# Planning Commission Zoning Items - November 21, 2024 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 21, 2024 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6280 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6280?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2024-11-21 - **Last revised**: November 21, 2024 - **Length**: 19,341 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission convened on November 21, 2024, at 1:30 PM in the Council Chamber on the 2nd Floor of the LFUCG Government Center at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, with Larry Forester presiding as the meeting officer. The commission addressed five agenda items during the session, with mixed outcomes that reflected careful deliberation on various development and zoning matters affecting Lexington-Fayette County. The meeting resulted in eight motions and votes being taken as commissioners worked through the agenda items. Three agenda items were deferred for future consideration, including zoning map amendment requests from Rose Holdings-Lexington, LLC and Realty Unlimited Blue Grass, LLC, as well as proposed revisions to Article 23A-10 for the Economic Development (ED) Zone. The commission denied one item—an amendment to Article 17 concerning digital billboards—while approving the Division of Water Quality Headquarters Public Facilities Review. Public participation was evident with three public comments heard during the proceedings, allowing community members to voice their perspectives on the matters before the commission. The deferrals of multiple items suggest the commission took a cautious approach, likely seeking additional information or time for further review before making final determinations on significant zoning and development proposals that could impact the community's growth and character. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 21, 2024: **Present:** • Larry Forester • Robin Michler • Mike Owens • Bill Wilson • Frank Penn • Bruce Nicol • Graham Pohl • Ivy Barksdale • Johnathon Davis • Zach Davis • Judy Worth All expected attendees were present for the meeting. No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The Planning Commission took action on eight items during the November 21, 2024 meeting. **Minutes Approval** [timestamp: 00:30] Zach Davis moved to approve the minutes from the October 10, 2024, and October 24, 2024, public hearings, seconded by Mike Owens. The motion passed unanimously 11-0. **Postponements** Three items were postponed unanimously: - **PLN-MAR-24-00017** [timestamp: 02:00]: Rose Holdings-Lexington, LLC zone map amendment was postponed until December 12, 2024, on a motion by Johnathon Davis, seconded by Judy Worth (11-0). - **PLN-ZOTA-24-00006** [timestamp: 03:00]: Revisions to Article 23A-10 for the Economic Development (ED) zone were postponed until January 30, 2025, on a motion by Judy Worth, seconded by Johnathon Davis (11-0). - **PLN-MAR-22-00016** [timestamp: 04:00]: Realty Unlimited Blue Grass, LLC zone map amendment was postponed until December 12, 2024, on a motion by Bill Wilson, seconded by Ivy Barksdale (11-0). **Digital Billboard Amendment (PLN-ZOTA-24-00008)** This item required multiple votes: - [timestamp: 06:00] Bruce Nicol's motion with alternative staff text allowing non-conforming signs at Board of Adjustment failed 1-8-2, with only Nicol voting yes. - [timestamp: 07:00] Bill Wilson's motion with alternative staff text failed 3-8, with Wilson, Owens, and Nicol voting yes. - [timestamp: 08:00] Robin Michler's motion to disapprove passed 8-3, with Penn, Pohl, Worth, Z. Davis, Michler, J. Davis, and Owens voting yes; Nicol, Barksdale, and Wilson voting no. **Public Facilities Review (PFR 2024-4)** [timestamp: 09:00] The Division of Water Quality Headquarters Public Facilities Review was approved unanimously 11-0 on a motion by Judy Worth, seconded by Johnathon Davis, with conditions requesting 30% tree canopy coverage and stormwater filtration system incorporation. ## Public Comment Three community members spoke during the public comment period, all expressing opposition to digital billboards. **Amy Clark** [timestamp: 05:00] voiced concerns about digital billboard proposals, focusing on the intensity of these displays and potential enforcement challenges. Clark highlighted that digital billboards would have a disproportionate negative impact on impoverished areas of the community. **Walt Gaffield** [timestamp: 05:30] raised safety-related objections to digital billboards, specifically citing distracted driving as a major concern. Gaffield also pointed out a policy conflict, noting that allowing digital billboards on corridors where the city is simultaneously trying to encourage housing development creates competing land use priorities. **Mike Brower** [timestamp: 05:45] expressed his neighborhood's opposition to digital billboards, emphasizing safety concerns similar to previous speakers. Brower raised an additional security issue, warning about the potential for digital billboards to be hacked, which could create unforeseen problems for the community. All three speakers presented a unified front against digital billboard implementation, though they approached the issue from different angles - economic equity, traffic safety, housing policy conflicts, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The comments suggest organized community opposition to any digital billboard ordinance the governing body may be considering. ## Contested Items The meeting featured one significant contested item that generated substantial debate among participants. **Amendment to Article 17 for Digital Billboards** The primary source of contention during the meeting centered on a proposed amendment to Article 17 that would have allowed digital billboards within the jurisdiction. The proposal faced strong opposition from multiple participants, resulting in a heated discussion that ultimately led to the measure's rejection. The opposition to the digital billboard amendment was based on several key concerns: • **Safety issues** - Participants raised questions about potential driver distraction and traffic safety implications • **Aesthetic concerns** - Community members expressed worry about the visual impact on the local landscape and character • **Light pollution** - Environmental concerns were voiced regarding the potential for increased light pollution from digital displays The debate became particularly intense as supporters and opponents of the measure presented their arguments. Despite any potential economic benefits that proponents may have cited, the collective concerns about safety, community aesthetics, and environmental impact proved decisive. The outcome of this contentious discussion was the disapproval of the proposed amendment. The digital billboard proposal was ultimately rejected, with the opposition's concerns about safety, visual impact, and light pollution carrying the day. This contested item dominated much of the meeting's discussion time and demonstrated the community's strong feelings about maintaining local character while balancing potential development opportunities. The rejection of the digital billboard amendment reflects the participants' prioritization of safety and environmental considerations over potential commercial interests. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps are not available for this meeting summary.* ## Rose Holdings-Lexington, LLC Zoning Map Amendment [timestamp: 02:00] The Planning Commission considered petition PLN-MAR-24-00017, a request by Rose Holdings-Lexington, LLC for a zoning map amendment to change property from Single Family Residential (R-1A) to Planned Neighborhood Residential (R-3) zoning. Bruce Simpson served as a key speaker during the discussion of this zoning petition. The proposed amendment would allow for higher density residential development by transitioning from the current R-1A single-family zoning to R-3 planned neighborhood residential zoning, which typically permits multi-family housing and mixed residential uses. However, the petition faced opposition from both neighborhood residents and planning staff. Concerns were raised regarding the appropriateness of the zoning change and its potential impacts on the surrounding community. The specific nature of the neighborhood and staff concerns was not detailed in the available information. Due to these unresolved issues, the Planning Commission decided to postpone consideration of the zoning map amendment. This deferral will allow time for the applicant to address the concerns raised by both community members and planning staff before the petition returns for further review. The postponement reflects the Commission's commitment to thoroughly evaluating zoning changes that could significantly impact neighborhood character and ensuring that all stakeholder concerns are properly addressed before making a final determination on the requested amendment. ## Revisions to Article 23A-10 for the Economic Development (ED) Zone [timestamp: 03:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-ZOTA-24-00006, a proposed text amendment to modify the Economic Development (ED) zone regulations under Article 23A-10. Joe Brumley participated in the discussion of this zoning text amendment. However, rather than proceeding with a detailed review or vote on the proposed changes, the Commission determined that additional work was needed on the modifications. The item was postponed to allow staff time to work on revisions to the proposed text amendment. This deferral suggests that the current draft required further refinement before the Commission felt comfortable moving forward with consideration of the changes to the ED zone regulations. The Economic Development zone is designed to accommodate various commercial and industrial uses that support economic growth. Text amendments to zoning ordinances typically involve changes to permitted uses, development standards, or procedural requirements within specific zoning districts. **Outcome:** The agenda item was deferred to allow staff to work on modifications to the proposed text amendment before bringing it back to the Planning Commission for further consideration. ## Realty Unlimited Blue Grass, LLC Zoning Map Amendment [timestamp: 04:00] The planning commission considered petition PLN-MAR-22-00016, a zoning map amendment request from Realty Unlimited Blue Grass, LLC. The petition sought to rezone property from Single-Family Residential (R-1C) to Townhouse Residential (R-1T). Daniel Crum served as a key speaker during the discussion of this agenda item. The commission ultimately decided to postpone consideration of the zoning map amendment request. No further details about the specific reasons for the deferral or timeline for future consideration were provided in the available materials. The petition remains pending before the planning commission for future review and action. ## Amendment to Article 17 for Digital Billboards [timestamp: 06:00] The Planning Commission considered agenda item PLN-ZOTA-24-00008, a proposed text amendment to Article 17 that would define and regulate digital billboards within the city's zoning ordinance. Daniel Crum served as the key speaker presenting the proposed amendment. The discussion centered on establishing regulatory framework for digital billboard technology, which would represent a significant change from traditional static billboard signage currently addressed in the zoning code. During the extensive deliberations, commissioners raised multiple concerns about the potential impacts of allowing digital billboards in the community. Safety emerged as a primary issue, with discussion focusing on whether the changing electronic displays could create driver distraction hazards. Commissioners also expressed concerns about the aesthetic impact these digital signs would have on the community's visual character and streetscape. Light pollution represented another significant area of concern during the debate. Commissioners discussed how the illuminated digital displays could affect surrounding neighborhoods and contribute to unwanted light spillover, particularly during evening and nighttime hours. The comprehensive discussion weighed the potential benefits of modernizing billboard regulations against the various community impact concerns. Despite the presentation of the regulatory framework, the commissioners ultimately determined that the risks and negative impacts outweighed the potential benefits. Following the extensive debate on safety, aesthetics, and light pollution issues, the Planning Commission voted to deny the proposed text amendment. This decision means that digital billboards will continue to be prohibited under the current zoning ordinance, and the existing regulations governing traditional static billboards remain unchanged. The denial of PLN-ZOTA-24-00008 reflects the commission's prioritization of community safety and visual character preservation over the modernization of billboard technology regulations. ## Division of Water Quality Headquarters Public Facilities Review [timestamp: 09:00] The board reviewed Public Facilities Review PFR 2024-4 concerning the construction of the Division of Water Quality Headquarters and Operations Facility. Daniel Crum presented the review findings to the board. The review examined the proposed facility's compliance with the Comprehensive Plan and determined that the project meets the established requirements. The Division of Water Quality Headquarters and Operations Facility was found to be in full compliance with applicable planning standards and guidelines. While the facility received approval for compliance, the review included additional recommendations to enhance the project. The specific details of these recommendations were not elaborated upon during the presentation, but they were noted as supplementary guidance for the facility's development. The board approved PFR 2024-4, allowing the Division of Water Quality to proceed with their headquarters and operations facility construction project. This approval confirms that the facility design and intended use align with the jurisdiction's comprehensive planning objectives and regulatory requirements. The Division of Water Quality Headquarters and Operations Facility represents infrastructure development to support water quality monitoring and regulatory functions within the region. The successful completion of this public facilities review process enables the division to move forward with construction while ensuring compliance with established planning standards. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (11-0): Approval of the minutes of the October 10, 2024, and October 24, 2024, public hearings - **PLN-MAR-24-00017** — postponed (11-0): Postponement of Rose Holdings-Lexington, LLC zone map amendment - **PLN-ZOTA-24-00006** — postponed (11-0): Postponement of revisions to Article 23A-10 for the Economic Development (ED) zone - **PLN-MAR-22-00016** — postponed (11-0): Postponement of Realty Unlimited Blue Grass, LLC zone map amendment - **PLN-ZOTA-24-00008** — failed (1-8): Amendment to Article 17 for digital billboards - **PLN-ZOTA-24-00008** — failed (3-8): Amendment to Article 17 for digital billboards - **PLN-ZOTA-24-00008** — passed (8-3): Amendment to Article 17 for digital billboards - **PFR 2024-4** — passed (11-0): Division of Water Quality Headquarters Public Facilities Review --- ## Full transcript about how to handle specific situations and how maybe you could handle something different. I think that would be really beneficial for you as well. It's really collaborative, like having the community paramedicine team and learning from them, the paramedics or the firefighters or the social workers. I don't feel isolated at all, which is really neat. I'm able to consult with whoever may be even in the city. It's just really nice to engage with everybody. That's awesome. Is this an arm of paramedicine or is it completely separate? Well, it's a good question. And so, you know, the paramedicine team is such a collaborative effort. Lexington Police, we have the firefighter paramedics that are on the team. We have the social workers. And so we were, I think, fairly vocal about wanting to apply for this. In fact, when we noticed the funding opportunity came out, we sent it over to the police because we truly believe it's an integral part of police response. And they've been very supportive of us taking the lead and kind of steering the ship. And so they've been great. You know, it is such a collaborative effort between the fire department and the police department. You know, Chris is a fire department employee, but he's going to be partnered with a police officer. And so it's truly going to be a collaborative effort between. So it's just another thing that community per medicine. We also look at it from a long continuation of care, a continuum of care where Chris and the police officer may make an individual on a Monday evening and comes back and says, hey, can somebody follow up with them on Tuesday or Wednesday so they can go on to the next individual that's experiencing that emergency. And, you know, the community paramedicine was never a crisis response team. It was never on the, not that we didn't, but generally speaking, we were post-crisis, post-emergent situation that we were engaging. And so it's kind of a continuity, right? Maybe Chris set up some appointments for an individual. he can now drop it off on our lap to say hey can you make sure that individual made those appointments and didn't have any barriers and you know the community paramedicine team can pick up that and see those follow up with that individual over time so I think it's just a continuation. Chris do you feel like this your role may end up maybe freeing up some of our other first responders that don't need to necessarily stick around in a situation that you can kind of hang back and and manage a situation better than our typical first responders might? Yeah, I wouldn't say better. Maybe a different approach. Sure. Like a more mental health-informed perspective. But, yeah, I do think that having a, whether it's first responders, police officers, or firefighters is pretty overwhelming for anybody in a mental health crisis. So hopefully just having me being there, I'd be able to alleviate some of those resources so they can better be where they need to be. It's like the most appropriate level of care. And so that's the whole goal. That's great. So what we did is looked at the volume based on E911 data. And our first thought when we started working on this project was, it's going to be a Friday, Saturday. And those are the, like, how do you hire somebody for a Friday and a Saturday? Everybody wants a weekend, you know? And when we got the data, we were really surprised. Saturdays and Sundays are slowest days. ends up being Monday through Thursday, end up being our busiest days. And so we started looking through the data and going, okay, what's that window of opportunity? You know, Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m., around 10 a.m. to about 8 p.m. You could do 11 to 9, but somewhere in that area ends up being about the highest peak volume of hitting that number. Outside of that window, the goal will be that we'll resort back to our traditional response, whatever that looks like. But this unit will be the primary for those types of calls. And if they're on a call or out of service because it's outside of those hours, we'll resort back to our traditional response. So we'll still be responding. Well, thank you both so much for joining me today. And thank you for your hard work with our community paramedicine team. And Chris, welcome to our team. We really are looking forward to what you can bring to our community. And you're a really valued position. So we're really happy that you're here. And thank you for joining us today. As always, you can get my weekly newsletter by emailing my office at wbaxter at lexingtonky.gov or follow me on all social media outlets. Thanks again and have a great day. Thank you. I'm sorry. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Welcome, commission members. It's November 21st, 2024. This is the zoning items public hearing meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Let's get the approval of minutes. For the commissioners, We only have October 10th and October 24th, 2024 minutes. So I'd like to open the floor up for the approval of those minutes. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I and I think Commissioner Worth had several small revisions to the minutes. Paula emailed that they had been corrected. I just want to make sure that's on the record. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Mr. Owens? You're looking for a second? Yes. I'll second Mr. Davis' motion. Thank you. Was that a motion? Yeah, he went down as a motion. He went down as a motion. Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Davis and a second by Mr. Owens. Please vote via Granicus. Oops, no, no, no, come back here. Okay, the motion passes unanimously. Postponements and withdrawals. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Chair, Bruce Simpson. Here on behalf of Rose Holdings, page 4, item number 2, staff had recommended a postponement at the subcommittee meetings. We agreed and postponed or sent an email to the staff last Friday indicating we were going to request a postponement. I've notified the neighbors for whom I had email contacts. We're going to have another neighborhood meeting before we come back to you all, but we'd like to postpone to the December meeting. Okay, Mr. Simpson, that's on page four, correct? That's correct. Page four, item number two. Thank you, sir, and that's the December 12th meeting. Any questions for the applicant? For none, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Davis. Per applicant, I propose we postpone the meeting until December. The December 12th meeting. Thank you, sir. The 12th meeting. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, second by Mr. I got that one. Second by Ms. Worth and a third by Mr. Elder Davis. Please vote Villagranicus. All righty. Mr. Nickel, Mr. Penn. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Thank you all. Passes unanimously. Yes, sir. I'm Joe Brumley with Cowgill. We have liked to postpone PLN ZODA 240006 until the January 30th meeting we're continuing to work with staff on modifications. Okay, thank you Mr. Brumley. So we've got a motion, excuse me, a recommendation for a two month postponement to the January 30th, 2025. If there aren't any questions for that particular motion or recommendation the floor is open for a motion. Ms. Wirth. Mr. Chair, I move for postponement of PLNMJDP 24-6, is that it? Yes. Zota, I'm sorry, PLNZOTA 24-0006 to January 30th, 2025. Thank you. We have a second. Second by Mr. Davis, Jonathan Davis. Please vote via Granicus. And the motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Thank you. Mr. Chair, there is one additional postponement here. And so this is on page two of your agenda, Realty Unlimited Bluegrass LLC. So that's MAR-2216, along with its corresponding variance and development plan. The applicant is requesting a postponement to the December 12th hearing. Thank you. The floor is open for a motion. Mr. Wilson? Mr. Chairman, I move for postponing of PLN MAR 2216 Realty Unlimited Bluegrass LLC until December the 12th. Thank you. And we got a second by Ms. Barksdale. Please vote Villagranicus. All right, motion passes unanimously. There's a staff. That put us on, make sure I'm right, this is page five. Make sure here. No, I'm missing one. I think I'm on page five, right? Yeah. Yeah. Item B, PLNMJDP 24-81. No. All right, my move. I'm sorry, I need to take that off. I just want to keep us here a little longer. So we are on page five, PLN Zota 24-8. All right, Daniel Crum, planning staff. The next item on our agenda is ZODA 2408. This is an amendment to allow for digital billboards. Included in your Granicus is the staff recommended text. That'll be shown on the document. Staff's proposed text is outlined in blue and underlined in blue. The Urban County Council who initiated the text, their insertions and deletions are shown in red, similar to how this was read out at the committee level. There's also some supplemental information that includes some of the resources that planning staff had looked at as far as different academic sources. So those are included with a little brief summary as well as opposition letters or letters from the public in general. But we'll go through in a little bit more in depth on each of the sections as we are moving along. So just wanted to start off with the existing regulations, how we look at billboards currently. So currently we just have standard billboards. Digital billboards are not an option and they are limited to the B3, B4, CN, I1, and I2 zones. So those are essentially our most trafficked areas, areas with the highest intensity, usually containing our higher intensity roadways. The current ordinance sets up standards for word spacing, size, and other requirements that are applicable to billboards. and we'll go through the existing language and the changes momentarily. Before you, there's been several zoning ordinance text amendments regarding digital signage, changing message signage for the past couple years. You may be familiar with the digital marquee that took place in 2022, as well as exceptions for the convention center in 2023. So this is borrowing some of the considerations and the provisions that were discussed in those discussions, but specifically relating them to the B3, B4, CN, I1, and I2 zones. And so this is a graphic in the interim since our zoning committee planning staff did a windshield survey. So we had some existing information on the number of billboards in our city and county and also took it upon ourselves to take a survey and take a look at what had been previously approved and what were sort of non-conforming items. So it's a total of 197 billboards that are currently existing in Fayette County based on that survey. The colors you see on the map here relate to the respective zones in which these would be permitted. So the B3, B4, CN, I1, and I2. Each one of those dots represents a billboard as well as its 500-foot separation requirement as it currently stands. So obviously you'll note a significant concentration on New Circle Road, but also clusters and some other places. So as we kind of move along with this text and look at these provisions, keeping in mind the existing provisions, especially as it relates to non-conforming signs, is going to be very relevant. But this is kind of a snapshot of where they are today. Once again, sort of highly concentrated in a handful of areas. So the Urban County Council has initiated this text. So we have a, unlike the normal six-month window to review a normal zoning ordinance text amendment, this is a much compressed schedule. So the urban county initiated text, just to provide a summary, creates a definition for digital billboards. So separating those out from standard billboards, but making them subject to many of the same requirements when it relates to the zones permitted, the size that they're allowed to be, location requirements, etc. There is an increased separation requirement that we'll get into briefly, as well as prohibitions against animations, flashings, and other transitions. There's also limits on the message duration and luminance maximums. Those are all kind of components that were similar to what was considered when we looked at digital signage recently in the past two years. But we'll get into the specifics of those momentarily. When we looked at the staff alternative changes, we looked at kind of what the Urban County Council had indicated that they were looking forward to, they're looking to move forward, looked at some of that research, some of which was a carryover from when we considered digital signage previously, others related back to some other applications. but essentially it found that digital billboards have a different and larger impact than standard billboards. That seems pretty self-evident, but it does. So really when we looked at the research, the research was really focused on sort of the transitions, the impact of video, the impact of brightness, impact of location, frequency, duration. All of that is elevated relative to a standard billboard. So a larger considerations or more stringent requirements for location and their legislation generally are appropriate. That was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2022 as well, giving these municipalities the ability to legislate digital versus standard billboards differently. And so looking at these really, our modifications, we're really looking to make sure that there wasn't non-conforming signage that was being incorporated or reconfigured into digital signage. At least one of the planning commission members has indicated that they would like to see a path forward for non-conforming signage to be approved, say, as a conditional use through the Board of Adjustment. We are going to be consulting with law on kind of if that is feasible, but that was one of the things that was kind of introduced to staff on that. But staff's current position is that these current signs have an increased impact, and so we should be very careful as we evaluate how closely they are spacing and kind of where we're allowing these. Prohibition on the corridor node zone. So when the CN zone was created, it was lumped in signage-wise with the B3 and other corridor-type uses. However, it is not a commercial zone. It does allow for some commercial uses, but primarily is a residential zone. So staff alternative language really looks to prohibit the billboards within that particular zone. There's a clarification of the spacing standard that we'll get into later, making sure that there's adequate space between these different uses and a requirement to utilize some specific construction specifications in order to reduce the impact in the viewing angle. But going through each sort of section that you have in front of you, it's not a terribly long amendment, so it's really four or five main areas that are under consideration. The first is a staff alternative language inclusion. inclusion. So within respect of non-conforming signs, staff is proposing at this time to make it so that a non-conforming sign could not be converted into a sign regulation. As indicated, there was some interest in providing a pathway for that that would be evaluated by the Board of Adjustment, but staff at this time really thinks that these need to meet all requirements because they do have an increased impact. When we look at some specific language, Council added some additional language that clarified that it shouldn't resemble any official marker or government sign. Once again, just a safety consideration and cleaning that up. With respect to location, the location standards for these are fairly similar to what is currently on the books for existing billboards. Some of this red text is actually existing language that has just been reformatted. the requirements for them being set back from the street right-of-way, not being projecting over the public right-of-way, as well as the separation from residential zone are already on the books. This is just moving this around to kind of play better within the existing ordinance. No billboard shall be permitted within the corridor node zone. That's just a cleanup and oversight for when the CN zone was created. Once again, not intended as a commercial zone where you would have that type of signage, but rather residential zone. With respect to maximum size, the 400 square foot maximum that is currently in place for standard billboards still applies and allows for embellishments or sort of temporary extensions of that sign as well. Those are both currently on the books. It's just a reformatting of where those are located. They do include a change in the spacing. So currently these have to be 500 feet apart, with digital billboards having a separation requirement from other digital billboards of 2,500 feet. The way that this was written by the Urban County Council, staff wanted to clarify that, yes, digital billboards have to be at least 2,500 feet apart, but they also have to meet the standard of separation from a normal billboard as well. So essentially, no new digital billboard could be within 500 feet of any existing billboard and would have to be 2,500 feet away from another digital billboard, kind of reflecting the increased impact that these have relative to the standard billboard where you have a static image, no changing or transitions. Once again, giving you an idea of where these existing billboards are located, and we'll be zooming in on a section here to kind of illuminate what the change in sort of separation distance would really look at. So we'll be zooming in on this portion here. This is at New Circle in Nicholasville Road. So essentially, each one of these dots you see here is existing billboards. You'll notice the overlap. So these are here would be considered non-conforming. They're too close to each other to meet that 500-foot spacing. These kind of clustered elsewhere, with the exception of up top, generally meet the spacing. What this yellow circle here is representing is that 2,500-foot separation. So essentially, if one of those was converted into a digital billboard, no, there would not be allowed another one within that space, and they would have to meet the 500-foot separation from other standard billboards. So we think between the combination of the limited zones in which these are applicable, once again, only the colored components of this map are eligible in order to even have billboards in the first place. And then this additional provision requiring separation, I think from staff's perspective, is really going to limit the ability for those to concentrate, which is what portions of that literature we're really looking at. when these things are concentrated, you have more distractions, more changing messages, more to process at any given time, leading to delayed reactions in one way or another. So from duration, this 8 second is consistent with the national standards and is consistent with other language that you all incorporated into the convention center signage and the digital marquee. So 8 seconds is the minimum amount of time that an image has to stay up. Basically, we are wanting to avoid the concept of a flashing, strobing, animations, video. That's what the literature and the research is telling us is the most significant as far as causing distractions or increased attention away from the roadway. Included in this was Council's inclusion on language relating to the brightness. So maximum luminance during the day and then during the night, a significantly lowered luminance. That's consistent with some of our other language regarding lighting on signs, especially at night. And then one last provision that was added by staff that was brought to our attention by one of the Urban County Council members is the ability to incorporate technology that essentially limits the impact of digital billboards along the side. So you can use specific technology called blocking or louvering technology in order to limit the field of view for the particular billboard. And this is an example of kind of what we're talking about. So the left being a standard billboard, if you're looking at it, it has approximately 140 degree viewing angle from 70 degrees each side. Basically, by controlling the type of construction that's used on the sign, it can reduce that to a 60 degree viewing angle, basically 30 degrees either way. So really attempting to kind of keep the message oriented directly on the place where it's supposed to be focused with less of a spillover effect on adjoining properties. So with that, we still have language that kind of further clarifies the definitions of the two, a standard versus a digital, and once again prohibits that moving, scrolling, flashing content that really causes problems, as opposed to a static image that changes without a transition. The change in and of itself does create some notice, but not to the extent of a full video or something that's more distracting. So staff is recommending approval of the staff alternative text at this time. We find that it allows the expansion of the billboard use in zones that were really the most intense and have already found to be appropriate for standard billboards. The increased separation requirements is going to really limit the ability for these that concentrate and create a disadvantage situation. Once again, the prohibitions on that dynamic content, animations, et cetera, which do contribute to distractions and unsafe driving conditions are currently prohibited. And then we are proposing the incorporation of some additional technology to really try to focus in the viewing angle for those signs. So you have staff's recommendation for the staff alternative text. There was discussion of this at the zoning committee they forwarded on without a recommendation, and we're really looking to have kind of a larger conversation as part of the entire group. So we do have some public comment that was submitted to you all that is available in Granicus, but would be happy to entertain any questions that you all have, staff. Thank you, Mr. Crum. I know you have a few questions. Mr. Wilson? Just for clarification, I know that I was one of the raised questions in the zoning about the amount of time, and I think Ms. Wade was the one, says eight seconds. Is that a minimum? In other words, it has to be up a minimum of eight seconds. Yes, it could be longer, yes. Okay, that was the first question. The second question that I think came up, I think my colleague, Mr. Davis, raised it was about safety. and I heard you say at the beginning of your presentation that you all gone back and reviewed the safety issues and what have you. Yes, included in your supplementary documents is a summary list of some of the research that looked at really a variety of topics. So billboards, digital billboards in particular, digital billboards with video, kind of looking to provide kind of a larger cohesive view on that. So really the takeaways were that there is a sort of increase in the amount of attention that's given to digital billboards, but there are places that have found ways to kind of regulate that, and really the concentration and the frequency based on what we had seen were really the most important factors. Thank you. It wasn't, like you said, it was provided to us. I just wanted to get you on record to underscore that. Mr. Poe. Mr. Crum, how does the approval of digital billboards serve the objectives of the comprehensive plan? Sure. So, within the comprehensive plan, there's sort of a larger conversation that really is sort of present in a lot of changes we make, especially to our commercial zones. We want folks to be able to make reasonable use of their land, increased economic activity, folks know kind of what is going on here balancing that with the interests of safety in the public especially you know kind of along these these increased roadways so really the the comprehensive plan kind of speaks in in that angles there isn't any particular one cited and we're really responding to the the language and direction kind of initiated by the urban county council on their proposal to include that who benefits from this particular economic activity I would say any property owner that would be able to utilize that as well as any business being advertised there. But once again, we're really looking at sort of the safety impact and kind of how those can be addressed. I guess my questions are getting at why approve digital billboards? What is the benefit to the community? You know, so a landowner might make more rent for a digital billboard than a standard billboard. I get that. But the bulk of the financial benefit clearly is going to someone else or else no one would invest. I guess my question is who is that? Where are they located? I mean we're talking about the billboard, the Lamar for example. Where are they located? I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head. There are offices here off of Winchester Road there. Fortune business. Fortune business, yeah. But I don't know if that's the headquarters though. Mr. Nickel or Mr. Penn, which one? You know, this is the second time we've visited this in the last 15 years. Is there any way that we have any control over content? So, unfortunately, outside of like the prohibition against the type of, you know, the video, images, etc. Unfortunately, past that, we are really limited by the Supreme Court on regulating signage content other than the fact that it's an off-premise sign. You can regulate to that, but we couldn't say that you couldn't show advertised, say, for Louisville men's basketball on them or something to that effect. Well, I wasn't exactly thinking about basketball content. It's a fine line you're walking If you want Lexington to be at any other city USA, well, you throw all you can get in there. If you want Lexington to be a little bit unique, you're very strategic about where you allow it to happen. My question to you is who makes a decision? A, we know how far a party can be. But if you're not advertising a car lot or something that everybody uses, what's to keep from just being political messages? What's to keep from being hate speech? What's to keep it from being, if you have the freedom of speech for digital and it's going to flash every eight seconds, is that what you want your community to see? Is there any control over that at all? Well, I think I may need Law to step in on some of the aspects of that, but there's limits to free speech just in general like we can regulate adult content for instance i think hate speech would definitely be able to be prohibited but as opposed to saying that this can be coke or pepsi or mountain dew you know we don't really have that it would have to have some specific tie to sort of the public health safety welfare aspects but i'm gonna let law handle the rest of that generally after the reed decision we cannot regulate content so unless it is some kind of um speech or some kind of representation that would incite something that the federal government's saying we're not going to allow that as free speech we can't tell somebody what they can and cannot put on their sign it's why we rewrote the whole sign ordinance a few years ago was to to take out all our references to content of what could be on the signs and just regulate, you know, the space, the timing, the location, and those types of things, the size that we could. But, you know, so I don't know where the line gets drawn of, you know, when somebody puts something on one of these that maybe then we say, whoa, back up, you can't do that. but I don't know that we can anticipate everything that might be put on something before it happens. Let me give you one to think about. We have three adult entertainment things in Lexington. One of them's right on the interstate. Can we put digital billboards up for those? Well, I think the way our adult entertainment ordinance is written is they could probably advertise their business, but not what exactly goes on in that business. In other words, there's very specific in that adult entertainment limits on what's allowed to be, it's very specific. So if they just put their name up there, I don't know that we could say, you can't do that, but if they start talking about what goes on in there, we might have a different argument. Mr. Penn, I understand what you're asking about, particularly the rapidity with which digital messages can be changed, but everything you're describing can be put on a static billboard right now. But the content can all be on the static billboard right now. Yes, yes, that's right. Mr. Nichols. I think that's a good point that Mr. Penn made and was clarified to us here. What I'm interested in doing is, as I'm looking at the non-conforming signs, the report that was sent from council to staff to make their recommendations would allow non-conforming signs the opportunity to upgrade to the new technology. And I see that we've added back in, the staff has added that they do not want to provide that opportunity to property owners of billboards within non-conforming sites. And we discussed earlier about the possibility of a pathway to allow those property owners to participate in upgrading their signs. There's a lot more that goes with it. the number of signs, some signs would have to be taken down in order to provide a upgraded digital sign. And I understand all of that, but there is a benefit to the community by cleaning up multiple signs and going with one digital sign. The technology is advanced and in most major cities it can be seen as a benefit to the community because of the appearance of the signs themselves. So my interest is to provide a pathway through providing, and a part of this pathway would be the opportunity to go to the Board of Adjustments, and from the Board of Adjustments approval, they would be allowed to upgrade their sign from a traditional billboard to one of the new technologies that allow for digital billboards. So I think that you all were working on some text and I'd be interested to see what you all were able to come up with. And the reason once again that I'm doing this is provide to not limit non-conforming signs. We don't want, in my opinion, we do not want to discriminate against these non-conforming signs from upgrading to the new technology. And I'm trying to get a middle way where council would like to allow the opportunity staff was interested in not allowing the opportunity and I'm looking for some common ground where the Board of Adjustments could provide the approval that will allow for this process to take place. Yes so well that has just to kind of respond to where where we would we would on that. I think based on some conversations with Tracy, we need to kind of iron out with legal on kind of what the limitations are that the board has per view over signage. So there may need to be some discussion on that to incorporate your proposed change if that was a motion that was made. But we're going to need to do some kind of further work on how that would sort of play out essentially. So there's some differing things that make something non-conforming. So there may be a billboard sign currently located in a zone where it would no longer be allowed, but because it's there already, a static billboard, because that's all we have, it's there, but it's non-conforming because it's no longer allowed in that zone. So I think part of what the staff alternative was getting at is if we're in a zone where no billboard would be allowed, we don't want one just because it's there to be able to be converted to a digital billboard. And if we were going to do that, I'm not sure we could do that in the sign ordinance, we would have to go, because if you're talking about going to the Board of Adjustment, there'd be some kind of a, it would have to be addressed probably in the section of the zone where it's now no longer allowed. That might be different than some kind of variance question where there's a billboard in a zone and maybe the static billboard sign is larger for whatever reason than what we now allow in any zone and so they want to convert it in a zone where it would be allowed under this new ordinance but to the size larger than where it would be allowed. That might be a variance. That wouldn't go to having to change the section that outlines the zone in the zoning ordinance versus the sign but it might, it just creates some convolution there that might be problematic And plus, just bear in mind, either of those things are going to the Board of Adjustment that is already largely impacted by the short-term rentals. So that's kind of, I guess, what we're talking about in terms of non-conformity might be affected by if you really mean size or you just mean spacing, because those things are going to be addressed in the sign ordinance, but if you're saying, if somebody comes in and says, well, I have this billboard, I've had it for 100 years, but now it's in a zone that wouldn't be allowed and I want to make it a digital billboard, that would be converting something that is now nonconforming, allowing it, we wouldn't normally allow that, allowing it to become a digital billboard, so you would have the question of, are you going to allow non-conforming use and is making a digital billboard somehow now extending that use of non-conformity in a zone where it wouldn't be allowed at all in other words this is very I'm sounding very confusing and circular here for example if they had their sign in a zone and now it's no longer allowed there a a static sign and they wanted to do something to change it, we would say, well, that's a nonconforming sign. You would have to go to the Board of Adjustment to do that. And so the question is, do you want to allow, do you want to make a nonconformity that allows something in a zone that wouldn't be allowed anyway? Are you, is that what we're talking about? Are we just talking about variances within the zones where they're allowed that would go to size and dimensions or spacing or exactly if you can understand exactly what are we talking about? Because under this ordinance and under our current sign ordinance, there are zones where billboards are allowed and there are zones where they're not. And I don't think we want to get in a situation where we're allowing nonconformities in zones where we otherwise wouldn't allow billboards anymore. But there could be one there, if that makes sense. Understood. I'm trying to preserve the rights of those owners or the signs themselves that are in non-conforming zones to give them the ability to upgrade. So the language that I would change to, which I will eventually make a motion on, is to change F to say, without approval of the Board of Adjustments, modified or changed to utilize electronic messaging display systems as a component of the sign. to provide them the opportunity to make their case to the Board of Adjustments. Because this is a new technology that is revolutionizing the way that the message is delivered. And I think a cleaner, better look. So just to clarify, and it's not part of the text you have in front of you because it's not proposed for change today, but there is a section of the ordinance that deals with appeals to the board of adjustment and it lays out the three specific areas for consideration one is a variance which can vary a dimensional requirement like the height of a sign or a setback those are allowed to go to the board and then it specifically says the board may allow for sign transfers but only in specific instances where you can combine two signs that are allowed on one side of a building into one but then it the third section says that they cannot increase the number of permitted signs on a site they cannot allow a design feature or type of sign that is not specifically permitted in the zone so the appeal ability and I think to what Tracy Jones said is already limited and they would not be in in my interpretation of that be allowed to go to the board and ask them if they're in a zone B2 downtown not billboards aren't allowed nor are electronic message display signs for billboards allowed right they cannot go to the board and ask for that type of sign. That's a new type of sign. They could ask for a variance to the size or the spacing or something else, but they wouldn't be able to ask for a new sign that's not already allowed in that zone. And so that seems to be what, maybe part of what you're proposing, and I think that piece of it would be problematic. Maybe, but we'll continue through and I will still propose a motion. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Wirf. I want to go a somewhat different direction, but you sort of opened the door here. I'm looking at this map around New Circle Road from, I guess, Richmond Road up to Bryan Station, maybe on over to Russell Cave. In our plan for New Circle Road, the small area plan, I don't remember what we recommended in terms of zone. Did we recommend corridor zone? What zoning changes did we recommend there? I know we recommended introduction of housing. We want housing in that area that's not currently on New Circle Road. And how will that relate to what we've got in front of us? Do all those signs get grandfathered in in the areas where we're proposing to add housing? What's going to happen there? So my recollection, and Director Duncan can add to that from that particular small area plan, was there was a proposal to add housing in certain nodes along New Circle. And so if a property already has a billboard and we rezone it to the corridor node zone or some other residential zone, if that's deemed appropriate, the billboard can remain. It becomes nonconforming at that point. Right. So I think the commission can consider that with a zone change, right? do we want to ask them to remove the billboard how close is it to you know new dwelling units that we're adding to this area but any existing billboard has always been deemed just non-conforming and it can remain until the property owner and or the lease leasee decides to take it down so over time in my tenure here we've had you know billboards removed because of zone changes redevelopment but it's not i would say a handful that have been removed mr davis thank you mr chair i want to revisit mr penn's original point about content that can be i guess posted onto the digital billboards we've been talking about the fact that this is electronic content and from my understanding the way that the information will get from, I guess, the owner of the billboards to the billboards itself, it has to go through the world wide web. And I have experience with cybersecurity through a company I have a small interest in, and I've come to learn that anything that can be hacked will be hacked. And if this has hackability, anybody that has the ability to hack can put anything they want on that sign any time they want to. So my question is this, is it possible that we could somehow create, I guess, language that would say that information when it's uploaded to the sign itself, it has to be separated from the World Wide Web. Because if it stays on the World Wide Web, anybody can hack it at any time. We have no control over that. Well, I think you just went beyond most of us in this room, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure how we would enforce. I mean, I understand what you're saying, but. If we can't enforce it, we can't allow it. I mean, you know, I don't, if somebody. It would be the same as if we put a computer monitor on the highway and says, whatever happens, happens. We can't do that. Seeing like that question would be more for the Lamar people. Because, I mean, that's an IT question. So, anybody got any Lamar contacts? Jonathan, you know that guy is a mar, don't you? Yeah, you know that. I'm going to go find him. Yeah, Mr. Mickler. Well, one of my questions related to aspects that Commissioner Poll and Commissioner Worth already brought up, which is that when we're looking at the comprehensive plan, there seems to be more things in the comprehensive plan that point against approving this than for approving this. And while I realize you can cherry pick a specific bullet point, the new we've done a lot of work on the new circle road corridor plan. We've done this new corridor node. It really seems like we're calling for some concentration of residential development right in the areas where these billboard conversions would be taking place. And I guess that sort of brings me to my question here, which is in this text, it says 150 feet from a residential zone and not in a corridor node zone, correct? Yes, that is correct. So this morning I had that in mind as I was departing my street nearly a mile away from the University of Kentucky's digital sign, which was more visible than the much closer traditional billboards that are over the Chevy Chase shops. And sometimes the content on that sign is better designed. Sometimes they just slap something on there because it's somebody's job. But it sure is heck visible in a major way. And the idea of 150 feet seemed kind of a joke for a billboard-sized digital screen that itself was 400 square feet. And I guess, so my first question is, could you sort of, looking at this context of looking at the comprehensive plan, seeing that a lot of these locations are exactly where we want residential, seeing that it can be basically right up to a residential zone, because given the size of the billboard, 150 feet is, for all intensive purposes, right up to a residential zone, what's the rationale there? Yeah, so I think it is important to note that the especially egregious sign on the University of Kentucky's campus is exempt from our local zoning regulations, so we have run into significant issues on that, so that is sort of a barometer, and obviously these things are going to have an impact, but it is not beholden to any level of maximum brightness, any of the other provisions that are kind of put in there. So you're kind of framing that. Within the discussion on the corridors, these are areas where sort of digital billboards already are, I mean, not digital, existing billboards are already present. So during the most impactful times, e.g. the night, where the University of Kentucky, for instance, doesn't have to change their brightness a single bit, there's the luminance provisions that sort of kick in to mitigate this impact. So when we're looking at our corridors, we are looking at places opportunities to get additional residential that is important but that doesn't change sort of the nature of say a major roadway a major arterial highway or otherwise where you have sort of cars lights the sounds associated with that so these are areas that are going to be higher impact kind of regardless of if there's digital billboards or not so we looked at this as a way where these framework for advertisements already exist what we could do to sort of mitigate some of those impacts, but understanding that as opposed to including them in residential zones or areas that don't get that same level of intensity that that's sort of present. So that's sort of where staff approached that. Once again, you know, reminding that this is something that was initiated from the Urban County Council. And so staff looked at that framework as sort of a starting place on where the Urban County Council was wanting to take that as far as direction. Could you speak to specifically then the distance of 150 feet? Yeah, so there's, in, I guess, other, the 150 is relative to the existing separation for standard billboards. And so there's multiple municipalities that regulate different aspects. Some don't look at any distance from residential. some, you know, really it would be the purview of the urban county council ultimately on what they adopt, but if the planning commission doesn't find that 150 feet is enough to do that, that's perfectly fine. Staff was really looking at that luminance and that blogging technology to help kind of mitigate some of those impacts. But once again, that is absolutely anything that can be increased to provide an additional buffer there. But we really were, and once again, this is from residential zones, not residential use. So, you know, the flexibility afforded to our business zones to incorporate residential really wouldn't be picked up either. But that's sort of what we were looking at, existing high-intensity areas where we could kind of incorporate that signage without it sort of becoming a larger problem. And then just a clarification since you sort of, you know, brought the comparison to the some of the recent digital sign ZOTAs that we have approved. In those sign or those discussions of those ZOTAs, it was really hammered to us that these were different from billboards because the content did matter, right? The content has to be on premise content for those businesses. So a lot of these questions like Commissioner Penn's, you know, they're kind of, I guess We have them now because everything we've done so far, there is sort of a de facto control of the content because it's a sign. Is that correct? Yeah. So, previously if, for instance, on the digital marquee, you were driving down and you were seeing an advertisement for Pepsi, that would be something that it would be immediately flagged as, hey, this is not permitted. Whereas, once again, an off-premises sign has much more flexibility. Once again, that framework has withheld scrutiny from the Supreme Court as far as being able to differentiate the two. But really past that, we are somewhat limited on, now obviously we can control the health safety welfare aspects, so can't make it look like an existing government sign or create that issue. Once again, adult content, et cetera. I don't have a great answer to Commissioner Davis's concerns about hacking or how that could kind of be accomplished, but really outside of that, our ability to limit that message is extremely limited. And then my last sort of question, and this is something that I really don't know that much about, but it was just came up at sort of like a quick search. But a lot of the, and again, this is not my area of expertise, but I'm curious if you all looked into this, but apparently a lot of the billboards are either ground leases or easements, and they're often very long-term. And they often also stipulate access rights for the billboard company to utilities and electricity and things like that. And I'm curious if we permit digital billboards if we're effectively, for a property owner who signed many, many years ago an access easement or a ground lease with the understanding of what a billboard was at that time and what was permitted at that time, that we're essentially opening up a completely different product under their lease that they would have had no way of knowing and permitting that. And I'm curious if you all had any discussions related to that. We did not. that is that is an interesting point um but i guess that would you know any type of lease over a long period of time i'm sure it would be subject to all sorts of changing regulations on what that could mean but i think that's more of a private property owner consideration than than anything that we i think could legislate realistically um but it is it is a very interesting implication of that on that point some of them do have there's different types of ownership we don't know the exact ownership or arrangements on every billboard in Lexington but that would be something that the billboard you know the company and whoever owns the rights or has the rights or has leasing rights or whatever they they would have to work that out amongst themselves and address it between that leaseholder or that property owner and the billboard company because in order to erect one of these signs, if this should get adopted, they're going to have to comply with the regulations. So if you have a long-term lease and you're going to want to convert this one to a digital billboard, you're going to have to work out with whoever your clients are how you're going to meet the spacing requirements, the luminance requirements, all those things. and it may mean that you know one of your tenants doesn't get to have an electronic sign and the other one does and that's between them but that they have to figure out how to comply with our ordinance you know we're not going to say okay well you know you don't have to do the spacing requirement because you have two leaseholders that want an electronic sign but they're 100 feet apart you still have to comply with whatever we put in here if that makes sense I don't think I was as concerned about the leaseholders. Mr. Crone, you said you don't have any contacts at Lamar Billboards? You haven't spoken to them or any? No, no, the applicant in this case was the Urban County Council, so we took that text and kind of went from there. if you need one i got one sounds like there's several questions that you know you can't answer yeah there's more on their side do we have any other questions mr pene uh i guess the only way i know how to say this is is that i'm going to mention two things that you all are very familiar with four street live in louisville times square in cincinnati i mean in new york i don't think we're trying to do either one of those but i will tell you if you did something with the stilver district or you did something with around uk say euclid the uk you could turn into some very bright lights it's very close situations i don't know how you prevent that i don't think this is what we're trying to do with this ordinance at all but i think anything you can do to prevent that because we're trying to put neighborhoods close to where our services are and anybody's been to fourth street live or it's been to times square it'd be pretty tough to live next to that thank you thank you mr crumb Okay, we've got some signers that would like to speak. Ms. Clark, you're up first. And do you need any help there? Yeah, just a little. I have no part. Okay, thank you. I have to ask for extra time and consideration. Would I have a . Everybody looking at me? How much time did we give? Mr. Duncan, Mr. Duncan, how much time did she ask for? Let's see here. Do you remember how much time that Ms. Clark asked for? Anybody following? Okay, all right, okay. So I'll just start right in and since there was discussion of non-conforming- Ms. Clark, just for a second, I know you said you asked for some time. Mr. Gatfield, it sounds like he's in your same situation. He missed the two-day time period, so I offered him four minutes, so I would do the same with you. Lovely. I'll start. Thank you. I just want to read to you from non-conforming uses in our own zoning ordinance, Section 4-2 intent. It is the intent of this zoning ordinance to permit the nonconformities established to continue until they are removed, but not to encourage their survival. And then it goes on to say no nonconforming use shall be enlarged or extended, and this is A of 4.3. nor may the building it occupies blah, blah, blah, so as to occupy a greater area of land. In addition, it may not be altered in any way that would extend or enlarge either the scope or the area of its operation. We're talking about a digital billboard where the state has established a rule that if you want one, you have to swap out six of the static billboards. it would seem to be a more valuable and enlarged use. It's also only allowed in certain intense zones. So if we're considering allowing it in other zones as some other kind of use, it's a greater intensity, I believe. But I just have a great many observations. I would like to say that if the ordinance is once adopted, the billboards allowed cannot by any means be clawed back without extraordinary expense. And so being hasty in the adoption of this ZODA if people are concerned about its benefit to the community or what the details actually are or whether it can be enforced is highly problematic. I want to say that I believe, and she can surely correct me if that's not the case, I believe Attorney Tracy Jones made clear to the Zoning Committee last week that our Lexington regulations as they stand today meet the federal and state standards as clarified in important recent sign cases and I would mention the Supreme Court's read and the subsequent Austin. She noted that the Lamar appeal of Lexington's refusal to grant a permit for conversion of standard to digital billboards had fully run its course and Lexington's action was upheld in full. That's to say our ordinance doesn't require any adoption of a provision for digital billboards. We're legal. I'm very concerned, and if I could have my slide presentation, I'm very concerned you could see very clearly all along News Circle that there were lots of digital billboards. And I guess there's a thing here. And so if I could just go to, these are Lamar's own maps of where billboards lie. This is from the New Circle plan, and it maps the areas that are disadvantaged communities, historically disadvantaged, and those are pinkish, and those that are yellowish are areas of persistent poverty. And if anything, we bid to make the billboard situation much worse there rather than better. I don't think that's considerate of such areas, partly because they are near industrial areas and so on. And that's just one more thing. The adverse impact, I think, is important to consider. I'm also concerned about its impact on our rural areas. I do not see, I looked, but is there no height limit for a freestanding digital billboard? So that means you could see it far and wide. It's big, it's 400 square feet, how high up is it? Many, many of the signs are grandfathered in and they are not today conforming. I think we need to understand better which they are before we say the others can be this. B3 is on the increase. It's a much more permissive zone, and it's been enhanced by the recent ZODA as a corridor business. Bulletin boards are allowed in B3. The 150 distance from residential zones isn't enough. There are many residential uses not in residential zones. I think of the 20 apartments that were cleared, they're in a B1 patch right next to the Euclid Kroger, and now they're a parking lot. But that was B1, 20 apartments. The eight-second message duration under the state regulations, you can put two messages per face of a billboard. Each billboard may have two faces. each of those faces may have the maximum area. You're talking about potentially four advertising messages on what is called one billboard, one billboard location, and it's coming and going. Ms. Clark. I'm already out of time. Well, you have my remarks in writing. I guess we don't have the alarm today. I think you're out of time. All right. Well, I encourage you to read the rest of what I've put in the record, and I thank you for your attention. Mr. Gaffield. Thank you. The chair has also given me four minutes, and I appreciate it. I'm Walt Gaffield, and I'm president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council. I'm going to draw your attention to the Beaumont traffic study, which cost the city, I think, $150,000 and was very well done. On page 8 of the study, it basically says, and it looked at it over a three-year period, the primary causes of accidents were one, rear-end collisions and two, sideswipes. If you look at research on digital billboards, it says that it's distracted driving, it causes it and it mostly results in rear end collisions and collisions and side swipes. It's a direct correlation. And what I've given you, you've got probably a page of different research papers. They essentially say that digital billboards result in more accidents. Young people are more likely to be distracted than older people. If you like this ordinance, then would you want your kids or your grandkids to be rear ended or side swiped? I mean, there's a definite correlation in age of drivers. Where the Beaumont study was done, there's still three or four F-rated intersections at the evening rush hour, and there's no way that a digital billboard belongs in that location. Everybody will rise up. It's ridiculous. I want to talk a little bit about free speech. The billboard industry overthrew the highway beautification act that Lady Bird Johnson put in and they did it on the basis of free speech. There was a place called the Lion's Den Adult Superstore and basically the sign industry, I don't know if Lamar was involved or not, but it probably was because it's a statewide group argued that they were regulating the free speech rights of people rather than where signages are placed and that sort of stuff. Now the direction of the courts, if you look at it, is toward more free speech. So you can't assume that what you have today is what's going to be in place tomorrow. Free speech is expanding. I think you have to be very careful of that. Lamar was directly involved in litigating against the city and they did it intentionally. They sent in permits for, I think, around 20 or more digital billboards. And the city said, no, we don't have a billboard ordinance. You can't do that. So they litigated against the city, and the city won. The city has the right to regulate billboards. It's not a right. It's a privilege, and you have the right to stop it. It really doesn't make sense to do it, particularly because of the safety. The safety is very clear. There's liability involved. There was an electronic billboard in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The city had to repair a bridge and needed to move the sign. The courts ruled that the Minnesota Highway Department had to pay over $4 million to take up the sign because it took future costs as well as short term. If you want to build residences on corridors, it doesn't make sense to put digital billboards there. They're really incompatible. 150 feet is hardly any distance at all. You certainly don't want to encourage any billboards, frankly, in Lexington. You certainly don't want to keep the ones you've got. There's a state law that basically says you can replace, if you put in a digital billboard, you have to take up six old billboards, but it's not in Fayette County. They can take up the cheapest, least profitable billboards that are available. And your and your whole group and Lamar is statewide so I can't imagine they would take stuff up in Lexington It'd be up somewhere in the country I mean this is not this is not the old Burma shave signs that you used to see in the country They can they can put in just about anything anywhere and they're and they're annoying They're ugly their environmental problems with them. They use energy. They use too much energy They're ugly and I've got some other things in the paper you have it at your disposal like again thanks thanks to the chair for letting me have an extra minute thank you yes sir you can step up to the podium I'm Mike Brower. I'm with the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association and would like to chime in with the fact that we feel opposed to this. Our concerns are primarily safety. The little bit of research that I've done just right off the top indicates that the The whole purpose of an electronic digital billboard is to get more time from the viewer. And there are statistics that show that although it's small, it is maybe twice as much time than a static billboard produces, and that's a safety issue. We don't want people watching the billboard and running into each other. The other thing about it is that I'm concerned about is that if you have a billboard that's an electronic billboard that has basically four viewing possibilities on it simultaneously, the whole eight second thing kind of goes out the window because you've got four things moving like this. They wouldn't change all at the same time, I'm assuming. And so you get this very dynamic image or a very dynamic situation in terms of light. And some people are more sensitive than that to others. I have friends who can't watch certain video games because it makes them sick initially. And I myself am personally susceptible to some movement like that that creates a little bit of a vertigo kind of effect. And I think that's a consideration. Also I'm concerned about the mention of hacking into one of these things. I would assume that the providers would want to be able to control these devices remotely. You know, you wouldn't want to have to have somebody go out and plug something in that changes it. So somewhere there's somebody sitting at a computer that's making a decision about what's going up there at any given time. And how often is that changed? You know, I mean, it could be, that could be very dynamic itself. I didn't see anything about saying how, you know, any restrictions on how long a particular advertisement would have to stay up. So you get a situation there. And, you know, and then who polices this, by the way? I mean, is it just based on complaints? Or if somebody is pushing the edge of what is suggestive material or something that appears to be motion video, you know, how does that get policed? And I would just say this, too, that, you know, from a neighborhood point of view, the light pollution is a major concern. We really don't feel like we need more unnecessary light in Lexington. And I'm afraid that this would create that situation for a lot of areas. And just finally, I would say, you know, we don't really want this to be Lex Vegas. So, you know, thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. Mr. Davis? A question for staff. I've read it a couple of times, but one thing, a possible concern I thought of was could there be either an existing billboard that is converted to a digital billboard or a new billboard put in a zone that perhaps adjoins or is very close to AR land? we considered the agricultural zone and affording them any protections just as we are residential? If we can include the staff's PowerPoint presentations. And Daniel, what I'm thinking is if you know you've got a commercial or a business district on one side of the interstate and on the other side of the interstate is AR land that that's really where I think you would have those. Yeah I think part of that as well is once again the intensity of the roadways there's going to be, you know, in situations, and especially kind of pointed on, like if you were looking, say, like this portion of, or actually it would be the west side, I'm getting myself reallocated, like we're talking near, say, Calumet Farm and that like, there are existing billboards out there. These are also primarily conditions where you also have existing lighting. So this is not a billboard being introduced into a setting that was completely dark and now you have horses being impacted by this lighting. So there wasn't any additional consideration put in this particular text of separation from agricultural zones. Residential was the main one being proposed there. That could be implemented as well, where you would once again probably see that is the kind of the fringes of New Circle Road. But then as you go further out, you know, agricultural rural zoning is sort of still in the vicinity of some of those places, especially further out, say, to the node. So we would be looking down, say, in blue sky, for instance. So it is an additional thing for consideration, but once again, trying to weigh the impact of the higher-intensity roadways and what the addition of this would bring and whether that merited further consideration. Yeah, you're correct, Daniel. I thought about the lighting. However, on a static billboard, the lighting is generally either on bottom facing up. So I guess sometimes it could be on the top facing down, but it's generally the bottom facing up, whereas this is facing out. That, to me, is the nature. Yeah, and really nothing was proposed by staff, but it passed the just overall luminance, but I do see what you're saying. I think something would have to be, I think the AR zones should be afforded some sort of protection, whether it's pointed in the opposite direction or we can talk about that as a body. Do you have any other questions, Mr. Owens? you mr chair a couple of them daniel um do do we yeah i'm hearing various things as far as conforming non-conforming uh obviously non-conforming cannot be changed can the current ones conforming i guess they could be changed to digital yeah so it's so for instance if you had let me bring back a concentration. Alternative changes. This one, existing residents will go a little bit further. So zooming in, let's see here. Say, take for instance, well, that's actually a residential zone. There may not be an exit. Essentially, if we had a billboard that otherwise was conforming, so as it stands, it is not within 500 feet of another billboard, they could request a digital billboard. From there, we would look to make sure there wasn't, in 2,500 feet in any direction, an existing digital billboard and that it met the location criteria where if it's currently conforming, it probably does as far as residential and the like. They would have the ability to come in and make that digital subject to all of the state's requirements and anything else there. So those little dots where there isn't any overlap without the presence of another existing billboard, digital billboard, would be able to make that switch. But once it is in, none of the billboards in that little yellow circle there would be able to come in as digital. Do we have a number as to currently what is conforming and non-conforming billboards? Yeah, we, let's see. No, we've got, I mean, we have an increase over what was mapped. So essentially from what was mapped during our previous iterations and looks at billboards, there was an additional 40 or so that were found during our window survey that we conducted that I think brings the known total to 197 within the county there. But I don't know if we have any exact total of all of the signs, though. based on the limitations of that within the time period. Okay. What's currently downtown, would they be able to be converted to? Yeah, so what you're describing just past a block or two from here, those aren't permitted by the zone. Those are nonconforming based on the zone and the concentration. So there's multiple angles to that particular. The street is escaping me, but parallel to Main Street there on the back site. Short Street, thank you. It's like I live here or something, I don't know. And then one other question, well two others. It was mentioned and I don't know if I understand right or not. I haven't seen many but I've seen a few. Most of the digital ones it's just one advertisement that will change to another advertisement. advertisement. It almost sounded like he was thinking there could be like four different advertisements that one would change and the other one wouldn't, but then it would. Yeah, I can speak to that. Yeah, so there's nothing in our ordinance that sort of speaks to how many, you know, you've got a square footage of signage, so 400 square feet, whether that's divided into a singular message, multiple messages, that's not something that we can regulate. However, if there was a change from one to the other and that was occurring, say, you know, like imagine like you had four television screens and it was one for eight seconds and another and they were offset, staff would look at this as a whole. That entire image is not allowed to move or change except greater than once every eight seconds. So the concept of it popcorning, this goes eight seconds, this goes eight seconds, is something that wouldn't be allowed. But in that same form, that 400 square feet is the limiting factor. So if they wanted to split that up into multiple messages or one message that was just a wall of text, you know, with as many words as they're like, we are not afforded the ability to legislate that. And we are talking billboards and not wall mounted signs or marquees, correct? Yeah. One last thing. I'm calling it blinkers, I shouldn't say that. You're talking about blockers or louvers limiting the view. that goes up now would be that would be required uh based on the staff alternative text yes all right thank you mr wilson just for clarification about the four different things how many can they put on it could if they could put six on there with that they could put 95 on there and it would be a totally unreadable mess but is once again it's the square footage that we're looking at does that defeat the purpose of not having that i mean does it get around the eight seconds in a No, those would all be subject. They would all have to transition the same time. We're looking at it as a big picture, sort of agnostic to other than the aforementioned adult and health and safety issues as one image. Now, whether that image happens to have four messages, it doesn't matter. No part of that sign can change more often than once every eight seconds. I got you. Let me just ask for mission clarification here, and this is me. I need to know something. and the state allows the digital by law. Are they saying the city council, our city council, have they already made the decision that we should allow digital and what we're expected to do here is to determine how? Well, they voted to recommend this text to initiate to you all. You have the ability to add any conditions or to recommend disapproval of the text, but ultimately this goes back to the same folks that initiated it. Now, my understanding, I believe, of the timeline involved with that, I think that may be a new council, I mean, that will be a new council relative to what we have today. So that is involved as well. Okay, well, I was going to go ahead. I'm not sure. You said something about the state. I think if you meant the city council, the state allows for us to do this or not do this, whatever we want to do. The city, urban county council initiated the text amendment, which as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, what you see in red is what they initiated, which means they actually talked about this and one of the council members introduced this, moved it forward, and they initiated it. they did not refer it to you all they initiated it and by statute when they initiated text amendment to you all for review you have 60 days to do that they initiated this text on september the 26th so by the end of this month on november the 26th which you have no more meetings before then you have to send something back to them but it is your purview what you want to send back to them and then they will get it back but they start a winter break on december the sixth that lasts until january the 14th so they they will get it back when they come back in january with your all's recommendation whatever that is and with some new council members to review it and then they are under no timeline at that point so they can put it in committee they can kill it they can move it forward they can change it but they will not see it in order for them to take any action until sometime in january but you all must get them something back by the end of this month which basically means today thank you okay i'll bring it back to the commission here um I don't know if we have any more questions. You want to say something else? Yes, ma'am. Hey, Daniel, would you help her out real quick? I don't believe so. The point of digital billboards is they're very engaging. That means that your attention is caught by them, it's held longer, that's a traffic hazard. It means they're more lucrative. When a message changes every eight seconds, you're just kind of tethered to it a little more. It's no longer deemed Lady Bird Johnson's moving sign. That's what changed in the Beautification Act, in the interpretation of it. But it's too engaging. If you're a neighbor who lives nearby, they did studies where kids had to draw their environment, they drew their house and everything. None of them drew in the power lines. They're there, but they become invisible after a while. The uglier are they, the more they become invisible. An image that changes every eight seconds is going to be continually engaging, distracting, and an utter nuisance to neighbors. There's no height limit. We need to, that's just not acceptable. We need to have a height limit. We don't know, I assume these are two-faced signs, not just one face. Do they get 400 each in area or what? The complexity of this kind of sign is unregulated because that would be message. So two advertising messages on a sign or whatever. And finally, they are just so much more lucrative for the advertising companies because you can change. You can have breakfast messages, you can have lunch messages, you can have dinner. You can have seven and a half messages in a minute and maybe you have two messages on the sign face. Plus you have the other side of it. So they're ineffably more lucrative. Which means if you ever change your mind about it, you're just going to be real sorry because the state provides you have to buy them out. I think it's unwise to jump into this, and I think it's not welcome to your citizens. Thank you. Mr. Chair, there is a height limit. It's 40 feet. Height limit is 40 feet. The billboard is 40 feet. Okay. All right. That's on the record. Thank you. Thank you for that. The bill from the ground up. Or the billboard itself can only be 40 feet tall. but it could be on a, could it be on a base that's 100 feet tall? No. So 40. From the ground. From the ground. From the ground level. From the ground level, 40 feet. Okay. Our board's sign can be no more than 40 feet up from the ground. Yes. Ms. Worth has that correct. Okay. All righty. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Worth. I want to make a very brief comment. I kind of know that when the council sends something to the planning commission, they tend to all vote for it but that doesn't reflect how they actually split sometimes they do it as a favor you really don't know what's happening they really want your input into it and you shouldn't be influenced by the fact that they sent it to you thank you thank you mr gatfield okay now we'll bring it back to the commission close this portion out for Are there any further conversations about this? I don't know if we can add anything new. But if not, the floor is open for a motion if there aren't any other questions or concerns. Mr. Nichols. This was a good discussion. This is something that was brought to us from council and our duty is to act on this in the best way possible. I'm going to recommend a motion of approval of PLN Zota 24-8, amendment to Article F17 for digital billboards, modifying the staff's added text, Section 17-5. F, to the language it says, without approval from the board of adjustment, Comma, modified or changed to utilize electronic message display systems as a component of the sign. Okay, Mr. Nickel. Huh, that section, what section was that, Mr. Nickel? 17E, item F, language in front of the current text that was added by staff from the text that was delivered from council. Is it 17F, the new language? 17F. Yeah. The new language added by staff was F. Yeah, modified or changed to utilize electronic message display systems as a component of the sign. Right. And what I'd like to add is before that to say without approval from the board of adjustment, comma, modified or changed to utilize message display systems as a component of this sign. which is the text that was added by staff. Okay, all right. Any discussion to that motion? You have to have a second. Yes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's right, Mr. Wilson. Do we have a second first to that motion? Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. I think I may be correct in the interest of getting to discussion on that, I'll second the motion. Okay, so we got a motion and a second. Now, are there any discussions to that motion? Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. If I may, I'd like to ask our staff to clarify how that may play into the situation as far as The language is a little difficult to me. So what's your take on that? The staff would not recommend adopting that change. Okay. I'm sorry, Tracy, I couldn't hear you. Would you repeat that? The staff would not recommend making that change. Okay. Mr. Penn, you had your hand up. I'm sorry, I wasn't on my left. I'm more concerned about the big picture than I am the added board of adjustment. I think our decisions is think whether we want these digital signs or not. And if we do, we send it back to council and said, this is how we'd like to do it. We want it to happen. I'm not going to, I think Walt Garfield made a really good point. We don't know why the council sent this to us. There's lots of reasons how it could have come to us. It didn't come out of a committee. It didn't come out of a committee recommendation, if I read this right. So they haven't put a lot of time in it either. So his synopsis could be right. It could be just a few people on the council wanted to do it, and they sent it out to see if it would float. It could be the other way. But normally what they would do in committee is they'd come with a zone text amendment that reflected the opinion of that committee. And I don't know whether that happened or not, but if it didn't happen, it should have happened. So I may be wrong. Mr. Nickel. In response to that, when we look at the staff alternate language on our screen, the red adjustments were made by council. The blue adjustments were made by our staff. So we did receive this from council with the new language that is in red. I didn't hear all of that. They wanted to know if council, how many council members were actually involved in this process? Was it one, two, three? It's my recollection that there was one council member who introduced this into, and if anybody remembers it differently, tell me. but it's my recollection that there was a council member who introduced this into the planning committee of the council I don't believe it was in there for an extended period of time and he basically said that they needed he thought this was something Lexington had not explored fully that they needed to explore and he was bringing it forward and that they moved it out of committee knowing the the text amendment to the zoning ordinance has to come to you all. And that, so they, what I'm trying to say is they didn't have like an hours long or multiple day hearing about it. They did talk about it, moved it forward out of their committee process to the full council. The full council voted to initiate what had been brought to them by that individual council member and send it to you guys. So it did come out with a recommendation from the planning committee. Well, it came out with their recommendation to report it out as it was given to them. Okay. Well, then I stand corrected. I didn't know it came out of the planning committee. But, you know, I don't, I mean, I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other, just factually. You know, sometimes things in committee remain there for a while, and they have multiple things, multiple hearings on it, multiple days. They talk about it. They put it off. They bring it back. That isn't how this one happened. Okay. I don't know the answer to that. Just so you know. You good to go, Mr. Pinn? Oh, you are. Mr. Davis? Is there any way possible we can get some clarity on the mechanism for populating the billboards before we say yes or no? No. I mean, if you all want to send something back today, I mean, if you all want to send something back to them, whatever you send back to them, you have to make a decision today because you won't meet the 60 days. And so, you know, if you don't, they'll just act without anything coming back from you all. your recommendation can be disapproval your recommendation can be more changes your recommendation can include you know some type of language that we can and have been trying to address some of that but it won't be definitive as to what is available to do that with because we don't know Ms. Wirth this is I'm talking here not making a motion but it seems to me we've got a motion on the floor to add a phrase we could take a vote on that yes and then figure out what we do with the rest of it if we vote it down approval with that one change yeah it's approval with that's the motion we can put that up or down yes then we'll go from there mr wilson i'd like if i could ask my colleague would you be a up Would you be amenable to a revision or amendment? An additional amendment? I'd be interested in seeing that. I just want to include a pathway forward for those that are the property owners that do have this in a non-conforming site to upgrade to the new technology. technology because I think it is a benefit to the community. But if there were additional items that would like to be added in order to send this forward with an approval, I'd be interested in that. Okay. Okay. So to make it real easy, I think it would just vote it up or down. That's what I was going to say. We got a motion. We got a second. So unless there's any other questions. I know the poll has a question too. Okay. I just needed to hear the wording again. I was trying to put the introductory sentence with that, and I'm losing something. So can you repeat that? You want to repeat your motion? I can. so the intent of the the intent number one is to create a pathway forward for non-conforming signs to be upgraded to the new technology and the way that i would like to do that is by saying on F we're keeping the staff's added text but adding before modified it says without approval from the Board of Adjustment comma modified or changed to utilize electronic message display systems as a component of the sign. Okay, I'm just trying to make it make sense to my hearing. Can I suggest something? I think that it would be much easier to understand if the language were put after that statement, so it would say modified or changed to utilize electronic message display systems as a component of the sign unless approved by the Board of Adjustment. okay is that what you're trying to say that is what i'm trying to say so why don't we go ahead that is some good language is it a possibility to modify my language at this moment okay can i interject while we're doing this the original motion was to approve the entire text with that language being added so if that's what you're voting on so i just want to be sure you all don't think you're just voting on 17-5-F. Okay, just want to be sure. So I would like to, sorry. Hold on one second, Mr. Collins. Mr. Cole had a question. I don't have a question. I have a statement. I'm vehemently opposed to this change. I think that expanding non-conforming uses is a really bad idea. There's a reason why they're non-conforming uses and expanding them just increases the problem that made them non-conforming in the first place davis thank you mr chair with the greatest respect for commissioner nickel i have to agree with mr poll because it in essence guts so much of our zoning ordinance that one change would in my opinion. Okay, Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purpose of my second was to get to the discussion part of this, and with the discussion part of this, with you just asking me if I'm still seconding, I would like to withdraw my second on this. Mr. Wilson. He's not allowed to do that. i was going to he just asked well i didn't think i think the idea was the only purpose of the motion to get it is to get it on the table for discussion that's all so it doesn't mean that you agree or disagree it just means to put the discussion discussion is taking place yeah and to clarify repeating what miss jones says what we're voting on is all of this with that addition if we vote it down we still have the question of what to do with the rest of it without the addition it doesn't lock us into any approval of the rest of it correct yeah and mr chairman i have a if that if this motion does fail i have another motion thank you i mean like it's going to fail already so okay let's vote via granicus please that's going to be bad bruce i'm going to stay from now I'm staying for that one because I want everything. I don't know what's happening. You'll see why. Okay. That motion fails. All right, Mr. Wilson. Okay. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a new motion. The motion is to approve PLN Zota 24-8 with the conditions provided by staff. Do we have a second? Just the approval. I'll second it. so you say i'm good on seconding you got a second by mr nickel all right any further discussion to that motion yes mr mickler i i think that moving forward and sending this back with a recommendation to council would be a mistake. I think that we have done work to incentivize and encourage residential along the corridors right where we're talking about putting digital billboards. We have just passed a night sky ordinance which is trying to make our our night sky darker not brighter recommended ordinances for night skies are lower than the recommended lumens in this proposed ordinance. We have taken the same number of feet for digital billboards between residential zones and we've kept that in this proposed language. A 400-foot digital screen 150 feet from a residential zone just seems bizarre. We just approved very narrowly areas for digital signs so recently that the signs haven't even been installed yet. I'm of the opinion that we need to take this a lot slower. there are examples of I mean we're not regulating the lumens differently if they're in a bright downtown area versus adjacent to an agricultural area I mean these these conversations are just too broad and too difficult to happen in the course of this one meeting and i think that given given the importance of the aesthetics of the community given the importance of people having peace and not flashing lights in their home giving the importance of the night sky in the community given the importance of of the future residential development along our corridors. We just need to send it back to council with a no. Thank you, sir. We can vote via Granicus. I hope there's not any other discussion. We discussed this to death. The motion was to approve. The motion was to approve. Yeah. Okay. Great, that motion fails. Floor is open. Mr. Mickler. Do you want a break? No. There you got refinings. I was listening. You saw that coming? I just think they look good, especially in downtown. I really do. I'd like to know. I'd like to limit the downtown area. Me too. I think they're cool. Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that, but we don't have enough in this thing. We don't know what the council's trying to do. I would like to make a motion that the commission recommend disapproval of the proposed text amendment for the following reasons. One, allowing digital billboards within Fayette County should not be permitted because despite proposed mitigation, such use is inappropriate due to the aesthetic and nuisance impact of increased lighting on adjacent property owners, especially residential land uses. Two, the proposed text amendment is not in agreement with the 2045 Comprehensive Plan, Theme B, Protection Policy No. 10, which recommends reducing light pollution to protect dark skies. The illumination of a digital billboard will increase light pollution and nuisance to the general traveling public. Three, the request introduces additional roadway conflicts, reducing the efficiency and effectiveness of our roadway system, Theme D, Goal 1, and Creating Less Safe Conditions, Theme D, Goal 1.D. Four, the proposed text amendment does not address numerous concerns, including the possibility of hacking or security of messages on a digital billboard, nor reduction in signage clutter by instituting swapping or removal provisions. Five, the proposed text amendment allows digital billboards along federal and state highways in corridor business, warehouse and wholesale business, light industrial or heavy industrial zone. These zones are most common along corridors including New Circle Road, Nicholasville Road, Winchester Road, and Richmond Road, which are the most heavily traveled corridors in Fayette County. Thus, higher levels of distraction caused by digital billboards could lead to additional injury and non-injury accidents along the most heavily traveled corridors. We got a second, Mr. Pohl. Discussion? Discussion? You want to, oh my God, yes, I'll open up for discussion. I think this is important, you all might not, but before we vote, I'd like to get on the record to say that I think digital signs can work in Lexington. I just don't think getting it the last meeting before we have to give it back to the council that we gave enough directions to how we'd like for it to read. And if the council wants to go ahead with it without more thought than we've put in it, and I'm not saying the staff hadn't put it in it, but we haven't had the time to put it in it, then that's their prerogative. But I don't want to let backing up against the date keep us from doing a good job. And I think we'll have another opportunity to do this. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Mr. Penn, I think it's reasonable for and it would be reflected in your minutes that will go in a report to the council for you to say that, you know, you feel like it's an important issue, but under the time constraints, you all didn't have the information or the time to discuss what you needed to. They can still do that, but I mean I think it's reasonable if that's part of your all's concern for you all to express that and it'll be reflected in the minutes. Right. Yeah. Well, Mr. Chair. I certainly agree with what he's saying there because I do think that the use of digital signs I think over time it will eliminate some of the billboards you have because in that you know one area where we have so many billboards you could if they're owned by the same people you could theoretically see reducing those down which would in turn reduce the amount of light that is projected in the residential area so I agree wholeheartedly with what he said based on where we are today we just don't have enough time to do that. I agree also I think the question I had is could that be a preamble to the actual motion that's set forth here just what I mean, the idea of simply saying, well, here, we just disapprove it is one thing. That's not very helpful. But if you had a preamble saying the reason why is because we did not and because of that, blah, blah, blah. Well, my question is, should that be a part of the motion? I mean, you all can amend your disapproval to include that if you would like to. Let me ask you a question, though. Look at Robin. Well, hold on, hold on. But we have this all the time, and Mr. Penn made a, I mean, a great point. But it's already in the minutes, like he said. Why do we need to amend the motion for it? It's already there. They're going to read it. So the difference will be, just so you all know how it goes to them, they will get a report, and the report will outline the reasons that were read as part of the motion. If you add this on to that, that will appear at the beginning of the report on the first page. Otherwise, it's going to appear in the minutes that are attached. So they're going to see it, but it sort of depends on where you want them to see it. You know, it's up to you guys. Mr. Chair, it needs to be at the front of the report so they can see that. important point made well so what then robin's going to have to revise his you can just make a motion to amend and add that misappearing statement to the yeah that would be fine so okay mr mickler this is back to you i i thought they were talking about amending the motion i i'm opposed to this and I'm not interested in. You're opposed to digital period. I think that we, I think that there's, I think that the, that i mean i can't predict the future here on but um i mean i i would rather send a a i would i would rather send a stronger no than a weaker no yeah we already have a motion in a second and it's to me it's the same thing but i understand everybody wants to get it up front but believe me they they look and whoever that put it out there We know they're looking. So we got a motion from Mr. Mickler, we got a second by Mr. Poll. Any further discussion? Now we haven't voted on this. We haven't voted, this is the new one. This is the voted down. What? Yeah, yeah, I'm just right. This is the third time, this is the voted down. I am voting down a creek. We haven't added the preamble pieces. We're voting to disapprove. We're voting to disapprove. Yes, we're not adding the preamble as of yet. We're going to find out how we vote here. I call a question. Yes, ma'am. There you go. You vote? Okay. All right, we vote. Okay, that motion passes. All right, so that moves us over to the commission items. PFR 2024, Division of Water Quality. All right, the next item on our agenda is a request for a public facilities review from the Division of Water Quality. Just a reminder that this is a process that is initiated when the Urban County Council is considering development and so gives the Planning Commission an opportunity to weigh in and essentially you are judging whether or not this meets the comprehensive plan. So here we have the request, it's a request at 130 West New Circle Road, which we'll show on the map momentarily, to use any part of the existing shopping center for a new headquarters and an equipment storage area for the Division of Water Quality. So here the parcel is located, this is West New Circle Road, the railroad tracks running over here, and then we have North Broadway, which bounds the property to the west. To the south, the subject property does adjoin a single-family residential neighborhood, but the existing structure was a combination of both a wind stream use, so these existing structures you see here are actually a part of their existing fenced-in storage areas for their vehicles while they utilize the site. The remainder of the portion of the building there was a mattress warehouse. This is an older commercial development. It was in the late 1960s, so characteristics with that, you see kind of a sea of parking set back from the roadway. But they're largely proposing to utilize the structure as is and reconfigure some of the fencing on the site for their headquarters as well as the storage of their vehicles and equipment. The subject property is currently zoned B3 with the rest of the development around the corridor kind of sharing that zoning. You have, once again, single-family residential located to the rear. Here you have the applicant's proposal, which is, once again, utilizing the existing building as is, making, of course, internal reconfigurations. The extent of the current fencing is this blue line here. so there's portions kind of along the roadway and along the railroad, but previously they had used this rear portion of the site here for the storage of their vehicles that was enclosed and then actually with barbed wire fencing. The new proposal would be to expand fencing out to this red line here and utilize this entire area for the parking of their vehicles, equipment, storage, and the like. Here we have views of the subject property as it currently exists. Once again, a large parking area that is largely non-conforming to our current landscaping standards. But the existing mattress warehouse use here, the wind stream internet provider use here, and then it adjoins a Goodwill Collection Center and a car wash further down New Circle Road. This is the view kind of the side of that existing area. Once again, kind of a secure vehicle area as is with that barbed wire fencing. The government is proposing, or the Division of Water Quality is proposing to replace that. It is no longer going to be barbed wire, but rather a wrought iron fence, I believe eight feet in height. And this is the rear of the site. So there is a grassy buffer to the rear to where that property adjoins single-family residential zoning. But once again, rear access bays, rear VUA areas, once again a site where a lot of cars are intended to be utilized kind of consistently. Here is the frontage along New Circle. One of the challenges and constraints to the site is the railroad overpass, what we have here, and then this area of New Circle is largely characterized by the lack of pedestrian facilities. That, along with the topography of the site, really do make this kind of an inhospitable area for pedestrians. Unfortunately, some of these are kind of larger constraints outside the realm of this project, but I believe it's my understanding that there are future roadway improvements planned for portions of New Circle, and so that, I believe, is coming in some form or fashion in the future. In staff's review, we take a look at this and try to identify some elements of the comprehensive plan that are being met. With this being an existing shopping center, we looked at it sort of through a regional center lens. These are shopping areas, areas of employment, areas of retail, et cetera, located generally along kind of major corridors. and looking at this as sort of low density development. Once again, low density development where possible, kind of prioritize providing these multimodal facilities if they can be accommodated. But here is really serving more as an employment center and a center that is going to be basically storing some of the vehicles that service the larger community. When we look at goals and objectives that are being met with this request, certainly there is challenges in redeveloping these sort of big box retails, these older developments. So this is re-utilizing an existing structure for a social services use that is going to provide benefit to the community. Once again, providing these facilities in an area that doesn't already have those, and really just basically being able to expand the geographical reach that they're able to operate in kind of a consolidated consistent place. Once again policies and implementation it's re-utilizing a reusing an existing structure once again not proposing too many changes to the site staff will have a couple of recommendations based on the the provisions of the comprehensive plan but once again a supportive community facility that is going to benefit the entire community once again reutilizing an existing structure in the contest that has existed since the 1960s. So staff's findings was that this is generally meeting the provisions of the comprehensive plan. We did have two recommendations. First largely dealt with sort of the existing parking area, so adding additional landscaping. Once again, our comprehensive plan talks about heat island effect, environmental effect, making that more hospitable. So in the portions of the site that will be serving the general public, and I'll back up here just to give you kind of the portions that we're really focusing on, the public-facing side of this is going to be this portion of the site here. Everything inside that red dotted line is going to be fenced in really for larger equipment and the like. But in the portions that are facing the community, we're really trying to bring that up to speed with landscaping islands, additional landscaping tree plantings kind of hitting that angle. Additionally, staff kind of noted the lack of pedestrian facilities on the site here. This was a site that was designed in the 1960s with kind of car, automobile traffic being the predominant way to get there. There are site constraints, both environmental and topographical, that limit the ability on such an isolated kind of parcel look to kind of implement larger transportation improvements. but we suggested that they look at providing crosswalks or internal facilities to the site to ensure that anyone from the public that is attending this are able to navigate this large parking lot in a more hospitable manner. So those were the two recommendations that staff looked at for a project that is sort of largely utilized an existing site as is. but at this time you know it is open to the the planning commission for any questions you have a staff and once again you are free to make you know additional recommendations but these were the two highlighted by staff okay mr crumb thank you sir do we have any questions for staff all right mr mickey Looking at the plan, did staff calculate how far off they are from meeting the tree canopy guidelines for the parking requirement? No, we did not do a calculation. Really, we're looking at more of the spacing as sort of the main indicator of, you know, usually every nine spaces or so you have to break up with a landscape island and that generally is not present. So you can look and see basically in the site design or the street photos kind of on a kind of at a personal level how kind of spread out that is. So once again sort of making recommendation versus a specific percentage for them to meet, but just exploring additional options for landscaping where it made sense. So there, I mean, this, this wouldn't, this plan wouldn't be allowed if it was a private developer. No, I would be pretty comfortable in saying that, yeah. Is there a reason that the city can't, like, have these conversations before it gets, like, and, like, the city can't figure out and know what we hold private developers' standards to? I can't speak to the process for how this arrived, but we received the request to initiate it. But it is on the email correspondence between staff and the Division of Water Quality. Their consultants are wanting to get the Planning Commission's feedback, and they note the possibility of making changes there. But it is a little bit of a different process when you're looking at the government versus a private developer. So the Division of Water Quality, this is also the division that funds the sort of innovative parking lot designs with the permeable pavers and extra tree canopy, right? I'm not sure about off the top of my head. Was there a discussion in the Department of Water Quality with their own sort of folks in these projects to kind of try to incorporate some of those? I guess I'll wait for him to come up. Good afternoon. I'm Greg Lubeck deputy director of water quality and answers is yes It is in the scope of work to our consultant to look at stormwater management on the project somewhere You know we recognize that this is a great big ocean of asphalt out there and surely we can Do something with with stormwater management my my personal vision is somewhere out at the end of the parking lot near new circle road to have a infiltration swale or something similar to that to kind of catch the water as it's running off the parking lot and do some level of treatment to it. Have you all gotten with planning to look at what the normal tree canopy would be in like a new private parking lot? No, but that'll probably be part of our consultant scope of work. Where's the, is the, I'm going to try to figure out how to work this thing again. We'll look at this, this is the front end of the building. You can see the, up on the, let's see, where's the, there we go. You know, these trees right here are, I mean, right in front of the building. They are, here's the sidewalk, here's the trees. We recognize that those probably won't go, but we will replace canopy that has to move or be changed as part of this. Oh, I don't think that was my question. What is the current tree canopy requirement for a parking lot? 30%. Are you all maybe going to be discussing how to reach 30% tree canopy to meet what a private developer would do? You can ask our consultant to look at it. The parking lot may get reconfigured. We're still kind of working through all these things. I mean, the way it's oriented now, it may be able to turn 90 degrees or something. We're still in the very early stages of this thing. Thank you. I just think it would be a bad sign sort of to both the community as a whole and to the development community for us to require 30% canopy privately, but then not fulfill that as a city. We'll pass that along to the consultant and see what we can come up with on it. I'm sure they are in part doing what they're being charged to do. So I appreciate you letting them know that that would be something they need to figure out. Thank you. I'd like to strengthen that a little bit. As I recall, we did facility review for the Fayette County Schools. We added some recommendations and that we could add the recommendation about the tree canopy trying to reach a standard and also your point about filtration. but you know there's a lot of water coming off there those are vehicles and putting a recommendation about that as well that that whatever happens there make sure that water gets filtered yeah that's already in their scope of work do we have any more questions I mean, are we saying that this plan as we're seeing it today is in compliance with the comprehensive plan or this future after discussion with the consultant scope of work is in compliance with the comprehensive plan? Yeah, so what is before you is a recommendation based on the changes outlined and recommended by staff. So I guess any, you have the ability to kind of contingent that approval based on those fulfillment of those conditions, and it'll put them on their radar as they kind of consider the project. So, yeah, it's not just what you have before you, but with any additional changes that you all are recommending as the way to meet those kind of comprehensive plan goals and policies that get laid out there. All right. Thank you, sir. Ms. Dolenz? Mr. Chair, if I may, and I have said this often, I think in these situations we're kind limited as to what can be done but much as what mr miffler was saying uh with the city we demand i think we demand a fair amount uh from our citizens and developers and it's all always nice to lead by example so in these situations it's nice to be able to ask for these things and hope that they get done so thank you Thank you. Okay. Are we prepared to make a motion? Close this portion out. Take a stab at this. Are we approving the plan that's submitted? Is that what we're being asked to do? You're making a finding that it's in compliance with the comprehensive plan. Okay. All right. What if it's not? All right, I'm going to take a stab at that. I move that we find that the plan as submitted is in general in compliance with the comprehensive plan, but we request two additional changes. One, that the applicant, I guess we're calling an applicant, increase tree can be coverage to approach the 30% required of other developments and that it incorporate a stormwater filtration system to take care of pollutants in the stormwater runoff and management of the stormwater volume. Additional recommendations. For additional recommendations. I'll second it, and I'll be the first to say that when you're in the Division of Water Quality, you generally just hear negative stuff all the time. Everybody has an opinion on how you can fix it and do it better, And I think your people have been doing admirable work for decades now, especially under the consent decree, and we're all very grateful for that. Every citizen of Lexington, every visitor benefits from that. I also wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Mickler's sentiments and Ms. Worre's proposed additional recommendations. But thank you. All right. Thank you. We got a motion and a second. Any further discussion to that motion? And none. Please vote Villagranicus. Okay, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chair, we have scheduled you all to be off next Thursday. We will see you all again on Thursday, December 5th for your committees. The staff wishes you all a terrific Thanksgiving. Thank you all as well. Thank you, thank you. This meeting is adjourned.