Music Come on, girl. Reach out for me. Reach out for me. I'll be back with the light that will shelter you. I'll be back with the light that will see you through. When you feel lost and about to give up Cause your best test ain't good enough And your bill's well has blown cold And you're dripping out all on your own And you need a hand to hold Darling, come on girl, reach out for me It's time for me I'll be there To love and comfort you And I'll be there To cherish and care for you I'll be there To always settle through I'll be done To love and comfort I can tell the way you hang your head You're the love man Now you're afraid And through your tears you look around But there's no peace of mind to be found I know what you're thinking You're alone now, no love of your own But darling, reach out Come on, girl, reach out for me Thank you. Excuse me, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. It is now 1.31, August 22nd, 2024. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Urban County Planning Commission Zoning Items Meeting, excuse me, Items Meeting, and it's the public hearing today. There are anyone that are standing outside of the two fire employees back there. I was told that we cannot stand in this room, you have to sit outside. Again, that's not, excluding the two firemen that are sitting back there. Okay, so on the agenda item, we want to go down to agenda item number two. We have the approval of minutes, and it's for the planning commissioners. We have the minutes for June 27th, 2024, and July 25th, 2024. So the floor is open for an approval of those minutes. Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. As to the minutes for June 27th, 2024, I would ask for one correction. Page nine under commission comments, or I am mentioned. It states that Mr. Owens also questioned the mandate for density. My question was mandating ADUs, not density. I'd like to see that corrected. Should we make that edit? Otherwise, yes sir. Yes, we can make the edit, but I'm not sure it was clear to me, so we can discuss afterwards. Okay. Yeah, thank you. I sent in a request, you got that in there? Okay. Okay, so Mr. Owens, are you going to make a motion? I will, with that correction, yes. Okay. As amended, I approve minutes for June 27, 2024. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second by Mr. Wilson. Any further discussion to that motion? All right, please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes unanimously right now. Next on the agenda, before we go to postponements and withdrawals. We got the 25th? You did July 25th too or no? I can. Okay, go ahead. Mr. Chair, I'll move for approval of minutes for July 25, 2024. I've got a second. Okay, we got a second by Mr. Wilson. Please vote Villagranicus. All right, motion passes, thank you. All righty. I just want to jump off the agenda real quick. I was told this is Mr. Martin's last meeting. It's been 24 years and 11 months, if I'm correct. So we want to say thank you for all you've done for the city, but also things that you've done for me too. I'm going to miss your colorful shirts and your pretty looking ties. In ties. In ties. I know, I know. So just want to open it up if you want to say anything. And I mean, you gave a lot of time and effort to planning and zoning, so I think it's more important to allow you that time. It's been a very great pleasure to work and serve the planning commission and the public. This is my hometown and it's been a great pleasure as a planner to be able to work in service to my hometown. It is a bittersweet moment. Yep. Okay, Tom, thank you. I bet it's still on, right, between UK and South Carolina, right, for football? I just hope my visitation is as well attended. You know what they care about you when you die. All right. So we'll go to agenda item number three, postponements and withdrawals. Mr. Gross. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Brandon Gross on behalf of the applicant for, and I'm going to go to page 7. Item C1, that is the Solar Zoning Ordinance Tax Amendment. As you know, we'll be on your work session next week. So we're going to go ahead and ask for a one-month postponement to your September 26 hearing date. Okay, thank you, Mr. Gross. The floor is open for a motion if there's not any questions. Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. I move for postponement of PLN Zota 24-3 regulation of solar energy systems until September the, what is it? 14th? 26th. 26th. Second. Okay, and we got a second by Ms. Jonathan Davis. If there's not any further discussion, please vote via Granicus. All right, motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Good afternoon, Matt Carter, Vision Engineering. First off, I'd like to say, Tom, we're going to miss you. And it's been a pleasure working with you. So, hope to see you in the future too. So, on page two of your agenda, at the very bottom, Red Mile Mixed Use Development, PLN, MJDP 24-56. We need to ask for a postponement to your September 12th. The reason is the hotel, we had to make some changes to meet the zoning ordinance on the exterior of it, and those changes have got to be approved by corporate, and we're in the process of getting that approved now. So with that, I'd like to ask for a postponement to September 12th. Okay, thank you Mr. Carter. Floor is open. Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, I move for one, or I'm sorry, postponement to our September 12th meeting for PLNMJDP 2456. Thank you. Got a second by Ms. Worth. If there's not any further discussion, please vote via Granicus. Thank you. All right, motion passes. Thank you. Is there any more postponements or withdrawals? Okay, so we've got, should put us on page two of the agenda. PLNMJDP 23-64. Good afternoon. This is Plan MJDP 2364. This is Belmont Farm Citation Center amended. You all should have a copy of revised conditions in your packet on the yellow sheet. This property is located out off Georgetown Road right here and this is Citation Boulevard. We have Remington Way and then this is Huntley Place coming circle around. They're proposing a development, in this area here we have several buildings and then we also have a building up here in the center here. This building here is on a preliminary development plan. The other is final, but this is on a preliminary development plan because they have some wetlands that they are working on. So they need to resolve some issues, so that's not going to be part of the plan today. So the remaining portion of the property with these structures here, you'll see, is revision. You can see there's 405,110 square feet in retail commercial space and office space in that. With the revised conditions, you can see we have our typical sign-offs, provided the Planning Commission grants a requested waiver for right in, right out. They have asked for a couple different waivers for access in. We have one access in here off of Citation Boulevard coming into the shopping area. And then we have another one here that is across from Innovation Drive. And then they have another one proposed up here. They've asked for a waiver on these, and so Tom will do the presentation on the waiver for these items. We also asked for in the site statistics, we changed that up a little bit and asked for some more information on our developments. And so one of it is addition of the uses. Retail across the board, we want to see a little bit more information, office, retail, banks, and that sort of thing. And with that, the revised plan, they've been working on it with us to get it to meet the floor area ratio. And this is the last presentation, the last plan that they've got to present to us. And with that, I'll open it to you all to see if there's any other comments or questions. Do we have any questions for staff? Not seeing any, thank you. Okay. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, the waiver request that you have today before you is, as Cheryl explained, Although it says on your handout, your conditions, it references the citation, write-in only, it actually, they are requesting waivers on the Georgetown Road access points as well. So you've got three access points that are subject of this waiver request. So again, as you can see, here's your frontage along citation to the intersection with Georgetown Road, and it extends to the north. We have Huntley Street on the rear of this property that provides considerable access to serve the commercial development. They are proposing what in effect is a service road along the perimeter to also serve the property, which meets the requirements of your subregs relative to an arterial. As you all are well aware, these standards were developed to really protect the arterial from too much access and too many conflict points. In this particular instance, the original request was for a write-in and write-out off of the citation. And again, we have a light, or we're going to have a light at this location, just so you know. This is a public street that comes in right here. Now, after conversations with the applicant, a lot of concerns were expressed by staff. And these concerns have been expressed in other write-in, write-out proposals along our materials. There was a concern about exiting here. The write-in was not a concern, but the write-out, there would be tremendous conflict with the turn lane onto Georgetown Road and with people as well that would be crossing all the lanes of traffic potentially as they exited this development. So with a modified request with the write in, these have worked in other locations and have proven to be satisfactory in that regard. The other two, the access across some innovation drive and then this up here which in an earlier plan was further to the north along this line and it was called Minster Way. As you all may recall Innovation Drive came in and you had a lot of discussions and in fact had several waiver requests before you concerning the Innovation Drive here and the large industrial area. Ultimately a study was done to demonstrate the amount of traffic that the industrial area would generate and that waiver was approved. You may also recall that the state of Kentucky kicked a lot of money into improving that intersection because it was designed to close. This was temporary and had been designated to be closed for years. It just hadn't happened. And eventually they wanted to keep it. You all may recall that discussion. We had a lot of discussion about that the state is going to build a turn lane there's money in extending what was an easement which actually right away and building it to public standards at that time staff said we're gonna see this request and so here we are it makes sense they want to line up with an existing access point however again this is commercial traffic office traffic is a different level of traffic and an amount of traffic it requires a waiver as well the other aspect of this waiver request the distance from here to there approximately 800 feet would also it does not meet the warrants for a traffic signal and it frankly it would be anticipated in the future with the amount of traffic with full build out, we could see a request for a traffic signal in that area. And again, as you all know, and staff's talked about this a lot, we try not to have traffic signal after traffic signal after traffic signal because we want to allow freer movement on our arterials. With that, it's only about 575 feet to this access point they're proposing. This is a public street, and it comes over and it hooks up to Huntley. Now, when this property was originally, oops, there I go. All right, now, come on. Here we go. I went too far. When this property was originally laid out in the 90s, you had the public street from Citation, you had Huntley leading up to Spur Road. And in between Spur Road and Citation, you had a public street. As I mentioned before, it was proposed along the zone line. This is a zone line right here. And it was proposed at that location, a public street, to serve this development and to complete the proposed network. in the area. Over time, there have been some changes in the area and staff gave those changes some consideration. Back in the day, most of this area was designated purple on your land use plan, that's industrial. And there is a considerable amount of industrial use out in this area as well. But there have been changes. There's been a considerable amount of residential development in the area. You all will recall we just had an apartment here that was approved, a complex, and then across over in this location adjacent to some industrial property, you just approved an apartment complex. That was the one with the trees where we talked about the trees. Prior to that, to the north, we've had single-family residential development along Spur Road, both north and south. So we've seen a change in that regard over time. The staff felt like, okay, that gives some credence. to increased access into this property so that they weren't going to rely completely and solely on Huntley Place to serve as the access to the property. With that, under consideration and staff, and we talked a lot with traffic engineering about their concerns and functionality and safety, if you've driven that area out there, you know that Georgetown Road, it's beautiful out through there. It's been rebuilt, it's open, it's wide, and the speeds are high. And one of the things that we've learned over time is although this intersection at Georgetown and Citation does not have a high rate of accidents, those with severe injuries are higher in this location. And that generally can be attributed to higher speeds, greater impacts, greater force. So we evaluated these various factors, looked at the waiver request. As I said, the write-in, those tend to function well. They don't create a lot of conflict out on the public right-of-way. Staff believes that this is too close. It's going to need a light eventually in the future, which doesn't meet, again, the standards for the state of Kentucky. It's going to create an issue in the interim with multiple traffic movements, including, interesting enough, the possibility for a lot of cross-traffic movement from Innovation Drive with people that work over there and in that area wanting to cross over to the commercial area and vice versa. So again, we're going to have unregulated traffic crossing Georgetown Road in an area of high speeds and traffic. So in evaluating the access points, we took a look at this public street. And it is, as I said, about 200 feet south of the original proposal for a public street to serve this development and provide an additional connection out to Georgetown Road. So with that, staff is recommending approval of this access point for the public street. And when you add that 500 and something to the 800, well, you have a nice spacing through here. Okay? That comes much closer to our 1,200-foot standard on our arterials. It's much more in keeping with the vision for how Georgetown would be accessed. And we're recommending disapproval of the access immediately across from Innovation Drive. Innovation Drive serves the industrial development. It's being approved by the state as we mentioned. It will continue to function just fine, but we do not believe that that cross access point would be appropriate. And so again, we recommend disapproval for that access point. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have for staff. Any questions for staff, Mr. Commissioner? Mr. Pohl? Tom, could you just quickly point out where the recommended access points will be? Where they'll be? Yeah. Come on, technology, here we go. Okay, so here we have the public street, which is eventually going to get a light connected to the public's development. And right here is the right in. Right in. And then right, again, here's your intersection with Georgetown. So that's the right in only. You come up here and innovation drive is right here. That's the one. That's the one you're recommending against? Yes sir, that is the one we're recommending against. And then there's the one that is 500 and so feet to the north. I would add that, let's see, did we? Yeah, there we go, there's an aerial photograph. Is that across from Feather Sound Way? Is that? It is. It is. That public street will line up with the residential public street on the other side of Huntley, which will allow that to function again well. Just to the north is something to remember. You see, there's a Georgetown service road. That's the old Georgetown right-of-way. There's a full access point just a little bit off your picture right there. You have to take that into account as well. People tend to forget and think that because we're talking access, it's just that side of the road. But you have to evaluate all the access up through there, and it's important to limit too much access along our arterials. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Chair, thank you. Tom, if you would, and as everybody else is going to say, thank you for 20 plus, 27 years? 24 years, 11 months in three terms of service to the planning event. Thank you. Thank you for what you've done. So the waiver request, is that just for innovation, the one across from innovation? It is for all three access points that they're proposing, Mr. Owens. None of them meet our spacing standards. So what's been written here is to allow the write-in only on citation and I guess a full access? A full access at what we'll recall Minster Way, for lack of another name at this time. Full access, but not at innovation. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. They did not initially ask for these other waivers, they just asked for the write in, write out waivers, so staff had to go back to them and say, you need these other waivers. That's why it's a tad complicated. All right, Mr. Mickler. This property is split zoned, right? It is. A little bit of that to the north is P1. That last building on the plan to the north, that's split. Is P1. And then the B6P, that has lot coverage requirements? It does. FAR. I'm sorry, not lot coverage, FAR. Yes, FAR. And can you just remind me, as we're approving these, this final development plan meets those requirements, I assume. Yes. How does that work with the sort of phasing in of construction or if parking is built but then not all of the floor area is built? They have five years to pull a permit on every structure on a final development plan. If they do not do that, they come back to you for re-approval and a re-evaluation of the plan. That's really the only timing aspect that impacts that. Okay. And then in regards to that access, you know, I hear what I see sort of staff's concern there. I also see that the placement of a lot of that retail is close to that corner. And the only access that they would have would be the right in, right out. Otherwise, they have to make that long loop. Is that what would that be? They have to loop all the way up to the office building and then back down the service road? Yes, or they could come back right out here to Huntley. If they're in this area and they come in here, oops, they would have the option of going back out to the public street system. And utilizing the light, which is one of the key aspects of that is they have a light. From a retail perspective, that doesn't seem ideal, but I hear your concern. Staff would agree with you, Mr. which is why we think we saw the number of access points that we did on this plan. We understand they do have concerns. But our concerns again, as you know, is not just for their utilization of the property, but for the public safety relative to our street system. Okay, thank you Mr. Martin. All right, applicants here. mr carter uh good afternoon matt carter vision engineering first first thing i'd like to address is um i'm in agreement with the staff's conditions this this plan it's probably it was probably filed at least eight months ago as you can see the number on it's 23 so it's a pretty old plan and it's seen a lot of changes we had 30 conditions and now we're down to i believe 14 so i feel like we're ready for this to be approved um Where I differ with the staff is on their disagreement on the full intersection at Innovation Drive. And we feel like it is warranted. We have done a traffic impact study for this project. And, you know, some of the big issues we came across was public safety. How do we keep the commercial and office traffic out of the way of all the residential? And there's a lot of residential proposed on the other side of Huntley Street and Remington Way. So we want to do our best to keep that traffic residential and the commercial in off of Georgetown Road and Citation. As far as our traffic study, Mark McIntosh is here. He can address any questions you have on the study and why we think what we're proposing is the safest for this. But other than that, I'd be glad to answer any questions. Do we have any questions for the applicant? All right. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak toward this application? Please do so by stepping up to the podium. If there aren't any. Is he coming? Okay, all right, I'll just check. All right, we'll bring it back to the commission. Mr. Owens? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure if Dave Filiatri would want to address this or Matt could, but I'm curious as to innovation, that possible intersection. Is there any way to make it safer? My biggest concern would be crossing over from one side to the other as far as Georgetown. Yeah, David Filiatri with Traffic Engineering. Yeah, that was our main topic. But when we discussed this previously with the applicant was just the concern over those trying to make a through movement, especially at such a close distance from the Georgetown Street Road. Excuse me. That's really the biggest impact, left turning traffic and cross moving traffic is typically where you get your most severe injuries. Like Tom mentioned, there have been high severe injury rates even at Georgetown Citation where there is signalized. So that was a, but same time, like you said, we knew once innovation was kind of made permanent officially that once this developed, that would be the natural point that they wanted to, I think discussion of significant improvements would be at minimum, but it's certainly not ideal to be that close to a major intersection either. But it gets complicated by the fact that there already is a side street at that distance. So I think the public street that they propose, obviously, is designed to handle more traffic. They've got Remington Way, which is enormous approach road, and then the right in. Do they need an additional access? I would say definitely not a full access point would be my opinion. The right in, right out with some meeting controls, still certainly not ideal, again, because people tend to kind of look and see if the coast is clear and still make the left. So there's still kind of some of the issues that can come about without proper media controls. It still exists even if you allow a right in, right out. But all things are balanced. We balance commerce all the time with, you know, with those risks. Tom had mentioned or spoke of the possibility of a traffic light there. As far as traditional, traditionally, no. But have they happened? I mean, you can look at Harrodsburg Road, the fountains. There was ultimately signalized. Now, again, there's another caveat. This is a KYTC route, so they're going to have their opinion once this is approved on whether something goes there. It's unlikely that they'll at the outset say, yes, let's signalize it, but it's certainly not impossible because there has been a history of that. but I don't think that today we could say that's definitely going to happen we could say if it depending on what your all's considerations are if that were to happen that maybe the applicant is responsible for a portion of that construction cost those are those types of things you can consider but again it's hard to know the future but at this point I couldn't say for sure whether it will ever be signalized if it were to be but it certainly could be That's just the nature of transportation decisions, not always by the book. So right now, other than a light, if there was something there other than a light, your recommendation would be right in, right out? At the most, yeah. Certainly, again, whatever we can do to eliminate those cross movements at that location, because, again, that concerns me a great deal. Okay, thank you. Just sort of a question in regards to this, because as all these properties are being developed, Georgetown is sort of the nature of Georgetown will be changed to actually be more of an urban street as it passes through neighborhoods, which traditionally in an urban area we do have closer intersections and slower traffic. And I guess just looking at it, I guess one of the unique things here is how much activity is on Innovation Drive coming in. I mean, there's looks like there's probably guessing at the types of businesses that are there, thousands of people working on innovation drive. I guess what's what's your perspective as these as these areas sort of transition from sort of rural to urban roads to to actually neighborhood arteries? Well, I would hope the transportation network would maybe follow suit. Just the challenge is the current conditions are wide lanes, wide shoulders, perfect for driving at high speeds for commuters mostly. So I know we're here to plan. It's hard to plan. The transportation network a lot of times is more of a following. It's a reactive kind of thing. So from what we know now is the way the roadway is functioning currently. That's where we make our decision. If the roadway was altered to actually have sidewalks, you know, curb and gutter, things like that, where it is more truly an urban cross-section, then I think we might have a different opinion on things. And there will also probably be different solutions. But just kind of say that given what we have now is really more of a rural cross-section, which provides us with those high speeds. I've got a question for you. So as you just said, traffic is normally reactionary. If the access was allowed as proposed on Georgetown Road, and from there a light was deemed necessary to be added, Would that light provide traffic calming on Georgetown Road, which could possibly slow down traffic on Georgetown Road and reduce the number of high-speed collisions? It wouldn't necessarily be traffic calming in that respect, because there's nothing, especially when the light's green, it doesn't do anything to slow traffic. But it would provide a more clear indication as to who has the right-of-way. I mean, like I said, we always balance commerce with risks anyway, but that does alleviate some risks in those driving. have a good indication of who is the right-of-way as of now with unsignalized and uncontrolled that's where my concern would come in has been people making that long movement and and having a potential coming up against someone going inbound or outbound or the left turns some left turns out typically are generally higher and the reason also we say that is there are four one two three other access points so that i guess that's where our balance we came in that that it feels balanced in that respect. What type of compromise, what type of solution that would provide access on Georgetown Road where proposed across from Innovation Drive would allow for to balance the current safety concerns and then possibly allow for greater traffic generation that then could facilitate a light, which could help the whole neighborhood? I think eliminating the two highest, what we see is the highest risk for any serious injury, which is the left turns across, like taking a left out and crossing all lanes of travel, and then through movements. So some sort of median controls that still allow, potentially allow the left ends, right ends, right outs. those are considered lower lower risk as far as injury collisions go which is really what we're trying to eliminate going more forward rather than all collisions injury collisions but that's going to be complicated by the existing project as well on innovation drive because they're going to be doing making right-of-way changes i assume in the next year as well um so we'd have you'd have to take that in consideration as well um because like tom mentioned there's an existing project for innovation drive and for that matter the public's development on the southeast side is also doing some modifications to the intersection at Georgetown to accommodate some of their needs that that came up when they came through if you remember I guess it's probably a year and a half ago we ultimately theirs was actually a little bit further away but we ultimately allow a three-quarter access point there but the counterbalance that they also only had one other additional access point so that was that was part of that decision making would a write-in write-out be an acceptable compromise solution with some some sort of meeting controls i think i think potentially it's again it's not something we desire we we still think that the given the other access points it's not the it may not be the ideal but But, I mean, if we feel like that's something that needs or should happen to help this development or would be beneficial to the community at large, then, yes, limiting to those movements right in and right out would be a sort of compromise that would be more... If I may add something to this conversation I think is important. That is, there's nothing on this site, and we don't know other than what they're proposing in terms of gross square footage what's going to go on this site. They haven't identified any permanent known users at this time. They've got years to develop this site. As it builds out, and that 400,000-plus square footage gets built out, the traffic needs will become better understood. They can always come back and ask this body to grant that access point at a later date, should it be deemed appropriate and necessary at that time. You may recall we just did that with Park Hills over on Manowar. They were having a lot of traffic problems at that intersection because of development, and they were granted a right in, right out on Park Hills, on the Manowar. Again, after things have been built out and the situation was better known and understood. At this time, staff just doesn't believe that that access point is warranted. But it doesn't mean they can't, you know, come back and ask you for it. They can. Thank you, sir. Mr. Carter, you want to say something? I'd like to get Mark up here to talk about some of these intersections. Currently, there's a lot of unsignalized intersections all up and down Citation, and the roads are functioning properly. We've also done, you know, we did a traffic study. Nobody's commented on that. But our traffic study says we're not, it doesn't warrant a signal. It basically says what we're proposing is safe. We meet the states for an urban setting. We meet their requirements on intersection spacing. Mark, do you have anything else to add? yeah good afternoon my name is mark mcintosh i'm with vision engineering yeah regarding the spacing when you look west from the site on citation there's 4 000 feet to greendale where there's a traffic signal there's not a traffic signal on jackie fox between georgetown and greendale to the north there's a half mile from citation up to spur road where there's a traffic signal close to the Coventry Oak elementary school and to the east it's 1,500 feet to the Remington Way intersection and then to the south it's over 2,000 feet to the capstone parallel road intersection so we feel like there pretty good spacing around the site and the city and the chamber of commerce is spending four over four hundred thousand dollars to improve citation or not well georgetown at innovation drive so with those turn lane improvements for innovation we felt like it's good to help out the bluegrass business park which doesn't have a traffic signal right now they have three access points to georgetown spur road and citation but no traffic signal and quite a few trucks serving you know kentucky eagle and quite a few big users you know the big fan or the big uh fan place and uh those type of users over there so we just didn't want to overburden remington way where two-thirds of the givens property or the public's grocery store two-thirds of their traffic is going over to remington way there's over 500 apartments on huntley's place two different developments that's going to go out to remington way and then there's industrial users too on remington and we just didn't want to burden the spur road intersection near the coventry oak school and there's 300 homes near the spur road intersection so we just want to disperse traffic distribute traffic better by gaining this access to innovation with the recent improvements by the by the city and chamber of commerce i'll be glad to answer any questions thank you sir and do we have any questions thank you uh mr owens yeah mark what's your thoughts as far as a right in right out there at innovation right now the the median is just pavement so um like david mentioned there would have to be something built there so but this would um if there was a raised median there it would affect or impact the bluegrass business park and those users and you know that park's been there for 20 years so you can't really prevent the left turns and for them so okay but i feel like for traffic signal work and coordination i feel like this can work out where it's just 800 feet north of citation and the phasing should be less it should be less complicated so it should just be like a two-phase intersection rather than like citation georgetown's more comp complicated so we should be able to maintain movement coordination on Georgetown. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, we bring it back to the commission to continue further questions. Ms. Worth. I'm just reading faces over there. Is there a staff response to what we just heard? Did not understand your question, Ms. Worth. And I'm looking at facial nonverbals over there in response to what we just heard. Do you all have any comments to what we heard? Staff stands by its staff report. We do not believe that that intersection with innovation is appropriate at this time. We believe there are safety concerns with it at this time. Okay. All right. I've got a question for you, Tom. As I'm looking for some sort of compromise that can allow for a future signalized light that can be applied for by the applicant, Would a right in, right out be appropriate in the staff's mind? Right in and right out, again, can work. And you may recall the public's discussion on the right in, right out under Georgetown. And what was actually agreed upon was that modified three-way movement. Because the problem with right in and right outs is that those meeting controls have to be extensive. If they're short, if they're too short, people drive around them. Just down the street on Georgetown, where the McDonald's and the Houchins is located, we did a right in, right out there, and they added the median controls. They're having problems because of human behavior and people driving around that right in, right out. So it would take extensive improvements to Georgetown for a right in, right out to work. And as Mark pointed out, you have to take into account the industrial area and innovation drive. Although, frankly, I think we all know they have ample access into that industrial development. Mr. Carter, I have one quick question. And of course I noted on the plan that this has been postponed several times. And you all, assumingly, had done that in order to work with the staff to get the details worked out. I've forgotten because I hadn't reviewed the development plan in some time. Did you all ever meet with people in the community? No, I mean it's a development plan, so it has not been a requirement. It's not, okay. Yeah. If it had been a zone change, absolutely. You're absolutely right, and I forgot about that. Thank you. And can I add one thing? There's room for compromise. We would be agreeable to a right in, right out if the caveat that we could come back in the future, should it warrant a full intersection. i mean the plan is going to evolve over time and as tom said we don't know all the users right now we do know two of them but we want to get to work on the site grading all the site except for the wetlands area till we get that resolved. But like I say, there's room for compromise. Would that compromise be best stated as a write-in, write-out with median control on innovation in Georgetown? Yes. Because with the median control is very important as a piece of this. You can't just say write-in, write-out. it would be right in, right out with median control. Correct. You're aware? Okay. I doubt if that would be approved. I doubt if the state of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet would approve anything right in, right out without controls, and our people wouldn't either. I mean, you just have to have them. Okay. I just wanted to make sure because that innovation drive crossing is an issue, and we wouldn't want to have unintended consequences for a potential compromise with the commerce on the property. Most traffic that needs to turn left in Innovation Drive off of Georgetown actually has an opportunity at Citation to go left and then right into the development, the industrial development. Because you may recall, Innovation Drive was intended to be closed just for that very connection that they can now utilize off of Citation. Can you see it? Yeah, you're trying to see it. I know you're trying to see it. I'm looking at this, having a little confusion. So Innovation Drive's connection to Georgetown was temporary, anticipating the connection of what? Jaggy Fox. Jaggy Fox, thank you. The connection of Jaggy Fox to Citation. That was accomplished. Jaggy Fox connects to Citation. Jaggy Fox leads right up to innovation in the industrial development. So if you're headed north, you can access the industrial development via Citation and Jaggy Fox. And that was why they were supposed to close this part of innovation at Georgetown. And then, of course, 20-some years later, they came back and said, we want to keep it. And ultimately, that connection was allowed to remain. Thank you. Okay, thank you Mr. Carter. If there's not any further questions with staff or the applicant, I will ask the applicant to take a seat if the commissioners have any more. Okay, so we'll bring it back to the commission for any further discussions amongst ourselves and staff. If there aren't any, the floor is open. I really liked what Mr. Philater said about balancing commerce and safety. That's obviously very important, that balance. also hearing from Tom that the applicant has the opportunity to come back if they can meet all the requirements and the state would approve a light maybe that could improve the whole stretch of Georgetown Road I wanted to see what my fellow commissioners would kind of look at Charles faces to see if it would be um or i can make a motion and what i'm interested in doing is making a motion that allows for a compromise on the right in right out with meeting control on innovation in georgetown so if we'd like to discuss that or i can make a motion and see how it goes okay all right i would like to to make a motion for approval of pln mjdp 23-64 belmont farm with the staff's 14 recommendations and i would like to add a note number 15 that will allow the applicant a right in right out with median controls on innovation in Georgetown in anticipation, excuse me, period, and also to anticipate that the applicant may return for a proposal for a light when warranted. Okay, hold on one second. But before we, I asked for a second, did staff get that? Well, you're making a motion on the development plan? Really, it needs to be a revision to the waiver. Okay. Right. Thank you. And I think we probably could do both, because you just made that wonderful motion. And you want to add a note to the development plan. You could also, when you act on the waiver, approve the waivers, adding the condition that you just, on the waiver, that you just added to development plan. So we can do both. Yeah, you could just ask for a second. I'm trying to keep it as simple as I can. Thank you so much. I mean, we have a group here. I appreciate your time. So if we could look for a second on that. A second. So we have a motion from Mr. Nickel. Can we get that up? I didn't write it down. Anybody wrote it down? We haven't recorded at least. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold up. Yeah. I'm looking at Ms. Wade. Just want to double check. I don't have a copy of the waiver at my desk here, so I don't want to write it down. Then we can add that to the waiver request. Yes. So I can restate the motion, correct? Yes, and what you said, Ms. Nickel, was that you wanted a condition that they be allowed to write in and write out with median controls. Acknowledging that the applicant may return to request a full access point and light in the future. Yes, and I'll add that to the waiver request, correct? I would add that to the waiver request as a condition of approval. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Because we're addressing public safety specifically with waiver requests. Okay. Well, then I'm going to restate my motion. We should have two motions. Yes. I'm going to restate the one for the. One for the development plan. Okay. And then the second one for the waiver. Yes. So you're only stating one motion right now for the development plan first. Then we see how that goes before we get to the waiver. That's a great idea. Thank you. I would recommend a motion for approval of PLNM JDP 23-64 with the staff's 14 recommendations. Second. Okay, so we have a motion and a second by Mr. Davis, Jonathan Davis. Any further discussion to that motion? Mr. Mickler? Well, this is just a question. Would we want to change condition 13 from saying provide the planning commission grants the requested waiver for write-in, write-out on Citation Boulevard to say Citation and Georgetown? That's what I thought. Okay. All right, Mr. Mickler. Thank you. So we were going to add on 13 after Citation Boulevard, we put and Georgetown. Okay. So we have a motion and a second by Mr. Jonathan Davis. I'm not hearing any other discussions, so we will vote via Granicus on that motion. Okay, that motion passes. Now we have the waiver. So for the waiver, there's two separate recommendations that the staff made. Yeah. The first one is in relation to access on citation and then the northern point on Georgetown. So if you're in agreement with that recommendation of approval, you can accept that as written. And then for the other access, which is the southern access along Georgetown, that's the one you want to change. So you don't want to accept the staff's recommendation, and you want to substitute the language that you mentioned before, Mr. Nickel, about approving the access to Georgetown, but only under these conditions and then your reason why. Okay, Mr. Nickel. Does that make sense? Okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve PLNM JDP 23-64, the waiver for the land subdivision regulations, accepting the staff's two recommendations. removing the staff's third recommendation and adding the third recommendation proposed in this motion to allow a write-in, write-out with median control on the southern access at Innovation in Georgetown. You have to make a finding. And the finding is, this finding would allow for an appropriate balance of safety and commerce, and also allow the applicant an opportunity to determine how much traffic will be generated, so that they can therefore come back with an application for a light, if necessary. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Nichol. We have a second by Mr. Jonathan Davis. Any further discussion to that motion? Okay, please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. All right, thank you, Mr. Carter. You have a good day. Okay, I would like to, if possible, we're moving on to the zoning items. If the commissioners are okay with it, I would like to hear Agenda Item Number 2, PLN MER 24-11. I think that may have been an abbreviated one with a couple of questions. So before we get to Agenda Item 1. So PLN MER 24-11. And Chair Forster, there may actually be folks in the audience. Staff is recommending approval for this particular request, but just to notice, there may be some folks from the audience here to speak on this particular application. But this is a request, PLN MAR 2411 for Beverly A. Tuning. It's a request to rezone the property at 2090 Harrodsburg Road. This is from its current single-family residential, R1C zone, to the highway service business, B3 zone, also known as the corridor business zone. The applicant is seeking this rezoning in order to establish a commercial development at this location. This, as proposed, includes a drive-through coffee shop use as well as a retail use. When we talk about rezonings, we always do so through the lens of the place builder element. So here, the applicant is seeking to situate this within a corridor context, so along Harrodsburg Road. Staff is in agreement with that choice and place type. The applicant is choosing to develop this as a lower intensity development. This is not necessarily recommended for this type of place type, but staff will provide some more information on how we have looked at this and interpreted this in the application. Just as a note to the public engagement efforts with this, during the application process, the applicant did meet with the neighborhood to discuss their concerns with the site. And so there's been some back and forth between them, some revisions of conditions that they submitted in order to address some of the concerns. And I'll identify those as we move kind of through the presentation. The subject property is shown in the center of your screen here in white. Harrodsburg Road, as it heads closer to downtown, this development is directly across from Turflin Mall, this orangish color across the way. Zooming in a little bit closer, you get an idea of the land use in the general vicinity. Once again, as you go further up Harrodsburg Road, that character is more of a commercial one with some existing B3 development to the east, Turflin Mall across the road, and some R3 zoning to the west that was rezoned in order to establish a daycare use. But the backbone of the site, the rear portion of the site in this yellow color here, is single-family residential zoning. This is existing single-family residential that was developed kind of before Harrodsburg Road took on the intensity and really the scale that it has today. So this is an existing example of kind of how we are looking to balance more intense corridor development that is generally called for within the plan with maintaining these single-family residential neighborhoods and making sure that those two things can kind of coexist. Here we have an aerial view of the subject property. currently has a single-family residential home located approximately here with an existing driveway. Directly to the east, we have the Baptist urgent care use with its parking area and access drive. Once again, I mentioned that directly to the west with residential zoning is a daycare use, and then the rear of the property circling through here are existing single-family residential uses. So much of the discussion in staff's initial staff report was looking at the applicant's proposal, meeting sort of the calls for increased density and intensity and just more efficient land use that we like to see on our corridors with how we can blend and incorporate that into a neighborhood context. Here we have a view of the subject property itself, so the single-family residence that is located near the front of the property. Here we have a view of Harrodsburg Road as you're heading out of town. So you've got the existing grass median here and then the Turflin Mall development. This portion, property next door, once again, is the daycare. Looking at the opposite side, and apologies for the photo being a little washed out, but you have Harrodsburg Road as you head in with the divided lane here, and then the service slash access drive that serves the B3 commercial development adjacent on the opposite side. Here we have a view of the applicant's proposed development plan. It really has kind of two main uses. The first being a drive-through coffee shop use, so that is two lanes that curve around and are served this building here. They are at this time proposing an access onto Harrodsburg Roads. This would be a right in, right out because of that controlled median. The applicant is also proposing some connectivity. So where the existing on the Baptist development has a stub into where their parking areas are, They show that continuing here and that stub being provided to the daycare property to the west. As it currently stands, that daycare property adjoining is not configured to have a direct connection there or any real meaningful consideration at this time. But if that property were redeveloped in the future, it allows for those connections to be made. The rear portion of the site and really where a lot of the discussion, at least on a neighborhood level, came from was the use of this rear building. So they are showing this rear structure here. This was an intent to sort of increase the utilization of the property from not just a drive-thru use, so a drive-thru and a retail use with its corresponding parking areas. During discussions with the neighborhood, some issues were raised with stormwater and other considerations that really are more appropriate at a final development plan stage where the specifics and schematics have been drawn up. But at the kind of preliminary level, a lot of concerns were raised about the use of this structure, specifically as it related to uses that may operate later in the evening, noise-generating uses, uses that may produce odors such as restaurants. And so the applicant has proposed a list of conditional zoning restrictions that I'll speak to a little bit later on in the presentation in an attempt to sort of address those as well as increase buffering and some other operational details for the site that hopefully can integrate it between the corridor and the adjoining residential context. When we talk about place builder, once again, we are seeking to place this within a corridor setting. So these are our most intense roadways. This is really an overriding theme within the comprehensive plan is getting more use out of these areas, allowing that to be our higher density development and then transition as we move into sort of a neighborhood context or into a more localized context. Within that recommendation, the applicant's choice and zone is not actually recommended. This was done. The updates to our comprehensive plan came before the most recently adopted UGM ZODA. So we are changing or have changed how we really conceptualize the B3 zone. And so moving forward, it's anticipated that that would be added to the corridor. So they are really kind of orienting this towards the traveling public there while acknowledging that, you know, that existing residential context is present. So moving forward, you know, staff's baseline recommendation or the requirement for the zoning ordinance really would be a more intensely developed site than what they are proposing. However, the applicant is balancing the needs of the corridor with the needs of the neighborhood here in proposing the kind of the scale and extent that they have. So, and just to kind of, you know, hammer in kind of where these restrictions are coming from or where are the concerns from the neighborhood, we have an aerial view that I think gives a little bit better idea of the relationship between these properties. So you see the existing home here, which is kind of set back in a similar manner as the adjoining structures. this would be the approximate location of the proposed coffee shop use the location in the rear where it's closest to these single family residences is where the the both the applicants and the neighborhood are wanting to see kind of greater restrictions greater conditions that get relaxed as you move closer to the commercial context here so really balancing the aspect of the rear portion with the character moving forward as you go into harrisburg road so with this the applicant has proposed some modified conditions since we last spoke, and staff has taken a look at those, and it's generally agreeable to their proposals. But really, these uses are designed to limit uses that would have conflicts with noise generation, with the hours of operation, or sort of the location of some of these vehicular-oriented uses in the closest portion to residential. So it was noted during the zoning committees that we had actually left out automobile truck repair and service stations. So that has been added, along with an increase in the height of the solid fence at the request of the neighborhood, some modifications to the exterior amplification system requirements, as well as some height controls that were proposed by the applicant relative to the rear portion of the property. So staff finds that these conditions would allow sort of a blending of, allow for future development that's in keeping with the corridor while protecting the rear portion of the property where it's closest to the residential zones. And once again, these were introduced in order to kind of ensure compatibility with that adjoining neighborhood. So what this staff is recommending approval of the request at this time, we find it's in agreement with comprehensive plan goals that talk about utilizing our corridor, and especially along these sort of major roads, and kind of balancing the character of increased developments in an area that, due to its residential context needs some additional protections. Providing that scale and scope was something that the applicant is found to do, but also expands the opportunities for kind of neighborhood-level commercial development in the coffee shop use and the proposed retail. They are proposing connections with expanding the sidewalk network on site and connecting that to the existing system. So overall, we found it was an agreement with the land use, transportation, and pedestrian connectivity, environmental sustainability, site design, and building form criteria. We have the revised conditions that are shown on the screen here. So based on the, from the staff report you have in front of you, a few additional conditions that have been modified. So if you make a motion for approval, it needs to be based on the updated staff recommendations here. But otherwise, as always, it is subject to the approval of the corresponding development plan. So staff found that the revised plan met our requirements and our recommending approval subject to the conditions that we kind of outlined there. So I'd be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff at this time. Mr. Martin will be on after me to make a presentation about the zoning development plan. Okay, thank you for your comments. Any questions for staff? Mr. Baker. Yeah, thank you. Does staff feel that the continued approval of drive-throughs inside sort of our urban area, even along corridors, are in compliance with the comprehensive plans for more walkable, bikeable communities? Yeah. So the comprehensive plan sort of has dictated some of the, as well as the UGM process, have sort of resulted in changes to the B3. So this was applied for prior to the adoption of the current B3 standards, which now mandates sort of a greater utilization. And there's also restrictions on kind of where these sort of developments can occur. Acknowledging that drive-thrus need to have a place in our communities. We want to orient them sort of towards our major roads, but also trying to find a balance on a kind of site-specific level of making connections, especially in an area here where you have a neighborhood. So in staff's estimation, sort of the balance between providing those drive-thru facilities near the front of the site where they aren't closest to the residential, allowing for that increased landscaping and that retail use to serve as a buffer from those higher intensity circulation areas, and then providing kind of multiple access points through the site to try to allow for some walkability. some walkability, but with any of the uses that are sort of more oriented towards the traveling public or oriented towards vehicle, that is always sort of a concern in balancing that. Okay, thank you. Ms. Nolens? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clarify for me if you would, Daniel. On a grand because here there's public comments. There's a letter signed by several people that pretty much say the coffee shop's okay, but they're asking that there be no single-story apartments, multi-use residential or duplexes on what's being proposed on the back. Can you address that? Is that even a possibility? Well, so the B3 does allow for sort of an increased residential capacity with the new adoption of the UGM ZODA. Staff did not think that that was an appropriate condition to incorporate at this time, but we did see those comments. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Do you have any further questions? Thank you, sir. Mr. Martin? Excuse me. Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, What you have before you today associated with this zone change is, of course, a preliminary development plan. You will see a final development plan should this zone change continue through the process and ultimately be approved. Now, here you have your Harrodsburg Road frontage. Turfland Malls up here off-site across the street. Here, of course, Springhurst Drive. They are proposing an entrance at this location. It's a right in, right out. You can see the little pork chop there into the property. Two lanes, one of which extends up into the retail building area with the associated parking. And then actually three lanes. And then these two lanes are the drive-thru lanes that serve the 950 square foot coffee shop. Again, as you can see, there's parking associated with this building. it's a little over 5,000 square feet. It'll be 25 feet in height that this goes forward and is approved. You have dumpster locations here that can be accessed by public service sanitation, and then they can then exit the property. They are proposing a cross-access to the Springs Motel site. Again, that's been in keeping with our practice to try to keep traffic off of our materials, keep them moving to the interior. The Springs was set up with, in effect, a de facto service road, which are drive aisles that serve that property, which will allow traffic to stay off of Harrodsburg Road and go down and utilize Rosemont Garden and utilize a light, or go in other directions, wherever they want to go. So that's the purpose of that connection at that point. Now, I know there's been some concern you've heard from people about that crossing. Well, there are utilities there, of course. There's stormwater drainage. There's a sanitary sewer. There's some surface drainage. It runs under Harrodsburg Road and actually under Turflin Mall and on down to the creek, part of the stormwater system. When they cross that, they're going to have a culvert. They're not going to block anything. It's not going to dam up anything. You know, the water and the sewer is being piped, and it's going to continue to be piped. The surface water will continue to flow under this connection. It's a culvert. Just like if you have a driveway that crosses a drainage ditch in front of your house, you have a pipe under your driveway to allow the water flow. So, again, you've heard some concerns about that. I want to assure you that it will be constructed to the appropriate engineering standards, and that won't be a problem. It's a fairly simple plan in that regard. With the, again, the coffee shop, which is driving this, this is their patio area. It's a little over 500 square feet. If people want to stay and hang out or walk there and have their coffee and their muffin, they can do so. There is one item, and you can see we have handed out a nice pretty pink sheet with some revised conditions. There weren't many conditions originally on this plan. It's been fairly straightforward as it's evolved in its discussions with the staff. However, I would bring your attention to number seven, which is revise note 13 to the approval of the Division of Planning and the Department of Law. This note showed up on the revision when they submitted this plan on August 19th. Planning was a little concerned with the note, and so we added a division of law as a condition of approval for them to revise the note. I just recently had a very good discussion with our attorneys right here, and they frankly said delete the note. They saw no point in revising it. They saw no point in the note. It's not relevant to the situation. If you read it, and we said I went over it with them, it seems to be trying to condition future approvals, which you really can't do. I mean, they are subject to the rules that are in place today for your consideration and your approval. And in the future, if they come in, they're going to be subject to any requirements that are legally in place at that time. So again, our wonderful and talented attorneys took a look at it just now. It was the first time they had a chance to see it. And they frankly are recommending to you that that note just be deleted from the plan. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have for staff. Any questions for Mr. Martin? Okay, thank you Mr. Martin. Applicant? Mr. Gross. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, Brandon Gross on behalf of the applicant. I've not seen the revised conditions yet. May I? Yeah, no one gave them to me. Thank you. So on number 13, that's fine to delete that. Just real quickly, just to clarify, that was brought up in a discussion that I had with planning staff on related to confirming the B3 as it existed before the urban growth management. and I did email them a week or two ago with proposed language, ask them to look at it if they had any questions about it. We didn't hear anything, and so we went ahead and kept it on when we submitted the plan, but we have no issue deleting it because I think everyone recognizes the fact that we're underneath the regulations before the urban growth boundary ordinance was affected. So as long as that's on the record, I'm not overly concerned. But just to clarify the record for that particular point on, and I think that's it on the conditions. We're good with those. The tuning, this is owned by the tuning family. If you guys could wave. There you are. They are from Lexington. They actually have, their families own this house. parents have lived in this home they grew up in they own a second home that's adjacent to this and so they have been in lexington lived in lexington and so the good thing about that was i had a lot of easier time negotiating vis-a-vis the neighbors because my clients understood concerns of the neighbors as they were raised and so i appreciate the staff's presentation and I'm just going to cover just a couple things. The first with Mr. Owens, you had asked about the residential restriction that was brought up. So on that restriction, we had talked with staff. The staff was not in favor of adding that restriction. So what we did, if I could go, so I can do this. so what we had what we did is we added the note f to limit the height of that building in the back to hopefully um alleviate the concerns that that would turn into an apartment building but with that being said um at the time we're talking with staff and we agreed with staff that if the commission wanted to restrict no residential dwellings on this, you guys are able to do that. We don't oppose that restriction, but given the comprehensive plan and that we want more housing, we didn't feel that that was necessarily for us to negotiate with the neighbors on that issue. So as to the residential, my client is okay with restricting no residential units on this property if that is your guys' decision. The next item they had is they did not want any auto repairs. We have added that back in. So we have agreed to that. So we have handled that issue they had requested from us. They also did not want amplified music from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. We have also added that. We agreed that the fence will be 8 feet in height. And so I think other than the residential, which once again, if you guys want to restrict that, we're okay with that. I think other than that, I think we have met most or all of what the neighbors wanted and related to making sure this property did not potentially interfere with their residential units. The next issue is another one. in which we talked with the staff about it, and we also did not want to necessarily agree to, and we will let you guys decide that issue. One potential compromise will be we add it to the note to be discussed later. But the neighbors did not want this access point going into this, what I'm going to call the southern property. So they wanted this to essentially be a grassed area. Once again, we're okay with that. but we didn't think it was necessarily appropriate for us to agree with them on that particular issue, given the fact that we do want connectivity. And that property has been recently purchased, is getting ready to go through a zone change. My understanding is the plan is not to redevelop the site to keep the buildings as they are. But one compromise could be we just add a note that says discuss future access to the southern property at the time of final development plan, and we can address it then. Hopefully by then the zone change adjacent to them will have been approved, in which case we'll know what's going on there. On the other hand, if you guys want to put a note that says, no, you've got a stub, we don't want a service road continuing on, my client's agreeable to that. So I'll leave that issue also in your hands. Real quickly, I've got Jason Taylor is here with me and Matt Carter, who is our engineer. Jason's been a great help with having discussions with T Bergman, who's been kind of leading the effort with the neighbors. We've had several meetings with them. So I think other than those two issues I just discussed, which is the connectivity issue and the residential issue, I think we are aligned with what the neighbors have asked us to do. We have addressed or modified the plan slightly to include additional items that were discussed. or discuss during our subcommittee meetings. And so with all that being said, this plan as shown, it's preliminary. It complies with all the zoning ordinance requirements, and our application for the zone change complies with the comprehensive plan. So I'm here to answer any questions that you may have at this time. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Any questions for Mr. Gross? I'm not seeing any. Thank you, sir. Well, I'll step back here and pop back up if I'm needed. Thank you. All right. I do have a question for staff. Mr. Martin, is the address on here, is that correct? The address? It's 363 Pasadena Drive. Shouldn't that be 2090 Harrisburg Road? You are correct. That is a typo. It's 29. On here it says 363 Pasadena Drive. I just want to make sure I'm looking at the right thing. I'm wrong. That would be incorrect. It's 2090 Harrisburg Road is our property for this application. Okay, okay, all right, all right. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Wade. There are several people who were not able to sign up on the iPad this afternoon. they joined us late or were not aware that they needed to. So I do have a list that Ms. Galt shared of five people, and there might be more in the audience that do wish to speak, so I'll bring that up to you. I thought you were going to go ahead and call their names out. Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to hurt my feelings now. And I don't know if you have an intention to come in a specific order, but Marcus Ruger? Ruger? This is citizens comments for this application on Harrisburg Road. So this is your citizens comments time and there will be a three minute maximum time limit. So as she called your name, you can come up to the podium. Hi, my name is Marcus Ruger and I live on Springhurst Drive. And I'm a cyclist, and I pretty much use my bike to get everywhere. And I walk, and I patronize all the stores there, my doctors, and the Baptist Health Care there. And I use CVS, and I bike across Harrisburg Road there to go to Turflin Mall, or what was Turflin Mall. And I kind of question the compatibility between this curb cut. right now the curb cut is just for house so it's one or two cars a day with this business is going to be more like you know hundreds of cars a day and maybe as much as a thousand cars a day and if harrisburg road is supposed to be about getting traffic through then that seems incompatible with this one business having this curb cut a high volume current curve cut curb cut and um And then we also have cars that turn left out of Turflin Mall there, and that's a conflict with this driveway. And then there's a blind curve that comes in inbound. and i just feel like either this should be in for inbound traffic or it should be for local access to businesses in which case we should slow the traffic down on harrisburg road because i don't see how the high speed is compatible with walking and and biking and this driveway so I wrote a letter and so it should be you should have that and so I walk this every day most every day or bike it and so one thing I would like to suggest is that the the cars not be allowed to turn left out of turfland mall and that the sidewalk be kept that sidewalk level at the crosswalk there at the curb cut if if we do that. Yeah, I think that's basically my comments right now. You got my letter. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So our next speaker is Patty Meyer. Hi there, I'm very concerned about traffic. I'm one of the neighbors who helped T go up and down my side of Springhurst Drive, getting signatures for the letter I'm going to read. And the one thing people brought up when they signed this letter was they're very worried about safety and traffic. And they're concerned that there's going to be some awful accident that will get the traffic people involved. We've heard that y'all do planning, not traffic, like you don't do windows. But it seems to me that when you make planning decisions, it affects traffic. And people are concerned about that, at least on one side of the street. That's who I got signatures from. Here's the letter I'm reading on behalf of Robin, who's really very highly affected by this. We want to offer gratitude to Jason and Equity Management Group, Brandon Gross of Denton's Bingham Greenham LLP, and the Chewing family for their authentic care and collaboration. We have complete confidence that our interests and concerns have been heard and incorporated in the development plan. second we are satisfied with the current plan as written as of 8 15 24 with one exception extending access to clink conrad's property at 2094 harrodsburg road is not acceptable to the neighbors in addition we are satisfied with the current plan for the retail building as written with two exceptions one of these i heard was addressed no residential housing no auto and truck repair establishments and we have signatures of support from residents on springhurst drive and spring grove and i'm interested in learning more from the planning staff about how to address traffic because it's going to be a problem i'm sorry to say thank you Yes, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Graydon McGranahan. I lived at the very end of Springhurst Drive. I am outside of the notice radius for this project and thus I just found out about this application the other day from one of my neighbors. Therefore, I did not sign the letter because I did not know much about it. But what I didn't know, what I do know, is what I've read on the agenda items and so on and so forth. I am a proponent of development and sprucing up the neighborhood. I think that's great. But my question is, as a father of a young family at the end of the road, who has to come in and out of that intersection every day because Springhurst is landlocked. What is the adverse traffic effect on those of us that ingress and egress of Springhurst Drive? I have not heard any comments about that yet. And so what is it? Item on the pink sheet. Item three, urban county traffic engineer's approval of street cross sections and access. I'm assuming that is only germane or pertaining to the subject property. Now, I would request that we adopt all these conditions, but we add a traffic study of ingress and egress to Springhurst Drive. So we know what we're getting into, because my wife and I are a little concerned that this will turn into an issue that we have at Broadway in Virginia when traffic really backs up past Virginia at that gas station right there. If you're going north on Broadway in Virginia, it backs up. Why? there's a Starbucks right there. We have that same concern that traffic will build up past our outlet and inlet to Springhurst Drive where we live. And so just like you commented on the last item, sir, about people will go around, right in, right out, so on and so forth, I think that we should study that element here as well before we approve anything. So So I know that's a pretty big conditional element for us. I cannot speak for the rest of my neighbors, but I think those of us at the end of the street who did not receive notice deserve that. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Joey Martin. resident on springhurst drive just wanted to say that to the commission and to the tuning family and to the applicants that i fully support you all and you have my support as well and i do accept the modifications i know the neighbors went around we talked about modifications and i accept those modifications moving forward i don't feel i think it's a nice place to be able to walk and get a cup cup of coffee if i want to since i love drinking my coffee all day long but i think it's a nice place to be able to walk bike car whatever what have you so you fully have my support thank you thank you yes ma'am good afternoon i'm t bergman president of this neighborhood organization i have I'm going to lead off by asking you a question, please, on the pink paper. On the staff recommendations subject to approval by these different organizations or areas of the, how do we get involved in the tree plan, for example, or the green space, the greenery? How do we work into that, please? Because we don't know what the plan is. Mr. Martin? This is a preliminary development plan. Yes, I know. There will be a final development plan that will come to the planning commission. It will go through the same review process and have additional review. You can get involved in that process at the time of the final development plan. Okay, and we will be notified. If you wish to be notified, we can put a notice in the file so that you will be notified. We wish to be notified about all of these. Thank you, that's important. The other thing I want to say is thank you to all of you, but also thank you to the development group and thank you to the Tuning family. And I want to also add the neighborhood appreciates being treated with respect. That means a great deal to people and these are people who care deeply. So anything that you do to put in place that will keep a neighborhood involved and feel like they have input is very important. File that in your memory bank and thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Mr. Gross, you stepping back up to the podium. Oh, I was just going to rebut if that's permissible. Yeah, I thought you were done. I can be done if you want. I'll just be real quick and just remind the commission that this plan is a small plan, and so no traffic study was required for this plan. We did do, I wouldn't call it a traffic study, but we did do a traffic analysis, and this is what is considered a drive-by. type development so we will capture traffic that's already on Harrisburg Road we don't anticipate traffic being attracted necessarily to this location and during the peak hours our analysis showed we expect 40 cars an hour and so we do not think that this the traffic issues that have been described will come to fruition on this site and unlike the Starbucks down by Virginia Avenue, which I am aware of since I drive Harrisburg Road every day, they do not have the double lane and they don't have a service road. And so the reason their traffic backs up is because of the way that that site is designed. It's a poorly designed site, given what we know now about the Starbucks operations, whereas this site has a lot more stacking than is required and enough stacking that we don't think that there'll be an incident in which we will have traffic backing up on Harrisburg Road. So I just wanted to address that. Jason is with me. Do you have anything you want to add, Jason? Or any questions from the applicant team? So I think the neighbors, they've been really good to work with, and we appreciate it. And we accept the conditions as they were presented by Daniel. and we are acceptable the conditions on the development plan. And so I think with that, it's really the only two items left to address is whether or not you guys want to put no residential condition and want to address at least maybe put a note on the development plan that says we'll discuss access to that southern property at such time that we come back for our final development plan and we're agreeable to that too. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Mr. Crum, do you have anything additional? You're good. Okay. Let me bring it back to the commission then. The floor is open for further discussions or motion. Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. Are you ready for a motion? Yes, I am. I would move for approval of the plan MAR 24-11 Beverly Chewing at 2090 Harrodsburg Road. For the reasons provided by staff, I would like to add as far as a conditional restriction, that there would be no residential units on this site. That would be number 17. But otherwise, I move for approval with the recommendations provided by the staff. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second by Mr. Johnston Davis. Any further discussion to that motion? Question on number 7. Should that be changed from revised to delete? No, 13. That's going to be on the development plan. We're just doing the zone change first. I got you. But yes, we should do that. Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, please vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Okay, Mr. Owens. Mr. Chair, I'll move for approval of Plan MJDP 24-42 Springhurst Subdivision Unit 2 at 2090 Harrodsburg Road with the revised staff conditions. And if I heard everything correct, we're deleting number 7 and 8? No. No, 7. You're deleting the note. I'm sorry, we're deleting number 13. You can delete the note, but don't delete the condition. Don't delete the condition. Thank you. Okay, delete note 13, leaving number seven, we can delete number eight. Okay. Yes. And do we need to get on record that the address is incorrect? Is it incorrect on both? Yeah, I think it did. I did say that. Did he say it? Okay, I didn't hear him. I got that part correct. Thank you. I didn't hear you, buddy. All right. And we have a second by Ms. Barstale. Any further questions or discussion? If any or none, please vote Villagranicus. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, now we go back. We should be on agenda page four. PLN MER 24-10, is that correct? Yeah, hold on. Mr. Pol wants to take a five minute break, so let's start back at 3.20. 3.20, we will resume back and take a recess for five minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, Mr. Crumb? All right, listen. I don't have a quorum yet. Back? I told him 320. We need a quorum to get restarted, so. Well. We need one more. One more? Hey, Bruce. Two more. Yeah. Hey, two more. Hey, Bruce. Okay. Are we ready Mr. Crum? We're ready when you are Mr. Chair. I think we are ready. All right. Daniel Crum, planning staff. The next item on our agenda is PLN MAR 2410. This is a request by Fayette MHCLP. And it is a rezone a property, a portion of the property at 421 Price Road. This property is currently rezone single-family residential, R1D. The applicant is seeking a mobile home park, M1P zone. We're expanding existing mobile home park that is present in the rear portion of this property and on the adjoining property to the west. As always, when we are looking at rezonings within the urban service area, we're having this discussion within the framework of the place builder. Here, the applicant has chose to situate this as an enhanced neighborhood, speaking to its connection to both the existing part and the adjoining St. Martins Village neighborhood. Staff found that the choice in place type is appropriate, and the low-density residential that they are recommending is recommended in that place type. With regards to public engagement, within the application process itself, the applicant postponed the request in order to engage with the neighborhood. Staff attended a very well-attended meeting within that neighborhood. The concerns raised within that meeting were primarily oriented towards the connections proposed, as well as concerns about traffic and the character of the development. But staff will go through our presentation, give you a summary of our staff report, and how we think this complies with the comprehensive plan as a whole. So here we have the subject property, which is a large section of underutilized land located on Price Road. Price Road runs between Leestown and Main Street, West Main Street, and then connects to Georgetown. So it is a collector that spans those two particular roadways. There are several stubs from neighborhood streets that stub into the property, and will be where kind of much of the discussion on this case really occurs. Zooming in a little bit closer, you get to see the adjoining streets in a little bit more detail, as well as the zoning that comprises this area. And so there is a good portion of residential zoning. This R2 that you see here was the primary residential zoning for the larger area, including the subject property, as well as the St. Martin's Village neighborhood. There was a subsequent rezoning, a downzoning from the R2 to the R1D, which is where this light yellow color is coming from, and is the current source of zoning for this piece of the property. The subject property itself, a really development in this portion of Price Road, really was kick-started in the 1950s. So the St. Martin's Village neighborhood here was beginning to be developed around that time, as well as the beginnings of the mobile home park. So this darker color you see here is that M1P zoning that the applicant is seeking to expand. And so around the same time as the development of this neighborhood, the mobile home park at this location was expanding. this added some acreage to the rear in the 1970s so the existing park is already present on a portion of this subject property the applicant is seeking to expand that to encompass the rest of the property currently zoned r1d here from an aerial view of the property you get a better sense of the relationships of the surrounding area so here we have the existing mobile home park that was developed in the 1950s has a much denser style the later development you see further up When the regulations kicked in for the M1P zone, it resulted in sort of a more spaced out development that meets a little bit more of the current standards. The applicant is seeking to expand this to the portion of the site here that previously was occupied by a single family residence in an agricultural structure. That residence has since been removed. There are several existing stub streets. So you can see the single family residential within the St. Martin's neighborhood. We have a stub in here at St. Martin's, a stub in at Dominican, as well as a stub in at Tibbs Lane. The St. Martin's neighborhood was once again developed in the 1950s as a historically African-American community, but it was developed piecemeal. So as all development generally occurs, development streets get extended. The St. Martin's neighborhood here is actually developed between nine different subdivision plots. So an area was developed, stubbed in for future developments, and the road network continued out that way. The stubs that you see here with Dominican, St. Martin, and Tibbs were stubbed in for those express purposes. Even back in 1955, the land subdivision regulations were calling for stubbing those streets and then allowing for future connectivity or terminations. I'll give you an idea of what the subject property looks like today. Here is a view from Price Road, so you can see the existing mobile home to the left and the portions of the residential, single-family residential to the right. So this is really the last remaining piece in this particular area that has sort of gone underdeveloped from just the single-family residence on approximately 17 acres. Here you have a view of Price Road as you're heading towards Georgetown. So once again, a two-lane roadway with existing residential, but it serves as a sort of collector. So a fairly high volume of traffic travels this road every day as it is sort of the connector for these neighborhoods to Georgetown as well as Leestown Road. Here is a look at existing stubs. So in those three areas identified, the roadway just abruptly ends. It has not been cul-de-sac'd. It was anticipated at that time that this would be extended in the future whenever the owner of the adjoining parcel, which was not owned by the same folks as the folks that developed the St. Martin's neighborhood, finally decided to kind of move forward with that. Here we have a look at several different residential streets that stub in. The first is Dominican here. We have St. Martin's as well as Tibbs Lane. So single-family residential with a R1D zone. Under the current zoning for both the subject property and the neighborhood, you could have residential lots as small as 6,000 square feet in size. The applicant's proposal that we'll get into in a minute has fairly substantially similar lot sizes as proposed for their units. So as we look at the park itself, it is a proposed 52 total units that has connections to all three of the sub-streets mentioned earlier, Tibbs, Dominican, as well as St. Martin's there. So they are showing a larger, more spread out layout than the adjoining sort of existing mobile-owned park that reflects several amenity spaces. So they show open space and recreational fields here, as well as a little bit more centralized to the site, open space, and then retaining some existing green elements as well as existing dog parks. So looking at this from staff's perspective, this is an instance where we're having connections to existing stub streets that is bringing residential low-density development to existing residential low-density development. It is also showing a connection to the existing access easement system that serves the current park. But as proposed, the street system for this section is going to be built to public standards and will be privately maintained. As far as the place builder consideration, this is a very clear example of an enhanced neighborhood. Existing residential areas that are being expanded with additional housing, additional densification of what is there existing. and with a focus on promoting connectivity and the connections between developments. So here, going back, this provides not only vehicular connections for all of those respective streets, but also sidewalk connections. So connecting to the existing network, bringing them through the sites, either to other locations within the existing neighborhood, or bringing them out to Price Road, where they will have sidewalk connections created as well. So connecting to the larger system as well as filling in some gaps that have been present since the 1950s when this neighborhood was really starting to be built out. So with regards to connections, once again, these are just pictures of the plats, the bottom being the 1955 plat that established the first section of the St. Martins neighborhood, going through the last sections, which were done in 63 and 64, showing these being done and developed piecemeal, building out their section, stubbing for future growth, with the anticipation that the adjoining property would be developed residentially at a future date. When we talk about connectivity, it is required by the land subdivision regulations, and specifically this section highlighted. When you have existing stub streets, you provide for the continuation of those streets in all directions. So this is taking an existing network, filling it out, and providing connections that are ultimately going to benefit the public through better health, safety, and welfare. To give an illustration of kind of what the implications are of this roadway system is, currently speaking, the homes located to the rear portion of the subdivision here near Dominican and St. Martin's essentially have to circulate through the entire neighborhood all the way through and then back out to Price Road if they want to head west, say, towards Lee's Town, anywhere west of that point, or downtown. If you were coming from Price Road, either from shopping, being out on the town, or if it's emergency services, if the subject property was built out with these connections, it's a difference of approximately half of a mile if you were in the rear portion of the subdivision. So these connections here are saving a significant amount of time for kind of an area that really wasn't built out or connected in a way that we would see with most developments today. Similarly, if you wanted to, say, within that same area of the adjoining neighborhood, visit someone else, a friend located, say, on TIBS. If you build out connections here, that takes what's approximately a 0.7-mile trip into a 0.3. So making these neighborhoods more well-connected, more walkable, providing outlets for traffic, allowing for dispersal so that not all of the traffic from this development is concentrated here as well as through Lima. So expanding that, allowing this neighborhood to kind of have more efficient emergency response times, allowing for connections, walkable routes, all of the things that we call for within the comprehensive plan. So overall, staff is recommending approval of this request. We find in its agreement with the comprehensive plan's objectives talking about taking a site that currently has one existing dwelling unit on approximately 17 acres and providing 51 additional units on top of that. This is going to be providing housing that addresses demand from low and medium income individuals, something that is absolutely required and needed within the community. It's doing so in a way that's providing additional green space and community amenities that will be accessible for the larger area as well. And really, most significantly, it is providing these vehicular and pedestrian connections that we as a community, through our comprehensive plan, have found to be so vital. So we find that it's in agreement with the development criteria of the comprehensive plan as it relates to land use, as it relates to transportation and pedestrian connectivity, environmental sustainability, site design, and building form. As always, Mr. Martin here will be for one last time here to present the proposed development plan in conjunction with this application. But I would be happy to entertain any questions you have of staff talking about the zoning elements of the comprehensive plan. Any questions for Mr. Crum on the zoning? Thank you, Mr. Crum. Back to the transit, I think the understanding is that the nearest transit stop is at Florence Avenue? I believe so. Yes. Is that measured from the entrance of the trailer park to Florence, or is that measured from where does the 200 feet start is where I heard it? The 200 feet? That's in the plan, so I just got through reading that the transit stop was at Florence Avenue. let's see so yeah I think that would be measured from the intersection or the proposed intersection from the intersection to the yeah thank you good Mr. Martin Mr. Chairman, members of the planning commission, what you have before you today is a preliminary development plan. So once again, as you well know, should this zone change be approved, should it go forward, a final development plan will be brought back to you for your subsequent review at that time. We've got a lot of neighborhood people here, a lot of residents. They don't know how our system works necessarily. I've done this in the past. You're all very much aware of this. Just a little housekeeping to let them know that when this plan is reviewed, the assumption is that the zoning is in place. So when staff reviews this plan, when your subdivision committee reviews this plan, that they're looking at it as if it's already zoned and this is what's going to be built. And nothing can be built until that final development plan obviously is approved. Now, Daniel did a great job on pointing out some significant aspects to this development. It's a rectangular shape. The stub streets, the stub streets, and of course here's the Price Road frontage, very much dictate the layout, including the sub street, into the existing mobile home park. They very much have dictated the layout that you can see before you today. In addition to that, there's a large pond on the property. Should this be approved, this pond will be drained. it will become a dry detention basin. That's the preferred method of detention in our community. We discourage retention, which is the wet ponds, because they require a lot more maintenance. So that will become part of the stormwater system. It does drain in this area. There's a spring that you can see that will remain and be protected that feeds into the drainage system. Now they're proposing 52 dwelling units. manufactured dwelling units the mobile home park requirements state that they have to have 4,000 square feet minimum associated a lot even though they don't actually have to create each lot there has to be 4,000 square feet with each of these 52 homes they're proposing in their in their size statistics 5,000 square feet but the minimum requirement under the zone there has to be at least 4,000 square feet of yard lot as it were with these homes. As Daniel mentioned you have your access off of price you can see parking here that's associated with some significant amenities in this community. A community center, a full-size ball court and field, you've got a half of a basketball court, another one over here, so there's a lot of amenities being planned with this particular development. The connections again as Daniel said are very important they complete the network to allow good access into the property and into the adjoining neighborhood for you know your emergency vehicles for sanitation for the pizza guy whatever you know whoever's in this area these connections are very important and again adhering to that system is very much dictated what you see there. There is a maintenance building, long standing, a barn in this location. At the time of the final development plan we'll want to resolve its status. The mobile home park standards were written years ago but they're very strict. That was the action that was taken many years ago was to really govern mobile homes and mobile home parks. There's a lot of them. There's more of them in Fayette County than you may realize. They're out there. There's several that you don't even know are there, where they sit off the roads and that sort of thing. But with that, there's only a few conditions. They're very standard sign-off conditions for a preliminary plan. The status of the street system, public versus private. Private streets are required to be built to public standards. They're just not maintained by the public. That's going to require a finding by the planning commission. You can do that at the next stage. It's not necessary that you do it now. You can resolve that status with the developer at the time of the final development plan should this be approved. You all can say, no, just make them public. Or you can say, private's okay. You have that ability to do that. That's a requirement on the street system. You can see again, they're showing some large existing trees to remain. They're going to protect those. They will be required to meet the canopy requirement and have street trees along the street system. Excuse me, and with that, I'll be happy to answer your questions you may have for staff. Do we have any questions for staff? Done at the moment. I'm seeing, thank you Mr. Martin. Are we good? Yes, sir. I think so. I just want to add very quickly, this gentleman right here, Mr. Holmes, he's a very dear old dear friend of mine. We got started in this business at the same time. Okay. Oh, he put you on the map, he is. Mr. Nicholson. Good afternoon still. My name is Nick Nicholson. I'm here on behalf of Flagship Communities. Kirk Keeney with Flagship is here sitting next to me, my partner, A.J. Singleton, and we also have two representatives, Brock McKay and Nate Smith from BIOX, the engineers from this project. And so, you know, combined, we will be able to answer any kind of questions that you all may have, either during this presentation or after the presentation or after public comment. We are in complete agreement with the planning staffs, their report, and their zoning conditions, and also the conditions on the development plan. Mr. Crum did, I think, an excellent job in kind of laying out the foundation for why we believe that this affordable housing project is in compliance with our comprehensive plan and why it's so necessary for Lexington at this time and has really stressed why an infill redevelopment of basically a vacant agricultural site is called for, especially for affordable housing in this comprehensive plan. Our full arguments are kind of documented in the record already with the justification letter and going through the committee process. And so I'm going to try not to dwell on that, especially based on the large representatives from this community. I want them to be able to speak to you all as soon as possible. before i get into the actual kind of uh you know presentation i do want to share the genesis of where this all came from some of you all heard this in the committees but uh the flagship entity is the current owner of this property and has been since basically uh they i think they closed in december of 21 but they really took over operations in the very beginning of 2022 and And this vacant parcel was actually already part of the mobile home parcel park. It was just split zone between M1P and R1D. And so the Department of Water Quality has a pump station in this area that has to be addressed by the consent decree. It is one of, I believe, only two of them that are left that have to be addressed. And the most efficient way to address that issue is to be able to take that pump station offline and run a gravity system between two existing facilities that gravity line would go in between or basically across this vacant parcel right now and in through the existing park itself once this facility is upgraded it will actually lead to the reduction or entire elimination of the sanitary sewer overflows that are continuing to plague this area and it is one of the main reasons why we got into the consent decree issue in itself and so that's what kind of started this path once we talked to department water quality we started looking at the suburban point site itself and realized this was an opportunity to continue to make the improvements that flagship has already made in this park and is dedicated to continuing to make those improvements and it's also an opportunity to immediately bring affordable housing units online in as quick of a manner as possible without having to deal with a lot of the issues that plague affordable housing projects with regard to federal funding and local funding trying to build that cap stack that you always kind of hear about as the main problem. And so that is where we kind of started this process. As I said, Flagship is a recent owner of this, but they are not a new company. They are a Kentucky company. They are founded in Northern Kentucky. They still are based in Northern Kentucky. It started about 30 years ago, and since then, I think they have 69 different communities that are kind of scattered all throughout the Midwest with over 12,000 home sites under portfolio. they consistently receive local state and national awards across the board with regards to their communities with regards to the impact that they have on their local communities and also their work environment and in fact at suburban point itself just one year after taking over ownership they already received uh let's see the flagship one the kentucky manufactured housing institute Community of the Year Award for Suburban Point. And then the following year, they won the nation's highest award that is given here, which is the Manufactured Housing Institute Award for Community Operator of the Year for the improvements that they did at Suburban Point. And I'm going to show you some pictures that kind of document these improvements, but since taking ownership, they have repaved every single road in Suburban Point. They've installed a new water monitoring system which allowed them to fix over 50 broken faulty systems and immediately reduce the cost of water for all of their residents by 30 percent. They've added a new clubhouse and gathering space that I'm going to show you some pictures of. They've added new amenity areas including playgrounds, dog parks, and athletic fields and courts. They installed solar lighting on every single street in the suburban point development. They improved the quality of units that were actually able to be placed inside of this in order to raise the quality of housing stock at Suburban Point. They also started a list of these community programs that I kind of highlighted right here that includes things such as free lunch for all of the residents, the children residents that are in Suburban Points when they're out of school. Every kind of program that they have is based on the health, safety, and welfare of their residents. They regularly have health fairs they have job fairs and they also give away school supplies to all of the residents children's in order to make sure that they are in the best place to be healthy and successful when they go into the school system here is some pictures that were taken prior to the flagships kind of ownership you will see it is more of the kind of the you know 1980s style trailers that you are kind of picturing in your head and you also see the degrading road system that was present today here's pictures of kind of the improved road systems here's also the upgraded units that are kind of available throughout this section and i do want to kind of i'll kind of come back and show you all kind of more details on the type of housing that is able to be installed in these uh kind of units because the modern manufactured home is simply not what you all are used to when you are thinking about this type of use now here is the committee or the community center that was uh that was opened up since 2022 this is a kind of community gathering place we are proposing a new and kind of larger and more modern version of this it just was not able to fit in the location based on the size of the lots in the historic suburban point basically park that i think mr martin kind kind of did a very good job explaining how we have transitioned over time on the size of those units. Here are flagships, kind of amenities that they have installed in other types of facilities. As you can see, these are all municipal grade playgrounds and athletic courts. One of the reasons why they have been so successful in turning around existing units is because they overbuild amenities. they make sure to ensure that this is of quality that a city park would have to install because that is how they view their residents in these amenities areas these are the open space and active opportunities for their residents and so they have no choice but to treat them as if they are city parks and build them to that quality here's the unit that was actually installed at suburban point this is the kind of playground area and these are the basketball courts we will will be building similar but larger versions of these facilities on the kind of proposed development plan that you will have gotten a view. One of my partners, Monica Braun, when we were walking this site, she pointed out that this is a better playground than she has at Beaumont Center. I can only just kind of nod my head as I do not have kids in Beaumont Center, but I certainly can appreciate the thought that this is municipal grade improvements. Now here is the proposed kind of community building that will be going into basically place. This is an existing facility on a flagship site today. This is the exact kind of model and quality that we will be proposing, or we are proposing, on the development plan that you all have seen. And that's because community gatherings are a very, very big deal in Suburban Point. I've already talked about the health fair and job fairs, but we also have holiday parties. We have these types of giveaways in order to really make sure our residents are in the best possible opportunity to continue to add to our workforce and continue to have successful opportunities with their children. Now here are the kind of units that we are basically would be composed of the new kind of areas. As you can kind of see, these are not what you picture from the 80s and 90s, where this industry received a lot of justified criticism with regards to once you have these installed, what is the infrastructure that can allow you to take them to a different community if you so want to leave? Because this is a park that does require rental payments, but you are owning the actual home. What these are done, they have designed in order to be able to be picked up and moved. They are designed with energy efficiency in mind, with quality in mind. in order to make sure that they last and they can deal with any type of transit in between different types of facilities you will see that what we are talking about it from energy efficiency standpoint the ductwork the installation the windows the lighting the appliances are all grade with energy efficiency in order to make sure that these homes are basically as efficient and affordable as possible we make sure that these type of manufacturer homes lead to the type of carbon impact that we want from as a community they are much more eco-friendly than your traditional actual housing development because of how they are built and where they are built and how they are transported our partners basically they implement entirely green building constructions and the energy efficiency that I kind of previously talked about they tend to lead to to basically 20 to 30% on savings in utility bills every single year. This just kind of further accentuates the affordable nature of this type of use and of Suburban Point and goes directly to exactly what our comprehensive plan talks for on what we need in Lexington immediately. These are just a list of some of the community benefits that I've already kind of talked about with regards to things that we are doing. We are proposing private streets in Lexington because we do think that we should bear the burden of the maintenance there and that that should not be a public cost, but we are happy to have that conversation at the final development plan. I'm not going to get too much into the affordability because it is already kind of in the justification letter and Mr. Crumb already handled it, but what you can say definitively is that for a home ownership opportunity, When you look at entirely your total monthly payment that includes the rent, mortgage, insurance, taxes, you are still less than what is in the rental market today, and you are actually having the chance for homeownership. You are a fifth of the price of the homeownerships that are actually going in Lexington today. There is no doubt that this is affordable housing that is directly responding to the need in our comprehensive plan. so similar to Mr. Crum I wanted to kind of point out this area at the neighborhood meeting one of the biggest kind of points of confusion was how this development plan kind of lays out because in kind of planning zoning world we're used to seeing a plan you know basically just rectangularly and this is not a rectangular site in regards to how they experience it on a daily basis and so So just as kind of the orientation that we've talked about in the past, here is Price, Georgetown is up here, here is the Tibbs Lane stub, here is Dominican, and here is St. Martin's. And this kind of just gets to the overall point that this project truly is an infill site that is either vacant or agricultural, whatever you would like to call it, and that it is bringing the affordable housing online. Now, this is how the development plan kind of lies. And so I just wanted to orientate everybody before we actually just kind of switch back to the rectangle kind of form here. I think Mr. Crum already kind of hit it, but the biggest issue that we have heard, bar none, has been the connections. Our comprehensive plan stresses connectivity. Anyone that is bringing in a zoning development plan with stub streets, especially in a set grid system like the St. Martin's neighborhood has stubbed into here, I think has no choice but to show those full connections today. Our subregs require it, but our comprehensive plan really requires it. If we're talking about a top five buzzwords and all of the comprehensive plan, I have a feeling connectivity is, if not number one, is very close. It's certainly the word I think we hear the most in our conversations with staff and also our conversations with the surrounding neighbors. I have committed to them. We do not need to connect to these neighborhood streets to meet fire code, to meet our development needs, to meet our traffic patterns. We do not. We are showing it because the community at large has said through its comprehensive plan that it wants connectivity for all of the reasons staff has already talked about. We are committed with this body, whether it be at the final development plan stage or the Urban County Council, when it comes to looking at these roads and how these two land uses are going to interact. We have committed. We are okay if these become pedestrian and bike connections. We are okay if this right-of-way ends up getting closed if the Urban County Council decides that. It will not impact us one bit. but I don't think it's appropriate for us to stand up here and have a zoning development plan with the way our comprehensive plan is and not show these connections as the starting point we've looked at doing hammerheads on these stubs we can do it on the site with basically a minimal impact to the actual layout and we can end them and terminate them that way but from a zoning developments plan stage from a preliminary plan stage we don't have a choice but to show these connections. Now we've heard the concerns about the basically traffic impact if these connections are made and it is why we have kind of designed the the main road through here like we have with kind of repeated kind of you know twists and turn we've already limited parking on this street and I think actually all of the streets that is correct to only one side we are only proposing the 30 kind of foot right-of-way with parking on one on all of the streets that are being proposed in this location. We also wanted to make sure that it is not a drag strip in any way, shape, or form. Traffic engineering wanted us to look at a traffic circle basically right here. And the problem is, as you all can guess, there's a significant tree right there. And that is why we kind of put the T right here as we did, in order to make sure that we actually save that significant tree. We've overloaded the site with street trees in order to add to this canopy area, and we also are not even getting close to maximizing what the total density of this site could be if the zone change goes through, but even if it actually stayed at the existing zoning of R1D, we are not close to maximizing the density. We are actually proposing today, basically, I believe it's 3.15 units per acre. the St. Martin's neighborhood is right now is approximately 4.5 units per acre. So we are recognizing that right below us, sorry, right below us, here is the traditional suburban point that has, you know, these units as basically crammed in as tightly as possible. We are recognizing that that is not compatible with the way that the neighborhood has been developed. And so what we are trying to do is transition from the more dense aspect of Suburban Point to the St. Martin's neighborhood and by doing it with a version of less density than actual St. Martin's but as a park as a whole it is still very dense in regards to how many affordable housing units we are making sure come into the Lexington market. As Mr. Martin said R1D requires 6,000 square feet per unit per For lot, R1E is 4,000 square feet per unit. We are proposing 5,000. So we are basically right in between the R1D and R1E minimum lot sizes. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. I'm sure you do, but we have a room full of folks that I know are itching to talk. Okay, thank you Mr. Nicholson, Mr. Wilson, and then Mr. Nicholson. Okay, just a couple questions for clarification. we did hear a lot of this in the subcommittee in terms of the land who the owners of the land are not selling the land they're leasing it they are they have already owned so excuse me so suburban point is owned by fayette mhc llc this property has been owned by the same entity uh since they purchased the property in 2021 it's part of the same parcel that that is basically just below this. So we are, as part of the community, we own the land. The resident buys the actual unit. They place it on one of the locations and there's a rent payment associated with that lot, but they own the unit itself. Okay, they own the unit, but they are renting the land. Yes. Okay, that's the one I want to get a classic. Yes, and that's why I was showing the total monthly payment. Okay, no problem, I just want to get it clear in my mind, what's what? In terms of all the minutes that you've shown, it seems to be very impressive. Who's paying, who maintains that? We do. There's no HOA, we do. Okay, thank you. Mr. Nicholson. Yes, Mr. Nicholson, I guess in anticipation of your conversations with the neighbors, you discussed potential hammerheads, but where are those located on the development plan I'm looking at right now? But we did not because we thought that we needed to show the connections with regards to the comprehensive plan and the subdivision regulations. We have confirmed that it's possible, which is a proper termination of a Stub Street that we could do. So on the individual Stub Streets that come in from these neighborhoods, you would have a hammerhead right there, you could have a hammerhead right there, you could have one right there. That is possible with our design layout. That would come through at the final development plan stage if the planning commission wanted us to go that route. That also ignores the connectivity arguments that we hear so frequently in this room. So we are happy to do that, but we do not want to do that unless you all basically are telling us it is more important to make sure that we are isolating these uses versus the connectivity arguments that we have heard from our comprehensive plan. But we're happy to do it. We're also happy to make them bike and ped in order to basically ensure some of the connectivity. It is, it's really, we will seek guidance throughout the final development plan from our neighbors and from you all and from the Urban County Council. Thank you. Ms. Burke. Mr. Nicholson, in terms of the initial units that are here, Is Suburban Point selling those units or people buy those units elsewhere and bring them in? There's a mix of both. And so we do basically sell units today in the existing part. We also allow people to come in. I think we are down to only one rental unit in the entire place that it is just owned by someone else and they are renting the unit. And presumably, if people are bringing in units, Suburban Point has standards that those units have to meet when they – how is that addressed? So that is basically the units that I kind of previously showed. These are the units that would be going into the new expansion area of Suburban Point. And just one additional question, because we use the word affordable housing a lot of different ways. I'm assuming you're using this in the sense of affordable as people can afford it, rather than affordable as it qualifies for federal funding. So since it's home ownership, you don't really have the same federal programs. That's why I wanted to break it out in comparison to what the rental market is and what the home ownership opportunity is. It would meet every qualification we have for the 60% AMI, but for the fact that it's home ownership it's not a rental unit that is part of any federal program but the prices would meet that okay mr. poe i have a question about the size of the adjacent properties along waverly drive you're saying that the average size of the lot in the proposal is 5,000 square feet? Yes. Do you know what the average size of the lot is of the adjacent properties along Waverly? So I know that the minimum lot size in R1D is 6,000 square feet, and I know that St. Martin's neighborhood is approximately 48 to 50 acres, and there are a total of 228 units there for a density of 4.56. I do not have the exact lot sizes. I do believe that they are different on, basically, if you look in between kind of Waverly and Effie, I think there are larger lots there, and they are changed when it gets to Dominicans and St. Martins. Thank you. I've got a question with regard to the land rent payments. What are those really? Because you're showing a purchase price of about $70,000, but a total monthly cost around $1,300 and something. So what are you anticipating with regard to the terms of home ownership? Is it 30 years, 15 years? And how much are you really leasing the land for? And that is kind of why we had to break it in the total monthly, because we had to make assumptions on what mortgage payment interest rates were. uh kurt do you have kind of what the approximate lease price rent prices yeah 450 500 okay and then the um and so if you're looking okay well i lost it um But if you were looking at, we broke it down into the different kind of units. So a two bedroom, two bath, you're looking at basically the monthly payments for the mortgage in the basically roughly 850 to 900 range. For the four bedroom, two bath, you're looking at just about 1,000. Okay, any more questions for the applicant? Mr. Davis? Yeah, James. Is that included? So that was basically for the ownership equity. So you're paying basically for the $1,300 for a two bedroom, two bath unit, the 450 applies to the rent and the 1300, the kind of bulk of that, the 850 to 900, that is to the bank for basically your mortgage payment that you're building equity on. Mr. Chairman, just one other quick question. On the parks that already has been developed on the front end, do the people own that property or are they doing the same thing? It is the same thing. Same kind of system that you're looking at. That's why Flagship was able to go in and make all the improvements that they were. Okay, Mr. Nicholson, thank you. Thank you. All right. This is time for the citizen comments and I know we have Mr. Bruce Simpson here to speak and we have a list of other citizens and homeowners that would like to speak as well. Mr. Simpson is granted 20 minutes for his time and after that each individual citizen will be granted three minutes per citizen. So, Mr. Simpson. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Bruce Simpson. I am representing St. Martin's Village Neighborhood Association. Privileged to be here in front of you guys, and certainly privileged to represent St. Martin's Village, a very historic neighborhood. Not by choice, but by default. Its history only came about because the people that lived in St. Martin's Village beginning in 1955 were precluded from living in most of the other areas of Lexington by virtue of deed restriction and bank loans. So it's a history because of our previous history of not treating people fairly. St. Martin's Village suffered through Jim Crow. When many of us were going to the Kentucky Theater and the other Band-Ali and Strand, St. Martin's Village folks were having to sit in the balcony. I need not go into all of those historical features. The facts are certainly well established. Suffice it to say though, in spite of Jim Crow, this neighborhood has not only survived, but it's thrived. And it's multi-generational. It's not like you see many neighborhoods where people just leave. About 80% of the people that live here have history roots in this neighborhood. It is a true neighborhood more than just location, but in terms of humanity, of collective sharing, and looking out for one another. It's very unique, as you will hear from the folks who will testify. And that's important. It's important because one of the gaps in our comprehensive plan, one of the gaps in our community development is we get a lot of lip service to preserving certain historical features, particularly African American features. Well, we don't do anything really to put enforcement tools at work to protect them. Our comprehensive plan is one of those documents. Speaks a lot about equity and fairness, yes. What about preserving historical African American neighborhoods? Where's the specific policy on that? We have policies about preserving historic farms in Fayette County. We have a PDR program that will pay farmers not to develop in order to preserve them for our historical purposes, our identity, our brand. That's important. But so is African American history. It's the central part of our history. If you go downtown Lexington in front of the old courthouse, you'll see a historic marker. I dare say many of you have not seen it. What does that marker say? It talks about in the middle of the Civil War, that old courthouse on Cheapside was the site of slavery. It's less than a quarter mile away. What's important history? It's particularly important history today that it not be forgotten, though some try. History forgotten can be history repeated. This is a neighborhood whose integrity needs to be preserved. They have nurtured it, cared for it, looked after each other and this neighborhood since 1955. So what are we looking at today with respect to this zone change as to this neighborhood? We're looking at adding a concept of development that is totally incongruous and incompatible with how St. Martin's Village was planned and developed and has been maintained for 70 years. He's 70 next year, we're halfway through the year, so I'm carrying forward 70 years. St. Martin's Village has taken care of itself. So what do we do? Three stub streets, yes. They've been there for 70 years, not connected. The folks that couldn't live elsewhere in Lexington in a new subdivision like I could, stayed there. They didn't leave, they stayed. Now they're faced with this zone change. And all us planning nerds, talking about me, talk about the comprehensive plan, subdivision regulations, and zoning ordinances, until the folks on channel three get weary and turn it on ESPN. It came as quite a shock to these neighbors when they met with the developer and its representatives on July 23rd this year. Three days before the scheduled planning commission hearing. That's when we had a neighborhood meeting. We were shocked to learn that by the time we met with the applicant, you guys had already reviewed this proposal. The technical committee had reviewed it at the end of June. The planning subcommittee had reviewed it on July the 3rd on subdivisions. And the planning zoning committee, the other half of the planning commission, reviewed it on the afternoon of July 3rd. We were surprised to learn that all that happened on July 26th, and we were also surprised to learn that the planning staff, at the time we met with the applicant, had already recommended approval of this amendment. We were not able to participate in the technical review committee. We were not able to participate at the planning subdivision committee or the zoning committee. In my judgment, that's not consistent with complying with a comprehensive plan with respect to engaging the neighborhood regarding a zone change to find out what is it you all would like to see. How would you like to see this land developed? Instead, we get a notice, we're going to meet three days before the hearing, and then they postpone because when they filed the application, they had not met with the neighbors. Staff pointed that out in their presentation. So we're playing catch-up as of today. We're playing catch-up. Y'all have heard this case on July the 3rd. How does that make the folks that I represent feel? Not good. Now, there may be some obscure reference in the notification letter. Well, you can call the planning staff or there may be a technical review committee and maybe a reference to subcommittee meetings. My experience in doing this for 41 years, if you're talking about a neighborhood who's going through a zone change for the first time, you got to do more than that. That's not meaningful notice that you need to get involved early. You need to show up for the technical review committee and get educated. You got to show up for the subcommittee meetings, get educated, have your voice heard. There was no meaningful notice and opportunity to be heard up to today. I wasn't engaged until shortly before the neighborhood meeting. Be that as it may, we're here. playing catch up. But the comp plan hadn't been complied with with regard to neighborhood engagement. Now the applicant has said they don't need the connection. Are they, they don't really object to having the connection stopped. They could have filed an application that requested a waiver of the subdivision regulations and still be heard on the zone map amendment. And we could have had a healthy debate with regard to the development plan that showed no connection. Why is that important? homes, long time, highly credentialed, nationally recognized urban planner, I'll share with you why that's important, particularly for African American neighborhoods where the kind of connection we're talking about with this case, with respect to this case, with the the existing mobile homes that are there now, and the 52 that are being added, and the proposed street connections to St. Martin's Village, we have the potential of 5,800 new motor vehicle trips going through St. Martin's Village each and every day. Now, to be sure, They're not all going to go through there every day. That's the potential. Because each single family house is going to be going through St. Martin's Village, generates on the average 9.5 trips per day. That's statistical recognized from the trip generation manual that guides your planner in terms of traffic generated. All this will be new traffic through St. Martin's Village that has had no traffic for 70 years. Ed Holmes will tell you what impact, opening up that much traffic potential, and even if it's only 1,000 or 2,000 into this neighborhood is a radical impact. But what evidence has been shared with you respect to impact on the neighborhood. What concerns have been shared with you up to now? None. Ed Holmes will share with you what the impact will be. So it's a serious impact, it's a serious threat, it's a serious affront to a historic neighborhood that never intended to be historic, but it had to be if these folks that I represent wanted to live in this community back in 1955. And those restrictions around Lexington, they're still in a county courthouse. They've been declared unconstitutional, but they're still part of our history in Lexington. So we're looking at 5,800 potential trips going through St. Martin's Village, but even if it's only 1,000, 2,000, 1,500, 2,500, for what purpose? To benefit a new neighborhood, an expansion of the mobile home park, comprehensive plan talks about promoting sustainable residential development. Okay, let's look at that with respect to this application. Someone is being asked to spend $90,000, $100,000 or more dollars for a mobile home, finance it through the applicant. And then they got to pay the applicant rent on the land. They don't get the benefit, like most homeowners, of appreciation in the real estate, because they don't own it. They don't get equity from the real estate, which is where the people generate savings. Most of us that are privileged to own a home, we get that equity. Not these folks. Is that the kind of future sustainable development that you wanna create for future Lexingtonians that live here? They don't get the equity? That seems awfully inequitable to me. Now, This application calls for enhanced neighborhood place type. Where does that come from? That comes from the comprehensive plan. Place builder, much debated, even litigated, 2018. But it has been a principle guiding development for every one of your all's decisions since 2018. Principles of guiding development. It's the most detailed element of the comprehensive plan that's followed. You've got to show how you comply with the place builder development criteria. Now, this is our comprehensive plan. It may be the largest comprehensive plan in the world. I don't know. I've never seen anything larger or more detailed. I mean, it is down to double dotting I's and double crossing T's. Why is that important? Well, it's important because the enhanced neighborhood, which is the basis of their application, the basis of your all's decision to consider compliance with the comprehensive plan. on the enhanced neighborhood it has as part of the excruciating detail in this document i think it's like close to 700 pages single spaced recommended zones for enhanced neighborhood which is what's before you You know the recommended zone that is not in enhanced neighborhood? Mobile home parks. No, it's not there. It was conspicuously left out. This is not in compliance with the comprehensive plan under any reasonable reading of this very, very detailed document. It simply is not. There is no legal basis for you to find it, compliance with the comprehensive plan. Now before I finish up my presentation, I wanted to share with you and put in the record some of the history. While that's being circulated, this is to emphasize the history because this is one of those cases where the residents speak more clearly with more relevance than any attorney. I'm just going to call your attention to a couple of paragraphs. This was an article that was published April the 2nd, 1955 in the Herald Eater. Now what I'm about to share with you, this is in the Herald Eater. This isn't language we use today, but it's history. It's history. Construction to start, these are headlines, construction to start in new subdivision. to construct permits for construction of three houses in St. Martin's Village, new subdivision for Negroes were granted yesterday. We made a point of saying who it was for. Why? Because they couldn't live anywhere else. Why adversely impact this historic neighborhood with a zone change proposal proposal that specifically under your plan, 700 plus pages, does not delineate mobile home park zoning as part of what is recommended for this application. It has to be denied. I have a list, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Ed Holmes was next on the list. Yes, Mr. Holmes. Good afternoon, my name is Ed Holmes. I'm a planner with EHI Consultants and also a good friend of Tom Martins, obviously. I'm here today to speak to you on what some of the planning attributes are when the staff is recommending connection to the streets. Not connecting streets can also be a strategic urban planning move in certain circumstances or instances. And this is one I think is most relevant. The issue before us in planning and planning terms are, we like to think in terms of planning as being, it's art, not a science. And when we talk about what zoning says, what land use says, we clearly try and put it into a box of what's appropriate here. And in St. Martin's case, this is one of them. The most difficult part of planning is social equity and social justice. And that's what I think comes to play here in St. Martin's. There are several reasons why not connecting that will preserve and protect St. Martin's building, connecting the streets. St. Martin is a historic neighborhood as Bruce has eloquently conveyed. But connecting streets through this historic neighborhood will increase traffic, create more problems than it will stop. So what we're saying is, I think you can do your development, but not necessarily connect it through St. Martin's because of preserving the neighborhood character. This neighborhood has existed historically, not having those connected streets and benefited them well not connecting streets it creates safety and crime concerns keeping it the self-contained an enclave that it is has enabled them to exist as a very viable sustainable neighborhood and not connecting those streets will continue to preserve that not connecting is also helps in traffic management they're basically local streets if you go through st martin's and And there's really no major arterial that connects or collector streets that connect them. So not connecting those local streets with this development will continue to enhance that. There's the issue of social and economic considerations. What will you do when you connect these streets? The lack of connectivity might help maintain that social cohesiveness that exists in St. Martin's. The residents have existed there for this long. you know you know traveling those streets that don't connect they know how to circumvent there they get to the park they get to the areas where they want to go and they walk it it serves as a neighborhood that's self-contained and works well for them it reduces noise pollution speed and those types of things the level of community cohesion that happens in st martin's the layouts are designed they might be sub streets but they're designed for people to walk to their neighbor's houses to get to where they need. So there's no need to have those connections. This is one time I think connecting and going with your plan doesn't necessarily serve the needs of what we have here. The issues, and one of your goals and objectives was saying, put my glasses on. You want to ensure equitable development and rectify Lexington segregation by race and socioeconomic policies. We know that planning has discriminated against neighborhoods of color for years and years. And if you're going to continue this process by connecting those streets, then you're going against your own goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. There are several communities that we've worked in that also have dealt with similar problems like this. It's not unusual when we see communities of color that are oftentimes disenfranchised. We're in the worst neighborhoods. we have the worst amenities because we were in areas that weren't prime for development this one you're next to a mobile home park you're you're restricted by new circle road and there's a railroad track to the to the west so it wasn't the most prime areas for location but it was built and it served this community well there are there are a few examples where where small black communities have intentionally limited street connection. And it's throughout the countries where we've seen this occur. It's happened in Westbrook, New York. Here's one in Houston, Texas. In recent years, there's been opposition to development projects that would increase street connectivity and potentially lead to disenfranchisement and gentrification. So the community has fought to reserve that right by not having connections. So connections in overall planning terms tend to work, and I would encourage connectivity for the most part. But in this case and in this community, this served well by not connecting it. I think the hammerhead solution, if this zone change goes through, is a perfect idea. You know, give them the hammerhead and then do a landscaping buffer to protect the neighborhood. It's really designed to protect the neighborhood. There's a case in Austin, Texas that talks about over the years this neighborhood resisted certain development pressures that could increase street connectivity to surrounding areas. The community has been active in preserving and protecting their community, their cultural heritage and maintain degree of separation. We did a project in Clarksville, Tennessee, similar concept where a neighborhood was one to redevelop and grow, but it was an isolated neighborhood. So what happened was there were encroachments from the university, and what they did was protect that by not having those connections. So once again, connections also need to be looked at in terms of land use, intensity, and how that's going to affect the development. And in this case, I think it's inappropriate to do those connections, and there's some other design amenities that we could address that would make those so i speak on behalf of the residents in opposing any type of connection to the project thank you thank you mr holmes next is valerie logan hello my name is Valerie Logan and I'm representing my dad George Logan and my mom Betty Logan they there are several stories that you just got in regards to what it was like to live in Lexington no place to live but my dad was one of those type of people that he set his boundaries and he liked a challenge so him and some brothers of his fraternity brothers who went to school at Kentucky State University came to Lexington and they brought their fraternity group and they brought it into St. Martin's Village St. Martin's Village to us was an experiment a social experiment because they just said we're gonna build you some houses we're gonna stick you over there this is not an area that we want to be in anyway and then they left they didn't provide support of any kind these men got together with the group in the community and they made it self-sufficient themselves they were professionals they were skilled masons concrete workers teachers principals so they all got together they traded and bartered and made bricks and they took the plane house and they brick the houses they put patios they added driveways and They did it all themselves. They worked it out. They figured out a way to improve their neighborhoods Then these men they had their own separate schools at the time we had our own teachers our own Parents who took us and supported us they trained mentored us and then we got bused They decided they're gonna step up again these men joined the school district as principals as teachers they went from that point they went farther up my father was one of those people and he was a proactive man and what he did in his community he did it quietly these QS I I mean, their wives were QEDs, and they were Qs. And these Qs, they decided that they were going to take upon themselves. And when they originally made this chapter charter members, they were Berryman Foster, Robert Jefferson, Gentry LaRue, George Logan. All of these people became a part of the community. They became principals and they worked within the systems. My father went and he was on the planning committee for 10 years. He wanted to be a part of anything he could get his hands on to include African Americans in Lexington. Lexington he unsuccessfully ran for the district 77 district but he kept progressing until he finally got someone and we were represented in a district he worked on the Planning Commission then he also worked for the school district in the history department to ensure that black history got included in all the history books that came through Kentucky. He also worked on the commission for Martin Luther King to make sure that it became a designated holiday for Kentucky. I mean, he lived in that same house. They live in that same house today. These people, Foster and Jefferson, all lived in that same neighborhood. They raised their three to four kids per household. in that neighborhood, sent them all to colleges. They owned that property. When they passed, they passed it on to their kids, their grandkids. 80% to 70% are still owned generationally by the same people. They have been there. The city has done absolutely nothing until just recently to include us in any form or fashion. Ma'am, it is three minutes. We do ask you to wrap up now. Well, in all, in the conclusion for all of this, all I'm saying is that this is an experiment that we still are in processing. We're still thriving. We're making it work. There is the same group of queues are still in the neighborhood. They're still processing. They're still helping us out. We are thriving on our own. And to bring in this, it changes the effect of the neighborhood, how it works, how the community is cohesive together. And I just think that at this time, it's not a good idea unless it's profiting us. And so far, I haven't heard anything about anything new coming into St. Martin's Village to assist us or to add to the property. I will ask that going forward, we hold the applause and that as a reminder, we have three minutes per speaker and we do have quite a number of speakers and we want to make sure everyone is heard and we're fair to everyone's time. And so if Mrs. Anne Green, thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Anne Green. I live on Erie Road along with my husband Sherman Green. We have lived there for over 60 years. We are the oldest residents on our street. My husband is 95 and I am 91. I am here to voice my objection to the proposed project of the mobile home addition in our area. St. Martin Village, as you all have heard and know, is the oldest subdivision built for the black community. For as you all know, we could not buy a home in any other area in this city. We were unwelcome there and sometimes I wonder if we still are welcome in some areas. We are a close-knit community. We do not need the addition or change in our way of life such as the noise and the traffic that probably occur at all hours of the night and our streets are narrow as it is. We have never had a problem with emergency vehicles arriving on time or leaving. The sanitation workers have no problem getting in and out of our area. If I understood the representative from the mobile home company, he said they could do what they needed to do without cutting through or opening our streets. So why do it? I have just one question. Would a trailer court be welcome in your neighborhoods? No, I'll answer it for you. It seems to me that all other historical black areas in this city have and are being compromised. They They have boxed us in or brought us out for so-called improvements. Is that what the plan is next for St. Martin Village? So I am here to bitterly oppose the opening of the streets or any disruption in our community. Just leave us alone. We're doing just fine, just like we are. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And again, just a reminder, please hold your applause to the end. Ms. Virgil Covington. My name is Virgil Covington, Jr. I am 71 years old. I know I don't look like it. 71 years old, and I was born in 1953, and in 1955, my parents moved me from Chestnut Street to St. Martin's Village. St. Martin's Village was our community. It was our safe haven. I know Hillary wrote a book that says it takes a village, And I remember when I talked to my staff, I'm an educator, and when I talked to my staff, I told them, you know, the problem is the village has to be on the same page for the village to work like a village. Our St. Martin's Village, these parents watched over all of us. They were all on the same page in terms of expectations, in terms of establishing discipline in our community, in terms of us having dreams about how we wanted to go out and do great things. St. Martin's Village was that to us. Tibbs Lane, always been closed. Dominican, always been closed. St. Martin's, always been closed. So I ask the same question. They've told us they don't need it opened. We don't need it open. Who wants it open? Who wants it open? Who wants it open that's going to be affected by it? We ask that you say no. No. Doesn't need to be open. We've always been a separate community. One of the things that they have at the front of the community at the mobile home park, that says private property, no trespassing. They don't want us either. Let us, let us be the village that we've always been, and we'll be okay. Thank you. Artie Green. Good afternoon. Artie Green is my name. I grew up in St. Martin's Village. I've been there most of my life. One thing that I'd like to add, because Virgil and I, of course, I can't look out here without seeing people that I grew up with and whose parents said, don't do that. You know, so we're always looking out for each other. Now, this particular neighborhood, which is a community, which is a village, we call it, but it's also the area that we walk to church in. Our people who passed were buried in Greenwood Cemetery right across the street. Douglas Park was the first black park, I believe, in the city down the street. So this is just a big community that we're trying to protect, in essence. And I can just look at everyone here and say everybody pretty much says the same thing. What do we need with the connectivity? Childs Avenue, the first black attorney in the city. And named after James Alexander Childs. Okay, right across the street. So what we're trying to protect is our community spirit, community. We don't need to have folks that just drive through our community to get somewhere else. In fact, we ask where are they going? There are no stores here. So they're going to come up through the neighborhood and come back out on Price Road. We can do that now. So that's one of the things that we don't want to destroy anything to destroy what we're trying to keep. Some of these folks here have been here three generations. The bonds is back there. Built his family built the homes. That's what I'm trying to say. So it's not like we're just passing through. We have built a family that sort of protects itself and so I appreciate it if you all would disallow this. All right, thank you. Thank you. Alva Covington and then following her, Michelle Davis. Yes, thank you. My name is Alva Mitchell-Clark Covington, and I am a St. Martin villager. My parents and siblings moved to St. Martin village when I was about three years old. My father moved us from a two-room shotgun house that he rented. He did that joyfully, moving to St. Martin village, because it was, as stated earlier, one of the only places that African Americans could move to a subdivision, seeking a better life. Many of others have already talked about the idyllic nature of St. Martin Village. For me, it seemed like a thriving commune where children played outside, parents and adults, families were working very hard, hardworking people to make a better life for their families. It was a really wonderful place that we felt secure, we felt protected, and we thrived. You know, when I first heard about this proposal, it reminded me of what happened when the schools in Lexington were integrated, or should I say desegregated. It reminded me of what they did to the black schools. And our black school was Douglas. Douglass served our community in St. Martin's Village. And what ended up happening is they closed our schools. When we used to walk to school in our neighborhood, then we were bused across town. I wondered if anybody ever understood the devastation and the negative impact of that, how it negatively affected the residents of my community. I'm wondering now, as I think about what you're saying about the connectivity. Has anybody talked to the residents to see how that impacts us? We have additional traffic. I have a vision impairment. My neighbor across the street has a vision impairment. We have folks with disabilities on the block. There's just children still go out and play like they did when I was growing up. There's a lot of activities. We have a lot of senior citizens, a lot more senior than me, that are on our blocks and who are walking and doing things, and it's just not safe to have additional traffic flow. So I too ask you to consider the benefits. Take this opportunity. Don't do what they did when they integrated our schools. They did that, and the school building, Douglas' school building, was only like 10 or 15 years old, and they closed our building and bust us. when no one considered the negative impact it had on the students from Douglas and the surrounding area. So I ask you just to consider it, what impact, negative or positive, would it have on our community? And I'm here to say that it has a negative impact to change that. Talk to the residents, talk to the people that it actually affects, and that's us. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle Davis, and then if I'm pronouncing this, Enoch Elliott is following. My name is Michelle Davis and I'm the president of St. Martin's Village Neighborhood Association. I live at 940 DePores Avenue for 66 years in the house that my parents bought. St. Martin's Village was built in 1955 and it was the first black subdivision in Lexington. My father worked at the Bluegrass Army Depot and my mother was a housekeeper. It was the only subdivision in Lexington that allowed my parents the opportunity to purchase a house. During that time, everything was segregated. Even Douglas School on Price's Road was the only school that I could attend, and I was there from first through sixth grade. My parents were very proud of their home, and since they have passed on, I live in the same place. I've raised my daughter, my granddaughter, and my great-granddaughter. My house will be passed down through the generations of my family. St. Martin's Village, which is known as The Village, has been a safe place for me to raise my family. Some of my parents' friends, when they moved from the country, moved into St. Martin's Village to buy a house. Some of them, parents and their children used to babysit me. When my mother was sick, my neighbors helped out by taking her to the doctors and they would prepare food for us to eat. My mother passed away and my neighbors were there to comfort me. My neighbors were my second family. Growing up in this neighborhood, we had ministers, teachers, principals, police officers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, military, government workers, council members, and our families respected the neighbors, the neighborhood, and the community. If I ever got in trouble at school, my mother knew before I got home because we were neighbors and everybody knew everyone. I was the only child in my family. I was the only child. My mother didn't have any more. It was very important that my parents had somebody for me to play with. So I would go over to my friend's house and I knew that when the street lights came on, I had to be home. If I wasn't home, she was out there on the front porch, hollering for me to come home. When my family had other friends, when members of my neighbors had other family members come in, they were just like my family because we all played together, we ate together, we went to school together, we had a great summer time. And to this day, I still have great friendships with those family members as an adult. We are a very close niche community. As you can see, the characteristics of our neighborhood needs to be preserved. I'm just about finished. We need to keep the sub-streets, Tibbs Lane, Dominican and St. Martin's closed because of the increase of traffic. We have a lot of children, we have a lot of elderly people in our neighborhood. They won't feel safe walking down the sidewalks or crossing the streets. They will be in jeopardy of being hit by all this increase of traffic. As I conclude, living here for 66 years in this neighborhood, it's my life. This is my community. This is my family. We do not want the streets open. We want them closed. Please make that your consideration and keep our historical black neighborhood intact. Thank you. I also have here a petition from our neighborhood. I don't know who I am to give this to. Right behind you. You can turn it in for the record. But we wanted to make sure that we had people that could not be here today that are representing the same opposition that we have. Thank you. Thank you. Step forward and state your name and address for the record. Thank you. My name is Enoch Elliott. I live at 935 Effie Road. My parents moved into St. Martin's in 1956, December of 1956, where my friends and I rode our bikes safely through the neighborhood all the time as the neighborhood grew. And for my parents, it was the first time they had a chance to actually buy a house in town. They rented several places, but the first time they actually had a chance to buy a house in a safe neighborhood. Now I'm going to divert slightly from our neighborhood and bring up this. when Coldstream was placed in between Oakwood and Highlands neighborhoods, there are stub streets that, you know, they just stub together. Like, let's see, like in Oakwood, Cedarwood Drive stubs up against Sugarcane that's in Coldstream. Cold Streams, there's a street called Dark Tower that stubs up against Mark Avenue and Highlands. They just bump together. There's probably a 20-foot barrier between them. That's pretty much what we would, minimum of what we would want at the ends of Tibbs, Dominican, and St. Martins. And I physically measure Tibbs, Dominican, and St. Martins. St. Martins is 36 feet wide. Dominican is 26 and a half. Tibbs is 27. I don't think Tibbs and Dominican are probably wide enough to actually stub into with another neighborhood's streets. So in conclusion, we would prefer that you vote no. As the neighborhood, we prefer that you vote no on this change. Thank you. I have next up on the list Scotty Green and then Kentucky State Representative George Brown. Good afternoon. My name is Scotty Green. I am a villager. I grew up at, when my family moved to 973 Waverly Drive, the street ended there. And my mother couldn't believe it, when they were building that house, we lived in Charlotte Court at the time, which was a government housing project. And we walked up there, I can't tell you how many days to look at that house. And we would go through that house and talk about this is going to be somebody's room, this is that. My mother loved that house. We loved that house. Years later, that year I met my husband who lived down the street from me. And he and his brother and sister, when they moved to that house at 948 Waverley Drive, the street stopped there. So we know St. Martin's Village. and St. Martin's Village is our homes. My mother was able to later move to Oakwood, which is another subdivision, but my husband's family still owns their house and that is our home. And we've, all of the kids at one time, my husband has four siblings, three siblings, and we've all lived in that house as adults when we've fallen on hard times. My husband went to UK law school, and when we were poor and nobody was living in the house, we lived in the house. When my husband's sister went to UK and became a nurse, she lived in the house. So that house is family property, and it is being passed down. 80% of the homes in St. Martin's Village, someone has a root in that house. That neighborhood is our neighborhood. That is our village. And that village belongs to us. You may not know what that means. My mother worked at Eastern State and she wasn't a rich woman. She walked to work to save the bus fare money. And she would walk home. She worked from 11 to 7, 11 at night to 7 in the morning so that she could be home with her other younger children while we were at school. and she would sleep and the kids would be there in the house with her and she loved that house we loved that house that is what St. Martin's is to us people have struggled and worked and done all kinds of things to keep their homes we oppose whatever this plan is I don't live in St. Martin's anymore but that is That's my home, my husband's family still lives there. And that is our homes. Please don't change our homes. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening Mr. Chair, members of the committee, the planning commission. I'm George Brown and I'm state representative representing the 77th legislative house district. In the early 60s, my family moved to St. Martin Village, the village. And that was legacy property for my family. When my parents passed, the home passed to me and my sisters. My sister lived on St. Martin Avenue. And when she passed, it passed to my niece. We've heard today the legacy of St. Martin's Village. It is truly a rich and deep heritage that is the village. We've heard the petitioner come and tell us all the great and wonderful things that would happen in the proposed area. We've always heard those things. We talked about desegregation and changing our schools because it was good for us. That those were the right things that were to happen for us in our communities. But the thing is that no one, no one ever came and asked us. We talked about Douglas High School, Douglas Elementary School. That was the place, that was the center for the village and the children that lived in the county. At Dunbar High School, I defied my mother for the first time in my life and I prepared to die because I knew she was going to kill me. She was going to send me to Lexington Catholic and I said, no ma'am, I'm not going to Lexington Catholic, I'm going to Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School at 549 North Upper Street. We've heard all the bells and whistles that this new development would propose for the village and how wonderful it would be and the rents and the ability to have clean, decent housing, affordable housing. heard very eloquently from the attorney for the village, Bruce Simpson, talking about how the things that occurred over the years in terms of housing for African-American people in Lexington Fair County. I was told by my fraternity brother, Brother Charles Quilling, that up until 1955, that African Americans could not borrow money in this city to buy a house or to purchase land. This is not by accident. And there are people who are Johnny-come-lately that tell us that we got something better for you and it'll be beautiful and it's wonderful and all the bells and whistles. What I would say to you, and this is a saying that I hope you all will take in terms of your deliberations as to what you're going to do. with this proposal is that if you put lipstick on pig, it's still a pig. Thank you very much. Thank you. And then if I'm mispronouncing it, correct me when you come to the program, Jacquees Whittington? Jock. Jock Whittington. Presiding officer to the Planning Commission. To opposing counsel, Mr. Nichols, and certainly to our friend here. First of all, let me say that I come from Chicago where tonight history is going to be made. And I have a daughter who is 19 years old. It's her first time voting. And I took her from that Chicago scene where she would see history because I need to get here to preserve it. I come to you as a former council member, being the last one to represent both Georgetown Neighborhood Association that's affected, as well as the St. Martin Village Neighborhood Association, where they were one in one district. I, at this date, am the longest living to have ever sat in the seat to this date. And I was asked to look at this situation. As a council member, one of the most contentious things that you would face was a zone change. So we wanted to try to do our due diligence in getting the parties together if it was in our district to have where they had a sit down ahead of time and see if we could work something out before we got there. With that, I want to commend counsel Nick Nicholson because he stayed true to what I heard in the public meeting that we had. And he said then, he said now, that as far as the development, there is no emergency requirement to have the extension made from Tia's Dominican and from St. Martin. They said that we can handle the border issue. We can make sure it's even better than what it was before because we'll maintain it. I have what the neighborhood says, you know what? Our number one issue is connectivity and border and value because those things affect value. The one question that could not be answered that night was how does it affect your value of your property? And you know why? I even went and I talked to having been in the business before I was in building before I got on council. And so I called an appraiser and I called a realtor. And I said, let me ask you a question. How would that affect that neighborhood? And the definitive answer is we don't know because that's not what we do in Lexington. We don't connect historic neighborhoods with trailer parks. And please understand there's a difference between a mobile home and a modular home. A mobile home has to do with the type. A modular home has to do with the way it's built. Whenever you tie a home to a footer and a slab, that's a slab, that's a house, and it's not going anywhere. But that's not our business. Our business is to say that when it comes to connectivity, that I have a neighborhood that's in agreement with a developer, and for me, that's a great day. So what I'm asking you to do is I'm asking you to allow for there to be a one-month delay. to allow for a waiver to be done so that they can put in a waiver that asks for those streets not to be included because they've even testified. The only reason it's there is because supposedly the comprehensive plan says the requirement. Let's talk about this comprehensive plan for just a second. The word is comprehensive. It is time. Okay. I'll close up. Comprehensive plan says that we've considered what's in the best interest. As far as value, what you said was is that when we do develop on this land, we're going to make it just like the development you have at St. Martin Village. And then those new buyers who buy in would have where they make the decision whether they want to be connected with the trailer park. That works by the market and by the buyer. You're now requiring them to take a leap of faith that has no benefit to them whatsoever. And it's unnecessary when I actually found two people, two groups that agree. We just need you to be in agreement. Thank you. That does conclude the first list that was prepared by the representation. We are going to move on to everyone who would like to speak will have the same opportunity with three minutes to the podium. uh... what i would ask is if one person if that anyone who would like to speak on this to come up to the podium and then one or two people behind them can just sort of come up and state your name and your address and will give everyone three minutes that afternoon planning committee my name is tina brooks warren I live at 912 DePorest Avenue. I come representing my mom who lives on the end of Tibbs Lane where you would possibly want to open that street. My memories of St. Martin Village growing up, my father moved us here from Richmond, Kentucky, Madison County. He was one of the first original IBMers and he moved his family over here to get a new house. That property that has been purchased, I always remember that property as being a dividing line between St. Martin Village and the trailer park. I was always taught that you weren't supposed to cross that field and go anywhere near the trailer park because you were not welcome as a child of seven years old. I also experienced a man that worked for that family, the Pfister family. He was a groundskeeper. He did their farming over there. I remember as a small child hearing a gunshot, and the man that worked for them, Mr. Madden, was shot and paralyzed because he was coming over there and taking vegetables for the people that he worked for to feed his family. That traumatized me, and it actually limited me of where I could go when I grew up to purchase a home. When I became an adult riding on the school bus, I always wanted to live over in the Marlboro area. And my husband and I, we actually were able to purchase a home over there. I wanted to do that because I was tired of being limited to where I could live, and I wanted to decide where I wanted to live. My realtor would always direct me back into the black neighborhoods, the Green Acres, the Wimburn, the Oakwood, the black neighborhoods. So I fired him. And I sought out to purchase a house myself over in the Marlboro area where I lived for 27 years, raised my children, but I ended up back in St. Martin Village to take care of my mother, who will be 90 years old in November. She still lives at the end of St. Martin Village. She said she'll live there until she draws her last breath. So I'm there supporting her. She doesn't have to move into a senior assistant housing living situation. I'm able to take care of her because I live right up the street facing Tibbs Lane, I can't even imagine when I look at my residence and looking over into that same field, I can't even imagine 52 homes over there. If you would come and visit Tibbs Lane from where I see it, I don't think you could imagine it either. I say no to this proposal. Thank you. Good evening. I, of course, do not live in St. Martin Village. My name is Patty Drouse. I live in Joyland at 608 Allen Court. I'm a citizen concerned about climate chaos and greenhouse gas emissions, and I am a Sierra Club member, although I'm not speaking for the Sierra Club. Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the city has projects working on greenhouse gas emission reductions in all sectors. is a major emitter of greenhouse gases from electricity consumption. Trailers are all electric. They are generally poorly insulated. Maybe these brand new trailers that people can't afford will be better insulated, I don't know, but is everyone going to have a brand new trailer? I have known of trailer residents, I know trailer residents, who had electric bills of $300 to $500 a month to heat and cool their residences. This property is zoned residential. If houses or townhouses are built on this property, permanent solid housing, it would certainly be better insulated than a trailer and therefore, utility costs would be lower and greenhouse gas emissions would be lower. Additionally, buildings would better tolerate the effects of extreme weather due to climate change. All the high winds, driving rains, etc., and they would be much safer residences. The city should not be approving more trailers, but should encourage permanent solid housing, respectful housing for low income housing on this property, which will better serve the public. This use for this parcel of land does not contribute to the Lexington community's efforts to reach net zero emissions by 2050. For this reason, I oppose this zone change. And secondly, I was in a meeting the other night where a resident of the current trailer park spoke and she said, and I am saying, be sure to ask the question, what happens when a resident in the trailer park defaults on the rent of their mobile home space. It costs $5,000 to move a mobile home. If they can't afford the rent, they can't get the mobile home out of there. Who keeps that trailer? Thank you. Hello, my name is Tammy Bright and I live on 960 DePores Avenue. same home that my parents moved in from the very, they were on the very first street. I have pictures. One thing I want to say, because everybody else has said everything about no to the zone change and no to the streets, is that please don't look at us as nobodies. Okay, please respect and be considerate of our feelings, of our homes, of our culture. When you consider, because our parents were very proud. My dad was a Shriner. My mom went to Hampton University. you know they had we had the nicest cars this is a picture from depores avenue before the village even got finished you can see up the street and i started to give this to you guys but i know we probably don't have time he was a shriner he was a boy scout leader you know this is a picture of dad and the neighbor next door which is Pam Allen's dad. We all have just been a very close community and still are. So I'm just asking that you consider us. Don't just say oh these people live over here and oh it don't matter we can just do this. Please don't do that. Don't like look like we don't matter. If you lived in Blackford, would you want a mobile home next door? You know, would you, you're about to retire, would you want to sit on your porch with a cup of coffee looking at a mobile home in front of you or in the back, in the backyard, you know? So I'm just saying consider us as you would consider yourselves. you. Good afternoon my name is Barbara Carsby I live on St. Martin's Avenue excuse me I was going to come up here today I was going to speak about you know the rezoning part and it just dawned on me that we are this is the village you guys don't understand the story because we've heard this story growing up. So everything they're telling you is what we already know. They're telling you to let you know what the village represents to them. And I look at some of you guys' faces and you don't, it's like, okay, we'll just listen three minutes, it's over with. And then I was going to come up here and I was going to, you know, say what the developer said. And then Mr. Martin said, I want to introduce my best friend. And my best friend is the attorney over here. And I said, Wow, we're done. I think it was actually one of your all's representatives. Then I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I thought it was the developer. So now I can go on because the developer said we don't need the opening. And I am so sorry. I am so sorry. And so my thing is, is that Mr. Martin made a good point that I'm going to use too. The access to St. Martin's, Tibbs, and Dominican. It has no benefits to us. We're a dead street. And just like Mr. Green said, where are these cars going to go? Mr. Martin said, limit too much access, which means that we will have cars. You're talking about 50 trailer parks times two cars, times three. That's 150 cars coming where? Everywhere. And then you got the, Mr. Martin, I'm sorry, the human behavior, and that covers everything. It covers people in the cars. It covers the walks, all kinds of people coming into our neighborhood, the crime. It covers everything. Mr. Martin, I just want to say to you, I hope you have a good retirement. I really do. but you made some good points that I used with the limit too much access and did you want to say something? Hang around after all this is over let me talk to you about my career along with Mr. Holmes. What kind of projects I did. This is what I was going to say because I thought you were introducing him. He got up here and he said he's my best friend And I thought, well, he never said that, but you were already telling him. So I'm done. Thank you. Hello. Thank you. Before you start, I do just want to give everyone here the heads up because I just received a note. The city council will be needing this room. So it's expected based on the people that still want to speak and also the time for rebuttal and discussion that we will need to move. We will be moving to the Phoenix building, is that correct? We'll be moving to the Phoenix building, which is a jag that way. There's going to be a number of us from the Planning Commission and staff moving over there. So if you need any assistance navigating that move, at 545 we'll all leave and there'll be city staff. And you can ask any one of us too for some directions over there. It will still be public. Everyone is encouraged to move with us, and we apologize for this shuffle. But as you all are well aware, the meeting has gone on, and so we're about to lose our seats for the council. And now... Mr. Chair, I understand the council has first dibs on this chamber. The problem with all the folks that still want to testify, they don't know where the Phoenix building is. some of them i i just said that we will make sure that that and some of them uh... are incapacitated and need assistance to get over there we will make sure that that that at time for for all people is is allowed thank you what time we gonna talk because these people need to we need to tell more is going to be in show them and be better if you just postpone this a month time at eighties folks mister that that would be uh... post-pone would be something that we would discuss here we're not we're not seeking that input right now i understand sir but we please step aside now i'm not saying that i'm sorry i really step aside making an objection a legal objection on the record if you don't allow these people accommodation some of them can't walk you're not having a valid hearing I hear what you're saying and I also see all of you that have been at this meeting a very long time. And moving this meeting between rooms, between buildings, is not what we would want, okay? And we will make sure that time is allowed and we will assist anyone who needs help navigating between the two buildings. And as far as our legal counsel goes, just as a reminder, you've been here often, we get our legal counsel from the city staff. Now we will continue for another 15 minutes here with public comment. Rolanda Woolford, Chowdhs Avenue, Georgetown Street Neighborhood Association, Vice President, Lexington Historical Black Neighborhood Council President. We, I live right across the street. You come up there on Price Road, I look dead at the field. In the field, it used to be, well, there still are, ducks that come to that pond that's right there. Now you're going to drain that pond. We have a concern about that because our kids look forward to seeing the ducks that come out during the summertime and during the fall. Also, there is a memorial tree right there where one of our residents have passed away and hit that tree and died. And that family comes monthly, annually to come and serve homage to their family member. what is going to happen with that tree our neighbors on price road whose driveway is catacorner to the field that's going to be there they have a basketball field that they're going to put there which is near the main road where we have 18 wheelers and all the rest of that to drive past so but you have a basketball court on the other side they tore down their a building that used to be their recreational center and office area. Why not build there? Also, there was a, well, a former president of the PTA at Booker T Elementary. And we used to get parents all the time that come from the trailer park complaining about how they can't afford things. the building how it was and how many issues they had within the housing. I've never, as long as I lived on that street and as long as I lived in that area, seen a trailer come in and out by a person who owns it. It's always been the trailers. It was always there. It's always been there. and it doesn't seem like that there's going to be any people bringing in trailers of their own. It sounds like they're going to have their own trailers for rental only for them to make more money and gentrify our neighborhood. It's not for low income. It's for middle class and upper. And they like to say professionals as well. So we asked, what is the true, genuine way are they going to do this land that they really proposed them to do? And we still want to know what you're going to do with our ducks. Good evening. My name is Odessa Pope-Wells. My parents lived at 932 Deporce Avenue. My mother lives with me now. She's 91. My daughter lives at her address. We have, my husband and I, we have a property at 424 Tibbs Lane, which is one of the places where y'all looking to open up. In the summertime, like in July 4th, they have a little thing where they have a party for everybody. Everything's free, just keeping the community together. And so, opening that up will stop that because it'd be so dangerous for everybody to enjoy themselves. The kids play kickball or whatever in the streets like we did growing up. My mother and father were one of the first ones to come to St. Martin Village. My mother was pregnant with my brother in 1954. My sister was born in 1955, so we are one of the original people in St. Martin Village. Like we were talking about Douglas School, we attended Douglas School. We were the last class to graduate sixth grade from Douglas School. Playing in the field in the back of De Porras, we used to do that. In the winter time, we'd get the little slides and slide down, and so they took that away from us. So I am just asking that y'all consider changing this up and not opening it up. It was fine, it's fine. We don't need it and we don't want it. So I'm not going to take up your three minutes and you have a nice smile too. So I want to appreciate you giving us smiles and y'all smile. I'm Walt Gaffield. I live at 2001 Bamboo Drive, and I'm president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. This has been kind of a rush for us as well. On the second Monday of this month, we voted unanimously to back St. Martin's Village in their effort to defeat this zone change. What we've done since then, we've looked at the goals and objectives, the place builder, and the main body of the comprehensive plan itself. And it's a little bit of a, it's pretty well set up online, but it's still very long. And we've looked for inconsistencies in the comp plan with this zone change. And there actually are quite a few. I may not be 100% right. I'm not a lawyer, but it's not all a bed of roses for actually supporting the comp plan. You probably don't have time to even look at our stuff before you talk about it. On the whole, I'd urge you to either just turn down the zone change, or as an alternative, see if it can be worked out among the parties to do something else. I don't know. On the whole, I'd prefer that it be turned down. I want to and I want this added to the record for sure because it provides some legal basis for opposing the zone change. I want to say I'm very impressed with this neighborhood. It may be the best neighborhood in Lexington because everybody knows each other and likes each other and works together and we're able to put this together very quickly. And I'd urge you to protect that neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hello, my name is Rosemary Owens, 973 Waverly Drive. I have been in the village for over 53 years. Thanks to our deceased father, Sergeant Herbert Troy Owens, Senior, Buffalo Soldier, Sergeant, World War II. When I came here for nurses training at St. Joseph's School of Nursing, and I was the second and last black to graduate from St. Joseph School of Nursing. I couldn't find a place to stay when I graduated. And so my father got with Mr. Al Gilchrist. Some of you may remember him. And he found my father this home in the village. So I feel that I am a child of the village because I was accepted. I took care of many of these people's children and grandchildren at the Hunter Foundation, at the Health Department, and my alma mater, St. Joe Emergency Room. And my father would say he opposed and I opposed the zone change. Thank you and may God bless you all. I'm Juanita Green and my story is similar to everybody else's. This is my mother. My 95-year-old father is in the back. I'm not even going to go back through and repeat because my story is the same as everybody else's. My question is, if you go through the village and you replace the people in the houses with purple people, green people, pink, whatever color, it still does not make sense to open those streets because it's dangerous. It's already, the streets are narrow and the traffic flow, we have a problem now with people, and I'm going to call it, say, outsiders mostly who come in to go to the park and they they live near the near the corner people don't stop for the stop sign you can be getting out of your car people rushing around the corner you know there's no regard it's already dangerous and if there's an increase in traffic coming through those streets it's going to be a major issue drove past tibbs lane a couple of weekends ago and and it looked like everybody was home for the weekend because there were cars parked on both sides of the street I wish I had taken a picture and I thought there is no way if that is connected to the trailer park there is no way I mean there's no logic to having an increase of traffic coming through that street as tight as it is already. So you know my biggest issue is yes I want to preserve the historically black neighborhood but think about it and look at it regardless of what color the people are. It doesn't make sense to increase traffic in that area and it doesn't make sense for you to put a trailer right up on the back side you know this far from my house. Just think about it and think about is that what you would do in your neighborhood and vote no. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Doyle Warren. I live at 912 DePores Avenue adjacent to 415 Tives Lane. I married into the village. My wife's Tina Warren who spoke earlier. My mother-in-law, Audrey Brooks, 90 years old, lived on the last house at the dead-end street at Tives Lane. One of the things Mr. Stevenson didn't tell you when they were selling the houses back in 1955 to the Negroes. Do you know what they sold for? $8,750. So somebody made some good money off of three houses that they sold. Mrs. Connor who lived on Tibbs Lane, who's 90 plus years old, she had the first house built on Tibbs Lane. She still lives in that house. If the Planning Commission does what the builders want them to do, it will disrupt the whole village as we know it. When my wife and I moved there in 2015, we got involved in the Neighborhood Association. I have a seven-year-old grandson now. At the time, he wasn't born, but in 2017, when he was born, now he's old enough to ride a bike down Tibbs Lane to see his great-great-grandmother. I can't imagine what that would be like, traffic coming in and out of there. I strongly oppose any zoning done at the suburban park adding 52 affordable housing. And he said affordable housing and I looked on the graphic and those houses were $50,000 to $90,000 affordable. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Charles Tuck, visiting you from Atlanta. I got a call from one of my parents' friends that said, you know what, you need to come home i tore my sheet of paper because everybody has said basically the same thing that i would say no to sub ends won't waste any time telling you why it's already been said my parents has transitioned they're both gone but when i look out and see the greens the babies of the world i didn't want to go here so i'm gonna back off but i think you know what i mean i thank you guys Thank you. Thank you for continuing to carry the torch. I'm talking to these people. I'm talking to these people. These are my people. I love you. And thanks to all that you're doing. And Omega Men are some awesome men. Your dad was an awesome man. Cap is okay. I would ask for your support for the no sub ends. Again, Charles Tuck Atlanta, thank you. Thank you. Do you want me to add that? Okay. My name's Amy Clark and I'm just acutely aware that all the people who speak here are speaking to our whole city and I thank them for it. Let's see if I can do this. I am in opposition to this zone change. It doesn't seem to me to be an enhanced neighborhood. I don't believe there's a compelling need for this zone change. It actually introduces a lesser density for the area rezoned, if density is an object of the comp plan. These are not forever homes that are proposed, and they're seeking to bridge an older neighborhood that is substandard to historic St. Martin's Village, which is not a substandard neighborhood the connectivity, I would ask that instead of thinking about connecting sub-street, stub streets, which is not the wish of the existing thriving community, instead you make a priority of improving Price Road, which is a collector street. And it has the function of bringing traffic through from one place to the next. It's a urban collector, it's a major collector, and I want to show you, this is a close up of where St. Martin's Village, the yellow property line, meets the property line of the proposed new area, the expanded and quite better trailer park. You'll notice that the right of way is vastly wider in the St. Martin Village area. That standard, I believe, should continue through the whole of that major collector. It continues to be that all the way down. And that would help move a lot of cars and neighbors and traffic. A standard cross-section for such a collector is 64 feet wide, and I don't believe this is that, certainly not in the blue part. I would suggest a shared use path, which is a minimum of 10 feet. We see a lot of cyclists as well as people walking in the Georgetown Street, the greater Georgetown Street area. That would bring safety and improvement. I need to move fast here. There are no sidewalks, by the way, in the area that the applicant said was improved. The roads were improved. They didn't have sidewalks, there are cars parking in those streets. You are at time now. Have I already run out? Could I just show this, which is what constitutes affordable housing by the 60% standard that is favored for the affordable housing fund, it sometimes goes to 80% if you're buying your home. And I want to ask, will the home outlast the mortgage? Will it build equity? You may recall that Larry Forrester, the chair in the committee meeting said, mobile homes depreciate like cars. The St. Martin's villagers have forever homes. I think probably Griffin Gate found a way in the Winburn small area plan to keep their boundaries, keep their dead ends, and yet the city found a way to improve connectivity. Think of St. Martin's Village as a Griffin Gate and thank you for the time. So we are going to move now. Were there any residents or opposition on this, or anyone that wanted to speak on this that did not yet have a chance of speaking? There will be opportunity when we move for both the applicants and the opposition to have time for rebuttal. We are now going to close the public comment part of the session and then take a break. What would staff recommend on the- 20 minutes. We're going to take a 20 minute break to move to the Phoenix building. If anyone, if you're joining us, please don't hesitate to ask for directions or if you need any assistance.