Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Okay. Okay.

Metro TV will get started in 30 seconds. all right so welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the planning and zoning committee for september 15th 2026 the time is 103 pm We do have some people joining us online. So this meeting is being held pursuant to KRS 61.826 and Council Rule 5A. I am the chair of the committee, Andrew Owen. I'm joined by my vice chair, Scott Reed, virtually. Joined virtually by Councilwoman Josie Raymond, by Councilwoman Shamika Parrish-Wright, and I'm joined in chambers by Councilman um hudson councilman benson councilman batshon uh councilman piagentini has joined us uh i'm joined by councilwoman ruey and councilman bradger okay uh and we are also joined by councilman herndon thank you very much for joining us um okay so we are going to Start off with item number one on the agenda, which is O-225-26, an ordinance relating to the detailed district development plan for property located at 8803, 8805, and 8807 Old Bardstown Road, containing approximately 7.02 acres and being in Louisville Metro, case number 26DDP0005. Can I get a motion? Properly moved and seconded. Julia, is this on your plate?

No, this was held a couple times and been presented.

Right. So this is in Councilman Bratcher's district, so maybe we should start there, and you can kind of tell us. We've held it in committee a couple times, and now we're back around to it. So if you can give us kind of an overview.

Yes, sir. It passed through the system, and then... The developer wanted some changes, so it goes back to the, it was substantial changes, so it goes back to the planning commission. And when they come up, I think they made an error and they left out the standard element and some other things and we're just putting it back in. And the developer had no problem with putting it back in. We think it was an error.

So there are binding elements that are in the form of an amendment on the system. Yeah. Is that what I understand? Laura, are there things in those binding elements that you can kind of highlight for us?

Yeah, so the request by the developer as part of the revised plan was to increase the height requirement in binding element number nine from 25 feet to 27 feet. And extend what happened is, and it might have just been as part of a cleanup, that instead of just amending that one binding element, both height restriction binding elements that have been added by council were recommended for deletion by the planning commission. So we confirmed with the developer that the developer was fine with those not being deleted and just having the one change on binding element number nine from 25 to 27 feet. So there's an amendment in the system that would put those two back in and then it just renumbers the council review binding element because typically we like it to be the last one. I think someone on the committee needs to make that.

I think we got arranged with...

I'll make the motion to amend the binding elements.

I didn't have much to add, just that I just was updated on this. I think your concerns are valid. I always worry if it's about having different types of housing in the area or it's really about the infrastructure, and I really appreciate your diligence on that, understanding that when our city was built, 18 feet, it was just like the 2nd Street Bridge, right? And I know how tight that is, so wanting to take it to 20 feet makes sense. So I just wanted to say I appreciate that. Thank you.

I don't have anybody else in the queue. Any further questions or comments about this before we open the roll call vote? Anyone online? Okay, Cheryl, can we open the roll call vote, please?

Voting's open. Vice Chair Reid?

Yes.

Council Member Raymond? Yes. Voting's closing. Chair, you have eight yes votes.

Okay, thank you. That's unanimous, I think. Yep. You've approved unanimously, so this will be sent to, can it go to old business, right? Yeah, on the next council agenda. Okay, so a couple of housekeeping things real quick. I know there are people in the crowd here for the data center issue, which is number five. We're gonna knock out all of the smaller issues that we have first before we get to that one, just so you know. And then we're also gonna just jump around a little bit and go from number one on the agenda to number four on the agenda, which is R-124-26, a resolution requesting that Office of Planning conduct data gathering and analysis in Metro Council District 22. Can I get a motion, please? properly moved and seconded it. So is this something that you can speak to or that we need Councilman Bratcher to speak to?

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's, you know that, as you've probably heard me say millions of times, Bardstown Road is just so, has so much traffic, especially on the south end towards the Bullitt County line, Fern Creek. And this is just to start gathering info. When I came into this great body, I was ready to just say, no development on anything. And I found out that's just not legal. And it's probably not prudent. This is just saying, look, Fern Creek is going to develop, let's just face it, and a lot of good things are gonna happen from it. Let's just make sure that the Planning Commission and this office and this council is making sure we're making the right decisions on how it develops. So this will ask the Planning Commission to gather info on how it proceeds.

And is this the typical 180-day turnaround that we normally have? Don't we normally have a 180-day turnaround? It seems like we do.

I guess that's normal, but there's nothing written in the ordinance.

There's nothing written in the ordinance in terms of that. Okay. Which I guess is fine as long as it's okay with Councilman Bratcher. Okay. Councilwoman Parish-Wright.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This was the same thinking I had with the last legislation. I do know that for me, our district, we have a neighborhood plan Many of our districts do or some type of development plan that happened I've been known to shake my finger at developers, too But I also am very concerned about our housing stock and not having enough housing stock So I want to make sure we're we're doing we're looking at the whole county the whole and every whole district So I think this is a good approach To see and it's good to hear that you're thinking about what development could look like and some of us we have districts where there are plans and there are other guidelines. And so I think that this is a safe way to go. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else have any questions, concerns of Councilman Bratcher? I don't have anybody else in the queue.

Chairman, may I?

Yes, you may. Councilwoman Raymond.

So that I understand it better, I mean, when one of us has a good idea, I so often think, oh, that would be applicable to several of us, right, who might have similarly dense corridors. Are we thinking of this sort of as a pilot or a proof of concept, and then we might choose some other congested places and do the same sort of process?

uh julia would you like to answer that sure uh yes so we're uh utilizing this as a pilot project for uh just to kind of look at the look at some hard facts about uh you know this roadway but this area of council district 22 to gather some data to determine what what this area needs, not necessarily just for Bardstown Road in this area, but what is the community looking at? What are their concerns and is there anything that Metro can do to address those concerns? But we would like to utilize this as a pilot project and hopefully if things go well, we can kind of shop it around and see what other council districts would like to do.

This may be what Councilwoman Parrish-Wright was referencing, but a few months ago, we looked at a Shively development plan, and this sounds similar to that. There just maybe wasn't the small city infrastructure, so we're launching this process. Is that correct?

That's correct. And Council District 22 doesn't have the neighborhood boundaries like some of the more urban neighborhoods do. So that's why in consultation with Councilman Bratcher, we looked at just maybe the whole of Council District 22 with a little bit of focus of south of the Gene Snyder. Got you. Thank you.

Councilwoman Rui.

Thank you very much. I am concerned that there is no timeline on this. I know Julia, I know Joel, I know you guys work really hard, but I also know if there's a timeline on something, it is more of an impetus to get this done in a timely manner. How long do you think it would take you guys reasonably to get this data gathered?

So in addition to the data gathering, we would like to have some community meetings and to talk with the council district, talk to our other agencies to see what types of projects, what can Metro do to alleviate some of the issues from that data that we gather. So in addition to the data gathering, there'll be hopefully more of an action plan that comes out of that. We don't know what that action plan looks like because the first step is doing this data gathering.

Okay, fair enough. So do you think six months enough? Would you mean more like nine months or a year?

I think six months would be enough to do the initial data gathering. So I think we could report back at that time and then determine where we go from there as far as this action plan portion.

Thank you very much, Councilman Bratcher. If I were you, I'd put a time limit on it, but that's up to you.

Thank you.

Councilman Piacentini.

Thank you. I can attest to the fact that putting a timeline on it doesn't mean anything, because I've done that before, and we missed it by like a factor of three. It wasn't because anybody didn't want to get it done. It was just reality. So just a very tiny thing. It's probably just a technical change. But in Section 2, it says this ordinance shall take effect, et cetera, et cetera, instead of resolution. So probably just clean that up.

Thank you. Anybody else have questions or concerns about this resolution? There's a resolution that we can have a voice vote on. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? The ayes have it. This will be forwarded to the consent calendar on the next Metro Council agenda. All right, the next item in front of us is item number two, O-240-26, an ordinance amending the Louisville Metro Land Development Code regarding road width, case number 25LDC-0003. Can I get a motion? Did I, there was a motion and a second in there? Okay. Yeah, it all came at me at once, and I thought it was just one thing. Properly moved and seconded. Joel, are you speaking to this? Yes. Great. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Joel Dock, Louisville Metro's Office of Planning Staff. This is a text amendment, 25LDC0003 for road width. Just some background on this text amendment. It is being driven by Council Resolution 137, Series 2024. That requested the Planning Commission review and consider amendments related to development on substandard roads. In this resolution, it did specifically note changes to LMCO Chapter 94 for fire prevention that were made in 2023, which increased the minimum road width from 18 feet to 20 feet. Some background on the text amendment. So the proposal changed the minimum width required throughout the LDC from 18 to 20 feet. It also changed in the subdivision regulations how an adequate street network would be determined by the Planning Commission. An adequate street network is determined by the most direct means of access to development to have that minimum pavement width of 20 feet instead of 18 feet, and that all new roadways created internal to that subdivision immediately along the frontage of the subdivision would need to meet that minimum pavement width of 20 feet. These standards that have been changed in the Land Development Code via Chapter 7 of the subdivision regulations will apply to new construction only and are not to be retroactively applied. This statement, as it concerns LMCO 94, was issued by the Jefferson County Fire Inspectors Association in May of 2024. Just some technical review on this text amendment. The changes to Chapter 7, which are the metropolitan subdivision regulations, the Planning Commission has the final authority to adopt or amend those subdivision regulations. So all changes that were proposed in Chapter 7 have already been approved and adopted by the Planning Commission. All other amendments outside of Chapter 7 of the Land Development Code are with the final authority of the legislative body or Louisville Metro Council. These include some definition updates, some changes to Chapter 6. Chapter 6 are the access management, really the public works standards that are contained in the Land Development Code, just to make sure references to 18 feet reference 20 feet instead. The Planning Committee heard this amendment for the first time on November 5th of 25, and then again on May 27th of 26. The Planning Commission conducted their public hearing on August 6th, a motion to approve the changes to Chapter 7, which are the subdivision regulation passed by a vote of 7 to 0, and a motion to recommend approval of all other changes passed by a vote of 7 to 0. With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Councilwoman Ruiz.

Thank you very much. So we've seen from research and whatever that wider roads tend to increase speed. And so you're asking to widen the roadway, a two-way roadway by an additional four feet. How is that going to affect the actual speed on those roads?

I can't necessarily speak to the speed of vehicles on a roadway. I can only speak to the fact that we were simply amending the land development code to be consistent with what the fire division having jurisdiction would require, whether the land development code stated those requirements or not.

OK, thank you. Then I've got another question as I'm reading the ordinance itself. Just help me, I'm looking at 4236, and mobile home spaces shall front on the paved driveway of not less than, and 1,820 feet is taken out, so it's not less than in compliance with LMCO 9480 as determined by the Director of Public Works, la la la. So forgive my ignorance, what does LMCO 94.80 say? that it has to be in compliance with.

And I might need some clarification on this. The text amendment in 4236 references, it just changes 18 feet to 20 feet in the draft that I have. I understand there's some changes, though.

Oh, that's the proposed amendment. Okay, so then I need to understand what the proposed amendment is saying then, if that's what we need to pass.

I can speak very briefly on 9480. 9480 is the fire prevention ordinance, LMCO, that does include the minimum pavement width of 20 feet. It also references some clearance standards and also has some statements in there that the fire division, whether the roadway is 20 feet or 22 feet, can determine based on their analysis that a roadway is just unsafe.

Okay, thank you.

So do we need to propose the amendment on the floor? So is anyone, can someone make a motion to amend if that's what we're going to do, somebody who's on the committee?

I'll make a motion. You're talking about the one that's, Laura, the one we talked about Friday? Right.

So it's in the system. And what this amendment does is it took out the references to 20 feet and instead put in a reference to comply with 9480 for two reasons. As Joel said, at the end of the day, 9480 would control a construction. But also, if there is a road width change, like say in the future it's increased to 22 feet, this would automatically change the land development code provisions without having to start another review process that goes through Planning Commission.

Everybody, let's see. So wait, so we have a motion. Can I get a second on that motion? All right, you want to speak to the amendment? Councilman Piagentini, you have the floor.

Thank you. I just want to support my colleague, Councilman Benson, and thank Laura for pulling this together. To me, it's a much cleaner way of doing it. I mean, I think Laura perfectly explained it, because otherwise, every time there's going to be a disconnect. And this way, it's just all referencing the same thing. And as long as that's updated, this is all automatically updated. I just want to ask a quick question of planning and design about what the original intent of the resolution was, and I just need an update on maybe a future project, hopefully, that's on an ongoing basis, or that's ongoing right now. And that is, this addresses new, as I understand it, and Laura, tell me if I'm off base, this addresses new builds, new subdivisions. So if there's new build, new subdivision, The road must be, at least right now, referencing, which one was it, 9480? Am I right? Yeah, 9480. 9480. So right now it'll be 20 feet. If they change it to 22, it's 22. But the bottom line is right now that'll move from 18 to 20 feet. The problem that we're having, I know in my district, Councilman Benson's district, Councilman Kramer's district, I think Councilman Bratcher's district and others are, you know, we took, farm roads, very old rural roads, and widened them to 18 feet to the bare minimum. And now we're building not just a couple houses here and there sparsely populated on five-acre plots, but now we're building apartments. We're building thousands of units on these 18-foot wide roads. So it's wonderful that a new development has a 20-foot road. And then the second you drive off that development, you're driving onto an 18-foot road. Oh, and by the way, there's five other subdivisions that are dumping hundreds if not thousands of cars onto that 18-foot wide road. So my understanding in talking with the county attorney's office is in order, what I would like to see, and I'm not, I don't want to be unrealistic about this. I'm not going to, you know, legislate that we must, you know, now expand everything to 20 feet and you can't build until that, that would be, it'd be chaos, right? But I'm wondering if we can, set standards where we're saying once you hit a certain amount of units per road, or per distance on a road, that that road then must have a process to expand, it must have funding to expand over some period of time that coincides with construction. In talking with the county attorney's office, they mentioned that that would require planning and design to complete a study process that maybe other counties like Oldham County have done in order to, set some guidelines that we could adopt are we doing that currently is that in the planning phase like where are we with because again I'm happy about this I'm glad to vote on this but we're not I think getting to the final goal which is creating some realistic expectations on once we hit certain density and once we hit a certain amount of units on these 18 foot wide roads we have to plan to get them to 20 feet for safety reasons or at least 20 feet for safety reasons but Can you describe if we have anything in the hopper right now to plan for that?

Short answer is ultimately the land development code rewrite that's going through the process. I think something like this can be considered during that much larger project. With respect to new development, once you get above 200 units in that new development, you have to have multiple access points. The frontage of these new developments, we can require that the frontage in front of that subdivision be widened to 20 feet. We previously had a resolution and we had funding from council in the amount of, I believe, $250,000. to allocate towards a capacity analysis. And one of those factors in that analysis was looking at the condition of roadways and considering things like level of service. We put out an RFP, I don't remember, I wanna say 23 or 22 when we had this funding available. We put out an RFP and ultimately we did not get any takers on this that could do it for the amount of money that was allocated towards the project.

So follow up, Mr. Chair, if that's okay. Yeah, so are you saying that the, I'm okay maybe with doing it through the larger rewrite, but I don't know if we have a real great timeline on that. That's probably question number one, but question number two is I also don't want to go through and start putting in standards into that when we haven't really studied it to understand what would be the best way to do it. Is that $250,000 still sitting out there or has it been reallocated for something else?

No, that money's not out there anymore. I don't know the specifics of that. If anybody else does, they can chime in. I think what we can do is we can look back through that and look at what that RFP was, look at what the individuals that did respond to that, and happy to provide that information just to look through what was put out there, what the consultant said, and revisit exactly what was proposed to those consultants.

Why don't I refer to Brian and then I'll make a comment. Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, it's automatically on, sorry.

I'll change it up on us, I never know. Brian Davis, Office of Planning. No, the money that was allocated for that in previous fiscal years, since it wasn't utilized, it was taken back and it wasn't a fund that had brought forward into new years. Like Joel mentioned, we put it out for RFP multiple times and never got a taker at any of that. And so one of the things that we have highlighted as part of the LDC rewrite that we're going through right now was that we would like for the consultant who's doing that project to take a look at that. That project, all the background information has started. We've been working on that since April. after the consultant was selected. And so, you know, our timeframe for that's about two years for completing that. And so that is what we're looking at in terms of timeframe on the LDC route, right?

Okay. I mean, I don't know if I'm willing to wait two more years. I mean, you know, because the point is, I think, you know, I know it was said that once you get to a certain amount of units, there's multiple ingress and egress points. I'm familiar with all of those guidelines, but it's still off the same 18-foot wide road, right? I mean, we have... We have roads and subdivisions being built in some of these areas where if you're driving a truck or if the fire department is coming or if a construction vehicle, and that means truck or cement truck or anything like that is coming down the road, it is literally impossible for everybody to stay in their lane. I mean, we just are creating head-on collisions every time these roads bend even slightly. And in some of these roads, and I'll pick on Johnson because it's mostly in my, I think entirely in my district, that road which we built a ton of subdivisions on, there's more coming, they have 90 degree turns and anything bigger than a subcompact crosses the yellow lines, right? I mean, you can't stay in your own lane. There's blind curves and all kinds of other problems there. I'm just getting increasingly concerned with the rapid rate of development out there that this is all coming to a head. We don't yet have a plan, other than maybe two years out, to definitively say, hey, we need to start widening these roads when we're building these subdivisions once we hit a certain capacity. We'll talk offline. We're not going to solve it right here, but my point is I wanted to have that conversation here because I appreciate what's being done here. I think it's a good first step, and I support this wholeheartedly, but I wanted to make sure we're bringing up the larger issue, which to me is not being addressed yet and is actually the greater issue that I see from a safety point of view when we're building. So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Well, and to that point, I mean, I'm sure we have, but I mean, there are other jurisdictions who have dealt with quick growth. And what I would hate to do would be to go from having no phone lines at all to putting in landlines, ignoring the fact that nobody uses landlines anymore and everybody using cell. So that's a bad analogy. But my point is, if we know we need to go to 24 feet or whatever the new standard is, I would hate to think that we're widening from 18 to 20 and having to go through the whole right-of-way process, the whole infrastructure process, knowing that at some point we need to go to 24. So I just wanted to bring that up. Councilman Benson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You know, two years ago when we filed this, because we've had a lot of subdivisions and 18-foot, a lot of fire –

with somebody parking on the street, they couldn't make the curve. And it takes a pretty good curve for sometimes a fire truck to make it through. Then we realized it had to be 20 foot. They wanted 20 foot. And as Betsy was talking about, if you make the road wider, will people go faster? Well, out in my area, there's a lot of roads that don't even have a line down the center because it's not wide enough. It's not even close to 18 foot. So one person almost had to pull over while another school bus or something passes. And just raising it to the street to 20 feet on the roads, there's no shoulder. If you get over, you're in the ditch. And you're talking about a dangerous situation, and you go out Clark, and there's a bunch of roads that they're really, we're trying to upgrade a little, because we don't have the right of way really to make them wider. But we thought, well, as we're doing the subdivisions, we need to make sure that we make them as wide as we can to make sure that traffic can flow. and Kevin Cramer would come up the aisle and say, hey, instead of doing all this again, and, you know, two years or something, let's just, whenever we change it, that we can automatically just kick it in. So I really appreciate everybody voting on this. It would be good.

Okay, so we've got an amended ordinance in front of us. Any questions, more questions or comments about the amended ordinance? So we'll do a voice vote on the amendment. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Aye. The ayes have it. So we have an amended ordinance in front of us. Any more conversation, discussion about the amended ordinance before we open up the roll call vote? Got nobody in the queue. Anybody online? Cheryl, open up the roll call vote, please.

Voting's open. Vice Chair Reid? Yes. Council Member Raymond? Yes. Voting's closing. Chair, you have six yes votes and two present.

Okay, so this will be forwarded to Old Business on the next council agenda with 6-2 vote, 6-0-2 vote. Okay, next item on the agenda, item number three, O-258-26, an ordinance relating to the closure of an unnamed and unimproved alley between North Peterson Avenue and Frankfort Avenue containing approximately 32,383 square feet and being in Louisville Metro, case number 26, street closure 0023. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Do you want to talk about this, Julia? All right.

Yes. Julia Williams, Office of Planning. This is 26th Street closure 0023. This is an unnamed alley between properties fronting North Galt Avenue and North Peterson Avenue in Council District number nine. This is a location of the alley closure. You can see it's an unimproved alley behind the properties along North Galt and North Peterson. This is the zoning for the property. the request is a closure of public right-of-way so it's approximately 32 000 square feet of alley between north peterson avenue frankfurt avenue and north galt avenue it is an unimproved alley at the rear of 49 properties so you could see the aerial over here and then another aerial shot it's unimproved so it's not really recognizable as an alley This is the applicant's plat where the alley will be divided on each side equally. There was a Development Review Committee meeting on August 19, 2026, and the Planning Commission held their public hearing where this was on the consent agenda on August 20, 2026, where there was a motion to recommend approval of the street closure passing by a vote of nine to zero. Are there any questions?

Thank you, Julia. This is in District 9, the district I represent. You'd be surprised how many of these unimproved alleys there are. You can't even tell, really, if you look at them, that they were ever intended to be an alley, that nothing was ever built there. And my office got a call about this one. I had probably been a couple years that it took to get this process started. Neighbors weighed in. We're finally to this point. So anybody have any? Councilman Benson.

thank you mr chair i i believe and and i could be wrong uh when they developed the country i mean the city they made alleys so that's where usually people picked up the garbage and they made a lot of people had their garages at the very back of the lot and people come into the back of the alley and put into their garage so they had more land to have it for the yard and because they had the They couldn't put the garage right in the front. And so it was a good idea. And I still think it's a pretty good idea for homeowners to have access to behind their houses. But you have to have 51% of the people say they want to close the alley. If you have 51% of the people wanting to close it, would that automatically we close the alleys, or it has to be on how much we're using them?

Laura, how does that work? In this case, this is an alley on the Platte. It's kind of an alley in name only.

Yeah, it's unimproved.

Answering the question that Councilwoman Benson asked, if it's an alley that's actually improved, 51% of the homeowners, I would assume, can't vote to close the alley. Is that true?

Well, you still can if it's improved, but you're going to have to make the case, and Public Works is going to have to review and conclude that it's not needed.

Right, how are you going to pick up your garbage? Yeah, how are you going to do that?

How are utility easements going to be dealt with and the like? In this case, there were 42 owners. There were 49 parcels held by 42 different owners, and 30 had signed the consent form on the petition. And in part, I think part of what the discussion was is if you get towards Frankfurt Avenue, there's the railroad tracks.

So this alley is never going to be improved across the railroad tracks. And when you look at where it goes in the opposite direction, it doesn't quite connect.

So you see kind of like that little thin piece at the top where it touches, might touch Galt or might not. So it made it very unlikely that this thing was ever going to have access to either Frankfort or to Galt for those reasons.

Thank you.

Thanks. Anybody else have questions or concerns before we open up a roll call vote on this item? Okay, Cheryl, can you open up a roll call, please?

Voting's open. Vice Chair Reed?

Yes.

Council Member Raymond. Yes. Odin's closing. Chair, you have eight yes votes.

Street closures can't go on consent, can they? They can go on consent. Okay, this will be forwarded to the consent calendar on the next council agenda.

Okay, item number five.

A couple of other kind of housekeeping issues. We have 20 minutes left in today's meeting. So we've asked... We've asked the planning staff to give us kind of an overview of the data center recommendations that were passed out of the planning commission. We may or may not be able to get through that today. The idea from the beginning was that we would bring this issue in front of us for discussion and then would table it at the end of that discussion so we can give it the time it deserves. We're not sure exactly what that's going to look like yet. We're not sure if that's going to be all within regularly scheduled planning and zoning meetings or whether we need to create some special meetings to hear this, but I think clearly the it's a very important issue to the community we've taken a very long time to to discuss one thing i do want to make sure i do here is thank the planning staff they have worked incredibly hard on this for many many many months and held a significant number of public meetings and frankly brian i'd love you for you to tell us how many and all of that sort of thing to give us an idea so So that's kind of where we are on that. And Brian, if you want to take it away. Thank you.

All right. Good afternoon. Brian Davis, Little Metro Office of Planning, joined by Joe Reverman. We're going to be tag teaming. Hey, I'm sorry. Good Lord. Yeah, no. He texted me an hour ago, so that's what happened. Yeah, no. Yeah, Joe Haberman. Yeah, we are going to be tag teaming the presentation here regarding data centers today. So as you all know, the request is an amendment to the land development code regarding telecommunication hotels slash data centers. Just to kind of summarize where this request came from, Council directed the Planning Commission to review the Land Development Code and return recommendations to improve the requirements for data centers. Data centers, as you all and most of the people in the room know, are buildings that house computer hardware, that stores and processes digital information. These facilities are required for a lot of the modern digital services that we utilize today, such as all of our apps, remote working, things like that. And the use itself includes the infrastructure for these facilities, which includes the power used to power these servers, power the computer, and power the generators as well as all the cooling facilities and then security measures that are put in place for it. There are a couple different types of data centers that can be of different sizes and serve a number of different purposes. A lot of these tend to fall within different categories that are based on the ownership or the scale of the building or the location of the building in relation to what the data is being stored for, being utilized for. You have the enterprise which is a type of data center which is used for internal operations by single organizations. Sometimes those are located on the same site as like their offices and so like you may have a business where they have a data center contained within the confines of the building in which they are operating. and they only use that to store and utilize the computers that they have there on the site. You also have these co-location or multi-tenant data centers. These are ones that are used by multiple client organizations that are typically located offsite from like an office, usually owned and operated by a single company, but then a customer leases server space, leases computer space within that data center again, house data, run applications and things like that. Where the data center market has kind of got everyone's attention in the planning world and in the general public has to do with the size and the scale of these types of facilities. And so when we talk about these, we're talking about the hyperscale data centers. These are the largest facilities that we have started to see more and more common in communities across the United States and the world. Usually they are associated with cloud services as well as AI. So like when you think about like the AI generated videos and photographs and things like that, these larger facilities are the ones that are typically doing that just because of the amount of servers that are needed to process that kind of information. They're typically operated by major cloud providers and AI companies and are often owned and operated by a single company. And so, again, that is what has kind of got the attention of the world out there. Data centers are common in Louisville Metro already. We do not have a mechanism for tracking data centers. There isn't any kind of licensing or registration requirement for these types of facilities, but we do know they exist. Based on information that's available on the website, it's estimated that there are over 20 data centers located in Louisville. The map on here shows a couple that basically there's a website, this data center map website where data center operators can go and advertise server space that they have available for lease. And so they are actively advertised on this website. So we know where those are located at. The location, the zoning, the size of that varies significantly. The largest one that is constructed nowadays is about, the building footprint is about 100,000 square feet. But then we have a number of data centers that fall below like a 50,000 or more, like the 30,000 to 40,000 square foot range in terms of like the building size. So currently in the Land Development Code data centers, they are not classified as a specific use and they have been reviewed as telecommunications hotels. If you do a search of any kind of planning literature or look at the language that we have in the Land Development Code, telecommunications hotels are, it's a term that's utilized for buildings that are used to house servers and computer information. A lot of times they were used for both telephone and then eventually internet. relay stations. And so think of like these modern data centers that we have as kind of like an evolution of the telecommunication hotel. Presently, those are permitted in the C3, M1, M2, and M3, as well as the CM, EZ1, PRO, and PEC, a whole bunch of letters there at you. But primarily other than the C3 are industrial districts as well as those districts that permit both commercial and industrial uses. Data centers that are accessory can be permitted in any zoning district with general accessory use standards. We do have a computer data center use that's allowed as part of a conditional use permit listing for underground spaces, which is in the code, and you may notice in the regulation that has been proposed, we're proposing to strike that. So that is the only time you see the two words data and centers combined with one another in the land development code today. Public engagement. We feel like we did a lot. We had a number of community meetings and forums back in the fall of 2025 after the initial resolution was sent over to us requesting us to research the project. We conducted five community forums that were held throughout the community. And one online forum will be, again, just kind of provide a general information about what data centers are, how we currently regulate them, and then ask the public for some feedback on how they felt that we should address those in the land development code. We created an online survey. which had 17 questions, which was open from end of October through about the end of December. We had a lot of comments received there. We had nearly 3,600 surveys submitted to us, which in the planning world is like an astronomical number. Typically, if we get like 100 to 200 responses or something, we're thrilled. So you can imagine just the response that we had from the community and how we felt about that. We also included an online comment form where we received over 4,000 comments about the proposed regulations. We sent out or received numerous emails and letters and documents from people who had comments and concerns and thoughts about the proposed regulations. And then in the summer of 2026, we had a meeting We went through our typical process for reviewing these types of public hearings, or we went against the typical process where we actually had a series of public hearings held by the Planning Commission located around the community in order to give people an opportunity to comment on those. And so we had four different hearings, three were in person, one was online, and we had about eight hours of testimony that we received through the four different public hearings regarding the data center matters. So, through all of the different comments that we received, as well as through the public forum, we were able to identify a number of issues that we felt were the primary concerns by those in the public. While we were going through the process of developing the draft and making amendments to that, these things came up. So the Kentucky Resource Council has a proposed model ordinance that they have online that they had created to give Kentucky communities just kind of like an overview and some things to consider as they adopt data center regulations. And so a lot of people wanted us to take more of these suggestions that they had under consideration. But that was something that we had reviewed as part of the whole review process when we were developing the draft. there was some concern about the uh the zoning districts and which ones we were proposing to allow data centers to be located in there was many comments about the levels of review and approval with the the primary concern being that people wanted a public hearing before the planning commission and ultimately a decision by legislative bodies on data center matters they didn't want any kind of They wanted to minimize the number of by-right data centers that would be allowed to be approved at staff level or by the planning director. There was concerns about separations between data centers, especially if there were size limitations. Concerns about making sure that you didn't allow a series of data centers to be located side by side so that we could reduce the concentration of data center development in our community. the separation from sensitive uses, energy usage and water usage as utilities and concerns about not only completely utilizing a community's supply of power and usable water, but then also any associated rising costs that may be passed along to utility rates or utility payers within the community. So a lot of concern about that. And then the generators, the types of generators, whether... and just several different facets about generators. So we had comments about hours of operation, types of generators that could be used, potential pollution from those, both just like from any exhaust that they may expel as well as noise pollution. So a lot of comments about that. So I'm going to turn it over to Joe now, and he's going to talk about some of the recommendations that the Planning Commission have ultimately recommended to you all and other legislative bodies with zoning authority.

All right. Good afternoon. Joe Haberman, Office of Planning. So these recommendations have evolved as we've started to get more and more public comment. So to be clear, this is the recommendation. This is an overview of the recommendation by the Planning Commission, which is the latest recommendation, the latest draft that people have seen. So I'm just going to go through some of the highlights that appear in that that address many of the concerns that Brian just mentioned. The first is the draft regulations try to protect utility customers by requiring evidence that the new facilities will not shift any cost onto existing rate payers. And what that means is in the current draft, there's requirements to show that they have worked with Louisville Water to address the water usage, that they've worked with LG&E to address the electric usage, and they've worked with MSD for any impacts they might cause with wastewater or stormwater. And they have to provide either a will serve letter or an equivalent to that to show that they've worked through that process, that the utilities can handle the demand that would be created by that data center. So that's in the draft. There's also, related to that, there's a requirement that the developer presenting the proposal bear the cost of the improvements to any infrastructure if upgrades are required. There was some fears that if they had to make some improvements to come online that the utility would then pass those costs on to all rate payers, not necessarily the data center. So the ordinance addresses that and makes sure that they're responsible for those additional costs. To some of the bigger changes, one of the, Current rules is there's really no cap on the size of data centers. So the draft regulations presents a hard cap of 500,000 square feet. There's no way to exceed that. There's no waiver. That is a cap that's based into the zoning. And then we are proposing, and this is a change made by the Planning Commission, that any data center that is between 50,000 and 500,000 square feet requires M1 zoning and I'll get to that in a little bit when I show you the maps that will make a lot more sense because you might be wondering why not M3, why not M2? That will make sense once you see it visually. And this is important, there also has to be particular form districts that are that they're located within as well. So those are some of the form districts that are designed for larger developments. So sometimes the form doesn't necessarily match the zoning. In those cases, they need both to line up. It also restricts data centers that are less than 50,000 to a series of industrial districts, CM, EZ-1, M-1, M-2, M-3, PEC, and PRO. But currently they're, by right, without any special standards. The new regulations, if adopted, would add a series of special standards that they need to meet. And there are exceptions, I will just note, to accessory data centers and telecommunication data centers. And then finally, this is a big one for a lot of members of the public that for those ones between 50 and 500,000 square feet, there'd be a requirement for a conditional use permit. And if they're smaller than 50,000 square feet, they would need a conditional use permit if they cannot meet one of those standards. Just to wrap up some of the regulations, there's also some requirements that they meet environmental low impact design standards and some sustainability related standards to how they build and design their projects. There's a requirement to homes, schools, daycare facilities. Mr.

Chair, I'm sorry. It was a point of order. There's something making noise in the gallery. Can we take control of that?

What is that? Edwin?

It's not. It's your phone. If you could shut it off, please, so we can continue with the meeting. Thank you. Mr. Chair, if we can.

Go ahead, Joe.

So just circling back to there's a requirement for separation from Homes, schools, daycare facilities, nursing home, hospitals, and other data centers. So that requirement generally can vary in some cases. But for the most part, it's a quarter of a mile. And that is to ensure that a data center is not next to one of those sensitive uses. But it's also to ensure that a lot of data centers don't concentrate in one area. Requirements for noise standards, we have a noise ordinance but this goes above and beyond what the noise ordinance would require and it requires a noise study as part of a conditional use application. And then there's some buffering requirements and that addresses some of the noise that not only comes from the data center but might come from generators. That's a good source of noise if they're tested. during certain windows, it could be problematic. So we also, as Brian mentioned, limited the hours of operation that some of those noise producers like testing could occur in. And then finally, we require that the persons making the proposal are transparent and disclose the ownership and the user of the development once it's completed. So this first map is, You probably can't read the labels, but it's M1 and M3. So keep in mind, I did not say that the larger data centers were allowed in M3, but I wanted to show you this map because naturally you would want to push these to M3 because that's the most intensive industrial district that we have. So but when you do that we have a lot more M3 than M1 and the next map will show you the M1. So a lot of people were concerned about data centers going into areas that have already felt a burden of having industrial development and there's a lot of M3 out there to where data centers could go. So by shifting to just M1, which a data center in terms of scale and purpose does line up with several other M1 uses. We can go to the next map. So ignore the gray to gray, well don't ignore the gray. The gray is not where data centers can go. the suburban cities with zoning authority. And we just wanted to point that out because there's some council district lines on here so that you can see how it would impact your respective districts. But where a data center could go with M1 zoning and those four required form districts are what is shown in kind of a pinkish red there. And if you can't see it, it's because there's not a whole lot of it throughout the county. And what that means from a practical perspective is you need the M1 zoning, so it's going to require a lot of people who look at sites that aren't red to go through a rezoning process, which would bring the matter before Metro Council, or if it's within one of those gray areas, if the suburban city adopts similar standards, it would go before their legislative body.

I think it's important, Joe. What I understand you just to say is that the only areas that would be where you'd be allowed to construct a data center over?

Between 50 and 500,000 square feet. Between 50 and 500,000 square feet would be what's shown in pink.

And would that be by right in the places where it's read?

No, if you're between 50 and 500,000 square feet with an exception for telecommunication data centers that are run by a FCC regulated utility, you would need a conditional use permit, but you wouldn't need a rezoning. So there would still be a public hearing and some oversight, but you wouldn't need a rezoning. If you're in an area that's not, that's shown as white or gray, you would need both.

Right, so I think that's important for people to hear. One of the concerns that we heard from people was that there was not a formal, in some cases there wouldn't be a formal process where if somebody wanted to build a data center that they wouldn't have to come to either Planning Commission or Metro Council or both for review. And what you guys have done here is basically eliminated that possibility. You have to come for one or the other to build a data center. Is that what I understand?

If it's between 50 and 500,000 square feet, you need to have a public hearing. If it needs a rezoning or a new form district, it would have to come before Metro Council as well. If you're under 50,000 square feet, you would only need that conditional use permit if you failed to meet one of those standards. That would kick in the public hearing process. If somebody felt that they didn't meet one of those standards and it was approved, then they could file an appeal and that would also trigger a public hearing.

So there's going to be a public hearing on just about every case is what it sounds like?

there's a chance that a series of the smaller ones, because when I say up to 50,000, there might be a very small one that meets all the standards that might be able to be approved without that. Right, okay, so go ahead. Well, that's pretty much it. I'll just wrap up with the Planning Commission's recommendation. So as Brian mentioned, we had four public hearings in this case. And then the Planning Commission continued on with two additional business session meetings to discuss the amendment further. They recommended approval of the recommendations I just highlighted with a vote of five to three.

happy to answer any questions okay so i have um so like i said before the the idea here was that we were going to hear from oh let me take a step back first of all we didn't motion this uh onto the floor so um let me let me just i don't even know if honestly if i read it so let me reread it into the record uh an ordinance amending uh o-251-26 an ordinance amending the louisville metro land development code regarding data centers case number 25 ldc-0014 can i get a motion motion and a second properly moved and seconded okay so we got went back and corrected that So the idea here was that we were going to table. I do have some people in the queue. We're at 2.03, so let's see if we can work through a few of these. We don't have much time, so if people can kind of move quickly, have Councilwoman Hawkins first.

Thank you, Chair. Respectfully, I know that you said move quickly, but nothing about this process should be moved quickly. But for the sake of time, I want to say that Nobody had a voice. Nobody even had a vote on the first data center. And one of the things that concerns me already is that for the recommendations coming over from the planning commission that they acknowledged daycares, nurseries, but never acknowledged community. You know, the people that live close to data centers. And then another thing, I think that this should call for several special meetings, not just a committee. There is no amount of time or solutions that we're gonna be able to come up within just an hour or so. So when people spend the time to come in here, this deserves special meetings. So I would hope that everyone would take that in consideration. That's the least that I feel like that we should do. So I want you all to consider that. And I am waiting on several documents to come back that I've asked for. And to be quite honest, I have several amendments from the District 1 constituents and even people that live outside District 1. pertaining to any data center. And I understand that we're here today for amendments, but why come the solution just can't be no data center at all? Why just can't be not even, no data center? It's like we don't have a choice. This is it. And I just don't understand that. I need my, I need not just my district, but this is something that is very hazardous to the health, especially the people that live by the data center. And I'm not just speaking for my constituents. I lived there, I lived at the data center. I wasn't able to utilize my voice for the first one. So I just wanna know, is there any, is it even an option just to say no? We don't have, no amendment, just, there is none when it comes to being in communities where people live. If there's a space where we can put these data centers in, where you don't have communities, you know, then yeah, I can jump on board with that. But when you have people that live, walk, you know, and have to sleep in neighborhoods like myself where data centers are placed there, there's no option for just no.

So I think that's a great question. And I don't wanna put, I mean, I think the answer is like a lot of things in law, in legal, it depends. We've had this conversation with the county attorney's office numerous times over the last year. Laura, can you give us just kind of some insight into what that might look like?

yeah laura ferguson so you know communities counties are given and cities are given power to regulate based on aesthetics safety capacity infrastructure and the like and assuming you're not preempted by federal law or state law which we're not at the moment but you can regulate where businesses can go or even if a business is allowed entirely, but you're going to have to make justifications as to the rational basis as to what things it checks and why, and why that business should be excluded and not similar forms of businesses. So the devil's in the details as to how you come up with the facts and the whereas clauses as to justifying why.

so that's the difficulty and i don't want to get too much more into this because we're at 207 and we will have many more meetings but the the difficulty is you have to justify it and so you look at dow chemical or you look at rubber town and all of the other industrial facilities in louisville currently and you say and and somebody could sue us and say so you're let you let that business that has all of these negative externalities operate but you don't let this that's not fair we're suing you so so that's that's where it gets gets tricky and it's again i what laura said is it can be done but there has to be justification for it from a legal perspective

you're saying that we could potentially get sued. It's like if we're picking and choosing.

But you get sued and you lose, and so then the whole thing goes out the window. We get sued all the time. Well, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Okay. I think I'd like to cut it off here if I can, unless Councilman P. Argentini, you have something very... Yeah, well, let's go ahead. We'll get through Councilman P. Argentini, and then we'll...

I think, yeah, I'll hold off and talk about the constitutionality issues, but I think I know the answer to this one. I just want to be super clear. The maps that you gave included the suburban cities. In other words, it's not as though you said, well, we're not putting the color coding in Anchorage or Middletown or these areas. If M1 or M3 existed, you put it in the map. If it didn't, you didn't, correct?

Correct.

Okay. And then the... The other thing, I just want to point out the representation process, because I know we're going to hold off on everything. Sure, go ahead. I know my caucus chair colleague over here, we're going to be talking about this a lot, but I agree with her. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to ... I know I'm sending out the guidance in my next newsletter. I just had my town hall yesterday, coincidentally. and said, I'm going to send out the guidance, and encouraged everybody to contact me, and then I'm going to funnel those comments right in here. We represent roughly 30,000 people apiece. Yeah, I encourage everybody to do that. But that's the way that we behave here. And then through that, through our chair, through our vice chair, through the caucus chairs, we will bring all those comments together and find something that works. i'm just going to encourage all my colleagues right every single one of us should be sending the guidance out and asking people to comment and then we filter that information and then bring that all together as a group as representatives of the people that we serve so looking forward to that and thank you uh mr chair yeah and so the last thing i'll say is um i don't think there's anybody on this committee that's in any hurry here uh clearly it's an important issue and we're

perfectly willing to have the conversation that we need to have on an issue by issue basis if needed. The difficulty would be to schedule special meetings is gonna be getting people's calendars together. The reason it would be a heck of a lot easier to do it during committee meetings is because we all have had those meetings on our calendars for the entire year. So I'm perfectly willing to do special meetings, but it would, the group of us that make up the Planning and Zoning Committee would have to figure out what that looks like, and I'm happy to have that conversation going forward. But I don't think anybody's in any hurry. Clearly, the community is interested in what we do here and is concerned about where we end up, and so we need to have plenty of time committed to having those conversations. Okay, sorry I didn't get to everybody that's in the queue. It's 2.11. Is there anything else we need to cover before we adjourn? Should we?

We're not going to 3 o'clock? That's what we're scheduled to do.

Are we scheduled at 3 for the day? Yes. Oh, well, let's go. Sorry, I thought we were... And I'm next. I'm wondering why. Why didn't you say something? Well, let's go. That's fine. Let's go. Councilwoman Parrish-Wright.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was next in the queue, so I was watching and waiting. Okay. My first question is, I appreciate your presentation. You said you reviewed the Kentucky Resources Councils, and I have a copy of it. It's a very good, great document. You said you reviewed it, but did you adopt any of the things that they...

suggested yeah we did i think if you go through there and look at the uh the suggestions that they have we incorporated many of the suggestions and addressed many of the topics that are included in there um you know some of the things that we chose to leave out we left out because we have existing sections in our land development code now that address that for any type of development and so we didn't feel the need to put place any kind of further uh regulations or anything like that and specifically in the proposed data center regulations

Thank you. And with the hyperscale, I know we heard all kind of numbers. Thank you for trying to clarify. You don't know how many, but there's a website. Have you shared that website so that we can look at it, the one that they advertise on? Can you share that?

It's datacentermap.com. Datacentermap.com. Right, yeah, and so what you can do is you can look by community. And what that site is, again, it's a data center, it's a website so that existing data centers can advertise their server space. And so if you go there and look, it is a better representation. I know that there's a, like Erin Brockovich has started a website that maps them. Their map is more thorough than the website that she has because it has actual data centers that are up and running. that are advertising versus on her website, it's just data centers that have been reported by the public. So again, that is a representation of the data centers that we know about that are in our community.

Okay, and my last question, Mr. Chair, and thank you for that. I think it's good for the community to find this information. I hope there's an attempt to try to get ahold of that so that we as a city can answer the questions that people are wondering how many. 3,000 was out there, and I wonder where that number came from. I wanna say, give an example that Gary residents endured, Gary, Indiana, those residents endured outages lasting nearly two weeks after a catastrophic storm. It was a weather event. While Nipsco, these are the people that I think are working with Amazon to build this big data center. and is simultaneously planning major infrastructure to accommodate enormous new data center near Gary. And it has a high electricity demand. That raises legitimate questions about who pays for grid upgrades, who receives reliability investments, and whether existing communities are being protected as aggressively as new industrial customers. And I know, and I can tell from some of your work that you try to be inclusive of some of that. But I do think that that's an area that I'm really going to be looking at if this thing is forced on us. Because as Laura said, and then land ownership, And then you also answered the chair when he said the ones that are 50,000 square feet or under, if they meet those standards, then we wouldn't even know. So I'm really concerned about how this plays out. But that statement leads to my last question of no matter what we do and when We come up, and if we ever get to the point, I'm with Councilwoman Hawkins on this. I hope we don't have to pass this, but we know. These regulations don't apply to the hyperscale that is over a million feet at Camp Ground Road. And that's a million square feet. So whatever we do, it doesn't apply to that. What will apply to that? How can we still deal with that in a way with this body? Is there any way to approach that situation? That might be more of your question.

I mean, once regulations are adopted, assuming something is adopted, then that facility would be considered a non-conforming use at that time. As written... uh you know they would not be able if if the regulations as they are proposed if they were adopted uh that facility would not be able to expand do any kind of expansion uh because again they would be a non-conforming use and so they wouldn't be able to make any kind of changes or or additions to the property uh because uh you know they they would not be able to come into compliance with the regulation you know the draft regulations that we have um proposed so

Yeah, that's correct. They would have non-conforming rights, but they wouldn't be able to expand or otherwise change those non-conforming rights.

Councilwoman Rui.

Thank you very much. So first of all, thank you for gathering all this information and listening to the people's concerns. And yes, it's our turn now to listen to people's concerns. And I appreciate the process that we've gone through so far. I've got one very maybe simple question. Why did you settle on 500,000 square feet? Sure. So...

As a community, Louisville has a lot of large industrial buildings. And so I think in terms of like a classification, in terms of what similar uses are, a lot of people consider data centers to be like other industrial buildings. We have over 120 industrial buildings that are over 250,000 square feet. and so that last category of permission that we had in the initial draft was a 250 to 500 000 with 500 being the cap that that you know we had decided on that anything over that uh from a like a utility and power potential utility and power regulation would kind of be beyond what we would be wanting to take on as a community and so that's why the 500 000 cap was established but then Again, with that 250 to 500,000, we have large industrial buildings that meet that threshold now, so anything that may be proposed in that area would not be uncommon as compared to other industrial buildings that we have throughout the community.

Okay, then that brings to my next question. These other industrial buildings, what is the energy intensity of those buildings compared to what we're looking at now?

I don't know energy usage. We don't have any kind of information on that. We do have multiple million gallon a day users throughout the community. So if you had a facility that was utilizing water for cooling purposes or whatever, Again, it's not uncommon for us to have a user that is utilizing a million gallons a day, and with the Ohio and the treatment capacity that Louisville Water Company has, the general thought is that as a community, we can accommodate some data centers, but again, we want to put some limitations on that because we don't want to strain that infrastructure at any point.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Batchon.

Mr. Chair, thank you so much. Planning staff, thank you. Brian, your team have gone through an extenuous process of creating these regulations and provided the detailed recommendations regarding the data center developments. As a council, we have a lot to digest. There's a full scope of these regulations to ensure that we're basically well-informed in making the proper decisions. We clear standards for our community. I move to table this for further review and discussion so we make sure we make the right decisions for our community.

So just so, I don't have anybody in the queue. I would feel compelled really to let somebody speak if they were in the queue, but we don't have anybody else in the queue. So we have a motion to table in front of us. Can I get a second?

Second.

Properly moved and seconded. Any discussion on the motion to table?

I will move to postpone. Move to postpone.

Councilman Hudson has adopted the new language that we are supposed to be using, and we appreciate that. Some of us are stuck in three months ago. We have a motion to postpone in front of us. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. So there will be discussion among the committee about how we'll pick this up again. I am reminded by the clerk's office that we haven't used our full allotment of two hours for these meetings in a while. had my brain wasn't working exactly, but we do have two-hour meetings within committee, so it's a possibility that we could just have pretty extended discussions within our committee meetings, but I will send out some communication about how we want to pick this up going forward. I appreciate you guys being willing to have those conversations.

Thank you all.