ლიგხიღელე შელხელ AMAC მალიტყობელ მგმგილელელელ რთეროჟგსრიუითელერთერთ რთეროხელერე შელიშელერეისგსტსერმი რთეროხელეროთ რთეროხელერი ნუეს ავერალ მა სეგოელელებელის სალეთაღ რთენეთებეროელერელებერიტლეგოებერბერვოალე სავეღლენერეგრისგსბალერთ ყვეთებერისერ� რთენებერისვალებერერერერთ რთებერრერერისალენელეშენრერ რთეროე მგნეიაომალერისვერერ� რთეშებერერთ ნდყისალენერნერ ვის ნი ვისერისისი ფალეჟogram რთენპებერებერესჟ შსხისისის მეშედერერებერერერ ბისალერერებ finish შსივისბიას შვირერებირერეჩარეშის ნანერერეტნდერაკამნააშ რე ჺფებიი შხალიმეშეშეშკივეშვილღეშეღორეშერეძეშეყეს ტვივიჯებინეშე რლივიმუელის თავისშეეშეჟიტვის რლიმუელირეშვის რლავივირი ყროდსივი? რლივიმეშეჟი რი რრივის სრისისი რლისისეღეშის რთიეღერ მიეშიღ მიეღერ როოდინგუ Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the September 9th General Government and Planning Committee meeting. Since it is one o'clock, I'm going to call our meeting to order. The first item on our agenda is approval of the July 1st, 2025 Committee Summary. Are there any additions or corrections? Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes, thank you. Our next item on our agenda today is the Lexington's Preservation and Growth Management Program or LPGMP. We have Long Range Planning Manager Hal Bailey with us today to present to us on the next draft. Vice Mayor Ruth, since this is your item, I'm going to turn it over to you for introductions. Thank you, Chair. I think for most of us, I don't have to reiterate kind of what this program is. We've been working on it all year and by we, I mean planning staff, so thank you all. And for those who don't know, the purpose of LPGMP is to create a data and needs driven process to guide future preservation and growth here in Fayette County. Today's presentation from Hal is going to be, he's going to go over some of the changes to the previous draft that we saw earlier this year and this will also be the first time that we have language in ordinance form. Next week, next Tuesday at six, I believe, we have a public forum, a special called meeting of this committee to gather input from the public, so please come out for that. And then finally, timeline wise, we're looking at getting a final draft out to this committee in early December. I want to remind colleagues and everybody in the room that nothing that's being presented today is written in stone. In fact, this presentation and this process is built exactly to gather more feedback and input and questions so that we can build as great of a process as possible. So now is a great time to weigh in. Councilmember Sheehan, if you have anything to add, feel free. I just want to remind everyone that this is designed to be a data driven process as called for in our comp plan and the point of that is to establish consistency in our decision making and transparency for the community when it comes to our land use decisions. And this process also includes very systematic public input opportunities which are important for centering our discussion on addressing the needs of our entire community in a very clearly defined and measured way. And as you can see from the documents, the public, the planning commission, the council, and the mayor's office all have a role in the program. And second, our preservation and inclusion are very important here and something I want to highlight before we get started, but I want you to be thinking about this because we are acknowledging that preservation is important by prioritizing changes to policy and regulations to meet our needs before decisions are being made by adding land to our urban service area. But we are going to need some continued discussion about what is being preserved as well. So we often hear talk about preservation of our rural land, but we have seen in recent zone change hearings and community conversations that preserving our history and culture are also important to our community. So we should have some discussion as a part of establishing this program, but then also maybe other items in committee about how we measure and evaluate preservation of these types of aspects within our policies and regulations. So that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Bailey for our presentation today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Hal Bailey, the manager for long-range planning. Today's discussion stems from the adoption of the goals and objectives of the 2023 comprehensive plan, which called for the input from the Urban County Council and is under the leadership of Vice Mayor Wu and GGP Chair Council Member Sheehan. Today we will be reviewing the initial draft program, specifically the changes since our last review. In terms of the timeline, we are still very much in the thick of developing the program. Today we will be reviewing a draft of the program for preservation and growth management. It is important for us to hear from the council regarding their concerns with the initial text and format of the program. It is important to also reiterate the purpose of this project and why this is an improvement. First, this allows for the comprehensive plan to have a broader focus to breathe beyond the continued debate of expansion or no expansion. Next, it codifies long-standing practices in a transparent way, provides a public process that has been critiqued historically as not public and not well-researched. Because this has not been codified in a process or review, it has led to staff and decision makers reinventing the same procedures time and time again with slight modifications. Without a baseline of information and a set process, we cannot provide accurate and consistent opportunities. To ensure transparency, this program seeks to utilize official data sources while pulling from data development metrics that are based on Lexington-specific building permit data. Finally, the program establishes an orderly operation of review by decision makers. On May 22, the Vice Mayor, Council Member Sheehan, their staff and the planning staff held a public input session at the Lexington Senior Center. This event and the public survey was available online through Engage Lex. This provided some feedback regarding the public's thoughts on the initial framework that was provided during previous GGP committees. The details of this event were provided to you at your CAO on August 28. There are five major points of feedback that came from the public input that impacted the construction of the program that is being presented today. First, there was a significant want to continue to preference infill and redevelopment within the policies and within the program, specifically changing policies and regulations. There was also a perception of bias from both sides of the conversation. For those who preference urban expansion, there is a perceived notion that this process will not do enough to meet the residential needs of our community. Whereas those who preference preservation, there is a perceived notion that this process is meant to open the whole community up at any given point in time. Neither is correct, but each highlights a need for a transparent process for our review such as this. Third, there is a want to utilize the vacant land within our current urban service area. Next, there was a continued perspective for public involvement in the final decisions and the ultimate plans that would be developed. And then finally, this process must include guardrails that limit speculative expansions. These guardrails include caps on expansion and a defined and transparent process for urban growth within Lexington. Here you see the overall flowchart that was last presented to you on May 6th. And here you can see the updated flowchart. Please don't zoom in on this. We'll go step by step to talk about the changes that have been made since this was last presented to you. The five-year growth trends report is an important step in this program. This update includes greater clarification as to the contents of that five-year report and its presentation. It also shifted the commercial and industrial need out of the five-year process and shifted discussions regarding employment to the special economic development need. We'll talk about that a bit more here in a moment. Finally, due to the continued public want for efforts regarding infill and redevelopment, even if a residential need is not identified, the Planning Commission will make recommendations regarding policy or regulatory updates or changes that would support greater utilization of the land inside of the urban service area. Here we see the 20-year formula. This will be utilized to calculate the residential need to meet the projected population of 20 years from the date of the growth trends report. It will take the projected population growth per the Kentucky State Data Center divided by the average household size per the American Community Survey to get the total dwelling units needed to accommodate that growth. And then it will divide that number by the five-year average of dwelling units per acre in existing residential zones per the Lexington's building permit data. This is what will tell us how many acres are needed to meet the 20-year residential need. This straightforward calculation provides a future residential need through official data sources while addressing future growth and is responsive to regulation changes, policy changes, and market shifts over time. The biggest changes to Step 2, or the Council Review, is based on the community feedback regarding infill and redevelopment being the continued focus of development within Lexington. The Urban County Council will consider policy and regulatory changes regardless of a finding of residential need. If there is a residential need that is identified within the growth trends report and before any discussion of adding land to the urban service area, the council would be required to act upon regulatory or policy changes that would better allow us to meet the residential needs within the urban service area. Finally, if the Urban County Council sought the option to include additional acreage to the urban service area, they would establish a minimum acreage to act upon. However, there would be a maximum acreage limited to 30 years of residential need, which would remove the option of large speculative expansions that would outpace our ability to plan. The details regarding the vacant land review included the definition of the makeup of the subcommittee as well as the clarification of the land that would be eligible for removal from the urban service area. Upon review with the Department of Law, they have indicated that it would be best to limit the removal of the urban service area land to those properties that were added after the establishment of this program. The information added for the Planning Commission land review defined the process of review by the subcommittee and Planning Commission, established clear locational requirements, and timelines for those reviews. Finally, the Planning Commission will oversee the development of the master plan, ultimately adopting the plan and amending the comprehensive plan to include the new acreage into the urban service area. There is no change in this section, as this is something that the Lexington community is very good at accomplishing. In development of the formula for the projected vacant land need, it became apparent that attempting to maintain 20 years of economic development and job growth land has unique challenges. If land set aside for jobs were to be repeatedly converted to housing, we would constantly be expanding our urban service area to meet whatever minimum threshold is set for jobs land. In short, residential and commercial property values make it very difficult to preserve land for economic development. This draft proposes shifting how we accommodate future economic development or employment growth to separate it to a different process that would address the projected employment growth under a special economic need process. The detail provided in the draft also addresses feedback from the community regarding the general concept of the special need, specifically the need for greater information regarding what type of need could be identified, appropriate guardrails for implementation, and then how it would function in practice. For this assessment of need, the mayor or the urban county council could propose a special economic development need as such need or opportunity might arise. This would include required documentation for a council resolution and initiation of a zone change for the planning commission to act upon. The path ensures that land added for job growth has a willing property owner and a community support for an industrial authority or economic development agency needed to preserve the land for this vital purpose. While the proposed process is straightforward and would provide a way for Lexington to better formulate our decisions regarding urban growth and preservation, it does not take into account certain elements that currently impact housing markets within our community. First, the calculation does not take into account the housing backlog that has been identified by the Kentucky Housing Corporation nor the LFUCG housing study. Further, it does not take into account the shared residential dwelling mix or units that are in mixed use zones or commercial zones within Lexington. Both have impacts and would require assumptions to be made regarding their impact on the Lexington housing need overall. Finally, there is a concern with the timing of the growth trends report. As we have worked with the vice mayor and the council member on this program, the timing should a need be identified for residential or the expansion of our urban service area. It would overlap, timing wise, with the development of our comprehensive plan. This could result in confusion regarding the outreach necessary to complete both projects. In terms of the next few months, the council will be holding a special GGP public forum next Tuesday at 6 p.m. to hear feedback regarding the current proposal. And there is a scheduled December 2nd GGP committee update and discussion. I'd be happy to take any questions. Colleagues, we have lots of time today for questions and comments so go ahead and sign in when you are ready. We'll start with Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor and Council Member Sheehan for your work on this and also to our planning staff. Hal, I know you and Chris and the director and your team have been very involved in this going forward. So Council Member Sheehan started talking about preservation at the top of this presentation. When we're talking about preservation, I think most folks think about rural land preservation. How are you all defining preservation when we're talking about this plan? Is there a way to encompass the prevention of displacement of people and culture and history? Is there a way to put that in the definition of preservation or do we need to start using another term as well? I believe that that is an adequate term to talk about that and that specifically gets into the recommendation that even if there is not a residential need identified for expansion of the urban service area, there is still a need to have those continued conversations of policy and regulatory changes for the current urban service area and our current community. Okay, so we just need to be explicit and the Planning Commission needs to be explicit and everybody when they're talking about preservation about what they're talking about in regards to preservation? Yes, and I will focus on it when the Planning Commission is talking about it, it should be a focus on land use and the adherence to the comprehensive plan when it becomes greater terms of preserving culture, things like that. I think that that is in the purview of the Urban County Council to really push for the new policy or regulatory changes. Okay. Yeah, no I think a lot of council members speak to this and I think some Planning Commission members speak to it as well. Just the preservation of existing neighborhoods and history, culture and people. I think just needs to be, I think we're just going to have to be explicit about it going forward. Absolutely. I follow along pretty clearly with the chart. Two things I'm wondering about, you know the data that we're going to use in regards to the 20 year housing need and how we digest that. Our cost, our cost in numbers and dollar figures, are they factored into that equation at all? Is that something that, because I'm thinking about the cost of rent, I'm thinking about the cost of construction, how does that play into the whole formula in the plan? It does not within this formula. The formula is fairly simplistic. Any type of cost or trying to deal with costs would fall under policy and regulatory changes that the council would have to review. Okay, so it doesn't play into the data that's used to trigger the conversation about whether we're looking at policy or land inclusion? Not at this time. Not at this time. Alright, the other thing I'll ask about too is what about the university's needs and more explicitly the University of Kentucky? We know that they're growing, they have housing needs. Is there a mechanism for how the university's growing in their plan and development? Is there a mechanism for it to interject into our conversation and what we, and the decisions that we have to make going forward? When it comes to the student population, if it is a student that is living outside of the university, that would come into the definition of a dwelling unit as they are occupying that housing unit for a period of time. They are calculated within our population. So in that perspective, it is counted in. But other than that, there is no way to kind of integrate the University of Kentucky's policies into a document or a procedure or equation like this. Okay. I know I'm about to run out of time and I've got a couple more questions, but I just want to stay here a little longer. Is that something that we need to be thinking about on how to try to include that? And I guess I'm thinking about if, so if it's not the university creating the housing, but we know the housing is student focused housing, that being a dwelling unit hits our radar as far as available housing? It does. So the only housing that is removed from this calculation would be the group quarters housing, which are dorms, which are on campus and then institutionalized persons. Those are taken out of the equation. All others are considered living in dwelling units within this community. Okay. So if housing is taken offline to increase student housing, which gets back, so say it's a piece of land that has currently 10 housing, but it gets taken offline to create student housing, but creates 200 units. Now those 200 units are getting calculated towards our housing inventory. Depending on the zone. So we are looking at the zoning with some of our vacant land analysis and what type of dwelling units are being created. So there's a bit of caveat and that's something that we can follow up with you on. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Chair. And thank you Hal and thank you Vice Mayor Wu, Chair Sheehan. I know this has been a gargantuan project and y'all have undertaken it with great attention to detail and a great prioritization of public transparency, which I really appreciate all around. I had a quick question with regards to the items outstanding slide. Yes. If we could pop back to that for a second. Thank you. So I understood the and appreciated the more extensive explanation behind the timing of the gross trench reports, but I was wondering if you could go into a little more detail about the first two items on there, the housing backlog and the share of residential units items with regards to whether or not these are items y'all intend to consider in some form or if not, why, what's the why a little bit more going into that detail? Absolutely. So with the housing backlog, there's a documented housing backlog within our community of needed units. Now the vast majority of those needing needed units are subsidized units or affordable housing units. This is really a calculation that is looking towards the future growth of our population. Any look at either a subsidized product, which is not something that any expansion can really deal with, or getting into a just our backlog of history is complex because it adds assumption or forces someone to make an assumption of how are we going to make up that backlog? The vice mayor and the council member have directed us to really look at how are we doing this in a very clear and non-speculative way or to take out as many assumptions as possible. So that is why we have left this out at this point in time, looking for input as to whether or not this is something that people would like added in and what type of assumptions we can make with that. With the shared residential units and mixed use and commercial zones, both of those add complexities. We as a community have done very well to integrate housing into the vast majority of our zones, which is best practice for communities. However, we can't quite calculate or assume when certain residential developments might come in, the density of those residential units, so it undercuts some of the possible projections or the information that we're using that's a little bit more cut and dry. So again, making assumptions there. Thank you, and I really appreciate that. I just wanted to get that out there for some folks to make sure that they understand the, sometimes when we get into the nuances of policies like this, there's a, again, we talked about perception of biases and whatnot. I want to make sure that folks in the community know that these are not things that are simply being ignored. So I appreciate you taking the time to explain that in greater detail. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Lagree. Oh, sorry, Vice Chair Lynch. Thank you, Chair, and again, thank you, team, for all the work you put into this, and it's, the work is not done. We still got more work to do. So I just have a few questions. My first question is about this shift from the remove, on the slide, for the five-year growth trends report, the removal of commercial and industrial need, and the shift to special economic development need. Can you clarify what that means? Yes. So essentially, what we have done for a long period of time is try to identify land for economic development or job growth within our community. When we do that for a long plan, all too often that amount of land has been chipped away, either through zoning ordinance tax amendments or zone changes to residential and commercial, because those are more viable from a valuation standpoint and are able to be developed rapidly. Where commercial development or industrial unemployment seems to be working is really what we're doing right now within our community, which is locating it on LFUCG-owned land and working with our economic development team. By, essentially, what will happen is if we always set a metric or a floor for what we need for economic development, and that is constantly being chipped away at, then we're constantly expanding to bring that back up, because we've chipped away at it for other needed things like residential. Thank you. That helps a lot. My next question is about the text of the ordinance, the proposed ordinance itself. My first question is in Section 4, in paragraph number 5. I don't quite understand, A.M.B., about the vacant acreage. I don't know if you can explain that to me a little bit. Yes. Ultimately, what this is trying to say is that if there is property that is suggested or removed from our fringes of our urban service area, any of that acreage that would be removed from the urban service area would have to be added back into the total that was established by the Urban County Council. That way, we are not dipping below that minimum threshold that you would be establishing with your resolution to the Planning Commission. Thank you. That makes a lot more sense. I read that last night about five times. I'm not sure what that means. Thank you. My last point is just a suggestion. In Section 7, paragraph number 4, it talks about the required two-thirds vote. It says the two-thirds vote of the total membership. I would suggest adding of the Urban County Council, so we know who that is referencing to. Whose two-thirds vote is it? Absolutely. That's the council, correct? Not the Planning Commission there, right? Correct. I just want a suggestion to add that instead of saying total membership. Otherwise, thank you so much for the presentation and thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member LeGray. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bailey, for your presentation. I just have a couple of questions. I'll start with the section we were just in, in Section 7. I was curious in Section 7, I guess, Area 4, where we were just looking with Council Member Lynch, if we have kind of a set of criteria there about how we could consider a special economic development need. Who presents that to us? And can you talk a little bit about that? Because I would want that criteria to be really clear and limit any kind of ability to abuse or manipulate it. So would you be able to share a little more about what you all are thinking about there? Yes. The thought would be that the information would be provided by someone to either the Mayor or a member of the Urban County Council to bring it to this full body. They would then, the person that brought it to the body, either the Mayor or an Urban County Council member, would present that information either with the person that they have been working with or the entity that they are working with to talk about what is the unique opportunity, the economic development for that. So it would be something that is worked either through the Mayor's office or through this body. Okay. Thank you for that clarity. And then, you know, thinking about some of our discussion around infill and the previous points that were brought forward about preservation in different ways, I'm curious about whether or not evaluating undeveloped land within the boundary or making sure that that land is being used to its full potential, could those spaces be addressed through the vacant land review process? Is that part of that? Can you just go into a little more detail about vacant land review? Yes. So that is the goal, is to hopefully discuss when the land would be developed or how the land would be developed. At this point in time, the Department of Law has advised that maybe we don't do it for a back look at what is currently, but that would be a kind of focus for future development so that if something were to come in in the distant future and people said, well, why haven't you developed? What is holding you back? Either the Planning Commission could say, you're just not wanting to do anything, and then we could remove and adequately put that into something in the future. Or there could be a conversation about what is needed to help them develop their property. And I know that there are several things going on between the state and the government that are looking at those opportunities as well. Okay, that's very helpful. And then with the formula, and maybe you've already addressed this with the previous answer, was there any kind of discussion about a deduction of vacant land or underutilized land within the urban service area when you're thinking about the development of that formula? Are you all thinking about this as kind of more of a parallel process? That is a secondary process, really, because we really need to establish what is that vacant number to actually have the calculation work out. Any removal in the future by the Planning Commission would have to then add that back in, and that would start a whole other process of discussion of where that would be located, and that would go through the application side of things as well. Okay, that's helpful. And then I was just thinking about how you all are looking at the number of dwelling units that are being developed, that average dwelling units number as part of the formula. Do you all feel like, especially in the most immediate future use of this potential formula, that you would have, that that five-year period would be sufficient to assess that information, especially because we've had all these ZOTAs and different changes, we've had an expansion? I'm just curious about how you all are thinking about that. We found that that was probably the most secure kind of timeline for us to show growth trends over a period of time. Year to year, there is a fair amount of fluctuation in that dwelling unit per acre, so we want to make sure that any type of projection going forward is utilizing the most secure data, and we found that that five-year works fairly well. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful, and thank you, Chair. I'll sign back in if I have other questions. Thank you. Council Member Savicny. Thank you, Chair. Thanks so much for the presentation. I just have a few questions. Along the lines of Council Member Brown, I do think that cost per rental unit or cost per housing, to be honest with you, if we're three times the national average, then people aren't going to want to locate here, or it gets very difficult, so I do think somehow the cost should be part of the formula. I just think it needs to be part of it. We either need to be in the game, because honestly, if you constrain housing, it's not going to be part of the formula, then you're not going to have people wanting to move here. It's going to affect your growth trends and everything. So I just think that's a little bit of an issue. I'd like to see that kind of somehow flushed out and thought about. The Planning Commission Vacant Land Review. Yes, sir. I really like this piece. I don't agree with law on that particular matter. Like I do believe that people have been given ample time to do something with their land. And everything should be up for review constantly because to me it's not, I don't think they've gotten something by right. You know what I mean? They've gotten something because we included them. I think our process moving forward is better where we actually ask somebody, are you willing to do something? And people are. So I like the way we're doing it now. But I do think it will create an artificially high amount of land that's available if you don't. That I would do first. That would be my suggestion is do that piece first. And so I'm not asking a lot of questions. I'm just kind of making statements. I'm sorry about that. And then the whole piece about the commercial land, which looks to be like this special economic development need. It looks to me like is that the only way we'll ever have land for business and business investment? So that would be the only way to add acreage to the urban service area for employment or I-1 or I-2 zoning, yes. So that becomes, to me, that's a perpetual process. Because it almost sounds like an entity will come to us and they'll say we need 30 acres to do X, Y, and Z. And they're gonna lobby us. They're gonna talk to the mayor. They're gonna lobby our economic development team. And that's gonna be brought to us. It seems. Is that right or wrong? I believe that that is a opportunity, but I am unsure how it will formulate into the future. Yeah. The piece that I, yeah, and it looks like the, so the planning commission will get their grab at it and then it basically comes back to us, it seems like. Is that correct? Ultimately it will go to you during the zone change at the final element of it. So the final decision making body in terms of establishing a need, the residential need and the base acreage and then ultimately the zone change for the overall acreage, yes. Okay, all right. And that brings back, I'm not watching my time so you can tell me, the one thing I wanted to ask was about the vacant land review. I don't actually like that it ends at the planning commission there because I kind of feel like we're an elected body that we may need to make a decision on that. So I personally would rather see it end with us, but that's just my opinion. And I might come back in with other, you've done a great job. I'm glad you've done some of the work you've done. I'm a little bit concerned about the formula in general. I do think price needs to be included. And I don't know exactly, I don't know exactly how you're managing numbers that we've heard in the past, like that we're behind X number of units and things like that. So I don't really, I don't know how you're handling that piece. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. And thanks everybody for their hard work on this. I want to kind of look back. So you talked about items outstanding. And then how can you, with the comprehensive plan every five years and then the trends, and then I'm looking at page 29. Can you kind of go through the timeline and how, because when we did the comprehensive plan in 23, we had the goal forward. We had said that we were going to have these things done and we were going to base it on that. And we really didn't get that done in time. What is going to be our timeline that we continue that this is going to be a process that will go forward? Because I know we want to have it data driven is the process. And can you kind of explain to that going forward how this will all come together? Yes, I believe that the way that the current draft is written has specific dates required to meet. And it is my understanding from the Vice Mayor and the council member that they are interested in adopting this as ordinance. So it would be a required procedure of the government to go through for each level. Right, I understand that. So are we looking at, because when I just looking at the draft ordinance, it talks about two years. When does that start? And we're good till 28 right now. So will you be doing anything between now and 28? Or is it kind of going forward after that? So it would be an adoption of the comprehensive plan. If we did this the way right now, 28 would be the adoption. Two years directly from that date, we would have to develop the growth trends report or the five-year growth trends report for it to be actually presented to the planning commission and to the Urban County Council. Okay, so that's kind of the timeline going forward. And that's kind of how I read the ordinance. And that's what I wanted to make sure. Between now and the next comprehensive plan, we won't be using any of the data to make any changes or? We will be, of course, updating the data on our analytic research center through imaginelexington.com. That is something in which we are trying to have a very clear and transparent data clearing house of everything within our community, much like we have on the front of the comprehensive plan right now. We would not be running this program until the two-year mark after the comprehensive plan is adopted. That's what I thought. So this is a few years out. Yes, sir. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bailey, for you and your team, all the work that you all have put into this. I wanted to just kind of highlight a couple of things that are changed from the last draft. The biggest piece for me probably is the idea of kind of reweighing the ideas of how we address whatever need that we may have through policy and regulatory change versus expansion or change of the urban service area. I think in our previous draft, we basically said if we don't identify a need or we have enough housing land, we're kind of good to go until the next five years. And if we didn't have enough housing land, that we would do some combination of regulatory policy and expansion. This new draft basically puts policy and regulatory stuff first. And a big part of why we did that was having conversations with stakeholders and with the public. Everybody in every conversation, whether or not they like the idea of expanding the urban service area, always points back to we need more infill redevelopment. And I think we address infill redevelopment through policy, regulatory approval, zone change, zoning, ZOTAs, all those kind of different ways. So I think, I feel like this change puts us in line with what the majority of the public really wants out of this process. And in some ways, I mean, from a purely honest and political point of view, it kind of pushes back and defers the more contentious item, which is the idea of the expansion of the urban service area. It puts that as a, okay, if we can't get it done through these regulatory changes, then we're gonna go this route. So I really appreciate that change up. To address a few of my colleagues' questions about the way it lines up or doesn't line up with the comprehensive plan, I know we had had some conversations, and we don't have this in stone yet, about when this report, trends report, comes out vis-a-vis the comp plan. Right now, can you speak a little bit about the idea of doing it, say, a year after the comp plan versus two years after the comp plan and where those overlaps are? Absolutely. So if we shifted the timeframe from the two-year projection right now, or the two-year plan right now, to one year directly after the comprehensive plan's adoption, that would allow us, if there were to be found, a residential need to go through the entire process, including the master planning process, and finish that prior to us starting our next comprehensive plan. It just somewhat goes to show how complex some of these expansions can and will be, but then also allows us to not have the same conversation, or two different conversations that are vastly similar at the same time. Yeah, and I'm a big proponent of giving you all, the staff, who are the ones, you know, have to figure out your capacity for doing two big things at once. So as much time and space as we can give you all as a team to work on this and put some really good thought and work into it, I think the better. And then the last point I want to make is the idea of the special economic development need, right? There's been a lot of conversation around this particular point. I like the fact that we've kind of separated the economic development piece of it out of the housing piece of it, and kind of made it two very discreet items. But right now, can you speak a little bit to the idea of, if we don't have, and currently we don't have this process, we don't have this special needs clause, right? So what happens now? What can happen right now? What is, there's no process per se, but what would it look like now if there was that economic development need? Yes, so currently, if anyone wanted to ask for a rezoning of any of our agricultural land to any other zone, they would be allowed to do so. The only thing that is typically holding any party back is the recommendations of our comprehensive plan, and the adherence to that by our Planning Commission and Urban County Council. If they were to go to the Urban County Council and they found that it was a important economic factor and that it could align with elements of our comprehensive plan, an eight vote of this body would be able to go ahead and rezone that property without needing to go ahead and expand our urban service area. So that is the important part of this in the fact that it would create the process, while it might create some issues of lobbying in the future or conversations with the council, that would still bring that out to a formal public review. It then also elevates the review to actually allow for that to go through the entirety of the process, to a two-thirds vote of the entire council, and then going to the Planning Commission for their review for the zone change, and then a potential, another review by the council for the zone change. Right, thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Morton. Thank you, Chair. I don't have any questions, just a quick statement. So first I wanted to thank Vice Mayor Wu, Council Member Sheehan, and the planning staff for their leadership and hard work on this matter. This is a very important topic for our community, and having a clear and data-driven process is exactly what we need when we talk about gauging the future growth of Lexington. When we're talking about the future of Lexington, we must talk about the balance between preservation and growth, and clearly define preservation. Preservation, protecting our farmland, but just as important, preserving our historic communities right here in the city of Lexington. For far too long, many of these communities, especially our historic African-American neighborhoods, have been overlooked, passed by, and skipped over. These neighborhoods matter. We have to remember, they were once redlined into specific areas, forced into situations designed to hold them back, not by their choice, but by the choice of leaders and planners during that time. And now, some of those very areas are being seen as valuable, as desirable, but with that comes real pressure, the pressure of growth, knowing that we have to grow, knowing that we're pushing for infill, and then knowing that projects don't always reflect the voices of people who live there. So in some cases, they can harm the character of that community, and even go as far as displacing and displacement. So that's why we must be intentional. We must acknowledge the past and plan for the future with the voices at the front of mind, and I'll continue to emphasize this truth. Their cultures matter, their history matters, their voices matter, because communities are what make Lexington, Lexington. And as we grow, we must not grow at their expense. We must grow with them, preserve them, and honor their legacy that they bring to this city. So thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Chair. So I appreciate my colleagues' questions and comments about the vacant land review process, but then also the removal of land from the USA. I'm inclined to support our law department's decision. I think if we have a conversation about that, that should go moving forward. I think everybody that's in now, and I think it would just set people's hair on fire if we started having that conversation about removing folks that are already in. It could create a potentially bad situation. But it also seems like the intent is for us to look at policy and regulatory changes to incentivize infill and redevelopment on the front end before we even have those conversations. Is that correct? Absolutely, yes. Yeah. So OK, so yeah, we're on the same page with that, but I just wanted to be on the record saying that we're talking about removing land. I think it should be going forward and not in arrears. Now, the vice mayor, I think, made some real good points about the special economic development process that currently exists. And then you all have the changes in what's different from what currently exists. What did y'all hear? What have you been hearing are some of the pros and the cons of the new changes that have been put into place? There are real concerns that have been put out there from both sides. Ensuring for the economic development side of things is to make sure that we have a process in which people could go by with a user rather than speculating for something to grow. If we took too much time, like the five-year growth trends report, which would take a few years to get through, there would be a hard time to identify someone that would or work with someone that specifically would like to come in and develop a transformative project within Lexington. There is also the concern that it would just be continued lobbying and continued outreach to the council and to the mayor's office. However, the raising the bar, again, of what it would take to go through an economic development need process is important to look at this and trying to formalize this, bring it out into the public in a transparent way. So we see that balancing act going through right now. Yeah, and that's what concerns me, is that the way it's stated now, and I like the additional guardrails put up on it and kind of raising the bar, but it seems like it could turn it into a perpetual lobbying situation for the council and the administration. Have there been any options or anything that you looked at that turns it into a process on its own? So technically, the way that it is set up here is a process of its own. It is within this formulation, but it is outside the five-year growth trends report kind of process. It would be something that would be coming to you. I would also say that that lobbying that can occur can occur currently. That is the biggest thing. We have yet to have real conversations about other restrictions other than a cap of the acreage that would be allowable to be brought in of 250 acres. That is specifically between our legacy business center and what was initially proposed for the Madison County development. So we'd be happy to work with any council member that would like to look at other guardrails that could be implemented. Yeah, so let me get this right. So I think part of the reason that we don't get lobbied down is we could always say, go submit a zone change and go through the process. If we adopt this, does that eliminate that opportunity for property owners just to go through the zone change process? Yes. This would be formalizing a process by which they could talk about the urban service area and the zone change process associated with economic development land. OK. All right. OK, yeah, and I may follow up with you about things. But I know it's hard and kind of complicated. And I know we've talked about looking at residential. I think it just kind of stands on its own. And that's a need that we know we need to address. But speculation on creating job opportunities in economic development is, I just think it's different. But still worthy of exploring how we address and meet the needs. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Savicny. Thank you again, Chair. And now I have a few more. I have some questions here. We're not considering net commuters in this. And I do think net commuters has a role because my guess is there's an optimal level of people that are coming into the community and going out of the community to work. And I don't know, like I didn't see it anywhere. I do think it's kind of relevant because I think there's an optimum number. And I think that should somehow be considered because you want to house as many people as you can that want to work and live in your community. And I think we can work with you on looking at some data metrics. The only thing that is somewhat complex with commuting is that we would just have to find those official data sources that we can really utilize to project that number and then find an actual level. Or in this case, it might be an assumption. And that gets into some complications with the calculations. I get that. But my guess is, as urban planners, you probably, there's some data set that should be like the optimal number or something like that, I would think. And if we do a large economic project, so let's, for instance, we bring in 250 acres for a 6,000 employee plant, that will have a significant impact on the land that we need for residential. So I don't know if you have a tie-in for how a big project hits that housing number. It would definitely adjust the projections for our community. So this is why we are also trying to rely on outside sources for our projections. They would look at those inputs of new jobs, job creation within our community, and adjust those population projections for 20 years out. We would then be able to integrate that into the formula as it is now. OK. And they'll consider UK's projections as well? Yes. OK. All right. And I too wanted to, oh, and then, like I know in the Goal 4 work group at one time, they talked about really the maximum that is usable. And like they had a number. I kind of, I don't quite recall what it was. But it was some sort of number that basically excluded all the very historic slash 100% great soils and all that kind of jazz. So I don't know if we issue a cap. I think that would be kind of an interesting thing to do. And we might come up with a number of the max of something that we want to do each year, things like that. That's just a thought. And then lastly, I did want to thank Vice Mayor Wu and Council Member Chair Dr. Sheehan for both of your work on this. This is like a monumentous task. And we kind of put a tight timeline on it. So the planning staff, like they took it seriously. And I really, really appreciate that. So thank you so much. Vice Chair Lynch. Thank you, Chair. I have one more question. Kind of percolated in my brain as we were discussing. On the public feedback slide, one of the items that the public uplifted during the engagement process was greater opportunities for public comment and input. Can you highlight where in this proposed new process that takes place? Yes, at any public hearing. So if we're looking at the different slides here. Oh, wrong one. So if you see anywhere in which there is a decision being made by a decision-making body, either the Planning Commission or the Urban County Council, we see these as either having some sort of public input or public feedback about what is being decided or discussed, specifically with the Planning Commission's recommendations and then moving on into the Urban County Council's decisions, whether it is policy or regulatory changes. Getting into the vacant land review, we would see that anywhere you see orange minus the subcommittee kind of composition, there would be some sort of public presentation, then public comment. And then again, when we are getting into the Planning Commission's review of the master planning areas, getting into the master plan itself, and then the zone change, all of that would have some sort of public comment or public review. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Legree. Thank you, Chair. Hal, I just wanted to follow up on a question that was asked earlier by Council Member Brown having to do with the policy aspect of this. I was thinking a little bit about what he was asking around infill. And I'm curious, when we're thinking about good infill and productive infill projects and feasible projects, I'm kind of curious about your perspective, where these infill policy conversations originate. Are they part of this process? Are they committee items? We don't have our infill and redevelopment group that we had previously. So as we're balancing not only this process, but our meaningful, thoughtful, cohesive infill needs for our city as a whole, where does that all originate? That's the fabulous part of removing the conversation of expansion, no expansion from the comprehensive plan. And having this kind of process tied to many of the recommendations that can come from the comprehensive plan, that will allow for the public input to lead in to some of those suggestions while also allowing for best practice to be analyzed regarding infill and redevelopment within our urban service area. So we see that the comprehensive plan being a guiding light for policy and regulatory changes. It will also then reach into this five-year trends report, which will allow us to get to specific action items that were either referred to within the comprehensive plan or brought up with the comprehensive plan so that we can continue that work to implement specific policies. And do you see those policies as initiated by council? Yes. So many of the recommendations of the comprehensive plan are regulatory, in which they can either start from the council or the planning commission, or if they're policy-specific, whether it's funding or any type of perspective of uplifting certain projects, that would come from the council themselves. OK. All right, well, thank you. This is helpful and gives me a lot to think about in terms of the most effective way to do that work. That's the end of my questioning. Thank you, Chair. Colleagues, we have a couple people who would like to speak for a third time, and our rules specify two times to sign in. So I would like to take a motion to suspend them because we have time to continue our discussion. I want to make sure everyone gets their questions answered. So I would take a motion to suspend the rules to allow people to sign in for a third time. Second. I'll make the motion. Vice Chair will second. All in favor? Or any discussion on the motion? Council Member Curtis. Just to be clear, within these additional third options, folks will still be restricted to their allotted time. Five minutes. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. Any other discussion on the motion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK, that motion passes. So the people who would like to sign in again, go ahead. Council Member Savigny. Thank you again, Chair, Dr. Sheehan. I just had one more. Have we ever shrunk the urban service boundary in the past? Yes, we have. We did a quite large expansion in the 1970s and then shrunk it down, largely due to a lawsuit. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Savigny, always keeping us on our toes. OK, I have a couple questions, just some things that I would like us to just publicly clarify, really. First, we mentioned policy and regulation multiple times in here. And I know you have given me a definition of the two, because we kind of use them interchangeably a lot. So just for public clarification, can you just kind of give an example of a policy versus a regulation? When we differentiate the two, we are looking at the difference between law and a policy, or something that we are trying to promote. In regulatory approaches, we would be looking at an amendment of the zoning ordinance, or the code of ordinances, to require something. If we were to go to a policy perspective, that could be anything from an internal resolution or policy for the government, or funding mechanisms, things like that. Thank you. And then, I see Ms. Jones in the back. Would you mind to come up and talk a little bit about the recommendation that law has made about the removal process, and the timing of that? Yeah, we've talked about this during the course of this process all along, that you all have been working on, and the smaller group has been working on. And the reason that we came down on that is because this is a process that we have not had before. It's something that we're going to be implementing in a new way, probably by ordinance, but certainly by some legislative action on the part of this council. So in our determination of that, we also are trying to balance people's property rights. And anybody that has come in in the past, it's come in under a completely different process, completely different discussions, often related to the comprehensive plan, which is much different than what is being proposed here. So in order to balance that out and make sure everybody is operating under the same process with the same understanding, and with the understanding that this process allows for that to happen if it is enacted in the way that it is set up here, it's best to not venture back. That sort of involves retroactivity of legislative actions, which is problematic legally, can raise some questions for people to maybe challenge us on. And the processes are different that we're talking about, and how things have come in in the past, and how they've come in with this, if it goes forward. The other part just practically to think about is trying to evaluate the ones that maybe have already come in under I don't know how many different ways. They've come in long times ago, short times ago, versus this, which is pretty clear-cut, straightforward, and sets out the boundaries so everyone's aware going in. Trying to practically differentiate those, both in this ordinance to enact it to do that, but also just practically trying to figure it out if that happens, seems to raise some significant legal issues and review that would be best left moving forward only with this new ordinance, if that makes sense. Yes, but. I do feel like one of the things we hear over and over from our community is that when it comes time to have these discussions about our urban service area is, well, this many acres of vacant land still exist from the last expansion, and those haven't been developed. That becomes a lot of the critique, which I understand about how we're making our decisions about the future land piece. I'm wondering if there is, and you may not have an answer to this today, but I'm wondering if there is a way for, at least in the trends report and when we're assessing what is vacant, before we get to the policy and regulation recommendations, to look back and have a public accounting of what land is vacant that hasn't been developed, why it hasn't been developed. Because I think that that why piece is important. Like, do they have a development plan in place? Is there some restriction on why they haven't developed? Because I think there's a lot of information missing from the public perspective when they see big plots of land empty, but then we're saying we need more land. And I understand why those might look from a public side like they're in conflict. So for me, then, thinking about removing property from our urban service area makes sense when it's not being developed and we need land to meet our needs. And we have retracted in the past. So I do feel like there has been precedent for retraction as well. I think that what you're talking about in terms of getting information that would help you understand why it hasn't developed might also inform a process that you're talking about in terms of policy and regulation. In other words, if there's a big piece of land somewhere and it hasn't developed, what is the reason why? Is it specifically related to that property owner and their personal situation? Is it related to infrastructure cost? Is it related to, I don't know, any number of other things? Is it the land cost? I don't know. So having that information might be helpful. I would just caution you against then using it because the answers you're going to get are going to be far reaching. And the circumstances under which that property was in or came in are going to be different than what we're looking at here. And so while it might be informative to help you with some of the policy and regulation parts, I'd still caution you against making that a basis to take property out that's been in for a long time. Maybe it would just assist you in trying to figure out a way to help it develop, if that makes sense. OK, thank you. Yes, it does. And then back to some of the conversations we've had about the definitions of preservation and how we think about that, particularly when it comes to our policy and regulation recommendations for infill. I wonder if there's a way that we can point back to some of the language that we use in the comp plan, specifically, to say these policy and regulation changes must be in alignment with theme A, equity policy one, which that reads, ensure equitable development and address Lexington segregation resulting from historic planning practices and policies, rectify the impact of redlining and discrimination based on race and socioeconomic status. And I wonder if there are points of the comp plan that we could point to. I would be interested in hearing, maybe we can have a meeting about this, about what that language might look like. Because I understand that if we point back to the comp plan and then the comp plan changes, that can be difficult. But it would be important to me to figure out some language around that or how we might be able to incorporate that piece. Absolutely. And I think that is all of the pieces that I wanted to just clarify. Vice Mayor, do you have any other closing remarks you want to make about this? Sure. Thank you, Chair. Before I do, I just want to make one other point that's come up a couple times in this conversation, is the idea of how do we incorporate in our current housing shortage into this formula. I very much respect how difficult it is to make all of that math work. But I think if we're looking at not just the future growth of the city, we're not starting from a flat place. We're starting from a couple feet, with our feet in a hole, that we have to catch up from. So we are working as a team to address and figure out what that will look like. And that may be in a third draft. But thank you, Mr. Bailey. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. You all have done a terrific job throughout this process. I know we have been on you all this whole time of formulating what is a very complex issue. I want to remind everybody that next Tuesday at 6 PM here in Chambers, we're going to have a public forum to talk about this issue. So anybody who has a feeling, an opinion, a thought about this issue, please come out and let us know. And then we will be presenting our final draft on December 2nd to this committee. Colleagues, I want to first thank you for the robust discussion. This is precisely what we were looking for out of this process. And I want you to encourage your constituents to participate in the forum next week. This is how folks get their voices heard. And lastly, I just want to say, as complicated as this thing is, this is really, really, really important and potentially transformative to the way that we figure out, as a community, what kind of city Lexington wants to be for generations to come. So I thank you all for your work. Thank you, Chair. I would like to echo all of the Vice Mayor's statements. The thanks to our planning staff and then everyone being here ready to discuss the details of the program. So I really appreciate that. Our last item on our agenda today is for the items referred to committee. We do have some items that were sponsored by former council member Gray. And we need to run through that list because we can take new sponsors, but then we also should remove the items if no one is agreeing to sponsor that item. So the first item, if you're looking at the last page of our packet, there is the Bring Back the Bluegrass item. Does anybody want to take that item as the sponsor? OK, Council Member Morton will update that in the records. The next one is the Absentee Landlords item. I see Council Member Curtis would like that item. And then the final item is the MAG Study Review. Seeing no one, I'll take. I have a motion to remove and a second. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? OK, that motion passes. Are there any other changes to items in our committee that anyone else would like to make today? OK, seeing none, we are at the end of our agenda. So I will adjourn our meeting. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.