The officer gets to the unit. The setup is there's a 10-week training program and it's kind of can also be adjusted a little bit based on their experience and their level of riding. But they go through that course and once they can prove that they're ready and then test out, then we do have a skilled out portion where we'll bring in guest instructors as well. But then as long as they can prove themselves and test out on the horseback riding portion of it, then they're qualified on our end to show that they're safe and that they have the proper skill set. But they also have to train in driving the trailers and the trucks, too, because the horses, we don't just ride out from here. We can take them anywhere in the city. So we involve the trailering as well, and there's a lot of other components into it. But generally speaking, it's about a 10-week course. But, again, that's based on their experience level coming in. So what does the mounted like what are your daily routines or Sometimes we used to see them out like at parades and stuff like that. What other events do you all attend? So a lot of people out there don't know that we are a full-time unit. This is our full-time spot So this is where we come to work every day and this is a 365 day a year job that you know the horses are not going to take care of themselves Somebody has to be here every day to take care of them. So and depending on the day of the week We could be turning the horses out first thing in the morning. They go out to graze in the fields and then we're responsible for cleaning their stalls that they've been in overnight and making sure they have all the food medications and supplements and all that that they have at the end of the day and then it kind of just depends on what our schedule looks like we can either ride out here on patrol and that would mean the officers just saddle up and ride the neighbor neighboring areas close to here or they can put the horses in the trailers and go anywhere else in the city and we like to try to get as many different places as we can. And when we're not doing that, we do get requested a lot for a lot of the public relations types events. So it is a lot of the parades, a lot of the like city parks events, a lot of school events, like the elementary kids love us. So we do that a lot. And then we also get a lot of requests for tours of our facility here. And then we'll usually try to throw a demonstration in our training arena so they can kind of see our facilities and we can show them some of our skill set and whatnot. So you mentioned the facilities here and 1986 I think is when this facility which is very near to downtown Lexington was was built up until that point from the time I guess this current era started in 82 were you at the horse? Correct. We were out at Kentucky Horse Park. They let us keep our horses out there so the one or two officers at the time would just go out there and get the horse and then kind of do things from there but once we got our facility here, it just streamlined things so much for us and made it so much easier to where we can patrol downtown areas from here and then we can also trailer out and go anywhere we need to go. So with it being fall, we have a lot of horse events. You have Keeling, you have the Colloquium. Do you all do anything out there at the horse park with the Colloquium with our horses? Yes. So that's actually, we partner with them to host that event. And that one, this year, we brought in 136 riders from, I believe it was 41 different agencies across the country. So we had people, we had a amount of police officers from as far away as Canada, the Toronto guys. We had a couple from California, some from Florida. They come from all over to this training. We bring in outside instructors. We brought in a couple instructors from Toronto and a couple other places. So it's two days' worth of training and then two days' worth of competition for the officer side of it. And then on Saturday and Sunday, we have two days' worth of civilian clinics. So pretty much anybody that's mostly local, that they typically are people that just own their own horses and are looking for extra training opportunities, we bring them in. It's a different group on Saturday and Sunday. And we use those same instructors that we had all week for the police officers for those civilians as well. So they get to be exposed to a lot of things that they wouldn't normally be able to access without us having that training. And then that, it's also sponsored by our friends of the Lexington Mounted Police. That's our nonprofit organization that they have started off with the seed money for that. And then it's a really great fundraiser for us, and it's just great training for everybody else as well. We have a lot of officers that return year after year because they just constantly talk about the level of training is unmatched. And the facilities out there at All Tech Arena are awesome as well. That's fantastic, and you would expect that in Kentucky, right? So what about, and some other things you've got to think about, it's not just you all. We have to think about veterinarians and care and so forth, so how do we do that? So that mostly falls on my responsibilities is I'm essentially managing a small farm out here. I never would have known it until I came out here, and most people don't realize that we have almost 10 acres on the property here. but the facilities out here we do all of the upkeep a lot of the upkeep ourselves as far as just the mowing and general stuff like that but then the veteran veterinarian stuff that that falls on me anytime we have an issue pop up which is fairly regularly if you have kids you know stuff just just pops up and you can't really plan for that kind of stuff but then also their their feet we do have a farrier that comes out every six weeks to redo their shoes we have to keep The hay stocked, we buy that every six months. He wants you to go riding. Yeah, he's ready to go. He's ready to work. We buy about 500 bales of hay every six months and stock it in the hay barn. That gets us through the year. And then we use hallway feeds for our feed. So it's a lot of the administrative side of it that most people just don't really realize until you've had the horses yourself. Well, while we're here, we're going to talk to a couple of the mounted officers. And also with your farrier? Hostler. Hostler. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Thank you, guys. Well, thank you, Sergeant Creekmore, for joining us today. I appreciate it. And thanks for Remington and Aiden for joining us in the shot as well. So we are here with Miss Ellie West. She is the hostler for the Lexington Mounted Unit. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, of course. So, Ellie, what is a hostler? It's pretty simple. I'm basically a horse and barn caretaker. So bringing the horses in, feeding, turning out, making sure that they're healthy and happy and assisting the officers. So you're like a horse whisperer. Exactly. So what does your daily routine consist of? I come in at 6 every morning and feed the horses their grain, make sure that they're doing well from the night in the stalls, and then turn them out, and they're out for most of the day until the officers need them for patrol. and then clean their stalls and make sure they're good for the day, then bring them in at the end of the day and call it a night. So sometimes we don't think about all the care that goes into it because these are animals, right? We can't just leave them. So it's a year-round job. Right. Somebody has to be here every day. Yep, and no days off. That's why we've got me to help the officers out on the weekends and everything. So we do take days off. But somebody has to be here, right? Somebody's got to be here every day, yep. Well, we appreciate you joining us today. We appreciate what you do for the Lexington Police Department as well. I'm happy to be here. It's a privilege. Thank you. Hey, and we are here at the Lexington Police Department Mounted Barn, and we are here with Officer Allison Winters and Jonathan Coyle. Thank you all for joining us today. Of course. So can you all tell us a little bit about how, because I remember both of you on patrol, How did you all get in the mounted unit? Yeah, so there is an application process. After three years, patrol officers are eligible to put in for the unit if there is an opening. Once that opening is available, there is an interview process, and whoever is selected from the interview gets to come to the unit, and there is a training process that takes place once they come to the unit to make sure they're able to ride and proficient in their skills. So how long have you been in the unit? Four months. Four months. All right. And what about you? Four years. Four years and four months. Okay. So tell us a little bit about how is it different being a mounted officer from being both of you in patrol? How is it different from being a patrol officer? So being in a mounted unit for me, it helps bring me closer to the community in just a more pleasant way. Instead of seeing somebody on their worst day, you know, we get to see everybody on their best day and sometimes on their worst day and help make their day better if we can. I've had just tons of people that are scared of horses and sometimes scared of police officers even come up and come a lot closer to us and finally end up petting the horse and being able to bridge a gap that I've noticed before. Being able to go to schools is a pretty cool deal, having kids, getting to see horses and getting to see police officers. We also have barn cats that when we do tours around here, Smokey and Bandit are their name, and people half the time love the cats just as much as they love the horses. Barn cats. I've noticed them running around here. Oh, yes. They seem to be popular. This is their house. They love it. So are you all assigned the horses? Yes. So I'm assigned to Bishop and Aiden. They're currently our two oldest horses as well. They both came from Asbury, and she is assigned to Houston, who also has came from Asbury. All three of them are Percheron Thoroughbred Crosses, and we have two Clydesdales as well that are currently unassigned, but we take turns riding them to keep them up. Now, I know beat partners and the officers you work with every single day have different personalities, right? Do the horses have different personalities? Definitely. We call them horsinalities. Okay, I like it. A little different than personalities. Yeah, I like it. Yes. Yeah, he's a goober. He's tired right now, but he's very, I would say personable, he's very horsinable. he uh he loves his treats and he loves people a whole lot and he gets real lippy and plays with people a whole lot where some of the other horses are a little more just like like a statue kind of some of them some of them are very sleepy all right well we appreciate you talking with us this morning so now we want to see what you got right we're going to go over to the training barn and we're going to see some of the skills and see some of the things that you can do on a horse how's that sound let's go We've had some fun Yes, we've had our ups and downs Been down that rocky road But here we are still around We thought about someone else But neither one took the bait We thought about breaking up But now we know it's much today We are bound by all the rest Like the same phone number All the same friends and the same adjacent Yes, it's true I am happy to be stuck with you Yes, it's true Yes, it's true I'm so happy to be stuck with you Cause I can see I can see That you're happy to be stuck with me We've had our doubts We never took them seriously We've had our ins and outs, but that's the way you're supposed to be. We thought about giving up, but we could never stay away. We thought about breaking up, but now we know it's much too late. And it's no great mystery. If we change our minds, eventually, it's back to you and me. Yes, it's true. Yes, it's true. I am happy to be stuck with you. Yes, it's true. Yes, it's true. I'm so happy to be stuck with you. Yes, I can see, I can see, that you're happy to be stuck with me. We are bound by all the rest Like the same old island All the same friends and the same address Yes, it's true I am happy to be stuck with you Yes, it's true Yes, it's true I'm so happy to be stuck with you Cause I can see I can see That you're happy to be stuck with me Yes, it's true I'm so happy to be stuck with you I'm happy to be stuck with you I'm happy to be stuck with you Yes, it's true He wondered how she'd take it When he said goodbye Thought she might do some crying Lose some sleep at night But he had no idea when he hit the road That without him in her life she'd let herself go Let herself go on a singles cruise to Vegas once then to Honolulu Let herself go to New York City A week at the spa, came back, knocked out pretty They said he didn't love her no more She let herself go She poured her heart and soul into their three-bedroom ranch Spent her days raising babies, ironing his pants Came home one day from the grocery store and found his note And without him there to stop her, she let herself go Let herself go on her first blind date Had the time of her life with some friends at the lake Let herself go buy a brand new car Drove down to the beach he always said was too far And sure felt good between her toes She let herself go on a singles cruise To Vegas once, then to Honolulu Let herself go To New York City A week at the spa, came back, knocked out pretty When he said he didn't love her no more She let herself go To Vegas once Honolulu New York City Came back and knocked out pretty The Girl Who Once Had Me Down Under my thumb, the girl who once pushed me around is down to me. The difference in the flow she wears down to me. The change has come. She's under my thumb. That ain't the truth, though. Under my thumb is a squirmy dog who's just had her day Under my thumb a girl who has just changed her ways Is that a me? Yes it is, the way she does just what she stole down to me The change has come She's under my thumb Sister Under my thumb Sister Siamese Cat of a girl Under my thumb She's the sweetest Pet in the world It's down to me The way she talks when she's spoken too down to me The change has come under my thumb I take it easy, baby Is that a me? Oh, yeah The way she talks when she's spoken to Down to me The change has come She's under my thumb Yeah, it was alright Under my thumb Her eyes are just kept to her cell Under my thumb Well I I can still look at someone else It's down to me Oh That's what I said The way she talks when she's vocal to do Down to me The change has come She's under my thumb Sing this song Sing this song Oh Take it easy again Take it easy again Take it easy again Thank you. I'm a man who lives in the city I'm a man who lives in the streets From FLA up to Frisco, Maine Everywhere in the street Coast to coast there's a question Everybody's always asking me People want to know Everywhere I go What can the answer be? I tell them music is a doctor. Makes you feel like you want to. Listen to the doctor. Like you want to. Music is a doctor. Love my soul. We'll be right back. The message goes on and on Music is a doctor Makes you feel like you want to Just listen to the doctor Like you want to I said music is a doctor From my soul If you've ever wondered Just how to shake your food Just follow this description Get the gift of what it's out of you Yeah, yeah, yeah Thank you. Hello and thank you for joining us on this episode of My Council Comment. I'm Whitney Elliott Baxter, 9th District Council Member, and today I'm in the fire training facility joined by Captain Seth Lockhart of our community paramedicine team and Chris Perrine, our mobile crisis responder. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for inviting us. So can you tell me a little bit about how the program started and what it looks like for our community? Yeah, so a couple years ago we were part of a kind of an interview as the state was doing research about needs in the community around mental health and behavioral health response. And one of the things that we highlighted was the fact that, you know, there was no crisis response team in and Lexington, really anywhere in the state of Kentucky. And they secured a grant to help fund these programs. Last year they took applications about a year ago, and January announced seven communities. Lexington is one of the communities that received the grant. So we have been working over the last few months of developing it, hiring our new employee, bringing him on board and getting him oriented so we can get this going. That's great. We've got Chris Perrine here, who is our mobile crisis responder. and tell me a little bit about your background and what you feel like you can bring our community. Yeah, so I completed my education at Western Carolina University in Asheville, North Carolina. I completed my undergrad and my master's there in clinical mental health counseling. During my time there, I worked at Cherokee Indian Hospital in the inpatient psychiatric unit, and then also I did mobile crisis with Appalachian Community Services. So I have quite a history in crisis counseling. I have a lot of it, yeah. not necessarily something I thought I'd found myself in, but have grown to love. I've just got to be a part of this position. Yeah, so if I understand it correctly, the governor essentially allocated some dollars for us to create this team. And can you give us an example of what it would look like if we were responding to a situation? So currently, if you have somebody that calls in with a behavioral health issue, like maybe somebody thinking that suits out our ideation, Our current model is to respond with eight first responders. And that's a lot of people to put into somebody's house that's experiencing a crisis. So we're going to change the way we respond and put a little more appropriate response, putting the professional in the scene to help de-escalate a situation and figure out what's the best solution for the individual. So I can imagine that responding to a crisis situation with a little bit more kindness and compassion is probably going to make for a more successful conclusion to a situation versus arresting somebody or taking them to jail just because we don't quite understand the situation. I think it's very fair. I think providing that resource, meeting the individual where they are, providing the resource there where they are, and maybe finding a better solution. Currently our solutions are expanding. Right now, it used to be, you say, jail was always a possibility. It's not always the appropriate place, but sometimes that's the only solution. But UK has opened up their empath center recently, and that brings another alternative. New Vista is looking at opening up a facility as well for, not say emergency room, but more like kind of like an urgent care, if you will. And so there's a lot of things happening in this space in Lexington right now. And not just Lexington in the Commonwealth, but Lexington is really, I think, on the forefront of that conversation right now. So having Chris partnered with a police officer to be able to provide another response solution is a positive for our community, a positive for the residents that are in crisis so we can do something a little different than our traditional way of thinking. Chris, what creative ways do you use to kind of de-escalate a situation and show somebody a little bit more compassion than a typical first responder might? Yeah, I feel that it's about presence, just being a human and not necessarily, you know, having the barrier of like a badge or a barrier of like an outfit or whatever, maybe even a title. I just really value just being an individual and being a human with somebody I my you know the way I go about things is mostly on like needs like what need are they as an individual trying to get met I believe that you know people act out or every action is you know there's a need behind an action and so addressing what situation they're in how can we de-escalate and then refer to resources you know whether it's safety planning whether it's just hearing somebody out for five to ten minutes getting somebody a bite to eat it can be as little as that and so I think it's just really just bringing presence and bringing you know my unique self and the experiences that I've had over over my life. Yeah that's great I think it's really proof that Lexington is putting a lot of emphasis on mental health and how we can address the needs of our community in a different way and like you said, really treating someone as a whole person and not just a situation is something that's really important. Is there anything that you feel is still missing? Do you feel like there is a piece that is kind of still in the works that we are aspiring to become or do you feel like we're really on the right path to kind of making a difference in the community? I think this is one piece of the puzzle. I think there are some other pieces of the puzzle that we are working on to try to get in. I think the next logical step that I think hopefully will come to fruition is maybe putting somebody at dispatch. There's conversations about putting a behavioral health resource to take a telephone call. And then that kind of goes in line with, hey, if somebody calls 911 and is in crisis, our dispatchers are phenomenal. but being able to have that educated individual to be able to transfer a phone call to. Maybe a de-escalation can happen over the telephone. Maybe that de-escalation can start, and they still send out the mobile crisis response team to engage that individual. But from the time that phone call starts, you can already start that whole process of de-escalating and helping an individual that's experiencing whatever emergency they're having. And so I think that's a good puzzle piece that's being discussed right now and hopefully will come to fruition sooner than later. So those are all things that are looking at. It's a lot of fun right now. Chris, do you feel like this is a model that is seen in other cities or are we kind of an industry leader in this? Yeah, no, I've seen, I've spoken to many other co-response departments, you know, within the police departments in Colorado, California, Washington, all over the country. This is really new, like, community policing, and I think it's been shown to be effective, and I'm hoping that even if it's just me, you know, one person goes a long way, and this is sort of something, you know, pretty new for Alisa City of Lexington. But I think it'll be good. I think it's probably really helpful for you to have a support network to kind of fall back on and ask questions 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, the firefighters, and the social workers. I don't feel isolated at all, which is really neat. I'm able to consult with whoever it 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 it's completely separate? Well, it's a good question. So, you know, the paramedicine team is such a collaborative effort. It lets into place. 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, 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 him on Tuesday or Wednesday so they can go on to the next individual that's experiencing that emergency and the community paramedicine was never a crisis response team. 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 the community paramedicine team can pick up that and see if there's a 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 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. 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. in the fire training facility, joined by Captain Seth Lockhart of our community paramedicine team and Chris Perrine, our mobile crisis responder. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for inviting us. So can you tell me a little bit about how the program started and what it looks like for our community? Yeah, so a couple years ago we were part of a kind of an interview as the state was doing research about needs in the community around mental health and behavioral health response. And one of the things that we highlighted was the fact that there was no crisis response team in Lexington, really anywhere in the state of Kentucky. And they secured a grant to help fund these programs. Last year, they took applications about a year ago, and January announced seven communities. Lexington is one of the communities that received the grant. So we have been working over the last few months of developing it, hiring our new employee, bringing him on board and getting him oriented so we can get this going. That's great. We've got Chris Perrine here, who is our mobile crisis responder. and tell me a little bit about your background and what you feel like you can bring our community. Yeah, so I completed my education at Western Carolina University in Asheville, North Carolina. I completed my undergrad and my master's there in clinical mental health counseling. During my time there, I worked at Cherokee Indian Hospital in the inpatient psychiatric unit, and then also I did mobile crisis with Appalachian Community Services. So I have quite a history in crisis counseling. I've had a lot of it, yeah. not necessarily something I thought I'd found myself in, but have grown to love. I've just got to be a part of this position. Yeah, so if I understand it correctly, the governor essentially allocated some dollars for us to create this team. And can you give us an example of what it would look like if we were responding to a situation? So currently, if you have somebody that calls in with a behavioral health issue, like maybe somebody thinking that suits out our ideation, And our current model is to respond with eight first responders. And that's a lot of people to put into somebody's house that's experiencing a crisis. So we're going to change the way we respond and put a little more appropriate response, putting the professional in the scene to help de-escalate a situation and figure out what's the best solution for the individual. So I can imagine that responding to a crisis situation with a little bit more kindness and compassion is probably going to make for a more successful conclusion to a situation versus arresting somebody or taking them to jail just because we don't quite understand the situation. I think it's very fair. I think providing that resource, meeting the individual where they are, providing the resource there where they are, and maybe finding a better solution. Currently our solutions are expanding. Right now, it used to be, you say, jail was always a possibility. It's not always the appropriate place, but sometimes that's the only solution. But UK has opened up their empath center recently, and that brings another alternative. New Vista is looking at opening up a facility as well for, not say emergency room, but more like kind of like an urgent care, if you will. And so there's a lot of things happening in this space in Lexington right now. And not just Lexington and the Commonwealth, but Lexington is really, I think, on the forefront of that conversation right now. So having Chris partnered with a police officer to be able to provide another response solution is a positive for our community, a positive for the residents that are in crisis so we can do something a little different than our traditional way of thinking. Chris, what creative ways do you use to kind of de-escalate a situation and show somebody? I'm myself anymore Oh, oh, oh, oh I'll never, never, never be done anymore There's a hard moon rising on the streets tonight There's a reckless feeling in your heart as you head out tonight Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights Where the latest neon promises are burning bright We'll see you next time. Ready to go for the ride Searching the ice Looking for clues There's no way you can hide The fire inside Well, you've been to the clubs And the discotheques Where they deal one another From the bottom of the deck of promises Where the cautious loners and emotional wrecks Do an acting stretch as a way to hide the ideas And the lights go down and they dance real close And for one brief instant they pretend they're safe and warm And the beat gets louder and the moon is gone The darkness scatters as the lights flash on They owe one another just a little too long And they move apart and then move on On to the street, on to the next Saving the knowledge that they try Faking the smile, hiding the pain Never satisfied Fire inside Fire inside Thank you. Now the hour is late and he thinks you're asleep You listen to him dress and you listen to him leave like you knew him You hear his car pull away in the street Then you move to the door and you lock it when he's gone for good Then you walk to the window and stare at the moon Riding high and lonesome through a starlit sky And it comes to you how it all slips away Youth and beauty are gone one day No matter what you dream or feel or say It ends in dust and disarray like wind on the plains sand through the glass waves rolling in with the tide dreams die hard and we watch them erode but we cannot be denied but fire inside fire inside fire inside Burning you up Burning you up Fire inside Thank you. guitar solo Today we'll join our hearts eternally And this moment I'll always remember All the words that mean so much to me And you're my only love My only love And I just thank Lord for you each day I can't believe the way I feel You're so special, you're so real And I know you'll always be my only love Listen closely to the words I'm saying The Thank you. It is officially just past 1.30, so I will call the meeting to order. The first item on the agenda will be our approval of minutes. I think the board has received the August minutes. If you all have had opportunity to review, any questions? If not, I will entertain a motion. I move that we approve the August 2024 minutes as presented. Thank you. Do I have a second? Mr. Gross first, Mr. Sturdivant second. No further discussion. We will take a vote. Okay, that motion has passed. The next item on the agenda is the swearing of the witnesses. So if anyone plans to speak today, I do need you to stand at this particular time. If anyone plans to speak at all. Okay. And if so, if you could please raise your right hand. And do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so I'll help you guys. Yes. Okay, the next part is the fun part. I will sound the agenda. As you see, we have a lot of people here today. Thank you guys so much for coming. A plethora of cases. So we do want to try to move as efficiently as possible. So any of the cases that have been recommended for approval, and we don't have anyone here to speak in opposition of, we'll hear those cases first. All of the STR cases will be heard separately on their docket as well. And then if we have recommended for disapproval or staff has recommended for disapproval, those people would have an opportunity to be heard. Everyone from the public is allowed comment, but there is a three minute limit on your comment. Unless there is an attorney that's representing an applicant, we will allow the full presentation for those particular people. Good? All right. The first item on the agenda is PLNBOA 24-170, Ryan Kamenish. Is the applicant present? Yeah. And is there anyone here to speak in opposition? Not just yet, right? Anyone here to speak in opposition of this case or this item? Okay, so you will actually be heard first on the docket. The next item is PLNBOA 24172, Will Chapman. Is the applicant present? There we go. And this has been recommended for disapproval, so we will hear this case. The heard docket. We have PLNBOA 24-186, Kim Bragg. Is the applicant present? And I'm sorry, do we have people in overflow? Do you guys know? Are there people out there? Okay. There could be. There is overflow. I saw the seats. I didn't know. Kim Bragg. Okay. Okay, okay. And this one has been recommended for disapproval, so this case will be heard. So that's number two on the herd docket. We have PLNBOA 24-194, Russell Crossway. Is the applicant present? Okay. This one has also been recommended for disapproval, so that item will be fully heard. So that's number three on the herd docket. And we have Ryan Cominish again. This has been recommended for approval. That's 438 and 440. Do we have anyone speaking in opposition of this item? Okay. So we'll actually hear those two together in the beginning. Then we have PLN VOA 24-202, MSW Lexington, Kentucky, LLC. Why don't you just stand up here all day? No. So this one has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone in opposition of this item? All right, you'll be number two on the FAST docket. Then we have PLNBOA 24-203, Gibson Taylor Thompson. Vincent Thompson is the applicant present. This has been recommended for disapproval, so you will be fully heard. That will be number four on the HERD docket. And we're in our conditional uses. We have PLNBOA 24-119, the church in Lexington. Is the applicant present? We are here. And we talked about this one. Are we moving forward with this particular item or? Yes, okay. So this will be a continuance, so that will be heard. So it will be number five on the heard docket. What number was that? It's under conditional use, it's the first item, PLNBOA 24-119. Okay. Got it? Got it. All righty, so we have PLNBOA 24-155, Deborah Owens is the applicant present. This is a STR, it has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone in opposition to this item? Okay. So you will be one on the STR docket. We have PLN BOA 24-163, Rita Jones is the applicant present. Okay. This one has been represented for approval. Is there anyone in opposition to this particular item? So you will be number two in STRs. We have PLN BOA 24-164 Emerald Shinobi LLC as the applicant present. We have that? Okay. Okay. So that one, they are requesting a postponement. We need a motion as such. Madam Chair, if there's no one here in the audience, audience that objects, then I will move for a postponement of PLNBOA 24-164 Emerald Shinobi LLC in relation to 2745 Woodlawn Way, postponing the application to be heard at our meeting on January 13th, 2025. Thank you, and Mr. Walker has seconded the motion. We'll take a vote. Wonderful that motion has passed that will be postponed until January. The next item on the list is PLNBOA 24-165, Donna Vaughn. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone in opposition of this particular item? Okay, so that will be our STR docket number three. So we have PLNBOA 24-175, RLV Ventures, is the applicant present? Okay, this has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here in opposition of this item? Okay, so that'll be STR number four. We have PLNBOA 24-177BMK Properties LLC. Is the applicant present? Miss applicant. Do we have any, it has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone in opposition of this particular item? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay, so that one will be on the STR heard docket. Then we have PLN BOA 24-179, Yuha Young. Thank you. The applicant is present. This has been recommended for approval. Is there any opposition for this particular item? I do, okay. So that one will be heard. Then we have PLN BOA 24-180, William McCray is the applicant present. All right, okay. This has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone in opposition of that item? Okay. And we actually also have 181 for you as well. Okay. So we'll hear those together and I think that'll be STR number five. And then we have PLNBOA 24-182, that's FTC LLC. Is the applicant present? Yeah. Do we have anyone here in opposition for this item? It has been recommended for approval? No. Okay. Okay, make sure number seven on the FAST STR docket. Then we have PLN BOA 24-183 Barnett Bungalows. Is the applicant present? This has been recommended for approval. Is there any opposition to this particular item? I do, okay. So that one will be heard today. Number three on the herd, yes sir. Then we have PLN BOA 24-185 Laura Combs. Is the applicant present? Good afternoon. This one has been recommended for disapproval, so that would be heard. That's S-H-S, I mean, I'm sorry, that's STR number four to be heard. And do we have anyone here to speak on that particular item as well? Okay, so we'll allow staff to present. all righty so we have plnboa 24-188 black diamond farm llc is the applicant present to request a postponement or okay do you have a request for a postponement if we're okay with I'll entertain a motion. Just for staff, would January 13 or February be more appropriate? We weren't sure if someone was coming today, so I think the staff would recommend a one-month postponement to the January 13th meeting. Is there anyone in the public to speak against that application? Yes. Okay. Okay. We don't mind the postponement. I think you're asking the other. Oh. Yeah. Scott Chudy on behalf of Paul and Melissa Sullivan, next door neighbors. We don't have an objection to postponement. I think that has to go back to the Parris Pike Corridor Committee before it comes back to the BOA. Okay, that sounds great, thanks Scott. Thank you. Well, with that, then I will move to postpone PLN BOA 24-188, Black Diamond Farm in relation to 3591 Paris Pike and postponing it to our January 13, 2025 meeting. Thank you, Mr. Gross, and Ms. Tucker has offered a second. No further discussion, we'll take a vote. All right, the motion has passed. The next item on the agenda, STR, is PLN BOA 24-189 First Class Properties, LLC. Is the applicant present? No for that. Okay. This one has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone in opposition of this item? Wonderful, so that will be STR 8. Our next item is PLN BOA 24-190, Kayla Boudreaux. Is the applicant present? Thank you. This one has been recommended for disapproval, so this one will be heard. Do we have anyone here to speak in opposition to this item today? Okay. So that'll be heard number five on the STRs. Then we have PLN BOA 24-191, Sean Byrne is the applicant present. Here we are. And this one has been recommended for disapproval as well, so that will be heard. That'll be number six. Do we have anyone here to speak in opposition? Okay. Our next item is PLN BOA 24-192-1009 Fontaine LLC. Is the applicant present? This one has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition? We do have some public comment. Okay. That will be number seven on the HERD docket. The appeal in BOA 24-195, Share Center, is the applicant present? This one has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone in opposition of this item? We will go back to. Abbreviated? What's that? Are you looking for the abbreviated list? I think we're number four. Number three? That'll be number three on the quick docket. If you're considering Ryan, Camisha's together, then yes. Okay, yes, thank you. Which I was not consistent on, I did differently the second time. But number three on the rocket docket. Then we have PLN BOA 24-197 Boone Creek Outdoor. Is the applicant present? Thank you. And this has been recommended for approval. Do we have anyone speak in opposition of this item? That will be number four in my mystery numbering system. Then we're back to STRPLN VOA 24-198, Dustin Caldwell and Robert Caldwell. Are the applicants present? Either the Caldwells present. Has been recommended for approval, but we'll hang on and I'll do a double check when we get to the STR docket. Is anyone here to speak in opposition of this item today? No. Okay. Just going to throw a wrench in the numbering system, Tracy, so keep up here. PLN VOA 24-201, Todd Hoffman, is applicant present. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of this item today? So that would make us... I think STR9. Okay, and then we do have an administrative appeal today. That's PLN BOA 24-174. Mr. Mark Daugherr is the applicant present. Mr. Murphy's here. And this has been recommended for disapproval, so of course you guys will be fully heard. just for our timing will that be before or after all the str cases pop up we could pop it before let's pop it before the str it'll be the last one on the herd prior to the str all righty so that's enough for today you guys thank you for coming no i'm just there Okay, we'll start back at the top. Number one, PLNBOA 24-170, Ryan Kamenish. Good afternoon, please state your name for the record. William Ryan Kamenish. And we actually have two here today, but first we'll hear the PLN BOA 24-170. And that's a variance for 444 Jefferson Street, which has been recommended for approval. The board has had opportunity to review the items ahead of time. There is a letter of opposition if you guys want to take a look in the system. See if you have any questions of the applicant. We don't have any questions or any discussions or you guys need a second. If not, I'll entertain a motion. I have a question for staff. So would the documents of opposition be on one or both? it's in i think it's just the one okay there's one letter that goes to both oh okay and i think that particular item just had some concerns about fire safety and those types of things which staff had looked into with building inspection before they made the recommendation Okay. I'm ready for a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 24-170. Ryan Kamenish, request for a variance to reduce the required side yard setback from six feet and six inches to one foot in a medium density residential zone on property located at 444 Jefferson Street, based on the staff's recommendation and the two conditions as listed. Thank you, and Mr. Sturdivant has offered a second. We have no further discussion. We'll take a vote. That motion has passed, and our next item is PLN BOA 24-200, and that's for 438 and 440 Jefferson Street. Those plans have been included as well. Donna, I'll make you work. I made you jump out to it. If we have any questions, we can ask and not I'll entertain a motion. Similar infill project it looks like. It's my project, the same project. Oh, yeah. He was asking the opposition anyone. I didn't think I had anyone on either of this. I'll entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I move to approve PLN BOA 24-200, Ryan Kimmich. Request for variance to reduce the required side yard setback from six feet to two, I'm sorry, six feet, two inches to five feet in a medium density residential. I'm properly located at 438 and 440 Jefferson Street based on staff's recommendations and subject to the two conditions. Thank you. Mr. Walker, do we have a second? Okay. Mr. Clark has a second. No further discussion. We'll take a vote. Mr. Clark. Yeah. There we go. Wonderful, motion is passed. Good luck with the project. Thank you. Our next item is PLNBOA 24-202, MSW, Lexington, Kentucky, LLC. And that's regarding the signage. Of course, it has been recommended for approval. The board has had opportunity to review the site plans ahead of time. There is a letter of opposition, I believe. Please state your name for the record. Nick Nicholson here on behalf of MSW Lexington. We've had a chance to review the staff report in applicable conditions, and we certainly are in agreement. Thank you. Do we have any questions of the applicant on the project? If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLN VOA 24-202, MSW Lexington, Kentucky LLC's request for a variance to reduce the required height of a wall sign from 50 feet to 40 feet, and number two, to reduce the required height of the projecting sign from 10 feet to 8 feet in a Lexington Center business zone or property located at 325 West Main Street, based on the staff's recommendation and the the two conditions as listed thank you mr clark and mr sturdivant has seconded the motion we will open for a vote if no further discussion wonderful thank you All right, we'll flip over to PLN BOA 24-195, Share Center. The applicant can come forward. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. My name is Asan Bagby. I'm the Chair of the Share Center. Thank you. has been recommended for approval and there are three conditions that have been listed had you had the opportunity to review those yes and we accept those conditions wonderful and the board has received the plans ahead of time do we have any questions of the applicant i just like to make a comment thank you for doing this i think that this is needed and i think it's needed in this area thank you thank you i have a question well what will be the use of the second floor of the structure right now it is rented out and it will continue to be rented out thank you wonderful no further questions i will entertain a motion motion for approval for pln NBOA 24-195 Share Center. Request a conditional use permit to expand existing community center in order to add a dental clinic within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a medium density residential zone on property located at 572 Georgetown Street. Subject to recommendation of the staff. And the three conditions are listed. Thank you. Ms. Tucker has seconded that item. No further discussion, we'll take a vote. Wonderful, motion is passed. Good luck with that project. Thank you. So our next item is PLN BOA 24-197, Boone Creek Outdoor. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Looks like this has been recommended for approval. We do have letters of both opposition and support, so if you guys want to take a look. If he had the opportunity to see those letters as well. Very quickly I will. Okay. I generally have a knowledge of the one that was in opposition. Okay. do we have questions that they applicant or would you got a few questions questions Just not relative to the letter of support or letter of non-support, but just occurred to me as I was reading the application. For instance, how are the RV sites equipped? In other words, waste dumps, electrical hookups, water hookups, concrete pad, and that kind of equipment. Waste will be addressed on site through a dump site. Individual pads will not be provided with a hookup, but there will be a dump site located on the property for communal use. So each site does not have a dump? No. And what about water? That I'm not clear on at this point. Okay. And electric, I guess, same thing. Same, yeah. For instance, if sometime down the road you decide this is probably not a good idea and you have other interests and so the site is abandoned for whatever reason, what happens to it then with what you've done to improve the site and put the amenities there? Well, the underlying zone is light industrial. And in the past, it has been anticipated to be used for self-storage or for vehicle storage. And the development that would occur for the campground would be fairly easy, I would think, to convert. It's basically a paved area, but the intent of the campground is to take advantage of the existing topography and vegetation that those other uses, principal uses, are not as conducive for. So that's how that would probably evolve over time if that were the case. I'm not sure I asked this, but will there be concrete pads for the RV sites? There will be paved circulation. There will be a paved parking space, and then there will be a gravel pad for the actual RV. I see. Okay. Explain where the campsites will be, because it wasn't clear on the diagram. Is that among the trees that I saw? Yeah, among the trees. Okay. Yeah. That's what I thought. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I have a question. And this kind of goes along with the 13 people on the Lexington-Frankfurt scenic corridor. Are they going to be willing to limit the stays of people? We'd prefer not. because we anticipate that we'll have some longer term stays for Keeneland, for example, if somebody comes in for the meet or events out at the horse park, maybe extend it or other longer term camps or fairs or whatever. But, you know, that's, you know, we could, but I don't want to limit it, you know, I don't want to be too limited to our length of stay for those potential uses that would be longer term. Yeah, I think that there's, you know, it's important, though, to limit somewhat of a stay so that they're not there long term. Right. We'll also look, and I should have asked, I'm sorry, if you had opportunity to review those other seven conditions, because there are quite a few conditions. Yes, the conditions from the staff report, yes, and we're agreeable to those as well. Thank you. I've got a couple of questions. I've been down there several times over the years at that confluence of Wolf Run and Town Branch. That area floods horribly down through there. Does that include your property? The creek itself is not actually on our property, but there is floodplain on our property. But we are significantly higher than the floodplain because of the way the topography is. So topographically that site's never flooded? Not where we're camping. Now, we have a path that we anticipate being down in the lower area that would flood, but not any of the developed campsites, the RV sites where the campsite and the other uses are proposed. They're not in danger of being flooded. My other question, as I've noticed on your site plan, is there going to be more than one dumpster on that site plan? I would think a development of this size would generate a lot of trash. Is there a disposal plan for that? Right now, we're just anticipating the one dumpster. We can have that serviced as frequently as necessary. Is there room for more dumpsters? Yeah, we could put another dumpster in next to the existing one, I'm sure. But we did not anticipate that we would have that much trash. The sequence would probably be that we would have the dumpster serviced more frequently than add a second dumpster. But we do have the opportunity to add a second dumpster. There is room on the site. My other question is that it shows on your site plan that the owner is Frankfort Court Storage LLC, and the applicant is Boone Creek Outdoor. When I looked up those two, they're both basically the agent is the same person, Burgess Carey. Yes. Is there a reason one is the owner and one is the applicant when they seem to be owned by the same entity? Well, the Boone Creek Outdoor is an existing operation that is similar out at Old Richmond Road that is similar in scope and activity as is anticipated. We don't have the same uses, but it's compatible users, I would say. The management will be done by the Boone Creek outdoor? The outdoor, right. Yes, sir. Mr. Barrett, I can't recall. What's the property currently used? How's it used? It's underutilized right now. It was intended for storage. It has a gravel parking area. But it's largely vacant. Technically it's vacant. Yeah, okay. Underneath the I-1 zone, could you use it for vehicle storage yard? Yes. Could you scrap metal on it? We could scrap metal, yes. Recycling, could it be a recycling center? Some of the vehicle storage yard is limited, but The junkyard would actually be either conditional use or a different zone. Okay, but they could store cars potentially? Yes. Okay. I think we had a prior development plan for vehicle storage on the property. Okay, and then I guess, but I guess to the board, I mean, this property could be used for industrial uses. To me, a campground seems like a much less intensive use than industrial use on Old Frankfurt Pike. So I don't think we should get bogged down in the particular aesthetics of this campground, given the fact that it could be used for a use that is less pleasant than this one. So I'm ready to support this application once people are done asking questions. I would like to see, though, us establish a length of stay for either vehicles that are left out there or the RV stay or whatever. I wouldn't. I actually would oppose a length of stay in this particular case. I viewed it more as a, I mentioned it to staff earlier, I have clients who go to Florida for three months in the summer, I mean in the winter, summer, winter. And, you know, so I don't want to say, oh, is two months the right time or is three months the right time? Or, you know, are they half a year there, half a year here? But it clearly seems to be marketed and managed as a transient place, not a full-time space. But I don't know how we would decide what would be the right amount of time someone could spend their time there per year. I would agree this could be easily used for vacationers and migrant workers. And when I say migrant workers, I'm talking people that travel with the horse industry that may be parked there for 30 to 60 days, depending on the time of year that Keeneland and other equine activities are in. We see it coming in the construction industry, too, for large projects that come in. someone moves in to help build a large building and this is a more economic way for them to stay in lexington than rent an apartment so so no i do agree with not wanting it to be long term but i don't know how we would decide the distinction like what would be the limit we put on it i don't i wouldn't feel comfortable with that and you're heading down the same path i was going to as well this is i1 zone and there could be a myriad of you know semi trucks and other things parked there and this is has to be one of the most less disagreeable uses possible i'll put you on the spot too and i just out of personal curiosity in an i1 zone you don't ever see this amount of i mean green space equal tourism all the things that check the boxes. Would you have a rough guesstimate of percentages of what space is going to be, either green space or trees? I mean, it doesn't really 100% identify on the map, but it looks to be 40%-ish. I didn't do a calculation of the percent. It's clearly over the industrial requirement, but yeah, it's at least 40%, I would say, open space. In the vein of that conversation, this is the second proposal that I've been involved with on this property. We did a climate control indoor storage on this property several years ago. That was not developed as well. So, I mean, it's the owner is seeking a way to utilize this property in a responsible fashion. and this is kind of what he's evolved into. So that's... And then one last comment. Underneath the zoning ordinance, the definition of campgrounds means an outdoor facility for short-term overnight recreational use. So I think if someone starts living out there as a permanent residence, there could be a complaint to the planning office who would come and go out and do a zoning inspection of the property. So I think that would cover your concern, Ms. Turner. He went blank. It's the cookies. I just wanted short-term a little more to pass. Okay. Any other questions of the applicant? If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair. I'll move for approval of PLNBOA 24-197 Boone Creek Outdoors request for a conditional use permit for ecotourism activities in order to establish a campground in a light industrial zone at 2262 Frankfort Court. Based upon today's testimony and the staff's report and subject to the conditions set forth there. Thank you. And Mr. Walker has offered a second. We'll open for vote if no further discussion. Well, the motion is passed. Good luck with the project. All right, thank you very much. All right, we'll pop over to our HERD docket. The first item is PLNBOA 24-172. This one has been recommended for disapproval. So we will allow staff to present first. James Mills planning staff. Today I want to present to you a request from Will Chapman for variance to reduce the required front yard setback from 40 feet to 0 feet in order to maintain a circular driveway in the front yard in a single family R1B zone on property located at 1365 Cooper Drive. Taking a look at the vicinity of the subject property, we can see up here the Cooper Drive as it comes down and intersects with Chinaway Road and then turns into a local road that dead ends here and turns into a cul-de-sac. we're looking at the subject property as you can see from this aerial photo in 2024 you can see the circular driveway being built in front of the principal structure. In regard to this request there are several sections of the zoning ordinance that we analyze. First are our definitions that mainly are the front yard and where this extends the full width of the lot between a building and the front lot line. James, I'm sorry, will you pull the mic up a little bit? Is it? No, my apologies. Yeah, that's okay. Is that better? Yes, yes. Article 111 defines a residential driveway as a private paved vehicular access extending on the shortest reasonable path through the front yard to the off-street parking area. For R1B zoning, the minimum front yard setback is 40 feet. And the main section that we're analyzing is Article 16-5A that states that no parking, loading, or unloading space shall occur within any required front yard or side street side yard. Taking a look at the applicant's site plan, as you can see, we have the circular driveway right here. that encompasses most of the front yard area. So with this application, we have an extensive case history. During an addition slash remodeling inspection of the garage on the subject property, a residential inspector noticed that the applicant had expanded the paving. On 7-11-2024, a residential building complaint was filed by this residential inspector with a division of building inspection for a paving permit and whether this paving was allowable. On 7-15-2024, the building inspection investigated, confirming that the applicant had expanded the driveway without the proper permits and approvals. The applicant subsequently filed for a paving permit, which details the addition of approximately 2,600 square feet, bringing the total vehicle or use area on the site to 4,477 square feet. Due to this expansion, the applicant would also be required to meet the vehicular use area requirements under Article 18. The applicant postponed from the last meeting to meet with staff. In their application materials, the applicant stated that the circular driveway is a safer way to exit the property, and much of the surrounding neighborhood has non-conforming driveways. On 11-15-2024, the applicant met with staff to discuss the disapproval recommendation and provide clarity on the case history surrounding the complaint. The representative detailed that the applicant hired a construction company to pull the appropriate permits and approvals for the addition, remodel, and the paving. The applicant posited that this circular driveway was not creating additional curb cuts, unlike many other circular driveway requests, limiting its impact. Staff found that while some non-conforming driveways exist in the immediate vicinity, it was more of an even split between compliant and legally non-conforming. The subject property is located within a cul-de-sac bulb at the end of a local roadway limiting safety concerns due to low traffic volumes. The applicant built their circular driveway without receiving the proper permits and approvals. The design of the rear portion of the driveway and garage provides enough opportunities for turnarounds on the subject property without the need for a circular driveway within the front yard, and that's why staff is recommending disapproval. Any questions? Any questions of staff before we allow the applicant to present? Good afternoon, Nick Nicholson here on behalf of the Chapman family, the applicant. For the record, I'm going to introduce a copy of the presentation and also hear our findings, proposed findings for approval. So our request is, as staff kind of pointed out, it is to basically just slightly increase the width of the allowable driveway in the front yard setback from 24 feet. At its kind of maximum point, it goes to 56 feet, but it is only for a small kind of area of square footage of approximately 536 feet. This is the Chapman residence that is kind of flagged there at the very bottom. You will see Google actually has kind of updated in this past month, so you can actually see some of the circular driveway infrastructure that is kind of covered up mostly by landscaping. You also will be able to see where the kind of on street parking is occurring. Kind of directly as you would exit this driveway. I don't know if you all are familiar with the Chapman family, but to say that they have an extended family would be an understatement in a very drastic manner. They also have four daughters, two of which are just now hitting driving age. And that is kind of one of the reasons why this has really come up at the top of mind. To be very clear, this was a mistake with regards to the installation of the driveway without the proper permits. They had hired Joseph Hillenmeyer, who I would argue is probably the very best at landscape and hardscape in Lexington, and was under the impression that they had done everything with the proper permits and basically getting all the right approvals. It was part of a larger kind of interior renovation project, and that was obviously all properly permitted. It wasn't until the building inspection was doing the walkthrough on the interior renovations that they kind of had flagged the fact that this pavement permit was actually, in fact, required. Now, I do want to kind of point out the somewhat unusual nature of this parcel. So the frontage of this parcel is only approximately just over kind of 40 feet at the back of this cul-de-sac. And so it has created a very narrow entryway, and it requires it to cross the entirety of the front yard and to go into the side yard. The house itself is actually kind of facing the neighbor as opposed to Cooper Drive. And so it kind of just has created a very unusual parcel and kind of site layout. Historically, besides the circular infrastructure that was added, this was the exact path of this driveway prior to the recent renovations. This is the kind of area at question. here's the just over 530 square feet. This is the only area that is actually within the front yard setback where we are kind of expanded beyond the 24 feet. I wanted to show, this is actually how much the kind of permeable pavement is in existence as it compares to the actual open space. We have recently updated the regulations with regards to the driveway features in front yards and side yards. And when talking with staff as to kind of the rationale behind why these regulations exist, it is due to the heat island effect. And we actually codified in this section that we are talking about today on what the kind of maximum percentages should be in order to directly address the heat island effect. And it provides for 60% is your maximum kind of permeable pavement. We're at 29%. And so we are still trying to achieve the intent of this regulation and make sure that we are kind of having a proper design as to why we do have these regulations, all while basically making sure that it is a much safer multimodal access to this site itself. Now, sorry, since that was very small writing, I made sure to kind of blow it up so you could see exactly how much of the pavement that there is. The 31% is when you are looking at the entirety of the front and side yards. The 29% is just the front yard and side yard setbacks. So this is not to scale by any means. It was one of the original kind of designs that Joseph Hillemeier had provided them. They actually reduced the size of the installed infrastructure in order to make sure that it was not overwhelming on the site itself. However, I wanted to show this to you all to make sure that you understood what the landscaping intent was as well. We are going to be basically flanking the entirety of this area in order to make sure that there is no type of visual impact to any of our neighbors and making sure that it will be totally fully screened from basically the Cooper Drive. And again, as Mr. Millis did point out, this is not adding any type of second curb cut in any way. The actual impact to the public realm itself is identical to what it would be if it was basically not adding the circular infrastructure. This is just in his interior kind of front yard area. Now, here are basically the three houses right next door to them has a true circular, as you kind of think about it, the U-shaped driveways where they have multiple curb cuts all around this property. We also have an increase above the 24 feet requirements on five other of the neighboring households. And even more to kind of get at some of the egregiousness of this is every single house in the back of this cul-de-sac has installed a substantial parking area in order to address the exact issue that we are here seeking relief from. It is causing issues when they're backing up and basically trying to not clog up the different driveways. Section 16.5 that we are here does even specify in the language itself that any of the design of the driveway area should be done to limit backing out into the public space. And that's exactly what we are trying to do here today. The only other thing that I wanted to kind of point out is if you really think about basically the legitimacy of what our request is here today, you can just look at the neighbors to be able to see this is an issue and this is something that has been addressed all around there. And it certainly would not be anything that would be out of character for this area or an impact to the adjacent properties. And of course, I have submitted the kind of findings in order to basically fully more flesh out the potential findings for approval with regards to how this will not actually impact the public realm, public health, safety, and welfare, and certainly is not an unreasonable circumvention when you look at what the surrounding area is. I'm happy to answer any questions. This is certainly a unique one, but more than happy to answer any questions. So is it the applicant's contention that the lack of permits and approvals was a contractor error? Yes, it entirely was. they did not realize that there was a paving permit required. And I don't know if that is because of the recent change in the zoning ordinance with regards to these kind of driveways. It's only about, I believe, a year old. And so I'm not sure if that was where the error came from. But we had hired what we thought was the very best in Lexington and counted on him to be making sure to pull all the appropriate permits. As soon as we found out about it, we immediately took steps to remedy it. We submitted the application and immediately kind of began this variance conversation with staff. Thank you. Nick, explain to me why they would have to back out of the driveway under the original circumstances. It seems like there's plenty of room to turn around the garage, back out of the garage, and then move the car forward. So only for the cars that are in the garage. itself. And so when you're in the garage, yes, you can basically do a 90 degree backup and go forward, but that doesn't help the daughters that would be basically parking outside. They are going to have to fully back out onto Cooper Drive, right where the kind of general parking areas are. Okay, I understand. So you're suggesting that the circular drive will be a parking drive as well? Well, I don't know if the cars will be parked there, but that will be part of the the infrastructure in order to allow them to turn around as opposed to kind of fully backing out. But they certainly would be capable of parking there, yes. So if I come back, I know that area pretty well. And I just think if I drove by there six months from now, or a year from now, are we going to use that circular drive as a parking area? I guess that would be my concern. Yes, and that is not the intent. And that's also one of the reasons why I wanted to show all of the heavy landscaping that we're proposing with this in order to make sure that it would be fully screened from Cooper Drive, from anyone coming down, kind of turning around in the cul-de-sac. Mr. Nicholson, I think you've done a great job with a bad hand today. um we personally you know i don't didn't adopt this change to the zoning ordinance i personally don't care for that but we enforce the law as it is written um we have consistently not permitted these type of things except for in special circumstances if you guys recall we made that lady on Alexandria Drive tear out her driveway and I think we all agree that a cul-de-sac on Cooper is nowhere close to what this is I will not be supporting this application I sympathize with the checkments I sympathize with the job that you had to do today and I would I suggest that they talk with their councilmember to get this changed if they want to move forward with it and And that is one of the reasons why I wanted to point out the, basically, the tight 40 foot kind of access frontage that the lot has and it is only the one curb cut. We are not adding anything to impact the public sphere in any way. In reviewing both the planning staff and also your all's presentation, it looks to me like Both of you have compelling arguments. I mean, no doubt you are in violation of the zoning requirement, but there is an unusual lot configuration there. And a lot of the neighbors have non-conforming driveways. This kind of looks like a Mexican standoff to me. other questions of the applicant or that will give not really just a general comment those damn circular driveways once again i mean i don't know why we um back and forth this i do like your design on this though and because it is a a better site management tool because there's only one way in one way out um i think i would be able to justify it um i know that's not may not 100 be in line with zoning but um you know like like mr grove said one of these days we'll get uh council to kind of address this once and for all but because of the um i guess the the attitude of the general neighborhood of everybody else having um two curb cuts and two ways in to ingress egress that because this is an actual um compromise with a better site management tool in place I'd be okay with supporting it. I mean, if the intent of the regulation is about making sure that we have safe designs, we really feel like this is going a long way towards just that. I think we are charged with looking at these applications on a case by case basis, based on the regulations, but we also have to look at mitigating circumstances. So are we going to start permitting everyone who puts a big circle in their front yard, as long as there's only one access to the road? I don't think that's what the council intended. I mean, while we do these case to case, we should have some consistency with, so that people are treated the same or similarly given similar circumstances. And so I realize that all these other ones have driveways, but like musical chairs, sometimes the music stops. You don't have a chair. Life's not fair. That's just how it is sometimes. So the board will make its decision. but I just when somebody comes in with a circular driveway or not a circular driveway but a big circle in their front yard two months from now we're going to look at that again and say okay well I guess that's what we do now is we allow you to pave your entire front yard one case from now we have other cases to think about and look towards and I think we've also been fairly consistent in our our concern with people doing it first you know i mean this was already done we have other people that are coming in the correct order and asking for permission at the time that they're supposed to so we have less lenient or less forgiving after the fact so i do consider that as well i do agree it's a beautiful plan i like the plan a whole lot and uh but i i i have to agree with mr cross that we have to be consistent in making these kind of decisions and i know you understand that you've We've been here enough times that that's one of our problems. I love circular driveways. In my house where we used to live before we downsized, I wanted one there, but I realized I couldn't. It was the perfect house for a circular driveway. I love them. But I am very concerned that we are consistent. And I think we have been. And I love the plan. The plan's wonderful. really is and in other circumstances I would be very supportive of it under the circumstances I don't think I can be supportive because we do need to follow the law and I'm just one person so anything further of the applicant if not does staff need an opportunity to respond or if I okay all right well I will entertain a motion if anyone is so inclined or further discussion I'm ready to move madam chair I am ready to support the staff and move for disapproval of PLN VOA 24-172 will Chapman's request for a variance to reduce the required front yard setback from 40 feet to zero feet to maintain a circular driveway in the front yard in an R1B zone at 1365 Cooper Drive, based upon the reasons set forth in the staff report, the testimony and discussions here too. So moved. Thank you. And Ms. Tucker has offered a second. Okay. Has been disapproved. Thank you. Our next item is PLNBOA 24-186 Kim Bragg. This has been recommended for disapproval, so we will have staff present first. James Mills, planning staff. Today we have another request for a circular driveway, so we got two back to back. But this one is in an R13 INC zone, which is a 30 feet to 0 feet setback to pave a circular driveway in the front yard. Taking a look at the vicinity, the subject property is located here at 804 Mount Vernon Drive. The closer vicinity shows kind of the similar driveways located within the aerial view. Many are conforming. There are some probably non-conforming wider ones, but this one is also not in the infill and redevelopment area. So as the zoning ordinance states, the allowable driveway width outside of the infill and redevelopment area is 24 feet. Again, Article 16-5 states that no parking, loading, or unloading space shall be located within any required front yard. Looking at the site plan proposed by the applicant, they did put two different site plans. Site plans for this is the one that they wanted, which was the full circular driveway with two curb cuts. This is the existing driveway over here on the western portion of the property. but the other site plan that they gave us but did not submit as their proposal was one where it was a turnaround. But with that, staff does recommend disapproval as the applicant has not provided sufficient justification to meet the requirements of Article 7 of the Zoning Ordinance or KRS 100 and the applicant hasn't provided sufficient information to determine the strict enforcement of the Zoning Ordinance which will result in unnecessary hardship. With that, any questions? Questions of staff? The applicant did put in their material that this was a request mainly for medical necessity. And real quick, could we throw up the site plan? Mm-hm. So given the front yard setback, in this instance, they would not be able to do one of the turnabout spaces that we've seen for other designs? You know what I'm talking about? Yes. A lesser variance, they could request a lesser variance if they wish. It would still have to have a variance. It would still be a variance request. It's just instead of going all the way back to the right of way, it would be to the portion of the property where the paving ends. Okay. If I'm accurate with that. No, I think that's right. I just wanted to make sure. But some of them, they've been able to do that without our request, but the house was not built right on the front yard setback line like this. Okay. The only one that we've approved was on Alexandria Drive, which was for a turnabout spot, but not for a full circular driveway. Anything further, Steph? One more question. Would the staff be supportive of that lesser request? Or would you guys just need to have the applicant request it and you guys evaluate it? Usually we have the applicant request and then we evaluate it. We did have, as you all are aware, previous request for medical necessity for keeping paving in the front area even though for that particular application that one was detached from the other paving area. But we disapproved of that one, right? Yes, we completely disapproved. Yeah, okay, thank you, sir. Okay. All right, if the applicant would like to come forward, please. Yes. Yes. I'm David Oren. I'm the owner or part owner with my wife of the property. Kim Bragg was our contractor, and she couldn't be here today, so I'm filling in for her. But I have a medical note. Oops, sorry. I also have a handicap permit from UK if you want to look at that. So about a year and a half ago, I had a stroke that limited my mobility a bit, And basically it limited my ambitory ability as well as my net mobility and I've had that for a while. So basically I need something to be closer to the house to get out and get in the front door as well as turn the car around. Now, if the council is adamant that they don't want the circular driveway, we could certainly deal with a parking pad out front. They would grant a variance for that. I would appreciate it. I guess going back to Ms. Wade, I know you hate me continuing things. But in this instance, since a potential turnabout was not discussed and this gentleman appears to need potentially the ability for ambulatory issues. Is this one where it may make sense to continue so you guys can discuss that and then come back to us next month? So that would require the assistance of traffic engineering in terms of drafting what that turnabout could look like in the front yard. And so I would suggest in that case a continuance in order for traffic engineering to consult on what that option is. Yeah, so Mr. Orn, what I'm proposing is that we continue this hearing until January, and that you and your contractor get with the planning staff and traffic engineering, and maybe come up with a plan that staff could support, and then come back to us next month and we can evaluate it. Was that, because we're not going to be, today we're not going to be able to discuss whether or not the pad will work, because traffic engineering will have to evaluate it. And so it would be whether or not to approve the circular as presented to us. But you're not going to probably approve the circular driveway option. Is that correct? Well, I mean, you heard the last case. Yeah, it was a pretty lengthy. I mean, if you come back next month with two proposals, we would not not look at the circular driveway one. But it may be good to have the second option in your back pocket. Because if we were to deny your circular driveway today, you may be prohibited from a second request for 12 months pursuant to our bylaws. So I prefer that not to be the result for you to have to wait a year when we can maybe wait 30 days. And maybe the staff and you can have more discussions on potentially moving forward. Okay. All right. I suppose I'll get with my contractor and she'll come up with a plan with the city. Yes. If you guys contact planning staff, they will get you in touch with traffic engineering to evaluate the plan. Okay. Yeah. And what's the rule about the variance? If it has to, I don't know, you have to be inside the 30 feet setback. But is there some sort of closer to the street as bad, as further away as better, or what should I? Well, it looks like to me, just looking at this without advising you, No matter what, you're going to need some sort of variance. And that's the reason you need to meet with traffic engineering and figure out how comfortable they are to get your parking space as close as they can to your front door to get what you want out of what you need given your physical issues. Okay, all right. So, unless people want to hear this today. I think that's a really good suggestion. If I may say, and I can't speak for the rest of the board, but I certainly would feel like, based on our decision of the previous circular drive, we might find that it's probably not going to pass. I'm guessing, just guessing. But I know there are good solutions to your problem using additional parking space in the front as the driveway has expanded. It can expand as it gets away from the street. And so I think there's some real possibilities there that would help you. I mean, keep us from having to decide about a circular drive at this point. It's not, yeah, I just want to point out that the layout of the current driveway, it's not possible to turn around. At any point, you can't pull in the back or anything because, well, before I had the stroke, we had a porch put on the back, and that's reconfigured everything, and it would have to destroy a lot of stuff to put any space in the back to turn around. So that's pretty much an impossibility. Yeah, and we're not saying how we've done, but traffic engineering is pretty good to be able to look at what you need. or chart widths of events in that nature, where in theory, you can pull into, in front of your house, reverse a little bit into your driveway to then feel a pull out from work into the driveway. That's what it's up to you. But I will say we have permitted the lady on Alexandria to have that smaller chart about her front yard. which you really want to start in the driveway and is that a motion to continue that you're attempting to make somewhere there there. I would the board that we continue feeling in request for various front yard setback 30 feet to 0 feet or a circle driveway in the front yard at 804 Mount Runway Drive until our January 13th I would also say this morning if you want to give a What needs to be done to maybe update the application name? Since the names of the contractor are not your name, they want to be sure they got a total rate. Could you repeat that again? Sorry. Let me do that in a second. I got a motion. We got a motion. And Ms. Tucker has offered her second. We will take a vote. The motion is passed. Behind you is Jenny, and he will get you the information, contact information you need, and he can also help. And I'm not sure if it matters, I can. James? Okay. So you said the next meeting was. Wow, you went way back. Yes, the next meeting, but James can help you with any contact for playing staff. And then also help if we need to address the camera. Okay, perfect. We're talking right behind you is James. Since it's a variance, it doesn't need the property owner name for the request. Okay, so just to clarify, the next meeting will be January 13th? January 13th, this room at 1.30. Is that Monday again? Yes. Okay, thank you. Have a great holiday. All right, thank you. And our next item is PLN VOA 24-194 Russell Crossway. This has been recommended for disapproval, so we will first hear from staff. You hear me there? Okay, I want to make sure. Yeah, so this is a request for a variance to increase the maximum driveway width inside the defined infill and redevelopment area from 10 feet to 18 feet in a single-family residential zone on properties. There's five different properties here located at 128 Garrett Avenue, 132 Garrett Avenue, 1613 Glover, 1617 Glover, and 1621 Glover Avenue. There is probably a typo in your staff report that says 1117 Glover, but it should be 1617 Glover. So just a note of that. So these are the five properties that the applicant is looking to get a variance for. They have previously subdivided these properties, and they are looking to build homes on them. Here are some views from Glover and Garrett of the properties. They meet here at the corner. And here is the site plan from the applicant. And again, I'm still learning this remote, so hopefully I don't get angry. There we go. So you can see the dark gray portion on all of these different properties here. That is what the variance is essentially for. The zoning ordinance does allow you to flare out your driveway to the width of your garage, which would be 18 feet wide. So basically the applicant could, under the ordinance without a variance, have the driveway that follows this line right here and then goes back and widens out to the garages. But they're requesting to have the garages go all the way down to the right-of-way. So that's what their need for a variance is. Staff recommends disapproval for the following reasons. One, that the granting of the variances will alter the character of the general vicinity. property. Properties in the general vicinity do not feature 18 foot wide driveways. The applicant has not provided sufficient justification to demonstrate that denying of the variances would create an unnecessary hardship that would deprive the applicant of the reasonable use of the land. The applicant is still able to build the homes and two car garages as well as driveways that flare out to 18 foot wide as I mentioned per the zoning ordinance. And the applicant has cited no special circumstances or unique characteristics associated with the five properties that would not generally apply to land in the same zone or within the general vicinity. And that is all I have for staff's presentation. If you have any questions. I actually do, if you go back to the site plan. Yes. So it is a two-car garage. And we have the maximum 10-foot width. but I thought that the maximum width was the width of the garage, the two-car garage. No, that's what the flare-out allows you to do. So you're basically, and it's about halfway, once you get halfway up the drive, you're allowed to flare out to the width of your garage. So the issue here is just the length of the driveway? Not necessarily. The issue is that, and maybe I can zoom in a little better and see, that those dark gray portions, like basically they're allowed to go to 18th and they've got to kind of funnel down to 10 as they're exiting the driveway, exiting their property, and they're wanting to just have it be 18 feet wide all the way down. So the ordinance. It felt like this would always come up in, you know, those existing neighborhoods where we had one car garage and they were trying to add or expand, you know, to the additional parking. I was going to ask, is this because it's in the infill and redevelopment? is why that it because i think if this were built out further in the suburbs i don't think we'd have this question but since it's in the infill that's why yes drive driveways are limited to 10 feet in width inside the infill and redevelopment area but they can flare out i think is what the language says in the ordinance to meet the width of the garage and when we discussed it i was seeing it in terms of those other items but then i realized oh this is a new house with a two-car garage i didn't and this these are all five new houses also with two-car garages um but the it's a it's a new subdivision they re-subdivided the property i think that was in the staff report there were three lots there before and now there are five and so with that came a reconfiguration of the lot sizes you know setbacks and everything um and has created really a situation where they're proposing a different character than what exists there today you all are aware that on glover there there are two existing new structures correct yes two of them are built yeah they can go ahead and yeah this is not about what they're building they can go ahead and build right it's just about the driveway so they got their approval with a subdivision to go ahead and start building, which they are in construction of. So should this have been addressed during their subdivision portion of the project when they had their subdivision approved if they wanted to have an 18 foot driveway? So the way KRS reads it does recommend that variances and waivers be asked for when a subdivision occurs. We typically don't have a variance that occurs like this at the time of subdivision plan usually because the applicant really hasn't thought that far ahead. They're more worried about creating the lot, what infrastructure is needed. And so frequently it doesn't happen at that stage until they realize kind of some of the other restrictions on a lot by lot basis. So was that an oversight on their part? I don't know if that's something we can necessarily say. It's about where they are in the stages of their development. I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I think it would be the, this would come up when they file for their construction permit and they file their plans. It would definitely get flagged by the guys and gals on building inspection when they file. But, yeah, when you get your subdivision, the presumption is you're either going to ask for a variance or you're going to build what the zoning ordinance permits. So they're here asking for a variance. So basically what we're saying is that the curb cut itself would be 10 foot, and then the flare would start halfway to the garage. Is that correct? That's what the ordinance would allow. That's what the ordinance says. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what the ordinance would allow is you start at 10 feet, and then as you get about halfway through, you start to widen open. And would they need our consent to do that flare out, or they could just do it? That meets the ordinance. I mean, they've got to obviously get their proper approvals through the building and inspection and things like that, but they would not need a variance for that. So at this point, when I was out there, their driveway ends at the back of the sidewalk, and at this point, there's no sidewalk. Usually that's the last thing that goes in, the sidewalk and the street trees. So we would expect the sidewalks. So the flare would be prior to the sidewalk? What would? You're saying when they would, in the process of just actually building and construction, when they would do the flare? The flare of the driveway would be prior to the sidewalk? Before it gets to the sidewalk. No, so you would have the sidewalk, and then you would have 10 feet of driveway width, and then as you get about 50% of the driveway width or length, then you can open up. And so it would not be before the sidewalk into the right-of-way. It would be under what the ordinance allows now. you have sidewalk 10 feet of driveway opening up to 18 feet okay but that's not what they're now right pardon that's not what's there now you're saying that's not what they've done they've already built it and they've built it 18 feet wide the photo you showed you've got the garage then you've got maybe a pad that's 10 feet long that's the full width of the garage and then it stops and it does not continue on. So I think they have not put the flare in yet and they've not put in the entire driveway or the sidewalks. Yes. Okay. Any other questions of staff before we allow the applicant to speak? Okay. Okay. Let's see. Russell Crossway. Good afternoon, and please state your name for the record first. Sure. My name is Greg Smorstad. I'm with Banks Engineering, and I'm here on behalf of Russell Crosswaite, who is the owner and developer for 128, 132 Garrett Avenue, along with 1613, 1617, and 1621 Glover Avenue. So I just wanted to provide a little more information on the history of this and just give you a little more context. So this plan that's up here is the plat that we submitted and had approved back in February of 2024. So there were three original lots that fronted on Garrett Avenue, and we subdivided it into five lots with two of them facing Garrett and three of them facing Glover. Let's see. So this image represents what Mr. Crossway would eventually like the full buildout to look like. And that would just be a mix of one and two story homes with two car garages, 18 foot driveways, and then there will be a new five foot concrete sidewalk that runs along the street frontage. As we talked about earlier, two of the homes are under construction along Glover right now, and so you can see them here. And so I think some of the discussion we had earlier, you can see the pad does come out, but it stopped, and that was just so that we could figure this out. we didn't want to go ahead and install something and it not be in compliance. So we wanted to make sure that we had this meeting before the driveway is extended out to the right-of-way. So this is one of the houses, and this is the second one that is currently under construction. So this is just a snip of the plan that we submitted to you all. and again just to go over so what we are currently allowed to do is have a 10 foot throat that goes half halfway up to the building setback line which in this case would be 15 feet and then the driveway could flare out and be 18 feet in width so you can see the dark gray areas that are on here is what we are requesting for this variant. So it would be 152 square feet of additional driveway and that would allow the 18 foot to extend all the way out to the right of way. We believe that installing this additional square footage will just give the future homeowners the chance to fully utilize the driveway and the two car garages that are being proposed and built out here. And also, Mr. Crossway is just trying to combat another existing issue that happens in this area of Glover and Garrett Avenue and really try and stop this issue from happening in front of the new five houses that he is building. So the original houses in this general area were built in the 1930s or 1940s when approximately 20% of the population had a vehicle. Obviously now we're in 2024 when about 74% of the population owns a vehicle. So we all know there are a lot more vehicles on the road and in front of our houses and businesses today than there were back in the 30s. But so the issue that he is trying to combat is vehicles being parked in front and side yards, which seems to be an issue in this general vicinity. So a couple of these pictures that I have, obviously we can see a truck parked in the front yard in this one. This is actually on Glover Avenue, just down from where the new houses are being constructed. So, you know, we've got an issue where they're allowed to have a single car width driveway. So we've got cars parked in the driveway along the edge of the street and also just up in the front yard. And so you can see down in the bottom of the picture, this kind of creates, especially in wet situations, just kind of a muddy mess, rutting, and just kind of an overall lack of curb appeal. another car like i said just parked in the side yard and then one one other one where we've got a van kind of parked across the sidewalk and this could potentially be an issue in front of our five lots like i said earlier when we replatted these five lots we were required to put a new sidewalk around the street frontage and so Mr. Crossway will be installing that and I think the last thing he or anybody else wants is to install this new sidewalk but not provide sufficient parking and have something like this happen in front of these newly developed properties where somebody's parking across the sidewalk because they don't have sufficient parking. now one other thing to address i think the staff report said that there you know aren't 18 foot driveways in this area and it's true that the majority of driveways in this area are not 18 feet however this is a map the general vicinity with the yellow streets on here being marked as garrett that runs kind of north south and glover that runs east west in yellow the red dots that are on the map are single-family homes that have a driveway that is at least 18 feet in width so there are driveways in this area that are wider than 10 feet and here are just a couple of images of some of those houses. I didn't include them all just for time's sake. But just so you can see. And so these don't have the flare. They're just 18 feet in width all the way out to the right-of-way, which is kind of what we are requesting. And so in closing, I think Mr. Crossway is excited about redeveloping these five lots. And we believe that his vision is in line with the Cardinal Valley Small Area Development Plan, which states in its goals for underutilized lots to be redeveloped and to provide new single-family housing opportunities. And our goal is certainly not to circumvent the zoning ordinance or the subdivision regulations, but it's just to provide a fix to an existing problem that happens in this area and make these new homes as functional as possible. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you all have. I have a question. Is the garage structure on the left of the photo, that's on the corner lot? Is that going to remain or is that going to be demolished? It's going to be removed. Okay. If you could go back several slides, you had slides of the existing structures that have been constructed on the property. The new houses? Yes. Yeah. that's the one um i was out taking pictures the other day and uh is is that an 18 foot pad right there yes is that is that a single car garage or a double it's a double okay yeah there are two car garages planned for all five of the houses okay maybe mine was a wide angle lens i don't know it It looked a lot wider than that driveway, but if those are 18 feet. Thank you. Are there any of these houses where the driveway is already built at 18 feet? Any of the new houses on these five locks? Any of the houses in the application, have any of the driveways been already constructed at 18? No, so these are the only two that have been constructed, and the driveways stop kind of where you see them in these images. All right, thank you. That's good. Yeah, I'll make a comment just as I was speaking with staff about this in particular. We have had to make these decisions on the driveway, but I feel like that's been to accommodate what was already existing. We're building a new house with a new two-car garage. It just feels a little silly to me to limit the, when you have the size and space and ability to do it, to limit the driveway to not be adequate for the garage that's allowable. We've had to go back and do it before because something else already existed there, and they were trying to expand, and we've had to fix the problem to not allow them to have too much driveway in their front yard. But this is from the start, and it's in the beginning. So I'd rather see the driveway accommodate the garage that we allowed there. So you'd be in favor of permitting the driveway? I would. Okay. I would, first off, for the crossweights, I appreciate them building these. We need people to go out and find infill opportunities and be creative and be willing to put their time and money into building more housing in Lexington. And I think I would agree that given the lotting pattern of these being 60-foot wide lots, it looks like there's plenty of space. I don't think the driveways would be out of proportion for the lots or the houses. And I'd be willing to support this if that was where we're kind of headed with the rest of the panel. What's the distance between the street and the houses? So the required setback is 30 feet. And these may be set back just a little bit further than 30 feet. but not not much so so the flare could actually start at 15 feet or so correct yes and i think that's where we you know when you see people parking on the street it just is kind of a logistical thing and i don't know if it you know they have multiple cars somebody that's in the garage needs to leave earlier than the other person that's in the garage and it becomes a headache and that's why they park on the street. I don't know what the issues are, but we feel like the driveway and the two-car garage would be more fully utilized if that 18-foot could just come all the way out to the right-of-way instead of pinching down to basically a one-lane driveway. So in that picture, is that the driveway that's already created there, is that 15 feet from the garage? Is that halfway? Yeah, just about. That's halfway there. Okay. So if we had to, if we had sits in on a flare, the flare would start right there at the end of what's already poured. Yeah. Correct, yes. and by flare we mean it it starts going in then at that space down to the one lane right yeah kind of from that right hand side it would have to flare in and then it would be one lane out to the street yes i think it'd just be weird i think given that i mean love them or hate them these are suburban style houses they've been lotted for suburban style houses most of our infill lots are smaller lots um and it looks like uh glover avenue is a looks like an appropriate cross section the road looks pretty narrow um the actual pavement itself is only 24 feet wouldn't it is that normal for a 50-foot right away yes it's substandard isn't it yeah it's it's it's which will keep people from parking on the on the street i've got a street in our neighborhood I can't remember what it's called, but it's back by the G playing in Lafayette, and there's no curb. And so everyone on that street has one driveway, and they all park in that front six feet of their yards, and it's just kind of a muddy mess all the way along that street. So I think ultimately this may alleviate some of that concern, but I think ultimately I'm comfortable in this instance, given that this is essentially an entirely new development that I think works. Great. Do we have any other additional comment? I'd be good with it too. It's originally when you first mentioned I kind of wasn't for it because there's always the accessibility issue that worries me. You know, if you've got a single driveway and cars are parked across the sidewalk, then that's only one car to have to to go around with accessibility but the more you provide off street the more cars you can park there and hopefully keep the accessible lanes available from what i can tell too you've got bigger fish to fry with obviously bat or joker from the batman's hearse in your neighborhood you're going to have to deal with that somehow so um yeah i'd be in favor of this yeah i would i would be supportive of the of the wider driveways i just wanted to point out for the record though that based on the price of these houses they would not fit into the category of affordable housing oh there's not affordable housing anymore do what no i'm just gonna say if you if you can find affordable housing lexington let me know um that's just where we are so do we need um so if we're going to have a motion to the opposite do we need a moment for findings so chairperson and staff just make a couple other comments before we oh oh yes please yeah just wanted to note that um the infill and development area does end before some of the pictures that have been shown of other driveways. So those other driveways could have been to 24 foot wide because they wouldn't need a variance that's a different requirement. And then I do want to point out that while there were pictures of other people parking on the street, I don't think those houses had two car garages and long driveways. So it's a little bit of a different situation with some of those properties that, yes, they They are parking in the grass, but they also don't have the distance of a driveway or a two car garage like these properties would. How close are we to the border of the infill? I can't recall if I saw the photo. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting, let's see, am I going the right, no, the wrong way. It kind of comes out from downtown and then just surrounds a portion of this neighborhood. It doesn't encompass all of the Cardinal Valley area. You can see a tree line here. It follows that tree line back here and then comes down. And then there's a few properties here. And where are we in relation again, Tracy? Sure. Delmont is here, is that right? So it's just these few properties along the frontage of Versailles Road, and then it goes back behind Christian Towers, and then along this shared property line that cuts over back. It's the rear property line of some of those. So all the red dots north of where I was highlighting are not inside the infill redevelopment area nor are any of the ones on I don't know I can't see that road long and where are these properties again they're at the the intersection of the two yellow lines on the plan yeah kind of right there in the middle yep three two and three yep so we're maybe a block you go about the infill going north about five properties up it cuts off around property 144 uh garrett and this is 132 and 128 so you got five properties moving up there we're pretty close before you get outside of the area okay i think that's a another fact to consider and i will agree with staff i didn't think that those particular houses were similar in nature i think my point was we can avoid it ever being i mean we had the land, the space, and the ability to get ahead of it instead of a lot of times where we're going back and trying to add additional space or they're adding for variances after the fact. If we're building it right now, I would just say we should build it in the most sensible maximizing type space, you know, type fashion. That was it. I didn't think they were similar to those others. I agree. And I appreciate the staff's analysis. I think they did a good job of analyzing it. Sometimes they can't read our minds in advance. That's probably good because you don't want to be in here all the time. Good deal. Okay, so if we need a moment, do you guys, someone? Ms. Smith, are you ready? Okay. Yeah, if we want to take a recess, I'll be with Ms. Smith, and I'll be willing to make a motion. All right, we'll take a quick five minutes. If you want to stretch your legs, and we'll reconvene. In five, what time is it? Maybe 325. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Okay, if everybody's ready, we'll pick back up, and I believe we have a motion. Madam Chair, with regard to PLM BOA 24194, Russell Cross-Weight's request for variance to increase the driveway width in the defined infill and redevelopment area from 10 feet to 18 feet for property located at 128 Garrett Avenue, 132 Garrett Avenue, 1613 Glover Avenue, 1617 Glover Avenue, and 1621 Glover Avenue. Those all correct addresses? Perfect. I move for approval of the request based upon the following findings of fact. The variance request will not adversely affect the essential character of the neighborhood and is also justified by the special circumstances of the land because these streets abut several residential streets that lay outside of the infill and redevelopment area and that have 18 foot driveways. So a wider driveway would be more consistent with the character of the surrounding neighborhood. A narrower driveway would not be in keeping with the character of the surrounding neighborhood. The variance will not negatively impact the public health, safety, or welfare or otherwise create a nuisance because the variance may benefit the surrounding owners by resolving parking issues on these two streets. The variance will not unreasonably circumvent the zoning requirements because the additional driveway width will be the best use of the available space. This approval is made subject to the two following conditions. Number one, the site shall be developed in accordance with the submitted application materials and site plan and renderings presented to the board on December 9th, 2024. And two, all necessary permits and approvals shall be obtained by the Division of Building Inspection prior to completion of construction. So moved. Thank you. And it looks like Mr. Persley has seconded. No further discussion. we will take a vote and do we want to confirm i'm sorry the conditions that oh yeah thank you thank you there are um are you comfortable with the conditions that were mentioned all right he said yes thank you okay there we go is that everybody no got one here we go thank you motion approved thank you good luck with the project can i ask one clarifying question though so we need to i can't do we need to resubmit this now to building inspection um and let them know about you all's findings today no the division of planning informs building inspection um outcomes of all the board of adjustment meetings all right thank you thank you good Good luck with your project. Thank you. Thanks. Our next item is PLN BOA 24-203. That's Gibson Taylor Thompson. It has been recommended for disapproval, so we will allow staff to present first. James Mills planning staff. So this request is by Gibson Taylor Thompson to reduce the required side yard setback. from 9 feet 6 inches to 5 feet in a single-family R1C zone located at 414 Holiday Road. The section of the zoning ordinance concerning this request is Article 8-7 that states that the minimum side yard in the R1C zone is 8 feet, but also Article 15-2 that states that in any zone where a side yard is required, the least width of each side yard shall be increased by one inch for each foot by which the side wall of a building adjacent to a side yard exceeds 50 feet. So that's how we get the request to 9 feet 6 inches. Taking a look at the vicinity map, you can see Holiday Road right here with the subject property. Taking a closer look at the subject property, The area shows the existing structure on the subject property that does have a nonconforming side yard on this portion, but not on this portion of the property. Looking at the request, the applicant is proposing that both sides will be down to the five foot side yard. See that correctly? and as you talking about flare-outs recently you can see where the driveway flares out to the street but this will be a whole new construction so this isn't from the current structure that is on prop on site but from a new structure staff recommends disapproval because the applicant hasn't provided provided sufficient justification to meet the requirements of article 7 essentially because this is a new structure rather than an existing one that is non-conforming, they're able to meet the requirements and conform to the zoning ordinance rather than build on a lot that's already non-conforming. Any questions? Any questions to staff before we talk to the applicant? No? Okay. Thank you, James. All right, good afternoon board. I'm Vince Thompson with Gibson Taylor Thompson, the architect for the project. I brought with me a letter of support from the neighbor at 412 Holiday Road. And then we've got the owner of 416 Holiday Road here if they need to speak. They're in support of the project as well. They're also the owner of 414 Holiday Road. So we respectfully submit the following points in support of our variance request for 414 Holiday Road. We believe that the proposed variance aligns with the character of the neighborhood, upholds the spirit of the zoning ordinance, and does not adversely affect the public welfare. One thing I'd like to point out is the recommendation for disapproval. I noticed that the lot width was 80 feet and not 75 feet. You'll see on our survey that we've got up here, each lot is 75 feet. And, you know, if we had that 80 feet, then this request probably wouldn't have been submitted. So I'll get into the architecture and the planning and why that's significant. But just wanted to point that out. And, you know, I'm not sure if that was what we discussed or they analyzed. But 75 feet for us would be, you know, a big difference in that 80 feet. So granting this variance does not compromise the health, safety, and welfare of the general public. The proposed reduction in the side yard setback still provide ample space between the properties and maintaining safety standards for access and fire protection. Let's go. So as far as the architectural context, what we're going for with the design is trying to stay in keeping with the architecture of a true traditional center hall colonial. And after analyzing several homes on the street and other typical center hall colonials around Kentucky, that front facade varies anywhere from about 35 feet to 40 feet. So that main volume that has your main entry and it has your two flanking wings and rooms, it's kind of a typical plan arrangement so you'll notice i'll go back so you'll see we've got 37 feet at 416 and 37 feet at 414. so that just happens to be you know within that threshold of the front facade of the center hall colonial and these are just floor plans that we went in and measured each house to confirm when we were doing our study and how we arrived at the design So what I'd like to point out is, you know, and staff agreed that, you know, several of the houses on this street, you know, we didn't have to go very far to find, you know, nonconforming situations. So if you'll look, out of the 19 houses on this block, 15 of them are all nonconforming, with one side or both sides, varying anywhere from one feet to six feet. You know, right now the ordinance in the R1C, you've got eight-foot setback. You know, you'll see, you know, we've got a six feet, a two and a quarter, three feet, five feet, four feet on one or both sides on 15 of those 19 properties. And this ties into the architecture because it tells you that the zoning, that if we had these zoning ordinances back then, they wouldn't be conforming and they're not conforming now. The difference in what we're trying to accomplish is maintaining that front facade and maintaining those traditional and proportional dimensions. but we're trying to incorporate a two-car garage on the side of the property. And you'll notice we've got the, over here, we've got the golf course. And the owner selected this lot because it's very important for them to have views of that golf course to be able to take advantage of having that backyard for family events and gatherings and all sorts of things. And you'll notice also we've got very few, if any, on this direct block of garages on the back. So it was very important to put that functional two-car garage on the side of the center hall volume. So I bring this up. This is the neighbor who wrote a letter, 412 Holiday Road. so you'll see here they've got a two-car garage here there's about a five foot from what i could gather from you know the lexington gis uh you know uh survey um online we've got about a five foot um you know from the edge of that uh garage to the property line so that's similar to what we're asking and the overall dimensions of that house when it was renovated are very, very close to what we're proposing in our proposal. So just to touch a little bit more on the proportions in the architecture. So you'll see here we've got the main house volume. We've actually tried to reduce the width from that 37. We've got 36 feet, so we are trying to squeeze down that main volume. And then we've got 22 feet for that garage over here. So really, you can see we've got our 8-foot setback on the left side and the 9-foot-6 on the right side because it's a deep building. You'll see that there's really no way to keep a two-car garage effectively while meeting the character of the neighborhood and preserving that width of the Center Hall Colonial without approving this variant. Real quick, I guess the staff report sounds like you're going to demolish this building and build a new building. That's correct. Okay, but you keep saying preserving. Well, preserving the proportions of what was there. So basically it's the architectural idea of the facade of a center hall colonial being between 35 and 40 feet. If we reduce that width of that center hall colonial, it loses its architectural proportion and character that fits within the neighborhood. So that's what we're trying to preserve with the new design. And then just so you can see a rendering of what we're looking for. So this was what we put together. It's quintessential center hall colonial with modern day function added to it. So a two-car garage with that main center volume. That's 36 feet. so in summary we respectfully request that the board approve this variance request as it aligns with the neighborhood character and precedent maintains public health safety and welfare it addresses the material discrepancy in the lot with you know reflects the community support with you know the letter from the neighbor and ensures reasonable use of the property of our respecting the integrity of the zoning ordinance and avoids forcing the design of a garage that is functionally inadequate for modern use. Can you go back to the point you were making about the 80 foot versus the 75 foot? Yes. I couldn't follow that. So I just noticed when we were going through the staff report, I don't have a slide showing the staff report but it said in their reasons for disapproval that they felt that 80 feet was sufficient but the lot is actually 75 feet. If we had 80 feet we would probably be able to figure out a way to make that work since we're only talking about a you know six feet we could probably find a way to you know try to shave six inches off on either side of the main volume but I think 75 feet is what's you know restrictive and you know we feel that the precedent is set you know on the street just by nature of you know I understand that we are out of, you know, that we're demoing the existing house. That is also nonconforming, but I guess more to the point is the proportions of what we're trying to plan doesn't fit. You know, the character of the existing homes that remain do not fit the setbacks that are currently in place. Staff want to address that in particular. Here we go. On the PVA website, which is what was used for measuring that, when you measure with the measurement tool, you get approximately 80, 81 feet. Although on the report for the PVA, it does say the frontage is 75 feet. Typically, when we're looking at it, we use the measurement, and I believe that's what was used to come up with that 80 feet width. And does the 80 to 75 feet change any of your recommendations? I think that's hard to say without us looking at it. Let me ask, are these lots along the street, are they all about the same width? Yes, sir, except for the corner lots. Yeah, right, okay. And the depth of the houses are pretty much the same as well? On this street, yes. And, you know, I think a lot of, you know, what you see, and this is just from the Lexington Map It survey, so you see all the garages in the back of the property here, but you don't see any over here. And that's by design. You know, that's because these homeowners don't want to block the view of the golf course and, you know, use their land appropriately. So that's, you know, it's really hard to get more square footage for your garage. Currently, they live right next door in a single car garage. That's why they're doing this. And at the outset of the project, we looked at ways to try to keep the existing house to see if that was feasible. And, you know, based on, you know, the programmatic requirements, it just didn't seem to fit. and this would be the best option. We have other questions of the applicant? Any discussion? Anyone prepared for a motion one way or the other? My tendency, I would feel comfortable approving the applicant's request if the board seems to think we're close to such a decision. i mean i i could support such a motion it's particularly because of the i mean that five foot difference may have you know makes a big difference when we're going from nine feet i do I do think that, my apologies, I do think that one reason why we made the decision that we did was because this is new construction, and they are not set to be, they're not already non-conforming, so they're not working with the existing structure that's non-conforming on the lot. I do think that was one reason why staff recommended disapproval. it also looks like to me that I mean I think it's very obvious that many of the houses on that street on that side of the street close to the golf cart have the same kind of problem and nonconforming of course that's not their problem now but seems like to me that this particular design would fit into that that street very well. So. Do you have any opinions on this side? You'll go with Harry? All right, you need a moment, Harry? Yeah. All right. another quick five? You'd like to speak with legal? You guys are going to take another quick recess. Yes. piano plays softly Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone can be seated, we're ready to roll again. Still on PLN BOA 24-203 and I believe we have a motion prepared to be made. With respect to PLN BOA 24-203, Gibson Taylor Thompson's request for variance to reduce the required side yard setback to five feet in property, located at 414 Holiday Road, I moved for approval based on the following findings of fact. Number one, allowing the construction of the house and attached two-car garage to extend into the side yard beyond the limitation of Article 15B2 will not adversely affect the essential character of the neighborhood, nor will it negatively impact public health, safety, or welfare to create a nuisance for the residents because the addition will not block surrounding neighbors' views and will allow the facade of the house to stay in character with the surrounding homes in this neighborhood. Number two, the variance is also justified by the special circumstances of the land and will not unreasonably circumvent the zoning regulations due to the width of the lot, 75 feet. Enforcing the deep building provision would require a building layout that is inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood. 15 of the 19 surrounding homes are also non-conforming to the existing side yard setback so the remaining width between the surrounding lots 5 feet is not out of character. This approval is based upon the following conditions. Number one, construction shall be completed in accordance with the submitted application materials and site plan. Number two, all necessary permits and approvals shall be obtained by the Division of Building Inspection prior to completion of construction. So move. Thank you, Brittany. Thank you. And Mr. Walker has offered a second. Thank you. And did you hear the conditions and were we comfortable with those? Yes, ma'am. Okay, if no further discussion, we'll take a vote. Second. That's fine. Okay, the motion has been approved. Good luck with your project. Thank you very much. Our next item is PLNBOA. We are in conditional uses now, so that's PLNBOA 24-119, the church in Lexington Incorporated. This one has been continued from September. All right, so does staff want to discuss first or should we allow the applicant? If you want, I can give a quick just kind of where we're at. Please do. Dalton Belcher presenting for staff. So this case was before you a few months ago. There was a, and I'll get to the main issue and the reason why it had been postponed and continued for a few months now. But I'll do a quick summary just because it may not be fresh in your mind. This is for a, to establish a conditional use permit to establish a place of religious assembly in agricultural and urban and single family residential zone on three different properties located at 1136 1220 and 1250 Higby Mill Road. The subject properties are highlighted here in yellow. This will kind of be part of what the concern is or what has been kind of moving this case back for a while is the the access point here. So the site plan the church is looking to expand and they are wanting to they're going to build a new building they are also going to add a significant amount of parking as well they currently have I believe 110 attendees and they're saying that they currently have issues with being able to accommodate those in their current location which is this building here they are hoping to obviously grow to 100 I think they said 150 would be the number of people they have and they're currently in their membership and wanting to accommodate them so that's why they're looking to expand to this space these three properties would be consolidated the primary access point would be here coming down this way and then cutting over here into the parking lot and wrapping around the building this access point is what had been at issue to this point staff had concerns a couple concerns One was just about the width of the access point. If you're already having, they mentioned in their justification statement, they already have some issues with managing the amount of parking they're having and people parking out on the road. And then you're taking a pretty narrow access point. You're going to have a lot of traffic coming on it. That was one concern staff had. And then about widening it or just also about the weight capacity, the load capacity of the bridge, of whether the bridge could maintain fire trucks or, you know, heavier vehicles that were coming in for emergency services. So staff had recommended approval. There were multiple conditions. The condition that really was at an issue was the, let me get to it here, number eight, which was that the bridge access point currently on 1136 Hibby Mill Road shall be widened to the approval of the Division of Engineering and obtain any state and federal permits necessary. for approval. So that's kind of where we were and then because the applicant had an issue with that condition they went back to the drawing board to try to see if they could come up with a solution for it and to this point staff has not seen necessarily anything from a structural engineer or anything confirming and writing what the solution would be. I know that the applicant is going to present a solution, but at this point staff has not seen an expert's opinion on whether this solution would work and the meat and potatoes of that solution. That's where we are from staff's side of things. Dalton, on the conditions, which one do they have an issue with? Is it the removal of the bridge or is it upgrading the bridge? So there's two different, sorry, there are two different bridges here, and I can clarify that. The one they have issue with is the upgrading and the widening of the bridge, which is condition number eight, I believe, in the staff report. Going back to the site plan, there is another access point that is right here coming off of Higby Mill Road. That is one that staff had recommended that they remove, and the applicant does not have an issue with that. Okay. had access points deteriorated quite a bit. So there will be only one access point into the property, and that also gets into staff's concerns about the width of that access point. So the access point would be over here on this lot coming down. So right now you believe it's only condition 8 that's a concern, and the staff's position is we'll work with you, but you haven't provided us any kind of engineering report or otherwise us to get our city engineers to sign off on whatever their solution they've come up with? Yes. Is that kind of? Yeah. Point being is whatever they present us today has probably not been vetted by our engineering department. Well, it hasn't been received by planning. Oh, okay. I don't know what they've submitted to engineers. Okay, gotcha. Just want to make sure I was, thanks, Dalton. So basically, we can approve this, and then they would say, well, we didn't agree with number eight, So then where are we? Is that correct? I mean, I think if you approve with number eight as a condition, in order for them to move forward, they would have to meet that condition. If they decide for whatever reason they don't want to meet that, then they wouldn't be able to go forward with the project at that point because they would not be able to satisfy all the conditions of approval. So that's why they're asking for a different, a modified condition, number eight. I guess I'm just questioning why we haven't heard from them about whether they would accept that or not. So we haven't heard anything, Tracy? They're going to go up next. They don't want to accept condition 8. They don't want condition 8. They don't want to widen it. At all. At all. No, so that's what I was saying. This was here a few months ago before you, and because of that condition, they did not want to accept it, so they went and said they were going to try to find a different solution. And remind me, how wide is this bridge right now? I believe it's 14 feet wide. So two cars could not pass it? No. Is there any other way to leave this property other than this bridge? No. There's the other access point that we're recommending, but it's not stable. I wouldn't recommend, but no, this is the only access point in and out. Okay. Thank you, Dalton. Thank you. Hello, my name is Daniel Reina with Thorough of Engineering. I think Ed Dalton did a good job to remind you all where we were with this project. One of the original reasons too, I think back in September when we ended up continuing the meeting to the next month was because we hadn't had the opportunity to talk with Josh with LFCC Engineering as Statement 8 was requesting that basically it be widened to the approval division engineering and so since then we have talked thoroughly with josh actually emailed back and forth i've sent him our proposal his only concern was not the width of the bridge but actually just that it be verified by a structural engineer that it has the capacity to support the fire department's request and so we we have sent that to josh and copied planning on those communications and josh josh has been on the emails back and forth i was hoping he'd chime in on on the emails that we were going back and forth, but we met with him. He was fine with our preliminary proposal. It was not a final design, but we presented him with some modifications to the bridge that would fully support anything at the fire department's request. We had a structural engineer assess the bridge. I sent an email today to Tracy with the detachment. Was that not on there? Well, I can forward that after. But Josh has seen all of those things, the Division of Engineering. And we don't actually have, we're not actually opposed to Condition 8, again, because Josh is not concerned with the width of the bridge, so much so as the structural support of it. That's what we have reviewed. As far as the operation of the bridge, too, the way the church operates their facility, they can only have one service a day. They can't have multiple service a day. Even as their church grows, they can't have, that's just part of how their church operates. And so they only have traffic coming in at one time and leaving at one time. There's some mention of parking on the street. They have an event, I think, once a year where it draws a few more people that can park in their existing facility, which this expansion actually would probably aid in having parking be off the street. But there's only an event they have once a year where they have a few more people attend. So the existing bridge that they've been using for the last 36 years is not an issue for them. They don't have traffic issues coming in and out. And like I said, we've thoroughly, the only reason we didn't go forward, I think, back in September was we didn't have a good answer for you all with engineering. We have since talked with Josh Duzarn thoroughly, presented him with our preliminary design, and I did send that to you, Tracy. Again, you gave us the solution, but no information about how you got to that solution or what the information was from the structural engineer about the integrity of the access. We did talk about that with Josh Duzarn and engineering, but I can forward that right after that meeting if you want to add that as a condition. Well, I think at this case, do you have the information for us? We'll need the information. I don't have it printed off because, again, it's an engineering report that I reviewed with Josh Duzarn. Let me ask you this, how do you want a modified condition eight? My only request was that because Josh is not concerned with the width of the bridge, again, that it just be modified that it meet engineering's criteria. Just a slight modification that basically that it be meet whatever, sorry, I have it written down here. Let me pull that. So what we're saying on that eight, the bridge access point currently on 1136 Higby Mill Road, to remove shall be widened and leave to the approve or well it shall conform to the approval of the division of engineering yeah just take out and provide the required load rating or you know or just to the approval of engineering even as broad as that um that was all that we were hoping just removing the word widen but you still understand that the division of engineering has has to approve our- Sign off on both the integrity, the structure, and all those things. Yes. So they could still require you to widen the bridge. Yeah. So the only reason that the Division of Engineering was involved with that was because we're crossing a floodplain. Yeah. So Josh Duzern is basically become our community floodplain coordinator, along with Doug Burton, our county engineer. And so they would review any crossing of the floodplain and approve that with state and federal permits. There's not generally a need for state and federal permits if you're not changing the bridge. So that isn't necessary. And I'm not sure. Engineering will accept the structural engineer's recommendations. And they might ask for some changes, but they're not stamping approval of it or something like that. The reason engineering was involved was because of the floodplain crossing, and if we widen, they will be altering the floodplain in some form or fashion. So if that's not on the table, if the board agrees that widening is not necessary here, we can probably strike state and federal permits because those aren't going to be necessary either. You can keep engineering in there because obviously they know more than planning knows about the structural integrity of a bridge. But I don't want to confuse the two issues. Engineering was involved because of the floodplain. And we did discuss that. His biggest concern too was the structural integrity of the bridge as well as the BFE, basically the floodplain elevation there at that point, which is 819 and the bridge is 822. So once he saw that and saw that any modification that we would make on top of the bridge would not affect any bit of that floodplain, he had no issues with that those are the two main things so we did discuss the floodplain crossing i guess i'm still at the the position that if we're going to remove or modify this what are we you know it sounds like you have some information you should give us and that we still don't have do you have whatever you're you're saying there can we take a look at it So the report that the engineering Yiser structural did was just to basically see what the existing condition is, see if there's any issues with it, and then provide recommendations on the load capacity. Because fire department requested that they have approximately 60,000 pounds for a triaxle load crossing. report that they gave us did not it was about 35,000 pounds. So we proposed some hollow core precast panels. Again, I'm getting into engineering terms, that's why I kind of was talking with Josh about this, that you would basically place on top of the bridge and that would provide the required load rating that you need. Again, it's not a final design, but those are common engineering hollow core slabs that we've used on other projects that you You basically can select, okay, what type of loading do you need, place them on there. And that's kind of what I was trying to get to. We just need to get approval to give Josh the complete design because we can't build or do anything until Josh approves our land disturbance permit, which this would be a piece of that. So that's kind of, I was trying to not get the cart before the horse and have a full design in front of you because it's not needed because it's still going to be through Josh. Like it's still all this, all we have to do, our next step will be through engineering. and they'll have a full set of construction drawings for our civil, our pavement, our building, our grading, as well as this bridge. And so if anything does come up, we'll be required to meet any of engineering's requirements as stated in the comment. I feel like I'm going in circles. I get it. I'm following you. But so now we have to decide that we want to remove the condition. Madam Chair. And I'm saying, yes. Real quick, Tracy, if you could elaborate on planning staff's concerns of why you think a widened bridge should be considered by us. Because it sounds like, because I think it's more than just can a truck drive over the bridge is why you're concerned. And while this existing bridge may allow a large fire truck to drive over it to reach it, I think the planning staff had a broader concern over a one-way bridge serving potentially several hundred people and whether or not emergency services would be blocked or there's other things. If you could just. Sure. I think there are two issues here. Right. There are, yes, two issues. So the FEMA floodplain being one. But the first issue is adequate access to a place of religious assembly. And obviously that's where people congregate. And so when you have a group in a location, sometimes there are needs for people to come and go at the same time. And that may not always be the case, but generally commercial access to property is a minimum of 20 feet wide. And that does allow the passing of vehicles to come and go. And so with the increase, almost quadrupling of the square footage on the site and increasing the amount of parking available also, the understanding was there would be more activity on this site than there had been in the past. And so the staff felt like that was a necessary improvement in order for the church to operate and function at this site. So our recommendation was to widen that access point. It doesn't have to be that access point. It really could be any access point, but to allow for two-way traffic. So there is on either side of the bridge, it's not 14 feet from the road all the way up there. There is enough room for two-car access on either side. So if there was a need for someone to wait, they could wait. Someone could pass through the bridge and the next person goes. So it's not a one-way road all the way up to the church. It's just at that one point that it gets constricted. And actually, if you could flip back to that picture that you had, Dalton. As you can see, that's not the exact width off the top of my head, but that's at least 20, 24 feet before you get to the bridge. And then afterwards, it opens up again, too. So as far as providing that access off the road, it does provide that. It's just an internal condition where it's constricted to a one-way access. Again, which they've been using that for 36 years, have had no issues on their private development there, but they're just trying to get to the point. And again, to the extent of even that condition, I just wanted to clarify it again because engineering had no concern on the width. Yeah, okay. Just the way that it's written, it says that the widening to the, the way that it was written, bridge access is currently, shall be widened to the approval of Division of Engineering. I'm sure Ms. Wade would be happy to change that to planning staff, if that's what you'd like. I guess the thing is we've been here several months, and is there a cost issue why the road bridge can't be widened? Is there some reason, because it sounds like you want to expand your church facilities, which we are not at all saying that cannot occur. What the planning staff is saying is we are concerned about the safety of your parishioners and whether or not adequate access is there for people to come and go. And so my question is, is what is preventing the widening of that bridge? Is it because it's going to cost you $20 million, or is it because you just don't want to do it? So it would be multifaceted as far as requiring to widen the bridge. One, as far as a project like that would definitely constrict their current operations for a short period as far as being able to get in and get out, timing-wise of that. as well as it's not just a cost issue as far as the cost to widen an existing bridge, but also probably the time frame that it would take to get something approved like that, because as Tracy has mentioned, any time we impact anything around the floodplain, it's going to require probably a six, if not 12-month process with the FEMA. So it's not just a cost thing. It's also a timing thing as well. And they currently haven't closed on the adjoining property, and they're trying to get to the point where they can move forward with some piece of this. And as we've discussed with them, they don't have any need the way they currently have operated as far as having that widened. There has been discussion about, again, we don't have any issues with removing the bridge. It's not a part of this plan, but this is just down the road. They have mentioned that maybe they could do something as far as a second bridge, which would require coming back in front of you, and they're well aware of that. but they can't get to that point until they know they can do this plan. And that's what they're trying to just get to. And if they're already dictated that they have to widen this bridge before they even get to the bank and finalize the plans for the design, that's just limiting on them. And so we're trying to get this first piece approved so that we can provide everything that Division of Engineering and Planning would need for the next phase. I hope that answers your question as far as it's a multifaceted. It's not just, hey, it's just going to cost too much, but it's the timing, it's the cost, it's the engineering that will go along with it as well that will take, and the permitting with FEMA. But if we proceed with this option, we can answer all of engineering's concerns as well as provide the capacity of the fire department needs without needing to widen it. So it seems like an unnecessary cost just added to a church that's trying to be very cognizant of the funds that their parishioners give them. So I'm just, from that perspective, it's just since their existing operation already are working just fine, putting this limitation on it would definitely hurt that. Any other questions of the applicant? Comments? Just real quick, because I think this ties in with the whole thing about safety and accessibility and what. but I'm assuming that the new structure will be sprinkled or not. We haven't got to that design yet, so I'm not sure. Sorry, I can't answer that question. I don't know if it's 10,000 square feet or 12,000 square feet. There is a certain threshold where it's required to. I'm not sure on the use, but I know that's something that I don't know if you've had that conversation with the architect yet or not, but probably not because we're trying to make sure that this plan can get approved. I do know from a standpoint of fire, we talked to the fire department and again they didn't have concerns with getting in and out. Their concern was can they cross? So they had no concern with the width of the bridge. Okay, thanks. See, my concern is three months later we're still at the same, we're making a decision with the same information. So I don't know how you guys would like to move forward. Do we have additional questions? Are we prepared to make a motion with or without the conditions as listed? it is this way currently what's the existing building just what's the size of the existing building we found that it was 3 400 square feet with a basement and they're going to keep that building then they're going to build another 8 000 square feet yes so i'm just beside myself sir It's been months and months and months of you returning, and it's the same issue. I know you're functioning now. You want to add an additional 8,000 square feet. I guess I realize I understand how timing works and I understand how financing works, all this development works, and oftentimes we will say you need sewers for your property to function, and that's okay. You still get the bank loan. You just factor that in to what you need. and i i'm i'm i guess i'm just beside myself while we're on this issue when i just don't feel like i you and i don't want you this is rhetorical so i don't want you to respond but i feel like you've not given us a reason why this widening is such an issue that it whether it's been analyzed whether we have anything to work with um and i i don't know what i don't know what to say so i will leave it to the board how the board wants to proceed um at this point i'm uncomfortable moving forward personally without eight being there and at this point i'm going to amend it to say planning staff has a sign up on it too i'm so irritated about this so um but that i'll let you guys do what you want well i think part of it for me was what um miss wade was talking about about people coming and going because if you've got a fire truck coming in and you've got people trying to leave because there is a concern that's you're just going to have a big you know nobody's going to get out of the way so i think it is a big safety issue i would also be concerned that But it seems like to me with a church that's going to grow, to have a single lane bridge to get in and out does not say a whole lot about the purpose of the church, the kind of people you're going to attract. It just says, well, it's not very important that we make this convenient for people to come and go. So I would be very concerned to be a member of a church that I know that I'm going to have to wait in line to get across a one-lane bridge. And if I had to leave because of a phone call and somebody says, well, so-and-so is sick and you need to come home, and I'm going to have to sit in a line and wait for cars coming, one of these good Christians to stop and let me cross the bridge, That seems just very, not only inconvenient, but just almost unbelievable to have that kind of stricture to access a good church that wants to grow and wants to have an image that says, you know, we want you here. And we're going to do whatever we need to do to make it comfortable and convenient for you. so I'm very concerned about the fact that we don't have the information and we don't we don't know that you you would accept if we if we approve this right now we don't know whether you would accept condition number eight or not and so we're we're spinning our wheels so I'm very concerned about that and if we can't if we can't come to a conclusion that you know the staff recommends a two-lane bridge and I think that's very important it's my opinion but it's the way I feel I think you all have a good development plan I think I think your weak link is that bottleneck at the bridge and it looks like you have not addressed this problem in an expedient manner so the staff has recommended approval with those eight conditions as they are listed so So if we make a motion that approves a motion of approval for that, they will be required to do that to move forward, including condition number eight. So that would be a requirement. So if you are inclined to approve it with the conditions as presented, then Harry should feel comfortable that they can't move forward without meeting the conditions. I don't think it's required, but generally we have the applicant agree that they're going to abide by those conditions before we move to approve an application. And if they are saying they are not willing to abide by one of those conditions, then I don't see how we approve it if we're not willing to delete that condition. I agree. I'm sorry, we have someone speak. Want to ask them? Yes. So, you know, as we did some more, we did hire a structural engineer. Please state your name for the record. Hey, my name is George Natur. I'm here on behalf of the Church of Lexington. We did do the structural engineer report, and we got back the weight that it doesn't, you know, hold enough to satisfy the 60,000-pound limit. and um you know after that i mean that's our that's our basic point it's like hey we need to install a new bridge or widen this bridge so we're going to have to agree to move this forward you know to number eight so we do accept number eight to be something that we do in order to move forward and that's just um and that's coming straight from the church not the engineering department okay okay well with that being said i'd be willing to support the staff's approval unless tracy has anything to change their lines no i would just you know sounds like we should be part of that condition for a sign off on number eight and planning would recommend that it be a minimum of 20 feet wide which allows for the two-way traffic to occur. So are you asking me to change that to 20 wide into 20 feet? Yes. Okay. So do I need to add you then? Okay. did you understand that sir okay so with that being said i will hereby move for approval of plmboa 24-119 the church in lexington inc's request for a conditional use permit to establish a place of religious assembly in an au and single family r1c zone a property located at 1136-1220 on 1250 Higby Mill Road. Based upon the staff's reports and the testimony given today in the nine conditions set forth in the reports provided, I want to amend condition 8 to add in 20 feet between shall be widened to minimum of 20 feet and then I also want to add in to the approval of planning staff and the division of engineering so moved. Thank you and Mr. Clark has seconded the motion. No further discussion. I will open for vote. The motion has passed with the amended conditions. Thank you. Good luck with your project, gentlemen. Good luck with your project. All right, our next case is the administrative appeal. We'll jump to that before we do our STRs. It's PLN VOA 24-174, Mark Dahl-Hair. We actually, it has been recommended for disapproval, so we will allow staff to present first. Thank you. All right. Dalton Belcher presenting again. So there are two requests here. One is an administrative appeal of a decision of the Division of Planning denying the reestablishment of an automobile sales lot at 1171 East New Circle Road. This is an appeal of the Article 4.3, regulation of nonconforming uses. And then the second request is to request a variance to the minimum of spacing between establishments for the sale, rental, or display of vehicles from 2,500 feet to 110 feet as required by Article 820B2. I'll present the appeal first. I believe it's really more of if the appeal is approved, there wouldn't really be a need for the variance for the applicant, but if the appeal is not granted, then the variance would come into play. But I'll present both as well. So here's the subject property. 1171 East New Circle Road. Going through, I'm going to give you a little bit of a case history here for the administrative appeal. Since the previous user of the site ceased operation in 2022, a zoning ordinance text amendment, or ZODA, has been adopted that it added a 2,500-foot spacing requirement between similar uses in the same zoning category. That is, one vehicle sales establishment must be a minimum of 2,500 feet in distance from another vehicle sales establishment. Subject property is currently located approximately 110 feet from another establishment within the same use category. So that's why, in the alternative, they would be asking for a variance. The administrative appeal process began when the applicant reached out to the Division of Planning staff to confirm that an automobile sales lot could be operated at 1171 East New Circle Road. Since the adoption of the ZODA, numerous establishments along New Circle Road became non-conforming uses due to the lack of spacing to meet that 2,500 foot spacing requirement. Planning staff determined that this use would not be permissible as the use was abandoned since at least September of 2022. Staff informed the applicant that they would need to meet the requirements of the current zoning ordinance to receive approval for a zoning compliance permit. Excuse me. The applicant is requesting the administrative appeal of this decision of the division of planning denying the reestablishment of the automobile sales lot at 1171 East New Circle Road. The applicant opines that the property should be allowed to operate as a vehicle sales use as the ordinance requirements that created the minimum spacing requirements were implemented less than a year ago. However, at the time of the adoption of the new requirements, planning staff's record indicate that the use had already been discontinued. The intent behind the non-conforming provisions is to provide a pathway for uses to continue. However, in this case, the use had already been stopped for over a year, which kind of takes the non-conforming status away at that point. The applicant also states that the owner of the property had attempted to find a tenant for the site since 2022 and opines that the use should still be considered active for the purposes of qualifying as a non-conforming use. Staff disagrees with this position as there's been no actual use of the site during that two-year period. Staff's determination is that simply advertising a property, which could be advertised for any number of B3 uses, does not constitute the operation of the specific non-conforming use in question. So here's the property in question. This is a Google Street View from 2024. As you can see, there is a building on the site, but the lot is empty. Staff went back and found pictures on Street View from before in 2021, December of 2021. You can see up here on the top left, there are some cars on the lot at this point. From that point on, staff, the picture you see is similar to the picture below in September of 2022, where there is nothing, no cars, no vehicles, no automobiles on the site. So also in June and October of 2023, you can see same thing, the site's not being used at that point. There's a lot here. This is pulled straight from the ordinance. I highlighted or bolded C, which is kind of the more relevant portion to this discussion, which is when a non-conforming use is discontinued or abandoned, showing a gross lack of diligence in use for one year or more, except when government action prevents such use or when the use is halted for one year or more because of damage, destruction, or demolition of the structure in which the use is located, the non-conforming use may not be resumed. This is where staff says that the use has not been, it has been abandoned for over a year, so you cannot resume the use. Once the non-conforming, or in addition, once the non-conforming use status is lost, the land or structure shall not be used except for in conformity with the regulations of the zone and applicable infill and redevelopment area regulations. in which it is located. So staff recommends for the appeal part of this that the decision of the planning staff be upheld for the following reasons. One, that the applicant has not demonstrated that the use operated since September of 2022 and has not provided any evidence that the use has been discontinued for less than a year. And second, that advertising the site to potential tenants does not constitute a continuation of a non-conforming use. I can go ahead and give staff's recommendation for the variants or do you want me to go ahead and do that? Okay. So for the variants, This request, while the applicant does contend that they are non-conforming use that should be allowed to be re-established, they are also seeking this variance in the alternative that would reduce their spacing requirement from 2,500 feet to 110 feet if the administrative appeal is not granted. The applicant opines that the ordinance's spacing requirement is based on a proliferation of auto sales establishments on some arterial roads, but notice that there are two auto sales establishments, John Deere and Alexis dealership, in this portion of New Circle Road. The applicant further finds that the major display areas for the structure are interior to the property rather than along New Circle Road. Staff is not supportive of the requested variance. Staff notes that there are various other establishments on East New Circle Road, including Drive Time, Central Kentucky Motorsports, Short and Redmond Super, and a Ford, Subaru, and Cadillac dealerships. The staff also finds that the requested variance would result in an unreasonable circumvention of the requirements of the zoning ordinance, as the requested variance would be a significant 2,390 foot, approximately 95.6% reduction of the requirements. The granting of this variance would undermine the intention of the minimum spacing requirement recently adopted by the Urban County Council. The staff also finds that this would not deprive the applicant of the reasonable use of the land, as the property is zoned for a wide range of uses in the B3 zone. And so staff recommends disapproval as this would not create an unnecessary hardship on the applicant or deprive the applicant of the reasonable use of the land. And because the granting of these variances would allow in a reasonable circumvention of the requirements of the zoning ordinance because of the significant reduction of the requirements and undermine the intent of the minimum spacing requirement. So that was a lot, I'm aware, but any questions for me? Could you go to your previous slide, please? This one or? It says minimum spacing requirements recently adopted. When were those adopted? I believe it was adopted in, was it July of this year? June 27th? So almost July, June 27th. Of 24? Of 24, yes. Okay. And the ZODA you referred to, when did that one go into effect? That's it. That's the zoning ordinance tax amendment. That was June. That's the one. That's the one. Okay. Dalton, real quick, I sent an email in this morning, but I know you guys are super busy on Mondays, and unfortunately it took me parts of the weekend and then this morning to finally get through all those reports, but I had asked about, in Mr. Murphy's letter on page two, he references a marketing brochure, but that wasn't in our materials. Was that provided to you? So I don't believe it was provided to us. He may have it today that he can present, but it was not provided to staff. And we did double check this morning when we saw your email. I didn't get to respond to you, but we did double check our emails and the scans and the documents we had did not have that included in it. And then other than this letter, the applicant didn't provide you with any other evidence of here's the web page, here's anything of that nature? Okay. then um and i guess i'm going to turn this one to legal on the abandonment of a non-conforming use and i realize that i mean even if the applicant did not use the disuse for an auto dealership for one year period that in and of itself doesn't would not necessarily abandon that use if they are openly marketing it. That is correct. So it really, so marketing it for that use would be indicative of the intent to not abandon that particular nonconforming use. Because this is really a fact based question of the intent, so that would be key. But again, I've not seen evidence of advertising or what the advertising was for, because the use itself is what's key. There are a lot of uses, this is B3, correct? B3, yes. Okay, so there are a lot of uses in B3. I don't know what the uses were advertised for. I think normally when we've had this issue, people have come up and said, here is my evidence, I advertised it for X use. Therefore, I did not abandon it. The only thing that makes this non-conforming is the fact that there was a car lot there because of the spacing. Otherwise, car lots would be three use. So that would be a key question to me. Okay. Answer your question. That is right at what I'm just wanting to make sure we're all on the, seeing it from the same hem sheet. Thank you. Let me follow up with that, if I might. And I'm sure Mr. Murphy will probably cover this, but I need to ask this question. I mean, how we make a decision. use this discontinued or abandoned it says showing a gross lack of diligence in use for one year or more all right fine so my question is was this a gross lack of diligence and I really have a question about that because they were making every effort to reposition this property to do exactly what they had been doing so I have a bit of a question about how we decide what is a gross lack of diligence and mr clark i have the same question and i think don't want to put words in staff's mouth is i think right now they have unsubstantiated statements from the applicant that hopefully the applicant will substantiate with evidence in a few minutes and then that may answer the question yeah is that fair yeah okay thank you if there's no other questions for staff at this time we'll allow mr murphy to present for the applicant okay thank you madam chairman i'm dick murphy i'm pleased today to be representing the daw hair family mark daugh hair and the sf daw hair estate limited partnership and mark daugh hair is the president of the family limited partnership and it consists of 27 heirs of mr. SF Dawhair this property was in mr. Dawhair's estate originally and the family decided to keep it and formed a company consisting of the heirs to own it back in 19 I believe was 1989 I've got a couple of a handout here which I'm going to give a couple to the staff here you too Well, it's being passed out. Mark Dawe here, the president of the family company is here on the front row and the other side of the niche here. And Matt Stone, who's the broker at SVN Stone Commercial Real Estate is here with us today too. Justice, Justin Ryder is our agent, also from SVM Stone Commercial Real Estate. Kevin Phillips was our surveyor who assisted in our application. He's not here today. As I said, there are 27 members of the company. Mark's job as president of the company is to manage this property. I want to emphasize this is a legal non-conforming use. And as you all know, a non-conforming use is a legal use which may continue forever. It's a use which when it was built, it conformed to all the zoning requirements. And use has become non-conforming if after the use was built, the zoning ordinance is amended so that if the use were built again today, it wouldn't conform to all of today's zoning requirements. So the courts have ruled that non-conforming uses are legal uses. We call them legal non-conforming uses. The common word is grandfathered. You're grandfathered in. But the Kentucky courts have been very specific ruling that legal nonconforming uses are a protected, vested real estate right, and government cannot take them away. But the owner can abandon them. Government can't take them away, but the owner can abandon them. So the question is, has the Daugher family abandoned this property? It's not just being vacant. It's abandoning the property. And I'm going to show you in a couple minutes, there's been a number of case law precedents from the Kentucky appeals courts. And as you all know, precedents from Kentucky courts are law, just like statutes are law. But the Daugher family came to me. I've done a lot of nonconforming use cases. and I knew that these city ordinances, and there are many around Kentucky that say that if you don't use it for a year, you lose it. Those are not enforceable. The year limit is not enforceable if you show that the owner has not abandoned the property. The courts have also ruled that if you are actively marketing the property for the use which was in there, that in itself defeats the argument of abandonment. If you're marketing it, it is not an abandoned piece of property. So in my handout, I've got a, well, first of all, I want to show you a couple photographs. On page two of the property, I know Mr. Belcher showed the property. This is the property. It was used by American Car Care Center up to two years ago, up to September 30th, 2022. I want to show you also a couple of interior shots of that property. Page 2 shows the interior of it. I took this just at the time I filed the application a couple of months ago. And it is still set up. The lights were still on. I took this through the window. I didn't have a key to get in. But the lights were on. The utilities were on. The property is being kept up. Mr. Daugher has kept it up, paid the insurance. paid the taxes. And you can see on the inside, it's still set up as a car dealership. They've got the little carols you go to when you go in and talk to the sales representative and you say, I'll give you this. And the sales representative says it's higher. And then you can see on the right side of this and on the next page, next picture, if you will, they even still have the manager's office where the car salesman goes to the manager and says, Can you give me a better deal? And they even have the whiteboard still up there showing if everybody's met their monthly sales goals on the property. So as we sit here today, this building is in perfect condition. It's been totally kept up by Mr. Dawhair and the Dawhair family. And an auto dealer could move in there tomorrow. And we do have a contract for somebody to move in there, by the way. But before I get to that, if we go to page four of my handout, I've got a timeline of what's happened on this property. As I said, I go by Bullets. They got titled to it in 1989, 35 years ago. And since that time, the use of the property has been as automobile dealerships. And for 12 years, from 2000 to 2012, property was used by Andover Auto Sales. which was an auto dealer and service business. 2013, the property was listed to DriveTime, which you've probably seen commercials for DriveTime on TV. It's a nationwide pre-owned car dealership. At that time, they tore down the existing building on the property and rebuilt the building I just showed you the pictures of expressly as a car dealership. You saw the pictures of it they also have a one auto bay on the property on the right side so drive time mr murphy yes if i could um we've got 17 more cases okay i'll go fast if we could just say we will accept all this into evidence and if we could get to the part where you say here's where i have where i did it i think we we all understand the issue and I think we could probably move this along. I just want to say, I'll skip the intervening uses here. That sounds perfect. The American Car Center moved in in 2019. They had a 10 year lease up to 2029. They leased it for 10 years. It again was one of these nationwide pre-owned car dealers. They moved out in 2022, the national company said we're moving out of this region and informed Dawhirs. At that point, Dawhirs took the property back and it has, since October 1st, 2022, that's when it became vacant. Not abandoned, but vacant. At that point, Mr. Dawhir, the next month, A few days later in October 2022, he retained Stone Commercial Real Estate to market this property. What Stone did, you can see on page 15 and 16, they contacted 60 auto dealers here in Lexington. There's a list of page 15 and 16. 16, 15 and 16. 60 auto dealers in the Lexington area to get their interest in leasing it. They had a brochure which they sent out, and I have copies of that. But they put that out and they said freestanding former auto sales property. That's what went out in October of 2022 to 60 car dealers. Is this what was supposed to be in your letter? Because it mentions in your letter a marketing brochure, but the staff said they never received it. I have never, no, that was not in my letter. This was not in my letter. Okay. Okay, it probably should have been. But I had told them that they were actively marketing it. Now this says freestanding former auto sales property. I want to tell you why the word former is in there. The word former is in there because they wanted to make it clear they weren't selling the dealership of American Car Center. They were selling the land. And they wanted the words auto sales in there because in Google searches, it comes up as an auto facility. Now, Justin will get up in a minute and tell you what all he did. But he got responses back from many auto dealers. He was focused on auto dealers because this building is built for auto dealers. You don't have to tear it down, remodel it. They could move in tomorrow. A fast food restaurant would want all sorts of changes, want a drive-thru window and all that stuff. They focused on auto dealers. And they got responses back. They got offers, as I mentioned in my notes, from two auto dealers. They couldn't work out the details with them. But in March this year, three months before the ordinance was passed, they entered into a binding contract to sell this property to Prestige Auto Gallery. The closing date, and I've got a copy of that contract in the handout as well, The one they entered into to sell it to another auto dealer in March of 2024 for auto dealer purposes. Now, the closing date has had to be extended on that. It's been extended to January 15th because of partially the issues involved here with Can Prestige Auto Gallery still use it as an auto dealership. But SVN Stone Commercial Real Estate was totally successful. They got a contract signed March of this year to sell it as an auto dealership. And that's important because I'm going to go on, I'm going to go as quick as I can. I know there's other people here, but I have to tell the legal theory behind this. There's three reasons this appeal should be granted, and I'll start going over on page seven. One is the section that the staff is mentioning relates to the one year period. The staff has said in their staff report that the use has been abandoned. The use, that this use would not be permissible as the use was abandoned since at least September 2022. And I point out that the ordinance, section 4C3, says that the, where a non-conforming use is discontinued or abandoned, showing a gross lack of diligence and use for one year or more, the non-conforming use must not be resumed. Now, the courts have modified that, but even if the courts haven't modified it, you have to be a non-conforming use before that ordinance kicks into effect. In fact, we've only been a non-conforming use for less than six months. The ordinance itself says you got 12 months since you became a non-conforming use in order to use it. I think that reason alone says our appeal should be granted because Section 4.3.c has not even started to apply to us because we were a conforming use up to the date of March, excuse me, June 26th this year, the day before the ordinance was changed. We've only been nonconforming for less than six months. But there's another reason, too. And the second reason is that the courts have ruled, I mentioned the Smith v. Howard case in here, they said that a use becomes vested when prior to the enactment of the restrictions, the owner has in good faith substantially entered upon the performance of the series of acts necessary to the accomplishment of the end intended. And the end intended is to get an automobile dealership in there. Stone Realty was successful three months before the ordinance was changed. And that says when prior to the enactment of the restrictions, the owner has in good faith substantially entered upon the performance. They did that three months before the ordinance was changed. They got a contract to sell it to Prestige Auto Gallery, which is another auto dealer. But the third reason for it, even if none of that were true, and this property has been vacant since October 1, 2022, it has not been abandoned because under the case law, what the courts have said, they've considered this one-year rule a number of times, and every time the appeals courts have considered this one-year rule, they've said no. That's not a hard and fast rule. If you find that the owner has been marketing the property for the intended use, the year rule does not apply at all. There's cases I mentioned in here, I'll save time, I won't cite them to you, But there's cases that have said that the courts in Kentucky have said that a rock quarry, which wasn't used for seven or eight years, maintained its use because the owners were trying to sell it to somebody who used it as a rock quarry. There's another case in here where a doctor passed away and his widow inherited the office. It was a non-conforming use. You couldn't do doctor's office in the zone it was located. It took her two and a half years to find another doctor who would move in there. And the court said that was fine because she was trying to sell it or lease it during that entire time. There was no intention to abandon the use of the property. So, as I said, there's three reasons I think you can pick any one of those three to overturn this. And maybe I didn't give the staff enough information on this. I didn't get in at the beginning of the process on it. I came in after the staff had told them, no, you can't do it because you're within 2,500 feet of another auto dealer. The dealer, by the way, across the street is a John Deere dealer. It's not an auto dealer. It's a farm equipment dealer over there. But so here, and I'm going to try to speed up here for you. And we feel very strongly that the use has been maintained, has not been given up, and my clients have not abandoned the property. I'm not going to go into the variance at this point unless you, I hope you won't, vote down our appeal. I've got much more I can say about the variance. But if you grant the appeal, I'm going to withdraw the variance request. But I would like to have Justin Ryder, who's an agent for SVN, Stone Commercial Realty, who can just, it just won't be me saying this. It's the person who actually sent out the 60 solicitations to auto dealers on this who can verify that for you. And real quick, Mr. Murphy, before you go. So there is currently an active contract to sell to Prestige Auto that was entered into before June 27th of this year. Yes, sir. Okay, and that is to be sold to a dealership? Yes, sir. Another dealership. It's an auto dealership, and the closing date is set for on or before January 15th because of the delays we've had on this. Before we go on, does that change, or do we want to hear more evidence, staff? I think it's really up to the board at this point that Mr. Murphy and his client didn't provide the level of detail to us to clearly say that they could continue. So it's whether that evidence is enough for the board. Do you guys want to continue to hear, or is that contract in the flyer good enough? Good for me. All right. I think we have some public comment. We do have public comment? Okay, we can listen to public comment, and then I guess we would have to, if we want to move forward, I'm sure Ms. Smith has been working on stuff, but we would need to talk with her too. Okay, so we'll take just a moment. So I would say here's a public comment, and then we can always bring back and hear more testimony. Sounds good, sounds good. So give us just a moment. So didn't we have, Councilor Grant? Unless Mr. Murphy, you object to this. Okay, thank you. Hello committee, or commission, BOA. I am Councilwoman Denise Gray. I proudly represent the 6th District. I am here to speak on behalf of the residents of the 6th District who would like for you to stand with the planning's decision to disapproval. I left my notes up there because I got excited to speak. But from what I heard, even in the evidence that was presented, it says former. It says former car dealership in the evidence. If you would like to put that up there. I love when folk present evidence that confirm what you were stating. It says freestanding former auto sales property, which confirms that it's no longer a car dealership. It is a former car dealership. when this zoning petition that we, it was brought to me, of course, because in Lexington, the location that it seems everybody wants to place their car dealerships is in the 6th District, which happens to be on New Circle Road. Not saying that the residents of the 6th District do not want to encourage businesses. It's that we would like, and my residents have asked, why us? Why right here on the way home? I actually reside, of course, in the 6th District. I passed 22 car dealerships on the way home coming from Nicholasville Road to Meadow Lane. Why this location? Why is essentially is what the residents would like to know. Evidence was presented, the petitioners did have an opportunity to present all evidence at the time. However, you all are just now receiving this evidence today, which is interesting to me as a council person that is representing this area. I believe that the petitioner did have ample opportunity to present the evidence well in advance. when the Division of Planning first looked at the application. So I would like for you all to consider that right there. So that is all. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your service. Toodles. Thank you. Do we have anyone else? It's done. All right, good afternoon to the board. My name is Justin Ryder, and I'm a commercial real estate advisor with SVN Stone Commercial Real Estate. We were exclusively retained to represent the Dollar Hair Estate in the leasing of 1171 East New Circle in October. And while that brochure does make it clear that the business, American Car Center, was formerly operating there, we were laser focused from day one on finding the appropriate auto dealership to inhabit that property. As Mr. Murphy said, we've got a build the suit for an auto dealership. So if you walk through that building, every wall, even the little garage where cars can be pulled in and sprayed off, it was built basically every inch to inhabit this type of business. So I brought with you, which I can enter into evidence if need be, two years of highlights from a commercial realtor from my email, which is all time stamped. You know, things like our initial email that went out on October 21st of 22 literally said freestanding auto sales property for lease. So if you want to throw that out there. So that was a subject line to an email that went out to, for example, I personally have a list of 60 regional auto car dealers, automobile dealerships that we contacted, 37 of which had emails. Many of them got back to me right away, one we ended up getting an offer from. And so there was no question, again, to our laser focus that this property was an auto dealership and was going to continue to be. Okay. And thank you, sir. I don't mean to interrupt, but I think we're back to where Mr. Gross was earlier. We have the evidence now that seems to imply. I would suggest any written materials that the applicant wants to put in the record, just in case somebody appealed our decision today. they should go ahead if there's anything mr murphy may want to rebut the public comment just in case but i i feel comfortable that there's been enough presented at this point mr murphy did you want to for the record address some of the we're just putting we're just putting a copy of the record of those materials in And I don't think I really have any further rebuttal. The property has been used as an auto dealership. It was actively marketed as an automobile dealership. They entered into a contract to sell it as an auto dealership three months before the ordinance was changed. And it's only been nonconforming for six months. That one-year rule doesn't even apply. It's a legal question. and the courts have said there has to be a true abandonment, undoubted abandonment, before anybody, any governmental agency, can take away a legal non-conforming use. The only way you can lose it is abandon it, and the Dawhair family has certainly not abandoned this property. Thank you. And we can take any additional comment if the board has any, but I do tend to agree. It doesn't meet the discontinued, abandoned, or gross negligence. I don't see any of those components. And for the record, I sit on vacant property review commission for the city of Lexington, and we've never seen this particular building come before us. So I know it's not blighted. It's not, you know, code enforcement didn't have to keep it up, and it's definitely not abandoned. All right. If no one else wants to discuss or have more comments, I'm ready to make a motion. Thank you. I hereby move to approve the appeal of PLN BOA 24-174 Mark Dahl-Hares. Requests were related to the decision of the Division of Planning denying the reestablishment of an automobile sales lot at 1171 East New Circle Road. Based upon the following findings, the applicant has provided sufficient evidence to determine that the use of this property as a car dealership has not been abandoned at the time of the adoption of the regulation that made the use nonconforming pursuant to KRS 100.253, subsection 1. The applicant showed that its realtor has actively marketed the property as an automobile dealership by contacting multiple interested car dealerships while the lot was vacant. the applicant has entertained offers with different entities to use the property as a car lot prior to the adoption of the regulation that made this use non-conforming there is also an active sales contract between the applicant and another car dealership and that contract was entered into prior to the regulation going into effect so moved thank you and mr sturdivant has offered a second no further discussion we'll take a vote The motion has passed. Thank you. So at this time, we will transition to our STR docket, which I assume is what everyone is here to see today. We'll do that. So we will take a quick bathroom break, and then we're going to power through So you guys do your stretches. Everyone be ready. We'll power through right after the break. Thank you. Okay. Okay, if everybody's ready, we'll get to going again. So we will jump into our short-term rental, our STR docket. What we'd like to do first is have staff present once to review all of the guidelines as they currently stand for short-term rentals. And then we'll dive into each individual case. James Mills, planning staff. I'm presenting everyone's favorite presentation, the short-term rental applications presentation. So the current regulations were adopted by council on July 11, 2023, the ones that we will be analyzing today for our applications. SCRs legally operating before the state were allowed to be grandfathered in and may not have been required to have a conditional use permit unless they had an occupancy greater than 12. For some reason, it didn't save whenever I added the number of ZCPs. We have 895 ZCPs issued since December 2, 2024 for short-term rentals in the City of Lexington, which is a zoning compliance permit. So the sections of the zoning warrants that pertain to STRs is Article 1-11 that defines what a short-term rental is, which is the commercial use of a dwelling unit for a period of less than 30 days in duration. Article 1-11 also defines the difference between an unhosted and a hosted short-term rental. And Article 3-13 states that the Board shall establish a maximum occupancy for the short-term rental of two per bedroom plus an additional four, or a total of 12, whichever is less. These are the zoning pertaining to hosted and unhosted short-term rentals in the City of Lexington. So, the board, when analyzing conditional uses, determines a number of factors that include noise, traffic, parking, the compatibility with area compliance with other zoning ordinance and code of ordinance requirements via the applicant. usually findings for approval include that it will not adversely affect the subject or surrounding properties and there are necessary public facilities and services adequate for the proposed use. Article 3-13 gives a number of criteria that the board shall take into consideration, which includes the number of STRs, if any, in the proximity of a property, the number, the demonstrated compliance record of the applicant, the occupancy rate of the STRs in the general vicinity, and whether other STRs in the general vicinity have been cited as a nuisance. So STAS methodology uses several of these resources and uses several resources and frames of analysis to find these considerations. The concentration numbers are found usually using our new ArcGIS Pro tool. that measures the number of residential dwelling units that are used as STRs within 1,000 feet out of the total number of residential dwelling units in that area instead of out of the total number of residential parcels which we previously used. To determine the compliance record of the applicants, planning staff engages with the Division of Revenue, Zoning Enforcement staff within the Division of Building Inspection, and the Police Department. Additionally, planning staff uses the host compliance software in determining compliance records of applicants. Although the host compliance software has not been able to determine the occupancy rate of SDRs, we have been able to use data available via AirDNA, which they define as the number of rental days per month. Staff also uses nuisance information provided by the respective divisions mentioned above and any information passed along through the new short-term rental hotline. Additionally, staff has used the lens of the Task Force on Neighborhoods in Transition Report for areas sensitive to displacement and gentrification for determining where short-term rental approvals and disapprovals would occur. So everyone's favorite, the concentrations of STRs. these are the concentrations of every STR dwelling for the applicants before you today. And this goes on to another slide as well. So we have, I think, 18. And additionally, I wanted to provide the STR hotline, just information. If anyone has a complaint to file, they can call the number or go to Lexington's STR page and scroll down to filing complaints and visit the online complaint portal. But with that, any questions? Would you have a copy of that chart that you just had? I do not believe I printed it off this time. Okay. Thank you. Just be ready to reference it back. Okay. Nothing further. We'll call our first case. Our first case is PLNBOA 24155, Deborah S. Owens. Hello, my name is Deborah Owens. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval? I'm sorry. And then there have been four conditions listed. Have you had an opportunity to review those conditions? I have, and I agree with all of them. Okay. We do have one letter of opposition. Everybody's had an opportunity to review. Okay. Do we have any questions of this applicant in particular? I do want to point out that I live in the house part of the time. Okay. So it's not strictly short-term rental. I am there. I'm part of the neighborhood. but at least half of the time, sometimes more. Okay, thank you. All right. And we didn't have anyone in the audience today on this one. Okay. Okay, I'll entertain a motion if there's no further questions. I'd like a motion to approve PLN BOA 24-155. Debra S. Owens requests conditional use in a single-family residential zone on property located at 265 Meadow Lane Road. Based on recommendations of the staff and based on the four conditions listed, so move. Thank you. And Mr. Walker has seconded that item. Can I suggest just a slight revival of that? If you look at the normal reading there, Bob, it usually says request a conditional permit for an unhosted short-term rental use in a, you see what's left out there? If we could add that, that would be appropriate. What did we add? I'm sorry. Yes. Short-term rental use. Request a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental use in a single-family residential. Yes, that's right. was left out. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So we have a first and a second. If there's no additional questions, we'll vote. Motion is passed. Good luck. Thank you very much. I hope you all have a lovely Christmas. Same to you. Our next item is PLN BOA 24-163, that's Rita Jones. Good afternoon, I'm here to answer any questions you might have. Okay, please state your name for the record. Rita Jones. Thank you. And this one has been recommended for approval, it had two rental units. Not very dense. Did we have to look really quickly? Can I ask this quick question, Ms. Jones? Yes, please. You have two bedrooms and you say you're going to put eight people there. How do we sleep eight people? That came from the staff, actually. There's two bedrooms and then the fold-out sofa. then there's a bonus room that's not technically a bedroom. But the eight people came from staff, I believe. We only count bedrooms. Bedroom plus four. So this property is a duplex, is that correct? It is. So is the other half of the duplex a long-term rental? It is. No, actually the owners live there. It's occupied by the owners. I don't own the whole duplex. I only own half of it. And the only thing that makes it a duplex is the roof. It has separate walls. So are they okay with the STR? I've spoken with them, and they said they were, and they haven't presented anything. So, yes, sir. Thank you. I had concerns about the fact that it's on a busy street, and it looks like you have eight people. I don't know if you'll rent it for that many or not. It looks like you can only accommodate one car in your driveway. I believe there's room for two, isn't there? This is a, I bought this as a project for my granddaughters who are all maturing and there's room for two cars in the driveway and then that bonus room is also can be a garage. Okay. The bonus room was a garage that was converted to the bonus room? It was. Okay. And there's street parking there all along. It's as you're going into Heartland. Right, it's really busy right there near the covers. And then, but it is a duplex, so you share one wall with somebody. It's a double wall, there's no noise, there's no smells, there's nothing that goes through from that duplex to ours, that side of the duplex. Thank you. yes please oh yes i thought you had a question question motion i'd like to make a motion to approve but let me let me also suggest that even though we approve eight might be really smart not to i understand do that so anyway Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 24-163 Rita Jones' request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a medium-density residential zone or property located at 3772 Kennesaw Drive, based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions as listed. Thank you. And Mrs. Sturterman has second. We'll take a vote. Motion is passed. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Our next action is PLN BOA 24-165, Donna Vaughn. I'm Donna Vaughn, the property owner. And this one has been recommended for approval, and there are four conditions that have been listed. Have you had an opportunity to review those? I agree to all four, yes. Let's see. We had one letter of opposition. It's with concerns about vetting of the tenants. I don't see anything different. Do you guys? Any questions of this applicant? Any clarity on any issues with the property? Just verifying that you're only going to rent it to four individuals, even though you have three bedrooms? One of my bedrooms I keep locked for personal storage and supplies. Yes, only two bedrooms will be used. Perfect. No other questions? We'll entertain a motion. Madam Chair, recommended approval of PLN VOA 24-165 Donovan's request for conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single-family residential zone and properly located at 2044 Heather Way based on the staff's recommendation and the forward conditions as listed. thank you and mr walker has seconded we will take a vote thank you motion is passed thank you our next item is plnboa 24-175 rlv ventures i'm one of the property owners lucas owens okay thank you lucas let's see this one has been recommended for approval there are four conditions which also include only up to five individuals we had an opportunity okay let's see and we did not receive any letters on this one I had a question about parking. Yep. Is the only parking that you have on the grass? The parking that we have is on the street, the public parking right there in front of the home. Okay, so you're not providing parking for the applicants? We don't have off-street parking where we did. This is a new construction, and so, yeah, it would be public parking right there on Smith Street. Okay, and it's 875? square feet uh give or take i mean on our last measurement what's that 47. sorry what was that linda 847 square feet uh approximately yes and there's nine short-term Reynolds On your computer? In just a moment. Did it go down there? All righty. Did we have other questions of the applicant, the project? I have a question. I'm just trying to find a photograph here. Okay. Yours is the new construction. I noticed there is a driveway cut there, but the driveway has not been paved in front of that garage. Yeah, we don't have ownership of that lot. Okay. Yeah. So that's- Paul Case, our neighbor on the other side on Jefferson, he owns that. Okay, so that's off your property line. Correct. Okay, thank you. Do we have anything further this applicant? If not, I'll entertain a motion. or if we need additional information i'll move to approve plnboa 24-175 rlv ventures requests for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in an R4 zone on property located at 451 Smith Street, based upon the staff's report, the testimony hearing given, and the conditions set forth in the report. Thank you. And Mr. Clark has seconded that motion. We will take a vote. Motion approved. Thank you. Good luck with the project. Thank you. The next two cases we will hear together, it's PLNBOA 24-180 and PLNBOA 24-181, William McRae. My name is William McRae. Thank you. and these have been recommended for approval and there are four conditions listed on each of these properties including a maximum of four individuals you comfortable with those conditions yes i agree with that and we do not have any letters of opposition no one here to speak anything you want to tell us about or any questions of this particular applicant? I have a question. Are you still affiliated with Cribco LLC? That is not in existence anymore. So it's now, it's defunct? What property was that? Was it? I just looked up that the previous owner was Gribco LLC. Okay, yep. My wife and I were affiliated with that, but that no longer exists. We transferred the house into our name. Thank you. Any other questions of the applicant? and do we need to take these separately or okay okay all right so we have two one for 740 Addison Avenue and one for 615 Addison Avenue I'll just say that part of my concern is it looks like the one at 740 the PVA values is about 53,000 and the other one's 59,000 which I don't know It could be affordable for somebody. This would be a question for staff. 615 and 740 have got to be within that buffer of each other. If you have the same ownership, does that sort of forego density? We aren't using the buffer yet. These are still under the old regulations. What, I'm sorry? You're fine. We're not using the buffer yet. These are still under the old regulations. They don't start until December 12th. Yeah, I think as long as your application was filed prior to the effective date. I'm sorry, but in the future that would be a consideration of the same ownership. So I don't know if that's the same ownership. However, the buffer will be in consideration at the February hearing because the next deadline is the last deadline under the old regulations. Thank you. Okay. All righty. I will entertain a motion. All right. That wasn't anything to do with you, by the way. It was a clarification on our side. Sure. Madam Chair, I move to approve PLMBOA 24-180. William McRae's request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single family residential zone, properly located at 740 Addison Avenue, based on staff recommendations and subject to the four conditions. Thank you. Do we have a second? Mr. Clark has seconded. We will take a vote. It has been approved. You want to make the second? We'll do both of them, yeah. Yeah. Madam Chair, I move to approve PLNBOA 24-181 million McCray and request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single-family residential zone, properly located at 615 Addison Avenue, based on the staff recommendations and subject to the four conditions. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Clark. We'll vote on this one as well. Okay, motion is passed. Thank you. Thank you. The next item is PLNBOA 24-182. That's FTC LLC. Chair Carter, I just want to mention, I believe the LLC is FTF. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, we had a typo. Okay. So I apologize for that. FTF LLC. Yes, ma'am. Chris Washington. Thank you. And this one has been recommended for approval and there are four conditions that have been listed, including a maximum of three individuals. Have you seen that item? I have. And are we comfortable with those conditions? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Do you currently live on the property? I do not. Okay, because I noticed that you listed the applicant information as the STR application. They're the same. On the address? I couldn't hear you. I'm sorry. Both the application and the applicant address are the same. Okay, yeah, I do not live at that address. Do you live in Lexington? I do. I live at 1280 Pleasant Ridge Drive, Lexington, Kentucky. Thank you. And we have one letter of opposition. General opposition. Make sure everybody has a chance to take a look at it. There's only one short-term rental in that area. Okay. I guess any questions of this applicant? If not, I will entertain a motion. Is there any way I can speak on my behalf? Of course you can. Okay, cool. I just wanted to state for the record that I've owned this property for three years. I've managed it as a full time Airbnb for the past two years. I hold a host score of 4.9, which is extremely difficult to obtain. I stay involved in the community. I know it's an older neighborhood and it kind of gets looked at as maybe not the most pleasant neighborhood. But I definitely, I'm heavily involved in my unit. I go over there every week. I clean up within the neighborhood, pick up trash. Oftentimes there's carts that get brought down because there is a shopping center up the street. I push those up there just to try to make the neighborhood look as presentable as possible. So I definitely am hands on and I'm trying to make that community look as best as possible. Thank you, we appreciate that. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 24-182 FDF's LLC's request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a mixed low-density residential zone on property located at 1249 Emory Avenue based on the staff's report and the four conditions listed. I'm sorry Mr. Clark Did you say FTC or FTF? FTF. Oh, he did. Apologies, I heard FTC. Oh, no, he said FTC. Oh. I thought he said, I heard it. He said. Oh, no. All right. And Mr. Sertivan has seconded it. We'll take a vote. Wonderful. All right, thank you so much. Yes, good luck. Thank you. Appreciate it. The next item is PLNBOA 24-189 First Class Properties, LLC. If the applicant will, oh, here, okay. What's this one? Hello, Jonathan Mayberry, property owner. Good job, Mr. Mayberry. It looks like this has been recommended for approval. There are four conditions that have been listed, including the limitation of up to six individuals. Did you have an opportunity to review that? Yes, ma'am, I did. I'm fine with everything. Wonderful. Let's see here. We have any questions of this project? I just have a couple comments. I think that six people in 880 square feet is quite a bit. It's two bedrooms. Both have queen beds. They're large rooms. One was a living room that also has a den, so I converted it. It has a door on it. It has twin beds in there, so two and one in each room. And even the couch if someone wouldn't sleep on that, but six was the maximum I thought it would be. It's still tight. No. And that there's, this doesn't have to do with you, there's seven short term rental units within 1,000 feet. Any? Any other questions? No? Not all, entertain a motion. Do we have a motion for PLNBOA 24-189? Do we need more information? Madam Chair, I move to approve PLMBOA 24-189 First Class Property LLC requests a conditional use permit for unhosted short-term rental in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 547 Jefferson Street, based on staff's recommendations and subject to the four conditions. Thank you, and Mr. Gross has seconded. No further discussion. We'll take a vote. motion is passed thank you thank you see here now we will call again plnboa 24-198 dustin caldwell and robert caldwell did they ever show up Because if not, I'll entertain a motion to postpone it. Madam Chair, I hereby move to postpone PLN BOA 24-198 Dustin Caldwell and Robert Caldwell's request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single-family residential zone on property at 261 Mockingbird Lane to our January 13th meeting. Thank you. And Mr. Clark has seconded that item. If we could take a vote, please. Thank you. Okay, the motion to postpone has passed. Passed, yes. So PLNBOA 24-201 is Todd Hoffman. Madam Chair, may I also suggest that the address is Old Versailles Road, I believe. That's correct. My name is Gay Hoffman. Thank you. Thank you. And this has been recommended for approval, and there are four conditions that have been listed, including a maximum of two individuals. Are you comfortable with those? Yes. Thank you. Get this one confused. Do we have any questions of the applicant? Just a clarification. Are we ARs now? Okay. this is agriculture rule i thought that they still had a uh hold on all those it's uh yes the the the home being rented is actually in the r1 zone the r1d zone as opposed but this but the property itself is split zone so there's a portion that has ar but the home being rented is in the residential So is it inside the urban service boundary? It's on old Versailles Road. It runs parallel to Versailles Road past Fort Springs. If you're familiar with that area. That one out there. I just wasn't sure where the boundary was. It's not inside the urban service boundary, and I think it's at the edge of the Fort Springs rural settlement. We're in Fort Springs. They're like the last property. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve PLN BOA 24-201. Todd Hoffman requests a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single-family residential slash agricultural rural zone on property located at 5141 Old Versailles Road, based on recommendation of staff and subject to the four conditions listed. Thank you, and Mr. Gross has kindly seconded. I heard him poke you. Do we have any other questions? We'll vote. Motion is passed. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Now they get a little harder. Next one on our H.E.R.T. docket is PLN BOA 24-177 BMK properties. Come forward, please. Hello, I'm Micheline Bondari. I'm the property owner. Okay, thank you. This has been recommended for approval and there are four conditions that have been listed. Have you had the opportunity to review those? I have and I accept the conditions. Okay, okay. And this looks like a larger property. It's got up to 12 individuals? Yes. And did you want to tell us anything about the project? And we do have some public comment that would... Right, so is that kind of like now's my time? Yes, yes. Now's your time to shine. Right, so this is our first property we've ever owned in Lexington. I live in Richmond. My husband and I own a couple of rental properties in Lexington that we take good, we take very great pride in our properties. We drive around this property once or twice a week. We're always in Lexington for different things. We have adult children that are in school at UK. Our plans eventually, we bought it a little late to get them in it this semester, but to have housing for them on an ongoing basis since there's such a housing crisis. We fell in love with the property. It's in a very safe neighborhood. We just wanted a good place, but then also wanted the opportunity to do a short-term rental in times when maybe it is vacant. I have a question. There's a discrepancy on the application here. I see three bedrooms, two baths, and then two items down I see four bedrooms. So which? It's a four bedroom. There's two bedrooms and one bath downstairs and two bedrooms and one bath upstairs. Okay, so there is four bedrooms. There are four bedrooms, correct. Okay. Any additional questions? Okay. We'll let you sit for a moment. I think we had some public comment, and each public comment gets three minutes. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. We'll call you back up. Thank you. And also letters. Oh. Oh, and letters as well. Okay. So we had, I don't remember who it was, who's here to speak on this particular item? Yeah. Okay. My name is Jerry Hannigan. I'm here to speak in opposition to this approval. I was treasurer of Neighborhood Association. I was also instrumental one of the people who petitioned the city for the historic overlay. My wife and I got the petition together for permit parking, because the parking is horrible for the residents on that street. And this is, I've talked to all my neighbors that are homeowners on that street, and to a person they're opposed to this. It's just not appropriate for our neighborhood. And my story is this, the house next door to is sold, and the individual that bought it put eight male teenagers in there. And the first week, they confused the shrubs in my front yard for a porta potty. And that was just the beginning. So the next seven months, there was parking in the yard, there was gunfire at night, there was the naked baseball game. in the backyard. We're a family block where we've got eight families homeowners that live on that block. There's no way that this can be controlled. If you put 10 p and by the way I've been in that house probably I don't know 20 times. There's three bedrooms. I don't know where the fourth bedroom suddenly came from but when i was there there was three bedrooms um it's just not appropriate and i'm opposed thank you Good afternoon. My name is Nick Stamatiaris. I'm a resident on Barbary Lane. And we are objecting the approval of the short-term rental for the following reasons. We do believe that there will be increased traffic, and I will go to that in a minute. We do believe that there will be increased noise and disturbance from that property as well as other properties. And there will be deterioration of the historic overlay for our neighborhood. with. It's puzzling to me based on the application material that we have seen that if the owners see claim that they will be using this for long-term stay of their children who will be going to UK on August of 25, why do they go through that process for maybe five or six months to apply for a short-term rental and then convert it into a long-term residency? Is that truly going to happen or are they going to continue to maintain the short-term residency as that property? It seems that the staff has not reviewed the available parking that's on our street, and as our neighbor mentioned a few minutes ago, and they thought that there would be no problems. The street is often full of parked vehicles that current owners and renders are trying to park their vehicles and leaving very little space for others to park there. The staff only consider the parking issues as the only traffic problem without considering the congestion that that might bring, given the fact that they maybe are no traffic engineers, as that's my profession. Another issue that has not been mentioned is there will be parking for minimum, as the owners claim, of six vehicles. Currently, the parking available on the property can accommodate four vehicles. That's questionable because there's a garage that hasn't been used for several years. And then most of the area in front of that house has always been having vehicles from the other renders that they leave across the property or next to the other property. So how the applicants will be sure that these six vehicles, they will be able to park in the existing space. Another issue is that this is a one-lane driveway. If there will be more vehicles parked in there, how the very last vehicle on the driveway will be able to come out. And finally, how can be guaranteed that the residents are going to be staying only 30 days every time and they are not going to be continuously recycling through that process? We sent a letter outlining a lot of the same concerns, but we wanted to be here today for the opposition of that property. Thank you very much. Thank you. My name is Ann Marie Stamatiotis and I don't want to just repeat the things that they've said. Although I do have a concern that in order to accommodate more vehicles on the property, that they might turn to an activity that a lot of landlords in the general area where our street is located have done. which is to pave the backyard in order to accommodate vehicles. That is something that we are vehemently against because paving the backyard is ugly and it causes problems with water flow. And it is not something that we want to see in our neighborhood. Because that is what they do in the student ghetto area such as Elizabeth Street. Which if you have driven down Elizabeth Street, you know that's where student renters live. And no homeowner lives there anymore. We do not want our street to deteriorate. And streets that have too many transient people, In other words, too many renters or people that have only short term interest in a property have no care or concern about the property. For example, with STRs, who pays attention to the trash cans? You put the trash can out on Monday trash pick up. Who's going to take the trash can back? It's going to sit there for many days. I hate seeing trash cans sit down on the curb for many days. And I have to put out a newsletter every year to teach the new tenants in the rental properties on our street about these issues. So that I don't have to look at five and six trash cans spread along the curb on our street. Because this is an issue that we have to deal with. We're just trying to keep our neighborhood nice so that hopefully we can get more homeowners because that's what keeps a neighborhood strong and solid. Thank you very much and I hope the letters that you've received will convince you that we are serious about this issue. Thank you very much. Do we have anybody? Anyone else wanting to speak? The applicant would like to come back? Thank you. You have the opportunity to address any issues or concerns? Yeah, definitely. We definitely have no plans. We love the backyard of this place. We, that's been one of our things that we've loved about this. Again, our children eventually are going to live there and it's a real, Good question that they've asked, all the issues are great questions and we want to maintain a good sense of community there, we'll be very strict with our tenants. We already send our children by once or twice to make sure garbage cans are back in on the right day. And there are four bedrooms. I've got pictures on a previous listing if I needed to look at that. It might have been renovated before we just bought it in July. I don't know, I think we pride ourselves on other properties that we have on keeping them in great shape. We are very strict about no parking in the grass because we want to keep the area beautiful as well. We will have a camera on the front that we'll be able to monitor that and we'll let them know. And yeah, I just think that I guess to address the issue of why we're doing this. Our son may be away doing co-op or something and if it's empty and a couple of his friends they're in majors where they do co-ops often in the summer or internships. And so if there was that opportunity or just to help us keep our income going. We're supporting two college students, but we definitely bought this knowing we're responsible for the resources. Thank you. Do we have any questions? There was some question about parking, and can you assure us that there is room for four cars? I mean, it would be tight. There are, you can park, my daughter had somebody over this summer, and that's how I know that they did this. Where she and some friends that she had gone to Governor's School for entrepreneurship, They'd come to have kind of a reunion and my daughter parked in the garage, another person parked right behind her, and then two other vehicles. Now, if you have large vehicles, that would be difficult. And it is admittedly tight for four. But we have had, and because we're a family of four and both of our children have vehicles, we've all been there and we've done that as well or put one on the street. But, yeah. Any other questions? Why after five months did you turn into an STR? Is that what you bought it for? No, we actually bought it for our kids. My husband looks at real estate all the time and we've been looking at anything around UK. Then when we went there we knew it was in great shape. Our kids eventually want to go to med school, both of them, and we would like for them to have a safe place. And I have a daughter and a son. And I loved the safety of that. And so we did not buy it with the intent. And then when I went to rent it, and we bought it on July, we closed on July 31st. And I've learned a lot about the rental market in Lexington. And that we put it on, we painted it. We cleaned all the bushes and stuff out. We tried to take good care of our property. And then we put it on the market mid-August. Well, it was too late. Well, what we got were a bunch of calls. And I was getting excited, but it was really for students for the next year. And we got no calls. And what we think currently is that the price is too high for a family. If you're a family and want to rent for $2,900, that's probably a little tight for long-term rentals. So we didn't get any hits. So then we were like, well, we're going to have to furnish it for our kids. So we can furnish it for our kids and then maybe do short-term rental. So we've never done a short-term rental before, but we've been in the rental business for 20 years. Due to the traffic and parking and since it's in a historic overlay, would you be willing to not have 12 people but maybe reduce that? Yes, absolutely. We can reduce it to eight, ten, whatever would work. Yeah, we could definitely. I don't know how they feel about it. No, that's, what was that, seven? I didn't talk fast. Yeah, I generally like two per bedroom. So if she's willing to do eight, I'm comfortable with eight. Okay. Any other questions? Not I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 24-177 BMK Properties, LLC, requests for conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a historic district overlay H1 zone in a single-family residential zone on a property located at 110 Barberry Lane based on the staff's recommendation and the four conditions in which number two would be changed from 12 individuals to eight individuals. Okay. It's not me. So we have a first. Do we have a second? Oh, there's Mr. Walker. We will take a vote. I missed the one. There we go. The motion has passed. Thank you. Our next item is PLN BOA 24-179, Yuha Jung. Hi, I'm Yuha Jung, I'm the property owner. Okay, thank you. And this has been recommended for approval and there are four conditions that have been listed including a maximum of six individuals. Are you comfortable with those conditions? Yes. We'll look at this one. It's actually the first term, first short term rental. That space. We have some letters of opposition. And I think we have people to speak, so you want to tell us a little bit about the property? Yes. I have owned this property for over 10 years and I lived there for eight years and I've been renting out for two and with the change in the ordinance, so I'm needing the permit now. I have taken good care of the house. I put a lot of work with my hands. I actually put the whole floor, hardwood floor by myself. It took two weeks. And I have a property manager full time. So, I mean, they're not working my property for time, but they are there for emergency, cleaning, any guest needs. And they do all the repairs and I go to the house a couple times a month to the walk through, making sure nothing is broken, everything looks fine. I have a person who does yard and I have cameras front and back. So if someone does anything weird, I know what's happening, not inside obviously. So I really take care of it. I know what's happening. I'm in tune with it and I live in Lexington, Kentucky. Did you say you've been leasing this out as a long term rental or as a short term rental? It was short term, it was before the ordinance was there. So I had all of the paperwork and everything in place. Okay. And did we have someone here to speak regarding this one? We did. Okay, so we'll give them a moment. Thank you. Please come. Our neighborhood HOA president who would normally be here and. I can't. Janelle Simon, who would normally be here, just had open heart surgery, he's in the hospital and he has asked us to come. So my friend and I both live here. I went to kind of an emergency board meeting. I'm not a member of the board, but I was asked by our president to come. We all had grave concerns and the board voted unanimously to not allow this to become a short term rental. She has been gone from the house for two years and they have had ongoing succession. They haven't been horrible, but there's been enough incidents of late night partying, of cornhole on the sidewalk in the driveway out in the street. Parking has been opposite. We have fairly narrow streets in our neighborhood, so parking across from each other. We're in an elderly neighborhood, and for fire trucks and ambulances to get through, that is a concern. I have seen them have to slow down and thread a needle to get through. Not necessarily in this house, but when there are cars parked across from each other. We were, the notice did not get sent out because he's in the hospital. I said that's why you haven't received more letters probably. But I have talked to a number of people in the last 24, 48 hours, and there's quite a bit of dissent. None of us want it, most people, except for few exceptions of families with small children are all senior citizens. And we bought our houses, we intend to retire there, and we don't want party central. It's for safety wise, for noise wise, for real estate value wise. We want to be able to retain what we thought we had purchased. There have been complaints. I think my friend is going to speak about the fact that we're not sure it is actually a three bedroom house. But she's going to address that. There have been different situations where many neighbors have commented on it. And they've talked to our president. they haven't addressed it to everybody. But I walk a lot in our neighborhood and the general consensus is no thank you. Because our concern is if this is allowed, then as we die off, weird as it sounds, that investor people will buy more and then the senior citizens that are left are going to be dealing with a situation that we did not buy into that neighborhood for. So that is what I have to say. Thank you. Did you have any questions for me? Oh, no. No, it's just an opportunity to speak. Hello, I'm Janine Sperlin. I live next door to the Airbnb. When I bought the home originally, and it is a two-bedroom, advertised by Barlow Home as a two-bedroom. We have identical floor plans and I've been in the home with the original owner and unless something's been changed, there's no closet in the den or there's like a double entryway. It's not, I mean people could sleep in there but it's not actually a bedroom. So far the homeowner has not allowed them to use their garage. I've seen the garage door open when they're doing work there. We have oversized garages on that floor plan. I've got two full-size cars in my garage and plenty of storage. I have my garbage cans in there and bookcases and a wardrobe. I have plenty of room for a lot of storage. So the renters could use the garage, but she doesn't allow that. Sometimes there's as many as six cars there, but not that often. But it's not unfrequent that there will be four cars, either in the driveway or two in front. The yard is nothing but weeds. they do get it cut regularly but it's absolutely nothing but weeds and between my house and her house they don't touch that um i don't think it's good for our neighborhood to have for there not to be a neighbor there and i don't think um well until recent probably six months ago the garbage cans were not taken care of properly. I would take them up, and then I finally started putting, I got sick of seeing them on the driveway, and I took them around to the side of the house, which is really difficult there because the houses are kind of close. I guess two other ladies were going to come with me today that objected to this and they were sick so they could not come. I don't know if they sent an email or not but thank you for your time. Thank you. Anyone else? Michelle? Thank you for speaking about this. And so this is my first time hearing about any complaints because I haven't heard anything so far. So this is a surprise to me. And in terms of trash cans, I can talk to my property manager to make sure they are on it. So sometimes it could be left out once or twice. That could happen, but I will make sure that doesn't happen. And the house that I'm in, it is, I have an additional room that's completely enclosed. And I have a closet, and I have a futon there. So it's a different structure. It has been updated. So the floor plan is the same, but it is different. In terms of parking, the driveway is pretty wide. So two cars can park and I don't allow more than six people. So usually I only have seen two cars parked from my camera view, but I understand that there has been some cars parked on the street as well. So I can make my garage accessible to guests in the future, that is no problem. Thank you. Do we have other questions of the applicant? So do you have two bedrooms and a futon room or do you have three bedrooms? From my view, three bedrooms, because the third room qualifies legally as a bedroom. I have a closet, I have two egress exits. So it is a bedroom, as far as I'm concerned, legally bedroom. Okay. Anything else? Okay. If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I move to approve PLM VO824-179, UO-Young request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental, and single-family residential zone on property located 1801 Heedley Green, based on staff recommendations and subject to the three conditions. Thank you. And Mr. Gross has seconded that item. He will take a vote. Okay. The motion is passed. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next item is PLNBOA 24-183 Barnett Bungalows. Is the applicant present? Thank you. Hello, my name's Eric Barnett. I'm the owner of the house at 4236 Desdemona Way. Thank you. Now this one has been recommended for approval. there are four conditions that have been listed, including a maximum of eight individuals at any time. Were you comfortable with those conditions? Yes, ma'am. And we do have people here with some concerns, so if you'd like to tell us a little bit about the property or the project. Sure. Four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathhouse. I purchased it in 2005. So obviously I've owned the house for a very long time. I lived there for about five years. myself and then moved out in the country Delaney Ferry Road and but I continued owning that house at one point I owned like six rentals in Lexington but now I'm down to like four but this particular house my wife and I plan to use it also as our summer home. We live in southwest Florida right now, but moved down there about five years ago, which I also owned and managed two short-term rentals in southwest Florida for seven years. So even though in my application it says I don't have any history with short-term rentals, I've managed and maintained them for seven years, the two houses I had in Florida. So since we plan to use this house as also as our summer home, we obviously want it to be maintained well. In fact, I've been up here for about a month now making upgrades and improvements to the house. I've put down a lot of new flooring, new lighting, new plumbing fixtures. so painted the whole house I've done a lot of improvements to the house you know we it's a great neighborhood we love the neighborhood has a park at the ends we take our dog walking all the time so you know we want the neighbor we want the house to stay in great shape and we love the neighborhood so we want the neighborhood to stay good so you know we will be you know actively managing the property and making sure that is maintained we do have a family member that's your locally that's going to be our cleaner and also inspecting the property after each person leaves so we're gonna have a family member that you know that we can depend on to report any issues that might arise. I've also offered to give my personal cell phone number to any of the local residents so if there is any issues they can contact me directly. Some of the residents already had my number because where I lived there previously knew them in the past so great neighborhood I'd like to keep it that way. So, you know, looking forward to getting back to warm weather. Wonderful. Do we have any questions of the applicant? Then I'll give you a moment to sit and get some public comment. Sure. I have a question for you. I have a question too. Go ahead. Oh, too fast, sir. You mentioned that you had lived in the house till 2010? I purchased the house in 2005 and I lived in it for about five years. Okay, after between 2010 and now what's been the primary use of the house? It's been an annual rental. Okay, so long term? Yes, correct. Thank you. Well yes, I'm a little concerned about the fact that you live in Florida. Just slightly jealous. But I'm concerned that there's not a, you say you have a relative lives close for in in terms of an emergency, but who takes care of the house and yard and all that on a daily basis? Well, I have a gentleman who is going to maintain the yard for me. I've already paid him to maintain it up through the end of the year, and we have an agreement that he will continue maintaining it after that. I plan to be up here pretty often myself because I'm actually retiring on January 11th. So we will be probably up here throughout the year numerous times because we have two daughters that live here in Lexington as well and a few grandkids. So we're going to be here pretty often also. But, you know, any issues that would arise, you know, my cleaning lady who is also a family member, she would keep me informed of that. and if I need to I can come up here and maintain you know do any kind of maintenance that needs to be done I do have some local handyman that I have had to do work for me also on my other rental properties that I still own here in Lexington that are long-term rentals thank you sir thank you okay so we had Did a couple people want to speak on this one, or just one person? We've got like four, I think. Oh, we've got four. Okay, all right. So he'll set the timer for you, three minutes, and have at it. Hi, good evening, my name is Amy Gibson and I'm a homeowner at 4241 Desdemona Way. A few months ago, Mr. Barnett shared with us his plans to sell the property at 4236 Desdemona Way, instead of continuing to use it as a long-term rental as he has the last ten years. We were immediately excited at the potential of having another family with kids move in permanently across the street. We even heard from two current families on our street that are long term renters that are interested in purchasing and would love to be able to stay on Desdemona Way. Currently our street is a wonderful place to raise a family as it is a dead end street in the very back of a well kept neighborhood with over 20 kids and a nearby park. Our kids have a huge group of friends to play with and on many nice days we have around 15 kids outside playing together. Games, practicing sports, riding bikes, you name it. When we heard Mr. Barnett's plans changed and that he is instead requesting to rent this house as a short term rental, we were disappointed to say the least. We didn't purchase our home because it was close to local tourist attractions or in a convenient high traffic area where short term rentals would be expected. We bought our home on Desdemona Way because we wanted a safe place to raise our kids with minimal traffic and also great neighbors who care about our kids well being. In fact, seven years ago, we moved just a mile and a half away to Desdemona Way because we had concerns about the safety of our previous residents. In addition to living on a busy street previously, we had a sex offender living on the street that backed up to ours just a few houses down from where we lived. Moving to Desdemona Way meant moving within 1,000 feet of a public park with playground equipment, which legally means we cannot have a sex offender living next door or within several houses of us. Now having a short term rental with a revolving door of renters and guests without background checks, it's hugely concerning to my family. There will be no way for us to know if a sex offender is staying in the house just across the street, whether it be for a night or a week or a month. This brings up several questions. Will I have to worry who may be watching or interacting inappropriately with my kids anytime they play outside? Will I have to worry that a distracted tourist driving too fast may hit my kid while they are riding their bike or crossing the street? Will my kids with 8 PM bedtimes be woken up by loud noise from inebriated tourists coming and going at late hours? Will we lose current families on our street as well as future families due to these concerns? While I hope that all the answers to these questions are no, it only takes one bad renter to cause a tragedy. And a short term rental for eight could bring hundreds of unknown people to our street each year. I also have concerns about how issues will be handled by Mr. Barnett while he is living several states away. While I appreciate that the city now has a hotline to report issues with short term rentals, that won't help us in the moment when we are dealing with them. We also have concerns with as many as eight vehicles trying to find parking when we already have limited street parking due to narrow lot sizes and short driveways. Street parking reduces the visibility of kids when they're riding bikes, crossing streets, and it's a real safety concern. In addition, we have concerns about negative impacts. I hope that you'll consider denying this request. Thank you. Hello, I'm Clay Gibson. I'm a owner at 4241 Desdemona Way. So, thank you all for your time. I'm opposed to the short term rental based on these concerns. There are more than 20 children on our street and I'm concerned about their well being. Because we have no idea who will be renting each week. You know half of the residents on our street are families with multiple children of different ages. I have two small girls and the close proximity of the short term rental gives me anxiety about their well being. While I hope that some of the renters might be families renting while they are traveling, we're really worried about other groups, especially for a rental with eight guests. I feel like that house of that size would appeal to a bigger group. The families on our street are really concerned about a particular group of short-term renters that may cause a negative impact to our street and also the streets leading into our cul-de-sac. potential groups like out of town fraternities sororities bachelor bachelorette parties groups in town for keeneland or distillery tours i'm concerned that some of these renters will cause disruptions and have a negative influence for the kids on our street i'm also concerned that there will not be sufficient background checks for the renters guests not just the renter again Again, our street has more than 10 to 15 families with multiple children. Another concern I have is what is the age requirement to rent? For example, according to Airbnb's website, they list a minimum age of 18 years old. Our understanding is that Mr. Barnett will not be living in Lexington or Kentucky. How can we expect disturbances to be handled effectively? Speaking for the families on our street, I feel like these are red flags. Most of the families on our street chose to live on Desdemona because it's tucked away at the end of our neighborhood on a cul-de-sac with a beautiful park. We chose the street for the minimal traffic and noise. A few other small concerns. The street width is only wide enough for one car to pass through when cars are parked on both sides of the street and we already use the street parking for family visitors and city services. This short-term rental has taken a house off of the market for a family that would buy this house and invest their money in the city and the community and I think they would do that for a longer duration than a short-term renter would. We're worried about property values being lowered and I just overall feel like this is an unnecessary change to our street with a potential negative impact. I would like to add that we had two neighbors here in attendance but they had to leave a few moments ago. They are also in opposition so thank you all for your time. Thank you. Forgive me, please. You guys come on. I do normally mention to please not be repetitive. So if you have something new to add, we'd appreciate it. Definitely want you to have your time, but not to repeat the same issues. Thank you so much for your service and for the time you give to us today. My name is Nawari Yakubaga. I live at 4245 Desdemona Way. I'm a realtor and I'm a property manager too. I manage rentals since almost 10 years now. I manage only long-term rentals. And I know what does it mean to approve a tenant. Before going through that, I make sure... that I'm allowing a person or a couple or a family to live in a certain neighborhood. I put myself in the place of any of those homeowners who I'm allowing to live there. I can simply approve someone who's not good or bad, but no, I put myself in their place. So please put yourself in our place. Our street is full of kids. Full, not 20. Thank you Mr. Gibson and Mrs. Gibson. It's not 20. My kids are 4 and cross the street 4, that's 8. And Mrs. Gibson 2, that's 12. Plus Ms. Julian is 4. You're talking 4 houses only, they have 20 kids. And just 15 minutes ago, if we could go to my ring, you could see them all playing together outside. Guess what? Two of my kids only outside because the little one, Zaid, I love him too much as I love all my kids. He's the one who runs the street back and forth. If one incident happened, I'm not talking about having sex offender or whatever in the street, but if one driver in the short rental just raised his phone like this and put it down, he may hit God forbid in one of the kids. One of my kids or one of my neighbor kids, who I love like I do for my kids. Please put yourself in our place with full respect to Mr. Barnett. Full-time, long-term rental allow us to find out a good tenant, but short-term, no. We don't know who's coming to rent from our street. Second point, Desdemona Way is in the middle between Clemens Heights and Dogwood, Dogwood Trace. That's why we are not counted, not on this neighborhood, not on this, but just for voting reasons, they put us on Clemens Heights. When I go to vote, I go to Clemens Heights. But if you consider, we're literally three minutes walking distance from the park. So you need to consider also that person. If one bad person came and rented that place for a short term, you need to also notify Dogwood people and Copperfield people because he will go through those two places. It took me one, I'm a realtor, and it took me one year and a half to find a nice place such as Desdemona Way to live at because it has amazing neighbors, amazing. I ask you really, final thing before I leave. Anyone can drive by that street any day you wish between 3 and 6 p.m. Drive slowly, please, and go and see how many kids crossing the street at that time. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate it. I will try not to repeat anything. but um julianne jeffries and so i live at 4248 desdemona way and i'm the reason why some of these people live there because i was like gotta come to this street it's not the fanciest we don't have the most expensive houses but everybody knows everybody and the first day we lived there our whole backyard was full of children i didn't even know and i had parents knocking on my door like is my kid here like you know I don't know but that goes to say that I consider myself like the neighborhood mom and a couple of the issues is with having a short-term rental on our street that concerned me one is the parking and visibility like you said we don't just have 20 kids on my street we have at least 50 we have 20 kids within four houses and when multiple cars are parked on our street there is zero visibility for traffic you can't even go around the bend without completely coming to a stop and the house that we're discussing it is actually at that bend where you have you can't see around it at all so this is obviously a big concern for the safety of the children or anyone out at the time. Another issue is the location to the park. Our street is the feeder street to the whole park from our side of the road. So anybody who is traveling to Dogwood Park has to walk down Desdemona Way. So a sex offender is not allowed to live within 1000 feet of a park. And yet, if we allow a short-term rental on our street, then we are asking every child within all of these streets around us to walk all the way down this street where they would have had a small safety net. And now there will be none because we will have no idea who is in that house. And this street is, like I said, it is not just our children on our street and the families there, but it is all the surrounding neighborhoods. because a lot of the children, they pass without parents, without anybody on a daily basis to go to that park and back, and they have to pass this house. I guess my other issue is just the kind of American neighborhood. Like I said, we don't have the fanciest houses, but I consider this like a dream American street. And that doesn't exist from anybody else I know in Lexington. They do not have that. They don't know every neighbor. They don't borrow flour. They don't do that, and we do. And we feel that this will erode our American neighborhood. And based on all the books that are coming out about what short-term rentals and how they can damage cities, I feel like that at some point we have to say no somewhere. And I hope that on our street you choose to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other comments? If the applicant would like to respond or address any of the concerns, you have opportunity, please. So I'd just like to say I do agree with a lot of what my neighbors have said here. It is a great neighborhood, and I can appreciate, you know, their concerns. but you know those are the same reasons why I want to make it my summer home you know because it is a great neighborhood I put the park at the end of the street I take my dog walking up there like twice a day you know and it is a it's a nice neighborhood and and I'd like for my grandkids to be able to play there you know so you know I can appreciate their concerns but you know I do I do plan to be actively involved in managing it. I mean, basically, I'm going to manage all of the bookings myself, and so I will be in contact with anybody that would be staying there. So, and I heard someone mention earlier about their rating on Airbnb. I managed two vacation rental homes in Florida. I had a 4.97 over seven years, so it's almost a perfect course. I mean, I've, I have some experience with this and I feel like I've done pretty well. So, um, you know, that's just what I'd like to say. Okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions of the applicant? Okay. No further discussion. I will entertain a motion. I will just say I'm concerned about these kids and the safety of the kids and the fact that you are not in lexington do you have anybody in lexington that you can call if there is a problem i'm worried about the traffic in these children Thank you. Okay, nothing further. I will entertain a motion. Further discussion. Either way. And I hear your all's complaints. I really do. And unfortunately, and Mr. Clark has mentioned this many, many times, for whatever reason, this was adopted as a legal use. And I think that most of the people here agree that it's not something that we all, particularly one as neighbors, but it is something that is a legal ordinance item. So, you know, we're bound to look directly at that and not necessarily whether we want it or not. So with that, yeah, I feel I'll have to go ahead and make a motion to approve. PLN BOA 24-183 Barnett Bungalows request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental and short single-family residential zone. I'm probably located at 4236 as Moundaway based on staff's recommendations and subject to the four conditions. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Mr. Gross has offered a second. Any further discussion? If not, we will take a vote. Okay. The motion actually failed, so it was not approved. We need findings and alternatives. All right. Okay. We've got to take a five-minute. So at this time we have to have findings to go against it, so there has to be some type of legal documentation for that. So we'll have to take just a moment here. We have to have legal findings to disapprove, so we'll have to take a moment for the rest. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Okay, so we are on PLN BOA 24-183 Barnett Bungalow. The motion failed as it was, so we do have another motion on the table, I believe. So with respect to PLN BOA 24-183 Barnett Bungalows LLC's request for conditional use permit to operate an str at 4236 decimona i moved for disapproval based on the following findings board has reviewed and considered the enumerated factors stated in the ordinance the number of strs in the vicinity zero the demonstrated compliance record of the applicant occupancy rate of the strs in general vicinity is zero whether other strs have been cited as a nuisance these factors do not aid in the board in determining the appropriateness of the use in this instance however the evidence shows that this is a narrow dead-end street and the houses have short driveways these factors greatly limit the available of on and off street parking for the requested number of occupants eight the lack of adequate parking shows this use could have adverse influence on the surrounding neighborhood by greatly increasing traffic and decreasing available parking on a street with a large number of children and residents number three the evidence also showed that the owner applicant does not have the adequate local oversight for the short-term rental which could lead to the short-term rental creating a nuisance for the surrounding neighborhood with inadequate resources for the neighbors we do have a motion on the floor do we have a second mr clark has offered a second i did just want to make a comment we've had this discussion before um we went through all the the factors that we're using and none of them were applicable here i mean all of the things that we use to make the decision were not applied so we did actually apply a different set of facts than the checklist and i'm just uncomfortable with that and we know we've seen this what can happen in these cases so it's just a comment that that i get it and we make statements about adequate parking and those types of things but they have it and they have parking and they have more parking than we've seen in other properties so i just that's for the record my vote will still be the same because i do think it meets all the criteria that we've set forth or that the ordinance has set forth for short term the public discussion is over now thank you so the yes vote is for disapproval and a no vote is the opposite the disapproval stands yes it is disapproved so the your short-term rental is not allowed or did not pass okay so the next item is plnboa 24-185 That's Laura Coombs, and this one has been recommended for disapproval, so staff will speak first on behalf. I'm sorry. Yeah, we'll allow staff to speak first. James Mills, planning staff. Today, this is a request for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill re-development area and a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for the property located at 515 North Limestone. Taking a look at the aerial of the subject property, you can see some of the North Limestone located here on the southeast portion of the property. And then behind it, the property adjoins Harry Street. Take a look at the Google Street view. The property is the one over here on your right. This was a site plan submitted by the applicant. The applicant highlighted in their application that parking will be done along through Harry Street with two parking spaces that will be created. taking a look at the the concentration of the subject property we have a number of 3.92 percent staff's main concern whenever we were making our recommendation for disapproval was the fact that there seems to be a growing concentration of strs along north limestone as you can see down here there are several that have clustered in this location and as you go further down there's some over here and further up and this right here only shows one str as the house but actually every unit within that structure is strs as well so in total there was a total number of 24 strs within in a thousand feet and that got our number even though there's a lot of dwelling units to 3.92 percent. Additionally we looked at the average occupancy rate and looking at the screen it seems like the darker colors probably doesn't stand out as great but we looked at several of the north limestone ones that were able to be looked at that weren't the multi-unit complex so mainly that main cluster on the southwest portion so the cluster right here and that got our average occupancy rate above lexington's average occupancy rate of 50% to 55% Additionally, this subject property is within close proximity to a census block group. Right here is where we have our subject property, 515 North Limestone, and 600 feet down we have a top 10 census block group. Staff is concerned usually whenever STRs start forming within or in close proximity to these census block groups because it can affect gentrification, displacement, and the cost of living. Additionally, parking being accessed via Harry Street. Harry Street is a substandard street that barely has enough room to fit one-way traffic. And because of all these factors, we recommend a disapproval. Any questions? Thank you. Do we have any questions of staff? We'll give the applicant an opportunity. I apologize. Additionally, whenever we looked on the parcels along North Limestone, we got a percentage of concentration on just that portion of North Limestone with a thousand feet of 16.7% of parcels being short-term rentals. Thank you. And if the applicant insists speak. I'm Laura Coombs, part owner of the property. I'm Bob Bainey. He's the other owner. Other owner, other half, yeah. We purchased the house in July with the intention of renting it to college students. We quickly fell in love with the house and realized that we did not trust college students to live in this little gem. So it was our next hope to make the updates that were necessary to make the house livable. It had fallen into disrepair over the last 20 years of ownership. It had been bounced around to it looks like at least 10 different owners. At the time we purchased the house, the floors were sinking. The foundation was failing. The lawn was poison ivy and snakes. The windows were leaking. There were no gutters. We have spent $60,000, $70,000 bringing this house back to life, and we're very proud of that. We don't want college kids to wreck it. We want to start recouping some of our investment, so we thought that operating it as an Airbnb, which at the time of our research right up until the time of our application seemed viable because there were no published guidelines, limitations, saturation numbers, boundaries, etc. that were published and available to us. We thought it would be a viable business opportunity for us to recoup our investment while still having access to the house to make further updates updates to include turning a storage room into a half bath and perhaps turning the loft into a i'm sorry the attic restore its use as a loft or bonus space we personally love staying at airbnbs when we travel because it gives us a chance to immerse ourselves more locally into the community and to understand the culture of the place where we're visiting we like the option of having a little bit of fresh air I personally do not like hotels I don't like being stifled and not being able to open the windows so we're big fans of Airbnb's which I understand is going to bias our decision to operate one regarding Harry Street it is a two-way alley there are homes on each side the area that we have planned on using for parking is bigger than most if not all of the other parking areas for the residents on Harry Street so I'm unclear on the assessment that we have inadequate or tight parking when we in fact have wider and deeper parking than the residents additionally there is street parking available ample street parking available on north limestone so that does not seem like a limiting factor to me we are aware of the gentrification issues and the saturation issues again had those been published for our for our consideration or had there been guidelines available for our consideration that would have been helpful at the time of application do you want to add anything i would just share that we've gotten to know the neighbors on harry and our neighbors next door on the limestone side there's a gentleman that lives in the home on harry just behind us he's lived there for 66 years he said he's he's never seen more life and and vibrancy and activity at that house in all of the 66 years that he's lived there. I think what we're trying to do is save an old gem and revitalize or to help bring some life back into the neighborhood there. We've seen people that have kind of next door, they started cleaning up their trees, and I've been raking leaves in the back on Harry Street. We're trying to do our part as a neighbor. We're going to be very actively involved with this property. We're down there every day. And so, anyway, we appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Do we have questions of the applicant? Discussions? And I don't think we had anyone here to comment on this, any public comment on this one? No? Would staff like to rebut anything in particular? Okay. Any questions? Okay, thank you. All right. There's no discussion. I am open to a motion. Thank you. 185 Laura Coombs request a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 515 North Lyme. I agree with staff for disapproval due to the recommendations A, B, C, D, and E that they've listed. Thank you. Maybe she didn't agree with that. Okay. So we have a motion, and Mr. Sturdivant has offered a second. So we will vote. okay that disapproval has stood thank you our next item is plnboa 24-190 kayla boudreau and this has been recommended for disapproval so we we will allow staff to present first. Bill Belcher, planning staff. So this is a, huh? See I'm short and everybody else is moving it taller. It's just, all right, anyway. Huh? Okay, I'll project. So this is for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment and a historic district overlay zone and a single family zone, R1C zone, or single family R1C zone on property located at 131 Penn Moken Park. Here's the subject property highlighted in light blue. Here is a Google Street View of the property. Here is a site plan provided by the applicant, noting two parking spaces. And here is the vicinity map of the concentration of short-term rentals within the vicinity. 2.69% is the number within the 1,000-foot buffer. There are 10 short-term rentals within the 1,000-foot buffer, which ends up to the 2.69%, 372 dwelling units. And then for the occupancy rate, the average, I think James probably mentioned this, the average in Lexington is 50%, and 59.5% is the average of the 10 short-term rentals within the vicinity, so it is a higher occupancy than what the city's average is. So one of the main points of staff's recommendation for disapproval is that there are numerous civil penalties from the building inspection department for this property. So I believe there are eight. One of them has been paid. But basically over the last three months, roughly every week, the building inspection has been giving a notice of violation or civil penalty for this property as it has continued to be listed on Airbnb and VRBO and various websites as a short-term rental in violation of the ordinances. So on 11-26, staff did go on to book, to act like we were going to book the short-term rental to see if we could, because the options are you can either remove your listing or you can make it to where you can only book the short-term rental for 30 days. At this time on 11-26, staff was able to, obviously we did not book it, but we were able to get to a step where we could book it for less than 30 days, showing that it had not been removed from being able to be booked for 30 days. It did have a, in like the description of the short-term rental, it did say 30-day rentals only, but you still could book it for less. On 12 or December 2nd, it was removed. So at that point, the applicant did remove the listing from Airbnb, but that's still a few months after they had started this process and been getting violations. So staff recommends disapproval for the following reasons. The four factors listed in Article 313G of the zoning ordinance have been evaluated in addition to the requirements of Article 7 of the zoning ordinance and KRS 100.237. No other STRs have been cited in the vicinity, but based on a review of all four of these factors, there are 10 short-term rentals operating in the 1,000 feet surrounding the property with an average occupancy rate of 59.5%. In total, this creates a concentration of 2.69% of the neighboring dwelling units being used for short-term rentals. That percentage borders on a too high concentration for the area. The proximity of these transient visitors in a residential area could create an adverse influence due to an increase in traffic. Staff also notes that the applicant has a documented history of compliance issues with the short-term regulations including numerous outstanding unpaid citations. The applicant has willfully violated the rules and regulations set forth in the Code of Ordinances Chapter 13, Article 5 and its subsections. This documented history of noncompliance combined with the concentration of short-term rentals in the vicinity provides strong evidence that a continued operation of this short-term rental will cause an adverse influence on the surrounding neighborhood by creating a nuisance. And that's all for staff's presentation if you have any questions. Any questions of staff? Additionally, there was nine total sent. There was another one sent on 11-29 after we wrote the staff report. I mean 11-29. Okay. Another civil penalty, right. Thank you. Yep. Okay, we'll give the applicant an opportunity. Kayla Boudreau for the record. So I want to say thank you all for staying this late. And I also want to apologize to the committee and everybody for being out of compliance. I have paid as of earlier today prior to this a little bit over $2,100 to make sure that my penalties were taken care of. I also want to note that this is not my primary residence. It is a rental residence. and my first notification that came in the mail was on September 4th, of which then I spoke on the phone with James Mills for 30-plus minutes trying to understand the process. Running this as a short-term rental is not my full-time job. I work a full-time job. I'm in sales for a software company. I travel, and this is just something that I do on the side. I've also recently gone through a pretty nasty divorce and have moved three times in one year. So I was juggling a lot of different things, lots of different paperwork, and had recently moved into a primary residence. Again, it's not an excuse, but I appreciate your understanding with that. So the account itself should be all paid up to date. So on this property, I actually bought this property in early 2020, right before COVID hit. I was 27 years old, and it was my first home. So with that, shortly thereafter, I listed on Airbnb as a short-term rental. Obviously, I had to get through COVID, so there was a little bit of a pause there. but once people started traveling again people did start to to book it kind of going into everything that's happened in lexington i am a local lexington resident i live here about 10 minutes away from the the property itself i'm extremely engaged in the day-to-day maintenance making sure that guests are taken care of guests always have my cell phone number and it's either me me or my dad were were a team effort of making sure if you know the water heater is is not heating up water or they need coffee or whatever they need we're on demand they can let us know and we'll be there so similar to the other property property owners that were up here just a minute ago this is in a in a historic district i love this house it was built in 1929 and it it's very very close to my heart it has a ton of charm and i put a lot of heart and soul in this to the tune of 50 000 plus so i've replaced all of the utilities from plumbing to hvac to to the radon i have a long laundry list here but it is my goal to keep this house in pristine condition and the majority of of my guests that do come and visit they are either going to the horse park or they're going to keeneland they're coming for a family weekend to visit their kids at uk because it is within walking distance of kroger field and i i guess one of the best stories that i do have is one of my very first guests they were contracted to come and paint the agave and rye mural downtown that you can see from the opera house so a lot of really awesome guests that come and add a lot of value they spend money at our local businesses at our local attractions and they also quite literally contribute creatively so i'm i'm honored to be a a host i i love lexington grew up here i went to uk and i i want to be able to do whatever i can to support um our community so i appreciate it thank you stay just a moment please ma'am you might want to say do we have any questions or one of the applicant no okay thank you thank you staff has recommended disapproval do we have a motion no i don't think we did i know he was asking if we had people here and i checked anything additional from staff after okay okay Madam Chair, I recommend disapproval based on the staff's recommendation of PLN BOA 24-190. Caleb Boudreau requests for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in the historic district overlay zone and single-family residential zone on property located at 131 Penn Moken Park. thank you and mr sturvon has second there you go i'm sorry it should go it's actually disapproved okay so our next item is pln boa 24-191 sean burn This one also has been recommended for disapproval, so we will allow staff to speak first. Okay. So this request is for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area and a historic district overlay in a medium-density R4 zone on property located at 1625 Nicholasville Road, Unit 805. You can see highlighted here in light blue is the property. This is in the townhouse development. Here's a street view of the property. As you can see, there are numbered parking spaces. So there are just some general guest parking spaces in this development, but there's also one specific space for each unit as well here's the applicant site plan they mentioned one reserve parking and four visitor parking one thing staff will note is when we were donna are you working to get this we don't have the case up That's fun. It's her last meeting. She wanted a little bit more attention. We got it. Thank you so much. I'm kidding. Okay, so one thing staff will notice when we went out to post the board signs, we were there and kind of the middle of the day and there was a substantial amount of the parking filled up in the middle of the day. So staff does have concerns about how much parking is actually going to be available. There are two other short term rental units within this development as well. So for the concentration, the concentration is 2.01 within the 1,000-foot vicinity. If you can see, there are, it's a little hard to see without zoomed in, but there are green units here showing the other short-term rentals within the complex. So there are six short-term rentals in the 1,000-foot buffer, and there are 298 dwelling units, which results in a 2.01% concentration for the area. Excuse me. For the occupancy rate, again, 50% is the average. The surrounding properties, the surrounding six short-term rentals have a 53% occupancy rate, which is higher than the average for the city. This is another property that has some compliance issues, which is part of what staff's recommendation is based on. So the applicant received a hosted zoning compliance permit in February of 2024. However, the unit was not occupied during rental periods as required, which meant that it was unhosted. The applicant was sent a first NOV notice of violation from the Division of Revenue on June 25th, 2024. The applicant was sent a second NOV on July 25th, 2024. And then after receiving the second NOV, the applicant contacted the Division of Revenue and indicated that they would be submitting an application. However, the applicant never followed through and was issued another NOV on September 6, 2024. A citation was issued for $500 on September 23, 2024, which the applicant appealed, stating that they had been attempting to apply for a conditional use permit. So, staff is recommending disapproval for the following reasons. The first of the four factors listed in the ordinance have been evaluated in addition to the requirements of the Article 7 of the zoning ordinance, KRS 100.237. Review of the factors shows that no STRs in the proximity have been cited as a nuisance, but the proposed unhosted short-term rental for 10 occupants has a documented history of compliance issues with the short-term rental regulations, including outstanding unpaid citations. The applicant has willfully violated the rules and regulations set forth in Code of Ordinances, Chapter 13, Article 5, and its subsections. This history of compliance issues suggests that the continued use of the property as a short-term rental could cause an adverse effect on the surrounding neighborhood by creating a nuisance. Further, based on a review of the number of short-term rentals and their occupancy rate, the surrounding area cannot support the addition of 10 extra transient users requested for this SDR. subject property shares parking with the coach light woods townhome development which is made up of 34 townhome residences to other short-term unhosted short-term rental units are operating within this development and they have an occupancy an average occupancy rate of 52% an additional unhosted short-term rental on the southern side of the development would create disproportionate demand for the limited visitor parking spaces when the development based on a review of these factors particularly the applicants poor compliance record and limited parking available for the existing concentration of STRs at their current occupancy rate. The addition of this short-term rental is likely to create an adverse influence on the surrounding neighborhood by causing a nuisance and decreasing available parking for current residents. And that's all for staff's presentation if you have any questions. Do we have any questions? I will give the applicant an opportunity. hello sean burn okay um i want to start by saying i have worked with these folks for a little while and hopefully i know you've heard a lot of gibberish up here i'm gonna make this quick because everybody's got a case there's two things that they they are saying are the main hold-ups with us with me and my wife one is the willful non-compliance and i can assure you that it was a good faith based off of ignorance i applied for the permit that i thought i needed it was hosted because i've got someone here who would go in and clean it and check it and i considered the host and when i realized it wasn't that from well i've already satisfied this i reached out to james and the team this is what you got to do and i've got email trains and i'm sure they do too where i sent multiple things back and forth trying to get it right and when i finally got the thing saying hey you're still out conformance here's a violation i called again i said what do i need to do well you can appeal it if you'd like so i sent in hey i've been working on this i got the wrong permit and so to say that he still hasn't paid it i haven't had a response to the appeal saying do i need to pay this because in good faith i've been working to get it i haven't been renting it in the fall we keep it for my family we live in owlsboro now we're from owlsboro originally and i lived in lexington for a while and so we live up here on the weekends for the uk games etc My parents come down, my kids come down, and my wife and I come down. That's why it's not realistic for me to keep it as a long-term rental because the whole fall I keep it. So the two things I want to stress is I bought it in 2017 for that reason. As everybody's getting older in our group, we don't want to go home at night, late after ballgames. I've Airbnb'd it since 2017. There hasn't been an issue with the parking at all. I made another mistake by my ignorance when I applied for this permit. I put 10, right? I've got three bedrooms. Each one has a queen-size bed, and I thought, they said, what's the maximum people that could stay there? And I thought, well, when I come down with my kids, they would sleep on the couch. But I'm perfectly fine with saying six because that's what it's designed for is six adults, three bedrooms. So, again, that was my mistake. They went off of what I put on there, but I was trying to be in good faith. Hey, ten people might want to stay there. I did talk to the homeowner's board, Brian Wright is a member of it. And I said, hey, they're denying this. And he says, we talked as a board, we don't see an issue. There was concern that you might need ten spaces. And I said, well, I don't need ten spaces. I just put that on there to make sure they knew how many were there. He said, but it hadn't been an issue in the last seven years. And so the main reasons that I read that I was denied was because it could be a parking issue and it hasn't been. And I talked to the board and they agreed and they were all, none of them said, no, we don't want you to do this. They fully expected it. I would get approval. And then it was my fault on not getting this permit in time. I got a permit that I believed was accurate. but I should have had it unhosted and instead I applied for and was granted a hosted. So I don't, I have a two night minimum when I was Airbnb in it, because I don't want just people running in there. I had a $200 night minimum because I don't want just people coming. We stay there as a family throughout the football season. We just came up this last week and my son was fortunate enough to play in the 2A state championship. They lost, but we stayed there for that. And otherwise, I just rent it during the peak seasons when people will do it for Keeling or something, but in no way, short, or form, regardless if you choose to go with what they've got or amend it with a maximum of six people, etc. I want you to know that willfully violating, I wouldn't do that, and I didn't willfully do it. I did it out of ignorance. That's no excuse, but I just want you to know that I respect the decisions. So I didn't want you to think I don't. Thank you. Do we have some questions of the applicant? Discussion? Do you have a local property manager that you work with? Yes. Shelby Morkin is the property manager. The place itself has a homeowner's association that takes care of everything external. I have someone that would manage the bookings, comes in and sets up the cleaning, takes care of that stuff. And then I'm down periodically because I like to stay when I come for the U.K. games randomly for a basketball game, etc. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay. Anything else? and we did not this one we did not have anyone to speak or no okay it's late in the day i'm getting confused okay all right let me ask you this one quick question and the staff recommendation says and I'll quote this, the applicant has willfully violated the rules and regulations set forth in the code of ordinances. So I'd like for you to respond to that and kind of explain to us how the staff could get that impression and how you feel about that and how you can counter that somewhat. I see why they would get that because they sent me a letter saying, hey, you need to be in compliance with getting a permit. I felt like I was doing that because I was in contact with James in particular several times. He was pretty helpful. Maybe I was a pain when I was doing it, but I wanted to make sure I had everything right. I even sent him a draft of the drawing you saw up there, and he gave me some, hey, I need a direction. area and you don't have this done right here's another example for you to look at to get it right so i was when you say willfully non-compliant i was originally it was my ignorance because i thought i was compliant i applied for a permit paid the money it was granted the permit i thought i'm good i've got my permit i even sent it to the homeowner member on the board and said i was granted my permit and then about three or four months later i think it was february they says is when I got it, then it was like, hey, you're out of compliance. I'm like, no, I'm good, I got my permit. And then when I realized it wasn't, I contacted them and I started working on it in good faith to get it right. And in good faith, I put ten people on there when really I should have put six, saying what's the maximum occupancy. The reason that fine's not paid is I didn't know, when I called and asked about it, I was told you can file an appeal. So I said, hey, these are the reasons that I haven't got this yet and what I'm working on. I made a mistake. I filed for the wrong permit. I've been working with the board trying to get everything in line, get my ducks in a row for when I can get up here. And I haven't heard back on the appeal yet. I was surprised, honestly, when I got the thing saying, we're going to recommend you not do it. And then when I read why, I was like, well, I probably wouldn't let me have it either. If I'm willfully just saying that, it doesn't matter. That's not the case. I own multiple businesses. I owned a car wash I built up here that I sold three years ago. I own three back home. I own three restaurants back home from the Donato's franchise. I own three tropical smoothies. I know what it's like to work, and I know you've got to follow rules, whether it's state, local, federal. uh so and i want to apologize whether you grant me one or not i do apologize that they felt like that you guys got enough stuff to do without people jerking you around so anyway it wasn't it was a error on my part i agree i have some concern we've had this come up before with um you know townhouse and condo communities with shared walls and in a more enclosed space i feel like we haven't been approving those as frequently so i don't know the numbers you know generally um well this the staff has recommended approval of those but the board has disapproved a few where there are shared parking or shared walls where the adjoining property owners were here to oppose those cases it's true and i think so where we said there were six in the area it wasn't in the development it was just nearby right within the thousand foot okay proximity i think there's two within the within the development already okay and were those um the zone in compliance were they i mean were they not ones we approved they one was approved by the board and the other i think was a grandfathered case right okay well entertain a motion make a motion to agree with staff and disprove plant PLNBOA 24191 Sean Barn request a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area and in historic district overlay zone and medium density residential zone on property located at 1625 nicholasville road unit 805. and based on the four things that staff recommend do we have a second to the motion second the first and a second so we will vote okay let's see the motion passed but the str has been disapproved Thank you guys for your time. Thank you. So we are on PLN VOA 24-192-1009 Fontaine LLC. Is the applicant still present please? Before we get started, Chair Carter, we did have someone that left and then brought us back a letter. So I'm going to just pass that around regarding the Fontaine case. Somebody brought back a letter. They had to leave and they gave us a letter. Okay. Could you please state your name for the record? Adam Peretz. And this has been recommended for approval and there are four conditions listed, including a maximum of ten individuals. Have you seen those conditions? Yes, ma'am. And are you comfortable with those conditions? Yes. We do have several people here with some concerns, so would you like to tell us a little bit about the project? Sure. Hi everyone, my name is Adam Peretz and I'm joined today by my wife Hadley and my father-in-law Alan Hadley, formerly Stein. Mr. Stein's joined us as well. I'd like to thank the board members for their time and my neighbors who have joined us here today. My wife and I are proud residents of downtown Lexington and Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase. We live on Transylvania Park in the house my wife grew up in and we decided to make it home again for our family because we love and are dedicated to this community. We passed by the house on Fontaine four times a day on our way to drop off our kids at preschool. When we first saw 1009 Fontaine for sale, it sat on the market for over a month and we knew that it could be a perfect short-term rental for our neighborhood. My neighbors here today will talk about parking, traffic and long-term neighborhood impacts. I'd like to say that we agree with their overarching concerns about short-term rentals in our neighborhood, but not in regards to this property specifically. I've had great conversations with both of my next-door neighbors and with the president of the Ashland Neighborhood Association. I plan to continue to have an open dialogue with all of my neighbors, especially those in the immediate vicinity of the property. The first thing I think we can all agree on is that short-term rentals need to have sufficient so that we don't further congest our already busy streets. We expect that most groups that will be staying here to only have two cars. And those who have more will have strict rules and guidelines about how and where they can park so that we do not impact my neighbor, Ms. Betty Irvin, at all. Fortunately, as you can see in the materials provided and in the picture that one of the neighbors graciously took, if of the backyard while the contractors renovating the home were working, the property has enough room to easily park two vehicles with the ability to turn around. Plus an additional two vehicles in situations where groups travel with more vehicles. In my follow up conversations with Ms. Irvin since the initial notice letters were sent out to the neighborhood, we agreed that the old piece of curb that was added many years ago to the driveway should be removed and replaced with a new level gravel, it's currently a gravel driveway, which will help ease the narrowness of the driveway. Ms. Betty Irvin's on the side that shares a driveway. Next thing we're all concerned about is traffic congestion on our streets and especially at this intersection of Fontaine High and Euclid. I think this is what makes this property so special and different from other properties that are more secluded within the neighborhood. We're only 200 feet from Chevy Chase Town Center and given its easy walkability to the shops, restaurants, Kroger Field, even though it's pretty far, the grocery store on Euclid and Even campus, folks staying here will be able to use their cars much less than a long term renter or full time residents would. The vast majority of renters will be staying over weekends, which actually helps ease weekday rush hour traffic compared to long term renters or full time residents. I've been coming to the property every day for the last three months, usually during rush hour, and never once have I had any issue with entering Fontaine, either by turning around or backing out. The last thing any of us want who live in this neighborhood is for short term rentals to flood our beautifully historic neighborhoods. We don't want an endless number of Airbnbs like we're seeing in Kenwick, Mental Park, and some other more transitional neighborhoods around town that we've heard about today. Chevy Chase and Ashland are not the same as those neighborhoods in terms of short term rental concentration. And the property's proximity to the town square and walkability is exactly the type of property the short term rental guidelines in our city call for. In fact, this property would fall within the newly recommended guidelines that don't take effect yet, but there's only one short term rental within 600 feet and it's across the road from Deshaies. As the staff has pointed out in their recommendation for approval, no nearby short term rentals have been cited for nuisance and there is only 1.4% concentration of short term rentals in the immediate vicinity. The house we live on in Transylvania Park is a 120 year old Bluegrass Historic Trust home. The house on Fontaine will be turning 100 soon. We'll be maintaining and preserving all of its historic nature and applying to have it added to the Bluegrass Trust once the renovation is complete. H1 is incredibly important to us personally. There are currently three short term rentals on our street in Transylvania Park and they have been there for many years. Not only does the presence of short term rentals on our street not negatively impact our neighborhood, but It's actually an amenity for when friends and family are in town, visiting without any other nearby affordable options outside of hotels that are usually overpriced, sold out, or way out of town. We've never once had an issue with folks in town for the game, Keeneland, or to watch their kids graduate UK. We think this house will be the same and help provide much needed space for folks to comfortably stay when they're in town. This will be the house where my family stays when they visit from Minnesota, And I hope it can be a quiet, comfortable option for my neighbors, friends, and family as well. Given the fact that we live so close by and are dedicated to this community, we aren't going to be the same absentee out-of-town investors whose properties we see around town. They don't mow their lawns, take out their trash, or ensure their properties are kept at the highest standards. My wife and I are going to be managing the property directly and will always be available to our neighbors should any issues ever arise. I drive by the house and through the neighborhood every day. A week won't go by that I'm not there mowing the lawn, talking to neighbors, making sure the trash is picked up, and making sure we preserve everything we all love about our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. We do have some public comments, so we'll let the public speak and then let you address any concerns. Didn't we have some folks wanting to speak? Okay. Anybody? Thank you. My name is Jeffrey Tuttle. I live at 232 Sycamore, and I'm the president of the Ashland Neighborhood Association. To no one's surprise, our neighborhood association does not support unhosted STRs in the neighborhood. And based on a recent survey of our 200 members, 95% of members of the ANA do not approve of unhosted STRs. Beyond that, however, there are specific concerns about this particular property that primarily revolve around parking. In the application, this is a four-bedroom STR with four parking spaces, and the applicant has not demonstrated that there is enough space on the property for four vehicles. The parking area is a mix of gravel, grass, and dirt. It does not have markings or any delineation. within the application. In the diagram, they showed that two of the parking spaces will be along the driveway. Exiting vehicles, if there are four cars on this property, exiting vehicles will have to leave the property backing out onto Fontaine. And if anybody has been at this intersection, it's very congested. Usually there's a line of vehicles from the stoplight at High street that back up past the entranceway of this property. So it would be very dangerous to exit and try to enter from this property, especially if you're backing up onto Fontaine. Because there really is not reasonable parking, most people that have more than two vehicles that rent at this property are going to rely on street parking. I mean, it's clearly unsafe to have more than two vehicles on this property. Because our neighborhood was built before the era of widespread car use, our streets are very narrow, they're very congested, and there's limited parking throughout the neighborhood in general. This is exacerbated at this intersection because there's no parking on Fontaine itself. There are a handful of multi-unit buildings within 500 feet of this. The only street parking available is actually on Deshaies, which is parking on one side of the street. For those of us who walk through the neighborhood, we all recognize that parking is actually hard to find on this block of Bechet because it is usually occupied by long-term rents and people who live within the immediate area of that intersection. It's also in a historic overlay. beyond the concerns that we all have about commercial properties and H1 overlays that kind of fly in the face of the spirit of the historic preservation in general. It also would prevent or create obstacles for them to do any kind of upgrade to the driveway or parking because they would have to get historic preservation permission. That's not always guaranteed and lastly our concern with the new ordinances that are going into effect on the 12th this property would not be approved because there is already another str at 1047. thank you hello my name is janey fergus i live at 308 south hanover avenue which backs up along the driveway of 1009 Fontaine. Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll say my thousand words, and I'm gonna pass out something for you to take a look at with me. And I'll try not to be totally repetitive, but I think this will help highlight some of what Jeffrey just discussed. Thank you. Before I jump into this, I just wanted to let you know that four of our direct neighbors were here earlier, but as we all know, everybody's kind of tired and they did have to leave. So we would have had more. Also my neighbor, Carol Carter, who is directly back behind this property is here, as well as another neighbor. If you will turn to the first picture in the packet, this was taken this morning. There are two cars parked in the yard. These are the workmen. And if our new owner has driven past and seen this, I don't know why it's been allowed to happen. The yard is muddy, it's ruddy. It's very difficult to have multiple cars in that driveway for the reasons that Jeffrey talked about. Backing out on Fontaine is miserable. We wake up to crashes in the area frequently. In fact, we've worked with Liz Sheehan, our council member, to try to figure out how to reduce the number of traffic accidents. The second page is also showing the red truck still in the front yard. And from what I understand, this is a very common occurrence. This isn't the way our neighborhood wants to present. And I just don't know how anybody can expect two cars, more than two cars, to be in this property driveway. The third picture shows where Miss Betty Irvin's yard has gotten rutted from these cars going in and out. It's a very narrow driveway. The fourth picture is taken from our bedroom looking at the property. You can see one car parked there. It's very difficult to get another car through and the whole backyard is graveled. It's just not conducive to four cars. The last picture is Deshaies, where that's the only excess parking. This picture was taken this morning. As Jeff said, one side is not available for because the road is so narrow and there's a sign that says it's not available for parking. There was one extra spot today when I walked down there to take pictures. So where these cars are going to park is not going to be pretty. Certainly we're concerned about noise in the neighborhood. Just as I pointed out in the letter I sent, our homes are very close together and it's just a challenge with expecting that many people to be in that house. And I feel like we're being asked to be property managers when there's not somebody there in a hosted situation. So thank you and I do want to point out I think you all received a number of letters. I don't think that was mentioned but I hope it will be noted in opposition. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, good evening. My name is Rosalind Trigg-Krinian, and I live at 1048 Fontaine Road, and directly across the street from us is an Airbnb at 1047. Neither I or our family or our neighbors to either side received any kind of a notice about this. It was about a year and a half ago. I think it was in maybe the summer of 2023. The house had been occupied by a man whose family owned it and we enjoyed him and his friends that lived with him and I said, are you going to rent it? And he said, no, you know, we're going to make it into an Airbnb. I'm like, no, why would you do that? And of course it's obvious. And I did, we just didn't know even that there was a place to make comments. He's a very nice man and I can email him or text him when we have problems and we have had problems more than I have emailed and texted because I don't like being the kind of neighbor that's always complaining and making comments and stuff but I'll just say we've had a Greyhound size you know a touring bus parked on Fontaine in front of our house where the house is across the street from us and then the traffic is stopping and they finally decided to back the bus up into the driveway, which is our driveways are really skinny. And we do have to, in our family, move cars around to get in and out. My husband has hit, been hit, had a rear-end collision with the car. We have our driveways directly across the street. What this has to do, you know, this is this house I can see from my front porch, the sign for the next one going up. I didn't agree to the one that we already have. I don't know how this happened. I think I missed that party, and boy, would I like to have said some things. We did not move here to live in a place where we have a constant stream of strangers. We have small children in our house, grandchildren, and there are so many things that I thought about saying, but I'm not going to go into it. Fontaine Road is very busy. It's very dangerous. We have had many accidents, poles knocked down, people come through High Street. We're just between Irvin and Deshaies right there. If I have people visiting, we have to park two blocks over, sometimes on slashes. And you can't park hardly on Deshaies. And Irvin is just like a wiggle. I don't even know why Irvin allows parking on both sides. so another one of these within sight of our front porch we get to hear people cursing and drinking and it escalates and people and they're all like it's party time and where this wasn't a party neighborhood we thought um and uh it's it's just really distressing some of these stories i've heard people say i really agree with them and it's i'm sorry that you all have to listen to all this and make these decisions and i'm sure it was really lively earlier um i just hope that um that helps thank you i think we had was that everyone okay if the applicant would like a opportunity to address the concerns i really appreciate all the neighbors concerns i think we heard lots of contradictory things i you know i don't know if we can i didn't get a chance to see any of the pictures that were provided um clearly the house is being renovated right now those are contractor vehicles trying to find a place to park there's more uh vehicles you know painters are there that's why the the vehicles are kind of looks like they're taking over clearly short-term renters are not going to be parking in the front yard going over betty's yard with their big construction vehicles it's just going to be regular folks and like i said if there's ever an issue or if someone's you know abusing the length of this driveway because very clearly you can see there is there is room um i've been doing it like i said every single day for the past three months and never once had an issue backing out onto fontaine people let you in it's known around town as a busy street all my main neighbors who have spoken have dealt with the same thing you know they have to sometimes back out onto fontaine as as well it's just part of being on that street i actually think of this as a benefit because there won't be people going in and out every single day they're only going to be there a couple days a week and using all of the amenities right nearby this isn't a house that's deep into this neighborhood we're 200 feet from chevy chase town center it's a commercial district right in terms of sound and and nuisance it's just it's just really not going to be as much of an issue as i think we're we're hearing today. Again, we're so close by, if at any time there's cameras in the back that we've installed, it's going to be kept up in a much better state that it is in right now, which just poorly shows because the contractors are there. You know, it's not dangerous to back out onto Fontaine again I've been doing it during rush hour and I'd like to note that my next door and both next-door neighbors I've been in constant contact with them since since day one Frank is on one side he's okay with the use Betty Irvin I've had a long conversation with her this weekend over the phone and multiple times over the past few months and we're working together hand in hand to make sure that access to this property is not an issue. There's room, as you can see in the diagram that I've provided with my vehicle, which is a large SUV, plenty of room. It's just the standard driveway. You can easily fit two cars and turn around back out and have it easy access to Fontaine. And if there were people that had more than two vehicles, there's fortunately room. I'm not going to recommend or allow for them to take up all of that extra room and certainly not park in the front yard. And if they need to park one of their cars down the road, that's just what people in this neighborhood have to do when there are people visiting. So I think it's pretty standard, and I don't think anything in this property would be out of the realm of normal. Thank you. Do we have any questions of the applicant? Sorry, I do have concerns because I've been by there a couple times, and one time there was a car in the front yard, one time there was somebody on the sidewalk, like where people are walking through the sidewalk and making it muddy. And so my concern is for the up to 10, not because of the size of the house, but due to the parking. And there is no parking on Fontaine. So that's a big concern of mine. I'm happy to respond. Like I said, folks will not be allowed to park there. It's similar to when an Amazon delivery truck pulls up there, they pull up onto the sidewalk. It's not okay. I don't condone that. And it's going to be very strictly guidelined in our policies that cars will not park there. And if any car does, in fact, try and skirt the rules, we'll be there within minutes to make sure that they move. Adam, would you give us your history with this particular house? Fontaine? Yeah. So, like I said, we drive by it every day, multiple times a day. It was on the market for sale. We purchased it back in October with the intent to have it be a short-term rental, checked all the guidelines, made sure we'd be able to, given the guidelines that are in place and even the new guidelines, So we felt comfortable that we'd be able to do that given all of our unique or specific circumstances with this property. And the construction going on, what are you doing with the house? Just floors, paint, nothing, nothing crazy. A couple bathrooms that hadn't been touched since the 70s. You know, basic repairs and maintenance to get it in a good shape. Thank you. nothing further i will entertain a motion i hereby move to approve plnboa 24-192-1009 fontaine llc's request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental within the defined infill and redevelopment area in an historic district overlay zone a single family residential zone on property at 1009 fontaine road based upon staff's report and the testimony here and the condition set forth therein. Okay. Thank you. And Mr. Clark has seconded the motion. We will take a vote. You have been approved. Thank you. Was that it for us? Okay, am I done? Are you sure you don't want anything else? No. Are there any additional board items? Come on. Any additional staff items? We did. We did. We did. We approved it. Okay, yes, can we recap? Could Donna read back the testimony for us? Yeah. All righty. Well, our next meeting is on January 13th, 2025. Happy New Year to you guys. I'll see you then at 1.30, and hopefully that'll be our last long one. Thank you, guys. If it is, if it is. All right. Just in case. That's a good one. I'm an emotional girl. guitar solo This old bar still is feeling high Cause I started sinking lower The minute that she walked right through that door Not long ago I held her Like a fool I went left Now she's with somebody new out on that floor And she's got the rhythm And I got the blues And she's showing me how much I had to lose With her every little move She's telling me I'm overused She's got the rhythm And I got the blues Yeehaw Well, that music's getting louder As my heart keeps beating faster And she spells out regret in perfect time Well, I thought I wanted freedom But that ball and chain, I need them But when you choose, sometimes you lose the pride She's got the rhythm And I got the blues And she's showing me how much I had to lose With her every little move She's telling me I'm overused She's got the rhythm And I got the blues Yeah, with her every little move She's telling me I'm overused She's got the rhythm And I got the blues