Jun 17, 2014 City Council on 2014-06-17 2:00 PM
June 17, 2014 City Council
Full Transcript
have a quorum and it is 2 p.m. our first item on the agenda
is citizens comments
on consent agenda items mr. city manager do we have any we
do not okay thank you
then we'll move on to request for clarification of any
agenda items from
my colleagues yes yes item in on the consent agenda I know
we've received an
email on this earlier because it did not add up correctly
on the financial and I
was wondering if it's standard procedure that we don't have
a copy of the PO from
UNT or something that shows that we are getting the money
back from there getting
reimbursed from them John I'm not familiar with exactly
with the issue but
then let me ask Chuck Springer if he would to come up and
address the issue I
know he's responded to the question which agenda item was
that agenda in
and is it Nancy and is in Nancy and I see mr. Payne has
stood up who kind of
works with them on these construction projects so I'm gonna
let you answer this
this one up past the chuck it would be typical for us to
normally enter into
interlocal agreement with another government agency to do
something like
this in the interest of time so that we can get out ahead
and get this
construction done before the fall semester and we have
received funds from
UNT in the past to do some streets projects we're seeking a
letter
agreement signed by the university president I sent an
email to their
facility staff and asked for a check for $65,000 to cover
our costs on it in
addition to the cost of the actual construction they asked
us to include it
with our bid project they knew we were going to do the
sewer line project out
there so they had their engineer seal it and they co sealed
specifications and
I've got emails from them where they approved the PO we
just haven't gotten
the check yet it would be normal and we tried to get it
before the council
meeting we just didn't have any luck getting the funding up
front okay okay
yes councilmember I'm not sure if it overlaps I'm looking
at the project
manager and she's doing this so I guess not sorry thank you
all right any other
clarification yes yeah mine's on G I apologize I should
have emailed
something I was just wondering how many number of change
orders are we allowed
to have I'm sure there's not a rule in place like that and
just just kind of
curious and then when we okay a max bid that's the max bid
but then we keep
including change orders I just wanted to know how that all
kind of happened let
me ask mr. Springer to address that item as well you mean
mr. Payne I'm sorry if
he wants to well we'll see how he does on the budget
presentation today in terms
of under state law that the change orders can total up for
the total amount
of dollars it's not a number but the total amount 25% so it
totaled it can't
change the like two million dollars the total project can't
go over a million
two hundred and fifty thousand without rebidding it in
terms of that also it
requires fifty thousand or greater change orders come to
City Council for
approval so administratively George has the authority to
approve or delegate
approval for smaller change orders above 50,000 it goes to
the council and under
state law the total amount is 25% of the contract is the
most that can be changed
before it has to go back out and be rebid okay that's
important to
understand thanks Chuck okay okay anybody else yes thank
you mayor on
consent agenda I I'm sorry this might be Jay the one
relating to the Oakland
Street parking issues out of conversation earlier today
with Mark
Nelson and got a lot of my questions answered but one of
them pertained to
enforcement of that I know that we have parking folks it
seems during the daytime
hours that control the square area my question was whether
or not at nighttime
which is when a lot of this parking congestion happens in
our weekends
whether we have the parking folks to help enforce that or
out of habit folks
will just continue to park there and the problem continues
in the evening I don't
know if that's a marker police chief questioner this is not
more Wilson this
is parking force after hours would fall to our normal
patrol officers on just
on the beat we have we have two designated people whose
primary duties
between about seven and five during the day are the right
parking tickets but
they also engage in some other activities as well well just
maybe a
suggestion as this gets kind of rolled out in the early
days perhaps I'm sure
there's going to be some warnings for a period of time as
people get to know but
maybe even just thinking head because it's really that
place just gets so
congested at night and on the weekends when we don't
normally have those folks
out that there might just need to be an initial targeted
effort to keep folks
from doing what they do every weekend which is park along
okay thought sure
thank you yes thank you thank you mayor I was considering
pulling item B because
it has to do with the airport I just we're we do have a
work session item on
that was initially considering that because it's a pretty
significant
impact to our airport in a positive way and the thought
about a report during
the regular council session however I know we have a long
council session so
I'm just going to defer to what you all want to do if you
like to do that final
I would request it to be pulled otherwise given the length
of our regular session
trying to see what everybody else wants to do you mean the
630 session when you
say regular session yes I mean if you want to pull it out
of my brief
presentation here but yeah we're having here yeah I mean
what's it gonna take
five minutes okay then I'll be requesting that you're like
sure thank
you anybody else clarification agenda item seeing none all
right we'll move
forward with the next agenda item which is our work session
agenda items work
session reports 3a which is receive report hold discussion
provide direction
on proposed revisions to the city of Denton strategic plan
thank you mayor
Brian Langley our assistant city manager is going to
present this item thank you
Brian thank you mr. Campbell mayor members of the council's
could be with
you today I wanted to spend a few minutes today talking
about some
potential revisions that we'd like you to consider for the
strategic plan just
in terms of a refresher the 2013 14 strategic plan the one
the council
approved in September in with the budget process we brought
forward the
strategic plans the past couple of years and we've approved
those as well as the
budget at the same time so in late September we had the
council approved
the 1314 strategic plan and there's five key elements of
that strategic plan we
call them key focus areas or KFAs for short organizational
excellence public
infrastructure sustainable economic development and
environmental
stewardship safe livable and family-friendly community and
finally KFA
five partnerships and regional leadership those are the
five elements
the key vision and goals that we wanted to pursue and the
strategic plan in
addition to all of these KFAs we also have specific goals
and objectives that
try to outline in more specific formats specific things
that we want to do and
try to accomplish as an organization these are the ones
that we had approved
essentially back in 2011 so it's been some time since we've
looked at those in
detail we've had some changes in the organization we've
accomplished some
things we think it's a good time to come back and look at
some potential
revisions as I mentioned it was originally created in 2011
this was
really the first time that the city of didn't ever had a
citywide strategic
plan we've had many departmental strategic plans that we'd
looked at or
divisional plans that we looked at we never had brought it
all together as one
individual plan and so it was a it was a it was a an
achievement for us to pull
that together in 2011 but it has been some time and we need
to reflect some
of the accomplishments that we've had some of the new
priorities that we've
seen and we think it's a good time to look at update
updating it as many of
you know we've been working on a new comprehensive plan as
part of that
comprehensive planning effort there's been a number of
public forums a lot of
input that we've gotten from the citizens that actually
create have
created a community vision statement so that process and
the input that we got
from the citizens that needs to be incorporated into the
plan and made a
part of that we also looked at KFA three which was a lot of
different things
together we when we had the a lot of the work sessions with
council and our
internal staff looking at this we knew we needed to have
something about
economic development and sustainability in the plan and so
we ended up
combining those together into one KFA but we really think
it's overly broad
the way it's currently constructed it doesn't have enough
specificity about
what we're trying to do so we're recommending that a
separate KFA be
created specifically just for economic development so we
would increase the
focus on that activity as I get a little further in the
presentation I'll show
you specifically some of the changes that that we're
looking at making in
that regard in addition we're also recommending a separate
KFA to be
focused on sustainability over the last couple of years we
've brought forward a
sustainability plan dr. Banks brought that forward the
council approved a
separate sustainability plan for the city we wanted to
incorporate that as
part of the strategic plan and reflect that and have more
prominent prominently
displayed in the strategic plan so we're recommending a
separate KFA for that
we're also recommending a separate goal in KFA for for
library parks and leisure
services they were addressed in part through a separate
some other goals that
we have but really want to again provide a little bit more
clarity about what
specifically we're trying to focus on and more emphasis on
those issues and
then finally a KFA five which was our regional partnerships
and leadership of
KFA that we had it's very important concept but as we
started thinking
about that it's really closely related to all of the other
KFA it's not a
separate endeavor a separate task that we're looking at so
rather than have
that as a separate KFA what we're recommending is various
elements of that
KFA being incorporated into the existing KFAs that we
already have and some of
the ones that we're going to be recommending for you we
think they're
more closely related to those and and also we think some of
the performance
measures related to those are very difficult to try to asc
ertain and follow
and and track and so that will help us from that standpoint
as well I'm going
to go through over the next few slides each of the KFAs
that we're looking at
and the changes are going to be shown here in red so if
there's for example on
this particular KFA KFA one that red language here at the
bottom is the
addition to it that we be showing to you in your backup one
of the exhibits I
have a complete red line copy of it of the strategic plan
the proposed changes
is all of the goals and the objectives I'm not going to go
through the
objectives here unless you'd like me to bring that up and
discuss them
individually I can certainly do that but I'm going to try
to focus today with you
in the presentation just on the goals at this point so for
KFA one
organizational excellence we're recommending that all of
these key goals
that we've outlined here they remain the same but that we
add a separate goal
related to collaborate with local regional state and
federal partners again
this is something out of KFA five that we had before on
regional leadership and
partnerships that we thought was an important concept but
we also think
that's part of organizational excellence so we thought it
would be good to have a
separate goal related to that here in KFA to a public
infrastructure we're not
recommending any changes to any of the goals we felt like
these captured all the
things that we were trying to do for public infrastructure
in the
organization we're not recommending any of those to you
unless you unless you
have any changes to those KFA three this is the best way I
could show it we're
recommending changing that completely so we're striking
through all of the
existing language that we have for KFA three remember this
two things combined
sustainability and economic development combined into one
we're recommending
breaking those out so if you look at the new KFA three
which would be just
economic development these are the particular goals that we
would
recommend that would be focused on I want to spend a little
bit of time going
through these because I think this is probably the most
substantial change in
the document and want to make sure council is in agreement
with these
changes that we're proposing the first goal that we would
recommend for economic
development is that we would develop targeted policies and
incentives to
achieve desired economic growth we would then also strive
to make Denton a
destination for visitors we would promote a business-
friendly environment
and we would encourage development redevelopment
recruitment and retention
efforts in the city on this one and I'll probably have a
similar question on the
sustainability point that we're drawing out as well and we
're about to as a
council with our economic development partnership or in the
chamber have a
targeted discussion retreat I guess so to speak on economic
development which I
think the goal is to ultimately update our economic
development plan strategic
plan moving forward it seems like that discussion might
bring about some key
target areas that will ultimately want to populate with
this instead of waiting
till next year so I guess my question is how how fluid is
this document and
subject and how able is it to change post that meeting as
we kind of get a
sense of what are our goals moving forward so that we make
sure we're not
waiting a whole year to update this I think we the council
at your discretion
can change it at any time that we need to if there's any
kinds of updates or
significant policy discussions that occur subsequent to the
adoption of it
we can always come back and we can try to review those in
the future so if
there are those discussions that are recurring and they may
take six or six
months or so to kind of get to where you really want to be
from the EDPB and
having that discussion back with the council I think we
could certainly come
back and address those here if provided you think this is
at least a general
direction a starting point if you're in disagreement with
some of the outcomes
here are the goals that we have we probably have more of a
conversation
about that if we're heading in the right direction I think
that's good we can come
back and refine it okay got a follow-up question for you
councilman when you say
we're gonna have this this retreat or this strategic
session and that we might
want to pop are you talking about like specific targets or
is it still that
general policy type you're still saying if there's some
general policy statements
that flow out exactly okay yeah because at the end of the
day these these goals
then kind of have a number of objectives underneath that
are more specific in
nature and those are things that might change that might
kind of give us a
different way we think about this right maybe not yeah so
but it sounds like we
have the ability to kind of come back and sure okay yeah oh
go ahead oh I'm
that's fine thank you okay since we're on three ten let me
ask a question I've
been trying to look into the the more detailed objectives
and I'm trying to
find where we where we really specifically address the rev
isions or
development code that have to do with redevelopment and the
discussion that
we've been having for a good bit of time now about form-
based code is is that is
that just too detailed to make it on this list I don't I
don't think so let me
let me see if I can bring that up for you councilmember and
we'll see if we
can show you you mind catching the front lights I think it
might be a little
easier to see thank you mr. Kim thank you I think if you go
down to you by
the way this is in make sure I get this right this is an
exhibit tube and your
backup you go down to goal three dot three which is promote
a business
business-friendly environment we do have a particular
objective which I think
addresses that in some way mr. Gregory that maintain a
timely and efficient
development review process but we could be more explicit
about that if you wanted
to have more specific statement about how we wanted to try
to do that I think
that's that's the idea behind that is is that we want to
have a efficient
development review process to look at the code and how we
handle those those
types of items but we may be need to be more specific there
well I just there's
been a discussion too long about form-based code without
seeing anything
in concrete that that puts that into effect and and there
has also been some
discussion about the the issues and in development time
time friendly and this
may be you know to to specific an objective or too small of
an objective
but talking about the fact that that a very small
development or even a even
just re remodeling sometimes the process is not much less
in terms of the steps
than it is for a or a major multi-million dollar greenfield
development and and so you know we've heard some discussion
about the need to
have a for like a better term the the line in the grocery
store for 15 items
or less press checkout that's right okay thank you I couldn
't think of the word
so and so I don't know if we need to to put a mental note
here or just ask for
some discussion later on about about if that's feasible and
and how it might
work and express development process for a smaller or
smaller well let me offer
another suggestion to you one of the things we conducted a
retreat with the
City Council is some of you were on council remember back
in in January I
do remember a member a member of school I just warmed up
right very cold hard to
forget we connected that retreat with council and we talked
about a lot of
elements that we wanted to see for development we tried to
get some more
specificity to that one of the things I heard on the
strategic plan discussion
that we talked about there is we have all these goals we
have these objectives
the KFA how do we kind of get down to what are real
specific things that we're
trying to do over the next year or two years to do and so
in the end of my
presentation I'm going to highlight some key outcomes and
tasks that we think we
would recommend to the council that we try to pursue that
are tied back to
these KFAs and one of those could be related to the form-
based code bring
back a discussion or that or make a recommendation or
something related to
that I mean that that could be a way rather than trying to
address it as a
specific objective or goal we can make it as a task that
you want to see us
come back and report back on just as a suggestion is one
way to do it in one
other question on on where we're talking about I guess it's
section 3 where we're
talking about preferred growth have we where is that
defined the preferred
growth I'm trying to find exactly where you are Councilman
well let me see if I
can it's on it's in a objective 3.1.5 implement the
preferred growth concept
that's coming out of the comprehensive plan process and so
that's the community
vision statement that more urban denser development we had
some of those
presentations it's not completely done yet it's not adopted
I believe we're
looking to do that later this year hopefully bring that
back for council
consideration and adoption but that's exhibit 2 it says in
the comprehensive
plan in the slide presentation it didn't refer to the
comprehensive plan so
that's where I was writing my question okay thank you you
got yes councilman
Ryan do you want to go back to that okay and say what while
we're on this one
objective 316 is basically the old objective 3.1.4 yes I
was wondering why
we took protecting structures historic structures have I
don't think it was
intentional to take structures out I think it was the
comments that we'd
received back is that from some of the citizens through the
comp planning
process that historical elements of Denton were very
important and so we
were just trying to capture that in some way that we want
to try to retain
retain that historical significance broader than just
simply structures I
don't think consciously I was trying to say we don't want
to protect structures
or something else it was really meant to be broader
statement about historical
significance whatever that might entail yeah the previous
statement was preserve
and maintain historic structures and culture in Denton and
I don't know how
the rest of the council feels but I think that that's a
better statement okay
I can certainly go back to that structures and culture okay
okay thank
you I can get back okay so again these are the key goals
that we'd recommend
for you in KFA 3 we've already touched on some of this but
I just pulled out a
few key objectives that I thought were particularly
important that we'd be
proposing for you for KFA 3 the first of those is to
establish a target ratio of
multifamily housing relative to single-family offerings and
work to
achieve that goal now I think this is something that we
need to go through a
learning process for the city of where are we currently
right now and then more
importantly where do we want to go long term how do you get
there this is
something that I think we'd have to work through to mr.
Rosen's point through the
economic development partnership board through the council
what are what are
really some elements that we'd like to pursue and how do we
do that I think
we're part of that is educating ourselves on where we are
currently same
likewise with increasing homeownership and housing values
where are we right
now in that regard where do we want to go where the
policies that we'd want to
try to pursue to increase that if that is indeed a goal
that we'd want to have
the preferred growth concept that we have identified in the
comprehensive plan
again that's that's being brought forward to you over the
next few months
for hopefully for adoption those elements and specific
goals and actions
that are identified in the comp plan that would help drive
that that
particular goal I maintain a timely and efficient
development review process
again that we talked about utilize development incentives
to attract high
quality development and projects one of the things that we
talked about at the
retreat was trying to grow jobs that support home ownership
and higher
incomes in the community back in January that's something
that we spent some time
on with the current council at that time talking about how
we could do that
again that's an education effort we need to understand
where we are what kinds of
things do we need to be doing to do that but that would be
a goal that we try to
pursue and then finally a target major industrial and
commercial employer
relocations and expansion so all all of our folks that we
have here currently
that are doing well how can we help them grow and expand
and also what are some
folks that may be a great fit for Denton in our community
how can we bring them
here and help them grow their business so those are some of
the key elements
that we've come up from a staff perspective that we wanted
to have the
council consider under economic development yes I have a
question on the
comment Brian the question and just educate me that the
question is the
first one establish a target ratio of multifamily relative
to single-family
offerings so point of clarification is that statement to
limit the amount of
multifamily or is it specifically to say based on the
amount of multifamily
demand that there is we need to make sure that we have this
X amount of
single-family growth I think what we're from our standpoint
we're looking at
saying where do we want to be from a relative standpoint of
renters versus
owner-occupied units that we have multifamily versus single
-family homes
where are we currently where do we want to be not certainly
limiting development
but what type of incentives do we want to give to attract
the type of
development that we want to have okay I think for really a
lot of these things
in economic developments about what type of incentives when
we have incentives
that we're willing to offer what are the targeted goals for
those incentives and
hopefully they're trying to work to achieve that goal over
time okay that's
your question yeah so then I have a comment following that
up actually I'm
not two comments one comment is if that is the case then I
think we need to have
some sort of a part of the process to make sure that we don
't have unintended
consequences of something else that we're doing that hurts
that ratio for an
example if we want to encourage more single-family because
of the amount of
multifamily growth we have one unintended consequence could
be if we
change the requirement for street thickness what's the
impact on a
single-family developer when we increase the thickness of
the street that they
have to build so that just happened so then there's a what
happens is that's an
additional cost to a single-family developer that then
increases the site
the house the home price that they have to sell then the
question is do they
still want to be in this market so there can be unintended
consequences that then
go against the directive so if those two departments don't
know right don't
communicate because there's a reason that we want to
require the streets to be
thicker in residential neighborhoods probably for longevity
and repairs and so
on but understanding what the impact of that decision is it
could drive
single-family development away right my other comment was
Dalton Councilman
McGregor brought up a point about you know the express lane
I just want to
challenge us as we think about strategic planning because
in my corporate life
we would spend a lot of time on strategic plans and what
happens is
you've got this all-encompassing complicated thing that it
then makes
harder for people that are doing the day-to-day to really
connect what it is
they're doing to this overall big thing and one of the
things that I think helps
is to be able to celebrate small victories so an example is
if if we know
that it's too complicated to get a remodel permit because
it's the same
process as building something then maybe that's part of our
overall plan but
let's go kill something because we know that there's
something there put together
SWAT team kill it celebrate a victory and that would then
point to the big
overall plan versus waiting to have something as a part of
your strategic
plan to fix that small thing so that's just the challenge
to you guys as you
think about how do we celebrate small victories so that you
get buy-in from
the folks who have to do the work every day let me try to
address that in at
least one way of this is meant to be a high-level plan for
the overall
organization it's not meant to cover every single thing
that we do and every
single activity that occurs on a daily basis each
department is also working on
their own individual strategic plans which tie back to the
organizational
wide plan in some way to support this plan so they're have
much more detailed
types of objectives and tasks and activities that they'll
have which tie
back to this plan so those that's a way for us to try to
get to those those
victories that you're talking about otherwise this is a
visionary type of
document but it never really translates into something that
that you know folks
can actually implement and that's certainly not what we
want it to be we
we've when I work through this we've tried to have it as a
very simple plan
as I've seen others that can be a hundred two hundred pages
and that's not
what we want to have we want to have something that's
relatively simple and
hopefully we've tried to achieve that balance but it's
always tough
thank you mayor I think that's a good point and something
that our citizens
can rally around to kind of know what are our goals for
this year where are we
heading so that they know whether we've been successful in
what we said we're
doing so I think that's important to keep it simple to some
degree I will
just point out that I think there's some tension and it's
it probably provokes a
good conversation later on maybe even as we have that
economic development
discussion but point one and your third point are
potentially in tension with
one another depending on how you understand our our dense
preferred
growth concept and certainly geographically speaking around
the city
there's going to be places in the city where we want to
encourage high density
multifamily because it makes sense downtown for instance
near the
universities and so anyway just to think about that as we
're moving forward that
we're not competing with two different concepts in terms of
what that means
because I do think the the markets changing in terms of
what some folks are
preferring in terms of homeownership and I think we're
seeing that downtown to a
certain degree and so the question becomes how that extends
throughout our
city and how we have different policies arguably for
different parts of our city
which we haven't quite thought about it that way and we
think about how much
multifamily we want to have well in certain areas it's fine
in other areas
it's not fine so I just want to point that out of something
to think about it
before yeah I think that's a great point and something as
we kind of go down this
road with more discussions about it we can certainly push
that out one thing on
the sort of was flushed out a little bit early on the point
one established a
target ratio I know you probably weren't intending to maybe
get into the minutiae
of some of these as far but what I heard was that what you
said was the ratio of
rental to homeownership well multifamily isn't the only I
mean you do have
single-family rentals so is that and this may address you
know some of what
you're saying because I agree I think that in certain
geographical areas of the
city there's gonna be more appropriate uses for a higher
density than than
others but so are we are is the is the goal to have a ratio
between home
ownership and rental or is it truly specifically multif
amily as we sort of
understand multifamily and that is the development of you
know apartment
buildings you know I you recall with that discussion I
think it's probably
more closely related to homeownership and so or condominium
ownership or owning
the unit and having a commitment to the community I think
that's kind of more
related so maybe I can go back and look at you have some
comments on that mayor
it's part of our dead plan they were currently we have in
place it
specifically targets multifamily the single-family 60/40
ratio of what we
have in place so it has nothing to do really with
homeownership versus rental
in the sense that you're describing as far as single-family
homeownership
versus single-family rental it really has to do
specifically with the amount
of multifamily units compared to single-family units
whether their owner
occupied or rental on the correct okay yes that's fair
enough yes if I may also
see we as John said we currently have in our comprehensive
plan that goal of 60/40
we actually hit it a couple of years ago and now we've slid
back it's I think
it's 62 38 something like that one of the things that I
would I would hope I'm
assuming by the way that we're having a another retreat we
talked about doing
that to finish kind of digging into the depths of this and
making any revisions
based on the new council members that are that are here but
the increased
homeownership is a separate one because it's what acknowled
ges the fact that we
have a lot of single-family property that is also rental
property and that
can have an impact on the neighborhood yeah very few of the
people for a couple
of blocks actually own the property they may not be quite
as dedicated to the
level of about people in the yards and the property says
they work and would
if they own the property themselves that's a gross general
ization it's not
always that case at all but it but it tends to be that and
and I mean it's an
interesting concept and I think one of the things that when
we when we have our
retreat again it would be helpful as you know it is 60/40
and appropriate
percentage what are the arguments how do we how do we come
up with those numbers
is that just sort of pie in the sky is or do we have some
some studies from
other cities that that that tell us why those particular
numbers might be good
numbers to shoot for right and that's exactly what we're
doing right now
staff planning that cannot go out that we're working on
putting together not
only history as to what we've seen trending over the last
10 years or so as
far as the multifamily single-family ratio but also looking
at what other
university type communities have again we want to try and
compare as close as
possible apples to apples so to speak and so we're going to
be preparing that
information so you can have a more informed discussion at
the retreat yes
that's what I'm hoping that as part of that we will have
separated out what we
refer to as student housing multi-bedroom complex rental
units
because they are in my opinion something different than a
standard apartment
complex and if we start throwing all those in that kind of
thinking about
separately we're going to see some real strange numbers
here but because we're
college and because that's a relatively new concept they
they're rental but
they're different and they're not they're not really this
family sort of
40 and of rental but we would think of in the downtown so I
don't know if we've
had this discussion it seems to me that we need to really
sort out all these
different kinds and I do we even have a sense of how many
of our single-family
home or rent or occupies is there any way to know that no
sir not doing this
some sort of survey that might give us some sense of that
it's important I
think because we get comments from the neighborhood regular
about the units
or the number of going up or going down right but we we
have the ability for
example when the community improvement services division
gets a complaint from
someone and they have to go contact the property owner they
'll do a research on
the DCAD and we're able to determine and based on utility
names as well
usually we're able to determine if it's home owner occupied
or possible rental
property but that's on a case-by-case basis as far as being
able to run that
report I would hope that we would delve in this deep enough
that at least it was
briefly brought up that don't only think of single homes
but there's condominiums
townhouses which we have next to nothing some of those
markets do we want them is
there command or why aren't we getting them I'm hoping that
we get some depth
thank you that's my Gregory yeah just partial answer to
account mayor pro-tem
Inglewood's question we actually do have some of those
stats they're available in
the economic development office and some of them are
actually pulled straight
from the census on on rentals that are that are in single
families so they have
some of that the strand stands and stands and reports
you know one last comment as you're coming back up in the
chamber lunch last
chamber luncheon we had a presentation by our economic
development director she
she pointed out that which is interesting because it can
come into
these kind of competing interests is that and correct me if
I'm wrong but I
think it was eight of the top 20 I know it's four or five
of the top ten
taxpayers in the city of Denton are these large multifamily
complexes so it's
sort of a anyway I thought that was an interesting fact so
no absolutely that
would make I think this is a great conversation and
discussion about where
are we and where do we want to go what's that look like I
mean that's the kind of
hopefully that's one of the things that we get from the
strategic planning
process is it gets us focused on those things what are the
goals but we do have
a lot of those multifamily type statistics and we've got
some on the
single-family homes what percentage of those or rentals we
look at some of the
exemptions home side exemptions that we have through the
appraisal district so
we can we can get you some pretty good figures on that and
go through a
discussion right okay now now to the easier one easier one
hopefully KFA for
this is safe livable and family-friendly community again
one of the things that
we're recommending is that we provide a separate goal
related to leisure cultural
and educational opportunities this is libraries parks
recreation services that
we have are recommending a separate goal for that it was
embedded in it as an
objective and another goal previously so we're recommending
that we pull that out
call more attention to it and have more focus on it okay
yeah I'm sorry I was thinking about this in light of some
of our recent initiatives that are block thing that's
occurring this month in kind of the excitement and
enthusiasm along those lines
yet in none of the objectives underneath the do I see
anything that kind of hits
that that in particular and and I'll tell you it's
something even if you look at
just the goal I'm a little I still want to provide on two
occasions and what I
kind of see coming out of these neighborhoods which is
healthy is it's
not so much city come provide this for me but we're wanting
to develop something
or we're wanting to kind of take matters and so it's kind
of a little ask not
what your country can do for you but we want to do
something for our city that I
think is really healthy and I think that language is
important when you talk about
provide in particular with goal 4.4 obviously we do a lot
of providing of
those through the libraries but a lot of our leaders
are occur quite independently of the city so I wonder if
even on that goal it
makes sense to say provide and support or something like
that because that's a
major function of the city is kind of a platform by which
we're kind of
encouraging the endeavors of others but certainly from a
neighborhood perspective
I don't know and I don't have any clear suggestions on
where to put that in but
how to at least reflect I think what's happening with some
of our neighbors programs.
I think we're creating quite a list for our retreat because
as I looked at 4.4
I like it it looks like it's very much geared towards our
libraries and our
parks and rec department but when I look at 4.4.3 promote
healthy lifestyle for
residents through parks and recreation facilities that's
great but it doesn't
go far enough because I think that that there's a real
interest of promoting
healthy lifestyles through active living and and when we're
when we're promoting
active living we're talking about going back up to to KFA
to about our streets
and talking about how we're building our streets to
accommodate for pedestrians
and put that into accommodate for bicyclists so I think
that that that as
we do our retreat we don't have time to do this today but
but that we would want
to go back and think about a broader notion of how we want
to promote healthy
living and and parks and recreation is a major player but
it's by far not the only
point okay okay KFA five again just to recap for you we're
recommending that
this one be eliminated and reconstituted to focus on
sustainability and
environmental stewardship these are the individual goals
that we're proposing
these are right out of the city's sustainability plan
manage Denton's
water resources improve our air quality and greenhouse gas
management improve
energy efficiency and conservation manage land use and
preserve open and
natural spaces provide alternative modes of transportation
promote sustainable
materials resource management encourage local food
production again there are
all kinds of objectives that are that are included with
that but these are the
things right out of the City Council approved
sustainability plan yes so
there's a similar question with the economic development
question but we
have a sustainability plan in place that that I think ought
to be kind of helping
us track our goals in this area to these goals just mimic
what's on that plan or
they they exactly yeah I mean I know a lot of these are
yeah okay they are now
there's more specifics obviously in the sustainability plan
there's a lot more
detail tonight level yes sir and there's individual metrics
that I know dr. banks
has developed for sustainability we'll be able to track and
show our progress
on each individual one of those believe the committee on
environment committee
environment has looked all that perfecting thank you just
just a minor
point on objective five point one point one protect and
restore Denton's water
bodies wonder if we might rewrite that to be a little more
definitive I'm not
sure what Denton's water bodies are I don't know if we're
talking about our
lake say or whether if we're talking about our streams and
the lakes all the
water resources then I don't think bodies is appropriate
term but whatever
it just seems to me that nice just some language work water
resources something
like that okay what something okay we'll look at better
describe what it's like
I'm gonna run back not running fast enough okay so as I
mentioned at the
beginning of the presentation one of the things that we
heard at the retreat in
January is really need to try to distill this down to you
what are some key things
that we want to try to do over the coming year key outcomes
key tasks and
so what I've tried to do on the next few slides is just
showcase few things that
we would recommend that we pursue related back to the
strategic plan so it
kind of again has some some teeth to what we're saying here
's this overall
document what specifically are we going to try to do to
achieve some of these
things so these are elements that we're proposing that we
consider for the next
fiscal year 1415 develop a financial plan to maintain
reserves in accordance
with our policy requirements over the five-year forecast
Chuck's going to be
talking to you about the five-year forecast in just the
next few minutes but
that relates back to KFA one utilize the leadership
excellence and enhancement
program which you received some presentations from last
week the
innovation program the lean government initiatives to
improve the cost
effectiveness efficiency and productivity of city
operations I know
we had some discussions last week about that but those were
elements and
programs that we want to continue with to try to make us as
effective as we
can be develop a financial plan to achieve the desired
level of funding for
street maintenance activities within a specific timeline so
we've been ramping
up funding for street maintenance as everyone knows we've
been trying to add
more resources to that we want to try to define a specific
plan of when will we
when do we want to get to our target is it five years from
now is it ten years
from now 15 years what is that specific target that we want
to try to do and
what kinds of changes that we're going to make to get there
that's what we're
trying to accomplish with this particular task we also want
to begin
construction the projects identified by the citizens bond
advisory committee when
we have a presentation back on June 3rd on that I know the
council is still
looking at that program and will potentially call an
election in August
whatever those projects are that are approved by the voters
start to start
actually constructing those this coming fiscal year we do
have a major capital
program going forward for our electric system improvements
so we would
obviously recommend that we continue to construct all those
required
infrastructure improvements to accommodate growth
development plans for
DME that's related to KFA too we want to continue
implementation of the bicycle
mobility plan so councilmember Gregory's point earlier that
's something that we
really think we need to continue working on begin the
implementation of the
preferred growth concept that we refer to in the
comprehensive plan and the
elements that are related to that we're having some
discussions today about the
convention center we would hope we'd be under construction
by this fiscal
year in the next fiscal year we'd be continuing that
construction in
cooperation with UNT and the O'Reilly hospitality group
just a few more of
these that we're looking at so develop specific economic
development strategies
and incentives to achieve the goals articulated in the
strategic strategic
plan so all of the things that we talked about what
specific ratios we want to be
how we're going to improve homeownership increase home
values how are we going to
do that let's develop a plan that specifically charts a
path of how we're
going to achieve those objectives and complete the
reconstruction of fire
station 2 that's underway but also work work to reconstruct
stations 3 and 4
though again those are projects out of the bond program
there would be a major
element of what we'd be trying to do over the next year
complete the
rehabilitation of the Lake Louisville water treatment plant
that's been a major
capital project for us continue with that we want to begin
the process of
developing a municipal setting designation or MSD for the
downtown area
I know dr. Banks has been working on that we've been brief
ed a few times in
the progress of that particular project but we'd like to
try to complete that
and identify and prioritize our greenhouse gas emission
reduction
strategies related to KFA 5 but just a smattering of things
around the
organization again trying to get back and address some of
the comments from
the retreat earlier in January and some of the comments
earlier today of how do
we really provide some specificity about what things that
we're trying to do going
forward again the strategic plan is trying to give us a
vision about where
we want to go what specific goals that we want to try to to
proceed with and
this is meant to be a little bit more granular of here the
specific things
that we're going to try to do hopefully that's helpful
thank you mayor as I
look through these and I start seeing where other cities
are heading it's
always fun to kind of see that the goals of other cities so
much lately you're
seeing a lot of cities getting into some interesting social
endeavors so as a
matter of economic development they're tackling things like
pre-k and and
mentor because they were understand that they got to tackle
this income income
inequality issue early on and identifying education as
aligned with
the goals of what cities are doing and I know we have some
social programs
as we think about community development department and
whatnot but it's none of
those things are thinking ahead to what I think a lot of
cities are starting to
head down as becoming the leaders and tackling some of
these big issues none
of those are addressed anywhere in our strategic and that
makes sense it hasn't
been on our radar up to this point and I don't think we
need to jump and just add
that for this year but I would like to see I don't think it
takes much money to
begin thinking about that that perhaps as we move forward
into next year to
have that on our radars whether or not it would make sense
to elevate some of
those issues to council priorities and reflect it in our
strategic plan so it
might it might require some sort of discussion okay
okay next steps one of the things we want to try to do is
refine some of the
performance measures that we have in the plan I didn't go
through all those with
you just for the sake of time but we have a number of
performance measures
that we had the existing plan will need to be refining
those changing those up
to reflect some of the new goals and objectives that we're
recommending we
also want to look at some benchmarking when we can
sometimes it's hard to find
an apples John was mentioning earlier apples to apples
comparisons we want to
try to find some of those for some of our key performance
measures to see how
we're doing versus some other benchmark cities around the
country on June 17th
today we'll be talking about the budget with you and this
is really in our view
a critical document as part of the budgeting process is
this should be the
foundational document for everything that we do in the
organization and in
the budget process in particular because what we outline is
key goals and policies
and our vision for the city we have to fund that and put
our money where our
mouth is so to speak so that we're funding our priorities
and trying to
pursue all these goals and so that the budgeting and
strategic planning process
are really closely related so one of the reasons that we
wanted to have the
strategic planning discussion prior to the budgeting
process the numbers
follow the strategic plan not the other way around you try
to come up with what
are the goals the vision that you want to pursue and
develop a budget to try to
achieve that so that's part of the design and discussion
today in July at
the end of July we'll submit to the council the managers
recommended budget
on July 31st and as part of that we'll give you the
complete plan with all the
the detail that we've been talking about won't be the last
time that we have a
chance to talk about it but that'll be our draft
recommended strategic plan for
you and then as we go through the budget process over
August and September and
all the discussions and meetings that we have any kind of
amendments or
changes or wording additions or revisions we can go back
and look at
that and make those changes and then ideally what we'd like
you to do is
consider adopting this strategic plan at the same time that
you adopt the budget
at the second meeting in September I believe it's September
16th if I remember
correctly so except for from a timing perspective I've
obviously if we have a
retreat we can certainly include some of these discussions
in that and try to get
down to where the council has a consensus on these issues
so that's my
presentation I'll be happy to try to answer any questions
that you may have
councilmember Gregory well thanks for the presentation and
I think that this
slide and a couple of the points that you make there really
go a lot to
councilmember Johnson's question about what this strategic
plan is for a lot of
it is for us so that we are not just running a budget and a
vacuum but that
we're we're developing a budget that that is trying to fund
our plan and
trying to address our goals and I think that's important I
think another
important part of this and why I think taking plenty of
time to work on it and
and and I'm I'm comfortable with with us working budget and
and we're finding
the plan at the same time is that I think it guides our
assistant city
managers and directors and other managers in the
organization so that
when there's a question that comes up about something that
we don't know
exactly how to address but if we know that there's a goal
here to do
something like promote locally grown food then then if the
department heads
know that and they see that that some of our current
procedures don't
necessarily do that they know that they this might be time
to get creative and
find a way to to accomplish the goal and then report back
to their bosses that we
may need to change some of our procedures so that our
procedures help us
achieve our goals rather than procedures that that thwart
us from achieving our goals
yes I'm sorry yeah I didn't know I didn't know what this
was for but thanks
the I'm just messing with you the strategic plan obviously
in my mind
here's how I'm framing it is strategic plan is a cultural
statement right it's
that this is what we're about and this is our broad
strategic plan every goal
underneath it should point to one of those right and then
every behavior
underneath at the staff level should point towards one of
those goals so I
think the challenge is just like in our businesses is to
what you said each
department has their own goals and their own behaviors that
should point to one
of these right the trick is how do we communicate to our
citizens this is what
we're about so that then when the behaviors don't match
with what we say
what we're about how do we fix it right because the goal
shouldn't be to hang
people on the courthouse square it should be to make sure
it helped them
know my behaviors need to match with what we say we're
about right so that
really is the challenge is is how do we cook the cultural
statement down into
the everyday of what people do every day when somebody's
trying to get a their
lights turned on does that point towards what we say we're
about and that to me
is what the challenge is and frankly what I think one of
our challenges has
been forever which is we have really good people working
here but in general
our citizens think that you're like an obstacle for me
getting my my
certificate of occupancy or my you know my whatever and
that's not the case I
don't think people come to work for every day thinking what
I'm gonna do is
make people's life difficult so my challenge to the staff
is to figure out
how do I take that overriding strategic plan which is a
really big thing and
cook it down into the people that are doing the work every
day understand
what my attitude is supposed to be right what my behaviors
are supposed to point
towards because if we always wait for the perfect document
nothing's ever
going to happen right so to me it's a cultural thing it's a
behavioral thing
that you know that's what we have to figure out how do we
get people feeling
empowered to do whatever it is that accomplishes that those
behaviors we
talk about are those things that we're going to promote or
deliver so that
that's the challenge and I think I think the document is
important but I think
the the behavioral aspect and the cultural aspect of it is
is even more
important my question is definitely more specific maybe it
's for dr. Banks but I
just wanted to know what the significance was of the minute
municipal
setting designation maybe that's another conversation for
another time if you
want we've been on this for an hour but yeah I was just
kind of reading a little
bit about it and I still couldn't really make sense of it
that item is on consent
this evening municipal setting designation and I'll try to
summarize it
briefly it's unique to the state of Texas it's a regulatory
based program
that allows you to essentially get past the drinking water
standard issues
that typically come to bear when you're trying to redevelop
a property one of
the challenges that we have in our downtown area is that we
have a lot of
shallow groundwater and that groundwater can be everywhere
from 2 feet to 20 feet
in depth because of the the legacy of development that has
occurred over the
last hundred plus years in the downtown area there that
groundwater is often
contaminated that groundwater is not utilized for drinking
water purposes but
because of its yield capabilities and because of the water
quality that it has
the TCQ the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
considers that a
developable aquifer so because it's a developable aquifer
the chemical
constituents in that aquifer have to be held to drinking
water standards those
standards are very very stringent because they are based on
a
risk model of someone consuming that water over a 70 year
period a lifespan
and oftentimes development is hindered by the the state's
requirement to clean
that groundwater up to drinking water standards by putting
the municipal
setting designation in place it essentially creates a
designation of
that groundwater that's legally binding that says that it
cannot be utilized for
drinking water purposes once that's in place the state can
then reevaluate the
the area or the property in question and say okay we now
have a mechanism in
place that allows us to not apply the drinking water
standard and apply the
next most stringent standard oftentimes that can make the
difference of at least
an order of magnitude in terms of the factor of 10 in terms
of the cleanup
cost associated with redeveloping and property so we saw
this as an
opportunity because we have a lot of properties the city
does downtown it's
an opportunity to establish a larger municipal setting
designation that would
both deal with the regulatory challenges that we have with
the city properties as
well as act as a tool for facilitating redevelopment there
's a lot more detail
and I've done it's that's glossed over it a lot but if you
're interested I'd be
happy to provide some more information okay thank you thank
you yes speaking of
aligning the efforts of this plan and how this kind of
trickles down we had
talked about at the retreat and I thought this was a
positive suggestion of
really looking at we've got council committees who are
tasked with kind of
moving issues forward and sometimes the issues can be kind
of ad hoc or specific
to particular council members interests which is fine I
mean it's able to kind
of push some interests forward but I don't think we do
enough to really say
how do we align those council committees with our overall
goals and make sure
that there's an annual goal for this committee to push
these goals through
because that's lining with the council goals which was that
trying to do
likewise and arguably that could even affect the makeup of
what kind of
committees we have if we really thought through that and
how we were aligning
efforts so that we're all moving in the same direction
likewise how to think
about that with our boards and commissions I doubt that we
spend a much
time kind of talking about this strategic plan with our
boards and
commissions and how it specifically impacts what their
mission is or what
we're looking for out of a given year from that particular
board and commission
and again could oftentimes be subject to the whims and
interests of particular
board members or commission members which there's a place
for because we
want fresh ideas that come through but we could really be
dangerous and how
we're tackling through some of this stuff if we aligned all
those efforts all the
way from council the council committees the boards and
commissions all swimming
in the same direction with what we're doing but I don't I
don't I don't think
we organizationally give that enough thought and that was
something that was
reflected upon at the retreat I think as we're entering
into a phase of boards
and commission I think we can look at two things one is is
the current boards
and commissions options getting us where we're wanting to
go here in is there
changes that need to be made things that need to be added
or changed or deleted
or whatever looking in the future and are we properly kind
of bringing them
on board with the mission where we're heading understanding
that they're a
part of kind of helping us develop that mission because
there are experts and
eyes and ears on the ground level on a lot of these things
so I think as we're
entering into this season of boards and commission it might
be worth a
conversation along those lines to be able to say for each
boards and
commission what KFA are they fitting under what goals are
they going after
generally speaking and how do we align with that and then
to get specific of
saying in this year if we could work with them on these
topics because that's
our goals this year I think we could really be effective
organizationally so
just wanted to throw that out since we're about to have
that conversation
here in another month and I concur with that I think though
the challenge is one
that you presented earlier and that is that when we were
talking about the
multifamily that one size doesn't necessarily fit all and
that within this
this is more sort of a roadmap a general guide and that I
totally agree are we
doing are we not being counterproductive in our actions to
what our goals are it
just sometimes those goals stay real fluid so I agree with
you in general I
just wouldn't want to get so rigid right that it becomes
more robotic and
mechanical and not have some room for some flexibility and
things such as that
so that that's a great conversation to have and maybe that
's one that we can add
to the to the retreat absolutely yeah any other questions
comments I think if
I've heard correctly we're generally heading in the right
direction needs
some more discussion on a few areas but generally speaking
this is for the next
year yes okay all right thank you for your time okay thank
you thank you Brian
we'll go on to agenda item 3b which is receive report hold
discussion give
stack staff direction regarding the design and construction
of a westside
runway at Denton Enterprise Airport thank you mayor Quentin
Hicks is our
director of aviation will present this and then at the
council's request I
present it and or answer any other questions you have at
the meeting
tonight thank you thank you mayor Watts members of the
council I'll go quickly
through these 40 slides and and recognize I mean four
slides and
recognition of the time you have devoted to a long agenda
today for
a number of years a number of times we've brought different
projects to the
City Council the airport board city staff is certainly
considered an
infrastructure improvement at Denton Enterprise Airport to
add a second
runway the purpose of this infrastructure improvement is is
to
improve safety enhanced service and increase the capacity
of our airport
we've now received the grant offer and you have on your
agenda later this
evening a resolution to consider accepting that grant what
you're looking
at here is a preliminary concept design this is still
evolving but it has some
significant features I wanted to point out to you they
would be included in
this grant offer for an infrastructure improvement what we
're talking about is
a is a westside runway parallel to the existing 7,000 foot
runway this one would
be 5,000 feet long and 75 feet wide it would have of course
a taxiway
connections across the field from the existing runway and
taxiways there's a
second part of this it's very important that recently our
operations manager
Patrick Reno submitted a request for a grant to do a
significant needed
improvement on our taxiways at midfield and this is
included also in this
concept plan it it solves a problem of our taxiway
connection at midfield the
FAA is looks unfavorably on current improvements and having
a taxiway
connections that go directly from a ramp all the way
through to the runway this
would provide an offset and remove an existing connection
excuse me but even
more importantly than that it would provide us the
additional operating
safety for large aircraft moving on to our ramp the hanger
that you see right
here in this exhibit is the new Greenpoint aerospace hanger
for large
aircraft 737s and larger that our business jets will will
come to our
airport to get the interior completions and when they come
off of the taxiway
alpha now and on to the existing Bravo taxiway the wingtip
extends out over the
ramp area so we have a safety issue which will address in
the short term but
this will be the long-term solution to it so that was an
important part of this
this grant offer also the development will be a two-phase
development phase
one will be engineering design has an estimated cost of
four hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars it includes an obstruction
evaluation as well as the
engineering design now there's another preliminary activity
which is necessary
in advance of the actual design and that's the actual
construction and
that's the environmental assessment that particular
activity was included as part
of our master plan grant in order to do the environmental
assessment we need a
concept plan that that identifies where the new runway will
be so that also is
proceeding and will be dependent upon the design that would
come out of come
out of this development process the cost sharing on the
design phase would be a
90/10 grant sharing 382,000 from Texas Department of
Transportation aviation
division textile aviation and then 42,500 from the city
once the design is
complete then we'd move into the construction phase which
has an
estimated cost of six million five hundred and fifty five
thousand dollars again this is for a five thousand foot
seventy five foot wide runway but in the design process
what we may actually want to recommend and have designed
and eventually bring back to the council probably at the
time of the engineering design contract is for a five
thousand foot one hundred foot wide runway this is because
at times we will
be using that runway for the larger jets that come and go
from Denton
Enterprise Airport and we need the wider runway to
accommodate the the landing
gear the cost sharing on on the construction phase is an 85
percent 15
percent cost sharing so that textile aviation would be
providing five million
five hundred seventy one thousand seven hundred and fifty
dollars and the local
match would be 983,250 now the funding procedure of all
through through three
different specific steps that each come before the council
the first of course
is on today's agenda which is to consider a resolution
accepting the grant there's
no funding required at this time if the council approves
the grant offer by
resolution then textile aviation staff takes that to the
Texas Transportation
Commission on August 28th to get it included and approved
as an actual
project following that in fiscal 2015 we'll receive an
airport project
participation agreement for the engineering phase at the
point that that
APPA is brought to the council if it's approved that's when
we would be asked
to transfer our portion of the engineering cost to textile
aviation
they would obtain a contract for engineering design and
administer that
with our matching funds at that time they will also ask us
to to provide
documentation that we have the funding set aside for the
construction phase
but we wouldn't transfer to them at that time we would not
be asked to do that
the proposed funding that staff is considering bringing
back to the council
at this time would be with certificates of obligation with
the debt service of
course paid from the airport then once the design is
completed in fiscal 2016
we would receive an airport project participation agreement
for the
construction phase at that point if the council approve the
construction is
where we would be asked to submit our portion of the
funding for construction
to textile aviation to move on through the construction
there again that
portion of the cost would be is being considered as to be
proposed to come
from certificates of obligation now there is a need to
escalate this project
and we've talked about that previously with the master plan
and it's why we
included in the master plan presented to the council a
portion of that work to be
the environmental assessment and again to get the
environmental assessment we
need a concept plan for the runway so what what we had
proposed to do and what
has been conducted up to this point is to put a request for
qualifications on
the street to seek a design engineer this has all been done
in cooperation
with textile aviation under their rules of acquisition so
that any expenditure
if we hire a design engineer any expenditure toward that
contract would
be recognized toward the APPA for engineering design when
we do receive
that next year this will allow us to coordinate the design
with the master
plan allow us to move ahead with the environmental
assessment and help us
answer some of the issues related to the design and the
actual features that we
need in that West Side runway it's it's on schedule right
now to bring a
proposed engineering design contract to you to be funded by
the city through the
airport in July of this year but again any expenditure
between that and and
physical 2015 that we make will count toward that that 90/
10 cost
participation our 10% of that that cost quick real quick
question on that
because I know you'd said that the proposal was to fund our
10% match with
CEOs correct so make sure I understand what you're saying
we're gonna front
four hundred twenty five thousand and that's gonna go
towards our 1 million
whatever that is 25 thousand seven hundred then what's your
then the bonds
will reimburse quote-unquote the airport fund the cash that
they've expended is
what I'm understanding your is how you're seeing this or
are you saying that
that will reduce the amount that the CEOs will have to I
mean if ours is a
million dollars and we've paid four hundred twenty five
thousand in cash we
didn't get that reimbursed by somebody or we're just gonna
then only over let's
say six million or six hundred thousand what are you that's
actually the the
four hundred and twenty five thousand for the engineering
design contract up
front is is currently covered with approved line items in
the capital
budget in the airport fund for this fiscal year not not
committed but that
line items in the budget okay so it wouldn't be CEO funding
it would be
funding from the airport fund now we won't actually spend
anywhere near the
four hundred and twenty five thousand prior to getting the
APPA right because
that 125,000 is the budget all the way through the design
and into construction
into construction management so but whatever portion we
spend will be
credited toward our cost participation once we get the APPA
so it would reduce
the amount of CEO funding that we'd have to have to submit
to okay that's not
aviation then and it's just a thought and I know the
Airport Advisory
Committee has looked at this I'm sure somewhere down the
line but I know that
one of the goals I think that we've had over the years and
it may be in the
strategy is to do more cash funding and I don't know what
the balances are and in
the airport fund but if we're looking at if we're gonna
spend two or three
hundred thousand we're looking at only financing six or
seven or eight hundred
thousand I'm not sure depending on the status of the cap
which I have no I mean
I like you maybe somebody can address it is is this
something that might be
amenable to that kind of approach as far as instead of debt
funding just taking
care of it so I throw that out there not that I have that
but necessary
preference except I think there has been some discussion
about moving towards
some items that lend themselves more to that type of
approach so that just was
the thought I had sure and and I would assure you that when
we come back to you
with the proposal for the engineering design contract we'll
be able to discuss
that in more detail right but but yes we did take that into
consideration and and
generally the reason for asking for co funding is that that
that we're
proposing to use the airport fund cash expenditures more
for property
improvements that directly generate additional revenue for
the airport and
there's a balance in there sure that again we can explain
in more detail
absolutely I assure you that consideration is being taken
sure that
we will be able to bring information to yeah just a thought
emails oh I'm sorry
you probably have other slides sorry no no that's okay that
that really is this
this was just to kind of give you a heads up on the
approach we're taking
and the purpose of this is to give you a heads up and ask
if there any questions
or comments regarding the project or the proposed
resolution that you'll be
considering later I do want to say I came out to the air
fare on Saturday and
wonderful time great crowd beautiful weather so what a
great event so heads
up and hats off to you appreciate your organization and the
airfare committee
absolutely they did a great they did a great job they
planned that all year
long so yes I appreciate that very much I know they do too
yes yes maybe this a
question for Chuck but I'm wondering kind of where the line
is when you do
that multi-generational equity when you want generations to
kind of pay for a
project I wonder how much how expensive that project needs
to be or is it
specific to the project because I hear what Chris is saying
like possibly is
paying for it but if you know this is going to be around
for a long time and
it kind of leaves us not with a lot of cash is it better to
finance it just
thought I mean if Chuck wants to add detail to that but I
would share this
with you part of the process for thinking up up to this
point is that
adding a runway while it well it is a safety improvement
also does add
capacity which will generate more business so over a
lengthy period of
time there will be an indirect benefit of additional
revenue coming in so we
kind of balance that's one of the considerations we
balanced against using
CEOs and paying that service over a period of time that's a
lot better
answer than Chuck was gonna get one of the other things I
want to mention is is
there are with issuance of CEOs with issuance of debt there
's restrictions
that the airport it really runs into the airport
specifically because what's
called private activity in issuing tax-exempt debt it can't
really be used
other than certain exceptions for what's considered private
activity so while the
runway is open to the public and some other things are open
to the public if
we build some facilities out there that are for specific
businesses or that type
of thing we generally can't use tax-exempt debt unless it's
approved by
the voters so one of the other balances in terms of issuing
CEOs versus using
those cash balances is what are the purposes we can issue
debt for and what
are the ones we can't and try to use some of those cash
balances for those
other purposes it might bring revenue but we might not be
legally able to
issue debt for so that's the other make sense the good good
portion to consider
thank you yes councilmember
with
we had five million dollars on the table but where are we
going to come up with 500,000
out of the government with the airport funding we have now
we don't have to worry about that
whether we pay cash whether we issue CEOs we can argue
about that but whether that's a long
and it's a great discussion to have but it's your foot that
's in the better position
we put in my understanding is a lot of that fun balance
comes from our revenue
from the gas well that that's correct okay and it is a
finite source of revenue
yes important and planning it yet recognize that good any
other questions
thank you thank you very much thank you moving on to agenda
item 3c receive
report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the
preliminary fy
214 to 15 proposed budget thank you very much mr.
springer director of finance he would present this budget
discussion thank you
Chuck
unless you'd like frank pain no you probably would on this
one councilmember
Hockensleeve on purpose
I've got it on my
in terms of the major budgetary themes for this year and I
should back up a little bit
this is just kind of giving the council the first look at
the upcoming budget
the proposed budget will come to the council at the end of
July but this is
kind of our first preliminary look and kind of setting up
the scope of this
year's budget in terms of the budgetary themes what we're
trying to stress this
year is we're continuing on the course to balance general
fund revenue and
expenses in terms of last year's budget expenses exceeded
revenues we drew down
on the fund balance by about 1.38 million so we're really
setting a course to
bring those revenues and expenses into balance to maintain
a competitive
compensation plan there will be somewhat begin this year
limited funding and I'll
get into the details of the numbers to address general fund
growth needs as part
of that we've got the internal efficiency efforts the
innovation program
and lean programs that we talked about I'll talk a little
bit more about and I
just want to highlight potential future revenue limitations
which was with what's
going on at the state level and the recent elections there
's a lot more talk
of revenue caps appraisal caps looking at cutting the rate
down the growth rate
and property taxes the rollback rate from 8% to 5 or 3 with
a potential
election so I just bring that up that those may be some
challenges in the
coming years potentially coming imposed by the state
another budgetary theme is
to continue street maintenance expansion in the utilities
we're looking at
replacement is expansion as a major theme in the utilities
and specifically
in the electric utility managing that the next few years at
the TMPA debt
requirements in the city absorbing some of that debt I'll
get into some detailed
numbers in the general fund but in terms of what the
assumptions are right now
underlying the assessed valuation increases are the same as
we really
showed with the bond committee and their recommendations we
're estimating an 8%
growth and assessed valuation for 1415 that's new
properties and existing
properties and for the fiscal years after that we're estim
ating 4% growth
for the property tax rate itself the debt service tax rate
will remain about
the same in 1415 we're estimating as you remember last year
there was a proposed
one cent tax increase on the operating side at 1415 because
of the greater
growth and assessed valuation this year in the model we've
pushed that off a
few years so there's no increase in the M&O rate until 1617
sales tax for this
model we're projecting at 3% above the current budget and
in future years 3%
growth rate in franchise fees all the growth and franchise
fee revenues are
transferred to the Street Improvement Fund we can have a
baseline number of
about 7.59 million that stays in the general fund the rest
goes to the street
maintenance fund and we're continuing that through the five
-year projections
compensation and benefits for the upcoming fiscal year we
've kind of built
in a 3% merit increase as well as equity adjustments and
step increases for civil
service we do have a salary study underway that will come
back to the city
in early July where we're comparing really to our
competitive cities and for
the electric utility sometimes to private utilities so that
may impact this but
this is what we've built in for now which is basically the
same compensation
program we had in the current fiscal year future fiscal
years have just an
average 3% package and step increases built into them
health insurance right
now assumes a 6% increase on an annual basis in city
contributions and employee
contribution rates have yet to be determined for the
upcoming year as we
go through the budget process we'll recommend those our
retirement system
which is TMRS the Texas Municipal Retirement System in
calendar year 2015
our fully funded rate is going to decrease by about 6/10 of
a percent so
that's good news is that rate is decreased the last two
years second year
in a row now throw a bunch of numbers up here as is
required during budget
presentation so let me kind of summarize what I've got here
the beginning fund
balance these are the revenues we're estimating based on
those assumptions and
the expenditures based on those assumptions so you can see
we have an
operating surplus there and then I've built in for new
expenses these are
really two areas baseline packages and supplemental
packages baseline
increases are really increases in things like fuel
electricity contracts for
computer support just those basic things we start off the
budget excluding
salaries everyone's budget remains exactly the same in
terms of dollars so
if there's an increase due to inflation or those kind of
costs has to be
requested by the department as a baseline request the other
type is
supplemental packages which is really an increase in
service level additional
personnel a new program so we've kind of built in about two
hundred and fifty
thousand for baseline increases and about a million for
supplemental packages
just as an estimate and you can see with that we still have
a little bit of a
deficit there but much smaller deficit than we had this
year six hundred and
thirty two thousand but they do continue going forward
again these are the
preliminary numbers and we'll bring a budget back to you I
'll go over some
other items real quick question the difference when y'all
are doing the
preliminary budget I know that in the bond presentations in
the beginning
they were assuming a four percent growth what is the actual
dollar amount between
the four percent and eight percent growth in other words if
this were a if
this were a if this were based on four percent what would
be that revenue what
are we talking about an increase that we didn't really
anticipate it's a little
over a million dollars the four percent okay four percent
yes thank you mayor by
way of comparison remind me last year what did that new
expenses row contain
what did we end up in in terms of supplemental packages the
amount of
money we devoted to that at new expenses I mean what was
the actual total for
supplemental packages last year right I'm going to look
over the budget staff
I've got my budget with me in terms of getting that number
and will bring it up
to me in a second I think it was beyond that dollar amount
if that's what you're
getting at now I've had this question a couple years now
and I'm still trying to
understand the budget process so when when departments are
evaluated it's
always starting with baseline what their expenses were last
year what their
budget was last year and then it's they want something new
or need something new
it's added as either some sort of new expense item
supplemental package or
whatnot is there ever any part of that process that that
encourages departments
to evaluate reevaluate existing programs to see what's not
working or not making
what we thought the original goals were not hitting the
target or something like
that so we're actually coming back and saying we only need
to spend eighty
percent of what we did last year because we're cutting this
because it wasn't
effective or something like that doesn't seem like that's
it from our perspective
that that's ever part of the conversation so it appears we
're just
growing growing growing and growing instead of taking out
so that you can
add this in or whatever talk to me about how we did I'll
try not to jump ahead
but part of one of the things we did this year is we asked
for each department
in the general fund to turn in a five percent reduction
over three years if you
needed to make some reductions where would it be in terms
of that and that's
one of the items we're going to be evaluating during the
budget process in
terms of taking any of those reductions so we did ask for
that I think Mr. Campbell
wants to well just to add to that comment a supplemental
program generally
speaking isn't request for new money into the budget to do
a new program but a
supplemental program could be a proposal by department and
I will a few years ago
park department for instance recommended eliminating a
couple of things and that
supplemental program could be the reduction in spending
because the
program is just not is doing exactly what you asked now
does that occur as
often as requests for new money no not clearly but it is an
option that
departments have and one we asked them to look at and Chuck
will get into some
of the proposed I mean that now we've asked for some
scrutiny of how to reduce
spending some of which has been submitted and I'll tell you
it would be almost
impossible for us to take those kinds of cuts but when we
've targeted dollar
amount they've told us what it would take to achieve that
dollar amount some
of it we obviously couldn't accept to answer your first
question and then I
want to add a little bit more what we do on the budget
process the general fund
expenditure supplemental packages was about one point six
seven million last
year so about one point seven million in total so I think
that was out of a
request of something like seven or eight million that was
proposed as possible
that was cut down to that and the same thing is occurring
this year five five
four and and I also wanted to mention when we do
evaluations of especially
baseline requests the first thing we generally look for if
they've got
additional cost is there anywhere in the budget that there
have expenditures
that they're not spending so we can move those over an
example is municipal
court as they've had some increased costs they've gone to
more paperless
environment so they're not buying all the court folders
basically so as
they've had some increased costs we simply move that money
over so one of
the other ways we look at it is by not increasing those
dollars when they make
a request for a baseline is there some other funds
available to cover that
increase without without making a total dollar increase so
that's the other
evaluation factor that goes on within that I do just want
to point out in
terms of our fund balance minimum targets at the bottom of
that slide the
council's adopted a policy where in the general fund we set
kind of a minimum
target of 20 percent will allow that to drop to 15 percent
because of unusual
financial circumstances or some kind of natural emergency
but we want to return
that to 20 percent so in terms of the goal Brian talked
about in terms of the
five-year plan the goal is to really keep that fund balance
at 20 percent or
above during the five-year plan yes go ahead
with regards to that
pretty cool target for bond rating
what extent and I know that they look out for our obviously
look back
and also forward what is the fact that this is a project
for five
since that
well I think though the this five-year projections within
the budget so the
rating agency see that and they really ask in terms of how
you project to
balance that in year four and five so the last that
questions in terms of
their significance they really look at historical and where
you're at in the
current year and the next is the most important part but
they will ask those
kind of questions
that's my great behavior you know I'm trying to remember
back to my first and
second year on council
seeing the five-year projections thinking wow it we're
getting down in
fairly low percentages and we've never done that I would
love to to for
somebody to be able to retrieve from me because I certainly
couldn't find it
but what this document looked like five years ago because
it's it's but the
projections out five years were not nearly as bright as
this one and yet we
never got
why is that
but how can things end up getting better
is this is this the the the Langley doing good
well I think a couple things if you look at our projections
probably a couple
years before the economic downturn you would have probably
seen growth in
revenues a lot higher than we actually experienced I think
a lot of times
governments make the necessary adjustments and if revenues
don't come in
they make the necessary reductions or changes in order to
maintain their fund
balance so I think one is just making those changes and two
is I've always been
accused of this finance folks tend to be a little bit
conservative and if you
take the over under on are we going to do a little bit
better a little bit
worse usually a little bit better wins over the long term
we tend to have long
memories of those few years when when the economic times
went down and sales
tax was well below or property values were well below and
we tend to try to be
a little conservative and hope that things will do a little
bit better than
we project
question on the you mentioned the 5% reduction over three
years
which about 1.5 a little bit more than that per year is
that included in any of
this or is that just sort of so it's just sitting out here
somewhere that if
we were to apply it to this hundred million dollar expenses
1.5 1.5 million
dollar maybe reduction in those so that's not included in
that expenditure
number that's correct we have not incorporated any of those
and this is a
question I have because it's just interesting we've gone
from a 4%
assumption to potentially 8% and some say the actual may
even be higher than
that potentially depending on protest season and the like
so when everybody's
doing this this budget these budget presentations I mean it
's one thing to
say you got a 4% increase that you got to work with or you
got an 8%
assumption you got to work with so which under which
direction do they do that
like I mean these expenditures are based upon this number
of 8% or this number of
4% as far as the revenue the revenue is for 1415 assumes an
8% increase and
then the future years is a compounded on top that 8% is 4%
each year so it maybe
it's just me understanding when the departments begin to
construct their
budget are they given sort of a preliminary amount of
revenue that the
city's anticipating or are they literally doing it blindly
saying this
is what we think we need irregardless or regardless of what
we think the
assumption is going to be or do they have an idea that well
you've got to
really put your budget within this framework of revenue or
you put your
budget in this framework of revenue let me respond a little
bit generally mayor
what I asked the department to do is give me a realistic
picture of what you
want what you think the services need to be and the
resources you need to do to
provide the services that the council and the public has
asked for clearly
that's the reason we have supplemental program request of
five eight million
dollars when we know we can only spend two or two and a
half but we need to
know this five-year forecast is a planning tool and further
out you get
the less accurate it is but the department's are asked to
give us your
best estimate of what it's going to take to deliver
services based on what you've
been doing and what the public's asking for or the council
for irrespective of
how much the revenue picture is going to be just be
realistic okay don't ask for
the moon when you know we've got some limitations on
revenue but that's not
the essence of what they go into the budget request looking
okay good thank
you appreciate that
in yes yes Councilmember Rhoads you know going back to that
that other slide what
do we really use to determine that new expense line like
when you guys decide
okay this year we're going to set our cap at a million to
five for
supplemental packages how do you how do you arrive at that
numbers there's some
formula that that that you're coming up with but let me go
back to some time if
I could check before Chuck was even here and we've had
these discussions a lot
of time it's looking historically at what we've had to add
over the years and
recognizing that in most instances when we set that one one
million to 1.2
million that we haven't been able to achieve even that but
it's really trying
to put a cap on our projections to focus us on looking at
only those things that
we think are most critical to the organization it's
generally a question
it's generally intended to be a very conservative estimate
based on our
history of what we've had to do and what the growth rate is
in the city and how
populations been growing but it is there's no magic formula
it's a number
that we plug in to try to determine and get a grasp of what
the next five years
is going to look like if we were able to achieve that 1.2
and you'll notice that
increases each year because it's cumulative it's a human
and the other
question I have and this is an historical question maybe
your team has
it or doesn't off the top of somebody's head is the last
couple years of growth
and sales taxes has been what what's that percentage does
anyone have that
ready at hand I think we can look it up but up well you
know my my impression is
because you know we always get sent these monthly updates
on these things
and hasn't been super encouraging in terms of that growth
especially when we
talk when we think about how many new significant retail
projects have come
online and I don't know if your team has any economic
analysts that do some
punditry on these sorts of things but it's interesting to
think about why
that's the case why we're not seeing a larger growth in our
sales tax figures
coming in does anyone have any working theories on that in
terms of in terms of
overall growth this year I know it's been or just the trend
or the trend line
over the last couple years or something again we talk a lot
about and Amy gave
us a presentation on how much we're seeing come out of
razor ranch north yet
you know we're kind of stagnant in terms of our where our
growth is getting so
it's like what's happening out there and our retail
industry is not reflecting
the growth that we think we would see so people have left
money I mean I don't
know I don't know if you guys sit around and think about
those things because
certainly from a policy perspective it makes me think we
need to think about
that yeah I mean we saw a couple years ago we kind of saw
bounce back from the
recession I had a really large growth rate you know
historically it tends to
be somewhat driven by your population and the amount of and
the amount of
spendable income within that population so you really look
at population plus
income growth if you have a real large retail development
the question you know
you know becomes are we going to draw more people into that
development that
have been shopping other places outside of the city in
terms of in terms of
retail growth but in terms of specifically we we get a
report from the
comptroller's office and we can look at the top 20 or 30
taxpayers to see how
they're doing see how they're doing to prior years but in
terms of overall
economically that's one of the things cities across Texas
and I know across
the country struggle with is estimating those kind of
revenues such as sales
tax that tend to be may we have economic cycles when we're
having meetings on
with our looking at the economic forecast and economic
indicators that we
have been putting together the quarterly reports that we
send to you all it's
grasping at straw sometimes you know exactly but trying to
compare what's
going on in the housing industry and the retail industry
how much growth that we
got how much commitment do we have on incentive agreements
and how much of that
if we had it are we gonna have to turn around and give back
it's difficult
estimate to make Amy appears to have a comment she'd like
to say that we
actually did an analysis in my department to provide a
report to EDP
which we haven't given to EDP yet that just tracks those
larger retail
developments that we track monthly to look at the trend
over as many years as
we've tracked it and I'll be glad to send that to you all
as well it doesn't
cover everything but it will cover the larger developments
that we track as a
whole in answer to the council member wrote this question
you've been in
Langley's office you've seen that ball for he asked a
question and shakes it up
and then he looks at the answer not sure yes Ken yes
counseling room
I get the population growth we have that tends to be
shifting rapidly and we're
losing anecdotally speaking I'd say that I would agree with
that we haven't
looked at the trends specifically for Denton I don't know
that we could really
capture that information but just as a as an example we
know one of the the
antique stores downtown now makes more money on eBay than
they do with walk-ins
but generally the retail industry across the world is
struggling with that and
with smaller footprints and with every year you see retail
staying flat and in
an internet sales going up and so it's going to be retail
in general is going
to really shift the way they do business as a result of
that
we have more and more retail facilities and less and less
sales tax. We can't go on for very long before we start to
have less and less retail facilities. And then we're really
in trouble. Thank you.
My staff went to go get the exact number so I'll get you
those percentages in a few minutes.
In terms of the budget development from here going forward
as we bring it to the
proposed budget to council and they develop it further I
think George had sent out a
memorandum to the council for your budgetary request and
budgetary priorities
for this year so we'll take those at the top of the list in
terms of what council
desires that we mentioned the supplemental packages from
general fund
departments total approximately five point four million the
baseline
adjustments the initial request total about three hundred
seventy eight thousand I
mentioned the somewhat limited capacity much less than
those numbers in terms of
available funding and the departments were also as I
mentioned asked to submit
potential reductions slash revenue enhancements over a
three year time frame
equal to about five percent of their budget so those will
also be taken into
consideration and I'm sure some of those will be proposed
in the proposed budget
we mentioned on the tenth some efficiency or service
efforts the employee
innovation project just to give some quick numbers the
submissions and round
one by the employees there were sixty three submissions
kind of pick the cream
of the crop to go to round two which was eighteen
submissions we anticipate about
seven to ten projects will be selected and considered for
implementation of that
the leap program they gave their presentation the
leadership excellence
enhancement program and their two class projects were
presented to council on the
10th also want to mention and we discussed this briefly at
the tenth but
the lean government initiative really the focus on this is
improving processes and
reducing waste and improving internal and external customer
service I think a good
way to to focus this in terms of what Brian was talking
about you know you've
kind of got your long term plan and those things you really
want to focus on all of
us think about the time we spend on those little details
that don't really get us
to the big picture but just take our time part of lean
government is try to reduce
the impact of those details and be able to focus on what's
most important we've
hired an external consultant this year we've gone through
executive and
supervisory training held the two kaizen events which means
kind of improvement
events on the hiring process and the purchasing process we
met with all the
department heads for improvement opportunities and in this
last week we
trained eight staff internally that will kind of take over
these lean efforts and
expand the training and be kind of the internal experts the
internal coaches and
as part of that one of the things we challenged that group
with was to come up
with in lean techniques to call it elevator speech in other
words if you're
stuck on the elevator how do you describe in a very short
time frame what it's all
about so I just want to kind of read this draft one that
they've come up with
and hopefully this may give you a little bit more sense of
the initiative our city
is experiencing tremendous growth that's visible and pal
atable in fact it is on
track to have a sixty five percent increase in population
to over two
hundred thousand by the year twenty thirty this growth will
place great
demands on the entire organization from utilities to public
safety recreation
and leisure and to general government to meet this demand
we intend to have
controlled growth in our capabilities by innovating and
reinventing ourselves
rather than just adding equipment staff and layers of
bureaucracy by applying
methods proven in manufacturing health care service
industries and even
government Denton can remove many of the annoyances and
obstacles to our jobs that
we run into every day and take our focus away from the real
work this work is
rewarding meaningful and creates a better community this is
Denton's lean
journey and in terms of for the employees Denton employees
are most
important asset lean is a culture that invest employees by
providing
opportunities for more meaningful work lean practices draw
upon employees to
remove redundant and inefficient processes and enhance
skills in order to
provide outstanding customer service so that's kind of a
brief summary that
they've written up and I wanted to mention we've added some
things on the
website this year in terms of budget transparency when we
had some
discussions with the committee on citizen engagement we've
added a
dedicated web page with the budget idea submission form
kind of a short video on
the budget process and we're posting all the presentations
agenda items that type
of information like including this presentation on that
site so there's one
place to go to for the public to be able to find all of
this we also at the
beginning of it did a social media push to let people know
that it's out there
and it's available this is really similar to what we did
for the bond
program where we had everything at one place we had an idea
submission form and
then we had all the documents and information in one place
for the
citizens to find I've got a couple comparison tables here
we like to
compare ourselves against our kind of competitive cities
this is our general
fund sales tax per capita you can see Denton is at 226 this
is for the fiscal
year ended 930 13 we compare ourselves to the other cities
based on their
annual financial reports and the four cities there that are
starred everyone
else has a one cent of their sales tax that goes to the
general fund Denton
Bryan College station and Mesquite are at one and a half
cents we have a half
cent sales tax in lieu of property tax and Lubbock's at one
point three seven
five cents so just to caveat that that gives a little bit
of sense of
comparison and I've also got one for assess valuation per
capita and you can
see Denton falls kind of right in the middle in terms of
about 57,000 per
person in terms of assess valuation and you can see the
range there and kind of
the averages with Frisco kind of being the outlier I want
to jump over to the
Street Improvement Fund to give the projections here on the
five-year budget
for this and to talk a little bit about OCI one of our
favorite topics and I've
given a few extra years here of actuals really to just kind
of look back
historically this is in 1112 I think that was the first
year that we had the
Street Improvement Fund separated out and you can see we
spent about six point
one million in terms of revenues and you can see the growth
what we're proposing
for 1415 is about eight point eight point nine million and
I've also
highlighted what we're spending down here for bond funded
we had the bond
election in 2012 which was four million for five years but
in red here you can
see the bond committee is proposing 24 million over the
next six so we can
bring the sales up from four million a year really to six
million a year during
that six-year process so these numbers are kind of based on
that proposed bond
election but we talked last year about the OCI and just to
give new council
members a brief definition OCI stands for the overall
condition index of our
street system it's really a measure of serviceability
provided by the pavement
to the vehicle driver and in 2009 the OCI overall scale of
zero to a hundred
was 63 for the city and at that time in order to maintain
it at that level they
estimated we needed to spend about ten point one million on
OCI related
expenditures for the streets what we're really trying to do
is build up to that
level and last year we talked about kind of when would we
reach the level of
neutrality in other words when would we stop declining at
least reach a level
where we could keep it the same in terms of OCI where we're
spending that so what
we've estimated is approximately 60 percent of the
operating expenditures are
OCI related those appear the operating revenues and
expenditures and a hundred
percent of the bond fund expenditures since we're
rebuilding streets so based
on that we think that the funding will stabilize if the if
the bond election is
passed council calls it's passed and we start spending six
million in 1516 will
kind of estimate it to stabilize yes that's member and I
pointed this out
last year maybe around the same time when we were talking
about this I really
think we need to get to a point and I know you've got
another slide talking
about additional street funding options which is good but
you know recall the
the OCI report I mean as things are status quo I mean I
know things are
declining but the baseline is not great and so I think
there's a there's a
certain amount of false advertising we give to ourselves
and certainly to our
citizens if our goal oftentimes because we're constantly
talking about when are
we getting us to the point of stabilizing OCI rating and
not declining
instead of setting the goal at where do we want to be at O
CI and at what point do
we get to that point I just think collectively we got to
think about that
as the goal and I say that as you're about to jump to the
next slide of
options because we just got to move the bar up because
getting to the point where
we're saying we meant we're maintaining status quo which is
really bad and we all
agree it's really bad but we got to that point now surely
it's an improvement
relatively speaking but in terms of fixing the problem we
just need to
challenge ourselves to set that bar higher so yes thank you
I concur with
your statement I like the fact that I like this chart
because it's I can kind
of look out and see how we're we're we're at least
improving in in our efforts I
don't think that we're improving enough but I think you
know for example we're
talking about next year 13 percent increase in our efforts
to stabilize the
streets the the next year it's 12 percent the next year
though it's only
six point seven percent that's the 1617 year you know we
every other year it's
over 10 percent but for some reason in the 1617 year it's a
pretty small percent
of growth do you know why that is are you talking about the
operating revenues
I'm talking about I'm looking at the number of total
operating revenues and
and what I'm seeing is that that in 1617 the growth from 15
16 to 1617 is
significantly less than it had been the previous years and
and the next year
it's only about a six percent growth unless my math is bad
which certainly
will be and and this this number here the franchise fees is
really a projection
the majority of which come from our internal utilities in
terms of what are
their rate change is going to be and what's the franchise
revenues going to
be so we can delve into that a little deeper but at the
surface it looks like
you're really looking at a year where our rate increases at
least right now or
to be projected to be much less for our utilities therefore
there's not going to
be as much growth in the franchise okay thank you so it's
it may be good for the
utility customers and not for the street may correspond
thank you mayor I know
this doesn't help with the Denton driving experience but do
we have any
idea of what the OCI ratings are in neighboring communities
neighboring cities
is there any way to figure that out I don't know how many
of the others have an
OCI rating I know I know my prior community had an OCI
rating and it was at
about 80 but you're looking at a much younger community
right in terms of
Denton I don't know how many of the other cities around us
I'm kind of
looking at Howard have someone come out and even even
perform that type of
study okay we can we can at least contact them and see if
it's studied if
there's others in the area that have that type of study
real quick comment to
address your comment Councilmember road and I agree with
you we need to figure
out a plan to get a to raise the bar higher I think though
as I've looked back
historically over you know the budgets in the past ten
years and you know in
2003 we had one of these same similar street reports that
came out that
wasn't much better than it was now and so this problem has
been one of years I
mean we're not talking sick we're talking 10 15 20 years
and so the amount
of money that requires and I agree with you that the 2016
17 Councilmember
Gregor I think because a lot of that you'll see some of
those big increases
are on the bond savings the bond sale savings which is
directly related to DME
infrastructure financing which instead of using revenue
bonds we're using COs
and so forth which I think that's because then it moves up
to the 10%
again the following year I mean so it's probably some
anomaly in there but I'm
really encouraged I mean I know we need to set the bar
higher but three years
ago four years ago when we were looking at this holy Toledo
we only had a
few million dollars we were so far behind and at least we
're really we're
making some good progress which I think will lead us in
that direction so gosh
I'm encouraged by seeing these numbers hadn't seen these
numbers for a year so
but I agree the plan to get it to a different level because
that will
directly impact our economic development opportunities it
will directly impact
our quality of life for our citizens so that's certainly
one of the I think has
always been a priority but yes councilmember Engelbrecht
or travel whatever we probably could push that faster but I
don't know that we want to because at the end we need to
increase our costs.
That's part of that process.
Sure. Any other? Okay.
It kind of leads into the next slide we had a lot of
discussion with the
council during the last fiscal year about additional street
maintenance funding
and kind of what we're doing now and what are some
additional alternatives if the council wants to consider it
.
I stated all growth and franchise fees are dedicated to
street maintenance funding
and the proposed increase in bond funding from four to six
million a year and
council members one of the things we did was look at
adopting street impact fees
the councils approved that study I think the adoption will
come back to the council
probably early next fiscal year and really what that does
why we can't use street impact fees specifically for street
maintenance.
What it allows us to do is that's a funding source for
street expansions and it kind of reduces that pressure for
dollars for street
expansions where we can focus those dollars more on street
maintenance versus street expansion so it gives us a little
bit of flexibility.
Some of the additional alternatives we discussed a
dedicated street maintenance fee
dedicated property tax increase or additional funding from
the general fund through reductions of current programs and
had some discussions last year.
Yes. I recall under additional alternatives the dedicated
street maintenance fee we had a couple work sessions on
that and the direction as I recall
last year was let's bring that back and continue looking at
that but it seems like it's been several months.
Do we know do we know why we haven't been moving forward
looking at that more as a possibility or is there still
studying being done.
I mean it seemed like there were some significant
possibilities also significant political discussions along
those lines based on what that was.
But what's the update on that. Mr. Coulter is jumping out
to answer that question.
You know behind you to address that.
We are continuing to look at the street maintenance fee
approach that we presented to counsel earlier.
There is a lot of detail associated with that.
Say for example how Corpus Christi set up their specific
uses for different types of businesses.
There is a lot of tedious work that goes into coming up
with that information.
We are planning on bringing that back to council but we're
just not quite ready.
Perfect. Thank you.
Yes. Just a comment on on impact fees.
I don't know if you mean the street impact fee for any new
development that's being built just like an impact fee for
water sewer etc.
I just think we need to be cautious and we need to look at
what are those cities around us doing because that's our
competition.
Right. So we're competing for a store. I think we need to
understand as a city you know just pick somebody McDonald's
.
They're going to open a certain number of stores in Texas
this year and they've got a lot of options.
And we need to be careful about impact fees because that is
a another cost item just like the roof or the concrete
parking lot.
It's just a cost. And if they can't recover that rent then
what it does is it says to the retailer the developer.
Should I build this one or should I go build this one in
this other city.
And that's the reality of the competition. I can tell you
today the exact same retail strip center that's fifteen
thousand feet in Denton and in Little Elm.
The impact fees are exactly four times and then what they
are in Little Elm.
That's a real world example happening right now today.
Projects are under construction at the exact same time.
So and I understand we can't waive impact fees as
incentives.
I think we need to really think about as we talk about
loading more impact fees on the private guy that there
could be an unintended consequence that the amount of total
fees could actually decrease.
Because what will happen is if the fees are so high if
someone has a choice well I'll just go build I'll go build
in these other cities this year because this deal doesn't
make sense.
Because they're going to look at their revenues and they're
going to say what are my projected revenues?
How much money am I going to make over what's it going to
cost me to build this thing and operate it.
I just think we need to step cautiously and impact fees and
understand what that real cost is to the person who we're
charging it to.
Thank you Mayor.
I'll just go over the utility funds.
Electric utility fund as I stated before one of their major
issues over the next few years will be the debt payoff from
TMPA.
Their replacement of aging infrastructure.
Their construction of a transmission system with increased
revenue to DME.
The five year CIP is about $386 million for the utility
fund.
They're proposing an overall rate increase of 5.4% for 14-
15 with part of that including the transmission cost
recovery factor which is really the amount that we pay for
the whole statewide system or proportional share of it that
's set by ERCOT.
And they're considering alternatives in future years for
the TMPA debt payments.
Their capital appreciation bond payments.
In terms of the water utility fund their focus is on
infrastructure replacement.
A good portion of it revenue funded and needed expansion of
the system.
The zebra mussels have entered into our region.
They come down from Texoma so they're starting to impact
cost and there's some cost built into their budget for that
.
They're working toward double coverage at the water plants.
Their five year CIP is about $116.6 million right now with
$43.6 million revenue funded.
And their proposed rate increase for 14-15 is 3%.
At this time last year they thought the recommended rate
increase would be 4% so that's a percent lower than what
was planned last year.
Thank you Mayor Pro Tem.
I would love to hear or get just an informal staff report
on what the plan is for dealing with the zebra mussels.
I know that that had a major impact on the water line going
from Lake Texoma to Lake Lavon.
And so I know that we've got something in the works so if
we could just get an informal staff report on that, that
would be helpful.
The manager is not here so I know somebody is going to
relate.
The other question, and I'll just ask it now while I've got
the floor, is you're reporting on each one of these funds,
proposed rate increases, at our next discussion about
budget.
What I would like to see is that total picture and looking
at the average homeowners utility bill,
what that is likely to mean in terms of their monthly
increase or their yearly increase, that kind of impact.
We need to see as a whole what kind of effect our decisions
are going to be having on the rate payers and the
homeowners.
I'll bring that table back in July.
Thank you.
I think we did one last year, including solid waste too, I
think we included all four.
The Wastewater Utility Fund, their focus is on
infrastructure replacement expansion and their kind of
required sanitary sewer overflow program to reduce that.
There's also something new that they're dealing with this
year, phosphor limits.
EPA is putting new requirements on the amount that you can
discharge so that's impacting their cost in terms of
treatment.
They're having to buy some additional chemicals and spend
additional amounts to meet that EPA requirement over the
next couple of years.
They're working toward double coverage at their treatment
plant.
Their five-year CIP is about $56.5 million, excluding
drainage projects.
Their proposed rate increase for '14-'15 is 6%.
Last year's rate increase in what was estimated this year
was 9%, so that's down from 9% to 6%. They've reduced their
increase.
The Solid Waste and Recycling Fund, their major projects
include their CNG fueling station, their property expansion
,
and they're working in this next year plan to convert small
commercial customers from containers to carts and expanding
their building materials recovery operation.
Their proposed rate increase is about 2.9% for standard
carts with recycling and about 3.6% for large carts with
recycling.
The Tourist and Convention Fund revenues are conservatively
estimated to come in at budget this current year and
proposed to increase about 3% next year.
The Hotel Occupancy Tax Committee will be meeting and
providing budget recommendations for the July budget.
And the Debt Service Fund and General Capital Improvement
Budget, debt service tax rate is estimated to remain stable
in '14-'15.
The debt service expenditures are really already set by the
debts that's been issued in the current fiscal year and
will recommend a capital program will be presented with the
proposed budget.
We'll also have to incorporate kind of the proposal of the
bond committee in that.
That election won't be till November, but we'll propose
some projects from that.
And the potential debt service tax rate increase in '15-'16
, which would be the following year, based on the
recommended bond sale program.
Remember the committee kind of put together a program that
was a three cent debt service tax rate increase. So just to
let you know that that could be coming in future years,
depending on the amount that's sold each year.
And I'll put another chart out there. This is one where we
look at, again, the end of the fiscal year, September 30,
2013, and compare the same cities.
And this is general government debt per capita. We really
back out debt that's been issued for our utilities.
And with Denton being a full service city, having the
electric utility, our total debt burden tends to be a
little bit higher.
But this is kind of an apples to apples comparison. And
this is one where it's better to be on the low side than
the high side.
So you can see Denton is just number four in terms of a
little over a thousand dollars per capita at the end of
2013.
You can see where some of them are much higher. Again, Fr
isco, their debt kind of matches with their property values
in terms of their ability to issue it.
But you can see those numbers there.
In terms of the next steps in the budget process, the
public utility board's been discussing the utility budgets
over the last several meetings.
And they're scheduled to consider recommendations of those
budgets June 23.
We'll receive our final certified value from the appraisal
district the 25th.
The city manager will propose his budget to the council
July 31st and we have a city council workshop schedule that
begins at eight thirty.
Council is required under state law to take some certain
actions during the budget process.
They'll have to vote on a maximum tax rate to be considered
.
And then once that vote is taken, we have to put some
publications in the newspaper and hold public hearings,
which are scheduled for August 19th and September 9th.
And final budget adoption is considered to be taken to the
council for approval on September 16th to give you a time
frame between the July 31st and September 16th.
We've got something on each council meeting to discuss the
budget to give the council opportunities at all of them.
The last thing I wanted to give other than this was the
sales tax numbers in terms of increases in fiscal year 1213
.
We increased two point four six from the prior fiscal year.
This year's budget calls is budgeted at a three percent
increase, but in fiscal year 1112, we grew by thirteen
point two percent fiscal year 1011 by eight point eight
fiscal year nine ten by point three percent.
So you can see how how much we'd like to estimate sales tax
revenues.
Any questions? Yes, I just have a comment. So in your in
your budget, right at the beginning, it was all about
reductions.
And as we talk about our overall strategic planning culture
. So here's a challenge.
Get people open faster and think about how all of our
departments can impact because when you have relatively
fixed costs, right, how do you fix a bottom line problem,
increase the top line?
We have all kinds of people that are stuff coming to our
city, retailers that want to get open.
And I think as a as a overall cultural mindset is how do we
get people open faster?
An example I'll give you is just a really a small one.
Seven Eleven is largest real estate company in the world.
Now they've surpassed McDonald's. They want to open stores
all over the place.
They bought a corner. The corner of University of Bonnie Br
ay.
They closed on it in December of 2012.
Had had their pre application and all that jazz. Well, we
have a temporary easement over the front of their property
because we're installing a water line.
Well, whoever was installed on the water line made a
mistake and it's something's not installed at the right
height or whatever.
And I have a lot of the details. Well, it's 2014. Now the
middle of 2014, we still won't release the temporary eas
ement on the top of the property because we're working with
the contractor who made the mistake to redesign the thing
on the front.
And that's my point. If we have a culture of let's figure
out a way, right, because we just they just want to get
open and start selling slim gems and paying sales tax and
average seven eleven store.
I think because they tell me that they like thirty forty
thousand dollars a year to us and sales tax.
All those little small examples of if it takes somebody six
months longer to get open or three months longer or nine
months longer, those things add up to real money.
And so I think as we think about the strategic plan and how
it impacts budgeting, maybe put just as much focus on what
are the things we can do to increase the top line, not
necessarily by recruiting more people because we have that
initiative, but thinking about how do we get people open
faster?
Well, that's going to fix a lot of the bottom line problems
, right? Because the increases those little small
incremental people get open faster and start paying sales
tax.
So it's just a challenge to maybe have as a piece of the
budgetary thinking is how to how to all the departments
work together because no one likes to sit down and think
about how do I take cost out?
How do I reduce my budget? Maybe it's how do I increase
revenue by something I can do unique and different in my
department that might actually cost us some money, but it's
going to net us more money at the end.
So just a comment and a bit of a challenge there.
Any other questions?
Great. Okay. Thank you.
All right, moving on to the next agenda item for the work
session agenda item D receive report hold discussion give
staff direction regarding the creation of a tax income
refinance reinvestment zone.
Thank you, Mayor. I'm this item is on here for essentially
for questions and answers from Council presentations have
been made and you do have a public hearing on your agenda
tonight.
Amy is here and available and Amy unless you had some
comments that you'd like to make be happy for you to do
that and or to respond to questions that Council may have
prior to going to public hearing.
Thank you. I'll just state that we we addressed questions
from last week's work session in your AIS for today and we
do have David Pettit here as well.
If you have any questions regarding the project plan or
finance plan and would like to have any further discussion.
Any questions? I have one, but I'll take anybody.
I don't know question or comment, but my challenge during
this process is I just want us to try to get to a point
where the average Denton citizen kind of understands what's
going on.
And I had a I had a meeting with John Fortune a couple of
maybe 10 days ago and it was strange because the following
day I had a phone call from a Dina resident saying I don't
think I can be for the creation of this TURS zone because I
don't know what it's going to do to my property taxes.
So I had to kind of explain how the whole thing went.
And so that's all my all I'd like us to do through that
this whole thing is just and I think that we're we're
trying to do that already, but just continue to be
thoughtful to the average citizen understanding some of
these complicated issues that are going on in Denton.
That's and I'm not saying that we're not doing that, but I
just want us to always be thinking of that.
I guess it's not a question. It's a good point.
Now I'll be sure in the public hearing when when that opens
tonight to present a basic overview that address tries to
address some of those questions.
Thank you.
So picking back on that and I wasn't but I know during last
this last spring as we as I met you know as we as I was
campaigning I mean a lot of people met with a lot of people
in their homes and you're right a lot of them sort of don't
have a full picture and understanding some of that is that
maybe they don't have the opportunity to look at the
information that's out there.
But obviously the education process is continuing. I think
that's something that's good for the city. The question I
have is on the tours just the statutory language about you
know what it can be created for and the different things
such as that and I've got the ordinance in front of me.
So I'm going to read this this element often just help me
understand the narrative of how what we're trying to do
fits into this statutory language.
I believe it's on page two of the ordinance in our backup.
I don't know what page that is and your computer still in
the stone ages because it talks about you know what are the
reasons that you can create a turds and and bullet double I
.
It says it substantially impairs or rest the sound growth
of the municipality creating the zone or constitutes an
economic or social liability in its present condition and
use because of the presence of and this gives three items.
The area has a predominance of defective or inadequate
sidewalks or street layout and or predominantly open or
undeveloped land and because of obsolete plotting deterior
ation of structures or side improvements or other factors
and or faulty layout lot layout in relation to size adequ
acy accessibility or usefulness and my primarily thought
comes on.
This is this is project specific most turds are more
geographically specific as far as a an area and this is on
university land which means this is the largest assumption
on my part that there really can't be any commercial
development immediately adjacent to it unless there's some
discussion going on that I'm not aware of on university
land.
So help me understand the narrative I mean if you're going
to somebody would ask you will tell me how does this fit
into why turds you know what can be created help me
understand sure well I think I think David can come up and
address some some some things that are specific to creation
criteria for the turds and that's what I'm looking for yes
criteria yes.
Please wait.
Thank you very much.
Mayor that is a question that I get asked every time we put
together a tip sure do we meet the criteria.
To be able to establish this tip and I put together because
it is a complicated you read through the ordinance.
That essentially is there and basically the city council
has to make several determinations to create a turds one of
those is that it substantially pairs or rest the sound
growth of the city.
Also has a predominance of defective and inadequate
sidewalks or street layout the one that we hang our hat on
when we're kind of doing one that's open and it's currently
not developed.
Is that were predominantly open or undeveloped and because
of obsolete planning deterioration of structures or site
improvements or other factors is kind of the key
determination.
I think this is the just the really the go to slide that
says basically you had a taxable value is currently now
zero.
So you mentioned that you and he owns the land and so right
now nobody is currently getting tax revenue off of this
project.
At what point you were that was demolished and it's
currently been zero so nobody received that tax revenue.
So you know the findings would be that the development
would not occur it would stay predominantly open or unde
veloped per the statute the section of the statute which is
chapter 311 05.
Without the creation of this turds and this is another
determination that I threw out there that the land is
currently owned by you and he which is a tax exempt entity.
And it is reasonable to assume that the property would not
develop unless you and he was a party to the executed
development agreement which necessitates the creation of
the turds.
You also executed a master development agreement which
basically the city agreed that the creation of the turds is
appropriate and shall diligently pursue the creation of the
turds with the creation of this.
Then we get into our attorney general opinion and basically
you'll see it's a no offense to any lawyers in here but you
know the talk at both sides of their mouth basically they
're saying that you do have to make a determination.
That it is unproductive and undeveloped or blighted but the
city makes that in good faith exercising reasonable
discretion subject to judicial review.
This next bullet which I think is very interesting says
such determination involves questions of fact this office
is unable to make findings of fact in opinion process and
we express no opinion regarding whether particularly may be
designated as the chapter 311 reinvestment.
Dan Morales also had an attorney general's opinion says the
legislature intended to leave the state substance of the
criteria to the discretion of the local governing body.
So you have a lot of deference here I can tell you that I
've gone through a lot of these tips not one of them has
been overturned because of a ruling that it would not occur
that is a reasonable determination of the city.
Thank you.
Yes.
So I along those lines so I guess that a challenge to our
ability to create this terms would have to come from a
lawsuit from where.
In who has standing to be able to would just be an average
citizen of the city correct.
The example I like to give is Cabela's and for there's a
lot of people the question about whether that was open and
unproductive land so there was a taxpayer group that sued
the city.
Judge basically that came back and said that the council's
given a lot of deference on the determination whether it is
unproductive undeveloped property.
So basically the case they found in favor of the city
council because it's the city council that ultimately makes
that decision.
So there's no there's no Texas.
Governmental body that has to sign off on these as
appropriate or not comptroller's office doesn't doesn't say
something about it I mean is anyone.
Affirming are there's no tip police.
I was like to say that it's a place that you're asking that
question.
Attorney general be quick to point out if somebody brings
it to their attention whether you follow the law you did
not.
I think these court cases and these attorney general
opinions confirm that you're following it's the discretion
of the city council.
To make that determination the comptroller basically
provide your reports.
And that's it so essentially unless there's a challenge
brought up there is nobody that come in comes in and says
you did it right you did it wrong.
It's only if you're ever challenged to that process so go
back to go back to those.
Factors are what would what would qualify as a church you
had that on the.
On one of your first slides and this is part of the
ordinance so walk us through our other two terms.
In terms of what they fall under at least the second one
that's the most most recent.
Just so that we have something that airport compare it to
therefore that the West by the airport West Park West Park
would be our latest one so that would also fall under be
correct.
Correct and this is just a excerpt of the conditions there
is a whole.
List right right right see the city attorney is looking at
chapter 3 1105 right now there's a number of different
conditions that you need to meet we pulled out these three
right here the specifically applied to this but the.
Statue provides a long list of those and I can pull those
up if you can get that's fine I mean I guess I guess as I'm
thinking about West Park.
Obviously the goal is to do something different than the
goal is of this one but in terms of the conditions on the
land it's not arguably dissimilar.
I could argue that but I'll give you that.
And currently undeveloped or at least in this case one
could argue it was something was torn down blighted torn
down buildings or something like that so maybe this case
even more so than West Park but I think there's a case to
be made out of it from the similarities that were.
I wasn't asking from a legal perspective I would just want
to understand from from staff and from who just got what
yeah there was a question I challenge is not just not the
issue club they have a big property when are area when you
pull in and it's predominantly open.
You can see that everything around it is developed i'm
going to go back to my friend Chuck Springer when he worked
for the city of Arlington we did the I 20 and Matt log Ar
lington Highlands tip.
You know would you question whether that's you know why you
know the city council made the determination but for that
tip and said that development would not occur and so this
is a question that continually comes up and so it really
comes down to your determination absolutely and that's why
I wanted to come through there because.
And quote a little bit of the attorney general that comes
in there basically saying we don't make these findings a
fact or opinion and really that comes back.
Okay thank you you're welcome and it's not question.
Anybody else.
None okay that's it that's it yes.
We're able to discuss tonight as well or ask questions
during the public here of course yeah yeah so this is just
another opportunity.
Absolutely yeah thank you was that any I guess that okay
all right.
Okay that ends our work sessions we will move now and I'm
going to go very slowly into closed session but I will wait
until we get to do it yeah yeah.
Okay.
Good evening it is Thursday June the 17th 2014 I want to
call this order to this city didn't city council meeting we
do have a core my first item on the agenda is the pledge of
allegiance if you would stand with me if you're able thank
you.
United States of America and to the Republic.
One nation.
And invisible.
Liberty and justice for all.
Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God one
and invisible.
Going on to agenda item number two I see no proclamations
or presentations if that's correct Mr. Manager.
Citizens reports and I see no citizens reports.
Moving on then to agenda item number four which is the
consent agenda which are items for contractual and minister
ial administrative ordinances and issues so.
Councilmember Gregory.
I believe we're pulling item E.
Yes that's correct.
So I would move approval of agenda items A through Q.
Leaving omitting item E.
All right we have a motion councilmember Hawkins.
I second.
All right we have motion to second vote on the board please
.
Passes unanimously we will now take up agenda item E for
individual consideration Mr. City Manager.
I ask Mr. Quinton Hicks our director of aviation if he
would come and give a brief presentation and entertain
questions.
Thank you Mr. Hicks.
Mayor Watts members of the council I'm pleased this evening
to.
Present to you the staff's recommendation.
To.
Consider a resolution accepting a grant offer from the
Texas Department of Transportation aviation division in the
amount of approximately seven million dollars.
To build a second runway at Denton Enterprise Airport.
This is a project that many in the city have worked on over
the past several years staff.
Airport board even the city council has considered several
aspects of this with with specific actions and this is the
opportunity now.
To actually move forward with this infrastructure
improvement that will improve safety.
Enhance service and generate additional capacity at the
airport for development so we're pleased to present this
resolution and.
Would be pleased to answer any questions you may have about
the project.
Any questions.
Do we do we have a chair would entertain a motion.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I move approval of consent agenda item E.
Councilmember Engelbrecht.
Second.
We have a motion to second please vote on the board.
Motion carries unanimously thank you.
Moving on to agenda item number five items for individual
consideration consideration of the use of eminent domain to
condemn real property interests.
So it's my understanding that.
Mr.
City manager.
Yes I'd like to ask Lou Ann Olin if she would come and
present item number eight five eight to the council for
consideration.
I'm going to need to read the entire caption to call the
item.
Thank you.
This is agenda item eight five eight I.D. 14 dash 0251.
Consider adoption of an ordinance finding that a public use
and necessity exists to acquire through the exercise of the
right of eminent domain one fee simple.
To one point three nine eight acre tract to slope easement
encumbering a zero point one five one acre tract for the
public use of expanding and improving Mayhill Road a
municipal street and roadway.
Generally located in thirteen hundred block of North May
hill Road each affected track located in the MEP and PR our
company survey abstract number fourteen sixty nine the city
of Denton Denton County Texas as more particularly
described on exhibit a attached to the ordinance.
And made a part thereof and it's collectively the property
interests authorizing the filing and prosecution of eminent
domain proceedings to acquire the property interests author
izing the expenditure of funds there for.
Making findings providing a savings clause and providing an
effective date.
This is the Mayhill widening improvement project parcel M
zero two six the Habib.
Track.
Thank you the location map that is displaying currently loc
ates the property on North Mayhill Road on the west side of
Mayhill Road north of black and south of U.S.
Three sixty mayor city council members before you tonight
our ordinances making findings of public use and necessity
also instructing staff to acquire the necessary land rights
via eminent domain.
Regarding parcels of land affected by the Mayhill Road
widening and improvements project.
All right council member Johnson.
Thank you mayor I move that the city of Denton Texas author
ize the use of power of eminent domain to acquire one fee
simple to a one point three nine eight acre tract and to
slope easement.
And come bring a zero point one five one acre tract for the
public use of expanding and improving Mayhill Road a
municipal street and roadway generally located in the
thirteen hundred block of North Mayhill Road each affected
track located in the MEP and PR our company survey abstract
number one four six nine city of Denton Denton County Texas
as more particularly described on exhibit a to the
ordinance now under consideration and on the overhead
screen being now displayed to the audience for the public
use of expanding.
And improving Mayhill Road a municipal street and roadway
in the city of Denton Texas.
Council member Gregory I second item five eight.
We're ready.
We're ready.
Let's we have motion to second.
Let's vote on the board.
All right motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
We'll go on to agenda item five B and I will read the
caption.
Consider adoption of an ordinance finding that a public use
of necessity exists to acquire through the exercise of the
right of eminent domain one fee simple to a one point two
five one acre tract and to slope easement and covering a
zero point one six one acre tract for the public use of
expanding and improving Mayhill Road a municipal street and
roadway generally located in the twelve hundred block of
North Mayhill Road.
North Mayhill Road each affected tract located in an MEP
and PRR company survey abstract number fourteen sixty nine
city of Denton Denton County Texas as more particularly
described on exhibit a attached to the ordinance and made a
part thereof parentheses called the collective property
interest authorizing the filing and prosecution of eminent
domain proceedings to acquire the property interests author
izing the expenditure of funds therefore making findings
providing a savings clause and providing an effective date.
This is the Mayhill Road widening and improvement project
parcel M zero to nine J and J prominent square LP.
Thank you Mayor.
Miss Odom is also going to present this item.
Thank you.
The location map you see is roughly the same location only
we're down just a little bit farther south on North Mayhill
Road.
The J and J prominent square location is south boundary
line lines up roughly with flag.
Mayor and City Council members before you tonight is an
ordinance making findings of public use of necessity and
also instructing staff to acquire the necessary land rights
via eminent domain regarding parcels of land affected by
the Mayhill Road widening and improvements project upon
favorable motion.
I'll proceed to display the effect of tracks of land on the
overhead.
Councilmember Gregory, thank you Mayor, I move that the
city of Denton Texas authorized the use of the power of em
inent domain to acquire one fee simple to a 1.251 acre track
and to slope easement encumbering a 0.161 acre track for
the public use of expanding and improving Mayhill Road, a
municipal street and roadway generally located in the 1200
block of North Mayhill Road.
Each affected track located in the MEP and PRR company
survey abstract number 1469 city of Denton, Denton County,
Texas, as more particularly described on exhibit a to the
ordinance now under consideration and on the overhead
screen being displayed to the audience for the public use
of expanding and improving Mayhill Road, a municipal street
and roadway in the city of Denton, Texas.
Councilmember Hawkins, I second.
We have a motion and a second vote on the board.
Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.
We'll now move on to agenda item 6A items for individual
consideration.
Continued consideration of ordinance of the city of Denton,
Texas providing for zoning change from a downtown
residential to DR2 zoning district classification and use
designation to a downtown commercial general DCG zoning
district classification on approximately 0.184 acres
located on the south side of West Oak Street.
Thank you mayor director planning development Mr. Brian
Lockley will present this item for your consideration.
Thank you city manager mayor members of the city council
that request before you this evening is a continuation of
the rezoning that was initially presented at the June 3rd
meeting.
This request is for a zoning change from a DR2 zone
district class and use designation to a downtown commercial
general zoning district classification and use designation.
Just by way of background, here's the location of the
property south side of West Oak Street, west of Avenue B,
north of Hickory Street is outlined here in red.
The zoning for the subject site as it exists today is DR2.
That DR2 is consistent with the property to the west and
some properties to the north.
The proposed zoning is DCG is shown here outlined in black
and that would also be consistent with properties to the
east and to the south.
The future land use designates this property and the
surrounding properties as downtown University core which
specifically notes that specified commercial areas of the
downtown University core district should be places of great
vitality.
With a mix of educational, residential, retail, office
service, government, cultural and entertainment development
.
These are just some site photos illustrate the present
conditions of the site from various directions from the
west, from the south, from the north and from the east.
Now following this discussion at June 3rd was Council's
direction for staff to meet with the applicant and
determine if a mutual access agreement with the adjacent
property could be reached.
As you recall, there was some discussion by several council
members on the pedestrian orientedness of this area and the
concern really arise from the ability of that pedestrian
activity to continue unimpeded by way of the number of
access points that are not only proposed at this site,
but also at the adjacent sites to the east and west of this
property.
Staff has met with the representatives from CVS and we've
reached an agreement to provide access to the site from
their property from Oak Street via an easement that will be
recorded by a separate instrument and I've got an
illustration to show you and I'll provide some more
discussion shortly.
The CVS property is currently in the plotting process,
which is separate and apart from this rezoning process and
once that easement agreement has been approved by the city,
then that recording information would be provided as well
as a note that joint access has been provided to that
adjacent property owner to the east.
CVS and staff also agree that the plat will not be recorded
until that recording information from the easement
agreement is included as well.
The city can issue a permit to allow for the construction
to begin without that planning.
So essentially that's one of the checks and balances, if
you will, and then providing that easement.
So this is the proposed site plan and I'm going to use the
mouse here to really depict or illustrate.
This is the access right here. This will become the joint
access for the CVS here and for the laundromat here.
As you can see, there's also an access point here and there
's an access point here.
The issue or the concern that arose was from the number of
access points that are here along Oak Street.
Its staff believe and intention that because of the spacing
that's required, that this will not meet spacing from this
intersection and from the location of this access point
when this property is developed in the future.
That easement or that access easement and mutual access
will allow this property to then take access from this
access point and then cut across this location in some area
here.
But they will also be allowed to have an access point on
this side, on the east side of the property off of Avenue B
.
And so this is the proposed mutual access easement that was
discussed with the applicant.
Next on to the DIN Development Code, subject to Chapter 35
34B, a zoning amendment can be issued only when the
following standards are met and that it conforms to the
future element of the DIN plan and that the rezoning facil
itates adequate provisions as outlined here in public
convenience.
That did send out notifications to the properties within
200 and 500 feet of this property and did not receive any
notices affirmative or in objection to this request.
Therefore, the Planning and Zoning Commission did recommend
approval of this rezoning request 6-0 as did the
Development Review Committee in their recommendation to the
Planning and Zoning Commission.
So that concludes my presentation and I'll stand for
questions.
Councilmember Rodin.
Thank you, Mayor.
Can you go back to that site plan you had showed?
Maybe you'll have to refresh my memory on what it is we
requested at the last meeting.
I'm unclear what this fixes from the concerns we had, which
was, I think from my perspective, I wasn't sure of the need
for the third entry point into this CVS property.
This access?
Right.
Okay.
So in the point in which, so the shared access deal that
you're talking about, currently it would cut across right
next to where that current laundromat is right now.
So assuming somebody redevelops that by just simply reusing
an old building, the existing laundromat building, that
wouldn't be a shared access point at all, would it?
This, the language hasn't been drafted, but there's, this
whole area here would be used or they'd have the ability to
use a space, if you will, a certain number of feet from
this right of way to here to provide that access to this
property here.
If that answers your question.
I mean, what you're asking is that if they put it right
here, it would just run up against the building.
Right.
But this is not the only location.
This was just to illustrate that the easement would run
from some point here all the way to the beginning or to
this right of way that they'd be able to work with to
maneuver and create an access.
I can only understand that as a fix to a problem, assuming
someone completely redevelops that property, because the
only thing that would trigger them giving up their current
access onto Oak Street.
Correct.
Would be that sort of redevelopment.
If someone comes in and is just simply reusing that laund
romat, which given the amount of land there might be the
only option to use that space at this point moving forward,
then no problem has been solved.
That we were raising concerns of which is this is a high
pedestrian area.
CVS has plenty of access through the two drives that they
have there. Why do they need this third one coming on from
Oak Street, which was my concern to begin with.
And so short of a complete redevelopment.
Am I right in that?
That none of these other fixes would be triggered because
they wouldn't have to change those curb cuts at all if
someone just reinvigorated that old building.
In the scenario you proposed, that would be an option, yes,
that they would not have to.
Okay.
So maybe I can hear from other council members as we move
forward on this as to how they think this fixes the problem
.
But thank you.
I've got a question.
Help me understand, is this little sliver that is this site
that's being the subject of the rezoning, is that necessary
for the development of the store to proceed? In other words
, is this satisfying any landscape requirements? Is it
satisfying?
I mean, I don't think it's satisfying any access
requirements because that's already been met.
So what is this specifically being sought for the sole
purpose of that additional drive?
For the additional open space and for the drive.
The drive is more a convenience for the applicant, but the
open space is what's the requirement, what's being met by
this rezoning of this area.
Okay, I guess I'm not.
So what you're saying is there's some open space
requirements subject to the DCG zoning that's south of it.
That's south.
Yes.
That without this piece of land, that some requirement is
not being met.
That's correct. And it's the open space requirement.
The open space, yes.
And so if there's concrete there that that is also
considered open space.
When you say the open space requirement isn't being met
without this piece of land, if the drive is there, that
still is satisfying the open space requirement?
With the amount that they provided here, yes.
Okay.
They can meet that open space with the landscaping they
provided here with that access point.
So without the rezoning, they don't meet the requirements
and so what's the consequence of that?
We can't somehow give them the, that can't meet the open
space requirements if it's not rezoned, if it's their
property?
According to that plan, and I'll defer to them, but it was
my understanding that they wanted this access, that this
access was that important for them to develop this site.
Okay, well that, I appreciate that.
I guess the thrust of my question is from city staff
perspective, okay, regardless of the driveway and y'all's
recommendation and all that, that if this doesn't get rez
oned,
does that development south of it still able to proceed
because even though it's DR2, they still own it, does it
meet the open space requirements?
Does it satisfy those?
I wanted to come back in earlier to another question and
answer, which you asked Mayor about, why is this little lot
being rezoned?
Sure.
The reason why it needs to be rezoned is currently it's DR2
.
Okay.
Now, the driveway is not serving a primary, the driveway is
a secondary or an accessory use.
It's not serving a primary use on that lot.
It's serving the CVS pharmacy on a different lot that's
appropriately zoned.
In order for the driveway to be able to provide access to
CVS pharmacy, it needs to be rezoned to a similar zoning to
allow that.
Otherwise, it would be, there's not a primary use in the DR
2 lot.
Okay.
And so that's a zoning requirement that we have.
Sure.
There must be a primary use and there isn't on that lot.
So maybe I must not be communicating very clearly.
Let's say, for instance, it doesn't get rezoned.
Right.
So that's stopped the development.
No.
Okay.
All right.
And as far as the open space requirements, they may have to
reconfigure their existing lot to be able to meet the open
space requirements that Mr. Lockley was referring to.
Okay.
But if it doesn't have a driveway on it, but it gets rez
oned, it still meets it.
It still meets the open space requirements.
Without it being rezoned, yes.
Yes.
Without it, with the landscape that they have here, without
it having any access to it, yes, they can still develop it.
Okay.
And was this the hardship variance that was sought at
zoning?
This particular, was this sought under a hardship variance?
The access was sought under hardship variance, yes.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Councilmember Gregory.
Well, regarding the open space, you said that the
development might go forward without that access point.
On Oak Street.
But that they might have to do some reconfiguring of the
other lots in order to meet the open space requirement.
Yet, they might also have a problem then with meeting the
parking requirements of our code.
I'm wondering, are we able to, through a variance, waive
the additional parking requirement or waive the additional
open space requirement?
The parking number variance is probably more suitable for
the variance because of the Zoning Board of Adjustments'
ability to waive that number.
In the past, when we've looked at different options, I mean
, it's either a, they can vary either option.
They can vary the open space or they can vary the number of
parking spaces.
But it would have to go to the Board of Adjustment for that
request.
Hi.
We're not in a public hearing, are we?
No, we're not.
Would it be appropriate for me to respond to Councilmember
Rodin's comment or question?
I mean, is now the time or is it another time?
Sure.
I think I hear what you're saying about your concern about
that use.
It seems to be not the highest and best use for that
particular lot.
I went over there because I was kind of curious about the
number of curb cuts that there are right now.
And we thought that there were six in our discussion at our
last meeting there.
By my count, there's five.
And that particular lot opening on Oak Street has a curb
cut for a driveway.
There was some structure there and there was a curb cut.
And I suspect if something else is built there, there will
still be a curb cut.
So not changing the zoning is not going to reduce that curb
cut.
If there is a provision that there is a possible mutual
access point in case a different developer wants to develop
the old cleaners, then there's that possibility.
My concern was more about creating a site that was unde
velopable by doing this.
It seems like maybe that we've satisfied that.
We've reduced the number of curb cuts.
It would be nice to reduce them more.
But I'm not sure how anything that we do here tonight is
going to actually reduce the total number.
I may be missing something and I'd be open to hearing if
there was another way to do that.
Councilmember Johnson.
Thank you, Mayor.
So what we were talking about on the concern about the curb
cut, if I remember right from last time, is the westbound
traffic on Oak because it's a one way.
Right.
Yes.
So I think staff recommended approval, planning and zoning
recommended approval.
Would it be reasonable?
If what we're talking about here is that staff's opinion,
we're talking about traffic that is eastbound or westbound
on Oak having access to the CVS.
Right. Yes.
Well, if you're westbound on C on Oak and you're going to
CVS, you're going to do one of two things.
You're going to turn south onto Avenue B or you're going to
turn south into the driveway after you pass Avenue B.
Correct.
Correct.
And by the way, you're going to have a westbound car
turning southbound.
So to me, in terms of protecting pedestrians, I don't know
that not allowing the curb cut on Oak really makes a
difference because it's the same car traveling the same way
, making the same turn.
The question is, does he turn on B or does he turn after he
passes B?
And my comment from the last meeting was it seemed to me if
you look at how pedestrian traffic moves around the
university to the north, they walk along the streets.
So personally, I would rather have a car go past Avenue B
and turn into a driveway than to turn on Avenue B and then
make an immediate right turn into a parking lot because
Avenue B seems to me where the most logical place to walk
would be if I was traveling north from the campus.
So if our reasoning is protecting pedestrians, I would
almost rather see the curb cut on Oak than not see it
because that seems to me like just a recipe for bigger
problem if a car turns south on B and an immediate right
into a parking lot where students are most likely to be
walking.
Councilmember Rohn cannot recognize Hawkinson.
Yes.
Okay.
Councilmember Hawkinson.
Thank you, Mayor.
Are they planning on, well, maybe this is for the applicant
, putting some sort of signage on that curb cut west on Oak
where they're not able to do that on Avenue B, maybe that's
why they're wanting to keep that curb cut.
I'm not aware of anything beyond maybe an entrance.
Okay.
That's all I had for now.
Thank you.
Councilmember Rohn.
I want to talk a bit because I followed this through P and
Z and prior to the zoning change, this came through as a
hardship variance.
That as I understand it, your staff or the DRC staff
recommended it not be approved.
Correct.
We did planning and zoning, approved it despite that
recommendation.
And now we're back because you tied one of the conditions
to approval of that variance to a zoning change.
So we're stuck looking at the zoning change but can't undo
the hardship variance that got us into this thing to begin
with, which you guys recommend not approval initially.
That's correct.
So let's start from that point just to help us understand
kind of that to now.
Why did you all recommend not approving that hardship
variance and has your position changed on that particular
point to where we are today?
The staff, the DRC did recommend denial initially on this
request for some of the reasons that have already been
stated.
The number of access points, the pedestrian and vehicular
interaction and we felt initially that the access off of
Avenue B as well as the access off of Hickory Street was
adequate to serve this property.
When we got to planning and zoning commission and we made
our recommendation and presented our position that PNZ didn
't agree with, they recommended approval, which at least in
my mind meant that they could have that access point.
Going forward or coming to now City Council to make the
presentation on this rezoning understanding that that
access point was already approved by planning and zoning
commission through a different process by a different body.
Essentially we were looking at it from the standpoint then
that okay now this is a rezoning. This is from a land use.
We're looking at this from a land use perspective that
these land uses are consistent with the other land uses.
Let's look at the access point but understand that
essentially that horse has already left the barn.
We've gone beyond that now.
In that I think that's the concern you heard from us last
time or some of us at least and that's the concern I
continue to have is that ultimately I agree with your first
initial recommendation to deny that hardship variance and
ultimately disagree with the PNZ's recommendation.
So we're stuck with a rezoning that doesn't allow us to
undo what got us into this situation to begin with which is
odd being from the perspective of City Council that we can
't undo that.
My understanding is this is a big policy issue relating to
as we get new development we want to get the type of
amenities for pedestrians that we want ultimately on a
project that's going to be in there for 30 plus years.
And the layout is going to be as such and I also don't
think it encourages any great development on that other
very important corner because of them wanting to take that
sliver out.
I don't know what you do with that laundromat at that point
.
I have serious concerns about this is a really important
part of our city and it could be something really great.
And so that's what I continue to struggle with.
So to get to Dalton's question or statement rebuttal of my
statement, he had mentioned it will be there anyways
whether we approve this or not.
You had mentioned if we don't approve the rezoning or at
least Mr. Liao that they then would be unable to use it
even though it exists.
So they what happens in that scenario.
So technically they can't use it, but it still exists.
Say some wayward student found it and started coming up
through it anyways.
I don't know what he's violating at that point.
What happens practically to that spot if this zoning
request is denied, but yet that access still exists.
Would you guys require them to cut it off at some point?
Well, that condition exists in a number of places
throughout the city where you've got properties that were
once developed that are now undeveloped.
Those parcels have been sold off and what's left is an
access point or there were more access points approved
because our standards have now changed because of the
increase in pedestrian activity.
And typically what happens is when a development comes in,
what we'll do is we'll look at the number of access points,
determine how many are necessary to serve that development
and require the development to then close off the other
access points.
Since there's no development on this property, one of two
things would happen.
We could either wait until it's developed.
But at that point, this is the only access points that
serve in this property.
So we have to provide access, so that would remain.
Or the city could take the steps of saying, okay, what we
could do is through some street project, we could go
through and close off the access points.
But then when that property developed, determine if a
direct access from that property is required or determine
if they can take access from an adjoining property.
But that's usually part of a much larger development
because this is almost just a remnant of a piece of
property that's left over.
Them developing it without an access point is going to be
very difficult.
So it's in my opinion, it's either going to occur from this
development or it's going to occur when at some point in
time in the future when it's developed by another party.
Right.
Thanks.
Councilmember Engelbrecht.
Thank you, Mayor.
The Laundry Lot, there is an ingress/egress, is there not,
off of Avenue B?
There is.
Okay.
I don't understand why, it seems why you couldn't require
them to close that curb cut on Oak prior to issuing a CO.
Seems to me we've done that in the past on other roadways.
It wasn't required that there be complete redevelopment.
One business goes away, another one wants to come in, then
we start cutting down the curb cuts.
As I understood it, we did that all along University Drive
where they had universal curb cuts from one end of
University Drive to the other.
When a new occupant came in, in order to get a CO, some of
the virtually unlimited driveway had to be given up.
So in this case, even if they retain that current building,
someone comes in there and wants to use it, in order to get
a CO, we could require that they close that Oak Street
access, could we not?
Well, we could, but it's not quite as simple as just
requiring them to close it.
We would have to determine whether or not the amount of
traffic being generated by the use warranted those access
points.
The CO typically requires that you take access from the
lesser of those two streets.
So there is an argument to be made for closing that one off
.
But whether, I think that Oak Street is probably the more
travel street than Avenue B, so the lesser street in this
example would be Avenue B, so I understand where you're
going.
With that, the likelihood of that happening, yes, we would
have that conversation.
In addition to that, they would have the other access point
off of the curb cutting question tonight.
Correct.
So they would still have two access points.
Correct, yes.
Right, just only one egress, but they would have two ing
ress points.
And there's also another consideration I just want to be
sure that the council is mindful of, is that the spacing is
also not just from access points, from the location of
existing access points, it's also from the intersection.
Right.
I mean, we also, we do want to create a safe condition so
that folks are not exiting so close to the intersection.
Right, right.
I understand that.
In that case, they're about equal distance from the
intersection.
Just about.
And actually, if you close the one on Oak and move them up
to the next one that we're talking about tonight, you're
further away from the intersection.
That's correct.
Okay.
Thank you.
I've got a, it's my understanding this is an item for
individual consideration, and we don't have any cards to
speak of, and that we can ask the applicant questions, but
as far as the applicant having just a time to address the
council sort of, is that something that's not available at
this point?
I think if the council wants to hear from the applicant,
you can, with the consent of the council, you can certainly
ask them to come forward and ask whatever questions you
want answered.
Because I do have a question.
My concern is this.
This was brought under a hardship variance at planning and
zoning, is my understanding.
Before there was even the rezoning of the primary property.
And, which is fine.
I mean, I've read the backup.
I've read some of the PNZ minutes about this.
Well, when the applicant was here, and I'm going to ask the
applicant this question, because Councilmember Rodin, there
are ways to undo it.
There are basically two primary ways.
One is you deny the rezoning, and the condition goes away.
And the second one is that the applicant voluntarily rel
inquishes that access point.
And so my concern is I really take them at their word when
asked why do you need this, it was, well, if somebody
passes Avenue B, then they have an option to turn in right
there.
Well, so I was driving down Oak Street just not for that
reason, but I just happened to look around and there was
the 7-Eleven, and I'm sure the CVS was not there.
In fact, none of the buildings were there.
I believe they've all been torn down.
Yes.
So I can imagine a pretty large building there.
My concern is if you pass Avenue B wanting to go to CVS,
and by the time you notice it, you're almost going to be
too far down the road to really turn into that.
And so the argument was we don't want them to make the
block, circle the block.
I don't see this as a hard -- I don't see this really from
a hardship perspective.
It's certainly something that I think that would be -- I
certainly don't blame the developer for asking this.
So my question to the applicant, and I do have a question
for the applicant, is is this -- I mean, if this rezoning
doesn't occur, does that mean the development goes away?
That's the question I have.
So whoever's -- yeah, wanting to answer that.
Good evening, members of the council.
I'm Richard Hayes, 512 West Hickory, Suite 100 in Texas 76
201, and I'm here tonight representing CVS.
And we do appreciate the opportunity to address council.
If I could just step back for a minute to look at big
picture, and then I'll get very specific to your question.
Sure.
So we have four tracks.
Three of the tracks are zoned.
The DCG, this track is zoned, the DCR.
The DCR track previously had two fourplexes on it.
One of those fourplexes has been torn down a number of
years ago because it was such poor repair.
And then most recently, the other one was in pretty bad
repair also, and it's also been taken down.
Where you see the proposed driveway now is essentially the
exact same place that the driveway was for the fourplex.
And I think it is important to understand the dimensions of
this lot.
So if you could follow me, if we backed up to the earlier
green slide, I'm not sure if I know how to do that.
But if you would just follow me here, you start at Oak
Street on the east boundary of the property.
And if that's -- you can see the dash line.
That dash line is going to go all the way down to that
little tree-looking gizmo right there.
You know, you're going to pass the corner.
Okay.
And if you go to my western boundary line and if you come
all the way down where it hits and it takes a 9-degree turn
,
that's the boundary.
It comes back down 165 feet.
And then if you took a right and went over to the west --
that's helpful.
This dimension here is 165 feet.
That lot comes over to here and then comes back up.
What was originally proposed to the city was that this be
used for driveway and for parking.
Staff suggested, why don't we make this a pedestrian-
friendly area?
Let's make very large sidewalks.
Let's make green space, a place where bicycles could even
park.
There's going to be also bicycle parking over here.
And just -- and as a consequence, you'll have to apply for
a variance on your parking requirements
because you will lose the parking here.
That decision was made to move forward on staff's
recommendation to make that a landscape area.
Now, if you think again of the dimensions, this area right
down here has that same zoning.
I think a lot of people think, well, the zoning stops right
here.
It comes all the way down.
As you can see, it would interfere with the circulation
because you've got parking here.
You've got parking here.
If you had to put, let's say, a wall right here, then you
've ruined the circulation.
The traffic engineers have really stated this.
And their point is this is -- even though it may seem small
, it is critical.
This is not a big giant piece of land.
It's relatively small.
The reason the hardship variance was granted, if you'll
recall, this is a very historically-platted area.
Most of the lots are very small, like this one, 50 feet
wide.
I live on Oak Street.
My house is bigger than most, 113 feet is all.
The spacing requirements were 150 feet from the corner and
150 feet from driveway to driveway.
Well, you can't do it when your lots are smaller than 150
feet.
The laundromat next door is only 97 feet in width.
So you -- there's no way you could get over here -- with
this being 50 feet in width,
there's no way that you could meet the theory of the
spacing requirements.
Now, those spacing requirements work real well on a new
street, like a Teasley Lane.
Or if you were going down Lillian Miller, where you've got
a new street,
a smaller historically-platted area that's been there over
100 years,
those lots just weren't the size that we see of today's
lots.
So the point is that the prior usage of this 50-foot strip
of land allowed a parking -- allowed a parking.
Whether you rezone or not, someone's going to still have to
access their property, you know, in the future to move
forward.
So what we're here today is to request that the 50-foot Oak
Street lot be rezoned and allow the usage by CVS.
Now, the current zoning, DR2, allows the 160-foot -- 165-
foot strip of land to be used for driveways, for retail
buildings.
But it puts a max size of only 5,000 square feet.
Well, the pharmacy is 13,000 square feet.
So when that was discovered, I believe in February,
originally staff's thinking was that no zoning change was
going to be required.
But once, as the project, I guess, unfolded, staff came to
the conclusion that, no, you need to go rezone that,
and we will support rezoning it because we can see how
important that is.
So this is the area, guys, that is absolutely critical, you
know, to the project from the circulation point of view.
Now, in regards to pedestrian issues, if you'll visualize
Oak Street, there is not really a sidewalk along the south
side here.
When you get next door, you've got that apartment complex,
the cars head in park, and there's no real pedestrian-
friendly area there.
What the city has done and its wisdom is, on the north side
of Oak Street, there's a bike lane.
And that's where most of the pedestrian traffic is flowing,
and there's a sidewalk up there on the north side of Oak
Street.
When the traffic engineers looked at this, as you know,
there were four current businesses or four uses.
You had the Fourplex, the Sukkotai, the old fire station,
and then the Treehouse Restaurant.
The amount of traffic increase was minimal as far as true
traffic increase because they do believe this is going to
be --
because it's in the University of North Texas or in there's
a lot of pedestrians out there.
There was no change in the rating of Oak Street because of
this CVS with the amount of trips per day.
So their conclusion in their traffic report, there were no
safety issues.
This is a great neighborhood asset. It's in the heart of
that UNT commercial district.
It continues the revitalization of the Oak Street/Hickory/
UNT area.
As you saw maybe in your backup, there was a neighborhood
meeting.
It was very lightly attended, I will tell you.
We had two people.
And -- but very positive.
The only comment that came out of the neighborhood meeting
was on the northern -- excuse me, on the western boundary.
It would be a good idea to have fencing along there between
it and the apartment complex.
Mr. Hayes, if I could, as far as the -- I mean, I certainly
appreciate you pointing out that that property does extend
down into that sort of circulation pattern of CVS,
which I totally understand that.
But the thrust of my question was is the driveway
critically necessary to the project?
CVS believes it is. It's one of the reasons they hired the
traffic engineer.
They build these around the country.
They're building about 30 stores a year.
They studied ingress and egress with great thoroughness.
And that was very important to them, or they wouldn't have
bought it.
But not only was it important for ingress/egress, it was
important for the landscaping requirements.
It was important for the circulation requirements.
And I totally get that, that this rezoning -- and I really
do appreciate -- because honestly, I think part of me
assumed that that lot stopped at that property line where
the parking lot was.
So I appreciate you pointing out that the reason why they
would have to redo their building or their site plan if it
didn't get rezoned is because of it extending down into
that circulation area.
But I struggle with the driveway being there, honestly,
because I already have two additional areas, and you've got
just a left-hand turn lane only.
And I struggle with the rationale that was given as far as
that, well, it just provides an opportunity if somebody
passes that they don't have to make the block and turn in.
So that's really my concern.
I understand it needs to be rezoned for a lot of different
reasons other than the driveway.
I mean, it sounds like there's reasons that are more
critical than the driveway issue.
And so that's really my concern.
I mean, I don't have a problem with the rezoning.
The problem I have is with that drive cut there, with them
having that left-hand turn lane when they have two accesses
.
Or, as Mr. Johnson pointed out, maybe, I mean, what if
somehow we close the avenue?
To have three points into there, I struggle with.
I don't struggle with the zoning.
And I don't struggle with CVS.
I struggle with it being contingent upon that, that if we
pass the rezoning because of the process that has occurred
in the past with P&Z, because they probably bought the
property prior to even seeking the hardship variance.
I mean, I think the property was bought probably long
before then.
That's true.
So I struggle with that.
And your points are very well taken as far as why they need
it for the circulation within the main site.
It's that vehicular ingress that I struggle with.
And I don't know if --
Well, I guess the other point I would make there, Mayor, is
since these were four tracks that were assembled, there are
five.
Councilman Greger was correct.
There are five ingress and egress driveways right now.
When you get through this project, there's only three.
So two of those have been eliminated.
So from a transportation goal, that's what I'm hearing you
are talking about, that is a greatly improved situation
than what you have right now.
If they stayed as the five -- or the four individual lots
and those driveways stayed in place, you'd have a very
different circumstance.
The other thing is with five driveways right now, you've
got in and out.
So you've got ten, really, five ingress, five egress.
When you get through on this, not only are you down to
three driveways, you've reduced the number of ingress, e
gress to just five.
So that is greatly improved.
I guess if there's nothing on there, if everything's been
torn down, people -- I mean, there's really no -- whatever
happens with these lots now since the property's been torn
down, that's all going to have to get fixed anyway.
I mean, the ingress, egress will get cleared up simply
because all the properties have been torn down that had the
prior existing uses.
And so that's my only concern.
And I appreciate -- it looks like we have some other
questions for you.
That's really all my concern was is how do we -- we don't
really have any way to address our concerns with the ing
ress, egress, other than the crazy way of denying the zoning
, which I don't necessarily have a desire to do that.
It's how do we address this issue that we're concerned with
without taking those drastic measures based upon what has
been done in the past.
Well, your ordinances provide, I guess, a process for a
landowner to work its way through the process on the
hardship variance.
I believe it was well established at the PNZ meeting and
why it was passed.
So I guess I heard the expression earlier, maybe that cows
are out of the barn or whatever.
Yes, sir.
But that's the process the city has.
If you're struggling with that, what I would suggest is
build in an appellate remedy, I guess, in your ordinances
if you think it's -- if this is a recurring problem that
happens all the time.
Maybe you get one here that you scratch your head on.
But tonight we're here for land use and we're -- the site
development issues really are a staff and a PNZ issue more
than a land use issue.
Sure.
Okay.
All right.
Councilmember Roden.
Thank you for your presentation.
It's helpful.
I have a hypothetical question for you, Mr. Hayes, and then
a question to follow up with the staff on some of the
things that you brought up, which I think are important to
dig into very quickly.
If the parking requirements were less stringent in this
particular area, say, similar to what you see in the
downtown area, would a CVS -- because I've seen CVSs in
very urban environments.
You've talked about how often they do this thing and so
they kind of have a sense of what they need.
But I've seen them in places in downtowns where there's no
parking.
They're just dependent on pedestrians or whoever else is
kind of going by there.
Could they have done with, hypothetically, if the parking
requirements didn't require so, just to be able to cut that
block in half and just do with what they did?
I don't think so because with the green space requirements
and the landscaping requirements and the open space that
they have, you know, the ratios the city requires, that
doesn't work.
It doesn't work if you cut it off where Mayor Watts was
thinking the boundary line was.
Or even closer to the south.
Yeah, I mean, I see -- it just doesn't work.
That is, if we try to meet all the requirements that the
city has in regards to green space, we have to have that
additional land.
So in that land provides what the city wants and not only
in green space but in the amount of landscaping that the
owner would provide to the project.
Thank you.
And if I could ask Brian a couple follow-up questions along
those lines.
Okay.
Thank you.
Any specific engineering questions? Michael Doggett is here
from -- and Winkleman Associates and Tom Semmerly is here
from the DeShazer Group on the traffic issues and the
traffic study.
We appreciate it and would ask you to approve the rezoning.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hayes.
Brian, it occurred -- to follow up with that, it occurs to
me that we need to look at kind of our requirements here.
Because I don't know how we encourage good urban
development here if we need C's of parking lot for every
building this size in that area.
So something we need to think about looking forward.
But he pointed out this little spot when he kind of
outlined what this property was.
As Aaron was talking about, you can't use -- yeah, you can
't use the driveway if this is not approved.
But to Mr. Hayes' point of just the circulation
possibilities, does -- do they require a zoning change in
order for them to use that spot just in terms of
circulating traffic in their parking lot, even if they're
not using that as an entry point into the property?
Yeah, I was a little confused by that statement as well.
Because I think the circulation is just based on what CVS
would like to see on their property.
You can -- you have circulation on the property without
that access because you have access on both ends of the
property.
So in terms of circulation, you're looking for access, the
efficient circulation of the property internally and having
the ability to enter and exit efficiently.
So this property where they're showing this access point, I
think to his point, I think it would -- he's stating that
it does operate more efficiently with that.
But it's not that it operates ineffectively without that.
So you wouldn't require, as he was speculating, some sort
of L-shaped wall that met the boundaries of the southern
and eastern side of that little 50-foot strip.
He seemed to be indicating that you guys would create some
sort of boundary that wouldn't allow traffic to circulate
to make that parking lot work the way they need it to work
without this zoning change.
And I think what I'm hearing you say is you guys wouldn't
necessarily require that L-shaped wall, and they could
still utilize that for traffic circulation?
Even without the zoning.
Even without the zoning.
Without the zoning.
Yeah, without the zoning.
What this is primarily, from a staff perspective, what this
area is being used primarily for -- and I'm just going to
highlight this lot again -- is for the tree canopy in the
open space.
Okay. If the access was not taken from this site, it was
just treed, landscaped, as Mayor Watz questioned, alluded
to earlier, could that property still be used to meet that
requirement on this lot?
And the answer is yes.
For it to be used as access, I think it's just added for
its bonus, which was approved by P&Z.
So at that point, you meet the requirements, it's just a
matter of how the property is then going to circulate
internally from Avenue B and from Hickory Street, if that
answers your question.
Yep. Thank you.
Councilmember Johnson.
So, Brian, if these properties remain zoned as they are
today, and there's no driveway, but they want to build the
development just as it is today without the driveway.
So the parking lot is now built over on the DR2 lot, right,
or whatever the zoning is.
Right. Because you're talking about that circulation, right
?
So that is part of their parking lot.
Now when you say part of the parking lot, I mean, is it
being used for parking?
Or is it just being used for access?
Well, I guess what I'm getting at is you have two
properties that have different zoning.
Correct.
That are, that's going to have a building and a parking lot
built on it.
The parking lot is going to encompass both lots.
That circulation area that, you know, remember how Mr. Hay
es was drawing where the lot boundaries are, right?
Correct.
So you've got circulation that goes westbound from the rows
of parking, then south around to the other parking.
My question is, if it's not rezoned, can they build it just
like that but not have the curb cut opening at the top?
Because you've got two different zoned properties with one
development on it.
If it's being used for the parking or used for this
property, and I don't believe that the parking is a part of
this lot, okay?
Well, just circulation or whatever you want to call it. It
just seems to me like it's one.
Yeah, but if you look at this illustration, and I wish I
could, let me see if I can.
I'm just trying to figure out a minute. If we say you can't
rezone it.
But here's my question, Brian. If we say you can't rezone
it.
Okay.
So they could have a seamless concrete lot. Let's just call
it a lot.
A lot, yes.
Parking's on part of it, circulation's on the other part.
What you're saying is they could leave it current zoning,
build this thing just like it is and not have a driveway.
That's correct.
Okay.
Okay.
It's not taking access or doing anything and it's meeting
the open space and canopy requirements.
Okay, I just want to make sure for my own clarification. I
heard your answer.
But I just want to try to get a really definitive statement
on that with the current zoning, they can meet the open
space requirements, landscape requirements, and circulation
period.
But to get the access, that's really where the rezoning
requirement is coming in.
That's where the rezoning requirement is coming in.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Any more questions before I call on Councilmember Engelbre
cht?
Any more questions?
Seeing none, Councilmember Engelbrecht.
Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.
Well, I'm going to make a motion to approve.
If in fact you allow, if you have joint access on this new
strip and you can close off the other access to the laundry
lot on Oak Street, you in essence reduce five to four.
And still everyone can get around.
And you have moved the access point on Oak Street, let's
just assume for a moment, to the laundry lot further to the
west, which moves it further away from the intersection.
So I see this as a positive and addition, I just want to,
this little piece of side I want to thank CVS for.
I know that they, the staff, when staff approached them
about moving their building around and bringing it up to
the curb and making it more of an urban look, they were
willing to do that.
And I appreciate the work that's been done here by all
parties involved.
Thank you. Councilmember Johnson.
Thank you, Mayor.
I want to second Mayor Pro Tem Engelbrecht's comments about
CVS.
You know, we asked some questions last time.
We talked about would they be willing to share the access
in an effort to be able to close the future curb cut.
You know, in short order, they went back and worked with
staff and agreed to provide that shared access.
I think they've been a good, I think they've been a good
partner to the city and certainly do quality developments
and have worked with us here.
And I think we're achieving a reduction in overall curb
cuts, which I think is the goal.
So I want to thank them for that.
And I want to second the motion.
All right. We have a motion and second.
Any question or discussion?
Let's vote on the board.
Motion carries five to two.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Agenda item number six be considered option of an ordinance
of the city of Denton, Texas, approving an amendment to an
economic development program grant agreement dated August
16th, 2011 between the city of Denton and GTM development.
Thank you, Maryam. I ask Amy Bissett, our director of
economic development, if she would present this item for
your consideration.
Thank you, Mayor and city council members.
What you are considering tonight is the adoption of an
ordinance that amends an existing program grant agreement
between the city of Denton and Golden Triangle Mall.
This program grant agreement is a chapter three 80 grant
that currently exists.
That's a 50 percent rebate on sales tax revenue. That's new
sales tax revenue generated after the base year with which
this agreement was made.
The grant is currently structured such that in order for
them to qualify and receive the incentive, they have to
have invested 60 million dollars by October 1, 2014, with a
caveat that it could be 45 to 60 million with a minimum of
45.
And in that instance, they'd be eligible to receive an
incentive in the amount of up to nine and a half million
dollars over the life of the rebate.
They're requesting actually they requested a two year
extension from October 1, 2014 to October 1, 2016.
That request was heard by the economic development
partnership board and their recommendation to city council
is a one year extension to October 1st, 2015.
I do have the Golden Triangle Mall representatives here
with me to to speak briefly at with your permission.
Any questions. We do have a couple of cards.
This is an item of individual consideration, so we have
some blue cards.
Jim Greenfield, if you would come down and state your name
and address.
My name is Jim Greenfield and Golden Triangle Mall is
located at 2201 South I-35.
And primarily, I want to thank Mayor Watts, the current
council, as well as the past council for all the support
and help they've given GTM development in the renovation of
the mall.
And we appreciate your consideration.
During the past several years, we've added new entrances to
the property.
Five, seven, excuse me, new tenants have come into the mall
bringing new businesses. They're new to Denton.
We've also had five tenants who redeveloped their stores
and renewed their stores.
And we hope to keep going forward that progress.
All right. Thank you for your consideration.
Any questions.
All right.
Council member Hawkins. Yeah, I move approval of item 6B.
Council member Gregory. Second.
And we did have one more card, but was told Matt Luterman.
I was told that you're okay.
All right. All right. We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you.
Agenda item 7A is a public hearing.
Hold a public hearing. Consider adoption of an ordinance
designating and describing the boundaries of a tax
increment reinvestment zone.
I'm sorry. I missed one. It's really one small one down
there.
We're going back. Item for individual consideration.
6C. Consider appointing a nominating committee to recommend
appointees to serve on the Economic Development Partnership
Board.
Sorry about that. I'm going to ask Mr. Bissett to also
present this item. Thank you.
The item you're considering tonight is appointing a nom
inating committee to identify new members of the Economic
Development Partnership Board.
This nominating committee is made up of two city council
members and one Chamber of Commerce member.
The Chamber of Commerce has recommended Marty Rivers for
your consideration for their representative on this nom
inating committee.
The nominating committee is charged with identifying
potential members to serve on the board and making sure
that they are comfortable with that role and then bringing
that forward to city council at a future date.
All right. Thank you.
Council members.
Council member Roden.
Just a point of clarification. Last time when we discussed
this in the context of our council committee discussion a
couple weeks ago, there was a question as to my colleague
Johnson's status and he has previously served as a
representative of the chamber.
And there was a question of whether or not he could
continue in that capacity as a representative of chamber
and still be able to have two council members even though
he exists as a council member that he put on a different
hat in that capacity.
Do we have any ruling on that at this point?
I did not find anything that would prohibit that there is a
requirement that there be two council members sitting as
council members.
But if this existing current council member who was seated
before continues until he rolls off, I don't think that's
going to be a problem.
Thank you.
Okay, council members.
I think we've got to have some nominations for the
committee nominating committee, do we have.
We have to have two council members.
All right, we have a motion.
Council member Gregory.
So we're just not sitting here doing nothing.
I would move Marty rivers with his permission, Mayor pro
tem Engelbrecht to serve on the nominating committee and
with your permission, Council Member Ryan to serve on the
nominating committee.
Okay, we have a motion.
Is that okay with you guys.
Do we need a second for that motion. Madam City Attorney.
Okay.
Council member Hawkins, I second. We have a motion and a
second for the nominating committee. I'll let's vote on the
board.
Approve seven zero. Thank you.
Now we'll go to the public hearing agenda item seven eight
hold a public hearing consider adoption of an ordinance
designating and describing the boundaries of attacks
increment reinvestment zone three, city of ninton, Texas.
Thank you, Mayor, Miss business is also going to present
this item I think.
Mayor and city council members, the item you're considering
this evening is an ordinance creating attacks increment
reinvestment zone for the proposed hotel and Convention
Center project.
This zone is one step in a feasibility period that was
kicked off in December of 2013 when the city council
approved a master development agreement between the city of
Denton and O'Reilly and the University of North Texas who
are the three partners in this in this project.
I would just like to start by saying that creating the tax
increment reinvestment zone for this project does not
necessarily make it inevitable that this project will move
forward.
That is one step in a feasibility period that includes a
variety of other steps, including architectural design
drawings and going out for construction bids and having all
parties look at the financial feasibility of this project.
In order to determine the financial feasibility of the
project, we would need to know whether or not a TURS would
exist and what the participating entities would look like.
And so this is one step in that process.
I do also want to step back and just say that a TURS is a
tax increment reinvestment zone.
It's an economic development tool that is utilized to help
fund economic development projects.
The basics of how it works is you basically draw a boundary
around an area where you would like to incentivize
development.
And then as the property taxes rise in that boundary only,
that money gets set aside to be reinvested inside the zone.
We've got two existing TURS in the city of Denton already,
the downtown area and our industrial park out by the
airport.
This does not impact property taxes or other taxes for
citizens in general.
It is the burden of only those that are inside of the zone.
I'd like to introduce David Pettit, who has put together
our project plan and finance plan for the TURS itself.
Identifying or creating a project plan and finance plan is
a necessary step in the creation of the TURS, and he will
go through the details of that with you.
[Pause]
You may need a minute to round up a presentation.
Okay.
[Pause]
[Pause]
Thank you all very much.
Technology working at its finest.
It's always something with a PowerPoint.
My name is -- thank you, Amy, and thank you, Mayor and
members of the City Council.
I want to walk you through the steps that we took putting
together the tax increment reinvestment zone number three,
the proposed tax increment reinvestment zone number three
for the city of Denton.
The proposed city of Denton, TURS number three, is
approximately 13 acres.
It's located near the intersection of Interstate 35 and
North Texas Boulevard.
The purpose of the TURS is to facilitate the development of
a full service hotel and fund a convention center.
The process that we're going through tonight is we're
having a public hearing and then consideration of an
ordinance.
The tax increment reinvestment zone creation ordinance
establishes a number of different things.
The boundary, the term, the city participation rate, the T
URS board makeup, and a preliminary project and financing
plan.
After that TURS creation ordinance is approved, the
preliminary project and financing plan is separately
considered by the TURS board by resolution and then comes
back to City Council as a separate ordinance for
consideration.
So it's preliminary at this time. We're really just talking
about boundary terms, city participation rate, TURS board
makeup.
The land used to be developed is currently vacant, unde
veloped land owned by the University of North Texas.
The anticipated development, this is a rendering of the
proposed development, it includes 318 hotel rooms, a
restaurant of approximately 7,500 square feet.
It will have food and beverage throughout the entire hotel
and also the convention center space of 97,000 square feet.
We conducted a taxable value analysis and we examined
comparable taxable values, taxing jurisdiction
participation rates, what we assumed.
And that's why Amy made a very good point was we need to go
into this process and have those discussions with the
individual taxing jurisdictions to determine what those
will be.
We plugged in some assumptions at this point and they are
just that, assumptions.
We also looked at a TURS term and the anticipated revenues
to the TURS.
The current year taxable value is zero on this property. It
's currently tax exempt.
Looking at a number of different comparable values, we felt
very comfortable with $100,000 per room.
There's a number of different ways that you can look at tax
able value.
There's income approach, cost approach, and for appraisal
purposes, the comparable approach is the best approach when
looking at a tax increment reinvestment zone.
And we also anticipate that there would be a 15%
educational credit.
So that brings us to a $85,000 per room anticipated taxable
value bringing on $27 million with the first year of tax
revenue coming in 2017.
Now that first year of revenue, it will take several years
to stabilize, so it would most likely be 2019 before it
becomes 100% of its full value.
We also in this financial analysis looked at the city of
Denton contributing 100% of its incremental real property
tax revenue.
Denton County contributing 75% of its real property and
potential Denton ISD on their debt service, the INS side,
not their maintenance and operations side, but their INS
side, 75% of the incremental real property tax revenue to
the project.
Currently, if you look at your overall tax rates in the
city of Denton, it comes to $2.50 with these anticipated
participation rates.
We are looking at an assumed rate to go into the TIF of $1.
27.
Looking at, we anticipate having this term to mirror the
anticipated debt for the certificates of obligation for the
hotel convention center, for the convention center space.
So because of the first five years, we won't have any
revenue.
We go ahead and we looked at a 30-year period to capture
the revenues.
If you look at all the anticipated new tax revenue
generated during the life of the TURS, that's approximately
$27 million.
That's real and personal.
There are other revenues that will be coming into the
project that we didn't look at.
That includes hotel occupancy tax and sales tax.
And if you look at the amount of participation from those
taxing jurisdictions, that comes to $13,673,693 just in
real property.
So we took that output and the project cost, which is a
component of the project and financing plan, all that money
would be going towards repaying that portion for the
convention space, the 97,000 square feet of convention
space.
I want to make this clear that the TURS revenue represents
current assumptions, and that's why this is the preliminary
project in financing plan.
This is current assumptions of the project build out and
taxing jurisdiction participation.
So if the development is, if less development is delivered,
let's say 200 rooms versus 318 or other taxing jurisdiction
participation is less, then the TURS revenue will be less.
The next steps, of course, we're in the public hearing
phase tonight and then also moving towards potential
consideration of the TURS creation ordinance.
Once that has been completed, the city council will be
asked to appoint the TIF board and that project and
financing plan, the preliminary, would go to the TURS board
for discussion and approval.
And then back to the city council for approval under a
separate ordinance.
At that time, we have the plan in place that we can
actually go talk to Denton County in the independent school
district to talk about their potential potential
participation.
And once we're able to get to an agreement there, we would
bring back those participation agreements to city council.
And then you're in the TIF business and we anticipate
having one TIF board meeting, which would be simply to just
dedicate this revenue back to the city to repay that debt
on the debt for the certificates obligation for the
convention space.
So that concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any
questions.
Council Member Rodin.
Thank you, Mayor.
I noticed that the ordinance does not contain any of this
financial analysis.
So simply the creation of the TURS doesn't require any of
these assumptions that financial analysis, am I right, is
simply for the benefit of, in this case, the partners
trying to figure out if this is financially feasible.
Per the statute, you have to prepare a preliminary project
and financing plan.
I should say somewhere in the ordinance that a preliminary
project and financing plan has been created.
Is it attached to the ordinance in some way?
It is never attached to the ordinance.
It just says that one was prepared.
There was an analysis that was completed.
But if we go back to these are the components that really
are part of that creation, it's the boundary, the term, the
participation rate, and the TURS board makeup.
The preliminary project and financing plan is just that
preliminary because until you get those final, you know,
participation agreements, you won't know what your final
output is going to be.
And some questions have been raised as to these assumptions
.
How accurate are they moving forward?
You know, we're basing them on certain comparables that,
who knows?
You said so yourself.
There's many things that could factor into this final
analysis.
And given the fact that we're going to be presenting these
figures to Denton ISD, the county, some partners of ours
who are asking to kind of come on board with it,
is it ever appropriate instead of kind of giving one bottom
line figure, this $13 million, in representing more of a
range of possibilities just so that we have a pretty sober,
sober, I guess, analysis of what we can expect from best
case scenario to worst case scenario?
Is it typical to give more of a range?
Yes, and that was my attempt at some of this language here
saying that if the less development is brought online, that
the overall TURS revenue would be less.
So basically, if there's only 200 rooms, that number, of
course, would be less, or if the TIF participation from the
other taxing jurisdiction would be less.
So my answer to your question right now would be it would
be between zero and $13.6 million.
So this is the best case scenario?
This is the conservative scenario based upon comparable
assumptions of two other comparable properties, and I think
I mentioned these previously.
It was the embassy suites at Grapevine Mills and also the H
ilton Southlight.
Denton County, the highest taxable value that you have for
a hotel room is $58,000, and that's the Marriott at
Champion Circle.
But these others, majority of the hotel rooms, every time I
do a projection, we typically use around $90,000 to $100,
000.
So one final question, and you work on these TURS and TIFs
all the time.
Is this unique that you have a TURS, but you only have one
property tax payer paying into it?
All your eggs are in that one basket.
I mean, typically you have a large swaths of land and there
's a lot of properties coming and going off of that that are
contributing.
Is this unique or can you give others examples where you're
depending on one?
There's a number of them where we've just created a TIF
just for project specific.
So I mean, I can think of in Fort Worth, Cabela's TIF.
It was just created for Cabela's.
Radio Shack TIF was just created for Radio Shack.
Grapevine Mills was created just for Grapevine Mills, which
is just a Simon property.
So, you know, they come into two categories, project
specific, which that's what this is, and more area based.
And so we do them both about 50/50 percent of the time.
OK, thank you.
You're welcome.
Council Member Hawkins.
Thank you, Mayor.
I just want to understand this all the way here.
There's no revenue in the first five years.
And so there's a 25 year term and there's can you explain
all that to me one more time?
Correct.
We could just go ahead and just run a 25 year term now
because I think John, correct me.
It's a 25 year term.
What you anticipate from the bonds.
However, you're not going to receive that revenue.
So let's say we start construction first quarter of 2015.
It's going to take about 24 months.
You're going to be in 2017.
But then there's an 18 month lag from when you take an
assessment into when that revenue comes in to the taxing
jurisdictions.
So you're already at 2019 before you even start.
So that's why we went ahead and we just put a 30 year
because essentially you've got five years.
There's going to be some revenue because you're going to
have 10 percent of it completed, 20 percent of it completed
.
But you don't hit 100 percent until about 2019.
So the length of the terms is 30 years and the length of
the bond is 25 and it kind of that's when they kind of hit
the same time.
Correct.
OK.
Thank you.
That's my Gregory.
Well, this may not be the time for the question because
what I wanted to ask was our assistant city manager, John
Fortune, to put this terms project in context of the
financing for the convention center.
So my guess is we need to I need to hold off on that
question until after the week.
Close the public hearing or would it be appropriate to ask
that question now?
Madam City Attorney.
It's OK.
Go ahead.
Other than this question is for assistant city manager,
John Fortune.
Sorry to spring this on you, but as we talked this
afternoon in our work session about the need to educate the
public, seems like that this would be an appropriate time
to once again review this city council early on in our
negotiations for this project of a convention center gave
you directions as you were representing us leading the team
in this effort to work out a plan for the convention center
.
And for for paying for the certificates of obligation in a
way that did not that minimized any obligation on the part
of taxpayers to cover that cost.
That's great.
So the plan that you've come up with in order to end that
the agreement has developed, not just you, but the whole
team has come up with. Would you explain that that plan of
how we would pay for the certificates of obligation that
pay for the convention center that would be owned by the
city of Denver.
I'd be happy to and you're you're correct. This the
direction of the council from the start of this negotiation
process is we want to be able to protect the city.
We want to be able to make sure that this project is self
supporting to the best extent that we can.
So we started the premise of negotiations from that
standpoint.
The way the current master agreement comp templates that
the project will be financed is that the city will pay for
the commission center through the issuance of certificates
or obligations that will create an annual debt service
payment.
The city then will take all the project related revenue
from the hotel in the convention center.
That's the economic activity. That's the valuation of those
those buildings. All of the revenue that would be generated
from sales tax property tax would come in to the city and
be dedicated and allocated toward their debt service
payment.
Should there not be enough revenue from either the hotel
tax property tax or sales tax and to fully meet and satisfy
the city's annual debt obligation.
We negotiated with the developer that they would pay an
annual rent payment equal to that net amount to make the
city whole on an annual basis.
So it's quite possible that early on in the beginning
phases of this project the rent payment from the developer
will be higher.
And as the project becomes more successful and as we
collect additional hotel tax revenue property tax revenue
sales tax revenue that rent will decrease.
But the excuse me the cumulative total of all of those
items will be sufficient on an annual basis to meet the
city's debt obligation.
So the mechanism to create the TERS is a tool to use to
capture that incremental growth in the tax value. Right now
the property is valued at zero on the tax rolls.
And so by creating the tax increment reinvestment zone we
are allowed to create a mechanism a tool if you will to be
able to say any increased value from this property will now
be able to capture and accomplish that goal that we set set
up to achieve in the master development agreement.
So the so the the the money that comes in from the property
taxes the TERS simply redirects those to cover the debt of
the Convention Center.
It becomes it becomes a single specific purpose of the TERS
is to satisfy and go toward the debt obligation for the
city.
Is there a possibility that it could.
I mean there might even be a better case scenario than what
we've seen at some point where the the the TERS revenue
exceeds what we need to cover the cost of
debt service for the Convention Center. Is that even in the
realm of possible. Yeah it is possible I would imagine that
's going to be very close toward the end of the project and
anything that we would receive in excess of the debt
obligation would have to be used for the project.
Okay but at that time does our agreement allow us to then
redirect hotel occupancy tax money for other purposes.
The master not not not related to the TERS the master
development agreement and contemplates that once the debt
payment is satisfied those hotel tax dollars continue to be
used by the city in the current manner that we going
through the same process we would now in terms of an annual
allocation for additional opportunities for the city to
attract the debt.
Opportunities for the city to attract tourism and promote
the arts and historical preservation in the community. So
then, then if I'm understanding correctly, the TERS is not
the only source of revenue that we would use to service the
debt for the Convention Center.
That's correct. It is one of several. It's one of several
and it allows us to bring in other partners through the
county and the school district to participate in the
project as well.
But, but if those other partners being the county or the
school district participate, it doesn't completely shut
them out from from their own gain, because they're not they
're not giving 100% of where no one's asking for them to
give 100%.
That's correct. We did not contemplate that they would
participate at 100%. So if the property is currently valued
at zero, and they contributed at 50 or 75%, they have a net
gain and new revenue to to them from this project so if
this project does not move forward.
There is no new revenue to the school district, the county,
whether they participate or not their participation allow
hopefully will allow this project to move forward in such a
way that even if they participate at 75% as Mr. Pettit
showed you in the pie chart, there will be a net gain to
the county in the school district and new revenue.
So we believe it's a win for the community.
Okay, thank you very much.
Any other questions.
Mr. Fortune just a real quick question is the TERS the only
tool, excluding the county in the school district, let's
just put them aside for now.
I mean, it's been said all along that the city would
contribute all the project revenue to the debt service
payment. So is the TERS the only way that the city's
portion of the tax revenue gets directed to the debt
payment or is it more of a formal process in other words,
it forces that issue instead of it just being something
that we, well, the city could just make a decision that we
're going to allocate money from our general resources that
we collect on an annual basis from, from our tax
collections toward the debt service of this, this project.
However, we did not believe in our preliminary
conversations with the other taxing entities that there
would be much room to consider their participation in a T
ERS that the city itself was not a participant in.
So we believed is a necessary element to all of us to be in
this together in the TERS the same net effect for the city
one way or the other, but it was a tool to be able to to be
more encompassing and more inclusive in the taxing
jurisdiction.
No, that was the thrust of my question. So really the
creation of the TERS is primarily to allow for the
participation of the other two political subdivisions,
which is the county and the school district. Without that,
it would just be, I guess on a volunteer basis.
There wouldn't be any avenue for participation. That's
really that's correct. That is the mechanism. Okay. All
right. And this is going to seem like an odd question.
The, the, the management company is going to be paying to
the city rent. That's what it's categorized as. Is that a,
and I guess I would ask the city attorney.
Is that a taxable interest? In other words, if the city is
receiving revenue from the convention center.
Is that something that is subject to ad valorem taxation?
Because it's revenue we're receiving from.
I don't know. I'm going to have to probably defer to our
finance people and we may have to look a little bit more at
that. I'm seeing John shake his head a little bit. Yeah, I
'm not certain we would have to invest.
Okay. Because that would be, if that's the case, then that
's going to be something else we have to consider as far as
what is that value?
And then that's going to be value that would be subject to
these participation levels in the, in the terms. I can tell
you that we have not contemplated that there would be an ad
valorem value of that rent to the city and all of our
discussions.
The rent value primarily is going to be coming from, excuse
me, the appraised value of the project is going to be
coming from the hotel, the revenue generating, and the
small portion from the convention center.
But the payment of rent to us, we hadn't contemplated that.
But I'll have to just verify. Okay.
We'd be happy to invest. Do you happen to know? I can say
with confidence that it would not be taxed because it would
be going towards repayment of that debt that was for the
convention center purpose, which is a public purpose.
And so I've had a number of different instances where a
public entity has actually purchased a revenue producing
entity like a property when we did eminent domain and it
was producing income.
That is not taxable income, because as soon as it's touched
and it's basically you have the city of Denton, which is a
tax exempt entity, the revenue that's received off of that
is not tax.
Okay, from an income or on a real property side. Yeah, if I
could just get some verification of that, that'd be great.
I mean, it would cut in favor of additional revenue, quite
frankly, but I just, I've been thinking about that.
We'll be happy to do that. Okay. And I guess if I could
address a comment by Mr. Bissett, you had said that this T
URS, the creation of it doesn't necessarily mean that the
project's moving forward.
Does the converse apply that if somehow the other entities
do not participate, that doesn't mean that it kills the
deal.
I mean, it's just one factor that I believe the hotel, the
management group decides.
Correct. It's part of the feasibility period. So the
answers to those questions about who would participate at
what percentage and what would that yield in the end are
just part of an overall analysis of whether the project
would be feasible from our perspective.
I guess the only question that we had a timeline up there
as far as the next steps. I think it was through Mr. Pettit
's presentation.
Really when the timeline but it was sort of we prepared one
when I was originally working with John, I think that we
can.
It's all dependent upon as soon as we get in front of the
ISD and also in front of the county and I don't know if you
've had conversations with the county, but I would
anticipate by August September, we'd be coming back with
that participation agreement.
To the city.
Okay, that's right. So then by the time we get back the
participation agreement from the the political subdivision,
will we be further down the line as far as understanding
what O'Reilly still needs to provide as far as financing
commitments?
I mean, we're going to have a more cohesive package as far
as look at what what this feasibility period. Yes,
absolutely.
And if it would help I can give just kind of general
overview of where we are right now and some of these steps
mean because there's a there's a number of things that are
currently happening for the project to advance one is we
have construction documents out on the street right now.
We we originally had anticipated those for contractors to
provide us construction bids. We originally anticipated
those coming back to us this week that we've had some
requests for some additional time. So we've extended that
toward the end of June.
But we do expect that we would hopefully be back to the
council on June 15th July 15th for approval of a contingent
construction contract just so we can lock in the price
locking in the price for the convention center is an
important element for us to be able to now start taking
hearty
look at the financing so that the developer can make the
commitments for the franchise and their financing and then
we will keep moving toward these other steps such as
getting the taxing entity participation agreements in line
and so forth.
So with the idea of being and I I'm just estimating that
this is a toward the mid to late August timeframe where
most of these things will kind of come together at one
point.
That's the plan now if the construction bids come back a
little different than what we expect and we may go back to
the drawing board in terms of some design concepts to see
if we can we can get the cost where we need it to be if
that's that's the case.
We're hopeful that that's not going to be necessary. Those
type of things could obviously change the timeline some of
right now we're estimating that we'd be back to you in July
mid July with some other elements of this project.
None related to the tires. Okay.
Councilman rodent.
You're both up there. I get questions all the time given
what we're talking about with the tours.
All the revenue generated from this project from the hotel
everything that would normally come into the city property
taxes sales taxes hot funds, hot firms from other hotels
are all going into just simply paying off what we're
building here is the convention center so the question I'm
getting increasingly
moving forward with this is this is all cased in an
economic development term.
We're saying we're doing this to have this economic
development benefit.
Yet all the revenue from the project just goes back into
the convention center.
It's a reasonable question to say, how are we winning
economically in this situation and, and is there something
I can point these citizens to who asked what I think is a
reasonable question, do we have some sort of declared
economic impact globally for this project and why we think
at the end of the day the city wins in this issue.
Well, there's a couple of things I could respond to in
relation to your question. First of all, all the other
hotel tax revenue is not going into this project, and I
believe I thought you said that and so to the to the extent
of 100,000.
Yeah, there's a there's a small portion of it but it's, it
's, it's not the current allocation of funds that are being
used to be able to attract tourism in the community so the,
the economic benefit, as you said, is is what happens to
the community to the to the restaurants to the other money
that gets spent in the community when we bring additional
travelers to the community just like we try to encourage
now through our current allocation. The use of a hotel tax
funds for a convention center is really no different than
the way we use them now.
It may actually be more specifically targeted so I would
say they're very similar in terms of overall economic
impact to the community.
Second of all, I would say that while it's true that this
revenue is going toward paying repaying the convention
center debt I would like to remind everybody at some point
that debt will be paid for.
And I believe it was Councilmember Gregory was alluding to
this that at the end of that life of that debt, all of that
money now will come into the general fund or end into the
hotel tax fund in fact the biggest revenue source at the
conclusion of the debt payment will be hotel occupancy tax
and so there will still be tremendous
opportunity for the community and for the city to be able
to turn those dollars back and reinvest in additional
incentives or opportunities for us to promote tourism in
the community.
And I don't know if Amy had a different or any additional
information.
I would just speak to to John's first point which is that
when you have 1000 people come in for a convention. They're
going to be spread out all over town and they're going to
go out to eat and they're going to shop and buy souvenirs
for their kids and they're, they're, they're going to spend
money and then and will capture that revenue that none of
that will go back towards the payment of the debt that will
be additional revenue not just for the city but for the
community as a whole.
I think, I think, you know, I keep hearing from a lot of
council members education is the key and I think the
questions are going to become greater as we kind of move
forward in this project and we've spent considerable amount
of time and financial analysis on all this stuff.
The answer to that question oftentimes is, is a lot of soft
numbers, anecdotes, and I want to believe that that's what
's going to happen in this situation.
I think, I think we're going to need some sort of can we
put some sort of economic impact together to give us
something in our hands to for us to grapple with for the
citizens to grapple with as we're moving forward.
I think that would be helpful.
Any other questions before we get to the cards.
Thank you.
All right, this is item for individual consideration we do
have some cards request.
Oh, it's public hearing public hearing I'm sorry so we do
have some cards and after we go through all the cards, then
we'll give everybody an opportunity who wants to come down
and speak even if though they didn't fill out a blue card.
So this is that we want to open the public hearing.
And so our first person to speak is Mr Larry loose, and if
you would come down and give your name and your address.
Stretch.
My name is Larry loose. I live at 2200 Pembroke Lane place
here in Denton.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I'm opposed to the project.
In all these turds developments.
What happens should take a piece of property and say the
increase in taxable revenue from this point forward goes to
pay off this particular project.
What is not discussed is that the tax load for the city or
whatever organization is doing this is spread amongst the
rest of the city in this case.
So I as a homeowner will have me pick up the slack of the
taxes that you're not now collecting from this particular
project.
You sell off the city, a piece at a time.
You do this and we're told we're just talking about it now.
Nothing's fixed.
And yet construction projects are out.
We are awaiting bids.
That's sounding pretty fixed to me.
It sounds a whole lot like commitment.
If you're just thinking about it, you're taking bids.
Come on.
What that done?
This project will be managed by an independent for profit
corporation.
You'll have no direct accountability to them.
They won't turn a profit because if they do, their expenses
will go up.
So the idea of Councilman Gregory of paying off some
additional city funds, that will never occur.
So what's going to happen is my taxes will go up.
Because you've given away part of the city that you're
supposed to represent in this tax increase for the future.
In this case, any taxes that we get, you keep doing this.
There won't be any city left to tax.
It all starts here.
Everything's up in the air.
Nothing is fixed.
Nothing is final.
Except those bid documents are out on the street.
And there are construction people spending a fair amount of
money figuring out what it's going to cost so they can put
their bid together.
They expect to build it.
Put the phlegm phlegm aside.
If the city wants to build a conference center, talk about
building a conference center.
You don't need to create this funny tax system that makes
it look like it's going to pay for itself when it doesn't.
When I started reading about this in the paper, I thought
we would never come to this point.
I thought, that's just a crazy idea.
And here we are.
And I'm ashamed to be before you discussing this.
We're brighter than that.
Thank you.
Next card will be Lynn Holt.
You can come down and give your name and address, please.
Good evening, Mayor, fellow council members.
My name is Lynn Holt.
I live at 2520 Bowling Green, Denton, Texas, 76201.
I am opposed to this TIF project.
One reason is you're leasing the land from North Texas.
North Texas has already imploded one hotel close to the
property where this is going to be supposedly built.
Other hotels, we have lots of hotel and convention centers
in the Metroplex area.
We really don't need any more.
You have the Civic Center over here just back behind us,
and it's hardly used.
It's been there since the early '60s.
If you can't use that, you're not going to fill up a new
hotel and a convention center up there on that hill.
And North Texas, you don't want to deal with them because
they'll fix it where you come out on the short end of the
stick every time.
And I believe one council member works for North Texas, and
I recommend that he recuse himself on any vote
because I believe that's a conflict of interest.
That's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Elma Walker.
You can state your name and address, please.
Elma Walker, 9805 Grandview, Denton.
And I want to give you a review of what I think this
council needs to consider.
The 25 million of certificates of obligation need to be rep
aid by the city as plus interest.
The city assumes 75% full capacity and $145 per night, but
Denton Hotel Market falls much lower than that.
In the 26th year, the city starts paying UNT $175,000
annually for
the lease of the land and UNT pays no taxes on it.
In the 70th year, it reverts back to UNT,
although there seems to be an agreement that stipulates
that O'Reilly,
the builder, can't transfer the hotel to a tax exempt
status.
I don't know what the answer is on that.
I may be wrong, I don't know.
Why are we doing this now?
How can you vote for this?
Without county or Denton ISD revenues support.
How could you do it without that?
I think you really can't.
I don't know why the county would want to do that.
And the school district, they're floating a bond because
they need more money for schools.
Now I know they may get some classes in the hotel.
But they've been approached a couple times,
a few times within the last year, year and a half or so.
And they haven't been real excited about it from what I've
read.
So the TIF at the airport had money from the county and
property owners.
Why not wait until the I-35 construction is complete?
I mean, it's a nightmare now.
You got a thousand conventioners coming in.
How are they going to even get to it?
Grapevine and Frisco already have convention centers.
And won't the proposed Louisville $160 million public,
private 300 room resort convention on 60 acres at the lake
be stiff competition?
We have a TIF for downtown Denton, but the last bond
election was insufficient
to repair the streets and build the new roads needed when
we annex property.
We have just okayed millions more for,
in other words, we're now a lender for Razor Ranch to
continue the north side.
O'Reilly wants the TIF.
I'm just going to finish a couple sentences.
>> Okay, he would. Thank you very much.
>> We don't think there being, anyway, we can't guarantee
that the city's bond payment at 2 million per year,
and they won't discuss their financial backing for these
commitments.
The past council had too few briefings with lengthy closed
sessions.
And I believe a letter from the Texas Attorney General got
the public back in the loop.
I for one say not yet.
And I do think we're going to need another public hearing
because you don't have all the information and neither do
we.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> The next speaker will be Gerard Hudspeth.
If you could come down and state your name and address,
please.
>> Can I have the helmet on, please?
>> Pardon me as I get ready to power read.
No?
>> Yeah, it'll pop up.
Yeah, just one.
>> Okay.
Gerard Hudspeth, 606 Wilson Street, Denton, Texas.
I too fall in agreeance to quote Fred Durst with everyone
else that we should not build this turf.
And while I organize my thoughts, here's a picture of what
Razor Ranch is supposed to look like.
Here is a article outlining all the fun and great stuff
that Razor Ranch was going to have.
Here's the three check marks at the bottom of what we do
have.
Here's a article, Denton Record Chronicle, that's October
2011, discussing what great things are coming, developing
another side.
But you know, sort of -- all this stuff sounds familiar.
This is what we have.
Here's reality.
We had a beautiful ranch there, Longhorns, as people come
into town.
Now they have a grass farm that is just sitting there bl
ighted.
And so my question is, and I'm going to leave that one
there, but are we void of common sense?
I'm not a math guy, so I'm not going to come talk to you
about numbers, calculations, percentages.
I'm going to talk to you about the example they gave, Cab
ela's and Grapevine Mills.
We're comparing a lot of 13 acres surrounded by a Denia
neighborhood to Cabela's and Grapevine Mills.
That's the examples he gave.
He gave another example of Grapevine Mills and their
convention center.
These aren't apples to apples.
It's void of common sense.
If you use their -- ask them, challenge them to find some
other TURS or some other convention center that's bookended
by a neighborhood that's getting ready to go through a
major construction around I-35.
And I might add, you have a 20-mile-per-hour zone all the
way around it.
Who wants to do that?
It's void of common sense.
And again, I am intrigued by all the lack of details, but
then bids are out.
And then I notice there's no questions about what if it
fails?
There's questions about what to do with all the extra money
.
There's questions to do about how quickly we can turn it
off.
There's no -- pay it off.
There's no questions about what if it fails?
What if we end up with another grass farm?
You know, and so I really lean on this council to put three
and four together, to challenge common sense.
Don't get into percentages.
You don't have to.
Razor Ranch looked great on paper, but no one did the math
as they're asking now for more money.
And so it just -- it is really perplexing.
So then you get into some other points I wanted to make.
Warren Buffett didn't make any money off of the dot-com
boom.
That's because he didn't understand it and he didn't invest
in it.
And so I think that's the course the city needs to take.
And another hot button I want to touch on is everyone says,
and I've met with the DISD, we get zero dollars from the
tax of that land right now.
Well, I get zero dollars from AIR.
So can I go just propose to sell AIR to then come up with
some magnificent percentage of all this money I'm going to
make once I sell AIR?
No.
So I understand the need to get those tax dollars probably
better than the average because I've met with Dr. Wilson.
And so he's explained.
You have a hospital that is now off the tax records, so
that's 60 million that the DISD has to manage.
And so there's a lot that they are faced with, and I
understand that.
But that doesn't force us into making bad decisions to
start investing in grass farms.
So I would just -- I would ask you -- and another thing I
'll close with is they touched on number of rooms tied to
the number of dollars that comes in.
So if the room is empty, somehow that's not calculated.
But anyway, thank you very much for your time.
And I'll note that they didn't have a green three-minute
timer when they spoke.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next speaker is Kathleen Wasney.
If you could please come down and state your name and
address, please.
Kathleen Wasney, 9117 Perimeter Street, Denton.
I vote no on this convention center and hotel.
But oh, wait, this has never gone to the voters in Denton,
the taxpayers in Denton.
We've never been given the opportunity to vote yes or no.
In November, we're going to vote up or down on 20 million
in road repairs.
So why don't we have a plan to present a $25 million hotel
convention center to the voters to approve or disapprove?
Don't kid yourself.
The city of Denton means the taxpayers.
And we're going to be stuck with this debt for 30 years.
I think this should be voted on not by seven city council
members, but by the voters of Denton.
Comment number two, why are we building this land owned by
the University of North Texas?
Well, what's the big deal about building on UNT property?
If we build this convention center on UNT land, no shops or
restaurants can be built near it.
Have you been to a convention lately?
You don't just go to a convention when you're in town.
You walk around, you shop, you eat, you attend plays, grab
your friends, grab a cup of coffee, a nightcap.
None of that is going to be happening around the convention
center.
Because it was businesses cannot be built on UNT property.
So the TURS is limited, greatly limited.
Why can't we rethink this convention center and hotel?
And if the numbers make sense, which is still a huge
question mark for taxpayers whose property taxes continue
to go up,
let's build this with close proximity to downtown so that
our current businesses can feed off of it.
And this project could generate further revitalization of
our downtown.
This is economic development, but it needs to go back to
the drawing board.
We need to move it close to downtown.
We need to move it off UNT property, and then you need to
take it to the voters.
This project has turned sour under the microscope of common
sense.
Thank you for allowing me to speak.
Thank you.
Our next speaker will be Mike Cochran.
Come down and give your name and address, please.
Mayor, members of the council, staff, esteemed staff, I'm
Mike Cochran, 610 West Oak Street, Denton, Texas.
And I have to say there is nothing I hate worse literally
than coming down here and speaking on something like this,
although my past performances may belie that statement.
But in any event, it's true.
But only something as important as this would get me up off
of my couch to come down here this evening.
And I think I'm urging you to vote against this tax
increment refinancing district,
because I think it's an incremental step towards a project
that I believe the city doesn't need.
It's ill-advised, hasn't been thought through properly, and
it's just plain wrong on a variety of levels.
Now, I'm not going to get into all the details of why the
convention center I think is a bad idea there right now.
I would ask that if you haven't read the Brookings Inst
itution report by Haywood Sanders on these creatures in
Texas and around the country,
that you do read it.
I know Kevin, I know you have for sure.
And it's really interesting to give you some background on
these things.
And the fact of it is that these publicly financed
convention centers around the country are losing money.
The trend is away from big conventions as it has been in
the past.
Businesses don't want to spend that kind of money on these
things.
They can do virtual conferencing now.
It's so much cheaper and easier.
And it's a dying business.
And in fact, there's greater competition for these, too,
because of the fact that we're having so many of these
things built around.
They're not making any money.
Some excellent reports of a man named Stacy Talbert wrote a
great report from the '90s investigating Texas on these
things.
And you can see they were money losers back then.
They still are.
It's an economic fad, economic development fad that's been
kicked around for a long time.
But it's outlived its usefulness sort of like big malls,
you might say, with all due respect to our folks over here
earlier.
In any event, I would urge you to read that report.
But as far as the TURZ goes, they can be an effective tool.
And they're there for a reason to bring up blighted areas
and to sort of raise the level for a large group of people,
maybe an area that needs a little bit of injection of some
infrastructure, needs a little bit extra, needs a little
help.
And it will rise and bring a number of boats up, you might
say, at the same time.
But that's not what this is.
This is a single person, single entity will benefit from
this.
We're being asked to take a risk on this.
You ask a great question about this, about this one single
entity here.
And it seems to me it's completely at odds with why a TURZ
exists.
I see I'm running out of time.
Let me just cut to the chase.
And that would be that if you look at your own ordinance as
you described here,
there are some criteria set up for how you can approve a T
URZ.
And if I may ask just because I'm in my final one here, and
I'm not going to read it all because you've got it all in
front of you.
But if you will look at the criteria that is in your own
ordinance that you're trying to pass tonight,
this does not qualify as a blighted area, substantially imp
airs or arrests the development of surrounding land or
defective sidewalks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
This is with a wink and a nod, you could pretend that this
would qualify to be a TURZ.
But in fact, it's dishonest to say that it is.
So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Those are the cards we have for people wishing to speak.
I have some cards wishing not to speak and I will.
Well, I'm going to call it in.
We have Chuck Carpenter is speaking in support of the TURZ.
Comment Denton Chamber Board of Directors formally endorsed
Public Convention Center in January 2007 and has provided
supplemental info for city staff past two years.
Dana Lodge speaks in support.
This will our city compete with other cities. It shows
tourism tourism comes back sevenfold.
Bonnie Gold opposition who would come to Denton when they
can go to Louisville Lake three.
The lose the lake.
You and T has no risk but will profit.
I've lived here when the Radisson was torn down.
Don't need it.
The existing hotels are hurting.
Those are all the formal cards we have.
But this is a public hearing.
So anybody wishing to speak, please come down and state
your name and address for the record.
Good evening, counsel.
My name is Zach Glenn.
My residential address is forty one oh four Cadena Road and
our business address of the best Western Premier is twenty
four fifty Brinker Road.
So we have dual interests in this.
I'd just like to thank you for the time that myself and the
others have had to speak to you on this.
And a lot of them have raised a lot of my points just for
background for the citizens here and for you council
members.
I'm a consultant for a best Western Texas co-op that
handles the marketing for all of the state of Texas for
best Western.
And I have a lot of background not only with our current
set of hotels, which we have six, but also through the best
Western brand and also my voting through best Western.
Again, my family owns six hotels, but we chose to live here
in Denton.
We loved it and we're in love with them.
But this is not the right thing to do for us.
The biggest flaws, of course, has been mentioned, the
locations landlocked, but something that has not been
brought up as the developer of Tim O'Reilly, who's never
done anything close to this before.
The inexperience there alone should be shown that we need
to do more research and diligence on this project, as all
of your sense like your constituents here are asking for.
And there's only a very few in favor so far.
One of those, the director of sales for the CBB.
So I just want you to know that as a hotel, we're not doing
this just because we're a hotel.
Yes, the hotel market's not great here in Denton.
We're doing OK.
We could be better.
But the fact is we want this to succeed.
We if the convention center succeeds, we as a hotel will
succeed.
The only thing here is you've got a lot of problems with
the succeeding again, as I mentioned, the landlock and the
developer.
But also, as someone already mentioned, people like to do
things around the convention center where they're at.
You can't do that.
So first of all, you need taxis.
Well, we don't have a great taxi service here.
Trust me on that.
We can't send our guests anywhere without taking 15 to 20
minutes to find a taxi service.
It's not like New York City or Chicago.
So we need think we need to rethink this, as everyone has
already said, maybe move it out somewhere or perhaps.
And I don't like to do anything negative without coming
with a positive.
We could rethink what we're doing, maybe change the
convention center concept not to what everybody else is
doing.
Louisville, Frisco.
What about something that accentuates our horse country?
Maybe with some rodeos, maybe an amphitheater, maybe a
theater, something that can help our music scene.
We're becoming the new Austin, so let's maybe start acting
like it.
This shouldn't be an emotional appeal.
I know a lot of this has come on an emotional level that
has been in the process for 18 plus years.
Everybody wants this, but we need to figure out why we want
this.
Is it going to be beneficial to the city?
Thank you, Mr. Roden, for asking about the economic
development and how it's going to impact the rest of the
community.
That really means a lot to us.
And thank you again for your time.
Thank you.
Anyone else wishing to speak?
Please come down and state your name and address.
Hello, my name is Bob Bland.
I live at 1609 Victoria here in Denton.
I'm also a professor of public finance at UNT and been
quite intrigued by this whole process.
Let me have a few suggestions.
I am in general in support of this idea.
I think it has a lot of merit, but I think some caution is
in order here, and you've heard some of that.
I know for a fact that the city of Dallas, for example, has
done 19 TIF districts, and all of them have been very
successful.
And with a PhD student, we have been looking at those TIF
districts.
And it's interesting to note that with each one, Dallas has
become more successful.
By successful, I mean the addition to its taxable value,
the property tax value of the district.
Here's a few suggestions.
There's probably a need for an independent market analysis
for the demand for convention space so that there's some
independent assessment of the true demand for that space.
Now, any forecast is a -- it's uncertain.
It's not rocket science here.
There's a lot of estimation that goes into any forecast,
but an independent assessment of the demand for convention
space might allay some of the concerns that you're hearing
tonight.
Councilmember Rodin mentioned the need for an economic
impact analysis.
Right on.
I think an analysis of the economic impact of a convention
center on the whole city, what is the multiplier effect?
How does that affect other businesses in the community, and
what's the value added from the city's investment?
One thing that we noticed in the case of Dallas that's
quite interesting, and I'm not sure that it can be repeated
here,
but what the city of Dallas does with its TIF districts is
that it shifts to the developers the upfront cost of the
development, and then the city reimburses those developers
with the increment from the tax.
I'm not sure that that's possible at this point.
It takes a while to build that sort of confidence between a
city and its developers,
but in this case, if O'Reilly bore the cost of the upfront
of the development and the city paid O'Reilly back out of
that increment,
that takes away a lot of the uncertainty that otherwise
might exist with a TIF district.
It's a much different way of approaching it, and I'm not
sure that that can be done.
And the last point is that there's a learning curve.
And as the city does more of these TIFs, it's going to
become more and more successful.
And I commend you for taking the initiative in this case.
This is a big step, and it's a lot of risk involved, but I
think it's one that's well worth the effort.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Anyone else wishing to come down, please state your name
and address.
Thank you.
Good evening. My name is John Sigmond.
I live on Stonegate and Denton.
I have not really looked into the details of Finance and
Convention Center,
primarily because I don't really think that is the citizen
's job to do.
There are certainly more expertise people available to do
that sort of thing.
Even if you have the people in there that have the
expertise,
no group can guarantee that their evaluation of such a
project will evolve the way it was projected.
But I am confident that city council and city staff and
probably outside consultants can arrive at a logical
proposal.
My comments are more about whether the city of Denton
should take on the obligation and potential risk of helping
to fund a convention center.
If Denton wishes to grow and develop to its full potential,
a convention center is needed.
It will serve to accommodate various local organizations
that currently are unable to find a local facility adequate
for their larger functions.
More importantly, a convention center will bring to Denton
outside companies for their conventions and retreats.
The center will be a major factor in continuing to, as the
saying goes, to put Denton on the map.
Provided the center is a quality, designed, well-construct
ed facility, it will be a significant asset to Denton's long
-term future.
Once built, it will get used. It might not be paid for on
the schedule and in the manner intended, but it will get
paid for.
Actually, my expectation is that the convention center will
prove more successful both in city development and
financially than anticipated.
To not build will likely prove a significant negative for
Denton's future. Thank you.
Thank you.
Anyone else wishing to speak, please come down and state
your name and address.
Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. My name is
David Zoltner. I live at 2501 Timber Trail in Denton.
First of all, I realize that tonight is only about the TURS
and its creation. This is not about the convention center.
So I'm going to table any comments that I have about the
convention center itself.
I sincerely believe it would be one of the most costly and
devastating mistakes this city is ever going to make.
I do want to thank the members of the council that have
given their time to meet with me privately and discuss some
of these issues.
Councilman Roden has already voiced some of my concerns
tonight, and I do thank Kevin.
There's a lot of questions that Kevin has posed that I
really hope that we can get to soon.
Two weeks ago, there was a workshop presentation that I
listened to very carefully, and with all due respect to
staff and to Mr. Paddy,
I left with more questions than answers, mostly in terms of
the valuation itself of this TURS.
We started out with some fairly arbitrary and very generous
growth estimates for this TURS.
We layered that with current tax rates, and at the end of a
spreadsheet, we ended up with $56 million in valuation,
$27 million in projected revenue, and $13 million in TURS
revenue.
Now, in the case of the average Texas city-bred TURS, which
is approximately 240 acres,
who in the world can guess what that TURS is going to be
worth in 30 years?
Certainly not me. Probably no one on this council would
have any idea.
So that's an issue that really has me confused.
Now, in this particular case, we have a single-use TURS of
only 13 acres.
So in this particular case, the valuation of that TURS can
be no more than the hotel and the restaurant itself.
So we're sitting here looking at $56 million.
Now, the value of area hotels that had been mentioned
during that workshop average about $35 to $40 million.
Immediately, there seemed to be a conflict to me where you
're going to create a bit of a conflict
because you're going to have a vested interest in the
single property owner or the single participant in this TUR
S
to keep that valuation as low as possible.
So every year, I don't see how in the world you're going to
avoid a problem or avoid the issue
where O'Reilly and embassy suites are going to be exhib
iting pressure to keep that valuation low.
And I don't see how in the world any of these estimates are
ever going to materialize.
So my final point is I think you have a responsibility to
the other taxing entities.
If you take these numbers out of City Hall and if you go to
DISD and if you go to the county with these estimates,
I would be embarrassed for you. So I think you need to be
serious about these numbers.
I think it's way past the time that we can just say we hope
it all works out and we're just going to take these
estimates
and just see where we go. So thank you, Councilman Rodin
and the other council members that have visited with me.
And I look forward to discussing later why this convention
center itself is a big, big mistake. Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone -- this is a public hearing. Anyone else
wishing to speak?
Please come down and state your name and address. Anyone
else wishing to speak?
I don't see any movement out there. One more time. Anyone
wishing to speak?
Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and open the
discussion for discussion and/or motion.
Any questions, comments? Councilmember Johnson.
So just for clarification, we can create the TURS. The
project doesn't go forward.
We have the ability to eliminate the TURS at any such time
this council feels it appropriate. Is that correct?
Yeah, could we get an answer on the record? Thank you.
That's correct, up and to the point where we issue the debt
.
Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions, comments? I have just a couple that I
will state, but I want to give everybody an opportunity to
--
this is a -- I was glad that staff stated that the TURS
does not create -- mean the convention center is going
forward.
The lack of the TURS does not mean that the convention
center does not move forward.
This has probably been one that I've struggled with a while
.
I will tell you, if I had been on council when the
developer's agreement was being decided, I have to be
honest.
I would have voted yes for that simply because it created a
feasibility period.
It didn't create authority to move forward with the
convention center in totality.
It just simply said, and as a real estate person, a feas
ibility period is where you actually look to make sure that
the project's viable.
So I'm going to vote for the creation of the TURS only in
the sense that I want it to be --
I want to be able to at least satisfy that component to
give the taxing entities an opportunity,
because in no way does that commit me or anyone else on
this council to moving forward based upon the answers to
the other situations.
So I wanted to explain that because I do have some
questions that have been raised by several people here, by
Councilmember Rodin.
I have some questions about this particular project.
Honestly, I have no question about the need in Denton for a
conference center or a convention center.
My concern and my desire and goal, as I think it is all of
us here, is to make sure that we maximize the expenditure
of $25 million
to bring the best facility to Denton that will maximize the
City of Denton's interests.
So I'm going to be voting to support the creation of the T
URS simply because it provides an opportunity per the
development agreement
that was executed by the prior council, which in all
honesty, I would have agreed to do that simply to continue
to examine the numbers.
I wanted to explain that because I know on the campaign
trail I did have some reservations and concerns and
questions, as I still do, about the convention center.
But I don't believe that this particular component of it is
one that makes or breaks that particular decision.
And I will open it up for any more questions or I would
entertain a motion.
Councilmember Engelbrecht.
Thank you, Mayor.
I just would reiterate what you stated.
I think you stated it very well in terms of what this
particular decision is about and we need to see some real
numbers and the developer on the other side is very
interested in this TURS, too.
Depending on how that goes could influence their decision
greatly.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You bet.
Seeing no more requests to speak, Councilmember Rodin.
Thank you, Mayor.
And I am going to move approval.
I want to just say something quickly, and that is this is
the first time we've had a public hearing on this
particular topic since we've started discussing it.
And we've got to find more ways to hear from more folks on
this issue because we definitely heard a particular side
today.
And it sounds like some questions have been raised that we
just need to make sure we're answering moving forward.
And I think in particular the economic impact of this is
something that I think is weighing on a lot of people as we
're thinking about is this a good thing?
So we've got to demonstrate that moving forward.
But I'm going to move approval of agenda item 7A.
Councilmember Gregory.
I would like to second and make a couple of comments also.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
I think that I agree with Councilmember Rodin that more
public education needs to be done.
We've had several public vettings of this in workshop
sessions.
They don't tend to be watched or attended nearly as well as
a regular council meeting.
And so I think we need to do some more work.
It was clear from some of the questions raised tonight that
some folks have questions that members of council have had
that have been satisfactorily answered
because we've had a chance to sit down with staff and we've
dug down in our work sessions on these things.
You know, we need to be clear that this TIF is to help
support funding for the convention center.
It does not support the funding of the construction of the
hotel.
I mean, that's just one of the educational things that it's
clear that we still need to work on.
And I think that the models for successful convention
centers in this day and age, they're always paired with
full service hotels.
And the models always show that when a successful
convention center operates, that lots of the other hotels
benefit from that.
So I think that this has a great opportunity for the city.
And I think that's a great opportunity for the city to be
able to do that.
And I think that's a great opportunity for the city to be
able to do that.
And I think that's a great opportunity for the city to be
able to do that.
And I think that's a great opportunity for the city to be
able to do that.
And I think that's a great opportunity for the city to be
able to do that.
By taking this action tonight to create the turrets, it
allows us to take it to the next step and approach the
county and the school district to determine their level of
participation.
Okay. Thank you, John.
Any other requests to speak?
Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. Let's vote on
the board, please.
The agenda item passes 7-0.
We'll move on to our next item in public hearing.
Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance
amending Ordinance Number 2014-137, which established a mor
atorium on the acceptance, processing, and approval of
certain applications for gas well permits.
Thank you, Mayor.
I'm going to ask Mr. Darren Groth, our gas well
administrator, if he would present this public hearing for
the amendment to this ordinance to your consideration.
Thank you, Darren.
Thank you, Mr. City Manager, Mayor, City Council.
Oh, all right. Well, we can get rid of your email or we can
just open that up for public viewing.
That work.
All right.
I apologize for the delay, but I can get going here with SI
14-0001.
This is an item as mentioned to amend an existing ordinance
.
So for my presentation, I'll kind of go over what that
initial ordinance was, talk about the moratorium just
briefly as an overview, show you what the proposed rev
isions are,
and then address the P&Z results just due to the timing.
It's not in your report.
So I'll give you the results of the P&Z action.
Ordinance Number 2014-137.
On May 6, 2014, City Council adopted that ordinance that
declared a moratorium affecting the acceptance, processing,
and approval of certain applications.
What we did with that as an overview was actually identify
ways to update the city's gas drilling and production
ordinance and give us time through this moratorium to
actually make those changes.
The moratorium ordinance is in place until midnight,
September 9, 2014, but may be extended or shortened, I
guess, by the City Council thereafter for good cause.
The applications in the initial ordinance that were exempt
ed are identified here, the fire code operational permits
subject to and consistent with an approved gas well permit
issued pursuant to DDC Chapter 22 as amended by those ordin
ances.
Any gas well permit subject to and consistent with the gas
well development site plan approved after 8/17/2010.
And the applications in sequence as described in 1 and 2,
and then permits for wells that don't require hydraulic
fracturing in conjunction with the injection or storage of
natural gas.
So those were the first four exceptions in the original
ordinance.
So the reason for this proposed revision is to revise mor
atorium exemptions and variance procedures and to make other
minor clarification changes.
So the first change was that in the heading of the
ordinance, the word "receipt" was deleted and replaced with
"acceptance."
We don't have the ability to stop somebody from actually
submitting an application.
They're done online, so we can't stop the receipt of it,
but we can stop the acceptance of that application.
So in Section 2, the word "receipt" was just completely
deleted.
In Section 3, the exemption list was updated.
The prior approval date changed from August 17, 2010 to
January 15, 2013.
Those dates coincide with what we call the Phase 1 versus
Phase 2 ordinance updates.
Number 2 was the added provision for fire code operational
permits for annual inspections of producing gas wells.
So those are existing wells.
It's an opportunity for the fire code to go out and inspect
on each well each year.
And then number 3, added provisions for applications to vac
ate all or portions of land areas on a gas well development
plan approved before August 17, 2010.
Again, that was the date of the Phase 1.
These are some large plats, and that's now exempted in the
proposal.
Another revision provides for the application to actually
be processed by the Director of Planning and Development as
opposed to submitted to the City Secretary.
And then the Board of Adjustments will hear the variance,
the previously ordinance, put that in front of the City
Council.
So the result of this public hearing on June 11, 2014, P&Z
actually held a public hearing and voted to approve Staff
Initiative 14.1 by a 6-0 vote.
That concludes my presentation, but I can stand for any
questions you may have.
Council Member Rodin.
Thank you, Mayor.
You made a point of this distinction between receipt and
accepted.
Have any applications snuck through on a technicality
because of that?
I mean, have we had any that have -- okay.
No, this is just foresight, so we're just --
That's right.
Okay, good.
And have we since the time we enacted the moratorium to
today, have there been certain permits that we've approved
because they fit the criteria that would allow them?
Just because questions would arise if people start seeing
drilling, thinking we're under a moratorium, but there are
certain conditions.
And how many of those are there?
We've actually had, per the exception, a gas well plat that
was approved that met that criteria, and so we've had a
request for three gas well permits that fit the plat that
was already approved.
There is a request, at least I know from that operator,
that they are possibly going to add eight additional wells.
So you may see the rig, hopefully, just stay there and
drill them all in subsequent order, but we've only had
three of them submitted.
And so far they're waiting on railroad commission approval.
And generally, what part of the city are we talking?
This is West Denton.
It's off 380, correct?
Correct.
Right. On the other side of 35?
Yes, sir.
Right. Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions for staff?
Thank you.
This is a public hearing, and I will now open the public
hearing.
We have no cars, but this is a public hearing.
Anyone wishing to speak on this agenda item, please come
down and state your name and address.
Do we have anybody wishing to speak on this agenda item?
One more time.
Seeing none, we will close the public hearing.
Councilmember Hawkins.
Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of 7B.
Councilmember Ryan.
I second.
We have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board,
please.
Motion carries, 7-0.
We will now move into public hearing agenda item C.
Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance
of the City of Denton, Texas,
amending the Razor Ranch Overlay District consisting of 410
acres of land located on both sides of US 380 between Inter
state 35 and Bonnie Bray Street.
Sorry.
I'm going to ask -- I'm going to ask Abra.
I'm not sure if she -- our senior planner, if she would
come forward and present this public hearing.
Thank you, Abra.
Good evening, Mayor and City Councilmembers.
I have your last public hearing item for this evening.
It is for Razor Ranch.
Before we kind of get into this, the first component of the
request was actually withdrawn today.
That was to create the new sub-district allowing the
automotive-related uses.
So we are just proceeding this evening with the second
component regarding the mass clearing and grade.
The second component of the rezoning request, which is now
the entire request,
is to allow approximately 99 acres within the southern side
, a one-time accommodation from DDC Sections 3518, 2A1, and
2A2,
relative to approval of a final plot and construction plans
prior to release of a clearing and grading permit.
The location of this request has been revised since it was
originally submitted.
This map reflects what was originally notified to the
property owners.
The location of the request now is within the red box in
the teal area.
Here's another view of that with the zoning on the side.
It's RCCD, and it also has the Razor Ranch overlay district
on it.
So the clearing and grading permit request, like I said, is
for the 99 acres,
and it would actually be to clear and grade in phases prior
to the approval of final plot and construction plans
as typically required by the Denton Development Code.
The applicant would be eligible for one clearing and
grading permit for each phase provided on a phasing plan to
be reviewed and approved by staff.
Should the applicant wish to clear or grade a particular
area that has already been cleared or graded under this
approval more than once,
they would have to follow standard procedure and file the
plot prior to the issuance of a permit.
So this is 3518(2), which talks about land disturbing
activities.
It details three types of permits.
One is a clearing and grading permit, which is what we're
discussing this evening,
and it typically requires DRC review of construction plans
and site plans,
and also P&Z approval of a final plot prior to the issuance
of a permit,
and that's what we would be granting a one-time
accommodation for this evening.
Staff is in support of this request.
It will allow the developer flexibility to mask clearing
and grade at one time by larger phases instead of
individual sites,
as site plans and plots move through the development
approval process at their own pace.
The checklist that is proposed to be attached to the
ordinance for the request provides the city with a level of
comfort,
that we could address drainage conditions and best
management practices.
So this is just the wording of the conditions that we've
already talked about,
but staff recommends approval of the proposed rezoning
request,
generally with the one-time accommodation with the phasing,
to allow for mask clearing and grading prior to the
approval of final plot and construction plans,
and also the checklist would be applicable prior to the iss
uance of a permit, which was in your packet.
So in summary, one clearing and grading permit per phase
within the 99 acres,
according to the reviewed and approved phasing plan,
clearing and grading permits issued under this
accommodation shall expire one year from the date of issu
ance,
but can be extended by the building official for one six-
month period upon showing ongoing construction activity,
and clearing and grading permits under this accommodation
must comply with the checklist contained in Exhibit 9 prior
to the issuance of a permit.
Notifications were sent out March 28, 2014, 2200-foot legal
notices, 38 courtesy notices, and two returned in favor.
These are the original notifications.
The north side isn't applicable anymore, but the south side
is still applicable.
And that's it.
Any questions for staff before we open the public hearing?
Seeing none. Thank you.
This is a public hearing.
I want to open the public hearing.
I don't see that we have any cards, but I wanted to give
anybody an opportunity who wishes to speak to be able to
speak on this agenda item.
Anybody wishing to speak?
Seeing none. Hearing none.
We will now close the public hearing.
Councilmember Johnson.
Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to move approval of Item C.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I second.
We have a motion and a second.
Please vote on the board.
I'm sorry for catching my mind before we vote here.
Yes.
We got a request from the applicant withdrawing that
portion of the original request as it relates to that
particular item on the northern portion related to the
automotive.
We will need to revise this ordinance.
So if you would just approve the part of the ordinance that
relates to the southern portion and the regrading and
direct us to go back and officially correct this ordinance,
we will do so.
So if the motion could track those lines, we would
appreciate that.
Okay. So let me make sure I understand.
What you would like is a motion that is applicable only to
the southern portion clearing and grading of the ordinance
in any language relating to the northern portion of the at
least ordinance in our backup not be considered.
And then I will go back and correct the ordinance
accordingly.
Okay. All right.
So Councilmember Hawkins, I believe.
Did you make the original motion?
Oh, who did?
Sorry, Mr. Johnson.
Go ahead.
Would you like to revise your motion?
Mr. Johnson, by the way, let's keep that going.
I would like to make a motion of approval of item C as
stated by staff only focusing on the clearing grading of
the 99 acres on the south, not on the automotive use on the
north.
Great. And we have a second.
I second.
Okay. And I'm presuming that the motion and second are
inclusive of the restrictions that have been enumerated at
staff presentation.
Okay. That's infirmity.
All right.
Okay. We have a motion and second if we could vote on the
board, please.
Motion carries 7-0.
We will now move on to our next agenda item.
Agenda item 8, citizens reports.
Mr. City Manager, do we have any citizen reports?
No.
All right. Thank you.
And then number 9, agenda item number 9, any concluding
items?
Councilmember Ryan.
Thank you, Mayor.
I had my first meeting yesterday evening for the public up
at North Branch Library while attendance was not very good.
We are going to continue in the third Monday of next month.
We will be talking about the Convention Center.
So that's a good place for the public to get their
questions answered.
I've got a couple of different staff members that will be
out there for that.
That's on the 21st of July.
Great. Thank you.
Councilmember Hawkins.
Thank you, Mayor.
From what I understand, the Denton Fire Department and the
Denton Police Department were having a rib eating contest
tonight to raise money.
And I swear that they specifically did that while we were
all meeting.
So we couldn't watch.
So I hope that they raised money.
But if they do that next year, it's going to be on a
different night.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Gregory.
I want to say thank you to our City Manager.
We got something new after our last meeting, a memorandum,
a follow-up memorandum, where he was summarizing what he
understood our directions to be and what they were going to
be doing.
I think this is great communications.
I appreciate it.
I don't know if our new mayor had any influence over this,
but to whomever the thanks goes, thanks.
I would ask that in our next regular meeting, I know that
it's probably going to be a full agenda, but I think it
would probably be helpful to have an update report from Dr.
Banks on our the testing that we do for mosquitoes
regarding West Nile virus just to keep the public informed.
I think during the summer months, we can't do enough to
keep that information out there.
Thank you.
Councilmember Engelbrecht.
Thank you, Mayor.
I just wanted to publicly congratulate Dr. Bing Burton on
his retirement as the County Health Officer.
Some close to 20 years he's done that job, and because many
of their offices are located here, a great many of our
residents really get immediate service from that County
Health Office.
So it's a really important resource to the City of Denton,
and they do a great job out there, and I just wanted to
thank him for his many years leading that organization.
Thank you.
Any others?
Seeing none, we will now adjourn the meeting.