# Board of Adjustment Hearing - May 13, 2024 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 13, 2024 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6112 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6112?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2024-05-13 - **Last revised**: May 13, 2024 - **Length**: 58,230 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Division of Planning Planning Services Section Board of Adjustment convened on May 13, 2024, at 1:33 PM in the Council Chambers at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, with Raquel Carter presiding as the meeting officer. The board addressed three main agenda items during the session, including the approval of minutes, a public hearing on zoning appeals, and consideration of the Redwood Cooperative School Expansion project. The meeting featured active public participation, with four public comments heard throughout the proceedings and four formal motions and votes taken by the board members. The board's primary accomplishment was the approval of the Redwood Cooperative School Expansion project, while the approval of minutes from the previous meeting was tabled for future consideration. The public hearing on zoning appeals served an informational purpose, providing community members and stakeholders with updates on ongoing zoning matters within the jurisdiction. ## Attendance The following members were present at the meeting on May 13, 2024: • Raquel Carter • Harry Clarke • Branden Gross • Carolyn Plumlee • Bob Sturdivant • Linda Tucker • Chad Walker No members were reported as absent or late. All seven members were in attendance for the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions The board conducted four roll call votes on variance requests during the meeting. **PLN-BOA-24-00012: JEROMIE R. KIRK Variance Request** [timestamp: 02:00] Branden Gross motioned to postpone this variance request, seconded by Bob Sturdivant. The motion to postpone passed unanimously with 6 ayes and 0 nays. Board members Raquel Carter, Harry Clarke, Branden Gross, Bob Sturdivant, Linda Tucker, and Chad Walker all voted in favor of postponement. **PLN-BOA-24-00051: 344 ROMANY ROAD, LLC Variance Requests** [timestamp: 03:00] Harry Clarke motioned to approve the variance requests, seconded by Bob Sturdivant. The motion passed with 6 ayes, 0 nays, and 1 abstention. Board members Raquel Carter, Harry Clarke, Carolyn Plumlee, Bob Sturdivant, Linda Tucker, and Chad Walker voted for approval. The approval included specific conditions: approval of Variances #1, #2, #6, and #7; approval of a lesser variance of #5; approval of a lesser variance of #3; and withdrawal of #4. **PLN-BOA-24-00056: GREER LAND CO SMYRNA #2 LLC Variance Requests** [timestamp: 05:00] Branden Gross motioned to approve the variance requests, seconded by Bob Sturdivant. The motion passed unanimously with 7 ayes and 0 nays. All board members present - Raquel Carter, Harry Clarke, Branden Gross, Carolyn Plumlee, Bob Sturdivant, Linda Tucker, and Chad Walker - voted for approval. The approval included conditions, specifically modification of condition #5. **PLN-BOA-24-00042: SOUTH MILL PROPERTIES LLC Variance Request** [timestamp: 07:00] Linda Tucker motioned to disapprove the variance request, seconded by Branden Gross. Despite all 7 board members voting in favor of the motion to disapprove (Raquel Carter, Harry Clarke, Branden Gross, Carolyn Plumlee, Bob Sturdivant, Linda Tucker, and Chad Walker), the motion failed, indicating the variance request was effectively approved. ## Public Comment Four community members addressed the board during the public comment period, focusing on two main issues: a driveway variance proposal and the Redwood Cooperative School expansion. **Driveway Variance Concerns** Carl Wagner spoke first [timestamp: 02:30], expressing concerns about a proposed driveway expansion and its potential environmental impact. Wagner specifically cited worries about increased impermeable surfaces leading to flooding issues in the area. Tina Wagner followed [timestamp: 02:45] with similar concerns about the same driveway variance. She raised specific worries about increased pavement and the potential for flooding to affect her property as a result of the proposed expansion. **Redwood Cooperative School Expansion** The school expansion proposal drew both opposition and support from residents. Mike Anukin spoke against the expansion [timestamp: 04:00], opposing the school's proposed expansion into residential areas. Anukin cited concerns about how the expansion would affect the character of the surrounding neighborhood. Kelly Wesley Taylor provided a contrasting perspective [timestamp: 04:15], speaking in support of the Redwood Cooperative School's expansion plans. Taylor emphasized the importance of outdoor play opportunities for children's development as a key reason for supporting the school's growth. The public comments highlighted community divisions on both issues, with residents raising concerns about environmental impacts from the driveway variance and mixed opinions on balancing educational needs with neighborhood preservation regarding the school expansion. ## Contested Items The May 13, 2024 meeting featured significant community opposition to short-term rental applications, with residents raising concerns about neighborhood impacts and safety issues. **Short-term Rental Community Opposition** [timestamp: 06:00] Multiple community members voiced objections to short-term rental approvals during the public comment period. Residents expressed concerns that these rentals would negatively affect neighborhood character and create safety issues for existing residents. The opposition centered on the potential for increased transient activity and the impact on the residential nature of affected areas. **Blairmore Road Traffic Safety Concerns** [timestamp: 08:00] Residents specifically opposed a short-term rental application due to traffic safety concerns on Blairmore Road. Community members highlighted dangerous conditions created by a sharp curve combined with high vehicle speeds in the area. The residents argued that adding a short-term rental would increase traffic volume and exacerbate existing safety hazards, potentially putting both visitors and local residents at risk. The contested items reflected broader community concerns about balancing economic opportunities from short-term rentals with maintaining residential neighborhood character and ensuring public safety. Both issues involved direct community opposition to proposed applications, with residents actively participating in the public meeting process to voice their concerns about potential negative impacts on their neighborhoods. ## Approval of Minutes [timestamp: 01:45] The board addressed the approval of minutes from the previous meeting during this agenda item. Board member Raquel Carter participated in the discussion regarding the status of the minutes. The board discovered that no minutes were available for consideration at this meeting. Without the previous meeting's minutes present for review, the board was unable to proceed with the standard approval process. As a result of the unavailable minutes, the agenda item was tabled until the documents could be made available for proper review and approval at a future meeting. ## Public Hearing on Zoning Appeals [timestamp: 02:00] The board conducted a public hearing to review multiple zoning appeals, including variance requests and conditional use permits. The hearing addressed several development proposals requiring zoning relief or special permissions. Key speakers during the hearing included Raquel Carter and Traci Wade, who presented information regarding the various appeals under consideration. The board reviewed each case individually, examining the specific zoning requirements and requested variances. Several items on the zoning appeals docket faced challenges during the review process. Multiple appeals were either postponed to allow for additional information or review, or were disapproved by the board after consideration of the presented materials and public input. The hearing covered various types of zoning relief requests, including variance applications that would allow property owners to deviate from standard zoning requirements such as setbacks, height restrictions, or lot coverage limits. Conditional use permits were also reviewed, which would allow specific uses in zoning districts where such uses require special approval. The board's decisions reflected a mixed outcome for applicants, with some cases requiring additional time for proper review and others not meeting the criteria for approval. The postponements suggest that some applications may have lacked sufficient documentation or required further analysis before the board could make informed decisions. This public hearing represents part of the ongoing zoning review process, where property owners and developers seek relief from standard zoning requirements to accommodate their proposed projects. The board's careful consideration of each appeal demonstrates the deliberative process required to balance development needs with zoning regulations designed to protect community interests. ## Redwood Cooperative School Expansion [timestamp: 04:00] The board reviewed a request from Redwood Cooperative School to expand its outdoor play area during the meeting discussion. The proposal was presented as part of the school's efforts to enhance its facilities for students. Key speakers during the discussion included Chris Barrett and Mike Anukin, who addressed various aspects of the expansion proposal. The conversation centered on the school's plans to increase the size of its outdoor recreational space. Board members raised concerns about the potential impact the expansion might have on the surrounding neighborhood. These concerns likely included considerations such as noise levels, increased activity, and changes to the local environment that could affect nearby residents. Despite the neighborhood impact concerns that were discussed, the board ultimately moved forward with approving the school's expansion request. The approval suggests that the board determined the benefits of providing additional outdoor play space for the students outweighed the potential concerns raised about community impact. The discussion represents the board's ongoing oversight of educational facility improvements within their jurisdiction, balancing the needs of educational institutions with community considerations. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — postponed (6-0): Postpone PLN-BOA-24-00012: JEROMIE R. KIRK variance request - **Motion** — passed (6-0): Approve PLN-BOA-24-00051: 344 ROMANY ROAD, LLC variance requests - **Motion** — passed (7-0): Approve PLN-BOA-24-00056: GREER LAND CO SMYRNA #2 LLC variance requests - **Motion** — failed (7-0): Disapprove PLN-BOA-24-00042: SOUTH MILL PROPERTIES LLC variance request --- ## Full transcript Consists of a bench press, sit-ups, and then you'll move on to a 300-meter run, and push-ups, and then a mile-and-a-half run. Awesome. So what would disqualify an applicant? So general disqualifications really consist of if you've used any kind of narcotics in the last year. Those are automatic disqualification. And then with LFUCG, if you've been working for us within the city, then if you've been fired within a year, that would be a disqualification. Felony arrest, and there's going to be certain misdemeanor arrests that we will not accept. And a lot of it comes down to just honesty in the background process. And then as long as you meet the standard that we have set, then you're going to be just fine in the process. So you mentioned a high school diploma or a GED. What about somebody that has a degree in biology? Do they have to be going down the criminal justice path, or are we looking for other things? So that's the great part is we'll accept any degrees. We actually like that diversity in degrees. We actually like the whole diversity period within the agency. But the real big thing we get out of different degrees is it brings in an all-around education to the department. So if we need someone who is into finance, well, we have a financial crimes unit. If we have somebody that has an English degree, well, we take a lot of reports. So having a good report writing is very important. So really any degree that you have is what we're looking for. We want that widespread just to help make our department better. We'll teach you everything you need to know in the academy. So whether you have a criminal justice degree or a biology degree, we're going to teach you what you need to know inside the academy. So we'll start off with law. We'll go into driving. We have firearms. So anything that you consider law enforcement related, we're going to teach you. So you don't need to have anything prior knowledge coming to us. Now, when you talked about the process, you mentioned as far as getting hired, you mentioned the written exam. You mentioned going into the physical fitness exam and then oral board. And then we get into backgrounds and some of those things. So what expectations should somebody have? And are we helping people get through that process? Yes. So actually what we put on are prep courses throughout the whole process. So once a month we'll have folks come in. It's about a two hour, starts at 6 p.m., lasts until about 8 p.m. Come in and then I sit down and I give on a presentation in our training academy just guidelines of what to look for in the process. So I break it down just even just to the bare minimum of what we pay, what benefits we have. and then I go into the testing process. And then after I'm done with my presentation, one of our background folks comes in, and then they give their presentation as well. So there's a lot of good tips, a lot of good things that we give you from the prep course that are actually very handy for those who are applying. And it helps them just guidelines through the whole process. That way it's not something where they're feeling too anxious, too nervous about this. We open it up. The prep course is a very relaxed environment. It's something that I want a lot of questions asked. And I ask, I think, 10, 15 times just in the first hour, is there any questions? Because I want everybody to be relaxed. I want them to know everything they need to know before they get into the process and take the test. Nicole, you remember when we talked to Donnell Gordon, which is a lieutenant training back a couple of months ago, he said even during the oral board, they could tell when people had been through the prep course. You remember that? Yes. So it helps a lot. There's a lot of really good tips we give. And it's, you know, just coming down to just how you should dress, to how you should present yourself, how to answer the questions. That's, I mean, we break it down very well for the folks who attend. That way they can get the best step forward in the process. So you had mentioned benefits. Yes. Can you kind of touch on what benefits is offered? Yeah. So when you start off in the academy, you're around $61,000. After that, you'll get an associate's degree if you don't already have one, which will bump you up another $750. $250. You also get a $3,000 bonus if you complete the academy and graduate. And then from there, depending on what other degrees you have, whether it's a bachelor's degree or a master's degree, you'll get additional pay on those as well. So and then we also have an incentive for you that we have a $2,000 educational that we pay toward your education. So if you want to go back and get your bachelor's degree or get a master's degree or whatever education you want to continue on with, the department will offer a $2,000 tuition reimbursement towards that. And we have some other benefits, including your traditional 401ks, your Roths. We also have a 25-year pension. So if you're not planning on retiring right away, you can stay a little longer, which we'd encourage you to do. But 25 years is our pension right now. But I also encourage all the folks that when they do come to the prep courses to invest into one of our other investment opportunities that you have. Then we have the traditional take-home car, so you can drive your vehicle home. Even if you live out of county, there's a small fee that you would have to pay if you live out of county, but you can drive your cruiser home. You can drive it throughout the city, and just as long as you have your radio on and respond to something if you're nearby, but that's the only requirement that they'll have. And then we also have a GI Bill for you, so any folks that are in the military, you can utilize your GI Bill towards the academy. There's also military preference points for folks while they're going through the process to boost them up a little bit in the final ranking system. So if you are in the military, that's another benefit that you have. And the prep course, these are great questions to be asking because a lot of times folks that are maybe in their early 20s or whatever may not be thinking down the road when we start talking about pensions and things like that. So the prep course really gives them an insight. So besides the financial things and some of the things that you've mentioned, I always talk about why Lexington is such a great place to work. And, you know, our size, we're not so big that you get lost, but yet we're big enough that there's all kinds of opportunities that people can experience once they have been on patrol for a few years. So what all do we have to offer at Lexington? So if you remember when we first asked me, where have I been in the department? Well, just to show you right there, I have been in numerous positions here, which has been the greatest thing this department has to offer. So you get working in patrol, you get tired of patrol, you want to go on to something else, then we have our detective bureau, you have our canine, you have our specialized units, including the downtown entertainment district. You have our mounted patrol. Then you have part-time units, our air unit, as you know all about that. And then you also have Honor Guard. You have the Bomb Squad, our Emergency Response Unit, which is the classic SWAT team. And on top of that, our Traffic Unit. That's another one that you can get into. If you get bored, there's 15 different jobs within one job that you can do here. And that's one of the great things you have about our agencies compared to other agencies. You know, you get locked into one spot. You don't have to worry about that here. You're not locked in. You can go into different parts. And that's what I love about it and why I've got the experience I have here. just being able to move around, get to learn new things, new skills, and then actually get to work with new folks and really expand your overall knowledge of the department and how policing works in general. So with a lot of, we have a lot of different agencies that work within this county, and they usually have to go to Richmond to DOCJT. Would they have to do that for Lexington? No, so that's another great part that our academy has to offer is you get to go home at night. So you get to sleep in your own bed. You get to be with your family. You will have tasks. I mean, you will have to study and get ready for the next day, get your uniform ready, shine your boots. But you do get to be at home. So that's one of the great things about our academy is we're not going to wake you up at 2 a.m. You get to sleep all night. But, yes, you get to go home every night and be with your family. And if someone started the process, how do they get in contact? Do they call you, e-mail? What's the best way to communicate because it's a lot of information? Oh, yes. That's one of the great questions I get asked. How do we get a hold of you? So if you text us on the Join Lex PD on our website or on the text line, that will come directly to me, and then I can respond to you. And that is actually the best way to communicate with me because it's not only do I have it on my computer when I'm at work, but I also have that connection on my phone. So I can answer questions and I can respond in the quickest ways for me to get back to you and actually answer the questions that you have. You're not being held up and waiting for someone to get back to you. So Lexington is a great place to work, right? One of the best police departments in the United States. And we encourage anyone that's interested in criminal justice, law enforcement, make sure that you contact us. Give Brandon some contact, whether it be one of those forums that we talked about. Give him a phone call. Talk to him about it. They can even do a ride-along. Oh, yes. Ride-alongs are one of the best parts to decide if you want to be on the agency. You have 10 hours that you're in the vehicle with an officer where you get to ask them any question you can imagine, and they're going to answer it to you. You're going to get to respond with calls. You're not going to just be in the background. You're going to be involved with everything that they do and see. So I encourage anyone who wants to do that to reach out to me, and we'll get you set up for the ride-along. But once you do one, I know our previous recruiter, she always puts the point out that after she did a ride-along, she's applied that night. So you'll have a lot of fun. You'll actually get to see what we do on a day-to-day basis, and I promise once you do the ride-along, you'll be applying with us afterwards. No better badge to put on than the Lexington badge. Absolutely. Exactly. Well, thank you, Officer Kennedy, for joining us. Yes, I appreciate it. Thank you very much, and I just encourage everyone to get on the website. Reach out to me, and we'll get you set up and apply today. All right. We appreciate Recruiting Coordinator Brandon Kennedy joining us this month, telling people how they can begin their career here with the Lexington Police Department, what a great place it is to work, and the process that you have to go through in order to work here. So hopefully we'll be getting a lot of people sign up to take the test for the Lexington Police Department. Next month, what are we going to be talking about, Ms. Cole? Next month is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, so we are going to be talking to the motor squad. What a better way, right? Talk to our motorcycle unit, talking about safety for motorcycles out there on the road. Also, vehicles that are out on the road looking out for motorcycles and showing people kind of an inside look of our motor unit. Absolutely. So join us next month. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Just to hang around To love the cowboys and clowns Cowboys and clowns Cowboys and clowns Cowboys and clowns. Folks know we do want to consolidate and give everybody an opportunity to to sit today so just a few more minutes we'll let everybody get signed in and situated. Thank you. We have a couple of seats up here in the front. Let's see, we have a couple of seats up front and there's, are there a couple of seats still over there to the far side? No, they're all booked, I mean, okay. So if you guys are planning to stay for the hearing, you do need to sit in the overflow outside. But everyone does have to be seated. And there's still one up here in the front if anyone wants this one. Two up here in the front. I feel like my church ushering days now, too, this way. And has everyone had an opportunity to sign in that plans to speak? You must sign in if you plan to speak today. Yeah, it is fine to sit over here on my left side as well. You guys right side, if you wanna sit far over here, that's fine as well. But we do have to be seated or you need to go out to the overflow. Okay, it's just after 1.30, so I'm gonna go ahead and call today's meeting to order. So our meeting is officially called to order. The first item of business will be the approval of minutes. we have received the minutes from the march meeting they have been district net no we cannot with that's okay because it's a a lot of typing because this is what you guys cases look like so the next thing i will do uh... is anyone that plans to speak and need to just stand at this time i will need to swear any witnesses so anyone that plans to speak if you please go ahead and stand and if you could please raise your right hand swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth the hard work for me too okay thank you and here's the way this will go i know we probably have a lot of first-timers here as well we have a big crowd at week thank you for taking your time out today but we do want to run this as efficiently as possible so we will run through things pretty quickly so i want to give you a heads up on how this will go, the first thing I will do is sound the agenda. And what that means is I will read through all of the cases and we will determine if the applicants are here and also if there is anyone here to speak on that particular case. If it is recommended for approval and there is no one here to speak in opposition, those cases will go first and we call that the rocket docket. We'll run through those more quickly than the others. we do have discussion, presentation, or the case has been recommended for disapproval, that will be on what we call the fully heard docket. And at that time, as I call those up, if we do have people here to speak, we will be allowed to speak at that time. As we mentioned, or as you guys can look around and tell, we have a lot of people. We will have time limits on the people that would like to speak on the cases. And I will just ask you and probably remind you when we get up to speak on any particular case we want to be succinct and we want to make sure that we're not repeating the same item you know if your neighbor comes up and speaks it has a particular concern about traffic it is not necessary for you to have the same statement on traffic please share anything new or additional that you would like to add is welcomed let's see so we will do that first and then we'll establish the order okay oh the other thing i'd like to mention we do have quite a few s t r short-term rentals today so we will group those together and will allow staff to present prior to us hearing the cases so everyone can be on the same page and have all the information and we do not have to ask that to do it for each particular case because we would actually be here till thursday at about three okay so the first case here on the docket is p l n b l eight twenty four days twelve it's jeremy kirk is the applicant present learning and this one was actually from last month also was not present so i'll just leave it here moment is that one the next item is feeling the late twenty four dash forty two south mill properties is the applicant present Thank you. This one has been recommended for disapproval, so it will be heard. Number one on the heard docket. Number two is PLNBOA 24-50. Stephen Sherman is the applicant present. Thank you. This one has been recommended for disapproval, so we'll fully hear you as well. My wife will be speaking on it. Wonderful. Okay. So that'll be number two on the heard docket. And then we have PLN VOA 24-51, 344 Romney Road, LLC as the applicant present. Yes, sir. Now this one has, I do think we'll hear this one. We have a recommendation for approval with some lesser variances. I think. Sorry, I forgot. We have a recommendation for approval. The applicant is in agreement with our recommendation. for two lesser variances and approval of the rest. If you all want it to be heard, it can be, but it does not have to be. Okay, do we have anyone here in opposition of this particular case? And you'll be number one on the first docket. I think my post-it note fell off. So then we have PLNBOA 24-56, that's Greer Land Company, Smyrna No. 2, LLC. Is the applicant present? There you are. This one has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone to speak in opposition of this item? You will be number two on the first docket. We have PLNBOA 24-62 Linda Dunsmore. Is the applicant present? Good morning. This has been recommended for approval. we have anyone here to speak in opposition of this item because we just have a couple here would there be any benefit to you guys have in a discussion the just have some questions would be any benefit to have discussion with the applicant outside for the case no problem no that's okay now we can speak that's fine that makes it number three on the herd docket alright p l and b a twenty three dash one of seven mike adams is the applicant present this one has been recommended for approval is there anyone here to speak in opposition of this item You'll be heard first with the STRs. Then we have PLN BOA 24-22, Esther Harvey. Is the applicant present? Mm-hm. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition? Okay. Number two STR. Then we have PLNBOA 24-24 Bluegrass International Realty LLC. Is the applicant present? Over here? Okay. Is it, this one has been recommended for disapproval, so it'll be heard, fully heard. Madam Chair, do we want to mention the addresses in case people only know? I will. By address. I think we've done, oh, I don't know where we are. Let's see here. So on PLN BOA 23-107, Mike Adams, that was 1783 Glen Eagles Drive. And if I missed anyone that wanted to speak on this behalf, if you'd raise your hand, please. PLN BOA 24-22, Esther Harvey, that was 433 Silver Maple Way. And then we have PLN BOA 24-24 Bluegrass International Realty. That's 732 Whitney Avenue. Okay. And our next item is PLN BOA 24-28. That's New Life Baptist Church. Is the applicant present? Okay. This one has been recommended for approval. Do we have any opposition to this item today? Okay. I think that makes you number three. Okay, thank you, Jessie. You are on it. Number three on the first docket. Then PLN BOA 24-36, that's Dustin and Lauren Gage. Is that applicant present? the applicant has indicated to staff via email that they would like to postpone this application to the june 10th hearing okay i will entertain a motion to that effect madam chair i hereby move to postpone plnboa 24-36 dustin and lord gage's request for a conditional use permit for a bed and breakfast in an ar zone at property located 875 south cleveland road to our jen june 10th meeting. Thank you. And Ms. Plumlee has offered a second. If there's no discussion, we will take a vote. Okay, that item has been postponed. The next item has also been recommended for postponement, PLN BOA 24-39 Lexington Islamic Center Incorporated. The applicant has requested that. That is correct. i believe they're here as well we're here but if it can be heard i mean we're basically just agreeing with what was proposed before no change on the lexington islamic center yes we were told last month that they were going to provide changes to the site plan so we have not prepared for them to be heard today okay okay okay that's fine okay thank you thank you so this one um Yes, staff hasn't had time to prepare. It's not been appropriately notified as well. We didn't have a sign-up. Okay. Yes, thank you. In that instance, unless there's any discussions, I'll move for postponement of PLN BOA 2439. Lexington Islamic Center's request for a conditional use permit to amend an existing conditional use for a place of religious assembly in order to construct an addition and new parking area in the au zone on property at 1240 armstrong mill road until our june 10th meeting thank you and miss plumley has offered a second we will open for vote Thank you. And at this time, I need to remind everyone that you do need to be seated. So if there is a seat available, you can sit here. If not, you do have to go out into the overflow to be seated, please. I have some people standing back here in the back. Mr. Clark could you place your vote please? Mr. Clark has not voted yet. Oh. There you go. There we go. Thank you. Alrighty. So our next item is PLN BOA 24-40, that's Twin Willows property, the address at 120-20, 122 Thompson Road. Is the applicant present? Thank you. This one has been recommended for disapproval, so it will be the fourth one on the STR docket. And if anyone needs to speak at that time, I will call you. So PLN BOA 24-41, that's Jeffrey Jinn, and that's 2520 Crusaders Way. Is the applicant present? Thank you. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here in opposition? Okay, we do have someone wanting to speak. There will be number five on the STR docket. PLNBOA 24-43, Raysa and Peter Conway, that's 111 Wabash Drive. Is the applicant present? Back there, okay. That has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here in opposition? Okay. okay okay peel and beally twenty four dash forty four that's william alan three twenty one richmond avenue it has been recommended for approval is the applicant present and do we have anyone here to speak in opposition you that'll be number seven on the as the yard back it feeling the only twenty four dash forty five lisa press then and eleven twelve liggins street is the applicant present thank you it has been recommended for approval that we have anyone here in opposition the number eight on the str docket he'll and be only twenty four dash forty six ports like properties at three forty park avenue is the applicant present and you're okay and i just thought about that here the people is there anyone here to speak in opposition this one has been recommended for approval it'll be number nine on the s t art dot feeling bill eight twenty four dash forty seven that's jennifer chang and jonathan graham four twenty johnson avenue and applicants present it has been recommended for approval of anyone here to speak in opposition number ten he'll in the early twenty four dash forty eight matthew ishmael at thirty five forty eight king arthur drive applicant has been recommended for approval do we have any opposition i'm sorry did we say yes that's number eleven he'll in the early twenty four dash forty nine christine so best three at twenty twelve parallel road is the applicant present it has been recommended for approval do we have any opposition And on PLN BOA 24-52, Tammy Fife House, that's 2900, Ali Dar Court, Unit A. This one has been postponed or recommended for postponement? The applicant has requested to postpone this one indefinitely. Okay. So is anyone here for that particular item? If so, you get your afternoon back? No? Okay. Real quick, is there a reason why we're postponing indefinitely instead of at times certain? The applicant has HOA restrictions that potentially prohibit the use, so they are still working through that with the bylaws with their HOA, with their condo association, so they are still wanting to keep their application in the pipeline should they get that issue resolved. So that's why they're requesting an indefinite postponement. Is staff comfortable with that rather than, say, come back in two or three months? Okay. I think so. All right. Is staff comfortable? I'm comfortable. Okay. In that instance, I will move for a postponement for PLN BOA 24-52. Tammy, Fifehouse? Right. Request for a special use permit. Oh. I just need to point out that per your bylaws, you're actually supposed to postpone to a particular date. That's what your bylaws require. To what? To a date? To a particular date. Oh. All right. You can set that several months from now if you so choose. In that instance, what is our August date? August. That'd give them several months. August 12th. All right. Well, if there's no objections from the board, then I will request the conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental. in a medium density residential zone on property at 2900 Alidar Court unit A until our August 12th date. Thank you. And Ms. Plumlee has offered a second. We will open for vote. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is PLN BOA 24-54, that's FB Real Estate, and the property's 3109 daily place. Is the applicant present? Over here? Okay. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition? We do have a couple. Okay. Looks like number 13 on the STR docket. So we have PLN BOA 24-55 Patrick Hallowell at 305 Lafayette Parkway. Is the applicant present? I'm here on this behalf. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition? We do have a few. Okay. All right. That will be number 14 on STR. PLN BOA 24-57, Seth and Megan Hillemeyer. That's 1952 Blairmore Road. Is the applicant present? This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition? We do have a few, okay. That'll be number 15. PLN BOA 24-59, the Roman Catholic Bishop Diocese of Lexington. Is the applicant present? There we go. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition about this particular item? Okay. I think I get to go back to a single digit number. Hold on. be number four all right last page plnboa 24-60 that's nathan mccauley that's 841 west high street this has been recommended for disapproval is the applicant present they may be in the overflow area i believe i saw them come in okay it is recommended for disapproval so we'll be heard is there anyone here to speak on uh in opposition for this item well mr mccalli we won't pass you up we we've got your number 16. and then plnboa 24-61 redwood cooperative school incorporated is the applicant present this has been recommended for approval let's see here do we have anyone to speak on this particular item are you speaking in opposition i had a note there may be some questions okay so is there any benefit of you going to speak with the applicant privately seeking it your questions of concerns address with the applicant like to speak you'd rather speak here no problem so we will the case will be heard and i believe it's you think it's four tracy four on the herd i think see i was counting on you we're going to believe that we're going to go with it all right good deal and full so we'll go back to the beginning so our first item is pln voa 24-51 that's 344 romney road llc if the applicant can come forward please i do know i think brandon mr gross is recusing himself from this item And just a moment, we did receive an update. Please state your name for the record. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm Darby Turner, attorney representing the applicant, Publix. Thank you. Looks like the staff has recommended approval of a lesser variance of number three. I've got to add them together here. Approval of one, two, six, and seven. Approval of a lesser variance for number three. And I think you guys have withdrawn the other variance request. We made some revisions and that took care of number four and also complied with number six, I think. Okay. You still need approval of a lesser variance for number five. Five. Oh, for number five? Okay. approval of variance for number one two six and seven approval of lesser variance of number five if somebody's writing this that may do a motion approval of lesser variance of number three and then we're withdrawing number four and there are conditions that have been listed i think there's three conditions have you had opportunity to review we have we are in agreement okay so we are in agreement or you all are in agreement with both the approval the approval of the lesser variances the withdrawal of number for four and the conditions as they we are okay now the board has received the the plan ahead of time. So if you guys have a chance to look, if you have any questions or concerns, now would be the time. I've noticed the plan is to do underground parking. Yes, sir. I guess my question is, have you all done coral drilling or soil samples? They have. Yes. I don't have them with me, but yes, they have. They've investigated. You also need to recognize there's a significant elevation difference between Duke Road, Romney Road, and down to Duke Road. So it's almost just a, it's kind of a one-and-a-half story underground. Do you know if they encountered any significant rock? There is rock there. Okay. My concern was for the neighborhood residents there because projects I was involved in in the densely populated areas much like this. Is there blasting going to be going on there? They have yet to make a determination on how. I mean, it'll either have to be ho-rammed out, if it can be, or some minor blasting to, and obviously that will have to comply with all the rules and regulations related to that and the surveys and so forth. So there's not an easy way to do this. but they in public's wants to be as good a neighbor as that's why they're that's why they're going to this location we had a neighborhood meeting we had 150 people or so over to Christ King Church before we filed and usually that means there's a lot of opposition there was not not a single did you all inform them there may be some blasting we talked about rock okay okay i would just be concerned about that i i agree 100 i think this is a tremendous improvement that existing kroger building there is an eyesore so sooner the better yeah thank you that's that's what they all asked i said when's it going in okay thank you any other questions yes miss plummet going forward, which plans would end again provide parking places that have the most width? So I'm thinking of having experience loading your car. Ms. Plumlee, is your mic on? Ms. Plumlee. Ms. Plumlee, can you make sure your microphone is on or speak a little bit closer? There it's on. So moving forward, what would be the plan with the greater width for parking places? The, well that was actually one of the reasons for the very requested variances outside, because their standard parking spot is a 10 foot wide parking place. And that created some issues with interior landscaping, so we reduced those to 9 feet. The standard is 8. the public standard recognizes your concern and their parking spaces are at least two feet wider than the standard for that purpose. Thank you. Do we have other questions? If not, I will entertain a motion with a lot of pieces. I'll make a motion. I want to be sure that I'm reading this right since we've made some changes, but I'll read it and then we'll see where we are. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLN BOA 24-51, 344 Romney Road, LLC. request for number one, a variance to reduce the vehicle use area perimeter buffer from 8 to 0 feet. Number two, a variance to reduce the property perimeter buffer from 15 to 0 feet. Number three, a variance to reduce the required vehicle use area interior landscaping from 10% to 6.6%. Number four, a variance to reduce the required vehicle use area tree canopy from 30% to 15%. Number five, a variance to increase the maximum amount of paved area in a vehicle use area between the building and the street from 60 feet to 240 feet. A variance to decrease the minimum setback for a freestanding sign from 10 to 0 feet for two freestanding signs in order to construct a parking lot associated with a grocery store, a neighborhood business B1 zone on property located at 344 Romney Road and 357 Duke Road. Did I get it all? I think we need amendments to number four and five, correct? I think the only thing I noticed was that if you're going with staff's recommendation, the tree canopy was to be reduced from 30% to 20% rather than 30 to 15. Other than that, I think you hit everything. Number four was withdrawn. i think mr clark renumbered them as he was going i remember them so the percentage was the only thing i noted okay so maybe just a clarification on the tree canopy on number five well it was originally number five the the vehicular use area tree canopy yes i i would I would repeat that. So I assume that's done. Okay. All right. Thank you. And Mr. Sturdivant has offered a second. If there's no further discussion, we will open for vote. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next item is PLN BOA 24-56 Greer Land Company Smyrna No. 2 LLC. If the applicant will please come forward. We'll let Brandon come back. So this has been recommended for approval. Did the board have, and I didn't have anyone listed to speak on this particular item. Did the board have any questions or concerns for the applicant? And I'm sorry, please state your name for the record. Matt Carter, Vision Engineering. Say, Madam Chair, if Mr. Carter confirms they're good with the conditions and there are no questions, I'll move forward with the motion. I do have one concern with item number five. It says the primary pedestrian entrance shall be established along the primary wall of the structure to be oriented to Richmond Road. And my concern with this is one of our users is a Huey Magoo's restaurant. It's a relatively new national chain. It's primarily located in the southeast, but they are starting to migrate north and west. And they have a prototype building which has their primary entrance on the side and not the front. I do have a couple of pictures I could show you of what the building would look like with primary entrance on the side. There is an entrance on the front, so I guess when you're looking at it from Richmond Road, it'll look like the front of the building. But if it's okay, I'd like to pass these around. Will you hand one? Yes. There's two shoes. Hmm? Thank you. Thank you, sir. So what you're looking at is there's two different, it's not a great picture, but there's two scenarios. They're both the same footprint. The cover sheet or the first page you come to, the outdoor seating on the front has no canopy over it. and this would be oriented to Richmond Road. And if you can see in this picture, it's hard to tell, but there is a door coming out on the patio, and then there's a sidewalk entrance coming off the front as well. There's a sidewalk entrance coming off the side as well to the patio area. so pedestrians will have access to the front door if they choose. The second picture, it's a different location, but it's the same footprint, and in this one, it's a covered patio. It's an open patio, and on it, you can see the entrance a little better coming off the sidewalk on the front, entrance coming off the right side, But it's the same storefront other than that with the door, so people will have access to the front. That's really all I wanted to show you, just so you kind of know what we're proposing and how the building will be oriented. I got a question before we ask staff's opinion. is this, I guess what you're showing me here, these aren't in Lexington, are they? No, those are both in Georgia. Okay. And then my second question is, is this, I guess what you're proposing, isn't that how the Chick-fil-A on Harrisburg Road functions? Isn't the main entrance on the side with like the kids area going towards the road? You're all right. their drive-through would be on the side but that's where their main primary entrance is and then they do have entrance on the front corner too as well so i've got a question matt so the pro the primary entrance to the restaurant would face west is Is that correct? In this picture, well, it would face east. East on Richmond Road. Right. Okay. Yes. But the other conditions we're good with, number six asks us to reduce some of the parking. There was some parking kind of adjoining the drive-through side. and at the planning commission hearing last Thursday, we agreed to remove that parking. Okay. Could we put up the site plan? Sure. There should be a PowerPoint for that one. The applicant's current site plan shows the primary entrance being on the side, as you can see in this photo where the awning is located. I think that there is probably a path forward to considering the entrance that faces Richmond Road with the patio to be a primary entrance as long as there's a direct pedestrian path to it. And it is accessible, there's not a gate or an enclosed patio, so it is an accessible pedestrian access. I think our bigger issue with this condition is actually with the bank on the adjoining portion of the property. and i i did originally i was wanting the same to apply to the bank but i have since figured out a way to make its entrance on the front so so where we are here on the current site plan where the big green arrow is the the main interest is on that side of the building Yeah, the little bump out you see, I guess the closest car to the green area, just to the left of that, that bump out is the main entrance. And you're, oh, sorry. And you're okay with this condition applying to the bank building? Is that what you said? Yeah, we're okay with that. Okay, so it's just the, what's it called? Huey McGoo's? Yes. A building? Okay. and he was sort of like uh i would say it was like a raising canes uh a little bit different but that's probably the best description of it okay and i guess going back to autumn's comment which i think aligns with some of the photos would huey megoes be okay with an entrance on the front even if it's not the primary one but an unimpeded entrance yes yes that's i mean that's currently the way they're developed so okay so just for clarity there is an unimpeded entrance on the front the main entrance is on the side and so what are we saying that does with the the walkway that staff is requesting so it's not the walkway that the variance requested has to do with how much pavement is in front of the building uh... rb one zone now requires for corner lots which uh... a corner lot this happens to have two structures on it the principal structure to not have pavement between the front yard in the building so they already have a whole row of a drive aisle that connects across the shopping center and a row of parking so in order to it to continue to feel like the front of the building which is consistent along the entire shopping center in the drive out of parking and all of those businesses front to richmond road the staff recommends that these two businesses also since they're asking for the same treatment of this drive off front that their fronts also face to richmond road so we're looking for a front door i think as long as it's unimpeded that can work but the graphic shown and the one that went to the planning commission had a gate at gated fence all the way around that front patio and so if it's if it's locked from the inside and and people can actually get in through that door again if it's unimpeded i think we can get there but if it is locked or blocked that doesn't really get to the the point of uh... the condition and we're okay with specifying unimpeded so no no gate okay that's good um in that instance does um what do i need to do for condition five change may be primary to an unimpeded pedestrian entrance i'll be established would that work mr carter yes that would be good any other questions if not i'm ready to move nope all right well with that being discussed um and staff and the applicants flexibility i am proud happy to not proud but happy to move for plnboa 2456 greer land co smyrna number two llc's requests for variances to reduce the minimum front yard setback from 10 feet to zero feet and increase the maximum setback from 20 feet to 73 feet in order to construct two new buildings with a drive aisle and parking in front of a building on a corner lot in a neighborhood B1 zone at 2041 Richman Road. Based upon the staff's reports, the testimony given here today subject to the conditions set forth in the report except for condition number five, I want to strike the word the primary from the beginning of the sentence and replace it with um uninterrupted so moved thank you mr sturdivant has offered a sec a second any other questions or comments from the board if not i will open for vote motion is passed good luck with your project and i wish you all a speedy day oh yeah we're rolling we're going to keep it rolling Okay, our next item is PLNBOA 24-28, New Light Baptist Church, amended. The applicant will please come forward. Okay. And please state your name for the record. Steve Wainwright. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval. Have you had an opportunity to review the two conditions that are listed by staff? And are you comfortable with those? Yes. Thank you. We've had the materials ahead of time. Does the board have any questions or concerns for this applicant? If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLN BOA 24-28. the New Life Baptist Church amended request for a conditional use permit to amend an existing conditional use for a place of religious assembly in order to construct a new accessory structure in a single-family residential zone, a property located at 333 Reading Road and 3457 Bell Mead Road, based on the staff's recommendation and the two conditions as listed. Thank you. Do I have a second. Mr. Walker has offered a second. I will open for vote. Okay, motion approved. Good luck with your project. Thank you. Our next item is PLN BOA 24-59. That's the Roman Catholic Bishop Diocese of Lexington. The applicant will please come forward. Good afternoon. I'm Maureen Peters with Pearson and Peters Architects. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval, and there are six conditions that have been listed by the staff. You have opportunity to review? Yes. And are you all comfortable with all the conditions? Yes. Does the board have any questions or concerns with this applicant? I'd like to make a motion to approve. Okay. Make a motion to approve PLN VOA 24-59, Roman Catholic Bishop, Diocese of Lexington requests a conditional use permit for place of religious assembly in order to construct additional parking within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a medium density residential R3 zone on property located at 430 Jefferson Street and 485 West 4th Street. based on recommendation of five six conditions for approval thank you and miss Plumlee has offered a second no further discussion we'll take a vote wonderful motion passed thank you luck with your project Now we will appear a few cases beginning with PLN BOA 24-42, that's South Mill Properties, LLC, that has been recommended for disapproval, so we will have staff present first. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, members of the board. Our first item for a full hearing today appears at the bottom. Is your mic on Tracy here? It's off today. What? You were quiet. Oh, I can speak up. Don't worry. Our first item for a full hearing today appears at the bottom of page one of your agenda, and it's PLN BOA 24-42, and this is a request by South Mill Properties, LLC. This is a request for property at 372 South Mill Street, but it's also known as 380. This says South Mill Street as well for Council District 3. They're requesting a reduction to the side street side yard along Maxwell Street of the property in order to construct an outdoor patio. So the subject property is the former Dudley School in downtown at the corner of the intersection, really on the east corner of this intersection of South Mill Street and West Maxwell. A little bit closer view. Obviously, that's a historic school structure, and it does have at least one addition. It appears in this picture, maybe two additions, but there's a third addition proposed currently. So this project has already gone to the Board of Architectural Review, which deals with the historic preservation and historic character of the structure. But the applicant is also in need of a variance to the Side Street side yard. And in this case, the front of the building is to South Mill Street and the side yard is West Maxwell. And the portions of the zoning ordinance that apply are from Article 1, which defines what a side street side yard is. And then the setback in our B1 zone has a minimum of 10 feet, so 10 feet from the property, edge along the right-of-way, and up to 20 feet back. And that's really a build-to area, so for our B1 zones, we want the building to be closer to the front plane or front right-of-way of the property. In addition, we have some additional requirements of Article 15 that talk about some averaging that's allowed, but also the applicant talks in their justification about this being really a projection of the front building or part of the building into that setback. but in fact because the patio is taller than three feet off the ground it cannot be considered a projection by the zoning ordinance it becomes part of the principal structure so the request is for that principal structure to come up pretty much all the way to the zero line with the right of way and this is the site plan that the applicant provided let me see if i can point out This lightest gray color is the new addition proposed, and these darker two rectangles are the new patios proposed. And this one in particular is the one that's in question and that encroaches into the side street side yard. It's about 270 square feet. The applicant did not provide information with their justification about the details enough to meet the requirements of Article 7 of the Zoning Ordinance, which is also relevant to KRS 100-243. They haven't indicated any special circumstances for the property other than that it's located in a historic district. of course, we have historic districts across the county, and within those districts, obviously, all the improvements need to be done with care and evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation. But in this case, the lot does have room for outdoor patio, obviously, along the front, and particularly perhaps enough room for a patio, and there doesn't seem to be much justification for coming off the side of the structure as well. The requested variance is also not in keeping with the character of West Maxwell Street. We'll get to that in just a second. The additional information that the applicant provided was a staff report from the BOAR, are, but we also reached out to Historic Preservation and they provided some documents that were provided to them, and again, not directly to the staff, but through another division. This does show how the applicant has tried to preserve the historic tulip poplar trees on the site. There's one here and they're actually building that patio around the tree, and then there's another tree that exists along Maxwell Street here and they did have an extensive discussion at the BOAR about how to preserve the trees. So we do believe at this point since the staff report was written that that may be being addressed and these are again offered by the historic preservation staff renderings that they submitted to the BOAR in terms of making an addition to the site. So the addition again is this structure with the two trees being preserved and then the front patio in this picture and then this one indicates the side patio that does come pretty much all the way out to the sidewalk. And the character of the area is really what's in question and so obviously along this frontage there are no structures that encroach that far into the front yard. The existing addition here shown with the red door that you can access from Maxwell is approximately 14 feet back, further back than the 10-foot setback and falls within that B1 required setback. Looking past Max Alley, there are two residential structures that are located in the B1 zone and they're set back approximately five feet from the sidewalk. And then across the street, you have a number of small businesses also in the B1 zone. And again, they are set back at least five feet from the right-of-way. And these are relatively narrow sidewalks or pedestrian improvements along here. This one does show approximately seven feet of pavement, but it's also obstructed by utility poles here and then here. And then there are some planting areas on the ground there, so that takes up about three feet, and then only really four feet of sidewalk, and that puts that proposed structure right up against the sidewalk, which can then, of course, impede some of the pedestrian movements in that area. So for those reasons, first, this applicant did not provide information to justify the request per Article 7 in KRS 100. In addition, this would alter the character of the general vicinity as no other structures encroach into the West Maxwell setback all the way to the right-of-way, and the encroachment could set a precedent along this frontage. granting the requested variants could have a negative impact on the public health safety or welfare of the community, potentially damaging the existing trees. Obviously, that's not as much of a concern if they've worked with the urban forester, but it could also impede pedestrian movements in this area. And then the applicant has not provided sufficient information to determine the strict enforcement of the zoning ordinance, would result in an unnecessary hardship or deprive them of reasonable use of their property. and primarily that's because they are already been granted permission and it's within the setbacks for this particular outdoor patio for their restaurant. So much of their justification talked about not being able to do their addition. In fact, the BOAR has already approved the addition in the front patio. The only thing that they're asking for in addition to that now is a further encroachment here into what's required front yard. Can I answer any questions about the staff's recommendation? So we're recommending disapproval. No questions now. We will give the applicant an opportunity to present. Hello, Barron Gibson with Gibson Taylor Thompson Architects. Thank you. Let me get this presentation pulled up. Okay, how do I? Okay. We are proposing an addition to 380 South Mill Street, Dudley Square, for a more conducive restaurant dining room and outdoor seating addition the idea behind the dining the design for the outdoor decks is to give the public a space to dine and enjoy the beautiful courtyard and tree canopy that has been underutilized for some time you can see in this image this is the existing condition of the of the courtyard space you can see the trees that Tracy was referencing and the empty brick patio that's been not used for for a while I'll go through and just show a few of our slides as Tracy mentioned we have been to three BOAR hearings to address this case and we've talked about just about everything that Tracy has mentioned extensively in those hearings and I'll go through those shortly. You can see our certificate of appropriateness. That's from the BOAR showing that the decks and addition were looked at in relationship to the existing building and the surrounding neighborhood and the surrounding historic structures. These These are architectural drawings. Tracy showed some renderings that we had previously put together. These are more developed. This shows on the cover sheet a more realistic looking rendering of exactly how the decks would interact with Maxwell and the intersection of Mill as it relates to the existing building. When we were working on this project and producing the design, the BOAR was obviously very interested in how these decks would engage the street and the existing building. They felt that the decks provided a buffer to the building and felt that they were appropriate to the design and in character with the existing neighborhood. I'll keep going through. Same drawing that Tracy pulled up, you can see the red line represents the setback and our one area where we are encroaching is this deck right here. Go ahead, flip to some more slides. We carefully worked with an arborist to understand the footings and foundations and staying out the critical root zone for those trees so i have more information on that i'll just kind of go through the rest of the drawings you can also see in this drawing that these are diagrams we put together for the boar to show tree canopy so understanding the height of the addition but location of the porch as they would stay outside of any we wouldn't need to prune any trees as they are because the addition would fit right under the the lowest branches and then again the blow-up rendering just showing a bigger picture of what this would look like um so um you know after several hearings with the boar we successfully successfully attained boar approval along with receiving a certificate of appropriateness for the proposed design 1. While I acknowledge the contents of staff's recommendation letter, I believe it's important to highlight the majority of the concerns listed have nearly, have already been extensively discussed and addressed in the BIR hearing and are included in the approval they granted. The first item as to staff's reasoning for disapproval was that we have not provided sufficient justification to meet the requirements of Article 7 in the zoning ordinance, and there does not appear to be special circumstances that are unique to the subject property that do not generally apply to the land in the general vicinity. My response to that is the special circumstances are that this building is within a historic overlay and that all the proposed designs must receive approval from the BOAR, which we did receive. My client has determined that outdoor seating is going to be necessary for the success of his business and potential restaurant tenants. After coordinating with the BOAR, they helped guide us in the most appropriate way to achieve that design. We did go through several iterations with them and landed at this version, which has that deck closer to Maxwell. The BOAR helped us determine the best location for the decks. The design and location for the addition decks have been driven by the necessity to stay off of the historic trees while also giving potential restaurant goers the opportunity to engage with the trees on the outdoor patios. If we don't get approval for the design at this BOA hearing, we'll have to go back to another hearing for the BOAR for architectural approval if this outdoor deck is not permitted. This seems like a very difficult process to manage. if two LFUCG agencies are giving us conflicting directions. The second point from staff was granting the requested variance would alter the character of the general vicinity as no other structures encroach into the West Maxwell setback all the way to the right-of-way. As mentioned before, the BOIR has studied the proposed location for the Maxwell-facing deck and felt that the proposed design would be appropriate for the neighborhood and street. The board consists of members and architects that are trained to critique architectural appropriateness as it relates to the neighborhood, the existing building, and surrounding structures. We received a certificate of appropriateness as shown in the first slide that I showed. So the third point that staff brought up was granting the requested variants would have a negative impact on the public health, safety, or welfare of the community by potentially damaging existing significant trees within a local historic district. Further note, my response to that is, as mentioned, we have extensively reviewed the design as relates to the surrounding historic trees at the bar hearing to ensure compliance we engaged an arborist who provided a comprehensive report and assessment of the trees of the property furthermore we meticulously developed foundation details positioning the porch footing outside the critical root zone of the trees this approach was endorsed by both our arborist and lfucg's arborist affirming that our plan would not have any adverse effects on the trees We consulted Eric Sutherland, the licensed arborist for Town Branch Tree Service. Eric now works for LFUCT as well. Eric provided several guidelines in order for the construction of the deck to have no negative impact on the trees and was in support of our plans. The report summarizes several suggestions in which we are in full compliance in our proposed design. Some of those were extending the piers past the critical root zone, which is three times the diameter of the tree, approximately 12 feet. Since the deck was to be installed, it was suggested by the owner that we could remove the concrete sidewalks. Since they would be under the proposed deck, this would remove impermeable surfaces that would better protect the tree roots. So you can see in this picture there's impermeable surfaces, the sidewalks that the deck would be covering. Those are not good for the trees currently. And so with our proposed design, the sidewalks would be removed. So the deck is obviously a permeable structure. Water is going to go through the deck boards. The trees will be just fine. A quote from the arborist in his report was that the construction of the deck is not harmful to the trees as long as the pier foundations are kept outside of the protection zone. So the fourth point that was brought up is the applicant has not provided sufficient information to determine the strict enforcement of the zoning ordinance will result in any unnecessary hardship or deprive the applicant of the reasonable use of their land my response to this is similar to the first response mentioned earlier and that the hardship prevents us from moving the deck to another location tracy mentioned that we could move the deck potentially to another location on the site and that's just not the case we have looked at that extensively with the boar and there was no other appropriate location that wouldn't impede the visual elevation of the existing building with with that deck and also it was discussed in the hearing that the the maxwell side deck provides a nice buffer for the elevation of that addition without it being just a a square structure so my last point is the lfuc zoning ordinance states in section 15-5 for projections as as tracy mentioned covered porches stairways terraces covered porches stairways terraces or other similar features the floor level which is not over three feet above the established grade and it does not extend above the level of the first floor of the building when open and unenclosed may project into the required front side or rear yard no more than eight feet provided that such covered porch of stairways terraces other similar features conform to the provisions of subject section d of this section our porch is level with the finished floor of the existing building and it currently sits 42 inches approximately give or take wherever you measure on grade above grade making the deck only approximately six inches higher than it would need to be as required by the ordinance to be compliant we could reduce the height of the deck but this seems unnecessary how given how close we are to the to the to the design being compliant in order to have level floors having level floors and a level surface obviously makes it easier to be ada compliant with the decks and for patrons of the restaurant so that's excuse me sir over here do you by chance have um i'm having a hard time visualizing what this is going to look like do you have a cross section that shows sidewalk grass porch or anything that we can get a general idea um you know i'm looking across the street and you know the parking lot with the wall is right there on the sidewalk there's some commercial buildings within the block going the other direction but even there i can't tell where the sidewalk is in relation to to this i mean is it are you asking for essentially a patio, but is it going to be opaque? Is it going to be, I'm just having a hard time looking at, like even on that, I can't tell, like my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. So I can't really, I'm having a hard time to distinguish what's going on there. Could you explain it to us? Sure. So this is the projection in question. the the setback virtually runs right up to where this plane of glass doors is the setback projects eight feet past that that wall of doors coming to the sidewalk right here so our property line is basically right here at the sidewalk so that porch projects into the setback now per the zoning ordinance if that porch were up three feet tall there would be no issues with the porch as we have we as we have designed it it's still a foot too far it's nine feet wide not eight okay we we would be happy to reduce it to eight feet if that brought us into compliance it doesn't you still can't encroach more than half of the front yard okay so five which is consistent with other structures along west maxwell and those two that block from mill to next okay understood um so does that answer your your question about what's going a little bit i'm just um you think it would be beneficial i mean let me ask you this would it be beneficial have you met with staff this it actually sat down and looked at the cross sections and the other things i know you've met with them board of architectural review and my heart goes out to you uh... but i did have you had an opportunity to sit down and say how can we possibly this you know something sometimes it doesn't work you know you status have a fundamental disagreement i'm just having a hard time don't know how much grass how close are you actually to be to the sidewalk uh... overall i mean i'm not objecting to this idea and concept that's thing i'm have a hard time processing how it's been presented to get me on board uh... in how i would be that were to move for approval how i did in work on the conditions uh... is right now does i know you're technically a structure i'm our of the zoning ordinance even though it's a patio but you know i think it a raised deck with an opaque fence doesn't offend my sensibilities given its size and where it is and we want people to come downtown and meet outside and other type things but i guess questions have you have you and staff sat down and kind of work through these issues we have not okay but as pictured there's about a between the patio and the approximately um yeah i have um i don't have that exact dimension and that's part of my issue is nothing's really just i can't tell things from scale i can't see how it all kind of work yeah i mean we're we're you know approximately about a foot uh to the to the sidewalk is the in the total width of the i guess where does the right away in is the right away looks i get into your columns and then there's grass a foot of grass the city owns but how much are you providing i'm a question of planning is there a history of the the away or and you all disagreeing design details well they don't make decisions on the setbacks or land use those are going to be are they aware of them They are aware of them, and so is the applicant. I would think that the Architectural Review Board, being aware of them, you know, could point out that there may be some problems rather than approving something and moving it to the next level. But that's not, they deal with Article 13 of the zoning ordinance, so they're not there to force or require other aspects of the zoning ordinance to be adhered to when they file for their... But that could be part of the discussion, could it not? It could. I'm assuming it was. It was. Okay. Thank you. Which is why we're here, right? Okay. Any other questions of the applicant? Ms. Plumlee? Yes. Thank you. I would have grave concerns for the trees because that one tree that you showed in that last photo, So just the construction would be damaging to the roots and so forth, and I would not see it having a real good survival rate. So we outlined a thorough plan for construction for the contractor for staging equipment and excavation. I, for the sake of time, I kind of skimmed through some of the arborist notes, but one of those was to either hand dig or use an air knife. when excavation for the foundation another area that is easier to manage with the trees is this distance is greater than 12 feet which is outside of the critical root zone so any excavation outside of that critical root zone is acceptable but the footing for these piers is 20 inches deep and two feet by two feet wide so it's not a continuous footer and it's a more delicate excavation process than digging a foundation for a house let's say thank you thank you i have a question so the strip on the sidewalk is that grass or is that just still sidewalk and how wide is the sidewalk right there the sidewalk i believe is seven feet is that right tracy the wide the wide part of the sidewalk is seven feet the the area there is four feet and then there's a grass strip so seven feet down here four feet up here with a grass median which is required to remain by historic preservation. Okay. But this does not impede any traffic flow because the sidewalk doesn't change. This is the same path that people would have to walk going up Maxwell whether this addition is there or not. Yeah, I was just concerned about all the pedestrian traffic right there. any other questions of the applicant thank you do does the staff want to rebut anything or thank you baron thank you I would say the two points that the applicant made regarding the unique character of the site, he mentioned that it's in a historic district and that's unique, but it really is not. The structure here is unique. It's an old schoolhouse that's been adaptively reused, but being within an H1 district is not a unique situation. It occurs for quite a bit of our county, especially near downtown. And so those requirements to go to the BOAR are going to be present to address the aesthetic characteristics of the site, but that doesn't necessarily address the zoning requirements, as Mr. Shervin asked about. And then I'm not sure that the applicant has provided any reason why they need two patios as opposed to just the one here, other than that's their desire to have seating directly on the street. And the staff's concern is that that's not really consistent with the character of this area. So now we're creating another, with the variance, a unique situation, which is not generally the desire of our ordinance to do that. Thank you. Tracy moved fast, but did we have any questions of staff? She can't go far. Okay. Motion. Yes, ma'am. Madam Chair, regard of PLNBOA 2442, South Mill Properties, request a variance to reduce the minimum side street side yard from 10 feet to zero feet in order to construct a new patio within the defined infield redevelopment area in a historic district overlay H1 zone and a neighborhood business B1 zone on property located at 372 South Mill Street, AKA 280 South Mill Street. I move disapproval along with the staff recommendations of four conditions. Oh, to clarify, you mean the reasons, not the conditions? I recommend the disapproval because of the staff four conditions. Reasons. Reasons. Yeah, reasons. Just want to make sure the record's clear. Yeah, reasons. Thank you, Ms. Plumlee. Do we have a second? I second it, but it went away on my screen. Thank you. Ms. Tucker offers a second. I don't even know where that button is anyway. Ms. Tucker, you guys hit that button. but we hope for the okay has been disapproved The next item is PLNBOA 24-50 Stephen Sherman, and this has been recommended for disapproval, so staff will present first. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. This application is a request for a variance to reduce the required front yard setback from 30 feet to zero feet in order to pave a circular driveway in front of a house located within a defined infill and redevelopment area in a single family residential R1C zone at 1736 Fairway Drive. So here we have a vicinity sort of map showing the general area of the property. The subject property is located along Fairway Drive between Holiday Road and Fairwood Lane. So we have Richmond Road here and then the applicant is this blue square here. So I'll go ahead and go forward so that we can see a closer view here. This is a .2 acre lot containing a 2,330 square foot single family residence with an attached basement level garage located at the rear of the property. The applicant desires to pave a circular drive within the defined front yard and the zoning ordinance does not currently allow for parking, unloading, or loading spaces within any required front yard. In order to permit the requested circular driveway, they do need a variance to reduce their front yard to zero feet. The only parking that can occur in front of the wall plane is in a driveway that leads to a parking space behind the front wall plane of the house. Here we have the applicant's site plan. They are proposing a circular driveway that adjoins with their existing 12-foot drive, which you can see along the side here. So the proposed circular driveway will include a secondary curb cut located in this vicinity here, approximately 19 feet from the existing curb cut. The applicant opines that this will allow them to have a safer way to exit their property without having to back out. they state that they don't have a proper space to turn around on their property because of the way that the house is set back staff has reviewed this application and has found that the applicant did not provide sufficient justification to meet the requirements of article 7 of the zoning ordinance or krs 100.243 there are not special circumstances and that apply to this property that are unique i'll go back to the the aerials and this may be a little bit difficult to see but the The applicant's sort of layout is quite similar throughout this neighborhood. The majority of homes are similarly laid out with a sort of deep lot with a driveway that goes up the side to either parking in the rear or a rear garage. Circular drives are not common in this neighborhood. Additionally, the applicant would require the second access point here. And traffic engineering has indicated significant concern with that. Even without the need for the variance, traffic engineering has indicated that it would be unlikely that they would be able to approve the application because the access point is so close and the proposed radius of the circular drive is quite tight. So staff is recommending disapproval of the application for those reasons. And we are happy to answer any questions that you may have. Autumn, will you help my memory? We, didn't we turn down within the last 12 months one in this same neighborhood? I'm not sure about the neighborhood. In a way, there was further. Not in this area? Okay. I know we did on Alexandria. There was one on Alexandria where you all approved a lesser variance to allow for a sort of a turnaround in the front yard without adding an additional access point. Okay. Thank you. And just for clarification, the existing drive is there, so that would still be the same access point, but wider? Correct. This would not change. It exists as a 12-foot drive, but they would be adding the secondary access point 19 feet away here. And I believe there is staff from Traffic Engineering here, if they may be able to answer any questions that you have about that proximity. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions of staff before we let the applicant speak? Thank you. And if the applicant can please come forward. Please state your name for the record. Diane Sherman. Thank you. Okay. Let me see if I can do this. I'm afraid I'm not going to quote. You'll just have to ask her to pull up your presentation. It's loaded. So I'm not going to quote the zoning ordinances. I'll just tell you a little bit. Could you speak in the microphone? Sure. Please can't hear you. There we go. Thank you. So a picture's worth a thousand words, so if you'll forgive me, we moved here about four years ago to make it our forever home, a.k.a. age in place. For those of you, that's the core. We were lucky enough to find a historic home that has one level living. This is the last project in a four-year journey of restoration. We have redone all the windows, brought the garden back. Our intention has always been to restore the house. We had gotten bids from four different licensed contractors, all of which told us we could put the driveway in. So it was dug. We had no idea that we were in violation of the ordinance. So please accept our apologies for that. The uniqueness of this particular property and in others along the neighborhood, we're in a secondary artery. So you have Henry Clay and Holiday, homes that have circular turnarounds for this very reason. Our particular site is right at the intersection of Queensway, Fairway, Holiday, which goes in two directions. So at any one time, I am literally saying a Hail Mary that I can get out or pull into the driveway, because there are cars coming from four directions. The proposed driveway, as you can tell I've been restoring the garden, has been mitigated as best we could. It is saving all the trees, it is saving the rose garden in the front, and the proposal is similar to a driveway that's on holiday that has a little gate and a pathway to the garden, to the house itself. unique about this property versus any other on the street is we have a side entrance. We do not have a front entrance to the house. So right now our 12 foot driveway at the beginning of the property serves not only to park a car, but also to gain access into the house. So that is why it's 12 foot there. As you go through past where you get into the house, The driveway condenses to eight feet from that point. It also slopes down, this is geometry, so if we didn't do it right, I apologize, about 24 inches. For reference, it's four steps into the main entrance, 12 to get up to the residents on the first level again. So it has quite a bit of slope to it. In the summer as we are now with the heavy rains, it's basically a sheet of rain that goes down because of the hard surfaces. What is also hard to see is where our neighbor has erected an eight foot fence is we are lower than their property. So as you go back to the further end of the property, what you'll see is we have a drainage issue. The property goes slopes down, we mitigate the rain going to a drain off that asphalt there into a drain that we have. In the back of the property, the way it slopes where the arbor is coming down is a slope and our neighbors to where there's that high drain to tree down, there is a storm drain that services the whole neighborhood. So as we explored other ways to have a safe turnaround, the rear yard was not as desirable because adding more hard surface, we're basically going to flood. What happened before we realized that that drain was there and did some modifications to make sure the drain came off that hard surface, the whole backyard would flood. So our concern about putting any kind of turnaround is the feasibility of doing it in the back as well as the flooding of it. Where that arbor is to my left, that is also another neighbor who is on holiday, their yard is higher than ours and so it slopes down. So basically we're a natural wet garden as it would be called and we've done everything along the back to clean it up to make sure when it does rain it absorbs and gets into that drainage. So we're concerned about adding any more blacktop or hard surface to the back. We've had several construction people out and deciding whether we want to take back that historic, there's a very old hydrangea tree there or not, and they warned us of what could happen in terms of just flooding our yard every time it rains and any surface. In terms of the garage, it's really a shed. It is at the back of the property, so if you look at where the garage arrow is, my husband is standing in front of it. It doesn't service as a car. The access path is approximately seven feet wide. It's good enough to get a lawnmower around it, but what you would have to do to use the back at all or to use that as a garage, you would have to come down an eight-foot driveway at a pretty big steep, make a sharp left, and then get into that garage. So the feasibility of using that space as a garage we explored, but we would have to come out probably 10 to 15 feet into the yard, adding more hardscape as well as just turning to try to get that. Again, remember, I'm old. He can't drive really well. I don't want the whole place knocked down. So our request is really for our safety and the safety of our neighbors as well, because other people who have come to visit have tried to get out of the yard backing up. Trying to back into the driveway is also an issue because, again, we are within feet of where Holiday is, and people, when you have your right turn signal in, think you're going to Holiday. And so I've taken to stopping halfway up the block. We would like to engage with anyone who can help us come up with a better, safer solution. It is our intention to change the character of this house. We love it. There are other circular driveways with this kind of need in our neighborhood, both on Henry Clay and Holiday. So when we bought the house four years ago, it was our intention to do this quickly with the pandemic and quite frankly the ability to get contractors and so forth, it has been delayed. We would like your consideration, and if you feel it's appropriate to postpone it and get someone to come and really walk the site with us and come up with a different solution, we're totally open to it. We've restored three historic houses as we've moved around the country. We are always about preserving the past but making sure it functions for the future. So I thank you for your time and as I said, if it's appropriate to postpone and get staff or someone to come out and tell us how we can do this a different way, we're open to that as well. Thank you for your time. Just one moment please, do we have any questions of the applicant? Yes, I do, thank you. In one of these pictures it looks like maybe the driveway has already started construction, is that true? The driveway is completed, the turnaround is not. We did not do the turnaround. Oh, somebody started. Thank you. We did not know that that was, we have a licensed contractor who came to do the driveway. It was an asphalt driveway and it was all cracked. And we had waited until everything was done. We've had more work than you need to know about. So that was the last step. So the driveway was put in, the circular part was dug because we were under, we asked five times if we needed permits and they said no. A building inspector stopped by, put a card in and that's when we learned we needed a variance. So we apologize for that, but the physical space, the 12 feet at the beginning and then the eight all the way down to the garden are, has been changed material wise it's what it was it's just concrete now instead of asphalt thank you have you submitted this supplemental information to planning sorry have you submitted what you submitted to us has this been submitted to the planning department uh we just did it and brought it with us yes we just received it at the same time you did yeah Okay, any other questions of the applicant? Thank you. Thank you. Did we have any community comment on this particular item? I think so. Thank you. Staff, did you want to address anything? We're happy to answer any questions. I think that if the board were to be interested in a continuance of this application, we would be able to perhaps direct the applicant to work with traffic engineering to see if there is any path forward with them but i think i'm happy to answer any questions thank you i had a question so there was another one that we had that wanted to put in a circular driveway and instead we allowed them to have like a little apron in the front to be able to turn and then come back around would that be allowable in this space? It would require a variance still, but it would be a lesser variance. I don't think that that's something that we could recommend approval of today, because we would need to see sort of what the geometry of that looks like, sort of the amount of space that they would need in order to create such a turnaround. But that would be something that we could discuss as part of a continuance. Thank you. Thank you. We actually explored that. Come all the way up to the mic, please. We actually explored that, and the space that would be required to do that is greater than a turn around because of the width. And visually, Martha Stewart here, I can't put a gate in a cute little thing to mitigate it. drew it out on a front lawn with yarn one night and so doing that would actually be more impactful visually than doing the turnaround because you wouldn't need that as much space just to keep going so we did explore that the board is so inclined to offer a continuance and so the applicant can speak further to traffic engineering or and maybe discuss again with staff after that conversation I'll entertain such a thing or if we're ready to I would say it sounds like they've reviewed the alternative and it won't work for them it's what I just heard and at the end of the day the urban County council voted to prohibit circular driveways in our city. And that's not necessarily for us to overrule given the fact that I think this house is very similar to the next house to the next house as most of you know, where I live, I get hundreds of cars every day that run past my house during the school year. It's not fun reversing, but I didn't pass the ordinance. So, you know, that's just my feeling. And I feel sorry for people that want and need circular. They don't bother me. However, though, the Urban County Council has set the policy on that issue. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Anything further? I will entertain a motion to whatever your pleasure. Either disapproval or continuance or if we need to take a recess if someone's interested in some approval option that needs legal counsel. Madam Chair, I will move for disapproval of PLNBOA 24-50 Stephen M. Sherman's request for a variance to reduce the required front yard setback from 30 feet to zero feet in order to pave a circular driveway in front of the house with a defined infill and development area and a single-family residential zone on property located at 1736 Fairway Drive based on the staff's recommendation. So move. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Do I have a second? Mr. Gross has offered a second any further discussion before we vote we'll open for vote thank you motion has been disapproved approved for disapproval upheld for disapproval thank you Thank you. All right. The next item is PLNBOA 24-62, and that is Linda Dunsmore. The applicant will please come forward. Wait, are we doing the ones that aren't to be heard? We already did those. Mike Adams. He's an STR. We're going to group all the short-term rentals together. I'm sorry. There's a gazillion cases. I apologize. Yes. I was hoping those were done already. I have a code in the system over here, circles, underlines, and checks. I don't remember what they are. I understand. Okay. Good. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board and staff. I'm Chris Clendenin. I'm here on behalf of Linda Dunsmore, who is seated over here in the audience. And I'm sorry, what was your last name again? Clendenin, C-L-E-N-D-E-N-E-N. Gotcha. Okay. This is a variance request for 856 Robin Road, which is off of Tate's Creek. For those of you who don't know where this is, it's currently a property that is zoned R1C, has 15,532 square feet, and it's a single family residence. It's an aerial view of the property. You'll see it highlighted in blue. It's Robin Road and then right before you get to, what is that street? Okay, Breckenwood, thank you. Summary of the request. We are proposing to obtain a variance to reduce the required front yard setback on the original plat. This is a 30 feet setback based on the zone, but there's an original plat that was recorded in the 50s, which the front yard setback is actually 45 feet. This is for the purpose of adding an additional driveway, allowing the applicant to have additional paving to convert her existing garage into a functional living space as part of her existing house, adding a new garage towards the rear of the property and also an accessory dwelling unit. to have housing for caregivers. My applicant here, unfortunately, has medical conditions. She has a severely arthritic knee. She walks with the use of a cane. The idea here is she is lucky enough and fortunate enough to have financial means to redesign her property. She, unfortunately, has the medical issues and mobility issues that require this. She wants to, you know, to borrow a phrase, age and place. She wants to stay on her property rather than have to go to assisted living or skilled nursing at some point. She has, I don't know if she'll mind me saying this, she's in her 70s now. She claims to have longevity and genetics on her side, hopes to be around 20, 25 years from now, but would like to remain in her present home and wants to make these changes in order to ensure that she can. Okay, this is the articles that are impacted by this in the zoning ordinance. This is a letter from her physician. Severe arthritis of the left knee. Walks primarily on even surfaces. The terrain in the yard is kind of graded with a slope. It's very difficult for her to do that. So thus the need. Okay, this is the site plan. I've added these arrows and these additions. You'll have an idea of what we're talking about here. Okay, first and foremost, we're not looking for a circular driveway here. I know that's been an issue. that's not what this is okay if you look at the arrow talking about the accessible entrance the existing driveway you'll see is currently there to the sidewalk and then cuts out on Robin Road what she's trying to do is keep the existing driveway and add a pathway to a new entrance to the front yard or front of her house that she's going to build with rails and a ramp. It's already hard for her to navigate getting in and out of her house. She wants to keep the existing driveway. Now, to the back, you'll see the proposed garage, and then there's a proposed addition along with the garage. The existing garage, she's going to try to convert into, I guess for lack of a better term, would be a more ADA compliant bedroom and bathroom for in the event that she needs to graduate to a wheelchair and she'll have the ability to get in and out and access that. Now, the real key here and the real main component is that ADU, I want to talk about something that's called multi-generational living. Now, Linda doesn't have any children, but she's already started talking with people, college students, nursing students, some people in the neighborhood, acquaintances for the idea is not for short-term rental, but when the time is right to get some tenants, some boarders, and in exchange for a minimal amount of rent or room and board or whatever deal that she wants to work out with these people, that she would have some people who live on her property, so this would be the equivalent of a hosted STR, but long-term, who could help her if she needs help with moving her about, running errands for her, doing things for her if she doesn't have any children, and she does have some family, but they live far away. This is a trend that's going on in this country. If you see this chart, this was done by the Pew Research Center. I'm sure most of you are familiar with that. So it's tracking this trend for the last 50 years as the demographics in the country change. You have more and more people who are entering, or who are baby boomers, who are entering the 65 and older type of deal. And this trend is multi-generational living. In her case, it wouldn't be grandparent, grandchild, or grandparent, daughter, or son. It would be a woman of a grandparent age, maybe a grandchild equivalent age for a couple or a person who is willing to offer care in exchange for a place to live. It might be a student, a UK student, or something like that, for example. But if you see this trend, you're looking at 50 years ago, 25 million people. In 2021, we're looking at between 60 and 70 million people. So this is happening. This is the type of thing that she's looking for and wants the opportunity to do this. So what she's asking to do is go back, let me go back to this site here. Do the, keep the existing driveway. Now originally we did propose a connection between the existing driveway and the proposed driveway. Staff is recommending that we agree to not have the connection. We're fine with that. if that's what staff would like, we would agree to that condition. But the proposed driveway would be a separate access to the garage for the caregiver and to the ADU in the rear of the property. So we're talking about basically allowing, getting a variance to go from the 45 foot setback to zero to keep the existing parking area in the front and then having this proposed driveway replace the new driveway on this site plan it was proposed as eight feet staff is recommending that we make it nine feet wide and we're fine with that obviously so that's essentially my presentation the why and how if you have questions yes sir i have a question uh so the existing garage is at the end of the existing driveway is that correct yes okay uh and then from your from your site plan the proposed addition which will be adjacent to the proposed driveway is there going Is there going to be outside access on that proposed addition? I'm sorry, sir, I couldn't hear you. Is there going to be proposed access from the new driveway to the new addition? Well, there's a connection to it, but it- Will there be a door to the driveway? I understand from the proposed driveway, there'll be access to the garage and the ADU from that driveway, but not the actual main house. not to the addition itself no okay no and again there's a proposed the garage is existing there's proposed addition and i might and i could be wrong about this but i believe the garage is going to be converted to the bedroom the the addition that's attached to where the garage currently is would be be the bathroom. Okay, is that right? Bathroom, laundry, and the water. Okay, I was close. And just for clarification, because this confused me, I looked at it a couple of times. The variance is basically to be able to leave the existing drive there. Correct. Once we add the proposed drive, the existing drive becomes out of compliance because there's no garage anymore. Yes. Why do you need to keep the existing driveway? Well, because of her ability to access it, it would be farther for her to walk from the proposed driveway. And especially if we're going to have to cut that connection, she would not be able to walk on a smooth surface with her cane without potentially falling. if we had her walking from the proposed driveway over the unpaved terrain onto the existing driveway to access the sidewalk to access the proposed front entrance but but but isn't there a huge driveway behind the proposed addition a huge well relatively i mean it looks like it's almost the same size as the existing one actually no it's we're talking about something that's like nine feet wide running up the the side side yard of the property um it's your site plan shows it's almost 31 feet wide from building in the back in the back it says proposed driveway in capital letters next to the oh to the adu yes that that's to the adu and and the garage you're talking about the section where you enter the driveway and then go left yeah yes okay yeah but that would be there's no entry into the main house from that side no i don't know you would have to walk around from that and then walk all the way around to the front to access the front, for her to be able to access the front, because the front is where she would be having the, I suppose, ADA-compliant ramp. Right now she's having trouble getting into her home because of the steps, because of the sidewalk, the paving in front of the house. No, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. If you can speak, but you do have to come to the mic. Thank you. Do you all have a slide of the site plan? Sure, we can pull that up. It's awesome. Actual site plan. We'll pull it up, but it's also available in Granicus, so you can have it on your screen directly, but We'll pull it up so that it's in the record for discussion. The proposed driveway is at least three feet below the level of the garage. And the exit from, it's going to be in my bedroom. It's going to be on where the garage is now. And there will be a door on the side of the garage toward the front, near the front door side where I can get from the new bedroom out to my driveway. And if I'm ever in a wheelchair, I'll be able to access that exit onto the present driveway I have right now. The elevation, if I had to take a wheelchair down to the new driveway, it'd be like a fair ride, like trying to get down to it because it will be a drop off. Thank you. And if you could, just for the record, state your name. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Linda Dunsmore. Thank you. Any other questions of the applicant? I've got a couple questions. My concern, too, is it does look like a circular driveway on the site plan because you've got that eight-foot driveway that goes right in front of the house. So my question would be, is that necessary to have between the driveways? We've agreed to remove that connection between the two driveways as a condition of staff. Okay. And if the proposed back ADU, that would never be rented other than to a caregiver? Right. Right. And do they need a driveway? Because I noticed that you've got a nice double driveway there in the front. Could they not use that driveway? I'm sorry, the present driveway? Yes. I use it all the time. But there's enough parking, even like if you had a handicapped van, for several vehicles. Well, the reason for the proposed driveway is because that is going to take the place of the existing garage. So if anybody needed to park a car into a garage, either Ms. Dunsmore or the caregivers, because this existing garage where the existing driveway is, is going to be converted to a bedroom. So they'd have to have a driveway, otherwise they'd be driving cars over the front yard to get to the garage in the back. Okay, because we have some neighbors' letters too about, and they're concerned a lot about the water runoff from all of the driveway on the site plan. I understand. I'd like, if the neighbors are going to speak, and I'm sure that they am, I would like the opportunity for rebuttal if needed. okay thank you a compliment mister pretty point one of the conditions does actually require them to remove the connection certainly listen any other questions that the applicant thank you thank you can be seated and will open for public comment Anyone wishing to speak, if you can line up here behind the podium. Good afternoon. Please state your name for the record. Hi, I'm Carl Wagner. I'm Ms. Dunsmore's neighbor for 20 years, and we hope to be neighbors for a long time. I want her to stay there. I have one little bit of irregularity. Some lady came in looking for people from Robin Road on this issue. I don't know who this woman was. she gave me a set of letters and some maps and wanted me i've just handed that to mr walker this is from miss amy clark did you i don't know miss amy clark so and i haven't read that letter but she wanted each of the board members to have one we know her mr wagner you don't want to give her your three minutes go ahead and sorry thank you so um my only objection to any of this any of the site plan, if you want to put it up, that's fine, but is to that driveway in question. Generally speaking, as near as I could tell from your site plan that was supplied, there's about existing 3,000 square feet of non-permeable areas, concrete roofs on that property. The proposed site package is roughly doubling that. My property lies downhill to the right of that. And of that 3,000 roughly square footage of non-permeable increase, about 1,200 of it is taken up in that driveway. Without any mitigation, I am deeply concerned that my basement, which has been dry for the 20 years I've lived in that property, might not remain dry. And if there's some way to mitigate that assurances, I would be satisfied. Now, my wife speaks for herself, and I don't know what she's going to say, which is probably best for everybody. Same in my household. It's okay. My concern is I don't want my basement flooded. We are downhill. we're adding 1,200 feet of non-permeable runway there, much of which borders the foundation of my house and it's coming right up to the property line. So that's my concern. I don't know if I'm asking for disapproval or not, but certainly a mitigation to that and whatever that lady handed me you might want to look at that too thank you was there anyone else that wanted to speak hi my name is tina wagoner i live at 852 robin road in lansdowne a beautiful neighborhood full of trees and green space. Linda's house is next to mine and her property is elevated above mine. The proposed changes to Linda's house are occurring right next to my property line. Currently, Linda has a nice chunk of green space between our two properties. Water drainage from her house and driveway flow beautifully into that green space. I have had a dry basement for 20 years, and before we even moved into the house, surveyors assessed that the basement was dry. Linda currently has an 892 square foot driveway. This change that she wants to do will increase her driveways, the pavement that she wants to do. It's going to increase to 2,365 square feet of driveways and a new porch. So we go from 892 square feet of pavement to now 2,365 square feet. That's a 231% increase. Another large portion of her green space will be eaten up by 1,450 square feet of additional buildings. So we have this beautiful green space and it's just going to pretty much completely be taken up with asphalt and buildings. What was once a green space for water drainage is now additional buildings and pavement. The water from the additional pavement and buildings could potentially flow downward into my foundation and along the eastern portion of my property. This variance is adversely going to affect the health, safety and welfare of my family, my backyard chickens and my property. My once dry basement will potentially have a significant risk to flooding. No water drainage plan has been established to protect the foundation of my house. Shouldn't a city engineer assess the water runoff of this proposed project? Where will the bottom of the gutters be located on the addition and the new 1,200 square foot garage apartment? How will the new driveway be tilted toward 856 or 852 Robyn Road? this variance will alter the character of the general vicinity of my beautiful neighborhood. My neighbors don't have 2,365 square feet of asphalt on their property. Ms. Wagner, your time is up. If you could wrap it up to the end, please. Okay. This increase in cement on 856 Robyn Road could also set a precedent for other neighbors to decrease the green space in their backyards. What is our legal recourse of our basement getting flooded? thank you we appreciate it were there any other member uh public that wants to speak on this item if we could have staff did you want to rebut anything or i would just remind you that the the applicant's um addition is not part of what you're reviewing today um the the variances for for the parking that exists in front of the existing garage. The additional paving is allowable, so the issue is keeping whether or not she can keep the existing driveway. I would also note that this application will, if you all approve a variance, or even if you don't and she moves forward with the construction, it will go through the typical permitting process, paving permit, building permit. So it will have to meet all of the typical regulations for any construction that occurs in our neighborhoods. I'm happy to answer any other questions. So if we're voting for approval, that's just to allow the existing driveway to stay. If we're voting for disapproval, the driveway has to be removed. But it does not have anything to do with the addition and the ADU or the additional driveway. Correct. Thank you. the saddest did that for me that that was so confusing when i read it several times any further questions are coming anything further from the applicant before we open for its Thank you. I do hope that you approve this. What I really want to remind you of is this. I understand the concern of the neighbors as far as adding the additional stuff, but the proposed driveway is there to serve the ADU and the new garage. the existing driveways there for her to park her car to be able to get to the sidewalk that's already there and to get to her front door we're only changing the front door uh so that she has the ability to get up there that that's really it as far as the you know it's going to flood everything i think that's speculative i don't see any studies or anything like that just because there's some additional paving it doesn't mean that everyone's basement's going to flood or or anything like that, so I just would remind everybody to, I understand that that's a scary proposition, but that's speculative at this point. Okay, thank you. Thank you. No ma'am, I'm sorry, public comment is closed already. Thank you. Okay. I have a question for planning. Will this come back to us for any variances based on the proposed improvements? I'm not sure I follow. This is a request for a variance. The only variance that is required based on what she is proposing is the one that is before you related to the existing driveway. As proposed, the accessory dwelling unit and the other driveway meet the zoning ordinance regulations. If their plans were to change and they were to require a variance, then you could potentially see that. But as it is proposed, this is the only variance that is required. So there would be no new variances required for the paving up to the property line, is that correct? The applicant is showing the required two-foot setback from the side lot line on the site plan. It is shown that is the zoning ordinance requirement is two feet from the property line and that is what they are providing. Okay, the reason I ask that question is there could be potential for a curb that could be put on that new driveway that would keep the drainage going down the driveway to the street, which would keep it off the neighbor's property. Would that be a requirement that engineering may require? I'm not sure I can answer that question. As I mentioned before, this would require a paving permit. So if that were something that engineering felt necessary at that time, that they could impose, I suppose, but I'm not sure. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further from the board? If not, I will entertain a motion. I'd like to make a motion for approval for PLNBOA 24-62. Mr. Sertimut, your mic is not on. Your mic. I'd like to make a motion for approval for PLNBOA 24-62. Linda Dunsmore requests a variance to reduce the required front yard setback from 46 feet to zero in order to allow additional paving in front yard of a single family residential zone on property located at 856 Robin Road based on recommendation of the staff and subject to the three conditions listed. Thank you. Do we have a second? there is no second i believe going once going twice the motion the motion has failed as stated do we have a a different motion or do we need to take a break a quick recess to establish a different motion. Could we have time out for a rewrite? You sure can. Okay, we'll take a five-minute recess. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next video. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next video. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chad Walker calling Mr. Chad Walker. Thank you. If it's okay with Mr. Walker, are we fine? I'm good? No, thank you for being a good sport. We are called back to order. We are still reviewing PLN BOA 28-62. I am open to entertain a motion if we have one at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to PLN BOA 24-62, Linda Dunsmore, request for a variant, I move for disapproval of the variants because of Article 878 to reduce the required front yard setback from 45 feet to zero feet based on the following findings. One, the variants would adversely affect the public health and our welfare of the general vicinity because allowing 1,000 square feet from 1,000 square feet for permanent paving could contribute to stormwater retention. The variance would alter the general character of the vicinity by permitting an additional access point to Robben Road, which would be uncommon for the neighborhood. So moved. Thank you, and we have a second for Ms. Tucker. Any further discussion? I will entertain a vote at this time. Okay, thank you, Ms. Moore, actually your request for variance has been disapproved. The next item to be heard. Okay, it's PLN VOA 24-61, that's Redwood Cooperative School. It has been recommended for approval, if the applicant would like to come forward. And we do have some public concern and comment, so if you'd like to review the project a little bit, that would be great. Absolutely, thank you. Chris Varis on behalf of the applicant, Redwood Cooperative School. This is an application requesting a conditional use permit. We operate a school off of Crestwood Drive and have acquired two adjoining properties that are currently duplexes. And the proposal is a conditional use for those two properties, about a half of the backyard to convert that into a play area for the students. in the area is we would construct a fence to separate the play area from the two duplexes and that's the I'm happy to answer any questions that the commission has but that's the conditional use request. I'm sorry does the board have any questions of the applicant before I open for public comment. Thank you, if you take a seat we'll give an opportunity for comment. Thank you. You do plan to speak if you guys could line up here. I think we had a few, don't we? He's representing. Gotcha, gotcha, sounds good, sounds good. No, thank you, no, no trouble. For the record please. My name is Mike Finucane. I live at 308 Greenbrier Road. The Greenbrier is an example of a mid-century development with expensive houses at one end and less expensive houses and duplexes at the far end. And it's at the duplex end that, where Redwood is talking about expanding into those yards. If you look at old maps of our neighborhood association, you'll see us listed as the Mary Wives of Greenbrier. And when I moved in Greenbrier in the year 2000, many of the original inhabitants of those duplexes were still there, and they were living there and renting out the other side. The duplexes were owner-occupied and well-maintained. And over the years, as the married wives have passed on, those duplexes have slowly, condition has slowly deteriorated as the properties were bought by absentee landlords. And properties now owned by Redwood were previously, the property now owned by Redwood was previously owned by a Montessori school. But they realized that property was not big enough for a school, and they moved out to Stone Road due to the limited space and traffic problems. Redwood moved in there and increased the space in their building and now what they've done, because they don't have enough room for the children, they bought the buildings, the duplexes, and are going to take over the yard of those duplexes and use those for their play areas. by cutting back the backyards, they'll further degrade our neighborhood that we're proud of and it's family oriented. And we assume over time, those won't, we will be back here because we can't really get straight answers out of Redwood, but we assume that what they'll be doing is since the places won't have yards anymore, that they will be, you know, be overnight rentals and all the associated problems that come with that. Thank you. Thank you. We have someone, I'm sorry, no, someone's behind you. Good afternoon. My name is Kelly Wesley Taylor and I am mother of twin boys who are finishing the fourth grade at Redwood Cooperative School. We have been at Redwood for five years, and I just wanted to share that as a mother of twin boys with ADHD, the outdoor play is critical to their success. Redwood's commitment to fostering intellectual, emotional, and social development is critically important to the reasons that our sons are there. And to be able to learn effectively is critical to their outdoor play. Our school is the only progressive education school in the region, and therefore we are in high demand for enrollment, and our campus has expanded to make that possible for other families who are looking for similar educations. Because of that, we need more room for our kids to run and play, and we are utilizing a previously used school and have raised the money to invest significantly in improvements to this community space. So I just wanted to speak out on behalf of the school community and the importance of having this green space for our children's intellectual and emotional development. Thank you very much. Thank you, in just a moment, did you, excuse me, did you sign in? No, I didn't. Okay, we need to get our information. Okay, thank you. hello my name is martha scythers and i've lived on greenbriar road for 37 years so it's a great place to live and one comment i want to make before i go into the other thing is our argument is not necessarily with redwood school being there we had a previous school there for years a montessori school that was there for a long time and when they realized that it wasn't big enough space and they needed to expand they moved and found another place to build and our concern here is that Redwood knew what property they had when they bought it. They knew what the size of the property was. They knew that they had this residential street right beside or right behind their property. And I feel like they're encroaching on our residential neighborhood because they don't have enough space. I totally agree that Kisney Bows had playing. I don't have any problem with that. But I'm saying they knew what they had when they moved there. And our neighborhood is very cohesive. It's just four blocks, courts on each end, and it's always had a great community feel. It still does. If you walk over there, people are out walking dogs, doing the whole bit. And we are losing some space. It doesn't sound like a lot, but if you think about your street and a couple of blocks, a couple of houses right in the middle of your street, and then the backyard is no longer available because it's become a playground for the school, which is back behind there. and my concern is that it's changing the character of the residential neighborhood by encroaching into this area and that's basically my main objection to it. We would like to still be a residential neighborhood and not have to worry about what is the next step in this process because they don't have enough room or they want to expand or whatever and I feel like it does change the character of a neighborhood from residential when you're putting something like that in the middle of it, and that's basically what I have to say. I don't know if Diane has anything she wants to add to that. Thank you. I'm Diane Toll, and I am assuming that all of you received our emails or a list of our concerns and all that, so I won't be redundant in listing those. I hope you had a chance to read them, but it is a concern that they've come into the neighborhood, would utilize the school and then began to buy property, I would assume with the intention to adding on to their campus. That seems somewhat of a disingenuous purpose to me. The neighborhood is established. The duplexes have always been a really good rental property for our neighborhood. They like having the Glendale Elementary nearby, and it's part of the community. I think as you begin to take the backyards off of that property, I don't think there's anything that tells us the intent going down the road is are we going to buy more of the duplexes, take more of the backyards, maybe take the house and make it offices. And I just think it's, you know, I don't think it's good for our community in our neighborhood and it's not good for the adjoining property owners as well. And just in a sidebar, we only happen to know about this because we took a walk last Sunday afternoon and walked down into the cul-de-sac. there's not really a reason for us to be down there and to see the signs that were posted about this and Otto could tell you we were all sort of late and coming to this party but it was really difficult to get the information out and our neighbors to be aware of what was going on because by the time we saw those signs out there we just had a little bit of time to kind of get our things together so that's it thank you thank you the applicant I'm responding Is there a way to put this up? Sure, and we did not talk about that one condition. The applicant came to us. Condition number four states that student enrollment shall be limited to 185 students and faculty to 29 employees. That was something that staff inadvertently carried over from an earlier staff report from the previous application. The condition that was approved with the previous application was that student enrollment be limited to 230 students, and it did not address faculty. So since that was the condition that was approved with the expansion a year or two ago, staff is comfortable with making that change to this condition just for continuities. And so that would breed student enrollment shall be limited to 230 students. Thank you, Autumn. And in response, that would be useful to put the kind of whole site plan. And what we are talking about is the two lots in the bottom right of the screen. You can see the fence line is about a quarter to a third of those properties. So it's not taking away the whole backyard of either of those duplexes. They're still a significant backyard. and you know again this is a educational establishment has been in the neighborhood for for 50 years this is serving a purpose it's a conditional use it's serving a purpose for those students we're here a couple years ago and had another conditional use for the construction of another building will stay within all of those conditions of the 230 student limitation and you know Again, all we're asking for at this time is the use of that area in the backyards for a play area. I believe it fits within the conditional use of the school. Just for clarification, on the site plan, those garages are existing that are already there, so we're going up to the back of the buildings that are already there? Roughly to the back of those existing garages, correct. Okay. Thank you. So the two buildings are duplexes? Yes, they are. Okay. Second question, the six foot fence around that area, privacy fence? There would be a privacy fence. I'm not sure the height, six feet, eight feet, but we would go and get the fence permit, of course, with the city. Last question, what will be the surface? Will it be grass? Will it be paved? My understanding is we just maintain the grass that's currently existing. And I drove by there and I could not see from a street view into the backyards. To me, it was not an obvious change from the street. Looks to me like the only way it would be visible is if you went down the driveway of the school. Is this correct? I think that would be correct. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions of the applicant? All right. If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I will make a motion, but I want to just make a comment. I have had the pleasure of visiting the school from a previous application and was fortunate to have a private tour of the facility. of the facility and I was impressed with what this group is doing. And I'm a little concerned that we're negative about kids playing in a grass field. That seemed to me to improve the neighborhood a bit and kids playing seems to me to be a plus in this particular area. And so I'm going to move for approval of PLNBOA 2461 Redwood Cooperative School Inc. request to amend an existing conditional use for a school of academic instruction in order to expand the outdoor play area in a single family residential and mixed low density residential zones on property located at 166 Crestwood Drive, 125 and 129 Greenbrier Road based on the staff's recommendation and the seven conditions as stated. Mr. Clark, do you want to revise the 1S to the student number? Good idea. Division number 4. Yes. Revising the student number in number 4 from 185 to 230, is that correct? That's correct. Oh, employees. I'm sorry, then delete the faculty limitation as well. So 230 is correct. 230, yeah. And what else was it? I'm sorry, I didn't hear. There was a condition of faculty employment shall be limited to 29. We'd ask that that would be removed. Removed. That's fine. Thank you. And Ms. Plumlee has offered a second. I will take a vote. Okay. Okay, motion approved. Good luck with your project. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so at this time we will move to our now titled STR docket, and we will allow staff to present first. present first and what staff will do is go over the information that will be pertinent to all of the remaining cases. All right. So since we have quite the heavy short-term rental docket today, I wanted to take some time to give a presentation to summarize the regulations and the resources related to short-term rentals as we've been reviewing those since September now. So first, just some general information about the regulations and how they affect new and existing short-term rentals. These regulations were adopted by council last July. Short-term rentals that were operating prior to that date were given six months to be grandfathered in to continue operating, utilizing some of the new regulations. They were given until January 11th to do that. So any short-term rentals that were established after July 11th or who did not come into compliance in that six-month window are now subject to a conditional use permit. Short-term rentals with occupancies greater than 12, regardless of whether they are existing or new, require a conditional use permit. As of May 8th, we had processed 730 ZCP zoning compliance permits for short-term rentals. Zoning compliance permits are sort of the first step for a short-term rental to be fully compliant. Once they've gone through planning and zoning, they do have to get a license from the Division of Revenue. They need a business license and a special fees license. And you see that under the next bullet point there, Section 13 of the Code of Ordinances regulates that. So while there are 730 ZCPs out there, the actual number of registered, licensed short-term rentals is somewhat less. Some of those folks are still working towards finishing the licensure process. and revenue is pursuing enforcement on some others, I think, that have not done that in a timely manner. The zoning ordinance does state that short-term rentals shall not be utilized for private events such as weddings or parties where the number of participants exceeds the maximum occupancy limit. It reiterates the quiet hours that are in our code of ordinances as well and talks about special events for commercial purpose not being prohibited, or I'm sorry, being prohibited in all short-term rentals. So, this is just the zoning ordinance itself. Zoning ordinance defines short-term rentals. It breaks it down into hosted and unhosted short-term rentals. You all typically only see unhosted short-term rentals, so that is one where there either is not a primary resident, it's always used as a short-term rental, or where the primary resident is not occupying the property during the time of the short-term rental period. Table 3-13D establishes a maximum occupancy for short-term rentals, typically two per bedroom plus an additional four or a total of 12, whichever is less, but also gives you all the authority to allow for additional occupants where there is sufficient evidence that a greater occupancy will not cause overcrowding or result in a nuisance. You all have only heard one case so far where an applicant has requested greater than 12 occupants. This table shows where in each zone the number of short-term rentals that are allowed per property. So again, you all are looking at the ones that are labeled as conditional uses, so that's going to be in our residential zones unhosted or hosted greater than 12. I want to touch a little bit on conditional uses more broadly. Conditional uses, as you're aware, are uses that are listed specifically in each zoning category within our community which may only be suitable in specific locations and if certain conditions are met. Those conditional uses are sort of regulated by Article 7 of the Zoning Ordinance and KRS 100. So for every conditional use that the board evaluates, not just short-term rentals but all of them, we're considering the factors related to that specific use as requested by the applicant in that specific location at that particular piece of property. So we're always looking at things like noise, traffic, parking, compatibility with the area, and their ability to comply with other aspects of the zoning ordinance. You always have to make findings that the use will not adversely affect the subject or surrounding properties, and that there are necessary public facilities and services adequate for the proposed use in that particular location. So that's every conditional use that you look at. Specifically for short-term rentals, Article 3-13 addresses some additional things that the board should take into consideration. So those are the number of short-term rentals in proximity to a property being considered for such use, the demonstrated compliance record of the applicant if they operate other short-term rentals, the occupancy rate of short-term rentals, and whether other short-term rentals in the vicinity have been cited as a nuisance. So these are things that we are also reviewing as we're writing our staff reports for you all. So let's get into a little bit more about how we are evaluating these as a staff and the recommendations that we're making to you. So this map shows each green dot represents a short-term rental. Obviously scaled out this far, it's hard to tell where exactly those are and how many that is. But again, it's around 730. So our staff has established a policy of considering the area within 1,000 feet of a subject property to be in proximity since the ordinance refers to proximity and did not have a specific number. That's sort of what staff has landed on as an appropriate distance to measure these. So on this map you see the little red circles. Those are all of today's applications with their 1,000-foot buffer, and we'll talk a little bit more about that. For the second and fourth items on this list, here compliance record of the applicant and and whether other short-term rentals have been cited as a nuisance. Planning staff engages once we receive these applications after the filing deadline. We engage with the Division of Revenue, with our zoning enforcement staff within the Division of Building Inspection, and with the police department to determine whether or not there have been any issues with any of the applicants for the coming month's applications. The occupancy rate, that's been trickier to analyze. We're hopeful that maybe once revenue has their tracking software up and running, we'll be able to track that a little bit better. We just have anecdotal really comments mostly from operators and from neighbors as to how often these are occupied. So that that rate has not really been something that we've been able to evaluate on most of these applications. So after a few months of reporting on the numbers of short-term rentals that are in proximity of 1,000 feet of the subject property, we felt like we needed to add a little bit additional context. So over the past few months, we have begun to approximate the number of parcels within that 1,000 feet that contain a dwelling unit that are also being utilized as a short-term rental. So you've seen those in your staff reports the past couple of months that we've been sort of throwing this percentage in there. So within the 1,000 feet, we determine that percentage by examining the number of parcels that are within that 1,000-foot area that are classified by the PVA as either residential, which means up to four dwelling units, or multifamily, which is greater than four dwelling units. So we're figuring out what percentage of the parcels within that 1,000 feet are residential, and then we're looking at the number of short-term rentals and comparing that to the number of residential parcels, and that's how we generate that percentage. So that percentage is, of course, an approximation, because we don't have good data to tell us how many dwelling units there actually are within that 1,000 feet. So we're trying to add context within our staff reports. If it's a neighborhood where it's all single family dwellings, then that approximate concentration should be pretty close. But in other neighborhoods where we have a lot of apartment complexes that are large, that percentage is going to be a little inflated because you actually have way more dwelling units than we're seeing. So let's see. We also recognize that the same percentage may not be appropriate in every neighborhood. We've added that kind of context into some of your staff reports as well. You know, neighborhoods that are closer to downtown, closer to attractions and tourist destinations, where there are more mixtures of uses and mixtures of zoning within that sort of 1,000-foot area. We see that there may be a need for a higher percentage, but our staff has generally considered that a percentage of 5% or greater is a high percentage in most residential areas. Again, in other contexts, that may go up. Within sort of the downtown area, we've seen approximations of about 20%, and then that may be appropriate in some contexts, but once we hit above 20%, we have concerns about that really in any kind of context in a residential zone. So, we are also considering the manner in which the applicant plans to operate. we've seen a couple of applications and particularly this month we have several where an applicant does still plan to utilize the property as their primary residence but they don't qualify as a hosted short-term rental because they're not there all the time and they're not there when the short-term rental is occurring. Last month you all had one where the individual worked overseas quite a lot of the time and she was looking to short-term rent the property out about a third of the time. So when we see those applications we are evaluating those based on that, that they're not removing a housing unit from the market because it is still someone's primary residence but they're looking to provide additional income and short-term rent the property out when it's not in use and to be sure that someone is on the property maybe, you know, when they're not able to be there. Finally, we also are looking at the Task Force on Neighborhoods in Transition Report. This task force was established in 2018. It recommends that resources be dedicated to addressing involuntary displacement in our neighborhoods that are specifically vulnerable to that. The task force identified factors that make neighborhoods vulnerable to displacement and gentrification. So there are four factors that were mapped with that. Those were having a median income at less than 30% of area median income, high minority population, non-white, low mean home sales price, and low owner occupancy rate and then the task force report sort of took the intersection of those four maps the top 10 census block groups that were that had those four categories and established a top 10 priority area map so we have been utilizing that in our review of these applications staff generally considers that most short-term rentals would be inappropriate in a top 10 block group that is identified as a priority area because it would likely increase that possibility for displacement and gentrification in that area. I'm happy to answer any questions, and then we can move along to the short-term rentals today. I have a question. Councilman Zivigni told me recently that you all had received some new software to manage some of the short-term rental data. So the Division of Revenue, it has been, I believe, purchased. It is not up and running yet. I think that the testing environment will be going live soon, and then I'm not sure how long that will take, but that is in process. So when you get this up and running, what specifically will you be able to delineate from the data? Sure. So I think that the software will be most helpful in tracking short-term rentals that are registered. it will be able to sort of mine the advertisements on Airbnb and VRBO and insights like that to make sure that I think it will help us make sure that the number that's being advertised is the number of occupants that they were approved for it will help us find unlicensed short-term rentals that are maybe advertising but have not been through this process have not been licensed beyond that I'm not sure what the full scope of capabilities are I'm still learning on that. I think once they get the software in-house, I will know more. Do you all have an estimate of the STRs out there that are unlicensed? So during the process of establishing the regulations based on AirDNA, which is sort of an aggregator that collects data from Airbnb and VRBO, I think the estimates were around 1,200 to 1,400 were operating in Lexington. So assuming that that is still the case, we are at about 50 percent have come in which doesn't sound like a great number but compared to other communities is is not bad okay so what you're saying if i hear you right is about half of them are still have not come in got their licenses potentially again we don't we don't necessarily know where they are right that's the we're we're relying on you know them to be reported by neighbors or for them to be identifiable to our staff. So when they are located, what are the consequences? So the Division of Revenue is pursuing unlicensed short-term rentals. They are able to fine up to $500 a day for operation that is occurring without a license. So they're sending letters, notices of violation. So do they add interest to that too? I don't know about that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Clark? I'd like to thank the staff for coming up with some figures that really help us. I think having some idea with the concentration of the STRs in proximity and vicinity, which are kind of vague, but it is very helpful. And the percentage within that particular area, I think that really starts us on the So I'd like to express my appreciation for that. I agree Mr. Clark, I expressed it earlier. When you put it in numbers, it takes a lot of the subjectivity out of it and it helps us make a better decision, so thank you for the work. Any other questions before we start with the cases? Thank you. Our first one is PLNBOA 23-107, Mr. Mike Adams. I'm Mike Adams, business partner. Matthew Jones. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval. We've seen you a couple of times. I'm going to put you up on the board if you come one more time. There are open seats. Good deal, good deal. You want to tell us a little bit about the updates to the project? Absolutely. So our initial hearing, we had not finished the construction on the basement. which includes an additional 750 square feet. It adds another bedroom, a bathroom, an additional living space to the house itself, bringing it up to 1,750 square feet, four bedrooms, two baths. Same number. So our proposal is still 10 people for the Airbnb, even though the ordinance I think puts us around 12 that we could have. Okay, that sounds good. And there have been, I think it's four conditions listed and that is one of those. So are we comfortable with those conditions? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Any questions? I've got one question. I assume it's a walkout basement. Yes, sir. So staff has recommended approval. It falls within the guidelines that Autumn has just discussed, so I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 23-107. Mike Adams' request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short term rental in a single family residential zone. the property located at 1783 Glen Eagles Drive based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions as listed. Thank you, and Mr. Sturdivant offers a second. Any further discussion before we open for vote? Thank you, I'll take a vote. Motion's approved. Thank you. Good luck with your project. Thank you. Thank you. The next item is PLNBOA 24-22, that's Esther Harvey. Hi. Good afternoon. Please state your name. I'm Esther Harvey. I'm the property owner. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval. There are six conditions listed here, including one that limits the rental to 150 days per calendar year? That's fine. You're comfortable with that? And this will still be your primary residence? Yes. Do we have any questions of this applicant? I don't believe we had anyone here to speak on this particular item, did we? I think so. That was like two days ago, I can't remember. So you guys stop me if you need to. If not, I will entertain a motion. I'd like to make a motion to approve PLA and BOA 24-22. Esther Harvey, request a conditional use permit for an unhosted short term rental within the defined infill and development area in a planned neighborhood residential r3 zone on property located at 433 silver maple way based on staff approval and subject to the following six conditions stated thank you and mr walker has offered a second thank you we will take a vote no further discussion Motion approved. Good luck. Now the next item, PLN BOE 24-24 has been recommended for disapproval so the staff will have some special comment on this one in particular, 732 Whitney Avenue. I'm going to click through. Let's see. So I will start, sorry, here. So this is an application for a short-term rental at 732 Whitney Ave. It is located along Whitney Avenue, sort of southwest of the intersection of Newtown Pike and Georgetown Street. uses in the area are primarily detached single-family dwellings and the subject property abuts the Lexington Cemetery in the rear. Here we have the site plan. This is a duplex property. The unit that is being proposed for short-term rental use is the second floor unit apartment A. It features two bedrooms and two bathrooms. That would allow for a maximum occupancy of eight individuals and the applicant is only proposing to use as a short-term rental for up to six. They anticipate that they'll be booked about 40% of the time. They do have existing parking in the rear of the property that you can see here. We have not received any complaints about this property related to its use as a short-term rental. There have been some calls at or in the vicinity of the property to the Lexington Police Department, but we don't know if those were related to a short-term term rental use. They were classified as disorderly and a second classified as theft shoplifting. So we don't have too much more details than that, but again, we don't know whether or not it was related to a short term rental use. So getting into some of that mapped data, this again, the red circle shows the 1,000 foot boundary around the property that we're considering to be the proximity. In this location, there are no other short term rentals currently operating um within that 1 000 feet however you see that our screen is locked up i wanted to pull up the site donna it's still on the voting oh i can't see that far i gotta look at it here you can continue i'm sorry i just wanted um let's see so as you can see the the color of the screen is different here and that is because this is one of those top 10 census block groups that we discussed previously that were identified by the neighborhoods and transitions task force. The subject property is located in census tract 11 block group 2. DAF is unable to support this application because the proposed use will have an adverse influence on the subject property by removing an existing housing unit from the market that could otherwise be utilized as a primary resident within one of those top 10 census block groups. We also identified that there are a number of short-term rentals just outside of that 1,000-foot area. So again, just to provide a little bit of context, this is Newtown Pike here. So this area here just outside of that 1,000 feet features a fairly heavy concentration of short-term rentals and is generally closer to sort of the typical tourist attractions that we see sort of a higher demand for short-term rentals. It's close to downtown Jefferson Street, the Lexington Center, Town Branch, and that sort of thing. And while this is only just sort of outside of that area, just another, you know, a little over 1,000 feet, that we feel that Newtown Pike really acts as sort of a boundary there. So there's probably a lesser demand for short-term rentals in this vicinity. community. So with that cluster sort of occurring outside of the 1,000 foot area and with this being within that primary census block group, staff is not comfortable with a short term rental in this location. So we are recommending disapproval. Thank you. Do we have any questions for staff? This one's a little bit bothersome to me because reviewing this, and I remember way back when we had this discussion about the census block. It was given that that wouldn't be a single criteria for not allowing a short term rental. So this one has two reasons, the census block, but then also has the unlikelyhood that it would be used as tourists. think that's a dangerous place to go because we've all witnessed starbucks across the street from starbucks and when we get into the possibility of saying well we don't think that the applicants would necessarily be patronized uh you know i don't go to salad bars so you know that's one of those that i don't think that that should be a criteria either so personally and this is more of a comment than anything i don't think that either one of these are necessarily reasonings for disapproval. That's my only comment. Thank you. And we will give the applicant an opportunity to speak if we don't need anything else from the staff. Okay. Thank you. And the applicant, is the applicant present? Bluegrass International. Hello, my name is James Bailey. And Mr. Bailey, did you sign in? No. Okay. So if we can sign, Mr. Bailey, were you sworn in in the beginning? Yes. Okay, sounds good. Bailey. Bailey. Thank you. Could you tell us a little bit about the project? Yes, I understand your concerns about gentrification and the impact on short-term rentals, businesses like mine. However, I believe that the upbeat growth of the community, especially with the vibrant Manchester Street and Rupp Arena nearby, we also have many famous people that come to the West End, predominantly black historic area of town, having different kind of people coming to see the area presents a unique opportunity for our Airbnb business. Our location and tourist attractions make us a desirable option for travelers contributing positively to the local community. Our business plan and market analysis demonstrate how we will leverage this growth to create a successful and sustainable Airbnb rental. We are committed to being responsible hosts and contributing positively to the neighborhood development. Thank you. Do we have questions of the applicant? Is this your first Airbnb? Yes. Okay. And do you own any other properties in this area? Yes. Are those long term rentals? Yes. Thank you. And also, this is a duplex, so apartment B being downstairs has occupants in it that are long term renters. anything further from the applicant thank you appreciate it was there any public comment on this particular item anything further from staff all right we're open for i have a question or motion sorry i had a question my screen is still frozen were there any citizens comments concerning this property there were not okay and is there just one driveway for the duplex there is one driveway for the duplex that is correct Mr. Walker's comments have been noted as well, thank you. Motion. Motion or whatever you see fit. This is. I know I. Sorry, we're having a little. That's okay. No, it's making me off kilter a little bit. Okay, it might let you all make a motion. It looks like our screen up high is still not in the right place, but you can't click on anything still. Yeah, we can do a verbal. Let's go. You can write it. Okay. So Ms. Plumlee would like to make a motion. Yes, thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Regarding PLN BOA 24 Bluegrass International Realty, LLC, request a conditional use permit for an unhosted short term rental in a mixed low density residential R2 zone on property located at 732 Whitney Avenue. I move in support of the staff for disapproval because of the two reasons stated. That's the first. Do you guys want us to wait? I mean, we can hold on. Yeah. They're looking. Getting too far ahead. Thank you. Ms. Plumlee, could you please remind us of the motion? Restate it? Yes, please. From the beginning, okay. Just the case number and approve or disapprove will be sufficient. We go in PLN BOA 2424 Bluegrass International Realty. Request a conditional use permit for an unhosted short term rental in a mixed low density residential R2 zone on property located at 732 Whitney Avenue. Move for disapproval in support of the staff because of the two reasons suggested. Thank you. that my math okay so here the motion failed so we need another motion so then we would need a motion for approval correct and you would need findings i might need a brief recess for that i need a brief recess for that okay mr walker's close this again we'll have just a brief recess. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next one. Thank you. so BOA 24-24 and I will entertain a new motion. Madam Chair, with regards to PLNBOA 24-24, Bluegrass International Realty, LLC, I move for approval of the request for a conditional use permit for short-term rental based on the following findings. Number one, proposed use should not have an adverse effect on subject property of the surrounding neighborhood, as the structure is large enough to accommodate the proposed number of guests. Number two, the proposed use shouldn't have an adverse influence on traffic in the general vicinity, as adequate parking is available. Number three, no short-term rental in the area, or no short-term rentals in the area. There's not a high concentration of short-term rentals in the vicinity. number four there's no record of short-term rental compliance issues with the applicant number five all necessary public um services and facilities are available and adequate for the proposed use and this is this proposal may subject to the finding of the following conditions number one short-term rental use shall be established in accordance with the submitted application materials and site plan number two occupancy of the short-term rental shall be limited to no more than six individuals number three all necessary permits and or approval shall be obtained from division of revenue and planning prior to commencement of the use including a business license special use license and a zoning compliance permit and number four the condition use permit shall become null and void upon change of ownership or if the applicant's short-term rental special license fee has relapsed yeah as regulated by division of revenue section 13 of the code of ordinance oh lapses or is revoking pretty good writing for an attorney you did all right okay so moved I just wanted to make sure the applicant heard the conditions and was comfortable with the conditions. Yes. Okay, all right. I have a first, Mr. Gross has offered a second. This time we'll take a vote. Okay, the motion has been approved. Good luck with your project. Thank you. All right, our next item is PLN BOA 24-40 Twin Willows Property, LLC. This one has been recommended for disapproval and staff will point out the reasons why as well. All right, this application is for an unhosted short-term rental for up to six individuals at 122 Thompson Road. So you can see an aerial view of the property here. The subject property is 0.18 acres in size. It contains a 1,002 square foot single family residence, which was constructed in 1937. It has two bedrooms and one bathroom. The maximum occupancy calculation for a two-bedroom unit allows for up to eight individuals, but again, the applicant is requesting to only have up to six. They expect that the majority of people renting the property will be there during games, concerts, and other entertainment events at Rupp Arena or at Keeneland. They also plan to market to traveling medical professionals. They do have an existing driveway where they can accommodate some parking as well as on street parking in front of the house. This is their first short term rental. Let's see. There are no records of this property having any compliance issues. There was a police call to this property or the vicinity related to assisting a motorist. but there are not any short-term rentals in the vicinity that have been cited as a nuisance. Here's the street view of what the property looks like. According to the map zoning compliance permit data, there are four short-term rentals operating within 1,000 feet of the subject property that have received zoning compliance permits. So you can see the blue star there is the subject property. Well, actually, yes, the blue star is the subject property. and the other four are sort of plan west. So according to our GIS data, there are 237 parcels within that 1,000 feet. 213 of those are categorized as residential properties by the PVA, as we discussed earlier. That represents 90% of those parcels. There is a little bit of industrial that gets hit in this area. area, some of those larger lots that you see on the screen and the railroad cuts through there. So based on the numbers, the existing concentration of short-term rentals of four existing within that 1,000 feet is approximately 1.9%. And we do expect that that estimation of 1.9% is pretty accurate because these are really all detached single family dwelling So the math is a little bit easier there. This property is located in census tract block 10, block group 1, which is identified as one of the top 10 census block groups at the intersection of the map attributes in the Neighborhoods in Transition Task Force report. It is also within 700 feet of another top 10 census block group. So staff is recommending disapproval of this application. The proposed use will have an adverse influence on the subject property and the surrounding neighborhood by removing an existing housing unit from the market within one of those top ten census block groups that has been identified as a priority area. There are four short-term rentals that already exist within that area and represent 1.9% of the housing stock in the immediate vicinity. In census tract 10 block group 1, there are six existing short-term rentals which represent 2.1% of the housing stock within that priority area. So you don't see all of that on this map. The four that you see here are within 1,000 feet, but within that greater tract there are six which make up 2.1% of the housing stock for that particular census block group. So staff is recommending disapproval because of the location within one of those priority tracks and because of the existing short-term rentals that represent 1.9% of the housing stock within 1,000 feet. So there is an existing bank of short-term rentals that are available for use for individuals who may wish to stay in this area as a guest. Any questions of staff before we allow the applicant to present? No? Nah, he said. Thank you. And that's Twin Willows property if the applicant will come forward. Good evening and thank you all for your time. Adam Hatton, owner of 122 Thompson Road. My wife and I love this up-and-coming area, so we decided to invest. I also own a business down the street called Manchester Music Hall. We're known for concerts and events. We've made many improvements to this property and been met with lots of excitement from the neighbors. My wife has talked to a few. The plan for this property, my mother is downsizing and moving from Georgetown to Lexington. She's going to stay here about 50% of the time. She does stay in Florida 50% of the other time. So it wouldn't be a full-time STR. We would just like the ability to do the STR with this property to help mitigate mortgage. I do understand the staff's comments, but hope that you take into consideration the growth of Manchester Street and Turner Commons. The walkability from our property is very easy. And I know for a fact that my guests at Manchester Music Hall enjoy staying in STRs that are close by that you can walk. We do several other long-term rentals in Lexington, and we look forward to investing in such. Thank you. Do we have any questions of the applicant? Did you have another property before us previously? No, ma'am. No, this is our only potential STR. We do have other long-term rentals, though. Okay. Any questions? Is there a driveway on this? It's kind of tough to tell on the plan. It doesn't look like it. Yes, sir, there is. There's a driveway. I can park about three cars, and then there is a garage as well. If you want to use a little further scenario, we can go back. Back. Yeah. So you can see the truck there is in the driveway, and there's more spots, and then there's a dumpster behind that truck. The top is the corner. Which one do we go to? Either one. See, there's the truck. There's additional parking. There's a dumpster. It is now gone, and then this is a garage. Okay. Thank you. did we have public comment on this particular item thank you my boy this one has been recommended for disapproval any further discussion or motions to be made Go ahead. I think Linda's going to do it. I know she's on the thing, so I don't want to jump ahead of her. I make a motion for PLNBLA 2400040, Twin Willows Properties, LLC, requesting a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the in the defined infill and redevelopment area in a single family residential zone on the property located at 122 Thompson Road. And I recommend as the staff recommends for disapproval following the reasons that they have listed here. It looks like Mr. Sturtevant has offered a second. Any further discussion? i would like to comment before we vote this just personal it is difficult to go from one to the next with some similar uh... items that uh... the proximity has me weighing again about manchester again that the area is conducive to tourism and so part of you wants to preserve those faces because of the identifying those areas but then at the same time you hate to remove them from the opportunity for people to from the economy as well so it's a internal it's just me sharing happens the longer it gets in the day any other comments are well-opened about The motion is to disapprove. Ready to vote. This one has been disapproved. Thank you. On the next item is PLN BOA 24, Jeffrey Jinn, that's 2520 Crusaders Way. This one has been recommended for approval. Do we have any public comment on this one? Can't remember. We do, okay. So if you tell us a little bit about your project and then we'll allow some public comment. Sure. My wife and I left the area about three years ago for work. We moved to Omaha. I still have family here in the area. I'm born and raised in Kentucky. And we bought this place in October of last year to spend one to three months a year here with family. And prior to buying it, we checked the HOA rules, the covenants, etc. We got verification from the management company. The one thing we did miss, of course, was this, which is why we're here today. But yeah, we've tried to take all steps to make sure that it's suitable for the neighborhood. We have dedicated parking, we've reduced the amount of people that are allowed to only- And we have also, we have security cameras where we can actively track what's going on in the property as needed. And that's pretty much about it. We're first time short term rental only because we're just trying to offset the cost of the home, that's all. Okay. And there were four conditions listed, included the limit to four individuals. Were you comfortable with the rest of the items as well? Absolutely. Like I said, this is our residence when we're here, so we want to make sure it's taken care of. Okay. Thank you. Any questions of the applicant? We'll give a moment for public comment. Please. Good afternoon. I'm Ashton Three with Alpha Association Management here on behalf of the HOA today. So part of our, we are going to ask you to deny this application for short-term rental on the basis of a few items. The most primary being that the association actually ensures this dwelling for both property and liability as it owns all of the surrounding property of the unit. Meaning with the transient nature of a short-term rental and the increased liability that that brings in its naturality, we are now increasing the liability to all 108 members of this community, not just this one individual. And I implore you to think of that on all short-term rentals for townhomes. The second to this is the articles and the covenants of this association strictly identified to be for residential use. An Airbnb short-term rental in its nature is transient. So, yes, I spoke with Mr. Jen earlier. We have not had an opportunity up until today to meet. He did show me the email between the prior management company and himself, and he asked and declared for rentals, which when these covenants were developed in 1999, short-term rentals did not exist, and therefore in its nature, he was asking about leased rentals with actual rentals because rentals are allowed with a lease. We are going to ask for you all to deny this application for a certain rental today. Thank you. Any other public comment? Did the applicant have anything else to add regarding that? Well, I mean, I guess in regard to the question about whether I was asking specifically about a short-term rental, I even wrote it into the contract for the purchase of the house to verify that it was allowed. So that was my intent all along. And if there is a question of liability, the vast majority of these houses are rented today. So I understand the transient nature. I'd be willing to take an additional umbrella policy to help offset some of that if that is a concern. Thank you. Sure. Are there rentals on both sides that you're touching? I don't know. I don't know the neighbors that well. I haven't spent a ton of time here, but the townhouses are all connected. But it's a structure, right? So you share a wall on either side with? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? i do have a question just for legal uh... and then when we deal with the h a ways in general they really don't have the anything to do with this uh... but with this issue of liability insurance with the common property it's that something we we should be taken into account i just i haven't encountered that so the requirements uh... for maintaining of insurance would probably be addressed within that the contract that he would have with the particular HOA or I don't know what the agreement would be. So I'm still going to say that that's just really beyond the jurisdiction of this board. So even in those instances where we approve such a conditional use, if it's different or there's some distinction or some opposition, I'm using the wrong words, but if it's different what the HOA's rules and regulations say they allow, that's something that happens between the owner and the HOA. Absolutely, and the HOA would still have the ability to take court action to enforce whatever the terms were. So that would not affect what this board decides to do. Could we go right? You need a moment? Okay. Ms. Plumlee needs a moment. recess Thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Okay, we will call back to order. We are still on case PLN BOA 24-41, that's 2520 Crusaders Way. And I believe I missed someone in the audience for public comment. Please. And state your name and our three minutes will still be in place. Yes, I was watching on TV and came down. My name is Audrey Jones and I actually live in the unit that is adjacent. It's like 2520 is my only neighbor, so we share that adjoining wall there. I've lived there since 2009 and I have had a number of different neighbors there. They've all been long-term renters. And even then, I've had some issues as far as intrusion for the units. And as far as liability and insurance and things of that nature that I have had to take care of on my own just with a long-term renter. It does create sense of anxiety when you leave in the morning for work and you see one car there and then you come home at five and there's another group of people moving in. So I just wanted to speak for your question of the two neighbors and the walls that they touch and say that, you know, I haven't had any problems thus far with anybody. But then again, you know, that doesn't mean that down the road I might have some issues. particularly I've always had issues with people parking in my two allotted spots so I anticipate that that probably will be an issue too. Parking is pretty limited as far as guest parking. It serves two rows or groups of townhouses and also just the anxiety and the question of is my insurance on my unit going to go up because a temporary dwelling is right next door? Am I going to have to incur those costs in the future? Is my property value going to go down because of some activities that are next door? So there's a lot of questions that I have, a lot of concerns. I understand and respect the homeowner and them wanting to have a dwelling and using it as a business item, but also realize that there are homes. These are people, and our neighbors have lived here for a number of years. There are some people that are long-term renters. so we have created a sense of kind of community within our homes and this is my first home ever so i'm pretty proud of it i'd like to have it in a safe environment moving forward too thank you and just donna um she was signed in and something in here All righty. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to PLN BOA 2441, Jeffery again, I move for disapproval on a request for a conditional use permit for a short term rental based on the following findings. One, the short term rental would have an adverse influence on the adjoining properties due to the properties sharing common areas and with limited privacy. Two, the area has a limited amount of shared parking, so adding a short term rental could have an adverse influence on the surrounding neighborhood. So moved. Thank you, and Ms. Tucker has offered a second. Nothing further, we will take a vote. The motion has been disapproved, or has, I always hate this alternative. The motion has passed, the project has been disapproved. Okay. The next item is PLN BOA 24-43 Raysa and Peter Conway. That's 111 Wabash Drive. Before the applicant speaks, do we have opposition to this one? I don't have anyone noted. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. Raysa Conway. Thank you. and this has been recommended for approval and there are four conditions listed including the limitation of up to six individuals are you comfortable with the conditions yes and we do already have these documents available we do have some email comments in opposition particularly about dogs and street parking it looks like have you had an opportunity to see those that I have not no are you allowing dogs at your short-term rental okay that was unusual i haven't and we don't have a dog ourselves yeah we do here and what and what do you have established for parking We actually have enough parking in our driveway. We weren't planning to use the street parking if possible. Thank you. Okay, board, any questions of the applicant? None. I'll entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of BLN BOA 24-43, Racer and Peter Conway request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area and historic district overlay zone and a single-family residential zone on a property located at 111 Wabash Drive based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions as listed. Thank you, Mr. Clark. And Mr. Walker has offered a second. If no further discussion, we will take a vote. Wonderful, your motion is passed. Thank you. Thank you. The next item is PLNBOA 24-44, that's William Allen at 321 Richmond Avenue. If the applicant can come forward. State your name for the record. My name is William Allen. Thank you. And the property that I am wanting to obtain. I'm sorry, just a moment. There are six conditions that have been listed. Have you had an opportunity to review those? Yes. Okay. And one of them is particularly about a short-term basis for no more than 50 days per calendar year because this is your primary residence. Yes. Is that correct? Absolutely. Okay. And if you would like to tell us a little more about. Yes. This property is my primary residence. I live here and I plan to continue to live here is that the reason why I'm mainly wanting to obtain this is to create a type of additional income for myself. And I have for my property there will only be five guests that will be able to stay there at one certain time. My driveway would be able to obtain three vehicles that would be stacked on top of each other and i do not plan and i could have this to be confirmed that no more than three vehicles would be allowed to come to my property and when i would be able when i would list this in the future i would have a management group help me out with the listing of this property to help me understand the type of guests that could be in my property as this is something i've not done in the past i've never had a short-term rental before but i would have assistance to completely have the guests be the type of people and the type of numbers of people that i would be comfortable with staying at my primary residence okay thank you and we do have public comment this one does fall into the we were getting close in the 5%, I think it was 4.7%, is that what staff has? Okay. Alrighty, well what we'll do is we'll give the public an opportunity to comment and then we'll give you a chance to respond. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, so we can move through these quickly. I think we have quite a few people. If we can stand up here and please line up if you're planning to speak. Can I pass these out? I'm sorry? Can I pass these out to you all? Yeah, well, are you going to be first? Did I get so? So whoever's after her, let's get lined up. I want you guys to have dinner tonight as well. You might be intermittent fasting and your window's coming close. Thank you. And so I will just remind everyone, we'll have three minutes. State your name for the record first, and let's try not to be repetitive in our topics. Appreciate it. Okay. My name's Tommy Ross, and I live at 157 Bassett Avenue in the Kenwick neighborhood. I've read the recommendation of council, and one of the things that I noted is that they They said there weren't very many short-term rentals in the neighborhood or in the vicinity. There are 15 short-term rentals within a thousand foot radius. There are 42 in the neighborhood. So that kind of concerns me that they say that there aren't very many there. I'm also concerned about the 5% rule because I want you to think about if a fifth of your neighbors, if one out of every five neighbors were missing from your neighborhood, what that would do to it. Okay? I'm sorry? No. Okay. Well, okay. You're right. Sorry. Okay. Let me move on then, okay, because my math's lousy. One of my concerns with the recommendations, even with the 50 days, is that it seems that Mr. Allen had difficulty keeping even the sign for the conditional use permit hearing in his yard during the time that it was supposed to be there. I've got pictures here of several instances when it wasn't there. And I'm concerned about who's going to regulate and ensure that he has no, that he rents it for no more than 50 days. And I don't think it should be, have to be neighbor policed. That seems like an undue hardship on the neighborhood. With 50, with 42 in the neighborhood, we certainly have a problem with short term rentals. He may not have had a short-term rental to date, but we do have 42 and 15 within 1,000 square feet. One thing to note is that when you look at the map with the 15, that's the second map that I gave you that has the red boxes, you'll see that we're right next to the warehouse block. So about half of that circle, about half of that 1,000-foot radius doesn't have any homes in it. So they're all concentrated in Kinwick and the second and third block. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. Hello. My name is John Grimes. I live on Sherman Avenue about four streets away from the property in question. I oppose this Airbnb. No one wants to live next to an Airbnb. Almost everyone I've talked to who supports Airbnbs either makes money from them or hopes to. There are at least 10 on Sherman Avenue and at least 40 in the neighborhoods. Airbnbs threaten public safety, they inflate housing prices and rents, and they don't serve the neighborhood. This part of town is now known as the zone for Airbnbs and is planning saying that since we have so many, another one won't matter. This has become kind of a new hybrid zone. It's the STR slash residential zone. Last time I was here, I heard a board member say that there was no objective criteria that they could use to make these decisions. He was hoping and searching for something that could be used. Let me suggest one. Proximity and the measurement of it provided by planning can be that objective measure. But you say the city didn't specify in the regulation, but yes, they did in their proposal. They proposed that no more than one STR in a thousand feet. So that's where that thousand feet measurement comes from. It was in the original council proposal. So I say let's use it. If you think that's too strict, okay, let's double it to two or triple it to three. But you see we're a long way from 16. See how far down the slippery slope we've come. We need to kind of acknowledge what the city intended and judge what you think is appropriate and use this number in making your decision. I think this will save time and unnecessary deliberations. A board member also made the comment that Airbnbs represent an unprecedented commercialization of our neighborhoods. I couldn't agree more. This is what is happening. These are businesses and residential zones. Planning says that they do zoning, they control zoning, but I don't think they're doing a very good job. They sat by quietly while the city grandfathered in 40-plus STRs into my part of town. They're now recommending a 16th. I hope that you protect the integrity of the system of zoning and protect our neighborhood from these land speculators. And there's a whole question about enforcement. How will the city enforce these restrictions, the number of cars, the number of guests, the number of days rented? How specifically? If planning says they have software, how come they're not using it right now? How did it take so long for them to use it? How exactly will this program catch Airbnbs that have too many guests, too many cars, or they rent their property off the books to friends? So this application seems to be the meeting of two problems, the problems of university housing and the problems caused by air and b&b's the outcome can't be good thank you thank you next sir hi there members of the board of adjustment and planning staff and guests my name is charles height i live at 929 aurora avenue about a block and a half from the subject property i have a master's degree in city planning i've been in the field for about 38 years now I have passed the AICP. The reason I bring up my bona fides is to discuss the field of planning for just a second. Planning is just not like engineering. If you're an engineer, at the end of the day, there is one and only one correct answer to the question. Planning is not like that. There are many different correct answers at the end of the day. And we have proven that already this afternoon by how many times you have overruled your staff and voted independently using your own thinking. I hope you will do that again in this situation. City planning does have rules and guidelines, but even these are up to individual planners' interpretations. And with all due respect to Tracy and Autumn and all the other planners here who I've worked with many, many times over the years, the planning staff says that there is not a high concentration of STRs in the vicinity. I disagree, and so have the previous two speakers. You've also had at least 20 emails come in that disagree with that, and I'm going to turn in a petition to about 40 concerned neighbors and friends who think that this is an inappropriate use. Thank you. As I swore to tell the truth, we cannot say that we literally roll up the sidewalks at 10 p.m. in this neighborhood, but we figuratively do. And if there are people that still want entertainment, we send them to National Avenue to enjoy one of Chad's many developments, which we appreciate very much. But our neighborhood is not that neighborhood. The neighborhood that I live in is a lot of retirees, a lot of young families just starting out. It's not conducive to STRs, which often have a plethora of college students and transients and tourists. So I want you to think long and hard. All the statistics in your criteria don't mention the age in the neighborhood and the established nature of the neighborhood. I'm wearing a t-shirt from my neighborhood. Our neighborhood is 115 years old. I've been there for 38 years and I'm not one of the ones that's been there the longest. We have a very established neighborhood. We value our neighbors. We value our neighborhood. Please consider what you're doing by overloading our precious neighborhood with STRs. I hope you'll vote this proposal down. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm sorry you guys. Please, let's just keep moving. My name is Kay Myers, and I did not sign up to speak today, but I feel motivated. So, I will swear to tell the truth today. Thank you. Tommy mentioned 38 emails, which I hope Mr. Gross will read in his spare time and that you all make note of. I'm not going to go over the statistics that Tommy quoted about 42 already in our neighborhood. I will remind you what the planning staff noted, that they suspect they have about half of the actual operating STRs in the registration process now. So you take whatever number the city can come up with that does not quite constitute 5%, but let's double that number if the planning staff is correct. You've already turned down a couple of petitions today based on Thompson Road and four area STRs as not meeting the need. I think our 42, which are probably twice that, stand to have some consideration. You can, you talk about not having any grounds to turn down these applications, but you do because you are charged to comply with zoning, which these do not. You are charged with assessing the compatibility of businesses, and that's what these are, in residential areas and these are not compatible. I'm sure Mr. Allen will be a wonderful quarterback this fall and I hope he lives a long happy life here and a lot of people will love him. But something has to stop and 4.7 statistical percentage is enough. Thank you. Please, we really need to refrain from the applause please. Let's just keep rolling. We got it. anybody else any public comment okay would the did the staff had anything to add before i allow the the applicant i don't think we have anything to add we're happy to answer any questions okay i said a couple things that i wanted to touch up on about um a lot of this is that there may be like we there's a condition on here for 50 days and i have a lot of trips i need to plan if i'm going to get close to 50 days i'm not going to be doing that um i mean this i've lived in this neighborhood for about a month i've lived in lexington for about the entirety of my whole life i've appreciated this part of town and i love living here and i plan to live here and i consider this my neighborhood like i show my i mean this is um something that um if i weren't like again like i said there's 50 days but um there's no way that i'll probably get close to 50 days there's a lot of dates that um i would imagine i can't really imagine myself getting close to that number in itself and then um one thing with the sign i wanted to touch up on is when i first uh saw the sign in my yard again it's my first short-term rental i did not understand what that exactly was or who that was from i took it down for about 24 hours actually called the division of planning i understood i need to put that back up there and i put that back up there and then i think about five or six days ago um i took it off my front yard and i began to mow my front yard and then that's we spoke shortly about it but um i put the sign back up and then um and one other part with kind of the development of how this short-term rental will run is that i would have a management company help me out with just a smoothness of operations and i know that i'm a younger guy and i am a college student but i own a duplex on second street that is also So for about a month and a half, that has ran as smooth as possible. Again, I'm in college. I do not plan to make a huge investment in terms of what I'll get in my return. I have an investment in what I want to do and how I want to live here. And I plan to live here for quite some time. And I'm not married, but I'm not sure when I will move out of this area, but I really don't plan on it for however long that is. I love this neighborhood. this is not the same scenario that you see a lot of other short-term rental applicants have and I'd never intend for it to be that way at least for the foreseeable future of my life but I appreciate everything everybody what all y'all had to say I love the neighborhood and this makes this situation a little bit different than a lot a lot of them that come through here but I also appreciate you all for the time but thank you thank you appreciate it okay did we have any other questions from the applicant i'm sorry okay i will entertain a motion um well let's well before we break let's just say do we have anyone making a motion in the opposite for approval I'd like to make a motion with regards to PLN VOA 2444, William Allen. I move for disapproval of the conditional use permit for a short term rental based on the following findings. The evidence presented at the hearing shows that the subject property is surrounded by a high concentration of short-term rentals, with 15 short-term rentals identified in the thousand foot of the subject property and potentially over 40 in the surrounding neighborhood. The evidence at the hearing also shows that the area is sufficient off-street parking due to the narrowness of the street and limited on street parking and allowing additional users for short-term rental would create additional congestion in the surrounding areas there are also insufficient traffic calming devices on richmond avenue to accommodate the increased traffic for those reasons a short term would have an adverse influence on the surrounding neighborhood by the increasing the volume of traffic Ms. Plumlee has offered a second. Any further comment before we take a vote? I would just like to mention just personal comment on this. I do view this one differently because it is a primary residence and I do think it's an awful lot in one particular area but what I also think that we will continue to see is with the lack of affordability of housing people especially young people are going to have to find a way to pay for mortgages and to pay to be in the homes that they are not thought this was a fifty days of a reasonable way to to offset some of those expenses which will continue to get higher a lot in the same neighborhood i agree but just that the concept we will can continue to see a creative solution to a problem that we have locally in nationwide is in affordability okay motion for disapproval is passed the next item is let me see PLN BOA 24-45, that's Lisa Preston. The applicant will come forward, please. Was there anyone here to speak on behalf of this item? We do have one. In opposition? Okay. This has been recommended for approval. There are four conditions that have been listed, including the limitation of up to seven individuals, and you're comfortable with those conditions? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Do you want to give a brief synopsis of your project? Yes. My name is Kayla Preston. I'm Lisa's daughter. I am the applicant, and I'm also the co-owner of the property with my mom. My mom and I purchased, well our family purchased this property in 2016 to help my brother get clean off of drugs. Well he eventually passed away of an overdose and so our family was left with this house to figure something to do with. I work for Berea College in Berea, nonprofit for Berea College and so I'm also a UK graduate so I am from Lexington. I'm originally from Kentucky. I've lived in Lexington throughout my entire undergrad and then moved to Brea for my job. With all of that being said, when my brother passed, my mom didn't know what to do. She lives in South Carolina. My family still lives in Meadowthorpe. My uncle and aunt still live there and lived there for a very long time. And that's why she chose to purchase that property in that neighborhood so my brother could be close to my family. So now I pretty much me and my mom had to figure out what to do with the house. And I didn't want to sell it off. away from the family. I wanted to keep it because I do love Lexington and I am pretty much from here. I pretty much feel that I am from Lexington at this point because this is pretty much where I only have family in Kentucky. So I started looking into what to do with it. Long-term rental. I didn't realize this was called short-term rental. I started running this B&B in 2019 and have been running it since 2019 until I received information about the changes to the compliance. I didn't get notification about this. I actually found out about the change in the compliance and the permitting because I called the Division of Revenue, making sure that I was compliant with my tax. I've paid taxes here for the past five years. I've also done a lot of things with the planning or lease revenue, and I was not aware. So when I became aware, I immediately closed it down. I had to cancel eight bookings, which is a lot of money, especially around Keeneland and Derby Week. in the time of year. And so it's all good. We closed it down and things have been pretty mellow over there. I've been able to keep up the property. I've been able to paint the fence, paint the inside of the house, make sure the house is still looking good. I know a lot of my neighbors. I've helped my neighbors. They've helped me. I really feel like I've got a good relationship with my area. So I'm pretty much here just asking you all to approve my short-term rental and in hopes that I can continue to provide this service to Lexington residents. I've had folks who come here to visit their sick family members that stay in my house, UK students, parents who come here who are on sports teams and need a home to bring their family to to provide a holiday comfortable setting for their family. So with all that being said, thank you all very much for your approval potentially approval and I'll let anybody else speak thank you appreciate it take a seat public comment please hi tractor Tyler Starratt I live in the neighborhood a lot of my points have already been brought up I'm sorry what was your name again Tyler tractor A lot of the points have already been brought up with other people, but I just believe that short-term rentals are not in line with the goals of the neighborhood as a growth. There's no direct economic benefit, and since it's already been touched on, the inherent lack of accountability and transient nature of short-term rentals is only going to further exacerbate the drug problems in our neighborhood. It's already happened with some of the other ones we see. I would also urge council to look at some of the maps that have been brought up tonight, including for the line item for Thompson Road. We might be just outside of those areas identified, those top ten areas that were identified in the census, but we're on that same block. So that is something I would like council to think of in their decision as well. But that's all I have to say. Thank you. I appreciate it. Was there anyone else to speak? Thank you. Anything from the board or I'll entertain a motion please. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 2445 request from Lisa Preston, request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a single-family residential zone on property located at 1112 Liggett Street based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions as listed. Thank you. And Mr. Walker has offered a second. We will take a vote. Okay. The motion has been approved. Good luck with your project. The next item is PLN VOA 24-46 Porch Light Properties, it's 340 Park Avenue. The applicant will come forward. This one has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone to speak on Park Avenue? Thank you. It looks like we have four conditions that have been listed here. I'm sorry, state your name please. Jerry Williams, I'm the owner. Okay. First name was Jerry? Jared with a D. Jared, okay. Looks like there are four conditions, including the limitation of up to six individuals. Have you looked at those? Are you comfortable? Yes. Okay. You want to tell us anything about the project briefly? Actually, similar situation. My family bought it in 2018. We've been operating it as an Airbnb since then. It was in an incredible state of disrepair, falling in on itself. It was our largest kind of renovation at that time, so we took a lot of pride into it, how well it's turned out. We've operated as an Airbnb since then. I got some bad information that I had more time than I thought to get the licensures, and then I got a letter similar, so we shut it down since then, and here trying to get the appropriate licensures to operate it. Thank you. Any questions of this applicant? All right. If not, it has been recommended for approval and I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, may I make a comment? Yes. I think this property is in the $285,000 range and considering the housing situation in Lexington, That would make a dwelling for a workforce individual or a long-term rental. And that's just my comment at that time. We're constantly taking these rentals or short-term rentals that could be potential dwelling places for the workforce. And we are contributing to the housing shortage in Lexington. Thank you. When we purchased the property, you could literally see out the walls. We bought it for $80,000, and we put $140,000 into it. And to be honest with you, we didn't really know what we were doing. And so we really, it was our first major renovation as a family. We did it all together with our blood, sweat, and tears. So we're really happy with the way it turned out, and that's why I'm trying to hold on to it for a long time. Thank you. How many cars can you park in the driveway? It's actually one of the few houses on the street that has its own driveway. and a garage so we can get three cars including the garage and actually you have to get in that neighborhood you have to get a license to park on the street and we don't offer that to our Airbnb guests because we don't want to take that parking up. I've been down that street a few times parking seems to be wall-to-wall down there on both sides. Yeah they all the houses towards closer to I guess that's Euclid or it's a historic overlay and honestly they haven't been well maintained and so a lot of those other houses been chopped up into student housing and so most of them have six or seven students in it and they're not built for that you know they're only 1500 square foot the majority of them so anyway that's why there's so many cars there's a lot of student housing and there's not permit parking on that street is there permit parking yeah yeah yeah there is and I will just mention it's worth way more than 285 just right now just for record if you go to sell it all right any further questions of the applicant i will entertain a motion madam chair i move to approve plnboa 24-46 porch light properties llc requests for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a historic district overlay in a single-family residential zone on properly located at 340 park avenue based on staff recommendations and subject to the four conditions thank you and do we have a second thank you mr clark we will take a vote Okay. Motion passed. You have been approved. Okay. Our next item is PLNBOA 24-47. Are you Mr. Jonathan Graham? Yes, ma'am. You've been keeping up that well with the cases that come next? Oh, yes, ma'am. Amazing. I have this cryptic. I'm just having fun at this point. Okay, Jennifer Chang and Jonathan Graham. This is 420 Johnson Avenue. This has been recommended for approval. There are five conditions that have been listed here, including the unique one that you guys actually live across the street, and this is subject to you continuing to live across the street. Is that correct? That's correct. And you're comfortable with each of those conditions? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Would you like to tell us anything else about the project? My wife and I were in the market for a larger house in the area for about two years prior to today. We don't have enough space to accommodate guests, including our, you know, grandparents on both sides to come and visit us, so we were looking for other ways to accommodate them, so we got an architect to design an ADU for us in the backyard of our house, which we were getting quotes on around the same time we were getting our quotes. We realized that the house across the street went on the market, about the same price for building like a one, like a single apartment ADU in the backyard, so we decided that that was a better option for us. We've been talking to other members on our block who are in a very similar situation, have approached us with interest in also using it sort of as a guest house for them as well. I have some letters of support from some members in our neighborhood that I can share upon request as well. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Any questions of the applicant? Is there any parking like at all on that property? I didn't see like a driveway or parking or? That's correct. It's all street parking for that particular property. There's no access to the alley. There were like one short from the alley. Thank you. Across the street where we live, we have three spots in the back, access off of Humbart Alley, and we always park in the back right there. Speaking with some of our neighbors, you know, we realized that, you know, if we did have to use it as a long-term rental that the long-term rental would have somebody using up parking on the street as well at that property and we should have the ability to limit the amount of cars that we're allowing our guests to park on the street thank you any additional questions now i will entertain a motion we we didn't have anyone here to speak on this one did we Okay. I'm losing track. Is there a motion? The recommendation is approval or? Yeah. I recommend approval of PLMBOA 24-47 Jennifer Chang and Jonathan Graham's request for a initial use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill redevelopment area in a planned neighborhood residential zone at 420 Johnson Avenue based upon the staff's report and subject to the condition set forth therein. Thank you. Mr. Walker has offered a second. We'll open for vote. The motion is passed. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Do you know who's next for me? BLNBOA 24-48 Matthew Ishmael. This is 3548 King Arthur Drive. Good evening. Matthew Ishmael, I'm the owner of the property. Thank you. Mr. Ishmael, there are four conditions that have been listed here, including the limitation of up to six individuals, have you had opportunity to review that? I have. Just a brief question on number four I see in the second sentence. It says applicants short-term AL fee license. Just confirming that that's a typo or not my intent to point it out. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't a license fee that I needed to be aware of in addition to everything else. Yeah, it should say short-term rental special fee license. Understood. that's the secret fee you have to pay just making sure appreciate that i'm available for any comments or questions but i won't waste the board's already very long day with the additional information you have it all there in front of you how close is the property to southern middle school southern middle school about a block or two Any other questions? I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLN BOA 24-48 from Matthew Ishmael, request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single family residential zone on property located at 3548 King Arthur Drive, based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions as listed. Thank you, Mr. Clark. I have a second. As corrected. I'm sorry? With the correction noted to condition number four. Oh, with the correction noted to the special rental license fee. Oh, yeah. Condition four. Okay, yes, as corrected. Thank you. Number four. And do I have a second? Mr. Sturdivant, thank you. and i will open for vote thank you the motions past your project all right i have to you and be a late twenty four dash forty nine kristin silvestri this is twenty twelve parallel road This has been recommended for approval. Hello. Can you state your name for the record? Kristen Silvestri, the property owner. Thank you. There are four conditions, including the limitation of up to six individuals. Did you review those, and are you comfortable with them? Yes, ma'am. Would you like to tell us anything about the project? My property is more on the outskirts of Lexington off of Georgetown Road. We target the horse industry, so we get horse trainers. We're really close to Root and Riddle, so hope to establish a relationship with them as well. I guess that's it. As far as I know, we are the only short-term rental in the area, and we are at the beginning of the neighborhood, so we are near a bunch of other properties. I've established a relationship with both neighbors on either side of me and one of which has expressed interest in their family staying in the short-term rental and they don't have any opposals as far as I'm aware. Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions of this applicant? Okay, if not, I will entertain a motion. Oh, I'm sorry, you had a comment. I want to give a comment. This house valued around $150,000, so it removes from the neighborhood a house that could serve as a permanent resident for a workforce individual dwelling. And eventually, we keep approving, the board keeps approving these as short-term rentals. And I think we're neglecting the adverse effect on neighborhoods by changing the character of the neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you. So noted, and I will entertain a motion. Having heard Ms. Plumley's comment, I won't ignore it, but at the same time, I'll make a motion to approve. Sorry. Thank you. I move approval of PLNBOA 24-49, Kristen Silvestri, request for a conditionally use permit for an unhosted short term rental in a single family residential zone. A property located at 2012 parallel road based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions as listed. Thank you. Do I have a second? Thank you, Mr. Gross. I will take a vote. Thank you. Thank you. The motion is passed, good luck. Our next item is PLNBOA 24-54, that's FB Real Estate, 3109 Daily Place. Thank you, state your name for the record please. Off here, Ben. Did you sign in already? Yes, I did. So you have been recommended for approval. There are four conditions listed there, including the limitation of up to six individuals. Have you had an opportunity to review those, and are you comfortable with them? No, I haven't. Okay. Good conditions. Yes, that should be fine. Okay. Okay. And we do have some opposition here, so would you like to tell us a little bit about your project first? Yeah, so it's our first rental property that we recently purchased, my husband and I. Our plan is we eventually want to have it on long-term rental and we are just planning to do short-term meanwhile. You do plan for it to be a long-term? For long-term, that's right. And we are planning to do short-term just for the meanwhile until we find a tenant. Okay. Anything else before I open for public comment? No, that's what I'm sure. Okay, thank you. If you would like to speak on 3109 Daily Place, if we can line up. And you could sit down for a moment, ma'am. I'll allow them to. I have two people. Do you want to turn on the overhead or do you want to pass around? I can pass around. I can pick them if you want to go ahead and start talking. That works. Please state your name for the record, and we have three minutes on the timer. Hi, I'm Rebecca McCasey. I'm the president. of Parkside at Masters of the Station Homeowners Association. I represent the 152 households that we have in our community. Our neighborhood takes great pride in maintaining a cohesive and family-oriented atmosphere where residents feel safe and secure and comfortable in their own homes. While we understand the benefits of short-term rentals in certain contexts, we believe firmly that introducing such a facility into our residential area would be detrimental on our neighborhood. We are a single home residence that's in our deed of restriction, so we don't allow short-term rentals. I strongly urge the Board of Adjustment to reject the conditional use permit for several reasons. Destruction of the atmosphere to the residents who live there. Increased traffic and parking, as you can see from the photos, the area where the proposed Airbnb or short-term rental is going to be has limited parking. There are seven brand-new townhomes that are going to be going in in that same area that have no driveways. There's going to be people parking on the street. There's going to be issues for first responders to be able to get in with larger vehicles, school buses with children. They're going to be dropping off and picking up kids. the impact that it's going to have on our property values as well. They're also going to be sharing walls because it is a townhome situation with people who live there full time. So they've got neighbors on each side that own those units, and they're going to have to share the walls with them. And basically when people come with short-term rentals, they're here on vacation. So they stay up later. They have people over. They have louder parties. We don't want that in that area. This is also safety concerns. At least with a long-term rental, they've vetted the people who are going to be renting from them. In a short-term rental, you don't know who's coming and going into your neighborhood. So safety concern is already a big issue. And the short staff that we have for the police force, we don't want to take away from what could be a serious issue to come and check out a noise disturbance or parking. The other thing is just the lack of affordable housing for people. I mean, this townhome, the townhome sold for, they were asking around $300,000. I think these sold for around the $280,000 to the $300,000. That's ideal for someone to live in long term. So just in light of these reasons, I urge the board to prioritize the well-being and interests of the residents of Parkside at Masterson Station by rejecting this proposal. Preserving the residential character and peaceful atmosphere of our community should be paramount in any decision regarding land use and development. Thank you for consideration of our concerns, and I trust that you'll make a thoughtful and responsible decision that reflects the best entrance of our community. Thank you. Thank you. State your name for the record. Mark Momoney. I'm an owner of property with my wife in Parkside at Masterson Station. One of the reasons we've lived there for the past 13 years is because there was a deed of restrictions on single-family homes. That's what we like. There is a very good mix of older and younger couples that are living in that neighborhood. It's a very nice neighborhood right now. And I think opening up the door to short-term rentals, after everything I've heard about what short-term rentals involve, I think it's opening up the door to a Pandora's box in our neighborhood. We don't allow businesses, commercial businesses in our neighborhood, data restrictions again. This is a business, commercial business. I hear up to six people, eight people living in a place. I don't hear anything about family. I hear six people. To me, that means six additional vehicles. Where are they going to park? Parking is very limited in this area, and I don't think it should be approved. I'm totally opposed to it, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak my mind. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Mark Swain, and my wife and I looked for some time before we bought our home, and we decided this neighborhood was it. The main reason that we purchased in this area was the HOA. We knew that they would be watching over all the people who were living in the neighborhood, making sure they kept their properties up. Also, they were all supposedly single-family residents. no room for short-term rentals. That's not what we bought for. We bought for a place that we can invest in. We put thousands and thousands of dollars in proving our home, our property, and now I've got this going in alongside of it. I think you really need to load, they sent out a plot, a site plan with this message to come for this meeting or an opportunity to come to this meeting. It just shows the six units that they bought and they built, or they didn't, I don't think they built them. I think they bought them from a realtor. But what it doesn't show is the other units that are already in place in a circle around this daily place. And I would really recommend, before you guys say approve, one of you make a trip around daily place. There are eight to nine new units going in right straight across the street from these that he showed on this plot. Right now, Daily Place is already overflowing parking out into the streets. Where they show four places to park vehicles, that's a straight in-line parking, a straight in-line driveway. Now, how many of you think that everybody's going to park in that driveway? They don't. Because if you're going to get out from the in-by-side or from your garage, you've got to have three people move their vehicles to get out. Nobody's going to do that. They're already parking out on the streets. Sandersville Road, Daily Place, Tiburon. They're all over the place. And these other eight and nine units aren't even going yet. And they're right across the street from me. So I beg you, please disapprove this. It's bad enough that we got it set up this way that they got it zoned for eight to more nine units in that little corner with no parking. Thanks. Thank you. My name is Ili Young. I'm not saying up to speak because my English is not good. My son can't have no say, but I want my husband to not say in the pictures. That pictures is so bad, they are not taking care of the property where they're building. Everywhere is trash, everywhere is bugs everywhere, and the trash everywhere they do. I don't know how to, I don't know, I don't know, my English is not good. That's why I'm not saying up to speak, but my husband not approve of the pictures. If you go there, you just want to throw up because they dump every trash and the car already parking everywhere in the street right now. I know that's not the business, but I buy a new car. In the two months, my car has a flat tire. They drop the mail everywhere. I go to the tire place, replace my car tires three times. I know that's not the case, but they already started building the property. Our neighborhood is so bad. That's my second. I'm from China, that's my second home from America, but that's my long home for my life. I want the property good and beautiful, not like bad. I don't know so many beautiful works, but no, that's property. I don't want the property going to bad, like something. Thank you. Thank you. I did mean to tell you, I'm sorry. I did mean to tell you that one thing that I don't particularly trust the fact that they're going to take care of that property very well. I'm afraid it's going to go down. The street or the sidewalks in front of the buildings that they have just purchased are destroyed. Some of those pictures will show you. There's seven panels of sidewalk destroyed when they did the construction. Nothing's been replaced yet. It's still that way. These things were finished six months or more ago. There's seven new panels destroyed in an adjacent one right next to them across the street because they tell me that you all permitted to the curb. I mean, there's been outhouses there dumped over during the construction. Plywood out in the sidewalks. The sidewalks are destroyed. And this is a nice, it was a nice neighborhood. It looks like a third world construction site. Was there any more public comment? If the applicant can come forward? Just a quick question for you. You just purchased the property? Yes, my husband and I. Was it a foreclosure? Was that a bank owned property? No, it was a brand new. Okay, okay. Yes. So I would like to go over their concerns. So first of all, regarding the parking. We're going to limit it to two parking. And then we have one, it's covered parking, and the one in our driveway. So it will be two cars in our driveway. Secondly, we are planning to get fenced. So I understand it's like three, four units. We are planning to get it fenced within the next three weeks. That's been our plan since day one. Regarding the noise, we are not planning to have any, it's going to be in our contract, no social gatherings are parties. And as far as I know, there is not any STR in that community. So the trash and everything else that they're talking about, I'm not sure where that's coming from, but there is not any STR in that community right now. That's all. Yeah, we showed there were zero. I'm assuming the fence is going to be in the back. Yes, that's correct. But you do share on either side, do you share walls with neighbors? That's correct, yes, we do. Thank you. I have been around there. There is no parking. Okay. Thank you. Anything further for the applicant? All right. I will entertain a motion. I'd like to make a motion to do something. Before we do that, is there an alternative one to approve before we take a break? Okay, we'll take just a moment. It's in here. I'm going to read this. If we can have a second, please. With respect to PLN BOA 2454, FB Real Estate, I move to disapprove of the request for a conditional use permit for a short-term rental based on the following findings. The short-term rental would have an adverse influence on the adjoining properties due to the sharing of common areas and limited privacy between the units. The street has shared parking arrangement that relies on on-street parking for some units, which greatly reduce the parking for the proposed short-term rental. Thank you. And Mr. Sturter-Vent has second. No further comment. I'll open for vote. The short term rental has been disapproved. Thank you. The next item is PLN BOA 24-55, that's Patrick Hallowell, 305 Parkway. Is the applicant present? Mr. Gross has recused himself Yeah, we want pizza, Brandon. Order pizza I'm here Thank you Thank you Thank you. If you could state your name for the record please. Hi, I'm Christina Dudak. I'm here on Mr. Hallowell's behalf. Okay. I'm his real estate agent and friend. Okay. And he was called out of state for work, so I came in his stead. I would like to say that Mr. Halloway purchased this property, I think, about six months ago in August, and he has done extensive renovations to the property. It was in pretty bad disrepair when he purchased it. He still has plans to continue renovating the outside of the house. It was just run down. There was an elderly lady that bought it, and he purchased it from her. He has two residences. this is one and he has one in minnesota uh... yes two offices and he's transitioning from that place in minnesota here but in the meantime he's wanting to be short-term rental to offset the expense uh... of the work he's had to do incident or a moment christina and there so there it has been recommended for approval and there are six conditions that have been listed including that uh... maximum amount of rental days being a hundred and fifty year to accommodate the he's he is comfortable with that yes okay and there is a limitation of up to ten individuals and also there's a conditional use that it will be null and void if there is a change in ownership yes okay yeah he's seen this and he agrees to that uh... he he's here and he comes back and forth for work a lot and so he's here a lot so this is he is considering this is primary residence And like I said, it's a single gentleman who is using it to offset expenses. I don't think it's going to be a lot of that. But I think that he is using it because he still has work to do in the back of the house and things like that. But all the conditions he agrees with. Okay. Thank you. And he's available by phone. But I've been here for 48 hours, so it's probably going to die before I can talk to him. Okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions on the applicant's behalf? I'd just like to make a comment. I can't support this because they're directly across from Lafayette High School, which I think is not a good location for a short term rental. I'm sorry, say it again for me. I said I can't support this because they're located directly across the street from Lafayette High School. Is that a law that you can't approve one that's across from the school? Is that an ordinance? I think it's too close to the school. I think it's an inappropriate location for a short-term rental to be that close to that many students. Just personal opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And we do want to open up for a public comment. If we can line up and... you guys are pros now you know the drill three minutes state your name let's try not to be repetitive and i think you got voted to go first look at that yes i'm happy about that um i just want to check before i start to see if you all have the handout that i sent around to you oh here it comes and i'm sorry um and yeah there's the first page of it will you state your name please yes i'm sorry i haven't in my mind i hadn't started yet no it's all it's all a record Okay, my name is Lynn Flynn and I live at 518 Spring Hill Drive. I'm an officer of the Picadome Neighborhood Association and I'm representing the Neighborhood Association today. And I'll let you all have a chance to get the handouts. On my mark, get set, go. Is your timer set? It's set, yes. Okay, let's go. Okay, I want to focus my comments on why 305 Lafayette Parkway is not a suitable location for a short-term rental, and I thank the gentleman who's already started with that. I'm going to speak primarily to reasons related to pedestrian and traffic safety and the proximity of other short-term rentals in the immediate area. So first, we got lots of students in our neighborhood. Approximately 3,100 students attend Lafayette High School, SCAPA, and Piccadome Elementary School each school day. Children within a mile must walk or be driven to school. Many of them walk down Lafayette Parkway. Secondly, no on-street parking. There is no on-street parking allowed at the property on school days via sign, and there is no practical on-street parking anywhere nearby during the school year. The kids use up all the parking on the street. Third, high traffic count. You have a map of the traffic count. According to 2022 traffic count studies of the Kentucky Department of Transportation, on each school day, over 2,900 vehicles drive from Rosemont Garden to Reed Lane along Lafayette Parkway, and over 1,900 vehicles drive from Clay's Mill Road to Lafayette Parkway on Spring Hill Drive. There are three other streets that go from Clay's Middle to Lafayette Parkway. These numbers don't even count. Those numbers are not even counted in this. That means that over 5,000 vehicle trips take place along Lafayette Parkway. These are all local neighborhood roads not designed for that level of vehicle traffic. In comparison, Rosemont Garden is a major collector and only has a little over 4,800 vehicle trips a day. Collisions, please take a look at your map. There have been at least 14 collisions around Lafayette Parkway in three years. Finally, short-term rentals in the immediate area. There are five short-term rentals within two blocks of the property, one at the corner of Woodbine and Clay's Mill, one on McCubbing, and three clustered on Reed Lane between Clay's Mill and Lafayette Parkway. The property actually has a common property line with one of the short-term rentals on Reed Lane that extends across about half the backyard boundary. Two long-time Picadome homeowners are sandwiched between the existing short-term rental on Reed and the proposed short-term rental on Lafayette Parkway. You all saw that the staff did a calculation that gave us a percentage of short-term rentals of 1.9% and 1,000 feet. I did the same calculation for the cluster of short-term rentals on Reed Lane, along with the proposed short-term rental on Lafayette Parkway, and came up with a short-term rental density for that area of 13.8%. That's a lot of short-term rentals packed into a very small area. We don't need another short-term rental in that part of the neighborhood. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon. Thank you. Hi, I'm Lauren Shero, and I live around the corner from the proposed house. I want to thank the Board of Adjustment. First of all, you all do this for free, right? And I know you all get a lot of ire and hostility from people, so I trust that you all do this because you all want what is best for our city, and I appreciate that. We're facing a housing shortage. Everywhere in the nation is facing a housing shortage. I have all these details, but I don't want to take up that much time giving you the details. Short-term rentals rob families of homes. Our neighborhood is a delightful neighborhood for families. I moved there, I've taught at Lafayette for 16 years. And we bought a house across the street from Lafayette so our kids could walk to school. And there's six other teachers who, like me, walk to school every morning. The principal walks to school every morning. There's parents who walk their kids to Pickett Home Elementary. I don't know all of the names of the people that I see on my walk to work, but I know their faces and I pet their dogs. And we're a community. I want neighbors. I want families who can walk to school every morning and to the farmer's market on Sunday. I want a vibrant neighborhood and I want people who love our city to be able to buy houses there. And I understand that the owner is transitioning here. I am unsure why a single person deans a house this large if it is just for transitioning here. Or if you can have up to 150 days a year, you can make quite a good chunk of money running it out for $450 a night, which is what the ones down the street are going for. Close to what the one across the street from my house, close to the other one on the end of our street is going for. So we have plenty of short-term rentals. We have delightful neighborhood. There's such a great place for families, and that's what I want to see in our neighborhood. I agree with all the traffic, so I'm asking you to deny this permit request for the short-term rental. There's plenty on our block already. There's a lack of parking for the house, and we don't need to contribute to the lack of housing already in Lexington. I do appreciate the Board of Adjustment members who have pointed out the pricing and the homes that are available for working class families. This house sold for $320,000. That might be a little bit on the high end, but that's still an affordable house for many families who want to live in our town. Thanks. thank you hi my name is kristen montgomery i live on five two woodbine drive uh kind of sandwiched in between all these rentals that are going on uh i want to defer my time to my neighbor steve so that he can thank you thank you kristin man three and three that's six uh thank you my name is steve davis and i live on 511 Woodbine Drive. I've been a resident in Piccadome since 2014 when we bought our first home there. It was actually my first home ever. So what I want to talk about today is the reason why I'm opposed to this short-term rental, and it has everything to do with neighborhood safety. Let's see here. First of all, I represent the Piccadome Short-Term Rental Working Group. We're a neighborhood public interest research group, and we collect data from various sources, primarily through open records requests, but also other sources like the Herald-Leader, as well as web scrapes from Airbnb. And I encourage anyone and everyone to join our group. So this is a map that we put together with the data that we assembled from those public records requests, as well as a data set that was provided to me by the Herald-Leader. There are currently 20 short-term rentals within 1,000 feet of the five schools in Piccadone. That strikes me as a high number, and I'll explain why. Four are unlicensed but active on Airbnb, so they have not applied for, I believe, a conditional use permit. one of them had their conditional use permit pulled and they are still advertising on airbnb we've got the addresses here if you if you won't need to see them so this is the situation i'm i'm a data guy and i like data because it takes emotion out of a very kind of contentious topic so i'm just going to take you really quick through this. This is KRS 17.545, Section 2A. This is the sex offender law. So one of the biggest problems I have with short-term rentals is they basically create a loophole in that law. So the law basically states that sex offenders, whether they're registered in the state of Kentucky or should be registered in the state of Kentucky if they're from out of state, cannot loiter within a thousand feet of a school and that boundary is measured by the edge of the property rather than the school building or the geographic center itself. Airbnb has no consistent background check as far as I can tell and I've looked at their website several times and also consult consulted secondary research. This is a quote from their website how-to. Background checks have limitations. They check a bunch of databases and their admission is these database checks may not reveal comprehensive or recent criminal record activity. This is a very optimistic look at their processes. In actual fact, it's pretty much voluntary and there's a million loopholes within their processes. Now I want to talk more broadly. I know the planning department and they have an incredibly difficult job and I sympathize with them as somebody who works with data every day. It's not an easy task to kind of assemble a broad view of what's going on in the neighborhood, but I feel like the 5% threshold that is being used to determine whether or not an STR application should be approved or denied is a bit of an arbitrary figure that doesn't tell the whole story. So nationwide, the national average occupancy rate for Airbnbs is about 55%. It's probably slightly higher or lower for Lexington. There's not a lot of good data available for that. There are currently 78 bedrooms in all of the Picadome STRs. So when you look at the total number of rentable rooms, the picture looks a lot different. 78 bedrooms is almost as much as 21C Museum Hotel. So we currently have the equivalent of 21C in our neighborhood, and other neighborhoods have it much worse off. So, looking at the data, if we have 78 STR bedrooms currently for rent in Piccadome, the ordinance allows for two guests per bedroom, and I'm not going to include the four per residence. That means 156 guests per night at maximum occupancy. And remember that 55% is the national average occupancy rate. That equals to 31,000 guests per year. Now, I don't think there's 31,000 guests coming through Piccadone, but it's probably bigger than we would like. Now, I want to kind of conclude my comments by just talking a little bit about why I like Picadome. As some of my fellow neighbors have mentioned, Picadome is a wonderful neighborhood. It's very close-knit. and one of the things that I don't like about short-term rentals is they basically create gaps in that social fabric. And those gaps actually are dangerous in a lot of ways. If you have neighbors alongside one another, they can kind of keep an eye on the neighborhood. They can basically look out for one another. When there's a short-term rental, there's a gap there. And as those gaps increase, that social fabric becomes more and more degraded. I don't know who these 31,352 guests are. I find it kind of shocking that there's such a lax background check that Airbnb puts out there. And Airbnb is just one of these companies. There's a number of others, and they have similarly lax policies. So I just want to kind of leave that number as much of an estimate as it is with the board. And I would hope that you would consider the risk involved in having that many transient people moving through our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, everybody. I live on the corner of Lafayette, 301 Lafayette Lane. say to name him parks three-oh threes beside me then three-oh five the property in question i've been at the yard scene saying it back coming going back with sports like he say there's no little children in the neighborhood that look like right but i have concerned i have help kids and i get taken from me being in my apartment yard the look he's going to pick them you're not doing background checks on these people everybody that is a pedophile rapist has not been caught you get these people coming go we don't know who they are right behind me is bad but one bnb so the backyard uh... babo one meets of our three o'clock so that it that was a lot in jump face to be in that back there i'm gonna give you some of the experiences that i've had lived there with about that in nineteen ninety five months and graduated which you can scotland i've never intended on moving there is built to do still the duplex when they put the fabo bb one night i was coming home at two o'clock of the park ross three these two girls get out of the car for the matter of when was walking up in my game with me three o'clock in the morning two o'clock in the morning my front doorbell right people knocking at my back door looking for the b b one night i had my windows up in the bathroom i kept hearing all this screaming and how he was a main screaming like a woman about those might kill me so i went out the back door went walk all the way around the woodbine and you can hear he must have been in the back of where the pool was in that moment screaming how much of my skin a family got my she she'd at the back one morning i get it to go in it at the very back corner that some man said no but i slams looking at me as if this i would be able you do not hear i feel a brokerage into the place bmb didn't pay for those bills i was at a commission could draft three months not to mention out that there so i'm giving you the other part of what they've fussed in a bit there's never no parking to christmases ago i had big pots of beans going to be done a good part to put the food in my car because out of school keys was parked there with this lady traffic officer came back i said you know i live here you see my door was open unloading this food up, I'll be gone. She said, well, unfortunately for you, I came down through here at this time. Okay? So when you call the police, now I'll end with this. One night I was sitting in my back room and somebody in my backyard dressed like a clown, had a multi-color afro wig on dressed like a clown. So I looked and I got up, went out the back door. So when I went out the back door, I was livid. If I'd had something, something what happened to it so he jumped up the late that you ran down street are going to call the police when the police family the economy was there later they went to the g of re-night so isle is things that make us uncomfortable so if you make a decision would you all put up there so i'm not going to do it three or five four o'clock in the morning now what do you think i'm thinking i don't want nobody to get on the other side of the door well thank you appreciate it james atkins i live at five zero eight woodbine drive two doors down from the proposed my family moved to pick a dome three years ago from kenwick uh... sherman avenue were well aware of what was happening in the neighborhood there and When we moved, the first thing we noticed was the sense of community that was present in Piccadome that we felt was starting to ail in Kenwick. We've loved it there. My wife and I own a small business, run a restaurant downtown, so I'm well aware of the economic boon that tourism brings to the city. but I don't think that it offsets the cost of the infringement of that commercialization and commodification in our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Sir? My name is Larry Ratliff. I live at 307 Lafayette Parkway. I'm the next door neighbor to propose short-term rental. In just a moment, did you sign in, Mr. Ratliff? Is that what you said? What's that? Did you sign in? I have not signed in. Were you sworn in? What's that? Were you sworn in earlier? I don't have you on the list. Were you sworn in? I'm not signed in. I haven't sworn in. Okay, please raise your right hand. Okay. No, if you're not on the list, I just assumed you hadn't been sworn in. So raise your right hand and do you swear to tell the whole truth today? I do. Thank you. Yes. I sent this to the planning staff back on May 7th. This document is a three-page document. And again, my wife and I have lived at 307 Lafayette Parkway for 38 years, which is a long time. Louise Graham, the previous occupant of the 305 property, which is now to be a short-term rental, is an excellent neighbor. She's a wonderful woman. Not sure rationale for leaving, but anyway, whether it was age or what it was, she represents a lost our neighborhood. I don't like I said, I've sent this to the planning. It's a lot of the data that I'm going to discuss that's already in here, but I'm so I'm not going to go over things that have previously been said. I'm going to kind of say my own piece what I have to say about this matter. Let's start with we've lived there since 1986. We bought the properties and investment knowing it was a residential area, single family residents, okay, not next to Red Roof Inn or Holiday Inn or people coming and going. These are neighbors. We want to be part of a community. Since the first short-term rental came into existence in our immediate proximity, we have experienced nothing but problems, okay? Now this short term rental I'm referring to is 305 through. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 505 read lane. Okay. Since this first short term rental, I didn't know it was a short term rental. I was reluctant to call the police for a while until my wife and I said I've had enough. I'm calling the police. I normally don't call police on neighbors. I try to cut them, you know, a little bit leniency. But this is so profound and so loud and so drunken and blasting that even when we went indoors, we could not get away from it. I mean, it's a type of thing, it's your worst nightmare as a neighbor. I'm not saying it was bad, I'm saying it was horrible. Loud partying, drunkenness, blasting loud party music, and then it comes the illegal drug smells. That's always good for laughs when you've got your grandkids out in your backyard. There's things in this life I don't tolerate. That's I mean everybody can do their own thing. I really don't care. I do care but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm practical. But when when my family's outdoors that's quality time with my family. I'd like to think that I have some kind of rights in this life to spend quality outdoor time with my family without somebody infringing on those quintessential rights we should all possess. With that being said, that property is 25 feet from my property line. This property you're talking about putting up for approval is 0 foot 0 inches from the property line. If I'm not already had enough problem, so now I'm going to have a next door neighbor that I can shake hands across the I guess my time is up. I could go on and on. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. Okay, thank you. Looks like one more comment. Hi, my name is Lori Fields. I live at 411 Picadone Park. What I wanted to talk about was the sense of it being a neighborhood and the safety that we have. that we have there that we feel are. So I've been a part of the Neighborhood Association since 2012, and we use that association for social purposes, but also as Neighborhood Watch. And as neighbors supporting each other, helping each other out, and kind of taking care of the neighborhood. So there's lots of dog walkers and lots of people who know each other. We are in a prime location, we think, and with easy access to downtown and the schools, rather moderately priced houses. And what we're finding is that affordability is now when investors are outpricing the housing and we're having, you know, people are finding it harder and harder to buy in the neighborhood. Our streets are older and they're narrow and there's very limited street parking. And this is a concern when we have short-term rentals. This particular one, as you've been hearing, is very close to others, and it's also very, very close to schools, and those are things that concern us. So I am asking that you deny this request. All right. Any more public comment? If the applicant would like to come forward. I just wanted to say that Mr. Hallowell is using Evolve, which is a company that manages short-term rentals, and they vet renters by gathering all the information from other rental sites in regards to the people that rent through them. They have a 24-hour hotline that if there's any issue with a renter that the neighbor can call 24 hours a day. I do understand, I mean, I see the frustration of people. However, this young man purchased his property and there are short-term meals around him. However, if they're not operating legally, he has submitted to your authority, and he has requested through the proper channels to use this property, which he pays taxes on and he owns, and he considers his primary residence. So, I mean, I don't think it's fair that he pays for the fact that there are people operating illegally when he's submitting to your authority. And I'd be glad to answer any of the questions that you have. Thank you. we have any no public comments closed but thank you anything else any other questions for staff or all right we will entertain a motion i think we need time out do we have any motion for approval Thank you. Okay. Mm-hm. Madam Chair, with regards to PLN BOA 2455, Patrick Howell, I move for disapproval of the conditional use permit for permit for a short term rental based on the following findings. The evidence presented at the hearing shows that the subject property is surrounded by a high concentration of short term rentals. With four short term rentals identified within a thousand feet of the subject property and potentially 30 in the Picadome neighborhood. The evidence at the hearing also shows that the area has no on-street parking and allowing additional users for a short term rental would create additional traffic in the surrounding area, which is already congested due to the property's proximity to Lafayette High School and SCAPA. For those reasons, a short term rental would have an adverse influence on the surrounding neighborhood by increasing the volume of traffic in a very congested area. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Plumlee. Do we have a second? Thank you, Ms. Tucker. Any further discussion before we vote? Now we will vote. The motion is for disapproval. OK. alrighty the the property has been disapproved d brandon's back the next item is p l n b l eight twenty four dash fifty seven I'm sorry. We still have some cases if you guys could leave out fairly quietly so we can keep going. Thank you. Hillen BOA 24-57, that's Seth and Megan Hillemeyer, 1952 Blair Moore. Mr. Hillemeyer. Good evening. Seth Hillemeyer, the owner. Thank you. And you have been recommended for approval. There are several conditions that have been listed here, six conditions, including the maximum of 150 days per calendar years and no more than 12 individuals. Have you had opportunity to review those conditions? Yes, ma'am. I have reviewed them. I would like to request the removal of condition number two, which states the property may not be rented for more than 150 days. I do believe as a responsible short-term rental host, I should be able to operate without restrictions on the number of rental days. So I would be seeking my permit with no limitation on the quantity of days. Okay. And we do have notes here that this one is still considered your primary residence? It is. Okay, do you want to tell us a little bit about the project? Of course. Additionally, I did want to address, well, let me go ahead and start with, you know, I do live at this property. I'm a full-time Lexington resident, have been for my entire life. I have businesses in this community. My kids go to school in this community. I understand the importance of protecting its unique character. My wife and three kids live at this home. We love our neighborhood. We enjoy raising our family on this street. If I thought that adding this property as an STR was going to be a detriment to my neighborhood, I would not be here today. I have been self-managing my short-term minerals in Lexington for nine years now. I've gained a wealth of experience that's helped form my standards and operating procedures and also my in-depth understanding of the responsibilities of being a professional STR host. I do understand there are concerns of the community and my neighbors, which I know that will have the opportunity to hear today. First off, I want to talk about the impact on the neighborhood and the guest capacity. This property is a five-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom home with ample off-street parking. It's more than capable of comfortably accommodating a guest count of up to 12. In my experience with other short-term rental properties, this usually is less than 12, but But I am seeking approval for up to 12 guests. There's several other strategies that I implement to help really reduce and, excuse me, to maintain the safety associated with STRs. I think the case before us, you heard of a lot of horror stories that can happen when these procedures aren't put in place. Number one is guest screening. I personally use a website called safely.com. performs background checks on all of our guests. This happens out of my pocket and these dive into numerous databases including county and court records, national and criminal bases, criminal databases, sex offender lists, and even a database of problem offenders who have if they've received poor reviews from other hosts, they are automatically prevented from staying at my properties and cannot book them. Number two is noise control. Obviously we know the concerns about parties that we've heard horror stories before us. We use technology called NoiseAware. It's used to preemptively deter disturbances and ensure adherence to our quiet hours policy, which is from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m., and it is strictly enforced. Our properties have indoor and outdoor noise decibel monitoring systems. If the decibel rises above an acceptable level, I receive a text message, my team receives a text message, and the guest receives a text message with a warning, and we strictly enforce that. In addition, we have surveillance and security. We have external security system, which is placed around the property on the exterior as a deterrent to misconduct, but it also allows us to uphold our parking rules, which we respond to swiftly and any potential concerns raised by the noise monitoring system. These cameras overlook the front side and rear of our property. Next, we believe in open communication. With our neighbors, the comfort and assurance of our neighbors is paramount. By providing my personal contact details to neighbors of adjacent residents, I reinforce an open channel of communication that encourages immediate reporting of issues, although most of the time we would catch them before they ever happen with our procedures. So those four things really demonstrate my willingness to do everything in my power to be a responsible host and citizen of this community to ensure our guests don't have an adverse impact on our neighbors. These measures have been in place at all of our properties for years and are part of the reasons why we have good relationships with many of our neighbors of the existing STRs I own and manage. In relation to traffic and parking considerations, I understand the sensitivity of parking in residential areas. I have a parking plan that respects the needs of both our guests and the neighborhood. Although our home would allow for up to 8 off-street parking, we limit our guests or we would limit the guests at this property to have no more than six vehicles at any time, which really would mitigate any pressure on local traffic or take up any street parking, which we don't allow street parking. We do inform our guests of the parking policies well in advance with a series of messages that we send, and this is also in the instructions on the listing upon booking. We monitor this with our security cameras. As far as the local president of short-term rentals in the neighborhood, As previously stated, there are no citations of any existing STRs in our neighborhood. In fact, there are no STRs in our neighborhood within 1,000 feet of the property that I'm suggesting today. As far as my track record, I don't have any previous citations out of our other listings. In all of my other properties, I've had one parking complaint in nine years, which was resolved immediately and haven't had issues since that one complaint happened. And we also do not allow our guests to park on the street. In conclusion, I believe I have a strong track record of being a responsible STR host that will not create an adverse impact on my neighborhood. I've put in place many policies and procedures to ensure that as I've described. And I want to let the Board know that I don't view this as a procedural hurdle. It represents a covenant of trust between myself and this community. It's a commitment that I, as a local Lexington resident and a steward of short-term mental hospitality, will uphold to the highest of my standards of operation. My proximity to the property ensures hands-on management and a vested interest in the welfare of both the neighborhood and guests. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any questions of the applicant? I have a question. Yes. How many short-term rentals do you currently manage? I manage 16 with my team. Those are all in Fayette County? Yes, they are. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions before public comment? Okay. We'll give public comment a moment. You guys want to... Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Hillemeyer, one question. Yes. Did you say you did not want condition number two? Correct. There was two conditions. The property may not be rented for more than 150 calendar days. I would like this to be considered. I could rent it for as many days as I would like. All right. And you said what's the second one? Condition number six, it stipulates that the permit is void if the property is no longer the applicant's primary residence, which while I don't have any plans to move, I mean, I think I should have flexibility of whether or not it's my primary residence to rent it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, or good evening, I should say. All right. Madam Chair and members of the Board of Adjustment, I'm Bruce Simpson. I'm representing quite a few neighbors in the Blairmore area where the subject property is located, and many of them are still here. If they would just stand and be recognized in opposition to this case at this time. Oh, thank God. You're speaking for all of them? I'm speaking for most of them. Some of them I don't, unfortunately. It's fine if you've got something to say. Let me give you 30 seconds each. Let me say, I apologize. We'll give you a little leeway on speaking, but don't get attorney-like on me too long. I'm not going to. Okay. I apologize because I'm sure the last thing any of you all wanted to hear was a lawyer coming up after sitting here for six hours. Seven, 17. With 14 exhibits. If I'd have known I was going to be last, I would have cut it down to at least four. So I am mindful of your time. I'm appreciative of your time. Of course, I've been appearing before the board since 1988, so I know the endurance and the sacrifice that each of you have committed to this community and to make decisions that don't please everybody and get absolutely no money for your volunteer efforts. this application in terms of our opposition is different specifically than what you have heard all day for the most part. Some similarities, but for the most part, this is different, significantly, the thrust of our presentation. And that is to say, we're not going to dispute that this area is overloaded with short-term rentals. What you will hear, the uncontroverted, unrebutted evidence will be that this is a very dangerous location. If you took a tour of the subject property, you saw the warning signs in the neighborhood. If you went down Blairmore, you saw a number of warning signs that you don't see in any other neighborhood, at least that I've ever seen. Yellow Chiron signs, Chevron signs, pointing to a steep curve. I have been in, I've represented most of the neighborhoods in Fayette County over the years. Been into many, many subdivisions representing developers. I've never seen warning signs in an interior subdivision about steep curves, sharp curves, like you see in Blairmore. Highly unusual. What does that say? It says it's dangerous. It says it's a very sharp curve. It says it's a curve you're not going to probably not be the only time you'll ever see one in Fayette County, but it's there. And it's a trap for the unwary, particularly unwary people who aren't familiar with the neighborhood. particularly guests that come to live in a short-term rental. Not like the regular residents that are familiar with it. These are visitors. They're for short-term, obviously, and they leave. They don't have the history. They're not aware of the cut-through traffic that comes from Henry Clay High School every single day down Blairmore, around those sharp curves, and cut-through to Wallace, out to Hart Road, on to Tate's Creek and other points. West. Major shortcut. You'll hear testimony about that. If you are also out there, and I'll show you the pictures about this, you will also see warning signs that neighbors, including the applicants, have placed in their front yard. Yellow warning signs, slow, children at play. You will see those signs because they've been there for some period of time, including in the applicant's front yard. You will hear testimony from, I'll summarize the evidence, but Jihad Helani, a Ph.D. engineer, president of Vision Engineering, was engaged to examine the current traffic situation that exists in Blairmore with respect to speed, focusing site distance, the appropriate curvature of the existing road that leads toward the subject property, and accidents. We looked at all of that. All of that is my evidence book, which I will briefly make note of and not go into detail. Public policy and your decisions, and certainly the law, is in large part based upon foreseeability. When you all make decisions, you look after the public safety. You're the guardians in these cases of public safety. And so what's foreseeable here? What are the public policy concerns with respect to safety and what are the facts that would give you pause to approve this short-term rental? Well, the facts are, as I will go through my evidence book are these. That curve that is the shortcut route to get over to Hart Road that goes right by this proposed short-term rental is a substandard curve by today's standards. By today's standards, if this was going to be a subdivision before the Planning Commission for approval, the radius, the circle, if you will, would be 100 foot wide, so it would be softer. So you wouldn't have blind spots coming into it. This curve is only 50 feet wide, 100 percent less than the current safety requirements for a curve in a residential subdivision. 100% less safe than would be approved today. This subdivision was approved in the 60s. It can't be changed. That curve is not going to be widened. But it remains a public safety problem, even for the people that are familiar with Blairmore and live there. That's why those signs are up in people's yards. Warning, slow children. That's why those Chevron signs are posted eight feet tall in the air. You'll go through pictures of them and you'll see arrows sharp turn ahead in a residential subdivision for which the speed limit is 15 miles an hour. Fifteen. But guess what? We did a radar check over two days. That speed limit is violated almost 98% of the time. 98% going into that sharp curve even by people that are familiar with the route. And so what happens? We've had 12 accidents on Blairmore in the last 12 years. Six in close proximity to the subject property. Injury accidents. accident hit a light pole in front of the applicant's property. It's a sharp curve, and the applicant's property is right in the middle, or part of that sharp curve, just to the center of it, to the left, if you're looking at it at 12 o'clock. So it's dangerous. We're not talking about how many short-term rentals we have. We're talking about public safety. And a road that's only 31 feet wide with cars parked on both sides, alternatively scattered up and down the road because there's no limited parking, you can't pass two cars. But you come over there in the afternoon and it's a speedway from Henry Clay High School And it's going to be even worse when there's a five-story apartment complex that's going to be using this same route to get to Tate Creek Road. They call it escape and evasion because you're not going to get stuck out on Richmond Road and all that morass trying to get over to Tate Creek Road. And you're going to get stuck on Fontaine with all the lights. Blair Moore is escape and evasion route. Now, the residents probably don't want me advertising it because it's already a problem. People are already getting hurt. Accidents are already happening. The road is substandard. That is not going to change. That is not going to change. And now you're going to have 12 people not familiar with this neighborhood, six cars. you can put six cars on his driveway the way he's illustrated in his application three and three three in front three behind them there's not sufficient room to have a turnaround that's in violation of 16-3 of the zoning ordinance there's not enough room to turn around to go out the front level. What are they going to do? Well, for the people that don't park on that curve, which they can do, it's not prohibited, for the people that don't park on the curve, they're going to have to back out into the curve, which again is against public policy as set forth in Article 16.3. So you have existing law that says no, you have undisputed facts that say please don't do this. The worst imaginable horror would be, well I think it'll work. It's not that many cars, you might say, and it's a nice neighborhood. He's going to have a high quality short term rental, that's not in dispute. But don't let it be a tragedy for someone to get seriously hurt to say we need to revoke this conditional use permit because the facts and the evidence point to that today. Just very briefly in the exhibit book that i have i mentioned will put these on the big screen to under tab one is the slow children at play sign you see these all over the neighborhood under tab one under tab to you see the applicants yard sign in the front yard he says the kind of white house you can see the arrow down at the bar bottom where he's got a a warning sign in his own yard in the curve. You see the curve. Warning, children at play. Under tab 3, this is the typical scene you will see of too many cars on a very narrow street parked on each side trying to navigate around one another. This is a constant headache. Imagine buses. Buses have to come down there and let children off. Imagine unfamiliar people coming around that curve and not seeing a bus. It's a blind spot. Highly foreseeable. And now you're on notice, you cannot, in my judgment, with all due respect to your all's position, it is reasonably foreseeable that someone is going to get hurt, putting unfamiliar people in this area that's already dangerous. Under exhibit four, more traffic. You can see the number of people that park on the side of the road and how tight it is. And if you look down that road, you can see how sharp it is. And it's a blind spot. You can't see what's coming. Under tab number five, again, there's a lot of lawn trucks that block the road. Lots of blocked viewpoints all up and down Blairmore because it's not wide enough to accommodate today's cars, the number of them, and they park temporarily to fix these yards. Under tab number six, Blairmore is a very unusual elliptical street. It's one way in off of Bixby and then down Wallace to Hart Road. The rest of it is an elliptical jogging track for Henry Clay High School. cross-country team, and joggers that come to this area in the community, and you'll hear some of them tonight. This is a typical occurrence, and putting unfamiliar motorists in the corner of the curve that already has warning slow children at play and a curve radius that is 100% substandard is not good public policy. Under tab number seven, it's a picture of the next door neighbor to the applicant's property to the left as you face the applicant's house. This applicant, you see that shrub there off the driveway to the left? The applicant put that shrub and bollards there on the corner of his property to keep cars from coming around that curve, that sharp curve in front of the applicant's house, going into his house. He had to put a structure, a protective structure to keep cars coming around that curve next to the applicant's house from running into his house. That's why that's there. Under tab number eight, again you see the warning signs with the volunteer things. This is not something the government's doing. Under tab number nine, you see a dent in the light pole in front of the applicant's house where somebody hit it with a slow children at play sign next to the light pole with a dent in it. All sorts of warning signs under the next exhibit. We had our vision engineering draw up what kind of parking configuration would be in compliance with the zoning article 16.3 that would allow access so there wouldn't have to be backing up in the street, there would be sufficient room to make a turnaround, not the way it's currently proposed where three cars are parked behind three cars causing uh... by necessity for the cars in the front that at the back are picked up back out into the curve we have you they would have to add four spaces outside and expand the driveway to have safe uh... area for have six cars that's not part of this application that's not part of this application under tab number eleven uh... now mention article sixteen three uh... it it provides in part part uh... down at the bottom that there has to be sufficient maneuvering and uh... street street parking uh... parking area ship shall be permitted that encourage a required that shall not be permitted to require backing onto our maneuvering within the right away of any public or private street you don't want cars backing up into a curve that's already dangerous for which the next door neighbor has to put bollards down protect cars errant cars from running into his house under the next tab twelve excessive speed documented we did uh... documented by radar two days uh... we surveyed two thousand and eleven cars 1,918 violated the 15-mile-an-hour speed limit at the location entering Blairmore toward the subject property. 95%, I think I said 98, it's 95% speed limit violation. Even with all the yellow Chevron signs and the warning children at play, 95% of the people are speeding. through that area. That's why we have 12 accidents. I have the under tab number 13 I have vision engineering traffic report with the data on accidents and the speed. Under the tab exhibit number 14 I have proposed findings of fact of disapproval. I've summarized the vision engineering madam chair to expedite my evidence but Jihad Halani the president of the at Vision Engineering. As I mentioned, he has a PhD in engineering, one of the few in the state that actually practices private engineering. He's here to answer questions, corroborate, and affirm my presentation and the evidence that I've introduced in this booklet, if you care to ask him. But in an effort to save time, I won't go through a 20 minute direct examination. just here you can ask ask me questions or i have mister jihad our g i'd come up and respond to the questions but uh... that the summary of our case is this is a serious ha ha hazard risk for a short-term rental with seven hundred and some odd that you've already approved do you really need to prove one at this location at this curve it's already proven itself a failure one hundred percent substandard by today's standards, bollards up to protect the adjoining neighbors property, warning signs all over the street and the neighborhood about the children, and the yellow chevron signs that you, if you all have seen them, I haven't seen them, this is my first time, I mean I've been practicing 41 years, this is the first time I've seen these chevron signs, warning curve in a residential subdivision. This is detrimental to this neighborhood's public health, safety and welfare, and with With all due respect, I believe it deserves a compelling vote of disapproval, and I appreciate your attention. Thank you, sir. I'm going to give you a rest from traffic for just a moment, but there are other safety issues that I think need attention. I'm Grady Walter. I'm 56 years old and have lived on Blairmore since 2008. I feel confident saying that with the exception of a few neighborhood people, each of us bought our homes because of the protection that the neighborhood zoning afforded us. Our loop is largely self-contained, and it's a gem for people walking, biking, running, etc., but for the safety issues that Mr. Simpson just went over. We don't border on any business districts. We don't even have duplexes on Blairmore Road. But other than Ashland Estate and the farther away Kroger Field, we're not even close to Lexington's major tourist attractions. Words are funny things. Sometimes they elevate an idea or they cover over something. For instance, when I was growing up we referred to the trash collector. Today it's a sanitation worker, which sounds so much more genteel. Short term rental. It sounds very harmless and nondescript. Who would object? The same goes for the brand names Airbnb, Vrbo, Vacations by Rental, and others. Things were started so people could make a little cash renting an extra room in their home or a garage apartment or a vacation condo for a week or two without involving a rental agent. But consider 1952 Blairmore Road. It has five bedrooms. The owners have applied to rent it for an occupancy of 12 people with six cars in the neighborhood driveway for as many as 180 days per year while they and their children and dogs decamp to another dwelling while renting their personal home. This simply doesn't make sense to most of us who live there who value and treasure the sanctity of our homes and our personal belongings. These are boutique hotels, I'm sorry, there are boutique hotels around the country that have fewer bedrooms than what you're being asked to approve. In the case of a conditional use permit, that means it's okay for a business to move into a residential neighborhood. In this case, that term, short-term rental, really means it's a true blue bonafide hotel, yet it's not playing by the same rules as a hotel. Hotels have different building codes than a single family home. They are inspected regularly. They have thick concrete floors and are built largely with metal studding, not pine 2x4s. They have other fire retardant materials and qualities as well, for instance, the drywall and the very doors themselves. Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night and for a split second you were not quite sure where you were? Now imagine the smoke detector alarm awakening you at 3 a.m. in a strange house with a strange-to-you layout. Of course you're panicked. A hotel is required to have lighted exit signs. May I finish this one short paragraph, please? Just quickly, please. We still have someone else. Other emergency lighting, sprinklers, and clear wide hallways leading to exits. This short-term rental, de facto a small hotel, does not have these things to help keep paying guests from perishing in a fire. Imagine 12 panicked people trying to escape in the middle of the night. Please consider this when you rule on this and other high-occupancy conditional use permits. Thank you. Thank you. Next, sir. William Greeley. William Greeley, 1960 Blairmore Road. There's one house that separates the house in question here and mine. My wife and I are native Lexingtonians. We moved here from Florida in 1972. So we've lived in this home for over 50 years. I would just like to touch on some few things that happened at our home. We've had cars turn upside down in our driveway. We've had our son was parked in the driveway one day and a car came, didn't make the whole turn, hit his car, told his car, turned it sideways. My wife had her car parked on the street. Car came by, took off the side view mirror, and just recently there was a young man and his girlfriend in the car came around, almost made the turn, but hit a large tree that was I had planted between the curb and the street and he told the car the two of them went to the hospital they're both fine other okay my tree died had to take that out but it it is a dangerous curve it really is and I've had new porch put on and I sit there read my book in nice weather and watch all this happening and it's it's scary it's scary for the people that are using Blairmore which is basically a racetrack built like a racetrack the joggers the high school track teams you know the bicycle riders it's I just live in fear that somebody's gonna be hurt seriously thank you thank you we appreciate it a A couple of things real quickly. Mr. Simpson, I want some minutes back. I thought you were speaking for all these people. So we move forward. But I do want to be conscientious. I'm making light of it. But we are starting to hear the same repetitive items. And, you know, if you have something additional to add or personal experience, we are happy to hear it. But we don't want to continue to hear the same items. I hope this is a little bit different for you and I'm going to try to be as brief as possible. My name is Greg Drake and I live at 2017 Blairmore. I'm 72 years old. My wife's family has lived in our house since 1972, so it's a very established neighborhood. We moved in a little bit later than that. But we've enjoyed the neighborhood very much. And in my case, something that's kind of specific for me, I have cancer. And part of my spine is damaged because of that cancer. And as was mentioned earlier, one of the advantages of Blairmore is that it is a perfect place for people to get exercise, to get to jog, to just walk, which I'm doing. You may have noticed that I came in with a walker earlier, and because of Blairmore, I'll give them the credit, I'm now able to use the cane because I walk on Blairmore every day to improve my ability just to ambulate. just to just to ambulate and the concern that I have is that it can take me much longer to to get around say to cross the street or whatever and the traffic conditions that have been pretty well described here earlier make that more difficult so and having a short-term rental adds to that would add to that and would make it more difficult for me to to get that much needed exercise so that's it less than three minutes thank you thank you appreciate it we do we we appreciate everybody's com uh... comments we just want to make sure we keep rolling okay i'm beth drake i'm here and uh... yeah my family bought the house in seventy two so i live there live there now and uh... i guess something that wasn't mentioned is four or five times a year we get unmarked police cars to help mitigate henry clay drivers as they speed to and or from school so uh... and we are perfect one kilometer and the portion i live on i live on the other part of this portion of mister hill and myers house is the portion that fire trucks use police use school buses use that's the only part of blair moore that is cleared in the winter time because that's the path they're all to take it's the shortest distance a couple of public safety things that have come in between how they travel and the police who do try to help cut down on the speeding. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hi, thank you. I will try to make my comments very personal. My name is Margo McCullers. I have lived at 1965 Blairmore Road since December 1982. I live three houses and on the inside circle of the street from the curve, the Hill and Meyer House, requesting the permit, which I oppose for safety reasons. Years ago, my late husband and I had property damage because of a speeding issue at night. We surmised from seeing the tracks on the lawns that a car or a truck ignored the stop sign at the corner of Wallace Way and Blairmore Road, took a fast left, drove over the front lawns of two houses came out onto the street after knocking our newly planted street tree between the street and the sidewalk and we had to have that replaced. It's already been mentioned that Blairmore is a cut through from Lakeshore and from going to Henry Clay High School. I've learned to adjust. I don't back up well into my garage, so I have to wait, time everything when I want to back up and avoid any of the traffic speeding around going to Henry Clay High School or the commuter traffic coming from Lakeshore. I retired from UK in 2017. I am 77 years and I try to stay physically, mentally, socially active on a daily basis. I love Blairmore because it lets me get my daily steps. I walk in the neighborhood on the sidewalk, not in the street, but I do see the joggers who are running in the street. They pass me. I pass neighbors who are walking one, two, or three dogs in the area. We wave. There are people that I know just, in some cases, I know them by their dogs rather than their faces because it's much easier to recognize an animal than a a face from a distance. Blairmore is a very special street. There's a cyclist who practices his loop going around and around. The high school students who are running, the street is very safe and comforting and i urge you to oppose anything that threatens the safety of this street and its residents thank you next please i'm jim fackler i live at 1872 blair moore I appreciate your patience for this hearing. I'm sure many others you've had to sit through. But let me note that you know better than I do that people pick neighborhoods, residences, for any variety of reasons. Some have spoken here today about the protection they get from an HOA. I'm a person who would never want to live in a neighborhood with an HOA because of the regulations. Some people pick a neighborhood because it has a community pool. I know of no one who picks a neighborhood because it has a short-term rental. Approval of short-term rental will degrade this neighborhood. So I urge you to reject this proposal. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Ann Michelle. I live at 1920 Blairmore Road. I'm 65. My husband and I bought our house in 2016. We did a major renovation which involved putting a front porch on our house. So we have a bird and we love sitting on the porch. We have a bird's eye view of the very beginning of the curve in conversation here. So we have spent considerable time. We can verify everything that you've heard. numerous cyclists of all ilks, training cyclists, family cyclists, commuter cyclists. It's a constant flow. Children in pull-behind on the bikes. And I speak for also, I'm in the cycling club and my husband was in Todd's Road Stumblers. The Blairmore Loop is well known in the athletic community in this town because it's a set track and you can train as much as you like, and there are very few places you can do that in town. I've seen many close calls as a cyclist. I've been almost run to the curb, coming around the curb to come home. And I just believe that this will be a detriment to the public safety in our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name's Melissa Kirtley and I've lived at 1961 Blairmore Road since 2007. And relative to the Hillenmeyer property, I'm diagonal and on the inside of the loop at the end of the straightaway before you go into the curve. In the 17 years there, traffic has definitely upticked as has the speed of the travelers. And there's a whole lot of distracted drivers who are looking at their phone. It's such that now, even during non-peak hours, it is dangerous to get in and out of my driveway. There have been many near-miss accidents. A couple come to mind. Two years ago, I was coming from the Lakeshore side. I'm coming through the curve. I get even with the Hill and Meyer property. I have my left turn blinker on because I want to turn into my driveway. The fellow behind me is speeding, and he sees I'm going to turn left, doesn't want to slow down, and speeds up, passes me on the left, and then cuts me off. I slam on my brakes, come to a screeching halt inches before what would have been a pretty nasty accident. My husband happened to be standing in the yard, and he saw the whole thing and couldn't believe it, but the tire tracks spoke otherwise. Unfortunately, coming from the right is not much safer either because people get in that straightaway, and they speed up. They don't want to slow down to let somebody turn into their driveway or go into the curve. Last year, it was a clear day, dry road, and somebody was tailgating really close. I am slowing down, and that person is speeding up. And I looked in the rearview mirror, and the person was on their phone. They weren't paying attention, and I was fixing to get rear-ended. So I made an early turn into my yard, missing my driveway, going over the curve. I did not see that there was a lady walking her dog on the sidewalk in front of me. Thank goodness she was aware of what was going on and she stopped and waited until I had a place to land. But that could have ended very differently if somebody had their headphones cranked up or wasn't paying attention. We've talked about the short end of the curve is a bus route. It's a fire and safety route. There are kids, younger kids who stand on the corner who are waiting to get picked up for the school bus. There are kids who walk back and forth to Henry Clay High School, and there are lots of people who are walking Blair Moore Loop for recreation. There's also bicyclists, and there's organized groups of running, folks who are running, and they run in circles in the road many times a week. I am asking you, please don't make a bad situation more dangerous for me, my neighbors, and all the folks who are traveling through Blairmore. Please vote against the Helen Myers application. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we do have a few more people to go, but I do think that we've adequately covered traffic and cycling and running, and we've got the exhibits here to show those things. Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm Erica Clay Kincaid, and I live at 1957 Hart Road with my husband, two daughters, and our dog. We back directly to the Hill and Myers, so my backyard backs to their backyard, about 80 feet of fencing that separates us. There's also 1953 Hart, who also backs to them, who is also in opposition. They would be here today too, but they had a lacrosse tournament. So it's really uncomfortable since, you know, I still have to live next door, you know, to the Hill and Myers. I didn't learn about this proposal until I received a letter in the mail. That's normally not how we do things in our neighborhood. We're a very tight-knit community of neighbors. and we're the type that, you know, I'm going out of town, I'll tell the neighbor, look out for my house or, you know, can you take my garbage cans back? We don't want to leave them on the curb. So we kind of look out for each other. That's not the situation here. I'm worried in general about the safety. I have two daughters, school-age daughters, and with the layout of the properties, they sit higher than we do, and so they can see down in our backyard. I'm uneasy with that. I'm uncomfortable with that. The 1953 Hart, they have children, two school-age children, a small daughter, and they feel the same way. I don't want to get too emotional about this, but you know we've lived there for 16 years and most of the people have you've heard they've lived there for 20 plus years. We would like to keep it quiet and a nice neighborly neighborhood. We moved from Fontaine to Hart for that same reason to be a quiet neighborhood without the road noise and rentals next door. My concern is with the information that I have. They have 15, 16 already Airbnbs. This is a business. This is our neighborhood. This is a lot of our forever homes and it just changes the atmosphere of the neighborhood. There are no other Airbnbs that I know of or rentals in our immediate area. Also being Being a realtor, I've seen and heard horror stories with Airbnbs, and I have to wonder how does this affect the sellability of our properties? Just one second, please. I just sold my next-door neighbors, who you can see the Hill and Myers, and they received their letter in the mail just like i did a week after they bought and they were in shock you know they spent seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars on that house and they have an airbnb in their backyard and yes they do have a privacy fence but there is an opening at their their on their side where the driveway is that has access easy access to my yard we have invisible pet fence and they do on occasion which I don't mind did this last weekend their kid threw a ball over the fence and he came over to get it that's fine but when you have strangers in there you know repeatedly coming into my yard and I have children young girls I'm not comfortable with that and I let Seth know that today and he said he said I'm sorry but I'm going to do this I hope there's no hard feelings thank you thank you hello my name is Ken Matt Miller I live in 1904 Blairmore 67 years old lived there for 32 years. My wife Leslie and Margaret Houchin were responsible for the no parking signs on the curve down past Bixby, about four or five houses down. Henry Clay High School closed a parking lot on the side. Lakeshore was already closed. Bixby was already closed, parking signs, they came to Blairmore. Both sides of the streets for about two days they called, they called Jake Bell at Henry Clay. He said, not our problem. Called Lexington Police. They came out. I think his name was Alvin Cook. He came out every morning. He He parked his car right at the corner. He put cones up the road so they wouldn't park until the city came out and put no parking signs up. So that was major. That was true. Luckily, they did that. About two years later, the house across the street, 1901, Blairmore, had a house fire in the evening, early evening. The response that the fire department comes with is phenomenal. They had an EMS, they had two, three, possibly four engines. They had the battalion person, whoever comes in the car. They had Bixby blocked at the top. They had Blairmore blocked up by the curve. And they couldn't park two trucks side by side. They were staggered. And the fire hydrants on Blairmore are all on the outside. That's the side we live on. This house fire was on the inside. If there's cars in that bin, these fire engines are not large or too large to make around that bin. They had to have a straight, I mean they knew how to park where they could run the hose straight across the road to the house. If there's any interference, these firemen, fire people, they don't have any response. They don't have anywhere room. Operating is very minimal to start with. So that's a safety hazard. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Alexander Krakashian, 337 Lecture Drive. I really appreciate your patience. I actually envy it and your service. I'll try to paint a different perspective so as to not be repetitive. Just visualize every single morning, children, young drivers, 17, 18 years old, trying to get to school on time. Once they pass the property under question, they hit Bixby Way, which is always backed up all the way until the circular drive. And we are talking about the curve. It's not a curve. It's a U-turn, basically. It's a complete new turn, 180 degrees. And so we have young drivers, predominantly or high percentage, that are trying to get to school on time or after school, the same route, sometimes with their friends, excited, discussing the day with them, not totally focused on the road. So I have 40 plus years experience driving, have lived at 337 Lake Shore Drive for 25 years, property owner, and I pass through the property in question two times per day to and from work. I work at UK. So I'm familiar with the – and something else that wasn't covered. so in the morning there is traffic jam every single day in front of Kennedy Kray School so all the cars that are coming from Lakeshore down from the lake they know about the traffic jam which would stop them like five seven minutes so they take Bixby way and around the house in question it's a very dangerous place and it's unfortunately an accident waiting to happen let's not make it Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Monica Devarti. I live at 1944 Blairmore Road, two houses down from the Hillenmeyer House. We've lived there for 33 years. This is my husband, Tom Havkinson. And I just want to, since I had prepared a lot of things here, say concerning the traffic, I have personally witnessed a brand-new black sports car still with dealer plates on, whip around the corner in which the Hill and Myers house is located, and plow directly into the tree in the median of the property two doors south of the Hill and Myers house on the same side. The entire front of the car collapsed into the tree. I ran at top speed to a neighbor about five houses away who I knew was a medical doctor, and he ran back to the accident with me. They had to bring the jaws of life to extract the young male driver and his girlfriend from the vehicle because they could not be taken out on their own. Example number two of about a dozen serious accidents that I have seen or heard and then run out to. And then there's been a lot of minor ones as well, like just driving into a tree but being able to back out and continue. Second example, a car drove right into a lamppost in the loop and we heard a loud smashing noise. Several neighbors ran out and we learned that two graduate students from UK had been racing each other around Blairmore Road, the loop, and one lost control and plowed into the lamp post. And example three, we've had several cars joyriding across several of our front lawns in order to leave tire tracks. The police have been called and have repeatedly been asked to observe the traffic, which they have periodically done. Our friends no longer park on the street. They refuse to park on the street because one of our friends had their car sideswiped. And I also want to mention that there are young adolescent females and males who walk home from, walk to and from school every day and lots of people from outside the neighborhood walking dogs. We always have a dog and we always walk our dog. I know all the dogs on the block by name and I know that these are not dogs from our neighborhood. And we have runners and bicyclists and I will stop there but there's an inordinate amount traffic on Blairmore. My name is Tom Harkinson, I live at 1944 Blairmore Road. As my wife said, we have lived there since 1991, and I won't take up much of your time. One thing that has not really been mentioned is that there are signs of near accidents. Exactly the corner, the loop or turn where Hill and Mario's house is, is this prime area where you can see sometimes in the morning, tire tracks on the lawns because of cars who have been coming in too fast, they have not crashed into anything but they have driven around the laws. So there is a lot of evidence. In the end, it's just what the council has learned here. This whole thing with short-term rentals and AirBnBs has unfortunately become a profit-making industry and that affects neighborhoods and safety around this type of rentals and I hope that the City Council will strengthen the rules for this and have people having like 15 short-term rentals that's that's not like having is renting out your extra room or anything so thank you very much thank you okay we'll try to make this quick um it's my understanding that the board is supposed to make a judgment based on several pieces of criteria and first of all i respect all my neighbors for coming out I will echo that we love our community. We love the neighborhood. We walk our kids in the neighborhood every day. We will continue to do that tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And we don't wanna leave our neighborhood and we don't wanna affect our neighborhood in a negative way. But back to, you know, it's my understanding that the board is supposed to make a judgment based on the impact on the neighborhood and guest capacity of can these homes do that? Traffic and parking. We heard a lot about traffic and parking. The local precedent of how many short-term rentals are in the neighborhood. My compliance record as a host. I want to address the main thing that was brought up, which is traffic that we heard over and over and over, which there is a lot of traffic on Blairmore Road. A lot of that traffic has nothing to do with my short-term rental. I understand if it was a dangerous spot. If you look at, thankfully, I have other short-term rentals, so I can look at the data of my average short-term rental probably has three cars at it. So I'm saying that six cars could park at it, but that doesn't mean that six cars are going to be at it every single day, six new cars that we're adding to Blairmore Road's traffic. If you look at how often these homes are rented out, like the most maximum, I mean, if it was rented out 70 different times a year with an average of three cars, you're talking about a total of 200 cars over the course of a year that will be on Blairmore Road that maybe aren't currently. The argument that was presented sounded more like an argument for speed bumps. And I think we need speed bumps in our neighborhood. But it wasn't on why my short-term rental was going to be a negative thing, aside from it was going to increase all this traffic, which I don't think is a fact. I think 200, and again, I'm saying that's maximum, additional cars over the course of a year is not going to cause a safety risk. I've lived at this property for six years. The percentage of time that I've seen a car parked in front of my home is less than 1%. My neighbors are doing a renovation of their house and that was one of their contractors that was parked in front that was shown by the attorney. In my parking plan the guests guests aren't allowed to park on the homes. We monitor that with our security cameras. We will not allow guests to park on the streets. So as far as additional parking on the streets, that's not going to happen. There was an argument about the quantity of cars, you know, six of them being able to be parked in my driveway. You can easily put two in my garage. You can easily put six in my driveway. I'm sorry, the attorney showed a bird's eye view of my property. What he didn't point out is there's a three-point turn that I installed that you can do that in my driveway. So if you're talking about can these people back up and there's no room to back up, that's simply not accurate. There is a spot to back up that we installed for that very reason, not knowing that it going to be a short-term rental but for us to be able to back up. I think lastly, I know Erica who lives right behind me, she mentioned our property being up higher than hers and the privacy of us, you know, of a potential guest looking into her property. I'd be okay with putting this in there because it's actually already in the works. We're putting additional landscape screening along the backside of our property and the side of our property really for us to provide additional screening and privacy to help mitigate that as well so i know this is a long one thank you for your time and let me know if you have any questions maybe stay here for just a moment seth do we have any questions of the applicant okay i did just want to go back because the staff did recommend approval there were some conditions that you wanted to have removed i think i would ask maybe from the staff perspective we talked about this a little bit were there any concerns without this being the primary residence it does the applicant presented this as their primary residence in their application so we reviewed it as such and and that's where that maximum of 150 days per calendar year came from that's five months if you're short-term running your property longer than five months it's probably not your primary residence because it is presumably if it's a primary residence you're there more than 50% of the time so so that's how we reviewed the application if we had reviewed it as a fully unhosted short term rental that was not someone's primary residence we would not have included those conditions I don't think it would have changed our recommendation but it's up to the board whether or not you feel comfortable removing those conditions no yeah okay because i was looking at that so we have adequate bedrooms there's no additional airbnbs in the area okay all right anything further of the applicant I have a question. Would legal accept bindings from the attorney for disapproval? I'll go down with a motion. Okay. The staff has recommended approval. Do we have a motion for that or for the reverse? I have a motion. I have a motion for approval. Okay. Who goes first? I don't know. Is that a fight? I guess Ms. Plumlee? Yeah, I thank you. With regard to case number PLN, BOA 240057, Seth and Megan Heelenmeyer, I move for disapproval of the request for a conditional use permit for a short-term rental based on the following findings of fact. One, the subject property is in a sharp curve off liberal road, which is nonconforming to the current requirements for curves in a residential subdivision. The existing radius of the curve next to the subject property is 50 feet, and the current standard for curves in residential subdivisions is a 100-foot radius. The sharp curve creates blind spot situations for oncoming traffic and pedestrians. Two, the guests of the short-term rental will likely have to park in the street due to the inaccurate parking space on the subject property. Three, sharp curve roadway warning signs have also had to be posted before entry to the Blairmore Road curve leading it to the subject property. 4. Blairmore Road's current width of 31 feet make it difficult for two cars to pass one another when cars are parked on the street. 5. The proposed short-term rental would allow six vehicles to be parked on the subject property, which is not large enough to allow for on-site turnaround for this many vehicles. The guests at the short-term rental would have to back into the dangerous curve to allow other vehicles parked on a subject property to exit. Considering the above factual findings, the proposed conditional use would have an adverse impact on the nearby property owners and is therefore denied. So moved. do we have a second Ms. Tucker seconds we will take a vote but I do several of the conditions were actually proved to not be factually correct so are we able to make a motion on conditions that I mean there's not parking there is adequate parking on six spots and there's several things that were just I'd like to comment on those if I could. Not true that we heard today. I'd like to comment on those if I could. Please. The findings, as I've heard them, seem to be written before we heard much going on. First, let me say to these residents, I absolutely understand where you're coming from. I'm usually the bad guy here because I'm trying to take the law that the city council has posted for us to use and base my judgment and my vote on those laws. And I've said time and time and time again, the council did not make a law that is enforceable because they posted no limits and I can go on and on into that, which I won't. But I will say to you folks, you have a traffic problem. You really do. And I appreciate that. I can see it. I was over there yesterday on purpose to look at the property and drive the area. And I can see why you're concerned. I'm not sure what that has to do with short-term rentals. That's my concern. concern and when I hear the findings there's a sharp turn there's a sharp curve here well I understand that but what's that have to do with with short term rentals I still hadn't figured that out it says that they'll have to park in the street that's simply not true it's not true this it says the curve the curve is posted well of course it is and you should be what's that got to do with short short short term rentals I still haven't figured that one out and the width is 31 feet I understand I was there I saw it and I know that people use it to jog and the runners from Henry Clay run in the area and I understand that and then it it talks about the the the six vehicles in the up the idea that they can't turn around. I think that was, Mr. Hill and Meyer said that that's simply not true. So I'm not sure where these findings are going. And frankly, I wish I could say to you that I would vote against this because I understand how you feel. I really do. The other thing I want to say is if traffic was a problem on when we talk about short-term rentals, over 50% of the rentals that we have approved, approved, and unanimously in many cases, have traffic problems a lot worse than this, a lot worse than this. I was down a road yesterday from one of our cases here that had traffic parked, cars parked on both sides of the street with only one lane for traffic. And I had to pull into a driveway to let one car pass. And this went on the entire time. So I know you have problems. And if I could get the council to make some specific reasons for denying these applications, I would be totally happy. And I've asked them to. And they have promised me they're going to. I've voted a lot of times to approve the applications where I don't feel good about it. But the law does not give us the opportunity to say we can't disapprove it. It doesn't give us that opportunity. And I apologize for going on and on, but I feel like the law itself is wrong. We're not the city council. Mr. Clark. We're the Board of Adjustment. Mr. Clark. I'm sorry, can we refocus back to the public hearing about this particular property? That's what I'm doing. Well, not if we're talking about what the council has done in terms of the law. Let's focus on this case. Well, I'm trying to explain my attitude and my focus on this. Is that not a good idea? I guess it's not. Well, we need to refocus to this particular property. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. With regard to my colleague's remarks, and I extremely respect his opinion, but Kentucky KRS 100.237 gives us the Board of Adjustment responsibility to just judge a case and either vote yes or no and conditions, et cetera. So, and I think KRS 100 takes, it overrules our council. I mean, if the council didn't give us parameters, we already have parameters, and they're given to us by KRS 100. So my motion still stands. I don't know if, can I have a second? I was also looking at, I think that it's real important for people to be a part of the government process and part of their neighborhoods. When I look at, I think it's exhibit 13 that they've provided here. It shows Henry Clay's softball field right there. So the safety for me is a concern because of the pedestrians walking to and from Henry Clay High School. I don't even see like a crosswalk on this map anywhere. So for me that's a big concern. Okay. We will take a vote. The motion to disapprove is on the board. Okay. That motion has failed. Do we have a motion for approval? And if so, be conscientious of the conditions. There was some discussion of the conditions. Tell me what those are. Number two, that limited the amount of days of the year. Okay, what did we decide about that? Well, it's just the conversation. I believe the applicant also had an issue with number six, which states that the conditional use permit become null and void upon change in ownership if the property is no longer the applicant's primary residence or if the short term rental special fee license lapses or is revoked. I believe he would like to have the bit about if the property is no longer the applicant's primary residence removed. I think the discussion was it's his primary residence now, but he shouldn't be not afforded the opportunity to do it if it's not his primary residence. And those two items require it to be his primary residence, basically. Okay, so number two would read what? Well, it's up to you to make the motion, but either to remove it or change the number of days. the applicant was asking to have it removed, but it's definitely up to you and your motion. The applicant has provided that as justification for their case, so that's why it's included in the conditions. That's part of what he put forward in terms of making his justification of why it's appropriate in this location, is that he's still going to be there half the year, right? There's a lesser impact when you're the primary resident, so that's why it's in there. That's what he offered up. We came up with 150 days, which is what several of the other applicants. It says 182. It's in the full report, I think. The staff report was intended to be corrected to 150, which is what's on the agenda. Okay. It was an estimated number that the applicant hasn't agreed to. If I change it to 150, we're all right. We are, I'm not sure if the applicant is, but that's fine. If that's your motion. Okay. I will have a point of information, please, if I may. Does the ordinance not state clearly that the license does not transfer with the sale of the property? Is that not the case? I don't know. That is correct, but that's not the point of reference here. And to clarify that, the license does not transfer, but the conditional use without this condition could. So, Mr. Clark, are you keeping that condition in? Number six? Number six? No. Number two. Yeah, number two, since that's what he came forward with in his application. Right. Yes. Okay. And that works for me. I don't like applicants changing horses at the hearing. And in that regard, if he opts not to have it be his primary residence, he could come back and change the conditions, come back to the board. Please. Any application process, I described it how it is at the moment, which is it is my primary residence. It was never to mislead to say, this is the only way I'm going to be able to get this is because it's my primary residence. So I think that's why when I received the email, I called and said, hey, I see these two conditions. you know am i able to have those removed meaning i never wanted those to to be in there to the beginning so i don't i don't i didn't i don't feel like i was trying to mislead saying this is my primary residence so i can do this as i just would have i mean i just described it how it is it is currently my primary residence okay um i think it seems that they're going to move forward with that being your primary residence and it would have to be coming back if it's no longer your primary residence that may be a different application so you can you guys are comfortable with it you can leave it okay take it out a move for approval of PLNBOA 24-56 Seth and Megan Hill and Myers request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single-family resident zone on property located at in 52 Blaymore Road council district 5 based on the on the staffs recommendation and the the right the conditions of 1 2 and and changing the number of days in 2 to 150, 3, 4, 5, and 6. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Thank you, Mr. Gross. We'll take a vote. I'm sorry. I will get you. We good? Okay. Okay. The motion has been approved with the conditions. Thank you. Good grief. Now I believe we have one more. Autumn, I know you're so ready, but can I have two minutes? Sure. Okay. We just have one case. I thought I could do it. I can't. Is that enough information? Very brief recess. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. . . . Thank you. I'm going to make a little bit more of a little bit more. Thank you. Thank you. for an unhosted short-term rental within the infill and redevelopment area in a historic district overlay zone in a mixed low density residential r2 zone at 841 west high street so you can see the site plan here and i'm going to go ahead and go to the aerial and the street view Let's see, we'll start there. So the applicant is requesting a conditional use for an unhosted short-term rental for up to four individuals. The property is located along West High Street to the northeast of the intersection of Oliver-Lewis Way with West High and West Maxwell. The area features a mixture of zoning categories and uses. It's characterized mostly by residential uses, but it's also in close proximity to amenities like the Town Branch Park site and the Lexington Center. It is .09 acres in size and contains one half of a subdivided duplex. So the structure that you see here is a subdivided duplex. The structure features two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. And the applicant is not proposing any changes to the structure. the two bedroom unit would allow for up to eight occupants but the applicant is only requesting four they do state that there will be two parking spaces dedicated to the use at the rear of the property however staff does have some concerns about that the applicant also owns the other half of the duplex and uses it currently as a short-term rental it was grandfathered in during the six month time period. The adjoining property with which they share a driveway and parking in the rear here is also a registered as a short term rental. So staff does have concerns about parking. The three units share a ten foot wide driveway and parking for all three units. So if all three of these short-term rentals were occupied at full occupancy, based on what the zoning compliance permits are for the other two units, up to 22 individuals could be staying on these three properties at one time, and we think that parking would likely be quite challenging there. This is a rather busy street. The applicant, again, they have received their zoning compliance permit for their other short-term rental, and they have not had any issues with citations or complaints. There have been no police calls to the property. There are, however, 40 short-term rentals operating within 1,000 feet of this property that have zoning compliance permits. So that ends up being a concentration of about 22%. We do expect that the actual concentration is somewhat less because a number of the parcels within this 1,000 feet are multifamily dwellings that contain more than one dwelling. They're not hugely dense apartment complexes or anything like that, but they do have several units. This property is also not located within one of the top ten census block groups, but it is within 250 feet of one. and staff does remark that there is a concentration that is beginning to form near the boundary of that census block. So you can see here within that block group, there are several short-term rentals here, and then we do seem to be having sort of a cluster going on here within about 500 feet, which is kind of where this circle is hovering, is about the 500 feet from that boundary. So we are recommending disapproval because the use will have an adverse influence on this surrounding neighborhood, as there are approximately 22% of lots with residential uses also being utilized as short-term rentals. As we discussed earlier, concentrations above 5% may be appropriate in certain neighborhoods, and we think this is one where higher than 5% is likely appropriate, given its proximity to attractions and things like that. However, once we start getting north of 20%, we see that that is a significant concentration that can have an effect on the residential character of the neighborhood and may have negative impacts on the affordability. Potentially, whenever we're starting to get above 20% short-term rentals desired by the market, that may be a sign that a zone change could be appropriate. If the residential character is no longer what fits in this location. But if it is to remain a residential area, then we're really uncomfortable with that high of a percentage. We also found that since the property is located within close proximity to the edge of a top 10 census block group, and there appeared to be a concentration of short-term rentals occurring near that edge and within 500 feet of the block group, that that would likely have a negative impact on the surrounding neighborhoods, heightening those issues with gentrification and involuntary displacement. Finally, the subject property shares that ten foot wide driveway and parking area with two other short term rentals and could result in a total occupancy of up to 22 individuals at one time sharing a small parking lot with a narrow access point on a busy one way street with no on street parking. Thank you. Any questions of staff before the applicant speaks? I have a question. Sure. Is 843 a long-term rental? That's the other half of the duplex, right? Yep. It is also a short-term rental. Short-term rental. Okay. So 841 right now is what? Was it a long-term rental? It's a short-term rental helpful. We live there. Oh, wait. Yes, I'm sorry. And I'm Nathan McCauley. thank you all for staying late for us. 841 right now, we had lived there for the last year and a half since we bought the property with plans of making it a short-term rental eventually. And we lived in 843 since the beginning of 2016 before we did the same thing. all righty you're there now mr mccauley want to tell us a little bit cool thank you very much um yeah so as you as you can see they are attached homes uh and the home that you see on the left is 843 that's a current short-term rental that was our home since it was built in 2016 we lived there from 2016 to 2022 when we bought our neighbor's house and we moved into our neighbor's home and lived there until the beginning of this year. We love the homes. We love the neighborhood. We love the neighbors. We're still really close with neighbors on either side. The people that own the home and turn theirs into a short-term rental and Tony's on the other side, we're very close with those neighbors as well. Let's see, 843 is a successful short-term rental. We've never had any issues. We have over 40 reviews online. We're considered super host, and it's a guest favorite on Airbnb, and we've never had less than a five-star review. And we've been very lucky, but for whatever reason, we seem to attract really good guests to these homes. We recommend local restaurants and events for our guests to attend. We encourage them to explore Lexington. We're in walking distance to Rupp Arena, the city center, Lex Live, Manchester Music Hall. We are meticulous about the house rules and our guests respecting our neighbors in the neighborhood. We do a great job of maintaining the property. And it's really important to us that we're good neighbors because we used to live there. We know the people in the neighborhood. We now live just on the other side of downtown. We manage these two properties ourselves. Most of the Airbnbs in the area are managed by property managers that have dozens, if not hundreds, of Airbnbs. And we know from firsthand experience that they just don't care about the properties and the neighborhood the way that we do. So these are our only rental properties, 843 and hopefully 841. And with the houses being attached, it would be very easy for us to manage the other side as well. Let's see, and I think it goes to show, like nobody showed up today to object to the permit. I think in large part, we have good relationships with the neighbors on High Street, but High Street is different than the rest of the Woodward Heights neighborhood. The side streets, that really is like a family neighborhood. High Street is a very busy street. It's kind of perfect for short-term rentals, but not really perfect for families. And I wanted to address parking. I don't know if we could maybe show the map of the parking lot. Okay. Let's see. so i don't know how this works here but but you can see when if you when you pull in the driveway the the neighbor's house on the left they have two dedicated parking spots and that's a three bedroom home i've never known them to host big big groups i've never uh we've never seen any parking issues at all and we've never noticed that they've had any big groups i don't know how many people they're allowed to host, but it tends to, appears to be four to six people would be typical. But when you pull in the driveway on the right, there's actually five parking spots off the back of 843 and 841. So there's two dedicated parking spots off of 841, which is the building on the left in the bottom photo. There's two dedicated parking spots for this short-term rental and then there's a shared parking spot in the middle of the two properties so if there's overflow and somebody needs a third parking spot we have it back there and there's also room to turn around and and you're right high street is a very busy street but you never have to back into high street um you can you can pull go straight out you know you can turn around in the back of the property and pull out we've never had any parking or driveway issues and we've lived there for seven years. And one thing I want to touch on, I really, you know, appreciate the reasons that you all kind of outlined, you know, for the disapproval. I think it makes sense in a lot of terms, but where our property is, I think it actually makes, it's actually probably a better short-term rental than it is like a family home so i'm not surprised to hear that there's 22 short-term rentals in in this neighborhood um it's just not going to attract uh families like some of the other guests that we heard tonight uh that you know this is a this is a place when people are if you're coming to visit lexington like this is and you want to be near downtown this is like the perfect location we're 0.2 miles we're a seven minute walk to to rep arena and i guess the last thing i want to say is you know i see that we got a disapproval some people got an approval with conditions i just would want to express that we'd be open and flexible you know if there were any condition if we could get an approval if there any conditions that you recommend we'd be open to that as well thank you thank you do we have any questions of this applicant i did want to just make a point i know we talked to staff earlier about this one the percentages of course we were trying to stay within certain percentages but i i too had the same feeling that I mean you've got the two short-term rentals on either side especially the one that is connected is that not maybe the best space for a short-term rental what we then in turn put a long-term resident or you know I mean you wouldn't sell it but I guess a long-term rental in between so it did lead itself to me to be a little more like oh that's a perfect spot for it but the percentages, you know, after we just outlined, I kind of got what we were talking about there as well. That's probably more comment than anything else. I tend to agree with you. I think with the number of short-term rentals that are there, what would be a better use of that parcel? My fiancé actually mentioned that earlier, just that, because when we saw the disapproval letter, we immediately thought, well, I guess we'll have to find long-term rentals or long-term tenants. But short-term rental guests, they don't mind staying next to short-term rental guests. And we see them interact a lot and they're friendly with each other. Where some people, as we see, are uncomfortable living next to a short-term rental if it's their home. Thank you. Would you offer that as a combined rental as well? I know sometimes short-term rentals that have the ability to expand into two spaces. We would. To be honest, the more we had talked about it recently, we, oh, you mean both properties into one? They can rent both sides, maybe? Yeah, it's something we've discussed, but we've never tried it. That's your business mind. I heard you. Go party in his house. I do. Okay. Do we have any other comments, questions? Michelle asked if she could say something. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. Hi, I'm Michelle Jimenez. I do want to say that this area is a blended neighborhood. It's not just residential. But at the end of High Street, there's a body shop. So there's a commercial space there. On the opposite side of Manchester Street, there is a design office. Just about a block away is a coffee shop, a hair salon. We actually have a fire station in that same neighborhood as well. And we have the town branch distillery across the street. So it's a very blended area, and most of the residents in that neighborhood are renters. So we're not really seeing a lot of families. So I would like that to be put into consideration as well. Thank you. Okay. Are we open for a motion? and staff has recommended disapproval. If we are leaning towards approval, do we need such conditions or something to allow you to do so? Help us out here, Bob. Honestly, the location of the property and the potential uses for the property based on what is already there kind of limits what you've got for a compatible use. I'd be agreeable if somebody wanted to make such a motion. We'd probably need a little legal help. That's okay, Chad. That's what happens when you sit by the attorneys, Chad. Come on. Let me see if I can cipher this. I'm going to give this a shot. I may have to have some clarification here. With respect to PLN BOA 24-60, I move for approval of the request for a conditioning use permit for short-term rental based on the following findings. Number one, the proposal should not have adverse influence on the subject property or the surrounding neighborhood as a structure is large enough to accommodate the proposed number of guests. Number two, the proposed use should not have an adverse influence on traffic in the general vicinity as adequate parking is available. Number three, there is no record of short-term rental compliance issues with the applicant. And four, all necessary public services and facilities. are available and adequate for proposed use. Approval is subject to the following conditions. Short-term rental shall be established in accordance with the submitted application materials and site plan. Number two, occupancy of the short-term rental should be limited to no more than four individuals. Number three, all necessary permits and approval shall be obtained from the Division of Planning prior to commitment. Division of Revenue and Planning. Oh, Division of Revenue and Planning prior to the commencement of the use. And. We're going to have to work on your writing, girl. A business license, special fees license and zoning. That was a writing. Comprehensive permit. Number four, the conditional use permit shall become null and void upon change of ownership or if the applicant's short term rental specified for license as regulated by the Division of Revenue in Section 13 of the Code of Ordinances lapses or is revoked. So moved. Wonderful, and Mr. Walker has already offered a second. If no further discussion, we will open for vote. Motion is passed, your project is approved. Thank you, and thank you guys for your patience and for being here and all that stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. At this point, we were to discuss any other items, and we did have a couple of items. One in particular, we've talked with staff about actually holding a work session similar to what Planning Commission does, so we will have opportunity to get together outside of the meeting and keep us up to speed on legal things that are going on, and staff's updates and position and just kind of keep us in the right space what's going on with some of those court cases that are coming against us. We suggest that maybe quarterly at first. Mr. Gross had a wonderful question wondering, can we get credit for such a thing? Continuing education type credit? That would probably depend on what the agenda was. yes look into that yeah yeah if we anyway so um that that was a legitimate question or i mean a great question i just thought i'd throw that your way but um are you guys open to that is this something that we would need to make a vote on or we can just agree to do well wouldn't we have to change our official calendar since these will be public meetings yes so they would be public meetings and since they're not on the regular calendar technically that would be a special meeting okay so it would fall within those rules so if you want to set a schedule um i mean it might be simplest to do it now but doesn't have to be done now because it's a special we set the next one now because we talked about in june days already well i was gonna say should we find what was it going to be in the planning office on the third floor yes i think uh chair carter felt that that was a better space to have a discussion and then this space um gives a little bit more everybody's at the same so maybe planning could come back and tell us like we know we can get the room on um i have a couple of dates brandon already this conversation all right yes so for next month june 3rd or 4th would work um it's a monday or tuesday the week before our meeting i'm just letting you know that i'm on on vacation that week i'm sure somebody from law will be there are you just rubbing it in or yeah we need it there but um we spoke with uh jim duncan earlier and thought that could be a good day with those speed dates that could be do we have a preference for the monday or the tuesday kind of like keeping on the Monday because we are Monday people. Okay. Well, we pushed it back to you guys that Monday or Tuesday would work if you want to check the room availability of it. I kind of like Monday because when council's back in session, Tuesday's a problem sometimes. Could be, yes. Would it be a 1.30? Or? You like the 1.30? I'm just asking. Be whatever Mr. Gross wants me. No, I just, first off, I know that's not true. And second off, I just want to make sure that 1.30 works for me. I have one day, it's actually open the entire day. That never happens. I think it's broken. There's something probably supposed to be on here. So Monday 1.30, sound good? Is that enough time to have public notice? Since you're not actually voting on anything, you don't have to have public notice like you would for additional use permits. You just have to have notice for a special meeting, and that's like 24 hours. So, yes, that's enough. Okay. Enough time. Alrighty. So we'll do that June 3rd, 1.30. Sound good. And then? Chair Carter, before we move on to Mr. Surtivan's item, could we please address the first item on your agenda? The applicant never showed up, so we do need to address that however you all see fit. We did try to contact both him and his representative that was listed in Asala, but neither responded. That was Jeremy Kirk, who didn't show up last time, also didn't show up this time. so we would you could postpone another month or well the the board only has so many days to hear something without the applicant's agreement that's true and so if it's recommended for approval I think variances are more flexible than conditional uses with regard to the timing the timing for variances is long is more flexible. Yeah, I don't think variances have the same 60-day. Am I wrong? So if we do nothing, will it not just go away? No. So we wouldn't approve it because it's not here. He didn't show up. So we can make a motion to disapprove based on him not showing up. Is that what that would look like? well if there's so britney just asked why wouldn't we just approve it but usually we want the applicant to acknowledge the conditions that they're willing to abide by those on the record otherwise has he seen the conditions prior to have they been provided to him to his representative i believe so well i'm not going to vote to approve an application where the applicant never shows up yeah um i would be willing to continue it till next month or postpone it I mean till next month or deny it I don't I could go either way if if we if we can continue it I'd say or be postpone it I'd say let's just postpone it and if it doesn't show up next month we'll vote it you know we could take it for a vote down or however we want to handle it but what I would point out is that he's not here in my 60 day rules for his benefit anyway so i think if you wanted to just postpone it i'm sorry say that part again i said the 60-day rule is for the applicant's benefit anyway and he's not here so i if you wanted to just postpone it as mr gross suggested i'm not going to stop you just to postpone it i hereby move to postpone plm boa 2412 jeremy kirk's request for variance to increase allowable width of a driveway at 612 north broadway to our next meeting which would be on june 10th i believe is that correct yes yeah so moved second is mr sturdivant we'll take a vote All righty, it is postponed. So before you adjourn, Chair, I wanted to make a note about the work sessions. Because I just want to be clear on what the board was wanting from law, because we technically only have one appeal still pending. And if there is pending litigation with the board that would, for me to discuss that, that would require a closed session. But we don't have the ability to go into closed session at a work session to make a motion to do that. So, just to be clear on what you want at the work session from law, if you want to just talk about pending litigation, we can do that at a regular meeting from the staff comment and go into closed session to do that. If you want to talk about all appeals that have been filed, I can give you some general comments about those, but I don't want to go in. This is still an open meeting, so we don't want to risk going over litigation strategy in an open meeting. It will be very, very cursory, and I can't do that in a closed session because they're no longer pending. So what exactly are you wanting law to provide at the work session as far as the appeals that have been filed? if i could interrupt i'd be more than happy to empower our chair to work with tracy and britney on this um between now and then okay i just don't want there to be a meeting schedule that you know planning suggested it okay i just don't want there to be a meeting that you all are it wasn't my bright idea so maybe we can we'll have more insight so good deal good deal and bob would would like us to, had a great idea that he would like us to explore, figure out. Yes, I had a question about the possibility of putting a cap on the number of items on our agenda. Is there a vehicle we can do to do that? I mean, what I foresee is the pot of gold at the end of the STR rainbow has awakened thousands of people to that possibility. And I can foresee these 22 item agendas bumping to 30. Sure. Is there, I mean, what we need to do, I think our chairman does a wonderful job in managing these agendas. But I think they're going to get unmanageable at some point. And I think we owe it to ourselves and to our constituents to take enough time to make the right decision and drill down on these, do our due diligence. And quite frankly, if you've got 30 items, you can't do that. And I think we need to be more responsible on doing that. And I don't see it getting any better. Is there opinions of board members here? Do we see this? Is today an example of what the next six months or year is going to be? So, yeah, Brittany probably can answer this better. Well, I said, especially if you're going to have a work session coming up soon, I would be more than happy to work with Autumn to review what that might look like. wanted to do and first of all whether or not that's possible and I'm going to say right now whether I had to think about that and if it is possible to cap the number of applications but the staff would consider what that would look like not not only STRs but variance applications also I mean a number of the number of items on an agenda right so again you do have the obligation to act within 60 days of an application being filed so it would have to be sort of on our end of us not accepting applications past a certain number and as said we're not sure if that's an option but that we can certainly it might be i just i have to think we want to work through that and see what that would look like on the administrative level maybe bring some thoughts on that to a work session if that's what you all would like to do Sounds good. Well, with the regulations and the ordinance changing in July, and with the deadline for everyone to register and get a license in January, it's changed the ball game on the Board of Adjustment. The fact of the matter, it could be with anything. It could be any new ordinance or any new text, and this is too long and too much. so absolutely well I think we all know what we signed up for but you know I think at some point you wasn't this I was gonna say we can only handle this bad but not this bad yeah and do a good job and thank you guys for still being here we appreciate that so one real quick I know everyone's tired it doesn't matter One thing on the work session, you know, I know it will change more likely when it goes to council, but, you know, Tracy could give us an update on the medical marijuana, Zota. Right now it's structured for CUPs to come to us in certain areas and certain zones just to give us an update on kind of where that stands. So they're adding more to us potentially. That's the type of thing we wanted to have session about. I think we've tied up the length of the sessions, too. That makes sense. It's about us. All right. Anything further? Any other staff items? I think can we just adjourn it? Very good. Adjourned. Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh