Thank you. Good afternoon. Today is August 20th, 2026. And this is the meeting of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government's Planning Commission in Work Session. Our first item on the agenda today is the Winchester Road Corridor Study, Existing Conditions and Public input debate. Hello, everybody. Can you hear me all right? Wonderful. In case you don't remember, my name is Iris Dooling. I'm on the long-range planning team. I'm also the project manager for the Winchester Road Corridor Study. And I wanted to briefly remind you of our team who's in the room. So we've got Chris Avelia, Stuart Kearns, J.T. Holt, and Hal Bailey. We're all on the project management team. I was last here in April during your work session and I was giving you the introduction for Winchester Road. I'm happy to report that we have been very busy since then and we are nearly completed with phase one, which is studying the corridor context. So we've looked at the existing conditions, we've talked to folks in a variety of different ways throughout the corridor, we've talked to stakeholders, we've had a website open, we've had a lot of work that we've been doing and we're really excited to share it with you. So I'm going to introduce the person who's going to be doing all that sharing today, our Deputy Project Manager. Elizabeth Fark is here from WSP and she's going to be presenting on our work thus far. So I'll turn it over to you, Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here with you all today. Like Iris said, my name is Elizabeth, and I'm the Deputy Project Manager. And I really want to dive right in today and share a pretty healthy update of where we are currently with the study, especially with existing conditions, community engagement to date, and the market analysis as well that we've conducted. So a little bit of the agenda right there. We'll jump right in. So community engagement has been one of the core activities of our planning study so far. We've used several methods to reach out to the community trying to capture as wide of an audience as possible, as diverse of an audience as possible. Also, given that it's a 5.8 mile long corridor that we're looking at. So a lot of residents, a lot of commuters who use the corridor every day, as well as General Lexington. Winchester Road is a major road in Lexington. A lot of people are familiar with it. A lot of people probably have some really good thoughts about it too. So we've been trying to reach out to everyone that we can. That includes a public survey, door-to-door canvassing with businesses. We've had some media coverage spurred on by a press release and social media campaigns, and we've also conducted our first stakeholder roundtable with a very diverse group of community organizations, businesses, developers, neighborhood organizations, and the like. So our corridor, just as a reminder, is from Midland and Third, right outside of downtown, to pass I-75 all the way to Bahama Road. You'll see on the screen that we've broken it up into segments of three for evaluation and analysis. But when we go out and talk to the public and stakeholders, we've been trying to emphasize that we want it to feel like a cohesive corridor. So we've really been soliciting comments and feedback for the entire length of the corridor. And some of that feedback that we've gotten is about 669 survey responses that we received through our online public survey. That also consisted of an interactive map where people could place map pins and let us know a specific location-based comment. We got 548 of those map pins. We visited 90 businesses along the corridor, door to door, walking. A huge shout out to Iris and JT for that effort. Letting people know about the study and opportunities to engage with the study. So that was a great effort, also during the public survey. So we got some good responses from that. The stakeholder roundtables, we engaged 36 stakeholders representing 29 local organizations. And we also held 10 pop-up engagement events. So those are either at a park or an event or even at the transit center during peak morning and evening commute times. Again, just to let people know about the survey and try to solicit that feedback. And some of the key takeaways I think come as not a big surprise. We heard that there was definitely a need to balance land use and transportation. It's a multi-use corridor, but it doesn't feel that way right now. It feels very auto-oriented. a lot of people are working, living, shopping, you know, living their daily lives along Winchester Road, as well as using it for commuting in and out of town. So it really is diverse and it needs to be a livable corridor for everybody who's using it. Another top item that came out of the public survey and public engagement was the need for better safety for all road users. And what we mean by that is whether you're driving, walking, biking, taking transit, that you have a safe way to get to your destination. So if you're walking across Winchester Road, you have crosswalks that it's not a super far distance to cross the road on that crosswalk, that the transit stops are accessible and not in a ditch, for example. So things like that. Another big safety concern that got brought up along the entire quarter was speed, vehicular speed. This ranges from, I have a slide later showing kind of the context of that. It can be anything from kind of interstate level speeds that you see sometimes. I think we got some police data that showed some very high top speeds that they tracked via radar. but also just higher speeds than you would want for people walking and biking around you as well. Again, lowering that risk of collisions. And then lastly, there was a large support for reinvestment, we heard, especially in what I'll call Segment 1, that first segment out of Midland and 3rd to about New Circle Road. wanting some reinvestment support for local businesses as well as new community spaces like parks along the entire corridor. Jumping now to existing conditions kind of broke it out in between land use context trying to find the priorities you know what's going on what's out there right now and then also of transportation that I'll talk about next. So in segment one, we see a mix of commercial, industrial, and residential land uses. The Jif factory, Smucker's factory is a big iconic landmark that most people know. And there's other industrial areas that are some of the last, or I shouldn't say last, but they're existing industrial and they really don't have anywhere else to move in the Lexington area. So it is one of the industrial areas that is unique to Lexington. This is a car-oriented segment, even though it's right outside of downtown and kind of in that urban core area. Walking and biking are possible, but sometimes it feels very disconnected or unsafe or just generally uncomfortable. There's not a lot of shade, for example, as you're walking along the road. And there are definitely opportunities for redevelopment and reinvestment. There's both existing local businesses that are thriving. There's vacant sites that could be used for redevelopment and everything in between. So there's really good opportunities for support and reinvestment. In segment two, this area connects the urban and suburban neighborhoods and is kind of the major commuter section, I think, that most people think of when they think of Winchester Road. There's a lot of development already in place or coming with the Patch and Wilkes development. So there's not a lot of opportunity for new growth in this area, but there's definitely opportunity for places where people can gather and connect and connecting those neighborhoods to the commercial areas that are in development. And then in segment three, right now this is mostly rural. It is home to that area two of the urban growth master plan that is primed for a dense mix of housing, commercial and institutional uses. And so that can be coordinated with the transportation network out there so that as development occurs, the transportation keeps up with it. And then some of the transportation and specifically safety implications that we saw, again, highlighting safety as one of those priorities. In segment one, I'm going to talk a little bit about speed for a second. You'll see the speed limits that are posted in each of those three segments, and they vary from 35 right outside of downtown all the way to 55 miles per hour in segment three, the rural section, what you would expect. And we're seeing 85th percentile speeds. So that means at the speed at which 85% or your drivers are driving is 43 miles per hour. So that's like in segment one. So that's usually what one of the inputs into figuring out speed limit that like the transportation cabinet uses, city of Lexington. So if we're wanting people to drive 35 miles per hour in a walkable urban area, we're seeing speeds, you know, 45, 43 miles per hour pretty regularly. So that's a concern. And that was kind of highlighted through all of the areas as well. There's mid to high volumes. Segment two has the highest volume of traffic. and there's a big difference in the active transportation network. So the bike facilities, the sidewalks, you have a lot more bike facilities and sidewalks in segment one, right outside of downtown, you have the bike lane along Winchester Road. Segment two, there's no bike lanes, sidewalks become a little bit more limited, a little bit more disconnected. And in segment three right now, there's no bike or pedestrian facilities. There is expected to be some with a KYTC project that is currently in design. I also have the crashes listed on here, particularly pointing out the pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in the last five years. We've seen four in segment one, two in segment two, and then one, vehicular fatality in segment three. Again, highlighting the need for transportation safety improvements along the corridor. And then I'm also going to talk about the market analysis. And this was done. I'm just going to switch the slide real quick. Thank you. This was done to understand a little bit more what's going on behind the scenes with land use and development. So understanding where housing, retail, other uses like hospitality and industrial office space, what's currently out there, and what is the market needing. Where's the missing gaps that we can help plan for? So I will say these slides have a lot of information on them, so I'm going to try to hit the high points and always happy to answer questions as well afterward. So the market analysis really had a similar takeaway, I think, that we had from the land use and transportation existing conditions, that this corridor is not the same all the way through. It is very diverse as we're thinking about the intersection Midland all the way out to that Bahama Road intersection. On this slide we have the the county-wide, the metropolitan statistical area MSA, and the primary market area the PMA numbers. And you know at first glance the differences might look unremarkable when you kind of take a high level look at the the PMA. So that's our study area. That's our focus that we're going to dive more into with the market analysis. It really doesn't look that different from the overall county and the overall metro area. But when we split our PMA into the three different segments, the same as the ones that we looked at for existing conditions, the corridor is not a uniform place. And we really saw the need for different market strategies. and development strategies in each of those three areas. So that's where I'm going to dig into. In section one, we're calling this the Western Reinvestment Area. This is older buildings, lower income area, and probably the biggest opportunity for intervention in this area as it relates to development. And segment two, this is a very established suburban area. It's largely built out. What isn't currently built out is about to be, and it's pretty mature as far as its housing areas. And then segment three, we're calling the eastern growth area. This is undeveloped right now, but it's master planned. And so there's that future growth zone. and what does that look like in the future. There's some key demographic takeaways. And the one I really want to highlight here is that 57% of renters, renter households in the corridor are cost burdened, which means they're paying more than 30% of their income on housing. And this is roughly the same rate that we found. We're the same group that worked on the downtown master plan. And we found the same rate in the downtown study area as well for that market analysis. So it was very similar. One of the key takeaways for economics is that 96% of the market area, that primary market area that we're looking at, 96% of that workforce lives outside of that market area. So that means the people live or people work here along Winchester Road, but they're not living along Winchester Road near their jobs. So this is something that we can kind of take to heart when we're thinking about need for more connections between neighborhoods and commercial areas, business areas, to help with that spatial mismatch of where people live and where the corridor's jobs are. In regard to housing, housing rates or housing prices have appreciated kind of everywhere in Lexington, as you see on the chart, and in all segments, with the most notable jump between 2020 and 2022. And this is along with national trends. But there is, we need to get a little bit closer, there is a missing middle. And compared to the overall county, the corridor has relatively more households at the low end and high end of the income spectrum and fewer in the middle end. So that's what we're calling like an 80 to 120 percent of your area median income range. And that gap really points out a shortage of moderately priced homes and often referred to as the missing middle in planning terms. And I will say this is being recognized in many areas. It's not just along Winchester Road. That's not the only area in Lexington. Many other cities are seeing this as well. Also with housing, the western reinvestment areas at segment one contains a greater concentration of lower income households, while the established urban and eastern growth areas have a larger share of the higher income households. In regard to multifamily. the total multifamily inventory across the market area is pretty small there's a few hundred to a couple thousand units per project so there's next to no multifamily housing in this market area today so that's something to to think about it's been largely single family homes in this area and And so as we look at the overall housing supply, you know, what could help with the affordability in this area? Is it some type of multifamily housing? And what does that look like? And that's kind of the next step. With the housing, we, so we know it's out there. So now we're looking into demand. What is the demand and what is the need? And the demand is what the market is going to support. So that's what households can afford and what they prefer. So we'll definitely be talking to the public about their preference with housing types. And then we're also going to be looking at the needs. That's more income-based. What can people afford? What is affordable, costing less than that third of their income? So I would also like to point out that demand is not the same as feasibility. So that's something that we're going to have to think about as we look into concepts and recommendations. Redeveloping an underused shopping center, for example, into apartments is far more feasible than developing it into single-family homes, you know, tearing down this shopping center. So even when there's demand for both. So we'll be considering that as far as what areas are available for housing to potentially go on and what that looks like. Because the three areas are so different, we really want to understand the demand changes in each of those three areas. So, you know, segment one is going to be more of a conventional demand analysis. Who's there? What can they afford today? And then segment two, looking at existing supply. So not really a lot of new analysis in segment two, just because it is so built out. And then in segment three, it's going to be looking at growth projections. So what's the future housing demand? What could that look like? That's really tied to a lot of regional growth studies. So again, kind of bringing it back to the key message, the corridor can support a variety of different housing types. So that's kind of our key takeaway. But it's going to be a different strategy in each area. And so as we go back out to the public, we'll be keeping that in mind, what we're asking about preferences. And that helps with feasibility. The next segment of the market analysis was looking at retail. So again, starting off with some high-level numbers. In the broader Lexington market, it supports a purchasing power of about $3 billion, whereas our primary market area, our corridor area, itself supports about $200 million, which translates to about 500,000, a little bit under 500,000 square feet of retail. I know there's a lot of numbers and a lot of technical, but the actual retail supply in the PUA, so if the purchasing power can support about 500,000, actual retail supply is about 4 million square feet. So it's far more than the purchasing power along the corridor. So this indicates an oversupply of retail space. explanation is that this area does support a very large regional pull to the shopping, thinking like Hamburg area. There's a lot of people who travel from the surrounding counties and even further to come shop in the Hamburg area. So that's one explanation. And then the second explanation is that some of the retail, those businesses function a little bit more like wholesalers. So the way the data works, it still counts as retail in the number, but it could be much less of like your shop that you go into and more of a wholesaler situation. So that's something that we could dig into a little bit more to understand what that oversupply is saying. It's not just blanket oversupply. There's nuances to it. And what we really want to aim for is sustainable occupancy. We don't want to just throw a bunch of development down and it not be sustainable. So overall occupancy, like the spaces that are technically leased, operating, where there's not a lot of vacancy, versus the sustainable occupancy model where spaces are leased, rents are high enough to maintain the building, and so that's really what we're aiming for in our development of concepts. And I'm going to skip through this one a little bit. So kind of focusing in on segment one again, because that was the area that we saw the most opportunity for reinvestment. If we're thinking about that area, there's an oversupply of retail space. what's a good strategy to to look at to use that existing building stock build upon it so is there something like a district or distinct branding revitalization strategy looking at other areas of lexington we have right off the corridor like national avenue the delaware avenue area even southland drive having that kind of iconic you know where you are when you're on the area so So we're using those case studies to think about how the retail in segment one can be utilized, that existing stock of space. In segment two, again, already well-established, this retail has a diverse kind of group of businesses, diverse category of businesses. It's very regional serving. So we're not focusing a lot of our efforts going forward on Area 2 as far as like a new development strategy. But we will be looking at where there is opportunity for some specialty shops and big box stores as needed and what could support the larger regional market area. And then in segment three, again, that growth area, a lot of it's master planned, but we don't really know what that's going to look like in practice when it actually gets built out. So what kind of retailers might want to locate in here with anticipated population growth so that they're there as the growth arrives and not afterward. So that's what we're aiming for in area three. So some of the conclusions, some shopping districts serve a regional market area, like I said, Hamburg. There's definitely increased market support on the western side of the corridor, support for local businesses. And then on the eastern side, could be some underserved sub-markets that we need to look into as that growth arrives. Okay, so as I step back into the full market analysis, key takeaways, segment one, we're going to focus on housing, like the affordability, the reinvestment without displacement, the retail distinguishing from what's neighborhood serving versus what's wholesale in disguise with that current retail. And really giving you all a plan of where to reinvest, what strategies are best to really get that neighborhood-serving retail to increase the housing supply in that area. In segment two, again, a focus here is on connectivity at infill. Not a lot of major new analysis for large developments, but where could there be spot little developments, smaller housing complexes, et cetera. And then segment three, how can we, I guess, get ahead of that conversation about the growth, about the master plan area? What's the opportunity for the housing and the retail? and really be able to harness that energy that is building for the development in that area and provide a path forward forward. So that is the majority of what we've been working on in phase one. Up next is a public meeting in September. It's on the 10th planned for the Charles Young Center in the evening, 530 to 730. So you all, I'm sure, will be getting communications about that. Feel free to pass along. And at this meeting, we're asking the public, you know, these are the priorities we see for land use, for transportation, for development. These are a couple of early ideas that we have. Is there a preference? Is there something that's completely off the table? And then we can go forward with those solidified priorities, the early thoughts on some of the early ideas, and go forward to really dig into the concepts and recommendations for this plan. We will also be hosting a second round of stakeholder roundtables. So, again, we'll be talking to developers and community organizations, neighborhoods, businesses, again, to let them know, hey, here's the priorities. heard from you, from the public, from the data. Here's some ideas. Please let us know what's right, what's wrong in your opinion. You know, what's your preference? So those are some major events coming up. And I posted the link to the website down there. And you can follow along. We'll be posting the public engagement summary from phase one, as well as the existing conditions report and the market analysis probably sometime in the early fall once they're finalized. But those will be available for the public to read. So if there are any questions, happy to answer anything. Thank you very much. Do we have any questions? Mr. Nickel and then Ms. Worth and then Mr. Mickler. Yes, thank you. Wonderful presentation. And what I see here is section one is our greatest opportunity to affect some real change. Some of the numbers that we saw was approximately 900,000 square feet of, is that correct? Is that number correct? A million square feet of Class C retail space and it can support 67,000. Did I read that correctly? I think it was maybe go back one more. Go back one more? Yeah, right there. So we're looking at section one, oversupplied, total demand, 67K, total supply, 1 million. That's a big problem. And what you've been talking about a lot is kind of this section one is in need of, the language you used was intervention. I think that that is a great way to think about it. You talked a couple of times as well about trying to find a way to put attainable housing on that corridor. And to me, what that would look like are larger apartment buildings that are brought up to the front. I mean, the facade of the building is brought up to close to Winchester Road with street infrastructure and trees. I mean, that would be an excellent solution. But we've got to get 900,000 square feet of Class C retail interested in selling their space. So what you may want to do is speak with the development community about housing stock going in there. Because the development community will see that there is incredible upside. If this is handled as one project with special conditions or some sort of intervention that allows for incentives to develop housing, it could be a real opportunity, an opportunity for existing housing to come in, but significant growth opportunity in the future because that part of town has tremendous upside from Midland to New Circle. There's tremendous upside. So the investor can come in, develop property, and see a significant increase in rental rates over a 10-year period. We do have some conditions that are a problem. The parcels themselves are not that deep. They're backing up to existing neighborhoods. We've got street parking we'd have to rework out. So the city is going to have to get involved with some sort of parking infrastructure, street parking, or whatever could happen. But I think you're on to something. And you could sell this as potential attainable housing that can grow to market rate. Judy? If you would show the map that shows the corridor, how deep does that go? because we've got along winchester you've got parallels on either side with some of its neighborhood some of its industrial not commercial industrial we got jiff there we got lumber yard there other stuff so how deep into the neighborhoods are we going we don't necessarily have a hard and fast rule of how deep we're going into um with the land use we are focusing on the parcels immediately fronting winchester road Okay. Recognizing what's behind it, which is often established neighborhoods, especially in segment one. So, yeah, media parcels fronting the road. I will say there are some caveats to that, especially around Eastland, I think, is where we're looking a little bit broader, just because it does go so far back, too, because it's on the corner of New Circle. and then when we're talking about transportation looking at anywhere between a quarter mile and a half mile walk shed bike shed area for connectivity so how are people who live quarter mile off the corridor accessing Winchester Road and those connections yeah And my second question is, how much coordination are you all doing with the New Circle Road small area plan that includes Eastland out there? Yes, we are coordinating with it. So that catalyst site is what it was called in the New Circle Road study. We are showing that in our concepts for that area, what we've kind of poked around some ideas about. And yes, so definitely coordinating with that. That's a huge intersection of two major roads. So, yeah, we are not ignoring that at all. A lot of that work's already been done, right? Yeah. Okay, Mr. McClure. We just touched on one of the things in your answer to Judy, but I was wondering, in thinking about the sort of neighborhood serving component that you talked about, And what jumps to my mind is a lot of connectivity challenges for pedestrian and bike. You know, you have basically you go from like Walton to Henry Clay Boulevard as like connection points to the south of like the Kenwick neighborhood. So you have a huge barrier there. You have industrial properties that are a barrier further out. You have New Circle Road and the interstate that are barriers. And so in thinking about, even though this is an urban corridor, in thinking about how we bring multimodal, it really does seem to me that that does need that broader perspective of that sort of half-mile shed. because even if you have a most perfect walking street in the world, if the neighborhoods don't have access to that, the number of pedestrians will be pretty paltry. So that was kind of one of the things that I just wanted to make sure. It seems like you've got the same themes we see in a lot of places, which are good, but it seems like this corridor, in particular, connectivity, maybe should rise in its prominence a little bit as an overarching theme. Yes. And then you touched on this also, but I just wanted to bring it up as well. The intersection between retail and wholesale, certainly for local businesses, which I think we want to promote, is almost by necessity now blurred. I think the successful examples of local businesses are often bridging that through their own manufacturer. I mean, right off the corridor, you have examples like Kentucky Mudworks. I don't know if you saw that. It's moved. It's now on Floyd, but it's not far off the corridor. You can go in and buy pottery tools. You can take a pottery class, but they're also selling clay and producing clay that they are shipping all over the country. And so it seems to me that that's a good thing that those lines are blurred because depending on neighborhood retail alone, I think our potential candidates for all that space is pretty small. But looking at those examples like off the corridor, they're a little bit off, but they're still an example of what you're talking about. They are retail, but they have that wholesale focus. But they're really sort of bringing a unique aspect to the community. And I don't think they would be viable or successful if they didn't have that wholesale component. Definitely. And, you know, that's one of the nuances that you can't just classify something and it doesn't tell the whole story ever. So, yeah, that's a really good point. And I'm definitely going to pass that along to the team. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Do we have any other? Yes, sir. Let me. Thank you, Zach. And thank you. I'm going to pick back with what Bea was talking about a moment ago as far as residential and so forth. I agree. and I've always been an advocate for quote-unquote mixed use, and it seems difficult here in Lexington for some odd reason, but I think it is doable. And if we bring up close to the road, I don't want to see residential on the first floor, you know, simply put. It makes sense to have retail commercial and so forth. So that's my two cents for it. I will take that back to the team, too. Yes. I'm sorry. I agree with what you're saying, Mike. But we're going to have to be – if this is something that we want to do, we're understanding that kind of our mixed-use zoning didn't pan out the way we want because the commercial space is so hard to lease. And as we're looking at 67,000 square feet of commercial that can be supported by the region and 900,000 there, it does give us the opportunity to, if we put a plan together where we're allowing a mix of uses with some incentives to get the housing there, it would be really good to have places for existing businesses that are successful on Winchester Road to move into a new space. So that would be a wonderful way to do it. You can give up your land and you can get some brand new commercial space, but we still are going to have a major – there's a major oversupply right now at that Class C retail. I think a reasonable compromise to that is if you do have a redevelopment, a new construction, you do build the first floor to commercial-grade standard. In theory, make it parking for now if the market isn't supporting commercial. but once you have the density of the population, it can be converted from parking to a commercial space, depending on what the market is dictating. Iris. Yes. I just wanted to point out, I saw a lot of people taking pictures of our very dense and small font slides. I wanted to let you all know that we're going to post those. We'll send them out to you after this, but also post them on our website. So I'm happy you took pictures. We're happy you're fans, but we'll have that in a way that you could reach easily. okay commissioner nickel i got a quick question does our city ever participate in let's say building an above ground parking structure that can be that that is owned by the city that can exist within a couple of exist in a way that allows for extensive redevelopment of uh residential space where the biggest problem of all this is going to be parking. But if someone with the ability could go ahead and put parking infrastructure in place, it solves the problem for the developers and would certainly incentivize them to start building in that area. So is that a method that's been used by our city in the past to build parking infrastructure to support housing I don't know about Lexington specifically I know other communities have but mr. Nichola a number of the parking structures that are downtown are are publicly funded a lot of times they're done with state funds the last time that the city maybe did one was the transit center you know 40 years ago so So it is not common that the city itself would participate in building a parking structure as part of the infrastructure. However, as Elizabeth said, it's a good idea that is used elsewhere and certainly something that we could entertain and propose. That'd be fantastic. If you could do a little research on that, that would be interesting, just reacquainting ourselves with something we did 40 years ago. Because the problem we are going to have developing Section 1 is parking, parking, parking, parking, parking. Well, that may be a great question for our friends over at Lex Park, too. Lex Park. Because, I mean, I suppose, Jim, right? Absolutely. I think that was kind of the hope that, especially when the city turned over a number of their parking structures to Lex Park, that they would be then capitalized in such a way that they could also build the infrastructure, not just maintain it, but build new infrastructure as well. Yes, sir. I'm going to be in the amen corner like Judy. I agree with structured parking any way we can find it. Okay. Okay. Yes, sir, Mr. Just one quick question related. As a part of your stakeholders, was the police department a part of the stakeholders? Yes. Okay, good. Okay, just a personal question. I've always been fascinated ever since I was a kid with the peanut butter factory. And I'm intrigued by maps and aerial photos. And when you look from the sky, you can see that that particular rail line kind of terminates right there behind the factory. Looking long term, maybe 100 years, the possibilities I think are so neat with that site. If that site were ever to be redeveloped, having the end of that line, depending on what rail does in this country over the next century, it's so centrally located. It's just really intriguing to me. So did you have any conversations with either – not Jeff, I guess, but that property owner or landowner? And or RJ – because that line goes over to the RJ Corman on Newtown, which means it goes right past BCTCS, Transylvania. I will start with we did get to talk with the GIF folks, and we heard more about that space. So they're definitely a part of the stakeholders. But as far as the rail line, did anyone else have – we didn't have much there. Hal, do you have anything to – Chris? That rail line is a little bit complicated. It is operated by RJ Corman, but the beds are still owned by CSX. and it's probably easier to have a conversation with God than the railroads. But in terms of passenger rail, the environment is not very conducive to passenger rail at this particular time, especially with the current administration. So this is a very small example, but it's an exemplar of maybe opportunities we've missed. Not just parking structures, but I occasionally use an enterprise rental car place out there. I don't go anyplace anymore, although I don't travel as much as I used to, where I get a rental car that is not in a multi-story garage where the cars are up here. you do your paperwork down on the first level and somebody brings the car down to you. And I'm thinking about all the land that we've used out Richmond Road outside of Man of War for that great big auto. You know, much of that could have gone up and we could have saved a lot of land there. So for all of us thinking opportunity there to go up rather than out for this kind of stuff, I think we need to keep that in the front of our minds. not just for cars I don't know what their opportunities there are but other things some particularly Jim Duncan may remember my cravings used to kick me under the table like crazy when we discussed up and not out all right do we have any other questions for Elizabeth or Iris at this time seeing none thank you very much that was very comprehensive Thank you all. Thank you. Okay. Our next item on the agenda is industrial zoning ordinance text amendment with Eve Miller. Sorry. And I also should have said thank you to everybody else who helped on the previous item. Good afternoon, planning commission members. Eve Miller, Senior Planner, Long Range Planning. I'm here this afternoon to talk to you all about the Industrial Zoning Ordinance Tax Amendment that we filed earlier this month. And we'll be reviewing that with you all here today. So we, can you all hear me okay? Is it on? Okay, perfect. We previously reviewed this zoning regulation proposal with the Blue Sky Small Area Plan that you will have seen continuously this summer. Blue Sky Works, as it was otherwise known, was passed unanimously by the Planning Commission on June 11th. So now I'm back to you all with the Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment package that accompanies that project. And the small area plan relied heavily on public input, whether it be online surveys, talking with businesses and property owners, talking with nearby residents and neighborhoods. And from those conversations, the consultant TSW and staff developed this zoning ordinance tax amendment package for our industrial zones, which Caleb Risico described in more detail with you all in previous work sessions that we've had this year. But the regulatory updates are limited to the light industrial I-1, heavy industrial I-2, and the wholesale and warehouse business B4 zones. And the ZODA proposal reflects how the recommendations from the Blue Sky Works plan reflect how industrial businesses operate today and not from the 1980s when the zones were originally established. And I also should note that we included the text proposal in your packets today, along with a one pager that kind of briefly outlines the project. So, the goals of the Zoning Ordinance Tax Amendment. First, we're looking to simplify the industrial zones to make it easier for the user and the reader to understand what uses are allowed in these zones. Currently, we have nested zoning for I-1, I-2, and B-4. So, the reader has to refer back to other zones to understand what permitted activities we allow. So we are proposing to simply list all of the permanent activities within the zones. Second, we're looking to classify industrial and manufacturing uses by impact rather than their activity itself. And we hope that this will allow for more flexibility for property owners and businesses looking to locate here and do business here in Lexington. Third, we're updating a few of our industrial definitions. such as adding to terms as research and development, recycling facilities, storage yard, things like that. And then we are proposing to codify the executive campus model within our zoning ordinance. And this came out of our discussions with property owners and businesses in Blue Sky. And we discovered that some of the restrictions that they are currently facing is because of parcel by parcel development requirements. And so we discovered that if a property or a business owner has several properties or several parcels operating the same wing, that we would like to give them the opportunity to be reviewed and planned together. And this also is a growing sentiment across the country where the office space of the business was separated from the manufacturing and industrial activity of that business. But now we're seeing them coming back together. So they don't want to be any separated anymore. They want to be looped together So since you all last saw this item under the small area plan We've made a few changes to the text proposal that you see in front of you here today We of course removed any reference to data centers and the like as that is now a part of the urban County council initiated text process And more information can be found on their Engage Lexington website, which I did write down, engage.lexingtonky.gov slash data centers. And we also found that a few definitions that we included needed some further clarification, including distinctions between storage yard and recycling facilities. And then we lastly added indoor recreational activities in places of religious assembly as conditional uses in the I-1 and I-2. And that will allow the Board of Adjustment more permission to review what activity would be going into a high industrial area. So here is the proposed schedule that we are coming with you all today. Like I mentioned, we approved the Blue Sky Works Plan on June 11th. We filed this ZODA package on August 3rd. I'm here with you all today on August 20th. And we are proposing to be at committees in early September, I believe September 3rd. And we are hoping to have the public hearing scheduled for September 24th. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you all might have. That was very quick. Thank you. That's great. Thank you very much. Do we have any questions for Eve at this time? Okay. All right. Seeing none, thank you very much. Oh, great. Wonderful. Thank you. All right. Our third item on the agenda today is the downtown zoning ordinance text amendment update for Mr. Bailey. Good afternoon. Hal Bailey, Division of Planning. Um, typically you would see Boyd up here with this. Boyd was, uh, the project manager with the downtown area master plan, but had to be out of town today. So you get to listen to me talk, uh, unlike the, uh, blue sky, uh, small area plan, the downtown master plan didn't have red line texts that came to you during the development of the master plan itself. So much of this language is, or all of this language is based off of recommendations from that plan but put into the red line text. In front of you, you should have two documents, your red line text with the draft that was put in and filed at the beginning of this month, and then a one-pager that goes through some of the simplified review of what is changing within this document. So I'll just do a brief review of this and just kind of go over some of the elements of this, the text that's being provided. However, you'll be hearing from us probably a lot more than you will just with the downtown or with the industrial Zota, just because you haven't seen as much. We haven't put it out there in the public as much. So we are anticipating doing a fair amount of public outreach to the downtown neighborhoods, businesses, developers, and some of the land use attorneys within the community. So why are we updating this? As you know, whenever we come through with a plan, we want to implement that plan. We want to move that plan along so that we are representing the wants and needs of our community members. So one of the first steps in this is to take the recommendations of the downtown area master plan and apply it. And this is really meant to focus in on the three elements of the downtown plan, which was providing a lot more housing and investment in our downtown community, trying to change or update the urban format for future development, and then seeking long-term development consistency over time. So really trying to pull those elements that we talked about for the past year and a half or so and move it along in a regulatory framework. This is meant to support that walkability in the public realm while also enhancing the public realm in our downtown space that really pulls from the public comments that were made during the development of the plan itself. We also want to start the establishment of a foundation for anti-displacement within our community so that we can talk about what is appropriate, what is not appropriate, what is appropriate next to some of our downtown neighborhoods that have some established zoning step downs and such. So we really want to focus in on making sure that we're getting the type of growth that the plan called for, focusing in on new development, and then trying to protect and reuse the resources that we have. We are trying to expand the housing opportunities throughout the area, while also pushing the framework that we have sought within the Downtown Area Master Plan that focuses in a little bit more on anti-displacement. But many of those anti-displacement strategies are going to happen at the council level. As we discussed with the development of the Downtown Area Master Plan, Anti-displacement through zoning is quite difficult. We are great in zoning and land use, in building form and site design, those types of things. You didn't hear people in much of that. We are not great in zoning at producing anti-displacement strategies. That typically comes through policy development that is done over in the council chambers. so this is a broader perspective taking those policies and that public engagement and putting those into the regulatory strategy of this all this is based off of a lot of the conversation that we had with residents of the downtown area but a lot of the small businesses that are located down here what they needed to support retail operations in a downtown environment we heard a lot from the public that we want those types of things, but we heard a lot from the businesses that said, well, if we don't have people coming down or living here, we don't get the same kind of support that you might see outside of the downtown sphere. So in terms of building for our environment, we focused in a lot with our catalytic sites on vacant land, trying to make more efficient use of that land with the recommendations that you're seeing in this zoning ordinance text amendment. We are really trying to focus more on adapting that vacant land, filling in those spaces, and growing up, not out. So throughout this, we are trying to make more efficient use of our downtown streetscape and landscape, while also making sure that it supports more activity along the streetscape area, trying to have those plazas, places for social interaction while also not having a focus on auto-oriented development, trying to make it a people-oriented movement. We are, again, looking at infill sites as being our most opportune areas. Over the past couple of months, you have heard a lot of zone changes in the downtown scape, really talking about what's an appropriate setback, what is the appropriate landscaping. And much of the conversation that you've had is during the zone change, we're going to push things up to the street as much as possible. And then later on, there's a lot of conversation about utilities. We want to have that conversation up front. We call out setbacks of what we want and then flexibility for utilities if it is necessary, but it would need to be highlighted as we go through that process. This is a way to call out to developers in our downtown space that maybe we should look at those utilities early. And when we have those utilities, we want to activate that street space, make sure that it is people-oriented, active in a way, so that we are really making sure that our streetscape is a place of social interaction. We are also seeking to go, as Boyd would put out there, from the underused to the urban thriving. So in this, it does remove parking as a principal primary use in the downtown zones. It really pushes for the utilization of that space towards the built environment. Now, that does not take anyone's personal property rights away. They are still able to utilize their private parking lots for as long as they want. But we in our zoning ordinance want to promote new development that would occur to build up and not just do those surface level parking spaces. We are focusing in on a structured parking lot within the downtown area master plan. There were recommendations to work with a potential downtown development authority or something similar that would help produce parking structures or something like that or work with Lex Park and the government to produce greater opportunities for structured parking. Structured parking is incredibly expensive to build, and we want to make sure that if we are going to do this, we also need to be thinking about opportunities to help with the construction of that parking. So looking at also allowing for a small amount of surface level parking based off of the size of structures. This gets into the idea of drop-off hiccups. You've been hearing about this quite a bit. If you are dropping off food, you're dropping off mail, things like that, if there isn't a specified location for some of these things to occur, we want to make sure there is the opportunity to have those in those sites, making sure that we are thinking about that on the front end. And if they're not going to provide a drop-off pickup point within their facility, then we can also have a conversation about making sure we're delineating those spaces on the public right-of-way, making sure that people are not just blocking traffic. Do a little bit more work on the front end for curbside management. This is particularly important on those roadways that might be a single lane or something like that. When we have two lanes of traffic, it's a little less important, but it's still important to talk about. And then we're getting into a little bit more of what are we supporting? What are the types of activities we want to talk about? What are the land uses of the downtown. Like you talked about with the industrial zoda, we're removing the nested land uses. Within the B2, B2A, and the B2B zones, we have an issue of referencing back, referencing back, referencing back. The B2 references the B1, the B2A references the B2, which references the B1, and then so on and so forth. We want to make sure that it's a little clearer about what people can and cannot do in our zones. It also modernizes our zones. There's a lot of overlap, as well as some outdated land uses that are called out within the downtown zones. So by eliminating those, grouping those in together, we, one, have a more efficient and modernized zoning ordinance, but two, we are talking about the land uses that people were talking about in the downtown area master plan and what we want. So what is the type of development that we want to see? The retail, the housing, those different types of things, and how do we want to promote those land uses to occur. Next, we really are focusing in on those three zones and what is appropriate in those locations, how to make that work. Over the past couple of years, we've seen a lot of new residential occurring in our downtown scape, and that has highlighted some deficiencies in our ordinance, specifically getting into, I'll talk about our B2 zone, which is our downtown core zone. There's a height to yard ratio when it comes to any type of residential dwelling unit with a habitable window. That is a great ordinance if you don't want high buildings in your downtown core. You don't want dense residential because it forces that residential in on itself if you're using a height to yard. If you look at most mid-size to large-size cities, If you have a residential land use, they have a set setback that is allowing for people to get in and out of the building, specifically fire, light air, sound, things like that, that are really important to dense housing products, but don't limit the height in our most central downtown area and limit our density. But as we scale out in our frame zones, you all have had a lot of conversations about what is the appropriate step down from our development if we're going to step down into adjacent residential zoning. This provides a framework in which we would be consistent with what we would require to step down when adjacent to neighboring residential development, specifically what you see in the surrounding of the downtown area. This is what also neighbors were calling for, something that would say, okay, you might have a nine-story structure or an eight-story structure. What do you need to step down to next to my building that would be appropriate to allow for me to keep my structure, keep myself in that zone and move forward? We are tying this primarily to the zoning rather than a transitional height plane or what is existing then and there. and that is usually the best case for when you're using a Euclidean-based zoning approach to things. And then finally, looking at the B2B, that zone was established for the Lexington Center way back when and we've been moving that forward. What we looked at with this was really what is developing now. How are we seeing development occur? The Lincoln Webb development off of High Street is particularly important to what we are seeing in this and they're setting a context for that zone. We're seeking to allow for that to occur, while also within each of these zones provide a minimum of what we want to see. One of the elements of this zoning ordinance text amendment is for new development to set a minimum for the type of development that we would like. Now, that type of development should still respect the historical character of these areas. We have a lot of one and two-story structures in our downtown landscape. If we want to see those occur, we want to see those occur in like kind. So building off of each other. The downtown area has the ability to have zero lot lines, and that is where you see a lot of the one-story structures. If you take a look over at Carson's, that was and still is a one-story structure that has a zero lot line. Someone could build right off the side of that and keep on going. We want to allow for that context to occur, but if they are going to build off of that lot line, if they're going to build something different, we want them to build denser and want them to build more, which is what we heard from the public and the planning commission during the adoption of the downtown area master plan. So in terms of the ZODA process, we adopted the downtown area master plan July 23rd. We have this draft in front of you today. We are planning on being there at your September 3rd committees to go over this in the kind of detailed perspectives so that you can make some recommendations on ZODA changes if you are interested. And then moving that forward to a refinement, we will come back to you since this one in particular hasn't been heard as much as the industrial ZODA. We will be coming back to you in your September Planning Commission work session and then a hopeful public hearing at the end of September. We do have an online website for both industrial and the downtown Zotos. It is linked through the mailing that was sent out to everyone in the neighborhood associations. We also do have the applications on Acela for review. So we are seeking to do a lot of outreach on this one in particular, since, again, this is new text that's being put out there. but we're hoping to hear from anybody and everybody about this. Tell us what they think and move forward with this text. So if you have any, oh, I do want to highlight what this does and does not do. Boyd has been highlighting this for me as well, but what it does do is it aligns with the plan. It seeks to support good development and context within our community. It supports a vibrant public space while also getting at the types of land uses that people called out during the development of the plan, promoting different housing opportunities and supporting more efficient use of the downtown. It does not require immediate development. It does not change the existing development or land uses. It doesn't remove parking from anybody. It does not create new taxes or fees on this. That was something that we have heard quite a bit since the adoption of the downtown plan, specifically in the Newtown area. There was a lot of concern and a lot of misinformation about what was going to happen with the area east or west of Newtown Pike. We've been working through with those landowners to try to promote different perspectives of what they can do with their property and what they don't have to do with their property. And then it does not override other adopted plans or regulations. So now, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Great. Thank you, Hal. Do we have any questions? Mr. Michler. While you were talking, I wrote down a lot of questions, and I'm going to try to condense them into a few themes. So I'm not going to itemize these, but there were several instances in this text where there's language about selling what's made on-premises or what's bottled. on-premises and retail for on-premises. I can think of a million examples. I'm not going to itemize it, but your microbrewery, which is allowed, is almost certainly going to have some things available for off-premise. Even really small retail, just a couple of examples, I won't do the laundry list, But, you know, we, you know, downtown, there's a gelato shop. We also sell their gelato at our location off premises. So and they're making that there. The way that I read that, that type of activity seems like it would not be permitted. It would. So under number 19 of land uses in the B2 zone, and that follows through in the B2A, is artisanal manufacturing. That's actually defined within the no-lie CDC PUD2. And that's where we would see that as being a way in which someone can manufacture and sell off-site, not just off-premise. Okay, because there's a variety of, you know, I mean, even our business, we're primarily retail. but we have wholesale components, whether that's or even retail components that are off-site. For example, we're obviously doing delivery on a daily basis, as do most retailers now, whether they do it themselves or whether they use a third party. So on-prem and off-prem in the retail world has definitely gotten blurred. so that's sort of one concern that I have and then also retail and wholesale is blurred because wholesale just means business to business it's not necessarily large scale a lot of retailers survive on business to business transactions in addition to customer transactions even if those business to business transactions like in our case maybe small landscapers getting plants to a job or something like that, not necessarily us supplying Lowe's or Home Depot. But that's still a wholesale transaction. And so I guess I want to – I am concerned that in today's retail economy, which we want to support more retail, but a lot of retailers are making it work through combinations of on-prem and off-prem sales and combinations of retail and wholesale sales. So that's just sort of a broad theme. I kind of highlighted that there were those issues that popped up throughout the zoning ordinance text amendment, and I would like to look at that a little bit more so that those issues aren't burdensome if it's implemented. The the I'm going to kind of tag that together with uses that support businesses that are prohibited in here. I know speaking as a business owner in now what is considered the downtown area, you know, we rely heavily on our automobile service people over at Ashley's, which we use religiously because my staff can drop it off and walk back. So having it in the neighborhood is really important to us. It takes two times the staff power to go to a place that's out in the suburbs where we'd have to coordinate and an additional vehicle, which also would be necessary. So having those services nearby, also laundromats being nearby are a big deal. Chevy Chase Laundry does rags for tons of businesses. They do it by the pound. So, you know, those, they may not seem like glitzy, fancy businesses, but they're sort of literally, you know, helping places like wash their rags and helping residents wash their clothes. So I don't know that those types of businesses are creating a lot of pressure on development downtown anyway, but prohibiting that could mean that your Lowell's automobile or Ashley's automobile couldn't, like, build a structure to house some of the cars that they're working on or something like that where it becomes prohibited. Mm-hmm. floor parking on a lot of new buildings, which may not be the direction that we want to see in the downtown. And so I'll bring that up to a certain thing. And then the burden on the developer of getting permission from the city to have pickup and drop off spaces on the street, I could see as being problematic. And if you're forced to do these pickup and drop-off spaces on site, you essentially are prohibiting really unique spaces like we see on Jefferson Street or the Woodland Triangle. And so in my mind, I'm not sure that that requirement is going to get us. I think there may be some unintended consequences of that requirement. In context of the parking, I would also encourage you to look at what some of those requirements are for dumpsters in the downtown area. Having a downtown-specific waste management guidelines may be beneficial to reducing. Currently, I know as one example, you need like 60 feet behind the dumpster of pavement for the dump truck to back up to turn around. That's a pretty big area in downtown if you're talking about zero feet lot lines. So that would be something that maybe could be specified that they're not bound by certain requirements. the same with the aisle widths and things like that in the parking. It would be worth looking at if there's some relief there if you're trying to increase density. I did want to ask you about some of the things we're seeing in these redevelopments for downtown. That may be addressed here, and I didn't see them. But one is we've seen the downtown zones requested basically in what are currently second-tier urban neighborhoods for entirely residential projects. And then these projects don't meet the green space requirements for what a residential zone traditionally would require. And I guess I would maybe like some comments to that specifically, because if we're going to allow fully residential developments with these downtown zones, I think we should speak directly to what a fully residential development means at these margins of downtown. And is it OK to not provide green space and sort of talk about that up front, kind of like you're saying with the utilities? So are you suggesting that we need greater amounts of open space in the downtown zones? And I'm strictly focusing on those B2B2A and B2B zones, but are you looking for a greater amount of open space, ground floor open space, or vegetated space? I'm looking for, as we're seeing these downtown plans requested at the sort of edge of downtown in neighborhoods where we're also in other plans trying to increase tree canopy, trying to meet other goals, that you're starting to see a conflict between those aspects. So I'm thinking primarily in terms of vegetative open space, but sort of creating, not creating another unintentional consequence of, well, if you go with the downtown zone, you don't have to provide the open space when you're really doing a residential project that you would have to provide if you did an R4 or R5. and so yeah and i just want to make sure that we're differentiating between r4 and r5 which is only up to five stories and something that might be well north of that um because it does switch out that context yeah and then i guess a couple a couple more the my last two comments here apologies for taking so much time great but one is um regarding with that again when i think of some of our traditional tall downtown buildings, their footprints are much smaller than what some of these newer seven-story buildings are that are shorter but actually have a more burdensome impact in terms of light to their neighbors because of the long lengths of the buildings. And so I was wondering if there was discussion or if well I do think that especially as we enter the downtown frame that building footprint size should be a factor so while we are maybe allowing taller buildings than have traditionally been done in these areas these really long walls are not unbroken if that makes sense my last two cents is really just related to having not seen this language and even some of these ideas fleshed out in the master plan I do think that that timeline is a little ambitious and we would benefit from slowing it down a little bit to allow some of these discussions of unintended consequences to flesh out a little bit. We typically put this on on the regular process. If we need to slow it down, we can definitely do so. We just want to give everybody the highlights of what this would look like typically. Okay, Mr. Nickel and Ms. Worden. Hal, I got a quick question. Yeah. I'm confused at what we were talking about with open space. As we're looking at our downtown area master plan, we should not have any open space requirements. The open space requirements should be met by the city and the pocket parks that we have and development of new parks ourselves. We need to have the highest and best use of our land, and that needs to go to income generating or providing housing or whatever we need. And we've got multiple parks downtown that we can continue to improve. But I do not want to see our downtown limited by open space requirements. And my understanding is that we have been leaning on open space requirements, and they've practically been removed in the downtown area. Is that correct? The downtown area does not have a high open space requirement. I think what Mr. Mickler was highlighting was a green space or tree canopy aspect of things. And within the downtown area master plan, it did talk about street trees particularly and what we can integrate within that. But when it comes to the common open space or the usable open space, we typically do focus that in on the public parks that are downtown. Excellent. Okay. And I didn't know if you want me to speak to the ordinance. We require 5% usable area in the B2A and B2B zones, zero vegetated open space. And if the facility is doing over 25 residential units, access to a park or something similar. So that is our current requirement. Excellent. Great. And where we can get the canopy is we can improve the canopy on the street, which not only benefits the users of the building, but the public itself. So is that where we're going to be able to see our vegetative space would be in the form of street trees or landscaping on the corridor or on the street? That is something that we're looking at. Great. I think that would be wonderful. We do want to encourage green space, but that should be in unbuildable space, and I think that that's what you all were saying. But we do need to encourage the developers to contribute to the street trees and those features. Thank you. Just real quick, I think to your valid point and to Robin's valid point, the question is, What's downtown? And we don't have a... We do now. Oh, well, that's right. Sorry, never mind. Sorry, I haven't been here for six months. Okay, go ahead, Judy. So this is, maybe for both of you, this is educate me in terms of our vegetative space. And I think it came up in a case a while back about this vegetative space have to be planted in the ground. And I'm thinking of communities I visited where we have vertical walls all the way down a multi-story building. cascading of plants where you have a roof garden like New York City a lot of times you'll have roof gardens up there and they'll have potted trees that are pretty good sized I'm not recommending anything I'm just trying to understand whether that kind of vegetative material is something we want to encourage and does it extend what we're talking about in terms of street trees we do encourage that right now within our zoning ordinance. We allow for vegetated walls, vegetated roofs, things like that to count as multipliers within the open space regulations. That does not play a role currently in the downtown zones, though. My question is, should it? That's something that we could look at if the Planning Commission is interested in something like that. It does add a layer of complexity on site. I think Robin might say the same thing, or I'm sorry, Commissioner Mickler might say the same thing with doing something that is not in soil or something that is up on a wall or something like that, but we can look at those as reasons. Well, like I said, I'm looking to be educated. I'm not recommending it if it's something that would not be beneficial. You know, I don't know whether we need it. Robin, you're in a better position to responded? I mean, I don't have an opinion right now as to whether it would be vertical or horizontal or in what way. I'm really responding to that, especially the way that this new downtown master plans districts are drawn where we are reaching into areas that, you know, speaking as a business owner in Aylesford is a neighborhood that we have traditionally considered a second tier urban neighborhood. We focused on green space. We focused on trees. And we're, in a sense, by defining it as downtown, we are opening the doors to see more downtown zone changes. One of the questions is, currently, you know, you would expect a residential development to move to reach beyond just street trees in terms of their green space requirements. even if they're near a park. And I think that's something that, well, frankly, I think that's something that is important as we are doing downtown, if we're going to use the downtown zones in neighborhoods. That's sort of an importance. I think that the concept of bringing in a livable city with the use of street trees is pretty naive. I think the reality is that you have electric lines going down most of our downtown corridor streets then you have a 10 foot building line and so you basically are not going to have large street trees providing a lot of shade if that is all we're limiting, if that's all that we're putting in, if we're not addressing it in other ways. And I'm not, at this point, I don't know that I've put enough thought into it to think about vertical, horizontal. I do know that I've seen around the world, as traveled partly just because of interest, there's a lot of failed vertical green walls because when those systems fail, everything dies. And even locally on small scales, we've been hired to replace a couple of green walls whose systems have failed and everything has died. So those are definitely a high maintenance thing, but that's not necessarily that it shouldn't be permitted as an avenue for that. But kind of as you're speaking, it's not even a requirement now. It would just be something someone would do because they want that amenity. So I'm thinking, I mean, in that context, I've seen the failures too. I'm thinking more of the rooftop garden kind of thing. And my focus here, although I'm an advocate for trees, I served on the tree board, and I know it's part of our carbon neutral zone, I also know the green helps mental health. And it doesn't have to be trees. All kinds of green are improvements to most people's mental health on a playground or whatever it is. So I'm just raising the question, not making any recommendations. I have a question, Hal. Yes, sir. Sort of going back to Commissioner Mickler's comments about support services like a laundromat or an auto repair shop or maintenance shop. For example, there's a business on East Main that is clothing alterations. Would they fall under professional services or would they fall under something that's prohibited, which is a shops of special trade? Professional services. They would be professional services. Yes. Shops of specialty trade first show up in our B4 zone. And that's typically your plumbers, those individuals that are working out of typically, you have heard these cases in the past. roll up doors, able to get their truck inside, get their things that they need to do, HVAC, things like that, put it in the truck, and then roll out and do what they need to do. We see this a lot with electricians, people like that. For someone like doing an alteration or something like that, we do see that as a professional service that used to be in the B1 zone, and we had those kind of pulled out, and then we grouped them in with the UGM Zoda a couple of years ago and just said, nope, those are all part of the same thing. That's professional service. I am going to double check the laundry, as that is an element that we often see associated with residential dwelling units. We have one off of North Limestone that is an element to that. So I think we have the opportunity to look into that, make sure that that's still something that's available. In terms of the automobile service stations, we have a few in our B2 zones currently. Some of them are already in a B1 that's non-conforming. Some of them are elsewhere in different zones surrounding the downtown area. What we heard from with a lot of individuals with a downtown master plan was we want to shift away from auto-oriented businesses, which an automobile service station is definitely one of those services, and move to things that are more pedestrian oriented. So that is why that has been taken out of the downtown zones, much like they were taken out of the B1 zones previously. So that is an element that is being taken out with this one. I'm trying to wrap my head around a category that's an overlap with professional services. But as Robin talks about it, I'm thinking of it like it's a service infrastructure, really. It's the kind of infrastructure that a business operation needs, but it's not itself part of the business. So it could even be like a rental place for a caterer. You know, you've got a restaurant, but you need to rent tablecloths. You need to rent what do you call the things you put under a plate, the golden things you put under a plate. What's that? Anybody know what I'm talking about? Chargers. Right. I mean, it goes beyond laundry and automobile, I think, that there are probably other services to businesses that we could think of. How do we handle all those, and should we have a special category for them in this context? Some of those contexts, they're not what the community is calling for for a downtown landscape. And that is a shifting landscape that we are trying to contend with. I don't believe that those are particularly located in our downtown area right now just because of economics of certain things. But if you are in the B2, B2A or B2B currently, you'd be allowed to continue that business. We don't want to move anybody out. Again, there are opportunities for us to look at cutouts for the businesses that are there. But to add back businesses that I don't think are there right now might not be the best approach for something like this. especially for something that requires a lot of warehousing or something like that. And that's why I think Pirats is out off of Red Mile Road and in an industrial area and things like that. Ms. Worth, let me also remind that there are any number of locations of B4 and I1 in the downtown already. And while the master plan may envision those as something else in the future, they're still fully available to the principal uses that are there now. So even if a new automobile service wanted to open up in one of those zones where it's permitted, in the master plan, it could do so without any question. Okay. Do we have any other questions from Mr. Bailey on the downtown zoning ordinance text amendment update? Thanks, Al. Again, very comprehensive. As you get into this, please feel free to reach out to myself and Boyd, and we will be having a lot of engagement over the next couple of months. Thank you, and thank you to Boyd for his work on this. Okay. Do we have any other business from you, Mr. Wilson? Just one quick question. I had talked to Mr. Bailey ahead of time, but there was an affordable housing conference downtown, I think, yesterday. Did anyone get a chance to get there? Yes. We did. Did anything notable come out of it? yeah for one thing we all should pat ourselves on the back for uh proving that plan because i went and heard the conference and then i went and visited some of the apartments that are in the church uh and the other thing that i thought was perhaps useful to us is there was a handout on that project and the one that was done with transce's ball field of the funding sources The combination of funding sources to get that affordable housing and I'll email that to everybody if you want. Okay. That would be great. Some of your staff, did we get a chance to go? The commissioner was there. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's all. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Do we have anything else from any commissioners? If not, Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to remind everyone of the zoning hearing which is next week on Thursday, August 27. You will recall that you have to reconsider a tie vote that was left over from July. For those of you who were not here, we have sent everyone the link to that meeting. If you weren't at the meeting last month and you watched the fullness of that case, the Sir Barton Road case, then you can participate in the vote on Thursday and next week. But if you were at the meeting and you were there for the full to say, but you don't have to watch it again, we'll send that back out just as a reminder to you. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. If we don't have anything else, thank you, Mr. Donke, that everyone. Sorry, Judy, do you have anything else? Okay. I will add one thing that came up at the meeting yesterday. I was aware that the state legislature passed a bill that had to do with churches and affordable housing. I was not aware that it was a ministerial approach. it doesn't surprise me given that it's churches. Do you want to speak to that a little bit? Yes. We still don't fully understand it because it's not written as clearly as it could be, but it is ministerial. If it is church property, we believe where the church building is, then they can build up to 24, I think, units of affordable housing regardless of the zoning that they're in, and they don't need to go through the process. They all come before us. We don't see the plan or anything. One other question connected with that. What if a school hadn't been converted into affordable housing? Is that ministerial as well? No, this is religious only. Oh, religious only. Okay. I guess unless the school is a public entity. Right. The school is a public entity. Well, not necessarily. Well, the school property is maybe publicly owned, but usually the Board of Education is not in the business of developing housing. So that's the difference. There's no big secret about it. It's that building that was the old administration building at Main Street. There were some preliminary discussions about possibly using that as affordable housing as well. The question is, is that ministerial or is that still outside of? Well, again, that would not be done by and for the benefit of the public schools, so that would be a private development. And then we'd have to look at the zone and see what they were needing to do there. If they needed a zone change, no, that would not be ministerial. What if they said that that building was going to be redesigned for teachers who had been in the assistant living? Maybe, maybe. Mr. Wilson, are you getting paid by the hour? Mr. Dickel. One quick question, Mr. Duncan. When we were delivering on or getting a better understanding of HB 443, it was defined who has the ability to propose a ZOTA. Is it council, planning commission, and the public, or was the public removed and now it's just council and planning commission? Mr. Nickel, you're right. We talked about that as an aside with House Bill 443. That was not what House Bill 443 addressed, but we were looking at that. The statute says, and it's one of those things that it doesn't prohibit it, but it says a text amendment may originate from the legislative body or the planning commission, but it doesn't say it may not originate from a private entity or it can only originate from the planning commission and the legislative body. So at this time, our council believes that we need to stay with letting that be also applied for by the private sector. I think that's great. Thank you. Okay. I thought, Bill, are you going to... All right. Okay. If we don't have anything else, thank you, everyone. We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. You're killing yourself, you don't believe it. You're killing yourself, you don't believe it. Get up! Get up! Get back on your feet. You're the one they can beat and you know it. Yeah, come on! Come on! Let's see what you've got. Just take out the shot and don't blow it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa guitar solo Oh, come on. Come on. Let's see what you've got. Just take your best shot and go blowin'. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Thank you. When I'm gonna come down Well, are you going to lie? How should I stay on the phone? Should I listen to my own mind? You know you can't hold me forever. I didn't sign up for you. I'm not a present for your friends to open. This boy's too young to be singing. The moon So goodbye Yellow blue road Where the dogs are So excited to howl You can't let me In your penhound I'm going back To my plow Back to the high-level island Thumbna-hunted by town Oh, I'm on the side of my future life Beyond the other big road What do you think you'll do then? I'll bet they shoot down the plane It'll take you a couple of luck You're in time It'll set you on your feet again Maybe you'll get a replacement It's plenty like me to be found I'm gross Who ain't got a penny Slippin' for tippies like you I'm a girl So goodbye Yeah, we'll be broken Where the dark clouds Decided to howl You can't plant me in your penthouse I'm going back to my cloud Back to the house of the loud and the woods Cutting the heart in that town Oh, I find it inside my future lies Beyond that big road Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Once in every life Someone comes along And you came to me It was almost like a song You were in my arms Right where you belong And we were so in love It was almost like a sun January through December We had such a perfect year Then the flame became a dying ember All at once you weren't here Now my broken heart Cries for you each night And it's almost like a song But it's much too sad to write Now my broken heart Christ for you each night Christ for you each night And it's almost like a song Almost like a song But it's much to share to cry It's too sad to write I'm tired of spinning my wheels I need to find a place where my heart can go to here. I need to get there pretty quick. Hey mister, what you got out on that lot, you can sell me in a pinch. Maybe one of them souped-up muscle cars The kind that makes you think you're stronger than you are Color don't matter, no, I don't need leather seats All that really concerns me is speed How fast will it go? Can it hit me over her quickly? 0 to 16 And then I brought her memory Yeah, what I really need Is an open road And a whole lot of speed I'd like to trade in this old truck Cause it makes me think of her And that just slows me up See, it's the first place we made love Where we used to sit and talk On the tailgate all night long But now she's gone And I need to move on So give me speed How fast will it go? Can it get me over her quickly? She rode a 16 and then I'm on her MRE Yeah, what I really need is an open road And a whole lot of speed Throw me their keys so I can put some miles between us Tear off that rear view mare There's nothing left to see Let me lean on that gas All she catches up fast So give me speed How fast will it go? Can it get me over her quickly? Zero to sixteen Can it outrun her memory? Yeah, what I really need It's an overroar And a whole lot of speed That's what I need I'm tired of spinning my wheels I'm tired of spinning my wheels Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll get one dollar. Come the day when you'll be gone. I understand about indecision. I don't care if I get behind. People living in competition. All I want is to have my peace of mind. Take a look at it Take a look at it Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah guitar solo Now everybody's got advice They just keep on giving Doesn't mean too much to me Lots of people have to make believe I'm living Can't decide who they should be I understand about indecision I don't care if I get behind People living in competition All I want is to have my peace of mind Take a look ahead Take a look ahead Look ahead Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh We'll see you next time. I'm not alone A few scrolling moons is all that we share. You've got your family and they need you there. Though I try to rest being last on your list. But no other man's gonna do. So I'm saving all my love for you. It's not very easy living all alone. My friends try and tell me to find a man of my own. But each time I try, I just break down and cry. Cause I'd rather be home feeling blue. So I'm saving all my love for you. You used to tell me we'd run away together. Love gives you the right to be free You said be patient Just be patient