are going to be activated, how these community centers are going to be activated, what is next. So that's a great segue. What is next Lexington? We have to make sure that we're investing in these kids, investing in the youth, providing them with programs, providing resources to their doorsteps, at their footsteps, because it's needed now more than ever. And as you can see, the kids want it and they need it. And I just wanted to thank Rolanda, thank the Georgetown Neighborhood Association, all of our community leaders, all of our volunteers for stepping up, taking the call. As you see the theme, one, process, show up, no sign up, easy, walk through, get your meals, stay for programming or not. Two, the kids are happy, the kids are activated, the parks are activated, the community centers are activated. We are rolling. And then three, and most importantly, it is here for you. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So hello neighbors. I'm council member Shayla Lynch, and I'm glad you're joining us today. Today, we're going to do continue the deep dive to do, to talk about the city's boards and commissions. That's an item I put in committee to get really a good look at our city's boards and commissions. We commissioned a study to do a deep dive to see if they're equitable, if they're meeting the community's needs and doing what we hope that they are doing. And so today I have someone that knows our city's boards and commissions very, very well, Ms. Melissa McCart Smith. Thank you so much. She's the administrative specialist senior in the mayor's office. So thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. Of course. If someone is interested in serving on a board and commission, what should they do? Where should they go? Who should they talk to? So the first thing I recommend is to go to our website and to kind of tool around in there. We've got a page for each board and commission, which has a lot of information on that board. There's a contact person on every board and commission that you can call directly or email directly. Another thing that I think is kind of helpful sometimes is if you reach out to the council member who may or may not be on that board or commission. There's not a council member on every board and commission, but a lot of them do have a council member. And so they know a lot about what's going on and what it does and how effective it is and all of that good stuff. So that's another good thing to do. And then also, I think it's fun to just show up to a board and commission, all of a meeting, all of the boards and commissions meetings are open to the public. And so anything that you see on their times and dates, you're welcome to come to and learn a lot more about what's going on directly from the members. Good, good advice. Good tips. When someone is filling out that application, are there any suggestions you want to provide them when they're tackling that application to submit? There's always, I feel like lots, like more information is great. You might be filling out that information for people you've never met and it almost always goes through council for approval. And so if you've never met any of the council members, the more information you can give about yourself, the better. And if there's ever any questions, my name and the link that goes with the application, you can always just ask and I can reply and respond to that. A lot of the applications have specific questions for the specific board you're applying for. So it'll ask you a little bit more information that's needed if the seat is qualified in any sort of way. So there's always a way to reach out and see what you need and any kind of technical issues that happen. I'm always happy to help too. Wonderful. That's awesome. In your opinion, what is one of the most popular boards and commissions that you see a lot of people apply for? One of the most popular boards and commissions is the planning commission. Really? That surprises me. It's extremely popular. Every time there's a vacancy, we get at least 10 applicants in, which isn't a lot, but often we'll get up to 30. So it's a very popular board and commission. It's also one that you spend a lot of time at. So it's a very busy board or commission. That's great. If a neighbor has, I think you've already said, if a neighbor has questions about joining boards and commissions, they should go to the website and look for that contact information and they can contact you as well. Is 311 a good option as well? They may know a little bit about the board and commission. If your question is real specific, recommend going to the board first. You can certainly go through 311. They know so much. I'm always impressed about what I can call and ask them. They do know a lot. They can at least get you to the right place if you have a question about that. Can people serve on multiple boards and commissions at the same time, or are they just applying for one at a time? The application allows you to apply for one board at a time or commission. You can serve on multiple boards at different times depending on your schedule. There are a couple of boards that say you can't do that, so it just depends on which one you are. There's probably a handful, like two or three, that say you can't serve on this board if you're serving on that board. Awesome. Viewers, neighbors, I want you to apply to be on our city's boards and commissions. We have over 60 of them. That's a lot, and there are a lot of vacancies. I know you send out a vacancy email report every month. At the beginning of every month, I'll send out what are currently vacant seats that are open, and then also people who have terms expiring in the next 90 days, because sometimes those seats will roll off and they'll be available in 90 days. That notification goes out every month. If someone wants to sign up to get your email to get the vacancy list, how do they do that? All they have to do is send an email to boards at lexingtonky.gov, and that link is on the website, too. There's a little handy button. If you go to the website, you can just click and say, I want to sign up. Awesome, awesome. Neighbors, you can get even email reminders about applying for boards and commissions, and it will send you a vacancy list. Thank you, Melissa, for joining us today to answer those questions. I want everyone to get engaged with local government, and a board of commission is a great way to do that. I am here with Martin Rivers, a good friend, who's become a good friend, and we're going to talk about the city's boards and commissions. Now, Martin, first tell the viewers a little bit about yourself. So I'm retired. I was an engineer, firmware software engineer at Lexmark. Retired in 2017, did some volunteer work that was not government-related, and then got introduced to the Senior Service Commission, and sort of hopped in at that point. Wonderful, and that's where I met Martin, is serving on the Senior Service Commission we serve together. Now, what motivates you to just try to decide to be on a city board or commission? Well, as you likely know, I send lots of emails to council people, because I see problems, maybe, or offer an idea. Well, my council person is Council Member Sheehan, District 5, and I'd seen something about, really, what turned out to be the Homestead Exemption Act, but I was thinking about things that could help seniors reduce their taxes, because most seniors, right, are on fixed incomes, so have to be very careful with their money, and so she gave me the answer to that, but she said, had you ever thought about being on the Senior Service Commission? The answer was, no, I've never thought about being on any commission, and so I said, well, I've never thought about being on any commission, so I poked around at it. I submitted an application. It was really quite easy. I was really nervous. I thought, well, is it an elected position? No, it's not really an elected position, and I also thought, well, it's going to be lots and lots of time, because the commissions that I typically hear about are like the Planning Commission or Board of Adjustments, and I think those people put an enormous amount of time in, and it's like, I do like being retired, but this commission does really important things. I've been honored to help out with the Education Subcommittee. It seems like we are providing valuable information to the community, and it really was not like the Planning Commission with that sort of time stuff, so thank you to Council Member Sheehan for introducing me to that, and that's why. So being on the Senior Services Commission, has that allowed you to pursue some interesting things you're passionate about through the commission's work? The education component, so there are several subcommittees in the Senior Service. There's one on transportation, there's one on housing, there's one on education. I'm sure I'm missing some, but I think it's important for seniors to understand what sort of services are out there for them to take advantage, and so we've kind of been working for the last year on this, we call it the Senior Minute, little quick interviews that we do with organizations, government organizations, community organizations, and I've learned a ton of stuff about what's available, and so hopefully those are providing good information to our seniors. Awesome, awesome. Has you faced any difficulties or challenges being on this Senior Services Commission or boards of commissions period? So I said I was a retired engineer, so I'm kind of a techie kind of guy. I wish that there was more technology brought to bear from the commission's perspective. I sort of helped set up some Google Drives to keep minutes and all that sort of stuff, but I think there's still hesitancy in using that technology to track meetings, and then on the flip side, I really tried to push for paying more attention to technology that can help seniors because, you know, everybody hears about aging in place well, and I just I haven't quite got the traction on that in the commission. I'll keep trying. Yes, please do. Well, we appreciate you pushing us in the right direction. What aspect of serving has been most rewarding for you? Learning about local government, so it's not really, so I knew nothing about the boards and commissions before Council Member Sheehan asked me to look into this, and as soon as I joined, it's like it struck me I don't know anything at all about local government. You know, I vote for council people, but I just I didn't pay attention to, so it was just a couple of weeks after I joined the Senior Service Commission that I started coming to a lot of council meetings, and it really became eye-opening that your local government really is what affects you the most. You know, the news is all about the federal government, and you just get riled up. When I watch what happens at the local level, I don't get riled up. I mean, I see people like you and Council Member Sheehan and Vice Mayor Wu and, you know, rattle the list off that are passionate about what you want to do. You're trying to do good, and it's not just the council people. It's the bureaucrats, the staffers, whatever. That's what really is, has, it's pleasing to come to these meetings and to talk with these, and that's, I would have never done any of that if it had not been for the Senior Service Commission. Wonderful. Now, we're hoping to have a good afternoon. It's now 1 30, May 22nd, 2025. I want to welcome everyone to the zoning items public hearing meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order, and first on the agenda, the approval of minutes. We have the minutes for March 13th and April 24th, 2025. The floor is open for a motion to approve those sets of minutes. Ms. Wirth? Mr. Chair, I move for approval of the minutes for the March 13th and April 24th, 2025 meetings as submitted by staff. Okay, thank you. We have a second, seconded by Mr. Wilson. Any further discussion to that motion? All right, please vote via Granicus. Okay, motion passes. We don't have any postponements or withdrawals, I don't think. Oh, do we? Oh, we do? Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I'm trying to get out of here. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. I'll turn your attention to page three of your agenda, C1, the ED ZOTA. Everyone's been busy working on other ZOTAs for the last couple months, and so I would request a postponement to your August 21st to let people take vacations and otherwise, and then we'll be back on the 21st, hopefully. Okay, Mr. Gross, my apologies as well. I didn't think we had any postponements, but we do have a request for a postponement to the August 21st meeting. The floor is open for a motion for that. Mr. Chair? Yes. Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. August 21st is a Planning Commission work session. Is that what? Oh, is it the 28th? Did I look at the calendar wrong? The zoning hearing for August is August 28th. 28th? 28th, sorry. We will amend that to the 28th. Okay. Yes, sir. Mr. Penn? Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chair, I move for postponement to August the 28th on PLN ZOTA 24-6 to August the 28th for reasons provided by the applicant. Thank you, and we have a second by Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Please vote via granicus. All right, the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now that will put us on page one, PLN MAR 24-17, Rose Holdings Lexington and staff, and we do have revised staff recommendations for this as well. Good afternoon, y'all. James Mills, Planning staff. Today I want to present to you all the request from Rose Holdings Lexington LLC to rezone the property located at 1899 Parkers Mill Road. This zone change request is from single family residential R1A to planned neighborhood residential R3. The net acreage is around 11.5 acres. The chosen place type for this request is enhanced neighborhood and the development type is low density residential. The purpose of this request is seeking to develop 31 single family residential lots. Taking a look at the general location of the subject property, you can kind of see that we're right on the edge of the urban service area, just at where it has been expanded over here. Taking a closer look at the zoning around the subject property, you can kind of see where all that single family residential is located. You can see both R1A, R1B, R1C. Taking a look at the aerial view of the subject property, right here was the main contention for postponement for a while is where that FEMA floodplain, that 2014 FEMA floodplain is located. As you can see by the next photo, how that kind of interacts on the site. Now with floodplains, they don't just cut off in a straight line, so the main contention for postponement was how far does this floodplain go on this property and what does it look like. Taking a look at the access point on the subject property, where it intersects Lane-Allen Road and Parker's Mill, you can kind of see what the subject property looked like back in 2022. This is before development has taken place and the property has been before the Planning Commission. Looking down Lane-Allen, you can kind of see over here where the property is. This is where a current sidewalk facility exists and on Parker's Mill Road, not Lane-Allen, but Parker's Mill Road, is slotted for expansion and improvements to the facilities of the road. Taking a 360 look, here's kind of where Lane-Allen and Parker's Mill intersect and kind of see to the left where the trash cans are is where the access point is. So the place builder criteria, the applicant chose Enhanced Neighborhood and Low Density Residential and whenever this request was put in, R3 zoning was a recommended zone during this request. It is not anymore, but it is now or then. So the initial postponement recommendation was based on the extent of the floodplain, the impact on these environmentally sensitive areas. So if you go back, you can kind of see from the aerial view over here where kind of where that wetland exists currently and how this development was going to interact with that. Other concerns were also the historic home on the property, the connectivity and sidewalk network, and additional public input. Changes since the staff report, a flood study has been performed to determine the impact on the western portion of the property and identified flood areas further across the property that aches in past the 2014 FEMA floodplain. Changes were made to the development plan based on these findings, creating new lotting patterns with centralized stream and green area. There was reduced road crossing through the floodplain from two road crossings to one and designated lots were designated as non-buildable that were impacted by these floodplain findings. During this time also the existing historic home was demolished on the property and a large number of significant trees were also removed. Here's a look at the development plan for the property. The plan shows lots in these areas but shows lots in these kind of flooded areas down here. You can kind of see where this black dashed line is. You can kind of see where that floodplain extends past the designated FEMA floodplain and these lots are slotted as non-buildable until they can receive the proper approvals from FEMA and other channels. Taking a look you can kind of see where the outline is of where which lots are going to be impacted from the new floodplain study and back here where the lots back here are impacted from the current floodplain. This is the old development plan entry inventory map that was produced in October of 2024 that showed the trees on the subject property. The original tree protection plan accounted for 84 trees on site most of which were significant by the time of application. Here's kind of what the site originally looked like in 2022 and then here's the site now. I wish it was it looks better up there and this is kind of what the site looked like after that. Only 10 significant trees are left from that initial 84 and staff recommends additional plantings be included to mitigate the significant number of trees cleared. Additionally here's the historic home that was on the subject property. It was found out during the subdivision and zoning committees back in November that this home was torn down. This home was built in 1812 and here's some views of the house from both the front from the front and the back where those additions were. Despite the removal of the trees and the home the overall proposal meets several overarching themes between our goals objectives and policies of the comp plan. Increasing residential density on an underutilized parcel, minimizing disruption of environmental sensitive features and areas, and respecting the scale of the adjoining development. So with that staff recommends approval the proposed So with that staff recommends approval the proposed planned neighborhood residential zone is in agreement with the Imagine Lexington 2045 comprehensive plan. The request will meet an increase in the demand for housing. The request will minimize the disruption of environmental sensitive areas by preserving the existing spring and flood areas. Going back and I hate moving all the way around here right here this hatch green area is designated as emergent emergent watershed I think is what it's called. The request will respect the surrounding single family context while improving the density presented on the site. Additionally the proposal is in agreement with the policies of the 2045 comprehensive plan. It protects environmentally sensitive greenways and wetlands and will increase residential density while being sensitive to the surrounding context. The proposed rezoning meets criteria for the land use, transportation, environmental sustainability, site design, and building form. By increasing residential density by increasing the number of dwelling units present on the property and providing sidewalk facilities the request meets the goals and objectives and staff has recommended approval. And Chris will be on for the development plan. All right the associated development plan MJDP 24-81 dash 81. As Mr. Mills mentioned it depicts 31 lots 30 of those are for single family homes and one lot is for the stormwater management HOA area. From the initial submittal the plan has changed originally it showed the streets and lotting pattern more of in a square configuration with a street connection through here. Based on discussions in tech committee the applicant has changed the the configuration somewhat to reduce the two crossings of the the floodplain area to one and to change the lotting scheme in general. The subdivision committee did recommend approval and there have been revised plans submitted since then and this what you see on the screen now reflects that those revisions and they have addressed all of the additional conditions beyond the standard conditions that from the subdivision committee's approval. The remaining conditions are condition on the zone change approval engineering traffic engineering urban forester and department of environmental quality or the remaining sign offs that will have to be acquired for certification if if the zone change is approved. There are eight lots that are noted as non-billed until further study and or a CLOMAR are approved by FEMA. We did have a condition prior that was that the applicant provide a floodplain study in compliance with the stormwater manual to document the floodplain. The applicant has done that engineering indicates that that doesn't show the post-development floodplain and that at the time of final development plan they'll have to do additional study and the CLOMAR will have to be approved at that time and that I think I think that's all I have if y'all have questions. Do we have any questions for staff? Thank you. Applicant. Good afternoon Mr. Chair and members of the commission. I'm Bruce Simpson. I'm here on behalf of the Rose family, Dan and Kurt and their children and cousins. Known them all my life since they were 10 years old. Pleased to be here. Also pleased to have a recommendation for staff approval. I think this is the first one I've gotten since little E.T. won the derby in 1992. So that's good news for me. It's a small parcel. It's 11 acres. I started my first zoning case in 1993 in this area representing the colony neighborhood and historically this neighborhood the colony and west garden side have been really champions of what this commission and Durham county council has encouraged neighbors to do which is get involved in the planning process and back in 1993 those folks did and they got involved in being involved in a number of zone changes all around their houses. The old Sturgill farm was wrapped around that the colony neighborhood up to New Circle Road currently located colony two and Parker's Landing are there now. Dr. Wilhite whose property is the subject property was a leading champion of of trying to preserve low residential development around his this 11 acre tract. So it's got a history dating back many many years of neighborhood involvement participation in the comp plan participation in zoning changes and it is a low density residential section of Lexington. Now I know times have changed the comp plan now calls for higher density residential development and the truth of the matter is this property is zoned for one acre lots. We could develop the property with one acre lots without a zone change but we were trying to match up with the surrounding neighborhood in terms of density and housing styles price points if you will to be complementary with the historic development of this area and what we have today does that. We've had two major meetings with the neighborhood. We had one last year before we filed the application and we had one Monday of this week in which we updated the neighbors the nearby church that's adjacent to this property St. Raphael Episcopal Church. We've also had ongoing meetings with the church representative their lawyer they had an environmental consultant that we have also worked with and a little bit unusual for from the development side we made all of our files open the engineering files all the stormwater studies they didn't have to go through me they could contact vision engineering get all the data research whatever they needed it's completely transparent so that they understood what was going on. It has taken several months to vet and get the stormwater plans down to where they're conceptually approvable at this point in time as the staff indicated we have more work to do before the final development plan this property this area has a history of stormwater management issues that weren't taken care of many years ago and this is the last remaining remnant parcel that will fill out the pie if you will of undeveloped land that's 11 acres. So we're proposing the staff said 31 lots were actually one of those lots is a detention base and open space the we have 30 lots that are designated for single family use only but only 22 are buildable at this time so the plan before you today has 22 buildable lots we believe the flood plane which hasn't been studied since the 80s might be changeable to have the flood plane reviewed by fema and the army corps of engineers division of water and frankfurt the urban county government we believe the flood plane has has shifted over those years that study that work that process would take place once zoning is approved as you all know better than most zoning and development is a lengthy review process it starts out with getting the zone change approved and then you go through the development plan review which can take many months thereafter this property is going to be highly scrutinized it's already been highly scrutinized which it should be and as i said we've submitted study after study after study to the division of engineering we've had an additional consultant come in to to facilitate and supplement what we've done for the division of engineering's review and we believe we've answered all of those questions to get it to the point where it's now recommended for approval and of course the staff has recommended approval for the zone change we asked for conditional zoning now the staff has indicated that's not needed they said there's other ways that we can limit the density to the 30 single family houses the neighbors were concerned when we met with them that the r3 zoning allows for a mixture of uses as you know we've represented to them that we intend to match up with the historic development of this area of lexington which will be restricted to single family homes only no more than 30 and we've asked for conditional zoning restrictions that will give more teeth to that now we're going to have deed restrictions that will limit this development to single family homes we can put notes on the plat that can do the same thing but we committed to the neighbors that we would ask for conditional zoning and it's not that much more effort just to adopt a conditional zoning that's going to match up with what we're going to do anyway to give additional assurance to the folks and we would like to impose it upon ourselves we're going to impose it upon ourselves anyway we would just likely like to have it incorporated into the ordinance so we agree with the staff report with everything but we would like to see this limitation of 30 single family homes imposed as a condition of zoning approval i believe that's reasonable because as the staff has pointed out in the report this area we had to have a lot of study to deal with stormwater runoff limiting this development to 30 single family homes is a reasonable density restriction the urban county government is empowered to do this under state law in fact the only two the only urban county forms of government in the state of kentucky are allowed to compose impose conditional zoning restrictions and we the developer it's kind of unusual are asking that we be restricted as part of the ordinance to a maximum of 30 single family homes on this property we believe it's reasonable considering the sensitivity of the land and it's part of a joint effort with the neighborhood to come before you today with as close to a unified agreement as possible now i ran into peter eckhart i've known peter as attorney known him for many years we had a meeting monday and i asked all the people in the audience if you want a copy of updated filings to text me their email they did and i would send them a copy that did restrictions as well as the latest filing which indicated we wanted to conditionally zone this property to 30 single family lots i sent i sent those documents to everybody that sent me a text peter gave me his card i forgot to send him those restrictions and my filing i told him i would get them to him he may come up and ask for a postponement for that reason i believe we can get him that information but we have been true to our word with respect to limiting this to single family homes only and matching up to the deed restrictions in the neighborhood and that's what we're going to do we have staff approval we've done all of our engineering studies and i'm pleased to ask for your all's approval in connection with this zone change request be happy to respond to any questions i will let me say this about the house we addressed this at the subcommittee level back in november of last year the house is uh is was a historic house yes but it was old and dilapidated we had representative dan rose had the president of bluegrass trust and historic preservation come out to the property toured the home he agreed it was in very bad condition it also had been added on to over the years and we had two of our builders look at trying to restore the home mike kirwin and jeff gale that are here today look at see if we can salvage it if it was worthwhile but the structure was so poor that the cost of trying to blend it in and make it livable far exceeded its justification so we had we got a building permit and the house was demolished months ago as part of that demolition there were two significant trees that were damaged and destroyed the staff indicated there were other significant trees destroyed to my knowledge there's only been two um of all the significant trees that the urban forester um identified that we preserved now if i'm wrong about that we will replace um whatever trees need to be replaced we're going to do that anyway because this is going to be a very i know you all don't care about the cost of houses or anything like that and we're more certainly more in this community of late certainly and rightfully so about affordable housing this is going to be a high-end development i mean these houses are going to sell for probably a million and a half dollars a piece so it's it is a high-end development and along with that we want to make all the amenities that go with it um that kind of expensive product to be marketable you have to dress it up and so the the trees whatever we need to add will be added it's a top flight development it matches up the historic development of this property that's been starting with the colony for 75 years and the houses across the road are all larger lots this is the same kind of residential development that fits in the last piece of the development pie on this section of parkers mill road we're pleased to present it to you and we ask for your approval but again i'll be happy to respond any questions as will dan rose and kurt rose that are here today thank you mr simpson uh do we have any questions for the applicant yes mr mickler it sounds like there's a well that volume is higher than i expected it sounds or lower uh okay um it sounds like there is a um discrepancy um both with the photos staff showed and and with your sort of description of how many significant trees were removed from the property um unfortunately this is something we're seeing often where trees disappear before the hearing that we have um the staff recommended um or requested a mitigation plan um it seems like at this point there's not agreement between how many trees were removed for mitigation plan is that correct well i haven't there hasn't i haven't been approached about any mitigation plan i mean we can certainly come up one with one prior to the final development plan um i mean trees will be added i don't see that's going to be a problem in connection with this development at all um and the you know as we're looking at this in terms of a zone change and in compliance with the comprehensive plan we have uh we have goals for um you know typically higher density what we're seeing we have goals for for increasing tree canopy not removing it we have goals for historic preservation it seems like when we do have a single family development while it misses some of the density goals it has the opportunity to hit some of those goals for tree canopy um walkways through environmental areas uh historic preservation yes even if that means losing a lot or two that you were hoping to build a million and a half dollar home on um i'm just wondering what happened to those goals in the process of creating this low density development well goals of historic preservation are certainly important but with that goal it has to be a certain obviously amount of common sense attached to economic justification as to whether or not that house can be preserved i'm satisfied we did our due diligence to examine the cost of restoring that house and shaping it up to make it livable um the bluegrass trust didn't have an objection to it being torn down so we're satisfied that we address that goal in consideration with the constraints that were attached to preserving the house with respect to the trees i should also there's been several recent storms that have taken place that cut down some of the trees i'm not aware that those trees were significant the only trees that i'm aware are significant were two that got inadvertently cut down or damaged severely when the house was being taken down but whatever needs to be done to mitigate it obviously that's reasonable to replace those trees we're all in to doing that this is typically something that's that's done on the development plan it obviously didn't impede the staff's recommendation for approval on zoning i know how strict they are on density increasing as is this body this is a different kind of case but it's a different minor remnant parcel of lexington that has a unique character of large lot developments it's only 11 acres we're talking at this point about 22 houses maximum of 30 we are preserving and staying away from all environmentally insensitive areas or we wouldn't be down here today nor would we have a recommendation from staff approval nor or nor would we have any hesitancy or recommendation for disapproval by division of engineering so with respect to the litmus test to get a zone change at this point we've passed those based on the evidence that's before you today so we believe it is justifiable collectively with all the goals and objectives obviously there's some that don't meet to everybody's satisfaction but overall globally collectively in terms of increasing density we're increasing density more than 300 over what this property could be developed as without a zone change so to the extent that we're dealing with a comprehensive plan on density increase we're doing it but i grant you it's not the increase in density that typically you all have been approving recently but then again this is a different area this is a small parcel a leftover remnant of a neighborhood and a neighborhood association history dating back many many years that if wanted to preserve this character along parkers mill road which is a road that we don't have any immediate plans to widen we don't believe this increase in density would it all be suitable for you know multi-family or higher density residential clearly at this time we believe 22 to 30 houses would be a negligible impact there's a signal into this property it's very unusual that we can ingress and egress with the signalized interchange at lane allen and parkers mill that also feeds into this development so for safety reasons for environmental reasons and for the unusual density reasons we believe we are in compliance with all of the goals and objectives of having a proposed zone change for an enhanced neighborhood given the history of this neighborhood and its surrounding areas yes mr nickel um mr simpson as we're looking at this pink sheet we've got a revised staff recommendation for approval and my question to you is through that process to achieve an approval recommendation with only six conditions can you explain the process that met all of the objective criteria that has been provided in order for you to get this recommendation so what i'd like to know is have you met the objective requirements to to receive this approval recommendation from the staff yes we have we've met many times with the staff over the past six months since we filed the application along with the division of engineering um you know most of the efforts were done in stormwater management but uh uh particularly in regards to removing any lot lines from the fema floodplain even though we were never going to build on those the staff didn't want to show any building lines uh that were crossed over into the fema floodplain even though we weren't going to build on those until there was a clomer established and approved by fema if it was but we've taken those out to comply with the engineering manuals to comply with the objective criteria and the zoning ordinance and the subdivision regulations and if we didn't the staff wouldn't be recommending approval so we have worked diligently in the last six months to get all this done absolutely thank you very much mm-hmm yes thank you mr thank you mr simpson i have a question and i think it would be best answered if someone could bring up the development plan is that possible i'm curious to know of the of the lots if you take the the houses around the perimeter that's 19 houses so plan north plan west plan south are those kind of the priority to to build first and if so then where's the 20th house that you say are your are your priorities i guess there's there's 30 single family lots there's one detention base and in the in the development plan it's 31 lots one's a detention base there's 30 single family lots but there's only eight there's only 22 buildable lots shown the other eight are not buildable and will not be buildable until and unless the flood plain gets established so i'm not sure if that answers your question i guess are we talking about say lots 18 1920 the ones that are closest to your proposed detention basin yeah dan you want to i'll let dan where where where are your what do you consider the buildable lots and which do you consider not the not buildable lots my name is dan rose dan rose um yes ma'am the the the eight built the eight lots for which we need the clomer to make them buildable are the ones 22 23 24 25 26 and 27 the six lots that are on the lower portion of the road after you go in from the entrance and also lots five and six that are on the the left side of the joint property those are the eight for which we need the clomer that leaves 22 buildable okay and so in terms of what the priority is for building honestly i i don't know i don't really know i do know that my brother kurt intends to build his personal residence on lot 15 he currently lives in the colony and his current home actually adjoins lot 15 i noticed that yeah he intends to build his house there and then jeff gale and mike kirwan two custom home builders here in lexington uh where we we have a an agreement in principle where they're going to basically take all the lots and then they will determine the order in which they're built on so i i really don't we haven't really designated a specific order in which they'll be built on another question is uh we have a number of um public comments uh letters emails that staff have received and shared with us on that area and one that interests me in particularly is mr ken cook's comment about concerns about cars topography about the watershed about things like that what have you met with mr cook we had a there was a meeting with mr cook we did we met mr cook met with jihad helani at his office with bruce my brother kurt was there i joined by zoom and we listened to mr cook's all of mr cook's concerns and as a result of mr cook's concerns part of his concern we totally eliminated the the road portion of the road that would have created a circle within the property we eliminated that and i think it's a much improved plan for preservation of the green space area and the and the stream and the and the spring that flows downstream so we have we have considered his comments we consider the comments of all the neighbors and the again if i could just make a point if russell let me about this whole issue of density versus the what we're doing and trying to balance density versus environmental sensitivity the key as bruce said we've had multiple meetings and revisions to this and and additional studies that mr helani has spearheaded and we even at the request of the government we even retained a separate expert on hydrology and water in connection with addressing all of the government's concerns about the stormwater and we eliminated that road and there's in my mind there's got to be a balance between the increase in density and maintaining the environmental you know the environmental sensitivity and dealing with the stormwater and we feel like this is a very happy medium between increasing the density and also addressing all the stormwater concerns which is why i don't think if you put i think if you try to put an apartment complex in here you're just going to exacerbate this not only the traffic but also the stormwater issues so i do think that it's you know of course i'm biased but i think it's a good plan well maybe my last question is why or whose decision was it when the city identified 84 significant trees on the site that's a lot of trees why are there only 10 left and who was responsible for that in light of the fact that the city said you have 84 significant trees here well i don't recall bruce and jihad may be able to address that. Jihad dealt with the city with respect to the trees. I was not aware there were 84 significant trees. There were quite a few trees. We've preserved many of the trees. Not as much, I understand, as Mr. Michler may have wanted. But when we tore the house down, a lot of those trees were up around the house. And so when our demo guy went in there to tear the house down, he took out some of those trees. Now, I'm not a tree expert, so I don't know what qualifies as a significant tree or not, but I can tell you a lot of those trees were what I would consider those older pine trees that in my mind aren't, like they may be legally significant, but they were basically not very attractive trees in terms of what was there. And in the course of taking the house out, our demo contractor was John Conley of Diversified Demolition. And he got all the permits he needed to take the house down. It was all done in compliance with the law. And in the course of doing that, he took out a lot of the trees. But that's all I really know about that. There was no intention of us to take out any more trees than we needed to take out to take the house down. And as Bruce said, and I think as Jeff Gale and Mike Kerwin could comment, this proposed development, there's going to be like very nice landscaping, a very nice entrance monument, very nice plantings. We anticipate that green space area is going to be added to in terms of plantings, trees, bushes, foliage, flowers. So we intend to basically make it better than it was. Now it may not have as many trees, significant trees as was there before, but we think it's going to be an improvement. John, I don't know if you and Bruce have anything to say about the trees. Yeah, just very briefly. When the application was filed, there was a different standard for what were significant trees, is my understanding. Mr. Alani can explain that. Because I asked them when it came to my attention that some trees were taken down to go out and take a look at how many trees got cut down. My understanding was there were only two significant trees. But Mr. Alani investigated that, so I'm going to let him deal with that. There's also a 30% tree canopy requirement for the R3 zone. We're going to make that 40% tree canopy requirement as part of our final development plan submittal. But Jihad, if you would explain about what happened to the trees. Alright. This is Jihad Alani with Vision Engineering. So Mark McCain in our office met with Eric Urban Forrester on site and identified the significant trees. And that was under the old zoning requirement, Article 26. The application was filed, I believe, the next month. It sounds like the zoning has changed during that time period, the zoning requirement. But as for the trees, the significant trees, I know there's two or three trees that have been damaged during the hurricane, the storm. And there were two significant trees where it has been identified between the Urban Forrester and our landscape architect, are going to be removed during the demolition of the house. But every other tree that you can see on this plan, that kind of darker green, they are still there. And basically, as Bruce mentioned, at the final development plan when we come back, we're going to show 40% tree canopy instead of 30% what's required by the zoning ordinance. I don't want to belabor the point, but I will just say, the significant trees were identified by the city's arboriculturist who has experience in that. And you've taken away a great resource and you cannot possibly hope to replace it with new trees, especially if you don't plant things that are appropriate for this area and you depend on pretty things. Those pine trees that were there, all the other plants provided a great ecosystem and you just can't replace it. And I know it's not our role to talk about the trees, but it concerns me that we're doing this in Lexington. I understand. I mean, what's happened is that by requirement, we have to meet with the Urban Forrester, which is we met with him before we even filed the application, just to identify the significant trees. And that's what we did. We kind of met on site. Mark McCain and Eric went on Identify Every Tree. And then change in regulation happened during the time where we are doing our site plan and planning application has been filed. That's exactly what's happened. And then we had the storm that impacted a few trees. And then during the demolition of the house, two trees. So, but again, this is something we can address at the final development plan stage where we can show 40% canopy cover and we'll work with Urban Forrester to kind of get to that level. We can identify trees that we think that's going to work well in that area. And we work with Eric like we work with him on any other project. Mr. Chair, can I clarify the timeline and kind of the applicability of some of these regulations? As you all may recall, back in 2024, you all undertook a zoning ordinance text amendment that was 2405 that talked about landscaping, tree protection, etc. So that was earlier in 2024. That was adopted by the Urban County Council on September 12th, 2024. And so if there was a meeting with the Urban Forrester prior to that, they did not have the ability to say, yes, this meets a significant tree categorization that we haven't adopted yet. So regulations changed, but this was prior to the submission and the application that you see before you. So when this plan was submitted, it was under the new regulations. And so when we look at accompanying a preliminary development plan is a tree inventory map. The whole concept behind a preliminary plan is you're not supposed to be doing grading, you're not supposed to be doing tree removal, you're not supposed to be doing construction. It's identifying what those kind of the existing conditions are that way that during the final development plan phase, you come through with a tree preservation plan where you have once again those conversations about what needs to be kept, mitigation, etc. So this is an instance where there was work that was done while an application had been filed under the new regulations that had not been accounted for by the applicant's team that quite frankly should not have occurred in the first place as far as removal of those trees. So we're at a place now where those have already been removed. And so the Urban Forrester as a part of their review and sign off will have to kind of have those conversations with the applicant on what we can do moving forward. But just to clarify, those rules and regulations were in place when this was filed and should not have occurred. Clarification. I understood staff to say there was a mitigation plan. I understood Mr. Simpson to say there was no mitigation plan. Where are we on that? Staff has not proposed a mitigation plan other than noting that staff recommends there be additional plantings in excess of the zoning ordinance requirements to kind of capture the fact of what we've lost on site already. And we're prepared to do that. I mean there's a whole other development review process obviously that you'll have to pass on. And we're fully aware that we will need to come up with an agreed upon mitigation plan for the trees. That's the first I've heard of it. Thank you Mr. Simpson. I don't think we have any more questions at the moment. So at this time this is for citizens' comments. If you have any comments that you would like to make on this particular application, you can do so by stepping up to the podium. We will have a three minute timer. Please state your name and address. Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Peter Eckerburt. I'm an attorney here in town. Bruce Simpson mentioned that he and I discussed getting his submissions prior to this meeting. We met on Monday at the church. I represent one of the homeowners on Parkers Mill Road who's very concerned and opposes this development because of the increase in traffic and other issues, the effect on the watershed and those types of things that are very concerning. But of course I would like, if possible, respectfully request a postponement and give an opportunity to review Mr. Simpson's filings because as we all know the devil's in the details. And again I think a mitigation plan for the trees may also dictate a postponement so that that stuff's in place before you all finally act. That's basically what I have. Again we are in opposition to the development. We'd like to see the original zoning kept and have an 11 residential unit development there as opposed to a 30. The first meeting I went to at the church was in October. At that time there was 25 units proposed. The one that we had on Monday that we learned that there would be 30 units proposed in this new development, which again is concerning. The traffic on Parkers Mill is a death trap. It's so narrow and there's so much traffic and a lot of it is a result of a lot of kids trying to get to Dunbar High School on time so they're ripping up that road and there's just a lot of commercial and other types of traffic on that road which is like I say is super busy and somewhat of a death trap. So we're concerned with anything that would increase the traffic including the new park that's proposed that will be going in soon. That's all I have. Thank you very much for the time. Thank you. My name is Claude Wagner and I live directly across the street from the proposed lots if you will right across from the street. Initially I was skeptic. I think a lot of people would naturally be skeptic. I want to say that I am in support of the plan. I'm a big tree hugger myself. I've heard those concerns that there's some mitigation that needs to be done. I would support that as well. I've got very large trees and I've heard of possible road widening and I was concerned of losing those and that's one of the concerns I brought up. I've attended most of the church meetings and I've been told that there's room left on the side of the development should you guys widen it or when it gets widened that there will be room for that without taking out my trees which are enormous oak trees and I'd like to keep those as well. As far as the traffic on that road, it's unavoidable. I wish we didn't have any more houses at all. I'd be fine with that but there's going to be something so I would like to support this. I was also, I don't mean to rub the planning commission the wrong way, but I was very disappointed in the approval at the end of the road to take away a horse farm to preserve our city or whatever so that got taken out so I feel like Parker's Mill has given more than a pound of flesh for density on our road. There's I forget over a thousand, maybe thirteen hundred that are approved to take out that horse farm and put that in so traffic, that's out the window. That went out when that was approved but I'm satisfied with the plan that's in there. Again, I live directly across the street. I'm not in the neighborhood. I'm front row fifty yard line of what's going to happen over there so they're going to add some lots in there. I feel like they're going to do a good job with it and I just wanted to put my support in for it. If you don't put that in there, you're looking for density, you're going to get thirty pretty much immediately and to put any more in there would be really obscene to what is, in my opinion, one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. That's all I've got. Thank you sir. Hello everyone. My name is Nassim and my husband Rock. We own 1911 Parker's Mill. It's one of the biggest houses on the left side of this lot and we all agree with this plan and we have our own reason. I'm a realtor as well so I think this plan really helps Lexington recently with the shortage of homes. I guess it helps a lot of people that they're looking for a property and economy wise and the traffic everywhere is a lot of traffic. That doesn't really concern us. I just want to mention my husband and I actually planted sixty to eighty trees four years ago around the property line. So maybe that make up for some of the trees. I don't know but I just want to mention to you that we did that four years ago. Sixty to eighty trees there. But we're totally fine with this plan. I think it's long term. It really helps Lexington and the people that they really need more homes here. So we agree with this plan. I just want to mention that. Good afternoon. I'm Janice Rosebrook. I am the senior warden of the vestry at St. Raphael's Episcopal Church which is directly next door to the proposed development. And the vestry has asked me to say that we have absolutely no objections to the plan. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you Ms. Janice. How are you? My name is Harold James. I've lived on Parker's Mill across from the church for around twenty years. I've lived in Gardenside for most of my life. I think there's some confusion. I want to address your concerns about the trees. If there was eighty-four significant trees, Mr. Wilhoyt ran horses. So the vast majority of that was an open field. So if there's eighty-four trees, it was only eighty-four trees on about an acre, acre and a half. That's a pretty dense tree population. Okay? So I want to address your concerns about that. So I'm not sure about that number. If it is, those trees couldn't have lived there in a healthy manner. So it needed to come out. There were only a few trees up there. These are talking about trees right around the house. There were probably only a few plant trees. And the Wilhoyts were older. And he passed away and his wife lived there. And the house became in great disrepair. Okay? So a lot of those trees were probably planted by the birds. Okay? So if there were eighty-four, most of them were probably planted by blue jays and cardinals and such. Okay? As far as, I'm going to disagree with them on one thing about the stormwater. Something significant, very significant happened with stormwater about five, six years ago. When the house to the left, across from the, not the side of the church on, but the other side, when they built that house, before they built that house, there would be a huge lake in that storm area. Okay? After they built that house, I don't know what they did. I know, I walked through that house before it was completed while they were building it. I know they had several pumps down in the basement. And I don't know what they did as far as drainage goes. But that don't flood anymore. All the rain we had this spring, there probably wasn't a bucket of water sitting in that field. Okay? The city also did work, storm sewer work, down at the bottom of the hill. Okay? They had a huge stormwater project that they just completed probably, what, five, six months ago? And they just completed that. And so when we had all this rain this spring, I have a nose problem, so I go and look at all this stuff. So the water just barely made it out of that creek. And that creek is about that wide and about that deep. Okay? So the water, you know, may come out maybe for 30 minutes, may be made out of the banks. But for the most part, it stayed in there. Okay? So those are two stormwater issues. And like I say, the trees were on there on a very small parcel. The vast majority of that land didn't have trees on it. I'm going to put my support for the project because I think they're trying to do things right. They are, I'm sorry, I'm out of time. But can I say a little bit more? Somebody don't care? You still, how much more do you have to say? How much more? Okay. But anyway, the, I'm good. Alright. That's fine too. That's fine. I suppose I could have yielded some of my time like Congress does. But my name is Jim Goodman. I live at 1212 Cape Cod Circle, which is in Parker's Landing. And I back up to this new proposed development. And I saw the trees being taken out. And I think 90% of those trees needed to be taken out because they were, they left pine trees alongside my fence between me and the development. So I think they did a good job of taking out the trees that they had to take out. The three things that I want to point out in support of this project. One is the density. I understand the council's responsibility in providing high density. This is not the place for high density. Parker's Mill is a dangerous road, as you heard from other speakers. But if you're talking about putting 250 apartment units in there, you're adding 500 possible vehicles to that road every day, as opposed to 22, which is going to add 44 maximum every day. You don't want apartments in there because Parker's Road is a dangerous road. And until the state does something about that to take care of this other development, I would hate to see that happen. The quality of the development is one thing that we were concerned about. And they have alleviated those concerns. The quality of these houses are going to be at least as good as where we are, or much better. It's going to add a lot to the tax rolls of the county and the city. So I think that that's another positive. And the other thing I want to say about these developers is they've been very transparent with the existing homeowners there. And that's not always the case in these situations. I think they've done everything possible to appease the homeowners' concerns. And speaking as a homeowner that's going to back up to the property, I would much prefer it stay 11 acres of open field because that's one of the reasons I bought my house. But I understand development. I think this development is a good move forward for the city and the county. Thank you. I'm Karen LaValle and I have lived in the colony for 25 years. I just have a couple things I'd like to talk about. First of all, when the developers came to meet with us at the church, they said they intended, and the letter said that they intended to keep it. And then the next time we turn around and it's gone with no explanation or notice that they were going to do this. And then there were a lot more trees that were taken down. I actually have photos of the property. And a lot of them, like he said, were like minimal trees. But there were significant trees that were removed. It doesn't seem to kind of go along with, like Robin and Molly, you were saying, the criteria of environmental concerns. And then when they met with us at the church last time, can you bring up the photo of the new plat? Okay, so at the very top, there's a little tree. Where the top row goes through the middle, there's a significant tree there that they said they're going to have to take out. I didn't hear anything about that today. And neither did they come with written remarks about what they were going to present to you or the declarations or covenants or anything like that. So we are blind coming here today really, because we've been told one thing and then another thing happens. So I would like to know, and then also, when they took out the trees they made huge bonfires. I mean live embers on a 24 gusts of wind day were going in my neighbor's backyards. I mean so what do you all, as the council, how do you make sure that they follow what they say they're going to do? And are there consequences? Because if there's not, I think there really should be, or else this will continue happening like one of you said, this is a problem. The trees just disappear. Oops, I'm sorry, then what? I think that's all I have. Actually, no, just one little short thing. Traffic on Parker's Mill. Y'all just can't imagine, I mean it's bad enough already. And then with the new ballpark, this new development, and the development at the corner of Parker's Mill and Man O' War, we can't sustain that. And I know that they were talking about widening the road from Man O' War to the new Circle Overpass, but then what? One lane. So it's just going to be a mess, a mess. And I know that the roads are a state issue, but maybe you all can do something about that. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. No, no, no, no. No, sir, no, sir. Because you had three minutes. I actually had a little extra, but you decided not to. So, Mr. Simpson, you get a chance after this. You'll get a chance after, Mr. Simpson. You will. I got you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As always, I've been doing this a while. I always appreciate the opportunity for citizens to come down and voice their pros and cons. It's a little bit unusual that we have fairly significant neighborhood support. The adjoining church, which is downstream of this property, is not here to object. I get it with the trees, and I get it that we need to come up with a significant mitigation plan, which you all hold the final say on at the final development plan stage as to what that is. I think we've demonstrated up to now, in terms of our homework and working with vision engineering and planning staff with respect to the development plan and stormwater management, staying out of the floodplain for the last six months, that we will work with the staff on accomplishing what needs to be accomplished to make this a top-shelf development. We've demonstrated that since we filed this application. So I'm satisfied a significant tree improvement plan can be arrived at at the final development plan stage. That's not unusual that that can be done. I understand neighbors' concerns that they would much prefer one-acre lots. I get that. People embrace the status quo. They don't want any change. That has kept me impressed for 42 years. Change is difficult, but this change is commensurate and consistent with all the other changes that have taken place since the mid-90s around this neighborhood to make it compatible, which is why you heard representatives from Parkers Landing and directly across the street from the subject property speak in favor of this development because we're doing exactly that. We're doing exactly that with what we've represented. Are we accountable will we be accountable? Yes, we will. One of the things that can help ensure that from the government standpoint is that we'd like to have a conditional zoning requirement that caps the houses, single-family only houses on this property at 30. We're asking for that. You don't see too many developers ask for conditional zoning restrictions. We're asking for it. We promised that to the neighbors that we'd like to see it happen. You all have to take the first shot at it. We'll ask the council for the same thing if you don't want to do it. Just to assure the neighbors that we're true to our word in addition to the deed restrictions that will cap development at 30 single-family houses plus notes on the plat, we are owning up to what we're trying to do and promise the neighbors of getting a restriction in the zoning ordinance for 30 single-family houses because of where this property is located. We want to limit the density to that amount. It's appropriate for this area. It's appropriate for the historic integrity of the neighborhood and it's appropriate for public safety and the environmentally sensitive nature of the lands around us. We think this is an excellent fit. We've done a lot of work on all of this. We've met with the people. I'm satisfied that all the filings are public that we've done and I'll be happy to meet with the neighbors again and again as this thing goes on to fine-tune any concerns they have. We've demonstrated that for almost a year now. Almost a year. We haven't changed anything. The trees, I get it, but I think the bottom line is most people that, and I get it, keep it like it is, don't develop it or if you do, do one acre less. Well, we're trying to do what's around the neighborhood, be consistent. We've done our homework. We've answered all the questions on the pink sheet and notwithstanding the issue about the trees, your trusted staff has recommended approval of this zone change. They've recommended approval. We agree with that approval and we ask that you support their approved recommendation for approval. Thank you. Thank you. For the citizens too, this is the rebuttal stage, so Mr. Harold, was that right? Your first name was Harold. You can step up. One thing about this property, the property on the side of Parker's Mill that we're talking about, this was all part of Gardenside. They call it Parker's Landing now, but this property is encompassed by neighborhoods, so it's a cul-de-sac. One way in, one way out. You really can't put a lot higher density housing in because it'll be a mess and people have addressed traffic. Well, they're donating a little land or an easement for possibly turning lanes. Is that correct? I don't want to speak on your behalf. You're right. I should have pointed this out. We're dedicating right away for the future expansion of Parker's Mill Road, which would include provision for a sidewalk. We're donating that as part of this application. If they do that and that allows for turning lanes, what really backs up Parker's Mill at this area is if you're coming from Bursales Road, cars trying to turn onto Lane Island can't because that car is stopped at stoplight and it backs everybody up. Traffic backs up well beyond my house. If they had a turning lane, those few cars that are turning could get in the turning lane and the traffic could move. Coming from Man O' War, coming in, when you come off of Parker's Mill and turn onto Lane Island, it goes up a big hill. What happens is cars get there and instead of flying around that corner and going up the hill, they slow down almost to a stop and go around the corner and it slows that traffic down. With turning lanes, that would allow traffic coming from Man O' War to move on through and a little freer flow of traffic. This project could actually help traffic on Parker's Mill. Thank you all for your consideration. Thank you too sir. Yes sir. Again, my name is Peter Eckebert. I'm an attorney here in Lexington representing one of the property owners on Parker's Mill. I would just again request and respectfully request from this commission a postponement so I'm given the opportunity to review the filings that have been made by Mr. Simpson and make comments about those because as I noted the devil's in the details. Now I'm not sure I understand the last speaker and his point about how it's going to improve the traffic on Parker's Mill beyond my comprehension but in any event, again I just respectfully request you postpone this until your next meeting. There have been a number of postponements in this so we weren't even involved but I do ask for that just to give a chance to review and make comments on what has been filed. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Staff, do you have anything else? Okay. We'll close this portion off and bring it back to the commission. For any further questions, Mr. Migler. I've got a couple questions for staff. We heard several times, so as I understand it the applicant currently has a single family zone and they're asking for R3, a multi-family zone and they're asking us to then restrict it back to single family. They've said several times that they're only allowed to put one house per acre but that, where is that coming from in terms of the R1 zone because it seems like we have R1s all over town with higher density than one house per acre. Sure, I'll take this. So there's several different I guess subcategories of the R1. So the R1 is just referring to the single family residential and so there's an R1A, B, C, D, all the way down to the R1T which is townhouses. So currently the property could be divided into one acre lots with a single family residential each. The comprehensive plan lays out the recommended zones based on the place type and what our priorities are for the community. The single family residential zones R1A, R1B, R1C are not recommended. So the applicant chose an R3 which was recommended at the time but are seeking to basically utilize it only as a R1 type product. So staff's recommendation and the reason we were not in favor of including conditional zoning restrictions is it's expressly against the goals, objectives, policies, etc. of our comprehensive plan where we talk about having mixtures of uses, having kind of this increased density, the flexibility that would afford them in the future. They can propose single family under R3 but it would also allow them to build townhomes if circumstances change later and the comprehensive plan does not call for kind of those type of restrictions and if they want to limit those based on private deed agreements then that's something that the government's not party to but we haven't done that in decades. So Mr. McClure, if I could add just a nuance of our zoning ordinance for the R1A zone. If an R1A zone existed before 1994, the minimum lot size is one acre. If it was rezoned after 1994, so 95 to the present, the last 30 years, the lot size was changed to 25,000 square feet. So it is still a quite large lot, over half an acre, but that's why we see R1A development, especially in this corridor too, that is smaller than an acre. So just wanted to clarify that. Thank you for that clarification. The second question I have has to do with the connectivity of this lot. There's been a lot of comments on the traffic in Parker's Mill and it seems like one of the issues is that nothing connects to anything else and so it's all coming out on Parker's Mill. Looking at those other subdivisions and then looking at this plan, sort of nothing is following those sort of comprehensive plan guidelines we have now. We're asking for stub outs or alternative connections. Was that discussed for, I guess the question is why is it missing from the other subdivisions and then was it discussed as ensuring there's right away from this where that to be connected at some later point so that someone had, for example, the choice of going down Colonial? Yeah, I think so. To specify, I think earlier this was sort of referred to as sort of the last piece in a kind of a puzzle in a sense. So the colony, as Mr. Simpson indicated earlier, was developed earlier and so it's kind of an existing condition. So when we're looking at a new development on this site, we're looking at a property, for lack of better words, that is running into the backs of existing houses. So when we look at whether connectivity is possible or present, we look to kind of see what is available in the immediate vicinity. But creating a stub street to something that is sort of a built out existing home, we didn't really see much of an opportunity for that so there wasn't anything that we pushed kind of further on that direction. There also are some environmental constraints to the site with the existing storm water there. So for the most part, the site is limited in its ability to connect to other things. Now, some of that additional connectivity will come with the Parker's Mill expansion. So they do have the right of way there. My understanding is that is going to improve pedestrian facilities in the area. But other than that, it's kind of shoehorned to where it is right now. And my last question is, if we were to approve this plan today, would we be approving it with that original tree protection plan and original sort of tree survey showing all the trees that are no longer there? So as a part of this, once again, we are at the tree inventory stage. So basically, I'm certain that the applicant will have to update their plan to accurately reflect what is now present on site. I think even their current plan shows the canopy of trees that have been long since removed. That will go in and that will be approved to the satisfaction of the urban forester and their sign off. And then when this comes through for its final phase, that is where that tree protection plan is generated and the specifics of that mitigation is sort of implemented. But in a perfect world, we would just say this is the existing condition. This is what we think will be impacted. But we are not green lighting the removal of these yet. That would come later. So we are in a situation now where that really can't apply. So it would be existing conditions and then the rest of that would be determined at final. But we are passing the development plan showing those trees there to the urban forester to basically then negotiate a plan. Is that? No, they will need to correct their tree inventory map and then the urban forester will approve that based on what is currently there today. Not what was there when they filed, but update it to today and then he would sign off in the next two weeks, if this is approved, to reflect the existing condition today. And then at the next stage, they do their tree preservation and protection plan. Which trees are we saving? Well, this is probably a discussion I'll ask staff to continue past the hearing today for maybe clarification on what might be a way to address this with plans as we see them. Ms. Davis? Mr. Crum, you said that there should have been no grading, no tree removal, certainly no burning of trees. Are there fines imposed when this happens? When something begins to be developed without having zoning approval or a development plan approved? So, Article 26, essentially, once again, the section that was updated back in September, kind of lays out the groundwork. This is when, you know, what's a significant tree, how is that calculated, how do we maintain those, how do we preserve those. 26.8 of that section states that no grading, filling, or other construction activity shall commence on the property until the tree protection plan has been approved by the planning commission. And so, essentially, it goes on later into that section that talks about, you know, the ability to potentially fine or otherwise go through that, but that would be handled sort of external to planning, I believe. So, this is where the conversation between them, the urban forest, are on the mitigation as far as moving forward. But, yeah, 26.8 of the zoning ordinance pretty clearly states that you shouldn't be doing this activity while you have that final development plan or that preliminary, let alone a final, pending. And since Mr. Simpson has been practicing development law for 40 years, he would presumably know about this because it's been part of our zoning ordinance for a long time. No comment needed. One last question. Why did we go from R1 to R3? Isn't there something in between called R2? Yeah, so this application, so the update to the R2 zoning ordinance was something that we'd been kind of working through the past couple of years. I think the main consideration that may be applicable to the applicant is the R2 does allow for single family residential, but it has a maximum lot size. So, I believe the applicant's current project would exceed that. And so, they are opting to ask for the R3 zoning, which allows single family in that same way, but doesn't have that same sort of maximum threshold. So, just a little bit of nuance that the R2 is intended to kind of function a little bit differently, but is the more recent zone. Thank you. Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Daniel, let me follow up on that just for a second. They're asking for R3, but would like to have a conditional restriction limiting the number of lots, but it sounds like the staff's not really in favor of that. So, let me ask you this. With the R3, obviously their intent is to build single family houses. If someone else ends up owning that, can they come back and subdivide and put in multiples? Yes. So, the R3, by right, does allow for single family. It allows for townhouses, duplexes, quads, as well as multifamily, generally speaking, up to three stories. Now, that process would have to, once again, we've got a development plan on the property, so that would be subject to that full development plan process. And any, once again, as a zoning development plan, the final that comes through is going to be required to match the conditions and the notes and the preliminary that you all approved today as a part of the zone change. Sure, but down the road? It does provide flexibility in the future to go with a denser project. So, someone could go in there and do something not consistent with what they're talking about now? If there wasn't anything else precluding it, like the applicant's proposed conditional, or not conditional, deed restrictions. Okay, thank you. So, to follow up on Mr. Owens' question, if they put deed restrictions in, that'd take care of that problem, wouldn't it? Don't deed restrictions follow the owner of the property? If the owner sells it to someone, they can dispense with those deed restrictions? Or does it depend on how you set it up? We need to look to your right. They haven't done that since they can't remember when. We don't get involved in private deed restrictions, but developers and creation of new developments and different housing arrangements do it all the time. So, how they set those up, sometimes those can be more difficult to deal with or change than a conditional zoning restriction, which isn't easy. So, we can't direct them to do a deed restriction a certain way, but know if you do a conditional zoning restriction, that pending some potential changes, right now the only way to change those is to go back through a full zone change here in front of the council. So, that may change in the future, but that's how those go right now. And the reason the staff is saying that is because if you have an R3, which is the recommended zone under a comprehensive plan, and you conditional zone restrict it in such a way to make it the zone that is not recommended by the comprehensive plan, they're not comfortable with doing that. That's basically what they're trying to say. Hopefully, we're out of questions, but I'm ready for a motion. Mr. Penn. First of all, I want to compliment the staff and the applicant for getting us down to six, maybe seven conditions, because this is not an easy site. I move for approval of PLN MJDP 2481 with the zone change first. Okay, let's do that. Right here. Yep. So, now, phase two. Two. Yep. Move for approval of the zone change PLN MAR2417 of as presented by staff. Okay, thank you, and we have a second by Ms. Barksdale. Any further discussion to that motion? Okay, please vote via Granicus. That motion passes. Okay. Mr. Penn. May I read the development plan? Development plan. I move for PLN MJDP 2481 with the six conditions provided by staff and adding no more than 30 single-family lots. Okay. That'd be number seven. So, we're going to, with the motion, you're adding a limitation of only 30 single-family lots? As a development plan note, Mr. Penn, as opposed to a conditional zoning restriction. You can do it that way. Yeah, I think that's... Well, I think conditional zoning restrictions are most effective, but in general, but in this case, the staff doesn't recommend conditional zoning restrictions to put any cap on zoning. We haven't done it since 2013. This is not the time that we would change our mind. So, again, because the comprehensive plan no longer recommends a land use with a density range. That's not part of our comprehensive plan anymore. So, we don't recommend those. I was just trying to help the neighborhood out. So, if you want to make it as a development plan note, that's fine. Then I'll do a development plan note. Okay. So, we have a motion. And with that motion to include as a development plan note to limit 30 single-family lots. Okay. Okay. And we have a second by Ms. Barksdale. And actually, staff, I did not press second. I'm okay with second. But my cursor is moving right over. But I'm okay with it. Are you okay with it? Listen. I know. I was sitting here like this. But I'm still good. It felt your heart, Ms. Barksdale. It felt your heart. Okay. Mr. Chair. Yes. If I may, we may want to make a correction and delete number six. Do we want to discuss place builder criteria at this point? We delete that. And we have five. I think we're back to six. Six. Yeah. So, are we deleting that or what are we doing? We're deleting six. Okay. Thank you. All right. Ms. Barksdale, are you still seconding that motion? Okay. Don't sleep. Mr. Chair, we still have six. With the development plan. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Any discussion to that motion? Any vote? Mr. Nickler. This is. I'm. What happens with this? Does that mean they have to come back? To this hearing? If one of the property owners who owns their own property at any point. Wants to. Do something different. Or subdivide it or split it. They'd have to come all the way back. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Good question. Okay. Vote. Yeah. Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. All right. Motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Rose. Have a good day. Neighbors. All right. That puts us on page 3. Public hearings. Text amendment. 25. Caught. Spent. People all that. Right now. Can. You got. You got that. Understand. I care. About don't you. portions good. Afternoon, Mr. Chairman members of commission. Chris Taylor. Take your conversations outside. What's his name? Harold. You know, I ain't doing that. Right there. I ain't doing that. That's what you got to do. Yes, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Chairman members of the commission. Thank you all. I'm Chris Taylor with the division of planning. Next item on your agenda is PLN B3 lot coverage. Zoning ordinance text amendment. Just to explain a bit about why we're here. There was a change in the urban growth management zoning ordinance text amendment last year that realigned our neighborhood business and our commercial corridor business zones. We have had, I think, quite a bit of success with most of the changes in that text from last year, but we have run into an issue with the 30% lot coverage in the B3 zone. And where that came from was the public input in the comprehensive plan and the goal that led to the goals, objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan. The community is very vocal about being supportive of growth and being supportive of new development with dependencies upon how that occurs as this public input question that we asked the public clearly indicated. And they talk about what matters in that in terms of how development happens. They talk about style of development. They want development to be more sustainable. They want to see more infill and they want to see property more utilized than a lot of the legacy development patterns that Lexington's have. And out of that came from the staff as part of our recommendation through the text amendment to create a minimum lot coverage, a minimum land utilization on our corridors for the commercial business zone. And we used as part of the basis for establishing that an analysis of the FAR which is again lot coverage plus if it goes up. Looked at our major corridors and pointed out that there was a pretty consistent average of around .26 up to about a .31 FAR which in most contexts is one story. And the attempt in that text amendment and in this provision was to try to nudge development into a higher utilization of our land than what we have typically been doing. And this was done obviously a few years before COVID. And I don't know even if COVID hadn't happened and development patterns and trends hadn't changed if this provision still wouldn't be an issue. But it is an issue. And staff acknowledges that and I do want to be clear it was never and it still isn't staff's goal to inhibit and make commercial development impossible. Certainly not the case. But the goal was to attempt to again get a little bit more out of the land than what we're getting historically. But the Planning Commission initiated a text amendment to eliminate that 30% lot coverage requirement. We took a few months to get that to you all at your work session. And at that time a few members of the Commission asked us to look at some alternative that wouldn't be just eliminating it and going back to a zero lot coverage. And so we took a look at that and a suggestion was made by Commissioner Mickler to look at a relationship between the amount of buildings on the lot and the amount of vehicular use area on the lot. And that was an interesting idea that we spent a good deal of time looking at a lot of commercial developments development plans and single lot developments and what that would mean. And it is an interesting option that the staff felt comfortable with. And basically it's applied the same way the floor area ratio is applied. And I'll get to some of the math on that in just a second. This is defined and applied and the words in the ordinance are the exact same as the way it is done for floor area ratio. And I think I did a poor job at your zoning committee in your work session explaining that and it led to some confusion. But talking with practitioners who applied this they understood it. I think I just gave a bad answer and confused everybody. But I do want to point out that it's strictly a relationship a ratio relationship between building square footage and the vehicular use area. And it must be at least greater than or equal to .3. So an example site, the Fountains of Palomar development plan meets. It just meets the requirements. No change. It would not have met the 30% lot coverage requirement. So it is a lowering of the threshold but it is not an elimination of the threshold. So there was at your zoning committee meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting meeting a request for the staff to engage with members from the Commercial Property Association, and we met with their attorney. And there was a discussion at the zoning committee as well about defining what some of the things might be that could be lowered without having to go to the Planning Commission for a waiver. So defining some options that would reduce that VUA so that they wouldn't have to come in and seek a waiver from the threshold, because this provision would be something that could be requested for a waiver. And so we listened to the Commercial Property Association representative and the Planning Commission and defined two items that could be applied to lower the VUA ratio. And so the two are to any square footage of VUA that's covered by a canopy, and any VUA square footage that's constructed with allowable permeable materials, again, under our ordinance. And so both of those things, the staff was very comfortable as being definable, measurable elements that we already get on development plans, they're already shown and denoted, that mitigate the amount of impervious surface, whether it's from the heat island by providing a canopy or additional reduction of the impermeable surface. And so these two items were sent to you all, I think yesterday, as a revised staff alternative after our meeting with the Commercial Property Association representatives. And so just, I know at the work session, or at the, I think at your work session in the zoning committee, I think we've sort of danced around certain uses. I don't think, I want to be real clear here, the staff doesn't have any problem with coffee. We drink a lot of coffee, too. But the land use is highly inefficient. And I don't know if we care if what they're selling, it's, in this case, this was, and I bring this one up just to show you, there are going to be some sites that just have no hope of meeting a minimum threshold. And I think staff is pretty comfortable stepping in and saying the comprehensive plan suggests we don't do this. Now, it's up to you all, you've initiated it, we've provided some staff alternative language that we feel comfortable with that greatly lowers that threshold and gives some flexibility and incentive to do some alternatives. But a site that we have, that is built, that has a 468 square foot coffee shop on it, and 10,000 square feet of VUA is a .05 VUA ratio. However, under this proposal, there are options, as denoted here, that would enable them to be able to meet ministerially without a waiver. They could either add square footage, they could add some VUA canopy, they could reduce the VUA, they could modify some of the VUA for permeability, or any combination thereof, and that's sort of how the ratio works. Didn't have to be all of one, you're not adding those two numbers together and you gotta do both, it's a sliding scale. And so it is tremendously more flexible. The question is, if a site is unwilling or unable to do some of these things, you may get a waiver and the staff may say, that 468 square feet, we may still recommend that that is not an efficient use of our land. And the Planning Commission still has the ability to weigh in on that through the waiver process alternative. I don't want to give an indication that we're looking to make everything easy to do, no matter what, with no threshold. There is some value in supporting the goals, objectives, policies, and comprehensive plans as it relates to environmental sustainability, as it relates to using our land efficiently. Those things are important and the community tells us they're important. And so we're comfortable representing those elements, but we are aware of the difficulty the commercial development community is having in meeting the existing threshold. So again, the previous compliance options were simply either add building square footage or reduce the lot size. And we realized that those two things were not productive, they were not yielding results. The options as proposed are, there's more options. They have the ability to do the two things above, but also to convert some of the built environment a little bit into ways that can comply, that don't materially change the models that a lot of these companies deal with. And so there are models and sites that do shade some of their parking. It's not common, but it's also not unheard of. So the proposed staff alternative text that we initially provided to you, it does encourage more building square footage and less impervious VUA. It does remove the penalty of open space, detention and other non-buildable areas. That was another problem with the denominator being the lot size. A lot of non-buildable areas are on there that they can't help to deal with. Multi-story construction now counts towards compliance and it is eligible for the new waiver process. The revised staff alternative clearly defines two allowable reductions and makes them available to utilize without the need for a waiver. And we believe that this would greatly reduce the number of waivers that you all would likely see. And again, the staff is recommending approval of the revised staff alternative text that we sent to you. Again, to add greater flexibility to the B3 zone, as well as in support of a couple of very important theme E, goal one objectives from the comprehensive plan to improve our utilization of our corridors and maximize our development on our vacant land. So if you all have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them. I have one. Just clarification, the VUA canopy. We use canopy a lot of different ways around here. A lot of times it's tree canopy. In this case, are we talking about built canopy or are we talking either vegetative or built? In this case, it is VUA canopy. It is canopy over the vehicular use area. And like with the solar panel on top would be okay, right? Correct, it would have to be some sort of canopy structure. Structure. Yes. Okay, thank you. Yes, Mr. Davis. Chris, can you elaborate on the permeable materials per article 16? What would that look like as far as is there a minimum, is there a ratio on if you have permeable, what you can get credit for? It would be square foot per square foot. So if they added 500 square feet of permeable pavement, it would reduce their VUA calculation by 500 square feet to one to one. Do you define what the permeable pavement can be? Because there are different kinds of- Yes, that is defined in the zoning ordinance already under the engineering manuals and article 16. So is it the concrete pavers with gravel in between or is it concrete pavers with grass? I'm not going to define that specifically because engineering does and I'm not the expert on those. We have a very explicitly defined criteria for permeable pavement in the engineering manuals. That is an already existing standard and we're not proposing to alter it. So whatever's allowable in 16 and the engineering manuals is what would be allowable here. Basically, I know for sure, not gravel. Can anybody here speak to that? Oh, you can follow up or call them up? Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, don't call them up. I don't want, I just don't want to be doing personal information. They use wash number nine, gravel. Okay, Ms. Owens. Thank you. Chris, move forward one. So previous option. So options as proposed, add building square footage, reduce vehicle use area. Add canopy, add permeable request. Right, okay, all right. Just curious, thank you. Yes, Mr. Nichol. One thing that I'm having some issue with, number one is the fact that the ZOTA was initiated to remove the requirement completely, noting that we are discussing corridor businesses, which are the B3 zone. And as we look at the B3 zone, even in its definition, it's a corridor business, and we have the corridor businesses are on corridors which have significant vehicular use, and now we're reducing vehicular use area on a corridor business. And I think that's counterproductive, and I think it can also lead to further unintended consequences that cause the initiation of the original text by me in the ZOTA that we're looking at now. So as we originally had this conversation, the conversation led to some concern about how can we justify additional regulations, and it looks like your justification for additional regulations is based upon current conditions. So the question is, are the current conditions that we are looking at that lead to this justification? Do they take into account all of the changes that we have made with our parking ordinance? So I kind of got off track there a second. What I'm trying to say is, number one, I think that vehicular use area should not be restricted for corridor businesses, and we may hear from others that we'll point to potential unintended consequences by reducing vehicular use area. So it's just a statement, not a question now. Thank you. So, Mr. McMillan. Well, thank you, Chris. When looking at this from the initial proposal to now, I think that this has gotten better because it does allow a lot more flexibility, and I think that spelling out options for those uses that do need a larger vehicular use area, and these options are easily something that they can calculate the cost to, it would not be difficult to get a cost estimate on permeable pavers for anybody doing developer. I think that you've done a good job editing this, and I appreciate it, and I would make a motion if people are ready. Well, no, we haven't got to any public comment yet. So Mr. Taylor, I'm gonna ask, if you're finished, do you mind me taking public comment? Looking red up there. Okay, Mr. Murphy, I know you, and Mr. Murphy had asked for six minutes earlier, so he said to present. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I did ask for a little bit of additional time on this because we have some figures we've come up which we need to give to you. I'm Dick Murphy, I represent Anderson Communities and other developers on this. We have grave problems with the initial lot coverage limitation of 0.3 because Dennis is developing Great Acres right now, and we've lost two potential users out there which would be very helpful to our community. One was Goodwill Industries, and the other one was a credit union. Well, we're still working on the credit union if we can work out the density requirements, and one or two others that they have not allowed us to use their names. But three years ago when you all adopted the ordinance that changed the minimum parking requirement, people, it was told you that we need to trust the users of the property or the owners of the property to determine how many parking spaces they need. For instance, if the old ordinance required a minimum of 50 and the owner knew he only needed 40, why make people build the additional 10 parking spaces? Why make them pay more land than they need to? What we've gotten now is what this essentially does in the staff alternative is imposes a maximum parking requirement on us now. In other words, that same person who originally was required 50, and knows he needs 40, now is gonna be limited to 30. Now we're saying don't trust the owner now when we're talking about a maximum. We still need to trust the owners or users of the property. I've never met a single developer who wants to build one parking space above what they know they need, not one space above. They have to pay more, it costs a lot more money, and it puts a lot more surface down there. Then they have to deal with the stormwater, and that costs a lot more money too. So nobody wants to build a square inch more of paving than they have to. But we have to get the users in there that we need. Now I'm gonna talk about the other point three, which is being proposed in this one, which is the building square footage to the vehicular use area square footage. That's the one that's being proposed in the staff alternative to you. How does that impact us? We know how the lot coverage did. It was knocking out all the users that we needed. How does this new proposal impact us? We, out at Leestown, at Great Acres, we have a Starbucks there. Of course, the staff requires a minimum of .3, and the Starbucks out there, which is a place you can go sit down, take your computer, eat inside, stay there three hours, and work away from the office thing, that comes out at .12. Doesn't come anywhere near meeting the .3. We have a Clark's Pump and Shop out there, which is a convenience store. That comes out at .11. And you may say, well, you don't need a coffee shop, you don't need a convenience store. I'll tell you about that in a minute. Ramsey's out there, very popular use, is the only one that meets it, meets our requirement, which is .37. It meets at .37. The only reason it meets it is because we have very little off-street parking, but we have a lot of on-street parking, which takes up the slack. That .37 wouldn't work for Ramsey's if we didn't have the on-street parking. We have Osaka out there, and we have Biscuit Belly out there as well. So we also tallied those all together, all together, using the Ramsey's, Osaka, Biscuit Belly, Clark's Pump and Shop, and the Starbucks. Would they meet .3? No, they don't. They come in well under .3 if we put them all together. That doesn't save our Starbucks, or our Clark's Pump and Shop, or the other ones. We're also trying to get the UK Federal Credit Union out there. We want them in there. We want Goodwill out there, because those would be two outstanding uses that our residents can walk to and bike to. They can't make it in under the regulations. We went to Hamburg. Dennis doesn't have anything to do with Hamburg, nor do my clients, to look at some other sit-down restaurants. Red Lobster in Hamburg comes in at .14. Chewy's comes in at .13 out there. The only one we met in Townley, we looked at Townley, Drake's Minute met the .3, but only because most of our parking is off-site, which leads me to another item. This is also eliminating parking lots as a principal use in B3. The only way we're getting our parking for Drake's is putting it on another lot, and I would urge you not to take out parking lots as a principal permitted use in B3, because many of the older shopping centers use the parking as one lot. It's a common area. Only thing on it is parking. All the users have to contribute to that to pay for it, but this would be havoc if you made all those one-lot parking lots and shopping centers nonconforming uses, but I'm sidetracked here. Why is it important for us to have Starbucks and Clark's Pump and Shop out at Great Acres? It's important because Starbucks is viewed as a public utility for many of the people who live in our community. It's as important as having running water to have a Starbucks near you, and I think there's been studies show if you have a Starbucks near you, it raises your property values, actually. Clark's Pump and Shop, it's a convenient store. You can buy your food there. I think I had three more minutes here, so I'm gonna go on if that's okay, Mr. Chairman. We said it at six. You said it at six, okay. Let me sum up real quickly, because this is important to us. We have to have this type of use for our community to work, but Starbucks, Clark's Pump and Shop, the UK Credit Union, even Goodwill, Ramsey's, Osaka have to have cars coming to them. They have to get people coming in off the street. Otherwise, if they don't have the people coming from other parts of the community, they're not gonna survive there, and we can't offer them to our residents out there. I would ask you to adopt this in the original form, just taking out the minimum lot coverage requirement. Trust the owners who know how much parking they need, and let it operate that way. If there's a problem in the future, you can go back at it. If you have to have a ratio of building square footage to vehicular use area square footage, make it .1 instead of .3. That would make it at least possible for us to have some of these other uses in there. I've got a lot more to say. I'm sorry I ran out of time, but this is an important matter to us. We thank you for your attention on this very much. It's very important, we feel, to the well-being of the residential and mixed-use communities that we're building throughout the community. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gross, before you come up, we do have one question here from Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for staff, what was the scientific or the math behind the .3? I'm sorry, Mr. Davis, would you mind to repeat that? Would you mind to repeat that? What was the reasoning, the basis, the evidence for .3? Well, in the initial lot coverage, it was the existing built environment along our corridors and trying to nudge it a couple of percentage points up. So that was the basis where we originally started from, was the initial FAR analysis of all of our commercial corridors, the existing being somewhere between .270 and .3. .270 and .31 FAR, and most of those are one story, so that really, in effect, is the lot coverage in most cases. So the goal was to have a more marginal impact. It turned out to not be impacting just the margins. So I think staff would agree that the existing 30% lot coverage requirement is probably too onerous for commercial development. But this 30%, well, .3 VUA ratio is considerably more flexible. I don't know if I'm, did I answer your question? The initial 30% came from our analysis of our commercial corridors and a roughly 3% to 4% increase in the averages on those corridors. That's what I got. No, I'm not concerned about the 30% because it's coming out, but the VUA ratio should be .3. Yep. Oh, okay, I see. Explain to me, like I'm a fifth grader, how you came to .3. Yeah, oddly enough, we just started with the same number and looked at a number of commercial developments and well over half of them met that .3 VUA ratio on their overall. Some don't, but most do. And most of what we're seeing coming in more recently, which was what we wanted to look at, we didn't want to look at old sites, are still meeting those, are meeting the .3. And they're not meeting it by a lot. It's anywhere from 32 to about 35, 36, .35, .36, in that range. So it just so happened when we took the existing number and started there to see where we should try to put it in as an alternative, that the .3 in this particular ratio seemed to work very well, with more complying than not complying by quite a bit. But some, like I said, certain things aren't going to, just aren't going to comply with the typical model. Well, we've just seen a little bit of an evolution in the typical model, particularly over the last five years. And I do share the concern that we're taking something that wasn't working away and are we potentially replacing it with something that isn't going to work. And I just thought there's got to be a reason or some sort of evidence of why the recommendation is .3. But basically, it's more than 50% of the properties you looked at met. We're trying to find something where more stuff meets than doesn't meet. We're trying to impact the margins. We're trying to impact the edges and nudge those things. We're trying to nudge our development pattern into something a little more sustainable and a little higher efficiency. That is the goal of planning. We did, we missed the mark on the first one. And we feel like this, with these options and these flexible, with additional flexible options and the availability of a waiver, that these are considerably more workable. Mr. Murphy said certain did have to remove spaces. Nothing about the staff's revised alternative requires the removal of a single space. There's an option to build exactly amount of building or parking spaces that they want to build. The question, I guess, to the planning commission and their direction back to us to provide an alternative that wasn't just eliminating it, was is this amount of flexibility appropriate? Did you run the same experiment at point two and point one? No, no. I'd be very curious to see where those results would fall with the existing, again, exactly what you did at point three, what point two, point one would look like. Is the goal that everything we try should meet? Sorry? Is the goal that every development we put, I mean, staff is very comfortable with the majority of plans that we looked at meeting and some not and needing to make some changes. That's kind of the whole point. So we could lower that number further until we get to 100% compliance, but then I'm not sure what the point is. No, I just appreciate data when we're trying to make a decision. That's all. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. I'm gonna get Mr. Gross and step up. That's fine. Thank you, man. Mr. Gross. Good afternoon, Brandon Gross, and Chris is gonna put up the slide. So this is, I'm gonna talk very fast because I did not ask for extra minutes. So I'm here, I do represent Goodwill. I can tell you that we have terminated projects in town based upon this floor area ratio coverage. But I want to look at this real quick. If you look at, so if you look at Harrisburg Road, they looked at 157 parcels, 50 didn't meet the FAR, and the FAR average was 0.26. But just so we're clear, FAR means levels, not lot coverage. So this study that was relied upon for the first one didn't even look at the appropriate information to begin with because there are medical buildings, there is the web development out behind, next across from Beaumont Center, that's like a 12-story office building. They didn't look at retail and restaurants. It looked at all the commercial buildings, which included lots of professional offices, lots of medical that had multi-stories that boosted this number. I think if you look at the actual retail and restaurant lot coverage, it's gonna be significantly lower. And I'm gonna show you some examples in a minute. I am, like I said, I'm here on behalf of Goodwill and a number of other interested stakeholders in the community. Just some quick numbers. I've been told that a 2,000-square-foot canopy will cost about $100,000 and that each permeable parking space costs between $3,000 to $5,000 more than a regular parking space. So these are not insignificant figures that we're talking about. A little bit of history. The B3, as you know, has been a disfavored zone. The Urban Growth Management was to separate out the B1 neighborhood uses into B3 and make B3 favored again. There's not been one B3 zone change come before you since the adoption. And if we adopt this new language, I don't think you're gonna see another one because it just does not work. The lot coverage doesn't work. You need to build two Texas roadhouses on one acre. That's not gonna work. Like I said, I think the floor area ratio of 30% became the number. That's not even lot coverage. I think the new 0.3 is kind of pulled out of the air with no real study or backing up. And I'm gonna show you real quick this next thing. Chris, you don't want to put that up. This is the Gibbons property. And this is essentially a fully built out development. There we go, planned out development. I'm trying to go fast. You're taking up my time, Tracy. See if it comes in. Okay. Okay, so this is a fully developed site. This site, as you can see, has vegetation all over the place. 0.26 is what we hit. We do not hit 0.3. Not one project on this lot hits the 0.3 minimum that we are shooting for. On top of that, which isn't shown, this site's gonna have 300 trees. So to make this site work, I have to either remove 40,000 square feet of parking, spend over a million dollars turning that into perennial space, build 18,000 more square feet of building without adding any new parking, or build 18,000 square feet of canopy or any variation of the above. And Mr. Davis, you are much smarter than me because it is beyond fifth grade math. This is like algebra to figure this out. And so in summary, I think the current lot coverage is unworkable. It's been shown as unworkable. I think we're gonna adopt another rule that's unworkable. And in summary, we have passed new open space requirements, new landscaping requirements, new tree canopy requirements. All those requirements, as you can see, this isn't even the most up-to-date requirements. There are new requirements that have more green space than this one's showing. Let these work before we take away vehicle use area. There's no correlation between building and vehicle use area. No correlation. You will not find one. A barbershop needs less than a sandwich shop. That needs less than a bar. 2,000 square feet, each one needs a different level of vehicle use area. There's no correlation. So I would ask you to repeal. Let the new regulations do their work. We can always come back and make tweaks later if they are needed. But we're holding up projects with this proposal. Thank you. Sorry for running over, sir. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Ms. Clark? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Ms. Clark, while you're passing that out, Mr. Davis wanted to ask staff a question, if you don't mind. Okay, can we elaborate on why covering VUA square footage with a canopy is, along with the permeable, a way to reduce your VUA? What redeeming, well, I understand that, but the sun is still gonna hit the top of the canopy, ultimately. But please elaborate. Canopies don't produce the heat island effect that asphalt and concrete do. The goal is to mitigate permeable surfaces and the things that produce heat. So if a canopy is metal and it's July, it's not gonna contribute any heat? It is different. A white painted canopy, just like what's on top of most of the Chick-fil-A drive-thrus, produces and redirects heat less than black asphalt. Black asphalt, yeah, of course. But if we're using that as basically a carrot, I don't know, I just, I'm struggling with that, okay? Ms. Clark. I'm Amy Clark and I live at 628 Castle Road and I might possibly, aside from this esteemed body, be the only person not paid to be here. I'm thinking of the general welfare as I view it. I think postponement of the ZOTA is best at this juncture. You're the body who initiated it. I think like any applicant, you could either postpone it or withdraw it. I think it needs more work. It's kind of half-baked. There are two particular things that directly touch on this that are going forward elsewhere. One is the complete street standards and they are scheduled to be prepared and ready for review and adoption by this body and the council late in the summer. So we're not talking about a long time. The other, you may be aware that council in their work session referred 16.9, which is the part that governs drive-through use of the ZOTA. They have referred that topic to the General Government and Planning Committee for further study. It appears to be their intent not to carry it forward with the ZOTA, although they have not acted as a council on the ZOTA yet. They will in their next meeting. I would urge you to strike the proposed provision to exempt VUA under a canopy from restriction as VUA. It was never reviewed by the commission. It wasn't offered for public consideration and response. It might be a cheap way to evade a proposed standard, but it doesn't sound like a very helpful thing. I would say in general, as Mr. Gross pointed out, our corridors have a lot of jobs. B3 business is only one of them and even that has a lot of jobs. We have other zones on the corridors and any kind of requirement or incentive to build more or to have less vehicle use area works twofold. It puts an impediment in the way of single story development that doesn't use land very efficiently and this is precious corridor land, but it also levels the playing field for someone who wants or needs to invest in construction to afford their use to the public and I'm thinking especially of housing. And I think a central tenet of the plan, both 2018 and 23, was to level the regulations and the policies and the incentives so we could have what was called transit oriented development. The other thing I would add, thank you, is it's not just an issue of how much pavement versus how much building and the green space. It's an issue of how many trips from a corridor cross paths that should help people walk and cycle and wait for the bus. Any crossing there is a point of conflict for someone not in a vehicle, in and out. All of this is related chiefly to drive-thrus. That's been the thing that kind of tipped everything over the edge. I think you should consider it as a whole and also don't do the whack-a-mole thing again. When you changed B1, it went to, changed B3, it went to B1, changed B1, it goes to B3. There's B6P, the solution may be, as some of these examples illustrated, to integrate uses with shared parking and you do that on a plan development. The measure makes provision for an integrated plan development that shares parking and access. I would also add that outdoor sales and storage belongs in a warehouse zone. 50% of your paved area, over and above your VUA paved area, is not right for our corridor zone, which is such precious land. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Excuse me. Okay. Mr. Mickler, I see you edging out there. Do you want to say something? Do we have a, just want to double check. Well, I just had one clarification based on a couple of the comments we heard. Chris, would you mind clarifying something? So we saw the Givens property, right? Yes. And we just heard that it would cost a million dollars to meet this by putting permeable pavers down as one example. But what I understand you to be saying and what I understand this text in front of us to be saying is this is really the marginal difference. So if the Givens property, and I believe you calculated this, fell short a few hundred feet. They are the, one second, I'll leave the exact. The Givens overall site, over 25 acres, is their options are 18,000 square feet of canopy or building, remove 48,000 square feet of EUA or convert some of it, some of that number to permeable or any combination of those four things. So it's not the whole parking lot. It's the marginal difference that they fall short. And I think what's, back to Mr. Davis's point about what the right number is, I think I want to, this is one of the things that puts staff in a position where it's impossible to pick the right number, but we're looking, if you look at just the anchor tenants lot, this is the Publix at Fountains. And Mr. Gross showed the development plan with the site at Givens on just those two sites. The Fountains has almost 236 spaces on just the anchor lot, while the Givens site has 350 spaces. And the total retail on that anchor lot is only 8,000 square feet difference. So it's a marginal difference in the amount of commercial square footage and a pretty sizable amount of parking difference that made the difference between the overall site complying and the overall site not complying. So that is an indicator to the staff that we're looking at marginal differences here. And these are things that the same user in the same market is doing on certain sites and not on others. The question to us, and we're not gonna have answers to those questions because we're not the leasing agents, the property developer, or anybody else, as to what's prohibiting one of these from developing and meeting with room to spare and others not. You know, a difference in this site is this has fewer outlots. The Givens site has 11 outlots. Nine of them have drive-thrus. This site's different. But they've chosen something different. The developer's chosen something different. So we're trying to find some sort of balance here because we know a site as proposed can meet this standard. And it's achievable. It is flexible enough, we think, to do both. But if it's not, then it's the commission's purview. We were tasked with coming up with an alternative that wasn't a removal of it entirely. I think we've done so to the point with some refinement that we were comfortable with it. But it's the commission's pleasure and we're happy either way. Mr. Davis. Are you? I don't know. You want to hold it? Pause. Well, I was just, to Mr. Nickel's point earlier, I'm reading the minutes from our, I guess, January 30th meeting. A motion was made by Mr. Nickel, seconded by Ms. Barksdale to initiate a text amendment to amend Article 8, Section 820 to remove the minimum lot coverage in the B3 zone, period. And that motion carried to initiate a text amendment to amend Article 8, Section 820 to remove the minimum lot coverage in the B3 zone, period. And so I'm struggling with all of this additional stuff that was not his intent, not part of the motion, not what the commission voted on. The canopy thing is so, I just, I can't accept that. Because when you look at the environmental impact of sourcing all of that material, trucking it in on a diesel truck, building it, I mean, you're totally negating any supposed environmental benefit. So I'm a no on what we have in front of us today. Thank you. Ms. Davis, Ms. Davis. No, no, no, no. You got more hair than the other one. So. I am no expert, but a quick search of AI, which I think we all know is absolutely infallible, and always right, just says it's about permeable pavers versus asphalt. Permeable pavers, especially natural stone ones, generally cost more up front than asphalt parking spaces. However, they can offer long term cost savings due to lower maintenance needs and potential storm water benefits. To me, and it says in summary, I think it's the environmental benefits of permeable pavers that speak to the comprehensive plan more about having things that are environmentally sensitive, reducing storm water costs, and I think it's a great thing to have permeable pavers in some form or fashion. I really don't understand all of the nuances, and I think it might be wise if we were to hold off until all of us understood this topic better. I just want to hold on to mine and see what happens. You're very welcome. No, no, no, you want to go there? I think what, I am going to make a couple of statements and then make a recommendation for a motion for my original proposed planning commission text, and the reason I am doing that is, I want to give an example. In 2022, a lot of good work was done here by eliminating parking requirements for residential in order to allow the market to determine how much parking is needed for residential and multifamily housing. That has been a success. We have seen increased density, and it has been a major improvement. Those decisions that are being made now for parking, for residential and multifamily are being determined by the market. The intent of removing the regulations of B3 lot coverage in the proposed text from the original Zoda request was to allow the market to determine the parking requirements that are necessary. So we've gone from removing a parking minimum, allowing the market to determine, the amount of spaces has been a net positive, I believe, for our community. And I think that by removing a maximum and allow the market to determine the parking required will be a net positive for our community. Regulations are important, but regulations can also make things, may create an environment that is too difficult to get anything done. And I think what we've seen by the two attorneys today, giving us examples of how the new proposed text would eliminate the possibility of some successful Lexington businesses that are in place right now, I think that's an additional unintended consequence that could be created by the revised staff's recommended text. Again, the intent was to remove regulations to allow the market to determine what is necessary for strictly our corridor businesses. This is nothing outside of B3. This is strictly for our corridor businesses. So a sporting analogy would be a referee, would be the regulator or the regulations. Regulations and regulators and referees are needed, but you do not want to have so many referees on the field that whenever you kick the ball, you hit a referee. And that's the type of environment we are creating by removing one regulation and adding different regulations that require skill and algebra to determine whether or not you are going to be able to build your product. If you do that calculation, you then get to the point where all right, I've got three outs here provided by the planning commission or by regulations. One is to spend more money on permeable pavers, one is to spend more money on covered parking, and the other is to spend more money on additional structure. I think that those requirements are onerous and should not be required for the property owner. So what I would like to do is to make, what I am going to do now is I'm going to make a motion to approve the original proposed planning commission text, which is on the back of this piece of paper. This is what I'd like to recommend and vote on now, if I achieve a second. You got it. I actually didn't, but I do. Yeah, again, I buy it. You sneezed the wrong way. I don't have to sneeze, it's moving all by itself. I would like to make a comment that if we approve the motion as it was just presented by Commissioner Nickel, that we would in fact be eliminating a de facto parking maximum. Because we now require, as of today, that the building be 30% lot coverage. We also have some other requirements on the lot. Those requirements today provide a de facto limit to how large the parking lot can be. If we remove the building lot coverage requirement, we are therefore enabling larger parking lots. I think it is really important as we go down our corridors, as citizens, as guests, as people of the city of Lexington, that the dominant feature of our city along our corridors, which is the route most people will go, is not parking lots. That we have buildings down our corridors, and if we eliminate the building requirement, and allow parking lots to be completely unlimited in relation to buildings, then what we will see going down our corridors is parking. And while our neighborhoods may still be nice as we go in, our city will be corridors of parking. And this proposed alternative staff text amendment, not the motion we have before us, gives so much flexibility. It says if you build parking that exceeds the sort of scale of the buildings that we would like to see, you can do it. You can get a waiver. You can propose an alternative design. You can do another thing that has a structure. You can do it with permeable paving. But it mitigates some of those impacts on our corridor. I just would, as we vote on this, I'm clearly hoping that we go with the staff alternative text. But I'd like just everybody to keep in mind that there is a parking limit in relation to the building now, de facto by the fact that the building has to be 30% lot coverage. If we eliminate that building, we are in effect creating the zoning ordinance to allow more parking in the B3 than is allowed today. I'd just like to add as a reminder to the list Mr. Nichols came up with, there is the fourth alternative, which is to seek a waiver. And if the applicant can make a compelling case for the waiver, there is relief there. Understood, and I think what we saw today is that we are in a situation where we're penalizing property owners, even if there is a waiver process. Because what we've heard from Mr. Gross is that Goodwill decided that they did not want to take the time to go down a waiver process if that was the possibility. And they moved on to a different site. Thank you. Ms. Baxter. I feel like every alternative is a cost to the business. One way or the other. Canopy or pavers or building size. And what will that do to help us attract more business? It seems like that's a huge detractor because now if I want to put something in Lexington, in a B3 zone, I've got to think about other costs aside from the building that I'm building. And that just seems like that's counter to bringing business in. So that's why I'm in favor of the original motion that Commissioner Nichols gave. Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Leading up to this, I've been scratching my head as to the reasons behind the request and really and truly today was the first time that I bought into it with Mr. Murphy talking about the restaurant Ramsey's off Leastown Road. I've been there and parking can be tight, but I do find a parking space. And we've heard about parking ever since I've been down here and it's tough, but we've more often than not lately, I keep saying we've got to find a better way and just creating more asphalt for more parking on a surface type thing. I don't think is the way to do it. Simply put, I cannot vote for the motion on the floor right now. I could vote for the staff alternative or I could vote for continuation to let them continue working on it because really and truly I believe some of this information I just saw today, but as it is right now, I cannot vote for the motion on the floor. That's fine. Once we get the grandkids up, we'll find out who's going to vote. Yes and no. So let's go that route. Could you restate the motion? Mr. Nichols. Okay, the motion is to approve the original proposed Planning Commission text for the B3 Corridor Business Zone as printed on the back of this piece of paper. Exactly as we see right here is what we're voting on. You talking about this? On the way to the right. Yes. Yeah, Mr. Nichols, that original proposal was in the minutes. So if you wanted to reflect that, it's in the minutes underneath documents. Okay, so reflect that the proposal, that it's the original proposal in the minutes as stated by Mr. Davis. Okay. And we got a motion and we have a second by Ms. Barksdale. She's always second. She's always second. Right, sorry. I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Yes, let's vote via grandkids now. Okay, the yeses have it. All right, the yeses have it. Okay, all right, so we're moving on. All right, good. All right, commission items? Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Okay. There's a proposed motion for everyone yesterday. And someone's gonna see it as well. Mr. Owens, can you ensure you have your mic on? Sorry. Thank you, and if you want to start over. Do I want to start over? Okay, so yes, thank you. There's a proposed resolution before everyone that was emailed to everyone, including Mr. Duncan, Mr. Horne, and Mr. DeLancey, since Mr. Horne emailed, said that he was out of the office for a while and recommended it go to Mr. DeLancey. So, Delaney, so with that said, the resolution is in regards to what we have talked about in regards to House Bill 443, public comment, objective standards, and so forth. If you look at it, it states right up front that as far as I'm concerned, I'm good with the objective standards. The concern is what has been widely discussed as far as public comment. Sunday's paper had an article from the sponsor of the bill saying that was not his intent. I think we've heard from two other legislators saying that as well, and the current sponsor, at least in the paper, said that if the city, us, Lexington doesn't fix it, they will fix it. And I'm looking at an avenue to make that happen. That's all I can say. We've had discussion as far as that. The council obviously has had public comment in regards to that. They're wrestling with it as well. I've heard comments as to why didn't we include something, and that's been discussed. I'm hoping that this is an avenue to help that process in that direction. You've got it in front of you. I think this can be a fix. We have historically looked at the Planning Commission to make decisions on development plans. The staff make recommendations to us. We make recommendations to the council on zone changes. And so the ruling authority would be the council on zone changes, and the Planning Commission as far as development plans would be concerned. I'm not meaning to step on any toes, but I believe that's the way it is. House Bill 443 does have language in there as to the approving authority can rule on public health, safety, and welfare. And at the present, I don't think that is being allowed. It's been interpreted by our staff as that is something that they can do. I think if it continues and is allowed that way, this will give. the public a chance and I think that's all anyone is asking to have their voices heard and believe me if it's a you know the council right now is saying that these these items could come to the Commission in the form of a on our consent agenda but the citizens could speak but we can't do anything about it because it's already passed and I think this would give it a chance to allow to occur it's what we do now with development plans that all the boxes are checked they move forward we approve them on consent agenda if no one wants for him to be pulled and if you all sit here all the time very seldom do they get pulled they normally pass and that is my attempt in this is to allow this to occur I it it got more wordy than I liked but I think it's outlined pretty well and I would welcome comments mr. pin when I hear somebody say that I want to go to Frankfurt to fix this it scares me to death if we can't fix it ourselves we got depend on the legislation in Frankfurt to fix our process it says not good things about us and so this is an attempt to try to fix it ourselves and if this attempt fails I'm not real happy with what's going to happen in Frankfurt because it's not good when it comes out of Frankfurt not when it comes to Lexington Davis just a question of procedure for our attorney the attorney rather if we were to pass this resolution it would be a resolution from the Planning Commission to the council which they could then either accept or reject is that how that would work first let me say I saw this after five o'clock yesterday because mr. Duncan sent it to me so I've been trying to process this since then and figure out what to do with it and answer the legal questions like that one that I anticipated I don't like to do things that way so but we've made I've made my best effort I've talked to my Commissioner in the Department of Law so there's several things about this that if you are inclined to move it forward I think we need to change because I don't think it's consistent with either the statute or the process so first off let me say you all have already engaged in your part of this process and the process is a text amendment comes to you all you all discuss it have hearings on it you vote on it and you make your recommendation forward to the council so effectively what your recommendation was they've already have and not only do they have it they've already amended it 15 times at their work session and that is scheduled and I'm not saying that as a just exaggeration literally 15 times so they they have in front of them and we are scurrying to prepare for them an ordinance that reflects all those amendments that they have now docketed for their meeting for first reading on May the 29th so I'm not saying you cannot do this but what I'm saying is it will not be part of your regular process that process is the horse is gone out of the barn on that process so if you send this forward you will be sending them a request or a comment from the Planning Commission that you would like to see them take this up and incorporate it in their amendments which will require them to make another amendment when at their first reading to change what you sent them previously through the process so I just want to be clear about that because that's the process and we have to follow it but you can do that and so the resolution won't be a formal won't be your formal recommendation it will now be a resolution that sets forth your all's public comment or proposal to them of what you would like to see amended and what they've now docketed so just so we're clear on that but there I do have some concerns about some of the wording in the event that you choose to go forward with this but I'm not going to get into that and let until we see what else you all want to say about it thank you and does the does the council have they have an amendment about public engagement amongst their amendments well they do but it's it's not this there and I might be stating this incorrectly because it is best I understand and we're trying to get the absolute written form because they had it I don't yet of what they said but I believe that their amendment and Jim or Tracy can correct me if I'm wrong I believe that their amendment was that the process that you all moved forward where it you know the standards are adopted the applicant complies with those it goes to the technical committee all of the divisions with the expertise about those standards weigh in on whether or not they meet the standards and then that is then either approved or not approved is meeting the objective standards in a ministerial fashion as the as the build requires frankly despite what the legislators are saying now you know maybe maybe a more well-written bill would have been helpful but that's not where we are so the they said what they didn't change that but once a plan is certified so the approval from the technical committee under the process that was sent forward that's in the text amendment right now would then allow the the applicants proposal to be certified they've been asked for once that certification happens for you all to be sent a list of all those and that you all can all see what what plans are certified you can't change them but if in the future based on any discussion of those and the public could weigh in you could then potentially change a regulation or some other part based on what that says but it wouldn't be prior to that's my understanding of what they did and miss Davis let me add to that Tracy's absolutely correct but the council has also in their amendments which are still pending because the ordinance has not been given first reading is to serve notice with a sign posted on the site at the time of applications so the the citizens the neighborhoods can know that there is a development plan pending they can follow it through the technical review committee they can also then attend the meeting where the list is provided to you of certified plans and even though you can't change that certification you can hear from the community the concerns they had about that plan or anything else it just as if just the same as there's an audience item now that hardly anyone ever takes advantage of that opportunity exists in addition to that so that's on the table first of all posting a sign similar to the zone change sign that gets posted now right now there is no requirement to post notice for development plans so that's already enhanced that the second is they're looking at increasing the notification for waivers and they've got actually two things on the table right now which may still get some some some changes but they're also looking at in addition to the sign being posted they're looking at a mail notice of a specific distance as well and that's for all development plans as well and they're also including occupants so that could potentially be a massive mailing depending on what kind of properties that picks up that's under consideration but it's also something a work in progress so the bottom line is it looks like the sign is probably going to proceed the notice the individual notice that's still under consideration and I expect there'll be more more discussion about that next week thank you mr. Duncan and miss Jones my only well guess my primary question is are you saying that if the plan the development plan is certified it is said to be okay to go and a citizen comes with a bona fide health safety or welfare concern that we have to amend the the zoning ordinance in order to address the health safety or welfare concern if it's a legitimate one well that will already have been flagged before it gets to the certification point but what if it's not because as people have said before not everybody can be everywhere in Lexington to know about a certain concern well let me and anyone any of the rest of staff can add to this as well let me say this in reading this bill and I can only read it for what it says and you know I'm sorry if I sound irritated I am so it said what it says about health safety and welfare is specifically first off it's in section 2 and it says the ordinance rules or regulations governing development plans may be may allow for discretion to be applied by the approving authority you know it which on development plans is the Planning Commission not the council only the Planning Commission in circumstances where they seek the deviation in a waiver let me didn't say waiver but they seek the deviation and we're putting that in the form of a waiver or be the approving authority determines based on substantial evidence that strict a strict ministerial application of the objective standards would pose a specific threat to public health safety or welfare in the affected area so the that evaluation has two things it has to be based on substantial evidence and it has to be connected to the ministerial application of the objective standards in other words some application of that of one of those objective standards is going to cause or pose a specific threat to public health safety or welfare and I'm just reading what it says and so if if the if you all are going to apply your minister your discretion as opposed to ministerial duties at that juncture it has to be connected to applying one of the objective standards to a in a specific threat and it has to be based on substantial evidence so in other words they you you can't have someone even if you change this process come and say I think this is going to pose a safety threat or a health threat or or a welfare threat at this location I want a hearing and you all go okay because I think you're going to get into you're going to get into the exact problem mr. Penn's talking about because it's exactly what this is meant to not do there's going to have to be some kind of substantial evidence that this is happening and that it relates to the application of one of those objective standards so our thought would be that hopefully that would have been flagged before but I understand if you all feel differently and you want the opportunity to you know to look at it differently if that's the way we're going to go we need to talk about about this and we need to make it comply with this house bill okay then one one last thing which is in that sentence that you read it says that the approving authority has to find the health safety or welfare concern and it sounds like we're saying the approving authority is the planning staff I thought it was the planning Commission so help me understand that and and the staff can correct me if I'm wrong on this but I believe in this in what you all put forward to the council the staff would only flag that it would come to you then it would come to you and then you would have to decide based on substantial evidence is applying that minister that objective standard going to create this specific threat to say that to say that another way the applicants request for a waiver and the staff's recommendation of a public health safety welfare issue will both be brought to the planning Commission for a public vetting and under the under the ordinance that the that you all sent to the plant to the council notice would be served to adjacent property owners for those deviations thank you mr. Duncan I yield back to you thank you Tracy Jones thank you to our entire legal department because this has been I know for such a short bill it's been a tremendous head-scratcher so I really I want to publicly say thank you to you and your staff for everything you have done because it's significant and thank you mr. Duncan for your explanation I think this is a an exceptionally reasonable thought here and Tracy as you read the the text of the the legislation like miss Davis pointed out it does say the approving authority under those circumstances I think this is a clarification that really helps everybody all around and does so in a way that is in line with the bill itself and if a citizen did want to comment under the system of the proposal as it is now and they went to technical review is there opportunity for public comment at that point no so by saying a citizen can go to technical review but they can't say anything and then they can go to the planning Commission hearing but what they were going to object to has already been certified to me it's it's also just it just doesn't make any sense and I'm not familiar with many people in the community that are thrilled or happy with with the bill itself and I do believe in original intent and when you read that not one not two but several of the the sponsors of the original legislation have come out and said absolutely not that was never our intent I think this is a reasonable path forward that sure we can amend as needed and I would be very open to your revisions miss Jones but I'm in support of this so when when the notice is posted or mailed out what what does the public do with that I mean you know if they have if they have a comment where does it go and who hears it and who takes it seriously the the way the council has described this is for the sign that gets posted for all applications and so anyone would they get the information on that would then be directed to the website to know what the application is and then they could also contact the staff at that point ask more questions about the application or express a concern about that and staff would of course take that information and consider that but if this the objective standards can be met by the applicant according to the legislature that is comment but it may not have an impact on that that specific development and the way the council is describing this is these comments perhaps would eventually maybe even very quickly build to a change in the regulation so in the regulation so if if the if the regulations weren't being sufficiently responsive to the to the neighborhoods then they would be change just like you all are recommending that the applicant the recommendations weren't being sufficiently responsive to the business community you speak well but this is Ms. Barksdale changed by the council changed by the staff changed by the planning commission or changed by Frank I'm sorry Mr. Bennett Ms. Barksdale was asking did I finish your question not not exactly I mean because it still just feels like you're you know you're receiving comment but to what extent and and is the staff prepared to you know some of these development plans you know we've seen how the room fills up are are you prepared to be able to field calls from you know large groups of people who have something to say I mean how what I just don't see how that how we can have have the public you know really feel like their input is valued it sounds like yeah you can comment and just and just leave it at that I don't know it's just doesn't feel right are you are you are we boring you mr. chairman you know what this boils down to is this one word of ministerial because when the word ministerial is mentioned it suggests of course you can't hear I'll get closer to the mic okay the key word here is ministerial when you hear the word ministerial what that suggests is is that as a planning commission we have very little to do now the state law says we have to hear it but it doesn't mean we have anything to do with it the people who come here and want to say something have taken time out of their schedules have given up all kinds of activities and they've done that with the understanding they may have to sit here for two hours and a half just so they can say what they want to say in three minutes to me that is the easiest accommodation I've ever seen for people who are in the citizen in the provision of providing service to the citizens to do so it comes down to that one critical issue that we've been going over and over and over and that is if you're going to have public comment and it's not going to be of any value then you shouldn't have it but if you do that you destroy the trust that those people have put into the process and as a consequent then it diminishes all the things that we do for the service of Lexington and mr. Wilson I understand and we agree and that's what we said all along is that there is the any public comment that's taken on this on individual applications people will feel frustrated because there was no response to that but I do think there's value in hearing public comment even if the Planning Commission can't do anything about that on an individual in application because that does form the basis for future policy and future regulations and that's what the council said that they were hoping to get out of public comment on plans that have already been approved through the ministerial process could I follow up with a question and that is this Jones said at the early outset that we could move this forward but that you would have some suggestions on how that might work wording wise is that so as it relates to moving forward then what should we do either both this up or down and then going back to you for the cleanup well I would suggest if you're gonna if you're gonna if you want to move this forward I would suggest we make some changes to them that I've marked with a red pen and I can tell you what they are do you have are you looking at the version that was before you today or did you bring it different than the one that was said our wonderful staff does that to us from time to time as well there is there is one and the basic change is the fact that it takes the urban County Council out of the paragraph for approving authority okay that was one change thank you so because I got that one when I got down here today so that the one I looked at was yesterday and you know I am happy to help you all with these kinds of things but you got to give them to me I'm just saying or else we're gonna be doing what we're doing right now so are you asking what else I would say to change that that's the correct I was trying to figure out the process because we we can put them this is a formal motion is all this is as it relates to it so you could put the motion on the table and then either voted up or down if it votes down then it's no big deal it's all with if it voted up then you would be agreeable to coming back helping to change the wording in other areas or configure this in a way that would be acceptable legally so that we can move it move it forward well I mean I think that you can you can do that or you can do it I mean well you can do that or you can make the changes and then vote that up or down well that was a question I was having I think you can do that okay I just want to be clear that you know this isn't going as a formal recommendation from the Planning Commission like from a text amendment because that is gone so this is just basically you all as a body if you vote on this as a body saying I want you to I want the staff to send this to the council and we would like for them to consider it they may go yeah we're not going to I think I don't think they will I don't I don't know what they'll do but you it's not in the normal process of text amendments anymore because that process is done if that makes sense you do okay I just want to make sure that nobody thinks we're backing up the process you know you can't walk it back so you're this is at this point because the council's already in process what you're sending them is a suggestion of things that you would like for them to consider and it's going to differ from what you already sent to them so you know whatever confusion that raises I guess we'll get to exploring so so Tracy I have to go I have to follow up with you on this until they vote what they want to have they can change their mind right and we have every right in the world to send them what we think could or would work well you you do it's just not in the normal Zoda process there's a there's a process outlined in our ordinance about how Zoda's work and you all have already executed that and it's left you all and gone to them so yes you have a right to tell them we want you to consider these changes but they're already do you know there they can change an ordinance they haven't voted on finally anytime they want to that's my point right yeah they can all I'm saying I just wanted you all to understand they voted it's still a work in progress right but you're all's recommendation through our process has already been made so this is additional to that but it's not part of that Zoda process you normally execute with them that's what I wanted to be clear what the planning can't plan the Commission can do is said we've thought about this we want to help you make your decision we'd like to consider this you can and if they do consider this it will also require and and they'll have to deal with this it will also require other amendments to what they already have because the other amendments already talk about the can the you know process through technical which this would change if they adopt this so on their vote at the final here at the final situation talk about process with this what I want us to understand is is that we've put our heads together we're trying to avoid a situation it's going to come up a year from now and this is what we'd like for them to consider now we could have done it two ways we could have all sent this to them individually or we could go through and get the staff's input on it and send it as a group that's the two choices we had we chose to take this one let's see if we've got the votes to do it or not and then we can talk about things that you think are bad or wrong or whatever I'm fine with that let me ask this question real quick how many changes do you have well I'm trying to compare I mean the only thing that changes the council I have Tracy do you need time no I've written it down sure okay I just need to make sure that it's consistent with the one that was sitting over here as opposed to the one that was sent last night yeah I think the changes I have are one two three and in a substantial change to the therefore paragraph so um but you know so probably probably four changes but they're not significant so if you all want to vote on whether or not you want to do this and then we can talk about those we can or how whatever you all want to do I mean what would that motion look like or is that a I'm willing to go along with that recommendation I think the key thing that I'm hearing from you now is is that if we vote on it in other words if there's substantive changes of such subsequent that this is not the case here yes I would not recommend even with the taking out I mean that was the very first one I saw was taking out the council because they're not the approving body of development but that and that that that's easy that's the easiest one okay but I still would not feel comfortable and as a staff member I wouldn't recommend sending it this way you can still send it that way if you want to you all done it before but when we recommend one thing but I just we wouldn't be I wouldn't be from the law department's perspective agreeable to that way now not I don't think my changes are going to change it so substantively that it makes it not do what you're wanting it to do let me say that but I mean I can read to you what I want or you all can vote on whether or not you want to do it and then I can it's going to be hard because the one that's marked up is the one that's up there but we can do that too okay so so let's uh because you don't have the ability to put it up there might have well it was kind of thrown on you and you can walk us through it you want it before or do you want it do you want to vote on whether or not you want to do this first or do you want it you want to see it first quick show of hands well personally I would like to go ahead and do it and if we need to that we come back because it was voted down then we don't worry about it correct okay so let's bring it back the floor is open for a motion for the original motion that mr. Owens presented is that correct or that we want to move forward with her edits that's why I said it was do we are we wanting to send a recommendation to the council do we want to send this resolution a resolution to the council I thought that's what our first motion and then if we need to make I don't know which one I have today I'll make a motion okay okay one one we've been making comments I have not made a motion my motion would be that we move a resolution to the council and that would give our legal a chance to edit this version that would be my motion okay so we have a motion a resolution to council and we have a second by mr. Wilson okay okay they popped up again I came for you no that's what I was saying that's what I'm more than welcome to you know put this thing forward going to them but I'm willing to hear edits as well okay okay all right questions this is this is just a move a resolution a resolution which so we're sending a blank piece of paper that says resolution the motion be to utilize staff legals I can I can amend my motion to that to utilize the staff to edit a resolution going to the council and it isn't edit a resolution or edit this edit this resolution and and is it just housekeeping question is it easier or more sensible to perhaps take a straw poll of of where that vote might lie and if it looks like it would be in the affirmative do we want to iron out those changes now Tracy or do you understandably want more time I don't need more time okay okay so but if you want to okay if you want to move this forward and vote yes or yay or nay and then move to amend it we can do that that would be the cleanest easiest way to do Wilson okay would be the case we got to vote it down it wouldn't be in the sure okay yeah I wanted to go down that path I just couldn't figure out how okay so do we know what floor is open for I mean for Granicus it's Granicus let's vote Granicus all right motion passes mr. Duncan excuse me could I mr. chair I think you don't you want to amend the resolution now or I don't think don't leave that to staff we need to see what you all want she's coming so do you want me to go through what I would recommend yes please all right so the black print ignore that was just I was making notes to myself to change it and this is last night's version so it doesn't have the version you all have where it took out the council the red marking is what I would think you should change and the reason why I'll tell you the reason why on each one of them and maybe it would be best to go each one and see where you are on it and you know instead of trying to go through all of them and then go back and piecemeal them if that makes sense so on the on the first whereas I just took out that 24 RS because I think it's referred to as House Bill 443 and I don't want that's how it's always been referred so if you're gonna send it to the council I think we should send it with the same provision the second whereas paragraph at the right there at revisions I would I think what that what you sent forward to them was adopting objective standards and a new development plan process I think that's what it should say because it wasn't just adopting objective standards it was adopting the standards and the new development plan process was in that in the text you sent to them so that's why I added that there so that we're clear and the reason that's important is because you all really aren't you all aren't really recommending in this to change the objective standards and nor did the council didn't really mess with very many of those it was the it was the process so that's why I want it to be clear let's see the next one is just you already took that out did you it's still in there yes well oh I'm sorry no I'm trying to look at both yes the the next whereas paragraph I think it should say because your resolution is from from you all and so I think I think it would be adequate to just I don't want you to attribute actions to the council in this ordinate in this resolution so I just took that out so it just would say there has been extensive discussion I think that's a fair statement but I just don't want you to be attributing what the council's done because they might take issue with that if you categorize what they did a certain way then the next one just took out the 24 RS reference I think that was it the next one you already took that out the urban County Council there the next one okay I have a problem with the word fundamental right and here's the reason why everything we and this is a long roundabout definition but I gave the same comment to the council the are everything we do in planning and zoning stems from state statute and so our authority to act and do that is dependent on the state statute the state statute allows us to create bylaws in a process for dealing with things that aren't necessarily specifically addressed and what is not addressed in the state statute is a process for processing development plans it just says you can have a development plan you can require a preliminary development plan with his own change but we've created our own process so the fundamental right part to a hearing goes to the zone change the state statute says there will be a hearing it'll happen this way there will be one the council can have another blah blah but so and the reason I say that is because I don't want us to get hung up down the road with somebody saying something we did authorized a fundamental right to somebody that the state did not and again they could have said that in here but they didn't so we're dealing with what we got and so I took that out and rewrote that to say and you may have to flip it over that the the Planning Commission asserts that it is desirable for the public to be heard when the approving authority determines that based on substantial evidence that the and then flip it over the first the star ministerial application of the established objective standards would pose and then flip it back a safety a public health safety or welfare a threat in the in the affected area of the development plan prior to the approval of the development plan and and then I put a semicolon and then says this public participation could be included while still complying with House Bill 443 so in other words what I'm saying there is you all believe it's desirable for the public to be heard when there's substantial evidence of a specific threat to the public health safety or welfare in the affected area prior to and that that doesn't violate 443 that's basically what it's saying because otherwise I think you're saying something's a fundamental right that we don't have any basis to say it is in the statute I understand what you're saying not understanding the sequence in which this would happen because well that's in the next paragraph can I finish yeah we can't really determine that there's been substantial evidence unless we've heard it well it had it had that's a great question and that's part of our problem in trying to deal with this previously but what I think we're saying is that and it's sort of addressed in the next paragraph delineating the process as well that you know this would provide the opportunity for someone to raise that with you and if you think what they're telling you is going to give you enough substantial evidence to have the hearing you'd have it if they come in and say I don't like this I would hope you would say I'm sorry we're not hearing that because it's not a specific threat to help public health I mean you know and again because this bill doesn't give us any direction I don't know how you determine but we're saying to you all if you want to change this we think you've got to track this language which says if there's a substantial if there's substantial evidence you all can hear it I work through these things better if I have a concrete example and I'm going to give this one which I shared with mr. Duncan last week because it is really stuck in my mind now this was a development plan attached to a zone change but I'm focusing on the development plan it was the Clays Mill request to install a coffee shop in what had been a bank and the neighbors raised the question about the plan for traffic along Clays Mill because that area leads right to an elementary school and it was going to involve crossing it was going to increase traffic and cause a lot of problems what really stood out for me and this was what I said to mr. Duncan traffic had done a traffic study they brought us data that was based on like a 12-hour period of time the neighborhood had done their own traffic study where they took visit they took videos they counted cars they had actual data and they said if you look at peak traffic which is what's what they were concerned about not an average time but peak traffic they had data that supported things needed to be different in that traffic plan and the reality is what they've done is put I mean what the city responded to that data and they put bollards over there so you cannot go from a cubbing on one side of Clays Mill over to Harrodsburg Road and that was directly in result of people coming down saying we did our study we've got the data here it is and we bought it and the city bought it and and I and that's a good example and so what in that case what I would anticipate with this language is that what in the next in the next section where we talk about some changes it when they come to you they would say we have a traffic study that shows different information and we want you to hear it because we think it presents a public because what we don't want to happen because if you want the legislature and the people who precipitated this to come after you all you when you open up this door and they come to you and you don't utilize the subjective it you know that require them to provide that and you hear it and you start talking about all these other things without a basis for in substantial evidence you're yeah they're gonna correct it again and I don't know what that's gonna look like so I'm just saying that's why that's why I changed this to track what they said but I think that's what would happen now what that looks like may require some additional tweaking to other parts of the ordinance in timing and deadlines because you know I mean right now when you all have a consent agenda and you pull something off you just hear it at the end of the thing of the hearing and I think that may still be the case but that even if nothing else changes it's going to require what is currently in front of the council in terms of the deadlines and the timing in the existing ordinance they have because it just shuts it off after technical okay so that's why that language is in there so basically what I'm saying is that you know you they would come to you because you have it on the agenda and it might be easier to go on to the next but because the next contemplates a consent agenda they would come to you they would say we want to pull it off they would have to give you a reason that they have some kind of substantial evidence whoever wants to pull it off and then you all would determine at that point is that enough for us to go ahead and have a hearing or we don't think that is enough because it doesn't go to the application of these standards and public safety health or where flare and we're not going to hear it which would be your purview right so let's go on to the next so that's what I'm saying there to change the next one it's where it says it's the therefore paragraph again the Urban County Council came out of there then what I'm saying here is the approving authority of a development plan let's say it's the public may raise so again I want to get away from establishing a right because the right implies we have to let them do it so I'm saying the public may raise substantial evidence that the strict ministerial application I'm just mocking the statute there would pose a specific threat in the you know and request a hearing and then if you flip it back over you know if you determine the request to or well let's see I think I struck all of that if you if you determine that it's not warranted you know or that there's no public comment provided or there's no substantial evidence then that you would approve it on the consent agenda if you determine it should be heard and it's warranted because they've indicated to you they have some type of substantial evidence then you would have a full hearing so it's the same is what you said I just took out some of the language that I didn't think tracked the statute if that makes sense that makes a lot of sense to me because again the legislature itself says the approving authority is the Planning Commission so it all falls perfectly in line and now let me also say the reason I tracked this language is because they specifically you know I mean they specifically address some stuff and they totally didn't address other stuff at all and so in section B of subsection 2 of section 2 they specifically talk about that the question of a specific threat to public safety healthy public safety health or welfare has to be tied to applying the objective standards so if you grant that you're only going to be talking about whatever that issue is it's not going to be the whole development plan it's going to be that issue we can't if you start doing that we're going to tell you you cannot do that because that's not what this says I mean you're still going to be limited but at least you have an opportunity for that to come through because this the idea of adopting objective standards is that those standards reflect what this community has been telling us what we've been doing and when we adopt them and put them in an ordinance and make an objective everybody knows what they are coming in the public you guys us the developers so you know if everybody comes and all that's met I mean there's there there shouldn't be a lot of room for discussion and what what this bill I think overall was meant to not do is to not sit here and talk about objective standards that have been met for three hours so you know I think that's where what happened so those would be what I would suggest we would feel comfortable going forward with this and if you vote to go forward with this we will figure out how to get it to the council as a planning Commission's additional thoughts on public engagement or something you know so that they're clear it's not a new part of the Zoda it's just an additional comment that you all thought about more or something to that effect good mr. chairman I move that we adopt the amendments that have been presented by a legal counsel to be added to the resolution that we've already started or initiated okay got a second by mr. Jonathan Davis yes mr. Duncan thank you mr. chair so I want to want to restate our understanding of what you are recommending the council do so right now before the council based on the statute is that the technical review committee approves all development plans except for those seeking a waiver and those identified as a public health safety risk the waivers and the public health and safety would come to the planning Commission for a full vetting full hearing like ordinary what you're saying with this is the technical review committee would not approve any plan every plan would come to the planning Commission on a consent agenda and then if someone in the audience asked you or if you decided on your own you wanted to pull any particular plan for a health safety welfare issue then it would receive a hearing that's what I understand that you're saying so that you would then at the end of the consent agenda you would be the one that says all of the plans were approved not the technical review committee is that what this is saying no the statute says a plans applied should be approved ministerially oh okay I'm sorry and so you all are deviating from the statute you're pulling plans to you you can still approve them ministerially but you're delaying that approval by at least two weeks but our understanding is that the technical committee is bringing to us a recommendation right the technical committee will well I don't know we'll have to figure that out I mean they're going to recommend they're going to alert if there's a need for a waiver so they're not going to recommend that you all do a waiver and certainly if they recommended a health safety welfare which is that where that's where we would expect that to come from the technical committee on everything else they're going to say this meets the ordinance okay you answer just real quick are we so what is being stated here is in effect saying that the Planning Commission does not trust the technical committee to make the decision ministerially regarding health safety and welfare it's not about trust it's about the Planning Commission says that the people who are being impacted by the change should have an opportunity to bring alternative objective evidence to raise questions about the decision about health safety and welfare just like the people on Clay's mill did okay so now we're going to determine who determines what the objective evidence or if the object if the evidence is objective and not subjective it's not objective or subjective it is whether or not there's substantial evidence that goes to the application of these adopted standards creating a like if you apply the standard to the particular whatever case it is is is there substantial evidence that says that it's going to create a public public safety health or welfare threat which we would hope the technical committee would it would flag but it gives people the opportunity to to raise it with you the way this is written and and I don't know how any other way to do it you are going to be the determiners of that you know if somebody says you know I'm assuming we're you know you're going to have to do a boatload of public education on this but you know you're going to be you're going to say what's your what evidence are you going to show us and if they say well I think that road's busy I think that road's not safe I think there's I don't like that I don't like there's too many trees I mean they're gonna have to have something more than what you normally hear or see and if they can't tell you that then I think your option is to say we're not pulling it so what you're saying is that we are now tasked with determining what substantial what what is considered as substantial in the way we will do that is we will vote on it and the majority will carry to make the decision whether we determine it's substantial or not I think that's what we did with the Clays Mill people we heard their evidence and we decided that that evidence as opposed to an average a peak traffic time was a more appropriate standard to use we decided but you're only but you're also going to you're gonna be deciding on the front end whether or not you should even pull it correct and then you're gonna hear it and make a decision about what if there's something different that should go on that development plan before it's approved or not and or to approve it or not approve it that I mean that's what is on the table right now this that's the process that's being recommended and sent to council per our vote but I don't understand how this recommendation is in compliance with HB 443 I don't need an explanation I can it doesn't look like it's in compliance and we'll allow the state to make that determination I think we already have a motion on the floor well what I'm saying is the motion that I made was to adapt the amendments that the attorney has indicated for the head do we vote on that yeah we haven't okay and in that case I called for the question yeah yeah the other than mr. Davis second we win the discussion now I'm calling for the question we vote on this it was Jonathan Davis the second thank you I'd be happy to so we're joined today by my niece Sophie Davis Braley she is just finished her college her freshman year at college she is studying what they call it Bryn Mawr which is in Pennsylvania the city's major which looks at spatial development culture history politics and economics and I'm so glad that you asked me to do that I'm sure she'll be thrilled to wave hello to everyone thank you sorry for keeping you so long but you can blame me auntie thank you mr. chair next week is a holiday week so the government will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day we have a Planning Commission work session on Thursday where we're at your request and bringing you a presentation from our housing division about affordable housing and then there will also be an update about the soul smart program which is a solar program outside of the Zoda that the government is pursuing so we'll see you all next Thursday 130 in the Phoenix building Mr. chair it doesn't have to be on the agenda but I did want to tell you started about an hour ago is a public input meeting for the preservation and process study that we talked with you about last week at your work session this public input meeting is taking place at the senior center and you all will be welcome to attend it goes until seven o'clock until seven o'clock thank you