in violation, pending violations, and was given a building permit. So could we put in that ordinance just when it, you know, I'm not talking about a structure that was not built correctly or whatever that would need to be moved back or whatever, but just when it is operating a business out of your home? I guess my concern on that would be when you're talking about a use violation of that nature, having a logical tie-in with a building permit. Again, I think it's something we can look at. I think this whole scheme of looking at the penalties available and everything can relate to that, But if we're just talking about the concerns of running a business in the home, we might just want to look at that issue and try to just expand what things might we be able to do to remedy it as opposed to focusing on just restricting building permits. Look at that as one possibility. But if we're focusing on that kind of an offense, there may be a lot of other things that we can look at, too. For instance, if they're operating a business out of their home, do they have a business license? If they have a business license through revenue, has it been listed at that address? Because revenue generally will check zoning, determine whether they are properly permitted to operate that business out of that address. It may be that a coordination of various offenses and violations may be helpful in bringing people into compliance so that they're faced with every possible violation, which can cumulatively be quite burdensome. So that may be one aspect, too, is more of a coordination issue that we might work on. Council Member James. Thank you, Madam Chair. I like to hear what you're saying about the coordination because I do sympathize. I'm not really sympathize, but I know for a fact that this does happen in other districts other than 11th. It's happened, and I've had conversations with Mr. Crow as well as a constituent in my district about some permitting issues, and he's nodding his head because I know he knows what I'm talking about, which has gone on for a long time. And what we found, I think Council Member Gorton sat in on a meeting with us and Vice Mayor Gray. I mean, it's to that magnitude in certain areas to where, you know, residents are saying there's a violation, there's a violation. But when it looks like it's going through our process, we can't connect those dots. It's a missing, it's a gap between permitting and business licenses and that sort of thing. But I think if we can, I think where Council Member Henson was going is in indicating that if there's a violation and something needs to, corrective action needs to happen because of the violation, that it's not called a permit. Because to me, a permit means you're allowed to do something. And so if someone were to call down or someone were to tell their neighbors, I've got a permit to be able to do this, to me, permit means I'm allowed to do. And it's kind of the framing of it and the word kind of gives you the, it's not a corrective action permit, which I think may be the language that I'd be looking for, maybe something you'd be looking for, which is in order to comply with what I'm supposed to be doing because I was doing something I wasn't supposed to, this is what I have to do to correct it. Do you see what I'm saying where the word permit can be kind of misleading? I understand that, but then again, we are required by the state building code to issue building permits. If someone interprets that language wrong, we kind of have our hands tied. We could possibly add something to a building permit for purposes of correcting a violation, but if somebody just says, well, I've got a building permit, they're not going to add that phrase onto it. And I think we're stuck with issuing building permits and calling them that. How we regulate or add to that on a local level may be different. And I would be interested in seeing your ideas of how to add to that, whether it's a checkbox or something that just says it's for corrective action for a known violation. That way, if a resident calls in, I don't know if that's public information, but if a resident calls in and says, tell me what's going on at 123 Ash Street, they will pull that up and say there's a corrective action permit that's been issued that's due to expire on whatever day. And so whatever the violation was or is should be corrected by that date. And that would help give a little bit of guidance. I think that's part of the administrative process we could put in if we find that under certain circumstances we can restrict issuance of a building permit. We could restrict issuance of any building permits other than those designated for corrective action and, you know, set up an administrative process that could do that. I do believe building permits, once they're issued or even an application for one in writing, becomes a public record. Right. So I do think it is something that the public can call and ask about. And that makes sense because if you're known to be in violation of something, then until that's lifted, maybe that's where we're going is that more permits aren't issued until that one particular one is fixed. I think our issue is going to come up with tying it in sufficiently that if there's a violation on address A, we can prevent permits or anything being issued on addresses B, C, and D. That's the kind of thing I think we're going to have to look at more closely to determine to what extent we can prevent the issuance of permits. Okay. Well, I look forward to working with you on that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Myers. Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I add to what Councilman James was just saying? Councilmember James, one, I think that any time someone's found out of compliance with the law in Lexington, they should not be able to do business until they straighten that out. And another aspect I'd like to see added to that, which is I know it's a little bit off topic, but they shouldn't be able to get a city contract to do any work for the city if they're not in complete compliance with everything else that they're doing in the city, including their taxes and all of those things. So when you look at how you cross-reference all those things together, can you take a look at that as well? I think purchasing currently has a process, at least with formal bids. I'm not sure to what extent it goes down into purchase orders and such, But I know with bids, the bidder does have to submit an affidavit alleging that they are in compliance. That is submitted to revenue, and revenue will check and submit a document to purchasing indicating that the person is in compliance or has approached them and has entered into an agreement that will bring them into compliance. So I know at some level there definitely is cooperation between purchasing and revenue to try to make that assurance. I'm not sure to what extent they can do it on extremely minor contracts, but I know that they are definitely making efforts to coordinate that. Okay. Thank you. Are there other Council comments or any motions to come from this discussion? councilmember James I'd like to make a motion but I'm not really sure how to word it I make a motion that we ask the law department to look at potential changes in our policies as they relate to building permits and I don't know, somebody help me out here. I'm not sure how to word this. Would that be in conjunction with Rochelle, I'm looking at you because you were kind of talking about it in conjunction with business licenses? I think we can just kind of look at this whole issue of zoning violations and with respect to what extent they can restrict other interactions with the government. And we can look at building permits. We can look at business licenses. Basically, we're just kind of trying to determine whether there's a way to use a zoning violation which is of record as a flag to try to prohibit other applications to the Does that sound like your motion? Yeah, second. Wait, you made the motion. And I have a second from Council Member Blues. And the gist of it is that law would look at policies in relation to zoning violations and linking those with business permits and other uses? Is that how you? I think if we link violations of record with restrictions on applications for any other government permits or licenses, that would probably be broad enough. Okay. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor? Oh, do I have a comment? Did you have a comment, Council Member Myers? I do have a question. Thank you, Chair. The way that you just stated that, is the trigger going to be the violation of record, or will it be the request for a permit or a business license, et cetera? So that my hope would be that all of them would be the trigger, that they would all be cross-checked, rather than it just be a violation of record with respect to an ordinance or a zone ordinance. I think because of the way this issue was worded on the agenda, I was looking at it as if you have a violation of record of a zoning ordinance, then how can that person and can that person be flagged to be restricted from receiving any other permits or licenses from the government? So it's kind of which comes first, the chicken or the egg, in terms of if somebody goes in and applies for a permit or a license, then that's going to be the trigger to look at this record and determine whether they've been listed as being in violation so that they can't get that. But what would trigger their being put on a list of that sort would be the existence of an established zoning violation. And it would, I'm sure, have to be something that had already gone through the administrative process. It can't just be, you know, an allegation of an offense. Right. Right. And that sounds good. But then if you looked at, and I realize that it was on this docket for this purpose, but if we're looking at changing the law, then we should look more broadly maybe. So say I'm not compliant with my taxes, then I would want that to be something that would trigger so that if I came to get a building permit, it would look to see if I'm compliant with my taxes. just like if I came to get a business license, it would look to see if I had a, you see what I'm saying? So the compliance works both ways. Yes, I do. It's kind of the same thing we were just talking about with purchasing, looking to revenue to find out whether someone's in compliance before we'll enter into a contract with them. Right. You're saying you would like to have that kind of a checking process to be triggered with any application to the government. Absolutely. We can certainly see what we can find out about that. Okay. Thank you. Was that the intent of your motion? Yes, it is. And as he was talking, I was trying to think of which list would be the most broad to look at. So as you think about how many people apply for building permits, I just think the conversation needs to exist. And hopefully when it's presented to us, it'll be kind of how do they connect with one another and what's the best inlet to get to all of that data and how to connect it. Thank you. It sounds as if this might be a link among lots of entities to tighten compliance with LFUCG's laws. Right. Is that how you're hearing it? If I could. I think it is. The issue is going to be to what extent is it going to be administratable. every minor permit or such. I don't really know if our computer system is going to be capable of dealing with that. So we're probably looking at a two-pronged research. One, legally to what extent can we do this, and then number two, practically what can we do? Actually, I have an answer to the capacity of our computer system. We have a software program called Liberty IMS, which would actually perform perfectly for this function of the government. So, and I know the CIO will be looking at this meeting probably, and that's the first place it'll start, but that software can manage this entire process. But I think it's partially the software's capability and partially the manpower of entering all the data necessary for the software system to have access to. So we'll have to look at what, you know, at what level would all of this noncompliance have to be entered. You know, I mean, every time a letter is sent out saying, oh, you know, you owe the government $20 for this, I mean, does that kick this in? We're going to have to come up with an administrative kind of guideline. At what point is someone, you know, noncompliant to the point where they get added to this list? I hate to call it a list. Right. But, you know. So you could look at the legal part because we don't. We'll certainly start out by looking at the legal part. Yes. Yes. and then we can move on to what can we physically, practically do and go from there. It's probably going to be like maybe a threshold level of noncompliance that would trigger this maybe. I would think perhaps there are other communities in the country maybe that are linked this way. I don't know. That would be something to look at. and maybe Mr. Schoeniger can help us with that. Is there any other discussion on the motion? All right. Will those in favor say aye? Aye. I heard one from way in the back 40 out there. Anyone opposed? Okay, now I don't think we're going to ask you to do this in 30 days because there are some other issues that we're attending to. I don't know. If you think you can have it done in 30 days, we can check in on that. Okay. Thank you very much. And our final item of business is number six, which Council Member Henson put into committee. This is the issue of time limits on building permits. And the documentation starts on page 97 through 105 in our packet. So, Council Member Henson, do you have any comments before we hear from our folks again? Dewey. Thank you. Again, this is just another item that I have had many complaints from constituents where a building project, and I'm not speaking of developments. I'm speaking of rock walls and fences and so forth where it goes on for months and sometimes even up into a year or so before, and the project is still not completed. So this was another item that we discussed. Mr. Crow. The Kentucky Building Code already places limits on building permits. They're basically when you take out a permit that's issued, you have 180 days to start that project. Once that project is started and work is ongoing and progressing, the permit stays open until such time as work is either completed or should stop for a period of 180 days. If it stops for a period of 180 days or is not started with an initial 180 days, the permit can be voided. The thing is, once it's voided, they can come back and take out a new permit to continue with that work. I think that's probably what Ms. Henson's had some complaints about, is projects that seem to linger and go on forever and ever. We have those. We deal with them every day, both in existing subdivisions and in new subdivisions. We have, at some point, builders, especially in a slowdown like we're having now, will just either stop work completely or they'll go to a very slow progression with that. Obviously less of a problem in a developing subdivision where you have lots of construction anyway. It's certainly more of a nuisance in an existing subdivision where you have the project down the street that seems to be forever under construction. However, the Kentucky Building Code does set the time limits, and it's my understanding that since they have addressed this, they basically have preempted local governments from addressing it. Can you, were specifically not permitted to address it? That's my understanding. The Kentucky Building Code, you cannot, you can't change it at the local level. Only the state can alter the building code once it's put into place. And I think everybody understands why that's done that way, is to keep all aspects of it, keep us from having 120 separate building codes in the State of Kentucky from local changes. And I think we have a connection at the State now, don't we, in that regard, with a former Council Member. We do have a former Council Member heading up the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction now, yes. Okay. We have Council Member Blues. Thank you, Chair. Am I right that in order to renew a permit, all an applicant needs to do is to show any kind of progress toward completion of the project, however minuscule? Well, the project, again, once the permit is issued, the permit stays open until such time is that we document basically 180 days of non-activity. In other words, it's come to a halt. They're not doing anything. Construction progress is completely stopped. And our inspectors on their routine checks of that location will track that. When they get to the 180-day period, we typically void that permit out. that follows us trying to contact the owner or the builder and ascertain what exactly is going on. Are they intended to, is there, what's the situation? Failing that, and if it feels it's just stopped, then we will issue a void letter. The permit is voided. At that point, the project, if it's partially complete or something of that nature, the Division of Code Enforcement can step in and take any actions necessary to clear up and clean up the lot. However, once it's voided, as I said before, they can come back in and ask to renew that permit to continue forward with the project. And certainly you always hope when that happens, yes, well, they've gotten things and straightened out, they're going to go ahead and move forward, which you want to do. You want them to complete the project. So again, a permit is reissued. Now they can go through that again and it can set for another 180 days and we would void it again. This has happened. We have gone through numerous cycles with that on projects where they do that very thing. Why would that be done? I mean, why apply for a permit and then do nothing? I can't answer as to why they would continue to do that if they don't intend to complete it, although they feel I guess they're holding some control. By holding an active permit, it stops code enforcement from taking any actions on the property to proceed with condemnation, cleanup, or anything like that, because they can't proceed with that as long as there's an active building permit in place. So there is some incentive, and this obviously happens. I don't think it happens to a great extent for those reasons. Normally we see projects grind to a halt, usually for financial reasons. We're seeing a lot of that right now due to just the current economic situation, both from homeowners and builders themselves. It's obviously a tough time. So the application for a building permit and the receipt of it could be used as protection against code enforcement dealing with a situation? As far as them taking action on a partially completed structure, I'm not talking about anything else that they would have responsibility for on that lot. Only them taking action to have removed a half-built room addition or a half-built structure that's not usable for anything until it's completed. So this then could account for not even a half-built structure somewhere in my district that looking at it, you can't tell whether it's going up or whether it's coming down. Very likely. Thank you. Does that complete your comments? Oh, goodness. May I impose upon you one more time to take the chair, Council Member Blues? It's an onerous burden, but I accept. Mr. Crow, as you know, the entire eight years that I represented the 4th District, I had a situation. which we have memorized the address, but I won't say it on air, although it is on Albany Road, where... Sorry, I didn't give you the number. I've actually forgotten the number, so... Oh, I haven't. I suspect not. And I don't think Cal Pal has either, but Albany Road's a long road, so one would not know which house this was. But the reason I bring this up is because I want to know what verification we ask of the person who's doing the constructions that they've worked on a building. Do they only have to hammer for five minutes, and that's considered work within 180 days? or do they have to give some sort of... There is no established standard as to what constitutes progress. We try to ascertain that by discussions with who's there, what have you done, when an inspector shows up to do a routine inspection, he keeps a running record of what he's looked at and tries to ascertain if they have added to it or done some additional work. Sometimes it's almost impossible to tell they've done anything, but they will insist they have and show you various things they've done. If they appear, and again, we try to talk to them and find out what their plan is and what's the problem, why is this stopped, why are you not moving forward? If they give reasonable answers as to reasons that, we will try to work with them, keep the permit open, and hopefully rectify the situation in the end, other than going through the process of voiding it, having them come back, take out another permit. But as far as there is no set criteria that you have to achieve specific amounts of labor to keep qualifying. It's going to be a subjective call by the particular inspector whether he feels progress has been sufficient or not. And again, we've actually determined that it hasn't, that we have voided them. They're back. As soon as they get that void letter, they'll return and ask to renew the permit, which we are obligated to do. And so there's no written, nothing written that the person has to submit stating what they did when? No, there is not. To verify that 180 days of work? No, there is nothing. There's no standards that I'm aware of that indicate specific that we could apply to any such document. Well, and this 105.5 expiration paragraph on page 102 of our packet, now this is per state building code. Yes, this is a copy out of the state building code. And so the building officials authorized to grant in writing one or more extensions of time for periods not more than 180 days each. The or more means this is unlimited. That's correct. It's open-ended. So has there ever been, this says it's from the 2007 Kentucky Building Code, has there been any revision to this, to your knowledge, or has this been in place for a long time? This or similar language has been in the building codes as far back as I remember. The Kentucky Building Code has established a 180-day period. The language may have changed when we moved from basically the Boca Building Code to the International Building Code. But to the best of my knowledge, that 180-day has held forth through both all of those codes. One of the, I had expected there might be two citizens here from the 4th District, actually, who also contacted me about this. Their situation is there's a house right next door to one of them that's been under construction for years, literally years. And, of course, what the neighbors put up with is the construction mess. and really all we can tell them, all I've been able to tell them at this point is, if the people make some movement within this six-month period of time, they're good to go forever. That's basically what we're talking about. It could take them 20 years to build their house. That's correct. and we again we have probably some permits on the books that are four, five, six, seven years old. They are making slow progress. Again, even if we void it, they can come back and start sit again. In fact, they could keep taking out permits, not do anything for 180 days. We would void it. They would come back, take another permit out for 180 days. we would void that, and they can repeat that cycle endlessly. So really, Annie, if we were interested in any change, it would have to be pursued at the state level? In my opinion, yes, as far as what the building code has already addressed, as far as time limits and anything else they've already that's gone into the building code, because they do preempt. And I'm sorry to ask you this. You may have said it. And who, does the state legislature approve the building code, the state building code, or who writes and approves this? The state housing committee actually approves the building code. They are authorized under KRS-198B to implement the building code and to select and put in place the particular versions that we're on. but it's the state housing board under the auspices of the Department of Housing, Buildings, and Construction. Really? Yes. Hmm. So if this entity, if this body wanted to pursue any changes, we would go to them rather than to the state legislature? Yes, that's who we would direct requested changes to would be initially the Department of Housing, Buildings, and Construction. that's an issue they would look over and bring forth to the housing board to see the fake incorporated as an amendment. And Kentucky has numerous amendments. They adopt basically the International Building Code and the International Residential Code, but then they also amend that particular code to suit the state of Kentucky. So, again, it's within their authority to amend it as they see fit statewide. But once it's amended and in place, it takes that ability away from local jurisdictions. Right. And if we were to pursue something like that, we would pursue it through you to the, or would we go directly to them? I could pursue it through the state. I don't know of anything that would preclude you as a council from doing that as well, but I would be glad to bring forth anything the council would want to be and brought it forth to the state. Okay, thank you. Council Member Henson. Mr. Crowe, how often do inspectors go to the construction sites where a permit has been issued? That's going to vary by the individual inspector, what they're charged with, how many projects they have ongoing at any one time. We typically are, there are three primary inspections that we do, and this is, I'm talking residential specifically. We do what's called a site and foundation inspection where we look at how the building, the project's been located on site to prove that for the foundations. We do what's called a framing inspection where we look at all the framing and the construction and approve that. And we do a final inspection to assure that all the final things are done, smoke detectors are in place, all the life safety equipment is done, and that the structure is ready to be occupied. Those are the three main inspections we do, although in most projects, the inspector is there far more than three times. It's a large project. It'll have multiple framing inspections because they're doing sections of it at a time. Typically, the inspector likes to drop by as many times as possible during the course of the construction. What if it was a rock fence? on a fence we just check the only thing we check on fences they're not checked for structure they're checked for height and location how often do you check them typically we don't want to see them till they're complete yeah because i've no one that you may not be here when by the time it's done you may have retired by then there are probably there's Probably more than that one. And I would be willing to bet you they take a rock down and put one up. I'm just not sure how the process is working, but I know that it's been going on probably for two years. I'm aware of the location you're talking about. Yes, it has been moving quite slowly. But I would also like to say that I like when we can all work together and when we can get things done and not just cop out and say we can't do anything. I like it if we can go to Frankfurt and change the statue, that's what we need to do. But we have an obligation to the people that live in this city, each and every one of us, So, but thank you. I will say this in regards to going, having, requesting amendments at the state to the state building code. You have to understand anything that you would request as an amendment affects the entire state. So they will look at that statewide and they will look at any proposed amendment in that light. So if they don't see a benefit statewide, I would not speak well for the amendment. And does the building code apply to urban areas and rural areas equally? They're all covered in the same way? The entire state is covered by the Kentucky Building Code. The Kentucky Residential Code is the standard statewide, although some jurisdictions have not chosen to enforce it. What does that mean? Without going into 10 minutes? That means they have not established a building program where they have inspectors inspecting single-family homes. Numerous counties throughout Kentucky have not put that into place. They do not do inspections of single-family homes, although the residential code is the standard for construction of a single-family home. In other words, if you're working in a county and building single-family homes and they have no building inspection department that inspects, they have not adopted one or two-family homes for those purposes, you as a builder are still expected to build that home to that residential standard. But they're not inspecting. But they are not inspecting and they are not permitting in those counties. Okay. Council members, how about if we leave this in committee and Paul's going to do a little research and we'll see what we can come up with. Thank you very much. There's one final item and that is if you will turn to the list of items in committee on page 106. I simply would like to know if there are any items on this list that Council members feel need to come off the list. If you have put an item into committee, is there an item you need to take out of committee? Dr. Stevens? I believe that Mr. Schoeniger has done a good job of going through the management recommendations and sent a report to all of us, and I'm not sure that we need further activity there. Do you... Be interested in what Mr. Schoeniger thinks. Okay. I'm in favor of you not doing anything all the time. I think that's sometimes a good strategy. Do Council members want to hear this in committee? Perhaps it would be a good idea. I heard a few shores, so we'll bring that forward. The other thing that are opposite my names are underway. Okay, very good. Is there anything that needs to come out of committee? If not, I want to first thank all of you for your marathon attendance. I really appreciate it. I was wondering if we have another mechanism for tracking the Newtown Piking extension. Why that has to stay on there for that reason? Well, Council Member Blues has asked for it to be reported out, and the other two road projects will be given in writing. Okay. So thank you all for your time and attention. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. All in favor? I heard one aye. We're adjourned.