# General Government & Planning (GGP) Committee - March 10, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · March 10, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6713 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6713?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-03-10 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: March 20, 2026 - **Length**: 17,704 words - **Speakers**: Chair, Appreciate That > ⚠️ **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 General Government & Planning (GGP) Committee met on March 10, 2026, at 1:00 PM in the Council Chamber of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. The committee addressed 4 agenda items during the session, beginning with the approval of the February 10, 2026 Committee Summary. The remaining three items — covering solar energy systems, development process efficiencies, and Planning & Development Study Recommendations 8 & 10 — were presented as informational items. A total of 4 motions and votes were taken during the meeting, and no public comments were heard. ## Attendance The following 10 members were present at the March 10, 2026 Committee meeting: - Liz Sheehan - Shayla Lynch - Dan Wu - James Brown - Chuck Ellinger II - Emma Curtis - Whitney Elliott Baxter - Dave Sevigny - Jennifer Reynolds - Hilary Boone No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took action on two items during the March 10, 2026 meeting, with one item (0212-26) generating multiple motions and roll call votes. **Motion 0097-26 — Approval of February 10, 2026 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 0:01:37] Moved by Chuck Ellinger II and seconded by Emma Curtis, this motion passed unanimously with 10 ayes and 0 nays. All members voted in favor: Liz Sheehan, Shayla Lynch, Dan Wu, James Brown, Chuck Ellinger II, Emma Curtis, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Dave Sevigny, Jennifer Reynolds, and Hilary Boone. --- **Item 0212-26 — Amendments to Article 31 Solar Energy Systems** This item generated three separate motions, all decided by roll call vote. - **First Motion** — Amendments to Article 31 Solar Energy Systems: Moved by Hilary Boone and seconded by Whitney Elliott Baxter, this motion **failed** 4–6. Voting in favor: Chuck Ellinger II, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Jennifer Reynolds, and Hilary Boone. Voting against: Liz Sheehan, Shayla Lynch, Dan Wu, James Brown, Emma Curtis, and Dave Sevigny. - **Second Motion** — Approve and report out the solar energy systems zoning text ordinance amendment to the Planning Commission: Moved by Liz Sheehan and seconded by Dan Wu, this motion **passed** 6–4. Voting in favor: Liz Sheehan, Shayla Lynch, Dan Wu, James Brown, Emma Curtis, and Dave Sevigny. Voting against: Chuck Ellinger II, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Jennifer Reynolds, and Hilary Boone. - **Third Motion** — Amend and send the item solely to the Environmental Commission and the Rural Land Management Board: Moved by Whitney Elliott Baxter and seconded by Hilary Boone, this motion **failed** 4–6. Voting in favor: Chuck Ellinger II, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Jennifer Reynolds, and Hilary Boone. Voting against: Liz Sheehan, Shayla Lynch, Dan Wu, James Brown, Emma Curtis, and Dave Sevigny. The same 6–4 split defined all three votes on item 0212-26, with Liz Sheehan, Shayla Lynch, Dan Wu, James Brown, Emma Curtis, and Dave Sevigny consistently forming the majority position. ## Contested Items - **Solar Energy Systems Ordinance Amendments:** The committee was divided over proposed amendments to the Solar Energy Systems ordinance during the March 10, 2026 meeting. The disagreement resulted in a split vote, with some motions failing and others passing by narrow margins. The available data does not specify the particular points of contention among members or identify which individuals voted for or against the measures. The close votes indicate that the committee did not reach broad consensus on the direction of the ordinance amendments. ## Solar Working Group - Solar Energy Systems **Agenda Item 0212-26** Sylvia Cassidy presented findings from the Solar Working Group regarding proposed updates to the Solar Energy Systems ordinance. The presentation was informational in nature, with no vote or formal action taken at this meeting. Cassidy's recommendations focused on two primary areas: - **Battery storage regulations:** The working group recommended clarifying existing ordinance language to more explicitly address battery storage systems associated with solar energy installations. - **Decommissioning standards:** The working group also recommended strengthening the ordinance's requirements around decommissioning, aimed at establishing more robust standards for the removal or retirement of solar energy systems. The item was received as a presentation, and the outcome was informational. No additional speakers, debates, or concerns are noted in the record for this agenda item. ## Efficiencies in our Development Process **Agenda Item 0047-25** Commissioner Keith Horn presented an overview of improvements to Lexington's development review process, with a focus on changes implemented following the adoption of House Bill 443. The presentation was informational in nature, covering updates and efficiencies that have been introduced to streamline how development applications are reviewed. Commissioner Horn was the key speaker for this item. *No transcript timestamp is available for this agenda item.* > **Note:** The structured data available for this agenda item is limited. A more detailed summary — including specific process changes, any concerns raised by committee members, and the full scope of House Bill 443's impact on local development review — would require additional source materials from the meeting transcript or supporting documents. ## Planning & Development Study: Recommendations 8 & 10 This agenda item (0211-26) was presented as an informational item to the Committee. Alicia Larmour presented on two recommendations — Recommendations 8 and 10 — stemming from a Planning & Development Study. The presentation focused on a proposed **Development Liaison position**, which would be designed to help coordinate the development review process across departments and track applications as they move through the system. The core purpose of the proposed position, as outlined in the presentation, is to improve interdepartmental coordination during development review and to provide a dedicated point of accountability for monitoring the status of development applications. No outcome or decision was required from the Committee at this stage, as the item was brought forward for informational purposes only. --- ## Decisions - **0097-26** — passed (10-0): Approval of February 10, 2026 Committee Summary - **0212-26** — failed (4-6): Amendments to Article 31 Solar Energy Systems - **0212-26** — passed (6-4): Approve the report out the solar energy systems zoning text ordinance amendment to the planning commission - **0212-26** — failed (4-6): Amend and send this solely to the Environmental Commission and the Rural Land Management Board --- ## Full transcript music music music music music music music Good afternoon, everyone. According to our clock in the room here, it is one o'clock, so I'm going to call our meeting to order for the March 10th 2026 General Government and Planning Committee. Our first item of business is the approval of the February 10th 2026 Committee summary. Are there any additions or amendments? Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Okay. That motion passes. Our first presentation on the agenda is from our solar working group. Colleagues, after our prior discussion on the solar Zoda, the council asked us to form a work group to further investigate some of the issues that have arisen from the pandemic. As you can see from the presentation, we have been meeting over the last six months with experts across multiple industries. I want to thank everybody who participated in the work group by meeting with us, but especially council members of Igni, Morton and Boone and Miss Wade and Mr Crumb from planning. We all contributed different parts of the draft that you have in your packet today, but I want to also think our council staff members who participated in the work group for this presentation. I will note that, um, council members of Igni is co sponsor of this item and committee and we were co chairing this and the street safety task force at the same time, so we were dividing up our work to accomplish all things. So I want to acknowledge him as my co chair. I'm going to turn it over to Miss Cassidy for the presentation. All right. Thank you, Chair. My name is Sylvia Cassidy and I am the fifth member of the Igni solar working group. Council members formed the solar working group to examine large scale ground mounted solar technology and Fayette County's agricultural zones. Membership included council members Liz Sheehan, Dave Savigny, Tyler Morton, Hill Boone as well as Tracy Wade and Daniel Crumb from planning services and received support from council staff, including Alicia Larmore, Alyssa McKenzie, Olivia Lachine, Grigsby and myself. The group examined the following topic areas as they discussed the importance of solar, soil preservation and protection, regulatory burden on solar energy systems, agrivoltaics and dual use opportunities, decommissioning, community benefits agreements, opportunities for solar energy systems on flood plains, landfills and brownfields, the distribution of generated power, job and economic impact. And this list came from a survey of council members on what they asked the group to cover. Over the last six months, the working group met 12 times and discussed a wide range of topics related to large-scale solar energy development. Summaries for those meetings are currently available to the public on Engage Lexington. The solar working group invited several stakeholders to present. We heard from KU, Kentucky Resources Council, LAUNA, American Farmland Trust, Kentucky Sheep and Wool Producers Association, the Fayette County Conservation District, the Ohio River Valley Institute, the Public Services Commission, experts on solar energy and various LSU CUD departments and divisions including the Department of Law, the Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works, Division of Water Quality, the Office of Sustainability, and from the PDR Director. The working group learned many things from our conversations with stakeholders. I'll be covering over some of the findings that were discussed that were of particular interest to council members. Starting with power distribution and grid impact. It is not possible for energy used at large-scale solar projects in Fayette County to exclusively go to its residents. Energy moves where it is needed and where it is easiest for power to go. Where power is ultimately used, say to power lights, charge your phones, et cetera, is determined by demand, how close an energy site is to transmission and distribution lines, and what homes and businesses are nearby. Regardless of where solar energy is used, there's still a positive benefit to consumers and residents. Residents are getting another source of power into the grid. Economic benefits from this production flow into our local economy, and there is less congestion on electrical lines. These help to improve reliability for homes and businesses here in Lexington and prevent higher cost and expensive infrastructure damage. This is in addition to any direct benefit residents may receive from any community benefits plan. The solar working group heard from environmental experts today that solar is a renewable source of energy. It does not separate large-scale solar from its environmental impacts. Solar is a renewable source of energy. Integrating greener energy sources into the electrical grid play a crucial role in reducing carbon emissions and achieving Lexington's goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. At the same time, farmland is a precious resource and solar development may seem at odds with other sources of energy, but it is also a source of energy that keeps backstops in place, encouraging dual use, panel slope rules, and other requirements can promote soil health. We learn also from the division of water quality on how they ensure effective water quality management here in Lexington and what their research suggests as best practices for a large-scale solar site. Strong stormwater plans are the most effective way to create jobs in the construction industry. These jobs, excuse me, these projects create jobs mostly in the construction industry. A large-scale project may need 200 to 400 laborers plus electricians, and on average these projects take about two years to complete. Beyond construction, dual use at these sites offers agricultural opportunities like growing crops or raising livestock, as well as the opportunity to create jobs. With this information in mind, the solar working group reviewed our current ordinance, and to refresh council members, current LFUCG statute allows rooftop and integrated solar energy systems in all zones, permits small-scale ground-mounted solar in residential zones with a conditional use permit, as well as in business and industrial zones and in agricultural zones Intermediate ground-mounted solar, that up to five acres, is permitted in business zones and industrial zones, but requires a conditional use permit in agricultural zones. Current ordinance allows large- scale solar energy systems, those over five acres, in B4, I1, I2, and ED zones. The provisions for large-scale solar and agricultural zones were included to show local preference to the Public Administration's recommendation that solar energy systems exceed 1% of the total acreage of Fayette County, which is about 1,827 acres. They should include 85% vegetative cover, and are required to submit a land management plan to LFUCG. The working group is recommending the following set of recommendations. Their language changes can be found in the red-line document included in today's packet. After recommending the following set of recommendations, the working group recommends including these in the footprint of the SES and adding language that includes safety standards and decommissioning. Recognizing how much we value our land here in Fayette County, the working group also suggested adding definitions of farmlands of statewide importance, prime farmland, and brownfields. The working group also recommends the following set of recommendations. The working group also recommends a permit if there is continual agricultural production and use on site. This recommendation in particular was not approved unanimously by the solar working group. To mitigate adverse impact and promote agricultural production, the working group recommends that large-scale solar energy systems be subject to the stormwater manual, be required to have dual PVPDR ordinance, be inspected annually by rural land staff, and have a land conservation or water quality plan. To help residents of Fayette County more acutely benefit from large-scale solar energy systems, the working group is recommending moving the community benefits plan provisions to section 31-6 and adding language that highlights specific and desirable benefits such as alleviating energy costs for low-income households, ideal contributions, and improving the quality of life of residents. Also, in an effort to reduce any adverse impact and to ensure a timely process, the solar working group is recommending a shorter decommissioning timeline and the removal of all structures, equipment, and foundations, as well as reuse and recycling of all materials whenever possible. The working group is also recommending the addition of a brownfield exemption section, which grants permission for ground-mounted land to be used in the area for these exceptions. So today, to engage the public and receive feedback on the language from today's packet, the working group is asking for this committee to agree to send this language to the planning commission as a council-initiated ZOTA so that it can undergo the PC's 60-day review and public hearing process. The working group is also asking for this language to be sent to the Rural Land Management Board as a council-initiated ZOTA so that it can undergo the PC's 60-day review and public hearing process. Once today's language is heard from the planning commission, council will review current language, recommendations, and feedback and decide what, if any, changes council would like to make to the existing statute. Additionally, the solar working group is recommending that another group form to examine brownfield sites listed in our race to net the SESs to these locations. And I am happy to take any questions. Committee colleagues, I want to note, if you go back one slide. In the work group, we did work towards one more slide. Towards consensus. So aside from the large-scale requirements, we did have consensus on the other items. The large-scale requirements, we did not have a unanimous agreement, but we did have consensus on the other items. The large-scale requirements, we did not have a unanimous agreement, but we can talk more about that if you would like. But I do want to reiterate that the ask for today, on your next slide, is that we send this out to the listed groups for feedback. And this is particularly important for the items where we didn't have unanimous agreement. Today is not the final discussion today. We will have a comprehensive discussion then. And we have a precedent for sending things out to the planning commission and doing that discussion when it returns to us. Because we have other items on the agenda today, and I know that we want to get to those, and work session at 3 p.m., I'm going to ask that you think about the time limitations as we proceed with our discussion. And then I can participate as co-chair of the working group to help answer questions. Thank you, chair. Colleagues, if you have any questions, go ahead and log in. Councilmember Baxter. Thank you, chair. And thank you all for your work on this and the presentation. I know a lot went into it. I know a lot went into it. I know a lot went into it. I know a lot went into it. I know a lot went into it. It's no secret that I was never in favor of having large-scale solar in agricultural zones. I will have to say that I'm a little disappointed on the way that this group was formed and the stakeholders that were involved. I just wish that there was a little bit more engagement from local stakeholders from the get-go. So I guess my question is why if we're referring this ZOTA to Rural Land Management Board and Environmental Commission, why were they not involved from the beginning so that a whole draft was included today? I think the best place and what we have done before with other ZOTAs like this, like with short-term rentals, is we form our working draft and then we send it out for feedback, but it's hard to get feedback on something when you don't have the draft. I used the same model that we did for short-term rentals for this process as well. I would say that when we first had the conversation to begin with, it was very similar to what we were presented with. There are some changes and there's a lot of things that I'm in favor of, changes that you presented today, but really it's very similar to what we were presented with in the beginning. Councilmember Sheehan answered a lot of my questions yesterday and I appreciate that, just for time reasons. As we're talking about what next steps, I don't know that I am in favor of sending it to everybody all at once, but I'll see how the rest of my colleagues feel right now. Thank you. Councilmember Boone. Thank you, Chair. As being part of this work group, you know, we got this morning and that was pretty interesting as far as it was clearly not everybody was at the table. That's really what it comes down to. It was led on by Councilmember Sheehan and Savigny who brought this to us six months ago. Nothing has really changed in what we've learned. We've added some different language a little bit here and there. The community benefit plan is great and I love them, but there's no way to mandate it in this ZOTA, so it kind of really doesn't have any teeth to it. I asked from day one to have the Rural Land Management Board be a part of these conversations and I'm not sure if I wasn't clear enough, what have you, but we're just now bringing to the table to bring them on, which there's other organizations that deserve the opportunity to have feedback on something like this. I don't know what we've learned that has changed in this ZOTA to change what we decided on six months ago. I cannot support the inclusion of ground-mounted large-scale solar in the ag zones even with the dual-use. The dual-use language is pretty vague. It doesn't require agrivoltaics. It's a suggestion. Same with the CBA program along with working with unions is also a suggestion. We can't mandate these things as we don't own the property. I think that there's no reason to try to rush this out of committee. I'm not sure where that's coming from, I suppose. I think that we need to give this to the right people to give their feedback to then give to the Planning Commission with all of our homework done. I can't support what came out of the committee. I'll be vocal about it. I'll have some amendments. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Curtis. Thank you, Chair. First off, something that Councilmember Sheehan alluded to earlier was that the vote on this was not unanimous. I was wondering if you could share more specifics about what the breakdown of that vote was in terms of who was in favor, who was against, not necessarily naming names, but numerically. Do you want to go back to the slide where it has the different areas? The large-scale requirements had one no vote for all of those bulleted items. Planning staff pulled themselves from the part where we changed the conditional use permit in the table because they said that was a policy decision so they didn't feel like they could weigh in on that part particularly rather than whether the language was appropriate. That particular one they recused on and then we had one no vote for the rest. Unanimous for everything else. I appreciate that clarification. I'd also like to thank everyone who was on the working group for taking so much time and putting so much thought into this area of policy. It's no secret to any of us that it's a particularly contentious one and in my mind that's rightfully so. As far as my perspective on this goes, I was not sold on the concept and in many ways I still have some reservations about large scale rural solar projects in Fayette County but at the end of the day we're in a position where they're happening whether we like it or not and this conversation is happening whether we like it or not. The original ZOTA in question was introduced in April of 2024 so this is a conversation that's been going on for almost two full years. As far as the potential impacts of the large scale requirements, we already have in place a 1% cap and with the projects that we already know are moving forward including the Haley Pike landfill project that this body has continued to move forward, we're already at roughly 40% of that cap. If we move forward with this, we would be allowing one, maybe two other projects in practicality and so when we're thinking about the impact of this, I think it's important to keep that in mind. It is not a green light, free for all, come take our farmland and build on it and to hell with our soil as I know some folks really strongly feel that that is what this vote is. This vote is in my mind a vote to move this discussion that is going to continue happening one way or another into a more productive place where we can engage the rural land management board, where we can engage the environmental commission and we can continue to engage all of the relevant stakeholders in a more formalized way. So anybody who has followed the Haley Pike discussions has seen the degree of scrutiny with which this council applies our attention on projects or items of significance that can set a precedent both within Fayette County and across the country. So I fear keeping this in committee would do little other than to stagnate that conversation and delay it further at a time when whether it is folks in private development, whether it is the federal government, are enacting policies that are increasing the cost of energy that are increasingly polluting our environment and that to me is not the right direction to be moving and we have the opportunity to push this conversation where it needs to go. So I'm still open and I know that everybody on this council is still applying that same degree of scrutiny as we move forward but I think in order for us to continue having this conversation the best move is to vote this out of committee today and I look forward to doing that. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. And thank you to my colleagues Sheehan and Savigny for working on this. I wasn't in favor from the beginning of necessarily a work group to go over something that we had already hashed out quite a bit previously but then when the work group was formed I was hoping that it would be a bigger group with more varied perspectives instead of just for council members and so I guess I'm not sure what the outcome was expected to be but I appreciate the different things that were put in here with the brownfields and the dual use and things like that but it doesn't move my decision as to where I stand on solar on ag land so I won't be changing my perspective at this time. I am in favor of sending this to the Rural Land Management Board the Environmental Commission and engage folks in feedback before it goes to the Planning Commission because we know that when it goes to the Planning Commission it only has a certain amount of time and it seems like all of these groups working together on that short time frame would be challenging and I really want to get more of their perspective. Maybe I'm wrong in my opinion but that's where I am right now. Thank you. Council Member Illiger. Thank you Vice Chair. I want to piggyback off what Council Member Reynolds said and I appreciate the 11 meetings that you all had. I mean you obviously did a lot of work but I do think there are some holes in it and we did not include everybody in here. I think the Farm Bureau needed to be included. I think the Rural Management Land and Soil Experts I know you did some of that but I think it would be better if we did that in committee. Keep it in committee. Have them come and speak to us so we can make sure that we have the best possible Zota that we can send to the Planning Commission. I'll ask Planning if it does eventually pass and it becomes a conditional use who hears that when it becomes a conditional use then? Back to the Council. Where does that go? Council Member Illiger, conditional uses are generally heard by the Board of Adjustment if they're not associated with the zone change. In this case, most of these cases would likely be heard by the Board of Adjustment and they would be the final authority. Yeah, on people who aren't elected officials. I just want to reiterate that so when it goes there it comes out of our hands and then goes into the Board of Adjustment. Ironically I had somebody call me today and ask that they bring a group of 20 to come because they want to do some horse farm tours. I've never had anybody call me and ask me about doing a solar farm tour. So we have an identity here. We're the horse cup of the world. We're the breeders cup. We need to protect our identity. Once it's gone, it's gone and I think we need to make sure we hear all the voices and we certainly need to hear the voices from the farm community. We had the sheep but we didn't have the cattle, the horses, the crops, which are more in the farm area, the ag area. So I think if we could have another meeting where we could actually have input from that group, I think it would go a long way to be able to make sure that we do a full due diligence on this process. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm not entirely sure what my colleague's point was on the BOA being non-electeds. I know they make decisions on conditional uses. They oversee applications for short-term rentals just as the Planning Commission does zone change hearings and any number of other development-related things. I wanted to ask Councilmember Boone, you mentioned the community benefits plan and if I heard Councilmember Sheehan earlier, the large-scale solar requirements was the one that did not have unanimous agreement but the other items did. So in that working group process, Councilmember Boone, you mentioned that the community benefits plan didn't really have any teeth and wasn't really kind of spelled out. Did you in the working group push for it to have some level of teeth or enforcement? We talked a lot about how it could be used legally and they can maybe jump in and correct me if I'm wrong but there's no way for our Board of Adjustment to get into the numbers talk of negotiating what a community benefit plan would look like. So we can't mandate them to do something. We can suggest and we can suggest on any project or ordinance that we pass to include them, which I don't think is a bad idea, but it doesn't require them to do so. So there was definitely talks of how we can make this as strong language as we can but we legally can't do that. Okay, so but you still agreed with having the community benefits plan as part of the recommendations even though you felt like we couldn't really enforce it? It's kind of fluff language to be quite honest. It sounds great. That's what we talked about. And sure we can say we may do this, we may do that but it doesn't we don't have to do it. So sure, keep it in there. It doesn't really change much from before. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. Thank you. So I think with not enough folks being included in the conversation, you wanted to give this item a little more time for review by groups like rural land management. I think that's what this group is recommending is that we're sending it out to three very important stakeholder groups, environmental commission planning and rural management to take a look and review it. And I just want to make sure that I think the expectation and the whole point of putting it out to these three other groups for review is to see if they have particular issues, ways to improve this, changes that they want to see made. So I'm for moving it forward in this way because we're getting more eyeballs on it and more review. I wanted to kind of second Council Member Curtis' point about that 1% acreage limitation. I think there's a lot of conversation behind solar and the ag as it's going to be a slippery slope. If we open this door, it's going to be a floodgate. We're going to lose all this prime soil land. All this prime land is going to be taken over by solar fields. And we kind of have already created the safeguard ahead of that conversation. I think you're probably right and you're guessed that we only have really acreage for a couple more projects and we're going to have to open it up for a couple more phases. So I just want to kind of talk to that particular talking point. And my last point is, as you all who have paid attention to the most recent conversation we've had around the Haley Pike lease and the deal, I think what a lot of folks noticed was a lot of the really pro-solar folks on this Council were the ones that were really supportive of the proposal and the development. So I want to make sure that kind of we understand where we are on this. No matter how pro-solar, pro-renewable energy we are, we are still going to take our job seriously in terms of reviewing and scrutinizing every deal and every development that comes before us. I think we've come a long way. I think we're still doing our due diligence. I don't think we're for against solar. I don't think we're for let's push things forward no matter what. Let's put our rules aside. Let's put our limitations aside. Anybody can do anything. I think we're still doing our due diligence in crafting the best policies we can to benefit the most people in our community. Thank you. Thank you. I really enjoyed working on the work group. I don't recall that anyone actually asked to be on the work group. I don't know that we got anyone who said, hey, I want to be on it. I want to raise my hand to do all this work. But we did make sure we had different viewpoints. So I just want to address that. We had going into that, we had two people that were against large scale in ag areas. And we had two people that were for them. That was the biggest issue. We knew that that was the biggest issue. But then the people that were on it were all interested in certain pieces. And they led those pieces and they did a great job with that. So I want to commend the work group. I think they were really supportive of that. They really got into the brownfield stuff. And we had some really great language in there that support that. Councilmember Morton was, he was quite frankly a pain on the community benefits agreement. It was painful sometimes. But he really was persistent because that's what he was doing. So I think we had actually a lot of different viewpoints. And yes, I'm pro solar. And I'm pro solar in a, here's what I would say is I support responsible solar just like we've received a thousand emails that report responsible solar. I support responsible solar. I also support responsible solar. I support responsible solar in certain places like ag and industrial land. Although we don't have that much industrial land anyway. Or in brownfields. And then in a very limited way, one thing we learned, some of the things when you bring in experts that aren't here, like they say, to do a project, it's got to be a hundred acres. That's why if you look at our brownfield document, it calls out the landfill as like a hundred acres. Well, he had to do 350 because he can't make the numbers work. So there are things that you have to do to make the numbers work. It says things like the airport has a thousand acres. Like they're not going to do that. So there's reasonable numbers that we have to be thinking about in what we can cover in things like brownfields. I want to say, too, that I was on the rural land management board when we reviewed this originally. So I know exactly where the rural land management board stands. And I that was the airport executive director guy. So I know where they stand. I know Tyler is on the rural land management board now. I'm sure that he'll go to a lot of their meetings. So I think that's great. But their input comes at the point when the planning commission and these guys ask them for their input. Because I knew what it was. I knew what it was. And I got a position payment, a position paper from the biggest advocate for not putting it in the ag areas. That position paper complained about things like water and water runoff. So we took that into consideration. We had our water quality people come and they explained the things that people have pointed out. The brownfield thing, the same lobbying group is into that. So we literally made it like you just had to say I wanted to do it and there was no conditional use permit. So I think we're doing things to be as conscientious as we can from the input that we're getting. But it doesn't change the fact that you can't do this properly without being at some sort of scale. And we've limited that scale already. And we just want to allow a few scale projects to actually happen. I don't know if my timer went off. I don't know if I have any more time. But am I done? I got the hook. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Councilmember brown. Thank you, councilmember. I'll start off by thanking the councilmembers that served on the work group. I think you all have spent a lot of time and have done a lot of work and have improved this policy. I do think it's appropriate to move it to the next phase, which is moving it to the next phase. My concern is that moving it to those three bodies at the same time on a set clock for the planning commission that does make the decision may not give them a lot of time to give input on this revised policy. So I would ask that if it does move forward today, if this committee sees forward to move it today, is that we give it time, give the rural land management time to move it forward. That way their input can be taken into consideration by the planning commission, because we're ultimately going to receive that back from them, and then we have to make a decision whether or not we support it. So that's where I'm at, is on giving these bodies or these groups time to really weigh in on this new revised policy that has taken some of the opposition into consideration going forward. Thank you. I would like to go last, so if you want to let the other councilmembers go, because I have a motion. Councilmember Morton. Thank you. I don't have any questions. I just have a quick statement. First I want to thank all of my fellow councilmembers that served on the working group staff for their help, and all the stakeholders who did attend the meeting. It's been incredibly valuable throughout this process. Coming to this conversation, I was honestly on the fence about large scale solar, mainly for two reasons. The first was ensuring there was a direct community benefit for constituents who we represent. The second, just hearing the concerns that our community had brought forward. Over the course of these conversations, I've been able to move forward and try to assure that our community can benefit directly in some form or fashion from projects like these, understanding that there are some legal limitations tied to that community benefits agreement. I have a legislative item to work towards hopefully making that more accessible. With that, second, to work towards stronger language to help protect our agricultural areas . As many of you know, I'm a strong proponent of community engagement and input, and I encourage people to continue sharing their concerns and perspectives. To me, this step is just the beginning of the process. To me, a decision to move this forward to the next step does not mean that someone supports or opposes large scale. That's not the question that will be in front of us. That's the question that people emphasize today. After that, it will return to the full council where amendments can be made and where the final decision can be either approved or disapproved, and that will ultimately take place. For that reason, I would advocate for allowing this to continue through the process so we can receive valuable input. I'll be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we previously did not allow the full process to take place when it came to studies of the next phase and particularly when it came to the best return on investment for our city, for our constituents. One step further, for questioning these items, it was communicated via media that we are not experts. We're simply a citizens council. For that reason, for that experience, it's another reason why I feel it's important that the full process plays out here, from experts, from constituents, and then from the citizens council. Thank you. Council Member Eblen. Yes. I'm not a member of the committee, but I just had a question in reading through all this the weekend, and the working group has done a really, I think, a very good job of kind of looking at the issues and adding things, but I was curious about the 1% cap and what kind of legal force that has, because I know the PSC, if a regulated utility wants to put a site somewhere, we don't really have any say over it. So do they have a legal requirement to honor our 1% cap? So the PSC, we did invite them to our work group, and the lawyer came and presented to us. And they give, they will acknowledge local ordinances like ours when they're making their decisions, but for utility-scale solar, they can make the decisions that they want to make. They can make the decisions that they choose to go with. But for merchant solar, which would be something like one of the other proposals we have received that is not utility, it would still go, it would have, our ordinance would apply. Okay. But the PSC say if Kentucky Utilities wanted to put a big facility that would take us over the cap, we don't really have any way to prevent that? We can't fully prevent it. We can just give a suggestion. Okay. That was what I was wondering. Thanks. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to address Councilmember Brown's question on timing, and I don't know if this is a question for Councilmember Savigny or Sheehan. In the intent of moving this forward to those three organizations for review, how long would it take to move this forward to those three organizations for review? So the planning commission, when we move language to them through the ZOTA process, they have 60 days after we do a second reading. So if we moved this today and reported it out today, just to give you a timeline, the first reading would be March 12th, the second reading would be March 26th, and then the 60-day clock would be March 30th. So they would have 60 days to review it and return it to us with their public hearing. That would be the same amount of time that our rural land management board and our environmental commission and folks on Engage Lexington would have as well, but they would actually get it about three weeks earlier because we could give it to them today, so they would have that additional time to review it. I think Ms. Overman is here. I did check in with her today and asked her if the rural land management board would be able to put this on their agenda for March or April, and she said yes. She was going to check with the chair to verify which month, but they would be able to hear it in the next two months. Okay. I appreciate that. So planning commission has 60 days to review it. We're looking at 75, 80 days-ish for everybody to review. Thank you. Councilmember Savicny. Thank you, chair. I was fine with talking after Councilmember Sheehan, but I just wanted to do one thing on the PSC. They do, like she said, like Councilmember Sheehan said, they do look at local ordinances. They do look at the local ordinances. The other thing that we do is we tend to sue. That's what we've done in the current case is we've sued. Dang. The airport is persistent. I know I've got to silence it. I've got to silence it. Okay. So I would say that that's a mechanism we have. Then I want to jump to the concept of conditional use permit. You can correct me if I'm wrong, planning staff, but in a conditional use permit situation, we all get a voice. We get to get up in front of the folks from the Board of Adjustment, and we can speak whether we support something or don't support something. That is the beauty of that particular methodology of doing things, whereas with the planning, if it's going through, if someone's doing his own change, it just comes to us, and our voice is then do we actually want to have a voice and have a hearing ourselves or not? But it's kind of I think it's kind of neat to be able to voice our opinions, and every one of you has a voice, and you're allowed to use it. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. It's been brought two different times with the Board of Adjustment. The reason I brought that up is we are elected officials. We discuss ahead of time we get elected. When you're on the Board of Adjustment, you're an appointed position, so there is a difference there, and we aren't the final say when it comes to the Board of Adjustment. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And I really just appreciate everybody's willingness to engage in these conversations, even though they're difficult, and I hear all of the concerns that folks have, but I do want to emphasize once again, because I know that there are some conflicting feelings about this, that this is a much stronger document than what was presented to us last year, especially when it comes to regulations and requirements for environmental protection. The original proposal for large scale solar in ag land was not in line with, it didn't include the language that the Kentucky Resources Council recommends, and that has been amended both in that initial discussion and additional protections and additional layers have been put into place in the time since then. Both as somebody who spent my childhood growing up on a tobacco turned cattle farm, and as somebody who came into advocacy and engagement through the environmental movement and specifically with Sunrise Movement, I would not feel comfortable moving forward with something that I felt did not adequately address the potential for pollution and making sure that there are protections that have been put in place. And as it comes to this conversation that we have about the PSC, what I do think it is important to remember about this, and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, is that even if the PSC approves a project, the acreage there still counts toward our 1% cap. That is not something that is being counted separately, and I think that that might be a misconception that some folks that I've spoken to in recent days have had. But since it counts towards that, it is still a limitation that does have some teeth to it that prevents us from considering things entirely separately from what the PSC is doing. They have been very communicative with us in the time since we had the initial conversation around large-scale rural solar. So while we do not have regulatory oversight over the PSC, this has been a collaborative process with them, and the safeguards that are in place do have some teeth. And I just really want to emphasize that and thank the folks involved for getting those in there. Thank you. Councilmember Boone? I hear there's some talk about early report out. So if we want early report out, I'll move to amend and remove from the proposed solar energy systems text amendment the following. In section 31-4 in the table, I move to remove the CUP designation from the large-scale mounted solar energy systems in the AR and AU zones and replace it with prohibited use. And in section 31-7, I move to remove subsections 8, 10, 13 as they apply to CUPs in the large-scale ground-mounted solar energy systems in the AR and AU zones. So moved. Thank you. There's been a motion by Councilmember Boone and a second by Councilmember Baxter. Now the floor is open for discussion. Yeah. Sure. Let's just raise our hands. We'll do it then. Councilmember Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. I will not support this motion because we the whole point of sending it out for feedback is so that you get feedback on the language. And so if we send it out without the language, then what are they going to give feedback on? If we want full community participation and we do want to hear from the community that have perspectives on both sides of this issue, then we should be sending out the full language. I do have a motion for reporting out that I will make after this, but I will not support this motion because I do believe that we should not be sending out partial language from the committee if we want full feedback. Anyone else would like to chime in for the discussion? Please raise your hand. Councilmember Savigny. I just have a quick while I don't support it, I'm not going to support it either. I don't know what you were doing. What were you removing? I was just on the table of the graph removing the CUP for large scale and making a pivot and basically taking the language out that supported the large scale, which included the dual use, the monitoring, and so forth. Okay. All right. Thank you. Would anyone like to make any comments? Councilmember Curtis. Thank you so much. Following on Councilmember Savigny's question, when we were, Councilmember Boone, when you were talking about taking out some of the additional language, would you mind sharing again the specific sections and maybe just a little bit slower so I can make sure that I'm talking about the right thing here? It's 31-7 subsections 8, 10, and 13. Okay. Thank you. I'm not going to be able to support this motion because if you look through at 31-7 subsection 13 specifically, that I just want to take a second and read that out loud and make sure that we all understand that this is what we would be voting to strike, which is for conditional use permits for large scale SES within an agricultural zone. A written report for rural land staff or their designee shall be included in assessing agricultural production on the site along with an agreement for rural land staff to inspect land and structures as outlined above in section 31-6 H3. This report shall include, but is not limited to, quality of soils, farm activity, agricultural improvements, environmentally sensitive areas, and historical cultural resources as defined by the Rural Land Management Code of Ordinance section 26-10. It may also include proximity to nearby property protected with conservation easements or with solar utility uses. My biggest issue to begin with was that we didn't have protections in place and these projects are going to be coming forward one way or another as we continue to have conversations about Haley Pike, as we continue to have conversations about other things that the PSC might bring. I want it on the record that we are pushing for environmental protections and pushing to involve our rural land management folks in these conversations and I'm not comfortable removing that. So, thank you. Any other discussions regarding the motion? Council Member Sheehan. If we are going to have a full process, then we should include the public on all of the language so they can actually give us input. We are not generally a council that plays political games of obstruction and that's what I value about us. So, we have really leaned into public input over the last few years and expanded opportunities for that. So, I don't see a reason why we can't send it out for public input. If we have the language here and we have discussed it in the work group, we have acknowledged that the vote was not unanimous, then we should be allowed to send it to the rural land management board for their constructive feedback. I personally have specific questions around the language that I put in, that I want them to give feedback on. If we remove that, they can't give feedback on that language. So, I want to see the rural land management board actually give full feedback on this discussion. I want to see the environmental commission, who also has representatives that are for land conservation and are in D12, give full feedback on this language. And I want to see the public be able to give full feedback on this language. So, this motion to me stifles our ability to actually have meaningful public engagement. So, I will not support the motion. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. I seconded this motion because I feel like from the beginning, we had a significant outpouring of public engagement on large-scale solar in our agricultural zones. And while I understand that we want to have full feedback from the Environmental Commission and the Rural Land Management Board, I feel like if they were brought in to the work group from the beginning, they could have helped craft the language from the start and we would be saving time overall. So, because they were not originally included is one of the main reasons that I seconded this motion and will be supporting it. Thank you. Any other discussion? Colleagues, log in or otherwise? Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. I want to echo a couple of my colleagues' comments about the items, the points being stricken out of here as I'm looking at them, 8, 10, and 13. They're all protections and safeguards for our agricultural zones. So, I'm curious as to why those objections would be in place. And I want to echo Councilmember Sheehan's, too. This is part of our process. I think we have to really kind of remind ourselves all the time as we're putting legislation forward at points like this, we are not saying this is done, this is the Ten Commandments, it's chiseled in stone. We are precisely trying to engage with more stakeholders who have opinions that we value and we want to hear. I think we generally always work in good faith so that when we're poking holes in each other's items or policies or legislation, it's to make them better. And I've found that to be true on everything that I've worked on personally and that I've tried to champion when people push back and poke holes, we end up actually creating better legislation. So, to me, this is a really important part of creating better legislation is getting people who we know have opinions and opinions that differ from some of us. That's exactly what we're looking for at this point is to craft and make this document better. This is already better than what was originally introduced and I think it can improve at least one more time with that engagement. So I will not be supporting this motion. Thank you. Any other comments? Council Member Reynolds. I respect all of my colleagues. This is an extremely hard working group of individuals and we all choose to spend our time and energy on different things. But that does not mean that we are always going to agree on what is best for Lexington, for our district, or on a vote. And the vote could be something small, the vote could be something big, but to say that we have to agree or something is wrong if we don't agree is just not true. I have seen all types of disagreements up here and at the end of the day, we walk away, we all respect each other, we all have different opinions and influences and I respect each one of you. But if I come up here and I look at work and I still come to a different opinion or conclusion, I expect to have the same respect whether we agree or disagree. And so I cannot support this moving forward in this way now and that doesn't mean that I don't agree with some of the work and some of the things. So I will be supporting this motion and I hope that at the end of the day, we will realize that we all are working from our perspective of what's best. Thank you. Any other comments, colleagues? All right, again, we've had a motion by Council Member Boone and a second by Council Member Baxter to strike section 31-4 on the bar graph that specifically says conditional use for large scale and then in section 31-7, striking section, paragraph eight, paragraph 10, and paragraph 13. It's been probably motion to second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Let's do an electronic vote, please, so we can make sure we've got it. All right, looks like the motion has failed. Council Member Sheehan. I have a motion. And with respect to timing, I can explain the timing if someone has a question about that. I move to report out the Solar Energy Systems zoning tax ordinate amendment to the Planning Commission for their process with the public hearing and to refer the tax to the Rural Land Management Board and the Environmental Commission for their review. So moved. Second. There's been a motion properly moved and properly moved by Council Member Sheehan and seconded by Vice Mayor Wu to move this item out of committee to the Planning Commission and for it to be reviewed by the Rural Land Management Board and the Environmental Commission. Is there any discussion on this motion? Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Chair. Yes, could you explain the timing and why it can't go by its normal schedule, please? I didn't ask for it to not go by its regular schedule. This is a motion for the regular schedule. What I would recommend is because anything that goes to the Planning Commission has to go through a first and a second reading. If we adopt this motion, that would go to, the regular report out would be April 28th with a first reading on April 30th and a second reading on May 13th. And then their 60 days would come back to us around mid-July. But we could give it to Rural Land Management Board, Environmental Commission, and post it on Engage Lexington today so they have longer time with it if we choose to move forward with this. But I would want the committee's agreement to go ahead and move forward with that, with the other postings and dissemination before the report out, the official report out in April. Okay, thank you. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Sheehan, do you anticipate the Rural Land Management Board and the Environmental Commission essentially presenting to the Planning Commission, or I don't know if Planning staff wants to help? In the past, they have been able to come and speak during a public hearing, just like any other member of the community, and they can say they represent the groups. I am personally going to ask for an early report out too, but that is a separate vote. So the April 28th report out would allow the March 25th and the April 22nd Rural Land Management Board meetings to occur before the regular report out happens in April. Okay. Director Duncan, if the Planning Commission is to potentially consider input from other groups, how is that information typically delivered to them? Is that a report from staff? Is that just them coming and giving public comment? What does it look like in the past, or have they considered it in the past? Council Member Wynne, a ZOTA is initiated by the council. We are on a fast track. So in that regard, we would be working just to simply turn this around through the Planning Commission process. But the Planning Commission would hold a public hearing, at which point either anybody, including the Rural Land Management Board, could come and speak on the record, or provide letters or something to that effect for the record stating their position. Okay, but essentially they're really only considering at that time, they're only considering what we have sent to them, correct? In the format that we have. Yes, the text that you initiate is what we, the planning staff, will present to the Planning Commission. The staff will make its own recommendation, which may or may not be in full agreement with the text that the council presents. And then the others, of course, can comment on their perspective as well. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Elliger. Thank you, Chair. Procedural Supplementary, if the vote's five-five, what happens? Then it doesn't move forward. Okay, thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. To add on to the answer for the timing question, Council Member Sheehan mentioned that there are two Rural Land Management meetings between now and then. Environmental Commission meets early in the month, every month, so we have upwards of four Environmental Commission meetings to kind of go over and review this material as well. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Council Member. So Beth Overman, are you here, Beth? I just have a quick question for you. And who's here representing the Environmental Commission? We've got James. Okay. Yeah, I just want to ask, because I think the last time when this, when the ZOTA was before the Planning Commission and the engagement of the Rural Land Management Board, how was the Rural Land Management Board's position or information presented to the Planning Commission? Was it purely during public comment, or was it in the form of a presentation, do you remember? And did you deliver it, or did the Chair? On solar or STRs? On solar, on solar specifically. But you can speak to STRs as well, if you remember that being presented in a... Okay. I do not remember solar as much. With STRs, it was given to us separately, not within the 60-day calendar, but with STRs, it was given to us to review and then report back. And it was the draft that included for the Urban Service Area, the STR rules there, and then for us to amend that and work in the recommendations for the Rural Service Area. Okay, and so you said, Council Member, you think they came and presented to Council? Okay, so part of the reason that, you know, I'm going to support this moving forward, but part of the reason I'm not going to support an expedited timeline, and it's just to give you all time to review and to present, and I would ask or make a request, I don't know if I could mandate you all, but I would ask for you all to present to the Planning Commission as well as present to us. And I think we can figure out what that presentation and how that happens within the timeframe going forward. So I just think, my opinion, I think you all, just from the nature of your work, the Rural Land Management and the Environmental Commission to this issue are just experts and have an expert opinion. And I would value that opinion in your insight and would like to hear it. And I'd also like the Planning Commission to also hear what both of you all say. Yeah, what I'm saying is to the Rural Land Management and the Environmental Commission is that you are experts and want to make sure that your recommendations and your thoughts and your feedback get elevated more than just comments at a public hearing. Okay, we can certainly arrange that, yes. Thank you, thank you, Chair. Any other comments, colleagues, for discussion on this motion? Council Member Betz. Thank you, Chair. In light of what Beth just said about specifically short-term rentals and how their opinion was presented back to Council, I'd like to make a motion to amend that we, well, I'm trying to think how I want to say this. What was your full motion again? I would like to amend the motion to send this solely to the Environmental Commission and the Rural Land Management Board for their input and report back to us prior to sending it to the Planning Commission, so I moved. I have a motion that's been made by Council Member Baxter and a second by Council Member Boone. The floor is open for discussion, colleagues. Council Member Sheehan. Again, I will not support this motion to change the order that we're presenting this. I think the Planning Commission, the Rural Land Management Board, and the Environmental Commission all have expertise on them, so I don't feel like we should be prioritizing one group over the other. We are giving already the Rural Land Management Board and Environmental Commission extra time before the Planning Commission even gets this item, so they will have time to review it. I am expecting that they will not only present their findings for the Rural Land Management Board and the Environmental Commission. What I'm expecting is that they would do something like a white paper, and they would give that to the Planning Commission, but they would give it to us at the same time so we have the similar feedback. So I will not be supporting an amendment to change the timeline. I think they should all go together. Vice Mayor Wu. I don't know if you're here. Thank you, Chair. As Council Member Sheehan laid out in our normal course of process, it's not even going to go to the Planning Commission until the end of April, which means we've already said that we can put this out to Rural Land Management and Environmental Commission today if we wanted to, which gives them an additional seven weeks ahead of Planning Commission seeing it. So I hope, I don't want to infer what Council Member Baxter's intent is on the motion, but it gives them that extra amount of time before the Planning Commission even sees it. So I feel like in spirit, the original timeline still lines up. So I will also not be supporting the amendment. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Chair, and Council Member Baxter, while I do appreciate you bringing this before and the intent behind it, I do not feel comfortable supporting it at this moment in time, simply because, as has been previously stated, there are standards of procedure for how we move legislation along, and we're not asking, we're not moving to expedite the process. We're moving to go through the process to begin with, and in my mind, this conversation is going to continue to happen, and our procedure should keep up with that conversation. So, thank you, but I'm not going to be able to support it right now. Council Member Savigny. I also want to thank Council Member Baxter for bringing this up. I mean, she shared with me something similar to that earlier. I just, I do feel like there's ample time, and I think they're part of the process. So, I'm not that worried about it. I think it will take place. When I was on a Rural Land Management Board, the only thing we got on solar that I recall, Beth, was we got a pitch about this is what we're asking for the solar zoda to look like from the folks at Silicon Ranch, and it was, and then we just had a discussion, but I don't necessarily know that we ever gave a formal opinion of it. And then, I want to ask planning one thing. If we go by the normal schedule, our last meeting in July is July 2nd or 3rd, so it actually makes it a shortened timeframe for them, technically, because they have to respond within 60 days, and we're not going to meet in the middle of July. So, what would actually take place? Would they be then not compliant if they didn't give it to us by July 3rd? No, sir, the planning commission would take action within 60 days of you sending this to us, so that would put the public hearing on July the 9th. Now, you're not in session, but we have acted, and then it would be waiting for you upon your return on August the 11th. Okay, so it would be delivered. So, they just have to do it within 60 days, and then deliver to us after? That is by statute, yes. Okay, I just wanted to make sure of that, thanks. That's all I have, thank you. Council Member Boone. Thank you, Chair. Being a part of this work group, one of my asks was to get the RLMB's feedback on what we were doing in there before we came to committee. So, I think it's important to, well, first of all, get that information from them so we can make our best educated decisions on what the experts have to say, give it to the planning commission, see what they say after that. So, I will not be supporting that, thank you. Any other questions or comments, colleagues? All right, a motion's been made by Council Member Baxter and seconded by Council Member Boone that we send this draft ordinance solely to the Environmental Commission and the Rural Land Management Board. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Let's do an electronic vote, please. I have a point of order to Council Member Lynch. Looks like the motion has failed. Yeah. Yes. It was an actual amendment to. To the motion. Yes, it was the amended motion. Thank you. Now we're back to the main motion. Now we're back to the original motion made by Council Member Sheehan to move this item out of committee. Any more discussion on that item? All right, let's go ahead and vote on that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Let's go ahead and do an electronic vote, just to be consistent. And the motion is passed. Thank you so much, colleagues. I will pass it back to Council Member Sheehan. Colleagues, originally I did intend to make a motion to report out, report this out today, to suspend the rules and report this out today, but considering the discussion and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to do that, I'm going to make a motion to suspend the rules and report this out today. I'm going to make a motion to suspend the rules and report this out today. Considering the discussion and out of respect for my colleagues and the timeline, I am going to withhold that motion so that the normal process takes place. Maybe sign in for this, because I don't know that we need a vote on it, but if you are okay with it, even though the report out for the, the official report out for this committee won't be until April 28th on the action that would send this to first and second vote by the Planning Commission, are we okay with going ahead and disseminating it, based on our conversation today, to engage Lexington Rural Land Management Board and Environmental Commission? Does anyone have a problem with that? Okay, thank you all. I appreciate that and I appreciate the discussion. I understand that we're not all in agreement on all things here and that our community also has different perspectives on this, so that is why this public input process is so important and I appreciate all of the discussion here today. Okay, we have two other items on our agenda for today, and these items go together, so we are gonna do the presentations together, and then we'll do our discussion and our question after that. We do not have any action items or votes that we need to take on these two items, so this is informational. So we have 45 minutes to get through these. The first presentation in your packet is a review of the efficiencies in our development process, and this item is sponsored by Council Member Brown, so I'm gonna turn it over to you, and again, just thinking about our time, be brief. Thank you, Chair, and today our presentation is gonna be presented by Commissioner Keith Horn. Committee members, if you remember, this item stems from the study of the planning and development approval process that we had a couple years back, and there were some recommendations to enhance that, as well as the adoption of House Bill 443, so I think a lot of the things in that study have been addressed from the adoption of that state statute and some things that the Division of Planning are doing under Commissioner Horn's leadership, so with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Horn. Thank you. Chair Sheehan, Vice Mayor Wake, Council Members, I am Keith Horn, Commissioner for the Department of Planning and Preservation. I have with me Director of Planning, James Duncan, Deputy Director, Chris Taylor, Tracy Wade, the Manager for Planning Services, Daniel Crum, Principal Planner, and way in the back, Sean Denny, my Administrative Officer. They will help answer questions and or tackle me if I'm saying something wrong. And I have a brief introduction. Lexington has a long, progressive history of urban planning that is designed to address public health, safety, and welfare. To establish zoning regulations that address those needs, communities are required to adopt a comprehensive plan that guides decisions about growth and provides a foundation for improvement to the quality of life for residents. Comprehensive planning in Lexington reflects a history of regular, in-depth community planning that considers the economic needs of businesses, developers, local government, and equally important, the vision expressed by the over 329,000 residents in Fayette County. The approval process related to plans for how our community will grow and be developed involves the interests and desires of at least three significant groups. Developers, the government, and the people of Lexington. These groups overlap with each other. Most of our developers are also residents of Fayette County. Most of your employees in the city government are residents of Lexington, and certainly you, the elected representatives, are of the people you're required to be residents in order to be elected. But the interests and desires of how these groups want our city to be built can be very different. Some people see Lexington and think, if we didn't have the urban service boundary, Lexington could be like Atlanta. Some people think of Central Park in New York, and instead of seeing an amazing preservation of green space in one of the largest cities in the world, think, this is prime real estate. Why aren't we developing it? Some people see our state and national parks and think, why aren't we drilling and mining and harvesting lumber? Regulations related to planning and zoning address health, safety, and welfare. They include what I will call mathematical standards like sanitary sewer, storm sewer, drainage, and road construction. They also include what I will call quality of life standards like open space, green space, parks, traffic safety, and the modality needs of those who are less able. The standards reflect how you, our elected representatives, want to see how our neighborhoods and our entire community are designed and constructed, how to make them livable. You have the final say on the regulations. If you or others don't like the regulation, there's a legislative process to change it. As to the process for plan approval, there are those that believe the standards are too strict, and those who believe that they're not strict enough. There are those who think the process is too slow, and there are those who believe the process is too fast. The job, the responsibility, the duty of your government staff is to apply and enforce the regulations and standards adopted by this body. As I said, if you or someone else are unhappy with the standard of regulation, you have the power to amend it. Now, I want to share a very brief video clip, 30 seconds, of an attorney who is a longtime resident of Lexington representing a developer at a zone change hearing before the council. I know some of you are new to the planning process. Let me just tell you, I've been doing this a while, and I have the honor of doing it statewide, much more so in Lexington than anywhere else. Without a doubt, I don't always agree with them, but you have the most sophisticated and meticulous planning staff anywhere in this commonwealth. They work their tails off on these plans, and they make us do the same thing. This is an exacting process from start to finish. It takes time, and it's frankly not for everybody, and that's fine with me, because it weeds out people that aren't serious. And you recall the planning process study that was completed before I came here as commissioner, and the planning process study included 10 recommendations in the body of the study. All of the slides I have related to the language from the study comes from the study. In the interest of time, I'm going to try to buzz through some of these, because I'm not sure exactly which parts you guys may be most interested in. There's a slide about the reason for the planning process study and what it did as part of the study. There's a list of actions taken post-study. You shouldn't think that that means these actions were taken because of the study. They just happened to take place after the study, like the urban growth management SOTA, the House Bill 443 changes, and we would have moved toward an objective ministerial process. House Bill 443 not withstanding, that would have been my plan. House Bill 443 lit the fire and said, we have to do this within a year, as you will recall. And we had to have it ready by July 1st of last year, 2025. We've also added a new senior planner position, which we are in the process of filling to help with House Bill 443, including being a contact person if someone has a question about a plan. You all know that anyone can call any of the planning staff and they're going to try to help or help figure out what might be going on. Here's some of the things the urban growth management SOTA did in relation to the recommendations from the planning process study. House Bill 443, as I said, came along. It reduced uncertainty in the development process. Since implementation, approvals generally occur within 30 days. I believe significantly shortens the process. In fact, and I'll talk a little bit about approval and certification. If a plan is complete, that means everything on it that's required is filed as the application. That plan can be approved and certified within that 30 day window. But as a practical matter right now, remember we have six months of data when I'm talking about House Bill 443. The plans are not complete, but they get approval within that 30 day window. I'll show you the averages in a second. But then there are things to complete on the plan. And so there's the certification process after the approval. Let me go ahead and talk about that while we're here. So approval will occur, and it has been occurring fast and furiously within that 30 day window. But then it's conditioned on, the plan has to include these items. And those items have to be included on the plan to receive certification. Now, a development plan and a final record plan are different types of plans and have different timeframes. But if in that certification process, you'll see the difference in the days. One of my plans is within my own office is to start a, I'll call it a monitoring system, to have those plans that are going through certification checked probably every two weeks, just to see what the status is and figure out what's going on in what I'll call the middle part of those plans. So that someone looks at each plan in my office, determines, okay, where is this plan? Has a developer not done something? Contact the developer and say, what's going on with your plan? You haven't done something. Is someone communicated from the government with the developer to say something's missing from your plan and they haven't responded or filled it in? Basically looking at that development process. And I'll need time to get that started and to do what I'll call it a pilot in terms of that. I know that's a quick explanation, but let's look, I'm sure you all are interested in some of the data. So days to approval, prior to the new process, final record plat was 41 days, major development plan was 59 days. Remember, this is approval, not certification. After House Bill 443 and the new process, the final record plat approval time is averaging 27 days, major development plan is 32, preliminary subdivision plan 76, and waivers 21. Waivers being an important part because for any of the regulations, I'm painting with a fairly broad brush, any of the regulations, a developer can request a waiver. Those waivers, I think all of them have been approved. There have been eight or 10, roughly, and they're being approved within 21 days of the request for the waiver. That's not built on top of the approval. It depends on when they file the request for the waiver, within 21 days. Again, only six months of time. Looking at the planning data that was in this process study versus the past two years, 2024, 2025, this is to certification. You see the final record plat days dropping. You see the major development plan dropping, minor subdivision, et cetera. All of these numbers are dropping. Zone change, map amendment requests. That process did not change with House Bill 443, but over the past two years, you're averaging 129 days. That's just over four months, and that is just about as fast as you can get it because after the planning commission, it comes to the council, and the council has the final vote. You all give two readings, even without a hearing, generally two separate readings to pass the zone change on. I call this the outlier compact impact because looking at averages, I think, is misleading. Numbers without context are, at the very least, misleading. The reason I thought this was helpful graphically is to show you that most of these plans for the past two years, the final record plats, fall below that line. They cluster under that, and then you see what I'm calling outliers on it. Major development plans, the same thing, but look at the dramatic difference. So even when you're talking about average days to certification, you see that most of these plans are falling under that line, and the ones above, I'm calling outliers. Those outliers impact your averages. Let me give a real quick, simple example. If you have five items, four of them approved in 100 days, one in 1,000, add those up, 14 days, divide by five, it's almost 300. I would suggest to you that 300 days is not the average of getting approval. It's really around 100, because the four got approval in 100, the other is an outlier. So since House Bill 443, which is the, and this is only six months, major development plan certification of the ones that have been certified during that six-month period, 104 days, and as I said, waivers, 21. And then here's a similar graph in terms of the ones that have been certified and what I'll call outliers above that line. So the 10 recommendations of the study, I'm just gonna buzz through these. They're in the slides, you can read them. I'm going to, House Bill 443, as Council Member Brown indicated, checked a lot of the boxes on the recommendations related to objective standards, negotiation of standards during process, et cetera. And so I'm just gonna click through these, unless you all say, don't click through those, and go to the last one, which is, I do want to talk this much about ASELA. We are examining the abilities of ASELA. We're trying to figure out if there are more notifications that can go out of ASELA. Staff in the government have taken some steps, but it's mostly manual. The example I would give you and the example I'm used to is the court filing system. When someone files something in the system, it sends a notice to everyone else that something has happened on that particular case. And in fact, even if it's not your case, you can sign up to receive notices that something happened. We want to examine ASELA for that, and we will continue to examine the effectiveness of ASELA. Ex parte communication, you know, law department has long advised that Planning Commission and Council shouldn't be having ex parte communication where it relates to public hearing. And then the last recommendation was the establishment of a development liaison position. What I've listed there comes from the study. The one thing I would say to you is the project that I am intending to pilot, if you create this position, at the very least, that position should take that over. It shouldn't have to be in my office. If this position is created, they can monitor the plans, they can check to see what's going on, they can make the contacts about what's going on with your plan. Is it stuck someplace? What's happening? So, and that's questions. I know I buzzed through that, but I know you've got time. We are gonna have both presentations backed back because the next presentation leads right into the development liaison position. I'm gonna turn it over to Council Member Reynolds for a quick introduction. Thank you, Chair. I just really want to thank Commissioner Horne for that overview, and I greatly appreciate all that you all do in your team and what you've poured into this. I want to thank everyone involved in the work group, many of whom who are here today, to my legislative aide for all her hard work, and especially to Alicia Lamour for all of her input in putting this topic together. Over time, there have been a lot of different opinions about these recommendations, which is why they are just now coming up. This one in particular, we acknowledge that sometimes there are holdups in the city side, and sometimes there are holdups on the developer side when we are trying to get a plan certified. But we all acknowledge that there is room for improvement, and so that is what this presentation is about. And as the Chair mentioned, we're not asking for motions out of these presentations, but this is an ask that this position be considered in the budget. And with that, I'll turn it over to Alicia Lamour and our Council Core Staff to walk us through the presentation. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds, and good afternoon, committee members. As Council Member Reynolds just mentioned, this presentation will focus on recommendations eight and 10 from the study that Commissioner Horne just reviewed. Jump right in with members of the working group. Council Member Reynolds brought together people who interact with the development review process from different perspectives. The group's discussions were guided by three primary goals. First, to recognize and commend the planning department for the significant progress already made in streamlining the development review process. Second, to consider ways to support the timely production of affordable and workforce housing by reducing avoidable delays and increasing certainty for projects that depend on strict financing timelines. And third, to examine how those recommendations, eight and 10, might help further strengthen the process. The group focused on several challenges identified in that original study. In some cases, projects remain in certification longer than expected after receiving approval. Issues that were thought to be resolved earlier in the process sometimes reappear, and even small changes can trigger additional review cycles. In addition, various departments interpret requirements differently, creating uncertainty about when a project is truly finalized and ready to move forward. This uncertainty can increase project costs and create challenges for projects that depend on strict financing schedules. Affordable housing projects in particular can be sensitive to delays because many funding sources require projects meet specific timelines. Many peer cities have moved toward a similar model where major requirements are finalized earlier in the approval process, and the final stage functions primarily as a compliance verification. In cities such as those listed here, development service teams, or project coordinators, help ensure that departmental issues are resolved before final approval, making the last step largely administrative. The common theme across these systems is that the decision stage is clearly separated from the compliance stage, reducing uncertainty and preventing previously resolved issues from surfacing later in the process. The working group discussed what practical steps could be taken to strengthen coordination and predictability in our own development review process. First is establishing a development liaison position within the chief administrative office to serve as a cross-departmental coordinator for land development, permitting, infrastructure review, and final sign-off processes. In addition to operational coordination, the liaison would help advance certification reform by identifying recurring post-approval issues and recommending policy clarifications where needed. So what exactly will a development liaison do? The working group suggests they make sure departments are coordinating earlier and more consistently so that by the time a project reaches certification, the requirements are clear, and a final sign-off step is largely a confirmation that the approved plans are being followed. Additionally, identifying systemic issues affecting development timelines and recommending administrative improvements could be beneficial. One area that the working group spent a good amount of time discussing was the opportunity around vacant and underutilized land. There was a strong interest in better understanding where these sites exist across the community and how they might be brought back into productive use. The liaison could help coordinate periodic assessments of vacant and underutilized parcels and analyze development feasibility for those sites. From there, the role could help work with stakeholders to identify potential incentives, partnerships, or policy adjustments that make redevelopment more viable and help move those sites towards productive use. Another suggested function of the liaison role would be data analysis and performance monitoring. The position could help develop dashboards that track development timelines, certification outcomes, and housing production indicators, providing the city with a clearer picture of how the process is functioning. Lastly, regular reporting to the administration and council would help identify where improvements are working and where further adjustments are needed. Suggested qualifications for this role include a background in city planning with at least a planning degree and several years of relevant professional experience, a strong knowledge of zoning, subdivision regulations, and development review processes, along with the experience coordinating complex multi-departmental projects. Strong project management, communication, and facilitation skills would also be essential, seeing as the role involves working with staff, applicants, and the community, and also professionalism and neutrality to help build consensus and keep projects moving smoothly through the review process. If implemented, these recommendations are intended to improve predictability during the final stages of the development review process, particularly during certification and final sign-off. Clarifying the purpose of certification and strengthening coordination across departments could reduce situations where previously resolved issues reappear late in the process or where projects experience multiple rounds of post-approval review. The goal is not to change development standards, but to ensure that once a project has been approved, the remaining steps towards permitting are clearer and more consistent. The working group also discussed how improved coordination could support broader housing and economic development goals. When the timeline between approval and permitting becomes more predictable, it can reduce financing risk and help projects move forward more efficiently, particularly affordable or workforce housing projects that often depend on strict funding deadlines. More consistent timelines can also improve Lexington's competitiveness with peer communities and help ensure that projects that have already completed the public review process are able to move forward without unnecessary delays. And with that, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation and thank you, Commissioner Horne, for yours. Colleagues, if you have questions or comments, go ahead and sign in. Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Reynolds, I'm assuming you're taking the questions for this presentation regarding recommendations eight and 10? Sure. Okay, wonderful. So regarding the peer cities that were included in the presentation, what I noticed was Louisville and Cincinnati were not included and they are our natural neighbors. So did you research what they do and how they do it and do they have a person? As far as I'm aware, they do not have the type of thing that we're talking about, but I will ask someone who did some of the research to see if that was included in what she found. So I researched cities that, was Louisville in the original study? I feel like Louisville is in the original study and so I ventured outside of what was in the 2023 study and found other cities. Awesome. My next question is regarding the Madison, Wisconsin, regarding the, about customer satisfaction survey, that data was available through periodic surveys. What is that data, what did it say? What was this, give me a summation of what the community thought about this position. I'm going to defer to my person who did the research and put it in the thing. I can get that to you. I think we can look that up. Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what it said, in terms of details. Well, if that data's available, I would like to see it, so please send that my way. Okay, I will do that. My next question is, Council Member Reynolds, on the slide about, regarding the essential functions that this potential person will do, you have on their data analysis and performance monitoring, and I just had a question, so is there a technology ask? Coming with this position? There probably will be, if we cannot tie it into one that we already have. I know that Excel is being looked at and trying to see if that's something that we need to continue to use or not. Right now, this is just for including the person in the budget, but if they need to use a new form of technology in order to be able to track it beyond something that we already have, then I'm sure that's a possibility. Okay. I really want to be able to look at every single thing and chart it and say, where is this development plan in the process? Who is looking at it? Where is it being held up? So it will need to have some sort of detailed monitor. Okay. My next question is, since basically a job description was included in the presentation for this potential position, did you look at other positions in the peer cities to see what those job descriptions were? Is that where you gleaned the information for this position? In part, yes. It was kind of a hodgepodge of that and then what the study said and then what the working group came up with. And that would be a, we're recommending this to be in the budget. If it were to be included in the budget, HR would have to come up with an actual job description and I'm sure, correct me if I'm wrong, we would see that again before it would go to its final stages. So it was kind of a recommended. And then my last statement is just basically a comment. I've written job descriptions before for many, many years and I know how you write them. You throw everything in there that you want this ideal person to be able to do. But just based on what's in the presentation, I think it's a lot for one person to do. Like a lot. And I wondered, you and the work group, did y'all have a discussion about fine tuning what this person would be doing so that this one person doing all of these things in this presentation would not slow down the process? Because this is one person we're asked to do quite a bit of work. You know, like I said, it was a collective decision as to what was going to be in there. We started off with the main thing that we wanted them to do to track the development plans and help each developer through the process and that as the main goal. And then we built on that and said, well, they could also help connect people with plots of land and help identify areas to build. So it kind of started with one thing and then it built off of that. But I think if, you know, the CAO's office felt like it was too large, it could be honed down if it needed to be. Okay, because that gives me concern. I support this position, but the amount of workload is a lot for one person. Just looking at the peer cities, it looks like they have teams and it's more than one person that's doing this work. So I think we need to take that into consideration as well. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Mayor Buol. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds for bringing this item forward and convening that group. I think these are really great ideas. It's mentioned in the presentation several times about affordable housing and how we can positively impact getting more of that created. When you were forming this working group, did you all consider bringing in some of our affordable housing developers or some of our smaller first-time developers? We did have some folks in our working group that work with affordable housing. So some of those folks were included. And I think the kind of the point of them helping with affordable housing is making the process for folks go faster and then helping identify land. But I will be honest, this work group, we decided to put this together very quickly. It was going to take more time and be more drawn out and be a larger group. And we were kind of on a very short time frame. So this was a smaller working group. Yeah, and I get that. We had this conversation earlier about solar in terms of what partners are at the table or not. And I can very much appreciate whenever we're creating working groups or subcommittees or task forces, it's always a balance of like, can we get this done? Do we have too many cooks in the kitchen? But do we also have all the voices at the table that we need? I really like the idea of a development liaison. And I think particularly, I think it'll help developers of all stripes, but I think it will specifically, particularly help those first-time, smaller scale developers that we don't have enough of here in this city. And hopefully, removing some of those barriers and bottlenecks will encourage more people to come into that field. And I think sometimes we have these presentations with these ideas and stuff and we get into the weeds, but I want to take a step back and kind of talk about why we're considering this, why we're doing this, right? Everybody knows that we're 23,000 housing units short. Our housing crisis has so many different causes, and there are so many of those causes that we cannot control, like the cost of land, the cost of labor, the cost of supplies, what those financing stacks look like. There are all these elements to it that make it difficult. And I think when we look at policies and positions like this, we're tackling what we're able to tackle, which is our own internal processes. Are we creating excessive barriers and bottlenecks to these processes when they're not necessary? So I'm very much in support of the ideas in this presentation. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Is it appropriate to ask questions on the first presentation as well? Okay. Commissioner? Yes. I have a few questions. Specifically on the waivers, I know there weren't a ton, but I was just curious if you saw any repetitive waivers filed. Can I ask Tracy to come up? No repetitive. Not really. Apparently all been unique. But we will be watching for commonalities, because if there's a frequent request for a particular type of waiver, we may need to look at the regulation to see if there's an issue with the regulation. I think that was one of my concerns, and one of the things that I was really looking forward to this presentation on was so we could kind of reexamine. And for the middle part of this process, we also will watch for commonalities there about is there some issue that causes a particular issue frequently, or a particular place, or whatever it may be in terms of that process. And I want to make sure that I'm understanding the numbers in these graphs. So the approval process and the certification process, all of those are compounded essentially from the time that someone files a zone change on an empty lot, let's say, until they can pull permits to start building. Is that correct? From approval to certification, is that what you're saying? Yeah, they're not the same thing, I should say. Like approval and certification are different. Right, certification is from the date of approval. I believe the date is correct. So it's approval, and then to the certification point. Now, there may still be disagreements about these changing regulations. I can tell you that's not true. These objective standards are objective. They may disagree about the regulation. They may disagree about the meaning of it. But all of that kind of stuff should not be occurring now. I mean, I think it's definitely encouraging to see that all of the numbers have gone down, and I look forward to those efficiencies continuing. So thank you all for all your work there. As we go to... As long as I'm standing here, I want to make sure everyone isn't confused that this working group for this position, I was at one meeting. Oh, I'm not going to ask you any questions about that one. No, no, no, go away. No, I'm looking at the little dot graph now. Oh, all right. When you see the outliers, as you called them, did you, have you all looked at those specific cases to see if there was, you know, what was it that took so long? Is it something that we can do different? Well, we certainly looked at the, I'll say the strongest outliers, and so I've got some information about that if you want to hear it, but the other part of that, for example, for a final record plat, as a general rule, those final record plats are not certified until the infrastructure is built and accepted, because the certification is the dedication of that infrastructure. So when you're looking at that number, it can be a little bit misleading, because it partly, at least for most of the plans, can be related to construction times, when someone starts constructing, if there are delays, when there's winter, et cetera, et cetera. So it's, that's what I mean by average. When you're looking at averages, and particularly with final record plats, your major development plans may be a better gauge of how quickly things are being approved and certified for process. Great. And then I was really happy to hear that we were looking into Acela and all that it can do. I know there's other communities, I know specifically Louisville uses Acela in a little bit different way than we do, and I believe there may even be some automation. Well, I certainly hope so. Automation that can occur there, and to Council Member Lynch's point about the position, you know, it is a lot, but if there's a program that exists that could help us with some of those minute details, I think that would be really helpful as we move forward. And we're working with the CIO on the Acela stuff as well. Thank you. You know, I do think that everything that we can do, I'm done. I don't have any more questions, sir. I think anything that we can do to expedite the development process is very important. I think having this development liaison or a project manager is kind of how I see it. Just overseeing just the process from start to beginning and keeping everybody kind of on track is something that I think would help us. So look forward to having further conversations, but I do agree that there's a lot of job, there's a lot of job responsibilities listed, and we probably should figure out how we can make it more efficient. So thank you very much. Council Member Savicny. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for working on this. I'm going to rattle off some really quick questions because I don't have a lot of time, and I'm not being rude. I'm just trying to get the answers quick. Commissioner Horne, so is there a reason why this presentation was done in two pieces? Are you guys supportive of this position of a liaison, or do you want to leave that? Do you want to leave that to council to figure out if that's the greatest way to go, or do you have advice? I guess I'll paraphrase Shakespeare. I come neither to praise this position nor to bury it. Do you feel like there are alternative ways to achieve the same result? My one thought on it is if we're going to do this piloting monitoring project, when do you think you would want this position to begin? Do you want to give us a chance to see how this works and start building that system, meaning do you want to consider either funding this for the second half of the fiscal year or waiting the entire fiscal year to fund it? That'd be my only, probably my only comment on it. Thank you, and then I've actually got a question. It might be for you, Alicia, but it might be actually more for the people in the back that are sitting there. Since this is such a valuable position, I brought this up in our budget. These type of things also can be paid for by fees for some sort of expediting, and I don't know what the, I don't know if that was brought up in your conversations, but quite frankly, like I was in the, I was a commercial builder CFO, and I could tell you time is money, and that's what they care about. So they, like did you bring that up or was that never part of the discussion? It did come up, but it was kind of quickly decided that was not the best way to move forward. You know, we don't want anything to look like it's a bribe. I get it, I get it, but I guess my question is, if you look at our council priorities there, I mean, if you look at the budget priorities, this was in there, but the affordable housing stuff was in there. My suggestion, and I did not have this as my priority, but I do think that there's a direct value to people that are doing the building. It's absolutely direct, but my thing is I would probably focus on the affordable piece of, so maybe if you're going to pilot something, pilot it with a particular type of project to reward that type of project, and to help that project get ushered through as quickly as possible. Just my thoughts, that's all I have. Thank you, thank you for bringing this up. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Chair, and I'll be brief. No, I just want to thank Commissioner Horne and Sean in his office, and then also Alicia Larimore and Council Member Reynolds for their work on their presentations, both the presentations. I'm in support of the position, but I think we probably need to see how the improvements and how the efficiencies that the commissioner is working on in his office may shake out, and what responsibilities may move to this position. So I don't, I think we'll continue to further have conversation about this as we get into the budget process, but I think we probably do need to allow for some time for that. Also, Commissioner, you said the duties or some of the things that you're going to pilot need to move to this position. I'd appreciate that, but I'm thinking that position, and I'm of the opinion, needs to be in the planning department. I do understand the concern and the conversation that we had about this position being elevated in the CAO's office, but I do have concerns about how effective and how efficient this position would be outside of the true process itself. So I think those are things that we can discuss and talk about, but I think we need to see how some of the things are going to shake out going forward. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I have one quick question. So Council Member Reynolds, for your work group, you said you were working fast, and it was a relatively small group, and considering that this is a budget item that has taxpayer funds associated with it, how are you going to collect public feedback on whether we should spend our budget this way? We've been talking a lot about how we're in a tight budget year. Well, we can continue to talk about it and share about it. I've asked that it be included in the mayor's budget. I've had conversations with the CAO's office about that, but just like any other budget item that we have, is welcome to give feedback on it. I would like to see a plan for specific public engagement on this, because we are being asked to really think carefully about any new positions added, and I'm not saying that I'm not supportive of this position, but I do think that we need to go through a process for that. And maybe we can do something on EngageLex about that. I'm happy to work with Council Member Brown on something. Thank you. Because we have just a few minutes until work session starts, and I want to give people a chance to run to the restroom or whatever they need to do in between, we'll do our items in the committee review next time, and I will call our meeting to adjournment. Our next meeting is April 28th. I also did not thank my own legislative aide, Ms. Cassidy, after her presentation, and I want to say thank you for the presentation as well. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.