. Good afternoon everyone. It is September 12, 2024. I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is a subdivision items meeting. And first on the agenda, we want to move down to agenda item three because we do not have any minutes. So we can strike out the approval of minutes and move on to postponements and withdrawals. Yes. Could I please have a member of staff assist me with my computer before we get to? He's shutting down. He hit the wrong button. I'm shutting down. Thank you. good yes sir my name is matt carter i'm with vision engineering um i'd like to ask for a postponement on page six item f pln mjdp 24-56 red mile mixed use development i'd like to ask to be postponed to the september 26 hearing Okay, any questions for the applicant? Okay, all right, the floor is open for a motion. September 26th. September 26th is our zoning items public meeting. Right. Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. Mr. Cole? Move to postpone PLNM JDP 2456 Red Mile Mixed Use Development to September 26. Okay, thank you. Second. Okay, we have a second by Ms. Worth. Any further discussion to that motion? Please vote via Granicus. Thank you. Okay, all right, motion passes. unanimously thank you mr kelly mr chairman members playing commission rory kaylee with ea partners on page five item d major development plan 24 49 collins oral and wiggins uh to request a two-week postponement to september 26th i've got to get the correct prototype building on the plan Okay, thank you. Any questions to that recommendation? If there aren't, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. I move to postpone PLN, MJDP 2449, Collins, Oral, and Wiggins until the September 26th meeting. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please vote via Granicus. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Hello, I'm Burgess Carey from the Carey Group. We're requesting a one-month postponement for the development plan for 2300050. Wolf Run Industrial Park. We request one month postponement so we can satisfy the- Could you give us the page number please? I'm sorry, it's on page three? That's page three and that is for October 10th? Yes. To carry? Okay, thank you. All right, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Wilson? Okay, Mr. Chair, I move for postponement of PLNMJDP 23-50 Wolf Run industrial park block a lot one until October. What's the date on it? October the? October 10th. October the 10th. Second. There we got a second by Mr. Jonathan Davis. Please vote via Granicus. All right, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Good afternoon. Staff has one request for a postponement. If you turn to page four at the bottom of the page, You have MJDP 24-46, Gibbons Property, Lot 5, City Barbecue. We received a message late yesterday afternoon. They would like to set up a meeting with us and work out some of the issues for the B3 zone. And we'd like to ask for a one-month postponement. Which one is that? Page C. The bottom of page. Page four, item C. Page four, item C. Floor is open. Mr. Chairman, I move for a one-month postponement of PLNMJDP 2446 to our October 10th meeting. Thank you. We have a second. Second. Second by Ms. Boxdale. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Ms. Wade. Yes, sir. That covers all of our postponements for this afternoon, I think. And then we do have a consent agenda for the commission to consider. And I'm going to note two things about the consent agenda as we go. The first item, well, I'll mention to the audience, if you wish to have an item not approved via consent agenda, if you'll just raise your hand, that means you want the item to be heard today and the commission will discuss it, pre-presented the plan and discuss it. So the first item is a final record plat, and it appears on page two of your regular agenda, item A, PLN FRP 2426, and this is for Skyview Farms property, formerly Raven Ridge Estates, for property located at 5421 Jack's Creek Pike in Lexington. Does anyone wish for that item to be heard? Okay, for the commission's knowledge, there is a finding associated with that one related to an agricultural track, and so you'll find that in your paperwork today. the next item is a development plan appears on page six item e pln mjdp 24-52 the ndc property unit 3 lot 3 ashland avenue baptist church for property located at 483 west reynolds road does anyone wish to have this item heard today Okay. And my note for that item is on the regular agenda, there is a condition that discusses a tree canopy waiver. They have withdrawn that. So that does not need commission action since they've withdrawn that. The next item on our consent agenda is on page 7, item G, PLN MJDP 24-58 for the Ramsey-Sullivan property, lot 1. This is an amended development plan for property located at 2671 Kearney Ridge Boulevard. Is there anyone here that wishes to have this item heard? Okay. The next item on our agenda is on page 8, item H, PLN MJDP 24-59. This is the Piper property, lot 4, Animal Eye Institute of Lexington, an amended final development plan for property located at 151 Dennis Drive. Is there anyone that wishes to have that item heard today? Are you the applicant or you wish to have it heard? Oh, okay. The next item is on page 10, item K, PLN MJDP 2466, Town Branch Park, also known now as the Gatton Park on Town Branch. Is there anyone that, sorry, for an address at 795 Manchester Street, is there anyone that wishes to have this item heard by the commission? Okay. That covers the five items on our consent agenda, and just for clarification for the applicant in the audience, if the commission acts on all of these together, then it's deemed approved based on the conditions that have been presented on the agenda. so one was withdrawn is that correct sorry no on two two notes of interest for you the first one was a finding for an access season and that applies to the final record plat and then a one of the conditions of approval on the ndc property which is number six page six item e was that they be granted a tree canopy waiver. So normally, if you need to grant a tree canopy waiver, we would present that to you. But since they've withdrawn that request, all the other items can be considered. Okay. Let me bring it back to the commission for a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. Ms. Worth. Yeah, Mr. Chair, I move for approval of the consent agenda as presented, including the waiver associated with PLNFRP 2426. Okay, thank you. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Davis. Jonathan Davis, excuse me. The tall one. Please vote via Granicus. No, I won't. I can't. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to put another motion on the table. It's called a motion of reconsideration, and I will explain my rationale for that. Back to the one that I made the motion on, development plans, PLNNJDP 23-50. If you note under that, they've had several postponements, and I guess my question is, I didn't pick up the reasoning for why that next postponement was appropriate. Which one, Mr. Wilson? What page number? It's on page three. That A? Right. And I'm looking at the number of postponements that we've had here, and I'm trying to figure out what happened. He may have left, Mr. Brisson. Oh. So you. Okay. Then I'll take my, let me ask you this. May I ask, continue? Yes, sir. How many times can a person postpone? I mean, they can postpone as many times as they want to. Okay. You know, at their discretion, you all have a time limit, you know, and so they're approaching a time limit, and you all want to postpone and they don't, we can't force them to. But these have been at their request. And I don't know what they're working on, but there may be things they can work on. And at some point, sometimes they come back and ask for indefinite, but they have not. Okay. Well, I apologize to my colleagues on that one. That one slipped by me because, quite frankly, anyone who postpones that many times, I'm looking for a reasonable explanation as to what's going on, as to why that is in the case. Because otherwise, they should ask for an indefinite postponement. I'll take my motion of reconsideration off the table. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Before we get into staff, I do have two other items I would like to move up on the agenda. The first one is on page 11, agenda item number three, performance bonds and letter of credit. I'd like to get a motion of acceptance. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, I move that we accept the performance bonds and letters of credit as outlined on the memorandum from Mr. Fairchild. Okay, thank you. Do we have a second to that motion? Seconded by Ms. Boxdale. Any further discussion? If none, vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. The second item with the commission's approval or support, I'd like to look at page 11, commission items B, the vacant planning commission position. And I would like for Mr. Horn, if you would come up and give us some direction here. And some more transparency on how things are going and making sure we're doing what we need to do. Without knowing what your intent may be, it's a little bit difficult to give direction, but if you're going to discuss the possible appointment of a member, you can do that in executive session. And if that's what you're going to discuss, I would recommend that you have a closed session on that. Okay. All right. So it's commissioned, and that's something we need to consider. Mr. Wilson. The other question is, have we received any additional applications from the mayor's office? I'm aware of two applications that have been received. And have those applications been passed on to our chair? I've received one like everybody else. I'm only aware that one came in today. So that's possible that that one has not been distributed. So we've got two applications that's on the docket right now. One was sent out to us yesterday. I assume everybody's got the one application, but there's another one that came in that we haven't received yet. Okay, when will the chairs receive that? Well, you could receive it now. We could make sure you get it now. If that's the case, then what I would do is move to go into executive session. And then we would get a, we'll get a try out of that. Go ahead. We'll have to arrange getting a printed copy for you all, but we can do that. Okay. Mr. Wilson. In that case, Mr. Chair, I move pursuant to KRS 61-8101 and F that we go into closed session for the purpose of discussion that might lead to the appointment of a planning commission member. Okay. So we have a motion to go into an executive session. Second. And do we have a second? Second. Question? Yes. I have a question. I don't know if this is something that we would discuss in an executive session, but with reference to an email that staff sent out at the first of the month outlining a potential process for getting applications for this position. Is that something to discuss in executive session, or do we discuss it before? I got you. The exception to the Open Meetings Act is only to discuss actual individuals for appointment. Okay. The process or any process you're going to utilize should be discussed in open session. Okay. So the exception doesn't call for you discussing how you're going to do it, but it does allow you to have executive session to talk about who you might appoint. Okay. So that means then Ms. Boxdale's question is we should discuss this before we go into executive session. That is up to you all. I mean, if you want to discuss the process, you need to do it in open session. You know, you can do it however you'd like. But if you're going to discuss the process and you get back there, I'm going to tell you you can't do it back there. Okay. So you need to discuss the process in open session, the actual appointments in closed session. Okay. I would like to discuss the process because I think it's important for us to maintain a level of transparency when it comes to making appointments such as these. So that's my position is I think that there should be a process. The process that was outlined was after we decide on a process today that the application would be open starting tomorrow and run through the 22nd. And then we would vote on applicants on the 26th. And so my concern here is that we're kind of trying to rush that two-week process. And I'm not sure I understand why. It's nothing against the applicant or applicants at this point, but it is a matter of, you know, being transparent and following some sort of process for these types of, you know, fulfilling these types of vacancies. Just for clarification, the statute requires that the appointing authority is the mayor and the council. but it gives them 60 days from the date of the vacancy to make that appointment and then it says if they fail to do that then it comes back to the planning commission to make the appointment what it does not do is tell you how to do that so any process that you all have it's not i just want it to be clear there's not like a written formal process that exists that we are required to follow under the statute, it would be a process that you all adopt if you choose to do that. But there's not one existing in the statute. So just so we're clear that if you did something differently that you're not following something, there isn't one. So it's up to you all as to how you want to set that process and when you want to do it. So now that we have two applicants, I guess, I'm asking the commission, how do we want to go about doing that? I mean, from a process standpoint, or do we want the same process that we, I think we all did the same process of filling out the application online or whatever. And it was vetted though by council, in this case it will be vetted by us. some of you guys and ladies have been on here longer than me. So I'm looking down the corner to my right. Hold on one second, Mr. Owens. Hold on one second. Go ahead. I want to I guess echo Mrs. Barksdale's desire to provide as much transparency as we can throughout this process. I understand that this is an unusual condition where a vacancy was left unappointed for 60 days. In our meetings that we have had, the last meeting we had in a work session, we were told to look to anticipate an email from Mr. Duncan that was then going to ask us as the planning commission if we would like to direct the staff to help us in the process of identifying candidates and vetting candidates for this position that is vacant now. I was anticipating coming here today to have that conversation and then direct staff to help formalize the process. It was briefly detailed in an email that we received from Mr. Duncan that said a possible way to handle the application process would be open once the staff is directed to help us in this task, that then we would accept applications until the 22nd. We'd have the ability to read the applications, discuss amongst ourselves, and make a decision on the 26th. So whoever may be a candidate for this position can have the opportunity to have their application read and discussed amongst us. This is an important position that we all take very seriously. And whoever the applicant may be that is going to be, was looked to be proposed today, that we're going to address in executive session. This does not mean that that applicant does not end up being appointed by the group. My comment would be in order to be as transparent as possible to, at this time or after our executive session, make a request to staff to help us through the process of receiving applications, reviewing applications, and then we as a body, the planning commission, would have the ability to vote on those individuals. Because if we're looking right now at one application that we received yesterday and a new one came in today, I was not prepared to vote on either of these applications. But now that we have two with one that hasn't been reviewed, I think it's appropriate for us to take all the applicants into consideration. And there may be more than two that would like to participate in this. So those are my comments, and I appreciate it. Mr. Ellens? One quick question for Mr. Horn. He mentioned this second application today. I think all of us received what I'd call an addendum to the first application. So are we talking about in addition to the one with the addendum? Do we have a second application? You have a second one, and it came in before noon. Okay. So it's not, there was little time probably to get it out to everyone. But I have copies if you want it. Now, the one, if you're going to talk just about the process that you want and selecting someone, that's not a closed session item. If you want to talk about selecting an actual member, that is an appropriate closed session item. Yeah. Ms. Wirth? Just a question to you guys that have been around a while. Has the Planning Commission, is there a precedent for how this has been handled in the past? I can only tell you that I've been through this one time. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you asking? No, he was getting us. I just forgot which one of y'all want to speak first. I'll let Mr. Duncan speak first. He's begun to a lot of here. Mr. Duncan. Mr. Wilson, I'm likely going to say the same thing that you did. But yes, Ms. Worth, and we responded to you on an email earlier about the one time that the Planning Commission in my tenure has appointed a member and what that process was. The discussion was taking place in executive session. The list was provided by the Mayor's office. It was Mr. Pohl. I could add one thing to Mr. Duncan's comments because I was the chair of the planning commission at this time. When the applicant, the transparency comes in the 60 days that you have to apply because, again, as Ms. Jones indicated, applications don't go to us, they go to the mayor. In this case, it went to the mayor, and the mayor passed along what applications to me. And then we took those applications and went with it from that and made a decision. So what we're discussing here, and I don't have one way or the other, is do you want to add an additional process? Because there is a process that we've done before, has not caused any particular problems or concerns, and it has been open and it has been transparent. because like I said, normally if people are interested in these things, they go to the website, they find out. In fact, I checked the website out this morning just to see what the website said. It tells you what application you have to fill out, who you have to send it to, and that indicates. So they have 60 days to do that. If they don't do it in 60 days, then of course it comes, and we usually take the applications that are given to the mayor or through the mayor's office. We bring them in, and we use that as a part of our deliberation. But we have not added an extension. Now, I saw some of the things that we've added as an extension. I just want to make this a point. The application for getting on the Planning Commission from the extension issues were tougher than they were from the standpoint of just filling out an application to the mayor's office. So I think for the most part, whatever we agree to as a process, that's what we can do. We can do that. There's nothing that says we can't extend it. But the question was whether there was a need to do so as such. And Mr. Chair, to just expound on that, at the time that Mr. Pohl was appointed, there was an active list of names. There is no list right now. We asked the mayor if she had a list that she wanted to share, and she said there was no list because she was making the reappointments. So she had not solicited a new list and did not have one. So there is no list to share with you all at this time, which is why the staff was suggesting if you wanted a list, we would have to solicit for one. So then we're at this kind of situation of right now we've got a motion to go on executive session to discuss two applications. Or we can go through that motion, Mr. Wilson, this is a question. Or we determine the process. And nobody knows what the process is going to be because we were going to have that discussion earlier. So now we're in this situation as a group. So what's the process is going to look like? Do we go for the full two weeks to the 22nd or do we ratchet that down to a shorter time period? We do have two applicants right now. I mean, that could change tomorrow. We could have 10. I don't know. But I'm just asking the body about that. Since if it was one, it would have been different maybe, but now we have two. So how are we going to handle that? I guess being probably one of the newer members of the Planning Commission, I can't say younger, but at least one of the newer ones, You know, the process that you spoke of, Commissioner Wilson, is not like something that is, if you're not in the inner circle, it's not a process that you understand. Okay. And me being that person. And, you know, if the 60 days expired last Thursday or so, then is that, you know, is that sufficient time to know that, oh, there's really, really an opening? And that's my concern, is that the public at large is not aware of how this works, period. And then when I went on the website, there's a whole list of commissions and boards. And I was trying to go through there and find the planning commission. The planning commission was not in that list. I talked with Judy, and she said, oh, well, the application's at the top. So I go look at the application at the top, but it doesn't say anything about planning commission. And then I go to the planning commission section. And there I found that there is a vacancy on the seat. But this was a lot of searching intentionally by me. So my question is how does the general public know if we don't tell the general public that it's open? And I'm not trying to hold it up or anything like that. But I do think that this is a good opportunity for us to let the community know how they can get involved in things like the Planning Commission and other boards by conducting an open call for applicants. And if we don't get any more applicants, that's fine. We've done our due diligence. But I think to try to rush it to a decision is a disservice to our community. That's just kind of how I see it. Quite frankly, I feel like that anyone that's interested, the inner circle are those folks that come down here on a daily basis. But anyone that's interested has knowledge and has discussion, whether it's with planning commission members or the staff or the general public. And they have that opportunity. I've looked at it as the fact that the seat's been vacant for 60 days. We've got a lot of stuff coming up here in the very near future. And filling that seat, I think, is important, the sooner the better. I did not know coming in here today that there was two applications, but with what we have in place at the present time, and I was careful to say, not say process, because we don't have a process. It's simply up to the Planning Commission as to how we act upon this. We've got two applications. I see no reason that we cannot take a few minutes to go with two applications and move forward. But I want that to be subject to everyone here. Mr. Owens, I kind of agree with that, but that it really is not a but. We need a process on how we're going to vote on the applications, right? That's the way I understand it. That's the only reason, that's why I ask what I ask. We haven't decided on how we're going to go about picking. Can I summarize where I think we are? We've got Mr. Wilson's statement that we've had the 60 days. So essentially we've already had a process and two people applied. And then we have Ms. Bartstale's position of the people who could apply, didn't know to apply. So we've got to choose between one or the other. Is that kind of where we are? Pretty much. I would agree. If I wasn't clear, I would agree with Mr. Wilson that I think we could move on. Your motion is for an executive session. Yeah, it is. And I'm listening to it because Ms. Parkdale makes a really good point. I mean, the issue is not so much objectively as the perception as such. The kicker for me in order to suggest that we move on and move ahead on this is that the way this has worked in the past is almost by word of mouth. Whenever a position opens up, someone tells somebody and then they usually get in. I do know, at least I think I can express with confidence, that the mayor is interested in making sure that all our boards are represented, not only in terms of age and wisdom and what have you, but also through color and ethnicity. To that end, whenever anything opens up like this, I usually spread the word. I usually go out and tell people there's a vacancy and there's a position. They have a lot of questions. People will say to me, they say, what time do you meet? I say, well, we usually meet at 1.30. Okay, and that usually takes care of the conversation because they don't want it. But in fairness, you know, I think it's incumbent upon all of us when we see these positions. And I went to them today looking to see if other boards and commissions in this community were represented in ethnicity, et cetera. And they're not. some of these boards are very closed off. They do things in a way. So the idea of perception related to the community, I have a kind of feeling that we're not going to get much if we get anything. And if we haven't been able to encourage people to apply within the 60 days, at some point you have to have a cutoff time. So even at the end of another week, we still may be sitting here doing what we're doing. And to that end, I would say we should just move forward and get it done, get it out of the way, and then move on and do the work that we've got to do. But that's just a... Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Let me offer this one thing. It's not, I don't think it's something that we can do today, but we're sitting here talking about a process. It's obvious we don't have a process. It's up to now the 10 of us to decide which way to go. So looking forward down the road, I think we should look at amending, revising our bowlaws to set up a process to make it very clear as to how we're going to handle this in the future. Mr. Poe, I got Mr. Poe, then Mr. Nichols. I respect what Ms. Barsdale and Mr. Nichols are saying about transparency, but my personal experience was that I was fully aware of the Planning Commission and what the Planning Commission does for years before I ever got involved. and I put my name in consideration years before I ended up being suggested for a position. And my personal experience is that there's value in that process because you end up with someone who already is inclined and somewhat informed about what it is. and I know that one of the applicants has a long history with the Planning Commission and in my opinion, absolutely an exemplary commission member and in my opinion, a sure thing. And so I would be inclined to take a look at the applicants and consider motions with regard to the two applicants And then if we can't come to an agreement, move on and do a more thorough reaching out to try to get more applicants. Mr. Nichol. What I've heard today that has come across as unusual to the situation we're in, the last time a vacancy was not filled by a mayor was that we had no applications forwarded to us from the mayor. I know in the previous, previously, when we were in this position, we had an application forwarded to us by the mayor. And that helped the decision to be made, I believe, what I consider fairly. for the reason that there was a previous application process that individual was a part of. And I thought that that was a fair way to handle it. But what we're dealt with here that is different is that we had no applications provided to us. We then spoke at our last session that we were going to discuss the process today. And now being asked to vote is not something that I want to be a part of because I do not think it allows for the proper transparency. Because I myself was not made aware of this until this morning. So I don't think that they're, in my opinion, if we can put in place a process which would formalize this meeting here as an announcement open to any that would like to apply for the position and go by Mr. Duncan's recommended schedule, which would be applications due by the 21st, and then we make a decision on the 26th. The application that we have in hand is wonderful. I do like the words used by Mr. Pohl, exemplar, and someone that has participated on this committee at a high level for a long time. But I was not prepared to even anticipate the potential for a vote today. So I know as a committee member myself, I'm not prepared to make a vote. And my opinion would be formalize the process, formalize the announcement that we will be accepting applications now due by the 21st. And we'll be voting on this the 26th, including the two applications that we've received now. Those are my thoughts. Here's kind of where we are. Mr. Wilson's got a motion to go on executive session. We got a second to that motion by Mr. Davis. If we go into the executive session, and based on what Mr. Owens talked about and we've all have said, there's no process. So when we get in there, we would have to vote on the two applications that we have in front of us. Is that correct? That's the way I understand it, right? That's correct. That's correct. And then if you don't want to do that, the motion is on the floor, so you need to vote it down. Yeah. Mr. Mickler. For the executive session, is that the discussion or the actual vote would be back? The actual vote. You would have a discussion about the two applications you have and then you'd make a determination. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Horne, are you standing up there? If I'm here, I want to make a few clarifications on this. Please do. Tracy is correct about you have your discussion in closed session, but if you're going to appoint someone, you would come out in open session and make your decision in open session. Now, the applications you have, just to be clear, came in after the deadline passed. These were not prior applications that were on file. And this is not now a mayoral or administration process. This is a planning commission process. And if you decide on a process to accept applications, staff has prepared a link for people to go in and fill out an application. Not that they couldn't do it through the mayor's link and they would forward those applications, but I don't want anyone under the impression that this is somehow related to the administration process for appointments to boards and commissions now. The application that's been prepared is based on the application used by the administration for boards and commissions generally, with the addition of one question to provide basically a statement of 100 words or less about the Planning Commission or desire to serve, etc. But if you decide on that process, it's up to the Planning Commission. There's nothing in law that tells you what your process is. then we would be directing them to the website with the planning department, not the mayor's office. So both applications are after the 60 days that we have in front of us right now. Okay, make sure that's out there. Okay, all right, so we got a motion? We got a second. There's a lot of discussion. Any further discussion with going into executive session? All right, we'll vote Villagranicus when it comes up. Go ahead, I'm going in. All right, motion passes, they're going to executive session. And can we, Mr. Duncan, since this is new for me, do we need to give a time to five, ten minutes at the most? Not necessarily, Mr. Chair, and I believe if the space is available, we can excuse ourselves rather than asking the audience to leave the room. There's space behind us here that we can go into. Yes, yes, I was going to go back in the back room. So yes, no, we do not give a time for that. Okay, thank you. Do we have the material from the second applicant? Thank you. Mr. Horne, Mr. Duncan, do we need to make a motion to come out of executive? Yes, sir. No. No, you do not make any motion. To come out of executive section. To come out of executive section. all right i would get you all straight i thought yes it's that whatever the coat that did it i think i said mr dunkel all right um so uh yes i need a motion to come out of it i move to come out of executive session Okay, we have a second. Okay, we're back live now. We have come to the consideration of no consideration at the moment. So, Mr. Poe. So I want to make a motion that we ask staff to prepare materials to seek applications for the commission position and to oversee distribution of those materials to see if we can get more interest and that we go into special meeting prior to our session our work session next thursday so at 1 30 we would go into a special meeting to consider those applications the applications would be due next tuesday so it would give us two days to consider them prior to to the special meeting on Thursday afternoon. Second. All right, we have a motion by Mr. Pol and seconded by Mr. Jonathan Davis. Any further discussion to that motion? Okay, I see none. Please vote via Grantus. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we can carry on with the agenda item. Yes, ma'am. Just one comment which you said should be in here. The bullet point about 100 word statement about the role of a planning commission. We don't need that. That's in our by-law. What we need is a statement about why the person's experience makes them, sorry, I thought I pressed it, why the person's experience makes them a good candidate for the position. Okay. We will do our best to change that. We had others make that form for us. If we can't change that in time to get it published, we'll let you all know what the status of that is. Okay. So, Ms. Worth, would you say again what you would like the statement to say? I would like that to say, this is on a 100-word statement, about why the applicant's experience would make them a good planning commissioner. All right. All right. Cool. All right. So we get back to the task of hands and put us on the agenda page two. We'll call. Mr. Chair, may I interrupt for a second? Yeah. Although what we were doing was very important, I do think an apology for the folks in the the audience for the delay would be worthy. I'm getting ready to do that, Mr. Owens, but thank you. No, you go ahead, go ahead. I turned on the water. Oh, audience, we do apologize and we want to be cognizant of your time too, so we're going to try to expedite this as quickly as we can. But if you do need some water or refreshments, just let us know. How about that? Thank you. All right. Good afternoon. We're going to look at a Lexmark International FRP 2429. If you would, there should be revised conditions. Am I not getting this up? I'm trying to get as close as I can to it. Lexmark International, Section 1, Lot 7, amended. FRP 2429. This property is located out off of, this is Setzer Way, Setzer Way goes into Loudon Avenue. We have Newtown Pike on the far side here and Russell Cave on here. We have Lexmark and New Circle Road above. This is an industrial area and we have the trail that comes through the bottom here and comes in through this area down Freight Boulevard. They're coming in, this is lot seven, they're coming in to subdivide it and create four individual lots for industrial uses. With that we have our typical sign offs as you can see. We have also with this, they have an access easement proposed. Office sets your way. The access easement will come in here. We'll have a development plan here in a little bit for the property. The access easement comes in to the property and then turns and goes down so that these lots have frontage and access through this access easement. You will see that you also find that there is a finding for the use of the access easement for this property to be used for the lots in the rear. They do not have any access or street frontage on the property. We have our typical sign-offs. We just had a couple cleanup conditions to clarify the addresses and length of street frontage. Addition by address on plan phase, addition of utility easements along Setzer Way. Windstream contacted us and said there's a major fiber copper facility along Setzer Way and they'd like to have that on there. Update utilities list, removing public utilities, provided that the Planning Commission approves the findings for the waiver for the access easement. of signature line for the maintenance note since this is for the maintenance is who's responsible of the access easement. And then denote no vehicular access shall be allowed to Loudoun Avenue. As I said, Setzer Drive steps into Loudoun Avenue and at this corner here we do not want to allow them to have any access onto Loudoun Avenue. So with that I'll open it to you all to see if there's any other comments or questions. Any comments? Mr. Wilson? Yes, ma'am. One quick question on the green sheet. Is the new staff right? I'm sorry? Is the new? No, we're going to look at the orange. Pink sheet? Peach or peach. Ah, okay, thank you. That's all. There's two different ones. Like I said, we'll look at the development plan. That will be on the green shortly. Oh, okay, thank you. I'm clear. Anybody else have any comments or questions? Any further questions from staff? Questions for staff? All right, thank you. Thank you. Applicant? Afternoon, Abby Jones, Abby Jones Consulting. We're satisfied with the recommendation for approval and we're glad to accommodate all the requests that have been made. Glad to answer any questions that you may still have. Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions for the applicant? Not seeing any, thank you. Anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this particular agenda item? Okay, we'll bring it back to the commission for a motion. Mr. Poe, you want to? Mr. Chair, move to approve PLN FRP 2429 Lexmark Internationals, Inc. Section 1, Lot 7, amended. Second. Okay, thank you. We have a motion. Second, do we have a second? Second. Second by Ms. Barstale. Any further discussion to that motion? Seeing none, please vote Villagranicus. Okay. All right, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Sorry, Chairman Forrester, I just want to make sure that that included the finding for an use of an access easement to lot C, 7C, and 7D. There is a separate report about that. There's a separate report about the finding for an access easement. I just want to make sure that your motion includes, or a separate motion, So do I need to do. adopts the finding. Does that include the finding for the access easement? That would include the finding for access easement. Okay. Okay. All right. Ms. Markstead, your second is still good? Okay. All right. Okay. Should put us now on page four of the agenda. Thank you. PLN MJDP 24-37, North Park Way Acres. Okay, this property is located off of North Broadway. And then we have Judy Lane down on this end. and we have Parkside Drive up here on this side. This property here fronts on North Broadway. It has an access point off Parkside, which then comes through the property, and then they have an access that leads us over to Judy Lane. This property was rezoned back in 2021 to a B3 zone for the use of a car lot in this location here. When that was rezoned, they had conditional zoning restrictions set forth on it, and the conditional zoning only allows them to have a maximum of 20 cars on the lot. Also, that the lighting could not be greater than a height of 12 feet. With the conditional zoning, they also had made a conditional no drive-throughs, no pawn shops, billboards, retail sale of fuel, or underground tanks. I'm just giving you that information so it shows that it's kind of constricted and limited to a certain use. They have, they're coming in with the final development plan. Let's see if we can get, there we go, that's a better shot of showing where the building is. And you can see where the drive goes around. and they have a daycare on the property also. So with that, we have our typical conditions. We just wanted to add a couple additional cleanup, additional street cross-sections, conditional zoning on this plan. They did not list any of that conditional zoning that I just spoke of for the property. Addition of dimensions, addition of revised site statistics, parking required. We removed the parking required because now we just need to have parking provided. Let's see. You can see this better location. You can see how this is North Broadway, the interstate. We rezoned down here with Jones and Cottrell, I guess to give you a better idea of where we're located. We just done a zone change for the apartments in that location. When this plan came through, one of the conditions was discuss building fenestration and articulation along North Broadway, because this is a major corridor in and out. So they have proposed and brought us in some pictures showing how the building will be addressed and facing towards North Broadway itself so that it interacts with North Broadway and not have just the rear portion of the building facing North Broadway. way. And with that, I will open it to you all to see if there's any other comments or questions. Okay. Questions, comments? Yes, sir. Mr. Davis. Thank you, Cheryl. I'm looking at the plat, and I see on the plat, it does note that it is in the Royal Spring wellhead. And I remember on the rezoning, that was a very, very important aspect to the commission that that be noted and and known. Should that also be one of the conditions that it again just is subject to the RSWP committee's review and comment prior to any? It should be. I believe I thought there was a note on there already that they had gone to the Royal Springs Aquifer, but I will verify that. I mean to add to our conditions. I think it's important that that be included. That'd be fine. Thank you. All righty, thanks. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Any further questions for staff? All right, thank you. Applicant? Hi, my name is Mary Domigan with Geisler Domigan Engineers. I'm the design engineer for this project. First, we appreciate your time today. And the project, there's a sinkhole at the center of the property. That's the reason for why we asked for postponement a couple different times. Ultimately, we decided on the stormwater detention to be at the corner of Paris Pike and the road that's closest to Speedway. and we've been coordinating with your all staff members, got that worked out, and we appreciate your consideration for an approval today. Thank you. Do we have any questions for the applicant at this time, commission? Mr. Michler? I got just one question. What's the three-story tower? It's my understanding that when this went through the preliminary development stage that it's really more for aesthetics to be able to see for the fenestration and articulation. That's the way that I have explained it because I was not the engineer in 2021 for the preliminary development plan. But it was added at that time, and it's my understanding that it's to basically see the property better from where it kind of dips down a little bit. Hold on just a second here. So it has no purpose other than to just stick up a couple extra stories? That's the way I understand it. you looked at the renderings from the architect, I mean, I think it doesn't look, you know, I mean it gives a nice appearance. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not seeing any other questions. Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this particular application? Yes, ma'am. I'm going to go. Thank you. Okay. My name is Patty Drouse, and I live in Joyland neighborhood at 608 Allen Court. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. There are several issues I would like to address about this development plan. Number one, the plan depicts building A with a three-story tower located 25 feet from Parkside Drive and 25 feet from North Broadway. Has this site been evaluated in person to see if a three-story tower will cause any obstruction of the view for vehicles on Parkside attempting to turn left on Parris Pike? Also, no other buildings on the west side of North Broadway are more than one story, and the adjacent neighborhood houses are all one story. Please condition this property to limit to one-story buildings to match the surrounding properties. Secondly, the safety of moving vehicles. At peak times, especially 3 to 4 at 30 p.m. during the school year, there is commonly a line of cars on Parkside waiting to turn right or left onto North Broadway, obstructing the 2275 driveway. Please play the video. There will be too many conflicting car movements, cars turning left out of Speedway onto Parkside and cars turning left from Parkside to the 2275 property from Broadway. That will likely cause backups to North Broadway. Please consider making the 2275 driveway right in and right out only. All other access to 2275 could be via Judy Road where they can turn right in. You have probably considered this, but where will the oil and gas storm runoff from a mechanic shop and all those vehicles go? Into the sinkhole? And has the Royal Springs Wellhead Protection Committee agreed with the plan for the sinkhole and stormwater management? And number four, lastly but most importantly, according to the Fayette Urban County Government Zoning Code for Corridor Businesses, B3 Zone, under principal uses, this is in your packet, this includes establishments and lots for the display, rental, sale of farm equipment, contractor equipment, automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, boats, travel trailers, mobile homes, or supplies for such items. such establishments shall be a minimum distance of 2,500 feet from the property line of another existing establishment of the described above. Martin's Peterbilt of Central Kentucky is a truck dealer in Lexington located at the corner of Paris Pike and Rogers Road and sells trucks, parts, and has unmatched service whether you have one or 1,000 trucks. 2275 North Broadway appears to have plans to be a car dealership and car repair shop. According to PVA Aerials, the 2275 North Broadway property is 470 feet away from Martin's Peterbilt property line, and therefore a car dealership and repair shop cannot exist at 2275 North Broadway according to the current zoning code. This aerial map is in your packet. Thank you again for listening to my thoughts. And Kathy Perkins sent you an email also with her comments. She couldn't be here today. I was supposed to read her comments, and I forgot to print them. So if you would please take a look at those. Thank you. It's in the packet. No, you're fine, you're fine. Ms. Dross, we did get the email from Katherine Perkins. It's in our packet. Just want to let you know. Okay. Thank you. I'm Amy Clark of 628 Castle Road, and I'm here to support what Patty Drouse of the Joyland neighborhood has in concerns. I will say that we know now that the tall tower has been moved. I think we still don't want to see a tall tower that's empty. It's just a vehicle for advertising probably. I don't think it's welcome to the neighborhood as a design feature, particularly if it has no use. I have two main concerns, and they were both Patty's concerns as well. One is that apparently the Royal Springs Aquifer Committee has not gotten the development plan, had an opportunity to review and comment, and send their comment and their recommendation to you, the Planning Commission. And this is a plan, the Royal Springs Aquifer Protection is a plan jointly approved by both planning commissions, adopted plan. So I don't believe that the planning commission is in a good position to make a judgment on whether the aquifer is adequately protected until they have heard the report or had staff advice regarding that plan. I would advise some kind of continuance or, to me, even disapproval. Probably the bigger impact is that we now, in the new B3 ZODA, the new growth ZODA, B3 It has a distance requirement, and as Patty said, this property is too near to establish a second auto sales lot and so on. What I wanted to add to that is I do not believe it's grandfathered in as a legally nonconforming use because neither the use or the structure are yet in existence. So I believe it should follow the new ordinance and that that particular use is not allowable at that site. And I've put a lot on the back page of my handout so you can see where I'm getting this idea from. It seems to say that if you have a building permit filed, applied for, and then there's a change in the zoning, you can claim a non-conforming use and have it continue and be protected. I don't think any kind of a development plan would do that. Of course, you need to consult your counsel because, as you know, I'm not a lawyer. But it looks as though they had an opportunity to have that use, and that opportunity is gone. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Do we have anyone else that would like to speak on this application? Okay, thank you. Staff, do you want to add anything else? Just a few things. The application was received by the Division of Planning on May 31st, which was prior to the adoption of the regulations that Ms. Treason and Ms. Clark mentioned in their testimony. And so our staff at the direction of the Division of Law reviews or Department of Law reviews applications under the regulations that are in place the day they were filed. And so they, because obviously regulations can change at any time depending on when the council adopts those. And so it would, in our mind, be a little unfair to apply new regulations continuously as they're adopted to an application. So again, we, and fairly onerous for the Division 2, so we have to review them under the regulations that are in place at the time they've applied. And so again, that spacing requirement did not come into being until the end of June, June 27th. So they predated that. And we, to be fair to the applicant and the property owner, review those applications under the regulations that are in place at the time. They do note on their development plan that they will seek review by the Royal Springs Aquifer Committee, but they have not done that yet. And to Ms. Clark's point, that is a requirement of the stormwater manual. and it does recommend that they seek that review prior to coming to the Planning Commission. So we certainly encourage them through the process to start that process early, but in some cases the applicant chooses to wait until after the Planning Commission has acted, and we can certainly work with applicants to ensure that that happens in a really more timely manner before the Planning Commission Act so that you do have that information during the public meeting. I think that's it. I think that's it. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Wade. Do we have any questions for Ms. Wade? Hold on, Ms. Clark. No, Ms. Clark was standing up, but you can ask your question. Actually, it's with regard to the previous speaker and Mr. Filiotro, this is for you. A question about the traffic in the right in, right out. Do you have that in front of you? Well, as far as this, David, actually, traffic engineering, we don't typically limit right-and-right on local roads. That's not something we typically do. Now, you know, Paris Pike, potentially, that is one of the main access points. And I don't think it extended this far, but KYTC just finished a program of limiting some access points south of the interchange. And I presume at some point they'll maybe continue that on to the north of the interchange. change. But yeah, we typically, like I said, we don't limit that kind of turning movements on local roads typically. Mr. Lawrence. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me follow up, Mr. Philitre, kind of a different question. It looks to me on the DP there's access out onto Parkside, and it kind of looks like it's close to paris pike and seeing that video it seemed like they could be quite a bit of congestion is it too close it it's well it's it's close to where their edge of their their property line and it almost aligns with with the speedway which is existing access point so i would say that's kind of the natural point where it would go i'm not sure there's a better option for them to have anyway Okay. So distance wise is really not an issue? Not in this particular instance, no. Okay. Any further questions for traffic staff? All right, thank you both. Ms. Clark, you wanted to? I appreciate the opportunity to rebut, and I will be very brief. I'm well aware that it's a longstanding tradition that if a development plan application has been filed and then the law changes, it's reviewed under the old. Tradition that's convenient for the staff and for the applicant, perhaps not so much for the citizenry who have a new ordinance. What I don't see, I don't see, is that it's law. law, and it was the advice of counsel. What I see is the ordinance saying very plainly and also the statute saying that there has to be an investment, there has to be a contract, a building, construction. It has to be existing to become a legally non-conforming use when the law changes. The other thing I would say is that there were two locational standards, if you will, for the new B3. Can't be near to Peterbilt. The other thing is it's access. It does lie along North Broadway, but it doesn't actually have access from North Broadway, or it has to have a service road. To Ms. Drouse's point, Parkside is not a service road. It's a very busy collector with an elementary school up there and public housing, affordable housing, senior housing, and the traffic signals and so on. It's a fraught area. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. You want to make a comment? Yes, there's a couple things first about the talk about the car sales is that to rebuild they intend to sell passenger cars, not heavy duty trucks, equipment or parts. The second thing is that the lot will primarily be used as a retail sales lot, show room for the vehicles ready to sell. Just to clarify where some of that got brought up. And as far as the aerial that we saw, there's the existing traffic circulation for Paris Pike. I think David covered very, very well. And there is a development of a nearly 200, if not exactly, apartment complex right across the street where the existing bar used to be, where old Paris Pike goes into it, I guess known as Jones Cottrell Project. So I think that that has already been discussed as far as the circulation of Paris Pike with your New Girls project before as there will not be any additional, I mean we're basically absorbing existing traffic. We're not adding any new traffic is the best way to put it. With the daycare and stuff like that, we're just absorbing traffic that's already there. And I hope that that answers some of the questions that you may have. Okay, do we have any questions for the applicant? Thank you. Thank you. We'll be bringing it back to the commission. Floor is open if there aren't any questions or concerns. Mr. Davis? I guess for the applicant, you said this is going to be a retail for vehicles. So passenger cars, SUVs, consumer trucks, I'm guessing. That's the way I understand it. And if we need to clarify it better on the development plan before the certification, you know, after we leave here today, we can do so for you. I'm just thinking out loud. My concerns, you are so close to a residential zone with people. And I think of the trucks that deliver vehicles that are going to be sold. and where is it going to park when it does its one hour unloading? I know you have an entrance through the property to the south. And again, I'm not framing this necessarily in the form of a question, which is unfair, but I'm trying to work through it in my head logistically, again, considering that you have residential use almost totally surrounding. To be honest with you, that was one of the things that I thought was addressed during the preliminary stage, and so I don't really know how to answer your question at this moment, but what we can do, assuming that we get a conditional approval today, is again, before the certification is allowed to happen, we can get all this worked out with traffic engineering. Thank you. subdivision committee so my colleagues who are may know certainly more about it than me. This is just kind of preliminary questions that I have. Thank you. You're fine. Thank you so much. Floor is open. Mr. Pohl. Maybe I missed this, but could staff address Ms. Drouse's concern about the proximity of the car dealership with the Peterbilt business? Right. That's a new regulation that went into effect on June 27th and they applied in May. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Migler? I think that the citizens brought some good comments. I think that in our position today reviewing the final development plan, this application is sort of in its last phase. And I do think that they did come back sort of with a premise that is comparable to what they brought on the preliminary plan. So with that, I move to approve PLN and MJDP 2437. the with the condition that they royal springs submit it to the royal springs aquifer protection committee i guess well maybe i'm going to withdraw for a second where does those comments go because those comments are normally supposed to come to us. So generally that the comments from the committee inform the engineers design of their stormwater management and stormwater management and that level of detail is typically in the infrastructure plans that are submitted to the division of engineering usually much later in the process after the planning commission is approved and after even the plan is certified. So we are getting them in front of the committee earlier in the process before they've even designed their stormwater management, and that's, I think, critically important. The wellhead group will encourage them to stay out of the sinkhole, right, not to impact the sinkhole, which I think Mary has indicated they are already doing. And then usually they do some other oil and gas separators when there's a car lot of any sort in relation to that. So they'll get into those details and try to outline that before they design all the stormwater management. Will that be something that is required to get engineering sign off as well? Yes. So it gets two levels of review. Then yes, so I move to approve with the 18 conditions, deleting the number 19 and adding the condition that they present to the Royal Springs Aquifer Committee for comment. Okay. So we have a motion to have a second to that motion. Who said that? Okay, sorry Mr. Wilson. Seconded by Mr. Wilson. Any further discussion to that motion? Please vote Villagranicus. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All righty, let's put us on page eight of the agenda. Item I, PLNMJDP 24-60. And we have revised staff recommendations as well. Okay, this is High Acres Shopping Center, Track 1, amended. This is located at the corner of Bryan Station Road. and St. Anthony Drive. This is track one is what we're looking at right here. It's an existing shopping area, but they're making changes on track one. They're adding additional building square footage, and they've also taken and revised opening up this space here for their open space to meet their open space requirement. Previously it was very tight up against the property line and so now they've opened it up and gave a little more green space area. So with them adding the building square footage with the revised conditions, you can see that they have the typical sign off conditions, 1 through 12. And then when they submitted this originally, they had a building here on lot three that they wanted to use as a drive-through because that's what they had approved many, many years ago. But due to the B1 zone, we don't allow the drive-through in the middle of the parking lot B1 zone you're at a minimum of five foot building line and 20 foot maximum so they have removed that proposed building off of lot three. So with that we would like to make sure they change the purpose of amendment to explain that they are no longer making any changes to lot three of adding with the building with the drive through, they're adding some additional landscape islands and just revising Track 1. And with that, I will open it to you all to see if there's any other comments or questions. Any comments and questions for staff? All right, thank you, Cheryl. Applicant? Hello, Chris Mitchell, Palmer Engineering, civil engineer on the project. I'd like to thank staff for helping me work through the comments that we had as we worked through the new regulations and we're agreeable with all the conditions set forth by staff. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Thank you, sir. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this particular application? Seeing none, we bring it back to the commission with motion. Mr. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of PLN MJDP 24-60 High Acre Shopping Center Track 1 as amended with the 13 conditions provided by staff. Second. And we have a second by Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Okay. All right. Please vote via Granicus. All right, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Put us on page nine of the agenda. Item J, PLNMJDP 24-64, Hamburg Place Farm. This is for our Chick-fil-A out this area. We have Manowar Boulevard. We have Pleasant Ridge and Pink Pigeon. It's in here. It's kind of hard to see. that will bring us into the lot for Chick-fil-A. Here we show a larger blow-up of the lot itself. They're proposing to add, they're going to tear down and rebuild a new building, rotating the building about 90 degrees to add building square footage, changing the traffic flow for the drive-through so that it goes around the building and then through the parking lot to exit and then have the parking for the restaurant itself separate from the drive-thru lanes so that you can pull in and park in here and exit. So there was a lot of discussion about the circulation, the access points, having three different access points here onto plot at place. As you can see, we have our typical sign-offs. Then we had some cleanup conditions on the property, correct commission certification, complete information for site statistics, provided the Board of Adjustment grants approval of variances for landscape buffer and maximum parking. They have gone to the Board of Adjustments to ask for variance for the side yard setbacks that are required now along the edge here. So if it's approved at Board of Adjustments, we want to make sure we have those notes. Verify totals in the site statistics box. And then discuss width of drive-through lanes and access to plot at place. Since they were going for, they had at one time showing two drive lanes coming in to the property and then having one exit out of the property. This morning they submitted a plan to us and what we're showing you right now, so that's showing just one drive lane. hoping to narrow this one drive lane to make it a safer lane to circle the parking lot and then to exit. There were still some concerns about the number of access points onto Plot at Place. It was discussed at the technical meeting and the subdivision committee meeting about the distance and the number of access points. So with that, we're just bringing it to you to let you ask any questions that you might have on it. Any questions for staff? Just, sorry, just one right now. Cheryl, did you say you got a new plan, a revision this morning? Yeah. Yeah, and what they've done is they've narrowed this center lane here. When I looked at it, this lane here become, because they had two drive lanes coming through here, and now they're showing one drive lane coming through here. They had two arrows side by side. Now they're showing one. So that's my, and my thoughts on that was that then it gave them more space for their landscape buffer on either side of the property that they went to the Board of Adjustments to ask for a variance on. Because it was a wider lane coming in. My biggest question is that that's obviously after the deadline that they had. Right. Yeah. I was kind of hoping we were going to get it Tuesday, but... We should have had it, Kurt. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Mr. Michler. So, I'm just also looking for this sort of reconfiguring for where they were and where they are now. So, it adds another entrance, right? And then it pushes the building back, right, on the property? It kind of rotated it and pushed it back a little bit, yes. And then it pushes more parking in front of the building. My understanding they have the same number of parking spaces they had. Well, right, but somewhere behind the buildings and now they're in front of the building. Okay. Yes. So we're adding another sidewalk penetration for more vehicles. We're pushing more parking in front of the building and we're moving the building back. So it's like all the check marks of what we don't want. So why are we... I'm curious why we're not seeing a recommendation for decline. well the the b6p zone has different setbacks than some of our other zones but they are actually pushing the the building closer to man of war and then the so it takes the parking and not all the circulation but at least parking from that front yard and moves it from our perspective to the rear off what plotted place is more like an access road in this situation as opposed in a local road as opposed to the primary frontage. Most of the buildings through here do front onto Manowar with their entrances and doors. So it's a little more consistent with that. Yeah. The perspective is that the Manowar is the front. Yes. And they are actually also providing open space access down to Manowar, so they're cutting through the retaining wall to provide stairs and an access point down to the Manowar frontage, too. I see. Okay, well, that at least helps clarify sort of the perspective on that. And presumably they could maintain a similar number of entrance and exit points. They just would have to lose a few parking spaces to cut over. That was one of the discussions with traffic engineering. They had some concerns and they had discussed some issues with them. I don't know if you want any input from Dave Filiatro with traffic engineering. he'd be able to help you with that. David Philiatry again, Traffic Engineering. Yeah, well, we, they had sort of a pre-application meeting, and what they showed in that one, they did, they showed only two access points, but their building got slightly larger, and I presume to maintain the same, the building, a larger building with the same parking, They determined to make the circulation one way. So that was sort of my, and so, statutorily, there's actually a code of ordinance where you can't have three entrances if your frontage is 150 feet or less. I think their frontage is 151 feet, roughly. So they're close to being statutorily not allowed to have three. And so with that, coupled with the fact they showed me a plan that worked with two, I was inclined to encourage them to stick with two. But again, for their operations, the parking they want, things like that, this is what they determined was most appropriate for them, I suppose. I mean, part of that's the frontage. I mean, I assume part of the need for the, I guess this is not necessarily traffic, But part of the need for this landscape buffer waiver is trying to fit in all of these vehicular access and drive aisles. Is that correct? Or I guess, yeah. I would presume. Mm-hm. Thank you. Advocate? Hi, good morning. or afternoon. I'm Shaina Day with Interplan, the engineering firm representing Chick-fil-A. We did originally have the entry only being the two accesses with having the drive-through entry further into the site. However, we found there was more conflict for pedestrian impact and difficulty for trucks coming from the west to maintain the U-turn to get into the drive-thru and felt this was a more safe option for pedestrians in the parking lot. As well as the landscape buffer that we obtained was for the buffer on the west of the site where the drive-through lane is. There's a retaining wall there existing, so it is difficult to utilize much of that space, and that was approved at the board. Okay. Any questions? Do we have any questions for the applicant? Thank you. Oh, Mr. Mickler, you go. You go. You all had an earlier draft that was two access points in the, I'm confused as to the rationale that it improved safety by increasing the vehicular access points. Could you explain that again? access specifically rather than having individuals parking and having to walk across the drive-thru access. It specifically has cars coming from Plot-It Place with appropriate signage into the drive-thru lane and as a allowing pedestrians that are parking and accessing the restaurant for dine-in to not have to engage with drive-through traffic, which is where a majority of the Chick-fil-A traffic comes. If I may, if you're not familiar with the way it exists right now, you have lots of points where pedestrians are crossing as, you know, you turn in, and if you're going to the drive-through, you actually circle the building to get into the drive-through lane then when you're coming out of the drive-through you've got two lanes coming in that will cross the drive-through and you have the people coming out of the drive-through coming across so it's it's really kind of hairy sometimes you know if you look up and all of a sudden you know the person coming out of the drive-through is not stopping as you're trying to come around it's it's a mess so looking at this it it clears up all of that you know cross cross cross type of uh action that they got going on today all right thank you uh is there anyone who'd like to speak on this particular agenda item um okay i'll bring it it back to the commission um for emotion or further questions mr mickler well my um take on this is that you know one of the things they're just they're just trying to cram in every square inch for the the automobile that they're allowed and then more, which is why they need the landscape buffer and it's why they need the extra vehicular access. And I understand the logic of trying to reorient and I understand the staff's logic of viewing the front as man of war, but I think the ask here is too much. Personally, I would like to see a continuance and see if they come back with either no variance needed for the landscape buffer or figure out how to get that down to two access points. That would be my preference. Thank you, Mr. Mickler. I guess it looks like Tracy has something she wants to say, so maybe I'll hear that before. The board acted on Monday to already approve the variance for the landscaping, and it reduced it from 8 to 5 feet, which obviously was the previous requirement. And then they also approved a variance to basically accept 50 parking spaces as the maximum on their lot, which is what they have today. But the new ordinance changes that went into place, I suppose, in 2018 required much less parking. So those two variances have already been granted. So I think you want to make your decision based on that knowledge. Thank you for that clarification. You know, in that case, I'd be prepared to just make the motion for a continuance for them to come back with two entrances instead of three. Is there a motion? Yeah, I motion for a continuance and ask them to evaluate with traffic a redesign for two vehicular entrances. Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second to that motion? Second. Seconded by Mr. Jonathan Davis. Any further discussion? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. I'm going to agree with that as much as anything to give everybody a chance to look at this latest revision that came in late. So, yes. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Please vote via Granicus. Okay, that motion passes. So there's a continuance on this particular application. All right, that put us on page 10. PLN, MJDP 24-67, Lexmark International. Oh, yeah, and we have revised staff recommendations on the green sheet. Before we move on, Ms. Jones just acknowledged that you didn't continue it to a date certain. So I want to make sure that we share the date with the applicant so that they can return. Does the applicant feel like... You want to September 26, two weeks to the September 26 meeting. That's fine. Okay. Okay. We're getting back a bill. Okay. We're moving forward to Lexmark International, Section 1, Lot 7. This is the plat that we were looking at earlier. So you can see this is Newtown Pike over here. Freight Boulevard comes around. This is kind of hard to see. Setzer Drive comes through here. Here's Loudoun Avenue. So you can see that they are creating off of Setzer and Loudoun Avenue, they are creating four lots. We have one here, two, three, and then the last lot over here is my, our understanding is for storage. They have buildings shown on lot A and C, lot B, because there are so many utilities in the middle of it, they, at this current time, they don't have anything proposed for it's as far as the structure-wise, they'll be back with an amendment to be able to do something else on that property. On the plat, we spoke about the access easement coming through here and down through here. One thing on this access easement, and I didn't clarify this very well earlier, we were hoping that this could be, they're showing 30 foot here. We were hoping, because this is an industrial use, we asked to have a 40-foot wide access easement from Setzer going in here so that it could get them access to their storage area. The remaining portion of the access can be at their 24-feet access easement. That was part of the findings on the access easement. The applicant had brought us in a revised plan. We still have all our typical sign-off conditions. We did have some other cleanup conditions, light and contour lines for legibility, clarifying the street names on vicinity map, remove utility and sewer lines, and depict boundaries of easements. Typically on most plans, we show the boundaries of the easement because we give a dimension of what the width is. So we don't usually show the line of the pipe in that easement. So as you can see, there's a lot of information here. Addition of new site statistics box. Addition of maintenance note for the access easement for this lot here, for the access easement, bring us in and into the inside of the lot. addition of building line setback. Denote gas easement through lots A and C. We were able to find one side of the easement, but we couldn't find the other side, so we want to have that clarified. Denote planning commission approval of the use of the access easement. Denote outdoor storage areas shall be constructed and maintained in compliance with Articles 8 and 17 of the zoning ordinance. That is making sure that we have the property paved. Remove proposed contour grading lines for legibility. They added some additional lines here. All the blue lines are for grading. Typically, we don't see that on a development plan. We see the existing contour lines. We don't see the proposed layout. That is something that is typically handed to engineering at the time of the grading permit. or building inspection at time of building permits. Denote compliance with Article 18 of the zoning ordinance for interior parking islands. That is required every 90 feet or 10 parking spaces with your parking spaces being 9 feet wide so that we have some green areas. And so right now these are just strings of parking spaces along the front of the building in the center. So we want them to meet Article 18 of the zoning ordinance and then correct use of Lot 7. They have just contour sales, 7D actually is for 7D, and it should be outdoor storage. So we just want it to be clarified in the site statistics. So I'll open it to you all to see if there's any other comments or questions. Any comments or questions for staff? Mr. Wilson? Yeah, just one quick kind of thing. This is a development plan for another plan. Why is this separated from the original? Because we could have done this a long time ago and the people could have gone home. Well, you can see here it's part of the whole development plan. this plan we just lot seven is down here in the corner this is part of the overall development plan itself sorry mr wilson do you mean why did we discuss the plat early in the meeting and now the development plan now yeah well we just take them in the order they're on the agenda so if if the chairman wants to reorder the agenda with your permission we could have done that and we can't next time yeah and in fact the matter is that's my fault because i should have called for that to rearrange the agenda so that people wouldn't have to stay around for okay no problem so ms wade are you throwing me under the bus on that one that was not my intention that's okay that was not my intention just to i think i did say that there was a development plan with this plat so when i showed the plat i think i did say there was a development plan that we'd be talking about later this is it okay any questions for staff outside of that mr wilson you good okay applicant afternoon abby jones abby jones consulting i'm glad to be with you again we've worked through a myriad number of easements i think we're up to 15 on the property and the The reason why we're so far along with our design with grading and all sorts of other parts of it is because we've been working very, very closely with Columbia Gas, being that we have a high-pressure 10-inch transmission pipe going through the middle of the property, which is a pretty significant restriction to our grading. Since we cannot cut in those areas, we can only fill by up to about a foot. So we have worked through that. We actually have their support in an email. So I believe we've worked through all of the deep items. We're down to just a few CAD cleanup types of items, and we look forward to your support of this redevelopment of this area that's in an area that has been underutilized for a significant amount of time. Okay. Any questions for the applicant? Thank you, Ms. Jones. Is there anyone who would like to speak on this particular application? I'm not seeing none. I'm bringing it back to the commission for a motion. Mr. Wilson. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of PLNMJDP 24-67 Lexmark International Incorporated Section 1, Lot 7, with the 17 conditions provided by staff. Thank you. Second. Okay, second by Ms. Worth. 26. 26. 26, yep. Yeah, it is 26. I'll modify that to 26 right. Please vote via Granicus. Good Lord. All right, that motion passes. Thank you. Okay. That should be on page 11. Are we on the commission items now? We've got the PLN cell 24-1 Baptist College Wireless Communication Facility. Yes, sir. Yeah. Our next application for Planning Commission review is one that we don't have very often, actually, maybe once a year. This is a proposed new wireless communication facility or a telecommunication tower that the Planning Commission reviews under Article 25 of the zoning ordinance. So prior to Article 25 being adopted, the PSC at the state level approved all of our telecommunication towers. So when it was a possibility, the Planning Commission said, no, we would like to review telecommunication towers individually. And so in Fayette County, that's how we handle that. This particular application is for a piece of property or tower to be located on a piece of property along Versailles Road. The address is 3440 Versailles Road, and it currently is the site of the Commonwealth Baptist College. and it's a linear tract of about 23 acres that has frontage along Versailles Road and then runs north-south back from Versailles Road. The property is bordered by another church use to the west here and another linear tract. Agricultural land use further to the west, Keeneland and Calumet are on the north side of Versailles Road in this vicinity. To the direct east is Wellesley Heights. I'm sorry, I said that wrong. Wesley Heights. It is Wellesley. Okay, Wellesley Heights neighborhood, which is a, one of our rural residential neighborhoods that was platted. There's also a smaller subdivision here to the southeast of the tower location, which has been known as a couple things. I think recently they rebranded themselves as the Silks, but historically we reviewed that as Lexingtonian Estates. And then further to the east is the newly designed and now under construction Cardinal Run North Park. A little bit further to the south, we have agricultural tracks again. And then the entrance to the park along Parker's Mill Road. So that's our vicinity. And zoning in the area to the west, north, and south remains agricultural rural. Wellesley Heights is zoned R1A, which is not a common zone in our community anymore, but it's our lowest density single-family residential zone. And then the Silks or Lexingtonian Estates is in an R3 zone up there along Versailles Road. Also of note, as you are traversing Versailles Road through here, you intersect with New Circle Road. So there's New Circle, Versailles Road. The applicant is proposing to construct a stealth monopine tower. and we'll get into that a little bit more on the property all the way to the south end of the parcel so there's an existing drive that runs along the western edge of the property that they plan to use it is paved for a portion and then gravel currently for a portion and then they would pave the portion that accesses the new tower site all the way back here in the rear there's currently a baseball field just to the north of their site. There is another tower in close vicinity, but it is not a telecommunications tower per se. It is a tower used by the Federal Aviation Administration on behalf of the Bluegrass Airport. So it is not nearly as tall, and so we can get into that in a few minutes. And then the single-family residential zones and the lots to the east. This is an aerial photograph, and you can see the use of the property currently is mostly along Versailles Road, where the college is located, and then there are some other agricultural or recreational uses between the front along Versailles Road and where the tower is going to be located. And again, there's the baseball field. Zooming in a little bit closer on what the compound or the lease area proposed is, it is a 60 by 60 lease area which equates to 3,600 square feet of this 23 acre parcel. That site is about 2,000 feet from Versailles Road and then 125 feet, give or take, to the nearest property under different ownership. So that property line to the west is the closest property line. They propose in conformance with Article 25 an 8-foot wooden fence surrounding the compound as well as 5-foot landscape buffer, again as recommended by our ordinance. This This is a little bit hard to see, but hopefully the photos will be better. An applicant may have it. This is a profile of the proposed tower. So again, the fence and landscaping at the base. And as you move up, we have a room for four antenna to be located on there. They propose for the AT&T antenna to be located at the top, but having the ability to co-locate three additional carriers on the pole and then within the compound as well. But they are proposing what's called a monopine. In essence, the pole is camouflaged, maybe is the word that we use, but it's an alternative design, so camouflaged to look like a pine tree. Other facilities within the area, they provide the map for the municipal communications group of where there are existing facilities in Fayette County, and you can see where their site fits into this area and where the rest of our facilities are in Fayette County. and they have noted that there is a service gap and that's of course why they are proposing a new tower to address needs in the community. The Article 25 of our zoning ordinance, in addition to the state regulations, but our ordinance requires that we review the comprehensive plan in terms of new cellular facilities. And so the comprehensive plan adopted in 2023 does have a particular policy statement that is relative to wireless communications facilities, and it's pretty clear, just as support and maintain and expand, well, sorry, support the maintenance and expansion of a robust wireless communication network, creating reliable service throughout Lexington's both urban and rural areas. And then more specifically, there are two place builder criteria that identify a little bit more specific recommendations. The first being that adequate right-of-way lease areas and easements for infrastructure with emphasis on wireless communication networks should be provided to create reliable service throughout Lexington. And then second, that cellular tower antenna should be located to minimize intrusion and negative aesthetic impacts, and stealth towers and landscaping should be used to improve the visual impact from the roadway and residential areas. So this pretty clearly directs our applicants to look to doing a stealth tower if possible, And so when the applicant indicated they had a location in Fayette County and asked if they should consider a stealth tower, the staff said yes. Comprehensive plan recommends that, as does the zoning ordinance. So just to go into a little bit more about the zoning ordinance, the zoning ordinance really encourages co-location. So if there's an existing tower that can be used by a new carrier, we want them to look for those existing towers first. This new tower will allow for co-location, so that's a positive. In addition, the zoning ordinance lays out a lot of restrictions. So a tower shouldn't be in a floodplain. It shouldn't be in an environmentally sensitive area, so not near a sinkhole. It should be not in a historic district. It should not be on a scenic byway. So all of those things are being met by this particular application. In terms of the stealth facility, though, the applicant did provide pictures of what the tower will look like. Of course, they've simulated that based on the size of the tower and then these oblique photography or photos. So this is the view from Versailles Road facing into the property. And you can see there's the tree, the faux tree monopine would not be visible from Versailles Road. From Parker's Mill Road, though, it would be visible above the tree line, obviously because it's a little bit taller than most of our trees. It's proposed to be a 106-foot-tall tower with a 5-foot light on top for a total of 111 feet. From the adjoining residential neighborhood, again, the cell tower would be visible, but it wouldn't stick out quite like just a pole in the viewshed. And then this is the view from Terminal Drive, which is on the airport site, the Bluegrass Airport site. Returning to what the staff looks for in terms of whether the cell tower is meeting our regulations, we evaluate Article 25. And so as I mentioned, a few things here. This cell tower proposed is not in a FEMA flood plan on the property, so it meets that requirement. It also is not in any geographic hazard areas. There's no sinkholes in the vicinity, and the geotechnical report provided has found that the area is appropriate for a proposed tower. The site is located south of an existing historic district. It's the West Fayette County Rural Historic District, and it's listed on the National Register but not on our local list of H-1 districts. But the proposed tower is located beyond what the ordinance mandates. So the ordinance says it shouldn't be within 1,200 feet of a district. This one is, again, at least 2,000 feet south of the edge of the district. The adjoining streets are not scenic byways. The proposed tower meets a one-to-one height-to-yard ratio. Again, the tower is 111 feet. The closest property line is 125 feet. In addition, the requirement also identifies that the accessory structures would be required to be 25 feet from adjoining zones, and it meets that requirement, and the nearest residence is over 300 feet away. The tower will not be located where it will interfere with traffic circulation, and again, it's all the way to the south of their lot, not involved with the public traffic at all. There is adequate space for the required fencing and landscaping, and I noted earlier that there's a five-foot landscape requirement around the base of the facility. The proposed tower will also utilize an alternative tower design to reduce the visual impact of the tower. Again, that's recommended both by the comprehensive plan as well as the zoning ordinance. and the tower will be constructed and situated on the property in the most logical and serviceable location possible. It will, sorry, that should say, will not be visible from Versailles Road, but will be visible from the residential properties, even though it's camouflaged. And then lastly, the proposal to construct a new tower for the purpose of providing and augmenting our service in Fayette County, and it will have the ability to be expanded, which is, again, an important component of the zoning ordinance. So for those reasons, the staff does recommend approval of the new tower with three conditions. That the stealth monopine tower be located as shown on the site plan and constructed as noted in the drawings. That the proposed tower meet all the requirements of Article 25, as, again, we think it does in the draft submitted application. and that any applicable permits be obtained prior to construction from the appropriate divisions within the urban county government. One thing I did not mention before we get to questions is that the ordinance also encourages, first, that applicants look to locate cellular towers on public property. and before the applicant came forward in fact maybe a year before the staff encouraged them to talk to parks and rec the division of parks and recreation about the cardinal run north site because it is within their search area and they did speak to both parks and rec and Kentucky American Water about potentially locating on either a water tank nearby or the park site. And Parks and Rec declined to allow the cellular tower to lease space from the park. So once that occurred, that indicated to the applicant that they needed to really refocus on the private property within the area, and they avoided with their search looking at any of the residentially zoned parcels, which would include, obviously, the residential neighborhood. And then in this area, and again I mentioned the zoning, it's either residential or agricultural. There's not any business zones to look at to occupy or to allow for the tower to be located on. So the preference, our ordinance directs people to not do a residential zone, if at all possible, And so that pushes the tower location, again, a little bit further to the west or to the south with their search ring. But it will, and I guess this doesn't quite show that much, but this tower will cover part of our new expansion area one with service. So that's a positive. I wanted to bring that up that the park was a possibility and is within their search area. but the division had declined. Happy to answer any questions. And, of course, the applicant is here as well. I do believe Paula handed out one letter to you at your seat, so you'll have that. Thank you. Are there any questions for staff? Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Chair, didn't realize you assumed responsibility. Ms. Wade, since you brought, I was going to ask South African, but since you brought it up, you said the parks and rec declined? Yes. Do you have a reason? They did not give us a reason. Okay. Curious. It seems like a natural fit to me. So anyway, also the second question, you mentioned that part of the driveway was paved going back, and it sounded like they were going to pave the area next to the tower, parking, whatever. Doesn't it all have to be paved? I don't think it all has to be paved if it's not the existing gravel drive already is there. I don't think they have to repave that. They need to pave the area they're creating. Okay. It just seemed like in past experiences, the pavement was required. So I may be wrong. So thank you. Any further questions? Applicant? Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. My name is Keith Brown. I'm an attorney with Pike Legal Group. You all, or some of you may know David Pike, who's the owner of Pike Legal Group. I've worked with him for over 30 years. We've had incredible adventures with these wireless applications in multiple states. I wanted to start off with having my colleagues from Pike Legal, Steve Lance and Aaron Roof, distribute these binders just for ease of reference here. These binders include materials which are already in the administrative record, so I'm not bringing in new evidence with the binders here. I also wanted to mention that I have a few people with me here tonight. One is Sherry Lewis. Sherry, if you would stand up here. Sherry Lewis is a long-experienced radio frequency engineer for AT&T, and she is the author of the report that's in the administrative record. We also have Glenn Katz, our highly credentialed appraisal expert who has submitted a property report in the record. And so they are here for all due process purposes tonight. We also have a representative of the Bible College here, Mr. Fisher, if you could stand up here. The Bible College has entered into an easement agreement providing for the location of this site and we look forward to a good relationship with them. This site is applied for by AT&T Mobility also called New Singular Wireless PCS LLC which is a little hard to get out but remember that it is a utility registered with the Public Service Commission. It is not just any private business. There are very important reasons that a company becomes a utility because it is providing a service that's very important to the Commonwealth of Kentucky for people to get their wireless service. All exhibits that are required by the Kentucky Revised Statutes have been submitted into the administrative record. You might know that the cell tower applications, which are called uniform applications under KRS 100, have more state statutory requirements really than any other type of zoning application. Most other zoning applications, if there are detailed requirements, it is requirements imposed in the local ordinance, not the state statute. But the state statutes provide extensive exhibit requirements, which we have complied with, all to show that we've got a good development planned here. We have also followed all of the procedural guidelines as far as notice and publication of the Kentucky Revised Statutes. We have waived confidentiality. We're very proud of our application, and we're not trying to keep it confidential, as the state statute would otherwise allow large parts of it to be confidential. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation I'm proceeding through has been filed here today, so it's of record like all of our other documentation. The proposed site location, of course, Ms. Wade did a great job explaining her staff report and showing where the site is and the various documents. I couldn't have said it all better myself, so I think I'm going to rely a lot on what she did say in her report, which constitutes substantial evidence in support of the application. We worked very hard, all of our vendors and engineers, RF engineers, technical people, our attorneys in my office, everybody worked hard to comply with all the state requirements and with the local requirements of Article 25. We want to make sure we're presenting an application that's in full compliance. We see the application area is when you use Versailles Road as a reference point, an important measurement to remember is that the site is about over 2,000 feet away from Versailles Road. So it's not right up against Versailles Road. people are going to have to absolutely strain to see this tower site when they're driving by down Versailles Road if they can see it at all. This is a very important diagram here. This is called a radio frequency plot prepared by Ms. Lewis, and it shows the current coverage. The bluish areas are areas of not that great of coverage, and you can see the location of our site which is referenced there sort of just to the just beside one of the blue areas. So here's our current coverage and you see the problems with the blue areas. Here's the coverage with this tower. Notice the huge expansion of green areas and notice the legend of down below there's a measurement about how wide this area is and you know when When you include the whole area, it's over a mile each way, and you can see a lot of improvement in coverage. So we're going to provide a lot of coverage to people, to our residential neighbors and to also various other areas, including the park. Of course, as a UK law alum, I'm a little surprised that any park in Lexington is named Cardinal anything, but apparently it is. But we love those customers too at AT&T and we're going to provide coverage in all of this area, the residential areas, the park areas, and certainly people that are enjoying a park need coverage as much as anybody else. This is a drawing that shows the site plan. Ms. Wade alluded to a similar drawing. You'll notice that the total height is 111 feet. There's a five-foot lightning arrestor at the top to get to that 111 feet. This is not a lighted tower like those giant towers you see around interstates. The FAA did not require under current law this tower to be lighted, so it is not. It's designed to sort of look like a pine tree, and that's favored by your ordinance. We have a positive staff recommendation, so it camouflages it a bit. Obviously, it's a 111-foot-tall structure. It's significant, but it's a bit camouflaged, so if you get away from it, it doesn't really look like a tower. It's built to all kinds of engineering standards, building code standards, all of that type of thing. We do have co-location. AT&T is the anchor tenant on this that will be at the top of it. And as time goes on, Municipal Communications will be marketing this tower to Verizon, T-Mobile, whoever else might want to put their antennas on it. Municipal Communications is a co-applicant. It's a tower company that has a contractual relationship with AT&T. But the service that's going to be provided from this tower in the beginning is AT&T. Hopefully we will get other co-locators on it. We've seen the site plan before. This is located way back from Versailles Road, just beyond a baseball field, and there's several hundred feet distance from the residential properties off to the other side of the property. We've had the photographic simulations that Ms. Wade showed you. We have a report that's of record on radio frequency need. There's a significant gap in service in this area. AT&T mobility wants to fill that gap. Radio frequency engineer Sherry Lewis has said that this tower is in an area and a sufficient height to fill that gap. That is expert testimony, which under the Federal Telecommunications Act means a lot. That is what gives us the persuasive case to build this tower. These towers have to be in a certain area. We've got sort of an oblong, egg-shaped search area with the red line demonstrating the search area. And of course, we're not going to try to put the tower on a residential lot at all. We found several parcels that we consider. For whatever reason the city parks did not want a tower in the park. There was a Church of God property next to the college property that is actually restricted against cell tower by a recorded instrument. Calumet Farms didn't want a tower on its property and also the water utility didn't want an antenna on their water tanks. So nobody wanted to come with us to the dance except the Bible College, which that, if we're approved, is going to be of great benefit to the people in the area that will get the improved coverage. So I sort of explained the site selection report. If there was a 10-story hotel in this area, we might want to put the antennas on top of it. It would be way cheaper even negotiating with a hotel, and it would be easier to get done. But there's nothing like that. no other towers in the area, no other 10-story hotels to put antennas on, so we had to put it in a new tower. 111 feet. You know how many very large towers there are in Fayette County? This is one of the smaller ones, way on the small end of the spectrum of towers, so it's not an intrusive tower. We tried to follow all of the site selection processes and ended up following Article 25 of your zoning ordinance and selected the Bible College location. We've looked at property values. Mr. Katz has provided a property valuation report. He's an expert witness, has credentials a mile long detailed in his report, and he doesn't think there will be any negative impact on property values. It's very inobtrusive. A monopine tower, hundreds of feet from the nearest residential structure, We just don't believe that there will be any effect on property values, and we have expert testimony and report to prove it. We've complied with all of the local regulations. Otherwise, how would we get a favorable staff report from Ms. Wade? We went through Article 25 meticulously. Provision after provision and complied. We did all the notice requirements, all the letter notice, all the sign notice, publication, all of that. There's nobody that's been left out of the notice here. Federal telecommunications law. For those of you that have dealt with cell tower apps before, you know that this is a different animal. The Federal Telecommunications Act puts limitations on the discretion of a local planning commission. It's not like a rezoning where there's tremendous discretion on the Planning Commission and legislative body. With this type of application, the federal law requires there to be substantial evidence for any denial. Layperson opinion, unsupported opinion, generalized expressions of concern, claims the tower will be unsightly, all of those type of things are not substantial evidence that can support a denial. The U.S. Congress, when enacting the Telecommunications Act, said that it wanted to encourage the rapid deployment of wireless communications facilities. That's what we're trying to do. We've got a gap in service here. We've complied with Article 25. We've complied with state law. and we're very grateful after all of our work to get a favorable staff recommendation. And sometimes I've had planning commissioners say, well, why is all of our discretion sort of being taken away? Well, the reason it sort of goes away is because we've done this effort to comply with your regulations. Your planning commission provided us with the guide path on what we had to do to have a supportable application. and we think we've done that. We also want to just reference a federal health interview survey that shows just what we all know that overwhelmingly people are more and more moving toward just using wireless service not landline telephone so this is an important utility service. With AT&T sites I always mention FirstNet After 9-11, the 9-11 Commission noted many concerns about first responders having problems in the situation of the tragedy of 9-11 because the wireless sites were getting overloaded. FirstNet, which is a network switching service that AT&T has on its towers, including this one, really helps first responders in, say, a tornado situation or some kind of other disaster, but it helps first responders get the coverage that they need, and that is an independent reason for approving this site. You know, all parts of Lexington deserve great cell service. We've done everything we can to try to close this significant gap in this area of Lexington and hope to improve coverage there. We ask you to make a motion and approve this site. If there are any opponents, I would like to reserve some time here to respond and rebuttal to them and hopefully we could answer any concerns that they may have. But overwhelmingly, the substantial evidence is here in this administrative record. We ask you to approve this application to improve service in a significant part of Lexington. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any Commissioner questions for the applicant? Maybe, but I'd like to know if Dr. Cavatasi is in the audience. No. Was he here? Was he here? Oh, okay. Then I will ask, because it's really a question about your industry, and not a planning commission question that I think our staff could answer. We have a letter here from Dr. Cavatasi, and this is not in opposition to what you're doing. The last time we heard one of these, I was asking, can't we disguise that cell tower? Because I've seen the ones that look like cacti out in Arizona. I think they look a heck of a lot better than what we typically see. But he does talk about plastic pollution. So my question to you all is not about changing your plans. It's is the industry recognizing a problem with plastic pollution, and is there anything you all can do to help contain the plastic pollution? Well, initially, I need to note an objection to this letter from Mr. Cavatassi or any reliant. Dr. Cavatassi, yeah. Dr. Cavatassi. He is not here to be cross-examined. examined and so he object to any admission of this email or to any reliance on it and as a lawyer you understand why I have to do that but I'll be glad to try to answer your question. We have a in Kentucky you have building codes of whatever is going to be built. This tower, the monopine and the unique features of it will comply with all applicable building code requirements. Now as far as broad issues about plastic pollution, visual pollution, those are sort of broad policy issues that are really not the subject of the jurisdiction of this commission. I will inform you that the federal court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and the Selco partnership opinion of some years ago, which is published federal opinion, was very much adverse to the idea that a tower could be denied based upon visual issues. Just because people maybe don't want to look at a tower. We've gone a long way with this one in making it a monopine. So we think we've done everything we can on the visual issues. This email from the doctor also talks about health concerns. We filed a document of record explaining that federal statutes eliminate from the jurisdiction of local planning commissions any decision based upon the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions. That is a federal statute, and that is a, also Kentucky has a very similar statute. Any environmental effects of radio frequency emissions are within the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington. They are not in the jurisdiction of local planning commissions. What we have done here is present an application that meets all state and Article 25 Lexington requirements for a cellular tower. And there are always going to be policy debates in Congress, before the FCC, everywhere about all these issues. But I think it's important for a planning commission to make the decision based upon its jurisdiction. Let me clarify. I think I said initially, my question was not in regard to approval or not approval. It was simply understanding where the industry is at this point and whether you're looking at that, addressing it, and that's all I wanted to know. I mean, obviously AT&T Mobility is a giant company, and they have to address a variety of issues and look at issues that may come up with Congress or various state and federal agencies. And I think they're doing that, but I have done this for years and years, and I have never seen any hesitation to construct a monopine facility because of some pollution concern. So, you know, do I think they're looking at these issues? Yes, they are a massive company that looks at all kinds of issues, but we don't see any concern with constructing a monopine cell tower at 111 feet. Thank you. Question, then a statement. Question, sir, would be, since you had a discussion with our wonderful city parks and recreation department, why did they say no? Well, we, and it was discussions between some of my co-counsel and the department, and we had, we had correspondence from them denying it. We don't, we don't know that. We don't know the ins and outs of, of what they would want or not want. I know around the country there have been some parks that have had cell towers. If they had said yes, who knows where we'd be today. They just said no? Right. They just said no. We don't have any big explanation from them. All right. And just as a statement, as a Planning Commission member, we do allow emails. Not everybody can always be here. and you're very much allowed to your opinion and it's for us to make that decision which way to go at that point in time true not true we hear stuff that's not true often but that's for us to decide so you know there's no objection there so well i i understand you're saying i am objecting i'm just but i understand your objection is not going to go very far here thank you your your opinion does But, yeah, thank you. Are there any further questions for the applicant? At this point, we're going to open this part of the meeting up for public comment. We do ask that each citizen limit their comments to three minutes. And I have a list here, but I don't think everyone's still here. So I think probably at this point, if you would like to speak from the audience on this issue, I invite you up to the podium and state your name and address. Hello, everyone. My name is Clay Hall, and I grew up in Lexington. I want to thank the Planning Commission, everyone, for letting me speak here today. I live in Wellesley Heights neighborhood, and I wish we had the map up where you could see exactly where I live, because there wasn't much mentioned about our neighborhood to the east of the projected cell tower. I am at the very back of the neighborhood, and I am about 456 feet from looking west towards the cell tower. That's how far the cell tower would be. If I may too, I can also say that I believe that just right off the bat, microplastic pollution is a problem. I know Dr. Cavatassi. I am also a physician, and I've done a little bit of research on that myself. I would be glad to submit some of that information if you would be interested. I bought my house in 2015, and it is appreciated from $175,000 to $600,000. I look directly west. I've said how far the tower will be. I believe that this would destroy the value of my home. This is not like in a, you know, this is in an area that is agricultural. It's very beautiful. To the left of my property is part of Calumet Farm. And, you know, it just has a beautiful sunset, beautiful trees when I look out there. But what I received from Pike Legal was a map that showed a little circle here with a 500-foot radius map. I believe this is, in my opinion, a little deceptive because it does not include all of the neighborhood that would be affected, in my opinion, by lower property taxes. I think we can agree that fear and anxiety is associated with buying a house near a cell tower. In my opinion, I believe that's directly related to lower property values. I would expect that most of the people in our neighborhood would be affected. There are 12 homes that backyards would face this eyesore. And again, I think that this would, again, lower our property values. I just want to ask you all to please consider, I beg of you to please consider rejection of this proposal, to consider other alternatives. This is to conserve the natural beauty of our neighborhood and maintain our land value. Thank you. Thank you. My name is David McCull. I live at 1617 Kensington Way. I'm about 800 foot from this proposed site. I also agree with Clay here that it's going to decrease my property values. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the presence of cell towers near homes decreases property values by up to as much as 20%. The HUD also recommends cell tower construction be at least 1,500 feet from any urban housing development or any any the primary drivers behind the decline in property values are concerns about potential health risks from electromagnetic radiation and the visual impact the cell towers have which can deter buyers and which also reduces demand even if you're running the home it'll deter noise pollution i don't know how this plane is going to be powered maybe probably electric i guess but what if it had a generator some kind of cooling system running 24 7. noise pollution for us to consider uh in conclusion i don't think anybody on this committee would want to sell tower in their backyards and neither do any of us okay um we know we live here 24 7. we don't want to be exposed to electromagnetic magnetic radiation. It's a large eyesore, a pollutant, and I ask you all to consider going back to the park, asking them again, or the Department of Transportation for the Cloverleaf on New Circle and Versailles Road is another good site, but it should be at least 1,500 feet from our neighborhood. And this is right in Clay's backyard right in mind we don't want it i please ask you all to deny this location for the cell tower put some put it somewhere else that's all i got thank you thank you are there yep step forward Hi, I'm Mary Harkins. I live at 1573 Wellesley Drive. I'm about a thousand feet from the proposed cell tower. Thank you for the time to voice my strong objection to placement of the new singular wireless cell tower to so close to so many homes in my living community. I want to object particularly because of the environmental hazard this cell tower will cause. I have given you three copies you'll have to share around of a website article entitled, Cell Towers Disguised as Trees Create Microplastic Pollution, An Environmental Nightmare. There is a video, if you'll go to ehtrust.org, there is a video of people picking up the debris that falls from these PVC plastic trees. The plastic falls to the ground in a windstorm or just because. Clumps of branches, needles then drop to the ground and it's totally biodegradable. It's not biodegradable at all. It lives forever. Nothing happens to it except it begins to break into tiny, tiny pieces, some smaller than five millimeters. And then it leaches into our groundwater and permeates the soil, contaminating both land, our creeks, rivers, and lakes. Not good. This is not good. This article states that this monopine, and I call you a call to your attention in the staff report. Monopine Stealth Tower is what this is going to be. And it has been proven by scientific research that this monopine is a microplastic time bomb which causes ecological damage. It's proven and written up in scientific literature in multiple scientific periodicals. that clearly demonstrate that toxic pollutants that come from them create threats to our ecosystems. We all have gardens. There are eight gardens in our community. And eventually the PVC will get there. The microplastic. Please consider our request to deny this. Thank you. My name is Dan Harkins. I live in Wellesley Heights. Lexington is a beautiful, unique city. I first visited Lexington 60 years ago. I grew up in western Kentucky. We drove in on Versailles Road and I was fascinated by Calumet Farm. white fences, the mowed pasture, the majestic horses. Over the past 15 or so years, Lexington has spent a lot of money improving the appearance of the road, of the sidewalks, and the landscape along Versailles Road. Versailles Road is the first part of the city that many visitors see because of Keeneland, because of Bluegrass Field. It's an iconic road. All of the roads that come into Lexington are well maintained and well built, but Versailles Road is unique and it's because of Calumet Farm. And so I think it would be a shame to build this goofy looking fake pine tree cell tower just across the road from Calumet, especially since there are so many, that there are other locations in the service area where it could be placed. So thanks for listening. Does anyone else from the public wish to speak on this issue? Good afternoon. My name is Steve Singh and I'm a Wellesley Heights resident. I'm also a retired engineer who coincidentally worked in the field of electromagnetic compliance and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health Standards. However, I will not discuss the potential health effects of the cell tower emissions today since the proposed tower is complying with federal regulation standards established in 1996. Instead, I came here to talk about the perception of potential health hazards and its impact on nearby property values. Whether rational or irrational, buyers' fears regarding tower radiation will result in them passing on a house with a cell tower nearby that ultimately drives down the seller's price. New research published in the International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis on cell towers and property value found a significant impact on the proximity of cell phone towers to residential property sales prices. One reason is that many buyers are concerned about cell tower radiation effects as numerous research studies link cell tower radiation to cancer, biochemical impacts, and microwave illness. If that appears that no buyer would feel this way, then I would like to share a personal experience. My wife and I passed on a house 20 years ago due to its proximity to high tension power lines. That decision was partly due to unsightliness and partly due to fear of electromagnetic radiation impacting health. My fear arose from the fact that three out of five members of my immediate family growing up either died or almost died from cancer. Therefore, I was not going to expose my wife and children to an unconfirmed yet possible source of cancer. In that same context, I have the same concern for high-frequency towers and would never buy a house close to a cell tower despite the assurances of the FCC as being safe. So how does this translate into actual property values? Research on the issue includes a study published in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and economics that found properties located within a half a mile of the closest tower declined 2.4 per 6 on average and up to 9.78 percent on average for homes within the tower's visibility range. My conclusion here today is that irrational or irrational fears of electromagnetic field radiation will have an impact on property values of houses near those cell towers. So I ask the Commission to please consider building a tower in a more suitable location that won't impact the surrounding property towers. Like Mike Owens, I think the more suitable place, the ideal place, would have been Cardinal Run North. I, myself, would love to know. It seems like nobody here understands why they turned it down. It would behoove us to understand that before you all vote to approve this tower. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Paul Natoff, 1600 Tropicana Drive in Wellesley Heights. Before I begin, I was approved before the meeting by the chair to speak for 10 minutes, so I would appreciate that. Yeah, you can continue. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Planning Commission, for allowing me the extra time. Thank you for your service and dedication to Lexington. So again, I'm a resident of Wellesley Heights. I'm speaking on behalf of several of my neighbors, which granted me that extra time, and we oppose the construction of the cell tower at the proposed location. I will discuss why the proposed location is not suitable in the search area, which I believe is on page 13 of the binders that you received today. I will suggest a different, more suitable location within the search area, and I'll ask the applicant's attorney a few questions, and I'm happy that they already said they'd be willing to answer them, so I have a list of questions for them. Before I get into the substance, I also want to talk about the notice requirement. Lexington Zoning Code, Section 259A, states, for any cellular tower or antenna that requires planning commission review, which is this, the applicant shall provide notice of the public hearing by first class letter at least 21 days in advance. And to clarify what that 20 days means and when it's counted, Kentucky statute 271B 1-410 specifies that the notice is counted effectively either five days after it is mailed or when the notice is received. The mailing went out on August 21st, which was 22 days ago, and I don't know anybody who received it within a week of that since it was certified mail and we had to sign for it. I'm sure they have evidence of when it was received. So my first question to the applicant, did you in fact fail to meet the notice requirement of 21 days? If not, please explain why and if so, what are the consequences? On to the substance. We do ask that public comment be directed at the Planning Commission. Okay, I'm sorry. Substance. Why is the proposed location not suitable? As my, to add to what my neighbors discussed, it will have a great impact on the character of the general area and our property values. It will clearly be visible from Parker's Mill Road, Man of War, and even the new development plan for us south of Parker's Mill Road due to the expansion of the urban service boundary, they will have a view of the tower as well, regardless if it's a fake pine tree or if it's a traditional cell tower. The applicant's handout said that there would be no view of the tower from Versailles Road, and I think Ms. Wade echoed that remark. Traveling on Versailles Road every day and knowing the location of the proposed tower, that does not seem accurate. Maybe at that precise location that was noted on the map, there was no view of it because of the hill and the building and the trees that were right there, but farther west on Versailles Road, surely it would be visible. So my second question to the applicant, would the cell tower be visible from other locations along Versailles Road? Also the picture in their application that was shown within our neighborhood, within Wellesley Heights, there was a house blocking a view of over half of the tower, but the whole entire tower would be visible from our neighborhood when there's not a house blocking the view. So my third question to the applicant, if you have an opportunity to resubmit this application, Will you commit to providing an updated photo from either side of the house such that the house is not blocking the view of the base of the proposed tower? As we discussed, there are several horse farms in the area. Calumet is about 100 feet from the proposed tower location. And if you go with a fake pine tree, those PVC pine needles will surely land on their property and probably not the best for the horses. value was discussed, to me it comes down to proximity and visibility of the tower from our properties. It is 456 feet from the nearest house and several houses will see the entirety of the tower from the base to the tip as well as along the roads as we travel through our neighborhood. According to my calculations, there are 17 houses in our neighborhood within 1,200 feet of the proposed tower and 25 within a quarter of a mile. And to rebut their property value expert, I guess, if it has no impact on property value as the applicant claims, why do so many citizens all over the country oppose cell towers near their homes? Also according to their application, Lexington's zoning ordinance states that sites should be selected to minimize impact on residential uses in the immediate area. Clearly this is not an ideal site. And in the staff report, I'm looking at page 3, paragraph 2, it says, the telecommunications tower is allowed in the agricultural zones if there is no other feasible location for it. And borrowing a theory from my daughter's geometry textbook, I look at the contrapositive of that statement. If there are other feasible locations for it, a telecommunications tower is not allowed in agricultural zones. So what are those other suitable locations? Initially, applicant indicated that they contacted all property owners in the search area as a possible location for the cell tower. We found two other properties that are not listed in the application. First, 2085 Parker's Mill Road, which is just at the southern tip of Cardinal Run Park North. It's owned by Kentucky Utilities per the PVA. My next question to the applicant, did you contact Kentucky Utilities to see if they were interested in leasing their land for the tower? To be clear, I'm not advocating for this location for the tower because there are a few houses nearby. And while we don't want the tower in our backyards, we do not want it in their backyards either. Also, on the top right of the search area is the intersection between Versailles Road and New Circle Road, in particular the area of land between the entrances and exits. I believe that's owned by the Department of Transportation, and again, that is within the search area. My next question to the applicant, did you contact the Department of Transportation to see if they were interested in leasing their land for the sale tower? We do think this would be a good use of that land. It's about 900 feet from the nearest house, which is twice as far as it would be if it were in our neighborhood. And while this is a good option, we think there's even better option. As many people alluded to, we believe Cardinal Run Park North is the ideal location for the tower. Why is it better? In particular, the area, the north part of the park, it's a wooded area, excuse me, a wooded area. It's slated to be a dog park, and I got confirmation from Parks and Rec that there is wooded area outside of what will be the dog park. There is also already a cutout in the trees where electrical lines run, and I don't know technically if that would work for a cell tower, but it seems like that would be a great place. The effect of that location on property values, again, I'll go back to the proximity and visibility from nearby houses. Depending on the exact position of the tower in the park, the closest house could be about 1,250 feet away. Compare that with the proposed location. There are 17 houses within 1,200 feet, plus the Church of God and the horse barn. Visibility in this new proposed location in the park, the closest houses would have no view of the cell tower. These houses are on the other side of New Circle Road. There are trees between their house and New Circle Road, and based on the topography of the land and the roads, I don't think they would have any view of the tower. Maybe they would see the tip. It's also likely not visible or barely visible from Parker's Mill and Manowar and Versailles Road. I believe you would see it as you're approaching New Circle based on the curvature of that road. In contrast with the proposed location, it's highly visible from our neighborhood and it greatly impacts the viewshed of the beauty of Lexington. A cell tower in the park would clearly have a much smaller impact on property value than the proposed location. Why else is the tower in the park a better option? I believe the proposed tower is limited in height due to its proximity to the airport. A tower in the park is obviously farther from the airport, and therefore I imagine it could be taller, which I believe the experts could tell me if I'm right or wrong. The taller tower would give better self-service. I also want to talk about the equity of having the tower in the park versus its proposed location. When I think of equity, I like to look at the benefit and the expense. Who's benefiting and at whose expense? In the proposed location, the benefit is a private landowner whose land was assessed to be worth $5 million in 2020, and the expense would be burdened on landowners whose property values would be diminished and who would see the tower every day. By contrast, the benefit of the tower in the park would go to the park or the city of Lexington, and thus the taxpayers. Oh, I didn't realize my time was up there. So that leads me to wonder, are cell towers allowed in Lexington parks? You'd think maybe parks are saying no because they're not allowed in the park. Well, I reached out to Parks and Rec, and they confirmed that the following parks in Lexington currently have cell towers. Shillado Park, Lansdowne Merrick Park, Meadowbrook Park, Bellowwoods Park, Tates Creek Golf Course, Veterans Park, and Deerhaven Park has had an application approved for a cell tower. I'm not sure why they initially said no, but maybe they could reconsider knowing the alternative, and I urge you to please bring them into this conversation. Given the overwhelming reasons why Cardinal Run Park is the best location for the proposed cell tower, we ask you to postpone this decision today and urge Parks and Rec to reconsider their initial position and to allow placement of the new cell tower in the park. Thank you so much. I will leave my questions to the applicant up here, if I can find them. Thank you. Do we have any further citizens that wish to comment? Do we have anybody who did not get a chance yet to speak that wishes to speak? Then at this point, do we have the, is this like a normal hearing where we have a rebuttal period? So at this point we'll bring the agenda back and we'll have an opportunity here for the petitioner to offer rebuttal. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Well we appreciate that citizens in the area have enough concern to show up and make their comments known they have a due process rights right to do that. However, they're only in error as to what the actual law is for a telecommunications tower application. All of these studies that they're quoting that they found on the Internet or that they're quoting various citations to that is not evidence under the federal telecommunications act it may be evidence in a zoning case before you but it is not under the federal telecommunications act I will cite the U.S. Court of Appeals 6th Circuit decision called the T mobile decision and the decision called the soco partnership decision of the Eastern District of Kentucky lay opinion is not evidence in a so in a cellular tower permitting case. All of these citations they've made to studies whoever author of those studies sometimes it's unknown as they mention them but those people are not here and I have not had the right to cross-examine them which is a due process right of the applicant so under federal law all of their studies go by the wayside we have complied with federal law we've complied with article 25 of your zoning ordinance we have presented expert testimony here today and we have a favorable staff report in favor of this application that we complied with the notice requirements we provided notice when the application was filed we provided notice 22 days in advance of this hearing which is all that was required and nothing in the staff report mentions that any deficiency in notice whatsoever. We would also want to go back and mention our expert reports if I could just ask Mr. Katz one one question here Mister. Yeah, you would not far or just in this proceeding on property valuation. But this was you about fire or frequency mean issues as your case. Thank thank you. All of this discussion of property values by late person is just not evidence it's not evidence that this board can consider all of this discussion of environmental effects is prohibited by the federal statute that prohibits local planning commissions from making decisions on environmental effects of radio frequency emissions. All of this concern all of this concern that they say about the moral is and pollution effect none of it is supported here by expert testimony by any scientist and beside we meet the building code requirements we're going to comply with all applicable building code requirements someone could come in here in any hearing whatsoever and say that bricks have environmental effect or the concrete or that cedar would has bad environmental effects. But that's not really in the jurisdiction of the planning commission we have complied with your with your zoning ordinance on those issues there was mentioned that our arms here we know that can't met farms is not here. They didn't want the tower to be on their property but they're not here posing this we also noticed to the park I mean the Lexington government is the sovereign here. They made a decision they did not want to power on their property so that property is what we ruled out the cardinal park is ruled out. You have a decision before you on a filed application meeting all the requirements and all the evidentiary issues. I look at the gentleman's questions that he was kind enough to print out he asked if we failed to meet the notice requirement we did not and the staff report is not a good to any notice issues. With the cell tower visible from other locations along for sales road who knows is 2000 feet from birth sales road we've also submitted the photo seems that gives you an idea of just how far this is from Brazil. You know we're we're not going to take a question about resubmitting this application because we're not submitting it is before the planning commission today. I think you can tell these property mentions actually has a residential or one we're not going to attempt to put a property or one zoning no way on earth to stand here and do that. You know we've chosen a site. We don't think the Department of Transportation site is any better than what we've chosen. We meet all setbacks. It's very important to remember we're looking to what you have told us. you given a setbacks that we meet the car several hundred the for many houses if somebody goes in the backyard first they can see they can see the other power already there it's for the airport purpose it's a back there they can see that or tomorrow I'm it's less intrusive thing home so it's a it's a tower it can be seen but it so and we think that the choice to Lexington we think you should keep in mind all of these different areas that will get improved service and keep in mind the improved service under first responders and keeping keep in mind that all this late testimony about property values is very much speculative we have offered an expert we ask you to approve the application thank you Thank you. Is there a representative from the neighborhood that would like an opportunity for citizen rebuttal? And for the rebuttal, we do ask to limit the time to five minutes by our commission rolls. Thank you. I wasn't prepared for this rebuttal, but I appreciate the opportunity. He says the applicant said that they're in compliance with the notice requirement just now. I don't know how that squares with the statutes that I read as far as notice is effective essentially when it's received or five days after it's mailed. If it's five days after it's mailed, that was 16 days ago and it has to be 21 days ago. And I don't know anybody who received it before five days. And also another option for that was the return receipt of the certified letter, which I believe they submitted as an exhibit all the return receipts. So the date is there to see. Go for it. Should it be visible from other locations on Versailles Road? I don't know if he really answered that, but surely it would, and hopefully as a planning commission, if you do ask them to resubmit an application, you could ask to show a different location along Versailles Road, as I do think it's an important corridor to Lexington, pretty meaningful what it would look like, whether it be a fake pine tree or a traditional cell tower when viewed from Vassell's Road. Applicants' attorneys said that they would not resubmit an application as far as showing what the tower would look like in our neighborhood. That's pretty disingenuous. I believe that the only picture that they showed from our neighborhood was blocked about 75% by a house. I mean from the backyard, Many backyards, you could see the entirety of the 111 feet tower minus the 8-foot landscape base, I believe. At least they could go on a street, take a picture. I'll give them a picture and just show us what the tower would look like from a street without a house in the way. They mentioned they did not contact, they agreed that they did not contact Kentucky Utilities just now, although in their application, they said that they did contact every landowner. Is it an R1 zone, perhaps? Is that different than Kentucky Water that they did contact? I doubt it. It's right next to it. I believe they share a property line. So why would they ask one, not the other, unless they just overlook the other and don't want to admit that to you today? Who knows? And they did acknowledge that they did not contact the Department of Transportation, although that is well within their search area. I don't know how you could approve this today if they are here admitting that they did not contact other landowners. And we know from the planning report, the staff report today, the contrapositive, if there are other feasible locations for it, a telecommunications tower is not allowed in the agricultural zone. Thank you. Thank you. And Ms. Wade, do we have comments from staff addressing some of these? I would just note that I'm available to answer questions if you all have any. Would you just, for the residents here, speak to the notification timeline? Well, they did provide documentation that they mailed their notification in July the first time. And then once we set a hearing date, they sent a new notice. So the certified mail receipt does indicate August 21st, 2024, which is the date that the applicant indicated they mailed them. Thank you. Do we have, yeah, Mr. Nichols? I've got a comment that I would like to make a request in the future, if the Pike Group submit this information electronically in order for us not to have so much waste here because we're in a position where we don't really have the ability to make any decision other than what we're going to do. So it's just an ask. We got a great system here. If you could try, I'm just asking to try to work with our staff to see if this can be replaced with something that you can put online. This is probably my sixth one of these and I'd leave them behind and hopefully you all have the ability to recycle those. But it'd save you all some money and it'd be good for waste in our environment. Thank you. Well. Mr. Wilson. One of the things, Mr. Chairman, if it's agreeable, is to have what their attorneys have said is true. but I'd like to have maybe Ms. Jones or someone to tell the people who are here what we can do as a commission, because many of you have asked us to deny this application. So if that would be agreeable. Well, I think what you heard from them is true. And as was stated at the beginning of this hearing, it's a little bit different when it's a cell tower, because it is governed by our ordinance, but it's a specific section under Article 25 of the zoning ordinance. But it's also governed, and that stems from the Federal Telecommunications Act. And because of gaps in service, because of the federal government's desire to not have those to create wireless networks that work and that are accessible across the board, they put some more stringent guidelines on what you can do. Now, that being said, you know, we get this question every single time we have one of these. Well, why are we having this? Because, you know, you're having it because it's the applicant's job to submit all these things to you that the federal government is requiring and that our ordinance requires. You know, in the case where they don't do that, you have a little more latitude to say, well you didn't do this or you didn't do that but in a circumstance where everything that they're supposed to submit to you under the telecommunications act and under our zoning ordinance specifically applying to these things are met it does limit what you can do because the federal government wants you to provide this service which is viewed somewhat like a public utility it's not but it's very similar so it is a different kind of hearing um and it you know there are cases from the sixth circuit which is the governing appellate circuit for our jurisdiction that talk about lay evidence can't override comp you know expert evidence and those types of things so you know you if you're going to make findings that are different you're going to have to have something to support them, and that's very difficult when you have everything that was required by the federal government and buyer zoning ordinance in these types of cases. Well, I thank Ms. Jones for that, and I think it's important for those of you who made presentations against this proposal. Essentially what it means is we don't have any evidence to actually not approve this particular activity. In order to have done that, it would have required us to have an attorney working in this about, I don't know how long it took them to get their activities together, three to six months, who knows how long they've been working on this. We would have had an attorney do the same thing to counter some of the activities and things that they've stated here. So from a commission, we can't actually go out and proclaim that this is not a valid project now. We hear you as it relates to some of the things that you brought. I feel a little uncomfortable that you've had to sit here for such a long time, except for the fact that you did have a chance to voice your disapproval. But from the standpoint of the commission, we're hung. We literally can't do anything. Our job here is one of three things, legislative judicial and ministerial this fits into the ministerial end of it which means that we can hear unless we've got some really something to really negate and we don't have any evidence as such we simply cannot go along and suggest that we disapprove of something activity i'm saying this is a sensitive as i can because i know you've been sitting here all day and you didn't want to get into this any both all of you've said something about well why don't you all do something and the reality is ladies and gentlemen we can't. I do have one question. In regards to the plastic, the giant holiday plastic stick, was there a neighborhood meeting for the applicant, did you host a neighborhood meeting with this community? And I guess, did you host a neighborhood meeting and then was the design sort of gone over with the neighborhood? We did not host a neighborhood meeting because no state law requires it, your local ordinance does not require it. We did not host a neighborhood meeting. We tried to work closely with staff, you know, staff planning with staff to come up with a good proposal. Now, and we did get some suggestions from staff. I know previously it was autumn, not in this way, but we worked with autumn. And we got some suggestions that lead us to more the monotone power. But we do have approval from our client. if the Planning Commission just wants to approve a regular monopole tower, we will do that rather than the monopine with all the plastic. But it will look, it will be the same height, but it will be a regular monopole tower. So, you know, we're willing to do that. You know, we were just working with the staff, you know, the government wanted us to do a monocon. And, you know, people have all kinds of concerns. People, you know, we're talking here about notice. I just mentioned one thing. Their presence and testimony here weighs in exactly notice. We don't think there was any defect, but being here and testifying weighs in. But more importantly, if the commission wants to make the choice to have us do the regular monopole power of the same time, we will do that. Well, I understand that public meetings aren't a requirement, and I can understand why you would not necessarily want to do them, but I also do think that they do offer opportunities for input on things like the design and aesthetics of the towers, and that's a missed opportunity not to have engaged with the neighbors on that. Are there other questions that we have here? I wonder about the neighbors' attitudes about a model point versus a regular tower. Neighbors are clearly concerned about plastic waste, and I'm wondering if they would prefer to have a tower that was not disguised. I also wonder about the applicant's willingness to engage in a planting program to plant on the Baptist College property trees that would be near the residential properties and so doing provide a visual barrier that would obstruct the view of the tower from the neighbor's properties. I think on behalf of the applicants what we would say is that we submitted landscaping plans which Ms. Wade has reviewed and recommended approval of our application. There's a wood fence around the face of the tower, there's shruggery and then there's some. But as you know that has absolutely no effect on their view of the tower. What I'm proposing is something. Yeah, you're talking about the entire town. Yeah, I mean if there were appropriate trees planted behind those homes near the property line they could have a great effect. That's outside of the area where we have in the greener. If the Baptist College wanted to do that they could do that. the applicants really cannot agree to start planning things outside of their easement area. So, you know, we've offered to go to a regular monocleic tower, and we've complied with the Article 25 landscaping requirements, which is what you've told us to comply with. We think that's sufficient. We hope it is. I have a comment that has to do with how you present this and your attitude about the whole way this is being handled. You repeatedly retreat back into legal arguments, and you really, in so doing, deny the residents serious and very real concerns. And I think it would behoove you to be more collaborative and more respectful of people's attitudes when you're clearly arguing for something that will be affecting their lives. And the retreat into the legalese is unfortunate. it it's i mean i understand that you're right i understand you're right but um a little humanity would be really helpful well i i appreciate that sir we're trying to hear the concerns i think we've changed the design but oh sir but unfortunately this is sort of an adversarial proceeding these these people came in here wanting this tower turned down turned down entirely and you were trying to provide service to a very large area so you know a lot of issues a lot of issues in front of everyone Well, at the moment we are back here on the discussion here at the commission level. Commissioner Wirth? I just wanted to clarify and I got a clarification there. Okay. I do see the gentleman from the Baptist College in the back. Is he wanting to say something? My name is Steve Fisher. I serve as Vice President of Commonwealth Baptist College, and we respect our neighbors, and I want you to know that. We have tried to have a good working relationship with our neighbors. Anytime there has been a problem, we have been more than willing to work with them, so I want you all to understand that, and then to answer your concern about there being trees along the property line between the residences and our college. There is a tree line right now that does border between our college and the residences. I just wanted you all to know that. And we appreciate our, we have a good working relationship with them. It is a college so sometimes those kids can get a little rowdy, although it's a Baptist college, they get a little rowdy, but we try to be respectful anytime there has been a problem with lighting or anything like that. We have worked with them and we would never propose anything on the property of our college that we think would cause any harm to our students, let alone our good neighbors. They're very productive members of our community and we're very respectful and we're grateful for our neighbors just adjacent to us. I wanted you to know that is the position of Commonwealth Baptist College. May I ask you a question, sir? Yes. Would the college be willing to work with the neighbors should they desire some augmentation of that tree screen? Sure. I think they understand that we have worked with them on that. And so if there is something that they think that would be reasonable that we could do, reasonable that they could do, obviously, we'd be willing to do that. And we would talk to them about that. but we really have. We've tried to work with them. We're like anyone. We try to be good neighbors. We actually live in the community, and so we're trying to be a help and a blessing to our community. Thank you. Yes, sir, of course. Thank you. Does anyone have any more questions? Commissioner Owens? I have no questions. I've got a statement and a motion whenever you're ready. Proceed. Let me say this first. I've been sitting out there fighting the same issue in the past. And I've got to agree with the residents. No one wants a cell tower in their backyard. I'll agree with that, everybody wants improved service when it comes to cell towers or cell service. And we're using it more and more all the time. I'll agree with my cohort here. We are kind of limited as to what we can do. I do remember a time where we turned one of these things down and we had just reasons with the local ordinances to turn it down. But guess what? The federal government overrode and there's a cell tower there today. Yeah, it's difficult with us. The one thing we have learned and we can do is request stealth towers. They're proposing this and I really think that what mostly we've heard is just the fact that no cell tower, period. I think a stealth tower would be better than a mono tower. So with that, I'm going to move for approval of plan cell 24-1 Baptist College wireless communications facility, new tower construction request. with noting the staff staff's recommendation of approval and the three reasons for condition of approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any commission discussion? I will note that I think the failure to be good citizens and have a conversation with the neighborhood does not look well upon you or your firm. And I'm really sorry that this is not an item that we have more discretion on to the neighborhood. Can we condition the approval on the applicant working with the neighbors on deciding which type of tower to erect? Recommend? No. It has to be the monopoint tower. Yeah. Never mind. I'm sorry. you were going to say what no it's the planning commission's decision we can't defer the type of tower no well i understand that to the neighborhood i'm i'm kind of thinking mr pro's asking about recommendations for them to work with neighbors on more no no oh did he okay i'm sorry sorry i did not hear that And I'm the one that was in favor of the cactus, and today I'm the one that's worried about dementia and plastic, so here we go. Do you want to make that as a part of the motion? I take it that we had a question here, if we can condition a meeting, and the answer is that that type of tower needs to be decided. here at this at this hearing um and we have a we have a motion and we have a a second um and so um i i think we should proceed and vote on the motion here The motion passes unanimously and we thank you all for your patience and coming out to the meeting today. With that, over to you, Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chair, there is one more commission item. Better see. Yes, I see that. We've got C, the Urban Growth Master Plan public hearings. We have a proposal by staff to schedule a public comment meeting for October 17th with presentations. And then for October 31st, a Planning Commission deliberation in action. Do we have any comments or a motion for this? Isn't this what we discussed at the work session? We haven't changed anything from what we discussed at the work session. We discussed it at work session, but these meetings aren't scheduled, so you all need to do that at a meeting. All right. You want a motion? Yeah. All right. I move that we, at staff's request, schedule public hearings for the Urban Growth Master Plan for October 17, 2024, for presentations and public comment, and October 31, 2024, for planning commission deliberation in action. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? I guess vote via Granicus here. And then I guess that does bring us to staff items for the article 4B or 4-5B improvement plan progress report. Yeah, we don't have any this time. It's just kind of a standing item on the agenda. Fair enough. Anything else? Yes, Mr. Chair, if I could have the Planning Commission's attention. Based on the discussion earlier about letter B for the vacant Planning Commission position and your preference to have that meeting on Thursday, September 19th, and by your action we have scheduled that. So that meeting will take place at 1.30 on Thursday, September 19th, but we will be in the Phoenix Building, third floor. The meeting will be the first item, and then once that's concluded, we will go into work session for the remainder of that meeting. And should the Planning Commission need to go into executive session for that purpose, we will then move to the seventh floor conference room and let any audience members remain in the third floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Without objection, we're adjourned. Someday girl you're gonna wake up