# Planning Commission Work Session - July 31, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Commission · July 31, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6499 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6499?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-07-31 - **Body**: Commission - **Last revised**: March 1, 2026 - **Length**: 16,677 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Planning Commission convened on July 31, 2025, at 1:30 p.m. in the Phoenix Building 3rd Floor Conference Room. The meeting covered four agenda items, all of which were informational in nature: the Blue Sky Master Plan Update, Complete Street Initiatives, Street Art, and a Tree and Landscape Management Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment. No votes were taken and no public comments were heard during the meeting. All four items were presented for informational purposes only, with no formal actions or motions recorded. ## Attendance The following members and participants were present at the July 31, 2025 Commission meeting: - Eve Miller - Kenzie Gleason - Hannah Crepps - Boyd O. Sewe - Jim Duncan - Molly Davis - Bruce Nichols - Jonathan Owens - Judy - Mr. Penn - Mr. Michler No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Contested Items **Tree Removal and Mitigation** A heated discussion arose during the meeting regarding unauthorized tree removal and the adequacy of mitigation measures associated with development projects. The debate centered on the absence of meaningful penalties for removing trees without authorization, as well as concerns that existing mitigation plans were insufficient to address the scale of tree loss occurring in connection with development activity. Participants called for a more robust mitigation framework to ensure that tree canopy lost during development is adequately accounted for and replaced. The structured data available does not specify which individual commissioners or other parties led each side of the exchange, nor does it record a formal vote or definitive resolution reached on this item. ## Blue Sky Master Plan Update [timestamp: 0:00:34] Eve Miller presented an update on the Blue Sky Small Area Plan, covering the current status of outreach and engagement strategies as well as progress on baseline studies and guiding principles. The presentation was informational in nature, with no action or vote taken by the Commission. Miller's update addressed the ongoing work being conducted as part of the planning process, including efforts to engage the community and establish foundational elements that will shape the direction of the master plan. The discussion touched on the development of baseline studies, which are intended to inform the plan's framework, as well as the formulation of guiding principles to direct future planning decisions for the Blue Sky area. No specific concerns, debates, or Commission votes were recorded in connection with this agenda item. The item served as an informational briefing to keep the Commission apprised of the plan's progress. ## Complete Street Initiatives [timestamp: 20:05] Kenzie Gleason presented on the Complete Street Initiatives during this agenda item, introducing her team to the Commission and outlining the group's goals moving forward. The presentation was informational in nature. Gleason provided an overview of the initiative's focus areas, which centered on community engagement and strategic planning. No vote or formal action was taken as a result of this item. *Note: The available data for this agenda item is limited. A fuller summary — including specific goals, timelines, concerns raised, or Commissioner questions — would require additional transcript or source material detail.* ## Street Art [timestamp: 46:08] Hannah Crepps presented on street art initiatives, covering the role of street art in traffic calming and placemaking, and introducing a pilot project for street art in Lexington. The presentation was informational in nature. No outcome or action was taken as a result of this agenda item. ## Tree and Landscape Management Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment [timestamp: 1:19:23] Boyd O. Sewe presented an overview of the upcoming phase two of the Tree and Landscape Management Zoning Ordinance text amendment. The presentation was informational in nature, intended to update the Commission on the direction and scope of the next phase of this ongoing effort. Sewe outlined that the primary goals of phase two are to modernize existing standards and better align the ordinance with the jurisdiction's environmental objectives. No vote or formal action was taken on this item, as it was brought before the Commission as a presentation rather than a decision item. No specific concerns, debates, or opposing viewpoints were recorded in connection with this agenda item. The outcome was informational, with the Commission receiving the update on the planned text amendment work ahead. --- ## Full transcript Good afternoon. Today is July 31st, and this is the Planning Commission work session. It's also known as Mike Owen's birthday. We never thought you'd made it. Mr. I'm sorry, Ms. Miller, to start with our Blue Sky Master Plan update. Well, happy birthday, Commissioner. My birthday is also tomorrow, so we have we have lots of birthdays in the office. So my name is Eve Miller. I'm here today to present to you a brief update on the Blue Sky Small Area Plan. We were here two weeks ago on July 17th, but today I'm going to focus on talking to you all about our outreach and engagement strategy that we have for the project. Let's see. So two weeks ago, the project team delivered a really great presentation on two key baseline studies that we are doing for the project. TSW Design and Gresham Smith presented to you all a existing conditions analysis that they're currently working on, and then Partners for Economic Solutions and Strategic Location Advisors. Oh, can you all hear me okay? Okay, great. Presented the market and site location analysis, evaluating the area's economic potential and output, as well as development for the future. Since then, we've been making steady progress along several areas. The guiding principles we are working with TSW on, which will be three to five points or principles that will help align our vision for the Small Area Plan and will also align with the City's Comprehensive Plan. We are advancing the existing conditions section of the plan, which is on track for completion by the end of August. And then Gresham Smith is collecting data and information about the power and internet availability and utility in the Blue Sky Area Park. And then PS has updated data and mapping for employment numbers and the building ages in the Blue Sky Small Area, and working with Elliott Services to supplement the data that they've already provided in the market analysis. And then SLA is refining their analyses as well, working with market figures based on feedback that we received from the July 17th Advisory Committee. So we're taking the feedback that we received at our second Advisory Committee meeting and inputting that into the final drafts of the market analysis and site selection. Additional coordination efforts that we're working on is we are beginning the Highway Interchange Study. And so next week, we're actually meeting with Gresham Smith and TSW and several City LFUCG staff and divisions to begin working on looking at the Highway Interchange Study that is near the Blue Sky Small Area Plan. And then this morning during our Advisory Committee meeting, TSW shared preliminary ideas about the Industrial Code Rewrite that we will be working on here in the fall. And they also sent out a survey to the Advisory Committee members to get their feedback on the permitted uses that we have currently in the I-1 zone, I-2 zone, and the B-3, B-4 zones. But like I said, the main thing I want to talk with you this afternoon is the outreach and engagement strategy that we are proposing for the Blue Sky Small Area Plan. Yarden Co. is the consultant working with TSW on this aspect of the project. And we want to develop a targeted outreach plan. In particular, we're going to focus on the month of October this fall for events and reaching out to the individuals and businesses there. Yarden Co. presented the project branding strategy to the Advisory Committee actually this morning during our meeting, including the vision behind the brand and the ideas for a potential long-term use for the brand beyond the Small Area Plan. So some goals that we have for our outreach strategy is that we really want to build trust and clarify the plan's purpose. When we are thinking about this, some of the tasks that we work on during a Small Area Plan process, as we all know, can be confusing and complicated. So we really want to make sure that whenever we are talking about the plan's purpose and the strategies that we're looking to achieve, that we're making this very approachable and understandable for everyone. We want stakeholders, employees, and different people that work in the Blue Sky Area to come and talk to us and feel comfortable in doing so. We want to engage existing users and businesses to think through and provide to us information about the assets of the park, as well as opportunities for improvement and strategic development in the future. And with that, we want to support businesses' retention and expansion, and we will be asking stakeholders to identify what they need to stay and grow and thrive, but also what other small businesses they believe would be good assets to the park. And then we want to shift perceptions through shared experience. We want to reframe how the Blue Sky Area is seen in the Lexington community and help the Lexington residents understand the activities that take place in the park and its role in the greater region. And then ultimately, we want to lay the groundwork for long-term coalition for the Blue Sky Area. We want the branding of the project to have a place beyond the small area plan's deliverables in the spring. So we are thinking about a long-term organizational structure for the Blue Sky Area, and we want a branding that is approachable, easy, and something that can continue on beyond this project. So with that, here is some of the branding that Yard & Co. has proposed, and we are calling the project Blue Sky Works, which is, we believe, simple, forward, actionable, and something that is approachable. The tagline is Design to Work, and we have a few options, as you can see. For the coloring, we are using the Lexington blue color that you see here in the left, but also using a kind of an orange-yellow color to inspire the construction and traffic aspects of the plan. And here's some more branding for the project. We are thinking about utilizing a tent to kind of have pop-ups and parking lots to be able to talk to businesses and engage them, but something that is calling out to them that we're here and we would love to talk to you. And one idea that Yard & Co. has presented to the advisory committee and staff on is that we are planning for an event in October, later this fall, and we are trying to design an event to bring together employees, employers, and the broader community to gather input and gather momentum for the plan. And so one idea they had was to have a pop-up barbecue in a parking lot. So providing community members, people that work in the park, the site is very active during the day. So providing barbecue or a lunch to come out and talk to us and gather your input is something that we're hoping to pursue. Also, the website is now live. If you head to blueskylexington.com, you can check out that website and sign up for updates to be sent out by email. And this will be the place where all of the public materials, project updates, milestones, events will be located at. So once again, that website is blueskylexington.com. And with that, I just wanted to do a quick reminder of our timeline for the project. This fall, we'll be working on the land use and transportation framework, as well as the outreach and engagement that I talked to you all about this afternoon. And then this winter, we'll be working on the conceptual plans and the regulatory framework. And then we are still on track to complete the project in the spring of next year. So we'll be presenting the final key points and the presentation to you all then. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have about the project. Thank you. Thank you, Eve. Do we have any questions for you? Thank you, Chair. Hi, Eve. I wondered, could you just help me to recall the name of the gentleman who spoke at the meeting two weeks ago telling us what places in Alabama had done? I wasn't here. I watched it remotely. But he just seemed to be very, very informed and had a very good take on things. And I don't recall his name or who he worked for. Yes. The organization is Strategic Location Advisors. And his first name is Chuck. And I'm slipping on his last name. Does anyone remember? If I can't remember, I will. Strategic Location Advisors. That's SLA? Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. And I will get the last name. I apologize that I cannot recall that. So. First of all, let me say, I really applaud the work that you all are putting in for the outreach and engagement piece. I think it sometimes goes unappreciated and unnoticed. But if you don't do it, it comes back to haunt us. So thank you very, very much for that. The question I had is, does this tie in? Many months, maybe years ago, you all put together, I thought, was one of the finest outreach booklets called Outreach and something. Do you remember that, Mr. Duncan? I don't know where that got a lot of play. But let me say this. That piece was really well done. It was the graphics and illustrations. It was simple. And yet, it hit home. I know in this age where we do the digital footprints, print sort of goes by the wayside. But I appreciated that print piece. Are you all planning a print piece for this piece as well? I believe so, regarding like posters to put up in the area. Yes, we are pursuing that. And then we also talked about sending out mailers or postcards with the branding, asking people to come out for an event or even to provide feedback online or through a survey. So thank you. And Mr. Wilson, that was the public engagement toolkit that was put together by our division to get the developers to try to up their game when it came to that outreach. And I just wanted to say that for anybody that might be watching. Well, I appreciate that. I don't know how well it's being used, but it's, in my opinion, when I showed it to several people who were in the arts business, including my niece, she thought that was great. And it was simple and yet direct to the point. So I'm not to be old fashioned about it. I go along with the digital stuff, but I like good print pieces and I think they do serve a purpose. Thank you, Eve. I'm a part of the, I guess, advisory committee representing the planning commission or just a voice from the planning commission. And what I'm starting to understand is that this small area plan is a lot more than just a small area plan for Blue Sky. It's going to create the data that we need to understand how to create marketable business parks that can drive jobs. So it's a big, it's an important process that we're going through right now, even though the property itself is roughly 300 acres and it was swapped out during the urban growth management management horse trading that occurred. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because we're looking at 300, a little over 300 acres with a vacancy rate, which is probably what 12% vacancy rate right now, perhaps lower. So we're talking about 300 acres with less than 10% vacancy. So what the small area plan is tasked with is how do you redevelop a property that's already developed with existing tenants that don't necessarily want to move. But what this group is doing, which I think is super cool, is it's a broader, more forward thinking small area plan. It's not just for today where we have 10% vacancy. We're going to see businesses start to turn over just generationally. And then also in our region, as we try to drive more manufacturing jobs, as we re-industrialize our country, we're going to see some change in this area over the next few years. And we're also being forward thinking, what does it look like in 10 years? And how can we support this type of industrial development in our community on this location? But the work that's going to be created is going to show us how we can better market for these type of jobs in other sites in Lexington as well. So it's a big undertaking, and I think it's even more than a small area plan for Blue Sky. Today we were on a conversation talking about the industrial zone and how we need to think about it to market to companies that are paying wages to our citizens. So it's a big deal, and it's been enjoyable to be a part of the process. But this is, we're going to see a lot of this, and it's going to, I think it'll affect not just Blue Sky, but our whole urban service area. Mr. Pim. I drove out there a couple weeks ago because the only time I'd been there was to get some lawn furniture stuff dry cleaned out there. But there is quite a bit of property out there that has huge parking lots. And it's, I'm talking about the auction facility. I don't think they employ very many people, and they have a huge parking lot. Will that get to the point to where there's a higher and better use for that, and it will move on? And what will happen in that situation? And that's just not the only one, that's just the one most current example. That's a great question. There is a lot of impervious surface in the Blue Sky small area. We are looking into that. However, we know that ADESA, the auction, car auction organization, those cars turn over almost every month. So it's in use, it's being used. So we are just trying to figure out how to best utilize impervious surface for the future, and what that looks like. I'm not trying to run anybody off. I just, first place, it's the, if you farm like I do, it's the last place, the last thing you want to buy a car. The very last place. Because it's just, they're just trading junk. What it boils down to, and people are making payments and financing and doing all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying it's doesn't feel a need, but there's not a lot of jobs created with it. So if you're going to redo the Blue Sky small area plan, is there a long-term plan? Because from what I hear Bruce say, there's not a lot of land there for somebody to come in and redevelop. Am I wrong on that or right on that? I think it's yes and no. I want people to understand that this small area plan is an opportunity to understand how this area has thrived over time without city involvement. And we want to encourage the tenants that are already there. We want to encourage their growth 10, 20 years from now. And how can we make sure that they're thriving? At the same time, we also want to figure out what businesses are interested in coming to the area, whether that be editing and modernization of our industrial code to make sure their activities fit within our zoning ordinance, or like you said, finding space for them to grow, whether it be greenfield or impervious surface. So we will be working on that task. And unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you today, but it is something that we are considering and thinking about. It is part of the thought process. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. All righty. Yes, Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to punctuate what Mr. Nichols said, that this is foremost a Blue Sky small area plan. That's what the focus is. And to the extent that what comes out of this is portable, then that's the bonus. But the focus is going to be on Blue Sky. What are the limitations of the code? What are the limitations of the infrastructure around there? And how do we need to be planning on Blue Sky, Mr. Penn, for when something that's successful now may decide that it wants to move on? So how can we set this up to be successful for other uses in the future? So the focus on this is a Blue Sky small area plan. And if we get more out of it, then that's just extra icing on the top. All righty. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Rewins. Just one other thought. I think I heard Ms. Miller say that there's some employment data to come later. I think that would be very helpful. Obviously, we want any business around. However, highest and best use density has to come into play as well. And there's always incentives to help businesses relocate. And I just think that the employment information, I think city revenue tax information would be of benefit as well. So any of that information I think would be helpful. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Eve. And I guess I would also be curious, what would an acre of land in Blue Sky that's undeveloped, what would that valuation be, just fair market value versus an acre of land also off the interstate, but perhaps in Montgomery County or Bath County? Because if we're talking about factories or larger footprints, I mean, the land cost is really, I think for a lot of them, the very first consideration. I just would be curious to see any data we're able to gather. I think that's a great point. I'll look into that. Thank you. Thank you. That is a great point. And I think that is something for us to look at. And what we're seeing other communities, what they've done, what we're seeing in the marketplace is they will give land for businesses that come in and start employing citizens. So when you're looking at Blue Sky at $250 an acre and Bardstown at $0, we're getting into a whole different conversation, but economic development is definitely the goal and concern, I would think, moving forward. All righty. Thank you, Eve. Thank you. Next on our agenda is the Complete Street Initiatives Update. All right. Good afternoon. Hang on just a second. There we go. Okay. For any of you that I have not met yet, I'm Kenzie Gleason. I'm the new manager of our newly formed Outreach and Strategic Planning section. Because of the generous amount of time I was given on the agenda, Jim suggested, and I agree, that it would be nice to introduce our new full staff and then just talk a little bit briefly about what we've been up to over the last six months or so. So yeah, let's get existential for just a moment and kind of talk to you about who we are, why we're here, and what we've been up to. If we could, Hannah Kreps, just stand up so everybody can see you. She's our principal planner. Hannah was formerly with our Transportation Planning section doing our community outreach for that group. And then we have Quinn Mulholland. He's a senior planner that we kind of did some trading with the HALS group there. Sorry, HAL. And then our newest member is JT, and he just joined us from Louisville Metro. Holt? Holt? Yes, okay, geez. He started just last week, so I do have his first name down pat at this point. So yes, why was this section created? And you know, Eve talked a lot about their outreach efforts for the Blue Sky Master Plan, and I think Boyd has talked the same about the Downtown Master Plan. The goal is not for our new group to step in and do that work, because community engagement is, it touches all aspects of planning. Our goal is to try to make it better, lighten the load, and also try and continually be in the community when we're not just talking about a specific plan or a specific activity. So you know, we're also here to support HALS group long-range planning. They spend a lot of time digging into the details and doing the planning, but then there's always a long to-do list that comes out of each of those plans. And so our group is sort of intended to provide some focus and extra support to those initiatives. We used to have a strategic planning section that I worked in many years ago, and that's where our urban forestry program came from. I think that's where PDR started. Our green space plan, our green ways program, our bicycle and pedestrian program. So we're kind of an incubator for things, and then they go off to live other places in government where they best fit. So our goal, essentially, we just want to reach more people. We want to reach them more often, and we want to be as accessible and as understandable as possible. We use a lot of jargon in planning. People don't understand a lot of the nuance, so we're really trying to assess all of the different materials that we use publicly and try and make those more accessible. Again, translating things into simpler terminology. And sometimes we're also explaining what planning is, but what planning isn't and what it can't do, because I think there's often, you know, some misconceptions about what it is that planning and zoning can control versus cannot control. So what have we been up to? There appears to have been a lot of pent-up demand for this type of work, and I think a lot of meetings probably ended with when strategic planning and outreach is here, we'll just have them do that. So we've spent a lot of time running around, catching up, trying to jump in where we can on things that were already ongoing that needed our support. We've spent a lot of time with the preservation and growth management program and the messaging around that and the public outreach. Of course, we're contributing to the downtown master plan and blue sky master plans, both in the scoping as well as the engagement activities. We're working with some council members to try and see how we can really improve upon our neighborhood-level engagement, and we'll be talking to you about that in coming months. But a lot of our time has also been spent recently on complete streets issues, and I don't know if that's because I came from transportation and some of that work followed me, but really what I think it's more about is that there's just a lot of things clicking at this moment in time, and we're trying to jump on those opportunities. We still have managed to get out into the community. I think I gave stats at our January meeting, and we were averaging about some sort of community engagement a week, which it seems like we're keeping on track with that, so kudos to you all for doing it even in the absence of the extra staffing. And we're trying to keep better track of, like, we go to a lot of events and there may be 2,000 people there, but how many people did we interface with one-on-one direct contact? So that 2,000 numbers, that's us standing there with a clicker and counting the number of people that we interfaced with during those activities. Oh, I did want to point out that there are a few ways that you can stay more connected to what our work, kind of the status of it. At my last presentation, again in January, we talked about the number of comprehensive plan initiatives we had either started or completed or hadn't gotten around to, and someone asked the question, I'd like to see the list of the things that you haven't had a chance to work on. Well, you can now go to the Imagine Lexington website and view the status of all projects of the implementation of the comprehensive plan. We've also kicked off a newsletter. I'm just trying to, again, make people more aware of what's going on. I think I just went ahead and added all of your email addresses. I hope you don't mind, but there is an unsubscribe button at the bottom of the newsletter. And I did want to point out in your monthly zoning agendas that are sent out, we have tried to really improve upon or elaborate more, I should say, on the work that we're doing in sort of our main office. And I'm trying to include links so that if someone from the public were to view that, they could actually see the website or watch the presentation or whatnot. And we're including these sort of quick hits, so to speak, in our newsletters as well. But that's an easy place for you all to kind of keep an eye on what it is that we're working on. Okay, so now to Complete Street. Yes, a lot of interest at the public level, at our administration, at our city council. We have fabulous people working in all divisions across our government, and they have completely bought in on Complete Streets and trying to improve street safety. So it's a really exciting and fun time to be doing this kind of work. We're really collaborating and doing so in a way that's very intentional and very enthusiastic. One thing that was new this year was we adopted a Vision Zero policy, or I should say that the council adopted a Vision Zero policy, which is really a statement that says street safety is going to be the driving factor in all of our decision making as we talk about our transportation network. Because, fun fact, our transportation network is the largest allocation of public space within our city. So you think about all the space you have in parks or other uses, our streets are really our largest public asset, and they're meant to serve all of us. So the goal is safer people, trying to assume that when people make mistakes, and they do, we've built into the system interventions to make sure that that mistake doesn't result in serious injury or death. So roundabouts, for example, slower speeds. The faster people are driving, the more likely somebody is to actually be injured or seriously hurt if they were hit. Speaking of, one of our core members was hit by a car two days ago riding his bike. So it does happen, and he's a very avid cyclist, knows exactly what he's doing, but mistakes happen. So we will be doing, and I say we, when I say we, I mean LFUCG. I don't want to try to imply that strategic planning is doing that things. We're working across a lot of different areas of government to advance this work. So we will be giving the annual report to the council that talks about initiatives that we've done and where we stand in terms of trying to achieve that goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries in the future. We have a Vision Zero coordinator now. I don't know that she's been to one of these work sessions just yet. That was a recommendation from our Complete Streets Action Plan. She's starting up a work safety group where we're looking at data, looking at on-the-ground infrastructure, what circumstances, what were happening at these exact locations and trying to develop some interventions. Our council has initiated the Street Safety Task Force. They'll be wrapping up their work here in the coming months. We've been very involved. They're focusing more on some immediate, short-term impacts, actionable things that we can do to try and advance Complete Streets as quickly as possible, including in preparation of the annual budget cycle. So they're very curious about what kinds of resources we need to really get moving on a lot of these things. This is also a public activity. They are soliciting public input through their Engage Lexington website and we helped put some of that information together. So the council, if you're not aware, has a new Engage Lexington page where they keep a lot of their sort of ongoing activities, including the growth management program. And then from the mayor's side of things, we're really focused on implementing the Action Plan that we developed a couple of years ago. They have appointed someone in the mayor's office to be the Complete Streets coordinator for the city and they have let everyone know from the commissioner level down that it's our job to work with and support that coordinator in trying to accomplish all of the tasks that are set forth in the Action Plan. With the goal, sort of the long-term goal, is that we institutionalize street safety and all users into all of the work that we do, whether that's maintenance, planning, construction, design, and so forth. So I mentioned design. One of the big, big projects we are working on and hope to bring to you rather soon is our roadway design manual. So we have not updated our road design manual for quite some time. Our subdivision regulations, particularly as it relates to the new growth areas too, we have some specific transportation recommendations that we need to codify. And then also incorporating our neighborhood traffic management program into our Complete Streets manual. The goal is that you build them from the get-go to be very traffic-calmed and we don't have to go back and spend some money retrofitting them in the future. And, you know, we currently don't have existing standards for roundabouts in our roadway manuals. That's an example of something that we need to include. And then from a project standpoint, we're really, in many ways, is coming from a lot of different sources. Sometimes it happens from a neighborhood. Mr. Michler was, I believe, I understand, particularly interested in and involved in this project. Sometimes it comes from our council members. Sometimes it comes because a problem has been brought to staff's attention. But we're really interested in doing some more of these like kind of quick build, short-term interventions to test them out, see how they work, and then see if we can work towards a more long-term solution if needed. So we're sorting through a lot of the internal processes, sort of like the who, the what, the where, the when, and how these things get done. How do we make sure the public knows what's happening? How do we make sure all the different stakeholders know what's going on? Currently working on an engagement guide around quick build projects, as well as, you know, providing people with the tools that they need. If you wanted to try and go about installing some kind of traffic intervention in your neighborhood, how would you even begin to go about doing that? And then from a project standpoint, we're working on a number of placemaking projects. Hannah is going to talk about street art here in just a moment. We are involved in this Reimagining the Civic Commons program, which is sort of a peer-to-peer city exchange. I had the opportunity to go to St. Paul and see some great work that they're doing in terms of affordable housing and trying to reconnect a neighborhood after an interstate, you know, impacted them in a very negative way. So it's a really great opportunity. And I think most of our planning staff at some point or another has had an opportunity to engage with that program. And with that, I will answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, Kenzie. That was very informative. Molly. Well, I will just say that I first met Kenzie 20 years ago, 18 years ago, a while ago. And I think I know why. At her kindergarten graduation. Yes, I know exactly why the Complete Streets Initiative is with you is because back then, you were the project manager for the very first bicycle and pedestrian master plan for our MPO, which is Fayette County and Jessamine County. And you were passionate about ensuring that there were accommodations for all people on our roadways. And I just commend you so highly, because you're still passionate about this. And having complete streets is a term that planners and landscape architects and engineers are really familiar with. And unless you've kind of seen the data and seen how Kentucky and Lexington have changed their approach to planning streets, you don't realize this is monumental, what Lexington is doing. And I am so happy you are leading the way. So thank you. We're participating, too. There's many leaders involved. Yes, I was born in the Division of Planning, and I am now an elder within the Division of Planning. So strangely enough, we were at a meeting once and Jim looked around the room. He said, Kenzie, why don't you tell us what you think? And I was like, why me? He said, because you've been here the longest. I about fell out of my chair. How can that be? Sure. Any other questions? Mr. Penn and then Mr. McClure. Kenzie, I know you all know this, but I just want us to understand that the rural community has changed a lot in the last 10 years, because we have an abundance of show horse people that come in in April and leave in November. They're drawn by the horse park. They have bought land all out, all sections of Lexington, but mainly the north and the east side of Lexington. Every one of those farms, and they're mainly small farms, are mainly 50 to 70 acres or less. They have a 12-horse trailer, a huge pickup truck, dually, and they're driving our roads every day and most nights. And it's creating a real problem because the roads aren't wide enough and the influx of bicycles that we have, they've now learned to ride in groups, and so they fill the whole lane. And you can't stop those 12, 14-horse trailers on a dime. They pop over a hill and they're running 40, 45, and bicycles are running 12. It creates a real problem. So signage needs to be a big part of what we do feeding that horse park. Once they get on Ironworks and once they get on Newtown, there's places they can go to avoid a wreck. Lemonsville, Mount Horn, Russell Cave, there's just no place to go. If you get off the road, you're going to hit a tree. If you hit a tree, you're going to kill somebody. So signage is something we need to think about as a community and anything else we can do because it's actually looking for a place to happen. We worked with the Cycling Club a number of years ago to identify their common routes. They have certain routes that they use regularly based on the mileage they're trying to hit that day, and we did place share the road signs along most of those corridors. Now those could have shifted over time. The hope is that the people who live there generally have gotten used to the fact that that's a very common thing to see and are extra vigilant. I can't think of any specific incidents, at least I'm personally aware of, where we've had a real tragic incident like that, but out-of-towners certainly may not be expecting it in any way. Year-round. The problem is the influx is in April and they leave in the middle of the last of November. So you go through all the winter and early spring, you don't see them and all of a sudden within about a two-week period, they're everywhere. And so you go from none to manageable to not manageable. Coming in this morning, I mean, there was a tractor and trailer wrecked on Mount Hold. It looks like that's what happened. He took the ditch to try not to run over somebody and lost control and hit another car, but I don't know if that was hurt, but it was just an accident that was placed to happen. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to ask about the timeline on the design guidelines. I guess, you know, I noticed the date on the action plan was dated 2023 and we've been hearing about the design guidelines. And on this commission, we've seen two plans that I can think of right now that the final development plan process ended up requiring really low usage roads get widened to meet the current guidelines. And from what I understand, some of those guidelines might be changing, but in the meantime, you know, we're widening roadways that serve two properties and things like that are widening roads that are intended to be alleyways and that sort of thing. And I guess, you know, the planning, our goals and objectives in the comprehensive plan are trying to reduce this, you know, all this impervious surface in our current guidelines. Require pretty wide roads all the time. And so I guess I'm wondering, since this started a long time ago, what the, what the, I mean, I guess the timeline and also what the holdup is on the guidelines. So the project's been active for coming up on about a year now, I want to say. We're actually expecting to be ready by the end of next year, but we're not sure when we'll be ready. We're actually expecting a draft on the second. I can't recall. I guess that's the end of this week. This is the second draft that we've received internally. The first one did not meet our needs. So that was part of the slowdown. I mean, we were expecting to bring it to you in July or in August, and we were going to do some work behind the scenes before we presented it to you. So we're probably several months behind at this point based on our initial schedule. It's complicated. House Bill 443 further complicated things in that design guidelines are that. They're guidelines. And you say, you know, this is the preference and this is the best practice. And you try to, you know, achieve a number of different goals and objectives. But now we have to be very specific and explicit, like this is the standard. And we may allow waivers to that, but we have to take some of that decision making judgment call work out of that particular aspect. So, you know, we're also updating some very old regulations. So there's just, it was a heavy lift. But hopefully this latest draft is something that will be very workable. We need to circulate that through traffic engineering and engineering. This is really their engineering, their road, the manual they use to build roads, not just us identifying how much right of way we need or how much pavement width will be there, but also how they do retrofits on existing roadways as well. So, yes, I agree. We need to get on it. We need to move it quickly. But we also have to get it into a workable document that will meet our needs. And we just, we're not there yet. All righty. Do we have anything else for Kenzie? If not, thank you very much. Oh, yes, of course. If I could ask you to, thinking back to what Ms. Davis said, take a 5,000 foot view of this. If you had to do not an elevator speech, a little bit longer than an elevator speech to people in our community who really are not paying attention to what's going on and thinking about the dramatic changes in how we're approaching our transportation and streets. Could you just give a quick and dirty, what would you say? I think the first thing I would do is I would go around the room and ask anyone, have you personally been impacted by a traffic fatality or injury in your family, a friend, family member? And almost everyone will raise their hand. They know somebody. And I think we've been conditioned to think that that's just part of daily life. That's just part of living in a city and the price that we pay for transportation and mobility. But we're trying to sort of reinforce that and say that, no, that isn't acceptable. And there are plenty of countries who started with Vision Zero and being more intentional about how they build their street network, how people use it, who gets priority, how fast vehicles move, how much they mix with other people that are using the road. And they've proven the data's there. It is safer and less people die or are very hurt on our roadways. And we have spent 70, 80 years kind of doing it wrong, frankly. And it's going to take some time to undo that, but we have to start somewhere. And I would ask people to be patient. 35 miles per hour is actually one of the best speeds to progress traffic, if you ask a traffic engineer. Why do we have roads going 45, 50 miles per hour in any urban part of our city? In our Urban Growth Master Plan, we set the top design speed to 25 miles per hour. Our goal is that when you are moving through those areas, that you move smoothly through roundabouts and not through traffic signals and things like that, but you don't move as quickly. And always try and bring the human component of it. You know, what does that extra minute or two that you saved or that you arrived early, what that means to you versus what that might mean to somebody else? There's a big difference there. So I don't know if that's what you were looking for. It's not in terms of technological or it's not very technical, but it's more talking about what it is we're trying to accomplish and why. I'm not looking for technical. I'm looking for person on the street. What does this mean to me and why are we doing it? Okay. I would just say, I'm sorry. Complete streets is a term that's been around for a long time. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet began to adopt it. They called it something else. The thing that's new is the vision for Lexington is the Vision Zero. That's what I would work in. Well, and we see complete streets as one way to achieve Vision Zero. Vision Zero is kind of the overarching goal. Complete streets is a tool to get us to that goal. All right. Thank you, Kenzie. It's all very important. Yes. We'll see you soon. Thank you very much. Our next item on the agenda is street art. Our next item on the agenda is street art. All right. Hello, everybody. Yep. I watched Boyd do this earlier and he did it so easily. Yeah, it's probably, I need chalk on my hand. Maybe you don't. Yeah, that's perfect. I'm just going to hold up my notes. Okay. Well, I think Kenzie's presentation teed me up really nicely. I'm excited to be talking in front of you guys. I was in MPO land, so I've only been with the outreach and strategic planning team since about mid-April, but I am very excited to be in that team. I find that it's very valuable work that we'll be doing. So I'm going to talk to you today about street art, what it is, how it can be applied, and then I want to also introduce a pilot project that we have hopefully soon to be underway. So street art is sometimes referred to as asphalt art or street murals. It's a way to creatively activate a city's, as Kenzie said, largest tangible public good, our transportation system. It has two purposes, traffic calming and also placemaking. To set the tone, I wanted to offer up two different quotes for you from elsewhere. So from Cincinnati's Paint the Streets program, they say, by converting parts of streets into public art installations, street murals also showcase the creativity and input of local artists and residents. Street murals take advantage of our most extensive public spaces, streets, to bring more art into daily life, fostering inclusive and vibrant communities. Sounds pretty good, yeah? We also have from David Anderson, who is part of Bloomberg Philanthropy's art team, and I'll talk a little bit more about Bloomberg in a couple slides. Street murals are creative designs that promote traffic calming by contributing to a sense of place. But I think another layer is also the psychology, because art makes the space feel used, loved, and cared for. It signals to drivers that the street is not designed just for cars, but for people. Again, to Kenzie's point, we're really trying to change minds, hearts and minds. I do want to be clear before I dive in about what street art is not, because I can be very enthusiastic about its potential. Street art is not a full-stop solution. It is not a complete means to an end. It is one tool out of many that we can deploy as a city, and it's going to have to be done with considerable collaboration and dialogue across city departments and within community, which I think outreach and strategic planning is exquisitely set up for. Okay. So broadly speaking, street art is highly context-specific. Local conditions will determine if a street art installation is more of a traffic calming project or more of a placemaking. And it will likely be both, but there will be emphasis on one or the other. So for instance, a piece could be installed to mark a neighborhood hitting a historic landmark anniversary, or it could be put in a location where there will be a future redesigned construction to kind of prepare the community for what's up ahead. I do have some visuals on the next slide, but it can be applied in a few different kinds of locations. We've got inside intersections as kind of bulb outs or daylighting, can put in crosswalks or pedestrian refuge islands, can also do kind of in the street itself mid-block. In a traffic calming sense, street art is a type of quick build compared to traditional timelines. It can take about six months to a year from idea to initiation, as opposed to the kind of traditional multiple years of planning and design. So that's something to keep in mind. And then the durability of street art. That will depend on the materials that are used, what type of intervention is applied and where, and then whether or not there's a maintenance agreement for touch-ups later. So it can really just vary. Projects are intended, of course, to be temporary, and that is something that has to be communicated clearly and upfront from the get-go to the community and to all partners involved. Bloomberg, again mentioning, has an excellent visual breakdown of the kind of wear and tear that they see over time and in projects, depending on the kind of paint that's used and, again, the location. So if it's a low-volume residential street crosswalk where you're really just getting foot traffic, or if it's inside an intersection on a high-volume roadway that has cars running over it. Okay, these are those images, some images from Huntington, West Virginia and Kansas City, Missouri. You can see the different locations for street art, and I just, I want to highlight, I'm really trying to focus on looking into cities that are not, you know, enormous cities on the coast, but more like our neighbors. So when conducted well, it is self-evident, at least to me, that street art enhances the look of a place and that it highlights the importance of that most important and extensive tangible public good, our streets. But it is also proven to contribute to increased driver awareness, greater perceived, so felt, and also actual safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, and then also just better behavior across all modes generally. So again, Bloomberg Philanthropies, they're sort of the leading funder and researcher right now, so I've been looking a lot to them. They have produced in the last, I think, two, maybe three years, an asphalt art safety study that has some really incredible takeaways. For instance, in their research, looking at projects across the country and the globe, they saw about a 50% reduction in vulnerable user crash rates in their intersection and in their street art projects, about 36% reduction in injury crash rates, and then, this is incredible, I think, about a 61% reduction in crash potential, otherwise near misses. And they did kind of video capture to get a sense for that. Some things that they recommend for having kind of a greater traffic calming impact, they talk about focusing on geometric changes, so not simply a crosswalk that's sort of built in what's already there, though that's great. They talk about, again, that kind of bulb-out daylighting, kind of changing the geometry. I will show in the next slide an image. They also talk about kind of infusing street art into existing efforts and kind of multi-modal improvements, so if you add a bike lane or you reduce the lane widths, maybe splash in some art and some element of that. So street art can produce kind of these immediate safety improvements for a comparatively lower cost and a relatively shorter timeline. It can have, this is something I really want to drive home, it can have a really big qualitative impact, though, because, and this kind of gets to your question about kind of an elevator pitch about complete streets, because street art really gives folks an opportunity to have an embodied experience of the kinds of changes that we're talking about, which in my view, in contrast to our extensive use of words and diagrams and just sort of kind of meeting style kind of conversations, it's lifting the issue like complete streets off of the paper, off of the PowerPoint slide and into real life, which I think can have a really significant impact. All right, I just wanted to provide another visual example so in the before image here, this is from Lancaster, PA, Pennsylvania, it's not a big, super big city, in the before image, while there are elements and facilities for people walking or biking, it's clear that the vehicle is top dog, that the vehicle is supposed to be there, everyone else has lucky to have some space. In the after image, however, you can see that there is plenty of creatively defined space where folks who are outside of a car can be more visible. So the art here is changing the shape of the intersection and it's helping to right size it for all modes. So in terms of placemaking and traffic calming, the art signals that this is a place to pay attention to. All right, so I've been doing quite a bit of research the last few months, it's always good to explore and learn from others. So here is a snapshot of some of the cities that I've looked into that have street art programs or projects they've installed. As you can see, there is a wide spectrum of possibilities. Projects are sometimes city driven, sometimes it's a neighborhood initiated project that the city approves it, and then other times it's totally externally initiated and sort of the city is just sanctioning it and allowing it. So municipalities are also choosing to connect their projects to different plans and policies that they might have, like for example, Vision Zero, but also their public art master plan or a localized traffic calming program, complete streets, again, even tourism, you get the idea. Funding can also come from a lot of different sources. We've got funding that comes in from outside grants like Bloomberg Philanthropies, also transportation related revenue streams. So that could be fees from red light running, public art funds, dedicated allocations of city budgets, environmental program funds, just it's a wide swath. So just so you know, my inquiries, they're kind of ongoing and I'm not just doing digital online research. I've had some great conversations with some practitioners, for instance, an engineer in Savannah, Georgia, and then also I talked with some folks in Norfolk, Virginia. I'm planning to go to Louisville and Cincinnati and kind of learn from them. Okay, how does it fit here in Lexington? So I wanted to provide you with a few reference points from our existing plans and policies. It is clear to me, I think it will be clear to you that public art, placemaking and traffic calming have all been consistent elements in our guiding documents in recent years. I'm not gonna go into everything and this is not an exhaustive pull from these documents, but for instance, the Imagine Lexington 2045 Comprehensive Plan talks about developing a placemaking program, talks about developing street retrofits and traffic calming projects. We have the LFUCG Complete Streets Policy, which talks about using demonstration projects and other strategies, which I insert street art into that, to educate the public about complete streets. And then from a kind of a transportation standpoint, the MPO in its Metropolitan Transportation Plan and also its Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan talk about the need to make room for public art in our right of way. I also wanted to point out, and I have Roger Mulvaney to thank for this. It was his, he pointed out to me in a conversation a few months back, there's precedent for this kind of work. We have these two different programs over here on the right and planning does not manage those programs. So I'm not the most knowledgeable. I can't really speak to the details of them, but I think it's important to show that we already have kind of a framework for tapping into and creatively expressing the community vision in our public realm. And okay, so this is the exciting part. Last couple of slides here. So in addition to exploring how street art happens in other cities, because that's great, but that's elsewhere. What about here? Planning, myself, we've been having conversations with members of traffic engineering chiefly because it's their domain that we're talking about. So I just, from the very, very beginning of even nascent idea, wanted to make sure that they were on board the whole way. So we've kind of pulled together what a draft potential process could look like. It's by no means, you know, solidified and all the details ironed out. The deeper we get into it, the more we realize kind of how complicated and many steps it is, which is why I'm trying to look to other cities. They're doing it. So perhaps we don't reinvent the wheel. We just do what they're doing well. But in any event, this is an overview of some of the steps that would be involved in a street art program. So of course, we need to determine a funding source, which could be public art commission funds. I've had some conversations with Heather Lyons, and she feels very strongly that the public art commission would be supportive of these kinds of projects, council district funds, outside grants. We'd also need to be facilitating community and artist connection and kind of helping an artist develop site-specific designs. And that's kind of through developing a selection committee that's made up of local residents, community members, having community-based gatherings to kind of develop that site-specific art. All through the process, planning would need to be coordinating with traffic engineering to make sure that the final design and the art piece is not conflicting with their guidelines, that it fits within their manual of uniform traffic control devices, which is quite a mouthful. And then, of course, we have the step of the public art commission actually approves the project because it is in the public right-of-way. And then installation, which requires street closure, permitting, also making sure we've got the vertical elements we need, also making sure that the pavement is maybe freshly paved or we're out quite a ways from a repave. So there's a number of factors to consider there. And then data collection, to the extent that we can, we want to get before and after capturing kind of quantitative and qualitative data. In the end, I would say that community engages in the placemaking piece. The planners and the engineers are really kind of in charge of the traffic calming piece, but in the end, everybody wins. So ongoing dialogue for sure. So as I mentioned, we do have a pilot project that we're gonna hopefully be kicking off soon. And this is building off of an event in the spring. Hopefully you guys were aware. If not, come to next year's. We have an annual event called Street Fest. And this year it happened on Shropshire Avenue, which is over between Midland and Third and near Charles Young Park. Great location. At that event, we partnered with Living Streets Lexington, which is a new local nonprofit. And they kind of helped us install a temporary chalk art installation at the intersection of Shropshire and Goodloe. So we basically put in a mini roundabout and some chicanes, and then allowed people to draw with stencils inside of those markings. We're going to need to be developing our selection committee. We're working with Council Member Tyler Morton. He's incredibly supportive and excited about this and helping me to kind of build that selection committee. And I'll kind of be walking them through the, we'll have to send an invite out to artists and kind of invite them to submit letters of interest. The selection committee will choose an artist to work with. There will be a kind of process of engaging and developing the design. And then of course, we're constantly talking to traffic engineering so that they're A-okay with what we put in. So I think, oh, I just wanted to say that I think this pilot project will be a great opportunity for us to kind of test and define what a future program could look like to install these pieces all over the city. So with that, I will take any comments or questions. Thank you, Hannah. Yeah. Thank you, Hannah. I believe that we owe credit to Robin's mom, Claudia, for being part of the storm drain art project that she did with Blake Ames many years ago, which was its intended purpose was to look at the drains and don't pour crap down them. And I think it was quite inventive and well done. So to end up kind of maybe Robin didn't want to bring his mom up, but she did a great job. The other, I guess this sounds really interesting. And I assume that funding is the first kind of obstacle. So is there a line item in the annual budget for this? Or is it? Sorry, I'm overly enthusiastically reacting. So I have been talking to, I'll give the full backstory. I gave a presentation at the bike walk summit last summer just to say, hey, other cities are doing this. Isn't this cool? And I brought in a friend of mine from Louisville who works for their transportation department and who managed their brand new, they did some crosswalks. Mayor Greenberg wanted them to put in some crosswalks. So she just kind of like learned on the fly. So we talked about it and had a room full of people. We had some council members in that room and the followup was, okay, let's make this happen. And that's kind of been the last year of just sort of a lot of conversation, a lot of kind of hashing things out. And it's been put in the environmental quality and public works committee. So I'll be presenting to them and I'll be building questions about funding, I'm sure, in a couple of weeks. So I think also to the point Kenzie made about the street task force, this fits in beautifully with them sort of the desire for kind of quick wins and sort of something that we can kind of get rolling and initiated. So I do foresee that there will be a line item in the budget, I can't guarantee that. But again, also the public art commission is a source and they have some money and they want to spend it. They want to spend it. So they also, they require a 25% match, but that can be in kind. So it can be a sort of dialogue about what that is. So I'm intending to kind of encourage council members to think about it. And I know council member Morton has kind of reserved some, I think council member Sheehan has reserved some in her budget in lieu of like a full citywide kind of funding pot. That was my question. Can council members put their NDF fund towards that? I guess the last question is, do you see this application better served or the beginnings of it better served in urban areas or in neighborhoods or what's the best, where are you gonna get the best bang for your buck? I think that remains to be seen. And I think it goes back to my very initial point, which the more I've explored and talked about this, the more I'm kind of hanging my hat on. It depends on whether you're wanting a placemaking project or a traffic calming project. We need traffic calming everywhere for sure, even in our neighborhood streets. And it's also worth pointing out that we will have a much harder time doing this kind of project on the roads that need the most traffic calming because they're state roads. But I think we will be kind of hashing that out. I think figuring that out. It's a very excellent point to make. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I'd just like to add a thank you, fellow traveler comment here. I'm starting to be aware of the way we're painting crosswalks downtown. I was over by Lyric Theater today and crosswalks look a lot different than they did a few years ago. And a lot of that's the application of paint. But I would say within my own neighborhood, I became a real believer of the difference paint can make along Lansdowne Drive, approaching Tate's Creek. Oh, yeah. We used to have a horrible problem. People would hit the top of Lansdowne Drive and the hill, and then they would speed up to be able to get through the traffic light before it turned red. And they were going like 45 or 50 miles an hour. And the approach that was used, there was a combination. I mean, there's a, I presume, solar powered sign that tells you how fast you're going as you start to crest the hill. And then there's also a crosswalk that you can control. But the biggest thing was they painted a great big bulb out in front of what used to be called the Lansdowne Club, now the Signature Club. And it's made a huge difference in traffic over there. So I applaud what you're doing. Well, I would say the, I'm always imagining what a naysayer might present. And obviously, it's not a three-dimensional, you know, preventative measure. So it can't perfectly prevent bad behavior. But it's kind of like what we see with general murals on walls. You're less likely to have graffiti. And it's, again, it's showing that this space is cared for and that it's not just a through zone. So it is pretty powerful, despite only being 2D. And it doesn't take a lot of words. Exactly. I love it. Yeah. Can you go to the slide where you show the proposed process? You're asking a lot of, I think it's this one. Ah, proposed process, yep. So I just wanted to bring this up because, I mean, I know from hearing from my mother who's done public art projects in Lexington, also as a former neighborhood association president, I did the paperwork and the request for two public art projects, both at Woodland Park. One was from Zoe Strecker and Mike Frasca. That's the like ceramic sculpture. And one was from Kiptoo where a tree fell and was then carved. They were a pain and they took a really long time. And then when we, even though we had allocated funding, when we finally got the contracts, like nine months later from the city, they gave the, the drafts of the contracts gave the artists a ridiculously small amount of time to do the work. And all these horrible stipulations, which you would never want to sign. And then we had to spend like three months that was supposed to be for the art, like arguing over the stupid contract that the city proposed and then finally renegotiated the contracts all so that the artists could sort of work for half of their normal rate and do a public art project. I can tell you from the three projects that I've been involved with, the sort of reception from everybody at the city has been positive, but the actual experience working with the city and getting a public art process through has not been positive. And so, and just, it just from like the proposal to like the finished contract where it stipulates how much money is paid when, and when it's delivered and all that sort of thing. That's something I really see your department being able to like needing to take like a really close look at, because I think oftentimes the money in, in two of the cases, in the Woodland Park case, it did come from the council. And so the money's there, the project is there, the artist is there. There's not really controversy. Going before the public art commission, really that just adds a month because you got to apply and then wait for the date. And then everybody's like, yeah, that's fine. There wasn't really controversy, but it still was like a drawn out process. And so, and then it takes somebody doing that process and that process is often not maybe best done by the artists themselves. And so just sort of pointing it out that there is public art that's going on in Lexington, but it can be a frustrating process to make it happen. And I would sort of really try to drill in on that aspect to make it a lot smoother if you want to reproduce it a lot. Mr. Mickler, I think a firsthand experience is valuable and we'll take your words to heart and make sure that the people who are responsible for this hear the same thing. Let me give you an amen for that because from a different division for the stormwater quality grants, in order to get a sign installed in our pollinator park that Rotary's installed at Kennewood Park, everybody has been wonderful to work with, but the final sign off process in order to get reimbursed has been so painful to me. I wish I had passed the hat at a Rotary meeting rather than applied for the grant. And the challenge is that the paperwork that we've had to sign doesn't make any distinction between a $3,000 sign project and a $100,000 stormwater project. And the liabilities that are built into that contract and all that kind of stuff, they need different thinking about who they're contracting with and what's involved. One size sign off contract does not fit everybody. So amen to Robin, because I'm living in that world right now. I have, well. I'll add one. You mean Hannah. Rhymes with piranha, that's how you can remember. Yeah. I'll add one more story. Okay. You know, the new public art that's going in front of the courthouses. Heather Lyons called a committee just to draft the call for proposals and the language for the city. We met for nine months, but because we met for nine months when it came time to get all the contracts and things signed, it was a lot better because we had pre-meetings, Heather did, with everyone downtown. So the fact that it took nine months just to develop a request for proposals and good language, it's indicative of perhaps there could be some changes made about how things get done in Lexington. Thank you. Amen to that. I will just say that one tiny factor that we've discussed with traffic engineering is whatever the shape's up to be, and this is me sort of putting my foot down, we are going to allow two very specific shapes, essentially. We're gonna do bull bouts, and we can do bull bouts and crosswalks. So that we're not sort of having this long litany of possible potential outlines and shapes, but very excellent points. Happy to discuss further with any of you anytime. One question, if I, question, Hannah. All right. So in this story, if you can go back two or three photos, there's a intersection, maybe a before and after there. In the, looking at it, particularly in the after, and I don't know how else to say it, it looks like the road has been choked down. Is that purposely choking down to one lane? I'm trying to learn. No, I think it's a real one. Yeah, it's a drone, maybe perhaps like very fresh after it's been installed. But no, I think to answer your question or attempt to answer your question, it's kind of along the lines of the complete streets guidelines that we've talked about. It's very much, you know, we'll have sort of the turning radius the traffic engineers will use. They'll have like a center point and whatever the length of the radius. So it might be, you know, 15 feet or 25 feet. We'll kind of determine the sweep of the turn. And a lot of times that's over designed. So it ends up being this really wide swoop. And, you know, we've posted that you should be going 25 miles an hour, but it's very easy to take that turn going 40 miles an hour. So if we choke it, and I see this, I actually live in Danville. So I see this on our main street where we had a recent redesign and we've taken all those intersections and they're now much more at a 90 degree. So everyone is now turning, even in their giant pickup trucks, they're doing these turns very slowly. It's not perfect. People get, you know, they run over curbs, but I'd rather have that than somebody hit and killed. So that's my thought on that. So is that bringing the traffic down? I think it certainly can be part of a project. It doesn't have to be. But I think what's interesting about this one is it's showing how, if you dramatically change the geometry, so the shape of the intersection and you make the turns much tighter, you can have a more effective impact on how people are moving through it, as opposed to, you know, painting along a crosswalk that's already there. So people in the crosswalk, they've been using the crosswalk, but now it's pretty, which is great, but it's not having as much of an impact. So it really depends on the project. It's a good question. Thank you. All righty. Thank you, Anna. All right. Last item on the, almost last item on the agenda is the tree and landscape management zoning ordinance text amendment update from Boyd. Check, check. It's good to be done. Good afternoon, our planning commission. Before I start, I would like to give a shout out to the region of environmental services. We have Heather Wilson and Jennifer Carey. They are the team that will be working on with this tree, trees and landscape management order. So the purpose of this order is to continue what we started with phase one. We will need to update some of the zoning ordinances, specifically article one, article five, article 18 and article 26. These changes aim to modernize our development standards and better align with current environmental, legal and planning goals. Just to give you a brief background on what happened in article one, I mean, phase one. Oh, my bad, my bad. Okay, we better now? Okay, so a brief recap on what we did in phase one. Those changes to article five where we added environmental services to the enforcement, as enforcement authorities. We revised some of the civil penalties. We increased administrative fees, like for the abatement, we moved from $75 to $150. Then when it came to article 18, we updated the development changes. We gave a specific number where a new development, if there was a 30% change, then that triggered meeting article 18 standards. We refined the change of use language. We also clarified some landscape materials. There was a big debate on columnar trees and stuff like that when it came to that. Also material that's used for screening that was changed in article 18. Then article 26, the main change was we worked on most of the definitions. That was the biggest change in article 26. Although I know most of you remember how much effort was put into that article. That's all that we, most of what we changed was just the definition. So phase two is going to be more than that. The goals for phase two is to align our zoning updates with KRS 100.275. That's, as we all know, that has been House Bill 443. We need to update our ordinances to work with that. Strengthen tree protection. That's a key tool for climate change. As we know, we are trying to hit climate goals. And then finally, we need to modernize our tree landscape and enforcement standards to match those of peer communities nationwide. We as lecturers are kind of left behind when it comes to our tree ordinances and landscaping ordinance. We need to update that. For those who have not gone through these articles, I'll give you a brief overview of what article five, article 18 and article 26 are. So article five establishes a clear enforcement framework involving planning, building, building inspection and environmental services. Defines the process of handling complaints, issuing citations, stop work orders and legal proceedings. Article five also ensures documentation and transparency in enforcement actions, provides for property access for investigations of zoning violations. Then when we look at article 18, it's intended to minimize land use conflicts, especially between different intensity zones. Encourages environmental benefits through buffers and VUA planting. Defines clear buffer types and standards. Then when we look at article 26, this is mostly to do with trees. Trees are vital. They cool our streets, clear our air, reduce flooding and support biodiversity, preserve existing trees. Article 26 helps us, say that again? We had a discussion between afforestation, reforestation and forestation. They all almost mean the same. Almost, not they do, they almost. That's a good discussion. Let's see. I need to practice this more. Let's see, another intent for article 26 is required development to account for trees during planting and site design. So those are the main things that those three articles do. Article one that is going to be affected is just where most of the definitions for our zoning ordinances is. Previously, we had at the beginning of every article, that's where all the definitions were put, but it doesn't match throughout because some are just found in article one and then some are found at the beginning of the article. So with this change, we hope to move these definitions from article 26 to article one. So that will be the biggest change on that. Okay, so phase two, just to give you a brief overview of what it will be to impact on other regulations, like I just explained how it will impact article one and some of the subdivision regulations. For article five, it will align with code of ordinance with article updates, ensure enforcement procedures are consistent across related sections. When it comes to article 18, revise buffer metrics, stable and clarity, and better align with land use trends, amend enforcement language to reflect article five changes, repeal outdated landscape ordinances and references, update planting standards, streamline plant submission process and enforceability. When it comes to article 26, we'll move the definitions to article one, as I mentioned, explore mitigation strategies for the tree laws, create pathways to protect more trees, including those currently unregulated. Moving forward, this is going to be a long process, and we hope this is the first step to a long journey. We hope to start this fall with stakeholder feedback, just do a listening session and also educate the public on some of the tree benefits, landscaping benefits, some of the code enforcement regulations. And then in the fall, same time in the fall, we'll be drafting a text for that. Then in the spring, hopefully we'll have a draft pretty far along to share with the public, and that will be gathering feedback from the public. Then in the summer, if things go smoothly as expected, I would say as expected, let me not jinx it. If things go smoothly, maybe in the summer, we'll be back going through this and sharing it with you. And then in the fall, that's in the summer, if it happens in the summer, then in the fall, it will go before COVID. If it goes all the way to the fall, then in the spring of 2027, we will send it to county council. One thing that this doesn't show clearly is, we will not just meet and discuss this with planning commission in the summer of 2026 or the fall of 2026. This will be an ongoing process. We will try to update you after every public meeting or event that we have to tell you what we are hearing and what we are hearing. Any questions for me? Thank you. Thank you, Boyd. Molly? Hello, Boyd. How are you doing today? Mr. Sam. Good. So my question is, the planning commission members present may recall the property on Parker's Mill Road in which the property owner took down something like this. And I'm wondering if you can tell us the home, the property owner took down something like 74 trees without permission. We were told there would be a penalty for them doing that. I understand that they may have needed to take those down because there was a house involved, but they should have sought permission first. That is why we have rules and regulations. So what should the penalty have been for that? And what will the penalty be in this new document for things like that that happen? So I guess I have two answers. Hopefully one of the two makes you happy. We have in Article 26, what it says is you have to justify why you remove the trees. That's it. There's no actual penalty to that. For this changes that we are making, it's going to involve a lot of stakeholders and experts and viewing other cities to see what they do. And hopefully we take from the best and bring it to our city. So for now, I cannot give you an answer. This is what we are going to do. It's going to be a process of talking to other people and hearing what they have to say. So is that property owner who cut down those trees not going to face any ramifications for their actions? So part of the thing that needs to be evaluated within this process is how we deal with mitigation. How are we looking at different procedures of developing our city? In some cases, we are always seeking to preserve the trees that are located there, but we do need to allow for some modification. We don't have a process like many other cities have that evaluate that on the front end and give a very clear delineation on how people can go through that process, working with the Department of Environmental Services and making sure that if trees are removed improperly, that there is some sort of mechanism for them to come back other than what was in place previous, which was coming to the Planning Commission, talking about mitigation strategies, going back and forth and trying to figure out the best way forward to deal with those issues. In a KRS 100-245 world, in which it's House Bill 443, we need those clearly defined within our ordinances. And I think that's the element of this that we're going to need to go through to really work with the community, work with the various stakeholders and with you all to create that process and program going forward. So bottom line, there are no ramifications for that person having cut down 74 trees. Is that what I'm hearing? That's what you're hearing at this time. Molly, at this point in time, no, there is nothing that gives us teeth. Unfortunately, that is a big piece of this second phase of the ZOTA is researching other communities and what they currently have as their standards and their mitigation protocols and figuring out what we can do and get implemented here. The problem with everything you're talking about is that we operate on a system where you just cut them down and beg forgiveness. And that's happened with borough trees. Made seven to nine of them, which are four-year-old trees because they wanted to put an entrance right there and they just cut them down over Fourth of July. So I don't know what you do, but if you have a less input on the development plan when there's not a zone change, I don't know what you're going to do. Because I don't see how you write a text amendment that covers every situation. Now, maybe y'all can do it. Maybe you can take two years or four years, whatever it takes, but I haven't seen anything in my time down here that if you own the property and you decide you're going to apply for a zone change, you just take the trees down before you apply. And in that situation, they had a house out there that they decided they were going to, and I know that well, Molly, I know the whole family, but they just decided that they were going to keep the brick park and tear the rest of it down. And then all of a sudden they got a statement that said it's not historical. And so they just took the trees down while they was tearing the house down. Come hell or high water. And the city chose to do nothing. That's what it boiled down to. Now, if somebody has better information that I'd like to hear it, but I saw it, I watched it, and Molly saw it, and there's not going to be anything done. So that's the blueprint of how we go forward. If we have a plan, trees are in place, we tear them down before we ever come see the city. So I don't know what you do. But that's what it's worth to stop for. I think number one, we need to recognize that private property owners have the ability to take down anything they want to take down. And that's just a, well, I'm sure we're going to get some qualifications here, but this is private property that needs to be taken into consideration. But also I think with a robust mitigation plan, we can achieve the goals that we want to achieve. Because right now without a proper mitigation plan that people can plan for, sometimes things are done in kind of a murky area where there's a private property or there's a not private property. But what I'm trying to say is with a mitigation plan, it's going to promote better development and more development and help us build out our city. Because if we have a plan that says you can't cut down trees greater than 20 inches, we're not going to see the development we need to provide for jobs or housing. But if we have a plan that says any tree that's taken down within this size, X amount of trees need to be replanted. Once again, a robust mitigation plan will solve all the problems in my opinion. And I think it's important because right now it's we're negotiating mitigation plans at planning commission. And that's, we're having to do it on the fly. So I think these guys putting together a mitigation plan will be helpful for development in our community. But let me ask you, Bruce, if you owned a piece of property and you didn't want to do a mitigation plan, you can write all you want to. Your opening statement contradicted what you just said. If you don't want to mitigate the thing, you cut the trees down at the end of it. That's a solution that people are doing now because we don't have a mitigation plan. If there was a mitigation plan, you can say, I want to take down 70 trees, but I'm going to replant 140. That makes better sense. That is a action and a consequence where there's a workflow where decisions can be made rather than we might as well take trees down while we're taking this house down because I don't want to have to deal with planning commission talking about this. I don't think there's any further. But what your statement was, if you own the land, you can do whatever you want to. How do you get somebody to go from that point of view to mitigation? I think having a clear, robust mitigation plan that's understandable by everybody will, if it's done well, more people will want to comply in a way to better our community. Okay, at this point, I think it'd be refreshing to hear from Mrs. Jobs. Oh, do you want Jonathan to weigh in first? I was going to weigh in. Sure. Both of you, original statement. If I own this property, and if I decide I don't want to deal with the city, I just cut the trees down. Even if the mitigation plan is in place, as a landowner, I'll just cut the trees down. That's what I would do. Because it doesn't matter. And that's going to happen to me either way. It doesn't matter. If I may, before we go to Mrs. Jones, I want to hear what Mrs. Jones has to say. You know, listen, everybody's saying the same thing. How do we get a plan in place? How do we get planning in place before the bulldozers take out the trees? One thought, and I don't know how to go about doing it, but I'm pretty sure that there's a, something in place, I don't know what you want to call it, whereas the preservation of rock fences is maintaining the rock fences in Fayette County. You can, if it's still in place, you cannot take a rock fence down. You can repair it, but you can't take a rock fence down. I'm not saying we're going to go out and map every tree in Fayette County, but we need to find a way to get in front of the bulldozers, simply put. Mrs. Jones. So to this whole conversation, I mean, this is the process we're getting ready to go through. I mean, these are all hard questions and there are answers that we're going to have to hear from all different stakeholders and people who probably are smarter than I am about how to handle some of these things, but to the conversation between Mr. Penn and Mr. Nickel, they are both accurate. I mean, if you go home tonight and you have a tree in your backyard, like I have in mine right now, that is like over from the ice this winter and it's not standing back up and you want to take it down, you're going to call somebody and they're going to come take it down. And there's nobody that's going to do anything about that because it's your property. So the question that we're going to have to deal with going forward is, because it's a whole different question when someone has property that they are privately owning and they take down trees and then they come to us. Yeah, no, we don't like that either, but that's one question. The other question, and in some of the instances that you all have been talking about here, is the situation where we do have them coming to us with a plan and they do have a development plan, but our standards and the clarity that we need and that we're going to be working on, we don't have and they take down trees. And that's happened. In some cases, I think it happened not deliberately. In other cases, I think it was absolutely 100% intentional and deliberate and on a holiday weekend. So there's that. And to Mr. Nichols' point, in some cases, we've tried to address that on the back end and say, okay, we want you to plant this many trees or we want you to do this and we've spent time trying to figure that out at the planning commission, but as it hit, not ahead of time. So this process that Boyd has outlined for us over the next several months, we'll all be working on trying to figure out how to address those very different situations and how much latitude we have in terms of, you know, what we're going to require, what we're going to enforce and those types of things. But in my mind, one of the hardest things is going to be the things that are done ahead of any plan ever coming to the government, to the planning commission, to the council, because at that point, you know, we don't have any role in what they're doing on their property. So that one's going to be a tough one to figure out. And I don't know what the answer is, but it is going to be a process and it is going to take a long time. So, you know, I'm not trying to be discouraging on that, but we need to get it right. And it's just going to, it's just, it's a hard question for our community right now, but it is an important one. Okay. Thank you, Tracy, for distilling that down a little bit for us. Yes. I would like to, Ms. Davis is going to say something down here. Did you want to say something? I think it would be helpful to know that Heather Wilson is here today. She's an arborist. And I think she will tell you that any tree taken down cannot be replaced by planting new trees, unless you plant a whole lot of them and value their ecosystem services. A mitigation plan will never replace what you take down with old existing trees that provide a lot of services. That's all. Okay. Can I just weigh in on that for a second? Is that okay, Katie? I think what Molly said is right. You cannot replace what's removed when you're talking about older trees. For starters, there's no guarantee that those new trees will ever reach the status or the age that the trees that are removed have. We're in very different climatic conditions for all kinds of reasons. But also on top of that, I think part of that conversation when we are creating a mitigation plan, because it is important, and it will be a path forward for us, is really reframing how we think about trees and really understanding how they function as green infrastructure, because that's a very different conversation than just trees in the landscape. I am a tree hugger, but really when you're talking to the public and the people involved, it's really looking at them as an infrastructure piece of our community and the monetary benefits that they give, as well as the social and the ecological. So yeah, mitigation is definitely the way we will have to move forward. And I think that making sure that we talk about carrots just as much as penalties will be a big piece of how we hopefully bring people on board. Just to be clear- Go ahead. I know it's a difficult topic and it will be a tough discussion. This is what we are about to do for the next few months. There are certain jurisdictions that have something that's working. As you know, we did phase one and some of the cities I looked at in phase one, I'm glad I brought this down. Chattanooga, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, Seattle, Washington, Portland, New York, Washington, Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas. Austin, Texas was one of my favorites when working on this. And the start that really stood out for me for Austin, Texas is since 2010, over 95% of 13 trees have been saved because of the ordinance that they put in. So we might be late in working on this, but I think in the long run, we will see benefits to it. Right. Judy. That was essentially what I was gonna talk about was the value that the tree has, that has a dollar figure attached to it. And it's not just converting to wood that you're gonna build your house with. What it does with water quality, what it does with lowering the temperature of asphalt, what it does with reducing our carbon footprint. We don't have to invent that. APA has some of the training programs we've been invited to view, have work that they've shared that looks at how those kinds of values are calculated. So I think, again, wherever we need to look to get those resources, there are people out there that have been working on this, whether it's in Austin or whether it's Seattle or whatever it is that can serve as some guidance for us. And the other thing I would say is, Bruce, to your point, it isn't all trees that get looked at. It's the significant trees by size and by type. So it's not just, you know, we're talking about taking every tree out. It's did they take the critical trees and having conversation about the critical trees, not the, some of the junk trees that I've got growing in my yard now that I'm gonna get rid of. Okay, I wanna make sure this was Boyd's presentation. Boyd, is there anything else you need to update us on or include? Please support this. It's going to be a long process. Okay. Boyd, I have one question that's unrelated to the sort of controversy over the mitigation. And that is, we have had several plans when asked about the trees, the developers bring up grading as the reason that they're taking a lot of trees out. And when we do look at the neighborhoods that are built today, versus some of the older neighborhoods where you might have a steep slope down to the road from the house, for example, and the topsoil was sort of remaining in the yard. And what, as you look just the impact on some of our other regulations, I just would say, I think we should be looking at what our grading regulations are impacting the ability for developers to preserve trees because in a lot of the development regulations, I think there's pretty strict slope and grade regulations that we've put in place that one of the unintended consequences are, it means that a lot of tree removal has to take place. In my previous life, I was a designer. And when it comes to grading, it's just how you move the land. If you want to get rid of the tree, you will grade in a way to get rid of it. If you want to save the tree, you will grade in a way to save the tree. So I don't think there's a grading that, it's not the type of grading, it's just your intent. That's my personal belief. We are all taught how, landscape architect, we are taught how to grade and we are, there are people who design with what the site gives you, there are people who design on a blank canvas. So if you're designing on a blank canvas, you will just grade and remove everything. If you're designing on what the site gives you, you will try to preserve as many trees as it is. So this is not just on a regulation side. There's a design aspect to it that needs to be looked into. Okay. You agree with me or? Mr. Owens. I don't think that question was necessarily for me, but I do agree with you very much so. And also with the earlier question that was asked when you said, I would ask for your agreement, help and approval on this text amendment. I think that's what we're all really trying to get after is the fact that we want the planning ahead of the bulldozer, simply put. Come ask, we can't save every tree. I mean, love to, but we can't save every tree. But, and you know, thinking about it, folks, you know, there was a lot of work done, Frank, 10 years ago on a bur oak tree out on the south side of town and a lot of work was done to save that tree. Maybe, it was a big tree, but a lot of work was done on that. And what happened five years later, it came down on its own, you know. Yes, sir, it is. Another story. But, you know, we just, you know, want people to come and say, here's what we're doing. We're going to do this. We may not be able to, yeah, come and ask for approval without asking for forgiveness. That's how we are, that's what we're doing. I appreciate that answer. All right. Thank you, Boyd. Thank you very much. Once again, it's going to be a long process. I hope to see you guys along the way. Thank you very much. All righty, Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chair, that's all we have on the agenda today. We'll see you all next Thursday for committees back in this room at 8.30 and 1.30. Thank you. Thank you, Jim, and thank you, staff. And without objection, we are adjourned.