Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon.

This is the regular meeting of the Louisville Metro Board of zoning adjustment to hear cases as advertised and documented for hearing today. Public notice has been provided and materials have been available for review by the public. The following rules are in place for today's meeting. Please silence all cell phones. Please be courteous and respectful to the board and your fellow citizens. For those participating virtually, chat messages are not part of the record and not monitored by all members. Please refrain from sending messages to the panel. If you have any questions or would like to speak on a case, you may send messages to the host. Today's proceedings are being recorded. Anyone wishing to address the board must do so from the podium or virtually. There are time limits in effect for today's meeting. The applicant or their representative shall have no more than 15 minutes for their presentation. Other persons in favor of the application shall have a total of no more than three minutes per person. The opposition representative shall have a total of no more than 15 minutes for their presentation. Other persons opposed to the application shall have a total of no more than three minutes per person. Rebuttal by the applicant or their representative shall be no more than five minutes. If you plan on speaking, please fill out a speaker's form as soon as possible. Those participating virtually must notify the host if they would like to speak. Priority shall be given to speaker cards in the order that they are received. Only those who have completed the speaker's form will be allowed to speak. Procedure shall be as follows. Staff will present a summary of the request. The applicant or representative will make a statement or presentation giving reasons for the request. Other persons in favor of the proposal will be heard. The opposition representative will be heard. Those opposed to the proposal will then be heard. The applicants or their representative will then have an opportunity for rebuttal of the opposition's testimony. No new testimony shall be given during rebuttal. If there are further questions by the opposition after rebuttal, please fill out a form provided. The Board may ask questions of the applicant, representative, or opposition at any time. Pursuant to KRS chapter 61 and the board bylaws, the board's deliberations in voting today will be held immediately following the public hearing for each case. No party will be allowed to speak during the deliberations of this board.

Roll call, please.

Jane Horton.

Present.

Louise. Present. Ozos.

Present.

Rodriguez.

Present.

Kim Scott present for. Did you say?

Yes, present Thank you. We have a quorum staff. Would you say stand? So that. Do you want me to do that? All right, staff, would you stand so that I can swear you in? Thank you. Do you swear the testimony you're about to give today is the truth? Thank you. All right, we have a swearing in of our new member.

So, the case may be that I'll support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth. And be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof. And that I will faithfully execute to the best of my ability, the office of board member for the Louisville Metro board is zoning adjustment according to law. And I do further swallowingly swear or affirm that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I being a citizen of the state have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within the state. nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as a second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God. Yep, got it. Welcome.

Thank you. Welcome to the Board of Zoning Adjustment. All right, 1st item on the agenda is approval of the minutes from the June 1st, 2026 board of zoning adjustment meeting members. Have you had an opportunity to review the minutes?

Is there a motion? Yes motion please.

Yes, please.

I have read the minutes and move to approve the minutes of bosa dated 6, 1, 2026.

Second. Thank you. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the minutes from the June 1st Board of Zoning Adjustment meeting. Roll call, please.

Horton?

Yes.

Louise? Yes. Bozos?

Yes.

Rodriguez?

Abstain.

Scott?

Abstain.

Bond?

Yes. The minutes have been approved. We're now moving into the public hearing portion of the agenda. beginning with 26 variance 0043.

Good afternoon.

Abbeyville's Office of Planning Staff, 444 South 5th Street, Louisville, Kentucky, 40202. This is case 26, variance 43 on Terradon Drive. So, there are 2 requests the 1st is a variance to allow 2 accessory structures to encroach in the front and street side yard and fill setbacks. The variances are 27 feet and 19 feet respectively. And the 2nd request is a variance to allow offense to exceed 48 inches in both the front and street side yard and fill setbacks as well. The variance is for 24 inches or 2 feet. The site is approximately point 2 acres and the are for single family residential zoning district and neighborhood form district. The applicant has constructed 2 storage sheds adjacent to each other. The left most shed is encroaching in both the front yard and street side yard setbacks and the right side is encroaching in only the front yard setback. Additionally, the applicant has constructed a 6 foot fence around the sheds and driveway. This is a zoning map of the property.

This is an aerial view of the property.

This is a view of the subject property from Terry Don. You can see on the right the white fence and the accessory structures. This is the view from man slick. So the structure on the left side is the left most structure and then the 1 on the corner is the right most structure and you can see the white fence wraps partially around them and partially down through the driveway.

These are the adjacent properties across man slick. And then these are the adjacent properties across.

This is the site plan submitted by the applicant. You can see there's 2 things labeled as frame sheds. These are the 2 accessory structures and then the fence is denoted with X's. So, zooming in in red dotted line is the location of the setbacks and then you can see highlighted in red squares below the 2 accessory structures. The 1 on the right is in the front yard setback. And then, as you can see, the 1 on the left is in both the front yard setback and street side yard setback. And then zoomed in just the same. This is the fence denoted in a solid red line. Uh, so the request of variances are adequately justified for approval based on the standard of review and they will not adversely affect public health safety or welfare. So, your required actions are to approve or deny 1, the variance to allow both accessory structures to encroach in the front and street side yard and fill setbacks and then to the variance to allow the fence to exceed 48 inches in both the front and street side yard and fill setbacks. Any questions for stuff.

Yes, let's take a minute. We will be using an interpreter for this. So make sure that you have all the equipment and we will need to put that on if necessary. Yes, please.

Could you back up like 2 slides? The 1 that. This 1. So, it's what you showed there and read the only part of the fence that this is concerned with. It's not because there's fence that goes even further back. Right? But it's only that red line.

Yeah, I believe the fence wraps around the back of the house. The applicant can elaborate on that if needed. But the portion that we're concerned with is the portion in the front yard and fill set back and then that smaller portion in the street side yard and fill set back as well.

OK. And so the accessory structures or whatever that is at the top of that slide, it is already existing. It's not part of this request. It's just down here at the front, correct?

I believe so, yeah. The two labeled frame shed at the bottom are the two accessory structures in the variance. OK. Thank you.

And those are just for storage. Is that correct?

I'll let the applicant answer that question. I'm not sure.

OK. Are there other, just regarding the fence location and height, are there other fences in the area that are of that height are you aware um if there are it's listed in the staff report i don't remember off the top of my head okay i don't see it listed in the staff report all right okay all right members any questions for abby thank you all right i have a speaker card for the applicant uh does the applicant wish to speak

Good afternoon.

Name and address, please.

Thank you.

Would you raise your... Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give today is the truth? All right.

What would you...

What would you like the board to know about your applications?

Uh. Uh.

And the approach is a matter of privacy. And for some incidents that have happened before, I've been living in that house for 16 years. And as you have six feet, because with respect to all that street, there are a lot of six-footed people. And I did the six-foot approach thinking it was normal. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Members, you've heard Mr. Acosta's testimony. Do you have any questions?

I do. Yes. Is this fence a replacement fence, or was there not a fence there previously?

No, la cerca es la que está detrás de la casa. La cerca del lado se construyó hace... around six years to avoid, you know, the traffic in that area. They tried to steal a car. There was a shot in a window because that area is very busy. And then I put that close to delimit what is my part with what is the road.

So, what's the fence that was there on the side? 6, 6 foot high previously. It's always been 6.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Don't believe so.

Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone online to speak to this case? All right. Okay. So I will close the public hearing at this point and we'll move into deliberations on 26 variance 0043. We have two variances for consideration. One deals with the location of the accessory structure. And we did hear from the applicant how those structures will be used. for what purpose, and in a fence location variance. The requirement's 48 feet. They're requesting a taller fence at 72 inches, and the fence is constructed. But that results in a variance of 24 inches. So, members, any discussion on the case?

If you like, you can take both variances together in one motion.

Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion or question?

So am I right in assuming that both of these are on his property, not in the right away and not obstructing the view of traffic?

Correct. Because if even if you grant the variance, if it turned out later on a survey that it's in the right of way, they'll have to move it, you know, so we can't supersede what's the right of way.

And I believe as part of this, transportation typically signs off on these.

So they would have had a chance to review and decide whether or not it created a site hazard.

Thank you. Thank you.

If there are no other questions or no discussion, do you have enough information to proceed with a motion?

Yeah, this is member of those with regard to case number 26 variance. 0, 0, 4, 3 location. 1, 2, 0, 1, drive a move that we approve both variances as written in the staff report. Um. The 1st, being the accessory structure locations requirements 30 to 40 feet on both the front yard and street side yard request being 3 feet on the front yard and 21 feet on the street side yard. That's creating. variance of 27 feet on the front yard and 19 foot variance on the street side yard as well as the variance regarding the fence height requirement of 48 inches request being 72 inches that's creating a variance of 24 inches i based that on staff report and testimony heard today is there a second second horton thank you it's been properly moved and seconded to approve the two variances uh

As stated in the staff report roll call, please.

Yes. Yes, Louise. Yes, Scott. Yes, yes, yes.

Yes, the variances have been approved. Thank you. We'll allow just a minute to collect the devices.

Next case on the agenda 26 variance. 0, 0, 5, 1.

Mark, yes, Mark Pinto office of planning staff, 4, 4, 4, South 5th street, Louisville, Kentucky, 4, 0, 2, 0, 2. this is 26 variance. 0, 0, 5, 1 for lead spring child care center on whips mill road. There are 2 requests here 1 being a variance from land development code section 5, 3, 1 table 5, 3, 2 to allow the proposed building to exceed the maximum should say 30 foot or sorry the maximum 80 foot front yard setback. So the building itself has a maximum setback of 80 feet on old road. And it's going to be set back roughly 494 feet and a variance from land development code section 531 table 532 to allow the proposed building to exceed the maximum building height by 3 feet. So, again, that front yard set back maximum off of old whips mill road is 80 feet. And they're asking to be 574 feet, making it a variance of 494 feet from old Whipsville road front property line. The building height maximum is 30 feet in the neighborhood form district at this location for this size building. And they're asking to be 33 feet tall, making a variance of 3 feet. These development site is approximately 2 acres, which is part of a 18 acre property. But the actual development area, as you'll see in the coming slides is roughly 2 acres. That includes the childcare center and associated parking. It's located along whips mill road and the proposed childcare center is roughly 17,924 square feet. And all MSD and transportation comments, um, have been addressed and they did give preliminary approval and no outstanding comments are present. Here is the development plan proposal that shows the associated parking with the child care center. The proposed pick up and drop off location that proposed building and the outdoor play area along with the primary and only access off of whips mill road. across from Whittington Parkway, which is just north of the University of Louisville Shelby campus. Here is the subject property outlined in blue. And here is an aerial of the subject site with the star being the approximate location of where the development area starts. And here is the front of the subject property looking in from Whittington Parkway. And here is Southwest along Whipsmill Road that shows some of those adjacent and nearby residential properties with single family homes. And here are some elevations of the proposed building. And this is an elevation zoomed in that highlights where that variance is being requested for the height. So, again, the height restriction here, the maximum is 30 feet. They're asking for 33 feet and it's important to note the way that height is measured in the land development code, which is from grade to the average slope of the gable roof. So that highlighted in yellow is shown where the average height of the gable roof is being measured to. And technically, it shows 32 feet, 10 inches. However, staff felt that it was most appropriate and safe just to go with 33 feet and round up those 2 inches. And here is the variance exhibit for the setback. So the front yard setback is not measured from whips mill road. Although that is the primary street that serves development. Technically, the front yard setback is measured from the front yard with the shortest linear distance, or the shortest linear frontage and that would be old whips mill road. Um, and that red arrow indicates how far the building is set back and the yellow line indicates where that maximum 80 foot setback would be. And here is just another exhibit of logic showing the aerial and the floodplain layer turned on that shows some of the environmental constraints present on the site. That could explain the need for the greater setback along with the existing trees that the applicant can speak more to, but that they have the intent to preserve as much as possible to allow some for some additional screening of those residential properties. But there should be a note on the plan and the applicant can. Elaborate that states that, um, some trees may need to be cleared for utilities and, um, construction purposes and grading.

So, the variance is required in part to. Avoid or not worse than the environmental concerns. Is that correct?

It could be, but I'll let the applicant, um, explain their variance justification.

Okay.

But staff does find the variances are adequately justified for approval based on the standard of reviewing the staff report and therefore your required actions today are to approve or deny the variances.

Thank you. Any questions for Mr Pinto?

So, this didn't really show on the map we had, but oh, whips mail actually turns the corner. If you go back to that map that showed where the variance, yeah, so Old Whips Mill Road borders that on two sides?

Yeah.

Okay.

Technically, the lot is a corner lot. It's on the corner of Whips Mill and Old Whips Mill.

Okay. I didn't pick up that where the variance is right there was Old Whips Mill also. Thank you. Thank you, Mark.

All right, I have four speaker cards for those in support. So if everyone will be speaking, I'll swear everybody in at the same time.

All right.

Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give today is the truth? Thank you. Who wants to start? Mr. Ashburner.

If you don't mind. Madam Chair, members of the Board, Cliff Ashburner with Dinsmore and Scholl. Our office is 101 South 5th Street, Suite 2500, level 40202. I know I have some slides.

Here we go.

Okay. So just to follow up briefly on what Mark mentioned before this was a category to be review, which means that other than the variances we're asking for you asking for today, the staff has reviewed the plan. The use is permitted the configuration number of parking spaces. All that stuff is is well, within code to go to the next slide. Please. So this is the area of the subject property. You can see the main Shelby campus, the site that we're talking about today is where the pin is. This is in an area that's got a lot of residential and on the Shelby campus, a significant amount of office. So it's a good location for a childcare center. If you'll go to the next slide, please. I'll go through these relatively quickly. So this is the subject property. You see the entrance, To the Shelby campus, kind of the main campus there on the right. You can see 1 of the office buildings there in the distance this, the area that would be developed. The entrance is going to align with North Whittington Parkway. And development will go kind of North East from there. So, the area that you see in the foreground is not is not proposed to be developed to go to the next slide. And this is a another shot, basically the same area taken from the entrance itself. So you can imagine the entrances right across whips mill there. This section of whips mill does have. It's 1 of the few areas in this part of the county that has complete streets, meaning that there are bike lanes on street parking. There's also travel lanes and as you get closer to this entrance, there are dedicated left turn lanes either way. Um. So, there's a left turn lane coming this direction turning into Shelby campus and then on the opposite side of the intersection. There's also a left turn lane. That's that's striped in that area to go to the next slide. You can see the here the turn lane again. The site is on the right. You'll go to the next slide. Please. This is looking north view of the site from North Whittington Parkway. The entrance that is proposed on the site plan you'll see in a minute is similar. It's not quite as big as this entrance, of course, because this ends up being 2 lanes, but it has a separated. In and out lane with a median to go to the next slide please. This is the heaven Hill headquarters that's directly across. Whips mill from the subject property, you see, it's a 2 story building. The building we're going to show you today is also a 2 story building. You go to the next slide. Mark touched on this a moment ago, site constraints. So a lot of this property, and you may hear from others today about this, a lot of this property is floodplain and floodway. Meaning that the configuration that you see really is sort of dictated by the area of the property that is outside of the tree canopy, outside of the floodplain, which is part of the reason why the development is up along Whipps Mill. Now, you all also are probably aware. Last fall, there was a proposal on another portion of this site planning commission approved that recommended approval to the city of London unanimously. The city of London. Unanimously disagreed, so that's part of the reason why this site's been redesigned reconfigured. And the building is located where it is to go to the next slide. So this is the proposed site plan. You can see the entrance is similar in type, not in size to North Whittington. The parking lot is on the is kind of directly across from North Whittington. And then you have the proposed building and the play area. You saw a moment ago, the area of the property that is outside of the floodplain. Is outside of the tree canopy that's what we're trying to keep the development area to those were concerns that were raised in the previous zoning case. Having the building too close to the homes on North on old whips mill, just part of the reason that the building has been moved away from old whips mill. There's also a concern about access on old whips mill that's been removed from the plan. And we think that this redesign, which, as I said before, it is a permitted use everything other than. 3 feet of building height and the distance from old whips mill is in compliance with the land development code. We've made those changes to try to address both the code as well as community concerns that were expressed to go to the next slide. So, here is the proposed site plan cars obviously will come in on the right hand side of the entrance. They'll go around. You can see the drop off area. They are directly adjacent to the building. There's parking and then landscaping along whips mill. The play area is in on the East side or North East side kind of plan East here. If you go to the next slide. And here is what the building is proposed to look like. So it's a 2 story building board and baton metal roof. It's a, this is a custom design for this site. And leaf spring is committed to this area and committed to bringing a new childcare option to this part of the community. So, interestingly. A commercial building of this size has a maximum building height of 30 feet. If we were to build a home on this property, the building height would be 35 feet. So we are asking for a variance of 3 feet. That is a little bit of a trick within the code. I'm not exactly sure the policy behind that. And as far as the front yard variance, it really is an attempt to stay farther away, move the development to an appropriate area on the subject property. Understanding that our land development code does measure the front yard as the shortest frontage on a multi frontage lot. So, as the shortest frontage, and you measure from there, so that's why we're exceeding that maximum setback. Um. I'd be happy to take any questions I have with me as well. Ashley Bartley with she drew the plan Matt Ricketts with who is a development partner for the University of Louisville and then Tim Huber who's with bolt construction there the folks who designed and are going to build the building.

So, there's been coordination with the city of London right on their concerns. Is that right?

Uh, not coordination with the city of London, because the building is moved out of the city of London. We were the attempt was to address concerns that were raised during the public hearing process before, which was among the concerns. The building was too close to residences on old whips mill. There were residents on old whips mill who made that point access access on old whips mill. 1 other thing that I should mention. Both proposals have been reviewed by MSD. MSD in both cases asked that we detain stormwater at a rate of 1.5 to 1. So that is part of this plan as well. It is again underground detention under the parking lot, but we are over detaining relative to the normal requirement. we went into that in more detail in the zoning case, obviously, but MSD has signed off on the plan and we'd ask that you give their analysis it's due.

Okay. Members, any questions or is there a need to hear from others who are here in support?

Yeah. Question please. Does this drawing show the retention basin?

I think I saw the squared area or the rectangle that's in the center of the parking lot. Right. It's underground detention. Yeah.

So it's going to be under that lot right there. Under the parking lot.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Porter. Good afternoon.

Hello. Porter. 3109 West tone way level 40299. I come here representing the city of bell made and if we could put up the. The large site plan on here, please. Um, well, no, let's let's do 1 that shows the entire 17 acre lot.

Yeah, not very clear. There was one earlier, Joe.

Yeah, it might be in March. There we are.

Yeah, good. As I say, I represent the City of Bellmead and in the previous case that was before the City of Linden finally, the City of Bellmead objected to the plan and joined with Linden residents and Bellmead residents and other neighbors in opposition. This plan is much better. We support the two variances with one little minor thing. The city of Richland, or excuse me, Bellmead is right in here. This is their line. And this puts it right at that corner. There's a dumpster. And there's some residents right down here these. Places we would accept even an additional 30 foot. Variants to get that dumpster further to the east and to get that a little part of the driveway further to the east. So, I think the current is what 494 feet we would support if the applicant would go with it a 530 foot. uh variants and move that uh little thing right there the dumpster and a little bit of the parking area further away from uh residences in belmede but with that uh little addition uh we support both variances could you show us again what the the dumpster i can clearly see that and then yeah the portion of the parking area There okay, this line right about coming right here. This is all the city of Bell made. So, the only part of this development that's now proposed to be in the city is the dumpster and kind of a turnaround area. For the parking lot, and. This is a residence in Bell made these are residents down here and if this were just moved over a little farther. get it away a little further away another 30 feet. City Bell made would be happier.

All right thank you thank you there there may be questions any questions for Mister Porter.

There are no questions thank you.

All right.

Mister otter.

Dan Otter 8808 Perry.

One moment please.

Okay.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Name and address please. Daniel Otter 8808 Perry Road, Linden, Kentucky, roughly 250 yards due west of the proposed development.

And you're speaking in opposition?

I'm speaking in opposition. Yes.

All right. If you raise your right hand, I'll swear you in. Do you swear the testimony you're about to give today is the truth?

Yes.

Please proceed.

Okay. If I could have the variance plat that Mr. Porter just had on that, I would appreciate it. I'm essentially an information gathering mode on these particular variances. It's difficult for Joe Blow to ascertain some of these pieces of information. I did read on the conditions of approval chapter five relating to this proposal that the building height stated by the developers was 28 feet. and that the city indicated by elevation that it was 37 feet. So the variance to 34 even accounting for the average slope does not meet the code. You're still four feet over. So I'm wondering why we still are not meeting the code by this variance. from what I was given instruction on that the structure must be at or below 30 feet for 5,000 to 30,000 square feet buildings. The other issue that I am most concerned with is the existing grove of trees in this area that serves as a barrier for the Residents that are most affected here, and I'm right over here in this area and I understand. My understanding is, is there can affect that the original proposal under the London plan was to completely eliminate that grove and cut down that area for a better line of sight. So that people coming along. uh which mill would have a better chance of seeing this intersection uh i'm assuming and i could be proven wrong that they are not going to touch that very large grove of trees although i did hear the indication that they wanted right to do that for utility purposes so that's a very critical issue for those of us that still have to live with this I, like Mr. Porter, am in much greater agreement with the process being further east down Whipsmill Road. I'm still concerned about something that a roughly 50 to 100 yard shift to the east doesn't really completely help my neighbors with, and that is essentially light pollution. Now, maybe they're dedicated to installing dark sky lighting, which allows the light, instead of going up, like you might see at your local Thornton's gas station, which in a residential area would be very detrimental. All right. I am concerned that they have not committed to the dark sky fixtures that point directly down to minimize the impact of that for all the neighborhood. So I would like that addressed. I'm curious as to the intentions of the leaf spring as to when they're going to have these lights on. Obviously their operation hours will cease probably sometime in the mid to late evening and I'm wondering if for security purposes they're anticipating leaving these bright lights on 24 or at least overnight when our neighborhoods are trying to rest and not have any light intrusion, particularly in the winter months. So if that could be addressed, that would be helpful. Sorry, you have about 30 seconds to wrap up your testimony. Last thing, and that is the detention, underground detention I'd like to know what the rules are for keeping that uncluttered and draining appropriately over the long haul. Who oversees the veracity of that system actually working over the long haul? That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Mr. Ashburner, you have five minutes for rebuttal.

All right, I will try not to take the five minutes. Um, so there were some a few questions that were raised there 1st, and foremost, we looked at the and Mr Porter had communicated to me the desire to move the whole thing out of the city of Bellmead. I think he's underestimating exactly what that would take. It actually takes about 40 feet. And if we move over 40 feet, then. We risk getting into floodplain area with grading, which is something that we don't want to do. We would prefer to leave this leave the site as it is where it is in order to minimize the risk of impacting the floodplain in any way and impacting that tree canopy. The question for Mr otter about building height, the building height is measured by code. If you have a sloped roof, it's measured to the. Medium point to the middle of that roof and so the variance that we're asking for today, we feel confident meets the measurement and meets what's in the code when it comes to lighting on the property. I'm sure there will be some security lighting as you all know our land development code already requires. Lighting to be directed down to be light sources, not to be visible off site and for there to be limited, very limited light spill at the property line, you know, locating this building directly on what on whips mill. Right across from the Shelby campus and minimizing disturbance on any of the tree canopy there should address that. But. Mr. Huber pointed out that the lights in the parking lot will go out when the. When the property shuts down for the evening, so we think we don't think that that's really going to be an issue. I think it's probably covered by the land development code, but I just wanted to mention that as well. And when it comes to underground detention, every underground detention base, and that is permitted by comes with a long term maintenance agreement. which requires the property owner to inspect and maintain the property in order to ensure that the underground system is working. I will say just in addition to that, the person who pays the most direct and immediate penalty for a failure of an underground detention system is the property owner. Because their parking lot is going to suddenly fill with water, and they're going to have lots and lots of site problems. So there is no incentive among any of the parties at issue to have that system not work properly. The 1, 1 question about tree mass, so we mentioned, I mentioned, I met with attended a city of bellmead commissioners meeting. And did mention that somebody asked the question about the tree canopy. Would there be any tree canopy that was disturbed? Uh, is asked for an outlet. For the underground detention system, there is an existing clearing. That has a sanitary sewer line in it right now, and the intent is to run the storm outlet parallel to that. to either not have to disturb any trees or certainly minimize that disturbance. There's already a 15-foot easement there that we think we'll be able to use. So that's what I have to provide. I do think that the variances are justified. I think the use, as I said before, the use is permitted under our code now. I believe that the variance certainly from old whips mill is justified by the concerns that were raised by Mr otter and others in the previous process and the building height variance. I think. You know, we have a very large code. It doesn't always make sense. I think here having a little bit of extra height in an area where a residential building could have even more height is certainly justified. So I'm happy to take any other questions if there are any.

Do you know what the hours are for the child care center? 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And you said the lights would be...

Parking lot lights will dim once everybody's out of the building. But I would expect that there, I mean, just as every other building, every other office building, there will be some security lighting around the property in the evening. Do you know what the property was used for previously? I don't know that there was I've heard like. Way way back there was a landscape business there, but I don't it's been vacant. Okay. For at least. 25 years. Okay. All right. Members in questions for Mr. burner.

Yeah, I believe the representative was asking about the dumpster is. Is it possible to relocate that somewhere else on site? Just refer to me.

We've looked and, you know, it is, it's in the best location that it can be. And I will just add, it's, it's a 100 feet off of the street. And it's going to be in an enclosure as it is required to be. And in addition to that, there'll be landscaping around the enclosure and between the parking lot and whips mill. I don't believe that the location of the dumpster really is ultimately going to create a concern for anybody. Other questions?

The reason I'm asking this question, it has to do with the amount of parking you have. Is this a daycare for just children? Like preschool and lower or okay. So, in regards to what the gentleman from Bellmead said, or or Mr Porter about the parking, the number of spaces you have in there is what. Is either required or you need in other words, you can't just cut that little piece off.

So we need. Yeah, it's what we need between staff and and parents coming and parking and walking in. They do. So. I didn't want to trying to keep our discussion just to the variances, but 1 thing that sets leaf spring apart is they take children who are very young. So. You know, 6 months, or maybe less than that. um and they have what's called the get well place so minor illnesses do not prevent a child from coming to school they have a segregated area with nursing that allows kids who maybe they are they discover that they're sick during the day or they have you know a mild cold or something like that to still come what that means of course is that you have parents who are this is not a situation where Every child who comes is somebody who can get out of the car on their own and walk in. There does need to be parking for parents to drop off and carry their children in or make sure they get in.

Okay, but your hours of operation do end at 7. There's no night activities associated with that?

Correct. After 7, there would be staff there for a limited period of time, but the children are gone by 7.

No reason you couldn't turn the lights down. I understand the need for security. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Gentlemen, any questions? Yes.

What is the planned capacity for the school, for the daycare?

The planned capacity, I asked him this right before we started, was 192. That's like the max capacity. I don't know that we'll I think it was a 192.

I'm going to make sure he's.

And is there an age limit?

Yes, it does. It goes to 4 and a half. So, like, Pre K. 192.

Thank you. I believe that's all the questions. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um.

At this point, I'll close the public hearing. We will move into deliberations on 26 variants 0051. And you've had an opportunity to hear testimony from Mr. Ashburner representing the applicant, Mr. Porter representing the city of Belle Mead. And you've also heard from Mr. Otter who spoke in opposition. So we have two variances. Variances can be taken together. In a motion, so, um, is there any discussion on what you've heard?

Is there a motion that I'm sure please?

Yes.

Motion please. And you said variances will be taken together.

Yes.

Regarding case number 26, variance 0051. There are two variances. This is one vote for the two. Motion is to approve the variances based on the standards of review and the staff analysis in the review in the testimony we've heard today in the open hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right. Thank you. It's been properly moved and seconded. to approve the two variances as proposed in the staff report. Roll call, please.

Horton?

Yes.

Bozos?

Yes.

Louise? Yes. Scott?

Yes.

Rodriguez?

Yes.

Bond?

Yes, the variances have been approved.

Thank you. Next case on the agenda, 26 variance 0053.

Zach Schwager, Office of Planning, 444 South 5th Street, Louisville, Kentucky, 40202. This is a variance request from the St. Matthew's development code for a street side yard setback for an addition onto a principal structure. The requirement is 30 feet. The request is 15 feet for a variance of 15 feet. Um, it's in the, or for residential single family zoning district, it's an approximately 2 tens of an acre and it's on the southeastern corner of high cliff Avenue and Wallace Avenue in St Matthews. The applicant is proposing to construct an addition onto the side of the existing principle structure that would encroach into the required street side yard setback. and the green portion there that is where the encroachment uh would be um next slide we can go back to that if we need to that's the zoning of the subject property and surrounding properties in the area and then next we're going to look at the aerial so the proposed construction is where that truck is but we can go back if we need to next slide this is the front of the subject property and then we will see the proposed area for the addition and staff finds that the variance has been adequately justified and that the addition will not adversely impact any adjoining property owners or local infrastructure And then the required action is to approve or deny the variance request from St Matthew's development code. Section 46 to allow the structure to encroach into the required street setback.

Are there any questions so there's already a fence around the property?

There is not.

There's no offense.

But I can also let, there is that fence, but there is also another fence, but that is not here today.

Okay.

Proposed fence, I should say.

All right. Remember the questions. So, if you could back up to the one that showed the variance. So, it's really just a very small portion of the addition they're doing.

yes that's the green portion that would encroach further into the street side yard setback toward wallace avenue would be that's what we're looking at today the addition is larger than that it's just the green portion that encroaches correct right yes i was thinking sorry yes but yeah hey all right thank you zach thank you

All right. Would the applicant come forward, please?

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Name and address, please. My name is Christopher Manzo, AIA. I'm with Sandbox Architecture and 139 North Bailey Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky, 40206.

Thank you. Do you swear the testimony you're about to give today is the truth? I do. Please proceed.

i'm here on behalf of caitlyn carey and bruce uh blake buck the owners of the property uh that are requesting the variance and um i don't really have much to add it's a pretty pretty small addition i'm here to answer any questions on their behalf i'm their architect so okay questions related to the uh the design for the addition

All right.

I don't think there are any questions. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Okay. At this point, I'm closing the public hearing. We're in deliberations on 26 variance 0053, and the variance is required because of an addition to the structure, which will result in an encroachment of 15 feet into the street side yard setback.

Any discussion or it's anyone ready to make a motion like, please proceed. This is a member of those with regard to case number 26 variance. 0, 0, 5, 3 location, 3800 Highcliffe Avenue. Move that we approve this variance as written in the staff report specifically the location being street side yard. The requirement. Of 30 feet, uh, request of 15 feet, thus creating a variance of 15 feet based that on the staff report.

Their 2nd 2nd, thank you. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve. Uh, 26, the variance from St Matthews development code to allow the structure to encroach into the street side yard. Setback roll call please.

Yes, yes. Yes.

Yes.

Scott.

Yes.

Born.

Yes. The variance has been approved. Thank you. Next is 26 variance. 0, 0, 6, 0, uh, member Lewis will be, uh, abstaining refusing herself, um, or this case because of a relationship with the applicant, the representative applicants representative.

All right, Abby, Abby bills, office of planning staff, 4, 4, 4, South 5th street, Louisville, Kentucky, 402. This is 26 variant 60 with an associated waiver for McDonald's on Bardstown road. All right, so the variance request is a variance from land development code section 532 to allow a few items to be to encroach in the side yard setback. This includes parking a partial drive through lane and dumpsters. The associated waiver is a waiver to omit the vehicular use area landscape buffer area along Belmont road and to reduce the along Barts town road. The site is approximately point 8 acres in the C2 commercial zoning district and suburban marketplace corridor form district. There's an existing McDonald's on site that is proposed to be demolished. And the applicant is proposing to construct a new McDonald's in its place. The applicant is proposing to reduce the side yard set back from 25 to 5 feet. And then for the waiver, the applicant is proposing to omit the waiver along Belmont and reduce it to 4.9 feet along. This is a zoning map of the site, and then this is the aerial view. I will note that the property lines on logic are significantly off the real property lines, which we'll see on the site plan are much closer to the existing parking lot.

This is a view from road of the subject property. And then this is the view from Belmont road. These are the adjacent properties across parts on road. And then the adjacent properties across Belmont road.

And then these are the adjacent condo properties on the side yard. This 1st, 4 residential uses the reason for the 25 foot requirement on the side yard. Here's the site plan. Um, as you can see in the bottom, there is the 25 foot requirement on the side yard setback. They're proposing to reduce it to 5 as there are dumpsters part of the drive through line and 2 parking spaces in the setback. And then in yellow, you can see the location of the waivers on top is the waiver that's proposed to be reduced. To about half of its size, and then on Belmont road to the right is where the is proposed to be omitted completely. So, the requested variance and waiver are justified for approval based on the standard of review. The requested variance will not inversely affect public health safety or welfare and requested waiver will not adversely affected joining property owners or violate guidelines of plan. 2040. So your required actions are to approve or deny the variance to allow parking and drive through lane and dumpsters to encroach in the side yard setback and then approve or deny the waiver to one omit the view a LB along Belmont and reduce the view a LB along Barts town road. Any questions for staff?

There's already a McDonald's there that's going to be demolished. Is the footprint approximately the same or is this a larger footprint?

It's approximately the same. I don't have the measurement on hand, but I'm sure the applicant can elaborate on that.

Okay.

All right. Oh, go ahead.

Yes. Are the dumpsters and so forth going to be located in the same position, the new ones as the old ones?

I'm not sure I'll let the applicant answer that question.

Okay. Thank you.

So, the reason that the, uh, the request is to omit the is because. The location of the building is shifted.

I'm not sure if that's the reason for omitting the LBA, but the justification provided by the applicant is that because the property lines are right up against the proposed parking spaces, there's a lot of extra green space in the right of way that kind of serves the intent of the LBA. Okay. Okay.

All right. Members, any questions for Abby?

Any other questions?

Thank you, Abby. All right. I have two speaker cards, one for Matt Allen and one for Michelle Gonsalves.

Are they online? I'm sorry. Okay.

Are they both indicated as the applicant rep?

I can move them both over. Otherwise, who should I pull over first?

Pull over the applicant first, if you would. Please.

I'm here today.

Ma'am, could you give us your name and address first, please?

Michelle Gonzalez, 65 Aberdeen Drive, Glasgow, Kentucky, 42141.

Are you able to turn your camera on? Okay, I can see you. Thank you. Could you raise your right hand so that I can swear you in? Do you swear the testimony you're about to give today is the truth?

Yes.

All right. What would you like the board to know about the project?

This project is for a rebuild of the McDonald's that had a fire July 7th of last year. So, That's the purpose of the rebuild. Otherwise, that wouldn't be occurring. So with the new building, it'll be built based on, while the building was built in 1984, so there's been a lot of changes to the McDonald's since then. So the new building, will take into account the modern day changes that have occurred with the way that they do business with drive-throughs and curbside pickups. The new building will essentially use the same foot ... Well, the same pavement area of impervious. The footprint of the building is slightly larger, just with their new buildings that they they use today so it'll use the same circulation the parking area is getting slightly larger and to address some of the comments or questions that you had earlier the the dumpster is in the same southern portion of the property, rather than being on the Belmont side, which I had previously been on, it'll now be in the opposite corner. But that's due to the circulation of pickup in the back of house. So the front of the building where the drive-through is, is now on the opposite side. Rather than being when you first pull in from Belmont, there used to be the canopy there for the drive-through. Now it'll be on the opposite end. In the setback from the residential, essentially we're keeping the same amount of space between the parking or from the property line to the parking. And the waivers for the landscape vehicle use areas is because The ordinance wasn't in place when this first was built. So that footprint there didn't really give us the space that we needed to get everything in safe circulation around the building. So we had to expand out. And so that's why we're asking for those.

And you're with STV Group, is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, and the entrance and exit from the site, is that unchanged?

No, those have stayed the same.

Ma'am?

Yes, could you hear me?

I thought I lost you for a minute. Go ahead, please.

The entrances and exits have remained the same.

They will remain the same?

Yes.

Okay. All right. Members, any questions for Ms. Goncalves? Thank you. I don't believe there are any questions at this point. Thank you. All right. I have a speaker card for Matt Allen.

I'm speaking. I'm the only one speaking today. He had to go to another meeting.

Okay. All right. Um, I don't believe there are any further questions for you, ma'am. So, um, appreciate it. I don't have any other speaker cards related to the case. Ms. Gonzalez, as she mentioned, um, she will be speaking for Mr. Allen will not be speaking today to this case. So I'll close the public hearing and we'll move into deliberations on the McDonald's on Bargetown Road, 3340 Bargetown Road. And we have two actions for consideration of variance to allow the parking drive-through lane and dumpsters to encroach into the side yard setback. And we also have a waiver to omit the VUA LBA. So we've gotten a good feel for the design of the site and the McDonald's is going to be upgraded and the existing building torn down and a new building constructed on the site. So if there's no discussion, is anyone ready to make a motion?

All right.

This member with regard to case number twenty six variance zero zero six zero location thirty three forty bars town road move that we approve the variance from land development code as written in the staff report specifically the location being the side yard setback requirement is twenty five feet. The request is five feet thus creating a variance of twenty feet and I based that on the staff report and testimony heard today. They're second second Wharton.

All rights and probably moved and seconded to approve the variance is stated in the staff report. Roll call please.

Yes, yes, Scott, yes, yes, one.

Yes, the variance has been approved. Is there a motion on the waiver? Yes.

with regard to case number 26 waiver 0064 a move that we approve this waiver of the land development code as written in the staff report to omit the vua lba along belmont road and reduce the vua lba along barstown road based that on the staff report and testimony heard today there a second second or

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the waiver to omit the view a LB a roll call please.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, one.

Yes, both the variance in the waiver have been approved.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is number 526 variance. I'm sorry, number 626 CUP 0082, Catherine.

Good afternoon. Catherine Gomez, Office of Planning Staff, 444 South 5th Street, Louisville, Kentucky, 40202. This is 26 CUP 0082, a short-term rental at 16071 Winding Bridge Trail. The request is for conditional use permit to allow short term rental of a dwelling unit. That is not the primary residence of the owner. This isn't our 4 single family residential zoning district and the neighborhood form district and the applicant is requesting 3 bedrooms on site. Because the property is 17 acres in size. However, they are permitted to have a max occupancy of 12 guests. There are no short term rental properties approved by within 600 feet of the subject property. Next slide please. Here's the aerial of the zoning. It's all within our 4 residential. Next slide please. This is the site. Like I said, it is 17 or 17 acres. The house is in the bottom left corner. If you can see over there. Next slide please. Here's the front view of the subject property. Next slide and then this is outside of the winding bridge trail entrance on road. This is about North of the property and then on the next slide, you'll just see some residential on the other side of road. Next slide please staff finds the request sufficiently justified for approval based on staff's analysis. There are no short term rentals approved by within 600 feet and the property includes sufficient parking on site to accommodate the use and it meets all the applicable applicable standards of the conditional use permit. Required action is to approve or deny the conditional use permit for a short term rental.

Any questions for staff had an opportunity to see photographs of the bedrooms.

Yeah, there they should have been in with the agenda. They were attacked. Yes.

Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you, Catherine. I don't believe there are any other questions at this point.

Perfect.

All right.

This Eisenbeck. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Name and address, please.

Rebecca Eisenbach, 16,000, Winding Ridge Trail, Louisville, Kentucky, 40299.

Thank you. Would you raise your right hand? Do you swear the testimony you're about to give today is the truth? I do. Okay. What would you like to share with the board?

I don't really have anything to share. I just was here to take questions if you all had any about the proposal.

Okay. Will you be managing this property? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And you live how far?

I live right next door actually. Okay. So I'm very close.

So, in the event of emergency, you could get, I can be there in 30 seconds. Okay. All right. Um. Tell us about the neighborhood meeting was their neighborhood meeting.

There was a neighborhood meeting we had. Everyone, except for 1 man, the bordering that came. Everyone seemed okay with it. Um, we have 1 neighbor that. Up the gravel row, when you go up the gravel road to the left, he has a lot. He was concerned about Airbnb. He lives in St Matthews right now and he was concerned and the only reason why I wanted to get a short term rental for this location is for a Derby or masters or type. Event, um, we would like to propose to have a 30 day rental. Normally, but specifically certain times of the year, if we could use it as a short term rental, that's the only reason why I was trying to get this permit.

Okay, would this be your 1st short term rental?

No, ma'am I have 2 in Gatlinburg 1 in Bloomfield and then I have 2 longer rentals in Shelby County.

So you're familiar with the requirements to register.

Yes, yes, I have the email. I think that Catherine sent me on the next steps far as getting the permit that you need to get and have it on file.

Okay. Okay. So you would be looking at short term rentals as well as longer term. Is that correct?

I live next door. I don't specifically like Airbnb. I know I have some, but I would rather have someone live there for at least 30 days or longer. Preferably. Doctors nurses, people that are traveling in the area that need somewhere to stay for a longer period of time. We live up a gravel road. He's on the picture. So it's not. Very convenient for. If you're coming in from out of town for a tourism type thing, I don't feel like it's that convenient for that only for. Certain situations like Derby or PGA events if we ever have those again. Okay.

All right remember that any other questions from his eyes and back.

All right, I believe you've answered all the questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, at this point, um, I don't have any other speaker cards related to the case. So I'll close the public hearing. We are in deliberations on, uh, short term rental C. U. P. on 16. Oh, 71 winding Ridge trail. If there is no discussion and no additional information required, is anyone ready to move forward with emotion?

I can make a motion on share.

Pardon me?

I can take a motion. Yes. I move that we approve 26 CUP0082 based on the staff report analysis and applicant and staff testimony here today, subject to the proposed conditional approval.

Okay. All right. Second. Thank you. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the conditional use permit for Winding Ridge Trail. Roll call, please.

Horton?

Yes.

Louise? Yes. Rosas?

Yes.

Rodriguez?

Yes.

Scott?

Yes.

Bond?

Yes. The CUP has been approved. Thank you. Next on the agenda is an appeal. We have two appeals, both related to the same property. We're starting with 26 Appeal 0001, Joe.

Note that this is an appeal related to a citation.

Good afternoon. Joe Haberman, Office of Planning, 444 South 5th Street. Jay could not be here today, so I will present this appeal on his behalf and on behalf of the administrative official that made the decision, which in this case was a zoning enforcement officer. So what we have, we have two appeals that are related. I'll note that and how they're related in the second appeal. A little bit further, but just to kind of answer that question a little bit upfront is. Under the short term rental registration ordinance, there is what we call the 2 strike rule. If you have 2 substantiated complaints, and I'll know what that is a little bit more in the next case. Then we administratively are required to revoke the registration. And then the property owner host has the opportunity to appeal that decision. To the board, so this property does not have a conditional use permit, which I know is what the board is used to seeing. They have an owner occupied short term rental. But it's still held to that to strike rule, just like a conditional uses. The difference is, if there was a conditional use, we would have to. Consider revoking that as well, so that's something that the board doesn't see very often, but that is. What's before us today the 1st appeal relates to 1 of the substantiated complaints that's referenced in the 2nd appeal. So there were several complaints, but this is 1 of them and he has appealed the property owner. The citation that was issued by his own enforcement officers. So. what they're in violation of is not having the registration. They have an active registration license on file with our office. But one of the standard for any license is that's for one party at a time, one contract at a time. You cannot rent rooms to different guests like a traditional bed and breakfast where each room has guests that may not know each other under different contracts. When you get a short-term rental approval, you have to keep it to one party at a time. They all have to be under the same contract. They all have to know each other. They effectively use the home like a housekeeping establishment would in a long-term rental. So you can go to the next slide, Julian. So just some background, the property is zoned R5. That is why he's operating with a registration that is owner occupied required. Otherwise he would need the conditional use permit. But even if he had that conditional use permit, he would still be subject to that requirement of one contract at a time. You can only get around that if you have multiple dwelling units on the property, like an ADU, that's a standalone dwelling unit. He has an active registration, as I mentioned. The citation relies in part on how the property is listed on Airbnb. It might be listed on some other platforms, The evidence that the zoning officer used was primarily well, exclusively from Airbnb. And I'll note that in a 2nd, but a little bit more detail. And then the appellant filed a timely appeal just. one slightly confusing part of this is this citation was issued in accordance with metro code not a it wasn't a land development code citation because of that you can appeal it two ways and he the property owner did appeal it both ways and that's what led to the continuance is you can appeal the technical issuance of the citation, things to do with everything other than zoning to the code enforcement board. But if you're getting to a zoning issue, the zoning decision behind the action, then it has to come to this board. So he appealed it both ways. It's my understanding that that appeal was heard last Friday by the code board and the owner did not attend and they upheld the decision. I was not at that meeting. That's what I was told. Property owner might be able to fill you in on that, but it had they decided that it was not a violation. It basically would have rendered this appeal moot. But since it's my understanding, they did not do that. We got to go through it and see if the zoning decision was flawed. You can go to the next slide.

So,

Just to get, I covered a little bit what's on this slide, but just how it's listed and how that's important is most times when you have an Airbnb property that's being listed, if you go find it on Airbnb, there is one listing for the entire dwelling unit. What makes this unique is, and I might have the bedrooms incorrect, but I believe it's a four bedroom home. So there are five listings as of today for this property. What that is, is the whole house is listed. Then each of the bedrooms have their own listing. That in and of itself is not a violation to list the property in that way because some. Post for cleaning cost don't want to list the whole house for a small party. They might. Limit what they're renting for a smaller party and then have a lesser price. So they don't have to clean the other 3 bedrooms or 2 bedrooms that they're not using. It's a unique thing, but in and of itself again, it's not a violation, but there's still only 1 contract. Okay, but what has to happen is. the host that does that has to be very careful to never have overlap overlapping guests stay there they have to if they get that one bedroom they have to shut it all down for the other three bedrooms or however else they're renting it it is very unusual to do but it's not unlawful. But what happened here was there was complaints from a neighbor that multiple people were staying there at the same time and some other complaints that the neighbor made. And the officer reviewed the comments by the guests. So if you're familiar with Airbnb, you don't have to leave a comment, but that's kind of what it's built on. So when you read the comments and there's some excerpts, I think on the next slide, if you can advance. Um, there are ever since the property was listed. And up until recently, after this appeal was. Filed there's references to shared spaces. Now, shared with the owner would be okay. You can share a space with the owner and it is owner occupied on the registration, but a lot of the comments referred to sharing space with other guests. And it is. very unusual if not i haven't heard of it where somebody would refer to the host owner as another guest they would usually refer to them as the host or the owner so this is the evidence that the officer used to make their decision that in several instances that the property was being used for multiple parties And it was currently being listed for multiple parties, and that's the basis of their decision to issue a citation.

So were there any reviews that specifically mentioned sharing this space with the host? I know that that's an excerpt of the reviews.

So I read, I mean, again, there's five listings and there's lots of reviews over the years. I recall some listings referencing the host by name, host owner, same person. Um, so there were some people that clearly knew that he was the host and I didn't see any references that use the host name. That said he was on site with them. Okay. It's usually and I didn't recall any. Saying I was on site with the host. It's always I was on site with another guest and. Other guests might be staying there. It was things of that nature. And in the Airbnb world, the host is an important person, so I don't know why you would refer to them as another guest. Maybe the appellant can explain why that was happening, but it would be unusual because the host is your contact. That is somebody that you work through. And in this case, other people referred to them as the host. Thank you.

You can go to the next slide.

So, just some background that you normally see, this is the property, the zoning. It's all residential around it next slide. Here is an aerial, which probably is not going to be a much help for this decision. Next slide. Here is the subject property. It's the house in the middle next slide. So the staff findings is just looking over what the officer used. There was evidence that the property was being rented to multiple guests at a time. And just looking at Airbnb, there was a method of being able to do that. So the method was there and the evidence showed that some people claimed that there was other guests there while they were there.

And the appellant submitted some information

and I'll allow him to elaborate. I don't want to paraphrase his evidence that he was the other person in those scenarios, but there was nothing provided other than that, such as documentation from Airbnb that showed contracts. We don't have access to that. They would have to provide that or we'd have to subpoena that type of information from Airbnb. no type of evidence like that, which would clarify whether there were overlapping contracts was provided.

Next slide.

So with that, the decision by the board is to approve or deny the appeal. Approving the appeal would be overturning the decision by the zoning enforcement officer, and that would effectively require us to rescind the citation and the corresponding fine. Denying the appeal would be affirming the decision of the zoning enforcement officer, which would be, and this decision is not critical to the next case, but is important to the next case. Be happy to answer any questions.

So the citation was issued in February.

Yes, and the decision to revoke was made on or the next day okay following that can you back up two slides to where those statements were from the guest experience and i didn't go over those because those are in the staff report if that is difficult to read i just added some bold for emphasis to the types of keywords that the officer saw for instance for instance in this second or the first bullet it's not bold but it's sharing the bathroom private room with a lively shared kitchen felt private despite the potential for housemates even though other guests shared the space the other occupants there's a reference to long-term renters which is also problematic you're not allowed to share the space with long-term renters so that doesn't matter whether they're long or short staying with multiple other parties and one of the other guests. And I didn't go through and add other references. That's what Jay put into the staff report.

So I just wanted to put it up there for conversation.

Okay. All right. Members, anything for Mr. Haberman?

I'm just curious. I know that all the Airbnb renters or Airbnb itself will submit taxes, property taxes to the city. Is that done on a weekly or monthly basis or is it individualized? When they rent, and if if that could be evidence, you know.

So they do that through the revenue commission. We're not the tax authority. Um, it's my understanding at least initially they did it annually and they write, they might do it monthly now, but they write 1 big check without any information related to any individual. Rentals that's a whole nother discussion. It's not relevant to this appeal, but there's nothing in the public record. Um, from Airbnb that we could use to kind of figure out. something on a very localized scale, like who was renting to who and when.

Okay, thanks.

So is this only on Airbnb or is it also on other sites or is this the only site that was checked?

That's an excellent question. I do not have the answer to that. It is very, very common for short-term rental host to use multiple sites because there's some software to kind of let you close down a listing if it's booked on another site the evidence and the case for this citation only used airbnb that the property owner might be able to answer that should be able to answer that but did did this issue

Would codes start with a complaint that was filed?

Yes. For the most part, everything in the enforcement world for Metro is complaint-based. There was a complaint filed about a short-term rental and that kind of led to this. There's been ongoing enforcement for several years regarding this property over other things that I don't want to touch on because they're not relevant to the case.

But yes, there was a complaint.

Okay.

Okay, I believe that's all the questions. Thank you.

And with appeals, the procedures a little bit different. I don't suspect that there's anybody else in the room besides the property owner, but I think we call for people that support. The administrative official before we hear from the appellant.

You have no one online. Yeah. All right. Thank you. All right, Mr. Sufi. Good afternoon.

We will need a speaker card before you leave.

Okay. Okay.

All right name and address please.

My name is Osmond Sufi. Address is 3004 Cleveland Boulevard, 40206 Louisville, Kentucky.

Raise your right hand and I'll swear you in. Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give today is the truth?

I do.

Please proceed.

All right. So Joe Haberman mentioned that there's been a long years of violations that I've been, you know, complained about with my neighbor. And I kind of want to start the story there because it gives light to why these, you know, why this case is even being heard. So I have a... Property that I bought without a bathroom, so I had to perform some renovations to get that bathroom usable. So when I did that, I ordered a dumpster. And I started putting this stuff in there and the neighbor complained about that. And then I was getting somebody to remove the dumpster and then there was animals being thrown in the dumpsters and she complained about the smell of the dumpster. So the complaints started because I was friends with the neighbor and that friendship kind of went sour. And after that went sour, I have been harassed by the neighbor. I have called the police on the neighbor with, she put a sticky note on my camera, which I had reported to the police as well. so there was like a litany of different things that she was complaining about that even before it got to like violations or anything like that so i want to just make that clear that this is a long history of complaints due to a friendship that went sour and then she just didn't like the that i had an airbnb

Okay, but but you understand we can only take action on the citation for the multiple simultaneous contracts.

Yes. So also regarding that, I do not rent separately at the same time. There is a feature on Airbnb that allows you to link a room to a main listing. So that I was, I submitted a documentation of that feature And proof that that was actually that link was actually, like, connected to my main house and then the rooms. So the reason why I rent separate rooms and then stay. In the 1 of the documents that was shown, sorry, kind of going off of tangible is something that I remember is that it mentions that there was a housemate in the property. There's long term items in the property in the kitchen is fully stocked with stuff because I personally live there. So there's an active living on the property. I do not share that. I am the 1 that lives on the property. But however, Airbnb does require to disclose a photo. So, like, if a business wanted to be on Airbnb, if you were going to rent the room, then you would have to provide a photo of yourself. But the picture I use is a very old photo and I did not have long hair in that time. So then, like, leading into the actual citation that was made, I have the comment that was actually made by the enforcer and she says, and I quote. this host is renting the house to multiple different clients groups at the same time guests are sharing kitchen bathroom facilities and they aren't even being told ahead of time about this arrangement Please do something to fix this. So this enforcers name is actually Alicia. She has also. You know, cited me for this issue before and when we spoke Alicia was not aware of the land development code that I am allowed to stay at the property and I am allowed to rent my room simultaneously. So we had a conversation multiple times, which I actually got Joe Haberman involved and I told him that the land development code allows. 1 contract at a time, but I'm also a owner occupied. short-term rental registration which is what i submitted my registration as so in that i i am the occupier that the other guests are mentioning i haven't seen any proof to say that i was not i've seen stipulations of you know guests speaking about it and i also am not aware of where those reviews are coming from because i do have listings in other states just like the previous CUP requests. So I have over 18 listings, and if you look at the reviews, Airbnb doesn't show you specific to a listing. So the reviews, I find that it's not quite clear where those reviews are coming from.

Do you have other reviews that mention sharing the space with you specifically?

I think the housemate comment and the long-term renter comment, I think prove that there's somebody there that's more long-term and more sustained into the home. I think that's proof that it's me and somebody that is not a short-term renter. But you're not a renter. I own and live in the property. I'm the one that I believe they were trying to reference. And then, um, uh, just. Let me see if I have anything else, uh, the comment that, you know, Alicia made that the guests aren't being informed that there's other people that live in the property. The home is listed as a room. So Airbnb has an entire section delegated for. only specific to rooms. And with that, I still get, you know, renters that book it, they see an appealing price and they're not aware that there is, you know, an owner that lives there. So with that, I've taken actions. I haven't just left it alone. And, you know, I was aware of the con the reviews that were made. And now like my process is that when they, before they can even book, there's a message that I sent to them. Are you aware that the owner lives at the property? like are you i also ask like what brings them into the city because i try to filter out if you know their intention for staying i try to mitigate any kind of parties or any kind of bad actions But the listing, you know, like, I have photos that I submitted with this appeal of the actual listing. The title has that. It's only a room. Um, it says room in Louisville, Kentucky, 1, double bed, shared bathroom. Uh, it says your own room plus access to shared spaces. This wasn't something that, you know, I, I didn't inform the guests that there would be obviously people that would stay there. Initially I was kind of. I guess a little bit hesitant to show that, you know, I am actually the 1 that's living there just for my own privacy reasons. Um, so I kind of at 1st. kind of let it just play out so that I didn't really, you know, cause any kind of friction with the guests or maybe, you know, like if they have any issues, I don't want to be, you know, like, I guess just my personal privacy levels. I just wanted to keep a private life. However, I did, you know, start to implement more awareness to the guests that I do actually live there. Uh, I see what else I have. Um, I don't know if there will be, like, the 2nd hearing for the revocation of my license, but there was. This issue, and then the other issue for the revocation was actually that there was a flood in Derby of last year, which canceled Derby. It was on national news.

We can probably talk about that. If we get to the next hearing, you'll have a chance to testify. Then we should probably just stick to this issue for now.

Okay. Let me see if there's anything else. Yeah, so also like the issue of like being able to rent. multiple rooms this is as joe haberman mentioned it is a very unique case it's not seen often even on airbnb but there are other um hosts that do the same thing that get the same you know comments on their reviews that they're unaware it's because they see an alluring price and they're ready to you know book something at a very discounted rate and they don't really read all of the information that's there um I have like messages from my guests that, oh, I didn't know that some, like, you would be there or somebody else would be there. know the fact that there is a shared space at all you know they come they book it they think they get the entire house to themselves and then i you know i inform them like you you know it's on the listing it's on the title it's in the descriptions there's like seven different places that it mentions in my description of the room it you know like it's loaded it's everywhere literally on the page And also, Alicia, like, initially was confused about that, you know, like, in that comment that I just shared that the guests aren't even, you know, communicate that I'm not even telling them that, you know, their shared spaces in the home is the comment that she made. However, as mentioned all of the. You know, all of the information on the actual listing shows otherwise and then also there was a citation for the same thing before that I peeled and that it got taken off and that, you know, it's no longer here because of the facts of, you know, proving the same thing that, you know, I mean, it got taken off.

I'm sorry.

So, like, I never had, like, an appeal, like, I've submitted an appeal for it and then I'm not really sure, like, what happened to it. But I know that there was a citation that was written for me about having multiple listings. And then I had a communication with her. with Alicia and I told her that, just because I have more listings doesn't necessarily mean I'm renting them out. So the reason why I do that is to, I have like financial issues and this is like my main source of income. So I try to rent out the entire home for majority of the time. However, to kind of maximize a little bit of my profits, if I'm not getting a booking for the entire house, I'll rent out one of the rooms. And I have more success if I'm able to rent out more than 1 option. You know, to give them an option if they like, you know, like, 1 of the listings is like a purple and the decoration has like a theme to it. If it appeals to that certain type of booker. then i get that but some other ones have like more beachy theme that might appeal to somebody else so just as like a business person um with like a short-term rental and what i've studied i've noticed that different people book different things and different styles and all that and it's only just to maximize that potential to make a little bit when the house isn't getting booked entirely

All right, any questions I have a question so when you book the entire house, where do you go if this is your residence?

So I still, um, I have, like, a lot of family, so I just kind of just crash at my sister or my brother's place. In those times, and they're okay with it. Okay, but it's due to trying times and I tried to make as much as I can just to pay the bills. I have 5 kids and I have a 6th, 1 on the way and self employment is kind of just my main source of income as well.

So that was my 2nd question. Do you have a family that lives with you at this residence?

no just me whenever you know i when i'm at my family my girlfriend and you know had like that have the kids with like has an apartment in indiana and i crashed at her place as well okay referring to one of the comments that mentioned multiple guests

Well, several of the comments referred to multiple guests, and that's what I was getting at. If you're the only owner person on the property, why are these reviews referring to multiple other people being there as opposed to there was another guest there or one other person there? I mean, they seem to allude to the fact that there's more than one person there when they were renting.

Yeah, so the way that the property is with having multiple rooms, those rooms have numbers. So the guests are privy to that information when they walk into the house, there's like a room 1 and then there's room 2 room 3 room 4. I don't necessarily think that they saw more people. I think just the fact of seeing these rooms kind of highlighted in their brain that this is like for potential people that can potentially stay at the house and not necessarily that there's actual people that they're seeing.

Well, I guess you could read it that way, but. To me, when they say it's unexpected how many people would be sharing the bathroom, just because I saw a number on a bedroom door wouldn't make me think there was another person in there sharing that bathroom. It would be more a case of running into someone in the hall or the bathroom being closed for a period of time because someone else was using it.

Yeah.

I mean, there are certain comments here that to me say there's multiple people there, not one other person there.

Yeah, there have been times where I have like a visitor or something like that. That could be potentially what is getting highlighted. But I know for a fact that this isn't getting multiple different bookings at the same time.

So there was a period of time when you did not inform yes the renters that you were there yes that's true okay even

Even when they showed up and you met them, did you not introduce yourself and say, I am the host or I am the owner?

I have always been private and I've always been anxious of meeting people. So I've never like in my entirety of hosting, even when I host other areas, they ask, when am I going to, you know, come and meet you and pick up the keys? there's an option in the airbnb listing page where you list how your interactions with your guests will be and i select on all of the listings that i prefer privacy but if you need anything then i am here for you so that kind of puts them into the mind that like i won't be meeting them i'll provide any information they need airbnb provides my phone number to them as well if they want to get in contact with me

Other questions of some questions, so I just want to clarify and kind of get an understanding because some. I don't know. I'm a little confused. So how many bedrooms are in the house? There's 4. 4 bedrooms. Okay. And so there are numbers on each bedroom. Is that is that what you said? So there's 1234. yes. And that's including your bedroom. No, no, your bedroom is yes, it's it is so it's 1 of the 4 it's 1 of 1 of the 4 rooms. Okay.

so and you mentioned something like themes in the bedrooms are there different themes or colors in each bedroom okay so like my interior designing like i intentionally design every room a certain way and i have a photography background as well so i try to put together photos that create bookings. So some bookings get more views that turn into more bookings. So I'll design certain things a certain way and I'll read and look at like the data to see, you know, this kind of color and these kinds of interior designing outperformed and I will, you know, cater more to that.

Okay. We're down to eight seconds. Yes, sir. Yeah, I'm the answer to your question. I've got. If you don't mind, no, no. Do you have other questions? Of course. Of course.

Okay. So, so 4 bedrooms, each of them has a different theme or color. According to the design and whatnot, so they're all listed on Airbnb. Separately, like, okay, purple room and.

beach room jungle room whatever you know things like that are they all listed separately so they're they're all listed separately and then there's the listing that it's connected to which is called the main listing so all of them are connected and when there's a booking for one of those rooms the main house and then all of those also get pretty much blacked out on airbnb so somebody is not able to see any of the rooms anymore So what that does for me is I'm able to either book the entire house, and if I don't get a booking, I treat the business like, you know, like a flight, you know, an airplane is going to go. If there's no bookings, if no seats are taken, then that's lost income. So just the same way, I'd rather get one room booked at least than have nothing for that job.

And so there's, so what I'm hearing is you have four different rooms. And they're listed separately and if room number 1 gets rented, then. And only room number 1 gets rented, then it shuts it down for the rest of the house. Is that correct? That is correct. However. Is it true that you can or a certain party for Derby or whatever can rent all the rooms under 1 contract 1 rental as in the main house? Yes. Okay. And each room has its own lock and key.

yes there's a smart lock on every one of the rooms okay and i actually you know the reason why i did that was also for that you know when when my house gets booked entirely it's separated already so i'm allowing in you know like a contract with like maybe three couples they're coming for derby and they kind of want to see the city around but they might want their privacy or different you know like uh i've had um like a construction company come as well they kind of have their own little rooms tv is in there everything they need for you know their stay is in each of the rooms and they'll book the entire house but they have that privacy amongst themselves with it being you know entire listings able to be had inside of that

So, excuse me, someone rents a room and just a room in the house, not the entire house, and someone else is interested in a room, they're unable to do that because you already have a contract.

Absolutely. There is a feature on Airbnb within the calendar that lets you set up a main listing and then sub listings under that. And what that means is all of those are pretty much synced. So if you book one, the other one gets disabled immediately. So it won't let you book any other house. And one of the photos that I have That I submitted also indicate that and I show in there how that even looks because again, like, at least it was not even familiar with that. You can rent rooms out. You know, that, you know, there's owners that rent other rooms and there is 58 other hosts in Louisville that stay in their home and then they rent out 1 of their rooms and just for a supplemental income. So even though it's 58, there's like 3,000 short-term rentals here. So compared to that, you're not going to see that very often. I did have a photo of it, but I think it points out clearly the feature that I'm actually talking about. So here it is. So like this is directly off of Airbnb and it has the entire, the main listing calendar. So this is like the entire house and then linked calendar means that it's linked to it. Like you can't have another booking within Airbnb because it's linked to that. So if something is booked on that, both of those calendars share dates. So if that one is booked, the date automatically is removed off of the calendars.

Do you use more than Airbnb or are you using other platforms?

So for Airbnb, I use it because they allow the room rentals. on Vrbo, that's not allowed. So I have the entire property on Vrbo. However, it's also connected to my Airbnb listings. So I export that calendar into this calendar and this calendar into that calendar so that no matter what a booking, like where a booking comes from, the other site is getting deactivated, the other listings are getting deactivated.

Any other questions? I'm sorry. Yes.

I had a question in that, um, do you have any, like, written records, like, the contracts or the emails or anything that would help back up that you were renting to 1 party at a time? Uh, sort of contradict. I mean, right now there's reviews that talk about multiple parties and. Yeah, and you've got this stuff about how a booking is linked, but I didn't know if you had, I didn't see in the file where there had been sort of written records that would. That I would assume you would need for your tax returns or something as to the bookings at a time.

so not with me i only have the the calendar or record of that feature like actually being active on my listings um however i've i've had a booking for like the last two months for the entire house um so like the last like few months like i i could potentially show it that like no other bookings you know like no double contracts or anything like that

Those reviews go back to 2023? Yeah, those are very far back.

And it's February of this year. Yes. So that's what we're really looking at the question.

Um, you said that this month or last month or something you had a book, you have a booking for the entire house. Yes. Okay, is that a family or a group or what is that?

So I, I market to different types of groups. 1 of the groups that I market to is construction companies. that are doing work inside of Louisville and they reach out to me through their like housing coordinators and I'm able to get those bookings for the entire house and more recently like within the last year most of my bookings have actually been like entire houses and like I said like it it's only you know when there's no bookings that you know those one rooms come in

Okay, so the, the. The full house that you have coming up, I guess, maybe is that a family or a group or what is the ones you already booked? You haven't said you have 1 coming or something like that.

They're already they're already booked for, like, the last month entirely the last 2 months entirely. So there I haven't really like. Investigate like, how they are, but I did see that they came with, like, 2 trucks, like, work trucks. So, it's 1 of the construction companies that I market to and that reached out to me from their housing coordinator. So it's. It's a couple different couples, I guess, like, a group of 2 and 2 and. uh i don't really like know how they're occupying the house but all four rooms is available as that's like one contract since it's one booking through airbnb thank you okay i don't believe there are any other questions thank you for your testimony you're welcome all right um mr haberman anything further

Yeah, I just would like to note a few things and answer any questions that the board might have, but, um. Just having to look at this from the perspective of the zoning enforcement officer, that feature does exist that he mentioned that allows you to deactivate a listing. we have no idea if and when it's active. So there's that for what that's worth. So it does exist, but we don't know if it's being utilized. Osman noted that there was some previous enforcement over the way that it was being listed. He is correct, but that is not the subject of this citation. A few years ago, there was an NOV sent because the officer saw the way that he was listing it. And it is unusual how he listed. And to degree, I don't think it was contemplated by council when they put the ordinance together, but it is, you're allowed to list each room as long as you don't rent them concurrently with another room. And she didn't have any evidence at that time that he had actually rented rooms to different parties at the same time. So we did pull that enforcement back, but I just want to clarify that He's absolutely correct there, but that's not what's before you today. The difference today is the comments. So there's that. I would also just note there was some comments about Airbnb reviews not being specific to the property. That's not my understanding. That's the whole reason you go to the reviews is to learn about that property. There are separate reviews for the host, so I think there's some confusion about that. Like, if a host has multiple listings, you can go to that host and see all their listings across. All their all their reviews across all their different listings, but when you go to a property, you see. The property listings, because it's not helpful to most people to hear what's happening in another community or another street you want to know about that property. So. Not to get into the content of who was to guess and who wasn't, but I'm fairly confident that those things that you saw, those comments were related to this property, not another property. That would just be unusual. And just moving forward, looking at the listings, I didn't want to provide them because I don't think they were part of the record, but if Osman's okay, I have copies of the listings as they are today. that I can provide to the board. It's kind of new information within appeal. If you want to see it and he's comfortable and Laura's comfortable, I can give that to you. And it will show you what we've been both describing of how the property is being listed.

Just really for like, now, not back at the time of the site.

Yeah, that's why I didn't want to give it to you. These are from today. Printed so Airbnb is. A living space, um, this may not have been what it looked like in February. Okay, could have been exactly the same, but the reviews. That come with some of these were definitely not there in February because they occurred after. So there's that the only thing that I'll say about the way that it's being listed that is unusual is when you read the description, at least as it is today, he refers to it as a shared space, which is fine, but he doesn't add that other detail with the property owner with the host. It just says shared space that is missing all the other people we worked with that are owner occupied that are operating without the conditional use permit. Have clearly indicated that you'll be sharing the space with the host and it another important part about the ordinance and he's. This is just more keeping in spirit with the ordinances. The host is the most important person for us. When we register you, that's our contact. That's the guest contact. That's the neighbor contact. You have to identify yourself as the host. I don't think you can. just coexist with another guest and not say I'm the host, you're a host or owner occupied short-term rental. So moving forward, I would advise that the listing and how you interact with the guest changes to identify yourself as the host, because that's important for our ordinance. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have.

I have a question. He alluded to the fact that he works with these construction companies, among others, to rent the property for their employees who happen to be in town for work. A short-term rental is 30 days or less, correct?

Yes.

So if you're renting for longer than 30 days, you're really not under short-term rental.

Correct.

Can you use your short-term rental as a long-term rental or other than short-term rental, or do you have to take it off the platform in order to actually do that? And the reason I ask that question, I've known this to happen with, for instance, travel nurses who may be in town for three months and they find a short-term rental, but they want it for three months, not less than 30 days. does the short-term rental have to be taken off the platform in order to do that? Or can you have them both out there at the same time under the auspice that you want to pick up short-term renters four months from now or five months from there or something?

So the quick and short answer is no, you don't have to pull it down, but to explain why Airbnb, is kind of synonymous with short-term rentals, but you can use Airbnb for long-term rentals if you're comfortable giving them their cut. So a lot of people use Airbnb that don't have approval for short-term rentals for 30-day rentals, 60-day rentals, six-month rentals. I've even seen it up to 12 months. So you don't have to take it down and you hit another area where you might, you always got to be hustling and advertising on Airbnb. So you don't want to take down your listing, even if you have a long-term or short-term renter, because you're planning for six, seven months down the road. So you might leave your listing up. It's just the rule is if you're listing for short-term stays and you're online, you got to have the active registration. Technically, if you do long-term, you need to be registered on our long-term registry too, but it is very common to mix short-term and long-term contracts over the course of the year. Again, not allowed, no overlap, but if you want to mix between 30 and 60 and say you get a one-year rental, that's fine. It's just when there's a short-term rental guest in there or you're on Airbnb, you need to have the Registration if you're renting short term active.

Okay, and and I asked that because I'm kind of looking at this 2 ways. Obviously, there's been some complaints because of someone's perception that there's overlapping rentals and then there's evidence in terms of remarks that were put. Online that seemed to substantiate that, but the perception part of it could be somebody. Again, renting, maybe 60 days to a construction company, and they may be putting different people in and out as different phases of the work, but that's still just 1 rental. Yeah, I can't explain the comments seemed, which are short term renters and and refer to. in my estimation, run into multiple people, which is more than the host. And that's the part I'm having trouble getting past is that more than one person seems to see multiple other people in the home.

Yeah, just to clarify, the complaint just opened the door for the enforcement. I don't think the officer used any information from the neighbor to arrive at the decision. What is in Accello, which is the case file, is these comments. Then as I mentioned before, the way it is listed is allowed if you use the feature that he spoke of and you are vigilant about making sure there is not a one-minute overlap between guests. They should never be in the same property at the same time. Um, it's just not permitted the owner excluded the, um. The next thing is just so the way was there to do it and the next thing is just, it's unusual. It's very unusual to refer to the host as a guest. You typically know who your host is. Uh, he provided, um, why. He felt that they were referring to. And as a guest, but that's up to up to the board to decide. We didn't receive any documents from Airbnb as Laura. I think add some questions related to that.

That would confirm that 1 way or the other.

Okay, other questions I may have missed this. You may have said what this was, but what is the consequence of this citation?

Oh, that is for the next case. So the consequence of this decision, but I'll answer it for this decision. Okay. Um, he filed 2 appeals as he had the right to do 1 was over. Um, technical issues surrounding the citation, they could have thrown it out if they found that the inspection was flawed or that the letter was somehow flawed. Um, it's my understanding, like I mentioned before that that. Um, he didn't attend that appeal hearing and they upheld the citation. So the other way is that you can get it thrown out over the zoning decision behind. Um, the citation, if you uphold. The staff decision, he gets a citation and he has a fine of, I believe, 125 dollars to pay. And you'll be effectively issuing a final order on having to pay. That fine. That's all that comes from it in this localized decision. But when we get to the next case, uniquely for short-term rentals, we have the two-strike rule, so it will come into play into that.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. We didn't have anybody else sign. Do we have Okay, we have nobody else signed up to speak on the case. So at this point, we'll close the hearing on the appeal and consider any comments that the board members might have or emotion regarding the appeal.

there any discussion well i was looking for something to refute the comments that guest review comments because i think they're pretty uh damning in terms of backing up this citation and i've not heard enough to convince me that that those guest comments at least some of them don't refer to the fact there's multiple people there.

I think that it's probably unusual to rent on a short-term rental basis and not notify the guests that you live there. that this is an owner occupied property. So I think that in addition to the comments or the review comments that we've had access to raises some question in my mind about the operation of the property. Are we into discussions at this point? We are.

Okay. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. It seems like it's certainly be in his best interest to make certain that everyone knew He was the host. And if so, people would say, well, only the host lives here. Or the host was, the host was the only person there. But by not introducing himself or at least letting them know, it puts a question mark about what they know or what they don't know. But I'm, I'm, pushed to the point, I guess swayed to the point that he says he would do everything to fill his house every time that he gets an opportunity, because he needs the money, he got a big family, but he wants to do everything he can to fill the rooms. And that sort of a lens of support to me, at least the numbers of peoples that always put plural call them multiple parties or the other people or the the other guests in the room and they call them great guests um i'm leaning towards toward this to um to deny or uphold deny the appeal yeah we gotta make sure we get that straight while we're doing yeah

I think the biggest piece of evidence is the comments that you can find below the properties. Because obviously, like Joe was saying, we don't really have paperwork from Airbnb showing overlapping listings. But I mean, based on the comments, you can make a pretty good affirmation on that.

Mr. Scott, anything to add?

I tend to agree with the consensus of the board. We had any type of confirmation of renters at those specific times because emails do go back pretty far. That would be helpful, but we just don't have enough. I'm not saying enough. We're hearing enough information to believe that there were not multiple people renting the property. Those are my comments.

All right. I'm wondering too if Um, if I were doing it, I think I'd be trying every way possible to bring in some new information to support my position. And, um, the applicant hasn't given us anything else to help us make the decision.

Either pro or con no new information at all.

Okay. All right. I think we've heard from everyone. Is there any additional discussion needed or is there a motion? We need additional discussion.

I'll make a motion, but I want to make sure I say this right. He's appealing the citation. If we deny the appeal, it means we agree with the citation.

The effect of denying the appeal is to effectively uphold the citation.

You can base it on the staff report and the testimony.

You're leaning towards denial in the case of twenty six appeal zero zero zero one for three thousand four Cleveland Boulevard. I'll make a motion that we deny the appeal of the citation and base that on the staff report and analysis and the testimony we've heard today.

Is there a second? Second, Horton. Thank you. It's been properly moved and seconded to deny the appeal of the citation for 26 appeal 1. Roll call, please.

Horton?

Yes.

Louise? Yes. Bozos?

Yes.

Rodriguez?

Yes.

Scott?

Yes.

Bond?

Yes. The appeal has been denied. Can we take just a 10 minute break, please? I know we just have one more case. I just need 10 minutes.

Watch this tone.

Beginning with 26 appeal 0003.

Mr. Haberman.

Okay, so this is related to the last case, but it stands independently. So. Just a overview of this appeal is under the short term rental ordinance again, this property is not subject to a conditional use, but the language is similar to what you're familiar with as you do your conditional use reviews, which is the 2 strike rule. The language varies a little bit in each ordinance, but. When you're in violation of 2 different things over the course of a year. your license or registration can get revoked. And then if that happens, then your conditional use can get revoked. If you have one in this case, there is no conditional use permit, but the rule is still the same. So it's just step one without the step two. So what happened here is you can go to the next slide is with Some review as we customarily do, we found that this property was subject to a number of citations over the past. I guess 365 days, and it was determined to be in violation of the 2 strike rule and I'm just casually calling it the 2 strike rule because it's easier than. reading the very long section of code which is in metro code but appeals come to the board because you're best suited to hear these appeals so although this isn't a conditional use That's why the appeal comes before this board. I'll just note one thing. The way that the ordinance is intentionally written by council because they made this change with intention is upon the finding of two strikes, the planning director shall revoke. There is no discretion. So Mr. Davis had to make the decision to revoke. It's this venue where you can decide on whether that was appropriate or not. The only area where staff has some control as we look at these and. Potential strikes is 1. was it a substantiated complaint? And 2, was it related to the short term rental or the condition of the property that's in the ordinance? So, what do I mean by that is. First, substantiated complaint is very intentional language. The attorney's office helped staff and counsel write that in the initial ordinance. It is not a citation or an NOV. Those are definitely substantiated complaints. That's where the code officer or the LNPD officer or whatever agency has the ability to enforce a code, made a finding, and went as far as to issue a letter with penalties or other language requiring you to bring the site into compliance in the case of an NOV, which is basically a written warning. But it doesn't have to be. It could be where an officer went there, solved a violation, documented it somehow, and maybe just gave a verbal warning. An example of that, which is not relevant here, would be like a noise complaint. LMPD will show up and be like, keep it down, and then document it, move on. But they're not necessarily issuing any citations. So, I'll just note that I'll get into a little bit more detail on the. The strikes in question on the next slide, but just that's what a substantiated complaint is. The next thing that we do is make sure that it's tied to the. Short term rental or the properties condition. So, things that we could exclude, and we did, because there was some reports of runs, but. In one case, I think a guest or the owner called LMPD to respond. We're not going to use that against you. You called them in for whatever reason. It wasn't the guest causing trouble. It was the guest needing help. So we're not going to use that kind of strike against you. Or if your property was tagged with graffiti and then you're kind of a victim in that, we're not going to use that strike against you. So we do have some ability to Um, call off some strikes, but that we're very limited is basically what I'm saying. So with that, um. We issued the revocation in February. The reason it got here is because we had to hear out this appeal, which is 1 of the strike or the previous appeal, which is 1 of the strikes. And, um, that's now all been complete. And go to the next slide mark. So, I'm just going to show you, I'm not going to read this, but the bold is what is key and I'm just going to. This particular provision shows up twice. Um, so I guess it's that doesn't make it any more important, but it's in both Metro code and in the zoning code. So that is the 2 strike rule as it's written and the land development code. You can go to the next slide. And this is what appears in metro code. They are worded a little bit differently, but they basically say the same thing. It's just their placement in different sets of ordinances required some different language. So they're not identical, but they all in all say the same thing. You can go to the next slide. So there is more citations and NOVs and LMPD runs at this property than what you see here. But what is important is we only considered what happened in 365 days. Anything that happened before that is not relevant to our decision to revoke under that particular provision. I'll also note that some of those dates are now over a year old from today. That's because it took a little bit of a process, but we are looking at the situation as it was on February 5th of this year, not as of June of this year. So those were the ones that were noted. They're all citations. So we view them as substantiated by the issuance of citations, which come with a penalty. They come with fines. They're not written warnings like a notice of violation, and they're certainly not verbal warnings. so what they are is if you're just looking at the case which is the third column that pmnt is just Code in the Excel software for a property maintenance violation. That is a condition based violation. Those are the descriptions. They weren't over 1 issue. They were over several issues. I think. The property owner touched on some of those in the past appeal, but over high weeds, grass, legal, parking, damage, siding, paint, stagnant, water, loose hand rails. Those were the subject of the. February 2025 and the April 2025 citations, there's three in total. So what likely happened is some of those are probably the same issue, but the officer went back out and they were unresolved, so they cited again. Um, but they were there each day is a separate offense under Metro code. The final 1 is the subject of the past case. The only reason why we said it was related, but not necessarily. Critical to this appeal is had you decided that that was issued in error that 1 would have been kind of removed from that. But there was still 3 other strikes, so we're at 4 strikes here. But at least from staff's perspective that. That last case was probably the most serious of them all because that's a violation of the short term rental ordinance in and of itself. The other ones are property condition issues. You had a next slide.

The illegal parking was resolved between April 14th and April 25th of 2020.

Yeah. Well, illegal parking is kind of this catch you if you can. I don't know the exact situation, what happened, but typically if you go there and the car is there, but if they're moving the car back and forth, the officer might go back and the car is just And use somewhere else. So, but it was not cited again. So it was resolved as of the day of that inspection. Yes. Okay.

What what did illegal parking mean? Was that on the street? Was it in the front yard or what?

That's a good question. So, if it was on the street, typically, that's something that's ticketed by or the police that have authority over that road. My recollection of the notes was it was for parking on a. Inappropriate space like grass. which for parking and the residential lot, you need to be on the driveway or in an approved parking area. You can't pull off and park right in the front yard. And I think some of the property maintenance or property condition violations were because that was leaving damage where people were doing that.

At least that's what the notes, the inspection notes indicated. This is the property again, all zoned residential.

This is the aerial. A little bit more relevant this time because if you had questions about the parking for the owner, you can see that it's kind of a traditional area in terms of its form with some, but it does have front parking with the driveway. Go to the next slide. Here is the property. You can go to the next slide.

Is that their driveway to the left?

That's actually a good question. So it's their driveway to the left. There was a complaint. It's not subject to this, but just in case the property owner brings it up, where the owner of I believe the property to the right was concerned about people parking on their driveway. So they put up a sign saying no short-term rental parking. and the officer thought that that was put up by the short-term rental host, which is a violation. You're not allowed to having any signage related to the short-term rental. We pulled back that citation when we found out the owner did it. But yes, I believe it's the one to the left where the black car is parked in front of the house. so from staff's view we just look at those two factors i started with which is was it was it substantiated in this instance all four were issued citations so we believe so and was it related to the short-term rental or condition of the property we believe so so that led to our decision and no evidence was provided that those citations were for another property or anything like that, which they were pretty clearly for this property. So next slide. So your decision today is to uphold the decision of the planning director to revoke the short-term rental registration or overturn his decision and award the appeal and That effectively would allow the property owner to continue to rent. The outcome of this is. This hearing isn't contemplated to happen several months from the revocation. Just there were some anomalies here, which led it to this, but typically it's not a death penalty for the short term rental. It's basically a 1 year wait. And if they. if they run a tight ship and don't get cited over another short-term rental, they have to stop doing short-term rentals, but then they can come back in one year from the revocation. So if you decide to uphold the decision of the planning director, the property owner would immediately lose their ability to rent short-term. No listings can be honored. If they do honor them and get cited, that can cause them problems but they would be able to re-register in February of next year if they don't get cited over a short-term rental offense. If you overturned a decision, then it's business as usual because he has a registration in place. I will note that the ordinance does not provide any real guidance on what circumstances have to exist for the board to overturn staff's decision. Council were very clear that they didn't want staff not revoking. If there were two citations, they wanted that to be shall. It was changed from a may, but they didn't add any other detail when the board should disagree with that decision. So I guess that's at your discretion or you can ask Laura her thoughts on that because a lot of that's provided in Metro code that is not in the zoning piece as it will be applied today.

So they can, if the appeal is upheld and the registration is revoked, then the property owner can reapply within 12 months of, well, in this case, it would be a February, correct?

Um, well, the most recent 1, so it'd be within a year of February 4th, 26. okay.

So, if during that period, there is another short term rental application, that's within 600.

It's owner occupied as long as it's owner occupied, it's just the registration. So it doesn't matter about what is, or isn't within 600 feet assuming it's owner occupied.

The only. Thing that would cause issue is we do also have, which the sport is more familiar with the 1 year wait from a short term rental. Citation for operating, so if. He, he didn't stop and was cited for any short term rental. If you agree with the planning director's decision, he cannot rent short term until. February of next year, I mean, he gets the license again if they rent in the meantime, it will be 1 year from that.

Citation before they can come back in.

Is the definition of high weeds and grass 10 inches? Is that not the measure I think I've seen on?

That sounds right. I can look at the code really quick. It's right around there. I don't know exactly.

It's not like you missed one week's mowing. It's a pretty substantial measure.

That's my understanding, but I would just note that that wasn't a standalone violation on any of these. It was found along with some other issues. But I can get that answer, but I believe it's right around that. I know it's less than a foot.

I think it's 10 inches. I think I looked that up one time.

Question of council, please.

If this case has already been presented, that it was reviewed and settled at the highest level, as it stated in the presentation here, and the ordinance says that shall be such and such, which is termination, if it says it like that, what kind of power then does this board have

I think it's similar to, you know, we, we look at non conforming rights. For example, staff, or in this case, the director have to look at it. In black and white, so if you have, if you check the 2 boxes, they have to issue it. And I think the purpose of this hearing is for you to see if there's any sort of shade of gray to any of this. If there's any sort of nuance, and a lot of times there won't be, I mean, but there's an opportunity for you to review and in a more nuanced way, because I think, you know. It's as Joe said, you're looking at are these things related to the property? Are these things related to the short term rental? And it could be a situation where something maybe is a little less. Clear.

So it's an opportunity then for an applicant to bring sufficient information to refute what might be here. That would be his opportunity.

Yeah, to show that there's extenuating circumstances or some other reason why perhaps a strict black and white interpretation isn't really fair. But, but, but it's sort of like the other revocations we've had with where they fail to renew their license and then they come back, you know, the board has generally upheld. What's happened, but, you know, we had 1 case, for example, where the person coming in. I think didn't they like, buy the property from somebody else? We had another 1 where the person. for the one year rule for the one year sitting in timeout. And then we had one for revocation where they had tried to renew and they had emails to the staff person and it had dropped the ball. And so you had that additional sort of, so I don't know that it happens often, but they want to give the opportunity. So if you fall within sort of those rarer outside the box things, you have an opportunity to hear that.

Last ditch effort to clean it up. If there's a cleanup area.

Right, right.

But I just want to clarify 1 thing that, um. They had an opportunity to appeal each of those. Property maintenance citations, this is not the appeal hearing for those just like, it's not the appeal hearing for the last case. That was where we discussed that. So. I don't know if we can debate too much about whether they happened or not. I think you're more going to be focused on is do those offenses warrant revocation because this isn't a hearing for whether or not they had high grass or whether they had building code issues, which were there was an opportunity to appeal those. He may have filed appeals for those, but they were upheld at least when I looked into excelling.

Thank you piggyback on council's point earlier about the owner occupied. Um, should Mr Sufi decide if the appeals upheld if it is, should he decide that he wants to reapply in a year? It would have to be his owner.

It's really the appeal would be denied and the site and the revocations upheld. so if that revocation is upheld he would in order not to be considered under the 600 foot rule he would have to live in the property if he were it's still owner he would have to stay owner occupied and it could be that even if he were to move out to one of some other place and had to go get a conditional use permit You know, it may be that there's nothing within 600 feet right now. That would just be a separate decision if and when that came into play. Okay.

Yeah, just to clarify, I don't know if he would be subject to the 600 foot rule right now. I don't know. Um, cause we never had to look into that. It may be fine if he wanted to pursue a conditional use permit, but. Um, currently he doesn't have 1 and I don't think he's indicated.

any interest in you know trying to get one okay thank you all right any questions about the action before the board and then we should hear from uh mr sufi again yeah mr sufi

Do you want me to repeat my name and address or just proceed?

Just the name.

Osman Sufi. so um the three violations the citations that was that was shown um you could see that i received the initial one in february and then two months later the officers came back and then wrote another citation and then another one and it had the same citation and the last number Changed 1 more because it was the, at least under my understanding, that's the same citation, but it's a different visit. So, the, the 1st, 3 were actually the same citation with multiple visits, but I alluded to it in my 1st hearing that there was a national state of the emergency situation going on Derby. you know louder um what is it called thunder oval louisville was canceled derby was canceled last year and these are the same timelines so all of these things that are happening and my property is also located right off of zorn avenue where it's closest to the water and there was like very high water so i couldn't get a Lawn care company out safely and to mow the lawn. So that was like the main issue, but before. Even that the issue is that I never received the citation. So that's why you see the same issues reoccurring because the communication was never made to me at my address. So, 3004 Cleveland Boulevard is my primary residence and it's the owner occupied registration address that is listed. However, documents that I found after investigating or that the citations were being sent to 5811 Hillwood drive. This is the address that I haven't lived at more than 10 years. So these citations were getting sent there for multiple times. And when a officer zoning officer came, they sent the citation to a different address again. So. The matter of me, you know, it wasn't to leave the property in, like, bad condition as the photo showed, like, the property is maintained. Well, the citation mentioned, like, chipped paint. It mentioned like a loose rail and it's only 1 rail and it's on 1 of the size and it's only literally on 1 piece that's connected to the ground. And 1 of the bolts came loose and it was literally just bolting it back tight. The chipped paint, it wasn't really that big of a deal. It was just like small things. But immediately, as soon as I found out that there was a citation that was looming, I rectified all of the issues, fixed all of the problems. The grass was cut long before another officer came after I was made aware of the issues that was going on. And that's why I didn't continue onward after that. So when the officers were sending it to the wrong address, the contact that I was able to get a hold of in the department was Damon Smiley. And I have an email with him sending me the citation because I was confused about why I haven't received it. So he sent me a copy of the citation, and the address was not listed for 3004 Cleveland Boulevard, which is where I reside. I have a photo of the email interaction that I had. I also have the citation that I was able to find at the 5811 Hillwood Drive address just as proof that it was getting sent to the wrong location. So I was able to recover the document. I went to the property at 5811 Hillwood Drive and asked for if an email came with my name on it. And this is how I was able to obtain this. Also, the email with Damon Smiley is here. And it's an electronic version of the same citation. And also it's addressed to 5811 Hillwood Drive. So this isn't a matter of, you know, me being neglectful. It's literally just me not getting the citations and able to appeal it in time because that's why I haven't appealed that as well because I wasn't given the opportunity and the window ended. And there's also, you know, that's not the full story as well. So after I did appeal it, And I had a hearing that I was supposed to go to and it did get prolonged and delayed. However. I received a phone call, um. Right before the hearing, like, maybe 1 week or so when I received this phone call, they told me. you know, verbatim that the citation was dropped and that I don't have to appear. So I was never informed that the action that the office took was to conditionally discharge. And actually, I wasn't even aware of what the term means. I wasn't aware. I wasn't informed that this would be admitting guilt, which is why the office proceeded to indicate that they are substantiated. Because under the terminology that was being used that it was conditionally discharged. I'm also under that umbrella admitting guilt. I never admitted guilt that phone conversation was, I swear. Like, literally 10 seconds it was, you know, you don't have to appear to your appeal. It's been dropped. You don't have to show up. You don't have to pay the fine. That was literally all that I was told. I wasn't told that it was conditionally discharged. I wasn't told what that exactly meant. I wasn't given the opportunity to appeal and actually expunge it and get rid of it and get it dismissed off of my record. So none of that communication was provided for me to give me the opportunity to actually defend myself against what that would mean against my registration. So, then, when I found out that, oh, you know, like, your registration is getting revoked as these 3 things all in the time of the national emergency that happened. It was a national emergency. The president even mentioned about the flooding and will the governor call the state of emergency and then even in. The that it was conditionally discharged, there was a note on the actual. Citation and I can actually read it. And it reads comments number four, flooding and heavy rain and accepted weather condition, pre-conference, conditionally charged, approved by T. Goatley. That was for one of the citations. And the other one reads comments number three, inspection was conducted after heavy rain and flooding in Louisville and was reported on news channels, pre-conference, conditionally discharged, approved. so both of these were approved because of the issues was resolved except for the grass and the grass you know i couldn't get to it because of the flooding conditions that limited my ability to get a lawn care into the area and the flooding was due to like a long period of water happening continuously so it it it wasn't that It rained and then I was informed, cited, and I was able to get somebody out. It was that the citation should have never even happened because rain conditions should not be what grass is being cut with anyways because it tears out the grass as well and it destroys the grass as well. However, the citation was still written despite that and then sent to the wrong address. And then when it was conditionally discharged, I didn't get proper communication on what that means, what it entails, and how it would affect my registration.

Were you living in the home in February of 2025? Yes, ma'am. In April of 2025?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Because the enforcement action does mention damaged siding paint, loose handrails, illegal parking. Were you? You're not disputing that, right?

I, I disputed all of those, so those weren't actually like, the citation was for 700 dollars and then another 1 was cited after that the 700 was for the property damages. And then additional 1 was cited for, like, the high weeds and that was for 400 dollars. So, both of those were appealed and those were the citations that got conditionally discharged. the siding and the highways? All of the property maintenance issues were all resolved. That's why when it was conditionally discharged, the other details aren't being mentioned in the conditional discharge because they were rectified.

You have documentation that those conditions were resolved? Yes.

I mean, showing that it's like 2 different complete dates. I mean, 2 month apart almost between between the 2. so, like, if you, if you were sat in February for high weeds, grass, illegal parking, and then they did a revisit in April. And they saw the same issue and then he came 10 days later and he saw the same issue. So, even if you didn't get the citation, you were living the property. I mean, you had time to. Keep up with the property between February and April. Right?

Yes, so the, the citation was never received by me due to getting mail to the 5811 Hillwood drive address that I still have to take care of the property. Yes, and it was. Well, you went back and it wasn't. But they also conditionally discharge it all. The entire citations were pretty much like I didn't have to pay anything for the citations and they were, you know, to my knowledge, dismissed. But however, I didn't get the information that it would be a strike against me.

These citations were conditionally dismissed or others?

Yes. So they are trailing. There are one single citation that's trailing for multiple visits. And the T. Goatley was the person who conditionally discharged the last citation. There wasn't any other elements of that citation left.

Question and I was just wondering why why you couldn't have done these things before you even received a citation and if you hadn't received a citation, how long it might have been before you did try to correct those situations.

So, the, the issues of, like, the railing, it, like I said, it was like, only 1 point of contact on the concrete that was loose and the other parts were like, the chipped siding and like, I. i didn't notice you know like that part and another part of it was like that there was like a point that it didn't connect the sighting didn't connect the only thing that was visible was like the the long grass and that like during that time period i wasn't able to get to it well the inspector noticed him yeah yeah

Oh, that's that's someone doing why that person could see them and you couldn't see them. I'm just wondering if you hadn't gotten citations how long you might have let that go. Yeah, because you hadn't seen them up to the time you got citations.

Yeah. So, as I mentioned, the, there's a long care that I use to get to the property. When I was aware of the citation, I immediately rectified the issue, but the time that I got the initial citation and up until when I got the second citation, the lawn care that I used, and I kept calling multiple different lawn companies, and I did actively try to get the grass cut immediately. However, they were backed up because of the long list of grasses that accumulated through that time. I'm sorry, go ahead. Through that time, that's also what added on to the length of time that I didn't get that rectified. Was due to the long companies that I use not being able to and then I switched over to somebody else and I have record of that as well. I have text conversations with me actively trying to get somebody to the property to get it cut. And then, like, just getting somebody to actually show up was a very trying thing for me at that time.

And you're talking so it's a long cares fault that they couldn't make it.

Yes. So I don't cut my own grass at that property and I don't have a machine there. So I rely on another company to take care of that. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. So that's the high weeds in the grass that you're referring to. Um, but the other items in the citation, illegal parking damage, signing and paint. Whose hand rails on the porch.

you didn't address those were not resolved correct those were resolved they were they were and i have a record of the contractor that i used to resolve those issues and time stamps on those as well when were they resolved what date i can if you guys don't mind can i look it up i have the messages with that contractor

I have a question for staff, so sorry.

Yeah, so do I.

So, so he was referring to these citations being cleared, or I can't remember the word that he said, but. Basically, they were.

Conditionally discharged.

Conditionally discharged. Thank you.

That's a process that occurs at code board, I believe. And so. Where you essentially agree that you, I think if I've got it right for Joe, is you basically admit that you did it and in exchange, they will discharge the fines, assuming something else doesn't occur within a certain period of time. Am I explaining that correctly?

yes so what happens is when you're issued this is very common with property maintenance although under some new ordinances they could technically do it for some zoning cases if you have an appeal before the code board there's a typically a fine kind of range that they can cite under so they can't They have to fall within that, but in some cases, if they found that you were guilty of the violation, but didn't feel that the fine was appropriate, they can conditionally discharge it, which. Effectively means you don't have to pay it initially, but you could have to pay it down the road. If you re, offend, that's the condition that usually rides with it. they do that a lot because they can't waive fines down to zero because of the ranges. Like for example, a zoning fine is 10 to $500. So that's a bad example because $10 is almost nothing, but they can't waive it beyond 10. So it conditionally discharges away that they use to get defined down to zero. But if you do that same offense again, all those fines can come right back and you might have to pay them. And sometimes they do it administratively, which I think is the case here where they agree to that with the staff members. So the person doesn't show up, which sounds to be what happened in Osmond's case, but it's usually the code board that makes that decision, not staff.

So they don't, they don't erase it. They just set it aside.

No, additionally discharges. As long as you don't was appropriate, but define. whatever circumstances they felt appropriate, you don't have to pay the fine. We do it with planning commission to a degree, sometimes with binding elements.

But it could come back.

If he recommits that same violation, they could. I don't know if there's a sunset to them. That's a detail that I do not know.

Well, in this case, we're talking about the fine, though. The enforcement action does not go away, right? It's just that there's no associated fine. No, I can touch on that on the rebuttal.

But I just, if he couldn't find, I will say the enforcement case, at least according to property maintenance records, has been closed. That typically means that he came into compliance. So if you need the exact date, he might be able to provide it if he found it in his phone. But I can confirm that that case has been closed. So it's,

it will only be reopened if they get another complaint and go back out there. Thanks.

I have a question about these. He testified that this is the same case that has been repeated and it does have a dash 1, a dash 3, a dash 4. I assume that's what that means, but what happened to dash 2? Is there another one?

That's the way he described it. It's complicated how we do our filing. That's not accurate. It's not the same citation. It's the same case. So what happens is when you get a complaint or in some cases where the officer initiates it, you create a case and that's called the parent case. Each of those dashes are records associated with that case. They typically correspond with inspections. but in some cases the officer might want to document something and they didn't inspect. So it's not perfect. So what it means is each one of those citations came from the same complaint, but they are standalone citations. Again, under our code, each day is an offense. Each day is subject to a citation. For the gaps, it might've been that they went there and didn't cite or they might've went there for another reason. Like a common reason is what they call posting and enforcement, which is where they bring the citation to the property because it was returned to the office. And if, if it's on deliverable, they tape it to the door. Um, so that's, I could look into it, but it just basically, in some cases it's, they hold because you're making progress and they don't want to cite you again. They have discretion. They don't have to cite you if there's a violation. Um, it's kind of like a cop if he catches somebody speeding, he can say, slow it down. I catch you again. You're going to get a ticket. So that's that and. I got some more on that when I get to the rebuttal piece, but if that answers that question.

So, the records that I have.

Regarding the fixes for the property, I reached out to.

reached out to my contractor on june 13th and then on 14th he sent me videos of everything that he fixed on that citation that's in 2025 yes

Okay. Um, other information you'd like to share.

Yes. So that the fixes that, you know, like I immediately did, um, it costed me $950 because I had to repaint the entire siding. I fixed the, the part where the siding connects as well. And I paid for the, bolt and then had him drill into the concrete for the railing. Then I also went over to the property all immediately after I got the notice from the 5811 Hillwood Drive location. and i saw the citation i immediately got everything fixed i even went there um the lawn there was like a little bit of rut from it um that they i think was one of the pictures they used for the illegal parking i fixed the lawn myself you know i you know used the garden rake i bought some sand to kind of lay under it and then poured some dirt on top of it but Immediately, you know, like, the day that I found that, you know, those citations were being made and those issues were at the property that same day I reached out to the contractor and, you know, paid for everything, you know, even though it's financially, it was. You know, cumbersome, but I, I understand the. You know, the responsibility that comes with owning a home, uh, it wasn't, you know, intentional to keep the property the way that it is. Um. I, I tried to do the best that I can. I know that the timelines kind of may look like. You know, like, it was neglectful, but I, I tried to rectify everything immediately the, you know, as I showed photos of, like, the mail that was. you know, labeled to 5811 Hillwood Drive. The conversation with Damon Smiley with the electronic citation also labeled to 5811 Hillwood Drive. As soon as I was aware of that, I also called the office and tried to figure out why I was getting mailed to a different location so that I can You know, like, be more reactive and responsive to any kind of issues with the property. So, with my call, I called Jude Mattingly, which is a previous contact that I have in the, the office and I asked them how I can pretty much make sure that the addresses are right. So that it doesn't happen again. Uh, so he, you know, inquired that maybe the address is wrong because of a, and while I was on the phone with him, we checked the together. And, you know, it wasn't the wrong location on the, and he said that that's the address that they use and they should have been sending it to 3004 Cleveland Boulevard. but he said for some reason the address that they had is 5811 and he said that he would fix it so going forward you know never happened again there's not any kind of property issues after that and i take it very seriously um you know i i try to do the best i can but i do feel that you know like proper communication and mailing to my address could have subverted a lot of these issues

And that 5811, the address that that was mailed to, is that property you own or used to own or never had anything to do with?

I used to rent that property.

Oh, you rented the property but never owned it?

The only property that I own is the 3004 Cleveland Boulevard.

Okay, just a question.

So. So you said that you just to make sure I got the dates correct. You said you contacted the contractor on. June 13th, 2025, right? Yes. And then it was resolved the next day.

That's it. Okay. Okay. If there. No other questions.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm just trying to think like. But the grass was being cut, surely grass was being cut between April 24th and June 13th?

Yes.

Yeah?

Yes. It had been cut previously?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's it.

Some of what I read online, you said the issue with grass and stuff was that you couldn't get to the property because of flooding?

I was at the property, but I hire a lawn company to cut the, the, the property. So, the lawn company couldn't get to the property because of the national emergency, like, the state of emergency that Kentucky raised for the flooding of the Ohio during that time during Derpy. the property is located off of zorn avenue which is directly connected to like river road area and yeah the only way you can get to it it's you know like it you have to really see where the property is located to see because like that whole exit was cut off so there's only one way to get to it from that exit and there's a road that leads into the property that you can only get from that area that was flooded

So you can't come from the Brownsboro Road end to get to that property? No.

In other words, you couldn't leave?

No. Until the waters subsided.

I wasn't aware that we literally had homes that were trapped and couldn't go either direction. I understand what was cut off down towards the interstate.

Yeah.

was no way to come from the other side even as high as that area is okay i think that there would have been emergency access if something were to have occurred yeah i guess six things like that would have been i mean

What if there was a medical emergency?

I mean, that's why they, they call it the state of emergency because of people getting really affected in that manner as well.

Okay. All right.

Thank you. Welcome.

Mr. Haberman, you have the opportunity for rebuttal.

So, I just more to answer questions, but I just want to clarify a few things. I think I clarified. Before that, the. Having that same case number is not the same citation. So those were 3 separate instances. Um, I understand what he was saying with having people get out there earlier to cut, but the inspector was able to get out there that day and site. So, in theory, they could have been there to cut on that day. But. Apart from that, um, I just would say that, um, with the citation, just because I just want to make sure that we're all working on the same record. Um. He is correct. I have all the citations that were issued to the property and in the past, some were sent to 5811 Hillwood. But the four citations mentioned in the revocation letter were all sent to 3004 Cleveland. I don't know if they were actually mailed to that address on the envelope, they're in the records they were all addressed to that and i just i only mentioned in that for the record it's not necessarily relevant again going back to maybe he could have appealed um and got those kind of removed from consideration sure but at the end of the day they were substantiated complaints as i mentioned before a citation is kind of the gold standard for a substantiated complaint because that meant the officer went there usually after a written warning was given and cited and left a penalty, but it's not necessarily what makes a complaint substantiated. Was it a reasonable belief that there was a violation at that point as affirmed by an officer of Metro is kind of how I would describe it. I made that up. But that's just how I would understand that to be, but it doesn't have to have been a citation. So. But I don't want you all to get too far down because that path is something that he should take up with the code board. If he feels he still has an ability to protest and fight those citations. I think we have to look at. First, is he subject to the two-strike rule? Are these two substantiated complaints that are related to the short-term rental or the condition of the property? And then as Laura described earlier, with your discretion that you have, does that warrant revocation of the registration. Those are kind of where I would focus. I wouldn't focus on whether he was in violation or not because I don't really know if that's your purview. These are property maintenance violations that would go to the code board. There is no way that they would come to the board for you to adjudicate whether he was not guilty.

That's all I have. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I don't think I have any other questions at this point. Anyone else we questioning or discussing at this point?

Well, we've heard rebuttal. So yeah. So no question you feel hearing? Yeah. So it is time for discussion or questions amongst the board.

If it's discussion, I'll go. We're all trying really hard to get asked lots of questions to get as much information as possible, but ultimately. It's his responsibility. And it's the responsibility of the inspectors to check on things and the. They checked on things and found things were not correct and. as the owner, as the applicant here, it was his responsibility to find out that he's got a rail that's bad, that the paint is bad. That the concrete is bad. It's not the fault of the of the grass cutters that couldn't get there. You know, if necessary, if he thought he was going to get a citation, he probably should have brought grass cutter from home. Even whatever it takes to do that, because that's his responsibility. And I think it shows more a lack of responsibility in in happening in these things as to as anything else. And I think it did here dizzy. Is he been. Complied with complied, or does he fit the 3 strike rule? And I think there's sufficient information here to see that he did. So I'm still in the same position to deny the revocation or to he's appealing the revocation and I would deny the appeal.

Okay. All right. Anyone else.

i'm also looking here on google map it seems like there's more than one point of interest to the property if i'm not mistaken um back to what joe was saying also if the inspector was able to get there somebody else could have gotten there too and i also don't think that that emergency lasted two months so it's just a lot of losing pieces any other discussion or is

Well, I looked at it much the way my fellow commissioner here did. I'm trying to find a reason to say it didn't meet that standard of two strikes so he doesn't lose his short-term rental registration. I've just not seen it. So I I have to support the administrative action that was taken.

Yes, so do I, based on the testimony we've heard and the discussion we've had.

All right, is there a motion regarding the appeal? Did you ask for a motion? Oh, yes. Okay. Yes.

I'll make a motion. Okay. Um. Regarding case number 26 appeal 0, 0, 0, 3, I make a motion to deny based on the, uh. The staff analysis and the administrative decision, I think should be upheld. particularly in the absence of any additional information to the contrary.

Is there a second?