Planning Committee - Regular Meeting

Metro TV will get started in 30 seconds. Welcome to the regularly scheduled Planning and Zoning Committee meeting. It's Tuesday, August 18, 2026. It's 1.02 PM. I'm the chair of this committee, Andrew Owen. My vice chair, Scott Reed, may come online later, but currently has an excused absence. Councilman Hudson is here. We're also joined in chamber by Councilman Batchan, Councilwoman Rui, Councilman Benson, Councilwoman Raymond. Nobody's online? That's all of us? Okay. And I assume Councilwoman Parish Wright will join us shortly. We don't have anybody online, so we don't need to read the... VIRTUAL STATEMENT. ALL RIGHT. THE FIRST THING IN FRONT OF US IS ITEM 1, O-225-26, AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO THE DETAILED DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 8803, 8805, AND 8807 OLD BARTS SOUND ROAD CONTAINING APPROXIMATELY 7.02 ACRES AND BEING IN LOUISVILLE METRO CASE NUMBER 26 DDP 0005. CAN I GET A MOTION? Properly moved and seconded. Julia, are you here to discuss this with us?

Yes.

Thank you.

Julia Williams, Office of Planning. This is 26 DDP 0005 Old Bardstown Road. This is located in Council District 22 on the properties 8803 through 8807 Old Bardstown Road. The existing use is a portion of it's vacant and then a portion of it is residential. The proposed use is commercial and office. This is the zoning map for the site. As you can see, part is zoned OR1 and part is zoned C1. The request was for a revised detailed district development plan with binding elements. The existing zoning as mentioned is OR1 and C1 in the neighborhood farm district. The applicant is proposing three 15,000 square foot office and retail buildings. This is the applicant's development plan showing those three structures. This is a rendering of the structure. This is what the subject property currently looks like at the intersection of Old Bardstown Road and Fairmount Road. Adjacent property, senior apartments across Old Bardstown Road. This is north of the subject property. The Planning Commission held their public hearing on July 16, 2026, where there was a motion to recommend approval of the development plan passing by a vote of 10 to zero. Are there any questions?

Thank you, Julia. We will, shortly, I've been told that the, this is in Councilman Bradshaw's district, and I've been told that he would like to table this as they're trying to work through a couple of mining elements with the developer. But before we do that, does anybody have any questions, kind of general questions about this before we might go ahead and, Councilman Hudson.

Was it this parcel, before this committee, like six months ago.

So this is a detailed development plan that has changed, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And it was unanimous at the Planning Commission, but because it was binding elements, it had to come back in front of us. It was the standard binding element, I guess, and had to come back in front of us, is that correct?

That's right.

So you are exactly right. All right, thank you. It's just a change to that detailed development plan, which is what brought it back in front of us. Okay, Councilman Benson?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the things in my years that a lot of times we rezone something and they'll say, well, what's the traffic like? Well, right now it's okay. And that's what we do. We always think about how it is this moment, but it'll never ever get worse because we don't think about that being a possibility. And to me, when I see something like this in a building, I mean, is there a turn lane or anything to make sure that as time goes on, there's traffic and stuff, that people can still flow? I mean, this is a time when you build something that you'd put a turn lane. I've been voted down a lot of times on turn lanes because people say, oh, no, we don't need them. But I just wondered if they thought about it. Thank you.

So... I don't know the answer to your question in terms of what Councilman Bratcher is discussing with the developer. He may well be discussing something along those lines. Did you have any response to any of that? You don't have to.

You don't have to have a response.

Councilman Hudson, are you in the queue for this? Move to postpone. Can I get a second? Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any conversation about that before we have a voice vote on the motion to postpone or motion to tape? Is it postpone? Is that the way we discuss these things now? Motion to postpone. Anybody have any discussion before we have a voice vote on that measure? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those against? The ayes have it. This measure, this ordinance has been postponed until our next committee meeting. Unanimously, I think, by the way. Okay. Item number two on the agenda is 0-227-26, an ordinance amending the Louisville Metro Land Development Code regarding packaged liquor stores, case number 26-LDC-0003. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Joe Haberman, what you got for us?

Good afternoon, Joe Haberman, Office of Planning. So this is an amendment to the Land Development Code that we have put before you. This is at the request of Metro Council. Several months ago, Council passed a resolution asking us to take a look at this issue, look into some peer cities and return some recommendations. So this is just in general what the Council resolution asked for. and the reasoning behind it. Just to paraphrase what's on the screen is council was receiving a lot of complaints related to packaged liquor stores and felt that maybe over concentration or the distance between them was part of the reason or their proximity to certain uses. So they wanted us to take a look at the land development code which currently permits package stores by right without any special standards just based on their zoning and see if there was any need to add separation requirements. So just a quick recap of how they're permitted currently. They're permitted by right basically in commercial zones with the exception of EZ-1 which is kind of a hybrid commercial industrial zone. That means they have no special standards, no separation requirements, no mandated hours of operation. They're just permitted. They're also permitted in some of our special districts in PVD or Planned Village District and the TNZD for Old Louisville. They have some allowances there where those areas allow for some commercial areas. And in one case already, there's a conditional use requirement in one area of the Old Louisville TNZD. If you're wondering, most of them carry a standard within the definition or within other regulations that you can't have onsite consumption, but the reason why you see bars in some of the liquor stores is because they have zoning that allows both a tavern and the packaged liquor store. So that's basically the situation that those are in, but they're two uses, it's not the same use. So just there are some state requirements that we took a look at just to make sure that everything we did is consistent with what the state does. In general, to open a packaged liquor store, you need a special type of liquor license. And they use the term distilled spirits and wines and unbroken packages for off-premises consumption. And I just want to note that because when we get into creating a conditional use, we like to define that. and it was from these statutes that we kind of took our inspiration for our definition. We had to tweak it a little bit to make it work within our code, but it largely follows what the license would require. So when we looked at it again, right now they're basically permitted in commercial zones. The issue that we felt to consider was whether or not you wanted to add special standards, because it seemed like the zoning districts were okay, so it was more the standards that they were allowed under. And if you wanted to provide relief to those standards, which you could do by right or conditionally. So the standards, which namely from the resolution or separation standards could limit businesses from one another, reducing over concentration, and you could also keep them away from certain uses that you feel a liquor store shouldn't be nearby, like a school or a daycare. So another element of the council resolution is you asked us to take a look at other cities. Generally speaking, regulations vary a great deal from allowing things by right like we do to having conditional use requirements. But a lot of the States that are concerned with over concentration usually do that through the licensing process, which there's, that's a whole nother conversation about whether we can do that in Kentucky. They do that through quotas, through separation built into that process. Because other states can do that, there's not a lot of zoning ordinances that had separation requirements. So the two that I found that aren't quite the same as what we're recommending were in Des Moines and Indianapolis. They have some regulations within their zoning to keep liquor stores away from certain uses to make sure that there's adequate separation. And that indirectly addresses the overconcentration issue. So the recommendation that we put forward defines packaged liquor store. It is not defined now. I think it's a widely accepted term because of how it's used in Kentucky statutes, but we go ahead and define it to make it match that license type that packaged liquor stores need, which basically means, to be clear, it only applies to businesses that sell unbroken packages of wine and distilled spirits. If you sell beer, you're not a packaged liquor store under this ordinance. A packaged liquor store can sell beer, But that would be a convenience store or a grocery store could sell beer and not fall under this ordinance. It would not apply to that. We didn't make any changes to the zones that are currently allowing packaged liquor stores. So those remain the same. We didn't reduce any of them. We didn't add to them. But what we did do was add special standards, no matter what zone you're in. And if you meet those special standards, you're still permitted by right. You can still just open without a public hearing, without any type of special approval. You just get your building permits and at some point we check probably through the ABC license point to make sure you meet those special standards. If you don't meet one, then we're recommending that you get relief through a conditional use process. And this is the difference between the smoking retail ordinance, which we were also asked to look at and see if there was any lessons learned that we could apply. So with the smoking retail, if you don't meet a standard, including the separation standard, it's pretty much game over. Even a rezoning can't get you that smoking retail. It's absolute, it doesn't change based on your zoning. But with this, being that there's potentially less problems with this use because it's more regulated by ABC, we felt that a relief valve was something that we should consider. So if you don't meet that special standard, you would go to the Board of Zoning Adjustment and get a conditional use permit and they would have a discretionary review and you would have to make a case for why you needed relief. And we put that very clear the circumstances that you can ask for relief. You can't just come in and say, I don't want to meet it. You have to explain why it shouldn't apply to you in that context at that site. We address accessory sales and I'll just say that there are some circumstances where people sell distilled spirits and wine that might not need to meet these standards. The two big examples would be a distillery or a winery. So we did a carve out that if those sales are accessory to a larger purpose, you're exempt and there's a lot of changes. We didn't change a lot in effect, but there's a lot of changes because just the TNCD was very complicated in how it addressed this issue. So when you see the strikethrough and underlines, we just had to do a lot of repair work to the TNCD section. It's just written unlike any other section and that only applies to Old Louisville and Limerick, but we had to do a lot of work to fix that. So just to focus in on the big change, the big standard is the separation requirement. So it's 1,000 feet parcel to parcel, exactly how we do smoking retail stores. And from these seven uses, these uses largely line up with the smoking retail, but there are two examples that we pulled out. They're not examples, two cases. Um, for smoking retail, of course it's from another smoking retail. We had it from another package liquor store, but we also removed athletic facilities and religious buildings after the planning commission discussed that because there's a little bit less of a correlation between alcohol use and that being the sensitive use between those two things. So those two were removed. We also had an exception. Um, In Kentucky, a grocery store cannot sell wine and liquor. They have to have a separate business. So we had an exception put in there that if the packaged liquor store was on the same property as a grocery, you were exempt from the separation requirement from another packaged liquor store because it's customary for a grocery to have, and we didn't want a grocery having to go through that conditional use process. At the hearing, and I think after the hearing, some council members might have heard some feedback they should just be exempt from all the separation requirements. Because right now it's only from that one, not the other six. And staff doesn't necessarily have any issues with that. But that would have to be, that change would have to be introduced. It's not in the staff planning commission recommendation. So just in sum, the Planning Commission's Planning Committee took a look at it before it went to the Planning Commission, and the Planning Commission recommended approval of the draft changes on July 16th with a vote of six to three. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Joe. That's somewhat complicated, so I appreciate the explanation. I wanted to just say clearly and confirm that what I'm saying is correct here. We used to have a separation requirement between locations that had an abc license and i think what happened and it was door to door and not parcel to parcel and i think what happened was the kentucky courts said that that was unconstitutional to to do that and so that went away and we no longer had a separation requirement this is different because it's not between it's not it's not a separation of licenses uh... separation abuses

that is that correct is that why this we think this works within the context of the kentucky constitution and law within the state of kentucky laura might have more to add but it's my understanding first off you're correct in what happened with the licensing piece that it was found unconstitutional but we're doing this from use to use and then putting it into the zoning code for different reasons we believe that it it's acceptable again we do this Very similarly to smoking retail and a number of other uses, boarding homes, short-term rentals, we have this kind of separation requirement to address the overconcentration issue. Laura, did you want to add to that?

Yeah, Laura Ferguson, Assistant County Attorney. So what happened in the context of the alcohol beverage control licenses was they had the statute at the time made a distinction between combination business and residential areas versus business areas. And the court ultimately held that Metro and ABC hadn't done an adequate job of explaining why the differential treatment, why a density requirement was more suited to certain areas rather than others. And so it was kind of that, it looked to them more like a special legislation. So I don't know that they completely slammed the door on taking that approach in the future, just the way it was structured at the time was problematic. so I think that plus here this is Metro wide and it's consistent so it avoids some of the problems that were in that case that made that sort of broke Jefferson County into two regions and I think also there's a justification based on some of the demonstrated problems associated with liquor stores in concentration and So at the end of the day, it's a land use which we're allowed to do, and then it would really only come into play in the license when they come to check to make sure they have the proper zoning.

Great. I just wanted to make sure that we kind of clarified that or gave some explanation behind that. We've been joined by Councilwoman Parrish-Wright, and because of that, we need to read the online. So Cheryl, if you can read that for us, please.

This meeting has been here. Pursuant to care are 61.826 and Council Rule 5A, rating four.

Thank you, Cheryl. Okay, so now we'll go to the queue and Councilman Batchan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make a motion to amend the language in 4.3 exceptions. A packaged liquor store is exempt from the separation requirements above if located on the same lot or development site as a grocery store exceeding 40,000 square foot.

Okay, that's an amendment that's been seconded. Does anybody have any discussion on that amendment? I'm happy to. Councilwoman Rhee.

I like the main idea of it, but how big is 40,000 square feet?

Crawlers on New Cut Road.

Okay.

So let's talk about it a little bit. So the thought process is that a that a chain grocery store, a grocery store that has a significant presence and may have a spirits, because of the separation of the spirits sales that we have to have because in the state of Kentucky, that's what we're trying to accomplish here basically. I mean, is that, can you?

I would, I'd beg to differ, just as. Well, yeah, can you speak to it? Yes and no, right? And I think more than anything, we want to make sure that we don't indirectly affect areas that may be food desert prone and areas that have been clustered in standalone liquor stores. And I think essentially by doing this amendment, you do not... again, indirectly affect those food desert areas. Let's use areas in the West End or in the South End or south of the Gene Snyder. If there's a church and a daycare and, you know, big box store A wants to come in and build a grocery, but because there's a church and there's, you know, a playground here, they can't come in. I think by doing this exception, it allows that. And it also, you know, studies show, Andrew, or Councilman Owen, that clusters of standalone liquor stores hurt the vulnerability in neighborhoods, including the food deserts. And research shows from PLOS and others that grocery stores, grocery anchors, Alcohol sales don't create those harms. The exemption protects food deserts and neighborhoods by keeping the door open for the large grocery stores while preventing the clusters that cause problems.

So just to add a little bit more context to that, my understanding in conversations with people – I'll give you a little bit more context. I've had conversations with people who own coffee shops, and they've told me I will never open another coffee shop in rare circumstances that doesn't have a drive-through, for example. And I've also been told by people who do site location for large grocery stores that they say, I'll never do another grocery store in Kentucky that doesn't have a spirits shop associated with it. And so what we don't want to do is to make the requirements so stringent that we're keeping a grocery store from going into a food desert or somewhere where there is a significant need for that service with this piece of legislation. And this carve-out, I guess, keeps us from doing that, keeps us from restricting that use, I think, if that makes sense.

Absolutely. I may have another one, but I'm going to move on in the queue.

Next in queue, I have Councilman Hudson.

I'd like to First of all, I want to thank staff for the work that you've done on this, and to add a little more color to what the chair has already given. For me, this started when a liquor store was being proposed in my district, and overwhelmingly, the community came out against it. The local ABC denied the application. That applicant appealed to the state, which all it took was one person in Frankfurt to rubber stamp it and overturn the denial. So given that, conversations started with the county attorney's office. And I appreciate the innovative thought that came from those conversations to get where we are today. One little tweak I'd like to make is move a secondary amendment to put the religious designation back in on the list of seven. I don't know if it, I don't know what it's actually called. Staff could help me with that.

So again, we had this, huh? Yes, I can. We had this conversation on the floor on Thursday too, an amendment to an amendment. But is, so how are we,

This is Sonya Harway, the clerk. If they are directly related to the same section, same topic, then yes, we could do an amendment to an amendment. But if not, it's nice and clean to separate those amendments.

My judgment is that this is on the same topic. It's on the same amendment. So I think I would be OK. We can do a second level. That's fine. Amending an amendment. We can't do a third. I mean, you're directly dealing with the paragraph that Councilman Batchon pulled out. We probably should have reversed the order in a perfect world. So is this a secondary amendment? Is that the way this works?

It's a Tier 2 amendment, yes. So you'll need a motion, a second. We'll end up voting on it. You can still discuss it. We'll vote on that one. Then we'll go to vote on the other one. Then we'll vote on it.

Okay, so we have a proposed amendment. Do we have a second? Second. Okay, that is seconded. Do we have any additional conversation on this Tier 2 amendment, which is basically to add the religious institution carve-out back into the exceptions? Do we have any additional conversation? I've got Councilwoman Raymond and Rui Yen. Do you guys have comments on this or more broadly on this? Okay, Councilwoman Raymond.

Yeah, was there work done to map the county and to see how many places there are that are not 1,000 feet from this, this, this, this, this, and this?

We did not do that. We did take a look at a map of all the packaged liquor stores that have this type of license, but we didn't do any analysis from that. because I think it was understood when you read the resolution that council, at least the sponsors of the resolution, found that there was over concentration in their district, and they had already done that analysis.

I'm all for cracking down. I just want to be sure that we've done our due diligence to where someone doesn't come back and say, you've made it impossible for this industry to operate.

Can I speak to that? Sure. So we didn't do it on this one, but this one was modeled closely after the retail tobacco stores. And we did do it on that one. And your argument is valid, and we had those conversations. But yeah, we did look at, have we done a Venn diagram that basically covers the entire county? and it prohibits business from being able to do anything. And the conclusion was that we had not.

We did the. Councilman Batchelor. Sorry. Councilwoman Raymond, can I address you? So when we were working on this in the resolution stage, we collected data of heat maps essentially that showed the high concentrated areas of criminal activity, loitering, active runs from the police, to clusters of stand-alones. So we did that. I'm trying to find it, I can't seem to find it, but I'll try to share that with you.

I still have a similar concern. about restricting grocery store development in places where we want it. And there are an awful lot of religious institutions scattered around that it just worries me. I don't have a particular.

Those would be exempt.

That's what I'm saying. So that was not part of what was exempted. I'm sorry. So Councilman Batchelor.

It's worth clarifying. Yes, let's clarify. All I'm asking for is to, instead of seven items, we'd have eight. I see. And the grocery store exemption that Councilman Batchan has amended would include all eight items.

Okay, so that's loosening it rather than making it stricter. I'm glad we went through that because I was not following.

Well, just to clarify, it would make it stricter for non-grocery sites. So religious buildings, there's a lot of them and they're scattered. So it would be a new standard that would apply to any new packaged liquor store. and they would have to be 1,000 feet away from them. That's just one more thing to have to be 1,000 feet, but if there's a 40,000 plus grocery store, it wouldn't apply in that one case.

So it's loosening it on the caveat on the carve out for the grocery store and making it tighter on the same.

It basically doesn't impact the grocery store if they combine those two amendments, but it makes it more restrictive on every other site.

Okay. Do we have, do you guys have comments that you want to add to this before we take a voice vote on this? Anyone? Okay, so we're gonna vote on the, Councilman Benson.

Since we was talking about religious institution, you know, I remember as a kid, Church of God was on Lawrencemont and there was a beer depot on Central Avenue and they only sold beer. They couldn't sell liquor. And that was a big thing as kids growing up, you know, and I understood that. What if they were over a thousand foot? And so you can, according to constitution, you can make a church anywhere you want. So what if they make a church close to a liquor store? Does that mean the liquor store has to quit? They're grandfathered in? Okay, thank you.

That's addressed in the ordinance, that it's in existence at the time that the liquor store is established. And if the motion's introduced to add religious buildings, that's the term that the zoning uses. That's a defined term, so I would suggest using that term just so it all lines up. Yes.

So anybody else before we take a voice vote on the tier two amendment? All right, all those in favor of the tier two amendment, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. Okay, any more conversation on the tier one amendment that includes the tier two amendment? Anybody else have conversation for the amendment before us, before we take a voice vote on that? Yes. Do you want to ask a question about that?

Yes, this is confusing. So I'm going to ask you, Councilman Owen. When they're looking at siting grocery stores, how big are they looking at these days? I'm wondering if 40,000 square foot is actually too big if that discourages grocery store siting.

I don't have a good answer for that. I mean, there's a difference between a super Kroger or a super Meijer or a big box and then let's say a value market or a, Councilman Hudson has more information than I do. Okay.

On a little bit of research, each grocery chain, whether it's Publix or Kroger or Meijer, usually have three different tiers of store. They have the marketplace at the top, which is the largest square footage, and then a medium, then a small. The small typically runs between 50,000 to 60,000 square feet in Jefferson County. It's different in other places. A small grocery store is 50,000 square feet? For a chain, yeah.

Okay. Answers my question.

Councilman Batchelor.

And to, I'm gonna address Councilwoman Ruby, to the point of a store that, a big box grocer that carries the liquor component to it. An IGA or a Save-A-Lot or a store of that nature is in the average of 20 to 30,000 square foot, but are still allowed to sell packaged beer, but not the larger big box stores that we're kind of identifying here that deal with liquor.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so we now need to hold a voice vote on the amendment that's before us. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it. Okay, we have an amended ordinance in front of us. Do we have any additional questions or comments on this amendment? Councilwoman Rui, I mean Rui, Councilwoman Raymond. I did it again.

Thank you. I wanted to ask you one more time to explain what the suggested proposed definition of package liquor store is, and any concrete examples you can give would be helpful.

So I'll just read it, because that's probably the cleanest way. And this, again, is largely from the definition for a packaged liquor store in KRS as it relates to the license so they line up as much as they can. A retail establishment with a retail package license that sells distilled spirits and wine in unbroken packages for consumption off the license premises unless such sales are otherwise allowed under a different permitted use type and with proper licensing. That final piece is to allow kind of the bars that you would see inside a total wine or liquor barn, because they have zoning that allows both the tavern and the packaged liquor store, so it's really two uses. But the front part of that lines pretty much up with the KRS license type that a packaged liquor store needs.

Okay, and then this proposal passed six to three. Were there objections shared by those three no votes that you can share with us?

So they didn't, when the motion was made, they didn't follow up and state why they weren't supporting it, but in the comments that were made before, and Laura might have more to add, was some of them, I think, were uncomfortable with adding standards to packaged liquor stores or with the particular standard that we were adding in terms of separation.

Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Ray?

Ray?

I've got kind of a follow-up question. So we have a value market in the neighborhood. Value market is a relatively small grocery currently. They sell beer and products like that. What if they wanted to expand to selling alcohol? They are a reputable dealer. They've been in the neighborhood for years. Is there any way for them to gain an exception?

Yes, so based on what I heard of that change, that would take away their ability to operate by right. The way we did this was anytime you don't meet one of the special standards, you still have a path forward by getting a conditional use permit. So they would have to go to the board of zoning adjustment, public hearing, anybody could participate in that, share their thoughts. And then there's clear language in there of what the board needs to consider to grant relief. They have to basically show their hardship and why the case is very unique that the rules shouldn't apply. So there would still be a path forward, but it'd be a public path where anybody could participate and the board could add additional conditions of approval if they wanted to approve it, but add some guard rails in place.

Okay. Thank you.

It's a good question, Councilwoman Ruby. Personally, I don't know what the right square footage is, if that's the way we're dividing it up, right? Because what we're trying to do is to keep standalone liquor stores from going 10 within a three-block area, which is a noble purpose. At the same time, making it harder for somebody like Value Market or another reputable dealer to do it, I have a little bit mixed feelings about. I just don't know I don't know the best way to handle that. I mean, could we make it 20,000 square feet? Yeah. Would that probably carve them into the into that? Would that get them into the carve out? Probably. But I don't know exactly what the right number is. It's a fair question. Anybody else with questions, concerns, comments before we open up the roll call? Okay, Cheryl, can you open up a roll call vote, please?

Open. Council Member Parrish-Wright?

Yes.

Voting's closing. Chair Owen, you have seven yes votes.

This needs to go on old business, I suppose. Yeah, this will go on old business on the next council agenda. All right, anybody else have anything for the good of the body before we adjourn? Councilman Bachon. Sorry, thank you.

Lately, we have been running through the zoning meetings and is it something that we can discuss maybe as a body to shorten that window from the two-hour window to maybe an hour and a half? Or an hour?

For the time allotted for planning and zoning?

Yes. Then Brian says no. Let's give him a minute.

You know what? I'm afraid you're going to jinx the heck out of us. So you know what? That's right. We have that discretion, don't we, Councilman Hudson? So keep that one in your pocket, Councilman. We may address that at some point, but not now. All right. Without any further business in front of us, we are adjourned. Thank you.

After all, the egg got cut. We are busier than ever, local and international.

They keep moving the merchandise. So I walk back and forth a lot, get a lot of steps in.

We can't stop. Very interesting place to work. Gotten a bunch of people to volunteer here.