The meeting of the Lexington-Fayette-Urban County Government's Planning Commission. Today we're going to discuss subdivision items, among other things. Our first item on the agenda today is the approval of the October 22nd, 2025 minutes. Does anybody have any revisions or additions? If not, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I can make a motion for approval of the October 22nd, 2025 minutes. Second. Thank you, Mr. Forrester. And Ms. Wirth, second. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will place that motion to a vote. Okay, Mr. Jonathan Davis. Oh, it is? Okay. Are you in the affirmative? Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you. Do we need technical assistance with your computer, you think? All righty. The next item are postponements and withdrawals. Do we have any postponements today? Okay. Seeing none. Sorry, Chair Davis. We did have an email from the Kamek property representative indicating that they wished for a postponement until January. So that plan appears on page 3 of our agenda under development plans. PLN MJDP 25-67. Margaret C. Kamek property, also known as the W.E. Savage property, located at 4630 Old School House Lane. And they requested a one-month postponement to the January 15th meeting. Thank you. Okay. All righty. So, we have a request for a postponement. Do we have any discussion or a motion from the Planning Commission? Mr. Penn. Mr. Chair, I move for postponement of PLN MJDP 25-67 to the January 15th meeting. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Second from Commissioner Bill Wilson. Do we have any discussion? If not, we will take a vote. That's to January 15th. Okay. Mr. Davis, you're in the affirmative? Okay. All right. That's unanimous. Thank you. Do we have any other postponements from staff? Okay. That will take us to our first item on the agenda today, which is on page 2, number 1A, PLN FRP 2532. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Do we have performance bonds and letters of credit? We do? Okay, yes. Okay. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Forrester. Let's go ahead and entertain a motion on that, if there's no discussion. We have a memorandum in our packet for Mr. Fairchild, dated December 11th. Mr. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, I call for the release of the call in bond. Thank you, Bill. Second. All right. Second from Commissioner Werth. Thank you. Do we have any discussion? Seeing none, we will take a vote on that. Thank you, Mr. Forrester, for catching that. Okay. Now we will go to PLN FRP 2532. Is it on? Hello? Yes. Okay, we're going to look at PLN FRP 2532, Quintana Estates. This property is located at 24- Cheryl, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Could you just speak up a little bit, or just move the microphone? I'm sorry. That's perfect. Thank you. I'm sorry. This Quintana Estates is located at 2450 Paris Pike, Lexington. This property is located off of Paris Pike. It's on the north side of town, heading out of town. We have the railroad tracks on the other side. This is a layout, street layout. They are creating 50 lots on this layout. This plan, the reason it's being brought to you all, in front of you all today, is because typically final record plots don't come in front of you, but because there was significant changes from what was previously approved on the preliminary subdivision plan, then we felt like we needed to bring this to the planning commission for their review. So if you look, everyone should have a green sheet with revised conditions on it. The change that was made was the access into the property. Originally on the preliminary, it was showing it right in, right out. Now they're showing a turn lane into the property, and then you have coming in, and you have a lane going out to make a left turn, and then you have your right turn lane. So, oops, wrong way. There we go. So with that, they submitted a revised plan. We were able to do some cleanup conditions under the requirements not met. They were able to clean up a good number of those. We still had a couple questions. Denote the area of drainage easement on the HOA lot on lot 62, which is this large lot here. Typically, you'll see a detention area. This one here has a dash line. So we were just looking to see how much of this lot was going to be for detention. Denote pedestrian path along Paris Pike and Abbott Hill Trail shall be constructed prior to certification of occupancies for lots 1, 38, 39, 40, 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54. We are wanting to make sure that in their note that they had proposed, the trail, it's noted that it would be done prior to the 11th certificate of occupancy for the property. But what we are suggesting on our end was to have it before the trail system is going to come down along Paris Pike and then circle through over here to the access to LFUCG Park. So we've listed the lots that are going to be adjacent to where this trail is going to be. And so if any of those lots come in for permits, we want to make sure that the trail has been completed prior to those coming through. Correct cross section for Paris Pike regarding parking. And with that, we have the back side. The staff recommends approval with the following sign off conditions, engineering, traffic, landscaping, addressing, urban forester, bike and ped, open space, utility and street lights. Documentation from the Division of Water Quality for the Capacity Assurance Program, United States Postal Service, Division of Parks and Rec, approval of the access point to the future park. Correct all note deficiencies, which I just listed to you all, the new ones on the front. And then resolve all listed discussion items with approval alterations to the access point to Paris Pike. So as I said, they changed the access point. And that is why this plan is being brought to you all. So I'll open it to you to see if there's any other comments or questions. Thank you, Cheryl. Do we have any questions for staff at this time? Mr. Owens. Thank you, Ms. Scherer. Cheryl, hi. Hi. Just curious, as far as requirements I met, number three, correct cross section for Paris Pike regarding parking? So if you turn around and look at that, it says that there's parking on one side of Paris Pike. And, no, there's not parking on one side of Paris Pike. Okay. I was just curious about that. Okay. It was just a little note underneath the street cross section. And it's like, well, we don't have parking in Paris Pike. Thank you. Okay. Mr. McClure. Just for the bigger picture here, for those people leaving this development going towards Lexington, they make a right out onto Paris. There is a left turn now. Yes. They're going to be able to make a left turn now. When I'm looking at that, I guess when I'm trying to zoom in on the development plan that we have here. So you'll come in. Oh, you can't. Go out and turn left. So there's an arrow pointing in, but there's room beside that arrow to go straight and then left. Okay. And then you'll have your. I was just getting confused because the arrow made it seem like that was the only one way in. So. Okay. All right. Commissioner Molly Davis. Thank you, Chair. Hi, Cheryl. Hi. Can you help me understand? You might want to back out a little bit. On the top boundary, there's a pine top trace exits onto property. Is that because. You're talking here? Yes, ma'am. Well, typically we like to have stubs into adjacent property. We want to give an opportunity, should that other piece of property, I believe it's zoned for residential, that if it comes in in the future, if they want to connect, they have a street connection between this property and that property. All right. We do stub streets all over Lexington. Okay. Just curious why that one was there. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Cheryl. Mr. Kaley. I'm Larry Kaley with EA Partners. We've got the revised conditions and agree and request your approval. All right. Do we have any questions for the applicant? Mr. Penn. Roy, now that we have a field turn left going out of the subdivision, how wide is that median between the two lanes going toward New Circle Road and the two lanes going toward Paris? How wide is that median? I don't know the actual width. There's a left turn lane for what are we lining up with there? I forget. But each side now has a turn lane. Kingston. Okay. So heading out of town, there's a left turn lane to get you left in Kingston. And now with the state permit, we've installed a left turn lane into this development as you come into town. So it's two lanes' worth. The reason I'm asking that question is that most all of us that come out on Paris Pike pull up in the median and wait until we make that left-hand turn. Yeah. So that's the danger of doing that. And I'm as guilty whether I'm going to Johnson Road or whether I'm coming out of Ironworks or whatever it is. I think it's just barely wide enough for one vehicle. I don't think you can stack two in there. Do you have any feel for that? No. This is the alignment the state approved. We originally went with a right in, right out, and they did not like that for safety. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm not seeing any other questions. Thank you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak to this application today or this subdivision? Okay. Seeing none. Do we have any final commissioner comment or question? If not, floor is open for a motion on this subdivision plan. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I'd like a motion for approval of PLN FRP 25-32 based on the revised staff recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Forrest. Second. Okay. We have a motion from Mr. Owens. Any discussion to that motion? Seeing none, we will put that to a vote. Okay. Commissioner Barksdale's computer logged her out. Are you in the affirmative? Yes. Okay. She is on the record as being in the affirmative on the motion. So that carries unanimously. Thank you, applicant. All right. Our final item on our agenda today is the annual report from the Purchase of Development Rights Program. We have the program director, Beth Overman, and the chair of the Rural Land Management Board, Gloria Martin, with us to say hello. Yes. Thank you, Chair Davis and commission for having us. And you all do have maps at your seats that once we get to the part where I read through the new easements we've purchased, that you can reference that. So the PDR program is governed by the Rural Land Management Board, which has 13 voting members and is chaired by Gloria Martin, who is here with us today. Councilmember Morton serves on our board as our council representative. And Councilmember Boone also attends our meetings regularly. The division of PDR is under Commissioner Horn, just like planning, in the Department of Planning and Preservation and administered by me. Two positive changes that we will be illustrating in today's report are that the board and the PDR program have been named a certified entity by our funding partner, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, which we refer to as NRCS, which has provided us this great autonomy to close easements much more expeditiously. And second, the adoption of the small farm program by the council early in 2025, which expands land conservation opportunities to farm size 10 to 19.99 acres. PDR requires 20 acres. So this is our current board. And one of the great things about our board that is unique within LFUCG is that our ordinance called for representatives of the implementation committee that created PDR to then serve on the board. And so we have a representative from the Fayette County Neighborhood Council, two from the Fayette County Farm Bureau, one from Blue Grass Realtors, one from the Building Industry Association, one from Commerce Lexington, two council appointed seats that were added in 2019, a historic preservation group, two from the KTA, one from a land conservation group, and one from Visit Lex. And then non-voting, we have the urban county council member, the Fayette County Extension agent, and a representative from NRCS. So the highlight of today. So you all may remember we've talked before about our struggles when we were having to wait on NRCS to close easements and how that was delaying things and often taking people at least three years from the time they applied so we could purchase an easement. Well, so last year NRCS recognized this issue, that it was a nationwide problem, and decided to reach out to some organizations they had long-time partnerships with and see if they were interested in becoming a certified entity. And so at the time, there were only four certified entities nationwide, and they reached out to us, which was a wonderful reflection on our program because it shows we've had this long partnership with them. Over 150 of our easements are funded by NRCS, and we've had good stewardship, good monitoring. And so they reached out to us and said, would you like to do this and take this on? And it puts more of the work on us, but it has changed things so much. It is wonderful. And so as you will see, last year when we came to you all, when we were still just having to go through all the multiple layers at the federal level of NRCS to get approval to close, we closed one easement an entire year. Now, fast forward to us becoming a certified entity, we have closed 16 since we saw you last and cleared our backlog. So it is wonderful. So I'm going to walk through those, and they are highlighted on your map. But so far, 6-2020 added 30 acres. 13-2020 added 40 acres. 11-2020 added 50 acres. 5-2020 added 31 acres. 3-2021 added 101 acres. 5-2021 added 34. 2-2021 added 85. 9-2020 added 140. 1-2021 added 140. 1-2022 added 87. 10-2020 added 95. 8-2020 added 66. 6-2021 added 51. 12-2020 added 41. 1-2023 added 40. 1-2024 added 44 for a grand total of 1,075, and bringing our overall total to 33,333. So we're very excited to share that with you all. And something I will point out on your map, you can see that nearly all of these farms filled in what we refer to as puzzle pieces that often connect areas of conserved land and help us build those contiguous areas. And especially down there on Old Richmond Road, you can see that we acquired four easements that were all in a line. That's what we refer to as a batch application when they apply together. And so that connected, like, three separate areas of conserved land. The green properties are all PDR. The lighter green that's kind of a lime color are bluegrass land conservancy easements. But throughout the map, you can see that it is connecting areas and completing those puzzle pieces for us. So we're very excited about that. We also have four easements, three under contract, one with a pending offer. They're actually in the process of signing that. And we just had our application, annual application cycle in November and received ten new applications. So we are in the process of ranking those. And our federal application is due December 31st. So we will seek funding for those. And next, our small farm program, which is probably new for you all because the council did this, but we haven't, since they implemented it in January, we haven't seen you all, and it probably wasn't something that came before you all. So the small farm program was adopted by the council in January 2025. It serves active farm size 10 to 19.99 acres. Our inaugural application cycle was held in April 2025, and we received 37 applications. Of those 37, 14 applicants met all qualifications of being an active farm, correctly zoned, and obtaining a mortgage subordination that allowed them to proceed. And mortgages have to be subordinated in order to protect the board and LFUCG's financial interest. So our current and next steps with our small farms, the RLMB is ordering appraisals in rank order and extending easement purchase offers. Gloria and I are actually meeting one landowner today. It's our first small farm contract to sign that after we leave here today. Two offers have been extended and six appraisals. Six offers were actually authorized at our board meeting yesterday and four more appraisals. So we are moving right along. Additional, well, I just covered that, additional appraisal authorization. Farms that did not meet all qualifications will remain in the queue and roll forward. Because there were some, there were two in the AB zone, and that our ordinance actually has, you know, only allows AR and AM, but the board voted actually to amend the ordinance, so that's something we will probably do next year. There were some people who aren't farming yet, but, for instance, one I talked to, they have animals on their farm in Cincinnati and plan to bring some here and start, but until they do, they don't qualify. Because that is one of the key, that is one of our requirements. With PDR, 99% of people are farming, but they're not required to. And because we know that is farmland, we're preserving those soils. And so if there's a temporary family issue or some other reason they're not farming, that's okay. With this one, because we didn't want to get just like a 10-acre estate, for instance, so we want them to be actively farming. So that is a requirement for this program. So some of them, they will, if they didn't meet that criteria this time, they will continue rolling forward. And so that, and our biggest, I'm sure that would be a question for you all since there were 37 applicants and 14. The biggest detriment for people was, so with the mortgage subordination, most of our PDR farms have their mortgages with Kentucky Ag Credit or Farm Credit America or those type of places. What we discovered with this is that a lot of the 10-acre farms have them with Chase Bank or different people. And those lenders, those national lenders, have not been willing to subordinate. So maybe Commissioner Forrester can help us with that. So that has been a hurdle for some of those farms that we hope to be able to work on. Our attorney, John Watts, our outside closing attorney, actually wrote a memo for our landowners to give to their lenders that explained this. And that it's really to explain exactly what we're asking of them. But also that it's a small, generally what they're going to receive from PDR for a 10-acre track is very small in comparison to their mortgage. But I think it still was so new, and these national banks were just like ooh. And so it did not help a lot. But we, since then, our Commerce Lexington representative, the ordinance actually stipulates that they be in banking and have ag lending experience. And that seat was vacant for a couple of years, but has now been filled by Jonathan Disney, who, Frank probably remembers his father, Larry Disney, who used to do some appraisal reviews for PDR the first half of the program. So we are going to ask Jonathan, with his banking experience, to try to look at that legal memo and put it in more banking-friendly terms that might help these lenders to understand that it is very small in comparison. And I have been here 13 years now, I believe. We have never had to enforce a subordination. So it's not something that comes up. So we hope we can find a way to work through that, because we did have such great interest. And it was upsetting for those. They weren't upset with us, but they were upset with their lenders. But for those farm owners to have to try to cross that hurdle. But we're excited about this program. Actually, to kick it off, we wanted to do a soft start, a soft rollout. And so we only reached out to Black Soil Kentucky and to Council Member Boone. And when he sent out the notice, the Old Richmond Road Neighborhood Association sent it to their members. And so we thought, oh, maybe we'll get five or ten. And all of a sudden, 37 came in. And there are over 1,000, I think it's like 1,050, 10 to 19-acre farms out there. And so when we open it up to everyone, you know, the next time we're liable to get inundated. But that can be a good thing. But that concludes my report, and I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you, Beth. Commissioner Penn, who knows a thing or two about PDR, had a question. Yeah, I do. I've got a statement first. I want Larry to understand that because the fellow to my left that drives a really nice pickup truck, he's not necessarily a farmer. And Larry drives a nice pickup truck, and he's not necessarily a farmer. But in order to make this work with the subordination situation and with the local bank situation, it's imperative to realize that the agriculture has changed in Fayette County. Horticulture and small animal gardening and small animals have absolutely turned agriculture. It's a big, big deal. So for us to feed people and for us to be able to keep farmers on the farm and expenses land what it is now, that's the only way we're going to keep agriculture to the level that it needs to be. Most agriculture endeavors need more than 10 to 20 acres. But with the change from the tobacco economy to what I call the trying to make up the tobacco economy, it's important that we do that. And I would suggest that Mr. Forster teach his banks that land is important, not just because they can resell it, but because they can raise something on it. Thanks for getting right on that, Larry. All right, Commissioner Molly Davis. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Ms. Overman, for the presentation. It's very good news. I may have missed it in your presentation, but could you just tell me a few of the details about what's required in the small farm program to be able to apply for it? Yes. So it needs to be 10 to 19.9 acres, and they need to be actively farming. And that is defined in the ordinance for PDR. And some of those, so we went out to see some of those. If we sometimes had a question, I would consult Charlie Farmer, who was a longtime NRCS employee and member of our board who now does our conservation easement monitoring, and consult him. And there was one that he was like, hmm. But most of them, you know, there were a couple still on the line that the board was considering. But what we did, so with PDR, farms are required to have a conservation plan that is created by NRCS. And because of staffing cuts, NRCS is not able to do that right now. They also, with the volume of the small farms, they aren't even able to do it for PDR right now. But for the volume of the small farms, they said absolutely not. So we talked to our farming board members and Charlie Farmer and some others, and everyone said, let's have them do the Kentucky Ag Water Quality Plan, which takes a lot of effort on the landowner's part. And they work with the Fayette Extension agent and also the Soil Conservation District, and they have to get soil testing. And so we knew that if they're willing to go to that effort, because the landowner does most of that, that they've got the skin in the game and that they're willing. And so we used that as our criteria on the couple that we had a question about, was it enough farming? And so, really, those two items, it has to be in the rural service area and has to, right now the ordinance says AR or AN, but the board has voted to expand that to AB. But that's- That's what it is. Thank you. And what do you think the potential acreage is if everyone who had a, if everyone became involved in the small farm program, what's the potential to increase the land conservation area? So if we said they were ten and there's a thousand of them, it could be ten thousand. Okay. So, but I don't know if we'll get all those, but yes, it's a big, it's a big, there are actually more, per our GIS stuff, there are 1,050 ten to 19 acre tracks out there. That is more than what there is all the way from 20 and up. So there are about, because GIS sends us the list every year when we have our annual application cycle of all the PDR eligible farms that are 20 and above, and there are only about 600 of those. So, of course, they're larger, but still. And you've done a great job of- There's a bigger volume, yes. Done a great job of public outreach, too, to have that kind of result in the first year. So thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any other questions for Beth or for Gloria? Did you want to add anything? No. Okay. Well, please know that the Planning Commission is very grateful to you for this very, very important work, and we're so pleased that you're part of the Division of Planning and Preservation along with us, and we always enjoy seeing you at least once a year, if not more. And whatever support we can offer you, we certainly will. All right. Thank you. Thank you all. Happy holidays. All right. Do we have anything other than a hearing from Mr. Duncan? If not, we'll go to that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and remind you all that the schedule is different this month, so we'll see everyone again next Thursday, December 18th at 1.30 in this chamber for the zoning hearing. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. If we have nothing else, without objection, we are adjourned. Thank you.