May 10, 2016 City Council on 2016-05-10 4:00 PM

I wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday May 10, 2016. We do have a quorum and it is 4 p.m. Our first item on the agenda is a work session report. Work session 1A is receive a report, hold discussion, give staff direction about the historic preservation officer proposed method and timeline for amending the Denton Development Code relating to historic preservation. Before we do that, I just want to make the announcement that we will be pulling and not considering public hearing agenda item 3B in the scheduled 5 p.m. council meeting. So all right. I'd like to call on Amy Bissett if she would to introduce the topic of our work session today. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Mayor and council members. I am here to introduce Roman McAllen, our new historic preservation officer. Many of you have met him at this point in time. He comes to us from Brownsville and has been with the city now since mid-February and it just really hit the ground running and we're excited to be bringing you this item and I'm going to let him introduce the topic and walk through his plans for the coming months. Thank you, Amy and thank you, Mr. Campbell, for having me over. I'm happy to be here. It's good to see you all. The purpose of this work session is to present, as you said , the timeline and method for revisions to the historic preservation ordinances for the city of Denton. A little background, when I interviewed here, as early back as when I interviewed and since I've gotten here, I've been tasked with - let me just look at - read kind of what you have there in front of you - with updating the current ordin ances and reviewing them as they are and considering the whole city as a whole. I've been biking all over Denton and we have great historic resources here and great opportunities. So this is a really important task and this may be brief. The larger meeting will be in, as you'll see, in probably late July or August when I come back to you with the community input and the recommendations for the ordinance revisions. But today it's just about the timeline. This is just a graphic I used here and I think this is important to note that these vehicles let you know that this image is about approximately 100 years ago. You're looking at - this is 2016 and that's 1920. The Model T hit its heyday so I see kind of a mixture of vehicles there. I wanted to let you know that this year - a couple of things - this May is National Historic Preservation Month. I'm not asking for a proclamation but that's what it is. Next year we'll do a proclamation but it is also the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act from which all preservation in the country, all the legal - the ability to do what we do in preservation comes from that act. It's also the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, by the way. That's why you see that at the top. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a lot going on. These are posters you can buy on their website. I could talk about the significance of preservation but I'm going to ask you to bear with me. I have a link here to a 10-minute video from Stephanie Me eks who's the CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She can do a far better job of telling you why this is really important. It's kind of inspiring. So with your permission I'd like you to - I'd ask you to just sit back and relax a minute. I'll find that it's a 10-minute only excerpt from a rather - a different kind of longer video. This was a big ceremony in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. that I was able to attend last year. I might need some help on the sound if that doesn't pop up here. Let's see. We should be hearing something. Oh, that's up. Anybody know how that sound triggers on back there? There you go. Thank you. We've got a couple speakers set up. Oh, great. I'll just say while we're getting this set up, I consider this an excellent opportunity to - because it's an opportunity not only to reach out to all the citizens of Denton, but especially the inner-city citizens of Denton. And I think we really need to start looking more hol istically at the whole city. Of course, these ordinances need to be revised, but I just wanted to mention that. And now let me find that spot. Okay. Good. Let me get this down to 101.10. Right here. It was a presentation of preservation awards all across the country. And then there's this part. Just hang on through this talk. I think you'll - especially the last couple of minutes. And it's also a special evening for me because my husband Rob and my sons Bennett and John - can y'all hear that? It's their first opportunity as a mother given speech that isn't about how old. So, I'm really glad you guys are here. At the conference this week and all over the next 12 months , we'll be focused on the future of preservation. And I think we'll have one more option. Well, it's not too bad if we sit back and quiet. I think we can - I wanted to take a few minutes tonight to reflect on the past 50 years of our work. And then look to the past before we go forward. And a lot of this change has been a good thing. I mean, which of these would you rather have? In a time of enormous upheaval, we've worked to preserve the connections and the history that make us who we are. We've helped protect what's good in our communities and even the idea of community itself. And when you take a step back and look at what we've accomplished, it truly is remarkable. We don't often get the luxury of reflection in preservation . From day to day, we're either deep in the trenches or on to the next battle. We all know how fighting to save historic places can be all -consuming. And sometimes we can lose our sense of the big picture. Because we've all known the agony of defeat. We've all felt the sting of loss. Those places that we could not save. But as I said earlier, when you stop and think about it, it is really amazing how far we have come. Together we've made an incredible difference over the past five decades. Consider the time before the National Preservation Act was passed. We may be enjoying reflecting on the era of mad men today. But in the 1960s, the past was not in vogue. America looked to the future. Let's go back to those years. Civil rights in Vietnam were in the news. The Astrodome had just opened. The Beach Boys were feeling good vibrations. Bob Dylan was plugged in. Twiggy was the face of 1966. Everywhere from Southern towns to college campuses to JFK's Camelot, there was a sense of accelerating change. A feeling that America was finally experiencing a welcome liberation from the strictures of the past. The space race was in full swing. The launch of Sputnik had galvanized the United States to focus on the future. And so Mercury and Gemini were in the news with Apollo soon to come. Shows like The Jetsons and Star Trek, which premiered the same year as the National Historic Preservation Act, captured the national imagination. And this embrace of Tomorrowland extended well past Disney. Interstate construction and suburbanization were in full flower. And historic buildings and neighborhoods were under constant threat of demolition to make way for capital P progress in the form of more, wider, and faster expressways and burgeoning sprawl. In cities, grassroots activists like Jane Jacobs fought comprehensive urban renewal that replaced vibrant city blocks with monolithic single use development. The raising of New York's Penn Station in 1964 to make way for Madison Square Garden became a potent symbol of loss that galvanized preservationists all across America to fight for the historic places that matter in their communities. That same year, a small group of preservationists met over the summer to plan a concerted push for a new federal preservation law. They were building on high level discussions that had taken place a year earlier at a conference at Colonial Williams burg, a conference very much like this one, co-sponsored by the National Trust. Eventually, this group formed the nucleus of a special committee on historic preservation. They toured Europe to learn best practices. They identified potential shepherds of a new preservation law in Congress. And ultimately, they contributed to the remarkable volume with heritage so rich. As I'm sure many of you know, this evocative and eclectic 1966 book plays a critical role in our preservation story. The essays, poetry, photography, and policy recommendations included within this book jumpstarted our movement in its present incarnation. It laid the foundation for the signing of the National Hist oric Preservation Act on October 15, 1966, which officially enshrined into federal law the values, tools, and benefits of saving historic places. That very same day also saw the signing of the Department of Transportation Act, which included another one of our fundamental tools, Section 4F. What ensued thereafter, as Arthur Stewart Brand put it in his book, How Buildings Learn, was a quiet, populist, conservative, victorious revolution. Preservation, one Yale scholar wrote, became the only mass popular movement to affect critically the course of architecture in our century. Writing in 1990, James Marston Fish declared that preservation is now seen as being in the forefront of urban regeneration, accomplishing what the urban renewal programs of 20 and 30 years ago dismally failed to do. Today, that's more true than ever. Across the country, 15 million Americans and counting are now taking action in their communities to save the places they love. Preservation now has a seat at the table in discussions of urban planning, zoning policy, and municipal growth. We've shown and can empirically verify that instead of being an obstacle to vibrant and sustainable future, putting our historic fabric to work for communities is the key to attaining it. And we've managed to save a lot of special places along the way. Since our journey began in the 1960s, let me borrow a page from another early 60s icon, Rod Serling. Let's enter another dimension, a dimension of sound and sight and mind, the Twilight Zone. Let's imagine for a moment that we had not come together 50 years ago, and the National Historic Preservation Act and Section 4(f) had not passed into law. How would America be different today? We can start with a neighborhood that was under threat at the time of the Act, the Vute Corée, the French quarter of New Orleans. Today, the quarter is an iconic American landmark, the biggest tourist destination in the state, attracting more than 10 million visitors a year. But at the time, there were plans to build an elevated riverfront expressway right in front of the waterfront. This proposed high-ray would have separated the quarter from the Mississippi River and utterly and irreversibly destroyed the New Orleans charm and historic character that brings so many people to that city. But preservationists spoke out. They organized as the Louisiana Council for the Vute Corée, and they pushed back. In one of the very first tests of the Act's Section 106 review, the newly created Advisory Council on Historic Pres ervation examined the project and recommended against it. As a result, the Secretary of Transportation ended the proposed highway project in 1969. But what if there had been no Preservation Act? Instead of L'Ezere La Bontan Roule in the French Quarter, I think there'd be nothing rolling at all, just endless traffic jams and no tourists. Or consider Baltimore's Fort McHenry, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner during the War of 1812. This national monument and historic shrine was once threatened by an elevated highway project that would have hidden the fort from public view. If there had been no Section 4F, instead of taking in the place that gave us our national anthem, Americans looking out over the sweep of Baltimore Harbor would see a bypass. The answer to "Oh, say, can you see?" would be "No, not really." There are literally thousands of other examples in communities all across America. Local preservation groups and state historic preservation officers, the vanguard of our work, have employed these laws to make our lives and homes richer. The iconic U.S. Customs House in Philadelphia. The TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport. Chicano Park in San Diego. She says that a lot better than I can say. The laws matter and they've saved a lot of buildings. And we're here to talk about revising ours here. In 1980 or so, I think it was actually 1980 that the city of Denton passed its first preservation ordinance. And this is just a little clip of it. It was here, I highlighted some things that are not that significant. They talked about that the Oak Hickory District, the people there were the first people who really wanted to take action. And they had pressure from the building of Carroll Boule vard. They pressured from UNT. There was also this issue that in the '60s, the city of Denton zoned that whole area of multifamily as a blanket. And here it says the city council made a positive contribution when it allowed voluntary backzoning to single family status at no cost to applicants. But the residents believed they needed greater protection and they pushed for the ordinance. Which was passed in 1980 and approved by the Secretary of Interior in 1981. Today that would be approved by the Texas Historic Commission, which will come up later. They've delegated the task to the state. This is just an early word is illegality. An interesting line there is there was this question early on when you zone an area, is that a taking, a government taking of property? And it was deemed after the Penn Central Station versus New York case to not be a taking. That you can preserve historic buildings because of the welfare of the community. Then I want to point out that in '96, that document there is from a booklet made in 1986. And here in '96 we had this survey done, for example. And it did recommend what we're going to talk about doing today. It talked about the fact that we needed a critical review to ensure that our law incorporates contemporary trends in legal decisions. And that we should consider hiring a consultant to review the ordinance at that time. Then there was other things going on there. And it talks about the city needing to reevaluate the current ordinances. And it talks about the significance of our historic resources in the universities and working with the universities to make sure they're aware of the value of their resources. And education of the public. There was another document written by the county on that topic. It's this little booklet called Framework for the Future from the county. And it covers our ordinances as well and found it in the office there. But I like it has a quote that is, "More and more people turn to restoring old houses." And you see this on television today with these kind of fix er-up programs. As more and more people turn to restoring old houses, it becomes apparent that certain serious mistakes are being made over and over again. So kind of that's the reason for this office is you want to be helpful and educate people. But you do want to make sure that someone's thinking of what they think is a remodel isn't really a horrible idea. And you lose the fabric. This book talks about the importance of not destructing the fabric. So coming back to where we are today, there's that picture. Upcoming HLC meetings we have here on the board. We just had one yesterday. So we're right there at the beginning on the left. And these are throughout the year. All I did was just take that. And I think there's an urgency here. And we really need to move forward. So I propose that between now and the middle of June that I go ahead with take the best practices, take a list of what I've heard from the public should be addressed, and go to the public and have three or four actually public meetings, one with each of the preservation districts, Oak Hickory, West Oak, and the Belle Avenue Conservation District. Ask them for their ideas, their suggestions, their needs, their concerns, whatever it may be with regard to historic preservation. Draft a review, draft an ordinance revision. Take it back to them one more time on the 6/30, June the 30 th, to have their input and review that. And then take that back to the HLC, the Planning and Zoning Committee. And then if it passes there, it does need to go to the Texas Historic Commission. That's July the 19th. And then we go through that. Actually, I have it going to the Texas Historic Commission first, then to the P&Z, and then onward back to you guys. So like I said, this could be a really brief meeting here. It's just that I'm looking for your endorsement of this timeline. In the end, you see that I'm asking I want to bring to you a clear, supported, and effective ordinance for approval. And I think this ordinance will address the concerns that were brought up. I've kind of pushed over it rather quickly, but in this document here, it talks about the need to really work with the community. It's citizen involvement in the proposal for the district, et cetera, et cetera. This is a key stepping point. And so I'm going to seek as much publicity as I can, make sure these are all put out there and done. Let me just double check that I don't have anything else I wanted to share with you about this. Joe, you got a question? Yeah. Roman, what does it mean, could go August 16th at the end there? If I back up, so if we go to August 10th or the 24th to the P&Z, if the Texas Historic Commission will give their approval rather quickly, I can go to the P&Z on July the 27th, which would push everything forward depending on the city calendar, and just to do it quicker. Thank you. Kevin, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mayor. Roman, do you have a sense of what the, what you're defining as the scope of the ordinance rewrite? So when you go to the public meetings, I mean, I think we 've identified issues with the current thing, anything, current ordinance, anything relating to relatively simple fixes like process issues or how COAs work or procedural issues that need to be addressed in the ordinance, all the way to certain districts want to completely rewrite their aesthetic standards, which seems like a longer process than this, to folks who want to kind of really completely rethink, and I've heard these ideas from all different folks out in the community. So have you defined the scope, at least in terms of what you're trying to get out the door by September, in a way that you can communicate to us so we kind of have a sense of where you're heading with this? Are you going for the gusto or are you just trying to fix some things and then address larger issues later? What are you thinking? That's a really good question, of course. The ordinance itself is not very long. I have a copy of it here. If you take the whole ordinance, this is it, here's just not that many pages. And by that, what we have here is we have the general preservation ordinance and then three little subsections for the three different historic districts. And so whatever guidelines exist regarding color or regarding, whatever, those are these separate pieces. So we have the general overview ordinance. And this is sort of beginning to end what I want to come back with, updates to the general ordinance, which will probably mostly help with procedural questions. I'm looking for, and this is stated back in '96 in here, looking for a little more flexibility. In '96, it was talking about staff needs more, the ability to make decisions on their own. And so I talked about this with the HLC last night. For example, we had someone asking for permission to paint their home on West Oak. And painting is not something that should be going before a landmark commission or a board like that. That's something you want to do at the administrative level. And I reached out to several people at the Texas Historic Commission on that topic, looking for why I intuitively knew that. And I thought it had come from the United States Secretary of Interior Standards for Historic Preservation. But it's not there. But all three of the people, I wrote the head of the architecture department of Texas Historic Commission and one of her staffers and someone else in CLG, all wrote back uniformly and said, you're right, color does not go before your preservation board. The former director of San Antonio's board said it doesn't. So there's a thing, but on our ordinance, that's in there. So we need to make sure we articulate that. But at the same time, I wouldn't mind having a subcommittee, perhaps, of the board if that's their interest. Or it could be that the Oak History District wants to say, choose a palette of colors, historic colors from Sherwin- Williams, and they say any color from here is fine with them . Maybe they want to do that. But maybe West Oak, which is still sort of defining itself, right? Parts of West Oak have quite a number of new-ish homes in there that are mixed in. And there's not like a real defining characteristic there. So they may want to have more flexibility to do whatever they need there. So I really want to come back with, and when I go before each neighborhood, I'll take each of those areas and present their ordinance to them really well and see what parts they're uncomfortable with, where they 've had problems. I'd like to bring it back as a clear, supportive, effective ordinance that kind of will let us go on forward. But I also want to hear from the public, for example, about some things that I know I'm concerned about. We have a National Register District here that has no local protection. We have registered Texas landmarks that have no local protection. And the laws, the Act itself, there's no -- without local protection, there's no protection. You can pull a demolition permit on a registered Texas landmark here in Denton if it's not in one of the historic districts. And it should not, by our ordinance, go before the Historic Preservation Officer nor the Historic Landmark Committee. That's probably not the way that ought to be. And I think -- so what we have an opportunity here is really -- but I want to make sure people in the public are okay with that. If we talk about doing that, is that okay? And present the reasons why we want to do that, because the Texas Historic Commission and the Certified Local Government Program are interested in whether we are protecting our resources, too. -Kentz, may I ask you? -And that's why you're here, to look at the big picture and to, you know, find the things that you just talked about. So what's our plan for notifying the four historic districts in terms of getting the word out? Well, you said you've been a work hard at that. What do you see as part of that plan? -Well, when we met with the City Council Historic Landmark Commission, we talked about a good press announcement. And in that press announcement, which I think should really come out here probably in a week or so, I just want to nail down the locations that I can meet in, and then when that gets presented, or even if it's on the real low level, I actually just plan to go to every house in all of those districts and just fly around. That doesn't take long at all, and also gives me a chance to take a picture. So it's important to constantly be surveying. But then let's have a press announcement and kind of get that out, maybe using the city's department for that. So that, and then we want to present every location and every time. So if someone can't make the Oak Hickory District meeting, they can make one for the Bell Avenue meeting. I just want to make sure everyone gets a chance to get in and talk. I also brought with me a sheet of thought items, because I think at that City Council Landmark Committee meeting we talked about what I was thinking about. I have a list from the whiteboard in my office. Whenever someone's told me something, I've jotted it down. So these things are all kind of things I want to look at. I'll give this all to y'all, and on here you'll find my email and my cell phone number, because this is going to take everyone's involvement. And if you have one of those fleeting thoughts when you're driving around, that ought to be protected. Or what are we doing about that? Please text me, call me, email me. But I do want all the input I can on it. >> Question? >> Well, I kind of have a question. It's not necessarily about the timeline, but it's about what you were just talking about. I live in an area, it's called Idiot's Hill, and there's a lot of older homes there. And I've had people reach out to me saying that what can we do to start saving some of these homes in our neighborhood, because there's a lot of older ones. And so they're not in any of these historic districts. So what can we do for other areas that aren't in these districts? >> Well, those districts have been serving, those districts have been served, in that most recent survey, the Locust Idiot's Hill neighborhood was served, I believe, in 2012, that's correct. So that means that people who meet the standard for knowing those things, meaning that they have the education and experience to make this, they've already noted all the properties. What needs to happen, and it's, I want to get through this through September, because that, maybe if I had some interns, or if we maybe could consider hiring somebody to help out. But let's go and look, can we designate, let's talk about designating. We can designate an area, or we can individually landmark. For the city, you either have to individually landmark it or designate an area to have the over. >> Can I ask a question? >> Sure. >> The historic resources survey that was just completed was done with a grant from the Texas Historical Commission. And we just received a report from the consultant who did that survey. And what that, it's a very extensive report, specifically on Idiot's Hill, and the identification of five distinct future districts in that area, and what those defining characteristics are. So they've made some recommendations, and we'll have to integrate that into our overall preservation plan with a little bit of time. But that is essentially the neighborhood that's next on the list. >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> Great. >> Yes, Councilmember Wood. >> And I guess to broaden that a bit, any house now, because this process works voluntarily. So any house now that wants to put themselves under preservation and designate themselves as a historic landmark can do so right now, as long as they meet the criteria 50 years old, or it's a starting point. So somebody could create the first historic landmark home there without a district. And that can kind of start the ball rolling in that direction. This whole conversation makes me think, and you can tell me what's on your plate. I know you're still relatively new here, but when we kind of started this discussion a couple years ago about kind of revamping some things, one of the things we recognized that needed updated was the plan itself. Because in '80, it was the plan that kind of set the vision , which drove the ordinance, which determined what are we trying to do? What's our vision? Now what are the tools we have in place to kind of get us there? So we're kind of doing some, in a sense, we're doing it backwards from the way that it originally, which is fine, because there's things that need to be addressed in our current plan. So is there a thought that at some point we're going to go back and revamp the plan to say what's our vision heading forward? It's covered pretty well in the Denton 2030 plan. You know, there's chapters on preservation in there. And I think I haven't had time to kind of go through it again and figure out where that overlaps with what we're doing. But I think we can extract from the Denton 2030 plan and historic preservation plan without having to do, you know, I'm happy to work on that. And I think that, again, the community input, because obviously there was a need here and there were people upset and there were things that were working so well. So by reaching out to the public now and sort of let's get that process clear and also get that input about and then look for, you know, when I'm not that's good to know because I can invite people from your neighborhood to the Bell Avenue meeting, you know, and we'll get people in there. That's not a problem. It's great. Great. Any other questions? Fantastic. Well, we're moving forward on that. You'll keep us posted. And so to summarize the notification process, press release , you're going to go door to door. I thought of what I heard you say or somebody is we also going to send out mailers to those that we have. Are those going to be the only two methods or is that are we going to send out just regular mail? Just notice of these meetings is that you know, it's really you'd be surprised. It's not a number I photographed every house in Oak history district in two half days on my bike. So it's not that's not a large. It's not that large for me to and I know if I put that on the door and I mean, I know they've got a yes, sir. If there's not a problem, if legal is OK with that. Yeah. OK. Great. Public. Yes. Can we put something on the front page of the city website? I would love that. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Sure. That 'd be great. Thank you. And I say that because there are going to be some people who are interested in historic preservation who may not live right in that neighborhood, but who have a real passion and who would like to come. That'd be great. Fantastic. Any other? Yes. When you get all of those dates and location set, if you would be sure to email those to the council members because we may want to attend one. Absolutely. Sure. Pass word on to our needs. Sure. The dates are there if you want to pencil them in, that will get the locations in their evening event. Great. Anybody else? Fantastic. Thank you very much. Appreciate it . Thank you. Good evening. I wanted to welcome everyone to this special call meeting. The Denton City Council. It is five o'clock on Tuesday, May the 10th, 2016. If you would enable stand and pledge allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flag. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one and indivisible. Our next item on the agenda is items for individual considerations to a conduct the first of two readings of an ordinance to annex approximately twenty three point two four acres of property generally located at the west side of Gisling Road, approximately 700 feet south of East University Drive. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Amy Bissett is our director of development services, and she will present this public hearing for your consideration. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Mayor and council members. This is a voluntary annexation, which you have seen twice before. And this is the purpose of this item is to consider the first of two public readings of an ordinance to annex approximately twenty three point twenty four acres of property generally located on the west side of Gisling Road and 600 feet south of East University Drive. This is a voluntary annexation. The property owner is in currently in a non annexation agreement that was entered into in 2010 that does not expire until 2020, but they are looking to develop the property and zone it accordingly. And as such, they have requested annexation of this property as a requirement of their non annexation agreement to public heat meetings. Public hearings have been held to date. And tonight is the first reading of the ordinance. I'm going to read the caption of the ordinance into the record. An ordinance of the city of Denton annexing approximately twenty three point twenty four acres of land generally located on the west side of Gisling Road, approximately 600 feet south of East University Drive, US 380 more specifically described an exhibit a and illustrated in exhibit B providing for a correction to the city map to include the annex lands providing for a savings clause and an effective date. This is the first of two readings. The second reading is scheduled to take place on June twenty first. And with that , I will take any questions. Any questions. Staff. Seeing none. There's there's there's no. Do we need a motion? Chair would entertain a motion. What are we doing? Is it the first of two readings? Yes, sir. This would be the first of two readings. We need to go ahead and pass this ordinance. Okay. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. The item. Councilmember Johnson. We have a motion to second. Let's vote on the board, please . Motion carries seven zero. We'll now move on to our public hearing portion of the agenda agenda item three a which public hearing hold a public hearing considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, regarding a rezoning from neighborhood residential in our three to neighborhood residential in our six. Thank you, Mr. This is also going to present this public hearing. Thank you. And I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing as well. Thank you, Mayor and council members. What you're considering tonight is a rezoning and specific use permit for Denton rehabilitation and nursing. This is a rezoning request from neighborhood residential three to neighborhood residential six and a specific use permit for elderly housing. The property is located on the west side of North Carroll Boulevard and approximately 138 feet feet south of Strata Drive. And this property was developed in 1969 at the time, the use of elderly housing was a permitted use. And the, the neighborhood has really grown around it you can see from 1964 to 72 to 97 to 2001. It is some residential some commercial uses and some additional elderly housing that surround this project. The site plan is displayed above and the essentially what they're looking to do with this application is to remove two existing wings and create a new short term post acute care recovery wing. It would be a net gain of about 5300 square feet. So this is a small expansion and a remodel. And it would also include the installation of a landscaped courtyard and updating the facade to have a more residential appearance consistent with the neighborhood. No additional parking spaces would be required for the additional square footage and none are being contemplated. This is actually while it's considered an expansion because of the square footage change. It's actually a reduction in the number of beds from 101 to 96 and it's the rezoning and the SUP are both required because when this project was originally constructed it was allowed in the zoning district at the time but then in 2002 when we did our citywide rezoning, it was rezoned to NR3 and NR3 does not allow for elderly housing as a use. NR6 does with a specific use permit. So what's being added is a wing that is for short term post acute care and also adding a 15 foot landscape buffer along the roadway adjacent to the residential properties. They're adding eight additional trees in this landscape buffer. You can see in the bottom left here the additional courtyard area that they're requesting to be able to add an additional landscaping. This is the proposed elevation to be more consistent with the residential surrounding areas. And here it is in a rendering so you can get a feel for what that actually looks like. Currently their existing zoning is neighborhood residential 3. Their proposed zoning is neighborhood residential 6. You can see that the site is surrounded by a mixture of zoning districts ranging in density from NR3 to NRMU 12 and CMG. And essentially the future land use designation of this particular property is moderate density residential which is residential development on small lots with a density between 4 and 12 dwellings per acre. The new development should complement the character of established single family neighborhoods and provide a transition between low density residential land uses and higher intensity commercial uses. You can see here that the area to the north of the proposed project is low density residential whereas the area to the south is community mixed use in our future land use plan. So moderate residential is the appropriate future land use plan for this particular area and this project would be consistent with that use. The proposed NR6 district meets the objectives of the future land use plan. The NR6 district is compatible with the existing land use pattern, the scale and the character of the surrounding area and it provides a transition between the established neighborhoods and the commercial development. And it is a continuation of a facility that has operated at this location since 1969. Elderly housing that respects the scale and design standards of residential areas is appropriate and should be encouraged. Due to the scope of the proposal there's no substantial increase in traffic that would be generated by this request . And permitting the existing elderly housing facility to expand would not prevent adjacent properties from developing with a residential land use pattern. Public notifications were mailed out on March 27th. 37 certified public notices were sent and additional courtesy notices were sent within 500 feet. To date we've received two responses in favor and two neutral. The Planning and Zoning Commission does recommend approval of this request with a condition and that condition is that the project must substantially comply with the attached site plan and landscape plan which reflects a maximum building square footage of 60,730. The structure must maintain a 15 foot type C buffer on the north property line and that no additional parking spaces would be permitted. Staff also recommends approval with the same conditions. The applicant is here to answer any questions that you may have as well. Any questions for staff or the applicant at least I'm sorry for staff at this point. Councilmember Roden. I'm assuming the applicant is okay with the conditions put on by P&Z. They have no intent of adding additional beds and they're over parked the way they are today. It's more parking than they actually need. Okay thanks. I see no more questions. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak? Come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. Anybody wishing to speak? Public hearing. One more time. Anybody wishing to speak? Okay seeing none we will now close the public hearing. Councilmember Johnson. Thank you Mayor. While I was hoping Willie would be here to speak I'm going to go ahead and make a motion. I would make a motion to approve the item. Councilmember Hawkins. With the conditions as stated. Okay so you're making a motion with the conditions as stated. Yes thank you. Councilmember Hawkins. I'll second. We have a motion to second. Let's vote on the board. Motion carries 7-0. We're now on to our concluding items. Anyone have concluding items? I've got just a couple. Councilmember Briggs. I have a couple as well. One I know that there's been a lot of talk about Frontier, the transition from Verizon to Frontier. There's a lot of conversation about it. And I've had a couple of personal calls like can you do anything about it? Can the city do anything? And my first response is no I don't think so but I'm just kind of seeking clarification on that. Okay. What we can do for the customer service or their service getting cut off for a certain amount of time. And then also some other people have been reaching out to me and we talk a lot about affordable housing. But we don't talk about what kind of living conditions some of those people that are in in the affordable housing. And I've had a few reach out to me about broken air conditioning units, lots of bugs, just broken appliances. And my question is, is that something that I refer to CIS? Is that where they come in or is that? Yes, and the tenants can call as well I believe. But I don't want to get past the posting. Okay. Okay. Councilman Wasney. Two questions. The city has commissioned two studies. One is a space study. One is a salary study. And I'm just curious what is the status and when do we expect those results to come in? Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Wasney. A couple for me, just want to double check on getting the discussion about the City Hall West and the veterans mental health facilities. Get that on for discussion sooner than later because they 're under a time sensitive deadline. And also wanted to read into the record something that was sent to me from the mayor at the city of Whitesboro. Which I really appreciate staff and what this community does for not just the people in our community but the people in other communities as well. Says to Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Whitesboro, and this is from W.D. Welch, the Mayor of Whitesboro. The City of Whitesboro would like to express our sincerest thanks and appreciation to the City of Denton and all of you for the use of your grapple truck. From 42916 through 43016 so that we in turn could help our citizens clean up after last week's tornado. Thanks to your generosity we're able to clear out 36.2 tons of trash. Of brush and trash and to help our citizens get back to some semblance of normalcy. It's during times like these that we find out that the community reaches further than just our own backyard. It reaches to those of different counties and cities as well. And for that we are truly grateful. Thank you again for all your support and assistance. So I just send that on to you Mr. City Manager and those who were responsible for facilitating that. Because I think that does show that we all sort of live in the same place. Even though we're different towns, different ordinances and so forth, we certainly want to help out when people have time and need. So thank you all for doing that. Yes. Mr. Mayor, may I make just a brief comment on Keely's question? Sure, yes. And I know usually we don't respond, but Mr. Hawkins had asked a similar question about frontier and what the city could do. And while you're correct, we don't have much regulatory control over that and they're purchasing the other company. We have reached out to them. We are in discussions with frontier about how the city can help facilitate between our citizens and the company to get better service. So we'll provide you with a written response to that. But I want you both to know that we're working on it and have that under consideration. Thank you. Fantastic. Any other questions or items concluding items? If not, we will stand adjourned at five fifteen.