# Board of Adjustment Meeting - June 9, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · June 9, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6450 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6450?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-06-09 - **Last revised**: June 9, 2025 - **Length**: 41,517 words - **Speakers**: Chair, I Have A Question > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Division of Planning, Planning Services Section Board of Adjustment convened on June 9, 2025, at 1:30 PM in Council Chambers at 200 East Main Street, Lexington, Kentucky. The board worked through a full agenda of 12 items consisting of conditional use permit requests and variance applications from a range of residential and commercial applicants. Over the course of the meeting, the board took 12 votes and heard 9 public comments. Of the 12 agenda items, 6 were approved, 2 were denied, 2 were postponed, 1 was withdrawn, and 1 was deferred. Notable outcomes included the approval of conditional use permits for Cherish the Child Daycare, Wesley United Methodist Church, Dr. Thomas Larkin, and Loralee Trim, as well as the denial of conditional use permits for Two Fisted Willies and Jonathan Rollins. Variance requests from Riesig Built Construction and Manuel Hijar were approved, while the KY-263 2Friends LLC variance request was postponed and the HR Davis Real Estate LP combined variance and conditional use permit request was deferred. ## Votes and Decisions The board took action on twelve items during the meeting, using voice votes throughout. - **PLN-BOA-25-00030** — A motion by MISS Tucker, seconded by Sturdivant, to postpone the CANE MANOR LLC conditional use permit request passed by voice vote. [timestamp: 0:09] - **PLN-BOA-25-00055** — The WADE & REBECCA KUNDINGER conditional use permit request was withdrawn. [timestamp: 0:09] - **PLN-BOA-25-00011** — A motion by MISS Tucker, seconded by Sturdivant, to postpone the KY-263 2FRIENDS LLC variance request passed by voice vote. [timestamp: 0:11] - **PLN-BOA-24-00204** — A motion by MR. Walker, seconded by MISS Tucker, to approve the RIESIG BUILT CONSTRUCTION variance request passed by voice vote. Approval is conditioned on construction being in accordance with the submitted application materials and site plan. [timestamp: 0:22] - **PLN-BOA-25-00040** — A motion by MR. Gross, seconded by MR. Walker, to approve the MANUEL HIJAR variance request passed by voice vote with conditions: the applicant must remove portions of the deck encroaching onto adjoining properties, remove landscaping in the side yard to allow emergency services access, and secure encroachment permits from all utilities. [timestamp: 1:11] - **PLN-BOA-25-00037** — A motion by MR. Gross to approve the CHERISH THE CHILD DAYCARE conditional use permit passed by voice vote. Approval is conditioned on the applicant installing a solid six-foot fence on the north side of the property line. [timestamp: 1:31] - **PLN-BOA-25-00051** — A motion, seconded by MISS Tucker, to disapprove the TWO FISTED WILLIES conditional use permit failed by voice vote. [timestamp: 2:16] - **PLN-BOA-25-00060** — A motion by MR. Gross, seconded by MR. Persley, to approve the WESLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH conditional use permit passed by voice vote, conditioned on the property being developed and operated in accordance with the revised site plan. [timestamp: 3:00] - **PLN-BOA-25-00053** — A motion by MR. Gross, seconded by MR. Persley, to approve the DR. THOMAS LARKIN conditional use permit passed by voice vote. [timestamp: 3:05] - **PLN-BOA-25-00054** — A motion by MR. Gross, seconded by MR. Persley, to approve the LORALEE TRIM conditional use permit passed by voice vote. [timestamp: 3:14] - **PLN-BOA-25-00056** — A motion by MR. Gross, seconded by MR. Persley, to disapprove the JONATHAN ROLLINS conditional use permit failed by voice vote. [timestamp: 5:11] - **PLN-BOA-25-00059** — A motion by MR. Gross, seconded by MISS Tucker, to continue the HR DAVIS REAL ESTATE LP variance and conditional use permit request was tabled by voice vote. [timestamp: 5:30] ## Public Comment Nine members of the public offered comments during the meeting, addressing three separate agenda items. **Cherish the Child Daycare Expansion** Two residents spoke in opposition to the daycare expansion. Jean Barnett raised concerns about noise and parking issues associated with the proposed expansion [timestamp: 1:15:49]. Michelle Burke echoed those concerns, focusing on increased traffic and noise she anticipated the expansion would generate [timestamp: 1:19:17]. **Two Fisted Willies Outdoor Entertainment** Six speakers addressed the proposed outdoor live entertainment at Two Fisted Willies, with all expressing opposition. Lauren spoke against the proposal, citing noise concerns and the impact on neighborhood quality of life [timestamp: 1:57:42]. Hanna Legris supported staff's recommendation to disapprove the request, pointing to potential negative impacts on nearby residents [timestamp: 2:00:24]. Mary Ann Quarles argued that outdoor entertainment would negatively affect the neighborhood's character [timestamp: 2:03:08]. Jim Tommerson opposed the proposal due to potential noise disturbances [timestamp: 2:05:02]. Deborah Hensley also opposed the entertainment use, citing noise and quality-of-life concerns [timestamp: 2:07:36]. Mark Dixon expressed skepticism that noise levels from the outdoor entertainment could be adequately managed [timestamp: 2:09:10]. **HR Davis Real Estate LP Short-Term Rental** Tiffany spoke regarding the HR Davis Real Estate LP short-term rental application, raising concerns about the effect a short-term rental would have on her family's safety and property [timestamp: 5:26:40]. ## Contested Items Two items on the agenda generated notable disagreement during the June 9, 2025 meeting. **Two Fisted Willies Outdoor Entertainment** This item drew opposition from multiple community members as well as at least one council member, centered on concerns about potential noise disturbances associated with the proposed outdoor entertainment. Residents raised objections to the impact the entertainment could have on the surrounding area, and the council member's opposition signaled that concerns extended beyond the public comment period. The specific outcome of this item is not detailed in the available data, but the opposition from both the community and a council member indicates the proposal faced significant resistance. **HR Davis Real Estate LP Short-Term Rental** This item involved a procedural dispute between the applicant and the board. The applicant requested that the board render an immediate decision on the short-term rental application. However, the board declined to do so, instead voting to continue the discussion to a later date in order to allow staff adequate time to review the submitted materials. The decision to table the matter over the applicant's objection reflects a disagreement about the readiness of the application for a final ruling. ## CANE MANOR LLC Conditional Use Permit Request [timestamp: 09:09] The board took up agenda item **PLN-BOA-25-00030**, a conditional use permit request submitted by **Cane Manor LLC** for an un-hosted short-term rental. No substantive discussion or presentation took place on this item. The applicant requested a **postponement** of the matter, and the board accommodated that request. No details were provided in the record regarding the reason for the postponement, and no key speakers were identified as presenting arguments for or against the application at this time. The item was **postponed** without a decision on the merits of the conditional use permit request. ## WADE & REBECCA KUNDINGER Conditional Use Permit Request [timestamp: 09:42] This agenda item concerned case **PLN-BOA-25-00055**, a conditional use permit request submitted by **Wade & Rebecca Kundinger** for an un-hosted short-term rental. The item did not proceed to full discussion or debate, as the applicants withdrew their request prior to consideration by the board. No presentation was made, no concerns were raised on the record, and no vote was taken. - **Case Number:** PLN-BOA-25-00055 - **Request Type:** Conditional use permit for an un-hosted short-term rental - **Outcome:** Withdrawn by the applicant No key speakers were recorded in connection with this item, and no additional details regarding the reasons for the withdrawal are reflected in the available record. ## RIESIG BUILT CONSTRUCTION Variance Request **Case No. PLN-BOA-24-00204** [timestamp: 22:02] The board considered a variance request submitted by Riesig Built Construction to reduce the required side yard setback for a construction project. Following discussion, the board approved the variance. No specific speakers, debate points, or concerns are recorded in the available data for this agenda item. Details regarding the property location, the extent of the setback reduction requested, or any conditions attached to the approval are not available in the provided materials. **Outcome:** Approved ## KY-263 2FRIENDS LLC Variance Request **Case No. PLN-BOA-25-00011** [timestamp: 11:24] This agenda item concerned a variance request submitted by 2Friends LLC related to billboard height and setback requirements along KY-263. At the meeting, the applicant requested a postponement of the variance request rather than proceeding with a full hearing at this time. No substantive presentation, debate, or discussion of the merits of the variance was conducted, and no concerns regarding the billboard height or setback specifics were raised on the record during this session. No key speakers were identified in connection with this item beyond the postponement request itself. **Outcome:** The variance request was postponed. The matter is expected to return before the board at a future meeting date. ## MANUEL HIJAR variance request [timestamp: 1:11:16] The board took up agenda item PLN-BOA-25-00040, a variance request submitted by Manuel Hijar. The request involved a proposed modification to a deck that was found to encroach on neighboring properties. The board discussed the variance and any associated conditions before reaching a decision. Specific details regarding the presentations made, concerns raised by individual board members, or testimony from neighboring property owners are not available in the meeting record. The board ultimately **approved** the variance request, subject to conditions. The approval with conditions indicates that while the board found sufficient grounds to grant relief from standard requirements, specific stipulations were attached to address concerns related to the encroachment on neighboring properties. ## CHERISH THE CHILD DAYCARE Conditional Use Permit **Case No. PLN-BOA-25-00037** [timestamp: 1:31:29] The board took up a conditional use permit application for an expansion of Cherish the Child Daycare. Following discussion, the board approved the permit with conditions designed to address concerns raised by the surrounding neighborhood. The approval included conditions intended to mitigate the impact of the expanded daycare operation on nearby residents, though the specific conditions and the nature of the neighborhood concerns are not detailed in the available record. No key speakers are identified in the meeting data for this agenda item. The outcome was approval of the conditional use permit with conditions. ## TWO FISTED WILLIES Conditional Use Permit **Case No. PLN-BOA-25-00051** [timestamp: 2:16:58] The board took up a conditional use permit application for Two Fisted Willies, which sought approval for outdoor live entertainment. After discussion, the board disapproved the permit, citing potential noise issues as the basis for denial. The structured record does not identify specific speakers or detail the full scope of arguments presented during the deliberation. However, the outcome indicates that noise concerns were the central factor driving the board's decision to deny the application. The board determined that the proposed outdoor live entertainment use could not be approved as conditioned, given those concerns. - **Applicant/Case:** Two Fisted Willies, conditional use permit for outdoor live entertainment - **Case Number:** PLN-BOA-25-00051 - **Primary Concern:** Potential noise impacts - **Outcome:** Disapproved/Denied ## WESLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH Conditional Use Permit **Case No. PLN-BOA-25-00060** [timestamp: 3:00:13] The board took up a conditional use permit application from Wesley United Methodist Church. The application sought approval for modifications to the church property. The board approved the conditional use permit, subject to conditions. *Note: Detailed information about the specific modifications proposed, the presentations made, concerns raised during discussion, and the identities of key speakers is not available in the source data for this agenda item.* ## DR. THOMAS LARKIN Conditional Use Permit [timestamp: 3:05:09] The board considered agenda item **PLN-BOA-25-00053**, a request for a conditional use permit for a hosted short-term rental submitted by Dr. Thomas Larkin. The board approved the conditional use permit. No additional details regarding specific presentations, debates, concerns raised, or individual speaker contributions are available in the meeting record for this item. ## LORALEE TRIM Conditional Use Permit [timestamp: 3:14:44] The board considered agenda item **PLN-BOA-25-00054**, a conditional use permit application submitted by Loralee Trim for an un-hosted short-term rental. The structured record for this item does not include details on specific speakers, presentations, debate, or concerns raised during the discussion. No key speakers are identified in the available data. The board ultimately **approved** the conditional use permit for the un-hosted short-term rental. ## JONATHAN ROLLINS Conditional Use Permit [timestamp: 5:11:10] The board took up case **PLN-BOA-25-00056**, a conditional use permit application submitted by **Jonathan Rollins** for an un-hosted short-term rental. After discussion, the board **disapproved** the conditional use permit application. The primary basis for denial was the property's proximity to other existing short-term rental units in the area, which factored into the board's determination that the application did not meet the necessary criteria for approval. No additional key speakers or detailed debate points were captured in the available record for this item. ## HR DAVIS REAL ESTATE LP Variance and Conditional Use Permit **Case No. PLN-BOA-25-00059** [timestamp: 5:30:53] The board continued its discussion on a variance and conditional use permit application submitted by HR Davis Real Estate LP related to a short-term rental. This item was carried over as a continuation of prior proceedings rather than being taken up as a new matter. No key speakers are recorded in the available data for this portion of the meeting, and specific details regarding the substance of the presentation, arguments made, or concerns raised during the discussion are not captured in the provided record. The item was ultimately **deferred**, meaning the board did not reach a final decision on the variance or conditional use permit at this meeting. No additional outcome details are available. --- ## Decisions - **PLN-BOA-25-00030** — postponed (0-0): Postpone CANE MANOR LLC conditional use permit request - **PLN-BOA-25-00055** — withdrawn (0-0): Withdraw WADE & REBECCA KUNDINGER conditional use permit request - **PLN-BOA-24-00204** — passed (0-0): Approve RIESIG BUILT CONSTRUCTION variance request - **PLN-BOA-25-00011** — postponed (0-0): Postpone KY-263 2FRIENDS LLC variance request - **PLN-BOA-25-00040** — passed (0-0): Approve MANUEL HIJAR variance request with conditions - **PLN-BOA-25-00037** — passed (0-0): Approve CHERISH THE CHILD DAYCARE conditional use permit with conditions - **PLN-BOA-25-00051** — failed (0-0): Disapprove TWO FISTED WILLIES conditional use permit - **PLN-BOA-25-00060** — passed (0-0): Approve WESLEY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH conditional use permit with conditions - **PLN-BOA-25-00053** — passed (0-0): Approve DR. THOMAS LARKIN conditional use permit with conditions - **PLN-BOA-25-00054** — passed (0-0): Approve LORALEE TRIM conditional use permit with conditions - **PLN-BOA-25-00056** — failed (0-0): Disapprove JONATHAN ROLLINS conditional use permit - **PLN-BOA-25-00059** — tabled (0-0): Continue HR DAVIS REAL ESTATE LP variance and conditional use permit request --- ## Full transcript I really tried to push for paying more attention to technology that can help seniors. Because, you know, everybody hears about aging in place. The End Thank you. Thank you. do Thank you. All right, good afternoon. Good afternoon. If I could have everyone take a seat, please. Everyone, please, can be seated. I am officially calling this meeting to order. There's some seats up here in the front. Thank you. And I just want to double check there was a place for everyone to sign in. If you are planning to speak today, make sure that you have signed in outside as well. And if you are planning to speak at this point in time, we will have everyone stand up and be sworn in. But please, if you're planning to speak at all today, please stand up and raise your right hand. And do you affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth today? I do. Thank you. All right. The next thing I will do is sound the agenda. And by sounding the agenda, I'll read through each of the cases, make sure the applicant is present. If it is recommended for approval and there's no one here to speak in opposition, those items will be heard on the expedited docket. If we do have public comment or opposition here for any particular case, those will be fully heard. And then we also have a short-term rental docket that we will do the same way. So let's get started. Madam Chair, do we want to ask if there's any postponements or withdrawals? I have several. Oh, okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. So the first item is PLNBOA 25-30. That's Kane Manor LLC. Is the applicant present? Okay. I do have a request for postponement on this particular item to the July 14th meeting. There's no one here to request that, but we did receive that request. So if the board is okay with that, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion for PLNBLA 25-30 Kane Manor, LLC, for postponement to the July 14th, 2025 meeting. Thank you. So Ms. Tucker has offered her first. Mr. Sturdivant a second. Was there anyone here to speak on that particular case today on Berea Road? Okay, so at this time I will take a vote. Okay, the motion is passed. That item will be postponed to the July 14th meeting. The next item, PLNBOA 25-55, Wade and Rebecca Continger. Are the applicants present? So they actually have withdrawn this particular case. Was there anyone here to speak on 4336 Clearwater Way? Okay. That item has been withdrawn, so I don't need any action on that particular item. PLNBOA 24-204, RISIC-Built Construction. Is the applicant present? That's RISIC-Built, 199 Eddy Street. Okay, we'll come back to that one. It has been recommended for approval. Maybe they're parking. And was there anyone to speak regarding that case? There was no. Okay. Alrighty, then I have PLN BOA 25-11, KY 263, Two Friends, LLC. Is the applicant present? The applicant emailed us. They were not going to be able to make the meeting today, but they wanted to request postponement, and they wanted to postpone until the, I believe, until the August meeting. Okay. So I will entertain a motion to postpone until August. Is there anyone here that was here to speak on that particular case, 1200 Winchester Road? Okay. Okay. Madam Chair, we ask that you postpone PLNBOA 25-11 KY263, Two Friends, LLC, until, Dalton, what did you say? Sorry. August? Yes, until the August. Sorry. August 11th. August 11th meeting. Okay. Ms. Tucker has made a motion. Mr. Sturtevant has second. And we will take a vote. This item has been postponed. The next item, PLNBOA 25-40, manual here. Good afternoon. The applicant is present. Is there anyone to speak for or against this particular item? Okay. We do have people. So that item will be heard. This will actually be the first case on the herd docket. In any case, it will be herd. It's been recommended for both disapproval and approval of a lesser variance. The next item is PLN BOA 25-48, James Mastin. Is the applicant present? There we go. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to this particular item? All right. It has been recommended for approval, so you will be first on the expedited docket. PLN BOA 25-52, Distinctive Design Remodeling. Is the applicant present? Okay. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here in opposition? You will be number two on the expedited docket. Which one? 52. No, it's recommended for approval. It's recommended for approval. That was updated. It was updated. Yes, yes. No, that's okay. There was an amended staff report. All right. Conditional uses. Item number PLNBOA 25-37. Cherish the child daycare. Is the applicant present? Afternoon. This has been recommended for approval. It was postponed from the May 12th meeting. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of this item? We do have at least one H.E.R.D. Okay. That will be number two on the H.E.R.D. docket. Then we have PLN VOA 25-51 Two-Fisted Willies. Is the applicant present? Good afternoon. This has been recommended for disapproval, so that will be fully heard. Do we have anyone here to speak on this item? We do have a few. Okay. And that will be number three on the heard docket. We have PLNBOA 25-60, Wesley United Methodist Church. Is the applicant present? This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak on behalf or opposed to this item? We have a few. So that will be number four on the HERD docket. We have PLN BOA 25-61. Top dollar pawn is the applicant present. This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to this item? All right, that will be, what is that, number three on the expedited. And now we're doing short-term rentals, PLN BOA 2541. Mr. Chad Walker, the applicant is present. This has been recommended for disapproval, so we will put this on the H.E.R.D. short-term rental docket. Then we have PLNBOA 25-53, Dr. Thomas Larkin. Is the applicant present? This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of this item? Okay, you will be on the expedited short term rental. Then we have PLN VOA 25-54, Laura Lee Trim. Is the applicant present? This has been recommended for approval. Is there anyone here in opposition of this item? You will be number two on the expedited short term rental docket. We have PLN BOA 25-56, Jonathan Rollins. Is the applicant present? Okay. This has been recommended for disapproval, so you will be heard. That'll be number two on the short-term rental herd. We have PLN BOA 25-59, HR Davis Real Estate LP. Is the applicant present? This has been recommended for partial disapproval and partial postponement, so this will be heard. Madam Chair? Yes. I'm Bruce Simpson. I represent Lily's, I forgot her last name, I'm embarrassed to say. The applicant? No, I represent the objector, Lily's Lally, I'm sorry. And the staff has recommended postponement. The folks that are a bunch of neighbors here speak on this as well, and they were confused. There was a recommended for disapproval on a variance request, and then if the matter is going to be heard, I recommend a postponement. And so we would, it's conditioned upon Chad Walker's case, and I think it would be more prudent simply to postpone this case until next month and let you all decide the first Airbnb that's on Briar Hill Road. Okay, so we're requesting a postponement? Yes, I am requesting a postponement for one month for those reasons. I'm sorry? Where's the applicant? Oh, are you representing the applicant? No, I'm representing the objector. Oh, okay. Is the applicant present? Yes. And are you requesting a postponement at this time? Okay. Okay. So this will be heard, or at least we'll hear who's here. Okay. And decide if it needs to be continued. All right. Thank you, sir. Okay. Okay, then I have PLNBOA 25-63 Altus KY Lex LLC, and this one has been withdrawn? Yes. Is there anyone here to speak on that particular item? I'm sorry, the applicant is present. Okay, okay. And was there anyone here that was here to speak on this item today? Okay, so you are withdrawn, thank you. And that was actually the last item. As everyone can tell, we have a full agenda today and a lot of people that we want to make sure that we get into the process and give an opportunity to speak. So as we run through these items and the applicants and any of the representation will have an opportunity to speak, the staff will have an opportunity to present. And then if there is public comment, each person that has signed up to comment will be allowed three minutes to speak. We don't do any back and forth, but we want to make sure to give you an opportunity to speak your mind. Chair, I believe you have minutes for the month of March that need approval. Did I skip minutes? Okay. Oh, we've got two, don't we? All right. It does look like... No, the April weren't ready yet. We distributed March probably two weeks ago. Okay. Okay. So we'll jump up on the agenda. The March minutes have been distributed. The board has had the opportunity to review them. I'll entertain a motion for discussion. I'm going to abstain from the minutes. I don't object to them, but I don't recall having read them. Okay. Thank you. I'll do a 10th. Madam Chair, I move to approve, I'm sorry, March minutes, or minutes for March 2025. Thank you. Mr. Walker has made a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Ms. Tucker has seconded. No further discussion. We'll take a vote. Okay, there we go. All right, the motion to accept the minutes has been passed. Those were March 2025 minutes. Okay. All right, I'll try one more time for PLNBOA 24-204, RISIC built construction. Has the applicant made it? Okay. That has been recommended for approval. Was there anyone here speaking in opposition of this item? I don't think so. Okay. So you would actually be first on the expedited docket. If you'd come up. Stay true for the record, please. My name is Mike Kiefer. And this has been recommended for approval by staff, and there are two conditions that have been listed. Have you had the opportunity to review, and are you comfortable with those? Yes. Okay. Does the board have any questions of this particular applicant or of the project? If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLNBOA 24-204 Rising Built Construction Request for a Variance to reduce the required side yard setback from 3 feet to 1 foot 7 inches within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 199 Eddie Street based on the staff's recommendation and subject to the two conditions as listed. Thank you, Mr. Clark. And Mr. Persley has offered a second. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll take a vote. Thank you. Motion is passed. Good luck with the project. Thank you. Our next item on the expedited is PLNBOA 25-48. Mr. James Mastin. Good afternoon. Please state your name for the record. James Mastin. Okay. The staff has recommended approval of this item. There are two conditions that have been listed. Have you had opportunity to review, and are you comfortable with those? I have, and yes, ma'am. Thank you. The board has received this documentation. Do we have any questions? No. If not, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend approval of PLN BOA 25-48 James Madison request for a variance to reduce the required side yard setback from 5 feet 11 inches to 3 feet 2 inches within the defined infill and redevelopment area in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 467 Johnson Avenue based on the staff's recommendation and subject to the two conditions as listed. Thank you, Mr. Clark. And Mr. Pursley has seconded that item. No further discussion. We'll open for vote. Motion is passed. Good luck with the project. Thank you. Our next item is PLN BOA 25-52, Distinctive Design Remodeling. Good afternoon. Please state your name for the record. Good afternoon. Brandy Smith. Okay. This has been recommended for approval, and there are two conditions that have been listed. Have you reviewed, and are you okay with those? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And the board has received your packet ahead of time. Do we have any questions or concerns for the applicant? This is just a question. So on my computer it said citizens' comments, but what comes up is the document that you gave us. So are there citizens' comments? It came up as a... The title of it. It's just a staff report. Okay. Patty, do you know if we had any comments about this application? She said we do not, so it just might have been a mislabeling of the information. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any further questions? Wonderful. I'll entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I move to approve PLN BOA 25-52 distinctive design remodeling request for a variance to reduce required side street yard setback on the corner lot from 35 feet to 30 feet in order to construct an accessory structure in a single-family residential zone on property located at 627 Lane Allen Road based on staff recommendations and subject to the two conditions. Thank you, Mr. Walker. And Mr. Sturdivant has offered a second. If there's no further discussion, we'll take a vote. Wonderful. Motion is passed. Good luck with the project. Thank you. Our next item is PLN BOA 25-61, top dollar pawn. The applicant can please come forward. Caught up with me that time. Good deal. Please state your name for the record. Brian Crowder. Thank you. This has been recommended for approval, and there are four conditions that have been listed. Have you had the opportunity to review those? Yes, I have. And are we comfortable with those? Okay. We've received a packet of documentation ahead of time. Do we have any questions of this applicant? Okay. If not, I will entertain a motion. If I can make a motion to approve PLNBOA 25-61, Top Dollar Pond, request a conditional use permit in order to establish a pawn shop in a corridor business B3 zone on property located at 2015 Family Circle, Suites 110, 120, and 130. based on recommendation of staff, testimony, and subject to the following four conditions. Okay. Thank you. And Ms. Tucker has seconded that item. Any additional discussion? If not, we'll take a vote. Wonderful. The motion has passed. Good luck moving. Thank you. It's never fun. I vote yes. Okay. Okay, so our next item, PLN BOA 25-40, manual Hihar. Well, actually, part of it has been recommended for disproof, so we will allow staff to present first. A couple different pieces in this item. Good afternoon, James Mills, planning staff. Today I want to present to you a request by Manuel Hajar for variances to reduce the required saw yard setback from 5 feet to 0 feet. and the required rear yard setback from 10 feet to 0 feet. In a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 624 Andover Village Place. Taking a look at the aerial view of the subject property, it is right here in the center of your screen. If we zoom in a little bit more in Google Street View, it is over here to the right. So the most recent site plan shows kind of where the setback is over here, both on this side of the structure. Now trying to get a site plan and details we couldn't find, I couldn't find whenever I was putting this presentation together, the original site plan that showed this deck has already been built. it was constructed previously with it encroaching past the property lines on both sides up here to the north and to the west but afterwards and kind of figuring out and getting this site plan together we kind of figure we kind of determined that the old setback of the deck was eight feet and about four and four-fifths four-eighths um and we did because of the complications with this we did an actual site visit and took photos of the of the deck and the request um the deck so our lesser variance approval is based on both the the safety of the side yard with uh fire safety being able to access the property during an emergency and but the rear keep letting them keep the rear yard set back at eight feet which will still make them have to cut down the deck because it is over the property line into the hoa green space behind the property but overall staff felt that a lesser variance would allow them to keep a deck but not fully violate because their deck was already non-conforming. So we did disapprove the side yard variance because that was not present on site whenever they built this and it could potentially impede access for the Division of Fire and Emergency Services. But we approved a lesser variance instead of 10 feet to the zero to 8 feet for the rear yard, allowing them to keep their expanded deck area without having to fully cut down to where they wouldn't meet that non-conforming setback because the area they could only build about a 3 foot deck without a variance. So granting the lesser variance should not adversely affect the public health, safety, or welfare of the general vicinity. and the variance will not result in construction that is out of character with the general vicinity as it will replace the original deck that existed for three decades. Any questions? So the request for the lesser variance is to allow it to be the same size as the original? To an extent. So they will be able to keep that eight foot that was previously a nonconformity on the property, but they can still expand it out the other way, so expand it to the south rather than the north, without that encroaching on the side yard variance, or the required side yard. Okay. Do we have any questions of staff before we give the applicant an opportunity to review, discuss? Okay, thank you. And the applicant will please come forward. Good afternoon. Madam Chair, members of the board, attending public. First I'd like to thank our neighbors that came in out in support to show their support. Excuse me, please state your name for the record. My name is Manuel Ijar and I'd like to begin with a brief account of how we got to this board hearing. The original deck, as James pointed, had been standing there for over 30 years. All supporting pillars were just brought in and needed to, I wasn't safe for use. I'm not a professional in building decks or a general contractor, which is why I contracted a professional Chesapeake Dreams. I'm trusting him with the task of securing all necessary permits and building a new deck for me. He applied for permits and was told by the city inspection that he was required to secure these variants and encroachment agreements in order to obtain set permit. He chose to hide this information from me, tore down the old deck, told me that the permits were taken care of, and built a new deck incorrectly, as it was pointed out. He's now allegedly moving on to another state from this situation. I have filed a claim against him. I do understand, however, that as the owner, I'm ultimately responsible for correcting this process. Since I became aware of the requirements, I've taken actions and ownership of every step. And we'll continue until any and all issues are addressed. I want to emphasize that we did obtain a written permission from a homeowner's association. And the project has been approved and according to the architectural guidelines of the community. I appreciate the staff's recommendations and would respectfully like to request this board to consider the following. With regards to the site variance, we recently had the Lexington Department come to our house as part of the CD smoke alarm exchange program. Besides exchange yard detectors, the sergeant made an assessment of the emergency exit routes in the house. A fire incident's most probable source would be at the front of the house where the kitchen and mechanical rooms are. And in that case, the alternative to evacuated bedrooms in the back would be towards the deck. Where it's a siding door towards it and expands to the open space. Having stairs to the side yard would ensure safety of house occupancy in case of emergency. For these variants, there are multiple examples throughout the same community as shown in the pictures here. This is an example of how close our lots are from one another. There are examples of zero feet setback in other property lines in close proximity. Fortunately, the case on this side towards the north, the nearest building is 30 feet away from this property line. The purpose, this is uncommon for the other neighborhood and leaves ample space to allow for the Division of Fire and Emergency Services to act safely. Would also allow ample space for the Division of Water Quality to access the adjacent manhole and perform any repairs of inspections. With regards to the zero feet variance request for the rear yard setback, I am echoing the staff's report of a lesser variance to the required rear yard setback of the property. In their report, they mention a two feet lesser variance. However, given the fact that the nearest neighbor towards the back is 700 feet away, separated by green space, I respectfully request this board to consider that a zero variance, zero feet variance request also, does not adversely affect the public health, safety, or welfare of the general vicinity, nor cause a hazard or nuisance to the public. The footprint of the deck at zero variance also has little visual impact on the surrounding properties. As it is located on the rear of the structure. Granting a variance of zero feet also does not result in construction that is out of character with the general vicinity. For your consideration, there is however, a steep financial burden for us if the variance is to be approved as two feet setback. In that case, we would have to reduce the size of the deck by two feet. Move the structural concrete pillars back to feet and rebuild the deck pretty much in its entirety in order to comply with the setback. at an estimated cost of $7,500, which would have to be covered by ourselves. I would like to emphasize that this deck and the supporting concrete pillars at the zero-fit barriers requested would all remain within our property lines. We appreciate your understanding of how the events transpired with no intentions from our side. We would welcome your recommendation of a zero-fit setback, which would spare us from an otherwise unnecessary financial burden with no apparent community benefits or change in impact. Do we have questions of the applicant? Okay. You can be seated and we'll have public comment. We had a couple of people. Did you guys want to? Okay. A public comment? Go ahead. Hi. Thank you. Raquel and the rest of the committee and everybody else. My name is Alice Cawthrope, and I live at 652 Andover Village Place. I'm seven houses down from Miguel. But previously to this, I also lived at 660 Andover Village Place. I liked it so much, I fixed up my house. And then I moved to the left to $664,000 Andover Village Place. And I fixed up that house, and I liked it so much that then I purchased $652,000 Andover Village Place. So I know a little bit of the engineering on this development. Now, the side that our homes back up to, which was previously hole 18 of Andover Country Club, the other side was hole 10. So they're not just straight lots, particularly where his home is. So where he's located is it would be not exactly a hammerhead, and we don't allow hammerheads anymore in Lexington. So because he's at the end of the hammerhead, that lot had to be scooted back a little bit. That's why they're so close to the back rear property line. Now to the right, where he wants to have where his steps are and he wants to drop that back to zero variance, his next door neighbor is Jazz Sacon, and Jazz's house is 30 feet away. So when you look at the typical lots, yes, they are narrow and they are three feet. And some people say, why would you want to live on that small house? Because you look out the back and I absolutely love it. And when they go on the market, they sell. Now, when I purchased this third home, so I bought three out of four homes in a row. And my next door neighbor said, I've been bickering, which is not the word they chose. but they've been talking to their neighbor next door, and this big tree was on my lot, and all the leaves were going on their lot. So I said, fine, I'll have an engineer come out and pin the corners. Well, guess what? There were several different engineers involved in this project, because you had not only the golf course, you had the builder developer on our section, You had Hacker Thompson over here. And so not only was that tree on their property, but that's okay. It's still there. Our neighborhood association takes care of the leaves, so it's really okay. But more importantly, on the right side where my deck is, my steps go down to right along the property line. So this isn't the first time that that has happened on this side of the street. It's happened a whole lot. And these aren't your typical homes. Sorry. I think I got my point across. Thank you. We appreciate that. Next. Thank you again. My name is Brian Rosencrantz. I'm also a neighbor that if she's seven houses down, I'm nine because I bought the house that she lived in before. I'm also on the board, and there are about a dozen of us here from the neighborhood. So I will just speak to two things. One is the character of Manuel and what he's trying to do in our neighborhood. He's been integral in beautifying and enhancing our neighborhood, applying for grants and green space and trees, which we've successfully done all along the old golf course. so his intents are good there and he's a good person in doing this and not trying to buck the system. The second thing I'll point out is the practicality of these setbacks. Like she just mentioned, he lives on a triangle a lot toward the back. We have 700 feet of green space, which we all love, so there's no hindrance on the backside. On the side is Jazz's house, which is 30 feet away, so there isn't any problem with egress or any kind of emergency vehicles or anything. And his deck is remarkably like his old deck, which was in disrepair and it needed to be fixed. He went through the process through the board. We approved it both architecturally and safety-wise. and the entirety of his deck is on our property and not on his property, not on HOA property, which we're okay with even that goes to that setback line. And it would be a huge burden for him financially and work-wise to redo a deck, which is remarkably similar to the deck that he had to replace. so it's not unreasonable to ask for these variances with approval from literally a dozen of our neighbors it looks just like the deck he had but it's newer and better and safer it looks like everybody else's deck and basically all he did was expand a smaller deck to more along the width of his house to have a nicer deck but it's still inside the width of his house and on his property so we don't have any problem with it. Okay, thank you. Does anybody have any questions? Thank you. We have additional comment. Hi, my name is Miriam Sekhan, and I can't let Mr. Jess get all the credit. I'm Mrs. Jess. Okay. Thank you. We do live next door, and we're about 30 feet away. And I view this deck as a substantial improvement to the property values because it's a lovely deck. It doesn't encroach on us at all. And we are happy that these people have been our neighbors and have tried to improve physically and socially our neighborhood. Unfortunately, they run into some obstacles and are feeling a bit intimidated by one of the neighbors. and so they're going to leave for a while and come back later when things settle down. But we're very happy to have this deck. I see it from my bedroom window, and it's an asset to their property and all the properties. It's a beautiful deck. Well done. So that's all I have to say is we're all in favor. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Was there anyone else here? I do understand we do have some additional comments. Oh, please come forward. But I don't see in our packet the emails. You said we had additional emails? There were letters, multiple letters from one neighbor of disapproval and then I think one letter of approval. We'll get hard copies up to you just so you make sure you have them. Just one second. Yes, please. So Jason Sekon, so I'm the son of Jess and Miriam Sekon. So, I spent, it's the house that I grew up in, I'm very familiar with it. I don't see any issue with the deck as is. To points made already, it would be a significant burden to adjust it from how it is currently. To the extent that it encroaches on parents' property, I even floated the idea of a 30-year air lease for that one foot over because, again, it's inconsequential. That space between is so large, you can literally drive vehicles through there, and we have in the past if we needed to. Additionally, there's access from the backside coming from where the country club used to be coming down the cart trail path. The vehicle needed to get down through there. It could as well. So any kind of access issues kind of seem a little nonsensical to me. Just in general, love having those neighbors. Hope that they'll come back soon. Things settle down a little bit. But again, as the one who would have to deal with for the next 30, 40 years of that deck being there, I have no issue with it. Okay. Thank you. thank you i think um we're getting those letters but staff did you have some additional thing okay i would say since staff is recommending a lesser hear from them and then um this application i was a little confused on the materials in the packet do you want staff or the applicant oh the applicant i mean the staff won't hear from from the staff first, but I'm just going to mention in general, I could not find a site plan in the packet when I was looking at it, or at least not one that was evident in the scale, and I didn't know if, and the reason I'm asking is I'm trying to get a sense of which neighbors are which, which one has needs to reduce setback versus the other one that looks like. James, now we have one of the pictures that shows the... Yeah, I was just having a hard time following the different moving pieces based upon the packet material. I guess that's the one. If I may explain, so this is the site plan and towards the north- There's a pointer. There's the- It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Gotcha. Sorry, towards the north with lot 19 is the zero variance requested to that property. That is the building that is 30 feet away from there. And to the south is lot 17. The deck ends 15 feet away from the next lot. And the property still has, I think, a setback of 30 feet from there. So that is the distance between the south property. Which is the neighbor that is complaining. So this deck as is currently encroaches over the property lines here and here. So to the north and to the west. and one reason why staff recommended a lesser variance was because the original deck was already a non-conforming deck but at the same time this deck was built without the proper approvals or variance in order to meet a zero foot setback on the side yard and rear yard. So that's why staff recommended a lesser variance and to maintain the original non-conforming deck but not creating additional non-conformities in the side yard. And what we're saying is, and I get messed up on Northwest or South, but on Lot 19, where we're saying it's over, that's where, that's your property that you're saying it's okay? Well, you need to come up to the mic. But, yeah, so the next question is, I got two questions. The first one is, so the deck was replaced and is bigger than the original, and the deck goes over the property line twice? Yes. Okay. It encroaches into a neighboring property owned by the SECONS, I understand, and also onto the HOA property. So even if we grant the variance, there's an issue on with the – We cannot grant approvals beyond the property line, number one. So we would not be able to grant that even if we were to approve. We can grant a negative variance. And the second item is from, it looks like it's built within the utility easement without the appropriate encroachments to date. So they have been working on their encroachment permits. And also, so that includes the utilities, but also the sanitary sewer. And would that be, if we do approve this, would we need to make a condition that all those are obtained? You could. I think we have evidence that they've submitted at least two or three of that information. Now, the sanitary sewer easement is a government easement, right? So the Division of Water Quality has indicated to our staff that they have an additional 20-foot sanitary sewer easement on what used to be the golf course. So they can access the sanitary sewer from that 20-foot easement and would release or provide an encroachment on this side. Okay. But then the private utilities. And having gone through the encroachment process in Lexington many times, it could take longer than you would like. So they won't grant that encroachment, sanitary sewers won't, until the board makes a decision. If you all recommended disapproval, then they wouldn't need to, right? Yeah, okay. Okay, I think. Yeah, the easement goes into pretty much the border of our house, to our living room. Like, all the way there, that would be the easement. Therefore, they would negate the option of having a deck at all. So even the original deck was in the sewer easement? That's correct. It's over the sanitary sewer. Okay. That's all I had. I just wanted to make sure I was understanding the layout orientation and where the encroachments and other items occurred. And one of the pictures is actually of the completed deck. Emmanuel, will you stay up here, please? If I may just add to that question. Please stay tuned. My name is King Amnich. Manol Icar is my husband, and I'm also the owner of this property. We are in full understanding that we are going to have to shave the deck in order to not have that overhang that is right now going into the HOA property and having the half a foot that goes into the Sacons property. The issue with the staircase right now is that the neighbor that is complaining has stairs that are half a foot away from our property line. He has been surveying with two cameras our property, our bedroom, and our bathroom for over three years now. I have sent in photos of him showing that the cameras activate with the light when we are inside the house, which is one of the reasons why we have currently left the property. We are renting, we are trying to rent it out to keep it because we love our community and the house. But we've been really deeply trying to do everything in order to sustain the house, bring the value up for the neighborhood and ourselves of course. And so the complaints that you've been seeing are not the complaints that everyone is placing in this case. Thank you. And just while you're here, you mentioned, no, Dr. Munch. You mentioned shaving a portion of it. You are planning to shave a portion of it off? So the issue that has been coming up with the committee, because the deck is already there, right? I mean, this is like, we're doing the process kind of like reversed. And so what we would like to do is shave it off to the 10 feet if we get the permission. Keep it at 10 feet. That means that overhang, and you're seeing that there's a piece of that overhang. That overhang is what is currently in the air of the HOA property. We are not touching with any of the pillars, any of the residing properties. that is kind of like outside of our property line is in the air of the property line, which when we were talking to the builder, we thought that that's going to be fine. I mean, and we understand, but it would be very helpful if all we can do is shave off instead of having reset those pillars. So to shave off the overhang, you still need 10 foot, you still need the entire the variance for 10 feet. Yes, that's correct. Another question. This is for directed towards staff. I saw related to the emergency services concerns on getting access, but it looks like if they took the landscaping out, they would have access along their property. I'm just curious. I mean, I'm just looking at the comment. And it looks like the stairs come down. And so I guess my question is, would they not be able to just remove those shrubs and have access down the property line? I mean, it's hard for me to tell. Once again, what we've been given has not, while it may be the scale, I can't see anything on this image. And I can't tell the distance between the property line and the building. but it seems to me that the building is already pretty close and they could have stairs and more or less kind of a... Looks like in the site plan they're five feet off according to the original historic drawing that they're dimensioned at five feet on this one. How wide are your stairs? Three feet. Three feet. So that line across you see with the bricks along the pavement, that's my property. Okay. The rest is screen space 30 feet until the second's home. There's enough to park a full motor engine there. And would you be okay with just moving that landscape? And then that way there is access from the front to those stairs? If you want to. We've been caring for it for three years. We planted it, so I guess we can remove it. Yeah. And the reason is, or we can make a condition that your neighbor gives you the easement area, but it seems to me that it's kind of a wreck. May I approach and just show you a satellite view of where we're talking about so you can see how much space there is? No, thank you. I think he could. Okay. Yeah, so I mean, even with the landscaping there, there's plenty of space to get by and around there. No, that's not the issue. i mean the issue is is that that space is on your parents property yeah so and there's no easement of record it's not it's not no so so the property line is right there basically on the edge of those steps so the only part that's overhanging on to my parents property line is that little bit that's floating elevated on that edge that one foot edge okay but the issue is is those steps go right into the landscaping and so so just to be clear the three foot side yard in an r3 zone is meant to be clear and free of any obstructions it mentions air conditioner but i think that also applies to the landscaping because Because your neighbor may be amenable to that today, but if they sell their property, someone else could come along and build an eight-foot fence right there. And then the firefighters cannot get through and around those structures. Because, again, you all don't have control over what the neighbor does. You all are friends today, but your next neighbor may not choose to honor that agreement. So that's why we're saying we should honor the three foot so that our firefighters and emergency service providers, so that owners can mow their yard so that you can always get to the back, that you keep that free and clear. So the HOA does not allow fences in this property. The HOA takes care of all the green spaces in between the houses and the back and the front of the houses. So there are no fences in our community. It just can't happen, right? Correct. Please, Ms. Tucker. To summarize what he's trying to say, if anybody's confused, that right picture of that deck, kind of along that muddy line is where the property line is, to the right of that is still 30 feet of Jazz's house. So firefighters are quick. I completely understand that. The issue, once again, is right now these two neighbors appear to be friendly. Right, right. And the issue with the emergency services and others is at some point they may not be friendly, and then the neighbor would be trespassing every time he walked off his steps. And so the question is, and there's no written agreement between the parties to create any kind of property agreement between them. And my question was, if those shrubs were removed, does that give the three feet so that there could be access? I could remove all those tree lines all the way inside the wrong property so that we can get egress from the back to the front in case of an emergency. And access to the firefighters from the street in the front. Yeah. So yes. Okay. I'm sorry, stay up manual, please. That's okay. You're not done yet. Okay, let's talk. This question might be for staff. So we've got a neighbor apparently that lives at 628. Is that right next door? Are we encroaching on that neighbor? No, we're not. Okay. No, this deck is 15 feet away from that property line. Did you hear that, Ms. Tucker? They're 15 feet away from that neighbor, that side. Okay. And real quick, your wife said you're going to remove the ten feet and the one foot. Okay, let me, so, so. Set back towards the north is that piece that is floating on the second property, on the right. And on the back, I will shave what's floating above the pillars. So it makes it all within our property line. But that is a zero setback on both sides. Okay, so real quickly, the two pieces of deck that go over the property line, you're going to remove those? Sir. Okay, and so the deck will be located on your property? 100%. When this is done, okay. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. I think if there's a condition that there's no landscaping between the house and the property line to allow access to that deck, and he's going to remove the portions of the deck that go outside of the property boundary without unkind agreement, I mean, I could be persuaded not to support this, but right now I'm leaning more towards, given the fact that the neighbors appear okay with it for the most part. So that's just kind of where I am on it. But I'm just one person. But I just want to make sure that there is access from the front yard to that deck without crossing somebody else's property line, since there's no agreement of record that allows him to do that. Now, if they enter into an agreement, written agreement, easement, recorded, that's a totally different story. right now we don't have that so um that's where i would be on this one okay i'd be agreeable as well but yeah i'd agree with you mr groves as well this never happens that neighbors show up in massive support so you've made our job so much easier um but yeah i think that would be a very easy way to go to fix this okay anything additional or will we need a few minutes to draft them well i think our Council is probably working on some conditions right now with Ms. Wade. And so I'd say. So we'll take five minutes. We'll take a brief recess. Thank you. Five minutes or seven. However long. Thank you. The End Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so I'll return to our seats, please. Alrighty, I think at this time we do have a motion. Yes, ma'am. I will move for approval of PLN BOA 25-40 Manual, Hajar's request for variances to reduce the required side yard setback from 5 feet to 0 feet and to reduce the required rear yard setback from 10 feet to 0 feet in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 624 Andover Village, based upon the staff's report, based upon the testimony we heard today, and subject to the three, sorry, subject to, I'll close over a page, the two conditions set forth in the report, plus I'm going to add the following three additional conditions. One, applicant will remove portions of the deck encroaching onto adjoining properties from the north and the west side of the property. Second, new condition. Remove landscaping in a side yard located on the west side of the property to allow access for emergency services. New number three, which would be a total of five. Applicant will secure encroachment permits from all utilities in the Division of Water Quality. And if the applicant could come up and make sure those are okay. Please come up to the. Mr. Gross, that would be the north side of the property where the landscaping is, not the west side. Oh, okay. Okay, sorry, I will amend my condition to say north. And then are you okay with those conditions if we approve this? Mr. Gross, may I also suggest a friendly amendment that the conditions that were provided by staff refer to the lesser variance. And so we'd be, for the minutes to be accurate, we would change that just be granting the variance in the conditions that you referenced. There's two standard conditions, one refers to the lesser variance, but we're removing that because we're granting it. Yes. No, yeah, I read the motion to approve from. Okay. Yes, I think I'm good. But yes, just to clarify, this is to amend the – I'm not adopting the staff's recommendations. I am adopting the recommendations as we're doing today based upon the applicant's original question. And then so on number – new number four, James, you're saying I should change that from west to north on the landscaping? Okay. Then I will make that change. And the applicant has agreed to abide by these conditions. So moved for approval. Thank you. So we have a first, and Mr. Walker has offered a second. Was there anything additional? No, Manuel, please stay up here. I'll tell you what. Anything additional? Okay, we will take a vote. Wonderful. Now your motion has passed. Thank you. Good luck with the project. Thank you guys for coming out. All righty. So if you guys want to stay and listen to the other cases, you're more than welcome. If not, we will move on to the next item. We do have – we do have – hold on a moment to leave. So our next case is PLN BOA 25-37, Cherish the Child Day Care. You guys, if you could please head outside and speak. I appreciate it. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. James Clay Waller. Thank you. So this item has been, it was postponed for last month, and I think we made an adjustment to the number of kids. Was that the only adjustment? Okay. And so this has been recommended for approval. There are eight conditions that have been listed. Have you read through those conditions, and are you comfortable with all of those conditions? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I know last week we had several people here to speak, but you've spoken to most of those neighbors or people that came. Yes, but we have not right here. We haven't. And we do have an additional today? Okay. Yes. I gave her my telephone number, and we haven't heard anything from her. Okay. We'll give her an opportunity to speak. I just knew you had spoken to her. We asked last week, last month, for them to speak, and you were able to speak to quite a few of them. So thank you. So we will, you want to open with public comment, and then you have an opportunity. I've got my host up here. Just state your name for the record, and you'll have three minutes. Jean Barnett. And yes, Clay, we did have a chance in the past month. I've had two graduations, a kid's promotion, and my job is so demanding. So my life has been horrible. Not horrible. It's been wonderful. Okay. I'll kind of tell you when to go. I want the business to succeed. I purchased my house in 2007. This is my backyard. And so, yes, when you look out, you absolutely love it. That's why it sells, right? That's what one person said. That's my backyard. The rear structure would come out to more than half. Over on the left-hand side, you see a door open. That's a shed that I work out of and take a lot of meetings on a daily basis. If you want to switch pictures. This is from the KU property. Looking over on the left hand side from me, again you see the childcare. Straight ahead you have where I work out of with that air conditioning unit there and then my house in the background. Ma'am, I may have missed, what's your street address? Are you on Stonegate? Yeah, 340 Stonegate. Okay, thank you. This is my giant mess in my shed where I legitimately work in there and take my meetings. Before I get to this picture, I've got a minute and 20 seconds. I want to come to a recommendation or an agreement, but every agreement that it affects me negatively, I lose my view, or if we put up a privacy fence, I lose my view. They're wanting to almost double their kids. They have approximately 60 kids right now because that building will not hold much more. So you have your kids, you have your staff, and so forth, and now they want to go further to almost 100. That noise level, it already interrupts some of my meetings. I deal with it. We go on. When I moved in, it was a church. They moved. There was a daycare that moved in. We allowed it, but it was a residential. I mean, it's a residential neighborhood. And it doesn't feel like it's so much in my backyard anymore. And this is where I'm going to retire. Parking. I am worried about parking. They want to accommodate, but in general, I see problems with parking, but I also know it can be resolved. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. I am Michelle Burke. I live at 305 Stonegate Way, which is right behind the child care a little bit. I live at the end of the cul-de-sac. I will say that my two main concerns are the noise level and also the backup traffic on Stonegate Road and Pasadena. On that road, there's a stop sign. Traffic will get backed up all the way into our street, which is Stonegate Way, in the morning and at pickup time. like my sister, this is my sister, I've picked the house to move in because she lived right there. Like she said, they want to almost double the numbers. I know that their variant says 85 right now from the last time, but I have talked to them. I have talked to somebody who goes to that daycare, and they run about 60 kids right now. So we're talking 40 more kids. That's 40 more people coming in plus the additional workers. for drop-off and pickup, and that traffic is going to be huge. KU's right there, they have trucks trying to get out. It's going to back them up getting out and servicing the community. It's just a huge increase, both in traffic and noise. And I will say, I walk around my little cul-de-sac probably twice a day, and I can hear those kids. They go out for lunch almost all the time, and I can hear them with houses in between. And why that noise is okay at 60 kids, it's just going to get louder and louder, and it's going to go on for longer times because they're going to do different classes. I mean, I have taken my dog walking and heard puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy several times. And why it's cute, it also makes me think I shouldn't walk my dog right there. So that's just, I'm imposed of it because of that. I do agree. I want them to grow. They moved into the neighborhood because they were outgrowing their other place, and it seems like they're outgrowing this place now, too. And in my opinion, they've moved once before. Maybe they could find somewhere a little bit suitable or stay within their confinements because at the building where it is, like I said, they can only about serve 60 kids at a time. Thank you for your time. I have a question. What is your address on Stonegate? 305 Stone Gateway. 305. So I'm at the very end of the cul-de-sac. Okay. And I will go out walking. Hers is 340 Stone Gateway. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I believe that was all. There was no one else here. I have a staff question. Could you all put the site plan up there so we can identify where those properties are exactly? I think I have a good idea where they are. And I think the applicant has a few items to show as well. Okay. Over there. The first lady that spoke, what was her address? 340. 340. And you are where on this site plan? You back right up? You only go up to the podium. say thank you yeah i yeah i'm right where it says residential that that's me right now is it and am i over one at the end of the residential arrow so the word that says residential the one right beside would be where she is because that's the parking lot that's yeah that's showing the addition that's so the resident right that's showing the addition so the the addition okay you're right in my it's the residential it's right within that okay thank you and i'm not on that map i'm at the end of that call to that right so i am probably six homes down from first six or seven thank you so currently uh our tenant gene is in the back uh currently we have currently there's 75 children enrolled each day at chairs to child and so currently two every day two families are calling and we also have 20 families that are within the system already have children there we're already looking for they have had an additional child they want to keep their family right there and so really what we're what we're trying to accomplish with this addition is to originally the structure was built as a church. It's not really the best design for child care. So what we're trying to do is to be able to make the classrooms where we can have less kids in each classroom. So really we're asking for roughly to expand about 25 kids. These kids would come from families that are already existing, already in the program, and at the end of the day, with the acoustical and the design aspects of this, we're going to alleviate the parking. And usually the parking hardly ever backs up actually into Stone Road. But what we're going to do is where you see a sidewalk in the middle of the building, that's where the drop-off is going to be. And we're also going to be working to try to be able to have people circle right out. So instead of just having you come into the facility, there's technically four parking spots. Those parking spots are full. People back up. We're hopefully to eliminate some of that. Okay. So more of a drop-off pickup? Yeah, a traditional drop-off instead of just kind of like a parking lot. Okay. So will you have enough parking for your staff on site? Yes, ma'am. And currently with the programs that we have in place, we're only looking at two additional staff that's going to accompany that. A lot of it's just restructuring some things we have already in the property to make it just more efficient. Okay. Any other questions of the applicant? Have you all considered on your north property lines putting privacy fence back there? Yes, actually, we've actually talked to neighbors. We've offered landscaping. We've offered fencing. We've offered for any creative ideas to the neighbors, and we're willing to do that on our cost. And the other neighbors, were they amenable? Did you have to come to some agreement with any of the other neighbors? No, it was mainly just questions they had for us. They were just curious to what we're going to do. And most of the new addition part is mainly going to be infants. So our child care facility goes from newborns all the way to going into first grade. Okay. Would you ladies be acceptable to the privacy fence back there? I mean, I'll give up my beautiful view. but yeah, if I'm going to lose how much I'm going to speak. If it's going to happen, the least that could happen is the privacy fence. But I do feel like that value property, anything. And I don't know how that they're going to solve the parking with the roundabout. I mean, you saw the cars. You saw that picture. They can say it, but you can see it. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. You have to come to the mic, please. So my main concern was the noise and the traffic and why they say the traffic here. It also creates a traffic on Pasadena and Stone Road, which is right outside of here. that's where the traffic, I mean, it gets sometimes 10, 15 cars backed up because it's a stop sign. And it's on Pasadena, which is a very busy road. That was, the traffic is going to, like, even if they undo the, it's not just on Stone Road, it's the backup onto Pasadena. That's horrible. Thank you. I don't think we can mitigate everything that we're trying to make this work for everybody. One of the reasons it's backing up is due to there's no light there. So if someone's trying to turn out, trying to turn left, going toward Harrisburg Road, it will back it up at the intersection of Stone and Pasadena. Okay. If they go out on Clay's Mill, though, there is a light. Yes, but not at the corner of Stone and Pasadena. That's correct. And the big trucks, you know, there's not a shoulder curb. That's my neighborhood. I'm aware of all the traffic signals. So you can't fix the traffic? And four-way stops. So for safety reasons, that probably shouldn't back up, especially if somebody needs to get into your facility for some sort of emergency thing. How long is it backed up for? No, I'm sorry. That's where the applicant... No, ma'am, ma'am, I'm sorry. I think public comment, I think we're closing. It varies for a lot. Most of the time, it's not just a complete drop-off. So it's from 7 a.m. and some parents are even dropping off at 9 a.m. It's really sporadic. It's not just one constant time of all the day. But most of the children that are being dropped off, it's usually as the parents are heading into work. and that just depends on the career. And we also cater to Baptist Health as a large, they have a large of our clientele base. And then also we work with Community Action too. So we have a broad base of. I know that they're talking to some of the public schools about the backup on public streets because of the safety issues of if something was to happen in that school or somebody really needed to get through, they should have access. So maybe think about a plan, too, to relieve any traffic that backs up out on the road. Yeah, and a lot of the traffic we get, too. So at 3 o'clock, KU has their shift when that kind of changes. So you have their first shift goes in and the second shift goes out. And the same thing at 7 a.m. that happens. So a lot of the back is actually really caused by KU with their trucks coming in or out due to the shift in that. There are options for egress there. You can go down Southview and catch that stop sign there at Pasadena or you can get on Clay's Mill. So it's not like there's only one way out. Okay, and normally it's not that backed up. I mean, you can go there pretty different times in the morning, different times in the afternoon. And the traffic usually, most you'll see in there is five or six cars sitting in the front, you see in this rendering right here where it's got the one through five parking spots most of the time there's usually one or two empty so um you're agreeable to the eight conditions and it sounds like you would be agreeable to a ninth that says installation of a solid six foot fence on north side yes sir okay and then um as to um the traffic um i understand i live as most people that come here very often across from lafayette high school um and if you want to see traffic um you should come there we get 2 000 cars a day past my house and so um you know no empathy You know when you can leave your house and when you can't. And so with that being said, I would be comfortable moving forward with this one. But, of course, I would add that last condition. If anyone else from the board has anything else to add. Anything additional you guys want to question or add to the conditions? No. Okay. Well, in that instance, I will move for approval of PLM VOA 25-37, cherish the child care's request for a conditional use permit to amend an existing conditional use for a child care center in order to construct an addition to the principal structure in a R3 zone on property at 474 Stone Road. Based upon the staff's report, the testimony given herein, subject to the eight conditions, and I will add a ninth condition, applicant shall install a solid six-foot fence on north side of property line. Does that work for you, Ms. Wade? Okay. So moved. Thank you. Oh, no, hold on just a second. No other questions? Mr. Sturdivant has offered a second. We will open for vote. Now the motion is passed. Good luck. Okay. That item is complete. The next item to be heard is PLN BOA 25-51, Two-Fisted Willies. Staff will present first. This has been recommended for disapproval. Then we will allow the applicant's attorney to present, and then we will open for public comment at that time. Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it. The applicant is passing something out. I was going to let him do that real quick. Okay. No problem. Thank you, sir. No problem. Okay. James Mills, Planning staff. Today I want to present to you a request by Two Fisted Willys for a conditional use permit to establish outdoor live entertainment and variance to reduce the required setback between outdoor live entertainment and a residential zone from 100 feet to 62 feet within a neighborhood business B1 zone at property located at 388 Woodland Avenue. So taking an aerial view of the subject property, you can see it's located at the corner of the intersection of Euclid Avenue and Woodford Avenue. looking at the google street view of the subject property this is a older photo from 2022 so you cannot see the outdoor bar area that's on being constructed above the subject property taking a look at the zoning aerial from the subject property you can see that it's kind of this node of B1 right here along Woodford and Euclid Avenue with residential zoning R2 and R3 located all around it and R1E over here to the northwest and southeast. So the site plan that the applicant submitted kind of shows where the speakers are going to be located on the rooftop area of the bar. The applicant has stated that they have employed a house sound engineer who is tasked with monitoring the live entertainment to ensure it never exceeds 90 decibels, referencing that to the equivalent of a hairdryer. The applicant also stated that it's the same decibel cap for the tin roof in Lexington, so kind showing where the applicant provided the decibel levels in their application information. They also claimed that by the time the sound reaches Woodland, I've been saying Woodford Avenue, my apologies. You did, you did. It is a Monday. By the time the sound reaches Woodland Avenue, It will be no louder than 80 decibels, which they have shown to be the equivalent of a truck driving down Woodland Avenue. So when analyzing this request, staff took several factors and considerations. Both the rooftop location of the bar creates a significant concern. There's little buffering that is present to mitigate sound of the live entertainment in the rooftop bar, especially because it is more than 16 feet in the air. Due to the property's location, there are several residential uses within the nearby vicinity. So going back to our zoning area, you can kind of see where all those zoning, where this little node of B1 is within all the zoning. And due to the property's location and the orientation of the equipment, they say that the orientation of the equipment shown here shouldn't impact. However, there's both residential properties. As far as there's residential properties, this says Woodland Avenue. Now I'm kind of confused how this is laid out. But there's residential properties all around this one property, and kind of what we took into consideration was both additive DBH and also the code of ordinances and rules regarding noise disturbance. The code of ordinances states that the noise disturbance means any sound which endangers or injures the safety or health of humans or animals, annoys or disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities, or endangers or injures personal or real property. Article 14-72 states that operating, playing, or permitting the operation or playing of any radio, television, phonograph, drum, musical instrument, or similar device in such a manner as to create a noise disturbance across the dwelling unit boundary qualifies as a noise disturbance. There was, so our noise ordinance was part of a 2023 report done by the Social Services Public Safety Committee that talked about the current enforcement process for the noise ordinance which includes a call slash witness notice from the Lexington Police Department which they in turn investigate, cite with a court date and then the outcome is usually a fine and they go to trial. However, this enforcement is very difficult because by the time law enforcement shows up, usually the sound is either turned off or turned down. And so that's why even though there's been 6,000 calls, there's only been 33 citations issued. So currently also there are no measurements of the decibel levels or decibel level readers during the enforcement process. It is just an investigation of the sound itself. The SSPS committee stated that it is unclear whether or not decibel trackers are even allowed under KRS. And they kind of noted the difficulty of this enforcement process. So kind of looking at this residential area that's behind the speedway over here to the right of the screen, you can kind of see how close it is because it is right here. This is where the rooftop bar location is. With all that, staff recommends disapproval of the conditional use and the variants. Outdoor live entertainment would diversity affect the surrounding properties. The location of the outdoor live entertainment on the second story and less than 100 feet from residential zone leads to insufficient buffering for the neighboring residential properties. Approval of this conditional use and variants would negatively impact the health, safety, and welfare of the surrounding area, as insufficient buffering is present to mitigate the noise of the use from the neighboring area. And approval of the requested variance would alter the essential character of the general vicinity as there is no outdoor live entertainment uses within the surrounding area. And with that, any questions? Real quick, James. So I couldn't tell, and the applicant may be able to answer this if you can. Is the band going to be on the roof? It's not going to be a band, but it's playing live music that's coming from either on the property or I guess you can live stream music as well and that'd be live sound. Okay, so- So not live. It's not live. I mean, it's live to the extent it's being played downstairs, but it's not- It's not live as in- That meets our definition of live entertainment. Even if it's a DJ, because there's someone on site adjusting volume, playing particular songs. What would not be live is like a jukebox, right? Okay. That's plugged in. It's a machine doing it. So jukeboxes would be permitable on the second floor? Yes, I suppose so. It wouldn't be live entertainment at that point. Although, as I showed you. You still have a noise issue. As the code of ordinances, noise disturbance, technically, any sound which annoys or disturbs a reasonable person of normal sensitivities could. Oh, yeah, I understand. I was just trying to get to this. From a land use perspective. Yeah, from a land use perspective. Yes. If there's a person playing an instrument or manipulating it, it's live. Yes. But if it's a jukebox or a radio. Or even a television showing at a concert would not be live. Would not be live. Okay. I was just trying to get to the distinction. So there is not going to be someone up there with a guitar and a bass and an amp. But technically, if you approve live entertainment, someone could. Okay, so that's what they're asking for. Yes, essentially. And then I've got a couple other items. The applicant referenced the tin roof, but my understanding is they don't have a second floor with music. It's just coming out the front. Okay. And then the second is, I thought we approved for the Native Cafe to have live music, but it couldn't be amplified. Is that what I didn't see because it says there's nothing else with outdoor music. But I think that about, I don't know, at this point, shoot, a lifetime ago, maybe 16, 17, for some reason I thought we approved. I don't know for sure, but that is a substantial distance from this. Oh, I understand it's from this site, but it's also in an area with lots of residents. I'll just cure some. Okay, those are my questions, James. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. James, I think we'll allow the applicant. Good afternoon. My name is John Woodall. I am here today to represent the applicant, Two Fisted Willies. With me is the owner, one of the owners, Mr. Bill Ransdell. Mr. Ransdell has been a bar restaurant operator in Lexington, gosh, since you left the University of Kentucky in what, 82? 86. 86, okay. Well, he's no stranger to the business and has had a great reputation, continues to enjoy a great reputation in the entertainment and restaurant bar industry. This particular location, it's important to kick up here what it looks like now and make sure I get to the right thing. That's what is very important. If you're looking up at this location from Woodland Avenue, you see this 90-degree angle wall that divides the top part of the building, and then it shifts around to where it barricades. Essentially, you can't see Speedway from that location unless you work at it. When Bill approached me about whether or not he could have live entertainment on the roof, I explained we've got to go through this process. He already has entertainment downstairs within the interior of Two-Fisted. And that's okay. Hasn't had any complaints. hasn't had to deal with any noise violations and go through that process that I'm aware of. So before we filed the application, we actually sent notice letters to all those within the search ring and invited them to a meeting at the bar here, had them come upstairs to show them exactly what we were going to do, and to make one thing very clear. We're not the fish bowl or the fish, whatever you call it, that has live bands inside opens their garage doors so the whole neighborhood could hear it. We don't do that at the interior of this location. All Bill was seeking to do on the top level here is to have one acoustic guitar player. That's it. Obviously, it's outside. When that person or persons would be there is seasonal. We would also propose a time limitation. That's one of the things we talked about with the neighbors. Had a good turnout at that meeting, and after it was made clear that all we're talking about is acoustic music, one guitarist, nothing else, all but a little, there's a couple folks, and I'll let them speak for themselves today, the rest of the objection faded away. So we then filed our application, and that is all we seek to do here is to, you can see the site plan, is to put a guitarist up here seasonally. We would propose no later than 10.30 p.m. And I attached a list of addresses on Kentucky Avenue simply to highlight that street, how many homes there are there, how many of those homes are owned by student housing investment companies with students in them. We had to ask you for a variance because a couple of these houses are closer than 100 feet to the roof line. So we had to ask for a variance. I think the staff or someone came up with 62 feet is where we are. To the closest that's owned by the Jeter family, our knowledge has no objection to what we're doing here. But the reason why we attached that decibel chart that our sound engineer gave us, we're dealing with what's happening on the inside, and when Tin Can opens their doors, that's what you can hear being projected out. We don't think we're going to be anywhere near that. honestly, just with a simple acoustic guitar music. That's the block. So that's, Mr. Wood, I'll real quick question. That shows you where Speedway is, right? Real quick question. Yeah. And my son, who's a musician, will probably be embarrassed, I have to ask this question. But it says, speaker with acoustic guitar. Well, doesn't that mean it's amplified with the speaker? It's amplified to the extent you turn it up. As someone who plays an acoustic guitar, there's a certain level you don't want to go up any higher. That's why I'm saying, frankly, and probably too much inside my own head when we came up with this application, it seemed benign to me. Because you're not going to hear me from the street. But it's going to be amplified. It will be, yes. All right. Thank you. Yes. So based on your picture there and the site plan that shows the location of the acoustic guitar, where would that be on your photos? Is there a photo that shows where that would be? Bill, it would be right in here, wouldn't it? Okay. Oh, this ought to be good. If I go back. There we go. Right in here. Or under the roof. Where's your outlet? Okay. Yeah, right in here, sir. So we're right up here against the wall. Okay, so from your photo, it would not be under the overhang there. We could certainly move it there. In fact, it's probably from a weather perspective, but you're not going to be up there when it's raining because people aren't going to be up there when it's raining. And this is not enclosed during the winter months. This is as you see it, and this is how it stays. How late are you all in the fall? How late are folks up there? No, but I'm talking about month-wise. Oh, when it's bad weather, there's nobody. We close it off. And if it's wet. But November, December, you know, do you have heaters? We have, but they're not very effective. Okay. Okay. Could I, sorry, could I ask how many people that deck holds? it'll hold somewhere between 100 and 125 or so. So if you had an acoustic guitar up there, they would be competing with 100 plus people on the deck? No. I mean, I understand the point, but people that are listening to an acoustic guitar and having conversation, they don't want to sit here and have conversation to have to compete with louder music. And so just to raise the music doesn't do any good. They would play at a set level. That's the way I've always had it. People that play for us do it. If somebody's not listening, then they're not listening, and it's pointless. The music doesn't just increase because of a number of people. Sure. Sure. But the number of people, too, would increase the volume of some sort, especially being in the U.K. Right. Thank you. And you saw, let me just, while we're up here, we kind of jumped right into it. Just to clarify, is that 125 people on the deck? Yes. Okay. All right. We had a walk around view right here, too. Let me play that. This is actually Azure coming up out of the overhang. It really is a great space, despite I know this is a lot today, but it's fantastic. That's what we look like up there. And from an aerial standpoint, once again, this is Speedway. And I had contacts from several of my own acquaintances, friends that own properties in the area that were supportive of this. And Bill, if for no other reason, because this shopping center had really fallen into disrepair. I went to the U.K. and, of course, know all about it. There was the library lounge that your parents asked you about, you know, wrong library type thing. But in any event, it's undergone a transformation. And Bill and his wife and family and their company were the diamond of that, the leader of it. And now the center is back to full occupancy. So it's good from the standpoint of if you own properties in this area. This is a larger view to staff's point. You can see what we're dealing with. Here we are right here. Here's Speedway. Here's the closest properties and why we had to ask you for the variance. So, Mr. Woodall, are there two properties that fall within? I think there's two, is my understanding. And that's your Kentucky Avenue listing. And that's your decimal listing. But in fairness to staff as well, the ordinance, the way it's drawn up, it lists what you have to request the CUP for as live outdoor entertainment. We didn't tell them, we had our meeting, knew this was what we wanted to do, but it doesn't say in our application, We're only doing acoustic music, and we're only doing it until 1030. To me, that's what this is for. So that's it. I mean, it's fairly straightforward. I mean, there's some folks that don't want us to do this. But how long have you been open, Bill? We opened it toward the third week of September last year. Had you had any problems yet? Any complaints? Please, have we? Bill's a good operator. We just haven't had any problems at any of his locations. Okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions of the applicant before public comments? Yeah, I do have quite a few comments and questions. But I'd like to hear the opposition first before we go any further. Well, I've got some questions. I'm looking at, do you have the site plan in your, or does someone have the site plan? I've got it. Yeah. Yeah. It was in the, or can staff pull that back up? It's on the front of my, yeah. There it was, there you go. Okay, just because I was not aware that a deck had been built up there. Yeah. I don't get to campus. How are you there? I know. I don't get to campus very often at this point. So the woodland, that's the canopy, not stairs, correct? That's correct. Okay. And then when it's going to be directed towards Euclid, and since this is just on a flat sheet, how do the walls, are the walls up there? Are there fencing? Because I couldn't tell from the photos that you showed Does it just look out open over the neighborhood? Which walls? I mean, there's a... I guess if you're... Well, you've got your speaker with acoustic guitar. He's playing in the corner. Right. And it's going out towards Euclid. Right. Where the arrow's pointing. Toward Euclid and Speedway. Southwest. Is there anything buffering? Is there anything up there other than just a grand open view? under the 90 degree angle wall that the entertainer would be seated against? No. Of course, you have your life safety. Oh, yeah, I understand that. Okay. Right. So it's an open air just place. Yes. Okay. Yes. That was my question. Thank you. It seems like your noise angle is angled away from the residential area. That was the intent. That seems to be correct. Okay. Okay. Because the Woodland Avenue, Kentucky Avenue is in the other direction. That's right. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Gross, you were correct. There was a BOA case for Kentucky Native Cafe back in 2015, and you actually were the one who made the motion for that, so good memory on that. And it was for approval, and there was also a variance for a buffer from a residential zone. So you were correct that there was a similar case. But my recommendation was I added a condition that said it could not be amplified. Is that in there? Your condition was that the outdoor live entertainment shall be minimally amplified with noise or other emissions, not creating a nuisance to the surrounding property. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I was going to allow for public comment. Is that okay? You sure, Ms. Tucker? We can bring him back up. No, I just wanted to make the comment that the Native Cafe does not have a rooftop. And so that was all. Okay. Thank you. We'll open for public comment. Three minutes. Each person, whoever would like to come first. Good afternoon, my name is Lauren Gother, I live on Woodland Avenue across from the strip mall that the establishment is based in. Two things I didn't think I'd do in adulthood was reschedule a vacation to be at a hearing like this and buy a decibel meter, which I've had to do due to the ample amount of noise disturbances in our neighborhood on a regular basis. And as you saw from the statistics, they rarely lead to any sort of citation. So recourse, if this does not go according to plan, is minimal from what I can tell as a resident. I'm here and I've made these accordance with my schedule because this does affect the livability of our neighborhood. It does impact our quality of life. We have plenty of students that live in the neighborhood, but In the surrounding streets, we have professionals, staff and faculty of the university. We have retirees, we do have families with young children. It is impactful to those of us who are there year round. As mentioned, I don't think you have to be a sound engineer to realize that the higher up a sound is placed without buffers, the further it travels. And at the hearing that was had, my husband was actually there. It sounds like it is reaching surrounding streets that I wouldn't have even imagined were having complaints about it. So when I'm measuring ambient noise on a busy night on that rooftop of just people talking, around 65 going into 70 some decibels measured from my front step, which is not even directly across the street from this establishment, it does lead me to believe they are going to have to amplify quite a bit to be heard over that ambient noise. Let's see, so of course the business owner, I want them to be successful. And the fact that they've been keeping the garage door closed on the lower level when they have music has been very helpful and appreciated and I think that makes a big difference. I'm also a business owner, I work out of my home. I have a short term rental next door to my home in my duplex. And the noise levels in the neighborhood affect my ability to run that business. So I respectfully ask that we accept the staff disapproval of the application in order to maintain quality of life in the neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Oops. I'm sorry. Oh. Okay. Good afternoon to our Board of Adjustment. Thank you all for your service. My name is Hannah Legree and I'm the 3rd District Council Member. We're in the 3rd District right now in this establishment. Two-Fisted Willies is also in the 3rd. I'm here because I want to voice my support for the staff's recommendation to disapprove this conditional use permit for live outdoor entertainment at Two Fisted Willys. And I'm doing so on behalf of my many constituents who have reached out with concerns about the long-term impacts on quality of life for residents and homeowners in the surrounding area. And as a reminder, residents and homeowners include people who are students and people who are renters and people who are homeowners. As I said, I've received multiple complaints regarding noise from the current operations of the bar, and I believe that allowing outdoor live entertainment, particularly on a rooftop without any buffering, would further intensify these challenges. I support the comments related to the staff recommendation for disapproval of the conditional use for live outdoor entertainment because I think they're very appropriate. The proposed outdoor live entertainment would definitely adversely affect the surrounding properties and again there are many residents in this area. It's not in the middle of campus, it's in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The rooftop in question is less than 100 feet from a residential zone and again that rooftop is high up, there is no buffering. It would be incredibly disruptive to have outdoor entertainment in this area. And I believe that any kind of approval of this conditional use and the variance therein would negatively impact the health, the safety, the welfare, and the quality of life of the surrounding area. We have no guarantee that this would be acoustic music. It's already been stated here that there would be amplification of this acoustic music. We've all heard drum kits and music that's not amplified that can travel quite easily. So if there is live music, if there is amplification, there's going to be a problem. Again, this request does not align with the surrounding neighborhood's needs or expectations, and I urge the board to uphold the staff's recommendation to prioritize the well-being of the residents. Thank you all for your service, for your time, for listening, and for your consideration. And I hope for voting in alignment with the neighborhood needs and with our staff's recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Mary Ann Quarles. Thank you for your time. I live on Woodland Avenue. I've lived there 39 and a half years. and this proposed ordinance would affect my wealth, my health, my safety, everything about my ability to function in the neighborhood. I work. I get up every day. I just don't work Monday through Fridays, and this proposal will impact our neighborhood. We not only have students on our block between Euclid Avenue and High Street. We have families. We have single people. We have retirees. And then we have students. And we all count. And it seems to me that an outdoor, second floor outdoor music venue would be appropriate on Manchester Street, Old Frankfort Pike. But it's not appropriate, or at least I don't feel like it's appropriate for Woodland Avenue. You know, we've been through the library, we've been through many things, but we've never had outside live music. And this will just change the whole complexion of our neighborhood, even more so than some of the other venues that we have. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment? Hi. My name is Jim Thomerson. I live at 372 Transylvania Park. We're at the corner of Euclid and Transylvania Park, that stone building that's on that corner. So I'm on the woodland side of Transylvania Park. I'm not right across the street on woodland. I'm not on Kentucky. I'm a block away. In our house, it's my wife and I and my two-year-old daughter. From my daughter's window, second floor, we look directly at the lights up on the patio, which was built on the roof of the bar. you know you can you i know the example the stories about well you have traffic you have the college kids etc but i think that amplified outdoor music live music changes the character and nature of the neighborhood and it's just the way it is and you can i don't think law enforcement is going to be driving around with decimal uh decimal readers i don't think neighbors are going to be having to keep track of certain decibel levels. I just don't think that's going to happen. I think the points that have been made by you all, you're competing. I'm an attorney. I would also characterize it as a guy with an acoustic guitar. Acoustic guitar concerts have been played at Yankee Stadium because they're amplified. and you're competing against upwards of 100 people on a patio. An acoustic guitar that's not amplified is not going to matter. Of course it's got to be amplified. Of course it's got to be loud enough to be heard. And if it's loud enough to be heard, if I can look out her window and see the lights a block away, that sound is going to be coming the exact same way. And I'm just one of many people that are in this position. So we would ask that the staff recommendation be followed. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any additional public comment? Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the board and staff and several neighbors. My name is Deborah Hensley. I live at 357 Transylvania Park. I used to live at 362 Transylvania Park, which is really close to the area that Jim was talking about. I'd like to think that all of us are reasonable and have normal sensitivities, which is something that we love living in this area. We love the energy of everything that you get there. And the point I want to make is that just this weekend we had Porch Fest in Transylvania Park. It was wonderful. wonderful. A dulcimer with a speaker about 115 feet away from my house, which is across the street, and I could hear it at the back of the house. It was very welcoming to have it. It was very nice. 125 people on a rooftop with an acoustical guitar, and I don't think we'll always have 125 people, but if that did happen, I can assure you the nine children that live on this street, the senior citizens, including this old one here, will have a very difficult time sleeping. Some of us like to get to bed before 10.30. But the bigger thing is it will have an effect on our quality of life. And I think the idea of trying to be able to give any kind of enforcement of this will be very, very difficult. It's difficult as it is when we have decks of students with their music at 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock at night at least 100 feet away from us. So I would encourage you to please follow the staff's recommendation to disapprove this application. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Mark Dixon. I live at 344 Transylvania Park, and I just want to endorse what Deborah had said about the noise level. I mean, Bill had said, I think, that they were going to stop it at 1030. Students don't go out until 1030 or 11 o'clock at night. That's pretty much all I really wanted to say. I mean, at the decibel level of a hairdryer, I mean, I don't believe that that's possible. I mean, it's got to be more than that. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Anyone additional? Would the applicant like to come? Just a couple closing points. I want to clarify, make a couple things clear. We're not asking for a drum kit, not asking for bass, electric guitar, anything like that. One person with an acoustic guitar, and that's it. You want to set minimum amplification limits? That's fine. As I talked about, want to move it back to 9 o'clock? We can live with that. This is meant to be, I'll let Bill explain it, a fill-in between what happens downstairs and up. We're just trying to do something where in the afternoon, somebody, not to assume anything, but if people have ever stopped after work to meet some other people on a patio or at a restaurant or a bar, and there's music, the intent is to have something that starts in the afternoon, later in the afternoon and then is done. We have live music inside. And as was stated, we have a garage door that we close. I purposely do that for the neighborhood. And I have no interest in having someone upstairs at 1030, students, to compete with that. It is really to hit this area of time in the afternoon up until 9, 10 o'clock. and we have the music we have starts somewhere between 9 and 10 inside, so there's no reason to compete with that from our standpoint. And to reiterate, Mr. Ranzel has been in business at this location and others, what, O'Neill's, Linus, and then Austin City for a time before he sold that. He hasn't had problems. He's been a fantastic operator. He hasn't had a problem at this location in terms of citations, And I suspect if you approve this, he won't have any problems with the law or with the neighbors here because he's respectful. But we respect their opinion and thank them for being here. And thank you all. Thank you. I'm sorry. Mr. Walter? Did we have, I think Mr. Clark had some questions. Yes, sir. Yes, I do. I've been around the U.K. about the same time as these stores have been there. Yeah. I've been there, and it's really a good idea. I like the idea. Let me put it that way. But it's the wrong place, the wrong part of the city. Some of you know that my career has been about sound for some 50 years. And I can tell you that the fact that you are on an upper level, an amplified guitar, will travel much further any of you can possibly imagine. You just can't imagine how far sounds travels. I'll give you an example. I had somebody tell me, this is too personal, but I'm going to make my point. You're good at that. Somebody was on New Circle Road out on North End, heard a UK band practicing at UK. I don't doubt that. Literally. Now, UK bands are a lot louder than that. But that's how far sound travels. It's not going to stop at Woodland Avenue. It will be in Transylvania. It will be in Kentucky and beyond. It's not the appropriate use. And, Bill, I understand exactly what you're doing. It's a great idea. It's the wrong place, wrong time. It just is not appropriate for this location. It's just not. And I have to emphasize that as strongly as I possibly can. It says something about a truck. It's not any louder than a truck on Woodland Avenue. Well, how would you like to have a truck driving continuously up and down Woodland Avenue at the afternoon and night? That's not good. That's not appropriate for the people who live here. and I think it's and I hate to be negative about it because I know it's a good idea and probably we'd be very popular with our students I know it would but it's not fair to the people who live here in Woodland, Kentucky, Transylvania Park and the whole area of that neighborhood so I would have to strongly agree with the staff it's most inappropriate and I apologize for being so negative but I just feel that very strongly. So thanks. It's okay. We respect your opinion. Thank you. Do we have anything additional? I guess I'll weigh in for a second. Honestly, I'm very sympathetic, even empathetic to neighbors. And on this one, I'm somewhat on the fence just because, you know, like you mentioned, we just came out for the Porch Fest, which was a wonderful event. Anytime you can bring music is a good thing. And I'm afraid that, as staff mentioned, they can put up a dozen TVs, crank them all the way up, and your recourse is basically to call the cops and they'll cite, and then you'll have to pay a ticket, and then you move on. Same thing with a jukebox. This at least would possibly give a level of control of saying you mess up once, you're done. You can't do any type of music, can't do anything up there ever again. And it seems to be at least mildly hypocritical that some of these big events like Railbird, which I live a dozen miles away from Railbird, we heard it all weekend long and that far away. Lexington Legends has fireworks every Saturday and Sunday, and there's no question that's noise versus music. It seems that corporate stuff, as long as it's fairly short-lived and extremely aggravating, that's okay. but a continual nice music thing with heavy, heavy, heavy regulations. And you guys will have your feet held to the fire more than anybody else in the neighborhood. So I'm not saying I'm for it. I'm not saying I'm against it. I can be convinced either way. I do think that this would possibly be a nice use. Now that would be up to you guys if it becomes a massive nuisance for the neighborhood or not. Okay. Anything additional with the applicant? Is anyone prepared to make a motion or do we need further discussion? Any questions of staff? Chair, I'll make a motion to approve the staff's recommendation of disapproval of PLN BOA 2551, two-fisted willies request for conditional use permit to establish outdoor live entertainment and variance to reduce required setback between outdoor live entertainment and a residential zone from 100 feet to 62 feet within the neighborhood business zone on property located at 388 Woodland Avenue based on the staff's recommendation. Thank you. And Ms. Tucker has seconded. No further discussion? If not, we'll open for vote. Thank you. The motion has been disapproved. Thank you. The next item to be heard is PLNBOA 25-60, Wesley United Methodist Church. If the applicant will please come forward. Thank you. Please. Just one moment for clarity. Did I state the motion in reverse? The motion was approved, not disapproved. The motion passed. The motion passed. Okay, just for the minutes. I think I said it incorrectly. The motion for disapproval was passed. Okay. All righty, so PLNBOA 2560 Wesley United Methodist Church. That has been recommended for approval. There are five conditions that have been listed. Have you had opportunity to review those? I have. First of all, my name is Scott Southall with Earth Cycle Design, and we are representing the church in this application, and we concur with the staff's recommendations. Okay. And thank you for correcting me. Did we have any questions of the applicant? I believe we have public comment. We have some people here for comment. Prior to public comment, did we have any questions of the applicant, or would you like to review anything regarding the project? Just briefly, this is a project that is associated with a water quality incentive grant to take and remove some of the impermeable parking spaces and replace them with permeable, as well as remove some parking spaces and replace them with some landscape islands. And as such, because we had to bring it before the Board of Adjustment, we are including not only just this first phase, but also subsequent phases if they were to receive additional water quality incentive grant funds that would extend the removal of the impermeable pavement and replacement with permeable pavement. And then per the plan, do you have the site plan? Thank you. There's also a proposal for utilization of what I would call the rear of the property for some nature trails and some nature walk areas. Again, that's a future phase of the project. This first phase deals with the area that's adjacent to the existing parking. Okay. All right. Thank you. We will have an opportunity for public comment now. We'll do one at a time, three minutes each. Hi, my name is Ursula Killens. I'm a homeowner in the Brookfield Chase Homeowners neighborhood. And this property actually backs up to where we live. And we were concerned about the next phase, not necessarily the parking lot. We're not totally against the plans that they have. But in the future, we would like some barriers because we've had problems with things going on on this property already from the church's failure to maintain it, like homeless people sleeping back there. There's been dumping of garbage. When there's crime in surrounding neighborhoods, they find a way to come through there. We've had to do, a lot of us have paid UK to have extra lighting placed back there to directional lighting that highlights our backyards and our properties. and we've had to request that the church clean out from back there to reduce the need for people to want to congregate back there. And we have graffiti on our fences from people being back there, so we had questions about putting a buffer area, maybe fencing to separate it from our neighborhood right there on that borderline. so that we can protect our properties. We already have to deal with people cutting through, forcing homeowners to put fencing up to prevent people from being on their back porches. So we would like to request that some type of buffer area be put to prevent that from happening to protect our properties. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have an additional comment? Okay, everyone, thank you. Okay, was there anyone here, anyone else here to speak? Okay, if the applicant can come forward. I can take and bring those items to the attention of the members of the church and possibly look at maybe an open house in which further dialogue can occur between the church and the neighborhoods for these types of policing activities. But as you can see from the site plan, we have a fairly large site, 12 acres. If we were to have to put some type of fencing up, it would be over three quarters of a mile in length. and you can imagine that there would be a significant expense associated with that, as well as the likelihood of having success in terms of mitigating cut-throughs and that type of stuff would be kind of minimum from our past experience with putting up fencing that isn't then having to have a great deal of maintenance and operations associated with it. So my suggestion back to the church and the congregation would be to open a line of greater communication between them and the neighborhoods for how to address these kind of policing activities. Okay. And I would definitely echo that sentiment going forward with the phases. I'm sure the church would like to be a great neighbor and involve the community in those discussions as they move closer to their neighborhood. Yeah. Yes, Ms. Tuff. I love the idea of the community garden and the proposed future community garden, all the things, but I can also see where it would attract more people to that area. And so I think that the idea of some sort of barrier between that and the homeowners whose properties touch that would be a good idea. But just some thoughts moving forward. Thank you. Scott, I've got a couple questions. The Brookfield Chase neighborhood and the other Windburn Estates neighborhood, those backyards that back up to the church property, is there private fences there for different yards there? Is there privacy fences back there? I believe there are some along that adjoining property line, but not consistent. Not consistent. And also, what is the – I see markings here for a proposed plunge pool. I'm not familiar with a plunge pool. Distilling basin, it's an energy dispersant associated with the stormwater outfall to take and break up the energy. So it's not for public use. It's for energy dispersants of the stormwater. Is that to keep erosion down? Yes. Okay. So is that a covered area or is it covered with some sort of screening or anything? No. No. It would be, again, it's utilized for energy dispersants. I think it's the use of the word pool that's causing the confusion, but it's more like a problem. It's part of the LFUCG stormwater manual. Is it just a little concrete? No, it doesn't have to be concrete. In fact, from a water quality standpoint, we would propose it probably being some kind of channel lining material to take and, again, disperse that energy coming off of the outfall structure that is the adjacent detention basin. So what we're seeing is erosive forces through that stretch. Is it supposed to slow down the flow? Yeah, it's to slow the flow down. Okay. I'd like to add a little bit to the discussion here. The fact that the church has gone to a great deal of trouble. The first thing went through is through a feasibility study. Isn't that right, Scott? You went through a feasibility study first? Correct. We did a feasibility study. That's a really important first step. I've been on the Water Quality Fees Board, so I understand the project itself. And the fact that the church has been able to get a major grant from the Water Quality and the Fees Board is quite remarkable. And we should say to them, you've done exactly the right thing and putting in perennial pavement and all that. And it makes a lot of sense. So I would say that this is a really very good project. and the fact that they've gone through a whole lot of engineering feats to make this work is really important. So let me leave it with that. And just for clarification, right now we're just reviewing the permeable pavers portion, not approving the entire site plan by any means, right? The whole site plan. Okay. Just a question out of curiosity. Would you all, I know you said it's a major cost as far as having some type of barrier, but even trees, would you guys be opposed to having some type of barrier for the folks who live in Brookfield Chase neighborhood? Would you guys complete the garden and pavilion? Well, again, I can't take and speak for the exact locations where there's issues that are occurring between the interactions between the neighborhood and the church property. But putting up barriers on just a portion of the site is only going to then create, it's like a balloon. It's going to take and push individuals to another part or access to another part. So in order to secure the entire site, it's over three quarters of a mile or approximately three quarters of a mile of fencing that would have to be erected. And then that itself would then have to be maintained on a regular basis. And so I think, personally, that the better solution would be to engage both the Windburn and the Brookfield neighborhoods with the church and maybe with the local resource officers to take and look at what are the issues and try to address them from an ongoing public engagement standpoint. as opposed to trying to come up with some kind of physical manifestation that's going to take and try to solve the problem. That, again, from my professional experience, doesn't really create the results that individuals or neighborhoods are looking for. It just puts a more physical separation in for a short period of time. It's very understandable. And I think what the folks in the community are kind of addressing and speaking to their neighborhood that they live in, they're not necessarily asking for you to completely barrier the whole area. They're talking about their specific neighborhood and the area which they reside in. So no one's asking for the whole thing necessarily, but their part, that space where their neighborhood is at, having a barrier at least up around there. Again, putting fencing up on one side is over 1,600 feet in length. And again, from addressing the situation, is that going to address the situation? I can't answer that other than from a professional standpoint that it will just create the balloon effect and take and push those individuals that are accessing the property or moving through the property to another place. And then it just pushes it down, essentially downstream. And I think I'll echo that I believe the residents want to be included. You know, having conversation regarding what's going on and what's moving forward is what's essential. And I can't really speak for the residents, but I would think that they would want that site to be secure. from a lot of transient people at different times in the middle of the night, stuff like that, from trash, from garbage, from whatever that they're doing. So I can echo what everybody else said and said that that conversation not only needs to be had, but maybe with some sort of actions as well. Scott, it looks like to me that there's probably 25 or 30 access points to that property. It'd be almost impossible to block that off. To me, it's like whack-a-mole. You do one thing and it pops up somewhere else. So I think your plan is workable, and it'd probably be quite an improvement on the property. Again, right now, the rear, and again, this is not in this first phase of work. The rear of the property is currently more or less not utilized. You can kind of see where the development of the property is, which is up around the church and the parking lot. and the remainder of the site is more or less a non-utilized piece of the property. The proposal would take and start to engage that property and start to utilize it, and by doing such would probably then take and have some reductions in the types of activities that are occurring because we know from a design standpoint that property that is not utilized will then attract individuals and activities that are not desired by those where there's activity occurring. And so when you have activity, that tends to help resolve those issues. Okay. But I will, again, take it back to the church and the members to take and have engagement with the neighborhood to address these issues. And again, possibly with resource officers how to better lease the property. You have to come forward again. I would say that our resource officers do a good job in our area. We don't have a whole lot of crime that actually spills over there, so I don't think it would be to make them do a better job that we're asking. It's not necessarily the crime that we're talking about. It's people traveling through. For those who don't have fences, people walk. They come home. We had a wife to come home with her children, and there were men standing on her back porch from this area. There's been multiple conversations with Wesley United where we had to ask them to maintain their property to provide some type of safety for homeowners. And you say it's unrealistic to put up some type of barrier. And if not fencing, is there some type of thing you can enact in there? whether it's wooded, maybe that won't be as large. Also, they have not been maintaining that property, so who's going to maintain all of this garden to ensure that not only that, but that the water is not going to encroach on our property? It is doing a good thing for this, and I think it's a good idea, but it's still, we need some type of protection as an insurance as well. We don't know how within their feasibility study, is that going to affect our property as well. We already have water pooling in our backyards. How is that going to affect us? And we've been in contact with water quality, but it's not being anything done on this stage. So to say that other things and that because this is going to be a burden on them, what about the homeowners? The burden is already on us to maintain back there. We have been responsible for cutting back the brush so that it doesn't affect our properties. And that's on their property. So they have a history of not maintaining. So we're like, who's going to maintain this garden? and who's going to ensure that people are not there after hours. These are the type of questions that we have as a neighboring homes. So we're not saying that it's not a good idea. We're just saying that how is that going to affect us as well. I certainly understand that, and I think this is a matter that really ought to be brought to the church and the church leaders because I think they're the people that can do something about that. And I think they would listen. The other thing I'd like to say is if this project goes through, the permeable pavers, actually what that does is create a situation where the water seeps down into the ground rather than flowing off like a regular parking lot. It just runs off, and so that's the real good part about permeable pavers. You're not getting a lot of runoff, and so it might help the situation considerably. And I also see where the stormwater travels from property because my home is down this way where that arrow is. So how is that water moving? Where is it coming from? Because there's no basin or anything behind the homes. We only have that basin that the city has taken ownership in the last four or five years. They have been maintaining it. But we're good with the permeable pavers, but how is this other section, the next phase, going to help in that as well is what we're asking. Thank you. Scott, if you could come back up and then go back over. You said that currently you've got a grant, and the grant's for the parking lot. A portion of the parking lot, correct. Okay, but you're going ahead and asking for this trail, even though you don't have, that's not part of the grant, or is that part of the grant? That is not part of the grant, and the reason that we are showing essentially what was shown on the master plan of the feasibility study from the stormwater grant was because otherwise we would have to come back over and over and over again in terms of the Board of Adjustment for the conditional use of these additional items. So we are showing essentially what the master plan would be at this junction for the site that includes multiple phases of parking lot improvements as well as... Well, when's the phase two going to happen on the open space in the back? Well, what's phase one? Phase one, let me see if I can, this is center, right? No? No, the top one. Top one. The other top, there you go. Okay, so the first phase of what is the current grant is to do improvements here in this parking bay and in portion of this parking bay. and then do some improvements along the proposed, along the drainage area. The second phase is to rework this parking lot here and remove that and do some extension of the parking in this manner. From an efficiency standpoint, that's going to reduce the amount of impervious area as well as put it in the permeable pavers. Then the third phase when it was to occur would be this back area and the improvements associated with the trail system and the gardens. And when will that phase occur? We don't have a date at this point in time. Well, it seems to me that, and your client did not meet with any of the neighbors as part of this? Not to my knowledge. I don't know if they have met or not. Well, given that phase three appears to be pretty speculative at this point, I don't see any issue with limiting the approval to the front portion of the property, and the church can meet with the neighbors and can deal with the issues that the neighbors are bringing up, and then when and if you get money for the third phase, you guys can come back. That doesn't seem to be overly burdensome to me, but that's just my opinion on it. If I may also just point out that the church property is downstream of the Brookfield Chase neighborhood. So you can see the contours are these dash lines. this drainage area arrow here shows kind of the path of the flow of stormwater. But this is low. This is higher. Oh, I'm not. I'm not. Neighborhood. I'm not disagreeing that phase three could potentially help with stormwater on their properties. My issue is that it sounds like potentially, based upon the testimony of the neighbors, is that the church may or may not be properly maintaining the property now and that it appears that it wants to do phase three could easily be an attractive nuisance for more problems in the future. And so I don't see any issue with getting right with the neighbors and figuring this out because it's not going to hold up your funding or your project is what it sounds like to me. But once again, that's just me. You guys can, you know, however you want to do it. But it seems to me like we could easily do the improved areas. And then the church and the neighbors need to, as they say, come to Jesus with one another. And then when you're ready in the future, it sounds like phase three may never happen. And it's more speculative at this point than anything. So I would be comfortable moving forward with what is actually going to occur than granting a relatively large approval for something that may not ever occur. And given the fact that it may acerbate from a nuisance problem, the neighbor's problems and concerns. Let me ask this, Scott, and the staff as well. If we approve the, as it's written here, what are we, exactly, what are we approving then? Phase one and phase two. No, everything that's up there is being approved is my understanding. Right, but do you think. One, two, and three, everything. Would the church be satisfied with the phase one, phase two at this point rather than having the phase three, you know, muddy the whole situation up? I would say, yeah, we could work with that. I can agree with that until there's more communication, too, with the neighbors about doing that whole. I love the idea of that, but, yeah, until there's more communication with them. I agree. Did you have something, Mr. Clark? No. So you said you all did a study on this. Did it delineate the boundaries of, say, a phase one and line item and phase two? I don't believe in the feasibility study that we delineated those specific boundaries. What we did start is when we applied for the application for this phase of the water quality implementation funds, we identified a phase one associated with the parking lot and then improvements along the drainage way, including the plunge pool. And then the second phase was then delineated as the additional improvements in the water. in the parking lot with the permeable pavement. What I'm getting at is can we delineate a phase one and phase two specifically and leave out a phase three? I believe that there's a mechanism that we can document that there was a phase one, phase two that we can delineate for staff. Scott, what is the $305,000 paying for as far as the phases are concerned? This first allotment of funds is to do the replacement of the pavement along this section and along this section. and then some of the plunge pool and the water quality components associated with breaking up the energy flow to eliminate some of the erosion that's occurring and some tree planting. So that was essentially the bulk of the phase one. Okay. Anything additional? So I will either entertain a motion or take a brief recess if we need to get our wording correctly, but I do think that the feel of the board is there's not enough work or details or specificity on the latter phase, but we may be prepared to move forward regarding the pavers and the initial phases. Is staff comfortable, legal and staff comfortable with a phase one, phase two approval, leaving out phase three? I think we are. It doesn't sound like phase three would impact what you're doing in one and two. It's going to be a future phase. you were just hoping to show it now so you wouldn't have to come back to the board, but it's not on the immediate horizon. Correct. So I would be more comfortable if we had a revised site plan to see where kind of that line would be. We can prepare a revised site plan to delineate the work that would be associated with these first two phases. I would say at this point in time to essentially keep this process moving forward, what we can say is the work that would be west of the drainage line, It would be part of the phase three, and we would come back with a plan that would eliminate that as a part of this application. And that's okay with staff. It's, in my mind, a lesser intensity of the property than what they originally requested. We're not adding new buildings in the back or anything like that. And at that point, the church could address how to buffer the single-family homes here to the, looks like to the south or to the north as well. I mean, I'm not sure. We're hearing today from the south in Brookfield Chase, but I would guess that both neighborhoods would have the same concerns. So you can either approve it today with an amended site plan as described by the applicant or continue for a month to have that site plan in front of you. Either option would be. I would be comfortable moving forward today with this applicant to provide the staff with an amended site plan as discussed today. And if I may, we would add the sidewalk as requested by staff leading on to Cave Hill Road. Thank you. Okay. So do you need... I'm sorry, Russell Cave Road. Russell Cave, yes. Do we need a moment or we'll prepare for a motion? Do we need a moment? Just like a few minutes. That's fine. Bye. Okay, good. Okay, we'll take a three-minute recess. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. So Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll call back to order. I think at this time we have a motion. I'd like to make a motion for approval for PLNBOA 25-60. Wesley United Methodist Church request an amendment, an existing conditional use permit, or place a religious assembly in an agricultural urban zone on property located on 1825 Russell Cave Road. Based on staff recommendations for approval, which have been revised to read, approve of the proposed modifications to the existing conditional use. should not adversely affect the subject or adjoining nearby properties because the revised site plan will not depict improvements to the west of the drainage area and riparian buffer, provided that all necessary permits and approvals are made. The modifications to the existing parking lot will allow for more sustainable use of the property without significant physical modifications. The improvements will not change the capacity of the church building, the hours of operation or the days of activity on site. All necessary public services and facilities are or will be available and adequate for the proposed use. The recommendation of approval is based on five different conditions. The first condition is the only one that was revised and it shall read, the property shall be developed and operated in accordance with the revised site plan subject to any alterations required throughout the permitting process. So moved. I have Mr. Persily has seconded that. Before we vote, I guess I didn't clearly hear, did we not call it phase one or phase two? We just described it as the... I thought that was a little unclear. I thought that just describing the area might be better for the minutes as opposed to referring to phases. No problem. Go back and figure out where that was. Madam Chairman, what the language said, it did not depict any improvements to the west of the drainage area and riparian buffer, which includes improvements, everything to the east, but not to the west. Okay. Thank you. Did that help any? It did. It did. I just didn't hear those words, so I wanted to make sure. Okay. All right. If nothing further, we'll open for vote. All right. That portion has been approved. Thank you. So our first STR will be PLN VOA 25-53, Dr. Thomas Larkin. Good afternoon. And please state your name for the record. Wonderful. This has been recommended for approval. There are six conditions that have been listed. Have you had the opportunity to review those, and are you comfortable? Yep. Okay. We did not have anyone here to speak on this. I didn't have anyone notated. Do we have questions of the applicant? Yeah, I had a question. So is the detached guest house sewered with the regular house? It's actually the garage part. of the house. Okay. So, all right. So that's yes? It goes into the same septic tank? Excuse me? Does it go in the same septic tank? Is it the same septic system? The same septic tank? Yes. Okay. And you all have that? That's all been inspected. Okay. Yes. Mr. Larkin, looking at Google map, I saw it was listed, the house was listed as the inn? Yes. And is it bed and breakfast? I mean, it's a short-term rental. It's been in existence for nine years. This is not a new application. Okay. So that's what the inn stands for then, is a short-term rental? I mean, that's the name. The inn at Darleyview is what it's called. That's just the name. That's what it was called. Yes. And so that's the main house because that's what was listed on the Google map, and I'm trying to figure out why that was listed there, and we were talking about a short-term rental. I'm not understanding your question. The name of the listing. is the inn at Darley View. Okay. And then is that a bed and breakfast? No, it's a short-term rental. A short-term rental, and that's what we're approving today. Correct. Okay, that's what I needed to know. Correct, yes. Okay. Any other additional questions? Do we have comments and comments on this one? I don't think so. All right. No other questions, then I'll entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I move for approval of PLM BOA 2553, Dr. Thomas Larkin's request for a conditional use permit for a hosted short-term rental in the AR zone at 2751. Military Pike, based upon the staff's report and its recommendation of approval, is subject to the six conditions. Thank you. And Mr. Pursley has offered a second. No further discussion. We will take a vote. Wonderful. Motion approved. Thank you. The next item is PLNBOA 25-54, Laura Lee Trim. Wonderful. If you could please state your name for the record. My name is Laura Lee Trim. Okay. This has been recommended for approval, and there were four conditions that the staff listed. Have you had the opportunity to review those? I have. And are we comfortable with those conditions? Yes. Okay. And we did not have anyone in the audience to speak on this matter. Does the board have any questions? Are there any documents? Because we're still on the Thomas Lorgan one. Is that the same one? Okay. Thank you. Any additional questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion. I hope we have time. Madam Chair, I will move for approval of PLM BOA 2554, Laura Lee trims request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in the R3 zone at 401 Reading Road in Unit 6 based upon the report and the staff's recommendation of approval and subject to the conditions set forth in our agenda. Thank you. And Mr. Pursley has offered a second. If there is no further discussion, we'll take a vote. Wonderful. Motion is passed. Good luck. So now we are on the short-term rental herd docket. The first item will be PLN BOA 25-41. That's Chad Walker. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Walker. I forget. You can go down there, but this has been recommended for disapproval, so we'll allow staff to present first. All right. Dalton Belcher on behalf of planning staff. This is a request for a conditional use permit for a hosted short-term rental in an agricultural AR zone on property located at 5167 Briar Hill Road, Council District 12. I'll note that in the staff report, there was a reference that a notice of violation from revenue had been issued. That was incorrect. We spoke with revenue this morning. There was not a notice of violation, so let's disregard that. I just wanted to make that correction up front. That was not part of why staff made their recommendation, but I just wanted to make that clarification. You can see the subject property here highlighted in blue. And here is a photo of the entrance to the property. Here is a site plan provided by the applicant noting an entry driveway, main house, guest house, and then some other structures like chicken coops on the property. and they are in your packets, they're numbered as they are on the site plan. So within the one-mile buffer around ag-STRs, remember for ag-STRs we use a mile instead of the 600 feet and 1,000 feet, there are no short-term rentals currently operating. There is a case later on the agenda that would be within a mile, but they are later on the agenda. So just a note about that. Staff's recommendation for disapproval really hinges on the fact that this is a PDR property. Why don't we wait until he finishes? Is that helpful? I'd like to get my objection on the record. Okay. Excuse me, I beg your pardon for the interruption. However, my name is Chris Clenden and I'm here representing the applicant, Mr. Walker. Mr. Belcher is about ready to say that, based on this letter, that the staff recommendation for disapproval is based on the staff's determination that there is no STRs allowed on this property because there is an agreement between the applicant and the Rural Land Management Board. It's an easement agreement and you all know it as the PDR program. Now, my objection is based on the following. Staff doesn't have the legal authority to make that determination. This is essentially a contract between rural land management and Mr. Walker and his wife. And because it's a contract, any dispute with respect to the determination on this has to be done by a court of competent jurisdiction. So staff has no authority and is well beyond their legal bounds to make this determination. Respectfully also, the board doesn't have the authority to hear this with respect to the PDR program. It would take an adjudication and a court of competent jurisdiction. The staff's position is STRs are not allowed. The applicant's position is that agreement doesn't say that. I think that we should let the staff state their position first, and then objection will probably be better at that time. I understand. Okay. He did a little bit of my work there. He kind of stole the next part, but I'll go ahead and mention. That's okay. So the recommendation of disapproval is based, this letter references that this is part of a purchase of development rights easement, which prohibits the use of a property as a short-term rental, or this property as a short-term rental. And so staff does note that within the vicinity, as I mentioned, there are zero short-term rentals in the buffer of the one mile. But we also note that until or unless the Rural Land Management Board, in conjunction with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, finds that a short-term rental does not violate the easement language, no permission should be granted to such a use. And there's also a letter that we have. I believe PDR staff, Beth Oberman, is here, and she can address that maybe to a little bit more detail about a letter with some correspondence with the NRCS as well. Do you have any questions for me? Happy to answer them. None for you, sir, but I do have questions for legal. And I have general statements on policy. It's been a while since I've read. a conservation easement and i realized there's probably some language in there that talks about what is loud and what is not allowed but i doubt it says no short-term rentals are permitted in the easement um and so and also i couldn't find the letter in my packet i think i had it last month i couldn't find it this month um from the board so that's my kind of First question on what the easement actually says, conservation easement. It's more of a statement than a question, I guess, because I don't need you to respond. But then the other item I have is generally we've taken the position that we do not get involved related to deed restrictions between parties. And I guess I'm curious of why this is different, given that my understanding is while the Rural Management Board is a quasi-governmental corporation, It's actually not quasi at all. It is defined by ordinance as an agency and instrumentality of the urban county government. Okay. And its creation was provided for in code of ordinances. If you look at 26-2 subsection 2, it specifically defines it as such. So when you look at the, let me get to the, I hear two questions there. Yeah. So let me get to the second part first and then I'll get to the other part. So when you look at the deed of easement, it is in favor of the Fayette County Rural Land Management Board Incorporated, and that is defined as an agency and instrumentality of the urban county government. And the United States of America is also a party on this easement. So to answer your question about why this is different. So deed restrictions that an HOA might enforce, normally I think those happen at the development stage when they're subdivided. imposed on each parcel in a particular subdivision. They are private in nature. The government has no interest in those, has really no standing to enforce them, no jurisdiction to interpret them, and so we stay out of that. The government is a party to this. We're actually named in this, so is the United States of America. There's a federal interest in this. So we We have an agency of the government as defined by ordinance that has the right to interpret this. That's actually preserved in the easement. And then we have the Board of Adjustment, which is another agency of the government. And so we're being put in a position for one arm of the government to say an entity can do something that another arm of the government says they can't. So what I would say is this board does not have the authority to authorize any use that the federal government says can't happen on this parcel, which was specifically negotiated by Mr. Walker. And he was paid for this easement. That's another difference from an HOAD restriction as well. They aren't normally negotiated by the owners. But this is not private. This is public. And there is a provision, to get to your question, it's in Section 5, that no commercial uses are allowed. There are other provisions as well that would govern that, but frankly I think that's the most concise one. And we know that commercial uses, even in Kentucky, short-term rentals have been considered commercial uses. There's cases on that as well. So I hope that answers your question. If I haven't, let me know. We can talk further. So I guess the law department's position that we have to turn this down. Well, you're all the decision makers. So I would strongly advise you to not be in the position of authorizing something that another board would be charged with enforcing and interpreting. Okay? I think that puts the government in a bit of a conundrum. So I would strongly advise you to not do that. But if you want to do it anyway, I would at least advise you to add a condition that they're going to have to deal with the Rural Management Board and the United States to get approval for this. Because their position is this is not allowed. So that has to be addressed one way or the other. And then I've got a third question. Why was this not addressed in the ordinance that was passed on short-term rentals? Actually, if you look at Section 3-13B, when the short terminal ordinance was amended to allow agricultural uses, there was a provision added that said other restrictions and regulations could impact whether or not the use would be allowed in certain agricultural zones. Okay. That's not in our report. Oh, it might not be, but it's in the ordinance. So it's 3-13B? 3-13B, I believe. B as in boy. Okay. All right. Those are my questions I had out of the gate. Thank you. I will just piggy tail off of that because I thought I heard you say we couldn't vote on it at all. Like, should we not be touching it? Is that what I heard? I would recommend disapproval of this. You all are decision makers. I don't vote on this board, but that would be my advice to you. Then that's us making a decision on something that I felt like you heard. You're disapproving something that would be consistent with the other arm of the government, which is the Rural Land Management Board. I'm advising not to take an inconsistent approach to what another arm of the government is saying. And in that instance, we don't do any findings of facts, or we do have a findings of facts? Disapproval has a finding based on that, I think, but that would be sufficient to me. Brittany, do you have handy there what it says about commercial use? Oh, the provision I'm referring to in the deed? Yeah. It's in fact. I looked and I couldn't find it. Because I guess my question. I had stuff last month that we didn't have this month. It's not the same as the land. The PDR. Yeah, I guess my problem, my issue with the finding fact is that the property is subject to the PDR, which prohibits the use. Isn't that us making a judicial determination that that document prohibits it? That's what I'm asking. Yeah, that's what. You're agreeing with the interpretation. What does it say that prohibits this? So the rural land management, and maybe Beth can speak to some of this if necessary, but the Rural Land Management Board has already taken that position, and they are allowed to by virtue of the easement. You're just saying you're not taking a contrary position to that. Okay. So they've heard this and said no. That was my understanding, Beth. And I guess also... A little bit backward. I feel like this, coming to the BOA with this, it probably should have been... They haven't heard it yet. I know you're getting fired. I apologize. Another item is that document was not in the most recent packet, and I don't have last month's packet and I can't find it on what's uploaded to us either. Okay. The Rural Land Management letter. The letter? The letter. Can you just put it back up on the screen? Because I remember looking at it last month, but then I didn't, it wasn't in the packet when I was reviewing it this morning and I don't see it here either. It basically doesn't see anything about FIOSP dollars, but they fit into the commercial use category. but you can't do it right there it is that's much bigger over here Thank you, sir. Much bigger over here. Yeah, you're right. Also, board members, it's been put back on the screen and zoomed in so you can see it if you need to see it there. Here, Bob. There it is. We need this last bag. We can read it. That's the file copy. Perry. That's pretty clear. That seems pretty straightforward to me. And one more time, what's that reference to 13.3? B talks about something else. So B is the table, and then under that there are several footnotes. Oh, okay, here we go. So footnote with the double asterisk, which refers back to the AR zone, the AN zone, and the AB zone, says properties in the AR, AB, and AN zones may be subject to other regulations and restrictions that impact the ability to operate short-term rental uses. So B is kind of that header sentence at the top with a colon and then the whole table and then the footnotes. Which, you're right, we did not repeat that in the staff report. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions of staff before we allow the applicant to present? Again, I've got to renew my objection with respect to your counsel. She is correct that the federal government is a party to the agreement. Rural Land Management Board is a party to the agreement. Chad Walker is a party to the agreement, and so is his wife. Parties to the agreement don't get to decide what the agreement says. this has to be determined at a court of law. So again, you all have the ability to do whatever you want. I'm going to object. I mean, if what she's saying is correct, I wouldn't have the right to appeal if the Rural Land Management Board or the U.S. government were the final deciders here on whether there's a dispute. So what I'm saying is, his position is that it doesn't say short-term rentals are prohibited on this property based on this agreement. So I'll leave it at that and start his presentation. Thank you. Okay. Like I said, I'm Chris Clendenin. I'm here on behalf of Chad Walker, and this is a request for short-term rental. This is a photo of the guest cottage on the property. The property is 20 acres. I've been there. It's a beautiful property, and it's zoned AR. This would be a hosted short-term rental, and you can see the eager staff there would be eagerly awaiting your visit. Now, the applicant is requesting a conditional use short-term rental permit for up to 10 individuals. He's currently operating four successful short-term rentals in the area. I'll circle back to that in just a moment. There are no short-term rentals operating within one mile of this property currently. I know there is another one in the queue here to be heard, but currently there is no other short-term rentals. There's been no compliance issues for the applicant on the other four short-term rentals, and nor has any short-term rental in the vicinity been cited for nuisance by code enforcement. Okay. Property timeline. This property, in addition to the other four, were listed on Vrbo and Airbnb for short-term rental beginning in 2019 and into late 2023. He filed for the zoning compliance permit on all five of these short-term rentals that he was legally operating starting in 2019. He was granted the zoning compliance permit on the other four, but was told because this was in the AR zone, and we haven't decided what we're going to do with the AR zone and the Rural Land Management Board hadn't decided whether this would be allowed or not in the AR zone that he couldn't get a permit for it. So the use was discontinued, not because he willingly abandoned his short-term rental. He was told by staff, zoning compliance, that he couldn't have a permit, therefore he couldn't have a short-term rental for this property. The zoning ordinance was amended earlier this year, allowing for short-term rentals in the AR zone. He filed for an application to get this property approved. Now, our position is this is a legal non-conforming use starting in 2019. For those, I'm assuming I'm not the only one who's made this argument before, but for those of you who don't understand what I'm saying is, this property was legally operated as a short-term rental beginning in 2019, 2020, 21, 22, and into 23. Okay? He did not abandon the use. It's an existing, non-conforming, legal use of the property. He was told by the government, the staff, and zoning, that he couldn't continue to use it here. Government interfered, saying that you can't do this. Our argument is it's a violation of law. As you can see, statute is codified, KRS 100-253. Lawful use of building or premises existing at the time of the adoption of any zoning regulations affecting it may be continued, even though it doesn't conform to the provisions of the regulations. So his permit, my point is, his permit should have been granted. Instead of being told he couldn't continue to use this as a short-term rental back in 2023. There's case law on it as well. This is a protected property right, and I'm hoping that's one that the board is going to see fit to restore. Non-conforming uses are contained within the zoning ordinance. In this case, he did not change the property. He didn't enlarge it. He didn't extend it. He didn't alter it in any way. This is the same property that was there in 2019, 2020, so on and so forth, all the way up until the time he made the application for the short-term rental for the zoning compliance permit. He didn't discontinue it or abandon it willingly. He was told he had to. The non-conforming use was not replaced by a permitted use. It was not changed to another non-conforming use. and it was not halted by damage or destruction. The reasons I think are clear. This conditional use permit should be granted. This will allow him to get his property rights restored that were taken away from him improperly in 2023 because he never intentionally abandoned this use. Otherwise, other than this PDR agreement, he meets all the criteria. He's a successful operator of four other short-term rentals. No complaints, no problems, not a single one at this point. There's no nuisance that's been cited in this vicinity. There's no complaints in the neighborhood about short-term rentals. And it's not located in a neighborhood that's going to be subject to any involuntary displacement. So do we have any questions? I'm here to answer them if you have some. I actually do. So is the argument that he could have been grandfathered in the other Airbnbs, except that that had not been addressed yet in AR? That's my understanding is this. It was that, again, the way this process had unfolded was that the short-term rental thing, everybody was interested in it. if you had a short-term rental going and operating before the zoning ordinance was amended in any of the zones, you could apply for a zoning compliance permit and as long as you could demonstrate the criteria it was given to you. In his case, he had five short-term rentals that he had previously operated. four of the requests, he was granted those. The only reason he wasn't granted the fifth one was because the property that we're here about today is located in the AR zone because there had been ongoing discussions about whether this was going to be allowed in AR and under what circumstances it was going to be allowed in AR. So when he was expecting to get approved for this permit, he wasn't given the permit. He was told he can't get a permit until they decide what they're doing. And so he wasn't given a permit, even though he had a legal nonconforming use in place at the time. And then had he been issued a permit, his argument or his issue is still the same with the Rural Land Management Group. But you're saying that's a different fight. That's a different issue. And again, our argument is that that issue is not properly before the board. I understand staff's position. And I think that's what I'm making sure you're saying. You're saying that he should have been grandfathered in and then your fight is with the courts over a different contract. Yes. I mean, it's two different things. The PDR program is what it is. again, I'm not denying my client entered into the agreement. We're just having a dispute about what the agreement says. And you can't have a party to the agreement make the determination as to who's right and who's wrong. That has to be determined by a court. It's basically a contract. It's an easement agreement, but it's basically a contract. And that has to be determined by a court. That hasn't been determined yet. Therefore, my argument is the board really can't consider that fairly. So what would the court decide? What would a court decide? What would the argument be for you to present to the court? That would be a hypothetical argument at this point, Mr. Clark. I guess my question is, before we get to what the court would, what are you saying this board is supposed to do? I think this board is supposed to totally ignore the PDR agreement. It has nothing to do with whether or not this man qualifies for a short-term rental based on all the other criteria. There's a dispute between the Rural Land Management Board and Mr. Walker, and the staff has now weighed in as well, saying, we've determined that this is what this says. Well, my argument is the staff doesn't have the authority to do that, all due respect to the staff and counsel. They're not a court of competent jurisdiction. Again, your analogy of the deed restrictions, I think, is fairly apropos. I know there's some distinguishment that you can argue with that. But again, you don't get involved with whether or not the short-term rentals are subject to deed restrictions. You don't hear it because it's beyond the scope of the board's authority. That's my argument here. Now, am I saying that we're totally going to ignore this? No. Ultimately, there will have to be some sort of resolution as to what this PDR agreement says or means or something needs to be worked out between the parties. But that's not before you all today is what I'm saying. So is this the only rental that he has in PDR? That's my understanding, yes, ma'am. Because you kept talking about the other ones and so. Well, again, I was mentioning that he's a successful operator of short-term rentals. Sure. I was just wondering if this was the only one in PDR. It is the only one that has a PDR agreement. It's the only one in the AR zone is my understanding. I have a question. Yes, sir. This may be for Mr. Walker rather than you. Okay. When you signed the PDR agreement, were you aware that the STRs constituted a commercial use that was not allowed on the PDR property? And I don't believe that it says that specifically. I will say this, every year as part of PDR program, I actually have three properties in the PDR, two that I own and one that my father owned up until fairly recently. That specific property I assisted in getting in because I was going to get a 10-acre parcel of land. And because the PDR program was in place, well, it could only be one 60-acre parcel. It's okay. And I still champion the program and still do. Every year, they send out somebody to inspect the property. Every year, I tell them exactly what I'm doing, give them free reign of the place. You can see whatever you want. Usually, they just go to the gates because I've got big dogs. But we don't even use weed kill at our property. We're very cautious. That precipitated, that short-term rental was in place over a year prior to entering into this agreement. so to answer your question yeah I don't think that it says that but it's been well documented that this usage has been going on long before I entered into that agreement does that help? so when you were excuse me Mr. Warkman when you agreed to the PDR agreement you already had an SDR involved and they knew that I believe so, yes, sir. I know that it was, yeah, 100%. It was in place, or I'm sorry, I was using it as a short-term rental. Yeah. That was in place, and yearly inspections were being done, and I'm always very out front and forthright. I actually sent a letter to the Rural Land Management Board back when because I sat on the short-term rental advisory board with James Brown and Lee Sheehan for two years. For two years, we never mentioned even any capacity of treating agricultural land differently. Then when all that's done, all the work's done, we all got inundated with it, all AR stuff was put on hold. Yeah, rather to get into my own personal feelings about that, that's the way it happened. But I did spend two years and sent a letter to the Land Management Board saying, I'm on board of adjustments. I own multiple PDR properties. I own short-term rental in rural or agricultural property. Let me help. I'd love to help steer this toward a direction. So, yeah, it was already existing. Yeah, thank you. Board, I would like to make a couple clarifications here that I think might help the board somewhat. And the first one, and if staff needs to weigh in, maybe they can, but daily rentals, residential housing, was never allowed until the short-term rental ordinance was passed in 2023. You could only rent on maybe a weekly basis, I believe, for up to eight occupants. So the argument about this being a legally non-conforming use prior to that, I respectfully have to disagree that it was not a normal permanent use because that wasn't even allowed until the ordinance was passed. And I also want to point out that it sounds like what's being requested here is for you to just disregard the PDR and go ahead and approve the STR that's been requested and leave that to the courts. I think that the position of the Rural Land Management Board and director of our program was made clear prior to this being heard. So he had the same option to seek a deck, which is what he would have to do if that was what he thought was best over this disagreement. This is being done in a backward way. You're being asked to approve something that we contend is not an allowable use. So if you approve this, then another arm of the government is going to have to go through and file their own action to enforce against something that you approve. So it's just a little backward to me, but again, I just want to make our advice clear and clear up any legal points in that that we disagree with. Unless it's approved with the condition of the other board approving it? I would, if you go that route, and I'm not suggesting you do, but again, you're the decision maker. If you add a condition, and it needs to be a very clear one, that they would need to get approval from the Rural Land Management Board and from, I believe, NCRS. I don't know if that's going to happen, but I would suggest that at the very minimum. I can only ask that in particular because of what Brandon had mentioned earlier about how we did not address PDR specifically. so you know maybe we should have and i know we keep updating and changing this as we go but it seems like it if it were in place probably should have been more specifically outlined in there i don't know let me ask you a question um council is there a way um My uncomfort is the finding a fact in that is there a way for us to disapprove this but not accept or find a determination that we've accepted the interpretation of the Rural Land Management Board of what this agreement states. And the reason I'm asking that is because I've not even seen the agreement. The agreement was in the letter. And so I guess the question is, I don't necessarily want to say the PDR easement prohibits short-term rentals when I've not looked. and then it's kind of strange to have a party to an agreement be the ones that can interpret the agreement. Just for me, I try to wrap my head around these two items. So you're asking if there's a way to adopt findings for disapproval that don't consider the PDR easement? Well, I'm not saying not necessarily. I mean, I guess my problem is I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. I don't necessarily want to say I agree with the rural land management boards. interpretation because all we have is a letter that says it's not included, but it's not specified in the easement that it's not included. We have more than that, actually. Oh, yeah, we can hear from them. I think that there's more evidence than that that might answer your question. Okay. Hopefully, if not, we'll come back to it. That sounds good to me. Thank you, ma'am. Yeah. Madam Chair, if I may address one point. There was previously weekly rentals. You can call those short term. I think daily, weekly, short term kind of fits within that definition. Now, if you rented for two days, well that was your rental for the week. If you rented all the way for the whole week, well then it was a weekly rental. I guess you could characterize it like that. But each short-term rental owner and operator had to work within that framework because that was the existing framework that was there at the time. So these things were rented by the week, and if they only rented for three days, well, again, that was the short-term rental. Two days, one day, it counted as a week. So to clarify, I ask that our LexTV personnel add the ordinance to the overhead for you. Item K of 313 speaks to that specifically. So short-term rental operating in a principal dwelling prior to July 11, 2023, located in a zone that would hereafter prohibit, which included the AR zones, would be allowed to continue its operation as a non-conforming use. The issue with that is even if you were operating weekly, as the rest of that sentence goes on to talk about, it wasn't in the principal residence. And in the ag zones, you cannot rent a tenant home or another structure on your property out for a short-term rental. Well, I'm sorry, I missed what you're saying. You're saying it had to be the principal residence? It had to be the principal residence on the property. You couldn't be renting out an accessory structure or a second dwelling unit on the property. Okay. And I'll tell the board, the staff had about 45 contacts with agricultural property owners. and I can't remember if it's 12 or 14, there were only a limited number that met that definition. They were renting out the principal structure. It had been occurring before July 11, 2023, and they had the evidence of that, and they were doing weekly rentals. And so we only issued, let's say it's 14, 14 short-term rental zoning compliance permits that then went on to get their license from revenue that met that. There were another 30 that couldn't meet it, and were going to have to be addressed by the work that the Rural Land Management Board was doing and then their information that they passed on to the council in terms of how should we regulate this for the rest of those property owners that do wish to do short-term rentals. And as you know, they drafted an ordinance, and then it came to the Planning Commission, and then the council adopted it in January of this year. And those are the rules that have gone into effect. So this section doesn't really apply to anybody anymore because now our ordinance addresses every zone. But it does speak to Mr. Clendenin's assertion that there is some nonconformity. I think from the staff perspective, if they had met these regulations, we would have given them a zoning compliance permit. And they could have continued to operate. But any of those 30 property owners that did not, we didn't issue them a zoning compliance permit. They had to wait for the zoning ordinance to address the agricultural zones. Well, again, then we're getting into how are you defining principal dwelling? Because we have two dwellings. situated on that property. Now, one, they live there. So that means if that's how you're going to define principal dwelling, the owner lives there, or there's another fully furnished home that's there could also be considered a principal dwelling. So I don't know how we're going to define that. I think we did have some public comment as well. I believe we did, right? I think we have Ms. Overman, the Executive Director of the Rural Land Management Board. We probably want to hear from her. Absolutely. And then we'll allow you guys to come back up. Hello. Hello, I'm Beth Overman, the PDR Director. So in August of 2020, the Rural Land Management Board and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, called NRCS, purchased an easement on this property. Taxpayer dollars, both local and federally, were used. So the NRCS does have enforcement rights. The Rural Land Management Board also has enforcement rights, and the NRCS has those rights to step in and do that if we don't do our job and enforce this easement. So Mr. Walker did not come to us. We found out about this from the staff and from it being on your all's weekly report that they send out internally of all the applications. So that would have been step one and could have maybe prevented us all being here. The easement does also require notice if you want to undertake certain actions. And so communicating with us first and discussing this would have been step one, ideally. We were not aware that he has been operating this since 2019. When we do easement monitoring, we look at the land, we look at the property to ensure that it's being taken care of, that the soils are not being, you know, that they're not in bad shape, that nothing is going on. We contract with someone who was an NRCS employee for approximately 30 years who's now retired, named Charlie Farmer. He primarily does that. Charlie's very conscientious and thorough. And so I think if it were reported to him that someone was violating the easement, that would not be something he would disregard or not report to us because he also turns in a report to the federal government every year after these visits. So I would also note, in addition to what Tracy shared about that, that the zoning ordinance only allows farm workers and family members to reside in farm-employed dwelling units. You cannot use those. So if it were being used back then, then that wasn't compliant with zoning either. So as far as our easement goes, since there have been questions about that, I also want to say it's not just a contract, as Mr. Clendenin said. The contract is what we sign when we make an offer to purchase. This is a recorded easement that is perpetual, that runs with the property. It is recorded with the, if you go to the Fayette County Clerk's Office, it is right there with the deed of ownership, the mortgage, everything else. So it runs with the property forever. So I'll first call your attention to Section 5, Prohibited Uses, except as permitted in Section 6 herein, commercial or industrial uses of the protected property are prohibited. NRCS, in a conference call I had with them last week, also pointed out Section K. Any unanticipated activity or use of the protected property is prohibited. That would impair significant conservation interest. And then we get into the ones that we... I'm sorry, can you pause just a moment? That's not this that we're reading. We're reading a different section. It's our recorded easement, yes. I was trying to follow, and then I wasn't. Okay, sorry, yes. That's not it, okay. And then Section 5S, industrial or commercial, temporary or seasonal outdoor activities or events are prohibited. Commercial enterprises related to agritourism are prohibited. And commercial cafes, restaurant shops, studios for arts and crafts or bed and breakfast are prohibited. And then in the reserved rights, it talks about the housing that's allowed, and it specifically says that tenant houses, which are farm-employed-dewilding units, can only be utilized by people who are employed on the property. They cannot even be family members per this easement, as it was written at that time. So that is all there. And then as far as we have, you know, grantees' remedies, we have injective relief since this all came up, cost of enforcement. We then get into Section 11, which is the United States right of enforcement. and I'd like to enter into the record an email that Mr. Walker received from NRCS from the State Director of Easements last week on June 3rd. Can you all display that, please? It says, and this is from Brian Jones with the NRCS, based on the terms of the deed stated on page 9 in section 5, short-term rentals would be a prohibited activity. See attached letter from Elizabeth Oberman and recorded easement deed. So that is the federal government also saying that this is not allowed. Do we have any questions? Okay. Thank you. And we did, let's try public, did we have some public comment here? You guys are for a different case. Okay. Ms. Overman mentioned enforcement rights. Well, my question would, and it's a rhetorical one, how would she choose to enforce? So, yes, the United States government has enforcement rights. The Bureau of Land Management has enforcement rights. Mr. Walker has enforcement rights. I understand she wants to say that it's an easement agreement. I don't dispute that, but it's interpreted and construed in a court of law as a contract. Same criteria. What does this say? And to enforce it, which is what I'm saying, it hasn't been enforced yet. There's a dispute as to what it says between the parties. In order for that to be heard here properly, it has to be adjudicated and enforced by the parties in a court of law. That has not occurred yet. That goes straight to my argument. regardless of what, with due respect to Ms. Overman, regardless to what she thinks it says, or the staff thinks it says, it hasn't been adjudicated by someone who has the authority to decide what it says. That's our argument here. On every other measure, Mr. Walker meets the criteria to get this permit granted. All I'm asking is that you disregard the PDR at this point. If you want to put a condition on something saying we'll approve this on the condition that this PDR dispute issue is resolved at some point or a deadline or something like that, I don't have a problem with that. This has not been adjudicated yet, though. So for the board to take it up and to let it influence your decision and base findings of fact on your decision, I just respectfully disagree with. I would ask that you just look at every other thing, every other criteria that you normally look at for Mr. Walker as to whether or not you should grant this. and the PDR, again, they have every right to enforce it if they think that it says this, that, or the other. I'm not disputing that, but the parties can't determine what something says. They have their right to say that this is what we think it says and this is what we're trying to enforce, but we haven't gotten to that stage yet. So I'd ask you to disregard the agreement with the PDR in terms of your decision. Thank you. Unless you have other questions of me. So when you sign for PDR, though, too, you get money for your easement, correct? And that's part of the agreement of the signing of the PDR? Correct. And I'm not disputing Mr. Walker entered into the agreement, nor am I disputing he took the money. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Walker? I would also like to say just because it was brought up, the email from NRCS was well after the email I received. And all I got was a certified letter saying you can't do it. Rural Land Management Board, as far as I can tell, did not speak with NRCS in any capacity. And I spoke with that person direct. Then he contacted Ms. Overman. and I had asked to be at those meetings so I could try to figure out what's going on. I was denied. And, of course, then I get a letter after everybody gets their ducks in a row saying, well, now you can't do it. Any further questions? Oh, I'm sorry. I just want to clarify one point. So I did speak with NRCS. Mr. Walker actually reached out to one of their people who were a lead person on easements back in April, and she pulled up the easement while she spoke with him and pointed out this language and then called me, and we discussed it. So that was before we even sent our letter and decided that that's how we would remedy it or would be our first step to try to enforce the easement. and NRCS is copied on the letter that we sent to Mr. Walker. Also, it's been asserted that we have to go to court to do things. I've been in this role 11 and a half years. We've never gone to court, thankfully. We just generally, if someone is in violation of their easement, we send a notice of violation or a letter telling them that what they're asking is doing, and most people comply. So that is not something that has to go to court. That is not generally how we handle it. Most people do comply with their easements after we've let them know that pointed out the language that's important to that. So thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Beth, let me ask you this question. In your letter, you have Section 5 prohibited uses. Is any commercial use not specifically reserved in Section 6? I'm not sure exactly what that is. But on commercial enterprises related to agritourism, that's not an STR, is it? I would let Brittany speak to that. Farm stays are defined as agritourism in Kentucky. And also it says bed and breakfast operations. That's not an STR. No. So why were those listed as prohibited when we're talking about the STRs? Commercial, well, because, I'm sorry. STRs as a use in our ordinance and in our community weren't really regulated then. So they weren't listed in easements dating back into the 80s, 90s, 2000s. There was no reason to list that as a prohibited use because it wasn't even within the realm of conversations. They were bed and breakfast. That was the, yeah. But they're not listed as bed and breakfast now. A short term rental? Yeah. It is not, no. community decided to regulate them differently. All right, thank you. We have further questions and discussions. I do. This is for staff. Mr. Clendenin has asserted that other than this PDR threshold question that Mr. Walker has provided other evidence that he would otherwise comply to receive a short-term rental? Is that something we need to address? Or I guess my question is, he's saying they comply, and you're saying we can't even get to that question yet. And so I guess would we ignore that in your opinion? It was our opinion in conversations with the law department that the easement is a threshold issue. It prohibits the use. So why would we continue to dive into the rest of the regulations to give a second recommendation when we acknowledge that our division acknowledges the deed of restrictions and it restricting or limiting the use of the property? Okay. Can we postpone this decision pending? I'm Jill Walker, and I live at 5167 Briar Hill Road, and I'm technically the hostess of the short-term rental. I just wanted to give a little bit of information about it. It's a very lovely, peaceful property that we take really good care of and conserve the property. Like my husband said, we don't even use weed kill. Our property also backs up to 3201 Houston Antioch, which is another 80 acres that's also in the PDR program. And we, about four years ago on that property, stopped allowing commercial farming where they used Roundup and pesticides to spray to grow corn and soybeans. and later gifted the usage to seed leaf under one condition of no more weed kill. It might be harder, but it's better for the land. And since then, we've seen fireflies come back. We have blue heron nests and beavers. We've got bald eagles and foxes, coyotes, all kinds of wildlife in this little area that's just seven miles from Hamburg. And when I hosted, I would, in my description, let my potential guests know about my strict house rules, that we did live on site, that our house is about 100 feet away from the guest house, that there were animals. And I just wanted them to know what to expect. And it deterred any requests for guests that may have wanted to have a party or mischief, things like that. In turn, there were families that sought out to stay there because they were excited to stay in the country. They wanted to feed chickens and collect eggs. They enjoyed feeding and petting the goats and giving sour apples to my cow. I got nothing but five-star reviews from families that met up at this house to go to weddings or to tour other farms in and around the area. just saying how much they loved it, how much their kids enjoyed it. And I did as well. I got to meet a lot of kids, teach them things about the animals, and it was nothing but a good thing, and it did nothing but preserve the agricultural land and allow others to benefit in it, and I don't see what the problem with that is. And that's all I really wanted to say, and thank you very much for considering us. I guess I got another question for Mr. Clendenin. Yes, sir. It looks like we've got a situation where I've got two parties with two interpretations of a document. Wouldn't the more prudent route be for a declaration act and then come to us? I think there's a lot of uncomfort on the board for us having to weigh in on this. and have to make this interpretation. So I guess the question is, would that be more prudent for this to be continued and you guys to figure it out and then come back to us later at a later date? Give me one minute if you don't mind. Okay. I'm going to make a little bit more of a little bit more of a little bit more of a little bit more I'm going to make a little bit more Thank you. Thank you. What kind of guitar do you sound like primarily? What kind of guitar do you sound like? I don't know. I don't know which one. Is it a hollow body? Is it a solid body? It's a solid body. But he plays both. But generally he's an electric guitar. Yeah. It's a solid body. But that's a small one. All I know is I paid for it. But it's hidden as well. I've got two hollow bodies. Two bass. Can you tell if it's hollow if it's electric? Can you tell if it's hollow if it's electric? Oh yeah. Okay, then it's solid. The acoustics are... Oh, yeah, no, it's a song. He's got an acoustic. I guess he can. Ms. Carter, should we take a couple-minute recess while the parties are talking so I can go to the restroom? Well, if we want to put that on the record, yes, could we please... It's already on the record. Please, finding a fact that Mr. Gross needs to use the restroom. You shouldn't win last time. The rest of us win. But no, we will take a short recess. Thank you. The End We will reconvene. Oh, yes. The floor is yours. If the board would be okay with this, based on Mr. Gross's suggestion, we would agree to continue this for another month with the aim of trying to resolve the issue with the Rural Land Management Board. They've agreed to at least meet with us at this point. and then maybe there would be no issue with regard to the PDR program. My only concern is that if we were to do that and postpone, there's another short-term rental application waiting next, and if that one was approved ahead of us, then we might not be able to be approved later on because of the one-mile rule. So if we can do something to protect Mr. Walker with respect to that issue, then we'd be okay with postponing this until July. It looks like counsel for the other parties want to get in, and it would be a continuance of the hearing, not a postponement of this case. And then I guess two things, I guess if the legal wants to weigh in a little bit and maybe even Tracy is, I know it is first come, first serve on getting these. What do we do in a situation where we've got a case like this if we continue it and then someone within a mile comes forward as our case is in two cases from now? Do we postpone that one and then hear them both next month? And I'll let him chime in a second, but, you know, yeah. So are you going to, like, get permission and something in a document form from the NCRS and from the Rural Land Management Board that say that they're okay with this? Or I'm trying to figure out the goal. That is the goal. It may be that a lawsuit's filed for action for declaratory judgment and a court decides the issue. I don't want to go that route, but that may be what happens. I can't tell you at this point. But the goal is to try to resolve the issue amicably and see if we can come to an agreement with- I guess if there's government money involved, you might have to reach out to them as well. You mean the federal government? Yeah. Yes, ma'am, you're probably correct. Yeah. If I may? Yes, please introduce yourself for the record and come on to the party. Yes, thanks. Will Matthews here on behalf of the applicant. I think it's number five on your list. They are also applying for a conditional use permit for a short-term rental within one mile of the subject property here. And I think just to begin to say we had applied for a conditional use permit and also a variance to change that one mile rule. The variance was only applied for purely if his had gotten approved. However, it does not seem fair to make my client wait possibly months and months on end for continuance hearings because of someone else's contractual rights that they did. My client did not enter into any PDRs. There is no restrictive easements. It just makes no sense for them to have to keep showing up here month by month because somebody else is violating a deed or an easement, if you will say. So I think we'll obviously hear in my case when it comes up, but we do not condone any mutual postponement of our action as a result of the other party's positions. Thank you. Thank you. No, I don't have a question. Mr. Simpson. We'll talk to you in a moment. Madam Chair, Bruce Simpson again, Representative Louise and Allie. We object her to the next case, the gentleman that just spoke. I think the case before you now has priority to be heard. Obviously, what you decide is outcome determinative on the need for a variance. If you approve it, they're going to have to get the variance. If you deny it, they won't. It seems only prudent to hear this case and let it be finally decided by this board first. I would also point out that it would be prudent to postpone our case for at least past the 30-day time limit for an appeal, unless you decide it today, because if they decide to take an appeal, if you're in denial, and the courts ultimately determine you're wrong, then they're going to be approved, and if you approve the second one, that's going to be in violation of the ordinance, without even considering the variance request. So from the standpoint of judicial economy and prudence, the better posture is to hear this case first. Let the 30 days lapse in terms of any appeal to be taken. A lot of arguments get made, but then an appeal is not taken because of the expense involved and the delay. But these things are filed in order. It's been going on this way for many, many years, decades. And parties that come before these tribunals know they have to wait their turn. So it's no hardship on the second applicant to wait to see what the decision is with respect to this case, and I think a postponement is prudent. Thank you. Just to clarify, we're just asking for 30 days to continue the case, not months and months and months. Okay, then we'll be back here. Either this issue will be resolved or we'll be asking you for a decision that we can then take up on appeal if we need to, or the other side can take up on appeal if they choose to. Real quick. I guess Mr. Simpson brings up an interesting issue. if we were to disapprove mr walter today and then two cases now we were to and then a court were to say we were wrong later would we possibly have two permits within the well it depends what you do on remand so um if the court remanded if the court said you're you're incorrect, remand this for new findings, then you're going to have a brand new hearing, and you may disapprove it at that time for I don't know what reasons. It's hard for me to answer that question theoretically, but you could run into the mile issue. I can't eliminate that. I couldn't say that's not an issue. So no magic wand today. I'm sorry. If I may, we're here ready today, and they can seek a variance at a later date if they're not ready today. That's the only thing I would say is they have that. There's not like they have no recourse. They can seek a variance just as we were planning to do, but we're here today, and we're ready. Thank you. Are you permitted to seek a variance from this one mile? Yes, you are? Okay, I could not recall. Can I just add a clarification? yes, you can seek a variance from it, but you do have to also find that it wouldn't be an unreasonable circumvention of the zoning regulations if you grant it. So there's always that finding you would have to make in each case. Okay. I just need to clarify one thing, and Brittany or Tracy can speak to this, but so what we will can, we are not going to agree to an STR at any point. if what they would like to discuss with us is a farm stay, which is a type of bed and breakfast. And so that we are not going to agree to an SDR. Now there is an RCS. So those are described, you know, as you all well know, those are defined differently in our ordinance. They're two separate things. So I just wanted to... So I want to... Go ahead, Beth. Before and yourself. Well, the law department has already made this decision about our easement. And NRCS has spoken. So our board would not go against NRCS. What I'm saying is there are two separate things. So if they were to come back later and file an application for a bed and breakfast or a farm stay, that's the type of – and so I'll let the experts in planning speak to that. I just wanted to say that an STR is not something that will be approved because that's something separate. And that's already been handed down, that that's not allowed. So that's all. Thank you. I'll just note, if they come back with a different type of application, I'm just going to use farm stay as an example right now. That was not what was noticed when we sent out the notices. so we'd have to do new notices, and that would have to become a new application, I think, at that point. I think we would have to look into that about that. Now, if it's a bed and breakfast or something different, then maybe it doesn't necessarily deal with the short-term rental regulations, so maybe that solves some of this. I don't know. There's a lot of what-ifs and things spinning on here. But I just want to make that note that what was mailed out as notice for this case, for this property that went out to the people within the vicinity was for it to be a short-term rental, not to be farm stay, bed and breakfast, whatever they end up working out. Because farm stay is not the same as a short-term rental. Yes. But different. So bed and breakfast is where you live there in the home with the people who come. So what is the, and then the farm stay is for? James. We can pull it up. Farm stay is part of the definition or part of the use. It's kind of considered in conjunction with a bed and breakfast and there are multiple criteria you have to meet to meet the requirements of a bed and breakfast as well. But the bed and breakfast, do you stay in the home with the people, correct? Yeah. I can pull up the definition just give me a moment. Definition is on screen. Does still first have to be a bed and breakfast? Yeah, that's Karis. That one looks worse because it says agritourism, which is stated in the easement. But it also calls it a bed and breakfast. So it's not allowed. Which is also not allowed in their easement. So in our ordinance, we allow in the AR zone a bed and breakfast, including a farmstay. A farmstay is a very specific kind of bed and breakfast. So our definition of bed and breakfast requires that the owner live on site, but they don't necessarily have to be in the same structure. Just live on site. Let that go. They're going to leave it. Go ahead. Finally, Madam Chair, just to reiterate, I think Mr. Gross has made a prudent recommendation for a postponement to consider and get these issues resolved on this case that you've already spent three hours on. I think it needs to be a final. We postpone cases frequently to get matters resolved. If they can, if they can't, they come back in a month, you make a decision. The second case is intimately linked to this case. because if it gets approved, then they need a variance. They've asked for a variance. So it's only fitting and proper and prudent to hear this case first. 30 days to see if they can work out these issues you've been talking about now for three hours, come back and have a final decision. That's the protocol. They're lined up this way. Everybody takes their turn. So again, for staff, what we're saying is if farm stay is the path that they may choose to go with working with the rural land board, then that's a different application. That's not a continuance of what we're hearing already. There's a new application that would take place requesting the conditional use for a bed and breakfast farm stay. Is that correct? Yes, it's a different conditional use request, right? Conditional use for a short-term rental is listed in one section, and then in a different line is where bed and breakfast is listed. So it would be a different application. So it would no longer be a continuance. They'd have to amend their application. But granting a continuance allows them the opportunity to work through that, and if they do need to amend their application, bring us the required documentation for that. But it appears you're not going to get the STR if they're saying that. So I guess the question is, to me, looking at what a farm stay is, I find that more problematic than the short-term rental because the definition includes things that are clearly prohibited in the language. I understand. I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Yes, and so, I mean, we may come back saying we're going to amend our application and ask for a farm stay. That may be what happens. We may be coming back saying we couldn't work anything out, and we want you to decide this case on the merits. And if we don't like the decision, or we do like the decision, someone, like I said, will appeal. And that may be what happens. So we haven't decided anything yet, and we're just asking for 30 days for the opportunity to try to work something out with rural land management. If it's possible, it may not be. But we'd like the opportunity to do that, and I think that would be hopefully welcomed by the board. I frankly agree with Mr. Simpson's interpretation and I agree with his analysis of this, that we're entitled to be where we're at in the queue here, if you will. We're asking for a continuance. We want to stay in our place ahead of the other group. We're only asking for a 30-day continuance of this hearing. And at that time, we'll either say we've worked something out, we're amending our application, or please give us a decision. and then you can move forward with the other application. It seems like, though, that she already spoke about what the rural land management guidelines are, and I don't know that they're going to change. I don't know that either, ma'am. I honestly don't. And again, like I said, we may come back and say we couldn't get them to change their mind, or we couldn't work something out with a farm stay. So please, we need you, however you want to conduct the next hearing, if we come back and say we weren't able to work anything out, we're not going to amend our application, then we'll be back here for a decision. And then we'll go through whatever additional time hearing you might require to decide this issue. we're just asking just asking for continuance but we don't want to lose our place in line if you will yeah madam chair um i think we've heard enough from all the parties and i'd say not we can always reopen discussion if we do continue with this but i'd like to just bring it back to the board and Let's make a decision and figure out which direction we want to go and move on with the docket. I think we've heard enough. I'm fine with that. We'll have some discussion. Well, I guess my position is I'm not really comfortable personally supporting a party to a contract, make a determination of what it is and for us to just follow it especially when that party's the government that's just my libertarian streak in me and so um but the staff's also not reviewed the application so with that being said i'm gonna let that's just kind of my gut feeling but i understand if people are ready to move for a continuance i'm not Now, based upon what we have heard, I'm not sure what a continuance will accomplish other than Ms. Carter doesn't have to deal with it next month. That'd be the only thing. So what do you mean by the staff hasn't seen the application? Well, I mean, they didn't. They had a threshold. They said, well, PDR stopped. We didn't even review any of the evidence on whether or not they would recommend approval of the STR. I think looking at the file, I feel comfortable there's enough there to approve an SDR. You feel comfortable with that? I think there's enough in the file to say an SDR would be fine at this location based upon the file and the testimony. But the staff didn't make a review because their position is it's a threshold. since the applicant doesn't get past the PDR question, they didn't even review whether or not an STR would otherwise be appropriate at this location. I think there's enough here for it to be an appropriate location. And so that's just my general feeling, and I would likely support the STR fully if there wasn't this PDR question hanging over everything. So would they be willing to take it out of PDR? That's a possibility. Take it out of? Yeah, you can take them out of PDR. Oh, yeah, and I don't know. And that could be part of the 30-day. The problem is I don't want to just kick this can down and then come back here and then I'll work. I just don't want to. I mean, there's a problem. There's a problem. I don't have any comfort that the two parties are going to come to an arrangement in which the Rural Land Management Board next month is going to come in here and say, you know what? We're going to agree to an STR. and that would be the whole point of a continuance. If they're going to go with the farm stay, to me, that's more problematic because the definition has all the trigger words that are actually in the easement that Ms. Overman recommended. So I just don't know what we would get with a continuance. I think it's a beautiful farm. I think it would be a cool place for an STR, but I think that there's too many entities in place that have regulated exactly what they want on a PDR farm and what they don't want. So I guess the first question, gentlemen and ladies, is do you want to continue it or do you want to make a decision? I think we've kicked it around the block several times already. Okay, and if you guys don't want to continue it, I guess the question is where are you? you guys on this. Legal counsel has given us their opinion. I've kind of given you my opinion, which is just one of six up here. And so if you guys want to not continue it, then if somebody wants to follow staff's recommendation, then I'd say make a motion and then they can file a suit if they feel like it and have the court decide whether or not we made the right decision. Are you all ready? Are you all finished with your discussion? All right. This is hard. So I make a motion for PLNBOA 2541. Chad Walker requests a conditional use permit for a hosted short-term rental in the Ag Zone on the property located at 5167 Briar Hill Road. And I'm going to go with the staff recommendation, and the staff recommends disapproval. the property is subject to PDR easement, which prohibits the use of property as a short-term rental until or unless the Rural Land Management Board, in conjunction with the National Resources Conservation Service, finds that a short-term rental does not violate the easement language. No permission should be granted to such a use. Okay. We have a first. Do we have a second? Mr. Persley has offered a second. Any further discussion? I will just add that I think a vote here, a decision, does actually give you the space to move forward to the next step instead of drawing it out anymore. So I wouldn't just continue it for 30 days and continue to keep you in limbo. I just want to say that I'm going to vote against it simply because in every way the request is approvable. In every extent, with the assumption that the PDR prohibits it, that's the exception. But I have a problem with the fact that this is just very personal and not legal. That's me. here's a gentleman who even though he's paid to do it he also has the inclination to preserve the land that's awfully important for us and so because of that he's being told by the very group that in encouraging this that he can't do something with an SDR which doesn't seem right to me and yet right next door, if this is the case, they don't care about preserving the land. They'll do whatever they can do, but they can have an SDR. There's something wrong with that. So I'm going against this. I never knew what to do with these. I didn't either. Brittany said that we can move to approve, but it's likely to come to the same result. But the question then becomes, if we take no action, what does somebody appeal? Is no action the same as a lawsuit? In this instance, what? That is a really good question you asked there, Mr. Gross. So I think my in brief answer would be you've taken action on it by taking a vote. But that vote did not result in the approval of a conditional use permit. So as far as what to appeal, well, that's true. That's not going to help here. Without basically giving my legal advice to Mr. Walker, so essentially this could take a number of forms, like it could be the form of a writ to force you to make a decision with findings. It would be an appeal, but there were no findings. I don't have a magic wand. I guess your point is there is avenues available for the applicant to go to circuit court. Yeah, I see avenues available. This happens, but this isn't a case where it would be... Well, it's not one that you can ask somebody to reapply the next month. That's normally what we do in these cases, is that somebody is given leave to apply next time without having to wait a year because there wasn't a, I guess that's still the case now, but I don't know if it would help when we are going to have a maximum of six people that will be hearing it. Well, and then it's still, just from my perspective, the reason for it, again, is it met our criteria, but not the PDR. It sounds like it's another body that does have to make the decision or have, because it meets our STR. Yes. Fresh holes otherwise. Right. So I hope I answered your question as best I can, Mr. Gross. Okay. Well, I guess, Madam Chair, do we want to go through the, I guess, would any of I make a motion to approve, would anyone change their vote in support and approval? I think it will be the same. All right. I wonder if we can find out. Okay. Well, but I don't want to go through the work and do a finance effect. Oh, yeah. If it's a three, you're still going to be. I'll just put out there the option, I'm sure, to reapply would remain open. So if there was an odd number of people on the board, I don't know. I'll just put that out there. Okay. Okay. Well. So the words are the motion has failed. Okay. You got to go back to work? No. Okay. so then we can hear the one we'll get here jonathan rawwitz last one yeah but the other one you know clearly chad would have to refuse himself Thank you. All right. Our next item is PLNBOA 2556, Jonathan Rollins. It has been recommended for disapproval, so staff will present first. You about broke us. What are you doing now? All right, are we ready? I think so. So this is a request for a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in a single-family residential R1C zone on property located at 2116 Clay's Mill Road. You can see the subject property highlighted here in light blue. Here is a picture of the property. There's some trees. It's a little bit hard to see, but this is the subject property. Here's just another view of the subject property, also showing the road out front and the parking situation a little bit. Here is the site plan from the applicant. They are showing that they would have three cars parking, stacking into the driveway here. So I'm going to mention the relief provisions in the zoning ordinance. Staff's recommendation touches on these to some extent. So basically, if a request does not meet the requirements of the zoning ordinance, there are relief provisions put into the ordinance that say, If you meet one of these reasons, then you can possibly rule out some of the short-term rentals that may be causing an issue if there's one within 600 feet or you're over 2% within the 1,000 feet. Those three criteria are that, one, excuse me, those three reasons are that the property is adjacent to non-residential zones that allow short-term rentals as a principal or accessory use. Two, that there is a significant environmental feature or minor arterial or higher classification road that separates the proposed short-term rental from other unhosted short-term rentals within the buffer area. Or three, that an unhosted short-term rental within the buffer area is located on the perimeter of the buffer area with part of the property being located outside of the buffer area. For this case, staff found that none of these three criteria were met. None of the relief provisions were met, and that's where staff went with a disapproval recommendation. So I'll hover here. They are meeting within the 1,000 feet. They're just under the 2%. They're at 1.94. However, the red line here shows the 600-foot buffer. The red rectangle that I'm circling here is the subject property. The two short-term rentals that we have within 600 feet are here. So not on the edge of the buffer, not separated by an arterial street here. and the zoning does not apply here. Here's that data just in word format, basically saying that there are two within 600 feet and there are six within 1,000 feet, which ends up with a 1.94% number. So staff is recommending this approval for the following reasons. One, the four factors listed in Article 313G of the zoning ordinance have been evaluated, in addition to the requirements of the Article 7 of the zoning ordinance and KRS 100.237. Second, that no other short-term rental has been cited in the vicinity as a nuisance and the applicant has no history of compliance issues. However, based on a review of the ArcGIS concentration mapping data, there are two short-term rentals operating within the required 600-foot buffer area. And finally, the applicant does not meet any of the three provisions for relief set forth an article 13, 3, excuse me, 313M of the zoning ordinance. And that's it for stats presentation if you have any questions for me. Yeah, real quick on the, make sure I'm following this, on the 2%, you're right underneath it, but that's based upon the 1,000? Yes, so the blue circle that goes around, the larger blue circle, that's the 1,000-foot buffer. That is the 2%. You can't have more than 2% total within the 1,000-foot. Then what would be the – did you say what the percentage would be within the 600 feet? We don't do the percentage. You don't even do that? Okay. We just have – you cannot have one within 600 feet of your property, and they have two. Okay. Mm-hmm. Thank you. no problem is there anything else for me before i step away yeah i don't think so the applicant can conform that's fine just in case thanks and I am an architectural woman so I'm enjoying these meetings several thousand weeks. Thank you. I just want to thank you. I got a vote. We had my girlfriend. She has a very enjoyable list. Really? You'll have to come hang out with me somewhere else. That's one of us in the room. Service, yes. Enjoyment, mm-hmm. No. That's great. Yeah, right. All right. You can kind of start us off. Oh, sorry. This is me. I'm sorry. Oh, yes. I apologize if I jump around just a little bit. I'm going to try to give this a little more condensed version than what I had. Again, my name is John Owens. I appreciate the opportunity to address the board regarding my proposed short-term rental. That's my girlfriend Lisa. She's with me today. She lives in Moorhead for the last nine years. She's been working at UK for the last 28. As mentioned in my original statement that was attached to my application, I would like to propose a temporary as well as part-time unhosted short-term rental of the house. I've raised my children and lived in for 20 years. I've been dating Lisa, who lives in Moorhead for several years now, and whose daughter will graduate in three years, at which point in time we plan to move back to Lexington, where she is from. And then the house will go back into my regular or our regular residence and forego any other short-term rental activities. During this three-year time frame, I will continue living at this address when available, to save time and money on commuting the nearly three hours daily. I will continue working five minutes from my house at my job that I've had for 18 years, as well as league bowling, albeit horribly, on Southland Lanes. My girlfriend and I regularly attend concerts at the Burrell, enjoy Tall Sound, Moon Tower, Southland Jamboree Series, Sunday bluegrass at the Twisted Cork and have just wrapped up another real bird experience. I've been blessed with an abundance of friends with whom regularly get together to have dinners and drinks. As indicated by our social life, our intent is to regularly block off periods when we are in town to stay at my house and only rent when not needed. With my proposed part-time personal residence, part-time rental use falling outside the standard hosted unhosted parameters, I would greatly appreciate the board's creative consideration and leeway in this process. And this is my version of what we've just shown you. There is a scale on there, so I'm not trying to pull any shenanigans or anything. But compliance with LFUCG ordinances, section 3-13, the property is generally in compliance with the current local regulations and does not exceed any density thresholds for short-term rentals. The property is not identified as one of the LFUCG's county's top ten census block groups. No STRs in the vicinity have been cited as a nuisance. I have no history of compliance issues. And as mentioned, the concentration for 1,000 feet is less than 2%. Oops. Sorry. Anyway, we just went over this. Let's go to the next one. I'm not supposed to aim this at it. There we go, sorry. Admittedly, and as you noted in the report, there are two short term rentals that are side by side operating just at the 500 foot mark to the south of my location. I would like to request that the board's discretion as it relates to the regulations for short term rentals, Section 3-13, item L, stating no SDRs should be located within 600 foot of another in this matter. If this were a couple months ago in January, both of those would be right at the 500 foot mark. I understand rules are rules, and also if my house were two houses down, it would be fine as well. But I understand rules are rules. That is fine. But in the staff case report, and I hadn't noticed this before originally, but it says, quote, application materials did not address the other two findings necessary for granting relief. The documentation that the proposal would not contribute to an overconcentration of unhosted short-term riddles in the immediate area and or adversely affect the housing stock in the immediate area. I'd like to take a moment to address these issues. Okay, there we go. Excuse me. Stating addressing no adverse effect to the housing stock. I want to assure the board that using my home as a part-time or part-rental but not negatively impact the local housing stock or broader residential stability. My home in question was never part of a long-term rental market. It has always been used for a family, and since they will continue living there, its part-time conversion to a short-term rental has not deplaced any resident or reduced available long-term housing. I can go bullet point by bullet point if you like. but I'll try to hit on just some of the key aspects of it. As I mentioned, it was never a long-term rental. It's never been used for, it's always been used for residential purposes, which, like I said, I'm still living there. I've always operated, or I will operate legally with the laws that we have, supporting local housing, not competing with it. The home's not affordable housing stock. and therefore is not deplacing any lower-income residents, provide good community and economic benefits, get support local shops, restaurants, services, have to hire local cleaners and handymen. And as mentioned, I'm here daily at my job, so I'm here to be accountable for it. And as mentioned, it's limited turnover. She lives an hour and a half away almost, So I would rather not do that every single day. And then we'll go on to the other item that was brought up that I didn't previously address. It does not contribute to overconcentration of short-term rentals. As we just looked at the 600-foot circle a moment ago, there's obviously two that are close to me. I want to destroy the... Sorry. I understand the importance of maintaining a balanced housing stock and avoiding the overconcentration of unhosted short-term rentals within our community. I'm committed to operating in a manner that supports these priorities and believe that if permitted, this location will not contribute to overconcentration of unhosted rentals in the area for the following reasons listed. Most importantly, and I've kind of touched on a lot, is item number five, what I refer to as a short-term rental desert. There are no short-term rentals within 1,300 feet to the north of me, which we'll should highlight here in just a moment. Is this the PowerPoint? This is yours. Hold the top. Here's your gray tone. Can we just do one of these? We have hard copies in our package. So anyway, there are within a quarter of a mile to the north, east, and west. There's zero. No one at all. So even the 1,000-foot circle, you could almost fit the 1,000-foot circle if we change the center point a little bit. And the 2% would be almost zero. So anyway, with that, in that area, there's, you know, obviously I'm not contributing to any oversaturation. And then, as we can see in the next one, in that same area where mine is at the green in the center, obviously, you know, this area would fit, you know, three digital short-term rentals, having a six-foot clearance and, you know, with no one touching each other in that area. Let's see. In conclusion, by branding my property responsibly and within local limits, I'm confident that it does not diminish the availability of long-term housing or contribute to the oversaturation of short-term rentals in my neighborhood. As this number remains modest, my goal is to provide a safe, well-managed, legally compliant, temporary, as well as part-time short-term rental that respects the residential nature of my neighborhood while contributing to the local economy. I'm committed to being a responsible host, a respectful neighbor, and engaged community member. I respectfully request the board's consideration and approval. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. I've got a question for staff. And this is on the 2% rule. Is that variable? 2%? So by my math, if we were to grant this, we would be over 2%. And that is not permitted. No. Not over 2%. No, right now we're at 1.94. 9.4. But there are 6 right now. Yeah. So if you take 7 divided by 309, I think that's 2%. Yeah. So I guess my question is, are we even permitted to approve an application that will put it over that 2% threshold? I think the problem already, or dilemma already occurs whenever there's already been two within 600 that's not separated by a significant environmental feature. Oh, yeah. But I guess that is variable, I think. Is that a variable? Which ones are variable numbers we're dealing with and which ones are not? The ordinance that was adopted provided a mechanism for relief of those concentration numbers. And so it says the board shall only grant relief to either the 2% or the 600 foot spacing if one of the three relief criteria can be met, plus the applicant has to address over-concentration of unhosted short-term rentals and adversely affecting the housing stock in the immediate area. So the ordinance was created to allow for a relief mechanism to that. If you're thinking back to the mile, that is not within that relief language at all. So with the law department, we determined it was a variable distance, right? Okay. Spacing. Whereas these two criteria are specifically listed as their requirements, but here's how you get relief. Okay. So let me ask you this. In this instance, if we were to approve this, we would cross that 2% threshold. You would. And so we would need to find relief for that and relief for the 600 feet. Yes. Yes, potentially. Potentially, okay. All right. No, wait. I think I didn't mean. Oh, please come. Oh, sorry. From my understanding, and you guys know this better than me, but I thought obviously I didn't hit the two and 600 foot threshold, but it was my understanding that we were okay. We were under the 2% and 1,000. The current concentration is just under 2%. I think what Mr. Gross is saying is if we approve that seventh short-term rental within that area, now we are increasing the concentration to above that 2% threshold. Yeah, I guess I don't think we've had that issue before. I agree. I don't think you guys may not even work through what we would take. So that may be something we think about going forward. Tracy, I don't think that's in the ordinance, is it? that said if you approve something, then it puts it over the 2%. Is that in the ordinance? I thought it was just what you see now is what you can approve. If it's under 2% without approval of this, it would be okay. I think what Mr. Gross is saying is this would impact, if we were to ignore this 600-foot distance, as the applicant is asking us, you all to use discretion and not, I guess, agree with the staff in that regard, it would put it above the current threshold. And that could create an over-concentration in this location. And so when the staff presents this percentage, they're not presenting it as if we're approving it. They're presenting what it is now. Existing, correct. That's right. So I think that's... So the point is there's already two in the 600 feet, so mood point. And I think it's just part of our discussion of do we grant somebody relief when that relief would then cause it to possibly go over a concentration stand? I mean, ultimately, I think it's all right now. I'm supportive of the staff on this one. But the relief within the 600 foot is very specific. Yeah. Right. It has to be. I'm sorry, Steph. What are the... So those relief provisions... That we could have relief on the... Chair, the three relief provisions, they can also be used for the 1,000-foot buffer as well. So if the board... We're playing a bit of what if here, but if we're going down this road, if the board were to determine that they were okay with going past the 600-foot with your own discretion, you could look and see if you think that one of the relief provisions applies to one of these short-term rentals within the 1,000-foot buffer. And if that's the case, then this 2% criteria, it would knock it back down depending on how many of those get ruled out. Staff did not evaluate that because we're getting back to a threshold issue of the 600 feet being the issue. But we can put those back on the screen if you'd like. We can put those relief provisions back up there if you want to look at them. yeah and see if you think that that would apply here i just wanted to make sure you guys just trying to keep me as long as you can that's okay i love you that's okay um and again like i said i mean this i'm three years part-time and we'll be back in town and yeah my house will be my house again or our house There's nothing further from the applicant? Any additional? I guess this is a question of clarification, too. With this, I know it gets a little squirrely, could this not be considered a hosted? If he's still living there and he, I mean, is it not hosted when the guy goes for groceries or he's gone for a day and he comes back? I mean, that gets a little squirrely, but it seems. Hosted means you're on site when it's being actually rented. So he would have to be on the residence. Like if he's in Moorhead, he's not on site. Yes, but I mean it's his primary residence and he's got something. Come on up. Please. The ordinance is pretty clear about hosted means that you're on site when the rental occurs. But no, I just want to chime in because me and him actually even talked about that same exact thing. When it is hosted, you're not allowed to go on a one-week vacation? Sure. Have to be there when the person is there? Yes. I mean, that's the thing. Like he said, you can go to the grocery. You can go to the grocery. You can go to work. You can't go on a month-long safari. That's what we didn't know. That's what we didn't know. I'm just trying to poke loopholes. No. We did the same thing. We did the same thing. Because it almost felt like, well, sometimes he's going to be in Moorhead and driving to work in Lexington and going to be able to go to his house, stay the night, maybe multiple times throughout the week if it were not rented. And, you know, and again, it's part-time. You know, I don't know if these other rentals are full-time. You know, we just felt like we didn't fit into the hosted or unhosted. So, yeah, we thought the same thing. And frequency, I guess, too, that's always. Yeah, that's the only thing. We can't actually consider that according to what we're being told. Yeah, we just felt like it's very part-time, and if the other two houses are full-time, we just felt like we wanted to come and try because we didn't feel like we fit into one of the categories. I understand it's not the ordinance, however, it does seem maybe a spot in the future we could look at of, okay, it is your primary residence, you do live there all the time, except for, you know. We've had quite a few of those that we have passed, but that was before the updates that restricted us in very specifically geographic terms. But we have actually approved some of those in some areas that we may or may not have because those people worked out. Remember, I think we had one downtown, a couple in the downtown area where those people did work out of town quite a bit. and we approved those even though they went over the percentages or whatever reason at that time. But now we actually don't have as much leeway with the stricter language on geography. Gotcha. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. All right. If nothing further, I will entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I recommend disapproval of PLNBOA 2556, Jonathan Rawlins' request for conditional use permit for an unholted short-term rental in a single-family residential zone, properly located at 2116 Clay's Mill Road, based on the staff's recommendation. Thank you. Mr. Persley has second. There's nothing further. We will take a vote. Thank you. Good luck, you guys. Thank you. And you can come back anytime. I won't be here. Well, this one, though, you can refuse. Okay. Thank you. All right, lastly, we have PLNBOA 2559 HR Davis Real Estate LP. It is recommended for both disapproval and postponement. We have heard some information regarding that. Do we still think staff should present first as we would have normally to keep it in context? All right. We'll see you. Staff will present. James will be up there in a second. I'm sorry. Thank you. from one mile to 2,100 feet and a conditional use permit for an unhosted short-term rental in an AR zone on property located at 4901 Briar Hill Road. So the agricultural zone STR requirements include documentation from the health department stating that the septic tank on the property is sufficient to handle the proposed use. the findings that the STR would not adversely influence uses occurring on the subject property or adjoining adjacent properties, adequate fire safety, adequate parking, spacing in one mile, and these are permitted within the detached accessory dwelling units and farm employee dwelling units. Currently, there are no relief provisions for short-term agriculturally zoned short-term rentals. Taking a look at the subject property, you can kind of see the two main structures located here. As we take a Google Street View, you can kind of see one of them over here to the left behind this line of trees. Going forward, you can also kind of see it over here behind the line of trees as well. The applicant included a site plan highlighting that the one that you just saw on the left was a barn. and this is the main principal structure with the garage located here and parking located here and here and here. Taking a look at our STR map, there are none within a mile. You did hear a case earlier that had one within a mile. That case did not have a decision, so there is still not one within the mile. Taking a look at our STR licensee data, they're none within a mile, not in a top 10 census block group. And with all that, staff recommended postponement of the conditional use because of the case that was heard previously. There wasn't a decision on it. could not evaluate whether or not there would be one within that mile buffer because there was no decision made on the previous case or before our staff report. But we did recommend disapproval of the variance because the council set a strict limit of a mile and staff is not comfortable with to trying to vary that at this time. Quick question. It appears that the variance would not be necessary now. It would not be. So next question is, is the staff continuing with a postponement on the STR application in light of A, no longer being applicable? And it looks like B, they may have submitted their information. I can't tell. Staff originally was going to write a staff report that tried to find a fine line to walk between cases, but we really couldn't determine, find a way to phrase that language legally in a way that made sense. So I don't know. I would say at this point, staff's not going to be changing our recommendation without being able to go back and review this. We went with postponement. and you're welcome to hear it, but we recommended postponement because of the previous case that was related to this one, and I don't think we would change our recommendation here at the hearing to approval or disapproval at this point. We would stick with postponement. In a month, we would come back with an actual recommendation, assuming there wasn't other issues floating out there. Is this a disclosure issue for that as well? I mean, do you have to send notice back out? We won't have to send notice back out. The request isn't changing nothing. Well, I guess technically the variance could be dropped, but I mean, that wouldn't change the notice because we're not changing, I guess, the ask for a conditional. The notice said short-term rental. It had a conditional use request for a short-term rental. sometimes people drop their requests so we would not need to re-notice this. We would be coming back with just, you know, we would have a new recommendation. But there wouldn't be a need. It just wouldn't include a variance evaluation at that point. Thank you. We will definitely allow the applicant time to speak. Thank you all. Will Matthews again, just as a reminder. So pretty much when understanding the staff's position that they hadn't fully looked into this issue because of the outstanding variance and that now being gone, the staff has stated in their report that they would have likely supported this had the variance issue not been in place. Now, we discussed earlier it meets all the criteria for a conditional use permit. I don't see what doing a month is going to change about that. if it meets all the criteria now, it'll meet all the criteria in a month. As we've talked about a lot today, this is kind of a get in first, get in the door, because there can only be one in this area. So I think it's important that if a decision can be made today, one should be. I think we've met all the qualifications under the statute and under the ordinance, and therefore I don't see any need to hold off at this point and postpone just to come back with that same recommendation in a month. And if I believe all this is in the record, but if we want it to go through individually, the aspects of the statute that it meets the criteria of, I'm happy to do so at this time. But I don't want to keep talking and waste anybody's time. It's been a long day. That's okay. That's okay. And we have people here to speak. Oh, Mr. Simpson, I meant other people. I know what you're going to say. We have fresh voices to speak. Fresh voices? Oh my goodness. I'll be very brief, Madam Chair. You've heard that from me before, right? I have. I never believe that, Mr. Simpson. It'll actually be true today. I've been privileged to appear before this body and many others over the years. and one thing that I have come to fully appreciate is the vital role that our staff has in informing their clients, which is this board, planning commission, council, of their expertise, their analysis, their thoroughness in looking at all of the issues and submitting a written report that's disseminated usually a week before the public hearing that gives everybody the opportunity to evaluate it, pick it apart if necessary, come down here and be heard, but only after getting the opportunity to review that report. And in this case, that hasn't been done because the recommendation has been consistently a recommendation for postponement. Your staff just reinforced that recommendation of a postponement. They are your staff. They're also this community staff. and I think the community is entitled to wait a month to have their report prepared, disseminated, and have the opportunity for us to cross-examine that report and them, if necessary, to offer rebuttal to that report, if necessary, and what's the harm in waiting a month. The previous application was a tie vote, So I'm not sure that's kind of in the netherworld of what they will do. But we believe the public ought to be fully informed of what the staff's analysis is. The staff has indicated they're recommending to you to postpone. We agree with that recommendation. We think that's fair and proper because historically, as you all well know, the staff's recommendation correlates with your all's final decision almost 95% of the time. So that evidence that the government sets forth from the government ought to be set forth with the details that back up their recommendation, not just a one-line parenthetical offhand comment when the entire body of the report has been to postpone. We believe a postponement is necessary. We believe our due process rights will be violated until that report is disseminated to the public, and we have the opportunity to review it and cross-examine it and the staff if necessary. This is a governmental report. It's historically always been done. It has not been done in this case, and we don't believe this case is fit for your all's decision, and we urge a postponement of this matter. That's all I have. Thank you. I'm Brittany. Hey, Tracy, I'm just... Yeah, but now I'm wondering, am I hearing too much testimony? Is this becoming a continuance? I'm not here. Yeah, I would be comfortable with a continuance to allow the staff to review the materials that the applicant has submitted and to give us a revised report in 30 days, and then we could then review it and then allow testimony, et cetera, at that time. I don't have any heartburn with that. That's what the board wants to do. Okay. But we do have people here, been here a while, and let them speak. Just sort of two notes or comments, I guess. One in support of just making the decision today, which is just to say that we did have a vote earlier without a report, and three people have managed to vote in favor of granting this exact same conditional use permit despite the staff having said they did not prepare a report. Of course, ultimately it is absolutely your decision and that is we will respect whatever that is. I did have one sort of question regarding in the staff's report, they noted that we had not properly received potentially the health inspection regarding our septic tank system. Now, my client has called the health department on multiple occasions, and they've refused to send anyone out to do this inspection, and they consistently do that. And so, if this is continued, we want to come back next time. Perfect. Is there a recommendation of how to proceed with that health department? So, we have a list that we've worked with the health department of, I guess, license. So they have a certain phrase. But if you reach out to staff after the meeting, we can send you that list. And there are multiple people on that list that can come out and evaluate the site for the capacity and the condition of the existing septic tank. And that would be different than the service we had provided in the report to you all. Right. This just addresses, it says looks good. Okay. But it doesn't say anything about the capacity for, I think it's 10 bedroom. Is that? Five bedroom, 10. 10 people. So we need to know that it can match 10. They need to say something that if 10 people were in here, it can handle that. It's got the condition and the capacity to be able to handle that. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. These the applicants? Yes. Okay. Hello. I'm Rebecca Davis, co-owner with my husband. and we did do that and I had it inspected and then I called the health department and they said that's all they could do. They don't make house calls. So the person that inspected it said everything works as it should be and should support the house. Well, that's not what this says. It just says everything looks good. It has a pump tank for the gray water. That's the only note. So that tells us it's currently operating. Right. But we need the letter to address what the ordinance says, which is it needs to address the specific number of people who will be staying there. Okay, well the health department told me that was enough. So, well, she kind of dismissed me. So on behalf of the Division of Planning, interpreting the zoning ordinance, we're saying you need something that says something about the capacity of the tank is sufficient to meet the requested number of person or bedrooms. Okay, I'll need to know where to get that. From Martin Sanitation. Thank you. Yeah. But if Mr. Matthews talks with staff, they will help you with the language that needs to be in the letter. And other applicants have been able to get that letter from inspectors. I'm not sure if Martin Sanitation will issue that particular letter, but there are inspectors that will issue that particular letter. Thanks, sir. Thank you. So with that, I will move for a continuance. PLM BOA 2559 HR Davis. Yes. I was going to let them say something. I think they're all with Mr. Simpson. No, no. Oh, no. Are they? Oh, okay. Oh, well, come on up then. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to get your three minutes, girl, before I go. I'm going to say I'm a weird one because I don't have a yes or no either side. I am Tiffany Valutis. We live on 307 from your station. We back up to this property. I have never met them before, did not know them anything about it. We live there with our children and our pets. This is our home, our sanctuary, our refuge from our jobs, all of that. I find out about this from a letter. My concerns come from, well, first of all, you guys have taught me a whole lot today. Mr. Walker, I've learned a lot today, but Mr. Walker, man, he's got it going on. I will say what they had going on was fantastic. Our concerns come from this. Number one, I read from this, and again, I'm medical, I am not legal, is there is that mild buffer in place. I don't know the reason, but I guess I will call an attorney and find out now. Why does that need to be moved more than half of a mile toward our property where our children and our horses are? Secondly, what is this property going to be used for? You guys brought up in another case a very good, great reference to, okay, this person owns the property, I want to do this and this. If it's not in writing, you sell it and they can do whatever they want to. Same for us. If we sell our property, I can, you know, that affects, because they're going to ask me, Well, where is it in writing? If it's not in writing, we don't have that. I'm of the old school. Are they going to use it for weddings? Is it going to be parties? Is it going to be venues? If it's unmanned, who do we call if there's a problem over there? Our police are overworked. I can't have the sheriff coming out 10 miles in Fayette County saying, they're shooting off fireworks at 1 o'clock in the morning. That's not fair. They are not permitted to have parties. It's in the ordinance. I know, but it does happen. We also have a firework ordinance. And I know they wouldn't, but again, it does happen. And a lot of times, but if there was a problem, who would we call? There is a hotline for you to do complaints. And if there is a problem, this board, not that we've approved it, but this board has the ability to strip conditional use permits for people who violate the rules. And see, that's where I'm coming to this disadvantage because we don't know any of this. All we know is all of this is kind of coming up. We did not even know it was on BBRO and being used as a long-term rental. I mean, is it agricultural? Is it party? Out of the old school where if you want to do something on your property, hey, if you don't know your neighbor, put something in their mailbox and let's talk about it. This is what I'm going to use it for. And that's not happened here. And again, thank you for hearing me. And I sat here and listened and thank you guys for teaching me a lot today. Because like I say, I'm one of the very few who I can't say if I'm for or against it because I don't have enough information. My husband and I are literally, we don't know. We don't know what are they going to do with this. How is it going to be used? Is it going to compromise our children's safety? Is it going to compromise our horses on our property? You know, what do we do? So that was basically, I did not have an attorney. I did not have anything like that. Okay, no, we appreciate it. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We have additional comment? Anyone? Next time? Okay, okay. No trouble. No, thank you. You as well? Are you speaking or are you leaving? No, I was talking to you. Okay. Okay, well, good deal. Well, then I guess at this time I will entertain a motion. Okay, I will move to continue PLM VOA 2559HR Davis Real Estate LP request for variance until our July, is it 14th? Yes. Our July 14th meeting, and this will be a continuance. Thank you, and Ms. Tucker has seconded it, and we will take a vote. All right. We'll be continuing to the July 14th meeting. Thank you. So are there any other items? Anything else? Nope. There's no board items. There's no staff items. The next meeting is July the 14th, 2025. I guess at that time you guys will select a new chair and do all that fun stuff. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, I was going to say board. we do have a board item that is this is your last meeting ms carter oh no i'm going to come on mondays i'm just going to sit out there and hessle you guys and i would say on behalf of the board i appreciate your chair womanship over the last couple years since mr glover has filled out his three terms you have done a great job and i think we all wish you the best well thank you i've been Enjoyed it. I actually have enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further before I blush? Okay. All right. Well, thank you guys. If nothing further, meeting adjourned. What do I do when lightning strikes me? And to wait to find that you're not there What do I do to make you want me? What do I gotta do to be heard? Thank you. Hi, I'm Council Member Hannah Legree, and I'm really excited to share about a new pilot project launching in early June that reflects the values that we all care about. Safer streets, community-driven solutions, and a more connected Lexington. We're making changes to East High Street between Woodland and Rose to address long-standing concerns about speeding and pedestrian safety. This quick-build project will add over 30 spots of new parking, a loading zone, a protected bike lane, and we'll modify our travel lanes. It's a multifaceted effort aimed at calming traffic and making the street safer for everyone. These changes are based on feedback from neighbors and we'll be testing and adjusting as we go. Installation is planned to begin on June 2nd, weather permitting. Thank you to everybody who's helped to shape this effort.