Help us grow by Shoring Up Give us a big like Subscribe and make more fun Beat-map technology for playing music! Processing particular special effects, optical flares of music. So go on, music animation video! Beat-map technology for playing music! Processing particular special effects, optical flares of music. So go on, music animation video! Thank you all for joining us. I am calling to order our quarterly Committee of the Whole meeting for May 8th, 2025. As you all can see, we are in chambers and not in the caucus room. It's a slightly unusual setup, mainly because we had to push our presentation for Lexington's Preservation and Growth Management Program. As you all remember, we ran out of time during GGP, so I wanted to make sure that this presentation got its full attention. And that is also why this cow is going to be broadcast live on Lex TV and also recorded, which is also out of the norm for our Committees of the Whole meetings. We have two agenda items, starting off with a state legislative update. And we have Ms. Gracie Kelly from KLC, Kentucky League of Cities. Welcome. And we'll put 15 minutes on the clock for you, but I think you said you won't necessarily need it all. Oh, sorry. First of all, thank you all for having me here. J.D. Chaney, our Executive Director and CEO at the Kentucky League of Cities, sends his regrets, but you have me. I'm the new Director of Government Affairs. I started in November with the Kentucky League of Cities. We also have Lauren Lewis, our Government Affairs Legal Counsel, and Scott Tremulis, our Research Economist. So, if you have any questions at the end, we're happy to take those, but we're just really excited to be here. I wanted to give a little update on the legislative session. So, as you all know, we wrapped up the legislative session in March. This was a short 30-day legislative session. They call it a short session. It is not short, as many of you all know when you're dealing with legislation that's fast-paced and legislators. It's not a short session, but this year was 30 days. Next year, they'll have a 60-day session, and they'll go over the budget next year. There were several bills that were filed. As you can see, over 1,000 bills were filed. Again, short legislative session. Legislators started in January with, this is going to be a quick clean-up session. We're really not going to tackle that much, but as you can see, they filed over 1,000 pieces of legislation. The Senate actually limited. They said each senator can only file five bills, and that quickly, as of about February, pretty much all of them had more than five bills filed. But 148 bills were enacted. We had 10 KLC initiatives that were passed. Ten KLC initiatives, that may not seem like a lot, but that's actually really substantial. When you look at other organizations in Frankfurt, you have organizations that are prioritizing on one specific bill that they want to get across the finish line. We had 10 KLC bills. What an initiative is, is our KLC board of directors votes on legislation or action items that we want to achieve each session. We oversee the drafting process. We coordinate with bill sponsors, find a bill sponsor, and see it through the entire legislative process. So the fact that we had 10 of those, we're really, really proud. I'll go over all 10 of those. Normally, I give kind of a PowerPoint presentation that's two hours long of all the bills that affect cities. We had over 50 bills that affected cities this year. I will spare you from that, and I'm just going to go over the highlights. But if you have any questions on other bills, I'm happy to answer those. Before I get into kind of some offensive work, I do want to talk about defensive work that we had to work on this session. There was a lot of it. I've been kind of in the local government realm for several years, and I know JD, my boss, has been for 20 plus years. And he will even attest that this was probably the most defensive legislative session that we had when it comes to local governments and preemption. We had pretty much every single house local government committee meeting, there was some type of preemption bill that was on the agenda. So again, a lot of defensive work. I think when JD presented to you all previously, he talked about the centralized collection of occupational tax proposal. That did not go anywhere. That was House Bill 253 by Representative Baumann, Jared Baumann, he's from Louisville. It didn't end up getting a hearing, but we have been told that that proposal will likely be explored this interim. And it's not dying, basically. So it's going to come back up. KLC, we've already been asked to testify at some point this summer, showing our opposition to any centralized collection. Lexington, you all have a really good system where you all already allow online payment of occupational taxes. Some cities don't, but we still think that that should be a local decision and that that shouldn't be a state mandate, that the state collect those tax and then basically remit those tax. And we hope those amounts are accurate. When we were talking to the bill sponsor, he said that the state will basically have within 12 hours an ACH payment delivered to every local government. I don't know about you all, but I can't get anything from my personal bank within 12 hours. So I don't know about a state system that can deliver those local taxes to local governments within 12 hours. So we'll keep you all updated on that. We'll obviously need your all's help opposing any type of mandated state centralized collection on occupational tax or any tax. But I wanted to flag that with you all. Also, a lot of legislation regarding short-term rentals, which I know you all are familiar with. We had a lot of Airbnb legislation. There was, I think, four or five different attempts, whether it was the regulation of transient room tax and how those are collected, all the way to preempting local governments and the decisions that they make regarding short-term rentals. We continue to defeat various bills, and towards the end of session, it got stuck into a swimming pool bill, which ultimately was defeated, and we were happy that that was defeated. But again, those conversations are not over. We've been told that will continue to be explored, not only during the interim, but probably likely to arise next legislative session. So we'll have to be on the defense with those bills as well. All right, now I'm going to get into some of the work we're proud of. House Bill 30, that was sponsored by Representative John Blanton. This had to deal with pension spiking. This codified a court of appeals opinion, basically protecting normal raises from local governments from triggering the pension spiking provisions and penalizing those raises. So it expands the definition of a bona fide promotion or career advancement. This now applies to increases in credible compensation from local governments to their employees, or pay increases mandated by a collective bargaining agreement. So we were happy that this was finally codified. Again, it was a court of appeals decision, but we were happy to see that that finally got across the finish line after several years. House Bill 131, this actually has the potential to directly impact and benefit Lexington. Again, this permits fire departments in former second class cities and urban county governments to adopt alternative firefighter schedules. So currently, right now, you all are mandated to have a 24 hours on, 48 hours off firefighter schedule. We kept hearing from different cities, and we even explored some national models as far as what can we do to create some flexibility regarding recruitment and retention of firefighters. So now, instead of just being mandated to have the 24 hours on, 48 hours off, there's a flexibility where a platoon can be 48 hours on, 96 hours off. And then, as you can see, a 1323, that's a national model that some cities have followed, where you work 24 hours on, get 72 hours off, work 48, get 72 hours off. This will not interfere with collective bargaining agreements. Those still have to be decided by those individual units. But it just gives another tool in the toolbox and a little bit of flexibility when it comes to recruiting and retaining firefighters. House Bill 321, this has to deal with planning and zoning. This has to deal with their training requirements. So for those appointed planning and zoning positions, so not your staff, some smaller cities have a hard time of finding individuals that want to serve on those planning commissions. Due to maybe low pay or volunteer positions. So we wanted to expand the timeline that those appointed members were able to complete their training requirements. So right now, they have to complete their initial orientation within 120 days. This expands that to allow it to be completed within one year of appointment for their initial orientation. And then their continuing education has to be completed within two years now. That expands that to four years. So your staff requirements will not change as far as the timeline goes. One thing that will change for staff and the appointed members is an hour of their orientation and their continuing education has to be focused on housing. So as you all know, housing was a huge, huge topic this legislative session. Not only locally in Kentucky, but nationally. We worked with some groups to make sure that planning and zoning practices and the impact it has on housing is a focus that will now be required in the planning and zoning training. Also, there was some language that limits who is able to appeal a final decision from a planning and zoning commission to those owners of real property located within that zone. House Bill 369. This applies to former second and third class cities. Currently, right now, if you are a police officer, the day you join you get 15 days of annual leave automatically. There was no accrual schedule for that. So we had some issues in some cities where somebody would start day one and then they wouldn't make it through training or they would decide that wasn't the right career path for them and then they would be automatically guaranteed those 15 days. House Bill 369 allows a local government to create an accrual schedule. So if they wanted to say, you know, you get so many days per month that you're here that first year in order to get those 15 days, they're eligible to do so. Again, that's a local decision. So the local police department will have that flexibility to decide what they want that accrual schedule to look like. House Bill 437. This removes the power to make arrests for ABC administrators and investigators unless that individual is peace officer certified, so they meet the peace officer professional standards. Basically, this has kind of been a common theme that we've explored with constables and other individuals who have peace officer powers. If you aren't trained and you don't meet those POP standards, then we don't think you should have the power to make arrests. Your ABC administrators and investigators still will have the power to make warrantless entries and other tools to conduct their jobs. They just won't be able to make an arrest unless they are peace officer certified. House Bill 520. This had to deal with open records exemption. So this bill was a result of a Kentucky Supreme Court case that had to deal with the law enforcement exemption to the Open Records Act. It's a balance of transparency, but also enabling these law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations and not have to reveal informants or sensitive information. So right now, law enforcement agencies, in order to deny a request under the act, have to show an articulable risk of harm to the investigation by revealing that information. So they still have to reveal some type of facts. They just don't have to specifically list concrete facts, is what the court said. So basically, we can't do a blanket denial. We still have to show some articulable risk that it may harm the agency. But it helps us really have the opportunity to not potentially destroy the investigation or reveal informants. Representative Chris Fugate was a sponsor on this. He's former Kentucky State Police. It was especially very important to him regarding his time with some national drug cases. So again, just protecting the informants in the investigation. House Bill 555, this had to deal with municipal audits. This primarily affects smaller cities and cities that have smaller budgets. But this will be super impactful. It actually will potentially help about 100 different cities when it comes to their auditing process. Some smaller cities have a hard time finding auditors that are willing and able to conduct city audits. Because cities use the Gatsby standards, which are a little bit more technical when it comes to auditing. Matter of fact, I was in Mayfield yesterday and the Benton mayor in far west Kentucky had to find an auditor here in Lexington. Because nobody within the four hours was willing to do her audit. This changes the audit threshold right now. If you're under a thousand population, you can do your audit every other year. This raises that to 3,000 instead of 1,000 population. It also raises the annual audit exemption from 150,000 to 500,000. And we worked with Auditor Allison Ball to clarify that we can use her staff to conduct those audits. If we have a hard time finding a private CPA to conduct those audits. Senate Bill 10, this was probably the most impactful piece of legislation that KLC was involved in this legislative session. This increases the CERS health insurance subsidy that retirees under 65 receive once they retire. This was probably the first health insurance pension benefit since I believe 2008 that our CERS members were given. We worked very closely over several years with our firefighter partners and law enforcement partners. So right now, once you retire, if you're non-hazardous, you get about $14 a month per year of service to go towards your health insurance subsidy. That wasn't able to cover a single premium plan. So under this legislation, if you meet what's called your career threshold, so for non-hazardous, that's 27 years. You'll get $40 a month per year of service. And then the hazardous employees will get $50 per month per year of service. So that's a huge, huge benefit. These systems are funded extremely well. The actuary shows no impact for the non-hazardous employer contributions. And then the impact is a little over 2% for the hazardous contributions. Senate Bill 237, this clarifies that if you are a law enforcement officer from out of state and you want to come to Kentucky to be a law enforcement officer, but you were certified in another state. You were recently employed there within three months and you had good standing. Then you can come to Kentucky and you don't have to complete the physical agility test. If you go from Lexington to Murray, you don't have to complete the physical agility test. But if you come from out of state, you may have to. So they still have to meet all our other standards. It's just that physical agility component. And that is a local decision if they want to waive that. It also included a part-time telecommunicator program that now part-time telecommunicators are able to complete their training of 40 hours online. So for those that aren't able to pack up and go to Richmond for a couple weeks, for the part-time folks, they're able to achieve their certification with the online program. This is my last one. Senate Bill 25, this had several different- Can I keep going? Sorry. Senate Bill 25 had several different pieces of legislation. Primarily, the KLC initiatives that were included in this bill was industrial revenue bonds can now be used for multi-family housing developments of 48 units or more. So that just gives locals more opportunity to use industrial revenue bonds to help with the housing crisis. Also, it allows the creation of a local fire appeals board. We've heard a lot of feedback that the state fire marshal's office is, they're a little understaffed to handle some of these appeals. So this creates a mechanism for a local fire appeals board to hear the local appeals. And if there is not a local process still in place, then those will still go to the state fire marshal's office. Sorry, I know I talked super fast. But I'm happy to answer any questions that you all have. Thank you very much, Ms. Kelly. I appreciate your ability to take two hours down to 15 minutes. I know it's not easy. Colleagues, if you all have questions, please sign in to speak. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thank you for your presentation. I have a question regarding House Bill 321. Why did you all advocate that people that are appointed to planning, commissions, and board of adjustments should have longer ticket training versus 120 days? So the initial orientation had to be within 120 days. So that becomes a year. And then the continuing education goes from two years to four years. For smaller cities in particular, we were having a hard time for those appointed members. So this doesn't affect the staff positions. But for smaller cities, we were having a hard time for people that were able to meet those training requirements and that were interested to serve on planning commissions and meet that timeline of being able to achieve those orientation training hours or that continuing education. Okay. It just feels a little scary for me for someone to be able to do this volunteer position for a year and not know what they're doing. That's just me. And then my last question is for Vice Mayor Wu. When will we get a report from the lobbyists that we pay for? That's a great question. I've been waiting for that for a couple of years now. Will that be happening? Is that scheduled? Can we get that done? We can make that happen. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from colleagues? Council Member Ellinger. Yes. House Bill 443. Just kidding. That was last year. He scared me. I was prepared. Are you prepared for that one? Well, I wasn't with the Kentucky League of Cities at that time. But I know that that is a hot topic in Lexington right now. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So, thank you for your presentation. And, again, I admire your ability to be so distinct within a short period of time. Building off of what Council Member Ellinger had to say, real quick. I know you weren't here with the League of Cities with 443. But that was a bill that has a very different impact on Lexington's government than it does on most other Kentucky cities' governments. This past legislative session, were there any bills that stuck out to you as having a different, perhaps more severe impact? On the city of Lexington than it would on other cities across Kentucky? Well, you know, as you know, every year you have certain pieces of legislation that apply to urban county governments. We have the same thing with Louisville with consolidated local governments. So, I went over a couple of those. There were a couple in this slide that, in my opinion, weren't severe. But, instead, gave you all a little bit more flexibility. In terms of severity, I would defer to your paid lobbyists. We do keep track of bills that impact all cities, but in particular Lexington and Louisville. But I was not involved in particular legislation conversations that were just straight up pinpointed at Lexington. Thank you so much. And I would also like to echo Council Member Lynch's desire to hear from our paid lobbyists regarding that type of subject matter. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm here. Oh, sorry. You're okay. Thank you for the presentation and for being here today. Like Council Member Lynch, I share the same concerns with the training of our Planning Commission. And I guess this would be like an in the future consideration. Is that if it is harder for smaller governments to do something that maybe doesn't affect Lexington or Louisville the same way, I would just ask that you guys kind of consider that in what you're doing, what you're advocating for. Because things do have a different impact on us as a merged government and on us just based on our population. And I think it is really important for us with all of our land use policies that are so different from the rest of the state to make sure that we are training our Planning Commission members. And I would venture to say that all of our appointees are probably taking care of business up front, but it does have an impact. It affects different people different ways. Second question is on Senate Bill 237, when you talked about part-time telecommunicators and the online training. Yes. Did you guys have any conversation at all about everybody going to online training? Because I know that is a huge hurdle for us is the commitment that it takes for our full-time operators to commit to Richmond for that amount of time. So did that ever come up in conversations? We were primarily focused on the part-time folks. It actually was a little bit of cleanup legislation from last session that specifically dealt with part-time. It shortened their training requirements to the 40 hours. But this year we instituted the online option. We're continuing to have conversations with the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council. So I think we would be willing to explore that opportunity because you all are not unique in that recruiting and retaining telecommunicators. It's a huge challenge. Yeah, it's a huge commitment for them. I don't know that I would do it myself. So I appreciate your work. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Gray. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So question. I know that you weren't here during the last session, but I'm curious. Lexington and Louisville, oftentimes we have a lot of, in my opinion, unfair targeting by our General Assembly. I know that Louisville and Lexington are extremely different from any place else in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. So I'm curious how, since you do represent us, how do you all differ in advocating for the city of Lexington and even, well, I don't care, just the city of Lexington, that's all I really care about right here, in Frankfurt versus other cities? Absolutely. So we are governed by our KLC Board of Directors, so our legislative process, everything filters through them. You all do have a representative, Kevin, on the KLC Board. So does Louisville, and we're well represented across the state. Everything legislative-wise that we do has to get approved, and we stay in constant contact with our KLC Board during session, doing weekly updates. Again, our legislative initiatives that we go after are set in stone by them at our June board meeting and then voted on in September. So everything that we do is driven by that board. As far as the day-to-day, again, it all goes back to what those KLC initiatives and principles are adopted by our board, as far as individual cities needing certain things and then Lexington and Louisville needing other things as well. So, for example, I asked that question because, although it was a joke being brought up, House Bill 433, or is it 443? I should know, the numbers are there. So we're the only location in the Commonwealth that did not have a ministerial process. So that bill was directly towards Lexington. And although the way that it was written, their original intent, that's not what the actual law says. And so when that bill, I know you weren't there, but I'm assuming J.D. gave you notes in what was done during that process. I'm curious what was said from KLC in reference to that bill. So, like you said, I was not at KLC. I started in November, and our executive director, CEO J.D. Cheney, sends his regrets that he cannot be here. Correct. But I'm sure he left some notes regarding, did he leave any notes about what the process was? So that bill was supported by the KLC Board of Directors. KLC was involved. If you look at the legislative history, there were no oppositions either as far as the legislature goes. So as far as I'm concerned, as I remember, it didn't have much controversy last legislative session. So should I then address that to the Lexington representative that's on the KLC? Vice Mayor? I'm sorry, what's the question? So I'm asking because evidently the city of Lexington, we're different. And I'm just curious in how our representative that's on the KLC is, I guess, because this bill in particular was directed towards Lexington, Kentucky, right? So I'm just curious if at this point I can ask our representative that's on the board of KLC. Can I ask sort of a clarifying question? When you mentioned that the legislation- You can stop my time. That you all push for has to be approved by the board, right, during a process. When you talk about that, are those the pieces of legislation that you're specifically pushing for? Or does it apply to either reaction or the official KLC stance on any particular piece of legislation? So broadly speaking, our KLC board gives us direction and guidelines and perimeters that us as staff, in particular JD, feels like we need to stay in. Anytime we have legislation that we feel like we need more input on or again, those KLC initiatives, those are always board driven and we can stay. Even if we may not get an official board vote, we are constantly in communication with our board and meeting with them every week going over any type of bill that's moving that affects cities. Okay, so as an example, then HB 443, you don't as a board or you don't seek a particular stance from the board to say, does this board of KLC support or oppose 443 and then kind of take that to Frankfurt, is that correct? So in regards to 443, I believe that was a specific bill that the board did vote. Again, we have certain bills that we ask and then certain bills that we just know are within those perimeters of what the board has given us discretion as staff. But I believe 443 was a specific bill that the board did vote to support. Okay, and our representative on the KLC board is our mayor, is that correct? Kevin. Kevin Atkins? Yes. Okay, so Council Member Gray, are you asking for Mr. Atkins to come- Yes, sir. Mr. Atkins, would you like to come address that? No, I don't like to. I don't like to. I want to talk to you. Well, I guess you can start one time again, I guess. Kevin? So did you fully understand the question? I'm sorry, I was asking for a clarification from the director because I don't know that we are the only city that this truly- That's what the Division of Planning said. I just asked Jim and he said he's not sure whether we're the only city or not. So then can you answer our question, though? I can try. Oh, I was asking you before if you needed me to repeat the question. So the question is, since you're our representative on the board of KLC, what was your stance when this bill came up? My recollection of this, Council Member, is the last time we really voted on it was to keep the discussions going on the bill. At that point, it had not been finalized. We were in an effort to make the process work smoother. And hopefully, as you remember, we had a planning study done to maybe make it more efficient. But at that time, the last vote I remember on that bill, and I'm not going to say there wasn't another one, the last one that I remember was the endorsement by the board for J.D. to keep working with the Home Builders Association, the Relatives Association, and others on what that bill could look like and how it could be crafted. I'm out of time, so that's it. Council Members, any other questions for Ms. Kelly or for KLC? Ms. Kelly, thank you for your presentation. We really do appreciate the work that Kentucky League of Cities does, particularly, as you call it, defensive work, fighting for our right to home rule. So I really do appreciate it. Thank you to you and your team. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next up is a presentation on Lexington's Preservation and Growth Management Program. First off, I wanted to thank Manager of Long Range Planning, Hal Bailey, and Deputy Director, Chris Taylor, for all their work on this draft proposal. And also thanks to Kenzie Gleason, Manager of Outreach and Strategic Planning, for all the work that you've done to help with our robust public input and making this information accessible to the public. Today's draft presentation will be the first major mile marker in this process to build a better way forward on how we plan for Lexington's future preservation, growth, and development. And we will also have a public input and engagement session in a couple of weeks on May 22nd at the Lexington Senior Center, 4 to 7 PM. This drop-in event will be an opportunity to learn more about this process and to give feedback. I would encourage all of my colleagues to attend this event. And the second public input survey will also go live that same day on Engage Lexington. So I would love all of my colleagues' help in getting the word out to your constituents, both about the engagement session and the online survey. So without any further ado, Mr. Bailey, take it away. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Mayor. Today's update of Lexington's Preservation and Growth Management Program really stems from the 2023 comprehensive plan and the need to review our growth management strategies, as well as ensure that there is input and effort from the Urban County Council. This is currently under the leadership of the Vice Mayor and the GGP Chair, Council Member Sheehan. Today we will be reviewing the initial framework of the draft program, take stock of some of the continuing work that we are doing, and review the upcoming opportunities for more input from the public and more educational outreach. Just to update you or remind you where we are, this process includes a significant amount of public input and outreach regarding how we are setting up our growth management strategies going into the future. This includes several different check-ins with the Urban County Council and the Urban County Planning Commission over the coming months, as well as various educational and input opportunities for the public. These are opportunities for those to learn about Lexington's past, how we have done this, and then also help us plan for the future and how we might shape our community going forward. Over the past several months, or the past few months, the Vice Mayor and the Council Member Sheehan have helped us with a lot of our outreach opportunities, the first one being on March 16th and the second on March 19th. This gave the history and background of Lexington's growth management process, the establishment of our urban service area, and how we are going forward throughout this type of review. There has also been several updates to the Engage Lexington website made by the council office. This has included a survey that actively collected comment and information from the members of the public. At the At the same time that we have been providing information to the council, we have been trying to make sure that the planning commission is staying involved in this process. There have been a few updates that have been made to the urban county planning commission, including one made by the vice mayor's office. A similar presentation to what you are hearing today will be presented to them at their May 15th work session. In terms of where we are right now, we're right at the beginning of this process, really trying to formulate where this program might take form. It is important for us to hear from the council today regarding its concerns with this initial framework, as it will impact future discussions about how the program might work. Here we have a overall view of how a flow for this type of framework might occur. As you can see, it's a little bit darker on your screen, but it does delineate the decision makers in this process. The planning commission in the orange or the larger yellow boxes, let's see if I can get this. There we go, and the yellow boxes, and the urban county council in green. There are also two other boxes or colors on here, a planning commission subcommittee and the planning staff. Both of these two groups are important in the process, but are not decision makers in the process. This is very much in the hands of the planning commission and the council as it moves forward. You'll also hear several aspects of this that are not new. Much of this framework is a formalization of the previous processes that we have instilled in our growth management strategies. So as you hear these different things, they will sound familiar to either our last expansion, the 96 expansion, or several of the expansions that have occurred throughout this 70s and 60s. Just zooming in on how this would start. The implementation of this process should continue to be an important aspect of the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan. Similar to theme E, goal one, which calls for Lexington to uphold the urban service area concept. We see this as being referenced within the comprehensive plan, but run in an off cycle of the comprehensive plan. This is very important to ensure that we are continuing to keep the processes of urban expansion and growth in check, while also allowing for the other elements of our comprehensive plan to breathe. Things like equity, environment, making sure that we are adding proper facilities to our community, going forward, are really important and often get drowned out in the conversation of growth, no growth, infill and redevelopment, other aspects that can be bolstered in the document, but don't need to be the focus of the conversation. Any process regarding preservation and growth management really does need to start with a review of the data itself, making sure that we are understanding what the current context of our community looks like. This data would form the basis of a growth trends report, which would be done off cycle two years following the statutory requirement of the comprehensive plan. So this would be done every five years. It would be looking at a 20 year growth projection to identify a need, whether that be residential, commercial, or industrial acres. Any process that would come after that would need to be publicly reviewed, have a public hearing within the planning commission, and make sure that the whole community is understanding why or how we are getting to the metrics we are getting at. If there is no need found within the 20 year growth trend report, that would be the end of this process for that five year period. It would go no further, we would wait until the next five year statutory requirement, and then move that forward. If there was a need to be found within the data, that information would be conveyed to the planning commission. The planning commission would then go through the development of recommendations to make to the urban county council. These recommendations could come through in a three choice decision or a blend thereof. It would be looking at meeting the need of residential, commercial, and industrial, either through policy change, regulatory change, or expansion of an urban service area. That recommendation would be forwarded along for urban county council review of if the need is actually actionable, or how we would move that forward. So the planning commission making that recommendation to you all, you would then read through all the documentation, the recommendations, and either modify or affirm the planning commission's recommendation. Again, that could come in the way of four choices. There could be a decision that there is no need to make any changes at that time, and the process could end there with a resolution. Or either through a blend of the three, or one of the three, the council could go ahead and say, we need to make certain policy changes, certain regulatory changes, or certain urban service area modifications to allow for the need to be met within our community. Should the urban county council identify a need and identify that need as some sort of growth of our urban service area, it would continue along the trend. If there was no finding for a need for growth within the urban service area, then it would either go through the typical procedure of policy change or regulatory change either through the code of ordinances or for the zoning ordinance. I do want to highlight that there is another aspect of this, which is a special need that would be identified. This is somewhat important in identifying options or solutions should a special economic need arise between the five year cycles of review. While growth of the urban service area would be reviewed within that five year period, this allows for the urban county council through a super majority vote to say, we are seeing an economic development opportunity within our community. We need to identify acreage that would allow for that to occur in Lexington. This could be a transformative project, but it would not go through the first stage of the growth trends report. This would also still need to identify a specified acreage and a potential for the expansion of that area, but would be followed up with the other elements of this process. It would not just stop there with a expansion. Should there be a need that's identified for urban growth within our community, it would then go back to the urban county planning commission for a review of the current vacant land within our community. As we have heard throughout this entire process and leading up into many of our comprehensive plans, we have had conversations of, well, why isn't this land developing? Why did we bring it in? There is land from 1996 that is along the peripheries of our urban service area that has not developed and in many cases is not going to develop in the near future. This would allow the planning commission, through the development of a subcommittee and a report, to look at those properties and determine whether or not those properties need to be removed from the urban service area. And that acreage be added to the need for urban growth. This would allow for growth to occur in a more timely manner, meeting the need for our community, whether it is for that residential, commercial, or industrial identified acreage. If there is no identified acreage that is needed, we would just go forward with the total amount and be forwarded along onto the process. Should that get to the next step, the planning commission would open a 60-day window for applicants or owners of property or those with the permission of ownership to go ahead and submit proposals for their land. We do believe that this would need locational requirements, requirements much like the council put into place with this most recent urban growth. So the applicants would submit proposals, the subcommittee would review those proposals and make recommendations to the planning commission. Again, very similar to the process that we set up for the urban growth master plan. We found that this works quite well in ensuring that there is broad agreement of what land should or should not be brought in. Following the review of that proposal or of those proposals, the planning commission would move forward with a recommendation of a master plan with a resolution. This is the stuff we are all used to. We would go through the process of master planning for that area identified. We would review it, adopt it as an element of the comprehensive plan, and that would bring the process to a close at that point. Just to look over just the overall framework again, this would be an approximate two year time frame. So just to add this all up, five years we do a comprehensive plan every year. Two years after that, we would start the growth trend process. Should there be no need, it would end after that growth trend report. If there was a need identified, we would have four options, no growth. A review for policy change, a review for regulatory change, and then a review for urban growth of an urban service area. Should it go through that whole process, two years after that, we would be complete. And then we'd be starting another comprehensive plan. So this does give a fair amount of improvement in what we have already established. As you heard, many of these things we've already done. But by putting this into a formalized process, putting it into a codified framework, this really allows us to move forward in a transparent and clear process. This will allow us to also build up our Imagine Lexington Data Research Center to allow for individuals to see the metrics, to understand what are the different inputs that we are trying to show through our data, and why that makes an impact of why do we need to grow, how do we need to grow, what are the opportunities. It also provides a review at every level of our decision making process, so that you all are constantly involved, not only from the comprehensive plan, but another secondary process that looks at growth within our community. Just to update you on what is coming up over the next coming weeks. On May 22nd, we will be having another outreach event for individuals from the public to learn more about this process and provide their input. There will be another GGP committee discussion on July 1st. And then by September 9th, we will be hoping to be bringing you a draft set of changes and presenting greater information for you to react to. At the special GGP public forum, that would be an option for individuals of the public to come and react to that information, so that we can gain further input from the public about how this does work, how it could be slightly better in the future. There are things that we are still working on. As you saw, this is just a framework. It is not the fullness of this. We do need to work on locational requirements, what those specific metrics are, and how we are going to go through the process of building out the growth trends report. But it is very important that we have this framework agreed upon before we get to that. And with 12 seconds left, there we go. Perfect timing. Thank you, Mr. Bailey, appreciate that presentation. And to echo what you said at the end there, this is the first draft, so this is the chance for us to ask these questions and to know that we won't necessarily have satisfactory answers for all of these questions either, so council members sign in to speak. Council member Savigny. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you so much for the presentation. So far, so good. I appreciate all the work you guys are doing. What do you think the standard tools are going to be for that growth report? I think there probably is going to have to be some agreed upon metrics that are used so that we're using the same thing, and it's agreed to, because I think people will say, well, that's a crappy tool or whatever, so. Yes, so part of that is ensuring that we have partners in this process that aren't just LFUCG. We are currently looking to work with other organizations, universities to provide information that they would be, avoid any perspective of bias in this process. We want to be clear and transparent about some of the information that we're taking as well, which includes census data, Bureau of Labor and Statistics, some of the FRED data. But we are also making sure that we are organizing much of our permitting data in a better way and displaying that information to the public. Much of our data that we have in Acela is fairly hard to get at in a summary way. And we know for a fact that the census data does not represent very accurate information when it comes to some of the permitting data. So making sure that we have all of that in one location, and then allowing individuals to ask about the methods that we are using to correct those. Thanks, you mentioned the five year trend and a 20 year trend. Is it the 20 year trend that you're focused on not meeting the need for? Yes, so the five year that I was mentioning is the statutory requirement that we have to do our comprehensive plan every five years. The 20 year is the horizon of a comprehensive plan, is also the horizon that we are looking at as the way to understand whether or not we have enough land for that use. If there's need or not, okay. Yes. And is this going to be done in the form of an ordinance? Is that what you're thinking, like we're going to pass an ordinance to do a process? Yes, that is our current understanding of what the council member and the vice mayor are looking at, as well as the Department of Law has agreed that that is probably our best step forward. Super. You brought up one thing that I just kind of caught on this rendition, the out of the box need, okay? Does that, and I'm going to just ask it kind of bluntly, does that kind of open up the concept of, say, our economic development people are out there looking for a super site for, you know, like they want to basically say we can do a 500 acre, you know, ford plant, or we can do a 500 acre X. Do you feel like that's the type of thing that could be in that piece of the exception? And does that tend to kind of blow away the concept of what an urban service boundary is? So I'll say that at this point in time, we are proposing this as having some sort of formalized process. Right now, the urban county council, with a majority vote of eight members, would be able to rezone a portion of property outside the urban service area without having a formalized process. This allows us to work that in while also upping the bar, ensuring that we are talking about a super majority and having master planning associated. Great, and I really, really like the idea, because this is what I really wanted to do the last time, of being able to shrink and pull the urban service boundary back in around properties that don't tend to really want to be developed. And I do like the idea that you would, you know, if we end up expanding the boundary, you're more focused on having people tell us why they want to be in the boundary with some sort of proposal. I think that that just does a better service for everybody, so I appreciate that. That's all I have, thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Boone. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you for your presentation and getting to this point. I guess kind of after Council Member Savigny's point about the special need, is there a quantifiable way to look at that as far as number of jobs created? Yeah, what are the thoughts? That is something that we do want to flesh out as we move along. We just know that we need to have some sort of point in a framework that would allow us to review that, if this is something that the council is interested in pursuing. And then, I guess adding on to that, does that kind of open the doors for anybody to go out and kind of look for somebody to come by their piece of property for economic development? And I would say that we're seeing that right now. Much of the land that we deal with during a comprehensive plan cycle, either has options on it where they think we're going, or is outright purchased for areas that people think we are going. So that speculation already occurs. The big thing for us is ensuring that there is some sort of process that they would need to go through that is formalized in a way, rather than asking for a zone change and then going through the fullness of that process. Okay, and as far as the underutilized stuff that's inside the boundary, is there a potential list that you all have created that you know might be out there to pull back on? Or as far as the retracting side of it? I think we have a vacant land map right now that is available, but I think with the generation of that framework, that specific area, we would be on the subcommittee to review that land, to ensure that it meets certain criteria that we need to develop. And then put that forth to the planning commission to make that determination. Okay, as far as the overall focus of this, is this more towards economic development or also housing needs too, or where is that? It should be both. In most processes, you are looking at either a housing need or acreage that is needed for housing, or an economic development need. Now, with future projections that we're trying to work with, we'll better understand where we are as a community on a 20 year growth trend. Okay, and I got two more. As far as the growth report, as we have this most recent expansion, and say in five years that property is likely to still be vacant, more or less. Does that acreage include the deficit, I guess, of the goal that we're looking for from 20 years, from five years from now, kind of? Yes, all land that is within the urban service area, specifically that vacant land, would be taken into account with how is it planned for the future. And this also, this helps us with future metrics of saying, this is the base acreage that we were looking for, for residential, commercial, industrial flex space. Okay, is there a planned review process for this program to be reviewed after the next report, more or less, or to be updated at that point, or to keep checking, I guess? We see that the growth trends report being done every five years, off cycle, would allow us to come back. There could be an element that is added into a report out to you, but I think we're still trying to figure out how that would work. Right, I think as far as everything's kind of always getting checked, I think it's something to think about as far as our checks and balances with all the programs going on. That's all I've got at the moment, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, and Council Member Sheehan, and everyone that worked on this. This is not an easy task. We've been asking for a process for a long time, but actually coming up with one is another story, and you all have worked really hard, and I do appreciate it. I have just a few questions. So help me understand with the five year growth plan, when we're talking about acreage, do we have enough available for our need, what are we counting as acreage available? Does that mean parking lots that are being used? Does it mean buildings that are underutilized? Does it only mean green space? What does it mean? So I don't want to get too far into that, because I think we'll be fleshing that out quite a bit more over the next coming months. But in terms of vacant land that we have within our community, that does not include principal primary uses or accessory uses within our community. So a parking lot that is a principal primary use downtown, if it's a surface lot, that's allowed, so it is not a vacant or underutilized property. It's being utilized the exact way it was meant to be when we set up our zoning. So it would have to be something that's not being utilized. Correct. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. And then when we talk about the land that is inside the boundary that is not being developed, is there a way to either incentivize or de-centivize whether it be a tax or whether it be something else for that land besides just taking it out of the area? Those are definitely policy options for the future. And that's why with any recommendation the planning commission makes or any change that the council would want to make, there is that option of either policy changes, regulation changes, or urban growth. So it could be a blend that the council would push at that point in time. Yeah, instead of just taking it away, saying if you do this, something good happens. Or if not, there might be a negative consequence. Absolutely. Otherwise, it could just sit there forever. Yes. Underutilized or not utilized at all. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Legree. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I had a similar question to Council Member Reynolds, kind of along the lines of policy recommendations and infill and different approaches we could take to quote unquote vacant property. It sounds like you all are still kind of sorting through what that could look like, and that may be part of our later conversation. Yes, we are hoping to bring a lot more metrics, a lot more definition as we go along. But this framework really gives us the guidance that we need to go ahead and delve deeper into the harder questions. Okay, and I was also thinking as people were asking some of these questions, and you're talking a little bit about the five year growth report and what could be involved. I know that there's the residential need projection, the employment need projection. I would imagine there would be some kind of infrastructure need, like other types of infrastructure, or is that considered later on? Where does that fit into the equation? And those are some of the things that typically generate during a master planning process for the land that we currently have. Any projected need for infrastructure outside of a land use context would probably come outside of a program like this. Okay, and then as you all, and I know that again, this is still in process or in development. But as you all are gathering up all of this data that you'll need or kind of figuring out the shape of the five year growth report and what might be included. Are you doing that all internally? Do you have any additional costs associated with that? because I know this is a brand new, I guess, process for us. We have been working within some of the funds that were given to the sustainable growth report that we have been continuing to add the data to. And that has been really helping us with meeting the need for getting different programming, licensing to information, and then hopefully working with other partners in the development of this. Okay, well, thank you for this presentation. It was really interesting and helpful and helps me kind of envision the whole kind of flow chart of what, who, and what, and when may be occurring. So I'm looking forward to the event on the 22nd and also to hearing and learning more. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I forgot a few questions. Thanks again. The, I think one thing that you're doing, like we're doing something that's totally new, it seems, to the Urban County Government. And I really like what you put together. My concern is that we're, I didn't see as part of the process actually running the process at the end. And I know you would like to wait maybe until a certain time to run it. But I think if you wait to a certain time to run the process, you're going to have, you probably will have more than half of these people will be gone when you do that. So you're going to be re-educating and then, and so if you run it, you should be able to, you should then be able to get all sorts of constituent support and council support for, yes, this made sense. Like the data says this, we agree, and all sides of that picture can come together and coalesce hopefully around this is a process that we all agree seems to work. And I think it would have more meaning than putting it on the shelf and then coming back and revisiting it when in between the next two comprehensive plans. I think we definitely need to understand the baseline of information and make sure that our projections are clear and transparent to the public. I think that will be very important for everyone to understand where we're at, at the specific point in time. And that'll give us an opportunity to look at that in a comparison and understand our attrition of land over time. Okay, I don't quite understand if you answered. It is a great way of saying, I think we need to get to that point before we can really understand how that or what that might look like. Okay, I might be pushing you a little bit harder on that over time, but for now, I'm good. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. My only objection is to Council Member Savigny's lack of faith on the longevity of your colleagues' political careers. But other than that, Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to say thank you to you and the rest of the team for all the work that has been put into this even so far, and we're only in May, right? I think this is something that has had considerable community interest over the years, so it's something that we really, I know that we have a lot of motivation to get into place. But I also think this is a very complicated process, and you've been able to distill it down into this graphic with the flow chart and communications that allow us to understand the intricacies of it better. And I also want to thank you all for the time that you're spending, because you are part of our education and outreach efforts. And so for all of the time and helping planning and organizing those, I just want to say a quick thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Mr. Bailey, I have a couple of questions. To follow on Council Member Reynolds' question about undeveloped properties and kind of ways that we can incentivize or kind of figure that out. Do we have a sense at this moment when we talk about undeveloped properties, whether or not they were brought in with a particular expansion or not, do we have a sense of why those properties aren't getting developed? Because my hesitation with the idea of either incentives or disincentives, regulations, taxes, any of those things is, is that too blunt of a tool to hit on a problem that might have a bunch of different reasons, right? So do we have that kind of information or data? Can we collect that kind of information or data? Nothing that is official at this point in time. And I think that's why it's so important to run that as part of a process so that we can start to have that data, that dialogue with members, or those that own certain properties throughout the community. I do want to highlight that any type of removal would be along the peripheries. We don't want to donut hole our community or anything like that because there are plenty of properties from 1958 that were brought in that have not developed. So I think when it comes to the, whether it's some of the 1970s expansions or the 1996 expansion, we do need to set up a process for us to have those conversations, to look at those properties in detail. And if they're never going to develop, especially something from the 70s, maybe it's not appropriate for them to be in. Yeah, thank you for that. Can you talk a little bit about the idea of why we're building in 20 years for that projection sort of time frame, why that number? We see 20 years as a great horizon for us to look at largely from a long range planning perspective. It does match up with what we comprehensive plan for. It also does allow us, since we're updating it every five years, to look at what has changed along with the comprehensive plan. That matches both some of the input and some of the things that our community calls for, the wants and needs. But also then allows us to maybe update our framework in that time span to represent current policy, current projections. And it still gives us that window of time that aligns with the comprehensive plan. Thank you for that. As those of us who have been, I've been through one comp plan, but some of my colleagues have been through more. As we know, historically, the question of expand or don't expand tends to suck all the oxygen out of the room. And we have so many other things to deal with when we're looking at goals and objectives and comp plan review. So I really like the idea of staggering the needs assessment and separating it out from the comp plan. But can you talk a little bit about what that timing looks like? And also, how do you think about the relationship of that needs assessment vis-a-vis the comp plan review? Yes, I think that especially when it comes to the offset, we need that two years to essentially finish that comprehensive plan. And then understand and formulate a plan for the division of planning on how we are either going to implement it with the planning commission and the urban county council. Or how are we working or partnering with other groups, members of the public, members of the government, non-profits, about how that is going to be implemented. That two year time span gives us a little bit of time to work within our office to try to get something going. And then jump into the growth trends report and include possible policy recommendations or regulatory changes that were called for in the comprehensive plan in maybe a recommendation should a need arise. We do want to make sure that anything we're doing is still referring back to the comprehensive plan, which is our guiding document going forward. So if there are policy recommendations or regulatory recommendations and there is a need, those should be really drawing from the comprehensive plan. And it sounds like the relationship between those two things will be somewhat organic, too, that one could impact the other as we go along. Yeah, if my colleagues don't have any more questions, I'd like to thank you and your team for this presentation, all the work that you're doing. Our next presentation of this plan, the next draft will be September 9th. Between now and then, I would encourage all of my colleagues to engage with Mr. Bailey and Mr. Taylor. As many times as you feel like they have been very generous with their time and expertise. And then I hope all of you will come out for the May 22nd engagement session. And I'm sure you'll get more emails from my office on that. So with that, we are at the end of our agenda, so we are adjourned. Thank you all.