Jan 14, 2021 Development Code Review Committee on 2021-01-14 4:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

>> Welcome everybody to this special call meeting of the Denton code review committee on Thursday, January 14th, 2020. It is 4.05 in the afternoon. We do have a quorum present. We are doing this virtually based on the Governor's orders, allowing us to do it in this manner, suspending certain sections of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Our first item of business is consider approval of the November 18th, 2020 minutes. And I will go ahead and make the motion since I'm the only one of the three councilmembers that was actually there, so I can verify it to be true. So if I can get a second. Councilmember Davis. >> I'll second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second, so we'll do a roll call vote. As Chair, I'm going to aye. Councilmember, or Mayor Pro Tem Davis. >> I'll vote aye. >> Okay. And Councilmember Johnson. >> We don't know Councilmember Johnson's on the call. >> Okay. Well, we do have a majority voting in favor of it, so those are approved. We'll go on to item B, receive a report, hold a discussion. >> I'm sorry. >> It's 3.0. >> 3.0. >> Item B, receive a report, hold a discussion related to the purpose of the Denton code review committee. >> Great. Thank you, Chair. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen for this presentation. >> That's not going to work out for me. >> There we go. And again, as the Chair mentioned, this is just to go over a little bit about the DCRC. I know that we have two new members, Councilmember Johnson as well as Mayor Pro Tem Davis, our new members of the DCRC. And as such, we want to make sure that we go over the purpose of the committee and there's a couple items that we want to address as well. >> Ron, before you get started, I know Councilmember Johnson is on just the phone, so she's unable to see your presentation. Councilmember Johnson, if he emailed this presentation, would you have a computer you could follow along on with that? >> Yes, that would be great. I'm trying to get the Zoom thing to work out, but, you know, my house doesn't really support this whole thing. >> Okay. Let me go ahead and do that. I'll do it really quickly and I'll send it to you, Councilmember Johnson. >> All right. Thank you. >> I guess give me a few minutes to do that and then we'll go ahead and you can see, for those that are able to see it, that is the first slide there is the introductions. I'll do this quickly. Here we go. [ Video playing ] >> Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Almost there. I don't know where I am. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to send it to you. Okay. Councilmember Johnson, I just sent it to you. You should have it in a few seconds. >> All right. Thank you. >> So while Councilman Johnson pulls that up, I'll just go ahead and talk a little bit about the committee and the make-up of the committee. As you can see, it is made up of three council members, Chair John Ryan, Jesse Davis, as well as Berdia Johnson, and then the three councilmembers, I'm sorry, commissioners, planning zoning commissioners are Angela Rozelle, Margie Yales, who is not able to join us this afternoon, and then Tim Smith as well. The staff that makes up the team for the DCRC as far as development code amendments, Scott McDonald, Richard Canone, myself and Sean Jacobson, who represent development services. Erin Lial and Mack Rhinewand is with our legal department, and Erin is on the call, and I see Erin here. We also have Becky DeViney, who is working from the engineering side to give us input when it comes to engineering related code amendments. And then we have two consultants that assist us in this process, Robert, sorry, Robin Miga and Christian Grillet, who are planners/attorneys, and again, they're primary purposes to assist us in any lane use, as well as any development code related matters in terms of their experiences. They bring a lot of experiences from other cities, so from time to time, they will be participating in presentations and assisting us in answering any questions or requests that the council, I'm sorry, the committee has for the team. Dr. Johnson, have you gotten the PowerPoint presentation up yet? Yes, I have. Awesome. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions with regards to the makeup of the DCRC and staffs, the staff that's assigned to this committee? Okay. I know that we have a few members that are here. I don't know if there are others that may have joined the call that I missed. If you have, please let me know. Okay. So Scott's on here and then Mac as well. So these are our staff that are, again, going to be responsible for bringing forward any items as far as code amendments and any other requests that you all feel that is necessary for this effort. So I'll go ahead and again, go back to the presentation and go to the next slide. Some of you, I'm sorry, some of you, but for both Mayor Pro Tem Davis and Councilman Johnson, the next slide that we're looking at is the DCRC objective. Obviously, the purpose of the DCRC is to assist in the code amendments, providing review guidance and also prioritizing any of the code amendments that we have proposed, as well as recommending any code amendments that you see as necessary. We hope to hold discussions and you providing us with the direction that ultimately we will bring forward to both the Planning, Zoning Commission and to the full City Council for their consideration. A couple things that we want to bring up and I know Scott's on the call, but if he'd like to chime in, essentially the DCRC, as approved by the recent resolution that reestablished the DCRC, has a time limit as far as when it or the committee was to expire or start, sorry, stop, that is March 31st is the timeframe that we've identified and also wanting to talk about this ad hoc committee as far as continuing, just focusing on a very short time or if there's an entertainment to change this a bit. So Scott, if you can just add to that discussion with regards to the timeframe for this committee. Absolutely. Good afternoon, Scott McDonald, Director of Development Services for those of you that have not met, we have not met. What Ron is referencing is this ad hoc committee was created and really reinstituted and through that process Council Member Davis had a recommendation to perhaps have this as a standing committee and there may be some value in doing that. So just wanted to have that and I don't know that Aaron or Mac are aware of that as of yet, but did discuss it with the City Manager's office. They thought that it might be a good idea that this committee be available as we talk through some of these larger projects or items that are coming forward. So really is just kind of a conversation as to whether we continue as an ad hoc or that this become a regular committee for the Council. And I know that's a Council decision, but really wanted to make sure that the group understood that and then whether Council Member Davis chooses to carry that forward with Council to ask and to kind of go from there. And I think also along that line and as Ron's PowerPoint represents is that we have a couple of new members and we thought it might be best just to have some one-on-one meetings to really give you more of the history, a little bit more detail and answer some of those specific questions that you may have rather than the group going through a lot of that and I'll stand for any questions. Scott, I think I would agree with Council Member Davis that this probably, you know, originally started out, we were just going to do the new code and now we're, you know, kind of going through and fixing some things that we found that aren't working that it probably would be good to be just a standing committee because it's just the nature of, you know, the development code is there's always going to be a little something and, you know, what process would we need to take it through to get it there? So, you know, I would say that's probably something we do want to take to full Council and see how they feel about it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's good just as we kind of transition through any number of things to have this body available to really kind of vet, get a little bit of the flavor of where it is that PNZ is where, you know, several Council members are and so I agree and I do like it. Okay. Commissioner Roseau? I appreciate it. Just on my two cents on the matter, I'm not sure the historicity of having a joint committee between planning and zoning and City Council being standing, but not having PNZ offer a vote or real and official say here, I just don't know the merit of asking PNZ commissioners to take on a standing meeting apart from the obligations of the current PNZ when really, I'm happy to be a sounding board and listen to ideas, but I don't, we, the commissioners don't have a vote or real say here. We can certainly tune in via the zoom and report back to our own commission and write letters and emails to our Council members to add input. So I just don't know my appetite to obligate myself to a standing committee in which I'm just a face on the Brady Bunch board. Any other questions or comments? Okay. And that might just be part of the discussion that we have with the full council is, does this go forward as a joint committee or do we just have council only? Especially since that's all of our standing committees are just a three member council committee. Okay. Well and Ron, I just wanted to add, and again, just because of the timing with, with March, you know, we just keep that in mind if we're going to continue as an ad hoc, the likelihood that we probably would be going beyond March is there. So we just need to look at it. And if we want to continue this group as an ad hoc for an extended period of time, IE, if we took it out to the next quarter through June, something to that effect. And then if we look at something that's more permanent, that's just council, or if we change that structure and Mr. Chair, you'd probably have the best insight to that kind of how we ended up where we did having three council members and three P and Z, but only the council members being voting. So just, just another thought I wanted to add to that. Yeah. And I, and I understand the, the, the feelings of not being able to vote. I don't know that we've really taken that many votes per se. It's more of consensus and, and commissioners are always welcome to, you know, voice any of their opinions and we've learned many things from them. I mean, a lot of things that over the, over the course of the last several years have been input from P and Z as well. So, you know, we greatly appreciate having them on board with us. Council Member Davis, or Mayor Pro Tem Davis. Thank you. Sorry. I thank you for being patient with me. I was actually on a team's call in another council committee meeting just a second ago. That's done, full of attention. You know, nobody wants to be in a meeting that could have been an email, right? But I can tell you it was persuasive when we talked about the R3 setbacks, side yard setbacks on Tuesday, it was persuasive that this committee had, had discussed the issue, had vetted it out and, and then referred it up to council, you know, and if, if it's a committee, whatever the makeup is, if it's a committee that's doing the work and is doing valuable work, you know, the council can, can set it up however they choose. I mean, that we can, we've got all sorts of wacky boards that have appointees from all sorts of quarters around town. They have to be top 20 taxpayer or they have to be this, they have to be that, they have to be on the council, they have to be not on the council. We can do it however we like. So I, I'm in favor of whatever is best suited to doing the work and moving it forward. Chair, just to, to get some direction as far as the, the committee makeup and, and what we just talked briefly about, would you, would you recommend that we obviously bring something to city council as soon as possible so that we can decide before we start delving into some of the code, the code amendments? Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. Okay. Work session, a work session item to. Yeah. And I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, Aaron, is that, is that the appropriate way for a council committee? Should staff bring that forward or would that be one of the council members addressing that? Does it matter? It can be either way. I mean, a council member can certainly request a, or, or on behalf of the, of this committee can certainly request the work session for the full council or an individual council member can bring a one minute pitch. It just, they can bring this forward or staff can do it. It doesn't really matter. Okay. I just, I just wanted to validate that because if we're talking about a council committee. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Chair. I, I echo commissioner Roselle's points on planning and zoning commissioners are essentially figureheads on this, but you know, commissioner or mayor pro tem Davis's points about there are three setbacks. It was also very important during our conversation on PNC last Wednesday, whenever we talked about that with the entire commission that, you know, commissioner Roselle, commissioner Ellis and myself had been on the DCRC and the discussions about those setbacks. So while I'm with commissioner Roselle about this, I think I might throw out there that if we could possibly add this as just a quick work session item for planning and zoning commission to maybe put it to them to see if it's a, if anybody would have any disagreement with us, uh, moving forward. So commissioner Roselle. Yeah. Real fast. Uh, Christopher Davis are, uh, mayor pro tem Davis. I don't know what we call people. Um, uh, you brought up excellent points. My only, my only thought to that point is I don't know how much longer I have in the, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of in months now. And so, um, I would think that if we have a standing committee to go back to PNC and kind of put out that expectation of who would want to volunteer or be appointed, uh, cause it's one thing to say, Hey, we have an ad hoc meeting, uh, committee set up for six months who's in, or it's, we don't know the end of this service. You need to commit to two years or during your term on however that looks, just allow individuals to be eyes wide open when they are fully committed to the committee if PNC goes forward and the subcommittee, just so that, um, there's just a good expectation of what's expected of the plan and zoning commissioners. And Mr. Chair, I guess if, uh, if we want to get to that point of, of really how it is that you'd like to carry this forward staff, uh, we're absolutely willing to, to bring it forward as a work session, um, and, and provide some options and kind of the background and what it is that, that, um, we hear from consensus here between, uh, ultimately Mayor Pro Tem Davis, um, council member Johnson and yourself. Yeah, I would say bring it forward to both bodies as work sessions. Um, you know, I know throughout the course of the last couple of years, as we've been meeting, there were times that, uh, commissioner Roselle was, when we were meeting in person, wasn't able to prior to COVID, uh, there's been more since COVID that he's been a little more regular and commissioner Smith is not took a commissioner Beck's place, I believe, um, so, you know, we've been kind of rotating out. It can be, you know, we change not much, but we do have the ability to change committee makeup every year, so it wouldn't necessarily be for your full term. It would be for, you know, for a year at a time. Um, and I don't, I think once we get through this first round, even though we're standing committee, it may, it's not going to be the weekly meetings that we were having in the beginning. It'll be probably more of a monthly by monthly quarterly type situation. We'll, we'll, we'll prepare something, bring it forward if that's, if that's the, the consensus of the group and as, as you asked, thank you. Thank you. So, um, on, on a similar topic or a follow up topic that, um, was mentioned by Scott, uh, is for those two new members, um, again, Mayor Pro Tem Davis, as well as Councilman Johnson, we would like to bring you up to speed. The DCRC has met, um, late last year and there are a couple of things that we've already gone through and we'd like to bring you up to speed and, and are proposing a one-on-one meeting with, with you and we can schedule that offline so that, um, we, we can, again, bring you up to speed on where we've been so far and, and also some of the more recent code amendments. And we'll, again, we'll do that offline. Uh, Chair, if we can continue, I think the next slide is related to the, uh, schedule, uh, of the meetings and I know you probably need to read the caption for that before we get to that discussion. Okay. Uh, then we will open item C, which is receive a report, all discussion related to establishing a standing meeting schedule. Great. Um, hopefully you all can see the slide in front of you. Obviously, the DCRC meeting meetings are being recorded. They are virtual as of now. Um, however, um, I know we were talking about, you know, current says we, we want to get your input on how often we shall have these meetings and also start to look at days and times of the week to again try to schedule these meetings in advance. So, um, open for discussion, um, as to how often y'all want to meet. Uh, we do have a number of code amendments that we can certainly bring and meet every week, but I don't know if that's something that, you know, the committee would like. Uh, we're open to your input on how often you like to have the DCRC convene. Any, any comments on this? Councilmember Davis or Mayor Pro Tem Davis. Um, y'all can call me anything you like. It's just fine. Um, I've been called plenty of things. Uh, I'd say it's, it's really an as needed. Um, I, I suppose that, uh, there could be a point in time where there's an issue so sticky that it, it does go to meeting pretty regularly or meeting, just have the meeting and spitballing the ideas. But, uh, definitely at this point feels like a, as an as needed, maybe even, uh, quarterly or, uh, or a bi-monthly standing date. But then like a lot of our committees, you know, they send out the cancellation notice, they have the standing date. It doesn't get used all that often. Um, you know, just when they're called upon for some statutory duty or something. But, um, I would say infrequently, right? Okay. Yeah. I think we do have several items because we, you haven't seen the presentation that we had a couple of months ago about all the stuff that they were trying to bring back to us. So I would think they're probably going to be, you know, every week or every other week in the inner, in the near future. And then they might go where it be every other month even, uh, at that point. And, and just for, for, uh, informational purposes, uh, when we met in person, if I agreed with him, it was Chris. And if I disagreed with him, it was Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I was going to say we were, we were fairly informal, which worked well. Um, we, we, we really were just trying to work through the issues and make sure that we were clear. So I like that one, Mr. Chair. Uh, commissioner Smith. Thank you chair. Um, we are talking about the, we're not, we're talking about the ad hoc piece of this, correct? I mean, I know it's, we're talking about the setting the schedule for the items that Ron presented to us back in the fall. Correct? We're not really talking about a schedule for going forward. If this was a standing committee, um, Ron, how much is left for us to go through from that original? How much did we get through from that original meeting that you showed us when we reformed the DCRC? I, if I were to quantify it, I would say half. And that was over the course of, I think, four, uh, weekly meetings? Probably four. Yes. Three or four meetings that we had, uh, to discuss those. And they were pretty packed and pretty, uh, involved. From a city staff standpoint with, uh, you know, a March election and obviously with, um, with mayor Pro Tem Davis and, um, uh, council member Johnson, um, having to, uh, to run again, I believe, uh, in March, um, when would, when would be preferable for us to wrap everything up, um, for, uh, for the DCRC if we didn't have to go through and have to restart all over again with new members? So if, if, if an election was not to go well for either of the members who are up for election, I think actually council member, uh, Ryan is also up for election. Right. Uh, you know, when we first started this back, uh, earlier or late last year, we put down a spring timeframe. Uh, so now that we've kind of, uh, uh, paused a little bit in our reconvening, um, you know, we're looking at another, I would say no three months at least to get through the other half, um, um, give or take. So that's, that's what we're looking for. So it's obviously going to get, uh, it's going to be after March. So we couldn't, we couldn't, we couldn't do four more weekly meetings to get to the other half, just like we did the four or five weekly meetings together the first half, your estimation. I think it's going to be a little bit longer than maybe the first half that we had discussed. Then without being a voting member of the body, that thing, I might just recommend we go back to weekly, even though I know we all have busy, busy lives and schedules, I'd hate to get through, uh, you know, only half of the last half that we've got left to look at it from this, you know, the big pressing items and then us have to reset if something were to go poorly for anybody in the election. Well, the election's not until May. So I think we're, we're safe on that. We can definitely get through, you know, we're looking at three months worth of stuff. We can definitely get through that. Um, I think if I recall correctly, we used to meet at, on Fridays at lunchtime when we're, when we're meeting every week and that time works well for me. I know, uh, these days, obviously we have council meetings and Thursdays I've got a packed agenda. I now have meetings every Thursday at some point or another. So Monday, Wednesday or Friday would be good for me. Friday seemed to work well in the past. So just to kind of get that out there and see what the others think. Uh, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Tim, for kind of, uh, narrowing my focus a little bit there. I was a little, a little off with the, the topic. Uh, Fridays work well. Nobody else has a claim to Fridays so far. Um, people tend to stay away from it. So if we're going to be the workaholics that are working Friday afternoons on code review, that works for me. Council member Johnson. Friday's good for me as well. Commissioner Smith, do you have any or commissioner Roselle? I don't have any. I only have a few, a few things on Fridays that will maybe bump me off and be able to join, but in general Friday afternoons are best. Yep. Same. And commissioner Ellis had indicated that, um, she cannot do Thursday or Friday afternoon just for what it's worth. Would Friday prior to lunch work better for, for anyone? Same for me. Friday before lunch will not work for me. Okay. We were previously doing Wednesdays, uh, Wednesday mid-afternoons, uh, the fall. Yeah. And I, that would work fine for me as well. So commissioner Roselle, uh, Wednesday afternoon is generally work. Okay. Uh, we might've stumbled on something here. Uh, there, um, council member Johnson it would work for me as well. Okay. And mayor Pro Tem, uh, what time are y'all usually using on Wednesday afternoons? We were, we were, we were midday, but I know that we're trying to accommodate and look at, uh, maybe that two or three o'clock window. I can do a Wednesday afternoons. It's easier for me to make it work the earlier it is in the afternoon. Um, but I can be, I can be flexible. So with that being said, I guess what we did to the past, we were working kind of through lunch. We were actually, um, doing lunch. So it was 11 to one window. Um, but we can do a, we can do a noon one o'clock, I think. I don't know how that works with others. That's just fine for me. I can make that work. So, so what I'm hearing is noon to two. So give it, give us a two hour timeframe. Richard, do we, do we want to have maybe a option one, option two, just to make sure we can confirm it with DTV to make sure that there's nothing else scheduled, um, so that these can continue to be recorded, televised. I think Wednesdays might be safe, but, um, we may just need to check with DTV. I'm going to, I'm going to send an email as we're working on this. Okay. So it sounds like Wednesday, um, afternoon, um, and we'll, we'll work way, work with some of those hours. I know, um, noon, probably the earliest start, if not one o'clock and then the latest, you know, you know, as soon as we can get done, obviously it'd be a three o'clock if, if we can, um, have that as a stopping point. Uh, and then potentially Friday afternoon as a second option, uh, until we hear back from DTV and we can run through that with, uh, with them before making any final decisions. Okay. That sounds good. Uh, were there any other parts of that? I don't remember everything that was on that slide. Yeah. Let me, let me put it back up here. Um, we got the, the day of the week, we got the potential start times. Uh, we, we typically try to schedule a two hour, you know, but most, most likely you'll, will most likely have an hour and a half of discussions. Uh, we, when we set up the agenda or the presentations, we try to make sure that we not go over to two hour and we want to, we want to make it a productive, but at the same time we don't want it to be, we don't want it to run too long. Uh, this, the last three items on this list is really, um, the agenda and presentations will be sent out to you all, you know, obviously before the meeting, um, when it's posted. So you know, as early as possible, but minimum 72 hours, uh, in advance. Uh, and then of course, as you already know, the minutes, uh, will be included as part of these efforts. So anybody that is wanting to follow up on them, uh, we do have the approved minutes available and will be posted similar to all of the other boards and commissions. Um, the next item on the agenda or just future agenda items with regarding, with regards to the chair and vice chair, I know that we've got two members, two union members as far as city council members, and we want to just have the opportunity to bring up the, uh, opportunity for, uh, obviously a vice chair, but also considering a chair as well. So we'll include that in our next agenda. When we have our next meeting, uh, we will also go over, uh, the code amendment lists as we start to look at how we want to address those. Uh, and in part of that presentation, we will, I will share with you all where we are on that list and to kind of illustrate, uh, commissioner Smith's, uh, request or question, uh, where we are. And when you do get that presentation, you'll see how far we've gone and how far we need to go still. And that is it as far as, um, my presentation. Are there any questions that we can answer? I can answer. Any questions? I'm not seeing any. I make, I make the assumption Mr. Chair, if, uh, that, uh, Jesse or Berrio would prefer to have a one-on-one meeting, if maybe we might be able to scratch out a time or two that might work or maybe they don't. What works best for me is generally, um, getting, uh, you know, three, four, five options of when staff's available or when they're thinking about, and then, uh, throwing a dart at that board and finding one. Um, I have a few standing things. Y'all are aware of most of them. Um, but every week is kind of different from the last. Okay. And yes, I would like to do that. And so if you can give me some times that are available, that would be great. And we can certainly work around your schedule. So if you want to, if you have a couple of times in mind now, we can, we can certainly accommodate. Um, so staff had sent me an email. I have not heard from DTV as of yet, but, uh, Jessica has a tiers meeting until one 30 every other Wednesday. And then, you know, we ultimately have P and Z on the opposite Wednesday, starting at three or after. So, um, it seems as if it may be available the same weeks as P and Z. Does that create a problem for either the commissioners? Um, it's not ideal to lose every other Wednesday afternoon. Um, but I can certainly, uh, set it as a priority to make it happen. All right. Um, and I would just ask for, when staff does come up with the time, if he can send calendar invites app to everyone so that, you know, I'm, I'm running into this, I didn't put this on my calendar and I got the email this morning. I was like, Oh, no, um, I'll take responsible for that. This was, it was our coordination meeting. So we, we didn't have a standing meeting. We'll definitely make sure that any future meetings, there is a meeting invite sent to you all as soon as we have those dates. So we, we again have an idea of when that will be in and confirm that your, you, your attendance will be made or will be at that meeting. We have all the information staff needs. Yes. Um, we will, uh, we'll start looking at work session, um, times to bring to the city council and the planning zoning commission to talk about the, the makeup of the committee and how we want to move forward. And then, um, we will send out, um, some times as to when our next meeting will be based on the information that we've received. Obviously we still need to confirm with DTV to make sure that those times are available and, um, hopefully we can get a meeting scheduled as soon as possible. Okay. Um, I've got a question for legal. Um, based on our, our postings, most of the time all we're doing is discussion and giving directions. So there's, there are more of work session type items. Should we be posted more as work session is or items for individual consideration? And most, most of what you're doing in this is, is giving direction on, on what recommendations you're making to PNZ and council. And here you, um, I mean, are, are there any, I'd have to go back and look at the resolution of whether you're, you have any authority beyond advisory to make a final decision on our final action on anything that comes before you. And I don't believe, I don't believe there is Aaron. I think it's really just making recommendation to council. I mean, we can certainly look at, um, uh, that, you know, when we, if we have to renew or extend the, the, the resolution, including other topics as raised by two of the commissioners, if the council desires that, um, where we could have some type of, of a final decision making authority depending in, in, in what parameters that under which that will occur. Okay. Yeah. Cause I, as far as I know, it's, it's always just been, we're making recommendations and hashing through all the code issues and yeah. Okay. Anything else? Uh, let me call concluding items. Anyone have any concluding items? Um, well, I just want to welcome council member Johnson and mayor pro tem to, to the team and look forward to working with you in the future. No one has anything else and we will stand adjourned at 4 46.