Iawn. Rwy'n gweld a gaf i ddweud eich bod yn dda. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Felly, mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Y blant arall yr wyf lanhau, diolch i'r stafdethau ar y ddianlydd. Am welcome, Welcome to the Planning Commission Welcome to the Planning Commission Welcome to the Planning Commission work session. Okay, good afternoon, Okay, good afternoon, everyone. to the Planning Commission work session is now 1 1. 30 and 1. 31. And 1. 30 and I she first and the next meeting. Mr. Duncan sent an email that said we need to get here a little sooner than later because of the NCAA Tournament. I got the email. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. There is my friend. You're hardcore Larry. I'm trying to watch the games. That we say. No, no. Well, no, you're right. Thank you, though. They'll come in here shortly. Yeah. Well, you want me to jump in? Fantastic. Thanks, everyone. I'm Brandi Peacher. I feel like I'm back with my people. You guys, I used to be in the planning department several years ago. So thanks for having me here today to talk about the Complete Streets program, which, of course, has been in the works for a long time. It's been before you all in some capacity, even if it was never called Complete Streets. But I know that Kenzie and Chris and many others in the planning department and our engineering and traffic engineering have fought for this for a long time and have incorporated these philosophies into their work for a long time. So today I'm going to try and keep it pretty brief, but I just want to orient everyone as to why this is important. Our streets are one of our biggest public assets in a community and it serves important roles in our daily lives. Hence why we have people circling to come here right now. Right. So it's important for us to consider how we can use them to their fullest potential to support the daily lives of everyone. And I put photos on here that indicate there's a number of users of our public right of way at the top. You know, we've got our commuters. We've got people who are driving daily. I do. I commute in from Clark County and you've got our emergency response vehicles, our waste vehicles. You've got people going to school. You've got a variety of people in a vehicle. But what you also have are those people who are outside the vehicle, whether they choose to bike bottom right, whether you're a child trying to get to school or a local park or what have you. We've got all ages, all abilities using our roadways. And we all know for decades it has been a car centric approach. Lexington's guilty of it. The whole nation is guilty of it. So don't beat ourselves up too bad. But it is time for us to reestablish and rethink how we can design our public right of ways and our streets so that they can serve us better as a community and not just a way to move vehicles through. So complete streets is that approach. It is a philosophy about making our streets safe and comfortable for everyone. And like I said, that's for everyone who's a pedestrian, a cyclist, a transit rider and drivers. Complete streets make sure there are safe, reliable and convenient ways to get around no matter the age, ability, income level or wherever you live. Now, this program is not specific just to Lexington. The complete streets movement has 20, 25 years plus nationally. You saw movement at the federal level for some time, but not formalized. But during the past administration, there was a push for complete streets to be a more regulated thing, specifically around the IIJA bill and making it a component for seeking funds. So you saw the KYTC move forward with a policy and a manual. And you've seen the Lexington area MPO, who also have their own policy and approach. And then, of course, in December 22, LFUCG, we gathered, we created our own policy. Oh, sorry, I skipped ahead. But what I want to hit on is that. While we're talking about the built environment, there's so much more to this than just the fact that we're building curb and we're building roads with asphalt, it's about people. Everything we do in our community is not about the final built item. It's about how it serves the person who's using it. And I want to draw your attention to the top right where we have a statistic that about one third of our community either chooses not to drive or can't drive because of age, ability or financial resources that may be a permanent need, maybe a temporary reason they can't drive. But do know that there's a third of our population that maybe our roads aren't serving properly. So community benefits of doing complete streets. And again, this is an approach for how we create safer, better streets for our community. It hits on a number of benefits for Lexington. You're going to hear us talk about safety a lot because to me, this is a public health, a public safety issue. We have more people dying on our roadways in Lexington County than we do through homicide alone. And that stat is not necessarily understood, but we have to understand that our roads need to be addressed as a public safety feature as well. So you'll hear us harp on that, and that's why you hear about the Vision Zero program coming along as well. We'll we'll speak on that a second later. But when you deal with health, accessibility, environment, economy and of course, convenience, making it easier for everyone to use. I already talked about our policy in twenty two. In twenty three, we then dug into that. The MPO and the mayor's office council, a lot of stakeholders in the community. Many of you were at the table over the course of twenty twenty three to help us create that action plan. Of course, we felt it was very important and the policy drove this to ensure that it was community driven. And I know the work that you all do at Planning Commission is very much community driven. And so was this plan. We heard from the community at large through surveys, through focus groups. We had a number of focus groups around subject matter experts and interest groups and council. And what fascinated me was even separately, we heard the same thing from everybody. So that tells us we're headed in the right direction. We heard the same things you all did through on the table that we need to see better, improved facilities. We need a complete network. We need to prioritize safety and access. And I love when everyone was like be visionary. Don't just do the bare minimum. So that is our intent as we move forward. The action plan is available online. That action plan is a starting point. It's not the end. It is a living, breathing document that will continue to be updated as work progresses. It is an envisioned to do list for LFUCG and all of our partners. We had to know where to start. How how are we going to do it? And so we are beginning to tick off some of those to do list items in order for us to lay down that foundation to ensure that decades ahead we are making decisions around our roadways that are ensuring that we are providing for everyone. So the numbers with this action plan, there are thirty nine individual tasks in four different categories. Those categories are listed here around planning, prioritizing and measuring our progress, design and construction, operations and maintenance and safety as its own section. You can imagine all four of those really intermix and mingle. You can't really do one without the other. But we wanted to break that down in some way. The plan itself called for two new staff positions in LFUCG, one of those being the manager of the program. I am thrilled to have been placed in that role in late of twenty twenty four. It also called for a Vision Zero coordinator and let's say the 20th. I think they start next week. Right. That's fantastic. So we are happy that that Vision Zero coordinator will be in the MPOs office as well. The plan calls for seven different lead coordinating entities. And what that means is traffic engineering, engineering, planning. We've identified internally who would be the lead to take charge and we've identified 19 partner agencies or divisions who would help support that work. But that's just the beginning. We couldn't list everyone or the plan would have been hundreds and hundreds of pages. So we identify those as the initial critical partners, but no more will come to the table. What I found interesting and I don't know, Kenzie and I worked on this a lot together. I don't know why we did this to ourselves, Kenzie. We said eight in the first year. That's reasonable. Then we said twenty one tasks in the second year. What were we thinking? And then seven in year three. So that was just an initial take as to when you would start these initiatives. And again, we will look at those and amend as necessary tasks that are underway right now. And again, keep in mind this work is occurring across many departments in LFUCG. This is not one thing to be housed internally and siloed into one. It is to ensure that we are working cross departmentally and collaboratively for all of our projects in our on our roadways. So the complete streets design manual is underway. Baseline performance measures are being collected. So, of course, we can use that to understand how are we succeeding or failing or progressing moving forward. Vision zero policy has been drafted and we look to take that for approval soon. Safety committee work groups are underway with the MPO. They have their own and the council streets focus group, which is at three o'clock today that will be attending. Some of us will. All of those. You've got a lot of energy around these elements. And of course, in order for this to work, this really is a capital projects initiative as well. So we are tackling how do we address this differently in regards to process for developing our projects internally, coordinating those with KYTC and then, of course, informing what that means for new development. Put this little slide in here about the design manual, because in my last presentation, someone asked what does that mean? And Kenzie is managing that effort so she can definitely give more insight to this. But at a very high level, the design manual is is intended to be for our staff or developers or anyone who's making improvements to our streets. We aim for it to be a user friendly product and comprehensive. This should be a clear design and engineering standard manual that works in tandem with other applicable manuals and regulations. We are mindful that there's not a one size fits all. I think that's what people worry about when we say complete streets. Oh, it's going to look like a downtown street everywhere. No, it is different in your neighborhood if you see the bottom right versus a more urban commercial core in a downtown on the top. These were pulled from a Maryland complete streets guide. Looks very familiar. I wonder if our consultant did it because it looks it looks a lot like their style. But I just want to reiterate that it is context sensitive. And this document will dig into that. But as I said earlier, it is about setting goals for the new development that we see occurring within our community, as well as we have to have a goal for how we retrofit our existing roadways. That does not mean from day one that you'll see everything changed because it took it took decades for us to invest in our current built environment. It's going to take a long time for us to make those edits and retrofits as well. But without a goal, we don't know how to get there. So this is a first step for us. Vision zero, if you're not familiar with that, I'm excited we've got someone coming on board who will lead that charge. But truly, it is a commitment to safety with a goal of eliminating all traffic fatalities and serious injuries. We believe that that number of more traffic deaths than some of our other forms of death in this community is unacceptable. I mean, any death is unacceptable. So if we can do anything to to prevent that or serious injury, that is the intent of the Vision Zero charge. Complete Streets works in tandem with this. Complete Streets is focused on that built environment to help support that. And Vision Zero is looking at beyond just the built environment about behavior, about post crash care and about all kinds of other principles that we could get into at a later day. So the tasks ahead, we have a lot of things that I look forward to in the upcoming fiscal year and beyond. Once the manual is completed, we will host a series of trainings that would be for LFUCG staff, external stakeholders. We want to make sure that everyone who would be referencing this document has a full understanding of how to use that. And we are talking with KYTC on how to partner with that training. Public engagement and education is another piece. There's there's so many layers to this, from just doing a pop up project in your intersection near your home and your park to the big arterial roadways in our community. So we have a lot, a lot of opportunity for us to educate through online, in person or even events and pop up case studies. We look over the next year to look at how we look internally. How do we do our own projects within LFUCG? So that we'll be talking NPO planning, engineering, then who operates and maintains it coming to the table and pressing how can we make this better? We do a good job, but how can we be better? And then I've mentioned pilot projects from this. There'll be a lot of zoning ordinance and policy amendments that will come before you all at some point to be heard. And you'll see a lot of the the outcomes and report outs from this other work. So it's a lot to kind of put on you all at once, but I wanted to come and give you that high level overview and tell you how we got to where we are, why we're doing it and what's ahead. And so I like to come full circle because I know I'm often it's interesting. I'm often one of the only non-engineers at the table when you're talking about this work and get that imposter syndrome. But then I remember. We're not here to just engineer. We're here to create a place for our community. We're here to invest in our people and our future. And so that's why the Complete Streets program to me is so meaningful and impactful that it not just be about the standard way of doing business. And so we want to make sure that this program is setting a precedent for making our streets safer in the future. So that is it for me. You are more than welcome to contact me at any time. Yeah. Questions. Thank you so much for the question. As far as retrofitting goes, for example, we've got the New Circle Road project coming. I guess is that a state project or is that a local? Well, there's two New Circle Road projects that are underway. One is internally being managed and another is being KYTC managed. I was thinking, I guess it's the Richmond Road to Newtown Pike. Is that right? The north side, New Circle Road redevelopment. Yes. So I think I'm looking around the room. Who knows the details? Probably do. I was just looking how to turn this thing on. So it's really divided into three separate phases. Oh, sorry. Kensi Gleason, strategic planning, formerly transportation planning. So that's why I know how to answer this question. So from roughly Newtown Pike, where you're transitioning from the limited access highway to the signalized portion, that is one phase that LFUCG applied for and received a federal discretionary grant through the Safe Streets for All program. That portion of New Circle Road in particular through the signalized section until you get to Winchester Road is one of our highest serious injury and fatal collision corridors in the community. But we were those grants are usually up to twenty five, twenty seven million dollars. So we were only able to do about half of that section. So it's from roughly Newtown Pike to Bryan Station, Bryan Avenue. That includes restricted crossing U-turns, so R-cuts and a trail facility on both sides of the road and other safety oriented improvements. The next phase, we would like to apply for another Safe Streets for All grant in the future to continue that to roughly Eastland Parkway and the state project. So that is money that was given to the urban county government, but it's on a state route. So we're working in partnership with them. They're sort of leading the design for that right now, but we're very heavily involved. The other section where they just had a public meeting about that was that this week or last week is a widening that the transportation cabinet would like to do from Liberty to Richmond, roughly. Well, it's Trade Center. It's near the Sam's Club and the Winchester Road intersection all the way to Woodhill. And that is being entirely managed and funded by the transportation cabinet. But it does have some multimodal improvements as well. OK, thank you so much. My question was going to be when we do have a partner like at the state or even the federal government, I'm gathering we try to work with them as best we can, but ultimately they're not necessarily obligated to follow our complete streets. Or can we how do we work with them as well as possible to achieve what we're trying to do? I get this question every time I talk about this, and I think we have a good working relationship with KYTC at Frankfurt and locally. And they, too, as I said, have the complete streets, philosophy, policy in place. This is something that we are having to navigate new waters with everyone to say where is the appropriate time to revise where locally we can plug in and inform and make those changes. But you're right. I mean, they could do anything without relying upon our local, but it helps us to have this to say the lean on this is what we desire as a community. But Kenzie, you and others have have been at the table with them longer than I have. Can you speak to what is going on? Yes. So we have there's three different complete streets policy, the state level, the regional level, which is the MPO, the Transportation Planning Agency, who oversees the administration of federal funds in our area and then the local government, LFUCG's policy. A couple of years ago, the MPO also adopted a complete streets policy. And as part of that, we said if once a project has gone through the design phase, it has to be reviewed by the MPO and whether it's in compliance with the complete streets policy has to be determined. And if it is not, that recommendation will be forwarded to the Transportation Policy Committee that future phases not be funded or programmed until it is in compliance with the policy. So while we can't make the state do a project, what we can do is we can say you cannot spend those federal funds in our area without that going through the policy committee. So it's a unique way for us to try to have some more direct influence over that. Very few MPOs, if any, that I'm aware of, have have taken this approach. So we're very eager to see how it plays out. Thank you. Brenda, with some of the changes in the federal government with DOGE, how is that going to affect our funding going forward? That is a great question. And as of right now, there's nothing tied directly to the Complete Streets program that we are working on right now. So everything that you heard me talk about today is continuing forward. I think what you're seeing at the federal level, I have heard that Safe Streets for All is intended to continue. Build, which is like one of the larger ones, will continue. But as with every administration, priorities shift. And so that's shaking out right now in regards to where they want that funding to be focused to. So I can't answer that any more than you can. But I believe no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, people are going to invest in infrastructure. And it's a matter of us sticking true to our principles to incorporate Complete Streets and all of these facilities into our projects. And when we apply for these federal funds, that we ensure that we're meeting those intents federally while also ensuring we're attacking this issue locally and putting these elements in. So that's a squirrely way to say I don't know. But I do believe that we are going to see some changes. Unfortunately, the Complete Streets websites and reference to that has been taken off of the USDOT and FHWA websites two weeks ago. And actually, I made our state and our local FHWA people aware of that. They didn't even know because it just happened. So there's a lot of things happening. But when I talk to my FHWA regional contact, they're like, I have not been told to stop any of this. So please continue. And we believe in it. We know that the data supports that you have to do this work. So it's we believe that there's enough there's enough strength there to continue with this effort. Mr. Chair, let me build on what Brandy said as well. Chris Avila, our NPO director, transportation manager, is very close to this and asking the same kind of questions that you all are about the status of this. And we know we believe specifically that the New Town Pike North Broadway project that Kenzie talked about is is in good shape the way it is described and funded that it may still need some review at the federal level because I believe they're looking at all of them. But we believe that it meets the criteria that they're looking at right now. So at least that particular project we expect will go forward. There is some concern about projects that are just for bike and pedestrian facilities only, but projects that are that are primarily about the roadway and also include a bike and pedestrian component. Those seem to be in good shape right now. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Yes. Thank you so much, Brandy and Chair. Does House Bill 443 have any impact on this in terms of just the last line on the handout handout that Daniel gave us as if things are, I guess, codified by July 1st, 2025, they're unenforceable. Well, and in our design manual and Kenzie can speak to the details, has that House Bill 443 top of mind as that's being developed as far as how that is in line with the timeline. Can you speak to that, Kenzie? We expect to have something before the Planning Commission July, August time frame. So I think we'll be in pretty good shape. Thank you. OK, Miranda, thank you. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Good to see you all. Good to see you, too. Agenda item two, Tori Cruz-Falk. OK. Howdy. Can you hear me? Thank you all for having me. Thanks for inviting me. I'm here with to represent Vice Mayor Wu and Lexington's Preservation and Growth Management Program, which, as you all know, in the Lexington 2045 Comprehensive Plan, Imagine Lexington 2045 Comprehensive Plan calls for building the framework for how we alter the USA moving forward, the urban service area in the goals and objectives adopted by the council. It calls for a robust public input, as well as a public hearing and creating a process that is informed by robust public input and stakeholder engagement. Recently, too, I was able to present to the Public Input Subcommittee, which is a subcommittee of the General Government and Planning Committee chaired by Councilmember Legree. We discussed committee previews. And so a bit of what I want to talk about today is how the council is addressing some concerns that CivicLEX reported in 2022 about accessibility to not just council, but all of the UCG departments and divisions. So something that the CivicLEX 2022 public input report found was that residents, as well as city staff, wanted folks to be more involved earlier in the legislative process and also that having meetings 1 p.m. during March Madness downtown is not always the most accessible. And so one of the ways that the Public Input Subcommittee addressed this was by implementing issues, expos, and committee previews. We held a transportation expo in October 2024. And through this process, we plan to have two styles of committee previews, one being an informational session and the other being an input session. So the input sessions happened this week, actually one last night. Thank you for everybody in the room who made this happen. And the style of this event was to educate the public on what the timeline is for this process and why this process is necessary and how we got here. I think something that, from my perspective, as someone who came to this government two years ago and didn't know anything about any of this, is that the things that you all talk about in these meetings and that is just commonplace for planners is really inaccessible to average residents who don't have a background in planning. And so the vice mayor wanted to be sure that we gave some background and education on why we're doing this before we ask for some public engagement. The style of this presentation was a 15 to 20 minute presentation from Hal Bailey on the history of the urban service area, how we got to be where we are today, as well as a Q&A that was moderated by Vice Mayor Wu and Council Member Sheehan. This presentation is also available on the Engage Lexington page, which is one of the other ways the Public Input Subcommittee has tried to address the accessibility. I have provided you all with materials, so if you're not registered for Engage Lexington, I do invite you to do so. We have a timeline up there for the project, as well as a public survey that is live now through April 15th. So if you can share that throughout your networks, I think that would be really helpful. I think it's all of our responsibilities in this government to make this government more accessible. And when we talk about robust public input, I think that we're all stakeholders in making that possible. The moderated Q&A that I mentioned, we are taking all of the questions that were asked and planning staff is going to take some time and answer those questions, thank you. And we are going to post that on the website so that people that were not able to learn from other people's questions in real time have access to that as well. Engage Lexington, like I said, is live. Please register. And then up here we have our timeline. The only thing that is updated from this packet is the May 22nd, the late spring May public input session is confirmed for May 22nd, four to seven at the Lexington Senior Center. And I'm sure that that information can be shared and will be, it is live on the website now. And that is of the two committee preview styles that I discussed, informational and then more of an input session. This is an opportunity for us to build what an input committee preview looks like for council. I will just point out that the September 16th public forum is a more similar public forum, public comment style that will be held in council chambers on September 16th at 6 p.m. in council chambers. So that will also be part of the robust public engagement that is called for in the comprehensive plan. If you have questions that are about the engagement and about the events, I would be happy to take that. If it is about the process, that is not me, that is Harold Bailey. Please and thank you. Mr. Bailey, what's the composition of the GGP committee? That actually is something that I'll turn back over to Tori. The general government and planning committee is chaired by council member Sheehan of the fifth district and vice chair, council member Shayla Lynch of the seventh district. And it is comprised of 10 council members. It is, do you want me to list them? Because I can't. No, let me tell you where I'm headed. Okay, I was on the goal four work group. So my question is, at what point does the planning commission get involved in this process development? So when it comes to the process overall, the main question that was asked with the goal four was that we're doing this through a robust public input process working with the council specifically. We are of the opinion, and that's why Ms. Cruz-Falk is here today, that you all need to be informed as we're going through this so that you can add your perspectives of where this is going along the way. It is starting anew. Yes, we are utilizing the frameworks from the previous work that had been done, but we want to make sure that we are stepping through all of this from the beginning to end, bringing the planning commission along the way and making sure that you have a voice as we go along. But there's a big difference between keeping us informed and having a voice. The council is leading this process. Staff is working as staff to council. When council finishes their work through the committee, they will pass something out of committee to the full council, and what form that takes is, I would say, still to be determined. But the rest of the goal and objective calls for the council to give direction to the planning commission, and then once they are finished, we will begin the work with the planning commission to meet the August of next year deadline. That's the framework we're working under as the staff to the council. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. All right, any other questions, concerns? Okay. Oh, go ahead and go. I mean, I might articulate the concern that I think I'm hearing from Judy here, which is that, and I wasn't on the goal forward group, but essentially, you know, at the last minute, I mean, we were informed of what they were doing, but I know I can speak for myself. I didn't agree with the framework of what they were doing. So then it comes to us to do the draft of the goal and objectives, and essentially what got passed to the council was this wish-washy bureaucratic nonsense in goal four, where it was like, twisted because nobody actually agreed on what that should look like. And then we got a equally poor result back, which was completely different than the poor vague result we sent. And so not wrestling with those concepts here, last time, I think resulted in a very poor draft that we sent to the council. And I don't know that we wanna replicate that again. And so it's hard for me to see that this is a good process for this committee. Dory, thank you. Thank you. Eve Miller, Blue Sky. Hell, you don't look like a Eve. Eve got the jet. Good afternoon. Yes, I am not Eve Miller. Eve had to be out today, but in true Eve Miller fashion, I have a very scripted presentation for you today that will walk through just an update of where we are with the Blue Sky small area plan. So this will just really try to bring you up to date on the really fast things that are occurring over the past few weeks. As a quick reminder, the goal of the small area plan is to provide an analysis of the existing conditions and to identify opportunities for Blue Sky to help Lexington meet its current and future industrial land use needs and economic development goals for the city over the next 20 years. The tasks for the consultant included development objectives and strategies to guide future economic development while also protecting the environment through sustainable site development and building methods, achieve community consensus and provide clarity on the desired land and industrial uses that are associated with this area, and evaluate existing conditions of infrastructure and built environment, including sanitary sewers, stormwater infrastructure, waste water management, public safety, et cetera. And this is really focused on the areas of three, four, and five of the urban growth master plan. When we received applications or proposals through our RFP process, we received two proposals when the RFP closed. And we are lucky to say that we selected TSW as our consultant to provide a robust, they provided a fairly robust proposal, having a lot of familiarity with the area and the new urban growth areas because of their work with the urban growth master plan. So you'll all remember Sam and Ms. Davis. You will be meeting her soon. They came back with a very good product and they proposed a potential project for this upcoming year that we think will integrate very well within that while also amplifying the industrial needs of this area. Funding for the project was allocated at $500,000 by the Urban County Council. And the total cost for this contract came in under that at $486,000. The costs include two additional tasks that we added on and that they were able to provide information on. The first being the Athens-Boonesborough interchange with I-75. This is a particularly important interchange, especially with the growth of our urban service area, as well as if we want to make sure that the area that is to the west is vibrant for residential commercial opportunities and the area to the east where this study would occur is very vibrant for industrial land uses. We want to make sure that pedestrians, cars, and then truck and freight traffic can all coexist in a safe manner, going back to some of our complete streets processes. There is also an add-in of a review of our industrial code within the zoning ordinance. So looking at our B4, I1, and I2 zones so that we can update those, make them a little bit more modern, have a greater conversation. If you'll remember with the UGM ZOTA, that did a significant amount of lifting when it came to a lot of different residential zones and some of our commercial zones. This gives us another opportunity to look at the zones that were not incorporated in that. So just a background on the timeline. The RFP was posted on January 24th and then closed three weeks later on February 14th. Staff sent a notice of award to TSW on March 4th. Only a few days later, a few days after our original scheduled date of February 28th, but we were able to move this along in the contract process with city council. It is currently ongoing, but it did have a scheduled work session and put onto the docket earlier this week. Planning staff aims to have the project completed within a one-year time span, with periodic updates being presented to the planning commission so that you can provide your input throughout the process over that time, both by the project manager, Eve Miller, and by our consultants, TSW. For a little bit more detail, this slide displays some of the schedule that they have provided in the RFP. We anticipate this being slightly more refined as we go along. They are anticipating meeting that 12-month process deadline with the start date of May of this year. So we are really trying to make sure that we're hitting those existing conditions, trying to get a lot of the outreach to the people that are working out in that area and our property owners, so that we can come up with the best possible plan for our future in this area. A quick presentation, and thank you, Eve, for allowing me to present this today. I know she is watching. So if anyone has any questions on that, I'd be happy to do my best to answer them. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Thank you. On behalf of Ms. Miller, Chris Taylor. All right, gonna talk with you all a little bit today about the B-3 zone, the Lot Coverage Zoning Orders text amendment that was initiated by you all, how long ago was that, last month? Last month. So I wanted to give a little bit of background. Ms. Davis is new, and I don't know who else came in before this change was made, but I wanna just take a moment and remind the commission that all of the text amendment changes that we have been working on really since 2017 are rooted in sort of the public input of the comprehensive plan, and people overwhelmingly feel strongly that growth and development is good and is important. Our public input report, again, this is from the 2024 comprehensive plan, indicates that. But also, people have very, very strong feelings about the type of development, the style of development, what the community looks like. Just like our growth trends in terms of sprawl and the urban service area, they also care a great deal about the development that we build inside, the infill, how sustainable it is, increasing the density, infill everywhere, these are common themes that are spoken to broadly in the comprehensive plan and in overwhelming numbers. And I point all that out to point out that it comes back to you all in the form of the goals and objectives of the comp plan. And the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan tell us what to implement. We don't go to the public generally and ask them what they think about a bunch of specific policies, because it's not what people necessarily know, but they know what they wanna see in their community. And so what we've tried to do and bring to you all through the comprehensive plan's goals and objectives is statements about where we need to go. And these particular ones that fall under theme E and goal one, under the urban service area concept, to do that requires that we address sustainability in our development, not just economic or environmental, but economic sustainability. It also talks about development and redevelopment of our underutilized corridors and maximizing the potential for development on our vacant lands, which leads to our review over the last almost 10 years now of looking at the commercial intensity on our urban corridors. And part of this work started in 2016, 2017 with a change to our B6P, our shopping center zone, where we instituted a minimum FAR floor area ratio and we eliminated parking requirements for the first time in a zone, and we instituted parking maximums for the first time in a zone. And it was really a test case for making major reform to our zoning ordinance. And we looked at the average floor area ratio along our corridors as the basis for this work. Now floor area ratio and lot coverage aren't the same thing, but when you're in Lexington, most of our corridors are built one story. So when that's the case, it's one and the same. Floor area ratio is the lot coverage in most cases. And as you can see here, this is a 2017 analysis that we did, and it was a tremendous amount of work to point out that our average FAR on these corridors ranged from 0.25 to 0.31 at that time. And so when we wrote the urban growth management ZOTO in 2023 and into 2024, we were looking at trying to make the B3 zone a viable zone again, addressing number of land uses that were problematic for both the planning commission, the staff and council that we had heard, made land use recommendation changes, but also to try to get a little bit more out of the zone in terms of intensity of development. And as you see, when we set a 30% minimum lot coverage for the B3 zone, we weren't talking about a radical shift. We're talking a few percentage points. But here's where things, I think, sort of fell apart for us in the last year. COVID happened, and the development trends have changed. Now, that I think is probably what is driving a lot of, driving, no pun intended, the change in land uses and typologies that we're seeing that are dominating development on these corridors. And I don't think that the staff's viewpoint on advancing the comprehensive plans goals, the public input has changed. What's changed are development trends. And you all are hearing about that. The council members are hearing about that. And so I don't want to speak for Mr. Nichols' initiation of this text, but I think we understand the concern. It doesn't mean that we don't share long-term concern about what those trends mean for addressing the goals and objectives and upholding the urban service area concept. These are still things that are in competition with each other. And so just in that vein, to move this forward, the planning staff is going to go ahead and start the process for, as you all initiated, the removal of the lot coverage requirement in the B3 zone. Striking under 8-20L1, provision number one. We are not touching number two, which would become number one at this time, as we have not received complaints about it. The council has made it very clear to us that this involves uses that they were very interested in reining in. And it is not our intention to bring those forward, or for any change to that at this time. But to address specifically what was requested in the initiation by the planning commission at that time. And just to let you all know sort of procedurally how that's going to go, we will start the mailed notice process in early April. You'll get it at your zoning committee on May 1st, and it will be scheduled for a May 22nd public hearing. That's a very bare bones version of this, but if you have questions on this, we'd be happy to answer. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. We have a question. Yeah, you just gave a presentation for maintaining it, and then said you're recommending removal of it. I gave a presentation indicating that we are moving forward with the process that, or the initiated text that the planning commission has begun. It has a timeline, it has to be met, and we're going to move that forward. The staff will prepare a staff report at that time, and if we have a staff alternative, we will work that into the regular process. So in thinking about this, I have concerns that might be somewhat different about this rule, and those really stem from the fact that the rule, as you sort of articulately pointed out, was for us to really do a better job on the, as our corridor develops into developing sort of a good built environment along the corridors where we don't have a lot of empty space and a lot of parking lots that you're driving by and seeing that both has to do with the density, the use of our land, and it also has to do with the way that we will see our city, you know? And so what I see, I mean, we just approved a car wash and a gas station that met this requirement. So I think, I mean, from my concern about the requirement, it's that it's not achieving all of those goals. And I'm not intuitively necessarily attached to this idea of this percentage, but I am, to your presentation, I think that it's important that we continue to have some guidelines or some guardrails for the use of our corridors so that we don't just drive down and see asphalt parking lots as we go down our streets, maybe with a little kiosk in the parking lot. So I guess I'm maybe question or asking how to rethink this rather than just scratch this. Thank you. Did you want me to respond or just were you? Okay, nevermind. Well, I would say the staff is, since this has been initiated, honestly, since it was adopted and the staff began receiving feedback on it, we've been wrestling with this question ourselves. And lots of those avenues create other issues and we're trying to work through those. However, this has been initiated, so it's on a schedule. And so we're getting it started on the schedule so that we can meet the deadline of the timeline that's required to hear a tax amendment. So we hear you, we understand, and we are trying to explore what other options there might be to do that. Yes, Mr. Nickel, sorry. Yes, can we go back to the, maybe a couple more back, two more back, we're gonna see a bar graph right here with public land use and a lot of our citizens responded with a style of development is a concern, but also infill and redevelopment and the growth locations. And I think what initiated this is we have a significant portion of our B3 property that is vacant and unutilized or doesn't have the ability to be developed in a way that meets the needs of the citizens. And for example, we've used this before, 30% of an acre is 15,000 square feet. So with a 15,000 foot requirement, that is a requirement for the lot coverage. What we were looking at is floor area ratio, but as was stated by Mr. Taylor, when we're looking at our B3 property, in order for the properties to be viable for business, it is not, these properties need to be developed in a one story manner. What we found is B3 use with an additional use in the second floor is not marketable. We've seen that everywhere. So we are limited now with floor area ratio at 0.3 or lot coverage at 0.3. We're looking at a 15,000 square foot building on the first floor since we've eliminated the marketability of second floor uses just from what the market has demanded. So with a 15,000 foot requirement, the community is not going to get full service restaurants. They're not going to get, it eliminates from a marketability standpoint, many of the uses of B3. So the reason that this was promoted was to try to solve that problem, which will solve the problems as well for infill redevelopment. Because like I said, we're seeing B3 property that's not marketable. Growth location, we're already looking at B3 properties. That means that they have been identified for B3, so it meets the growth location. And with style of development, we have made adjustments to our parking lot requirements and our overall use of the land when it comes from screening and parking lots. All of that is not changing with this motion for a ZOTA to change this. In my motivation to make this change was to satisfy infill and redevelopment, growth location and amenities. So, and economic development. So we knock a bunch of those off the list. It doesn't affect growth location because these sites are B3 already zoned. It doesn't affect rural growth because a lot of this property we're seeing is in infill redevelopment areas. So I think that this is a good solution. I think when you do the math and start to figure out do we do 30% or we do 27% or do we do 14% or do we do 7%. Once we get into percentages, I don't think we're gonna have the findings that back up a percentage that is supported by findings. I think there'll be a lack of findings that can suggest a certain percentage. So I think that this is a good solution that can meet quite a few of these needs that we've seen from the public input. And provide economic development and amenities that'll improve the quality of life of our community. This is a statement and a question. Back to your point about the guardrails. I think I'm not anywhere near figuring out what I really think about this other than a concern that I don't want this to end up resulting in a 2025 version of Northeast New Circle Road where what we have along there is coffee shops, car washes, gas stations, that that doesn't represent the best use of that territory. The question I have is just to get this on the record, would you sort of summarize for us the changes in development trends that we're trying to respond to? Well, by all appearances, I don't know. I think this is still anecdotal but it's overwhelmingly anecdotal because I don't have data to back it up. But you all see the plans every month. The buildings are getting smaller. The vehicular use areas are increasing. Internal seating is pretty much non-existent. And then as we see from time to time, new businesses enter sort of a period of competition where they are sort of gobbling up parcels to gain a sort of market share in an area and then we inevitably see a consolidation in the number of businesses and franchises and then a vacating of those spaces and then they sit vacant. We've seen that with drugstores specifically and they present a number of issues for redevelopment because there's a whole host of reasons why those things sit vacant. Most of them not related to government. It's mostly related to leases and things like that. And so we do get concerned about trying to address the fad of the moment when we're talking about 20, 30, 50 year planning and addressing responsible land use patterns and what minimum standards and guardrails should be in place. And again, that was what we were looking to address but I think COVID not just adjusted the market, it sort of whipped it the other direction. And so the uses that we've seen and the lot coverage that we're seeing are often dramatically lower than what the averages were before. I got another. Can you give us a little bit more history on B3 use, B3 location and where it's recommended with our comprehensive plan so we can understand what this proposal will affect? Well, B3 is always been a corridor business zone. Now it's been a highway service business zone. We renamed it a corridor business in line with the place builder terminology but it is primarily along our arterials. And the issues that led us to bring it forward as part of the UGM ZOTA was really about addressing the neighborhood business zone and its inadequacy and the inability to get B1 deeper into neighborhoods. So further separating and correcting that was a big part of the UGM ZOTA and I think has been considered, is widely considered very successful and people seem very happy with that. The B3 that you see is largely going to be in those areas of black along an arterial in the shaded areas. However, lots of those areas, I mentioned the B1 to say for years and decades, we saw B1 zoning applied for on the corridors in order to avoid the public concern around using B3 related to other uses that were less desirable. So we had a mismatch of the application of zoning throughout the community, which led to B1 being stigmatized as something that's for the corridors and it's not. And B3 is usable nowhere because it's got all the uses we don't want. So we tried to slide those two things back into where they belong. You should see, we should see as a community and the comprehensive plan calls for B3 to be in those shaded areas that are in the commercially zoned portions of those shaded areas and then along North New Circle as well. Okay. And also when we're talking about corridors and arterials, I think that what we have determined through the comprehensive plan is that that would be a good location for business amenities and services to our community. And that's more of a statement. Can we go back to what the changes are gonna be made on I1 when you strike I1, I think you're leaving outdoor storage and sales lot coverage maximum 50% of all paved areas. I think that that is very important to eliminate the concerns from this worth about sales lots and the coverage of sales lots. So that would include car dealerships and storage sites. So that gives us the ability to limit that. I know that it is a valuable service to our community, but from the planning hat, it's less ideal for a community that is trying to preserve our, try to preserve our farmland and grow in a responsible way. But having that keeping too, I think is important for our goals of maximizing infill development. I've got just a question on going back over a number. So the way it's written right now, I think as Bruce pointed out, if you take an acre lot, you've got to have, and you develop anything, you're supposed to develop at least 1,500, 15,000 square feet on the first floor, regardless of it's one, two, three, four stories, 15,000 square feet. I mean, part of me is sympathetic to saying if you own an acre property and you want to build a building, you're not mandated to build a 15,000 square foot building. Part of me is, I mean, there's some intuitive sympathy there that I have. The hesitancy, I guess I have what I'm getting to and where I'm maybe asking you all to look into some other zoning ordinances is I wonder if we say, part of mandating that size building effectively mandates or creates a cap of the parking lot size and the vehicular use area. I'm curious if there's examples or if there's other cases where either the size of the building is tied to the allowable vehicular use area, not the parking, but the paved area altogether. Or if there's a way to say, if you do not meet the 30,000 square feet, that's fine, but then you're capped at this percentage of your lot can be vehicular use area only so that we do not get the parking lot with a kiosk in it because I don't think that is where we wanna see development go. I guess that's some research questions there for you. And we do have precedent in our own zoning ordinance for a maximum vehicular use area in the B6B zone. So we already have that as established. But I would point out that the one acre example, there's no requirement that it be an acre. Our hope with this, and we explained this to the commercial property folks from the very beginning was that they would be able to yield additional outlots that might be smaller and that we would get more parcels, but they have not done that. And I can't explain why. I'm not a commercial property lease person. The goal was to give them the flexibility to shrink those lots, get a few extra in, and if outlot development on the corridor is what they want, fine. But maybe do it at half to three quarters of an acre. The problem is, I think, what we hear is all of these national chains want what they want. And they want anywhere from seven to 20%. And that's a lot coverage with 75% VUA. And so therein lies the rub. And so reconciling that is proving to be increasingly difficult. But to your point, those are good suggestions and we will research those specifically. This is a couple of questions and a comment. Mr. Taylor, could you go back to the slide that shows the bar chart that says style of development is important? On that slide, it says that increasing density, build up, not out, is a desired thing. Balanced with Bruce or Mr. Nickel, could you help me to understand when you said that it seems that most developers don't want to build on multiple stories, is that just in the B3 area that you were, you were referencing? I think Mr. Fortster can also talk about this based on him being a banker and providing loans to businesses. But what we found and basically eliminated is the mixed use aspect of our ordinance, which was a mix of uses that had, I think it was 80-20, one way or the other. So 80 residential and 20 non-residential or flipped. But what we found is that the 80-20 model has not worked because you can lease the residential space but you can't lease the commercial space. And that commercial space doesn't provide the income that is required to provide a net operating income that can then be underwritten. So that's one example. The other example we found just from market demands is that second floor retail has not been successful. And then secondarily, I would say, say where you do want to have high intensity, taller buildings would be professional office, or yeah, P1 uses are normally the most popular. But what we are seeing a trend of is that residential use is being pushed to go more than two floors. And I think we're gonna see a lot more of that. So I think on the residential side, we've adjusted our residential zoning to encourage three-story developments from townhouses. So R2, R3, R4 have been changed to allow for greater density of housing. And that seems to work well. And it's a model that we are going to, that's trending nationally. And we're gonna see a lot more here. But when we're looking for B3 services, restaurant normally doesn't have a second floor. And that's not a successful model. So for roughly looking at a 15,000 square foot building, let's just use $200 a square foot for construction. That's a $3 million building. And that number doesn't work for the amount of turns you're gonna get of a table to provide the income that's necessary. Because all of it's underwritten by net operating income minus debt coverage. And it's hard to, it's unachievable. So the example that we saw last week on Delaware Avenue that had residential mixed with commercial, not on an arterial road, but it was a good example of how mixed use development can be more dense. But that example is simply not applicable, I guess, in every case on here. I know that my neighborhood argued vociferously against it, tear down at the corner of Edgemoor and Nicholasville, because it's on the corridor. But there was a lot of sentiment that that house, there's a neighborhood directly behind things. And I guess there's a bit of push and pull between the corridor, which might have one zoning and all the neighborhoods behind it. I think that's why you see all of the black to the south of Southland Drive on Nicholasville Road and to the north of it. It's just not that way. It just seems like a real push and pull between on those corridors, what's gonna happen on them. That is what we're seeing is this push and pull. If we push the services, the commercial services to the arterials and the corridors, especially vehicular type of businesses and amenities, where we're getting drive-thrus out of neighborhoods and onto arterials and corridors, there's always going to be a problem from the neighbors who are those final lots backing up to the commercial property on the corridors and arterials. We're gonna see that period from here on out, but that's the way our development is moving. So how to protect these neighborhoods is to allow these services where the majority of our vehicular traffic is. But to get back to some of the things we've done before you got here is we've improved our R2, R3, and R4 zoning that does allow for greater density by changing some of the rules with R2 and R3. So we've got greater density and reduced parking requirements, which is going to lead us to providing more dwelling units by building to that 35-foot height, those three-story buildings. We're gonna see a lot more of three-story townhouses, and that's gonna be beneficial for affordability of all housing because any housing added to the market increases the supply, which is then gonna help the supply-demand curve and lower overall prices. Thank you. Sorry, I was having to move back and forth in the eyes of what there used to be. You know, I'm hearing a lot, and, you know, I wanna go this way on one way or this way on another way and so forth, but, you know, Nicholasville Road was being talked about. I believe there's a small area plan, and everybody came together and met in maybe not an official small area plan neighborhoods, and there was two factions that met, and they never could get anything resolved. But yet, development is still occurring in that part of Nicholasville Road, and the neighbors behind them are still living there. They don't necessarily wanna live on Nicholasville Road, but the commercial development is happening. I've spoke to, had many discussions with Mark Cravens when he was sitting here behind these microphones saying that mixed-use just wouldn't work in Lexington. Mixed-use doesn't work in Lexington. But it seemed like it works elsewhere. It seems like it does. I've been to a restaurant with residential on the second and third floor. I've been to them where they've had residential 10 stories high with two and three restaurants on the ground floor. So it can work, and, you know, we've just gotta find a way to make it happen. You know, when you say let's remove, or suggesting to remove the minimum lot coverage of 30%, that tells me that somebody could put 10% building in there. That's not really helping us with density, you know. It's not really helping us to go the way that it needs to go. We need to find a way to allow and encourage and get these people to, developers, builders, to build on that smaller lot at that 30%, you know, or even more. I mean, you know, parking-wise, you know, we got rid of the minimum parking a long time ago. I think it was a good move, even though I couldn't find parking out here. I wouldn't go to the maximum parking today. But I think it's a good move, you know. The transit is gonna change. We're seeing it change, whether it's, you know, mass transit, whether it's walking, whether it's biking, or whatever. And I think you will continue to do that as this type of development occurs. But, you know, simply put, we've got ways to go on this. And I'm not sure which way it's gonna go, but we've got quite a ways to go and a lot of discussion to get there first. Mr. Taylor, how you feeling out there? I'm great, I'm great. Gerald's text, we're just bringing it along. All right, thank you all. Thank you. Just one final note to that, though. Just doing the math, 30%, 15,000 square feet is about two Texas roadhouses, just to give you an idea. So if y'all wanna know what 15,000 square feet is, basically equates to two Texas roadhouses. Smaller, smaller. Two Texas roadhouses. Or three or four businesses with a drive-thru on the edge. Just putting that out there. And then the other part to it is, just because Bruce brought my name in the mix, I had to say something. A lot of it, I know we talk about, Mike, you know some of the developers, and I think everybody does. A lot of this is also driven, not much on the developers, but on the end users. They are those national chains. I mean, like anything else, they want certain things and they have people in all areas, all of the communities around, just like the communities you visit, too. So my question was to staff is, is there a way that we can actually talk to maybe a couple of them, maybe two or three, just to see if there's a way that they have done something different in other communities. Not sure, but we all know that if you're talking about, who knows, Chick-fil-A or McDonald's or Starbucks, you know, their main people are somewhere else. But if they have representatives here, so maybe staff. And I think they were looking into it, but staff has been going into that direction to see, because Mike, as you mentioned, you talk about a lot of travels that you've been on, especially in Nashville. But I will say Nashville, it would be nice, but Lexington is just weird. I mean- Yeah, but to your point, okay. And I keep thinking, you know, I don't live in Chevy Chase or Ashland Park, but those are very walkable areas. And we've got individual homes, we've got townhouses, we've got duplexes, we've got quadplexes, we've got sixplexes and apartment buildings all in that area. We have a Kroger that made considerable concessions when they went in there to keep that very walkable. We have a Publix going in on Romney Road that's making tremendous concessions to be able to go in there. So I don't know, to your point, somebody got those people to the table and they made compromises that are different from the Publix and the Krogers they're building elsewhere. Maybe it's a matter of we're not using our leverage well enough. I don't know, I'm just raising the question. Miss Worth, hold that thought until we get to number six on the agenda. Yes, sir. We'll keep you on the happy side. We have some good things that are up here, especially if you're not a Louisville resident. Things that are up here, especially if you're not a Louisville fan right now. Creighton had a good day. But we do have an update. So as you know, we have been working on our Imagine Lexington Data Research Center. We launched that just over a month ago. And we wanted to just bring you an update on some of the things that we have uploaded onto the website and some things that we find that can be very helpful, not only for a review of our community and sustainable development, but also for individuals coming in and looking at infill and redevelopment within Lexington. So we'll scroll down. Here's just our main splash page. Going into some of our lab reports, our deputy director pointing at a sign, which is a traditional planner pose. We'll head up to our land use. This just takes us in over to our vacant land. One of the things that we have uploaded recently, and we hope to have the map published within the end of the day, is a map of all of the vacant land within Lexington-Fayette-Urban County. This is a pretty, it looks a lot more glaring, just because we want to call some of the things out. But it does play into showing all of the vacant land as the way that we categorize it in the urban county government and have been utilizing that methodology now since approximately 2007. So we can zoom in and just click on one of those properties, give you an idea of some of the information that you might see, as you'll get the address of the property, the acreage of the property, as well as the zoning of that specific property. That link that is in there, if you are a member of the public, you can click on that link. That'll take you directly to our zoning ordinance, and it will describe the allowable uses in that zone. Now, this one, I probably, we might want to look for something other than AR because it's something that we just brought in. But let's say you find something that is a B1, you'd click into that. This would allow someone to come in, look at that property, understand what is an allowable use, scroll around. But if you wanted to as well, just look at broader community statistics, you would be able to scroll down and look at some of our vacant parcels by zone, and then the vacant acreage by zone. This gives members of our community the ability to go ahead, zoom in, look at the different years of vacancy rates. You'll see that we have a bump up of vacancy rates with our agricultural acreage in 2024, specifically because we just expanded our urban service area. And then it does break down some of the parcels specific. But this is just another one of our efforts to provide as much information to the public as we're going along. We wanted to highlight this because it provides a little bit more information about how we are looking at a data-driven process and some of the questions that we're getting about what is a vacancy rate, how many vacancies do we have in a B3 zone, 64 that we know about right now. So it will be updated on an annual basis so that we're providing this information to the community. On the lower ends, it gives you the historical record of vacant land by acres based off of our comprehensive plans. We'll be adding more information as we go along. It also does include some of the sustainable growth reports from the past. It also gives the acreage of our urban service area, just giving an idea as how we have grown and contracted at different points in time in our history with our urban service area, providing a little bit more information to the public. So this is our most recent add-on to the Imagine Lexington Data Research Center. A wealth of other tables and information. I'd like to thank S.B. Stroh in the back for all the work that they are working on on this. But if you have any questions about the website, feel free to reach out to us at any point. I'd be happy to answer questions right now if you have any. Thank you. Just definition-wise, vacant, do we have underutilized in that category? Is that a separate category? So we do not categorize underutilized. It would be a very hard thing for us as an urban county government to go ahead and say anybody that is building a single-family home on a lot that is bigger than the minimum is underutilized property. So we want to make sure that we are focusing in on vacant land based off of a methodology that we have been utilizing for a very long time and we will have posted on the website here shortly as well so that other people can utilize that. So vacant means nothing on it? Vacant means that there is no principal primary use or that it is an agricultural use within an urban service area. We have some other categorizations on that, but that's pretty much the basics of it. Yes, sir. How would we, does this offer the ability to search by zone, so B3, vacant land, and then you select B3 and it'll list the properties? Or is it individual, you need to search them out? So SB, there are ways to do that. We're working on trying to make this a refined process. There is a search function on this, but with any new technology that we're bringing in, we're trying to work out the kinks. The biggest thing that we were trying to get on this website was making sure that there was a map that people could click around. We're gonna iterate that in the next process, hoping to get it a little bit more user-friendly. That would be like, right now it's one layer. It's right, you've got vacant land as one layer, and then zones are a different layer, so they're not, they're either. So we categorize the vacant layer with the zone. So in the metadata of each of the shapes that you see in orange, it has the zoning associated with that specific parcel. So the real issue is getting it to translate with the app that is now running on the screen, and making sure that you could say, if we wanted to see all the B3 properties, it could pop up. Would that be like a layer slide out? We might try to do it as a layer slide out, or tie it to the specific shape files that are on this screen, so that it doesn't take away from what you're seeing, it only adds or amplifies what you're seeing. Okay. I mean, this is a small thing, but, you know, people are probably more interested in it linking to the PVA than they would be to being linked to the zoning ordinance, but. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Thank you. Mr. Crone. Um. Oh, that's the big one, huh? Draw straws on who had to present this. Oh, no, this is my baby. This is the zoning planner. Well, we will have a new zoning planner too, I guess, maybe potentially introduced at the end. But Daniel Crone Planning Staff, and with respect to today, I just would like to, before I begin my presentation to note, Creighton has beaten Louisville, 89 to 75, Wisconsin leads Montana, 59 to 47, Purdue has beaten High Point, 75 to 63, and Houston leads SIUE, whatever that stands for, 52 to 24, so. But is your bracket perfect? Oh, absolutely not, but that's grass is green, sky is blue. So in front of each of you today is basically just a one pager, really not any new information, but it's basically just a summary of kind of the concepts behind what we're looking at with this House Bill 443 text amendment. And really today we'll be going through kind of just clarifying what staff is looking at, why we're changing the things that we are, give you kind of a heads up to some of the things that we're looking to tweak as we're working towards sort of finalized language. And then want to provide an opportunity for you all to give us any kind of further feedback that you all have kind of been generating as you look at the text. But just to kind of bring us back up to speed and reorient everybody, once again, House Bill 443 relates to how we review our plats and development plans, and requires those to be objectively measured and applied ministerially. So once again, in a very objective, straightforward process that doesn't allow for personal discretion or really flexibility, it's based on the written rules and applying those as written and adopted. Once again, objective standards are measurable, specific, unbiased, and equitable. When we're talking about things applied ministerially, we're talking about carrying them out in a prescribed manner, not allowing for personal discretion. So has to basically be a very black and white, readable, understandable condition. The House Bill sets out when you can apply that discretion, and it's essentially when the applicant is asking for a waiver from those objective standards you've set forth or the planning staff or the technical review committee has identified a very specific health, safety, or welfare plan issue that would be applicable with applying these rules as written. So we are currently in the process of updating our zoning ordinance to reflect that requirement. So really, within the necessary changes, it really kind of comes down to three main categories. The first is updating our process. So right now, development plans flow through from the technical review committee to your committee process, and then ultimately to the planning commission. You simplify some of the review of those plans, but ultimately still goes through that extended process. Under House Bill 443, ministerially means that if it gets the technical review committee, it has no waivers, it has no other objectional items that specifically can be raised by staff, it would be approved and it would not proceed on. So there are a number of places in the zoning ordinance that we have to update our process, either to reflect the fact that it won't be going to the planning commission directly, updating the new role of the TRC and setting out kind of the process ways in which we're kind of moving forward. The second is satisfying objective standards. The vast majority of our zoning ordinance is based on objective standards. A 20-foot setback is a 20-foot setback. A parking space is a particular size. Where we are in the process of updating are things that refer to, say, particular sign-offs. There were avenues in which case the applicant, for instance, could get relief in a particular provision by having something approved by the transportation planners or the green space planners. So some of these allow discretion as it was being sort of administered. So everything that is in the zoning ordinance that we want to be able to apply moving forward is going to need to be adopted and it needs to be objective. And then the third part that brings in and is really the source that we've heard from the developers of this is adding new provisions, not just merely codifying or making objective the existing standards. And that really boils down to URAL's kind of review process. So under the conditional review that you all give when you approve a plan, it kicks it over to our professional staff who are the sign-offs of those conditions. Approval of the Division of Engineering, approval of the green space planner, those sorts of things included review of the plan in aspects that were not codified in the zoning ordinance but based on the norms, best practices, et cetera, laid out kind of by each particular niche. So those aspects that we have been asking for have been a standard for how we've been evaluating plans and kind of ensuring the quality of development for an extended period of time in Lexington would no longer be enforceable with a House Bill 443 world unless they were adopted. So some of the things when we are talking about aspects relating to say commercial access standards, the traffic engineering doesn't have as of yet an adopted manual that would satisfy House Bill 443. So staff feels that the review by those traffic management practices and the other associated practices are significant and for the health, safety, and welfare of our community need to be codified and need to be brought forward. And we want to make sure that when House Bill 443 goes into effect that we can still be comfortable with the level of review and that we are covering everything that we need to cover. So that kind of covers the third category of the language, the new things that hadn't been in the zoning ordinance previously but had been a part of that standard review. And part of the moving forward and that staff is currently looking at is making sure that all of the provisions that we're talking about, the things that we're incorporating moving forward are items that really have been meeting the spirit of what we have been asking for previously. So there are a couple of things that staff has taken a look at and said, you know what, those either have not been currently a part of the review process and need sort of a future review process and some things that are best served with a separate process. So things that are just kind of big picture items that staff is kind of looking forward as we're making our finalized edits to the text is the first being the ZOTA initiation. That has come up a couple times as far as the Attorney General's opinion kind of regulating or weighing in on who should be able to apply for zoning ordinance text amendments. Staff still thinks that that's important for us to address to bring us in line with that opinion but it's more or less outside of the scope of the House Bill 443 work that we have in front of us. So staff is going to be removing that provision and kind of setting that on a separate track moving forward that can kind of benefit from having a sort of a separate process that can be weighed in and not included within the balance of what we're looking at here. Some of the other things that we've been looking at and have been kind of alerted by you all's comments, looking at ways we can kind of clarify the waiver process to make sure that we are not unduly limiting anything and that we're kind of allowing for as best we can flexibility when you all are reviewing those discretionary elements. Things that are not currently codified but need to be addressed like the access management standards, drive-through standards, pedestrian circulation, making sure that we are kind of accurately representing what those expectations have been up to now, what we're hearing from the developers as far as what they think that language should look like and sort of making sure that we're in a good place and being consistent with how we've kind of utilized those provisions moving forward. Some of the other things that sort of fall outside of what we've applied currently and that we are looking to probably remove the landscaping within the utility, that was utility easements provision. Staff looks like we will be removing that and kind of still looking at that language moving forward but once again is a new concept that really wasn't part of our existing review up to now. So that process we're going through those 60 or so odd pages of language, making sure that we're in a good place as far as kind of sticking true to the intent behind the 443 changes. But making sure that moving forward we are at a comfortable place that when this is adopted July 1st that we as a community are still getting a high level of a planning product and you all feel comfortable administering and evaluating these plans when they do come to you. So with that, the next step is staff is going to, we've received once again comments from private citizens, comments from developers, other interested party, the comments of items that you all have raised in your discussions with us. We are still working through those with the hope of having that draft language available by Monday. We will move forward with the Planning Commission meeting on the 27th, so next Thursday a week from today where we're talking about that text there. From there we'll proceed to the Urban County Council for there any considerations. But ultimately that July 1st 2025 deadline is when we need to have this adopted to make sure we are not left with a gap where none of these standards would apply. So with that I'd be happy to, I brought extra copies of the text if there was any specific kind of comments or concerns that you all had previously, but just wanted to give you all a heads up kind of how we are looking at editing that text and kind of just give you an idea moving forward what that process looks like. So I'd be happy to entertain any questions you all have. Yes, this question is for staff and Tracy. Can we as a Planning Commission please have training before July 1st 2025 to get an understanding of what objective standards are and what they are not so that we are not making suggestions after July 1st during our Planning Commission meetings that may not meet these requirements? It's going to be a change in our conversations in the council chambers, and I would love for you all to provide all of us a detailed or let's just say specific understanding of what objective standards may be so that we can interact in the process appropriately meeting the HB443 standards. Yes, sir, we would be happy to do that. We're going to use some real life case studies on things that we messed up on. We don't have enough time. Yeah, we do. We can go back. As a follow up to that, is it possible, I know orientation wise, you've walked us through the avenues that a zone change request takes and this subdivision all the way up and down the line. Is it possible to do that just with two or three examples as to, okay, we've got a zone change request. We still have these steps. It still goes to the Planning Commission. And from there, where does it go? Maybe it goes nowhere. But just give those examples, two or three different examples, totally off the wall. No, I think that that's a good idea, Mr. Owens, particularly for our orientation. I mean, we will need to retool orientation. And so we've got another one coming up from Ms. Davis in May. So absolutely, we will make sure we include that. I think what Bruce said as far as objective standard, I mean, I'm hearing well, there's 60 page text amendment. Is that really necessary? Well, that's a lot of the objectives that's involved now and it's got to be clarified. So, yeah, sure. I understand what you're saying about the timeline that council needs for this and the state deadline. And I'm sure you've also been going over this. I will maybe raise concern here with some of the fellow commission members about getting a draft on Monday and a hearing on Thursday. It has in the past been pretty difficult to come up with good compromises sort of in a meeting if everybody's not in agreement. And I think there is risk if we, I understand the real risk if there's a gap in the regulations, but I think there's also risk in not getting the changes correct or having to on the fly write regulation in a meeting if there's disagreement. And so maybe bringing that up with the group. I mean, what is the timeline look if we push it two weeks to what would normally be a subdivision meeting or something like that? Daniel, have we shared a draft at all with the planning commission yet for this? Just what was provided at the committee. So that second updated text. Right, so most of what the updated draft is gonna be not everything. Certainly I'm not trying to imply that, but most of it is going to be taking away, not adding. So you have the bulk of what's going to be presented at the public hearing on Thursday already. So we hope you all had a chance to look through that and spend some time with that. I don't have the legislative calendar with me, Mr. Mickler to know what that means, but there is a process for this to go through the council for them to actually hold a hearing. The bottom line is we really need to get this through council by the end of June in order for this to, I mean, to be effective. There's no question about that. And then the council goes on break after that too. So we are kind of in the position that we were last year with the medical cannabis. We're kind of on the schedule that we need. That's not to say that we couldn't build a little more time into that, but we are on the schedule that we need in order to finish this up. So this is a question comment about not involving a zone change. Essentially we had a conversation subdivision committee about what we saw as the potential problems with eliminating essentially a subdivision committee process and hearings in public regarding subdivisions. Understand the zoning subcommittee had an even more vigorous conversation than we did about that issue and raised a question about are we totally eliminating opportunities for people to comment as they have in the past? And are we sticking with that? Or have we found an alternative that complies with the law and still allows people to have some say? Ms. Worth, I'd like for Tracy Jones to weigh in in just a moment on that, since you raised the question of law. But just as a reminder, this is coming to us from the legislature. The bill is very specific. So the outcome is going to be that there is no more public input on development plans unless there's a waiver from the applicant. So again, I've said it a dozen times now. I know it sounds flip, but it isn't. The time to be involved in planning is, as Chris Taylor demonstrated during the plan making. That way you can shake your head, Ms. Worth, but that's when it's supposed to be. Because by the time you get to the individual plan, with this legislation, it's too late. Well, I'm saying, and I think you'll know what I'm saying here. At the level of comprehensive planning, people aren't thinking that low to the ground. You're asking them to think about something that they're not prepared to think about at that time. That's my point. I understand you've got limits on what you can do. I'm just saying to you, we have a community that I think is going to be really upset. Yes, I believe they will too. And there's a remedy for that, and it's the legislature. And I would like for, I would like, since you raised the question of other avenues, for Ms. Jones to weigh in, please. I miss the committee meetings, but I've heard about them. And I understand your concerns and what you're saying. Let me say first that, you know, we are reacting to this. We did not do this. The state legislature did this, and the language is very clear, and it's very precise. And it's, you know, the statute's very limited and says what it says. And what it says is that you have to have objective standards and you have to apply those ministerially. And so, you know, the process that we've utilized over the years won't comply with that, because, you know, and I don't want to get into all the political sides of that, but, you know, I mean, obviously this was drafted in the way it is for a reason, and we have to comply with it. And if we have, if people have problems with it, they're going to have to take it up with their state legislators, because they created the law, and, you know, we just have to be compliant with it. And we don't want to not be compliant with it, because zoning is a process that is authorized to the individual jurisdictions and local governments by state statute. So when they dictate something through their statutes about zoning, we have to follow it. So that's kind of where we are. So what we're trying to do here, and it will be a change initially, and I think we're going to hear from people and they're going to be very unhappy, and we're going to have no real way to allay that with them for a little while, other than to say we're doing the best we can. And what we're trying to do here is make sure that, I mean, our zoning ordinance is fairly detailed, to be honest. We're a jurisdiction that's always been very proactive. We've been on the forefront of how we do zoning here. And so we have a zoning ordinance that is fairly detailed, but it does have some subjective components in it. And so the staff has been trying very hard. We've had, you know, multiple meetings of trying to go through our existing zoning ordinance and take out those things that would be deemed subjective and not objective by the statute. But leave in those things that we believe are objective, a number of those are. And so what I would say to you is that, in the interim of this adjustment period, it is very important that we, you know, continue to move forward by saying that, you know, it's important for us to have these objective standards in there, you know, to that one slide that Daniel had up there, you know, we're not introducing a whole bunch of new things. We are just putting, codifying some of those things that we kind of allowed to go to different divisions and a conditional approval setting and have some negotiation back and forth, but we know what their standards are. We've asked them what their standards are and they've told us. And it's standards we've been applying for, in some cases, as long as I've been doing planning here. So we're trying to make our ordinance as tight as we can, as objective as we can, so that it's clear to everyone, neighbors, the public, the developers, to you guys, which, you know, obviously we will be helping you work through that as a staff, but these are the standards. These have been adopted. These are in our zoning ordinance now. When they apply to development plans and plats, when you come with those, everybody knows what they are. And everybody knows how to meet them. Everybody knows what you got to do. And that's the knowledge everybody has of what's coming. And if a developer meets them, this statute says, it has to be approved ministerially, meaning basically, here's the standards, we meet them, you're approved. So there's no room to bring it back to you guys in a subdivision meeting or otherwise, unless there's a waiver. And the statute provides for that. You know, if there's a standard that has some difficulty being met and a developer says, hey, I need a waiver, we see that now, but then that's going to come to you. But other than that, I think we just are going to have to work through it. We have to make sure, I know it's long, but the ordinance that you'll be looking at next week, it really, a lot of it is stuff that's already there with some additions of things that we have already been doing and have already been being applied, maybe just in a different manner going forward. But I mean, it is going to be difficult for a little while. I'm not going to tell you it's not, but because it's different, but it's what we have to do. And to the degree, and we want to make sure we have in place as we always have in Lexington, what we think is important and what we think are the standards that our community wants by July 1, so that we're not working without those when we're required to have them. Ms. Jones, so you did say that this is going to be difficult process. And I think the reason it will be a difficult process is in my opinion, and what I think is the justification for this legislation that has come to us. We have been working outside of our bounds as planning commissioners. So what I'm asking is when we are in a conversation post July 1, can a commissioner raise their hand and say, Ms. Jones, would you please make sure that the comment that has been made is within our jurisdiction? Or do you have the ability to yourself interdict when we get too far out of the legal requirements? Well, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I probably always interdict sometimes when I feel like I have to, right? I tried to do it too much. But yes, I think we can do that. But truthfully, I mean, you're not gonna be having a boatload of hearings about development plans and plats anymore. It will just be in certain instances where waivers are required, or there has been some very specific, you know, public safety, health, or welfare issue raised, which we don't really see very often. So, you know, I foresee that that will come forward in the context of zone changes and where there's a preliminary plan or something there. And so we will try to definitely guide you through that process, you know, and show you where the guardrails are and the boundaries are. But yes, we are gonna try to do that. And we'll be doing that ourselves to some degree because it is a different process than we're all used to. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Listen to all this, you know, we, the commission, didn't ask for this. I don't think the staff asked for this. It's been handed to us. And this is what we've got to deal with. And what I'm seeing, I've heard comments that the 60-page text amendment is too much. You know, we didn't ask for it. You know, it is what it is now. And this is why we've got to go forward with it. You know, if we, you know, if we may see it because of a waiver or something like that. But, you know, I kind of think, you know, whereas we used to have, you know, a condition that something would be handled at the time of final development plan, you're not gonna see that anymore. You know, it's not gonna happen. These requests, I mean, I really think there's gonna have to be more work done on the front end than the back end. So, but, you know, unfortunately, that's the way it is. My question, one question not related to that goes back to our timeline and so forth. Historically, we have always had a public hearing and temporarily came back after the public hearing for a vote. Do you perceive that to be the case in this situation? Not for ZOTAs. Well, on text amendments. That's what a ZOTA is. So we do that bifurcated process when we're adopting plans. We have a hearing and then we come back. But on a ZOTA, you almost always make your decision at the time of the hearing. I'm just relating it to the public comment part of this, which I see more as, you know, related to the comp plans, related to, you know, broader things than the ZOTA. To help prepare for the public hearing, Mr. Owens, I think, and it's going to be difficult for you all and the staff will be happy to help guide this or make these statements. But any comment that says, why are you doing this? The answer is straightforward. So the only thing that would be unsettled really at the public hearing would be whether the planning commission wanted to address the guideline, turning the guidelines into standards. That's really what would be left. And so that public comment will be coming from the development side, not the neighborhood side. Okay. Go ahead. Mr. Crum, did you say you had brought copies? Yes, yes. I think it'd be great to pass them out. And second question, Mr. Duncan, when you say public hearing, is that the same as the public meeting on the 27th? That the 27th is a public hearing. So the zoning and this is semantics, but the hearing is actually always a hearing. So we take public comment, everything's on the record and all of that. And has there been any interest from the media about House Bill 443 and what's happening about this? And people like the Fayette County Neighborhood Council, have they inquired about it? SCNC has provided information to us. I'm not aware of any media inquiries about this. Thank you. How does the rest of our agenda look not taking this into consideration? Well, you all are the ones that postponed a bunch of stuff. I understand that. That's what I'm asking. Daniel, can you help us recall what's on the zoning side of it? Most of it was at the request of the applicant though. Yes, so on the agenda, as a part of just our peer zoning agenda, we have the ED zone text amendment that is gonna continue to be postponed. We have a zone change that has been postponed for multiple months. We have not received any new information as of yet. The catch is with that, they could provide us information as late as Tuesday and that could suddenly be on. But really it's anticipated that on the, as far as zoning related items, that the House Bill 443 is going to be the main item. You will also have a small public facility review for a fire station storage building, so. Just to clarify Ms. Davis's comment, is the copies to be passed out the same thing we received last time? Yes, I brought a rather large number of that printed document in case there was any desire from the committee here to talk about any of that in particular. And it will be the first time that Commissioner Davis, the third, I guess. Commissioner Davis watched the meeting two weeks ago where you talked about it, but Commissioner Davis was in bed. Yes. So Daniel, what you've got in hand, is that the one that's dated 3-6? Yes, it's the same text. So once again, we were wanting to make sure that in the interest of not having 43 versions of this floating around, that we were gonna hear any additional comments that you all may have today, any additional direction, and then kind of compile that into a kind of copy moving forward for the 27th that you all would then evaluate. Yeah. I hear that logic, but I honestly find it fairly... I disagree with it. I think if you're asking us to hear it next week, the draft of the actual text should have been completed at this meeting. That's my two cents on that. Just to follow up, Mr. Mickler, the development community has asked to meet with us about that, and we're meeting with them on Monday. So that's in part why the draft is incomplete at this time. Good. So Mr. Jim, you said, Daniel, Tuesday, that's when we would get maybe the draft, right? Yeah, realistically, we're looking at basically close of business Monday, Tuesday. Once again, understanding the amount of information that you all are going to have to process, I think it's a staff's intention to, in accompanying that, also provide some type of primer as to kind of what has been tweaked since this version to help kind of... So it's not you comparing three separate versions side by side by side to kind of piece together. I think it's staff's intention to provide you all as much clarifying information so that there's no confusion on what's getting changed when and that you all aren't feeling like anything's being slipped in or modified without kind of getting the scrutiny it needs. So I don't want to make more work, but if we're anticipating changes, my printer these days prints a lot of pink in places where there is no pink. Can we come down and get a hard copy of the final version Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning? We will alert you as soon as we have it ready. We'll be happy to have those for you. Yes. Mr. Duncan. I'm aware that many on this commission are less than enthusiastic about HB443. Can you walk me through the process of what could happen if this ZOTA is not passed on Thursday? Well, more importantly, Mr. Mickler, Mr. Mickler, I'm sorry. Mr. Nickel. Of course, a ZOTA, just as a refresher, a ZOTA has to go through the planning commission, but it gets passed by the Urban County Council. So that's the ultimate. We've got to get this to the Urban County Council so that they can take action on it. But let's, I think, Mr. Nickel, you're asking what if we don't get this to them in a timely manner or somehow it gets to them and they don't want to do it either. Are you asking what happens if we don't have this on June 30th? What I'm asking, you answered my question, that we make a recommendation to council and council does what council needs to do. So that answered my question, because I understand the need to comply to 443 and the importance of getting this done by July 1st. But hearing that there may not be a majority that approves the ZOTA, if a majority does not approve that ZOTA, it does not lead to more dire consequences to the overall planning commission because we make a recommendation and then the council will then make the decision that gets us in compliance with HB443. Is that correct? Well, they'll make a decision, yes. And just as with ZOTAs and with zone changes, the council can override, they don't have to accept the planning commission recommendation and they can go a different direction. And Mr. Nichol did not ask this, but Daniel stated, just to punctuate, House Bill 443 goes into effect July 1st, whether we do anything or whether we do everything. So it's going into effect. And just as a reminder of what we're trying to do is certainly, as Daniel pointed out, make sure our process, which has nothing to do with standards, make sure our process is up to date so that there's no confusion from people coming from the outside what they need to do. But then also to turn in years and years, turn years and years of guidance that you have directed the staff, not just the planning staff, but all the staff to finalize with applicants to turn those into standards. So nothing new. And as Daniel pointed out, where we realized there were things that perhaps were not part of our norms that we are going to recommend that those be removed. But turning those standards, because if we don't, then on July 1st, those guidelines that we've been using for years go away. And there will be a gap before we get an opportunity to address those again with you all in the council. And I don't ordinarily try to sound that way with you all. I want to be positive, but this is happening. It's not like medical cannabis where if we don't have rules, there'll be chaos. This just goes into effect. And we go into effect without all of the standards that we've become accustomed to if we don't address this at this time. Mr. Duncan, since you have the microphone, you can finish up. Mr. Crum, thank you. Okay, and we've talked about this next week. Regardless, there is a zoning hearing on Thursday. We'll be back in the council chambers for that. Council will be on break next week, so we don't have any encumbrances on Thursday if we do need to stay there for a while. And then, Ms. Wirth, I want to follow up on a concern that you had raised. And I want everyone to hear this because it's a genuine offer. Ordinarily, this is something that we find ourselves doing more with the council members because we're trying to educate them and answer their constituents' questions. And you all are usually the ones that are mostly informed. But since it's the other way around this time, on the Lexington Preservation and Process and Growth Management Program, we would be more than happy to meet with you all individually, in small groups. You can come to the office. We can meet you for coffee, whatever you all would like to do, and just give you an update. Talk to you about what council is doing. Try to tell you from my perspective why they're doing it that way. Talk about what was pulled from the original Sustainable Growth Report, what is being pulled from the Goal 4 Report, and how those are working together. So just make that offer. Over the coming months, we will be happy to meet with you all and talk to you all about that. One other question I gave you, and you offered, the blog that got circulated that had a lot of misinformation about it. You said you all were going to try and pull together some information to help us respond to things we hear people saying from that blog. You're talking back to about 443 now, not the process. I'm talking about the... Was it Lexington for everyone? Yes, that was about 443. Yeah, so do you have... Can we get access to corrections to that? Yeah, I would like... I'm not comfortable doing that, particularly since it was authored by an official that we also support. But that was part of the point of what Daniel did in giving you this. This is all the correct information. If anything on here does not jibe with what was in that blog, this is the accurate information. So that's what that's about. So I'm speaking to things not about the process as much as how long our process takes. I think the citation there for how long it takes... That was from a study that was done two years ago about... I don't know. I can't say individually or collectively how that works. But if they were citing what that study was, then there's nothing to refute on that. Ms. Davis? So there are three people who are absent today. One of them was also absent last week. What is the usual custom for letting people who aren't here know about the workings of this commission? It's all televised and recorded. So someone may be listening to it right now. If they are, they're fine. They can always go back and listen to it. I'm sure Mr. Penn is listening to it. I don't know about Mr. Davis. So that's about all. We don't have attendance policy, so that's a different conversation. We don't have a policy, but we do keep attendance records. Yes, council has asked us to do that. I know council does, but we don't have, you know. And Ms. Davis, even though the 443 is a legislative decision, and we can have these kind of discussions outside of the hearing, still the public hearing is kind of what counts as far as gathering information. So whoever shows up at the public hearing, as long as we have a quorum, can fully participate in that decision. That's a good question. All right, this meeting's adjourned. It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday And the manager gives me a smile Cause he knows that it's me They've been coming to see To forget about life for a while And the piano sounds like a carnival And the microphone smells like a beer And they sit at the bar And put bread in my jar And say, man, what are you doing here? Oh, la, la, la, dee, dee, da La, la, dee, dee, da, da, da Sing us a song, you're a piano man Sing us a song tonight Well, we're all in the mood for a melody And you've got us feeling all right Three-thirty in the morning Not a soul in sight The city's looking like a ghost town On a moonlit summer night The rain drops on the windshield There's a storm moving in He's heading back from somewhere That he never should have been And the thunder rolls And the thunder rolls Every light is burning In a house across town She's pacing by the telephone In her faded flannel gown Asking for a miracle Hoping she's not right Praying it's the weather That's kept him out all night And the thunder rolls And the thunder rolls The thunder rolls And the lightning strikes Another love grows cold On a sleepless night As the storm blows all Out of control Deep in her heart The thunder rolls She's waiting by the window When he pulls into the driveway She rushes out to hold him Thankfully he's alive But all the wind and rain A strange new perfume blows And the lightning flashes in her eyes And he knows that she knows And the thunder rolls And the thunder rolls The thunder rolls And the lightning strikes Another love grows cold On a sleepless night As the storm blows all Out of control Deep in her heart The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The thunder rolls The Thunder Rolls Come on baby Let's do the tricks Come on baby Let's do the tricks Come on baby Let's do the tricks Take me by my little hand And go like this Yeah Twist Baby, baby Twist Yeah Just like this Come on little fish And do the tricks And do the tricks But Twist, my daddy is sleeping, and mama ain't around Yeah, daddy's just sleeping, and mama ain't around We're gonna twist it, twist it, twist it, till we tear the house down Come on and twist, yeah, baby, twist Yeah, just like this Come on little twist, and do the twist Yeah Oh, you should see my little sis You should see my little sis She really knows how to run She knows how to twist Come on and twist, yeah, baby, twist Ooh, yeah Just like this Come on little twist, and do the twist Yeah That's all right Yeah We're so not Twist Yeah You got a smile so bright You know you could have been a candor I'm holding you so tight You know you could have been a hander The way you swept me off my feet You know you could have been a broom The way you smell so sweet You know you could have been some perfume Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to And I can tell The way you do the things you do As pretty as you are You know you could have been a flower And good looks was a myth You know that you could be an hour The way you stole my heart You know you could have been a cool cook And baby, you're so smart You know you could have been a school book Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to And I can tell The way you do the things you do The way you do the things you do The way you do the things you do Yeah You made my life so rich You know you could have been some money And baby, you're so sweet You know you could have been some honey Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to And I can tell The way you do the things you do The way you do the things you do The way you do the things you do You really swept me off my feet The way you do the things you do You've made my life complete The way you do the things you do You made my life so bright The way you do the things you do You make me feel alright The way you do the things you do You make me feel alright I pulled into Nazareth Was feeling about half-past dead I just need some place Where I can lay my head Hey mister can you tell me Where a man might find a man He just grinned and shook my hand No was all he said Take a load off Bandy Take a load for free Take a load off Bandy And you put the load right on And you put the load right on And you put the load right on me I picked up my bag I went looking for a place to hide Then I saw Carmen And the devil walk inside my side I said hey Carmen Come on let's go downtown She said I gotta go But my friend gets stuck around Take a load off Bandy Take a load for free Take a load off Bandy And you put the load right on Put the load right on me Go down Miss Mosey There's nothing you can say It's just old Luke and Luke's Waiting on a judgment day Well Luke my friend What about young Annalie He said do me a favor son Won't you stay and keep Annalie company Take a load off Bandy Take a load for free Take a load off Bandy And you put the load right on Put the load right on me Crazy Chester followed me And he cut me in half He said I will fix you right If you take Jack my dog I said wait a minute Chester You know I'm a beautiful man He said that's okay boy He said that's okay boy Won't you feed him when you can Take a load off Bandy Take a load for free Take a load off Bandy And you put the load right on Put the load right on me Get your cannonball now To take me down the line My flag is sinking low And I do believe it's time To get back to Miss Fanny You know she's the only one Who sent me here with a regard Who sent me here with a regard For everyone Take a load off Bandy Take a load for free Take a load off Bandy And you put the load right on Put the load right on me piano solo piano solo To all the girls I've loved before Who traveled in and out my door I'm glad they came along I dedicate this song To all the girls I've loved before Well the girls I once caressed And may I say I thank the priest For helping me to grow I owe a lot I know To all the girls I've loved before The winds of change are always blowing And every time I try to stay The winds of change continue blowing And they just carry me away To all the girls who share my life Who now are someone else's wife I'm glad they came along I dedicate this song To all the girls I've loved before To all the girls who care for me Who fill up my nights with ecstasy They live within my heart And always be a part Of all the girls I've loved before The winds of change are always blowing And every time I try to stay The winds of change continue blowing And they just carry me away To all the girls we've loved before Who traveled in and out our door We are glad they came along We dedicate this song To all the girls we've loved before To all the girls we've loved before Who traveled in and out our door We are glad they came along We dedicate this song To all the girls we've loved Before Before Before I can tell by the look in your eyes You've been bored for a long, long time You need love and so do I Let's turn it all around I don't want an everlasting pain I don't care if I see you again So grab your coat and honey, tell your friends You won't be home, you won't be home You won't be home Tonight I'm yours Do anything that you want me to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Do anything cause I want you to Just don't hurt me Yeah! I don't really want to challenge you Neither you or me, neither you I just want to make love to you For twenty-four hours, don't hurt me I'm only looking for a fantasy And in the loop of reality You're my nobody trying to rescue me So rock me, babe Rock me, babe Rock me, rock me Tonight I'm yours Do anything that you want me to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Do anything cause I want you to Want you to And tomorrow morning we won't cry You go your way, honey, I go mine I'm the one who didn't waste your time Remember me this way And if you never see my face again Think of me as a permanent friend The one who loved you like a hurricane Then this is the end I'm the one who didn't waste your time The one who loved you like a hurricane Then disappear, disappear, disappear Tonight I'm yours Do anything that you want me to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Do anything cause I want you to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Do anything that you want me to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Do anything because I want you to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Do anything that you want me to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me Tonight I'm yours Be anything that you want me to Don't hurt me, don't hurt me I want tonight's your mind Tonight's your mind Do anything, anything Tonight's your mind Tonight's your mind Tonight always Tonight's your mind Do anything that you Do anything that you Do anything that you want me to You want me to You want me to You want me, want me, want me Just do anything Anything you could or desire, babe On this edition of Lexington Now Overdose Prevention, Equine History, and the College Town Showcase. I'm Neal Noah and welcome to Lexington Now for the week of March 17th, 2025. This past week, Mayor Gorton gave an update on the city's overdose prevention efforts. We were there for the announcement. Fighting overdose deaths has been a priority for my administration since its very earliest days. And over the years, this issue has taken us on a bit of a roller coaster ride, mainly because of the pandemic. And our numbers were improving before the pandemic struck. However, the isolation of those years really drove our rate back up. And since then, we've been fighting and working to get it back down. Today we have some very good news. Our county has seen a measurable reduction in overdose fatalities. In 2023, and you will remember that 2023 was still, we were still coming to the end of the pandemic. So in 2023, we lost 177 people to drug overdoses. In 2024, that number dropped to 120. That's definitely moving in the right direction. But this improvement came with a lot of hard work by a lot of people. It's a testament to the collaborative effects of local programs, organizations, health care providers, and harm reduction initiatives. Some of those organizations are represented here today. The health department, community paramedicine, police, our first responders, our social services substance use disorder intervention program, our substance use disorder agencies and others. It is a big team effort. Thank you again for being here today. We're standing together at a pivotal moment in our city's fight against the opioid epidemic. I'm proud to be a part of this fight. Today I'm proud to reinforce what mayor has stated and share some encouraging news. Lexington has seen a 32% decrease in fatal overdoses over the past year. So that's definitely something to be proud of. This reduction in overdose deaths is proof that when a community unites around solutions, lives can be saved. While this is a moment of progress, we remain committed to providing access to treatment and supporting recovery efforts. While every life lost is one too many, this decline represents real progress, real lives saved and real hope for our community as it pertains to substance use disorder. This is a very happy day for us and a happy time because we did, we got about a 40% reduction right before COVID hit and it just fell all apart. And it's wonderful to see us going in the right direction again. Our harm reduction program started in 2015. It's a syringe exchange, Narcan testing, a whole lot of different things that we do. You can imagine not everybody approves and it can be quite controversial. However, it's been proven to work time and time again over the last few decades. And so what we can do at the health department is treat people with kindness. We can look them in the eye. We can smile. We can say welcome, we're glad you're here. And when they come through our door, we're able to build that trust. And if we let the harm reduction process work and believe in it, it leads to all the right things. Since opening in 2015, we've had over 600 people access substance use disorder treatment. We've given out in partnership with the city close to 80,000 doses of naloxone. We've tested thousands of people for HIV and hepatitis C. I'm an overdose survivor because of Narcan. It's been an overwhelming experience coming in here today and meeting the people who probably supplied the Narcan that saved my life. I was the face of addiction. Today I'm the program coordinator for a place called Tracy's House. I'm a full-time student, small business owner. I'm in a motorcycle business club that is Christians in recovery, spreading hope to people in addiction. And that's my purpose, just to help people like me. And that's the beautiful thing about... I guess Scott don't always get to see the results of his work, but these people that he's saving turn out to, that's their purpose, is to help people like them. So it's an ongoing thing. And I appreciate you, Scott. Everybody. This week marks the 175th birthday of our very own logo horse, Lexington. Mayor Gorton helped celebrate this and the city's rich equine history. Gaines Way Farm is home to 1,500 acres of fine bluegrass farmland. And it has been home to some of the most influential thoroughbreds of all time. We are here today for a very special occasion. Today, March the 17th, is the 175th birthday of Lexington, the famous racehorse who helped make our community the horse capital of the world. Lexington was foaled in 1850, not too far from here. For 20 years, Lexington held the title as the first horse capital of the world. And Lexington was the first horse capital of the world. And Lexington was the first horse capital of the world. And Lexington was the first horse capital of the world. Lexington was also known as the fastest horse in the world. An endurance horse with limitless power who could run the equine equivalent of a sprint marathon. As a sire, he was even more amazing. Lexington left a powerful lineage filled with champions including war admiral, citation, secretariat, affirmed and justify. Lexington's tradition of siring winners lived on in his descendant Tappet who now stands here at Gainesway. Both Lexington and Tappet sired four winners of the Belmont. Tappet is recognized as one of the most influential and breed shaping stallions of the past 50 years. You allowed Gainesway to be in the celebration of Lexington's 175th birthday and also to be part of the 250th anniversary of Lexington the city. It is honored to be here and Tappet is a great stallion as Mayor Gordon had talked about and it is a true testament to his greatness that Lexington the stallion had four Belmont winners and this record lasted for over 100 years before Tappet tied him. So you've got two great horses here in the community. We are the horse capital of the world and horses like Lexington and horses like Tappet keep that going and I see no reason why that would ever change. Today Lexington serves as the symbol of our city, the horse Lexington. The city's modern logo features that famous oil painting by Edward Troia and of course the logo of Visit Lex is none other than Big Lex. Lexington is also home to the very popular Briar Fest which celebrates Briar model horses. We are thrilled that this year Briar chose to celebrate Lexington in its lineup this year. So I've brought one with me today and I want to present it to our friends here at Gainesway Farm and here's what it looks like. 250 Lex, Big Lex. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. That's very sweet. Thank you. Your farm definitely needs one of those. Yes. Thank you. We have a lot to celebrate this year. Lexington's, the horse, Lexington's 175th birthday and the city Lexington's 250th year. This is a great year and it's a wonderful day to be out here celebrating Lexington the horse, your great, great, great, great grand something's birthday. And so thank you very much to Gainesway Farm and to those of you who are here today. When we come back, the Collegetown Showcase. Well, hello, everyone. I'm Mary Linda Gorton. It's March. We're three months into our once in a lifetime 250th anniversary celebration. The 250 Lex Commission has planned a year's worth of unforgettable events that will make for a memorable celebration for everyone who loves Lexington. Each month focuses on a different aspect of our community. The 250 Lex team has dedicated March to all things education. Since our earliest days, education has been at the center of what sets Lexington apart from other cities. Today, more than ever before, Lexington is home to top of the line, public and private, primary, secondary, and higher education institutions. Join us this month as we celebrate the power of learning. Learn more at 250lex.com. ♪♪♪ Hello. I'm Lieutenant Chris Van Brackle with the Lexington Police Department Traffic Unit. Today we are talking about disability accessible parking and the aisles between those parking places. Accessible parking is a valuable and necessary resource for people with disabilities, and that includes the striped area next to accessible parking spots. These are access aisles, and it is illegal to park here even if you have an accessible parking permit. Police in Lex Park will write tickets when they see vehicles parked at an access aisle or parked in an accessible space without a placard, and the fine is $250. Know where and where not to park. Keep the access aisles clear. Thank you, and drive safe. ♪♪♪ Welcome back to Lexington Now. As part of Lexington's 250- year celebration, March has been declared Education Month. We joined officials from several different institutions of higher learning for an announcement. Since our earliest days, our city has been a hub for education. Because of our education system, including our public schools, today we have a very highly educated populace compared to most cities, making our workforce attractive to local employers and to companies around the world looking for a new home. The brainpower of our universities often sparks technological innovation that becomes successful startup businesses. The very first university west of the Allegheny Mountains, Transylvania University, was founded in 1780. So in five short years, in 2030, Trancy will celebrate its 250th anniversary. Well, President Lewis, I've learned a thing or two about throwing a year-long birthday party, so I think you're already taking notes and planning. The University of Kentucky has been part of Lexington's history for 160 years. With the founding of the land grant university in 1865, higher education was further established as a firm, continuing part of the foundation of our community. Bluegrass Community and Technical College is celebrating its 85th anniversary this year. BCTC plays a vital role in workforce development. 85 years. Our colleges attract learners from all over the commonwealth, the country, and the world. Studying subjects of every kind, obtaining degrees, and at all levels, walking away with the true Lexington experience. Many folks come to Lexington to further their education, and they never leave. That's what makes us special. To celebrate and recognize our landmark higher education institutions, 250 Lex has planned a college town showcase. The 250 Lex college will host a virtual showcase. The 250 Lex college town showcase will take place the last weekend of March, bringing together Transylvania University, the University of Kentucky, and Bluegrass Community Technical College for a weekend of fun and discovery. Residents are invited to explore the campuses, cheer on their favorite teams, and celebrate the legacy of higher education in Lexington. Each college campus will be hosting a community open house. BCTC will kick things off on March 27th. Transylvania will open their doors on March 28th and 29th. And the weekend will wrap up with UK on March 30th, just in time for Dance Blue. So as the mayor said, we're going to be opening our doors on March 28th and 29th. Visitors can explore our beautiful campus with guided admissions tours for which you can register online, and that will be on Friday, or self-guided walks of the campus that will be available on Saturday. Highlights include our Moreland gallery, which has a senior exhibition on Friday afternoon, and exclusive special collection tours both days that focus on Lexington's unique historical materials and Transylvania's rare book collections. And you can enjoy a weekend of Pioneer Athletics with baseball, softball, and lacrosse. On Sunday, March 30th, UK's campus will be open from 1 to 4. We're going to make it easy. Free, accessible parking in the corner stone garage right there off Limestone. Walk across the bridge into the student center. You can tour the brand-new Gatton student center. You can get a walking tour map right there. You can decide how much of the campus, about 800 acres, that you want to see or as little as you want to see. We are so excited to be part of the 250 Lex showcase, and we are participating, as the mayor said, on March 27th from 2 to 6 p.m., and we have many events going on that day showcasing our wide variety of programs that we offer, from transfer to many of our health care to our technical and advanced manufacturing areas. So we're very excited to support this effort. An important thing on that day, at 5 p.m., we're going to be announcing the award winner of a $3,000 Lex 250 scholarship that our college is offering. So we look forward to providing that to a Lexington resident to help celebrate not only Lexington but also their academic journey. We are very excited to partner on behalf of Transylvania with UK and BCTC to open all of our campuses to all of you. The 250 Lex campus showcase is a celebration of our past, our present, and the future of higher education here in Lexington. Collectively, we are inviting the community onto our campuses to see firsthand that impact that our institutions have here in Lexington, and how we help so many students discover their paths to success right here in our city. There's a lot of live meeting coverage this week before the council goes on spring break, and we will be covering you right here on Lex TV and streaming online. And remember, you can also find the most up-to-date information on non-televised city business at lexingtonky.gov. Here's this week's meeting coverage. ♪♪♪ That's all for now, but as always you can keep up with us on social media, check out the latest traffic updates on X at LexRex, or catch our live traffic cams on lexingtonky.com. For all of us at Lex TV, I'm Neil Noah, and that's it for now. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪