# Planning Commission - Zoning Items - July 23, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Commission · July 23, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6835 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6835?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-07-23 - **Body**: Commission - **Last revised**: July 23, 2026 - **Length**: 38,707 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission held a meeting on July 23, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. ET in the Council Chamber, 2nd Floor LFUCG Government Center, located at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky. The Commission considered five agenda items during the meeting, taking nine motions and votes and hearing five public comments. The Commission approved three items: the Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 Preliminary Subdivision Plan; the Plumbers and Steam Fitters Local 452 Building Corporation Map Amendment; and the Cell Tower Expansion at 2280 Hume Road. The Commission also approved the Downtown Area Master Plan. One item—the RAK Properties Lexington, LLC Map Amendment Request—was tabled for further consideration at a future meeting. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the Commission meeting on July 23, 2026: * Ivy Barksdale * Mike Owens * Judy Worth * Zach Davis * Molly Davis * Larry Forester * Robin Michler * Bruce Nicol * William Wilson No members were absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The Commission took action on nine items during the July 23, 2026 meeting. **Postponements** The Commission unanimously postponed the public hearing on ZOTA 26-7 to August 27, 2026 [timestamp: 0:06:39]. Motion by Mike Owens, seconded by Zach Davis. The Commission unanimously postponed the Mount Laurel Land Company map amendment request to August 27, 2026 [timestamp: 0:09:21]. Motion by Mike Owens, seconded by Jonathan Davis. **Subdivision and Waiver Approvals** The Commission unanimously approved the preliminary subdivision plan for Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 (PLN-MJSUB-26-00004) [timestamp: 0:25:14]. The approval includes 11 conditions required by staff. Motion seconded by Larry Forester. The Commission unanimously approved a waiver for Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 (PLN-WAV-26-00020) [timestamp: 0:26:37]. Motion seconded by Larry Forester. **Zone Map Amendments and Development Plans** The Commission unanimously approved a zone map amendment for Plumbers and Steam Fitters Local 452 Building Corporation (PLN-MAR-26-00013) [timestamp: 0:45:51]. The approval includes removal of item 22 and highlighted restrictions. Motion by Larry Forester, seconded by Judy Worth. The Commission unanimously approved the development plan for South Side Technical Center (PLN-MJDP-26-47) [timestamp: 0:46:56]. The approval includes 14 conditions as provided by staff. Motion seconded by William Wilson. The Commission failed to approve a zone map amendment for RAK Properties Lexington, LLC (PLN-MAR-26-00012) [timestamp: 3:36:51]. The roll call vote resulted in 4 ayes and 4 nays. Voting in favor were Mike Owens and Bruce Nicol. Voting against was William Wilson and three other commissioners. **Cell Tower and Comprehensive Plan** The Commission unanimously approved a cell tower expansion at 2280 Hume Road (PLN-CELL-26-4) [timestamp: 4:02:10]. The approval includes conditions provided by staff. Motion by William Wilson. The Commission unanimously adopted a resolution to add the Downtown Area Master Plan as an addendum to the 2023 Comprehensive Plan [timestamp: 4:58:44]. Motion seconded by Molly Davis. ## Public Comment Five speakers addressed the Commission during the public comment period. Lauren Nichols requested a postponement of the ZOTA application to allow time for consideration of revised language from staff [timestamp: 0:05:33]. Braden Stemper expressed support for the Lane Allen Park project, emphasizing the need for additional housing in Lexington [timestamp: 0:24:39]. Dan Stratton spoke on behalf of the Tuscany neighborhood in opposition to a proposed zoning change for RAK Properties. He cited concerns about disruption to the comprehensive plan [timestamp: 2:03:52]. Robert Hodge raised concerns about the planning process itself, expressing distrust based on historical displacement of African-American communities [timestamp: 4:33:36]. Yolanda addressed concerns about potential displacement of businesses on Newtown Pike due to proposed development in that area [timestamp: 4:38:23]. ## Contested Items **RAK Properties Lexington, LLC Map Amendment Request** The Commission voted on a zone map amendment request from RAK Properties Lexington, LLC, which resulted in a tied vote. Due to this split decision, the matter requires reconsideration within 30 days. **Downtown Area Master Plan** Community members raised concerns during discussion of the Downtown Area Master Plan, expressing opposition to the proposal. Specifically, residents voiced concerns about potential displacement resulting from the plan and indicated a lack of trust in the planning process itself. ## Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 Preliminary Subdivision Plan **Identifier:** PLN-MJSUB-26-00004 The Commission discussed the preliminary subdivision plan for Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 [timestamp: 0:10:05]. The agenda item focused on requirements not met and waiver requests associated with the proposed subdivision. **Key Speakers** Chris Cheney and Jeremy Young presented and discussed the subdivision plan with the Commission. **Outcome** The preliminary subdivision plan was approved. ## Plumbers and Steam Fitters Local 452 Building Corporation Map Amendment The Commission discussed a zone map amendment request for Plumbers and Steam Fitters Local 452 Building Corporation to establish a trade school [timestamp: 0:28:16]. **Key Speakers** Dalton Belcher and Chris Cheney presented on this agenda item. **Outcome** The zone map amendment was approved. ## RAK Properties Lexington, LLC Map Amendment Request **Identifier:** PLN-MAR-26-00012 The Commission discussed a zone map amendment request submitted by RAK Properties Lexington, LLC to rezone a property from Professional Office to Medium Density Residential. [timestamp: 3:36:51] **Key Speakers** The discussion involved Jeremy Young and Dick Murphy. **Outcome** The Commission tabled this agenda item, deferring further consideration to a future meeting. ## Cell Tower Expansion at 2280 Hume Road **Identifier:** PLN-CELL-26-4 The Commission discussed a proposal to expand an existing cell tower located at 2280 Hume Road by increasing its height to 139 feet. [timestamp: 4:02:10] **Key Speakers** Daniel Crum and Russell Brown presented and discussed the expansion proposal. **Outcome** The Commission approved the cell tower expansion at 2280 Hume Road. ## Downtown Area Master Plan The Commission received a presentation and discussion on the Downtown Area Master Plan during the meeting held on July 23, 2026. The presentation was led by Boyd Sewee and Andrew, who covered the plan's details, public engagement efforts, and proposed revisions [timestamp: 4:03:14]. The agenda item included a comprehensive review of the master plan, with particular attention given to community input and feedback that had been incorporated into the plan's development. The speakers presented information on the public engagement process and outlined the revisions that had been made to the plan based on stakeholder input. Following the presentation and discussion, the Commission voted to approve the Downtown Area Master Plan. The approval represents the Commission's endorsement of the planning document and the direction it establishes for downtown development and improvements. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Postpone public hearing on ZOTA 26-7 to August 27, 2026 - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Postpone Mount Laurel Land Company map amendment request to August 27, 2026 - **PLN-MJSUB-26-00004** — passed (0-0): Approval of preliminary subdivision plan for Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 - **PLN-WAV-26-00020** — passed (0-0): Approval of waiver for Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 & 3 - **PLN-MAR-26-00013** — passed (0-0): Approval of zone map amendment for Plumbers and Steam Fitters Local 452 Building Corporation - **PLN-MJDP-26-47** — passed (0-0): Approval of development plan for South Side Technical Center - **PLN-MAR-26-00012** — failed (4-4): Zone map amendment for RAK Properties Lexington, LLC - **PLN-CELL-26-4** — passed (0-0): Approval of cell tower expansion at 2280 Hume Road - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Adopt resolution to add Downtown Area Master Plan as an addendum to the 2023 Comprehensive Plan --- ## Full transcript Music Good afternoon. Today is July 23rd, 2026, and this is the meeting of the Lexington State Urban County Government's Planning Commission with subdivision and zoning items. First item on the agenda is the approval of our May 28th, 2026 minutes, which have been previously circulated. Do we have any revisions to those minutes? If not, the floor is open for a motion. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir, Mr. Forster. I'd like to make a motion for the approval of the May 2026 minutes as presented by staff. Thank you, sir. Any second to that motion? Second. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Jonathan Davis, second. Any discussion on that motion to approve? If not, we will take a vote. Thank you. Okay, that carries with two abstentions. Next item on the agenda, postponements and withdrawals. Mr. Chairman, on page two, excuse me, page five, item two, South Broadway Project Owner, LLC, Map Amendment, and Parker Tobacco Company. The Dean Development Plan is MAR 268 and MJDP 2621. I represent the applicant and we are requesting a one month postponement. The reason for this is that we have had continuing meetings with the neighborhood association, the Gulfview Association, and we're doing great on that. But the last couple weeks, a few weeks, we got a communication from Bruce Simpson, who is representing a commercial property owner, not the neighborhood association, but a commercial property owner nearby. And he asked us to postpone this a month so they could study this more. So we agreed to do that. So we're requesting a one-month postponement. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. And that would be to our August 27th hearing? Yes. Thank you. Do we have any questions for the applicant? If not, the floor is open for a motion to postpone. This is the PLNMAR 26-8 South Broadway Project Owner LLC to our August 27th public hearing. Mr. Wilson? Mr. Chairman, I move for postponement for PLNMAR 26-8 South Broadway Project Owner for the reasons requested by the applicant. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Do we have a second? Thank you, Ms. Worth. Second from Commissioner Judy Worth. Is there any discussion? If not, we could take a vote on that postponement request. Okay. Commissioner Molly Davis, could I trouble you for your vote, please? Thank you. Thank you. All right, that carries unanimously. Good afternoon, my name is Robert Dean of Stites and Harbison. Council to the applicant for item number three, page seven, Edward McGee map amendment request and Tom Collins Farm, McGee property, PLN MAR 26.9. I'm here to request a postponement. We're still working through some of the technical comments received from the staff. And we would like to ask for a two month postponement to the September 24th meeting. Okay, we have a request to postpone PLN MAR 26.9 Edward McGee to our September 24th public hearing. Mr. Chair. Yes sir, Mr. Diggs. For the applicant, request a two month postponement for Edward McGee Map Amendment, PLN MAR 26-9. Postponement to September 24th. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Davis. Do we have a second to that motion? Mr. Penn, thank you. All right, do we have any discussion on that motion? If not, we can take a vote on that postponement request. All right, that carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioner. My name is Lauren Nichols. I'm joined by Ben Hayden and I'm honored to represent Goodwill in connection with the Zota application. It's on page 14, item one, technically C1. It's PLN ZOTA 267, Attended Donation Center Regulations. And we just got the revised language from staff back yesterday, so We would like a month to kind of look that over and consider the revisions that they've suggested. So we do plan to come back to committee on August 6th and be back before you on August 27th. Okay, so back before committees on the 6th and then public hearing on the 27th, okay. Yes sir. Okay, do we have any questions for the applicant? They, Mr. Pinu? So you're postponing, could you tell us again why you're postponing? Yes, initially staff had asked us for additional information. We provided that and staff has suggested revisions to our proposed language and we just got that honestly after hours last night. And so we want to see what that proposed language and revisions do for our analysis. And you just got it when? Yesterday evening. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other questions for the applicant? If not, the floor is open for a motion on their request to postpone their public hearing on PLN ZODA 26-7 to the August 27th meeting. Mr. Chair. Just one second. Go ahead. I'll move for postponement as the applicant has asked for on plan ZODA 26-7 of the attended donation center regulations until August 6, 2026. Second. And that would be the August 6th committee level. August 27th would be the public hearing. Thank you. Is that just to clarify your motion, Mr. Owens? Is that right? Yes. Okay. Mr. Davis, you okay with that clarification? Second. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any discussion on that motion? If not, we will take a vote on that request to postpone. That carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, we have one additional postponement. On page three of your agenda, the item number one, Mount Laurel Lands Company map amendment request and development plan, so that's MAR 2604. The applicant does not appear to be present today, but indicated to staff in the email that they would be seeking a one month postponement to the 27th, August the 27th. This is page three, Mount Laurel Lands Company, map amendment request and development plan. So that's a request to as well go to our August 27th hearing. Do we have any questions for Daniel? Or if not, the floor is open for a motion on that request. Yes, sir, Mr. Owens. I do have one question. Thank you. Daniel, has there been any action, any movement, anything? on this since we first saw it? Yeah, so we've had some conversations with the applicant since that time. My understanding is he is working through several technical issues of the site, kind of ranging between all of the divisions, so it is still a work in progress. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. I'll move for a postponement of Mountain Lar Land Company Map Amendment request. Mountain Lar Land Company Property Development Plan. PLN MAR 26-4 401-1 August 27th Second. Second from Commissioner Jonathan Davis. Thank you. Any discussion to that motion? If not, we will take a vote. Alright, that carries unanimously. Thank you. Do we have any other postponements or withdrawals? Seeing none, I believe we are on page one of our agenda. Preliminary subdivision plans, PLNMJSUB 26-4, Lane Island Park, lots two and three. Page one of our agenda. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and planning commission members, Chris Chaney, planning staff. Okay. This is item number, or page one, item A. Chris, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Tracy, you had mentioned the possibility of an abbreviated hearing for another item that was much later on our agenda. Yes, we always hear the subdivision items first if there are any and then when we get to zoning we'll consider if there's an abbreviated. Great, okay, sorry to interrupt you Chris. No, you're fine. Okay, so we're looking at MJSUB 26-4 Lane Allen Park, Lots 2 and 3. This is a preliminary subdivision plan. If you'll remember recently, this went through a zone change to R3 with a preliminary development plan associated with that. And so now we're looking at the preliminary subdivision plan beginning to subdivide the lots and further develop the property. You should have a revised staff report in your packet. It's a blue sheet. This is located at 1899 Parker's Mill Road. This is immediately across from where Lane Allen intersects Parker's Mill. So this is Lane Allen here. New Circle Road is a little bit to the west of this property. It's within the New Circle Road. The property is just under 12 acres. They're proposing 28 single-family lots, one HOA lot, which is shown here in the middle, which includes their detention, and then the stream that we'll talk about here in a minute, and then the street right-of-ways associated with the development. The proposed use is a principal use in the zone for single-family homes. They are showing the, one of the concerns that we had during the review process was the half-road improvements on Parker's Mill and the alignment of this new proposed right-of-way with Lane Allen. and with their revised plan they they did line up their proposed street with Lane Allen a little bit better the other concern that was brought up during the review process was the presence of an intermittent stream and the drain and overall drainage on the property there wasn't a stream shown that comes in generally this area and I believe maybe a smaller one here and reportedly the confluence is here and from that point on it becomes an intermittent stream so there were there were some concerns about what was intermittent what was a femoral stream and and how that would affect the drainage the pass-through drainage and the the drainage of this site in particular so those were things that that we've discussed during the committee tech review and then also has been somewhat addressed with their revisions. The applicant may be able to speak more to what they're doing in regards to that. They are showing half road improvement on Parker's Mill as well. And that was something that is required with this. and then also with the alignment of their proposed road with Lane Allen. That's addressed many of our concerns as well. There is a waiver associated with this request for the street geometrics for the, and I think Jeremy can explain this a little bit better, but what the grade of that entry road is. we do recommend approval with the nine standard sign-offs and the condition of the approval of the waiver and then the requirements not met as well and with that I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you Chris do we have any questions for Chris at this time on the development plan seeing none thank you Good afternoon, Jeremy Young for planning staff. I'll be presenting the waiver for this property. It is waiver 2620 and it's for Lane Allen Park, lots two and three. The waiver request is for two portions of the subdivision regulations. 6-8A requires all plans to comply with Exhibit 6-1 through 6-7. And with the exception of 6-1, it does comply. Exhibit 6-1 states the maximum slope of a vertical curve or a SAG is 3%. And this request is to raise that to 4.73 at the SAG, which is in this area here where it meets the first internal street there, and then to 4.71 here at this intersection. And to give you an idea, maybe a little visual of why that's important, so I'm sure you've all been driving down the road on a hill, and then you can't see what's on the other side, So that's why they have these limitations. And that becomes more important as speeds increase, which actually does help in this situation because the speeds are quite low. And each end is a controlled intersection. So at the bottom of the hill, you've got a stop condition. And at the top, there is a traffic light. So the risk is much lower than an example like this where it's a highway at high speeds. So with the stop condition and the relatively short run up to this area would limit the speeds naturally. So staff's recommendation is for approval of the requested waiver. The waiver won't, it's not a circumvention of the regulations, and it won't increase the risk for accidents. We foresee no negative safety concerns. It still maintains the required stopping distance and sight distance. And granting the waiver, or not granting the waiver, would constitute an exceptional hardship. As the applicant indicated, that they would have to raise the road approximately two and a half feet, which would require them to lose probably five lots out of this subdivision and perhaps completely prevent the project from going forward. If you have any questions, I can answer those at this time. Thank you, Mr. Young. Do we have any questions on the variance request? Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, Commissioner Davis. Thank you, Chair. Jeremy, I don't know if you should answer this or if it's better for traffic engineering, but I am curious, I have heard quite a bit of adverse response to packing more houses on Parker's Mill, though it's within, it's allowable. And especially, I guess, if there are a lot of cars coming out of the development, up the hill, getting ready to turn left or right as they reach the top of the hill. How much stacking, how many cars can stack inside the property if they're going to turn left or right Are they going to be sort of like rushing up the hill to, is it going to be safe, I guess, to come out of there and turn left? I might not be the right person to answer that. That might be a question for traffic engineering. I don't, let's see. I don't know if we can read the distances here or not. There doesn't appear to be, it's maybe 120 feet roughly. I got you. Okay. Awesome. David Philly, true traffic engineering. So stacking inside the development is not the concern, but the left turn is coming in. Now, with only 28 units, these are relatively large lots compared to what we've seen, there shouldn't be a tremendous amount of stacking in the evenings. And if there's something, you know, after the fact that we need to look at, we certainly can. But as far as, you know, you'll have signal control with this intersection, which is something that's already there. So there's not, I personally, there's no apparent issue with this access coming online in these 28 units. And so that's currently an intersection with the stoplight. And it's going to stay that way. Correct. Yeah, they'll actually probably, they'll have to leave, we'll probably work with them in getting the intersection rebuilt because right now where the farm entrance is, basically there's two wood poles there and to create this width, they're going to, those poles are going to have to get relocated to rebuild the intersection as well. And is Lane Allen going to be adjusted so it's not coming in at a non-perpendicular angle? Well, so it squares up a little bit in relation to the striping. So the striping squares up, but no, we wouldn't, as far as this, in conjunction with this project, we wouldn't realign Lane Allen to come in at a closer to a 90 degree. Okay, and Parker's Mill at this point is a two-lane road, so people will have to turn left and wait for the traffic coming on and vice versa. Correct, yes. All right, thank you. Certainly. Okay, do we have any other questions for either Mr. Young or the Division of Traffic Engineering? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Young, on your waiver report. Okay. At this time, we will hear, sure, Commissioner Worth has a question. I'm backing up a little bit, and I'm not sure which of you to address this to. In subdivision committee, we had the question of ephemeral stream versus intermittent stream in a report from an engineering firm before that hearing. Did we get all that, I'm not sure where we ended up at the end. Did we get all that straightened out? I believe they did provide the report to engineering, and engineering has looked at that. I don't know if Vaughn would want to speak to that. Given the problems we've had with flooding lately, I think it's probably worth asking that question. And on that topic, we do have at least one citizen comment in our file online too. Hi, Vaughn Adkins, Division of Engineering. Yes, the applicant had a third party engineering firm do an evaluation of the streams on site. And the intermittent stream starts just to the left of the right property land and The other streams further up are ephemeral, and so those are allowed to be developed. Okay. Any other questions at this time? If not, we can move on to the applicant. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Matt Carter with Vision Engineering. With me here today is the applicant and his team, partners on the project as well, if you have questions for them. Since we last met, we have got with planning and engineering and traffic, and it seems we've worked through all the concerns they had. As far as the stream goes, the intermittent starts downstream of our detention basin. Everything upstream is ephemeral, so there's no jurisdictional oversight on that stream. We did meet with traffic engineering, and we moved our intersection over 11 feet to the west, I guess. And traffic was appreciative of that, and they okayed that distance, and it does line up better. And with that, we're in agreement with the 11 conditions on the staff report. And with that, I ask for your approval. We'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Carter. Do we have any questions, Mr. Pipp? So I'm assuming that you don't need a clomer. No, we do need a clomer, but we cannot file a clomer until we have an approved development plan. and engineering department reviews the clomer, and they won't sign it to go to FEMA until we have approved plan. I saw it scratched out, so I'm just wondering where you still need the clomer or not. We do. We've prepared the clomer. We haven't filed until we get this approved. But you still need it? Yes, sir. Thank you. Do we have any other questions for Mr. Carter? If not, thank you, Matt. Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak to this particular preliminary subdivision plan? Seeing none. Sorry. Oh, thank you. If you would just approach the podium, state your name. It's the policy of the Planning Commission that each citizen is entitled to three minutes, and there is no borrowing or lending of time. All right. Hello, my name is Braden Stamper, and I'm fully in support of this project. We need to be building, like to ensure almost 20,000 housing units, and we need to be building housing wherever possible. This land is already inside of the urban service boundary, and it's in a great spot to justify a lot that is underused right now. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other public comment today? If not, the floor is open for any final commission, comment, question, or a motion on the preliminary subdivision plan and then the waiver. Mr. Chair? Yes, sir, Mr. Penn. Is there any more discussion? I don't see any. Mr. Chair, I move for approval of PLMJSUB 26-4 with the 11 conditions as required by staff okay thank you i have a second from commissioner forrester do we have any discussion to that motion for approval on the subdivision plan seeing none we will put that motion to a vote that carries unanimously and now to the waiver mr chair i move for approval of pln NWAV 2620 Lane Allen, lots 2 and 3 as requested. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Second from Commissioner John, I'm sorry, Larry Forrester. Okay, if we have no discussion to that motion. Okay, Mr. Penn, if I could trouble you for your vote. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, applicant. Okay, moving on. to our next item on the agenda and i believe that puts us on page nine rek properties llc map amendment request in hamburg place farm sir barton way office park phase two lot nine pln mar 2612. chairman davis before we move to that if we could just see if there is one case that could be abbreviated yes Yes. So, per the agenda on page two, we just need to find out which cases can be abbreviated and which can be heard in full. So as mentioned, there were several cases that were postponed, which leaves two zone changes on the docket for today. One is RAK Properties LLC for property located at 2501 Sir Barton Way. Is there anyone present who wishes to speak about this case? You all do, yes. Okay, so that one needs to be a full hearing today. And then the second item is the case MAR2613, Plumbers and Steamfitters, local number 452 Building Corporation. And that is for property to rezone at 1770 and 1800 Harrodsburg Road. Is there anyone present who wishes to speak about that case? Okay, seeing none, that case can be abbreviated, so if we can start with that one. Sure. In that event, let's- That's on page 11. That's on page 11, PLN MAR 2613. Dalton Belcher on behalf of planning staff. So as mentioned, this is PLN MAR 2613, Plumbers and Steve Fitter's local number 452 Building Corporation. The request is to rezone the property from a single family residential R1C zone to the corridor business B3 zone to establish a trade school. And the addresses are 1770 and 1800 Harrodsburg Road. The proposed place type is corridor and the proposed development type is low density, non-residential, slash mixed use. So previously, the site was operated as Southside Technical School by Fayette County Public Schools. As the Fayette County Public School system is exempt from zoning regulations, they were able to operate at this location within the R1C zoning. This applicant is a private organization, so they will need a rezoning in order to be able to operate as a trade school, even though it'll be a very similar operation as what was there before. You can see here on the screen, so the subject property is in white. The yellow on the screen is the R1C zoning, orange is R1T. And then B1 is the red up here. And there's a darker red right here, which is B3, which is what the applicant's looking to go to. And then the blue, bluish color, is professional office zoning. So to the northeast up here is Picadome Elementary School. Over here to the east, sort of as the maps going off the screen, is Lafayette High School. And then as you move southwest down here, you get into more commercial uses such as the restaurants and Walgreens and Home Depot. And then on both sides of the subject property here to the east and to the northwest, You have a lot of residential homes or residential properties and you have residential here as well along Blue Ash Drive. And I'll go ahead and pass through these, but these are just pictures of the site and pictures of the surrounding roads. It is fronted by Harrisburg, McCubbin Drive, and Clay's Mill. So the applicant has indicated the site is within the corridor place type and is seeking to reuse the property to allow for a low density non-residential mixed use development type. The corridor place type is along Lexington's major roadways focused on commerce and transportation. The overriding emphasis of Imagine Lexington is to significantly overhaul the intensity of the major corridors and offer substantial flexibility to available land uses. The proposed development has frontage along Harrodsburg Road, which is identified as a corridor within the comprehensive plan and staff agrees with the applicant's proposed place type. As to the development type, staff finds the existing single story development would be best characterized as low density, non-residential mixed use. But this is not a suitable development type within the corridor place type. And staff finds that within this place type, the most appropriate development type for this location would be the medium density, non-residential mixed use type. While the applicant is not proposing to further intensify the site at this time, The proposed B3 zone does allow for denser, more efficient redevelopment opportunities in the future. And then the applicant is requesting the B3 zone, which is a recommended zone associated with the corridor place type as shown on screen. And staff agrees that the B3 zone can be appropriate for the subject property. So staff is recommending conditional approval, and I'm going to kind of summarize what's on the screen, but you have these in your packet as well as it's on the screen. So staff finds that the B3 zone is in agreement with the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan, as it will provide specialized training and experience for trades such as plumbing, HVAC, and pipe fitting to the area. The commercial character of the proposed development matches the character of this portion of the Harrodsburg Road corridor, while remaining compatible in scale to the adjoining single family residential development. And it will improve the transportation system in the area as the applicant intends to add bicycle parking, and they will encourage students to carpool when they can. Staff finds that the proposal is in agreement with the policies of the comprehensive plan as the scale of the building and use are sensitive to the adjoining commercial and residential context. And again, mentioned they will be pedestrian friendly. They will have both internal and external sidewalks. And they'll provide an educational opportunity by activating a former school site within the community. And will offer post-secondary educational opportunities to allow students to explore specialized vocational opportunities. Step finds that the justification and corollary final development plan are in agreement with the development criteria of the comprehensive plan for the following reasons. The proposed rezoning activates a use located near the neighborhood serving commercial areas and along a major corridor with Lex Tran operating in the near vicinity. The proposal addresses the transportation and pedestrian connectivity development criteria by providing sidewalk connections to transit, encouraging carpooling to reduce traffic, and the site already has more parking than the applicant will need for the amount of students they're anticipating having. Third, the proposed rezoning meets the environmental sustainability and resiliency criteria as it does not impact environmentally sensitive areas, and they will maintain landscaping in the trees that are already on site. The request meets the requirements for site design as there is access to the main parking area from McCubbin Drive and a secondary parking area that will be used primarily by employees of the school. And the site has been used as a similar trade school in the past and has adequate facilities on site to accommodate this use. And finally, the request meets the criteria for building form as it is at an appropriate scale to surrounding structures and provides a pedestrian-friendly atmosphere with internal and external sidewalk connections to the interior parking area and nearby neighborhood. So here on screen, and I'll have a couple more slides in a minute, this is kind of where the meat of the discussion will be, but these are staff's recommendations for conditional zoning restrictions. And I'll cover this in a little more detail in a couple slides. So staff's recommendation of approval is made subject to approval and certification of PLNMJDP 2647 Southside Technical Center prior to forwarding a recommendation to the Urban County Council. And the certification must be accomplished within two weeks of the Planning Commission's approval. So, in your packet, you have, I'm going to say this is purple or pink, depends on how good your eyesight is, but you have a document here. So, on this document, you'll see highlighted in yellow, and this is also what's on the screen. These are the conditional zoning restrictions that were proposed to be removed by the zoning committee. So, there's four of those, which includes self-service laundry stations, pawn shops, banquet facilities, and ecotourism activities. And then further down on your document, you'll see in green font, the applicant reached out to staff on the 21st. They had had a meeting with the neighborhood association, the Piccadome Neighborhood Association, and they had asked that the applicant include a few more conditional use restrictions. These include the four that are on the screen, and they're in green at the bottom of your page as well on that purple document. But it's nightclubs with entertainment, animal kennels, and gas stations. And then the fourth is a requirement that a private club is developed on the property, it'd be required to have adequate on-site parking. So staff does not have an issue with the first three there. The fourth one, we don't have minimum parking requirements anymore, and determining what adequate parking may be a little bit difficult. So if the commission would like to go forward with including that, I would just say just to X out private clubs in general and not add that condition about adequate parking. Just remove them from the list, or add them to the list, rather. And that's all I have for staff's presentation at this time. If you have any questions for me. All right. Thank you, Dalton. Commissioner Worst. Just a clarification. Mm-hmm. With the exception of the change you just noted, staff is recommending these changes rather than what's in our. So we had recommended the full list all the way down to where the green font starts. But where are you now? So we would be okay with removing the four that are highlighted. That's okay. I mean, the committee had asked for that, and we're okay with that. And then we would be okay with removing the other four as well, just with the caveat of changing the last one and the language. Okay, thank you. Okay, do we have any, Mr. Pem? If this is a four acre site or whatever it is, can it be subdivided? Yes. It could be subdivided? Mm-hm. So they don't have a need for all of it? So the applicant can maybe speak to a little bit more to that. But from my understanding, they're not planning on making really any changes to the site at this point. They think they've got the facilities as needed except for some material work. That was not my question. My question is could it be subdivided? Yes. Thank you. Okay, do we have any other questions for staff at this time? Seeing none, thank you. And now we will look at the development plan. Chris Chaney, planning staff. We'll be looking at the associated development plan, MJDP 2647. And as Dalton mentioned, they're not proposing to change the site. They are making some improvements that will bring it more into compliance with some of our regulations. But they're not proposing any additions or demolitions or anything like that at this time. On the plan in front of you, Harrodsburg Road is to plan north, which is to the northwest of the site. This is McCubbing, where it cuts through between Harrodsburg and Clay's Mill, and then this is Clay's Mill to plan south. There is the existing structure, which was the trade school. There are some accessory structures in the rear, and I believe this is a fenced area in the back, with an entrance off of Clay's Mill. The applicants indicated that that would not be for students. The main parking lot in the front, which is accessed off of McCubbing, would be for students and visitors. And then there is also a circle drive off of Harrodsburg Road that I believe was for school bus drop-off or drop-off in general. The site is just under five acres. It's 4.83. It's an existing site. It was formerly a trade school, Fayette County Public Schools. This is basically just showing the current conditions of the site. They're not requesting any waivers at this time. They have added a direct pedestrian connection from the main building out to McCubbing, and they're also showing on their development plan that they're going to continue. There's a break in the sidewalk connection. There's a sidewalk along Harrodsburg Road and there's a sidewalk along Clay's Mill on a portion that comes onto McCubbing. They're proposing to connect those on their side of McCubbing. We do recommend approval of the development plan with 14 conditions. They're all standard conditions. As I said, there's no waivers requested at this time. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions on the development plan? Yes, Commissioner Molly Davis. Thank you, Chair. Chris, are there sidewalks on Clay's Mill Road on both sides? Yes, it appears. And on Harrodsburg Road? They're just off the development? There is on the side of the site. I'm not 100% sure on the other side, but I believe there is. Okay, but on the side of Clay's Mill that this property sits on, there are sidewalks? Yes. So those sidewalks are tying into something, not just going into space? Correct. Okay, thanks. Okay, do we have any other questions on the development plan? If not, thank you, Chris. Applicant. Chair, Commissioner, members, Scott Schutte on behalf of the applicant. I'll be brief, this is going to continue as a trade school. In regards to your question, Commissioner Penn, there's no intent to subdivide this. They need that parking lot for their students on a weekly basis. They've been at two locations in Lexington over a period of 123 years. They intend to be at this location for the rest of time. They have a really neat program where each of their union members pay dues back to the organization, and that's how these students' tuition is covered. They focus on learn and earn type mentality where you work during the day for one of their preferred or signatory contractors and then come to school at night. The operations right now are two days a week, 6 to 9 p.m., so we don't think there will be any impact on traffic. I understand Clay's Mill can be an issue at times, but after rush hour, that should alleviate any of those concerns. We'd ask for approval, and we're happy to answer any questions about the conditions. we're open to removal or addition of any conditions. Like I said, this organization has no intent to go anywhere. So as long as they can operate as a trade school, they'll be happy. Okay. Yes, sir, Mr. Fenn. What about the drive-thru that's coming in off Harrisburg Road? Yeah, so that's one thing that we talked about, and so we just had a discussion about that. And what I thought is open up the trade school, see if you have any use for that, Because I think right now their thought is to file an amended development plan at some point for removal of that and to add just additional parking over there. But just to make sure that there's not some need or use for that, which I don't think there will be. So I think ultimately that will end up getting removed. Thank you. Okay, do we have any other questions for the applicant? Okay, thank you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this particular application today? Seeing none, it is an abbreviated hearing. Any final commissioner comment or question or motion? Mr. Chair? Yes, sir. Just a question on the conditional zoning restrictions. Are we removing 22 to the requirement for the private club? I suppose that's however the motion is structured. We have a recommendation on what staff believes. Okay. All right. So if there's no questions, I'll make a motion for a PLN MAR 26-13 as presented by staff. and with the zoning restrictions as presented on the purple sheet and removing item 22. That's a subdivision. So those, okay, so just to clarify, Mr. Forrester, so the highlighted restrictions that were proposed to be removed by the zoning committee, that is part of your motion to remove those? the three items that staff included and then remove the last one. So that one, two, three, four, that removes five total. It's on this one. So that gets us down to 18. Oh, yeah, that's right. Take it out. Okay. Okay, yeah, sure, sure. Well, there's 22 total. Yeah. Yeah, it's 22 total. So I'm sorry, that would take us to 17. We're going to take it to 17, but we're removing the last item. Correct. That's my motion. So, okay. All right. I think that's clear. I second. Okay. We have a second from Commissioner Worth. Thank you. We're moving the last item. I know. Yeah, I think. Mr. Forrester's motion. I think you need to be clear as to what all is being removed from the printing. Just item 22? And the highlighted items. So you want to say removing item 167 and 9. And adding 19, 20, and 21, and removing 22. As it is numbered presently. That is presently. That helps. As it is numbered presently. Okay, I think that's good. Thank you, Vice Chair. Okay. And thank you, Ms. Davis. So we had a motion from Mr. Forrester and a second from, I usually write it down, who was our second from? Ms. Worth, that's right. Okay, do we have any further discussion on that? And this is on the development plan. I'm sorry, the, yeah, PLNMAR 2613. The mask is bad. 17, right. You end with 17. It will be a total of 17. You end with 17, guys. Yes, okay. We can't. I think. We end with 17. Yep. Bill is a different, he's not a math guy. Okay. Okay. If you are, if we could please take a vote on that motion. as Mr. Forster elaborated upon. Okay, Mr. Penn. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So that carries unanimously. Now we can move on to the development plan. Yes, I'd like to make a motion for PLN MJDP 26-47, based on the 14 conditions provided by staff. Okay. Thank you. Second from Commissioner Wilson. Thank you. Is there any discussion on that? If not, we will take a vote on that. Okay. Mr. Nickel, if I could trouble you for your vote, please. Thank you. That carries unanimously as well. Thank you, applicants. Okay. Now, we can move on back to page 9. PLN MAR 2612. Jeremy Young for Planning Staff. This is PLN MAR 2612, Rack Properties, Lexington, LLC. The request is for a change from professional office P1 to medium density residential R4 zone for 4.724 acres. The property located at 2501 Sir Barton Way. The applicant has chosen the regional center place type and medium density residential development type. And the proposal is for 99 units and a clubhouse and pool and amenity center on the property. The location here you can see in white in the center. And it is, there's I-75 and then there's Sir Burton Way that connects Winchester Road to Manowar, which is just off site to the south here. And the adjacent zoning, you can see that in the blue that most of the parcels around it are P1. There is a small amount of agricultural urban. There's a sliver of green space that separates Sir Barton Way from I-75. And then there's a substantial portion of R3 to the west. And you can see a little bit better here in this image, just the surrounding uses. Many of the properties along Sir Barton Way are currently banks or doctor's offices and those types of uses. And you can obviously see the residential here to the west. And then on the other side of I-75 is the recently constructed hospital expansion. And like I said before, they've chosen regional center place type. and the medium density residential development type, the R4 is a recommended zone for that place type and development type. And a regional center is a vibra hub of commerce, employment, and housing opportunities as well as entertainment. They focus on active ground level spaces, walkable, interactive transportation network. And they're usually located along major intersections and primary corridors. And some of the priorities for the regional center are internal connectivity, walkability, proper design and orientation of buildings and streets, minimizing parking in favor of multimodal options and relation to the surrounding neighborhood and context. And you can see here, the area is served by Route 10, Lex Tran, which does serve both the north and southbound lanes of Sir Barton. And you can see the area with the stars there, those are the approximate locations of the bus stops in the area. And the one to the west is a fairly straightforward access. We would just essentially walk along this access easement here and then up the road and access that bus stop. But the one on the east side is a little bit more problematic. There is no signalized intersection here, so the nearest signalized intersection with the crosswalk would be either at Grey Lagway or Old Rosebud to the south. So that would essentially turn that into about a three quarter mile walk to get to the bus stop, which is essentially across the street. So transit options are available, but they are quite limited in this area. And you can see this is the third option would be to attempt to cross Sir Barton Way at an unsignalized intersection. I believe it's roughly around 70 feet from curb to curb. And looking to the north, it's Winchester Road, just beyond the structure there. And that's approximately the location of the bus stop. It's near that structure that's in the background. So it's in the vicinity, but it's not readily accessible. And then the view to the south, you can see the green space there to the left. It separates Sir Barton and I-75 and then the bank facility there on the right. And the overhead view kind of gives you a little bit better idea of the distance that one would have to cover it across that. intersection there. And you can see from the sidewalks, it doesn't appear that they were ever intended to use this as pedestrian crossing area. There's no sidewalk connections on either side to Sir Barton Way. And additionally, the walkability aspect, which is emphasized in the regional center, is somewhat questionable on this site. In fact, the nearest restaurants to the north or south are, to the north, I think it's 7 tenths of a mile. To the south, I think it's 8 tenths. And even to access the YMCA, which is on an adjacent parcel, would be a half-mile walk, which is a substantial distance to go to an adjoining parcel. And even if the proposed trail had been constructed, I think you're looking at about a 3 tenths of a mile walk, and there is no projected date on when that would be completed. So there are a number of access issues with this parcel. It is accessed through an access easement, which is along here, and it is separating this bank here and this bank. and the proposed development would be in that area. We do allow for professional office to be accessed via an access easement because it has different requirements as far as traffic, both in volume and in peak activity as far as traffic. So there are different requirements for those two land uses. This property was designed and developed specifically for professional office. Retrofitting it to R4 does present a number of challenges. Most of those are involved with access, pedestrian access, and bicycle and multimodal infrastructure as well. Staff's recommendation is for disapproval of this zone change. We feel that it fails to meet the goals and objectives that it doesn't demonstrate any kind of integration with the surrounding community. It doesn't improve the transportation network and its lack of connections. It has no connections to any adjacent parcels. The sole access in and out is through the access easement to Sir Barton Way. It doesn't prioritize multimodal options. It is, by our estimation, it's over-parked. It's at about 1.8 parking spaces per unit. We don't have parking minimums, but when we did, it would only require 1.5 spaces per unit, and the ITE manual even recommends 1.7. So they're providing more parking than we feel is necessary. And it does nothing to enhance the road network connections. As far as the policies, it limits pedestrian facilities. It lacks those connections and it doesn't reflect and promote the desired place type. And as far as the development criteria, land use, the disconnected, isolated nature of the parcel, it doesn't really have any community facilities or green space access. And the connections to business and shopping are limited. As far as transportation connectivity and walkability, the lack of road frontage does limit that pretty heavily. It has one connection in and one connection out. So it's the utility there in that is, it doesn't promote walkability and it doesn't promote multimodal transportation choices. And the site design, it doesn't have a well activated public realm. It doesn't have any access or any frontage along a public road. And so that limits the type of pedestrian experience when you're walking down the street. It's sort of isolated and set off the road there where the comprehensive plan calls for them to be up along the street and have more activated streetscape. And it doesn't meet the requirements for building form. It has not demonstrated compliance with the multifamily design standards. And it does not connect the street and pedestrian, or it doesn't enhance the street and pedestrian friendly atmosphere. And if you have any questions about the zone change, I can answer those at this time. Thank you Mr. Young. Do we have any questions for staff at this time regarding the zone change? Mr. Owens? Okay, Mr. Are you good? Go ahead. All right, thank you very much for that presentation. We're looking at a parcel property that is isolated. We've identified that. Therefore, it doesn't have street frontage. And we end up with a lot of problems with transportation, connectivity, and walkability. That's inherent with the parcel itself because the parcel was originally developed as a P1 development, which is professional office space. What we've seen in our community post-COVID is a steep decline in the need and the desire for a professional office space, and we've also seen an increase in housing unaffordability and a stronger demand for housing itself. I think we should look at this property as we would look at vacant and underutilized property, and rather than point out all the problems with the property, which are inherent to its location and its initial development as P1, we should see how we can work to better design, such as building form, and do what we can with connectivity to try to deliver more housing units in an already established hub in our community. Wanted to point that out. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any questions for staff? Mr. Owens? Thank you. Jeremy go back a few slides to one of those aerials. I don't know you're going so fast. That one I think should work. Can you show me the access is pretty much right in the center of that highlighted property? Yes sir the access is here and this is an access easement. Okay. There's no possible access on either end? No, it has no road frontage on a public road. Okay. As far as you've got one highlighted piece of property there, it seems like, and I'm going to say it's a remnant piece of property. If you go up, it seems like you've got more of it. North. North, thank you. The, this has been, you know, this area was incorporated in the urban service area and, you know, has been there in P1 status for quite some time, right? Yes. Without any development. Do I remember a request four or five years ago for one of these that apparently never went through? I don't recall a specific application. I know that there's a development plan for the entire area that has been approved. I think the original design and the intent was to have these lots to be all professional office and interconnected internally. So you could access off this easement and then all of these lots would be accessible internally as well. But it hasn't happened for whatever reason? Correct. All right. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any other questions for the staff on the zone map amendment? Seeing none. Thank you, Jeremy. Now we will move on to the development. plan. Okay. The associated development plan is MJDP 2632, Hamburg Place Farm, Sir Barton Way Office Park, Phase 2, Lot 9, Sir Barton Way Apartments. The development plan is oriented a little bit differently, So this is I-75 to plan north. This would be Sir Barton Way here. This would be, I believe, Rosebud Road is down in this area. So north would be to your left. We zoom in. Let me back out really quick just so we can kind of orient a little bit better. So that access easement between the two existing lots is here. So when we zoom in, that access easement enters the subject property here. So there are five multifamily structures proposed. I believe they're all two and three story. There's a clubhouse in kind of the center of the property with the pool and other amenities with the parking kind of circling that central clubhouse. They do show a stub to the adjacent property, but on the previously approved development plan, there's a building there. And as we saw in the aerial, currently there's nothing constructed on that property. But that's the only cross-connection that's proposed at this time. And in this area, I believe there's a utility box. So there's the possibility there could be a connection there, but there's some limitations there as well. They are proposing 99 units in the five multifamily buildings. They did reduce that below 100 because when they have 100 units, there has to be a second access for fire safety. So they did reduce the number of units, so the second access wasn't required. But again, currently all we're showing is the single access in off of Sir Barton on the access easement. The property is just under 36 acres, 99 units. And again, like I said, it's accessed with the access easement, and so therefore they do require a waiver and a finding. for lot frontage, a waiver for no lot frontage, and then a finding that an access easement is appropriate as sole access for residential development. You should also have a revised staff report in your packet. It's a pink sheet. They have addressed a number of the conditions on the development plan. but at this time we are recommending disapproval for the following reasons number one numerous requirements of the zoning ordinance have not been met including street frontage along a public or private street connectivity to the adjoining development is required by article 16-6 without street frontage and connectivity between the adjoining lots the site poses a safety concern for all users of the access easement and the intersection of such access easement with Sir Barton Way. And the number two, the intent of the medium density residential zone states that the zone and development proposed within the zone should be located in areas of the community where services and facilities are or will be adequate to serve the anticipated population. Further, medium to medium high density usage should be located along collector and arterial roadways and established in accordance with the goals, objectives, policies, and development criteria of the comprehensive plan. The proposed R4 zone lacks frontage along a collector or arterial street and creates future issues for connectivity with an established professional office park. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you, Chris. Do we have any questions on the development plan and staff's report on it? Okay. Seeing none. Thank you. And then I believe at this time we will hear about the waiver request. All right, Jeremy, I'm for planning staff again. This is PLN WAV 2614. It is a request for a waiver of Article 64C, which requires a minimum of 15 feet of road frontage of the R4 zone. and then Article 6-8M to allow access easement to be the only means of access to the subject property. So essentially when this property was developed, it was designed to be a professional office park. It has those certain limitations that come along with P1 and certain requirements as well. And those are different than an R4 zone. And the nature of a P1 is certainly different than the R4. which is why that property was developed and designed the way it is. It's because it was intended to be a professional office, and it was designed within those parameters. Retrofitting it now and attempting to put an R4 development there is creating a number of challenges that have been highlighted. And we feel that granting this waiver is not something that we would recommend. And they've not demonstrated that strict compliance with the regulations will create an undue hardship. The property can be developed as it was originally intended and designed and previously approved without the need for waivers. So at this time, staff does recommend denial or disapproval of the requested waiver. If you have any questions, I can answer those. Thank you Mr. Young. Do you have any questions on the waiver report? Seeing none, thank you. Okay. At this time we will move to Mr. Murphy. I have a couple of handouts here. I'm going to ask Kevin Rich, who's our landscape architect, to help with those. I've got 10 for the Planning Commission. You could hand those out starting there and going through. Got the staff. I'VE ALSO GOT A RENDERING WHICH WE FORGOT TO INCLUDE IN THERE. I'LL GIVE TO KEVIN. THIS WAS ATTACHED TO OUR REPORT ON COMPLIANCE WITH THE MULTIFAMILY DESIGN GUIDELINES WHICH which did not get included in the packet. And let's see here. Thank you. I'm Dick Murphy. I'm pleased today to be representing the applicant, RAK Properties, LLC, and also the proposed purchaser of the property which is mmk ventures llc want to explain to you a little bit about those two companies rak properties lexington is associated with retina associates of kentucky they purchased this property five years ago and they submitted a development plan to you all showing a large medical practice on this property with 249 parking spaces. They decided soon after purchasing it, unfortunately, of course, that was during COVID, and they had some corporate changes, and they decided they were not going to move to this location. It has been listed for sale for several years as P1 with note takers. their broker sam gray is with me today who will explain a little bit more about that to you earlier this year mmk ventures the folks behind that approached me i've worked with them on several other projects they operate multi-family apartment dwelling communities in georgetown They have other developments here in Lexington. MMKs, the M and M. M stands for MASH. And I have in the third row Jeremy MASH and Ross MASH. They're brothers who are part of the company. The K is George Kawaja. This is a local company in Lexington. And they're experienced in building and managing multifamily communities. They approached me and simultaneously, obviously, Renton Associates, asking about this property. This is a property which has been listed on that infamous list. You've had every comprehensive plan of vacant lots. And everybody agrees it's a vacant, overlooked lot. It has been for 24 years. It was zoned P1 24 years ago, and the configuration of this property was established 24 years ago. The only change in configuration over the years is I think when RAK bought it, it was consolidated into one lot. It was two lots divided down the center line of that, if you carry the access easement down divided into the center line, it was two lots. It was going to be two lots served by this access easement. RAK, the applicant and the owner, put it in one and showed it as a single lot, one large medical building surrounded by 249 parking spaces on that. We'll get in a minute to the traffic that's generated. it. But at that time, when I was approached about this property, I looked at it and said, well, it's P1, most likely you have to get a zone change on it. And every time I do that, I try to review what's allowed in the P1 zone. And on page, I've numbered these with a hand marking on the upper right hand corner of every page. On page 10 I have the uses for this property under P1. And you can see on item 16, dwelling units are allowed in P1, dwelling units cannot be located in the first floor of a structure. It says that at least the first floor has to be occupied by another permitted use or uses in the P1 zone, no mixing of permitted uses and dwelling units on any floor. So I said, well, you could build residential on second, third, and fourth floors, because you're allowed to go four floors in P1. It's a height-to-yard ratio, three to one. So if you have a 60-foot tall building, four stories, you have to be 20 feet off your property line, three to one, 20 to 60, 20 feet off the property line, 60 feet tall. I said you could do that, but you'd have to have another permitted use in the p1 zone well item 25 unhosted short-term rentals as regulated by section 313 of the zoning ordinance so i said well you could probably build this in the p1 zone with the number of units you want at that time they wanted 120 we had to reduce it to 99 due to did that ordinance Jeremy mentioned. He said you could do unhosted short-term rentals on the first floor of this. Now the rule is, if you look at that other section, you can do no more than 25% of all your units can be unhosted short-term rentals. So 99 units, you could do 24 unhosted short-term rentals and 75 long-term rentals on here. Very little difference in the impact on the highways, the trails, the neighboring properties than what we're proposing to you today. Of 99 regular rental units as opposed to 99 units, 24 of which are short-term rentals. Probably less traffic for what we're wanting to do. Because you don't have the in and out of the short-term rentals who are here for events or whatever, people who don't live here. I talked to my clients and said, they thought about it and said, no, that's not what we do. We're not into Airbnb. We're not into Virbo. We build residential units for people who are going to work here and want to live in this community. And I said, that's good. I think that's probably the best use for this property. But we're going to need R4. So we came in with the R4 zone, zone change request to you all. But I just wanted to point out to you that under the, the only realistic use I could find was unhosted short term rentals in the first floor. And that I think would have a greater traffic and every kind of impact on this property and the neighboring properties than would having all of them being regular type of rentals. Anyway, as I said, this has been listed as a vacant lot. It's shown on the official map up in the planning office as a vacant lot, which you've been using in your comprehensive plan analysis over the years. I know it's one of those lots, everybody agrees it needs to be developed. The only different disagreement has been how many vacant acres are there? Is it 1700 or is it 100 or whatever? Everybody agrees this is one of those vacant, overlooked parcels that needs to be developed. It's four acres here. It's a substantial overlooked parcel. It was owned in 2002 by the Madden family 20 years ago. And at that time, access easements were a common way of providing access. I don't know if any of you all were on the commission back then, but it's not unusual to see access easements on this property. but this is not a stereotypical access easement as you saw from the pictures which mr young put up here if you didn't know it coming out here you'd think our access easement is a public street there is a constructed left turn lane on sir barton way just for this access easement so you get the left turn lane coming off of sir barton it has curb and gutter on both sides it's fully paved and there's a full sidewalk on the north side of this property as i like i said when i went out there first i thought it was a public street just doesn't have a street sign on it there's no there's no name for it but both the banks on either side the truest bank and west banco which are on either side of this have their sole access off of this access easement and i I checked with the Hamburg Place office, the Madden family's office, and they confirmed that the access easement was built by all three properties. Actually, RAK Associates, the applicant, paid their share of building that access easement several years ago. And unlike some access easement, there's a clear way of defining who pays for maintenance of it. They have assigned one of the two banks, I can't remember which is, is the dictator, if you will, out there. If that bank decides that the access easement needs to be repaired, it's repaired. And each of the three property owners, the other bank and this property, have to make a contribution to take care of it. So there's a written, recorded instrument that defines that authority about maintenance of the access easement. As I said, Retina Associates decided soon after they bought it that they weren't going to locate here, and they went ahead and listed it for sale and have had no success in selling it for professional office purposes. As there was no success for the first 20 years before Retina Associates purchased it, it was zoned in 2002 and has never been developed for professional office purposes. The, our plan, I'm going to go to page three, if you could put that slide up there. We have colored up a version of this to make this a little more clear what we're doing. It's on page three. We are the one before, I'm sorry, I was wrong. It's page 2. Sorry about that. My fault. But we show you our layout on this. And Kevin Rich is our landscape architect and I think has come up with an outstanding plan on this. Rather than have him come up here, I'm going to go over what the highlights of this are. As you can see, we have the easement coming in. That easement is 200 feet long. It's 200 feet from the edge of Sir Barton Way coming into this, and today it stubs right into the property line right there. For some reason, there's already a utility, a bunch of utilities over here right there on the property. I'll mention those in a minute. But we have, we slope to the rear. From the front to the rear, it drops about 12 feet. There is a stream, understand it's a branch of North Elkhorn Creek along the back of the property. Now, north is this way. This is the east side. This is the west side. We have a creek along the west side. There is a floodplain along there. There's a floodway in there. We comply with all the setbacks for these buildings. We are not in the floodway. We are not in the floodplain. and we are not in the required setback from the floodplain. We're asking for no variances of setbacks from the floodplain at all. We have buildings transitioning down. Our clubhouse and pool, the building is a one-story building. These smaller buildings are two-story buildings, and we transition down to three-story buildings where the property has transitioned down that 12 feet from the front. These people in the rear will have the view over the green space into this property, which is the adjoining property for 85% of our frontage, is the Whitaker family YMCA. And I have a shot of our view in the ordinance. We won't shift to that right now. I'll show you that later. But this is the Whitaker family YMCA property. Most of it's the open space out here. There's a pavilion later up here. This lot over here is a homeowners association, East Point homeowners. It's a vacant open space lot. It's an open space lot for the homeowners association. So we have no residents right adjoining us along this line. To the north are the vacant lots still owned by the Madden family, which are zone P1. Those lots are served by another access easement, just like this farther up Sir Barton. So you come in there, come around there. Their development plan shows a stub into our property right there. Now, we show a stub into their property right there. Why did we not connect the stubs? as well as Mr. Young mentioned, the utilities. We did this out of courtesy to our neighbor because there are, Kevin Rich in doing this plan, saw out at the site a bunch of utility structures right where that stub is, right there. We don't know exactly what they are, but they do look very expensive to move. So we thought that since this property has not developed and before they can develop, they'll have to come back into you for a development plan anyway. Out of courtesy, we would supply a connection right there so that it wouldn't cost these people a zillion dollars to move those utilities in order to connect to us. We did it out of courtesy to make a connection to the property next to us. If that's a problem, we can deal with it on the final development plan. But we think this is the practical solution to the fact that there's a bunch of utilities blocking their access into us. So we will have a connection through them eventually up into this access east. But right now, this is the only connection we have. Another thing I like about this, especially compared to the previous plan, at no point do we have any double drive aisles. Double drive aisles make a big parking area. You have to walk farther. These are all single drive aisles here, or parking aisles, I should say, single parking aisles all the way around. We have crosswalks coming through. We have a connected set of sidewalks. We have a crosswalk down here. This is a sidewalk connection to the proposed trail going through the greenway down here. We have sidewalks all the rest of the way around here. So we have a good internal pedestrian connections and our clubhouse and pool is the focal point of our 99 units. We disperse our units throughout the lot. We have good screening. I want to talk about the trail. We have a trail, multi-purpose trail planned through this property. I learned about this at the pre-application conference when Mr. Thompson, Scott Thompson, your pedestrian and bicycle coordinator said, we're building a trail, a multi-use trail through the back of your property. And it's been planned for many years. I have the part of the plan in there in my packet, the bicycle plan where it shows it on it. And he said, this trail is going down. And we'll go down. We have three doors down here. We have the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church here. We have two banks. This will go down to near Rosebud Lane. And you get on Rosebud Lane and go up just across the creek. You wouldn't know you're crossing the creek if you're on Rosebud Lane. You cross the creek. And you're right at the YMCA. I think that's important because all of our planning principles, which you have put forward rightfully in all our new plans and place builders say one of the most important things is having a good community center. We have a center, a small center for our people here, giving them some recreational and social opportunities. But I will say the best community center in Lexington is the Whitaker Family YMCA. It has everything you want in a community center. It has activities, youth, athletic activities. It has caters to children, parents, middle-aged people, old people. has classes, has social activities. We've had hearings on the comprehensive plan out there, both indoors and outdoors. It has an outdoor pavilion. If you're looking for a community center, it is the Whitaker YMCA. And we are, as the staff was trying to say how hard it is to get to, it's going to be a 10-minute walk down our trail once that's built. Right now, there's a way you can walk there now, going up the sidewalk on the side of our access easement, down the sidewalk on Sir Barton, by a church and two banks, down Rosebud, opposite the apartment complex down there, then into the YMCA. So you can walk there if that's what you desire. It's also within easy, short drive. Many people will be driving out here. I think we have to recognize that this is Hamburg and many people drive. It's an easy drive out there. In comparing to the previous plan that was on this property, the 2021 development plan for Retina Associates showed 241 parking spaces. We have 178. That's a difference. We have about 71 fewer parking spaces than was originally planned in 2021. In 2021, the vehicular use area is about 91,000 square feet. Our vehicular use area is about 63,000 square feet. The tree canopy in 2021 was about 38,000 square feet. Our tree canopy is over 62,000 square feet, 38,000 versus 62,000. We have a bigger tree canopy. And that plan showed no vehicular connection to the north, to the properties. We're showing a vehicular connection to the north. And as far as one of the staff reports said that one of the problems we have with our application is that they feel that we may be generating more or more concentrated traffic than was shown on the, would be in the P1. So we asked, we are below the threshold that even requires a traffic study. We were not required to do a traffic study because we're below the level of traffic generation than is even required. But we asked Diane Zimmerman, traffic engineer, to do a brief analysis of what our traffic generation is compared to a generic medical office building. That's on page 19 of your handout. out. She replied that the traffic generation of our proposed development with 99 apartment units would be daily 678. The generation for a generic medical dental office of size of building approved on your development plan five years ago is 803. And you can see from these two charts that our trip generation would be more dispersed throughout the day, not concentrated during the busy times so much as the rush hours. So we have less traffic generated by this. And this was a comparison with a generic medical dental office. Something like Retina Associates, I would say, would have a much greater traffic generator. I've been a patient of Retina Associates and I love them. They are fantastic. They are the reason I have full vision today. So I have a lot of gratitude toward Retina Associates. They got me in surgery within three hours of me having my torn retina, and they fixed it for me. But when I was having the surgery, it was the busiest place I've ever seen. They had at least 40 people in a waiting room, 30 in the main one, and they had 20 back in their secondary one, and they're whipping back and forth. That's why they needed those 249 parking spaces. But this is just based on a generic medical dental office rather than what Retina Associates had planned for this property. So, the staff has recommended disapproval of this. So I'm sorry that's the reason I'm talking so long because I have a lot of topics to talk to you about. But they recommend disapproval for our zone change and our development plan and our waiver for three reasons, I think, basically. One is, obviously, the access easement. One is the fact that the trail hasn't been built yet. And the third one, maybe not so great, is the difficulty in catching the bus as you go north on it. So let me talk about, I think the waiver is the item that the staff is concerned about and has prompted their disapproval recommendation on all these things. As the staff has mentioned, this is a pre-existing condition. The configuration of this lot and the access easement was approved by your predecessors in 2002. And that, or earlier, I think the layout was probably approved in the late 1980s. And the access easements were a common way of providing access at that point. But it's what we have to work with. We can't change the configuration of the lot. RAK Associates doesn't own any of the other land around it and can change them. The shape of that lot is a given. But I disagree with the staff saying that you should not grant the waiver. Going to my handout on page 7, this is the subdivision regulations. At one point it is stated in the staff report that you don't need a waiver for P1, but you do need a waiver for residential. I didn't find that in the ordinance. What I found is this. It's the subdivision regulation section 6-4-C on page 7. All lots shall have an approved street for at least the minimum frontage requirement for the zone in which the property is located. All lots. It doesn't accept out any type of lots. It says all lots shall have frontage on a public street. You've seen this before. You've granted many waivers throughout the years. So, next page. Section 6-8-M on page 8 says, prior to permitting an access easement, a sole access to a lot, the commission shall first thoroughly examine the possibility of utilizing a public or private street as access, shall give specific reasons for permitting the access easement and its actions on the proposed subdivision. Now when this was created back in the 80s, that decision was made. Under the law, once you all approve a lot and nobody appeals it within 30 days, that lot is a lot. There is no change to it. Under the non-conforming use section, stating a lot, non-conforming lot can be used for any permitted use in the zone in which it is located. This is based on lot frontages. What is the lot frontage in P1? On page 13, the existing zone, lot frontage is 60 feet, P1. And R4, on page 15, the lot frontage is 15 feet. Just 15 feet lot frontage is required in the R4 zone. Now, if our access easement were a public street, that public street would border us for 40 feet. So we'd meet that. We have our access easement 40 feet. We're required 15 feet in the R4 zone. As I said, on the ground, you can't tell any difference between whether this is an access easement or a public street on the property. But more importantly, I think we meet the requirement. I think we comply because this is a non-conforming lot, which is existing. And even if it's not a non-conforming lot, is there any greater hardship? You can grant a waiver because of the special hardship. Is there any greater hardship than you can't make any use of the lot at all if a waiver is not granted? Staff is advocating that we cannot grant a zone change because we need a waiver and they're recommending you do not grant a waiver on this project. They're saying they can use it for P1, but I don't. I think the ordinance is the same for P1, but that was granted. The access to the property was established back in whenever this was planned, 2002 or before. I don't think a waiver is needed. I'm sure if a waiver is needed, you will never see a case of greater hardship than this, because if you don't grant, nothing's going to happen. 10 years from now, this property will come back in, still be vacant, still have this problem. And 10 years from now, we'll have gone through another comp plan cycle where they say, you've got to develop properties like this to avoid additional pressure to expand the urban service area. So I feel very strongly that I feel a waiver is not needed. But I feel you've been asked to make a vote on it. I think you have absolute authority to do it because of the extreme hardship for this property, because we won't be able to build a thing on this without a waiver. Second thing is the issue about the building the trail. The staff has said, and this sort of goes for the like strand thing too, The staff has said, yeah, we planned a trail, but the trail is not yet built. Therefore, we can't get you in some change. Now, this is the first time I've heard a doctrine that where there's land set aside, and this land is every one of these lots along the west side of Sir Barton Way has been required on this development plan to set aside the land for the trail. On page 21 of my handout, I have the notes that are placed on the 2021 development plan that pertain to all these lots along Sir Barton in this area and our lot. And these notes are carried forward to our current plan that we have before you. I'm not going to read it all to you, but it says a portion of lots 3, 5, 10, 11. We're lot 9, which was created out of lot 10. So lot 10 is now 9 and 10. But shall be dedicated to the LFUCG for greenway activities following development of 90% of parcels adjoining the east side of the greenway. The property, you have the right to use your land, but the city will be taking it. 21 is the intent of LFUCG to construct and maintain a shared use trail on the greenway. And 32, pursuant to the development plans, they've got a way that the owner can speed it up. the owner can say, I'm ready for the city to take this over as a greenway. They have to send a letter to the Department of Public Works. The Department of Public Works gets to look it over and give us a checklist on things that the owner needs to do before the city will take it. Then, after the owner has done it, the city will say, yeah, we're taking it over. This is a trail which has been planned for many years on this property. And I think we're being treated differently from other applications that come before you. I've had before you property that borders on the Brighton Rail Trail. And we showed that on our plats for many years. It wasn't built. But we were allowed to sell houses in that subdivision. along that trail, along with other trails that go into the Brighton Trail. These are built along with the development. They're never built before the development. Next month, you're going to get three zone changes before you for land that's in the UGA, the urban growth area, the new expansion area. You're going to get three of them coming through next month. I guarantee you none of them have a trail built yet. What they're going to do is they're going to show you their plans for building a trail, and I'm confident, I hope you will find that that agrees with the comprehensive plan. They for sure won't have a community center like the Whitaker family YMCA built, but I'm sure again it will be found in agreement with the comp plan because community centers are planned. You don't have to have everything built at the same time, is what I'm saying under our plans, and that's the way it's always been interpreted. This trail is going to be a tremendous amenity when it's built, but until then, we do have ways to get to the Y, and it will be a community focal point for us. Last of all is Lex Tran. Now we did a parking mitigation study that we filed in the record and sent to the staff, by the way, about our parking spaces. We have 178 parking spaces. The Institute of Traffic Engineers analysis that Kevin Rich performed indicated under their books we ought to have at least 168, 10 less. We wanted to have a few parking spaces for safety purposes to have a little margin there for visitors and that sort of thing. But we did do a parking mitigation study. But attached to that was the Lex Tran route for this property. Again, Lex Tran is adaptable. They make changes. This route that goes out Sir Barton comes down Sir Barton Way to the south and it goes and loops around Costco, then it comes back up Sir Barton and heads back through downtown. It hits some other areas too. It comes from downtown, goes down Sir Barton, loops around Costco, or if Costco is not open, it loops around Meijer, then it comes right on back. The criticism has been apparently that although the route itself is just 200 feet from our 200 feet up our access easement to Sir Barton. You may have to walk. I think the staff agreed that it's a reasonable walk up to the southbound bus stop if Lex Strand doesn't choose to move it, which they may do. But it's a difficulty moving northbound back to Winchester Road on that because you have to cross Sir Barton Way. And I know there's gaps in there due to the lights on either side, but I don't think anybody should be encouraged to run across Sir Barton Way on it. So if you have to get downtown, how do you get downtown? If you can't use Uber or Lyft or wheels or get somebody to take you, and your only way to get downtown is to take Lex Tran, how do you do that? Well, if you can't cross Sir Barton Way, you can pick up the bus going southbound at the bus stop on our side of the road. It'll take you a loop around Costco, and you'll come back, and you'll go downtown. It will take you about another 20 to 25 minutes to do that. You'd have to budget that extra time to do it, but it can be done. But the overall point is, again, Lex Tran is adaptable. They changed their stops. They changed their routes. I'm sure they didn't go to Costco before Costco was there. They change their routes and adapt to development. They will adapt, and it's there. And again, this is the first time I've had a project that is within 200 feet of a bus stop, and we're told, no, no, you don't really have bus service there. Well, we do. Like I said, the new ones coming in next month, none of them have bus service now. But we're going to find they agree with the comprehensive plan because of the possibility of extending bus service once there's a population base there. We have it now, and LexDran is adaptable. Just wanted to go over a few other things in my handout before I sit down, and I apologize for taking so long. But as I said, we have a lot of issues that were raised by the staff. If going through your packet, and page three, I just had a map of our property. I wanted to show you that we bordered primarily on the Whitaker Family YMCA open space, which is behind us. And as you can see, there's one here where this is the Whitaker property. The building is there. The pavilion in the field is there. This is an open field. This lot up here, the other one next to us, is an open space lot from the Neighborhood Association here. There's residential here. There's the YMCA here. There's a church next to us, and there are banks down here. There's a major apartment complex. That's the, that the ridge, this is the enclave at Herod's, at Hamburg Place. The ridge is up, just up here, both on our side of Sir Barton Way. Here's our access easement out to Sir Barton Way. Going on to the next page, the picture, again this gives you another visual link to where we are in the access easement. It shows the access easement coming in. Again, you can see even the sidewalk in this area coming into our property. It shows the open space in the rear. Going on to the next picture, this is a photograph I took standing at, after the Stub Street. I'm standing in front of the Stub Street. It doesn't show up very well on the screen. It's in your book, though. But I did it to show this is the open space right here. This is on the other side of the creek. This is the open space of the Whitaker family YMCA. Staff said we don't have any open space near us. There's a lot of it near us right there. Six is another shot showing the open space, and I'm looking toward the north there on that one, just showing the distance between us and any neighboring houses. You can't see them very well right there. The scale of those houses, these are large houses. Some of them appear to be two-story, but they have that style that was built that they're as tall as a three-story building because they have very big roofs and sometimes some false dormers on them. Just want to make sure I don't miss anything on page 17. I just put in there the latest screenshot from the Kentucky Housing Corporation, again, about the housing gap, as mentioned by a previous person on a previous plan. 2024, there's a gap of 22,000 units, and the majority of those were for rental units, not for single family for sale. The majority for rental units. 2029, there's going to be a gap for rental units of 17,900. Page 18 is our bike map, again, showing this trail on it. And I have findings at the end of this based upon our application. We feel very strongly that we agree with a comprehensive plan. We have a community focal point. We have sidewalk access. We have every element in Hamburg that you could want for a good community. We have strong employment opportunities there. This is going to be the second healthcare center of Lexington after Nicholasville Road. It's going to be out here in Hamburg with UK and Central Baptist. Lots of new healthcare jobs. There needs to be a place for those people to live. Not all of them are going to want to buy a house. Many are going to want to rent. is going to be a rental option for them and for other people who want to live in Hamburg. I used to close lots in Hamburg, and I was shocked. I thought that every other person who lived in Hamburg was a pharmaceutical sales representative because they'd all come in and they'd say, I want to live in Hamburg because I'm near the interstate during the day. my territory is Cincinnati to Louisville to Knoxville to Pikeville, and I'm here and I can get everywhere on the interstate right away. There's a big appeal to that. Not only salespeople in various functions, business managers, home health people and that sort of thing want to live here because of the location. It's a great location here, but when they come home during the night, And they said, and then I got all the restaurants, I got the movie theaters, I got the stores, I got my church, there's schools around here, everything's available to them in Lexington. That's what we look for when we analyze the comprehensive plan. Before I conclude here, I forgot to call Sam Gray up here. Sam is a broker with Cushman and Wakefield. I asked him to talk to you a little bit about the demand for P1 zoning in general and the demand for P1 zoning at this site. Sam, if you would. Thank you. So there are a couple things that Mr. Murphy didn't address, believe it or not, but I'm just going to highlight them very briefly. I began marketing this site on behalf of RAC Properties in September of 2025. Before that time, it had been marketed by a previous brokerage for approximately two years. During that time, they received no interest for any sort of office use, that is, owner-occupied office use, development office, build-to-suit, medical or otherwise. They did, however, receive a handful of inquiries for residential use, namely multifamily. That led me to have a discussion with the ownership about taking on multifamily interests, understanding that the property may have to be rezoned. But what is the opportunity to wait and potentially secure a buyer that would have office use? And what we came to find is the landscape of the office market has effectively changed. Mr. Nickel talked about it kind of in this post-COVID era that we're in. But the conditions of the Lexington office market don't allow for office development. There is demand, but it's reasonable. And currently, there is an abundance of office space to absorb that demand. Moreover, construction costs for office space are incredibly high, as they are really in any sort of construction. But the rental rates of the Lexington office market do not allow any developer to receive any sort of appropriate return on office development. I think really, you know, as we understand Hamburg, it's as active as any sub-market in the Lexington area. And no one's building office. And no one's really building office in the broader Lexington community. So I think in this kind of post-COVID era that we've seen, we need to look at the surplus of P1 zoned or office zoned land that we have and say, are we going to allow it to sit for the foreseeable future, potentially the next decade or two, or are we going to take a proactive approach and see alternative uses, namely which Mr. Murphy just said, addresses a community need. So that's all really the remarks I have. I'll sum up. You've heard enough from me right now and I apologize again. But we feel very strongly this agrees with the comprehensive plan. It hits all the issues. It will provide housing for people working in this area, has entertainment, churches, restaurant, banks, services, retail. And we have open space on our property. We have the pool and clubhouse. We have open space near us. We have our own little community center for our 99 families that will live here. But, moreover, the Whitaker family YMCA is very close and available to us. Probably the best community center in the community. So I feel it absolutely agrees with the comprehensive plan. I have findings for approval. I know we're supposed to bring findings of approval with us, and they are in my handout at page 22. Now, in there, I have also mentioned the alternative finding. As you all know, you can grant a zone change if it agrees with a comprehensive plan, or in the alternative, you can grant a zone change if the existing zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning is appropriate. And so I have findings based on the discussion we've had and the discussion we just had from Mr. Gray about the fact this property has gone for a quarter century as P1 with no development. There are structural problems in the office market right now that Mr. Gray mentioned. It's unlikely this will develop P1 at any time in the near future. And the proposed zoning, the R4, is appropriate because of basically the same reasons I just mentioned to you again. We think this is a zone change which agrees with the plan and agrees with the other finding. We have dealt with the development plan issues. The conditions that are left on those, those are ones that a lot of them are make-up conditions that we can make up after certification and comply with the conditions. The waiver, again, we strongly disagree with the recommendation of disapproval of the waiver. I don't think a waiver is needed, but since it has been brought to your attention, I think it is a waiver which must be granted because of the severe hardship to this property if it's not granted. Thank you very much. Kevin Rich is here. He can help us answer questions. We'd be happy to answer any questions you all might have about it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Any questions for the applicant? Oh, there it is. Any questions for the applicant? I do have a question for the applicant. Okay, great. Thank you, Vice Chair. Mr. Murphy, I just want to ask for some clarification. I'm looking at the drawing which Mr. Rich provided the preliminary development plan. And unlike the aerial photographs, it looks as though the LDS church. And its parking lot are constructed, is that correct or not correct? Yeah, the LDS church next to us is constructed. To the south? It has to the south. It has a parking lot near us, but there's no, they didn't bring it up to our property line. Right, so there's no way you could provide access between those two properties. So that to the south is occupied. But to the north, there could be a way to tie the property in question to the next property. Absolutely. Okay. And we plan to do that. Part two of my questions, is there any residential zone that would perhaps not require a waiver to change it from P1 zoning to another residential zone? Well, I don't think a waiver is required at all, but if it is required, it's required for any residential zone. And R4 is the zone that you think is the best fit for this? Yes, that meets what we're doing here, yes. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Commissioner Worthy. No, my name is . Yeah, I keep saying you want to speak. Any other questions? May I say something real quick? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, we'll call in just a minute. Any other questions? Okay, at this time we'll have public comment. Two seconds, I live in Tuscany. Could you state your name? Julie Koenig. I live on 2677 Luca Place. I live in Tuscany. Move the mic to your mouth so we can... Sorry. Okay. And I saw this apartment building. I don't think I would want to look at this building out of the back of my house. I wouldn't want to see it on Sir Barton. I don't think this is aesthetically pleasing anywhere in Lexington. And we have way too many people paying rent and wasting money in this town. I've got a 27-year-old daughter who still lives at home because she can't afford to move out and live on her own. And we don't want her out there paying wasting money on rent. We need more people in this town that can afford to own a building, a home or something. And I'm asking that you either keep this commercial and build it commercial like we were promised. And if not, and it gets failed, that whoever buys this lot builds something that people can own that is aesthetically pleasing and beautiful and not this and not wasting money on rent. So that's what I have to say, and I hope you take it into consideration. And I thank you all for listening, and I thank you for approving that Southside building for HVAC. We need more trades for these young men and women instead of regular colleges. And I thank you very much. Thank you. Any other public comments? Do I do the stacking thing? I'll let the next couple of people come. Sorry. Yeah. Let's see how many. Vice Chair Barksdale. Yes. There's a neighborhood association that has asked for an allotted time that the chair granted prior to the hearing of 30 minutes. I don't know if we want to take that particular presentation before we open it up to individual speakers. I wasn't aware, thank you. Are you representing the neighborhood association? I am one of them, yes ma'am. Okay, so they've been granted, the Tuscany Neighborhood Association's been granted 30 minutes. 30 minutes, okay. Go right ahead. Thank you ma'am. Good afternoon, my name is Dan Stratton. Now I'm speaking on behalf of the Tuscany neighborhood, who's speaking in opposition to this zoning change. Our association submitted a petition for your consideration of 166 signatures in objection to this zoning change. We can all agree that Hamburg was a well-developed, comprehensive master plan development in urban planning. It was strategically designed to balance the interest of commercial, retail, single-family, and multifamily housing. Each category was located intentionally to carefully calibrate the balance of each interest. The subject tract was designated as P1 for a reason. I would submit to you that there has submitted no good reasons to change it, and that commercial development has already occurred, has been established around this property, and so the proposal is to stick residential R4 multifamily residents behind a block of commercial properties. This petitioner bought this property in 2021. That is post-COVID. They knew the conditions of the market for commercial property when they bought it. They talk about seeing the future that nobody will ever develop there. I'm sorry, I don't have a strong enough pair of glasses to see the future. But I think all of us can agree that property will sell at the right price. At the right price, every piece of property sells. This zoning change is being made for the sole reason of creating a profit for one individual at the expense of everyone else that had invested previously in the Hamburg area. The integrity of this plan is only as good as our commitment to uphold it. This is not a simple issue of going from P1 to R4. This change disrupts the original comprehensive plan by placing multifamily housing in the middle of a P1 already developed commercial unit. And it places it in all of our neighbors' backyards. To change this zoning creates a slippery slope. Because as you've already seen, there are two lots to the north that they can make the exact same argument. And then we're not looking at 99, we're looking at 300 or 400 residents in a multifamily complex in that location, which would be totally incompatible with the initial comprehensive plan. We would adopt all of the staff's comments and recommendations in regards to this policy. And I would leave you with one question. Should the profit motive of one person prevail over the prior investment interest of many? This is not a P1R4 decision. This is do you support the profit of one person over the plan that everybody else in Hamburg relied upon and invested in, in reliance on that plan? I would ask you to vote for the plan and not the profit. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, hold on one second. There were some other people standing that Oh, okay. Sorry. Hello, my name is Tammy Hanks and of course I live in Tuscany. My part is on the compatibility. With the fundamental incompatibility of this proposed apartment complex that they have, that it's not about the preference or the aesthetics, it's about the adherence to the comprehensive plan, land use, integrity, and neighborhood protection. Tuscany is a single-family neighborhood built with intentional design, low-intensity land use, quiet streets and homes that rely on the privacy, safety, and the consistent resident environment. Families choose the neighborhood because of the zoning that it provides. The certainty that the surrounding land will remain compatible and protective of the quality of life of a single-family zoning is meant to ensure. The proposed development is the opposite of that. And I was going to go through all the reasons, but your staff did a really good job in the oppositions of it. One thing that I will say that they did not was the rezoning removes the protection that the plan had in place and replaces them with impacts that are permanent and irrevocable. The proposal is not something that any established single-family neighborhood should be asked to absorb. And we hope that you consider to reject their proposal. And one other thing I found interesting when they were talking, I didn't realize who they were. But I guess the retinal eye association is part of their business. If it's zoned for them to have an office there, why don't they have an office there? Versus putting in, like he said, a profit for housing. So if they are already a business that's so busy to have an office there, maybe they should put one. Thank you. My name is Lance Klein. Good afternoon, commissioners. I want to speak to traffic congestion and emergency access. I live in the Tuscany neighborhood. And I just want to speak plainly because there are not minor inconveniences when it comes to safety issues. This rezoning would make worse. The Sir Barton Manowar corridor is already overloaded. Anyone who drives it knows the reality. Traffic routinely backs up through the intersections. Delays are common and the YMCA traffic alone can bring the area to a standstill. These conditions exist before any new development. Also, Kroger is currently being built at this intersection of Sir Barton and Winchester Road, adding to delays in this corridor. The proposal before you would add 100 additional daily trips this already overburdened corridor. A four-story unit building does not generate a small increase in traffic. It generates a substantial measurable surge in volume. Residents leaving for work, returning home, running errands, using rideshare, Receiving deliveries, hosting visitors. Every one of these trips funnels into the same limited road work that Tuscany depends on. The corridor was not designed to absorb high-density residential traffic. It was planned and built around low-density neighborhoods and professional office uses. Not a four-story apartment building. When you add density at this scale to a constrained roadway, congestion is not a possibility, it's a certainty. This congestion doesn't just affect drivers, it affects school bus traffic. Every morning, buses serve the high school, move through this same corridor, navigating the backups at Sir Barton and Man of War. Buses are already struggling to maintain their schedule due to peak hour delays, adding hundreds of new daily trips would make those delays even worse. Increasing risk to students and further straining the corridor that already is operating at capacity. School buses, emergency vehicles, and neighborhood traffic all rely on the same limited road network. When you overload that network, everyone is impacted. consequences fall hardest on groups who can at least afford delays children and emergency response biggest concern one that affects every family in tuscany is emergency access police fire ems already navigate heavy congestion in this area residents have ambulance slowed by backups fire trucks navigating right turns and police vehicles delayed at main entrances When seconds matter, delays can be life-threatening. High-density residential buildings generate more emergency calls, more medical responses, more welfare checks, and more fire alarms. That is a documented pattern in every city. More calls plus more congestion equals slower response times. Slower response puts lives at risk. This rezoning request would make those delays significantly worse. A 100-unit apartment complex introduces more vehicles, more turning movements, more conflicts at intersections, and more gridlock. At the very point where emergency responders need clear, reliable access, and this applicant has not demonstrated any credible plan to protect emergency response times or mitigate the congestion. Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Do we have a ton on the clock? Okay, thank you. The comprehensive plan emphasizes the importance of the infrastructure capacity and public safety when evaluating these rezone requests. The proposal fills both standards. It places additional strain on the corridor that already is operating at capacity, introduces risks that cannot be mitigated once the building is constructed. Traffic hazards can be studied, they can be modeled, but they cannot be wished away. The impacts of adding hundreds of daily trips to the constrained roadway systems are predictable, unavoidable, and permanent. The risk raises serious concerns about congestion, intersection delays, emergency response times, pedestrian safety, school bus delays, and student safety. As Mr. Murphy stated, P1 traffic is 8 to 5, but an R4 is 24-7 traffic. A full traffic impact study should be required and reviewed publicly before any rezoning is considered. Commissioners, this is not responsible planning. It is not consistent with the intent of the comprehensive plan, and it is not in the best interest of the families who rely on safe, reliable access to and from homes. We strongly urge the commission to deny this rezoning request and protect the safety, mobility, emergency access of Tuscany neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Gary Irmers, and I'm here to speak about the stormwater and flooding risks associating with this rezoning request. Even today, with the land undeveloped, the surrounding area experiences pooling and slow drainage during rainstorms. When you replace these five acres of permeable land with asphalt and rooftops, you dramatically increase the runoff volume and velocity. This entire corridor already struggles during major rain events. Adding a high-density development at the top of this watershed compounds these pressures tremendously. The site's elevation and steep slope make the risks even more severe. The maps you saw did not show topography. It is not flat land. It is like this, sloping down a hill to the very valuable waterway below. The assertion by Mr. Murphy that this non-compliant project is better for the environment or stormwater issues, that a future-compliant project is not fact-based. They use their assumptions and conjecture regarding an abandoned idea and an unknown future idea to use that for comparison to bolster their claims. We believe the future commercial facility will have a smaller parking lot and much larger green space. We are also confident that you, the commission, will ensure that. For example, just a few hundred yards away, look at Community Trust Bank. beautiful large green space and a small parking lot used only during the day. The fact that we do know is the proposed apartment complex will have parking for hundreds and hundreds of cars 24-7 for residents, family, and guests. Imagine the petrochemical pollution washed into the waterway downhill every time it rains. Given that there is a documented history of these drainage challenges, it is not reasonable to add a high-density development. It would significantly exacerbate the flooding and downstream impacts. And critically, these impacts have not been adequately evaluated. The applicant has not provided a meaningful stormwater analysis. The comprehensive plan is clear. Development must respect environmental constraints and must not create or worsen flooding conditions for surrounding properties. And long-term consequences would be permanent. The proposal is not compatible with the environmental realities of the corridor. It is not protective of surrounding neighborhoods, and it is not consistent with the standards that this commission is obligated to uphold. For these reasons, on behalf of the residents of Tuscany, I respectfully and strongly urge the commission to make the reasonable decision for this corridor and deny the zoning change request. And I thank you for your time. Thank you. Hello, my name is Karen Hendren. I live in the Tuscany neighborhood as well, and today I'm asking you to look directly at the real consequences of placing a four story 99 unit apartment building right beside single family homes. It's not the promises or the renderings, but the actual noise, lighting, and activity impacts that hundreds of families are going to face if this rezoning is approved. Tuscany is a quiet residential community and the existing P1 buffer protects that environment by providing the separation and quiet that single family homes depend on. Replacing that buffer with a high density building would introduce continuous high density disturbances that no homeowner can mitigate. A four story 99 unit building generates noise at every level, music, deliveries, trash collection and constant movement. Noise is continuous, it's mornings, nights, weekends, and holidays. And it carries directly into the backyards and living spaces of the nearby homes. Beyond the residential noise, this development introduces commercial grade noise, delivery trucks, loading activity, HVAC systems, and parking lot activity from early morning to late night. Yet the applicant has provided no noise study, no decibel modeling, and no enforceable mitigation plan. Lighting impacts are going to be equally severe. Elevated parking lot, balcony, and security light is going to shine directly into backyards, patios, and bedroom windows. These lights create glare and direct intrusion into our homes, yet the applicant has provided no photometric study, no spill map, and no dimming schedule or curfew. Activity impacts would be even more intrusive. This development will bring hundreds of daily vehicle trips, deliveries, trash trucks and maintenance vehicles, and constant movement at all hours. And the four story height is going to magnify every impact. Elevated noise travels further, elevated lighting shines wider, and yet the applicant has provided no circulation plan and no binding operational limits. These impacts cannot be mitigated. Once they are approved, they are permanent. Enforcement would be nearly impossible and the burden will shift entirely to the residents. The comprehensive plan is clear, established neighborhoods must be protected from incompatible development. A four story wall of balconies, lights, and daily activity overlooking single family backyards is neither compatible nor reasonable. I don't think anyone in this room today would want four stories of balconies overlooking their backyards. And with the precedent this would set, that would absolutely happen. But when you vote today, you are deciding whether the Tuscany neighbors can keep their quiet safety in darkness that defines the livability of our homes. Once these impacts arrive, we can never get our neighborhood back. So on behalf of the Tuscany residents, I respectfully and strongly urge you to uphold the existing zoning and deny this request. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Karen Casey. had a wonderful 10-page report ready to go. Couldn't get it in three minutes. Got it down to two minutes, but then Mr. Murphy totally threw me off my game by addressing things that I would have liked to address when you consider the environmental effects. And they are very, very important. There is fewer and fewer smart parcels of land where native wildlife, flowers, plants can grow. And the cumulative effect of having massive buildings, tons of occupancy, it isn't good for the animals and the plants, and that should be self-evident. As I would think it is also a bit naive to think that a professional office building would be active in the evening. When most of our neighborhood is absent during the day at work, they come home wanting peace and quiet. The professional buildings, which I frequent often, they typically close at 5 o'clock, so they allow us, in addition with this green buffer, to have a more quiet, peaceful neighborhood. Squirrels are moving in, and I'm thrilled with it because I'm one of the few people who was one of the first purchasers of property there. I moved here in 2006 from Breckenridge, Colorado, with the understanding that my only hope of being out of a wheelchair was to keep walking. To this day, I walk three to five miles around my neighborhood, as my neighbors can attest. I walk through the enclave, which is the apartment building on Sir Barton now. It's behind Hamburg Farms. Farms. Hamburg Farms has a wonderful lake in the center with an asphalt walking path all the way around. The lake, when it's too high, overflows into that stream. I've tried numerous times to walk between the enclave and that stream, and it's just impossible. I would have to not bring dogs, be fully protected because it's not buildable, it's not walkable. That's not the case on the other side of the street where they want to build. I've walked from one end to the other numerous times because I like walking in fields. I came here from a state where they have learned to take the natural environment and monetize it. You know that when you destroy the beauty of a place, you destroy the marketability of a place. When I came here in 2006, I was so impressed with Lexington. I really was. The way that you guys have protected the horse farms that I can drive in the evening and see these beautiful estates and the walls and the fences, these are things that we really need to consider, that there is an effect on the environment, and it's not a good one when you put that many people who will be there 24-7 right behind disestablished residences. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Debbie Jones and I'm speaking about the property value, privacy, and economic impacts of placing a high density residential development directly beside single family homes. Impacts that are direct, predictable, and unavoidable. Tuscany was designed with consistent scale, spacing, and sight lines. Our homes are two stories, our yards are private, and the existing P1 buffer provides the separation homeowners relied on when making long-term financial decisions to live here. Removing that buffer and replacing it with a four-story, 99-unit apartment building would fundamentally change the conditions that support property values along this boundary. Instead of natural separation, homeowners would face continuous visibility from dozens of units, elevated activity, and the loss of privacy that has long defined this neighborhood. Privacy is not an abstract amenity. It's a measurable component of property value. Real estate research consistently shows that homes adjacent to high density of development experience declines in value due to reduced privacy, diminished visual separation, and the loss of predictable low intensity surroundings. Buyers place a premium on neighborhoods that offer stability and protected sight lines and they discount homes where those conditions no longer exist. For Tuscany homeowners, the impacts are especially significant. Loss of visual privacy as upper story units overlook yards and windows. Loss of environmental privacy as natural buffering is replaced with constant visibility and movement. Loss of spatial privacy as the sense of separation buyers expect is eliminated. Loss of market confidence as uncertainty about future development replaces the predictability the P1 buffer has long provided. These outcomes cannot be mitigated. once the buffer is removed. Higher-value neighborhoods are particularly sensitive to these impacts because buyers expect stability and a consistent development pattern. This rezoning undermines both. We're not opposed to development or growth. We welcome projects that are thoughtfully planned and compatible with established neighborhoods. What we are asking for is simply the right kind of development in the right location, development that strengthens the community rather than overwhelming it. The comprehensive plan is clear. New development must not harm surrounding properties, yet the impacts here, loss of privacy and reduced property values, are direct, predictable, and irreversible. You cannot mitigate the long-term financial consequences for homeowners whose property becomes less valuable because the zoning changed around them. This proposal is not compatible, not protective, and not consistent with the standards this commission is obligated to uphold. A high density complex overlooking single family backyards is not reasonable and not something any established neighborhood should be asked to accept. On behalf of the residents of Tuscany, we respectfully ask you to protect this buffer, uphold the comprehensive plan, and deny the rezoning request. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, good afternoon. My name is Laura Klein. You have a lot to listen to and a great responsibility. I know some of us are not seasoned public speakers, but I am a concerned member of the Tuscany community, and I'm a mom. And it was mentioned that people move into a community for certain conveniences, things like that. That's true, but we also move into a community for safety and security. And that's why I would like to address right now are those impacts. There are some well documented patterns associated with large multi-unit complexes, especially when they are placed in areas that have not been designed or zoned to support them. There are significantly higher levels of activity. It's not a criticism, it's simply the reality of concentrating a large number of unrelated households into a small footprint. Tuscany was never designed for that level of intensity. My home was actually pictured in some of the photographs that were presented earlier. And one of the homes that is not going to be affected by this. Our streets, our lighting patterns, our neighborhood layout were built for low density residential use. not for the volume of traffic and foot movement that this 100 or 99 unit complex generates. As well as the potential of future complexes, as this will set a precedence. I mean, we're talking about 100 now, but if we change the zoning for this, it's more and more and more possibly. We've already seen safety concerns without this development. Our neighborhood experiences multiple porch parrot incidents. We've had multiple vehicle break-ins, suspicious late night activity at the YMCA that's been mentioned. I can see the parking lot, I can see it. There's suspicious activity there all the time, overnight. Something like this is only possibly increasing that. There are concerns already about inadequate lighting in certain areas. And the cut through traffic in our neighborhood is crazy as it is during peak hours. And we're talking about 100 families more down the road, again, more traffic through that area. One of my son's friends was almost hit on our road because of the speeding and the safety concerns that are constantly there. Adding this complex with more cars, more foot traffic, more nighttime activity, and non-resident movement will intensify those problems. It will create serious visibility and surveillance issues. Something that's been mentioned is that some of these apartments will have direct sight lines into backyards, patios, and windows. This loss of privacy, it's not just a comfort issue, it's a security issue. It increases opportunities for observation and reduces the natural separation that protects the homeowners. It'll bring overflow, parking. The roads there are just not designed to absorb this additional complex. The comprehensive plan that was there in the beginning is clear. Development should not create unsafe conditions or negatively impact surrounding properties. This proposal we feel does both. It removes the protective buffer that exists and introduces the level of density the area was not designed for, and creates predictable, unavoidable safety and security risks for the families who live there. This is not about opposing development. It's about ensuring that development does not compromise the safety, privacy, and security of an established neighborhood. Or put an even greater burden on the services that are provided through police, fire, and the such. For these reasons, I respectfully but strongly urge you to deny this rezoning request. When you leave this room today, you'll go to your next meeting. My family, my neighbors will continue living with the consequences of whatever decision you make. And the precedence that this is going to set for future proposals. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon, good to see you. My name is Larry Smith, I'm a resident of Tuscany. I'm going to hurry quickly as I got to run out and get to work. You've heard all the arguments this afternoon and I'm here to agree that this is a, this does not go with what the standards are of the comprehensive plan. Approving a request that contradicts that would undermine the very framework that protects Lexington's neighborhoods. And if you pierce that veil once, it'll happen again and again and again. It's been talked about here this afternoon. There are two more parcels, I'd almost guarantee you, we'll be back again, not just for 99 or 100, but for additional spaces. Keep in mind that the Tuscany neighborhood already is bracing for additional town homes to be built to the north. There are hundreds of homes already right now being planned in a facility to the south. This is going to be what's already a difficult traffic situation and safety situation for emergency vehicles will become untenable already without this other process coming in. Not to mention the Kroger development, as someone mentioned before, over off Winchester Road and Sir Barton, that's going to add hundreds of more families there. The homeowners of Tuscany have a combined investment of conservatively $150 million. That should mean something in terms of our commitment to the Hamburg, to Lexington as well. We stand in agreement of the staff's recommendation and strongly urge you to deny this zoning request. Please protect the plan for everyone and not the profit of one. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. So that is. So, yes, while you were stepped away from the microphone there, we mentioned to Vice Chair Berksdale that the neighborhood had asked for 30 minutes. So that was the timer that you just heard was the 30 minutes. Okay. Okay, so is there anyone else who would like to speak just as an individual today? Again, just please state your name and individual comment is limited to three minutes and there's no borrowing or lending of time. Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here today. My name is Dr. Brohez. I'm one of the neighbors of Tuscany. My street only has 16 physicians. Overall, Tuscany and Hamburg Farms have almost 200 providers. I'm not going to say what's going to happen in the future. I can only tell you what your decisions have done in the past. Four years ago, somebody mentioned it. You allowed an apartment building to be built at the entrance of Sir Barton. We were sure it wasn't going to cause floods. We were sure it wasn't going to cause worsening traffic. It wasn't built for four days. The entire Sir Barton flooded. They had construction and we had to divert traffic for seven days until they fixed all of that. We know we're in a flood zone. We know that property is in a flood zone. We had a storm two days ago. That property had a ton of water on it. We know it's going to flood the roads and we know the 99 units per city engineer, it will be almost 200 extra cars. It will cause delays. That day that everything was diverted, you delayed over 20 clinics and several ORs through the city of Lexington. So yes, your decision will just not impact the neighborhood, it will also impact your health care system. So please, please, please think twice about it. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, my name is Larissa Plecha. I am also a resident of Tuscany. In fact, I live, the map is gone, but I live at the very end of the cul-de-sac there that was imaged. And so I'm probably one of the ones that would be most directly impacted, given that my proximity to the apartment complex is right there. I would note also that I'm here today in my personal capacity. I'm not paid to represent a client. I am only here speaking as a mom of three who happens to live in this subdivision. So, of course, Mr. Murray, he is an attorney. He does have a financial interest in presenting to you all of his points for his client for the financial interest. And so, of course, it's going to be well thought out and well reasoned. He's going to use an hour of time to highlight all of his arguments and drag this out even longer. But I would just point out, I'll read my notes to move things along for you because I'm sure you all have other things you want to do. But just from listening to all this, I adopt the arguments of my residents. I'm not a pharmaceutical rep. I'm a mom of three little kids and I commute to and from my job. Councilman Nichols said something about we should treat this property as an abandoned property and potentially rezone it. I'm not going to pretend like you guys haven't made up your minds after hearing everybody's arguments so far. But I, as a single, as a mom living in this property, I would say we have plenty of apartments nearby. And the need to fit this square peg into a round hole is just not present here. I don't even know what the vacancy rate of these other apartment complexes nearby here, but there are plenty. They're on Meeting Street, two apartment complexes on Meeting Street. There's one already on Sir Barton. There's other places. Hamburg is a large place. Leaving the access easement, turning left from that is very dangerous. You would need a light. It's a slippery slope. We've already heard that argument. Courtesy to all of our neighbors. We haven't heard from them at all. Is that neighborly? I certainly haven't heard from any of them. They haven't shown up to my house. They haven't talked to me. I have no idea. So community for all their potential residents, but not community at large. The bicycle trail will create some traffic. I have three little kids. Our cul-de-sac is very, very busy with children. People fly down Pasqualee from Sir Barton to get to Old Rosebud. So I don't need to have children going up San Milano place and getting run over by cars that will be residual traffic from these apartment complexes. Also, where is the overflow parking going to be? Are they going to park on Sir Barton? They're going to park on in the YMCA. Where are they going to park? What about school bus zones? And what about the impact on local school? Are there teachers that can staff Liberty, Britton, Crawford, Douglas? What about the... Ma'am, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We're at a little over four minutes. I have 12 seconds on this, so thank you. But I would just urge you to deny the application and to please consider the arguments of my residents. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Just for housekeeping. Whenever somebody begins speaking, I write it down based on that clock. So if we ever contradict, sorry. All right. Anyone else? Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Alan Black. I am a resident of Tuscany, and I want to speak to you on behalf of the high-density development and really the decision you have to make today. This decision goes far beyond just a single parcel. We've heard there are other parcels. I expect, again, shortly that they will be back in here wanting to expand and add other additional apartments. It really determines what's next for Tuscany and those of us who have invested in your neighborhoods, who 10 years ago when I moved here, I looked at the plan. I decided on Tuscany because the plan was well thought out and it made sense. I live, much like Laura, right across from the open space at the Y, and I'll be looking at it. Every morning, I get up before daylight. I look out and I watch the sun rise. I won't be seeing that. I'll be seeing this four-story building. So, again, I bought that lot. I bought that house because of where it was at. This request would just, you know, definitely puts in a four-story building, but it's more than that. The developers watch these decisions closely. Allowing this R4 here sends a clear message that the established land pattern and the traditional buffer and the comprehensive guidance plan for this area are flexible. Single decision reshapes expectations for every parcel along the corridor. More height, more density, more intensity. The comprehensive plan's predictability and stability and compatible transitions, the current P1 provides that. And I would urge you today to consider this decision very heavily. Because if you lived in Tuscany, would you want this there? Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this particular application? All right. So my name is Ross Mash. I'm speaking on behalf of the developer. A couple of quick things. First and foremost, had you told me that this project was going to cause as much stress and animosity, I would have scratched my head at the beginning. I'm intimately familiar with Lexington's idea for infill development. And so when you look around, there's a number of parcels within that infill that make good use to develop for the lack of housing that Lexington has. We're not some greedy, profit-hungry developers. We're locals here. We respect the community and, quite frankly, responsible development. The idea that this project, which by the way, there's been a number of distortions, but it's only three levels, is somehow abutting the community is simply not true. It's actually a couple hundred feet away, separated by a waterway, which you saw. It'll be landscaped. We think our product is very appealing to the eye. It's made with brick and a number of other batten boards. It's a very appealing product. I'd like to also address, because I think it's important, this idea that one development and one group of people, you know, I wish everybody, and I understand people's concerns. The challenge, though, is that Lexington, if it's going to continue to thrive as a community, needs development. It needs housing. It doesn't need office. You know, this is connected to bus. It's connected to a future trail. It's got a reasonable buffer from the neighbors. And, you know, I look at these folks, and clearly they've all been successful in life, and they're able to buy nice homes in Tuscany. But I would ask them when they were young, you know, someone got up here and was talking about needing more jobs for the trades. We employ a lot of tradespeople. Where do those people live? Most of them need apartments to start, and then they buy entry-level homes. It's not at Tuscany. We saw a development opportunity that came before us earlier that was, again, 28, 29 lots. Those are going to be multimillion-dollar homes. The need in this community for housing is in rental homes and entry-level homes. And when people get up and say, hey, it's going to cause danger and these types of things in our backyard, that's just not fair and it's not correct. And we really need to look closely, if we're going to make this community thrive, what kind of developments you're going to allow us to put in. And again, it's not something we take lightly. If you were expanding the urban service boundary, we'd be looking beyond that. But we've been told time and again as developers, look internally. Find vacant pieces of land that have sat for 20 years. Try to redevelop them. Find an alternative use. So with that, I lead it to others. Thank you. All righty. Thank you. Mr. Murphy, do you have any rebuttal? Just a little bit of rebuttal. I know the issue of somebody making money off this is not something that's before you. But just so everybody knows, and this illustrates the plight of P1 property today. My clients, R.I.K. Associates, bought this in 2021. If this is successful, they will sell the property for, they will lose almost three-quarters of a million dollars from what they paid five years ago to sell this P1 property. They're not making any money off it at all. They're losing money on it. But that illustrates to you the plight that we have with vacant P1 property in this community. I understand the concerns of the neighbors. It's change in a neighborhood. Change is never easy and often never popular. However, we put no traffic, we have no connection to the Tuscany neighborhood. Every car we have has to go on Sir Barton Way, which is a minor arterial. That's what good planning principles call for. I understand Sir Barton's a minor arterial. We will comply with all requirements. This is a preliminary development plan. The plan that was done in 2021 was a final development plan with all the paving and impervious surfaces. We, I don't think, have any more impervious service than was approved in 2021. It is now largely an open vista across our back of the property over to the YMCA property and to the vacant HOA lot. There's some screening near the HOA lot. We have almost no trees on this property now. If you've been out there, there may be one tree on the property. I'm not sure if it's on our property or not. Along the back line alone, we show 24 trees on our tree protection plan. We show 24 trees. We can plant more if needed there along that back line. We will do a lighting study and have all the details on that at the final development plan stage. I guess, though, Ross pretty well. But my concern is that if you don't grant the zone change, where are we going to be 10 years from now? Are we going to be dealing with the same issues, same thing, a still vacant piece of property, zone P1, in a zone that has virtually no demand right now? It's been demonstrated that last quarter century, this property hasn't developed in P1. We have a plan that meets the goals and objectives of this community. We have limited the number of units because of the access situation. To meet all fire codes, we will meet all city requirements. we will be required to submit a final development plan to you. This is a plan which you all have been through, and we've all been through the comprehensive plan debate. This is one of those properties that should be developed. And thank you very much. We hope you'll vote to approve this and approve our development plan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Alrighty. Do we have any other comments from staff? Sir, I'm sorry, we have closed public comment at this point. I think we're in the rebuttal phase. Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. So citizens do have. So Mr. Murphy. Let's see. So he gave his, with his client. Okay, we had, excuse me? I think it's citizen comments or rebuttal. If they're, I'm sorry, I've got two people, three people talking to me at once. Okay, yes, Ms. Wade, so if we go back to, if we're concluding citizen comment, we can do citizen objector rebuttal. So please. Thank you, appreciate it. This is short. One of the gentlemen was a little surprised by the compassion of a community for their neighborhood. and I believe he commented that the urban development land wasn't expanded. If it was, they would do their development there. Well, the urban development land has been expanded, and so they could do the development there, and I may or may not be correct, but I believe their purchase is contingent of zone approval for this land, so they wouldn't even be out that much. So I think there are alternatives for the developer. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Do we have any final thoughts from the staff? I suppose, sir, if you have a very, very brief rebuttal, at this time the planning commission can hear it sir i would just like to rebut what was uh just said about not having um anything in the tuscany neighborhood lieutenant van bracken zone three traffic safety we have been talking for the past four years about traffic on our street, which is Pasquale. And even though the project would be not in the neighborhood, people from Liberty go down Starshoot, Ogden, Rosebud, and pass through the neighborhood, getting from one side of town to the other because the light at Rosebud and Sir Barton is backed up all the time. So they do cut through the neighborhood to go to Sir Barton. And I just wanted to say that's why I was asking for a full traffic. Thank you. Okay. Ms. Wade. And then I believe after Ms. Wade's comments, without objection to the planning commission, since we've been at it for three hours, maybe we'll take a ten-minute recess. Sure. I guess I would just note in terms of Mr. Murphy's argument about the access easement and requirements of the land subdivision regulations. Unfortunately, this property has developed over quite an extended period of time, 20 years. And it's developed mostly just along Sir Barton, which has created the conditions we have, where there's less desirable land to the back that doesn't have good frontage. So if you're looking for a business, that might not be ideal for you. What I think is of concern to the staff is that professional office may not be the right fit here, but residential seems to be even more ill-fitted to this location. It doesn't have connectivity to the other residential areas nearby. That's what you're looking for in terms of quality of life and a really connected residential neighborhood. This is separate from the neighborhood, which makes it, again, isolated. And that, I think, is the main concern about this being a residential location. In addition, I think Mr. Murphy probably misrepresented the land subdivision regulation requirement. I will note, I know you all deal with subdivisions all the time, every lot that is developed has frontage on a street on Sir Barton. And they share access with each other out of convenience. Otherwise, they would each have their own driveway on Sir Barton. That meets our subdivision regulations. So Mr. Murphy showed you the piece about an access easement. It continues on to the next page and says that where it's provided an access easement for convenience, shared, for those two banks, it doesn't need to be granted approval by the Planning Commission. So we haven't found anything in our records where the planning commission granted a waiver or an access permission for this behind lot, even when the office building was proposed. And perhaps that was an oversight. But at this point, I think it's important that if we are granting something in the rear there and use of that lot, that we follow our regulations. Of course, you would expect me to say that. And you need to grant a waiver and a finding for access. This declaration that one was granted previously is not accurate. So I don't want there to be us to go down a trail of, yeah, Mr. Murphy was correct. We don't need an access easement or a waiver. You absolutely do in order to develop that lot. Anything else that you gentlemen want to say? Just once again kind of reflecting, we've had some updates to the ordinance as part of the House Bill 443 process within the past couple years. A reminder to kind of previously these types of final development plans once the property was initially rezoned in 2002 would have gone through sort of individualized review where they looked at each piece. So things like the discussion on access to the rear portion will be determined at time of final development plan was a very kind of common sort of understanding for how these will operate. So I think part of the way that this property is developed, as Ms. Wade kind of mentioned, was a piecemeal approach where you were kind of taking on the questions of the appropriateness of the rear developments was being made sort of at a site-specific level each individual time. And so what happened most recently with the current final development plan on the property, the Planning Commission made a review on that time based on that previous sort of framework for a one-story office and the access and everything kind of deriving from that. There were some notes in the development at that time that spoke to kind of making sure that that access easement was going to be designed kind of appropriately for that particular type of use. But once again, we're wanting to make sure that as we're evaluating a change of use, a change to residential that has differing requirements for that particular zone, that we're doing it sort of with the full breadth of what's required. Do we have any other questions for any of our staff at this time? Mr. Nickel. I do have a question for staff. I understand that Hamburg is a newer development, 20, 20, 25 years old. At what point do we, or what point does staff categorize vacant lots as vacant and underutilized post the initial development of the property itself? I didn't say that clearly enough. What I'm trying to point out is that I believe we should start looking at this parcel of property as vacant and are utilized and take into consideration the time that it has been vacant. This has been vacant since the development was first proposed and then built. So I'm just taking a different perspective, a shift in perspective, that maybe this should be considered through the lens of infill redevelopment because of the duration that this property has been vacant. And I don't, again, we're planning services, so we deal with the day-to-day applications. I think the question about when something should be considered vacant and underutilized long-range planning can address that question more broadly. Obviously, it's vacant today, and of course, we want to encourage infill development and development of all of our vacant parcels for the benefit of our community. So I guess the planning staff in total has come to the conclusion that residential at this location, and again, residential in all of Hamburg is there. Every type of housing, multifamily, three and four stories, townhouses, single family of large structures, single family that are small, every variety is available within the general area. So how we develop our vacant land, of course, is really important. But we don't want to create situations that become problematic in the future for the adjoining neighbors, whether it's the office users that are currently there or the residential across the creek. So that's really it's a context issue, I think. You know, residential, yes, absolutely. We need infill residential. We know there's a gap in the housing available in Lexington. It's just that not every site is well suited for residential. Okay. Mr. Murphy. I just want to respond a little bit. This property is already on the official vacant lot map. The Planning Commission doesn't have authority to establish lots without access. A lot has to have access. I again feel that the Planning Commission granted that access 24 years ago on this property. And if they didn't, they created a lot which cannot be used for anything, which is a taking. So I feel you have, like I said, I don't think you need a waiver, but I think you have absolutely totally the ability and the authority to grant a waiver because you'll never find a greater hardship than this. Thanks. Okay. At this time, it's 4.30, so we're now on hour number three. Without objection, the Planning Commission will take a 10-minute recess. We'll reconvene here at 4.40. And I'm sorry, Commissioner Worth is having some technical issues. Okay. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. 441 and so we will reconvene sorry all right so once we can get everyone in place or Staff and any other commissioners we can be. Okay. I very much appreciate everyone's patience today. We are just waiting on staff to return to chambers. Whenever we hear public comment at the Planning Commission, I always make a point to say to anyone and everyone who was present that the Planning Commission appreciates your presence here. It very much matters to us to hear what your perspective is, and it does make a difference. Once we are able to begin our discussion here again, at some point there will be a motion made on the zone change. And if that motion gets a second, there will be discussion on it. And then ultimately a vote, but we'll take this one step at a time at every point and communicate everything very clearly. Sometimes, as with hearings like this, we just have to take a little more time, so I apologize for that. We're going to take about five more minutes, and we will reconvene. Thank you. Again, thank you for everyone's patience. The planning commission very much appreciates it. We will reconvene the hearing at this time. So we last heard from Mr. Murphy at this point. Are there any commissioner comments, questions? Floor is always open for a motion. Mr. Wilson? Yeah, just a couple of comments and a question that I still would like to have clarified for me. When we put this comprehensive plan together, we put a section in there, and this was not just simply words on paper, at least for me. It was primarily in there for some very serious conversations. The point was, and the staff had indicated, that the applicant had not indicated that any public engagement efforts had taken place. Is that still the case? I have had public engagement two ways. One is there's no, this is not a registered neighborhood association. I have been conversing with Mr. Dan Stratton, who is one of your speakers. I've asked, I think, three times if it would be helpful for us to meet. I said we'd be happy to meet and talk this over. And the response I got was that the neighborhood felt that that was not necessary, that didn't want to waste everybody's time and have a meeting. The other aspect of this is that this property is covered by an owner's association, which is controlled by Hamburg Place, the Madden family. They have sign-off authority over everything done on this property, even though they don't own it. And we have met with them and gone over the plans, and they have given their preliminary approval of what we're doing. So, yes, we've made an effort to outreach. I think it's legitimate for people to say, let's not waste everybody's time to have a meeting on it. Okay. Sorry. He made a point of East Point Homeowners Association. That is our association. So he knew the association to contact. Dan is a resident, and he's not over the association. Okay. Mr. Murphy, I'll give you an opportunity to rebut and then we're going to conclude that. Well, the registered association for this is not this association. It's the East Liberty Neighborhood Association listed on the official city's website. I left messages for that association. That is by a person you know and I know telling her I'd be happy to meet. They live over on Liberty Road. That's the registered neighborhood association for this. And I reached out to them as well and heard nothing back. Okay. All right. Do we have any other commissioner at this point? Commissioner, comment, question, floor is open for motion. Mr. Owens. Mr. Chair, I can make a motion if everybody's ready, if there's no other comments. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. First and foremost, as far as my comments, I appreciate everyone coming and speaking. It's always inconvenient. It's at 1.30, and we've been here for a long time. It's never an easy thing. And on either side of this bench, what I see here is that we're looking at land that's inside the urban service area. that has set idle for 20 plus years and has not been developed. We, the city, the comprehensive plan, anytime we talk about what's going on in Lexington, we talk about the need for housing. And there's always a need for housing. I go both ways on it. What I see here is that currently the land is zone P1. It would allow for a four story building with the upper three floors being residential. The bottom would be some sort of commercial. But it could have a four story building there that could have three floors of residential on it. What I see is this proposal is a mixture of two and three story buildings. All residential, but it's two and three story buildings. I see this land as having a natural buffer with the creek. I do not believe there was ever an intention of connectivity. Quite frankly, I don't think the Tuscany Village community would want a connectivity coming out that way. And anybody on the Sir Barton side, unless they live in Tuscany, would not have need to go down into Tuscany. For a variety of reasons, I'm going to move for approving, not going with the staff recommendations of disapproval, but I'm going to move for approval of this. And I'll be referencing the findings that was in Mr. Murphy's packet on page 22 and 23. I don't know if the staff can put it up on the screen for everybody or not. But in reference to this, we're talking about RAK Properties, LLC, Map Amendment Request, and Hamburg Place Farm, Sir Barton Way, Office Park, Phase 2, Lot 2, Plan MAR 26-12, RAK property lexington llc my motion would be for approval of this for the reasons that haven't been put up you uh can they be put up or do i need to read them okay uh everybody on this side of the bench has it in their packet it's page 22 and 23. um if you want to take a look at it for a second or do you want me to read it i i think we could just read it over for a second excuse me i think we could just read it over for a second okay Dalton, if you could just move it up a little bit so that everyone could see the rest of that page. Thank you. And then we'll give it maybe 30 seconds and go to the next page. Mr. Chair, one quick question. What is on the screen, is that primarily what's on the paper? It is the exact. 22 and 23 pages, 22 and 23. Correct? Okay. Okay. Okay. Mr. Owens has made a motion for approval of the petition for a zone map amendment from a P1 zone to a medium density residential R4 zone for this property. He has cited the findings provided by the applicant for said approval. Does that motion have a second? I have a second from Commissioner Nickel. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. May I ask legal? Ms. Jones, do we need to include the proposed findings in this or on a separate motion? Findings for the access easement? Okay. So, Mr. Chair, that is my motion for the reasons that's been provided by staff. So moved. Mr. Murphy. Okay. All right. Do we have discussion, Mr. Penn? I can't go with Commissioner Owens on this because Hamburg is a planned community. And to go from a P2 to an R4 with the constraint that we have now and with the fact that we have 2,800 acres out there that can't be developed and won't have the constraint of a planned community, I have to vote no on this motion. Do we have any other commissioner comment? Mr. Wilson. I'll go out on the limb here in a sense and say that I agree with my colleague, Mr. Penn. And I agree with the staff's position. Yes, we want infill development, but we don't want that at the expense of anything and everything. And I do believe that this, quite frankly, does not fit with our comprehensive plan. Quiet. It is quiet. We've taken a lot of time to listen, and now we're deliberating, and there's no sense in rushing it. This is kind of a tough one because it is a planned community. However, as I look at it, I'm not sure I see another use, any better use for the land in that spot because of the reasons that were cited for the lack of demand for professional office space. So kind of looking at the difference in the two, I'm kind of more inclined to create more housing. Even though this is just 99 units, but that helps to address some of that as a start that's my thoughts i that's just as far as i've gotten at this point okay commissioner i know i know we aren't required to say anything but given the time that the community has come to hear us talk about this. I do want to say that it's not a high density development that Mr. Murphy is talking about and proposing. Many people have called it high density. It's not. It's medium density. I think that's an important clarification. But I do get kind of stuck on the fact that our planning staff has said, yes, we need infill, but it's not the right kind of place to put but residential, but then I would argue that Mr. Murphy, I don't think has the right sense about what a community center is. It's not a building, it's a coming together of various uses. That is a community center that the YMCA represents, but they don't mean a swimming pool. That's not a community center or a community gathering place. But I'm tending, I'm going to disagree with Mr. Owen and Mr. nickel on this one and not provide support, but for reasons not really having to do with the Tuscany community, although I do feel their pain, but I think we're all experiencing the impacts of growth, and it's going to happen everywhere, so we have to all sacrifice, I guess. Okay, Commissioner Worth. If I were a debater, I could argue both sides of this question, but I have to make a decision. And I guess, like Commissioner Davis, Davis at the end says we have more than one. I'm inclined to support the recommendation of the staff. To me, this residential development would be trapped. It's surrounded by commercial property on either side. It does not have the kind of access that a residential area should have to an arterial. And for the developers, I would say to you, I'm sorry. I know this is not a good situation for you. But on the other hand, sometimes I've owned a business. Sometimes we make bad business decisions. And I think you've been trapped in this one. So I'm going to not support the motion. Okay. If nobody has anything else, my own personal thoughts, it is very easy to see the value on either side of the argument. I think the market has been very clear about this zone, and I do think there have been enough changes in the economics of zoning and real estate since 2002. I have friends that have spoken on both sides of this motion. However, weighing everything, considering the site, considering how diligent I think the development plan looks, considering the natural buffers that are there, and also considering that the vast majority of the property line on the rear is to the YMCA, I am inclined to support the motion on the zone map amendment. If we have nothing else on this particular motion, we can go ahead and put that to a vote. This is a motion to approve the applicant's request for a zone map amendment. Mr. Chairman, the motion fails. That motion fails. So, Ms. Jones? Well, the motion doesn't really fail under KRS. You all have to come back in 30 days and reconsider when you have a tie vote on a zone change per statute. What? So. Can you say that again? So the change of Robert's rules? KRS requires you, when you have a tie vote on a zone change, to reconsider in 30 days, and you have a tie vote on a zone change as of right now. So what you. One question legally. We have several members. Mr. Wilson, would you turn your microphone on, Bill? Will you turn your microphone on? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm asking. We have several members who are not here. Now, if we have 30 days to reconsider, do they get to vote at the end of 30 days? So what we've said in the past on that, you know, and we've talked about this before because, you know, how much I love it when this happens. And it doesn't happen very often. But if they want to participate in a subsequent vote, if they've left before this is concluded and this discussion was had, they would be required to go back and watch this video and look at whatever you all have talked about and looked at. And if they get on the record in 30 days, say they've done that, they would be able to vote. Otherwise, we would advise them not to because they missed the whole discussion. May I have one other question, Mr. Chair? Ms. Jones, at the next meeting then, at the end of the whatever period of time we give, do we have to go back through all the arguments again, or do we just come back and vote? I don't believe you have to go back through all of the arguments. You can discuss them, obviously, again, but I don't think anything new comes into the record at that point. So that's why your members who are not here would be able to look at what made the record today and participate if they do that. But it's not going to be like you're going to have a whole nother hearing. So Tracy, or Ms. Jones, would we need a motion of continuance? Well, I mean it's automatic under the statute. But what you will need is motions to postpone or I guess continue the discussion on the development plan, the access easement, and the waiver because you can't vote on those because you don't have a zone change vote. Okay. Yes sir, Mr. Owens. One question, Ms. Jones, if I heard you correct, in 30 days there would be no new information presented? I think that is correct. I'm just asking. Okay. Okay, so what I'm hearing is legally this is just an automatic essentially continuation to August 27th. And there will be no new information presented, but the commission can reopen the zone change discussion at that time. But today we will need to postpone the waiver and the plan to August 27th. Yes. Mr. Hall together or separate? I have a question, Mr. Hall. Yes, sir, Mr. Wilson. Well, the question is, then what are we considering? I mean, what do we do, come back in 30 days and have another discussion among ourselves? Or if there's no information, they can be added. So what are we doing? I believe, and Ms. Wade can weigh in on this as well, but it's my understanding, the way the statute is worded, it's for your reconsideration. So they're asking you, since you could not reach a vote, and the same thing is not true on development plans. It's only zone changes. But it's asking you to reconsider and see if you can come up with a different vote. If you don't at that time, we'll have to figure that out at that time. Actually, KRS addresses that, too. Then we just send it to the council with a time vote. Well, I guess the question is, I don't have a problem with the reconsideration, but what am I reconsidering? because I've already heard all the facts from this information and from this particular meeting. So the question is, it's not a matter of whether I can reconsider. The question is whether I can be repressuaded as much as what it amounts to. Well, and I can't possibly tell you what the General Assembly was thinking when they enacted that. But or for that matter, what their intent is in a lot of cases. But you potentially will have other members here who may be looking at what you've heard in the record today that may have comments that may enlighten your discussion in your next vote, is the best I can tell you. I was going to say, potentially what we hear from the people who are not here might cause us to reconsider. It opens that possibility. Okay. Well, then, what we need, Mr. I'm sorry. Just one other thing. Ms. Jones, considering the fact that our deadline for this application was August 13th, does that still allow us a 30-day extension? I'm looking at Mr. Murphy. I think that the statute gives you the 30 days, so I don't think he can say, oh, you didn't meet the deadline. I think you took action today. if he's going to tell me he disagrees. No, we had a hearing. Mr. Murphy, will you just speak into the microphone, please? I'm not sure this is required, but it certainly will make it clear what happens in 30 days. I'm not sure it's required either. It may be automatic, but in case it's not, we'll waive that deadline. Okay. That is on the record. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Okay. Sure. Ms. Jones, did you say if we again come to a draw, essentially, in 30 days, it then goes to council to decide? Yes, ultimately what you're doing on any vote on any zone change is making a recommendation to the council. They take the final vote, but the way the statute reads is that if that were to happen again, which I would highly encourage you to make sure that you don't have an even number on that day. But if it happens again, then it will go to the council with your recording that you had a tie vote. Well, it's statute. Mr. Penn asked, why don't we just do that right now? Well, I mean, that would be great, but we have to follow the statute. So we have to do what it says. Okay. All right. We need a motion to continue to develop a plan and a waiver. Is that correct? It will be postponing the development plan and the waiver. I think we want you to continue the discussion on the development plan and the waiver until the next meeting so you can discuss them all together. The first one is an automatic. So you're right, Judy. Okay. So what we will do now is at this point, I believe Ms. Worth is going to make a motion on the waiver and the development plan. There may or may not be a second. There may or may not be any discussion. but once the vote occurs, that will be the concluding discussion on these items today. What I would say is thank you again for everyone who came. If you would, please, you're welcome to stay for the rest of our meeting, but if you do not wish to stay, please exit quietly and efficiently because we have more agenda to go. But again, you're welcome to stay. Okay, Ms. Worth, if you would please make any motion. Yes, Chair, I move for continuance of PLN-MJDP 2632, Hamburg Place Farm, Sir Barton Way Office Park Phase 2, and the associated waiver, PLN-WAV 2614, to our next zone change hearing on August 27th. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Okay, thank you, Commissioner Worth. Does that have a second? Second from Commissioner Owens. We're going to vote on that now. Okay. Mr. Nichol has exited, so that is unanimous. Thank you, everyone. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Okay. Okay. Now, if I'm correct, we are to page 15. PLN cell 26-4. Good afternoon. I had a dream about this. Good afternoon, everyone. Daniel Crum, planning staff. Looks like it's thinned out a little bit, but I won't take it personally. What we have today is a request for an expansion to an existing cell tower. You'll have the corresponding staff report in front of you. I'm going to walk you through a little bit of the specifics of the cell tower applications in a moment. They're a little bit unlike some of the other applications you all see in your day-to-day. But just to give you all kind of a bit of a primer, this is to modify an existing cell tower located at 2280 Hume Road. That site already has an existing 75-foot tower that was constructed in 2018. This is to expand that to a height of 139 feet. That includes the 135-foot tower along with the additional equipment atop of it. Locating or to give an idea of the location of the subject property, it is a larger parcel that contains actually a couple different zones and uses, But specifically, the northwest corner here, closest to I-75, contains that 6,400-square-foot area that occupies the current tower. So here we have Winchester Road. Once again, Hume Road kind of snakes and follows the interstate up. Zoning-wise, we have a mix of zoning. We have single-family residential with the EAR1 here. And then surrounding that is agricultural rural. This is an area that was the bottom piece was brought into the expansion area as part of the 1996 expansion. The northern piece was actually included as part of the land in the 2024 expansion. So this is now within the urban service boundary but does have that lingering agricultural rural zoning. Here is a site plan of the current configuration. Once again, they will use everything that has served the site up to this point. So the same access points, the same screening, the same fencing will be served with a slightly larger tower. So they are increasing that from the 75 feet to a total of 139 feet. Just to give you an idea of kind of what that looks like today, this is a view from Hume Road looking into the access drive for the property. The existing tower is here. So it's not terribly out of line with what you're seeing with sort of the relative heights of existing buildings, light poles, et cetera. There is existing single-family residential on lots directly across the street, but as you go move down Hume Road, the existing farm fencing, the existing vegetation along that farm buffer really screens much of the view. So it is somewhat limited as you move down Hume Road. And on the opposite side, it is bordered by I-75. So you can see very faintly here is the location of the existing tower, once again in an area where we have the interstate, other signage, other light pole uses that are sort of comparable height and visual impact, really. So plan and commission review. When we deal with communication towers, it plays sort of by its own set of rules. There is federal law with the Telecommunications Act of 96, as well as state law that kind of dictate and kind of define the purview that you all look at. So federal law essentially says that we can't blanket ban communications towers. It also sets the ability to deny them for things like radio frequency. Essentially, the framework that the state and the federal government gives us is that if they can show they meet things like the geotechnical report, the wind resistance, Basically, if they can meet the technical application requirements, then the Planning Commission is required to approve them. Now, there are some aspects in which we as a local government do get some purview over. Article 25 of the zoning ordinance lays out what we evaluate when we look at a cell tower request. And we now have the ability within those sort of aspects to set our own criteria. So there are things that have protection from floodplains, consideration for historic districts, landmarks, national register properties, etc. But once again, these requirements are kind of built in, and if the applicant can meet those, then the Planning Commission is required to kind of approve those applications. Here we have a kind of a quick laundry list of what staff was reviewing when they looked at this particular application. So we reviewed the required state requirements for the uniform application. And then in our review, we evaluated the Article 25 requirements as well. Generally, we found that these were in agreement. This does not have any floodplain on the properties. They were not identified as geologic hazard areas. It was not located within a historic landmark district or scenic byway. The one aspect that this request does not directly meet is the required setback for the tower. Currently, the tower was approved with a 60-foot setback when it was done back in 2018. Essentially, the requirement in our local zoning ordinance is that it meets a one-to-one height requirement. So for a 139-foot tower, you would be looking at a 139-foot setback. We'll get into that momentarily. So this was really the one aspect of all of the requirements that was not necessarily being met. However, the Planning Commission has the ability to waive or relax those restrictions with a finding that that's not going to negatively impact the health, safety, or welfare of the community. But as far as the other requirements, meets the other setbacks that are associated, it's not going to impact traffic circulation. As, once again, this is utilizing an existing site. This is taking an existing tower, adding additional height to that, and moving from there. Once again, they have existing fencing and landscaping in this portion. They will have to amend the corresponding development plan where this is noted. And then, once again, it has a monopole design. It will retain that existing character. Once again, this is a 12-acre site. It's not changing any portion of the AR zoning or what's included within that. And once again, this is necessary in order to increase the solar service in the area. So kind of speaking more generally to the one-to-one setback, it's a little bit hard to see because of the purple coloration, but we have the property line here to the north as it was approved with a 60-foot setback back in 2018, along with that western property line here, which adjoins the interstate. When we took a look at this, the things that we considered is there are no structures other than the accessory structure here on the subject property that are within that distance. So the adjoining parcel to the north has an existing farm, and once again to the west is the interstate. The travel lanes for the interstate are greater than the setback. So really what we're looking at there is in a fall situation, we want to make sure that there is not any structures or any other really health, safety, or welfare concerns from additional tower height. In this case, there are none. This is, once again, a setback, a significant amount from the actual development that's in the area, and an increase to the height, and staff's estimation was not going to represent a health, safety, or welfare concern. We found it was in agreement with the comprehensive plan that talks about the design and the function of these facilities, but once again, ultimately recommending that for the health, safety, and welfare of the community, that our communication networks are able to serve the entirety of our community. We are recommending conditional approval of the request, finding that it meets the requirements set out in the uniform application, as well as Article 25, the one aspect in which it currently does not meet that one-to-one setback. We find that a reduction in that required setback is appropriate. We are ultimately, once again, making this recommendation with a finding that it's in compliance with the comprehensive plan. So the condition of approval are shown on the screen. It matches what you have on the staff report. It is noting that we need to have this denoted on any sort of corresponding construction plans or development plans, that the proposal would be granted a reduction in that required setback in order to accommodate the design as proposed. And then once again, that the associated development plans for the property would be amended within 30 days of planning commission action. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have of staff. Once again, this is a little bit of a strange application. You don't get a ton of these, and they play by a little bit of different rules compared to sort of your other day-to-day aspects. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. We have a question for Commissioner Molly Davis. Thank you, Chair. Daniel, were the adjacent properties or public notified in any way beyond a small little dinky sign on the side of the road there? Yes. So the notice requirements are set out by state law as well. So there is a, as a part of the application that they submit to us, there is a perimeter around the properties where a mailer is sent out in public notes, very similar to how we do with zone change. So, yes, it is more than just a sign on the property. And could you move back to a plan view, if you have one that's good, that's a plan plan? Thank you. We don't have that in our packet, do we? I haven't seen it. What is the church to the south or plan south? I do not have the particular name at this time. That is the North Lexington Church of Christ at Hume Road, according to Google. And this is all part of the same parcel. This is the church's parcel. There is a lease agreement, my understanding, for this portion. But it is all one property. It's not a separate property. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Mr. Wilson. Yes. What's the maximum height that this tower could go? So, once again, the height that is dictated by ordinance is really limited on our end by the setbacks that they choose. There's also implications for the FAA where towers under, I think, 200 feet play by a different set of standards. So, really, they do have some flexibility. But ultimately, the Planning Commission approves whatever particular height is being sought. But it really is a function of the setback based on our local ordinances. Okay. Of course, I'm not an expert on cell towers and what have you. But the idea of the reason that is given why they want to increase the cell tower, I guess we can ask the applicant. But it's obviously more service. Okay, well, that's interesting because from my experience, all that does is sterilize a few sparrows on the hillside. Okay, Mr. Penn, do you have anything? So there is a decommissioning part to this? So, yeah, they have to comply with all sorts of requirements as far as the state and the federal guidelines for doing that. But really what's a part of our review is the location. I understand that, but I just want to get that on the record that there is. Okay. All right. Thank you, Daniel. At this time, we can hear from the applicant. Good. I was going to say good afternoon, but it's now good evening. My name is Russell Brown. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Clark Quinn. My address is 320 North Meridian Street, Suite 1100 in Indianapolis. here on behalf of Verizon Wireless, who is the applicant here. I will be brief. I sat out there while you sat up here. But the staff did a great job. Their staff report is very thorough. I'll answer a couple questions that I heard already. But the goal here of Verizon Wireless is to increase coverage and capacity in this area of the community, specifically to the east. Though this is an extension, we did comply with your uniform application requirements, which this is the amount of paper that we sent in as part of our application. Included in that is coverage maps showing the coverage objectives that will be met or exceeded by this proposed location. And it is a dramatic change, graphic improvement to the community to the east of this location. That is not available at the existing height. So the existing height is necessary to provide that additional coverage opportunities. Verizon's obligation under Kentucky statute is to consider the impact of this development on the surrounding properties and determine that there is no more suitable appropriate location to meet the coverage objectives identified here. Given that you have a tower, you've already gone through the siting process, you've already gone through the design review process and the entitlement process. That is kind of a layup in this situation in that you've already been through this one previous time. But again, as noted, we do comply with the uniform application requirements, save for the one setback issue that you have the authority to provide relief from. As a matter of, I'm not a structural engineer. I'm an attorney who's done about, I don't know, 250 of these in my career, public hearings. These towers are designed to collapse at the weakest point. So from a safety perspective, they generally do not fall like a pencil. They're going to collapse upon themselves, generally within the compound itself. So there is no expansion to the compound here. With Verizon being the only current tenant, there will be no increase in ground equipment. There's no necessary expansion for the access drive or any other improvements other than the increase in height for this tower. So that is the sole. request that is here today. There is a representative of the church who is here. I received one phone call, and that was from the landlord, to make sure that there was compliance with their existing lease and with the underlying tenant on this site, which we were able to confirm that this improvement would comply with those requests. So I'm happy to answer questions. I know you have a long afternoon, but happy to answer questions. Okay, thank you. Mr. Wilson. Has anyone else co-located any other institutional organization co-located on that tower? Not currently, no, but what I will say is that a taller tower gives additional co-location opportunities. A 75-foot tower is not a prime co-location opportunity when the top center line is already available. So there is ground equipment. This will be constructed. We do have a structural design in the uniform application that talks about how the tower will be designed to hold additional co-locators should they come and have an interest in this. Okay, thank you. Okay, do we have any final questions, Ms. Roof? Yeah, this is more of a request than a question. I know that you're not required to do lighting. I would request that you consider installation of infrared lighting to protect night flying birds and bats, which they do in Europe in particular. Yeah, this tower will not be lit because it does not rise to the level of the 200-foot FAA required hiding. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Do we have any other questions for the applicant? Seeing none, thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to comment on this application today? Seeing none, the floor is open for Commissioner, question, comment, motion. And we have a staff report recommending conditional approval of the proposed tower in front of us. Sure, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of PLN cell 26-4, the cell company partnership, with the reasons provided by staff. Conditions provided by staff. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Do we have a second? Second from Mr. Penn. Thank you. Any discussion to that motion? If not, we will go ahead and take a vote. Okay, that carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving right along. On page 15, item B, downtown area master plan, Boyd, we are happy to hear from you. We good? Good evening, Chair, and members of the Planning Commission. Boyd Sewe, Principal Planner, Long-Range Planning. Before we begin, I'd like to enter the following into the record. The notice letter sent to the surrounding counties. The resolution for your consideration, all public comments received during the review period, and a copy of the downtown area master plan in its current configuration. Before you today is the downtown area master plan for your consideration. Over the past year and a half, this effort has included extensive public engagement and collaboration with residents, businesses, stakeholders, and advisory committee, council, and the commission. staff and the consultant have carefully reviewed the public feedback made revisions where appropriate and documented the input as part of the record with that i turn it over to andrew great thank you boyd hi i'm anton roverbeck principal and planner with mksk we've been assisting Boyd and his team with this downtown plan work. We have a short presentation to kind of give you a summary of the downtown plan. So do I just click ahead, I guess? No? Hold on. Okay, here we are. Excellent. Thanks for your patience. I'll go through this here and open things up for discussion. and give you a recap of our process, and a summary of the vision for downtown that has been developed along with the community, and then the plan review that we've had, and have some discussion with you all. As Boyd mentioned, I've been working on this. I think our first official engagement with the community was on the 4th of July last year, so I've been working through a year-long process to get to today, to have these conversations with the community has been very valuable in shaping this work, working through things with our advisory committee and stakeholders, but also with the community at large. We did three major phases of engagement. The first one around building a vision, so downtown dreaming. The second one about thinking together about what some possibilities for change might be. So that's the second phase, designing. And then finally, downtown destiny, where we really talked about implementation and priorities. And that meeting took place back in May. In total, more than 2,200 people have been involved in this process, again, through workshops in person, online, through some digital engagement. We did stakeholder roundtables. 700-plus residents attended different community events. And credit to the team here that went out to 32 neighborhood events to talk with folks. And then 5,000-plus unique website visitors to the website to look at materials. As we went along, we posted everything that we had done. So when we had a presentation, it was on there. We had materials, questions we were asking folks. It was just a repository for folks to be able to get to that and participate. And a lot of folks in the last month have come to the website to look at the completed document and give it a review. I thought it was important to pause and talk about what adoption means. This plan is about long-term policy direction, identifying priorities for investment, guiding future zoning, transportation, housing, public realm work, so things that will come up as further policy implementation, and then providing that framework to guide implementation. It does not immediately change zoning. It doesn't approve any of the catalyst site development that I'll show you here in a moment that are sort of a way to sort of ideate around what's possible. doesn't commit funding to any concepts or change any neighborhood identity or development rights. So we're really trying to cast a vision forward. We did, again, have the plan up for the review of the public here the last three weeks or so, so middle of when we came to you last time in June up to the 9th of July. and I will say that in that process had about 1,400 additional visitors to the website so that's in addition to the 5,000 and 500 people went through the plan document itself so a lot of people took part in looking at the plan. Through that process, conversations we had with you all, conversations we've had with council members, community members, advisory committee members and staff made a number of revisions to the plan But we've also highlighted here some of the things that were really important that we want to talk about today that were major kind of additions to the plan itself. So under the existing conditions and plan alignment, we added the 2021 Task Force on Neighborhoods and Transition Report to reflect those findings. And then in Chapter 4 in our growing downtown section, made a few technical revisions to the incentive language and then actually added a section on anti-displacement strategies that goes along with the affordable housing strategy that we're recommending be a citywide action as part of plan implementation. So those things are really important for us to mention and highlight today before we get into sort of a summary of the vision for downtown. One of our first action items with the community was thinking about what is the boundary of downtown. And so you have here kind of a reflection of those conversations, a larger sort of boundary in that orange midtown that really reflects the fact that downtown touches a lot of neighborhoods. We wanted to make sure that those connections were thought about. As you get tighter in, in the blue area and the pink area, recommendations get a little more defined because we're dealing with a smaller geography. So these are meant to really focus in on that sort of blue area and the pink area for most of our recommendations. We worked alongside the community to develop project goals that we then translated into a framework for the plan itself. So there's sort of four major chapters after the engagement and existing condition sections. One about a growing downtown, a greener downtown, multimodal downtown, and a more welcoming downtown. So those are our framework that we developed the plan around, and I'll highlight a few things as we go through each of those sort of chapters here today. So the growing downtown, really a reflection of things that we heard from the community, a desire for more in different types of housing and retail in downtown, to build housing at different price points and to have a very dynamic retail, restaurant, hospitality, business environment downtown to have a lot more offerings for the community at large. Part of that is looking at housing affordability, anti-displacement. We've got a couple of catalyst sites to look at. And then there's zoning recommendations that sort of make up the meat of this section. Really important as we start to think about redevelopment and people maybe moving into downtown and looking at some of the vacant lots that we looked at. How do we address that going forward and what does that look like? So we're first focusing on housing production. We want to create more mixed-use neighborhoods, more supply, preserve existing affordable housing, ensure that neighborhoods remain stable and help current residents remain, and then supporting those businesses that are there today, cultural institutions that are there today, and that really provides that community vitality. So a few things we've looked at is we look at where there's opportunity or likely to be change in the downtown boundary. And again, we're in this downtown core. Really looked at those areas that are outside those established neighborhoods that have a lot of propensity to change, vacant lots, surface parking lots, those sorts of things. But also maybe some uses that could change over time. and thought about what community-supported uses, so things people were asking us for in this process, as well as what were market-supported uses in downtown. So what we looked at here was really thinking about how do we illustrate catalyst sites and what might change over time. Again, these are conceptual in nature, but designed to express what could happen in the future if property owners change over or people decide to do something different with their property. And so we looked at three different catalyst sites in downtown, one a little bit more dense, one that is more, say, campus adjacent that might have more student housing or workforce housing, and one that is maybe more neighborhood-focused in design. And again, these are conceptual to illustrate what could happen as we think about potential change in downtown. But again, at the first site we looked at, Mill and Short Street, it's kind of in your core of downtown. down, you have a lot of hospitality uses and attractions in this area. So we looked at a more mixed use, higher density, hospitality, commercial, ground floor, restaurant, retail, some office and denser residential that could happen here. And again, it's supported by investments in the public realm. So you see here along Short Street, a new cycle track, Again, a critical connection, bikeway connection between Town Branch and Legacy Trail as a visualization there. Second site we looked at is in and around the Good Samaritan Hospital site. Again, a lot of that is surface parking in a hospital that UK is slated to decommission in the near future. And again, we're looking out into the future here. Again, this was an opportunity for student housing, potentially some workforce housing as well to create a mixed income neighborhood here. and thinking about, again, that limestone corridor being bus rapid transit, ways you sort of make housing affordable, and workforce housing especially important to have it located along those high-capacity transit lines. Third site we looked at is sort of on the edge of downtown and thinking about sort of a commercial and industrial area that could change over time. Again, there's existing businesses here that could remain as well, but we're thinking largely here about how do we create a neighborhood edge that's adjacent to the cemetery, brings that sort of neighborhood transition back into the neighborhoods that are adjacent to this, with a mixed income and maybe a civic use as we think about growth, the need for a new middle school campus. So again, thinking about a bunch of different typologies that can happen in downtown. This section wraps up with a section on zoning recommendations, really aligning the things that we're talking about for downtown, need to modernize the permitted uses in downtown to be more in line with the plan, think about urban design standards being developed, and then supporting those historically significant properties in parts of the neighborhood. Second major part of the vision is a greener downtown. This is one that got a lot of interest from the community, We wanted to keep downtown special, unique, and vibrant, build on the open spaces and green spaces have been added to downtown in the last few years, and continue to make downtown green, active, and enjoyable. One of the things we heard from the community is this corner here at Thoroughbred Park as an entrance point into downtown, historically a vacant lot. Obviously, there's some challenges here with utilities and some other things, obviously property ownership. I wanted to show what was possible if we really had that entrance point into downtown. celebrating the Town Branch Commons, having kind of an anchor of development on that sort of vacant corner today, but be a more welcoming entrance into downtown. So it's a way to use architecture, public space, and take advantage of the existing investment of the Town Branch Commons to make a more inviting entrance into downtown. And you can start to see what that could look like over time as that investment takes place. And again, trying to inspire some action from others on this and develop some partnerships. Another space that we looked at, again, Triangle Park is sort of at the front door of Rupp Arena, but it's separated from downtown by some high traffic streets. So how do we calm Broadway, calm Main, calm Vine to make this a more inviting community gathering place for folks before and after events, but also on an everyday basis? So again, how does that park maybe bleed across the street, calm that traffic, and then we also looked at an opportunity to narrow Vine Street, again, to make it a little bit more connected with the convention center and Rupp Arena. Then we looked at the courthouse plazas. This, again, was about making these spaces more comfortable and inviting, welcoming to folks, adding that shade and comfort, bringing the water feature back to life. I saw some construction out there today. but also adding some programmable space at the end of it as well. So again, that energy that's at Phoenix Park with the playground and the library, drawing that up through a refreshed park space to make it more welcoming for all. And then looking at these unique opportunities to connect blocks, especially as we look at these connections between alleys and other streets, to create some pocket parks. Lots of opportunities to do that here in downtown with some flexible spaces that could support existing businesses and provide an inviting sort of through path to things that are going on in surrounding blocks. The last thing we looked at here was recommendations around street trees. We had an arborist expert make some recommendations here for us around downtown canopy goals, prioritizing care and preservation of existing trees, ensuring there's consistent responsibility for the green improvements that we put out there, and then updating planting standards. So again, how do we make downtown more comfortable and walkable? The other way we do that is by making downtown more multimodal. So creating a more walkable downtown was another goal that was developed along with the community. People-focused streets, but also connected downtown to the neighborhoods that surround it. So one of the things we looked at were downtown street typologies. Again, driving those connections through a multiplicity of different types of transit, from high capacity transit like bus rapid transit to making streets more walkable and bikeable and selecting those streets where that infrastructure could take place. So we looked at Short Street, the Keys cycle track connection there that again would make that linkage between your two trail networks, help really connect finally UK, Transylvania, University and BCTC and then looking at the BRT corridor on limestone. A couple of things in terms of safety. This is a diagram of the streets that are above your 85th percentile speed, so above 30 miles an hour. So these would be streets to prioritize for traffic calming. We also looked at your high collision, high pedestrian vehicle conflict intersections to make improvements to those crossings and make them safer as well. So small improvements to infrastructure there goes a long way. And then finally, a connection of low-stress walking and biking connections to make these neighborhoods more accessible to downtown and parts of downtown more accessible to each other. Our last part of the vision section is about supporting Lexington's unhoused populations. Did a lot of work with individuals with that lived experience, service and shelter providers, homeless prevention intervention folks, public safety, and then sort of the support and partner services, making recommendations around strengthening the pathway from shelter to stable housing, supportive housing and landlord incentives, improving outreach and communication, and making sure people sort of know what's going on out there, are sharing accurate data to really dispel some myths that exist in the community. Our final section is on implementation. One of the things that we see in our work in other communities, other downtowns, is having that direct and consistent advocate for downtown that is empowered to guide implementation. So that implementation entity in most cities has a dedicated funding source, has real estate development, financial expertise, can assist with funding sources and other forms of partnership, can facilitate design improvements in public realm enhancements in downtown, and recruit tenants, curate retail masterly spaces. So it's one of our first 100-day actions is to have a workshop around creating that implementation entity, and we know that's something that's been here in the past. So why adopt the plan? It's a community-driven process that has really garnered a lot of good feedback and ideas from the community. It's technically grounded, it's implementable, and it's flexible over time. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much. Do we have any questions at this time? Commissioner Davis. Thank you, Zach. Thank you so much, Andrew and Boyd and Hal. What a great, magnificent effort and so much time you all spent into it. I confess I was kind of reading all the public input and website comments while you were speaking since you presented this to us at various times over the way. Do you feel like you've successfully addressed the comments that are on the website or that you got in the planning Imagine Lexington mailbox, especially the ones that are about some disconnect between the East End organization? Is that, I guess, how well do you feel those things have been addressed and resolved? Yeah, I know that Hal and Boyd had some special meetings on that, so we can address that. Okay, thank you. I think part of that, and we presented that a bit last week at the work session, gets into a conversation of hearing what people are saying about what they want. And I know there is a significant conversation by some of the leadership of certain neighborhood associations that they would like to be removed from the plan in its entirety. And that's totally understandable. With our last conversation that we had about some of the historical development of planning and government work in this city, we understand it. But we've also heard from various other individuals from the East End area that they would like to be part of the plan. And that they've provided a fair amount of comment about what they would like to see. So during those conversations that we've had with leadership of the neighborhood associations, that we've heard about exactly why there is distrust. What are the things that people are looking for, specifically support for preservation of cultural and heritage sites, support for the development of certain types of housing, support of ownership opportunities within neighborhoods. We tried to include all of those different elements into this plan so that we added greater amounts of a focus on anti-displacement strategies, which was one of the largest elements of the public input that we heard from a lot of our neighborhoods, that while development might come in, we need to ensure that that development both supports, allows individuals to grow within their neighborhoods, and is not pushing people out. Many of those recommendations that have been included by the consultant and that we've worked specifically with neighborhoods have been added into this plan specifically. But we believe that this is our best balanced approach to providing a master plan. And by having both the downtown core and the midtown area, or what we previously called the area of downtown influence, we believe we are dealing with the real effects of development that is coming to the neighborhoods. That's going to happen no matter what, if this plan is in place or it is not. The other thing that we did really try to enforce or enhance in this plan was the recognition that some neighborhoods already have small area plans. They might have a little dust on them, but they are still very active and important. And this addition to the comprehensive plan, this addition to these areas, supports those plans, calls out those elements that were really necessary, but also builds upon the strategies that we did in 2009 to establish those plans. So we sought a balanced approach with that. So presumably there is no printed downtown master plan that is a result of this effort. It's going to be something that stays online and you're going to include the comments so that it's kind of constantly building? Or are you done taking comments? Because it was kind of a short turnaround time for comments, I thought. With the comments regarding a short turnaround, many of these elements or chapters have come after significant updates to the planning commission, updates to the public at the different neighborhood meetings and events that we had. So we have been updating the chapters, the written aspects, the visual aspects throughout the entirety of the process. This has just brought it all together in one space and one draft. So if we wrote on something, presuming we wrote on something today, and you get more comments, what happens to the comments, I guess, is my question. At that point in time, we're talking about implementation. So this is the start of that conversation of implementation of a plan. So the plan does not establish any policy changes, regulatory changes, zone changes, or development changes. All it does is recommending a start point. We hope that the Planning Commission would pick up on several elements of this. But ultimately, it is on the appointed and elected officials to move forward the strategies that are being put forward in this. This starts that conversation and we would hope that we continue to have public input and conversation about those elements so that we can get them over the end to have these policies, regulatory changes, all those other things completed in the future. Thank you very much, Mr. Bailey. Thank you. Okay, do we have any other questions for either of the staff or our consultant at this time? All right. Mr. Bailey, if you would go back to the mic. Yes, ma'am. I think we addressed this a little bit in the work session, but I'm responding to the documents from Ms. Clark. Yes. About how to deal with UK student housing in our plan. Would you talk about that a little bit? I want to stress, and I've said this a couple times over, I understand that student housing is a great marketing term. It is trying to put it out there to get certain people to try to go for that housing. The housing that is off campus is housing for Lexingtonians. I want to stress that. We cannot limit housing by student or by non-student. We are looking at this as housing that is serving a need for Lexingtonians that are not living on campus. Now, we did work with the University of Kentucky throughout this process and brought up that there is a significant concern about the amount or the lack thereof of housing that is being put on campus. They are looking at avenues to add housing on campus. They have indicated that. They've said that they're putting that into their longer-range plans. However, at this point in time, if there is a need for housing to support Lexingtonians, we are trying to do that within an appropriate location that could bridge the gap between the downtown area and campus. And it really does focus a little less on the established neighborhoods and more on areas that the University of Kentucky has identified as potential spots that they are looking to build up and provide density. Thank you. Mr. Edwins. Don't go anywhere, Hal. I could say you brought it up, but I think Judy started it. In one of the pictures, and we had seen it before, Good Samaritan block was brought up and mentioned and has possibilities. Am I correct? Isn't that a university state-owned thing? Yes, that is the university's property. They worked with us and I'll pull that. And you're, this is something that right now they're in accordance with you as far as possibilities? Oh, did I go too far? There we go. That was something that they had an individual that worked with us on this. They went through the process of interacting with our consultant team on this. They said that this is really representative of the things that they would like to do with the land that they have, which is add greater density, not just for the student population, but also for their workforce population. Right now, as we're seeing throughout Lexington, there is a crunch on housing, not just for students, but we are also seeing that for the people that are working at the hospitals, that are working in our downtown areas and our landscape, and that are working at the University of Kentucky. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Mr. Bailey, while I got you. I've got to take a little bit of exception that all housing is for just Lexingtonians. Where else do we charge by the bid? So unfortunately, with that characterization, and when I say all housing is for Lexingtonians, we cannot distinguish between housing that is being provided to students versus housing that is provided to anyone else in our community. If they are off campus, they are Lexingtonians. They are paying the housing taxes. They pay their way through this. If they're on campus, we as a community do not count them as a Lexingtonian population because they're technically in dormitories, they're transient populations, things like that. So it gets into a fair housing aspect that we cannot categorize them as something different than Lexingtonians. So we need to ask every time there's a housing project going up, is this by the unit or by the bed? I don't believe that we can ask that question, sir. If they get six people in there, that is when they become a boarding house. So there is a certain level of density that occurs, and we have a definition of functional family that was established basically to deal with student populations. But there are different types of housing opportunities. if it gets into a dormitory that is a conditional use in most zones and then there is also some added definitions for fraternity houses, sorority houses, things like that. I wasn't thinking about fraternity houses but that's another issue. Thank you. Yes sir. Okay do we have any final questions for staff at this time on the downtown master plan? Seeing none thank you all very much. Is there anyone from the public who would like to comment on this today? If so, please just approach the podium and state your name. And everyone is entitled to three minutes and there's the policy of planning commissions. I'm Billy Mallory. I'm sorry. You're fine. You're fine. I'm Billy Mallory and I'm with the East End Community Development Corporation. And the East End is considered part of the downtown core. and we are immediately north of Short Street. You're probably most familiar with the Met at one end of Third, the Lyric, and of course we also have the entire Sayre School campus. I am very grateful to the planning staff that has spent so much time and effort and numerous meetings, quite a few that I attended their events. And one of the things that we are most impressed with is that a number of elements from the East End Small Area Plan have been carried over in this plan. Unfortunately, a lot of the East End Small Area Plan didn't include a whole lot of funding. So even though that was adopted in 2009, there's still a lot of things that are left undone that hopefully will be accomplished through this plan. But we are very much in support of this plan and really want to be a supportive partner from the East End. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Robert Hodge. I'm the president of Wynn Wells Brown Neighborhood Association. planning came to us our neighborhood association we had standing room only there was no one in there that was for the plan so you ask yourself why they don't come well I got a few couple Adamstown gone Memorial Coliseum South Hill gone Rupp Arena. Dewey Street, which was a dominant black area for business in Lexington, gone to make room for a four-lane road. Kincaid Town, destroyed to make an extension for Rose Street. Davistown, gone for Newtown Pike Extension. Bluegrass Asmondale, Shalicourt, gone. And I guess we can add Prawltown to that list as well. So we asked the question, why don't we receive solid answers from them? We don't get any any response. So the city paid for, I guess the counseling to ask us, I mean the council to give advisors, I'm sorry, advisors and they said remove the East End from the plan. But they didn't see that. So I guess my question is when is it time to level the plan field? That's my final thought. When is it time to level the playing field? They said that they have got 7,200 people, 2,200 directly, 5,000 on website. I probably just named you 40,000 people they have dismantled. They don't have a home to go to. They don't exist anymore. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Vivian Hodge, and I'm the vice president of the William Wells Brown Neighborhood Association in the historic East End. The downtown master plan references anti-displacement strategies and a goal to ensure that the new investment expands opportunity without pushing existing residents out. Yet, when page 116 of the plan references special provisions that could allow building heights up to 12 stories, it then appears to be a very contradictive strategy and goal. Valid questions raised by neighbors included, what are the pros and cons of being included in this plan? What are the policies and strategies the plan boasts of? Have these policies and strategies been written or put into effect, or are we putting the cart before the horse? When the paid consultant recommended excluding the East End from the downtown master plan, the team moved forward with total disregard. When the community shared disapproval at a standing room only meeting with representatives from five neighborhood associations and organizations, the team moved forward with total disregard. Lastly, when William Wells Brown Neighborhood Association shared their frustration in an email that was either initially blocked or unshared with the entire Planning Commission and the team moved forward, it appeared to be very clear a decision had been made. There's no wonder why the people of the East End community do not trust the process. I respectfully ask that the commission urge the team to ensure that these policies and strategies they talk about are in place prior to any approval. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other public comment? Rolanda Wolfwork, Georgetown Street Area Neighborhood Association. you um newtown pike they came well let's start came to our jazz night we invited them it wasn't that they reached out to us we invited them because our work as we say the community doesn't give their input we wanted to give our input on how we feel about our community and how we feel about downtown because that's all we was looking at is downtown we went looking at our neighborhood have been included into downtown. It was more so to give input on downtown. We did that. Then when we realized that you were trying to add us in it, we was like, no, we don't want to be. What are we doing there for? Because we don't feel welcome no way downtown. Then we get the plan and see that you add new town parking. And then we had a guy from Delaware were avenue that wanted to build on the lot that's vacant that was part of fade alliance and next thing you know he's seeing that we our mechanics are being harassed and they have to move the cars that they're working on and that they're getting fined with code enforcement and then all of a sudden they telling us oh well we can build a school down here we can wipe all those businesses out, but you say we ain't going to get this place. But you just talked to Tustinian right now, and you told them they have a vacant business there, and not to build housing. But we got thriving small businesses in this location. Mechanics, auto body, Paul's with a calls. Got the Granite Place Antique. We got ATS. We got a sign location over there that makes signs for downtown. And the man who fixes the fence downtown every time somebody runs over where the clock is. Y'all want to turn his building down and put housing there. But I'm not supposed to feel like I'm going to get displaced. Charlotte Court Hope 6 project told us that we were going to get a house and that we was going to be all right. Next thing you know, we ain't got no houses. Other people do. They never lived there before. But the people who lived there got displaced. It's also written in documentation saying that the Hope 6 project was a failure to the community. We always get in displaced. Even if you put vacant lots there and say that this is an opportunity to build on a vacant lot. If I got a vacant lot, I ain't got no money to come and get nobody to give me another lot to put something on it. So how's it fair to me? I looked at that plan and then you say, can I get two minutes? Can I get two minutes? Could you, one more minute please, how about that? All right. On that plan, it says highly educated people in that plan needs funding to build more housing. But when I look at mines, I got to use affordable housing funds. I got to use private and public sectors in order to build. But they just get whatever they want. How does that fare to us? This plan needs to be looked at. Y'all need to pause for the calls for a moment and re-look at what you're doing. Because just voting for it just because it looks good, it don't mean it's good. But this man behind me didn't even know that his property was up for sale, because he still got renters in there. But hey, we can get a school right there where the railroad tracks are. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Jeffrey Beatty. I'm here to talk about the Newtown project that they're talking about. The one thing that I did not see was the railroad tracks. But my concern is this, is that that railroad track leads into where everything goes from north, south, east, and west here in Lexington, right down below the bridge, right beside the cemetery. So if you're going to build right there, what happens? Where's railroad people going? What are we going to do? Also, is it very economical to build a middle school right beside a cemetery? I don't see it no place else. And all I see is that it's beauty, right? But what about all the traffic? What about you building all these houses and these townhomes? The only way they can get out on this Newtown Pike. So are we going to put in more lights for people to turn left, or do we have turnarounds to where they can actually come back? I don't see none of that. All I see is beauty. But the displacement is this, is that Tuscan was here, and they said, hey, we want to protect our property. But for us, the only thing that we get is affordable housing, assistance from the government and this and that. There's nothing in this plan that benefits us. And as has already been said, Adamstown, all these other towns, hey, they're gone. So what about us now? So does it still keep going the same way? Or are we going to be included? That's all I have to say. Thank you. I wasn't going to say anything, but my name is Gwendolyn Alcorn and I have vacant lots in the West End and I have been trying and trying to get help to build affordable housing. So what I'm going to do, I have asked a board. He has promised me for a whole year to get with me, to help me. He has not done it. But that's why I have no trust in what they say. You can ask him right here now. He stood at a meeting, and what did you tell me, O'Board? Ma'am, if you would just please address the planning commission, maybe just move the microphone down so we can hear you better. I'm sorry. That's all right. But he's right here. He came to a meeting. I have asked him, he's supposed to have responded to me. He has my personal number. He has my email. He has everything he needs to get with me. When he sees me, he can't even look me in the eye because this has been going on for a whole year. But yet and still, we got us down here. They want to take our land, to take anything in West End that they can take, and then they get code enforcers to send you letters, or they get these people to try to threaten you into selling your property. It's not fair that I can't get any help from the people that's been promising it. Thank you. I'm Amy Clark and I live at 628 Castle Road in the third district. I really ask that you postpone adoption of this plan and encourage further conversation, some changes. I'll say just one thing, in sympathy with many who have already spoken. I think the plan is not giving the priority it needs to very small scale housing, to supporting the housing that's there already, the small lots, the small homes, and fostering what increase fits comfortably. I think there aren't gonna be all the green trees of the one section on greener downtown if there are ZODA that further decrease the yards and increase the building footprints. But I think if there's going to be housing that meets people where they are currently in downtown, there has to be a big focus on small scale. And part of my letter says you should take that B2A and really rethink it. It shouldn't be the big downtown that increases in height and so on. It should focus on housing conservation. It should add the Indiana and the corridor, the Midland, Indiana. I think you just really need to think small for supporting those who are there. Now I have a minute left to tell you that the elephant in the room is student housing. I actually have a call into the ACLU to discover whether students are a protected class in terms of housing policy. We have housing types for assisted living, for senior housing. The market recognizes purpose-built student housing. They have a trade association. They have annual meetings. They have pro formas. They have designs. They have finance packages. And it's eating us alive. And it's eating us alive because UK brought it in 2012, 2013. These real estate investment trusts, they brought in just one. It appears to have an exclusive on all UK housing. So it's very expensive stuff. In your plan, it shows how student housing is the highest yield, highest demand use in the downtown now. This is the graph here. And it's far and away higher than market rate housing. It's well higher than hotels. It's eating up our downtown and every other area, and it's eating it up with really expensive housing. And I think the plan needs to just take a pause, do a study, think about national best practices, try and get a definition, see what other people are doing. This is unsustainable. I've made a list of the ones before you now and a few at the bottom that are in the news. That's 5,000 or 6,000 beds. They tend to be higher than apartments. The household size... Ms. Clark, just to be fair, that was four minutes. And I just want to be consistent. If I give any extra time, I want to be even. Well, you have my remarks, and I think it's imperative that you address this before you adopt a plan for downtown. Okay. Do we have any further public comment before we close that portion of the hearing? Seeing none, we will now bring this to the commission for discussion. Any further questions? And ultimately, if a motion. Mr. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to make a couple of comments. First of all, let me say to Mr. Bailey and Mr. Boyd's credit, they told us everything openly at the meeting about the distrust between the communities as such. They were open and very transparent with it. The question that we all face now is what do we do about it? And that's a long-term activity. And I don't have any magical solutions about it except to continue to reach out and continue to do the kinds of things that are right for the community as such. But I just wanted to make sure that we all understood that they did their jobs by telling us specifically everything that we've heard here today. They came to us and told us that in all honesty. So we have that to work with. And now we've got to figure out a way to work with them to figure out how to continue to develop trust. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Penn? Well, the definition of, well, I don't need to tell you what the definition of stupidity is, but the definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is always true. So until we decide in this community that we're going to do something different and Ms. Clark, I didn't mean to steal your thunder when I talked about student housing but I really take issue with the fact that it's not housing for Lexington now if you want to count all the students at UK as Lexingtonians then you can make that case but they don't vote here and they don't, the other stuff here they're really just temporary residents So I don't know how you break this cycle. We don't need to go back down the history lesson. My friend of the left here can tell us all about that. But I will tell you that what we're trying to do is put this in the comp plan. The implementation is the key. Paper holds stills. You can write anything on it. The question becomes, does this community have the intestinal fortitude to make the hard decisions to change it? And we're just as good as the elected officials we get when that comes to it. So that's my speech and I'm sticking to it. Thank you, Mr. Penn. Commissioner Molly Davis. I'd just like to say that in my experience a master plan can't address every single detail. It's a master plan for a reason. It has important parts. And Mr. Wilson, I believe, or Mr. Penn is right, it comes down to the implementation. I feel very bad as someone who's lived in Lexington, I'm from Lexington all my life, that, my goodness, the list of communities, primarily African American, that were destroyed, it's awful. I hope you all saw that film that was at the Kentucky Theater about redlining and how it devastated the African American community it has for years. Like, when are we going to get it right and not displace and just devalue our, we can't devalue anybody. And it seems to me like the African American communities have had it the hardest. And I am sorry for that. I am very sorry for that. I hope that, but I will say for Mr. Boyd, his job isn't affordable housing. And I don't know what the right thing is to happen, but there are other people within the city who can talk to you about affordable housing and your ideas. I just don't think it's Boyd, but I bet he can help you find the right person because he is an upstanding young man. Lastly, I would just like to say that I think we have to support the plan, the master plan, where it is now, make a resolution so it can go forward towards the phase of implementing what those things are. It's not going to mean that everything we see in the plan is going to happen that way, But it puts forth principles for growing, changing, adopting, becoming a better downtown. And those conversations with people who got up earlier and talked, they have to happen going forward. And fortunately, we have an entire division now of planning devoted to community engagement, talking with people. And they gave us a list of all the places and neighborhoods they go to. So I am hopeful for a better future and I am sorry for what has happened in the past. Very sorry, thank you. Okay, do we have any other comment? Commissioner Barksdale. Yeah, I agree with Frank Penn's comment about the definition of insanity, is doing the same thing and expecting different results. And I do challenge us to figure out how do we grow and develop some areas that are undeveloped without damaging what's there. Without the businesses that she's talking about on Newtown coming from Main Street. Those businesses have been there for years and years and years. And yeah, it kind of looks like, yeah, there's some vacant land there, but really behind that vacancy, it's still some existing shops. What are we going to do and how do we keep from just making people feel like, well, your business is not that valuable, so we can take it away. What do you do? What do you do in place of that? If that's the case that this is the best place to put a middle school in Lexington right now. What are we doing to help those businesses rebuild somewhere else or even rebuild in the new area? I think that has to be a consideration. We cannot just keep doing this same insanity over and over and over. And we're talking not just the past few years. We're talking this has been America for the longest. And we've got to figure out how to stop it. Yes, thank you Commissioner Brooks. First of all, I agree wholeheartedly with my colleague, Ms. Barxtell, and she knows, because she works in the community very well. But one of the things we have to be aware of, the Planning Commission in and of itself can only do so much. only plan. As such, the issue becomes execution and implementation. Where do we get that from? That's your city council. You need to talk to the city council members about it and hold them accountable for some of the things. And I think I'll send my colleague over here to remind them about that insanity issue. Sorry? Okay. Okay. If we don't have any more commissioner comment if nobody has an objection to it i'd actually like to make a motion on this it's been a tremendous amount of work over the course of i suppose more than a year now and a tremendous amount of engagement and a tremendous amount of both good faith and fair fair questions so without objection i would like to move to adopt the resolution to add the downtown area master plan as an addendum to the 2023 comprehensive plan imagine lexington 2025 2045 excuse me that was a second from commissioner molly davis is there any discussion to the motion seeing none we will go ahead and take a vote mr chair my computer has gone off so okay mr mr owens is having technical difficulties i'm voting aye on this he is on the record as being in the affirmative and okay, Commissioner Worth? Yes. Okay, so that is unanimous with Mr. Owens voicing an affirmative vote. So that carries unanimously, thank you. Are there any other commissioner item, and again, thank you to everyone who came to speak today, we do appreciate it. Are there any other commissioner items that they would like to bring forward? If not, we will hear from Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chair, thank you, you all have earned your money once again today. we will see everyone again next Thursday, 5th Thursday, July 30th at 1.30 in this room for a hearing to consider the data center ZODA. And that is the only item that will be on that agenda. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Thank you to staff for all of your work. Without objection, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.