Dec 06, 2016 City Council on 2016-12-06 1:00 PM

>> We'll move along to our agenda items. The first agenda item is citizen comments on consent agenda items. We do have two cards and this allows citizens to talk about any item on the consent agenda and they have three minutes. So the first person I will call is Mr. Willie Hutsmith. If you'll come forward and state your name and address, your time will begin. >> There are other guns in here, but they're not showing. Council, my name is Willie Hutsmith. I live at 623 Newton. There are 24, I think I called, consent agenda items. The attorney has said the way that reads, that you can only have three minutes, doesn't say this. This is her interpretation of what is there. Is that I only have three minutes to talk about all 24 consent agendas and any concern that I have with those. I don't think that's true. But who am I? I'm just a citizen. If you want to have this community more inclusive of what's going on in this city, you've got to stop doing things like that. Number one, meeting when people can't get off. I have to leave my job and come over here. Other ones having so many closed sessions. There's no reason for that many closed sessions. And the third is that you limit when we get to talk, like today. And you're meeting here, and most of the time we can't even get a seat. We have to have suits on, I guess. Or carry guns. We don't even have a seat in here. This is not set up. How much more time do I have? This is not. >> How much time has he got? >> 1 minute 40. >> 40 seconds? >> A minute 40. >> A minute 40. Good. So if it's supposed to be inclusive, let me just say there are too many consent agenda items. You know what those really represent? This is how we as a council can talk about things and number one, not let the citizens have a say in it. Or I think even more important than that, let's meet, here 's an idea, let's meet when they can't get here. We are so tired, this is you talking and my interpretation of what you're doing. We are so tired of listening to citizens. If you don't want to listen to the citizens, don't run for the office because the office is supposed to be about us, the citizens. I think that new city manager agrees with what I'm saying. He seems to agree, he made one statement that I thought I liked a lot. I've gotten more out of being in the living room and listening to a citizen tell me things than I've gotten to any of my people who are my administrative staff. There might be hope for us. So in conclusion, there is not enough time to talk about what the agenda, the consent agenda items are on there and tell us that you 're going to discuss or that you already have to discuss. You've already discussed it and all you do when we go out there in the regular meetings, always in favor of the consent agenda items being approved, say aye and that's what you do. We don't get to talk about anything of how you got there and why you did it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next speaker will be Mr. Robert Donnelly. Please state your name and address and your time will begin . >> My name is Robert Donnelly. I live at 3900 Quail Creek Road, Denton, Texas. Mine's kind of the consent agenda also. I noticed A through Q, I think, is where you're giving away $2 million. I went back and added it up. I think it's about $2 million in hot taxes, which is one issue. My only issue today was that you don't put amounts when you put it on the agenda. This is the first time I've noticed it. Usually you do. You give to the chamber a million or so dollars, blah, blah , blah, and it says provide funds and you give that fund. This time I noticed you changed it up a little bit. There's a percentage involved and it says that you're going to give the lesser of the two and that may be why you think you don't need to put the amount, but all you have to do is put up to whatever you're going to give them. One of them was $25,000 or 1.7% of the hot taxes. Why not put up to $25,000? You may not if the 1. something percent or whatever is less , you're going to give less. But at least let us know so we don't have to go through six or seven different backups. Plus the backup has gotten not near what it used to be. I always enjoyed the agenda information sheet. It gave sort of a history. It let us know what this had been doing and that's deleted. Now you get is basically an ordinance which is a blank thing that wherefore as, where to, whatever. And so, but if you would, I'm just my own opinion. I prefer to have it out in the open and so we can see where our money's going and whether we like them or not is irrelevant. At least we know where the money's going and how much. Thank you. >> All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Diley. All right, I have no more cards. We'll move on to our next agenda item. Request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda. Any requests for clarification? Council Member Hawkins. Forgive me if I don't know this already, but items A through Q. Do we do this every year? And I'm on hot phones, I just couldn't remember. We do. Thank you. >> Mayor, the staff has one request. >> Yes. >> We would like to pull consent agenda item 4, double C. >> Double what? >> C, cat. >> Okay. Any other clarifications for agenda items? Yes, Council Member Gray. >> I had asked when we had our last discussion on the regulations for cell phones that we have a chance to see what kind of sign would be appropriate to display or that would fit with the regulations of the highway department and would also be congruent and appropriate for the ordinance that we're talking about. Send an email out to remind folks if we could have that by the time we have the discussion this evening, that would be helpful. >> Okay, all right. Yes, Madam City Attorney. >> Mayor, I would also add that you will see at your respective seats this afternoon a substitute ordinance that we would ask the council to act on tonight, rather than the one that's in the back up. These are fairly minor changes. The police department and the legal department have worked hard to make sure that this ordinance achieves the desires of the council, but also is internally consistent, so fairly minor. But we'd ask that you act on the substitute, please. >> Okay, and Madam City Attorney. >> That change right there, okay. >> Is there a way prior to the meeting this evening when this will be considered that we can have somewhere where somebody wants to get a copy of this revised ordinance that they're able to get that either out by the agenda or in other words, just something where they can access that prior to the meeting. >> Sure, we'll be glad to put some copies out in front of the council chambers. >> Okay, one thing I have is I got a call from someone from the chamber regarding our legislative communication or legislative program to look at adding to that. And I'll probably stimulate some discussion about regulating, asking that the state legislature not put regulations to diminish local control around our ability to control. I think it's, to use the buzzwords, Airbnb rentals that somehow the state is looking at. If there's a way that they can control that more than the city can as far as allocation of hot fund tax or any regulations we put on these type of rentals in local neighborhoods and such like that. So probably have some discussion about that. I believe Mr. Corrales, you've had some meetings with them. So just wanted to give you a heads up that that may come up in that regard. Any other clarifications? Nope, seeing none. All right, thank you. We'll go on to our one and only public work session, which is work session 3A. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding findings and recommendations from Denton's recently completed city-wide tree resource assessment. >> Thank you, Mayor. Lauren Barker, our Keep Denton Beautiful program manager, will be addressing this issue tonight, this afternoon. >> This afternoon, whenever it is. I've had a long day already. Okay, good afternoon everyone. How are you doing today? Thank you so much for having me. I'm here today with a few of our team members from the tree assessment study that was recently completed. And we're here to provide you with an overview of the results of that project. This is the first ever project of this scale to be completed in our city, and we've gleaned quite a bit of information from the study. So we're really excited to share some of the highlights with you. Also wanted to let you know that we have a full report of findings that we will be getting to you very soon that has a lot more in depth information. And of course, we're happy to answer questions that you have. I'm joined today by Micah Pace of Preservation Tree Services, he's right over here. And so I'm going to do a little bit of introduction and overview, and then I'll turn it over to him to give you the findings of the study. So I'll start by giving a brief overview of the project and its goals. This project was approved by council in May of this year and work began in June. We were in the very good hands of Preservation Tree Services, Texas Trees Foundation, and Planet Geo who worked on the project. And we also pulled in subject matter experts from a variety of departments within the city, including our urban forester, the city staff GIS specialist , environmental services and sustainability, and the parks department. So as you can see, we had a lot of involvement city wide within internal staff. So I think that this should hopefully be a really useful study and some really great results. The project used a combination of two methodologies and the first of those was an iTree eco-assessment. And basically what that is, is an on the ground inventory style assessment of tree distribution, quantities and condition. And the assessment for this portion was conducted on sample plots around the city. And then an urban tree canopy analysis was the second component of the study, which examined aerial imagery to get a big picture view of canopy distribution. So the goals of the project were really straightforward and practical. We're looking to get a baseline of information on Denton's urban forest. We want to obtain detailed information about the structure and the value of Denton's trees. And Michael will tell you a little bit more about what those words mean, what that encompasses. And then we wanted to get information that could be directly applied to future management decisions and tree planting efforts. So those last two numerical items there are really important. We didn't just want this to be a study that sits on a shelf . So we have some very useful tools that were delivered as part of the project. And we hope that the information will actually be used to better the decisions in policy making around our community 's trees. >> So with that, I'll turn it over to Micah to give you results in the recommendations of preservation tree services. This is Micah Pace. >> Good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Micah Pace, consulting arborist and urban fore ster with preservation tree services, as Lauren indicated. And I first want to start by thanking you for the opportunity not only to conduct the project, but obviously to share it with you. Because as Lauren said, doing an interesting study is just that. It's interesting, but if it doesn't lead to effective improved management, then we're doing a disservice to our citizens. So I really appreciate the opportunity to do this. I've been involved with a lot of these all around the Metro plex and as well in other states. And sometimes it is just that, they go to waste and it's an unfortunate situation. So hopefully we can provide further assistance as we move forward. So looking at the project details, I have it right in front of me, that's way more convenient. So let's talk about the iTree Eco Assessment. iTree is a suite of tools developed through more than a decade of research by the US Forest Service that looks at trees and how they grow in the urban environment and assigns environmental benefits value to the trees. Trees are way more than just ornamental, way more than aesthetic, right? We've heard more and more about that through the years. And this suite of tools was developed to help put dollar values on some of those environmental benefits that we have learned that trees provide for us. The study was done using randomized study plots, tenth acre circular plots that were randomly located. We developed 275 of those. In the end, we were able to gain access to 251. Some plots we just did not hear back from the landowners and did not trespass on their property. Others, in fact, turned us away and that was okay. So we always develop more plots than are needed so that we can get the appropriate amount of data to stay within the standard errors that are acceptable, which is 10 to 12%. And so those estimation of the benefits and services are then derived and that helps us advocate for the management of that resource. And it is just that. It's a resource like any other resource that we have. And it's very difficult to manage a resource, be it sewer lines or traffic stop signs or lights, without knowing how many we have, what condition they're in , and where they're located. The urban tree canopy or UTC analysis was done obviously from remotely using advanced geographical information system software and aerial imagery. And it was used to obtain a snapshot of what the urban forest is currently, where it's located and how much of the city limit it's covering. And that coverage of urban tree canopy is directly linked to the services and benefits that trees provide. The more we have, the better and more services we have, as well as the quality and health of the trees. And so that's why it was a two pronged approach, because we can take an aerial assessment and we can get an idea of the coverage. But that doesn't tell us about the quality of the trees. The healthier the trees are, the larger the trees are, the more benefits that they're providing to us. And ultimately, as responsible stewards of resources in our city, we're trying to maximize the benefit of the resources that our citizens, residents, and visitors get to enjoy. We did that over 12 land use classes, commercial, agriculture, single family residential, multi-family residential, government properties, religiously owned properties, and so forth. And that really allowed us to analyze the data in a much greater detail to lead to more strategic planning down the road. Some examples of those environmental services and social benefits, just to kind of put it in context. Air quality and carbon sequestration and storage. Storm water, which is very important. We love the storm water retention value because it really allows us to speak with city engineers. They understand that. They understand the problems that we have managing water and the costs associated to that. So when we can provide them with additional tools, those being trees, to reduce the amount of storm water flow that we experience in large storms, that is of great value to them. So we look at some of that and we have values to offer them . Social benefits, some of which you might not have thought of in the past or have heard of before. But trees, there's been studies, social science studies that show trees reduce crime. And one quick example, not to belabor the point because we got more to cover. But if there's a community that has a lot of tree cover, that tends to make it more enjoyable to be outside. So you'll spend more time outside. And if you're doing that, more likely your neighbors are probably doing that as well. And if both of you are outside more often, you tend to develop a closer relationship and trust is built. And that's how communities are built on trust. So trees can really add to a quality of life, but also more important things like lower crime and health and so forth. So talking about the Eco Study, being the lead of the project, I was involved with all parts of it. But Texas Trees Foundation was the key partner and my colleague, Matt Grubisich, is here with me. He's the Director of Operations for the Texas Trees Foundation. They were the main partner with the iTree Eco portion of this study. So what is it? Like I said, it's a suite of tools that helps us to assess the quality of our urban forest and the benefits that it provides. And those benefits are considered functions. So trees have a structure that is their size, their shape, their type, and that structure leads to the functions of the trees. Certain species provide certain benefits better than others . Larger trees generally provide better benefits than trees that have health concerns. So how does it work? We go out directly in the field and we measure in those tenth acre circular plots how many trees one inch and larger in diameter existed. We measured their location from the plot center, their height, their girth, the crown dimensions, the quality of the tree, any conditions of structure and health concerns. And we also looked at ground cover, how much turf was present on the property, how much bare soil, mulch, you name it, cement. We took data on all of that so that we could develop an idea of what the different types of ground cover exist in the city. And that's important for a lot of different reasons as we 'll see moving forward. So I'm sorry, we've got a question. Absolutely. You said that some different trees provided different value . And in the backup, it was talking about the percentage of post oak trees being smaller, but the benefit was larger. Can you explain that? And is there something that we can learn from that in terms of future programs for focusing on planting certain types of trees and not so much on planting other types of trees? Excellent question. And you cheated. You already saw that. I didn't know they saw some of that data already. That's great. Great question. That's one of the things I'm going to highlight. So as far as explaining how post oaks or another particular species decides it wants to perform in a certain way, I can 't really speak to that. That's beyond my knowledge. That would be tree psychology. Yeah. Tree whispering, if you will. I think the safe thing to say is that certain trees, in terms of the way they grow and the length of lifespan that they have, are predisposed to providing more benefits. And so focusing on longer lived species in terms of management and selection is really key. Particularly when we see the discrepancy in the values that they provide, especially given the low percentage within the population. So again, maximizing the results that we get from our resources always and should be what we strive to do. So does it have to do with the canopy, with the leaf shape? Yeah, it really does come down to the size of the canopy, but it does depend on what benefit we're describing. So for example, carbon storage is really going to be related to the size or girth of the diameter of the trunk because that storage is literally stored inside the tissue of the wood. The larger the tree, the more capacity it has to store carbon as an element. And of course, as trees die, they release that carbon, which is what speaks to the need for management. We want to keep those trees healthy and living as long as possible. And so we draw conclusions from that, as we're starting to see right now. So it all hinges on the data that's collected, making sure that we collect the proper data in the proper way and that we're consistent in how we do that. The city was divided for convenience sake into four quad rants, just geographically trying to get it, logistically speaking, where are we going, how are we doing it. Within that, those plots fell within the city limits. Again, this particular portion of the study was only within the city limits, not in the ETJ. The ETJ would have required at least twice as many plots and certainly more time and cost to the city. And it wasn't necessary. We really want to look at the snapshot within the city, where we're at, so that we can figure out how to move forward as we develop. As I mentioned, 275 plots created, 251 ultimately sampled. And the wide range of land uses were covered. That's just a quick example of what it looked like in the field with our maps. That plot happened to land, so that circle you're looking at, plot number 230, that's literally a tenth acre size of plot and it covered the entire house. That plot center happened to fall right in the center of the house in that case. So there was very little to measure in terms of trees in that case, but we still had to measure it. Because it gives us, as you extrapolate out, it gives us an idea of how many trees are out there. And data was collected starting in the beginning of June and went through August of this year. As I said, we stratified the data by land use, so we got forested land plots, we got agricultural land plots. We got transportation land plots, another land use that's important, commercial land use. And single family residential. And there was more, but those are the highlights. As Lauren said, this is the first study certainly here in the city of Denton, but is really only one of six in the entire state. And so that speaks to the credit and vision that the city of Denton has in terms of managing a resource, wanting to know more about the resource so they can better manage it. And I will say, as a disclaimer, those second bullet points there related to national studies and international studies, a little bit outdated. I couldn't find updated, but that is true. There's only been approximately 800 around the country and a little more than 800 around the world. That was valid as of 2012, so it probably is not too far off from that, considering these take six months or more to do. The UTC or urban tree canopy portion of the study was done by Planet Geo, a geographic information services company out of the Denver area. And they could not be here today, as you can imagine, but they have provided information that I could share with you. And as another disclaimer, I'm not a GIS expert, but I have learned plenty along the way, of course. So the remote sensing classification and all that means is you're doing it remotely at your desk, using high advanced satellite imagery to classify canopy cover and land cover. And they do that in various ways with various sources of data. And that's really the important part, particularly in this study, but in any study. The sources of data that you use to do the analysis really control the quality and accuracy of the interpretation. So we strive to do the highest quality we can. And as you can see there in the second bullet point, we did reach 96% accuracy. And it was tested through QA and QC multiple times by Planet Geo. So we are confident of the results that we got. Of course, we can't be 100% accurate, but 96 is a pretty good score anytime, anywhere. Performing that change analysis, we did between 2008 and 2014 as well. So the city requested, we want to look at not only what do we have now as a snapshot, but where were we and where are we headed? And that's a great question to ask. And so we looked at that. And I'll go ahead and share that particular result briefly with you. But there's only a 2% change, and it was actually a positive change. Whereas we might have thought that perhaps we're losing more trees than we are gaining. We actually had a slight change, a positive change of 2% between 2008 and 2014. And I'll explain why we believe that is. >> Got a question. Council Member Briggs. >> Yes, ma'am. >> So the data was from 2015 and 2014. >> So, yes, ma'am. Thank you for asking. >> I'm sorry. Is that the very end of 2015 or the beginning? I mean, a lot of our growth happened just this past year in the. I mean, I'm just. >> That's a great question. And I'm not sure when they flew that data. Yeah, when they fly, it does relate to perhaps the quality, especially in a region like ours that is growing so rapidly . I'd have to double check and ask them what year, what part of the year that was flown. >> Council Member. >> Other question, yes. Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Mayor. Well, earlier in the slide presentation, it said that this was the baseline data. But now you're referring back to 2008 data. >> So is that the baseline data? >> No, well, there wasn't existing 2008 data. We used 2008 imagery and assessed it to see what it was. And then compared it to the current data that we. >> Because I thought that the earlier imagery had given us a percentage of canopy. >> There was a previous study done in 2010 or 11, I believe . >> Okay. >> As a student project, I think, out of the university. >> I think it was a master's degree students supervised by professors. >> Yeah, but the data that they used was not available to us. Quite honestly, it's not on the same level of expertise that we were doing, so it was not comparable. We couldn't use it as a comparison to what we did. >> Okay, thank you. >> It was not valid. It's a good question. >> All right, I just wanted to clarify because if you'll remember back in May when we discussed the project and council approved it, I mentioned that or cautioned against comparing the results of the study that was done by UNT and Dr. Hunter over there in the geography department and the results of this study. And that's not because the data that they pulled together was of any lesser quality. It's just that it's very different methodologies. So the information that we're looking at here is much more in depth, much more detailed than what they were able to get through the technology that was available for the flyover that was done back in 2010, I believe it was. So just to clarify that. >> Thank you. Yeah, we were actually hoping we could have used that directly, but when we had our experts look at it, they just said they couldn't relate it. And so the quality of the accuracy would have gone down. We also looked at possible planting areas. So not only looking at what trees exist and what the coverage is, but where can we add coverage in the future, and that's really an important piece to what we did. We also looked at non-plantable areas and took that out of the imagery so that we could get a better idea of what areas to take out like sporting fields, golf courses, and so forth. Areas that you could physically plant trees and they could grow there, but land use dictates that we shouldn't and won 't most likely. The land cover data metrics used five target geographies, as I mentioned several times, land use. So we wanted to be able to synthesize and analyze the data by land use later on. But as well, we broke it down into census blocks, zip codes , voting districts, and all the way down to the parcel level . So, City Council, you could look at this within your specific district if you are district oriented. And you could also look at it city wide, all the way down to the parcel level. You can get a very fine detail on this. And what I mean by those target geographies and what we can look at is you can look at what the percent of canopy cover is, the percent of impervious surface, the percent of turf, and so forth, all the way down to the parcel level. And the deliverables of the projects, various maps, the data itself, which is delivered directly to the GIS department on data storage device because it's so large. Spreadsheets, the report that will be forthcoming. A really cool canopy planner tool developed by Planet Geo. And what that tool will allow, Heywood, your urban forester , or Lauren, or whoever wants to work on this. They can really take a look at if we want to focus on storm cover retention, storm water retention. We can slide bars within GIS that help us show where to plant, where the most appropriate places to plant. Because all the data in the background shows us where the impervious surfaces are, where we're missing canopy cover. And it'll tell us and pinpoint targets that will relate to that benefit that we're striving, whether it's storm water retention or otherwise. So here's the unsuitable areas that we're able to map out and remove from the data set. Again, city limit, 116 square miles, ETJ being 267 square miles was much, much larger. The land use target geographies, and you're not meant to be able to read it, but just to highlight how we did that. Of course, in the report, it's much more detailed and you can see it. We'll also be able to post the report online for anyone to look at. This is the canopy planner tool that I referred to. And these little bars here, you can slide depending on what the priority is. And our priorities do change from time to time, of course. So we can adjust these by the geographies if we wanted to. This one's on land use currently, and when I took the snapshot. And it talks about here on the right, areas from red to green, high priority areas to low priority areas. We can quickly pinpoint areas within the city, areas that are more important for us to focus on. Because every year we know we have a limited budget and a limited amount of time. So we want to maximize the use of both of those resources. So this really encourages me that the current tree planting initiatives that Lauren and her team have can be strengthened and enhanced over time. And we'll be happy to support that moving forward in the future. So what are those key findings? We talked about a couple of them. Let's look at them a little bit more detailed. What were the species most prevalent around the city? Hackberry, cedar elm, and post oak. Those are your three top species. Mr. Mayor's smiling. >> Hackberries, I'm very familiar with hackberries. >> The love hate thing. >> Yes. >> Yeah, I mean, it's good to have trees in Texas, but do they always all have to be hackberry? >> That's right. >> They're relics, most of them. They're growing along fence lines. We all know that. They serve their purpose, no question. I tell all my clients, trees are just like people. They all have value. Got sappy there, I'm sorry. How many trees do we got? Well, if you believe me, in the study, we got about 3.5 million trees around the city, with a structural value of just over $2 billion, billion with a B. So what is structural value? Structural value is, another term is replacement cost. If we woke up tomorrow and every one of these trees were gone, how much would it cost to replace them for the same species, same size, and same condition? Not like we typically do, we remove trees of this size. But it's not a realistic thing for us to do, but we got to have some type of starting point of what these trees are worth. The trees provide over $7 million of benefits every year, like storm water retention, carbon sequestration and storage, reduction of use of energy. So energy conservation through shading. They clean our air, 458,000 tons of carbon every year, valued at 61 million. And 52,000 tons of oxygen are produced by our trees every year, so it's good to breathe. And they provide a little about a million and a half every year of energy savings benefits through shading. >> Okay, what matrix did you use to determine the 61 million on the carbon? Is that through some kind of carbon trading or something? How did you come up, arrive at that value? >> Yeah, that's done through iTree itself, the model developed through the Forest Service. And that's exactly what they do. They look at how carbon is valued on the market, and it's updated periodically. >> Yes, Council Member Hawkins. >> Yeah, a little more on that. You said earlier when a tree dies, it releases the carbon. >> Yes, sir. >> So when a tree is cut down, I mean, is it the same as when it's slowly dying off, or can you go into that a little bit? >> Well, sure, so the release of carbon doesn't happen immediately, of course. It's when the tree is decaying. So this doesn't release carbon because it's preserved through furniture. But if we leave it out there and it just rots, that's when it's released. So if it's repurposed into furniture or so forth, it's preserved and stored. >> Preserved. >> It continues to serve as a sink if we repurpose it. But if they just die and go into a landfill, it's being released. Whether it's burnt or obviously if we burn it, it's being released very fast. But if it's just left to decay like it happens in a forest every day as we speak, it's much more slowly. >> Okay, thank you. >> So those are some of the benefits there, the highlights of what's going on. The canopy coverage percentage was 30%. That's the value. We measured again 96% accuracy, so we're very confident in that. And I did put that little disclaimer that it really shouldn 't be compared to the previous analysis. This is a standalone assessment done based on the current imagery and technology that's available today. And the 46% of that canopy, however, is located in unde veloped land. Essentially half of it. So what does that tell us? That tells us that how we develop in the future on those land is going to determine what that canopy coverage percent becomes. So we really want to think about that moving forward. Within that ETJ area, there was that increase of 2.2% between 2008 and 2014. Yes sir, question. >> Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead, Dalton. >> Thank you. >> So on that number of 46% of Denton's urban tree canopy was located in undeveloped land. >> Yes sir. >> So if you look at just the undeveloped land, can you tell us what percentage of that is treed and what percentage of that is not treed? >> Yes sir. >> Is that, are you going to get to that or can we continue on? >> I don't believe I have that exact number shown in the slide because I had to make a decision on what key information. >> Sure, that would be. >> I believe it was, and Matt, if you recall, it's in the book right there. I believe it was around 48%, but please don't quote me, it 's in there. I couldn't, there was no way to memorize all the data. >> Yes sir, the staff could get that. >> Yeah, we'll get that. >> But thank you for asking that question because that really is going to be one of the main focuses of the recommendations. >> Right. >> Okay, so appreciate that. 14% of the surface through Denton was covered with imper vious surfaces, roads and parking lots and cement and otherwise. So that plays a large factor into the decisions we make moving forward as well. 44% of the land area is however suitable for future tree plantings. So again, I pose the question, we got 44% of the land throughout Denton that we can plant trees, where should we start? >> We had a question. >> How have we done it in the past? We got a question? >> Yeah, my approach is, I'm sorry. >> Yes sir, please. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> I know, it is, don't worry, go ahead. >> The first percentage, 30%, was that in 2008? >> That's this study's result. That's current. >> Oh, because you said it was 30%, so I don't know what it is. It is 30%? >> Because when, well yeah, that's a technical thing in science. We did it a month ago. It was, it could be 30.00000198 right now. Technically it happened before, yeah. Yes sir, sorry, yeah. Semantics, semantics, yeah. >> I know we can't compare it to trees now. Can somebody just remind me what that was? >> 19. >> 19. >> That we're not comparing it to. >> I know we're not comparing it to, but there are going to be publications that are going to compare us to other cities. And I have no idea what their metrics were. >> Yeah. >> So I think as we start talking about metrics and we can't compare, just. >> I have. >> Anyone who might be writing stories on this, I think they dig into the. >> Yeah. Yeah, and I don't mean to discredit the work that they did, but to be fair, you're looking at a young person doing a study for the first time in their life versus a professional researching company to do this work. So I would feel very confident in the data that we're sharing with you. >> And if we did compare it, great, then we just grew from 19 to 30. I mean, but I wouldn't go saying that too loudly. Because that's not how we're presenting the data. >> Councilman Briggs. >> And this was data that was gathered at some point during 2015? >> Yes. >> Right, so. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Absolutely. This is current data, 30%. >> And here she comes again. >> The 2015 flyover was part of the NCT cog study that was done, and that's where the data comes from. So I don't know the exact date of when that flyover was done, but we could easily find that out. I know tech services uses that for a variety of other things beyond this study. That was what we pulled to use for it. >> I will add the caveat that it's flown on, and usually leaf off, I believe cog does. So, leaf off or leaf on? >> It was leaf on. >> It was leaf on. So it would have been during the growing season, so you could eliminate essentially four months out of 2015 work. We know that they didn't do it, so. >> Council member Rodin's right. The story here is not that Denton's tree canopy has grown 11% since that study was done. The story is that we have a more in depth study that's been performed and we were able to get a little bit higher level of accuracy of data and a wider scale of data that went city wide and even into the ETJ on the urban tree canopy analysis. So that was something that wasn't really measured in this way. And we have some checks and balances in place also because of using the two pronged approach that Micah reviewed with you. So hopefully that answers some of those questions. The 2008 information to avoid any further confusion was really just to measure that one question of, has it changed from 2008 to 2011, 2014? There was no other data that was pulled or analyzed for that timeline. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So and we anticipated these questions. Like I said, we wanted to be able to use that data and they spent hours analyzing and looking at the data. And when they saw the accuracy wasn't to the level that they will stand behind as professionals, the decision was made to not use it as a baseline. >> A couple questions. On your second bullet point, 46% of Denton urban tree canopy, do you have in the study the actual percentage of how much of the city is undevelop ed land compared to developed land? In other words, that could be 60% of our current land mass within our city limits is undeveloped land. I just, do you have, and if you do it later on, that's fine , we can catch it in the order. >> Well, this is looking at the benefits. >> Okay. >> The answer is yes. >> Okay. >> And I don't believe I added it here in the brief slides, but it is in the report. So the focus, I believe, is that we want to look at what we 're receiving from the resource. And how to best manage that resource so we can maximize those benefits. And so when we look at undeveloped land, 42% of the total benefits that trees all across the city are providing fall within that land use class. So not only is that land use class providing the majority of canopy coverage, but it's also providing the majority of the benefits that those trees are providing. And we look at single family residential trees on single family residential properties provide 37% of those benefits and parks and open space 7%. And this is an important caveat because the city can only control its own property, right? To the greatest extent. We manage, we can manage the trees in our parks and along our streets. But telling private homeowners what to do with their trees is a whole other issue. So education, campaigns, and working with our citizens is going to be really important moving forward as well. Because over a third of the benefits that we receive from our trees are on private property. >> But- >> Councilmember Gray. >> But that chart doesn't show- >> Doesn't show the breakdown. >> The breakdown of land. >> Within the undeveloped, no, this is based on benefits only at this point. Yes, sir, thank you for clarifying, yeah. >> Well, I like to focus on the benefits because when it comes down to it, why are we even talking about the trees? Because we feel like they're a value to us. So I feel that that message is a strong one. So here's to your earlier question, sir. This is the percent of total population. You got the species running along the x axis, posox, pecan, sugar berry, aka hackberry, and so forth. These percentages, the bars, show the proportion of each of those species to the total amount of trees. And then the dots with their corresponding percentages show the amount of benefits each of those species provides. So we talked about how some species provide more benefits than others and so forth. So when we look at post oak, post oak only represents 9% of the total population, but provides 23% of the benefits. Pecan, amazingly, 1% of the total population, yet it provides 13% of all benefits. What does that tell us right away? Tells us that they're large. So we've got large pecans out there that are providing a tremendous resource and service to the city and to residents and to visitors alike. >> And, I'm sorry, Council Member Hawkins. >> On those pecan trees, are you able to tell how old they are, their age? I mean, how does that factor in? >> Yeah, there's certainly techniques and methodologies to age trees. Most require some type of destructive sampling. You have to core them to read them. Or if a tree happens to need removal for various reasons, then you have the open cross section to count the rings. There is another method that people have discussed where if you had to prune a large branch off, you could extrapolate from the age of the branch itself. But essentially, you have to core the tree. >> So, if I'm not understanding the data right, let me know . But are we in danger of not having pecan trees soon? I mean, if there's only 1% there. >> That's essentially what that means. I prefer to look at it in a different light. That tells us that we are positioned very well to know which species we might want to focus on increasing. >> Okay. >> It represents an opportunity. >> Yeah, you're right. It shows that there's a limited amount of pecans. >> Gotcha. >> Mm-hm. Yes, ma'am. >> I'm sorry. >> Is my three minutes up, by the way? >> So how is water use factored into this? Because we have- >> Water use? >> Yeah, we have 1% pecan, but pecans use a ton of water. Whereas host oaks will tap into the substrata and they are drought tolerant. Those two really different types of trees, how are we quant ifying the value of the benefit? >> So great question. While we do understand that there is a difference in water consumption from one species to the other, there are not peer reviewed science research to indicate exactly how that is laid out species by species. I will say that the storm water retention benefits that this report provides and that other similar reports provide is solely based on the interception of the water. So it happens in essentially three ways. Direct interception from the canopy, which again, the larger the canopy, like an umbrella, the more water it's intercepting. That water is being directly absorbed by the tissues on the foliage and the stem and trunks and branches of the trees. The other is that it slows down the velocity of the rain so that when it hits the surface, it doesn't instantly run off . It's more readily absorbed into the water. So that's how those estimates are determined. And certainly the percentage of impervious surfaces across the city plays a role into that as well. So but we didn't look at the difference of water use per se . We looked at the ability across species to retain the water . >> But I think your concern has to do with irrigating. >> Yeah, because we're trying to quantify the value of these trees, but it costs a different amount of money to actually keep a tree alive. And these various types of trees, like pecan trees, are expensive to keep alive. If you're irrigating, they can't really survive on their own. >> What are expensive? >> Pecan trees. >> Pecan. >> Yeah. >> We've got a lot of pecan trees in town that are not irrigated. >> I understand, but if we're talking about planting them somewhere where there's no trees at all, you're going to have to water pecan trees. >> Number one, it's a question of species selection. So if a tree's native, it's going to be much more adapted to the amount. Now I will throw in before I finish that sentence. Things are changing out there. What used to be normal perhaps is no longer normal. Less frequent rain, but harder rains. Who knows where we're headed? But in general, trees that are native are going to be less high maintenance, right? They're not going to require as much effort. But certainly any newly planted tree is going to require water and maintenance for the first couple years of its life. After that, a native tree really should not require supplemental watering except during the most drought str icken periods. >> My question was answered. It's really not that important. >> I just wanted to also add in that the distinction here is probably one of, and I definitely hear what you're saying. That we're looking strictly at the benefits. And then how we apply this information, we're also going to be, I can speak for Keep Denton Beautiful. We would take into account as we always have the cost to actually water or maintain a tree trying to select the species that are best suited to this environment. Because the benefits don't always equal the best suited trees for residential and urban environments. So we're going to try to take that whole picture into account as we recommend things to the community. >> Okay. >> It's a good question. You're referring to net value, and this is more of a gross value equation. So it's always smart to add in the maintenance costs of things. >> Absolutely. >> And that was just highlighting what we discussed. Here's a graph that shows pest susceptibility as well as the value related to the loss. If there were to be a dramatic loss in these top species that are susceptible to these top concerns such as Dutch Elm Disease, so all of our Elm trees. That we stand, if there was an outbreak and there is a major disease that influences Elm trees, it doesn't have the same impact here as it did in the East Coast. And that's mostly a cultural thing because we didn't line all of our streets with Elm trees. And so that's never a good idea because if a host specific pest does have an outbreak, you stand at a risk of losing a lot. So this graph really just is a worst case scenario graph to put it in perspective that if we were ignoring threats to our important trees, these are the potential losses. So if we lost all our trees, we got the $1.2 billion worth of loss. And I broke it down into three most important pest concerns in our area. One in particular I really want to look at is oak wilt. That's our Texas' most devastating tree disease. And it is something that we work and deal with on a daily basis each and every year. And so concerning the oak trees within the city of Denton, there stands to be a loss of $657 million worth of trees within the city. Unfortunately, the majority of oaks are post oaks here and they are probably the most resilient of the oak species to the disease. So that's one good thing. Emerald ash borer is a new emerging pest in Texas. It just was finally detected at the beginning of the year. It's devastated tens and tens of millions of trees in the upper Midwest. So it's finally here. Again, we don't have streets lined and lined with ash trees . But they are out there. The majority are in our native areas. But they do play a significant role in carbon sequestration and storage and water quality and so forth. So they are at risk and that value there represents what we might lose if we don't be proactively managing ash trees. The question or comment was made earlier about comparing results from Denton to other cities. As I said, I've done quite a few of these studies. There's a couple in here on this table that I put together that I did not do. The very first iTree related study was done back in 2005 and that was literally the pilot project for the US Forest Service. It was a regional eight county study. And not to have you read all of that, but you can see the different cities on there. Houston, Arlington, Mesquite, El Paso, Plano, Dallas, and Denton. I just highlight the number of species that was found in Denton. There was 46 unique species identified in our study. And you can see where that falls on the scale of other cities that have done this. It's the lowest. That's the data that we found. So that tells us that we can perhaps expand our pallet of trees that we use in the future. Another thing to look at. However, we have fewer diversity, less diversity, but we also have the largest canopy coverage of the cities that we studied. Look at the average of all benefits on a, these are per tree values. I apologize for not mentioning that from the beginning. So these are all the data broken down on the per tree level . It's really the only way you can compare from one study to the other. And you can see there's a higher per tree value here in the city of Denton based on the results that we had. And you can take somewhat with a grain of salt these data. Because the iTree suite of tools is really designed as, it is based on peer reviewed science, but it's really an advocacy tool. Because up until this point, there is no other way to monet ize the value of the environmental benefits that trees provide. This gets us to the table to talk about the values to say, there's real values out there. Whether we believe that every tree in the city of Denton provides $3.9 worth of values or it's 2.8, that's a little bit irrelevant. The point is that there's value out there that we're not maximizing and managing appropriately. And our goal really should be to maximize that. Structural value, approximately $600 per tree. And there was 3.5 million of them. So where does that leave us? What do we want to do and where are we going? Well, we feel that the most important thing, first important thing we should do is to preserve and promote the canopy. We will not plant our way out of the environmental issues we have. We really want to focus on managing the existing trees that we have first and foremost. To maximize the value, because again, the value of the benefits that trees are providing are maximized by size, so the larger and healthier trees are, the more benefits they're providing. So we want to focus on that, but we want to do that in a strategic way. And when we looked at the data, we realized where the majority of those trees are, and they're on undeveloped and single family residential lots. So focusing on the undeveloped properties in terms of strengthening our tree preservation codes and developmental codes. But also education and public private partnerships with the residents to help increase the knowledge about tree care and the value that it provides to all of us. Because quite frankly, trees don't have boundaries. They don't pay attention to political boundaries or property lines. They're providing benefits all across the street, up and down your neighborhood. So the quality of trees that your neighbor has does influence you and your property value. We would really encourage the city to perform further urban tree canopy analyses. Given the data that we provided the city, they can take all that data and do their GIS magic to look more in depth within this unde veloped land use. To make better management decisions in terms of how we develop and the codes that we're using. And that, of course, was out of the scope of this project, but the data we collected clearly shows that that's a target area that should be further explored. We'd like to utilize that assessment to see the city drive policy and management decisions that's based on the data specific to the city of Denton. And that, of course, was the purpose of this project. But particularly during development and as well as I said, professional care of existing trees. I'd like to see an enhancement in the current tree planting initiatives that occur so that we can be a little bit more strategic about where the resources go, how they're planted, where they're planted, and which trees we're planting. And we can parse that out through the data by looking at the values of benefits as we discussed. And that's not to say we should plant all post oaks and pec ans. But we can see that those trees, particularly here in Dent on, are providing the great source of value. Utilizing trees and other green infrastructure to offset the urban heat island effect and reduce the impact of storm water. So making our cities more livable, an attractive place for residents and visitors by utilizing trees that are, trees are our constant civil servants. 24 hours a day working for us, whether we recognize it or not. But the fact that the city of Denton has the vision to look at that resource in such a comprehensive way is encouraging . And I think if we take anything from this, we can say that when we have concerns in our community about environmental issues, trees should play an important role in the solutions that we develop. And we can be very strategic about it now that we have more data to help strengthen our choices. >> We are, we're growing Denton together. This is a team effort. None of us in this room have all the answers. Residents look to us to provide the direction and I'm encouraged by the city of Denton's choice to move in this direction. And we certainly, this concludes our project and our portion of it. But we're certainly not going to disappear. If there's things that we can continue to assist with, I look forward to doing that. And I know my partners at the Texas Trees Foundations do as well. Please, other questions. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Please. >> Yes ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We hired this tree study because we wanted a true baseline and that's what you've given us. So we appreciate that. We didn't really know where we were, where we stood. It was also helpful to see how we stack up against other cities. So then the question becomes, what do we do with this information? And I look at the planning department and say, it has to be a planning tool for us. And it has to be a tool that we actually use and that we don't put it on the shelf. I see it working in two different ways. One, the small area plans that you're talking about bringing forward. That we can incorporate in that discussion with the small area plan to look at that canopy cover that we currently have. And how does that factor into what do we want to see happen in that small area? One thing that really jumped out at me was that statistic that 46% of our tree canopy is on undeveloped land. So this gives us a real heads up that as we move forward with some of these big, residential mixed use plan developments that we see coming down the pipeline. It has to be part of the discussion and the planning tool that we can't just go in and clear cut everything, give them a free pass to cut everything down as long as they write us a check that goes into our tree fund. That just can't happen. There has to be common ground where some of these trees are saved and whether it's open space. But we needed this study. I know there were people who questioned the cost. But it was important because we really didn't know. You can't get in your car and drive around and say, well, we have some trees. But what does that mean? So we do have a baseline now, and this was important. And I see it as a just real basic planning necessity for a planning department. So it couldn't happen and come at a better time because we 're right in the edge of some pretty big development that's going to hit this city. So thank you. And I see Manal up here. So. >> I would just like to add some comments and I think I am on topic. So one of the things that have stemmed from this study is exactly what we were looking for. And just to apprise, and I'm sure you're all aware, that on parallel track, we have been also addressing the tree code and a potential amendment to it, but we needed the numbers as well. And what we've done is we've done some of our outreach programs as a result on that tree code update. Which then sheds some light on what you've mentioned and then it sheds some light from what the development community feels that they think is necessary. So we will be coming forward after we extrapolate this data with a tree code update. And of course, we've got our development code updates that we'll be coming forward to recognizing fully what data is available. >> Councilmember Gregory and then Councilmember Hawkins. >> In light of what Councilmember Wozni just said, I'm thinking about a development that just recently happened close to Lee Elementary School. And an awful lot of post-okes were bulldozed down in order to, you know that area well. >> Just a little bit. >> Yeah, because I think you're buying one of those houses. >> Have bought, yes. >> And so one of the questions that this study has for me and for us and for the code rewrite is, are we properly valuing our trees for payments to the tree fund? >> Absolutely correct. One of the things that have come out of this study, which we've known in the past, if you recall when we started talking about our tree code and our tree funds, we started talking about valuation of trees and how do we attach a value to a tree. And there is a methodology, there is a formula to do that which has been extrapolated and presented today. We have looked at what other communities have done and we 're now in a position to discern what that value is in our community. And through that we can then discern what is the best way to ensure that one, we preserve our tree canopy. Two, we have a lot of undeveloped area and how do we protect and enhance what we have? And if there are mitigation measures that are in place, what should those be and what is the dollar amount attached to it? And that will be coming forward to you as well. >> And then a follow up question along a different line. You were talking about the fact that it was going to be hard to just plant our way out of this. As a 64 year old who lives in a neighborhood that used to be an open field for agriculture. I know because I used to ride horses where my neighborhood now is and now my house is 90% canopy, my tree lot. But I'm wondering about in residential situations, since a lot of our tree canopy is associated with current residential neighborhoods. Does the city provide any direct service like if the stress of the drought that we had a couple of years ago has impacted trees and they're starting to die out. Does the city provide a service of being able to go in? Can our forester go in and give an individual homeowner advice or is that something where we need to pay an arbor ist to come in and do that? Like tree preservation, tree services. >> Denton's very fortunate because we do have our open fore ster from our planning department, Heywood Morgan, who receives several phone calls associated with questions such as that and that is a service, a value add that we do provide. We're also evaluating how does existing canopy cover relate to what we have in undeveloped areas and what that ratio is . And if you look at the numbers we saw today, that sheds a significant amount of light on what we really need to be focusing on. The other opportunity we do have, if I'm not mistaken, is we have through the tree fund credit program ability to provide replanting in certain areas if you qualify, so to speak. So we do have some programs that are available. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Hawkins. >> And real briefly, just to clarify, of course, saying we can't plant our way out of it is not to say it's not important to plant trees. Of course it is, the old adage, when's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago? When's the second best time right now? It's a very important tool in the toolbox. We just don't, we want to use it, we want to supplement that with other important management. Yeah, just wanted to clarify. >> Councilmember Hawkins. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> I just wanted to add too that a little bit of interpretation is warranted when it comes to the top species. One of the things that I noticed was the high number of hack berries, and as Micah mentioned, the very short lifespan that those have is a concern. So while we do have a good tree canopy, a very healthy substantial tree canopy, what we need to be looking forward to is replacing this current generation of trees. And that is something that our residents and businesses can help tremendously with through the programs that we're offering through the Denton Tree Initiative that's funded, as you mentioned, through the tree fund. Now ideally we would be able to have residents participate in those programs and replace some of the trees that are starting to die off so that we don't have a big gap in tree canopy loss when all those hack berries die. >> I've seen some big hack berries, they can hang around for a long time, trust me. Yeah. Go ahead, Councilmember Hawkins. >> No, I was, Lauren just touched on it. I was going to ask you what was your takeaway, especially on that recommendation four. We're doing a tree giveaway, I don't even, I don't know what kind of trees were given away at that time. And what have we been giving away the last couple years? >> So even before the Denton Tree Initiative was approved, which is just a three year program, series of programs, six programs are part of that initiative. Keep Denton Beautiful, as you all know, has been giving away trees for more than 20 years, 25 years, somewhere around there. Celebrating our 30th anniversary next year and the large majority of that history has been spent on tree programs out in the community. It's what KDB's become known for. And we've always made a point to consult with subject matter experts because realizing that we are community program experts but not necessarily the experts on trees. We pull in people that we work with from the Texas Forest Service, from groups like Preservation Tree or Texas Trees Foundation, which also does lots of community programs. Of course, our urban forester here on the city staff is a great resource for us. And so we try to consult heavily when we're selecting those species and we have always done that and we'll continue to do that. I do think the big takeaway for Keep Denton Beautiful when we're looking at this data is that we really need to be working hand in hand with our community to grow that next generation of trees. So not taking this 30% as a cue to just sleep and say, okay , we're done, our work is done here. We have a great healthy tree canopy. We need to keep doing that work and keep growing the next generation to build a quality canopy for the future. And of course, as Micah mentioned, the preservation component is part of that. And I think that's what he was getting at when he said you can't plant your way out of it. It's a hand in hand approach. It's preservation and it's planting and the two have to go together. >> Micah, I just wanted to add this was much more thorough of a report than I thought it was going to be. I really did, I thought you were going to say you had this number of trees and it was much, but quantifying it. >> I surprised myself. >> You did that all yourself? Good job, man. >> I surprised myself. >> No, I was surprised. But great job. >> Well, we look forward to having it in your hand to look at it a little bit more thoroughly. And certainly my contact information is in there. I'm not going to disappear. Welcome to questions and follow-up. >> Yeah, we've got a couple more questions. >> Please. >> Council Member Geary. >> Well, first, I echo everybody else's sentiment, which is thank you. I actually heard your presentation at the citizen forester class. I think it was probably two years ago and it was excellent then as well. So, appreciate it on both counts. Since we are here to talk about recommendations, I wanted to talk about the tree mitigation fund, which currently has about 800. Somebody correct my numbers if I'm wrong. It's about $860,000 in there. Last year we only utilized $12,000 of those funds for tree giveaways. And to me that type of drawdown on the tree mitigation fund is truly a waste. I think we have to be using the funds that we are collecting from developers to serve the purpose that we've created the fund for. And frankly, I just don't think that the tree planting program, and caveat, I've planted about 30 trees myself. I do this at least a couple times a month. I'll go plant trees because I have an acre. So I'm not saying that we shouldn't be planting trees, but it's just not going to happen with $12,000 worth of tree giveaway every year and a $800,000 fund. So what I would suggest is that we utilize or look at utilizing those funds to purchase larger groves of trees if we can, if that's within the purview of the fund. And so we're actually preserving stands. And part of the problem with preserving one off trees in these developments is, as Micah, you very well know, those root structures get damaged in construction. And it's hard to say if you're preserving one off or two off trees in otherwise clear cut area if that tree is going to make it. So I would like to have a discussion about actually using the very large amount of money that we have in the tree mitigation fund to mitigate the effects of tree loss. >> Councilmember Briggs and Mayor Pro Tem. >> I am very supportive of that, buying land and preserving stands of trees. And I wanted to thank you, and I also want to thank you, Lauren, for helping bring this forward. I think it is a great tool for us to use as we go forward. >> Just a bit of correction on the amount in the tree fund. Actually, the tree fund is quite larger than what you mentioned. It's just over 2 million in there. >> And it's expensive trees. >> Also, the tree planting effort that started last year with the direction of council. We have had for the past two years appropriations of over probably 500,000 or so to go towards planting trees. So I think that 12,000 may have just been KDB's tree planting effort or yours more than that. I'm not sure where that 12,000 came from. >> It was from a staff report that was talking about the drawdown of the tree mitigation funds through the rebate program that you have with the DME utilities. So you can purchase up to five, five gallon trees, $50 reb ate per tree. >> And that's one of six programs that are offered through Keep Denton Beautiful's private property planting campaign with the city, the Denton Tree Initiative. And the 12,000 number is the goal number of trees over three years that we're hoping to plant. But then the total amount is 840,000 over three years for the private property programs. There's a separate allocation that I think is what Heywood 's referencing that is going to parks. And parks has been very busy planting trees in the public properties around town in the parks, as many people have noticed. >> Can I ask about the drawdown on the private part then? So if there's an allocation, is it actually being fully drawn down every year? That's my question. Because that's not what I got from the staff report. >> And I could be remembering it wrong. >> So the full amount that's available for rebates, which I think is the question that you're asking about specifically , has not been utilized. We need many more people to take advantage of that program, absolutely. Because last year we had up to $100,000 in $50 rebates available. This year it's $150,000 in rebates. There's plenty of rebate money available. We've had questions from people saying, I don't know if I should apply because I'm not sure if any money will be left . There's money left and people need to take advantage of it. >> How much was used last year then? That's really my question. >> I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but I can get that. >> We'll get a T. >> Okay. >> We'll get a T. >> Councilman, Mayor Pro Tem. >> Yeah, it's a good discussion. I mean, we sat here maybe a year ago, year and a half ago, I can't remember, looking at the size, which was about 2 million then, of the fund. And specifically gave a lot of direction to spend a lot of it. And so if you look at North Lakes Park, huge amount of trees along that trail that were planted by parks. South Lake Park, same thing. Huge amount of trees that Emerson was just chomping at the bit to say, let me plant. Quaker Town Park, a significant amount of trees planted there. So hundreds of thousands of dollars out of that. So we need to continue to get more aggressive. And so it sounds like in terms of action, we're going to get, from the preservation side, we're going to hear recommendations on the tree preservation code. So that's going to tackle that. Do we have any planned forthcoming presentations to look deeper into the planting side, other than what we've talked about in the past and a lot of the programs that you guys are doing? Just so that we can kind of keep this ball rolling forward. >> In terms of planting, we're entering, right now we're in the second year of the Denton Tree Initiative Campaign. And so we are plugging away and getting momentum behind those programs. There were six new programs that were introduced as part of that. We would anticipate that Keep Denton Beautiful would come back next year and go over kind of a recap of where we are and what we think we should do in terms of next steps. I think the big piece right now, as Manal mentioned, is going to be the code aspect of this, the preservation side. And then as Council Member Baguieri touched on, looking at some purchases of wooded property that has those high quality trees that we 're looking for. And I believe council did pass some criteria for those purchases. >> I'm still in. >> Well, the other thing I would float, because as we talk about the public planting of trees, at this point it's kind of been relegated to parks doing that. Just work's been taking me to Houston a lot. And I've just noticed as I'm driving around the museum district, parts of downtown significant, even all the roads leading to the airport, which isn't a very attractive part of their town, Houston Hobby Airport. Significant street trees, median, both sides, these live oaks that are just kind of coming and canopying over. I mean, it made me inquire enough, they have a specific program, a street tree planting program. That's in conjunction with their public works department as they're building out streets and sidewalks. They have goals to tackle that. Even when development comes in, they participate in that because they want to make sure, just like connecting sidewalks, we're connecting down these streets. So I would like us to look into that, because what that does is even if you're not seeing kind of the larger layer of land, number one, it beautifies bad looking areas in their town. But number two, it gives the impression on major corridors that this city's serious about its trees, just because that's where you tend to be driving in that right away. So I don't think we have any specific program as it relates to being aggressive about street trees, but that would be a good use of these funds as well, and I 'd like to see us look into that. >> The one thing I would add to that real briefly is that using some of those funds towards maintenance is going to be really important moving forward. And if you are going to get aggressive about street tree planting initiatives, from my experience, a lot of the cities around the Metroplex and certainly around the state do not manage the right away trees, even in cases where that property is truly public property. And so you're asking essentially your neighbor, hey, care for my tree, take care of my tree, spend your money on my tree, the entire city received the benefits from those trees. And there is a liability with large trees that the city should be focused on. So if we're going to increase the number of street trees planted throughout our community, we must be budgeting maintenance, pruning maintenance to those trees for long term care and reduction of liability. >> Just a follow up, if I may. >> Sure. >> Two quick things. One is I haven't heard and I know other cities have take their goal and specifically set a percentage goal. And I don't know, something for the future to talk about whether we should do that. The other thing is that this would be a great tie into our open data project, as you guys have already put this in GIS to add that to our list of things, if we can connect those dots. >> We're on it. >> And also think about whether or not this wouldn't be a great goal to add to our strategic goals as we're looking at specific metrics. >> To track year to year. >> That's really good. And another thing in terms of you guys will decide how to utilize legally, how you're bound to be able to utilize those funds. But developing a strategic management plan moving forward would be the next step. And that management plan would lay out a lot of those metrics in that detail. Specifically, canopy coverage goals by land use. We all know we're not going to be able to have 40, 50% canopy covered downtown. It's unrealistic to ask ourselves to do that. The 30% canopy coverage value that I provided is an average . So the amount of canopy coverage was much higher in certain areas, 70, 80%, but much lower in others. And that canopy coverage relation by land use is just inherent by the fact that there's not as many places to grow trees. They're growing in tight, constricted areas, which limits the overall size of the canopy. So having land use specific canopy goals established is something that I would highly recommend. >> Councilmember Gregory. >> Well, I'm grateful that we've spent this much time on this discussion and that we don't have a whole lot of other workshop issues sitting up here that are pushing us. >> That's his way of telling me to be patient. I get it, brother. >> I think that from this, it would be good for us to get an updated report on the tree mitigation fund, where the money has gone, and what we've already committed to for the future. I think it would also be good for the staff to give us maybe a recommendation for what to do with the rest of that fund. Clearly, there's an interest and there has been an interest on the part of council to use part of it to acquire property and preserve stands of trees, but if we need to set aside a certain amount of that for maintenance of trees, street trees, whatever, we need to know that. We need to know a little bit more about from planning about regulations. As I was taking my mipple stroll down my street, one of the other things I'm realizing, my neighborhood's 50 years old. And when those houses were built, the developer, in order to meet the requirements, planted fruitless mul berries and Texas ash trees. Their lifespan is about 40 years. And as a result, a lot of the trees along Emerson in my neighborhood look terrible, those fruitless mulberries. So I want to make sure that our current regulations do not encourage the planting of the most desirable trees that don't really add to the long term value of our tree canopy and our tree. And then hopefully we'll hear fairly soon about a timeline for finally addressing our tree code. >> Go ahead. >> I just want to reiterate to how lucky we are to have an expert right on our staff in urban forestry and all things trees. And I know that Haywood would love the opportunity, and I would love it, and I know our planning department would as well, to talk more about purchase of preservation properties and also the development of a management plan. Which I think would address a lot of the issues that have been brought up that would encompass pretty much everything that I've heard you all ask about. In terms of street tree planting programs, requests or recommendations for purchases, that kind of thing. That would all, and he's got great experience with other programs in other parts of the nation. >> Thank you very much for the presentation. >> Thank you so much. >> I think it's very in depth. It's something that we've needed. Quite frankly, I'm pleasantly surprised. Coming from a half of our city has been prairie land, and the other half has been the, what are the cross timbers forest? >> Cross timbers forest. >> I think we've done pretty well to sort of be flying by the seat of our pants in that regard. Whereas here, we do have some good data, which is always key, is good data to be able to move forward. And I will tell you, I will recommend anybody who has an issue or question with trees because I know I've spoken with Hayward several times on one of my construction projects. To make sure that when guys are putting construction material lay downs and things such as that, that we're doing it in a way that minimizes its opportunity to damage that. And there are some avenues through alternative development plans where if you're trying to preserve some trees, that there is some relief given to sometimes different portions of the code. And I think we need to be cognizant of that because when we start coming and saying, hey, we're going to have a very robust potentially tree preservation plan, you're going to start impacting private property rights. And we need to make sure that we have some other avenues to mitigate that that would be helpful. So I think we've got a lot of good data for some really good comprehensive discussion that will continue to move us forward. We were the highest average tree canopy on those cities that were listed. And some of them were some pretty popular cities in this area. So that was very good to see. So thank you very much for that. Thank you so much for the presentation. Yes. Thank you. Because we've got all the pieces in place. That's the thing that I'm taking away is we've got such a great team here. We have this tree fund that has specific uses and needs to be spent. And we have the team in place that can help propel that forward with this information. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. OK, moving on through our agenda, we will now convene in closed session at 2.27. We will consider the following items-- consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.0-- [AUDIO OUT] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [AUDIO OUT] One, I wanted to welcome you to this meeting of the Dent City Council, December the 6th, 2016. It is 630. If you would, please stand with us if you're able to pledge allegiance to the US and the Texas flag. [AUDIO OUT] [INAUDIBLE] United States of America, a true republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. On behalf of Texas Tech, I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible. [END PLAYBACK] OK, we've got a couple of proclamations. We've had someone who's got delayed by traffic. Can you believe it? So we're going to take these a little bit out of order. I would like to start with agenda item 2B, which is Police Appreciation Day. If I could have Chief Howe and any of the officers that would like to accompany him, and then Denton Police Academy, Citizens Academy, if you all would come forward. And we'll read this proclamation and get some words from you. [INAUDIBLE] Do what? Whoever wants to-- yes, anybody that-- it's Police Appreci ation Day, so the Citizens Police Academy and officers just come on down. And we're going to give everybody a chance to introduce themselves as well. Well, maybe not everybody. OK, yeah, that's good. I'm going to stand back behind here because I want you all to be able to see everybody, because these are some very important people to our community and do great things for our community. Chief Howe, I believe if you could introduce yourself, any officers you want to recognize. And then who's going to be-- who's the spokesman for the Citizens Police Academy? OK, and then I want you to say a few words as well. Thank you, Mayor. As you can see, we have a very dedicated and enthusiastic group of volunteers from our Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association. They come out all the time, help us out every day with special events, with everyday duties. And they honor us every year around Christmas time with a Police Appreciation Day. So I'm very appreciative of them. And I won't take time to introduce everybody here. I will, though, recognize one member of the Police Department, and that's Orlando Hinojosa, who is retiring at the end of this year to go to work for the Sheriff's Office. You can go ahead and boo if you want. I can't blame him too much because I did the same thing at one time. But we'll have him down the street still to work with, but he is going to leave us-- he's done a great job for us for many years. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. [APPLAUSE] You guys have a chance to say a few words about your Alumni Association. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Citizens Police Association Alumni-- Citizens Police Academy Association, they go through the Police Academy, and then they become volunteers. We have the association, which most of these people here tonight are in. And what we do is have events all year long that either help the Police Department show respect to our Police Department or honor our Police Department. I think we have one of the best police departments ever. We have great administrators from mayor on down. So I am very tickled to be here, and most everybody else is tickled to be here also. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Well, I have a family member, a niece of mine, who went through the Denton Citizens Police Academy, Courtney. And she graduated, and then she went on and was a police officer at Houston for a year. Now she's back in Plano, so has a rich history here. So appreciate everything that you guys do for our police officers and how you support them and care for them. Thank you very much. So it's with my honor that I read this proclamation. Whereas the city of Denton's Police Department has 171 dedicated police officer, administrators, and staff who daily serve our citizens. And whereas the upcoming holiday season will call for added efforts on the part of our Police Department that result in greater safety of our city. And whereas the Citizens Police Academy Alumni has chosen the date of December the 8th, 2016, to honor the Police Department with a day- long reception of appreciation. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim December the 8th, 2016, as Police Appreciation Day here in the city of Denton. And urge all my fellow citizens to show their support and appreciation to all the men and women in this community who have dedicated their lives to the field of law enforcement. So thank you very much, Chief. [APPLAUSE] And at this time, we have a presentation by the Denton Citizens Police Academy to Officer Shane Kaiser. Good evening. I'm the president of the Fall 2016 Citizens Police Academy. And on behalf of all the graduates that just went through graduation yesterday, we'd like to present this memorial plate made by a local craftsman to Shane Kaiser, who coordinated all of the weeks, the whole 12 weeks, and made sure that we got all the information and that we can now honor them in appreciation and give this to him on behalf of our class, Officer Kaiser . Thank you very much. I appreciate it. [APPLAUSE] Let me see that. That's gorgeous. You can't have it, though, Mayor. Well, I don't think you can accept gifts. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Thank you, Officer. Appreciate it, Shane. OK, is Lauren-- OK. Lauren, you're up. We have a proclamation for the gold-level certified scenic city. This is from Ann Culver, who is, I believe, still stuck in traffic in Corinth. Can't believe it. So we'll go ahead and read this proclamation and have Lauren, who is executive director of Keep Denton Beautiful, say a few words. Whereas the city of Denton has increased its ranking two levels, from bronze to gold through the Scenic City Certification Program. And whereas the Scenic City Certification Program-- that is tough to say real fast-- is a project of the nonprofit Scenic Texas and its many program partners, created to incorporate a comprehensive set of design and development standards for public roadways and public spaces. And whereas Denton is one of only 24 cities in the state of Texas to be named a gold-level certified scenic city. And whereas the city of Denton has demonstrated that it is a leading Texas municipality in its innovative efforts towards improved aesthetics and quality of life through the Denton Main Street Program, extensive parks and trail system, strong standard of city planning, design, comprehensive waste management efforts, and city-wide sustainability initiatives. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim the city of Denton as a gold-level certified scenic city and urge all citizens to support efforts to improve the aesthetics and quality of life in our community. Thank you so much, Mayor. [APPLAUSE] OK. Thank you. So Ann Culver with Scenic Texas had intended to join us here tonight and regrettably got stuck in traffic. And she might pop her head in here in a minute. But I'm really excited to be up here on behalf of a really great team of community supporters and city employees who helped put this application together. On the surface, it seems really simple. But what it involved was looking at a lot of code with the city, all the ordinances that govern how our city looks, and the quality of life, and the aesthetics here in Denton. And what Scenic Texas determined based on the ranking system they've developed is that Denton is a very scenic city. And we have a lot to be proud of here. So we do have a new road sign that will be going up here in town. And so I wanted to present the mayor and council with this this evening. So we are a gold level scenic city here in Denton. And I'm very proud to be here to represent. Thank you. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Oh, oh, sorry. [APPLAUSE] Well, Lauren, and I really do appreciate the work that you do with Keep Denton Beautiful. And you've made a tremendous impact on this award, and I think also just on our involvement with TREES and the TREE programs that we have. So thank you so much for your hard work. Thank you. You bet. [APPLAUSE] If you could go ahead and run the citizens report presentation, please. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct, which applies to citizens as well as council members. These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum. Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizens' reports. Citizens will have four minutes to give a report. There will be an electronic beep when time has expired. If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen will be asked to stop speaking. If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chambers. Citizens are asked to not approach the dais. If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council, please let the city secretary know, and she will have a staff member distribute the materials to the council. The attorney general has ruled that council members may listen to citizens speak and may ask questions of citizens for clarification of the issue. Council members will not engage citizens in discussion of a topic, because to do so could potentially be a violation of the Open Meetings Act. When speaking to the council, citizens are to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks. Anyone who violates this rule will immediately be removed from the council chambers. Citizens' adherence to these rules will help make an effective presentation and will preserve the order and decorum of our proceedings. Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary. I wanted to recognize a group we have here observing the city council meeting, leadership Denton. Thank you all for being here. And if you could just sort of raise your hand, see who you are, the leadership class of 2017 or '16, I guess. Yeah. [APPLAUSE] I told them they picked a real tame one to come see. But thank you all for being here. And thank you for your time that you're investing in the leadership of our city. Our first speaker will be Deb Armator. If you'll come down, state your name and address, your time will begin. Hi, actually, Mayor, if it's OK with you, Susan and I would like to switch order. Is that all right for her to go? She's scheduled-- Sure, I was just given an order to switch from the original one. So who do you want to go first? Yeah, if Susan could go first. OK. OK. Yes. Thank you. I apologize. I do not know how to use this and make it larger. Is there somebody that can help with the-- OK. I'm sorry. Thank you. And just left and right are relative names. Oh, excellent. That's fine. All right. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Susan Vaughn. I live at 1330 Phoenix Court, Denton, Texas. Nearly a year ago, on January 24, 2016, I fell on the Denton County Courthouse sidewalk on the Oak Street side of the square at approximately 4 o'clock PM on a clear Sunday afternoon. My toe became lodged in a deep crack of unmaintained and severely broken concrete sidewalk that was installed nearly 65 years ago as part of a WPA project. One four-hour surgical procedure later and two subsequent wireings of front teeth after that event, I come before you to make a request that the city or county or both determine who owns the sidewalks around the Denton County Courthouse and hold them accountable for budgeting, constructing, and continuously maintaining these sidewalks from this point forward. I pledge to continue visiting you until action is taken to repair and continuously maintain these critical well-traveled areas so vital to our city and county functions and tourism. Yvette Spicer broke her arm four months later after my fall on the sidewalk of the square. It distresses us that both the city and county have known of the treacherous condition of the sidewalk since my fall in January, and neither has done anything to remedy this. This same courthouse sidewalk experienced further disrepair last summer, possibly attributable to a gigantic heating and cooling system installed by the county. We believe that the current condition of the sidewalks renders them unsafe as public walkways and justifies them closed immediately by the city and county. As a point of history, prior to 1897, boards were used around the courthouse. And I found reference to the county commissioner's minutes of May 1897 when the county built the courthouse square sidewalks. By 1932, Denton County secured WPA funds and built the sidewalks. The WPA emblem still stands in the sidewalks. The sidewalks around the Denton County square were scheduled for replacement through joint agreement by the city and county in June 1958. That document includes signatures of the county judge, county commissioners, county clerk, city commission chair, mayor, city secretary, and city attorney. Denton County in 1958 agreed to remove and replace existing curb, gutter, and sidewalks around the square, moving them 26 feet closer to the courthouse, and agreed to reposition the Confederate monument when the sidewalk was completed. That agreement clearly states which entity should bear expense for repair and maintenance of the new curb, gutter, and sidewalk. No document signed by all of these same people has been located that alters the changes these agreements. However, we believe that the city may have replaced the corner and made them ADA compliant. I request that the city council work in partnership with Denton County Commissioner's Court to determine who has legal authority and fiscal responsibility for installing new ADA-compliant sidewalks around Denton County Courthouse by no later than November 1 , 2018. In so doing, other Denton citizens or visitors will not incur the physical damage and significant personal expense that Yvette and I have experienced due to the falls on sidewalks that are ridden with neglect by city and/or county partners of the courthouse and businesses around the square . Thank you. Questionably, Councilmember Gregory. Have you been given an update by the county staff or the city staff on what's been done? I have made this exact presentation to the county, and I have had countless conversations with the county and the attorney and council members, and nothing is proceeding that I know of. OK, could we hear just a short update from our interim city manager on the efforts being made? Yes, sir. Currently, we're working with the county to try to get an interlocal agreement with the county. I think the city of Denton stands prepared to move forward with the construction necessary to improve the sidewalks once we get the interlocal agreement with the county. An interlocal agreement would be something similar to what we saw as an exhibit up here of a previous interlocal agreement on the sidewalk area around the square. It would be similar. Sure. OK, so we've been in touch with them. We're ready to proceed with budget money to do that. We just need to get the finalization. Yes, we believe we can move forward with the construction once we get the interlocal agreement. Thanks very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Deb Armitter, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Hi, I'm Deb Armitter, 2003 Mistywood Lane. And actually, my point is now moot. I'm thrilled to hear that the city and county will be working together to solve this problem. I had scheduled these comments to implore you to work together with the city. And don't worry, I'm not going to spend this whole four minutes thanking you, but I'm just so pleased that this is finally happening. We will now have ADA-compliant sidewalks, as well as an ADA-compliant entrance to get onto the sidewalk. Anyway, I'm thrilled. So thank you very much. You can take the four minutes to thank us. That's all right. I could. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Craig Clifton. Please state your name and address, and your time will begin. Good evening. My name's Craig Clifton, 407 Normal Street. I'd like to address the SRO single resident occupancy apartments. They're going to be built there where Vortmans used to be. These, of course, are dorms, not apartments, because you have a one-bedroom apartment with four bedrooms going for $700 each around just one kitchen and living room. So for it to be an apartment, it has to be open to professional people and family usage. They're not going to want to be around strangers or have those strangers' friends around their kids, and they're not going to pay $2,800 for a one-bedroom apartment. So talking about these as dorms, where these are being built now, which I think is great, is out along the highways, where they don't destroy residential communities. These are huge buildings, five stories with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. 600 people live in each one of these that they're trying to bring down to the Vortman area. That area is low density. It's just two-bedroom apartments-- not two-bedroom, two-story apartments, red houses and residencies. Immediately when this is put in there, it's going to triple the population of that area. That means 600 new cars driving to go in there. And we know college kids, that's when you have your most girlfriends and boyfriends and friends. Let's just narrow that down to just one girlfriend and one friend coming by. That's 1,200 other people coming by. That's 1,800 new cars driving all around this little residential area. And 1,200 of those cars, they don't have a parking place for them. When those come in, they're going to tear up all the streets and put in new sewer lines and new water lines for this huge dorm. And that's going to keep year after year, two years, of the streets torn up, all those little apartments and little red houses, anybody with any kind of breathing problems. Old people are going to get breathing problems off this. People who don't want to live in that, if they're going to move out, nobody's going to move in. All those businesses are going to be kaput. And then the people that do survive that, their taxes are going to go through the roof to where, if you only have an SRO, you're going to be able to survive . These things can thrive out in the neighborhoods that are not residential. You put these into a residential neighborhood, it's like a fire ant mound. It's going to kill off everything except other SROs. Why are these dorms being built? Well, the only thing that I can think of is because the college wants it. Well, that couldn't be farther from the truth. At the preliminary developers meeting that's held before we come before you, there are people from the college there that wanted to hear what they were going to be building. They said, oh my god, no. We ourselves are developing our own dorms, SROs, out by the highway where they're not going to destroy everything. They want low density all around the college because they want the kids to be able to walk somewhere and enjoy something without everything being taken away from them by these giant dorms that they don't want. They have nothing to do with. Fry Street was great. They were appalled that half of that was taken away with that huge four story human warehouse that was in there. They were going, that was one of their selling points. We've got Fry Street. We've got the Fry Street Fair. We have a forum for musicians here at this music college to put on a show. Fry Street Fair is gone. But it was such a cultural event that they moved it to Dallas for a few years. They're just not wanting the rest of what's left of the Fry Street area and places where they can play music and clubs taken away also. They don't want the college kids to just be hemmed in and have to stay in their dorm rooms because any time they try to get off campus, they're going to get run over. Where if you go down to Fry Street now, you know if you step off the curve, you'll just get run over. Too many cars. And imagine that. Thank you for your time. I think this is the most important decision that's ever been made by the city council because this is going to be dinting for the dint nights or rich people outside that are building these things. Thank you. Appreciate that. Our next portion of the presentation for members of the public is agenda item 3C, which is what we commonly refer to as open mic. We have two cards wishing to speak. And as a reminder to my colleagues on council, this is a time when we're unable to ask questions. And also this is a time where the subject matter from those speaking would not be on the currently listed agenda. So the first speaker we have is Yvette Spicer. Spicer, I'm sorry, did I say that correct? OK, I'm sorry. Thank you. If you'll state your name and address, your time will begin . Yvette Spicer, 3304 North Bell Avenue. And I'm just excited now to hear that there's something going to happen about the sidewalks of the square. So thank you very much for doing that and getting something in place for that. So appreciate that very much. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Mr. Willie Hudspeth. Come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Mayor and council members, my name is Willie Hudspeth. I live at 623 Newton. I decided to dress up and make myself look like I'm somebody and I have money. I have neither, but I thought I'd dress up anyway. I want to talk to you about what you call the work session. And I remember this started with the last council. What it is to me is a time when you can come together, you being the council, citizens-- doesn't have much of a chance to interact with you at all about what you're talking about. It turns out if you look at the agenda tonight and you look at what the work session had on its agenda, more is taking place at the work sessions, as you call them , than in a time such as this, where citizens are here. What's confusing to me-- and it's a nice way of saying what I see that you're doing and it's not right-- is you run on the platform and you appeal to citizens to vote for you to get in the office. But when you get in the office, you do everything you can to keep from hearing from the-- or allowing the citizens to interact with you. Those work sessions, first place, there's not enough room in that room where you have the work session. I've had to sit on that floor at least one time. And one time I just went out of chair and just brought it in there. I'm the only person that is a non-- I don't have a dog in the hunt. But everybody else has some issue that they're there for and they're trying to get something for them monetarily. And that's why they're there, it looks like. I call it the suit gallery, because everybody there has got on suits. Then the other side is the administration group, where you interact with each other about issues that you bring to this forum right now, and we get to say something and hear what you are saying. Second issue is the closed session. Now, what that means, according to you and with the law you're hiding behind, and we're working long hours to figure out how to call you on that procedure, on what you call the closed session. One of the things you do is, my time on the school board, the two terms I served, I had to abide by these rules, a closed session. I keep wondering to myself, why do you have so many people in there when you're dealing with one issue and you put it under the guise of legal advice or personnel issues, but you have almost all of the assistant city managers in there. You have people in there who worked for this today, there was an electric department, there was something going on with them. They were all in there, at least 12 people, in addition to the city council. It's a closed session. What that means is we get to talk and do things that-- and these are my words-- that the public should hear, but we are eliminating them from hearing. And we're doing something that's illegal. And if I could get one of you to tell me what you do in there and some of the things that go on, then we'd have you. Then we'd hear. But right now, you're not speaking and you're continuing to me. I take pictures now every time you do it. And I have two different times you met, and I have all of the photo evidence of who's in there. And then my question is, why are they in there? We'll find out later. Thank you, sir. Moving on to our consent agenda. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of items A through double D, but we are going to be pulling item CC for another time. Council Member Gregory. We have a motion and a second for the consent agenda, but pulling item-- CC. OK. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to items for individual consideration, agenda 5A, consider a nomination to the city's economic development partnership board. And we do have a card wishing to speak, so after staff presentation, we'll take public comment. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to ask Carolyn Booth, our director of economic development, to address this particular item. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Good evening, Mayor and Council. On November 8, the council appointed a nominating committee to select a nominee to fill an unexpired term on the economic development partnership board. The unexpired term is required to be filled by a representative of one of Denton's top 20 taxpayers. Nominating committee members Dalton Gregory, Joey Hawkins, and Marty Rivers recommend Stephen Edgar, the new president and CEO of Denton Regional Medical Center , to fill the unexpired term. And I'm glad to take any questions that you have. Sorry. It's short, Mayor. Yes, sorry. Any questions for staff before we take public comment? Seeing none, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. We do have a citizen wishing to speak, Mr. Willie Husbeth, if you want to-- OK, Mr. Husbeth's declined to speak at this time. So we have a nomination. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. Move approval of item 5A. Council Member Gregory. Second. We have a motion and a second for approval of agenda item 5 A. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to agenda item 5B, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, amending section 18-38 of the code of ordinances relating to the use of wireless communication devices while driving. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to ask Lee Howell, our chief of police, to address this particular item. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. On November 1, we last visited this item. And after considerable discussion and input from the council, the city attorney's office and her staff and myself went back to the drawing board and rewrote some proposal for you, which you have a paper copy of, I believe, that's labeled 5 B. It's not the same one that was loaded into your backup. I'm going to just highlight some of the changes in the ordinance. What we decided to do to eliminate ambiguity, make it clear what the ordinance was all about, was to take the existing ordinance that's in effect today and modify that with a few modifications that enhance it to allow hands-free devices by drivers. So I'll direct your attention first to page one. There was a slight addition to the definition of hands-free device, and the last partial sentence there, except for the use of the operator's hands for the purpose of initiating or terminating a voice telephone call, was added in. And that's significant. And I'll show you where that's significant here in just a moment. Under section B, we have also redefined the definition of stop and stopped, which means to halt an occupied or unoccupied vehicle. We've added some verbiage in there about where it will be acceptable to stop, where you could operate a wireless device. It includes a location outside of the door, other than the lane of traffic in the roadway. It includes now a lane of traffic on the roadway pursuant to the direction of a traffic control device, so a red light or stop sign. And it also includes any other lawfully-- lawful reason to stop on a roadway in traffic. So that would include traffic jams, essentially, when you have come to stop and go traffic, or some other lawful reason for the vehicle to be stopped. On the second page in section C, again, this is a change that was added at the suggestion of counsel. We've incorporated the definition of vehicle under section 541.201 subsection 23 of the transportation code, which will include bicycles and mopeds in addition to motor vehicles. Essentially, that definition includes anything that could be drawn or driven on the roadway that will transport people. So it could also include a horse-drawn cart if we had that. Under subsection E, we have gone through some considerable discussion about how to word that, but basically that's the crux of the ordinance that in section F. So it just says, an operator of a vehicle may not use a wireless communication device for any purpose while operating a vehicle on a street or highway within the city of Denton unless employing a hands-free device. In section F, you'll see a couple of exceptions to that. Actually, about four exceptions, but the two significant ones are number one and two, where we've incorporated the ability of a driver to initiate or terminate both a telephone call or a GPS navigation mapping device while the vehicle is stopped. And finally, a couple of changes on page three. We've taken out the language that states a fine amount and just allowing for a guilty verdict, this violation of municipal court to be punished under the class C misdemeanor range, which allows the municipal judge some discretion in that. And then in the final section seven, it states that this ordinance would be effective on June the 1st, 2017, which would allow for the current ordinance to stay in effect as is until that time. And that June 1st date would allow us the opportunity to get signs erected at the some 60-odd locations where we already have signs, so they have to be switched out to reflect new verbiage. So that sums up the differences really in the ordinance. I'll be glad to take any questions. Yeah, we'll entertain questions. We do have five cards wishing to speak. Does counsel prefer-- almost everybody's request to speak to you. I want to go ahead and ask questions now, or you want to take public-- ask questions now. OK, we'll go through the questions, then we'll take public comment. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. Chief, when we last worked on an ordinance, it was considered a texting ban. You had expressed some concerns about a texting ban because of it being more difficult to enforce than a more comprehensive ban of cell phone use while driving. So my question for you is, looking at the ordinance that's before us now, do you believe that it will make it easier for the police department to enforce this ordinance and to reduce distracted driving due to cell phone use? Yes, I do. I think it's a much more workable ordinance. It prohibits the activities which are the most dangerous, and that's manipulating the phone with your hands or holding it up and driving with one hand. And those are things that we'll be able to observe outside the vehicle. OK, and just for clarification, because I'm not a lawyer or a police officer, when I read the definition of hands-free device and I read that last sentence, except for the use of the operator's hands for the purpose of initiating, terminating a voice telephone call, I'm concerned that that may be construed to mean that while I'm driving down the road, I can dial a number punching in the numbers with my hands. When I read paragraph F, it makes me think that I would have to pull over to the side to dial in the number. So according to this rule, according to this ordinance, would it be allowable for me, as I'm driving down the road, to dial 940-565-9331? Could I do that while I was driving down the road? Would that be legal? Well, we're interpreting the idea of initiating or terminating a phone call to be a minimal touch of the phone. If you are looking up a phone number, you really need to be stopped. Right. But you can initiate the phone call while you're moving, put the phone down-- or while you're stopped, put the phone down and continue to drive and move if you can operate or continue that phone call hands-free. And could our attorney chime in on that? We've crafted this ordinance. And I think it's fair to say that the chief in the legal department have gone around a number of times trying to craft in the fashion that the council has directed and also to achieve maximum enforceability. And so in crafting the language that you are addressing, we came up with this idea of initiating or terminating a voice telephone call. Certainly, that would include the allowance of the operator, the motor vehicle or the vehicle operator, to use his or her hands to touch the device and initiate or terminate the phone call. Now, as far as punching in a number, we've actually talked about that among ourselves, because could the initiating of a phone call actually include the dialing of a number? I know there is a safety issue there. And we would like less contact with the device rather than more contact with the device. But that's going to fall on the definition of initiating or terminating. I appreciate this ordinance and the approved ordinance. The only thing I'm concerned with is what appears to be the possible ambiguity of that last part of paragraph A. I mean, if it's just punching in on my favorite's home, that's one thing. But if it's dialing a 10-digit number while I'm trying to drive down the highway or drive down University Drive at 45 miles an hour, because I would never go over that, chief, by the way. Never. That could present a problem. So the only thing in this whole thing that gives me any pause is that last phrase of section A. But I'll defer any more questions for later. Thank you very much to the chief and to our city attorney for the work that you've done on this. Mayor Pro Temerudin. I'm going to follow up on those questions, because I see a deeper concern with what I see to be confusion between 1838A, as you pointed out, and then 1838F1. And the question is on this question of stopped versus not stopped, and even what you, Madam Attorney, were addressing as it relates to the ability to touch something even while driving. So here's my question. In terms of the spirit, what we're intending in the ordinance is the idea that I can be driving. I've got it affixed to my whatever up there. Got my earbuds in, or however I'm doing it, hands free, to have, whether it's through my car or through some Bluetooth situation that I have. A call comes in. I'm driving. All I need to do to answer that call is to hit the-- I guess it's a green button on my phone or something like that. Am I allowed, in what we're attempting to intend with this ordinance, to hit that green button and initiate that phone call while driving? Yes, one touch answer, basically. And it's OK then, at the end of that call while driving, to hit the red button to say stop? That's correct. Then I think F1 is-- because it's using the same terminology as A, initiating or terminating a phone call, which I'm assuming the spirit of which is being able to press that green or red button. This specifically says if the vehicle is stopped. As an allowable-- in other words, it doesn't apply. So unless I'm misreading that, it's at least confusing to me. Let me see if I can address that, and the Chief can as well . Section F is the exception to the prohibition, which you find in section E. So section F accepts out these things that we have enumerated here from the application of the ordinance. So in section F1, which is the item that you're concerned about, we would exempt from the ordinance the initiation or termination of a phone call while the vehicle is stopped. And following up on the council's prior discussion, there was a lot of talk about one should be allowed to use one's cell phone while you're stopped in the lane of traffic, I think was most of what the discussion was at the last council meeting. Following up on that, as we attempted to craft that, you'll see that exception set forth there in 1838B on that prior page, where we have listed what constitutes stop or stopped. It's in a location other than a lane of traffic on a road way, so one could pull off the roadway and use one's cell phone, or in a lane of traffic on a roadway pursuant to the direction of a traffic control vice, as the Chief pointed out, at a stop sign or at a red light. Totally get that. I guess what I'm saying is what I just heard in the feedback was that I am allowed to initiate or terminate a phone call while the vehicle is moving as well, at least according to the limited understanding of pushing the red or green button, as I described. And so to me, there's just some confusion as to what I'm allowed to do on the basis of that. And so we can come back to that. Maybe we can clean that up. But the other question I have is, does this apply to all roadways, even state highways and interstate highways? Yes, it does. We have removed the interstate exemption from the original ordinance. Does it matter that in the first whereas clause, it specifically calls out cities' public roadways? In other words, does that need to be expanded? Or public roadways within the city, to clarify? OK. I just wanted to make sure that that was the case. I think a public roadway would include an interstate highway. OK, perfect. Thank you. Not ownership, as far as just-- Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. Chief, thanks for all your work on this. And I appreciate legal's work, too. I know this is tough to figure out all these little details . And I think I have a little bit more clarity from hearing Councilman Gregory and Councilman Rodin. But I just wanted to make sure, if I'm driving down the road and my phone is laying beside me, I'm still not allowed to pick that up, turn it on, set it down, something like that. It has to be affixed to something. Unless you are stopped, it has to be the hands-free activation. So with the exception of what we're trying to define, I think, basically as a one-touch hello or goodbye on the phone. The ordinance specifically states, back up in the definition of hands-free device, that regardless of whether it's permanently installed in or on the vehicle, it can still be a hands-free device if you can operate it by voice only. OK. Thank you. Councilmember Wasney. I want to thank you for working so hard, Chief. It's been nine months, 10 months. Been a long time. Thanks to the legal department for working so hard as well. And to clarify for the public, this has been termed a cell phone ban. It's not a cell phone ban. It's a hands-free ordinance. And there's a big difference. If you have Bluetooth in your car, you can use Bluetooth to talk on the phone or listen to your navigation device. I don't have Bluetooth. So I'll be buying for $7 a little gadget that fits on my dashboard and holds my phone. It's easy. It's cheap. It works. And these simple changes are going to save lives in the city of Denton. And it's an important piece of legislation here in this city. And I just want to thank everyone who was involved in bringing this forward. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. So a few of my questions have been answered already as far as the initiating and the dialing. In the last ordinance, there was a maximum fine of $200. And that has been taken out. And it says-- and I'm curious what the range of the Class C misdemeanor fine is. And will there be an option for community service in that judgment if someone is found guilty? Yeah, actually, the range for Class C misdemeanor fine is from $0 to $500. But it's up to the municipal judge. When you see an ordinance that has a finite limit on it, like $200, that's a maximum. It can still fall within that range. But any Class C misdemeanor is up to a $500. Now, I can't speak for the municipal judge. But there could be reasons for-- especially for subsequent violations after somebody's been guilty once or twice and they're found guilty a second or third time for them to go upward in the range. But I would suspect that if it falls within a normal range, it would be somewhere of what fines are today, the prescribed fines. It would be somewhere under $200. It makes me a little uncomfortable that there's not a maximum like there was in the previous one for $200. But I see where you're coming from here. On the last meeting we had, I asked to see if we could have a automatic review clause in this ordinance because technology is moving so fast. And that wasn't put in here. Now, is that something that counsel can ask for, like just at the staff report or like in two years? Whoever's on counsel will bring that back up. That doesn't need to be in the ordinance. Yeah, if you have a time frame that you would like for staff to bring that back for review, we'd be glad to do that. You bet. OK. Yeah. OK, thank you. Let me address the comments on section 18-38A and then after seemingly ambiguous or inconsistent language on section F, 1 and 2. The reason I think why initially it was initiating and terminating was because if you struck that and you just said, can use-- if you just said for while the vehicle stopped, the first sentence in F says the ordinance does not apply to an operator or vehicle using a wireless communication device. But a wireless communication device can be for texting, checking-- I don't know what else people do-- Instagram, Facebook, all these different kinds of things. So those are already prohibited. So we had to somehow narrow that to the use of the cell phone to make or terminate a call when you're stopped. You can look up your contacts. You can dial the number. I think, to me, the easiest fix would be to leave that in because I think we understand that. It's the same language being used in section A that seems to be confusing. And so it's my understanding that the primary intent of that, section A, was to say if you're answering a call or if you're terminating a call, which is this little one key-- I mean, in some of these Bluetooth devices, you can do it on your headset. If it's one keystroke, I don't really interpret it. I didn't think the intent of that was necessarily to be able to look up your contacts list and then dial a 10-digit number. So I would be OK if instead of saying initiating or term inating a voice telephone call in section A, just changing it to what we're really trying to say. That is answering or terminating a call. Because in answering a call doesn't mean that you're dialing the number. It means you're taking one that's coming in. So I would probably make that minor change. And I think if we do that, I think the language in section F would be more understandable. But that's just my thoughts. Mayor Prodem. Well, answering or terminating both assume that the call's incoming. And there's a lot of hands-free options of being able to make a call, especially a speed dial or something along those lines or a one-touch speed dial type of situation to be able to make an outgoing call without having to do what Councilmember Gregory's concerned about, which is dial 10 digits or looking up somebody in the phone. I'm trying to preserve what it sounds like we're trying to allow for, which is saying, get your electronic devices in such a state that if you think you're going to be making a phone call, make that easy to be able to do without having to manipulate your phone to a great degree. So I think my concern is that if all you say is answering or ending, then that precludes the ability to somehow make a call. Well, and I think really when we look at the spirit of this and why this came forward to begin with, it's been addressed in two fronts. And that is two factors, enforcement and public safety. There's going to be people, if this ordinance passes, they're going to violate this law. I mean, it's just going to happen. I mean, hopefully the six months will give us all a chance to retrain ourselves on how to do this. So in the end, it's going to be, what does the officer see? And his officer is going to be able to tell the difference between two strokes or 10 strokes. So if we can just capture the, if we try to draft it for every specific situation, I think that's going to be difficult. But it sounds like to me, the main thrust for this was to say we didn't want to make it a ban while driving if all you're doing is picking up, initiating could be a speed dial or terminating the call. So I'm okay if we, but to say, 'cause then we'd have to limit it to keystrokes or something like that. So I just throw that out there and we can, we can after, but I want to go ahead and I don't, oh, Council Member Wozniak is going to say we'll take public comment, but go ahead Council Member Woz niak. - So I'd like to canvas council on, do we change the wording to say answering instead of initiating? I'm comfortable with answering. - I tell you what I'd like to do is, we've got five speakers or five or six speakers wishing to speak. I'd like to sort of hear, I mean, personally, I'd like to hear their comments as well and then we can have some further discussion on that if that's okay with you. - That's good, thanks. - Is that okay? Yep, you bet. All right, seeing no more questions for you, Chief, thank you very much. I'm sure we'll have you back up here, thank you. We'll go to public comment. The first speaker is Krista DeLuca. If you'll come down, state your name and address and your time will begin. (people chattering) - All right, my name is Krista DeLuca, 2900 Pottery Trail. So I'm very happy to see that there's been some progress on this since the last time that this was on the agenda. A lot of what you guys are talking about and the questions you're asking reminded me of a story of my grandmother. My grandmother, when I was young, seatbelt laws were trying to be enforced, right? And my grandmother would complain and complain about how uncomfortable that seatbelt was. But you know what? A few years later, she was in a car accident and that seatbelt saved her life, okay? It was something nobody wanted to change, nobody wanted to do, but the laws were passed and it saved billions of lives. Then when I was in high school, drunk driving was the hot topic, right? People fought that too, people didn't want to take away rights of people and what they were doing. But guess what? Saved billions of lives. Now we have technology at our fingertips, it's at our hands . My daughter recently turned 15 and she got her permit here in the city. We go on car rides where she's gotta observe my driving. Do you know what she actually observes? She observes the people next to me and the people that are actually on their cell phones. People are Snapchatting, Instagramming, making phone calls, staring at their phones while they are driving down the road, it is clearly unsafe. It is something that we've absolutely got to get these laws passed, not just here in the city of Denton, but statewide. And we are working towards getting that done statewide. The loss of my friend Emma and her daughter Tita in April, it really made me aware and self-conscious of what I was doing and what others were doing around me. This law and hopefully one statewide will help protect my daughter, myself, my family, my friends, everybody in this room. It will hopefully help you protect yourselves. In regards to the comments around the ambiguity, whether it's answering a phone call, it just floors me that that's even a conversation. Pull over, stop the vehicle completely. If you're driving down the road, you should not be even touching a single button on your phone. Just don't do it. I'm glad to see that the fine limit could potentially be up to $500 because there are people that were gonna be repeat offenders and there needs to be somewhere in there that will allow them, in addition to the fact that higher penalties will hopefully get people to be more conscious and more aware that this is happening and hopefully put their phones down while they're in the car. Thank you. - Thank you. James Schaefer, if you'll come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. (clears throat) - Good evening, James Schaefer, 2501 Shenandoah Trail. Thank you, I'm glad we're back here again, discussing the amendments to the law to help assist in the enforceability of this law. In addition, and more importantly to me, is to increase the safety of our citizens, our wives and our husbands, our children, our grandchildren , because all of that was lost on one night, April 9th. There was mother, child, granddaughter, sister, all lost that evening. So my hardest time when I hear lots of opponents and what they're mostly concerned about is amazing to me because imposing a law that states that while you're operating a motor vehicle that can kill anyone, you should be able to put a phone in front of your face, have a hand on the wheel, and look up Bob, put 940 and do it, and we're worried that taking that liberty away from a person is somehow more important than taking a life of my wife and my daughter. That amazes me. In addition to this, what amazes me, and maybe I don't understand the whole purpose of work sessions prior to this meeting, is comments were made last session, they were taken under advisement by legal, by the city manager, by whomever, and I would think that the language or the verbiage of the way it's worded should be ironed out, discussed ahead of time, where all six, eight, nine, 10 of you, all have come to agreement, asked these questions prior to being in front of the public, and maybe reiterated them because I'm really, again, like I said last session, and I'm gonna say it now, I get aggravated when I sit here and hear us hung up on certain things about wording or what is is. I mean, I think at this point, we're not trying to say what should a judge do? Does everyone understand what initiating and terminating means? I mean, we could sit here and write a 96-page document trying to make sure that we cover all of our bases, but the bottom line is it needs to be clear cut. Hands-free while you're driving or operating a motor vehicle, moped, bicycle, vehicle, means your hands are free of an electronic device while you're operating a motor vehicle. It should be that straight up, and if there's some ambiguity, when the person who violates the law goes in front of a judge, the police can state their case, the person accused can state the case, and the judge can determine who's right or wrong. Thank you. - Council Member Hawkins. - Mr. Schaefer. - Mr. Schaefer. - If you have questions, sir. - It's probably gonna end up coming out more as a comment. The last time you spoke to, I just wanted to publicly tell you thank you very much for having the guts to do that, and I just went home. I was very thankful that my family was still around, and I really appreciate it. I gotta admit, when this first started, I did not see things your way, and you've kinda helped change my mind on some stuff. Thanks. - Thank you, sir. - You bet. Next speaker will be Susan Vaughn. Please come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. - Susan Vaughn, I live at 1330 Phoenix, Jenton, Texas. As a career educator, I've known of deaths of children while driving, drivers who were distracted by cell phone calls. Any distraction allows an courageous time to invite an accident, resulting in a child killed, injured or terrified by vehicles. Speaking to others is distracting, but manipulating a cell phone with their hands occupies, consumes and disables the attention of one completely. Thank you so much for introducing this ordinance. - Thank you. Next speaker is Mr. Willie Hesbuth. State your name and address. Your time will begin. - Mayor and city councilman, my name is Willie Hesbuth, I live at 623 Newton. I would just like to just pick your minds for a minute and be the devil's advocate, just to get you to think about something. The ordinance maybe should be distracted driving. Because what difference does it make if it's you using the telephone and you lose sight of what's in front of you or your surroundings and you're not able to react in the time like you should react, as what we've all seen is these pets in the front seat of the car with them in the driver's lap looking out the window. Or in my case, I was reading the paper trying to find where I need to go and reading the paper as I was doing it, drinking my coffee and it spilled. I had this discussion with some people and I was just asking, well, what is that law going to do? Some of them said, if there is a law, it will make people think and not do it, do it. Thinking, we still have drunk drivers, we got the law. We have signs up all over the place about speeding, people steal speed. I drive around this city all the time and I'm cut off all the time 'cause I'm old. And now I understand why my father drove so darn slow. I just, you just don't, you get there, I'm thinking. I'll get there, you'll get there too, maybe. And let me just end with this. And Councilman Hawkins said something that made me think. And this is, this I too was affected by just being educated about the fact that it's very, very dangerous to do this. And I lost sight of the road and I ran over a mailbox. It was about two seconds and I lost it and I hit the mailbox. So whose ever mailbox has been hit here lately, you might go check it. No, I went back and told the people I did it. And then I was driving and I just hate the way my 18 year old granddaughter drives, if they're taught her how to drive. And she's texting while she's driving. And it just drives me crazy until I was texting with her in the side, my side. And she said, "Poppy, what are you doing?" And I thought, yep. So education is the reason I no longer do it. And I think it should be, that should be added to what we're doing. Not just come up with the law, but let people go through that class that they have where they put on the glasses and try to drive. You know, in this machine. So that's my suggestion. - I have a question, Council Member Gary. - I have a question for legal that was related to one of the comments that was made. - Thank you, Mr. Hesped. Yeah, thank you. The question is for legal, yes. And you want to do it now or you want to have a, we've got one more card. You want to ask it now? - Oh, I'll wait. - You will? Okay. Last speaker we have with a blue card is Mr. Michael Hinnan . If you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. - Michael Hinnan, 724 Thomas Street in Denton. Thank you, Mayor and Council for having this ordinance before you tonight. I think it's an extremely important ordinance that has the potential to save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of injuries in our city. I agree with some of the previous speakers who have brought up the point that was addressed by Councilman Gregory and addressed somewhat by Mayor and Ms. Wozni. Is that in terms of touching the device, we can always pull over. It can wait. It can wait needs to be the mantra, I think, of our city when it comes to using these mobile devices in our cars. We can wait long enough to pull over to the side off the lane of traffic and dial our call. We should not be touching our devices while we are driving. That is distracting and it leads us into dangerous situations for ourselves and for others. Thank you. - Thank you. It's 5B is what it says. Yeah, okay. Yep, we just got it out of this. Is that right? Or it's 6B, actually it's 6B. Did you? I'm sorry? Okay, yeah, come on. Yeah, do. Yes, here it is right here. We just got it out of order. Thank you. Deb Armentar, come down. State your name and address your time. We'll begin, thank you. - Hi, Deb Armentar, 2003 Mistywood Lane. I just want to add to the chorus of support for this hands-free ban. I wanted to read to you something that I saw online. I've been researching studies that have been done showing how dangerous cell phone use is while driving. It's recommended by the National Traffic Safety Board as well as by our own police department. In my mind, it's a no-brainer. There's a show called Mythbusters, which I've actually never seen, but I have heard about. But anyway, and in this article, so it's a show where they do all kinds of crazy stunts. And this speaker from the show says, "We get asked all the time to make the point "of what the most dangerous thing we do on the show is," says this gentleman who once attached rockets to a car and watched it disappear in a fiery ball of smoke. He says, "The most dangerous stunt is on the road "going to or from the actual experiment." And he says, "You get in this metal box "at these ridiculous speeds, "aimed at these other metal boxes "going in the other directions at similar speeds, "being driven by, for all you know, crazy people," he added . If we were doing an experiment that required that, if not for the fact that we're used to it, it would not pass our safety requirements. I appreciate the comments of previous speakers, and I echo those sentiments that we shouldn't even be using, punching to accept a call or hang up from a call. And although I support this law in its current form, I would, if you change it so that it's only, you can only accept a call, you can't make a call, I would be all in favor of that. I would be all in favor of no touch whatsoever. But whatever we can do to get this passed as soon as possible, this will save lives. And it's about time, so anyway. And I'll also say, you know, I have some friends who are skeptical about this law. And the seatbelt laws and drunk driving laws, as the previous speaker said, were once met with similar skepticism. And I just ask that we not be such creatures of habit when our habits are fatal. So this is a very good thing to do, it's the right thing to do, and it's about time. Thank you. - Thank you. I wanna make a couple comments. I, one of these, in section B, where we talk about it being stopped in a lane of traffic, at a traffic control device, or if you're stuck in a traffic jam, sometimes those can be many, many minutes, especially if you're driving around in at five o'clock. One of the reasons why I wanted that was because if we were gonna have a hands-free ban, except for hands-free while you're moving, then you have an opportunity to take care of your business at that time, and it would allow you an opportunity instead of just moving off the roadway. So if B stays in as set, I have no problem, because I think that really does allow for people to still be able to use the convenience of the phone, but it takes the public safety factor out of it in section B. I would be real okay, quite honestly, within section A, where it says without use of either of the operator's hands, put a period there, and just forget the rest, because it becomes too, if you're really looking for enforcement, and if you're looking for public safety, if all we're talking about is a keystroke, somebody said it can wait, I think Mr. Hennan said that. Good heavens, why am I gonna fuss over one stroke when you have opportunity, if you come to that next stop light and indent and it's gonna be well, and it's gonna be, you're gonna stop being in the lane of traffic, so you're gonna have plenty of time to make or hang up a call in that regard. I would be okay either way, but I'm really okay if that's the direction we go. I just wanted to make those comments. Council Member Amin, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem. - Okay, a couple questions, I understand you're thinking on this. When you say when I'm stopped and taking care of business, is that referring to simply phone calls? - Yes. - Not texting? - No, that's my understanding, I'm sorry, go ahead. - No, I know what the ordinance states. I'm asking what you were suggesting when you were-- - No, I think I was referring to phone calls only, not texting, not-- - Look, in my opinion, the spirit of this from the beginning, when we started talking about this two years ago, people have been talking on the phone while driving for 20 years. What you see now is folks are so addictive to the smartphone technology because it's dinging them, because they're getting Snapchats, because they're getting tweets, they're getting retweeted. That's the addictive nature of this, which is causing this to be such, I was just walking back from the square before this meeting, it was the nighttime, and just about every other car had folks doing this on it. They weren't talking, they weren't doing stuff. So I'm trying as best as possible to preserve the ability, we got folks who work for a living that require them to get on a call 'cause they're going to their next plumbing appointment or something as they're driving through the street. I'm trying to not make this onerous on them while being able to halt the dangerous activities that this spirit is supposed to do. So if you're wanting to take it that far, that concerns me, which means you can't even take a phone call, you can't end a phone call while operating a vehicle. So I'm curious to hear what the rest of our colleagues say on that. - Council Member Hawkins. - I think that we should leave it as written for right now and maybe look at it again 12 months from now. Councilwoman Briggs' idea of reviewing this ordinance, it's taken a lot of work to get it to where it is now and nothing gets anybody up here, but sometimes when we do some changes on the fly, we wake up the next day and we're trying to figure out what happens. So I understand where you're coming from, but I want to vote for this ordinance as written. - Okay, all right. Council Member Wasney. - We could always have our police department weigh in whenever we wish for them to come in and give an update, a staff report, and a work session to hear from the officers who are actually on patrol, stopping cars with cell phones to get from them if the ordinance needs to be tweaked. We also have a tremendous citizen base in this city and as we move forward year to year, this ordinance may need to be tougher, just depending on how things go with the ordinance as it's written today. But if this is a start point to help to drive home the message, get this out of your hands when you're driving a car, a truck, a bike, anything, because it's killing people, it's maiming people, it's changing lives forever. And we have the power to get this out of the hands of drivers in the city of Denton. So this doesn't have to be poured in concrete. We can come back and massage some of the wording at a future date if we need to, but I think it's important to move forward with this as it's written tonight. - Council Member Gregory. - Thank you. (clears throat) Correct me if I'm wrong, Madam Attorney, but if somebody's driving down the road, staring at their phone, holding it in their hand, the ordinance as it's proposed would be violated. Is that correct? - Yes, sir. - We are only allowing the initiating or the terminating of a voice telephone call as written. - Right. - That could not help it. - I think that one of our speakers comment about education. I think one of the things that's always good about new laws being put into place is that it is an education for us. It's education for us when we see those signs in the school zone saying no cell phone use. That educates people. And I'm hoping that this new ordinance will result in new signs that go past just saying no texting because it's more than texting that's a problem. And I think that those signs help educate us. I have a feeling that a few tickets being issued, maybe with public service the first time, or maybe one of the public service requirements could be for somebody to take a trip around in the city bus. One of our DCTA bus drivers was talking to me and saying from where he sits up higher, he's appalled by what he sees as he's driving down the street, people driving, engaging in all kinds of communication. And so chief, I think maybe that would be a great way to help enforce it. Put a police officer on a bus with a radio and then just have the trailing car go get him. So I would like to see a slight tweak to this if there were enough votes to make it happen. If we can't get enough votes to make it happen this time, as I get older I become more and more impatient, but every step forward is a good step. - Did I miss something? You said a slight tweak. What's that tweak? - The tweak of changing at least, I would be happy with taking out that whole last phrase that you suggested, Mayor, but if we can't get four votes to approve that, at least changing it from initiating to answering. My plumber sits in front of my house for a good while after he finishes his call. He writes his bill first and he comes in and hands it to me and after I faint and work on finding a way to pay him, then he goes out and before he drives off, he's done all of his checking so that when he drives off, of course my plumber is my age. And so he has both of his hands on his wheel and he has his eyes on the road and he's okay with doing his job that way. - Council Member Briggs. - A big part of the job of municipal government is to ensure public safety, health, and well-being within the city. As a leader and elective representative, it is my responsibility to make sure that when there are threats to public safety, that we respond effectively and fairly. I do not take the responsibility of creating new laws lightly, especially those laws which can be perceived as limiting personal freedoms. But an individual's personal freedoms cannot be allowed to endanger lives of fellow citizens and visitors who use our streets. If people would do the right thing on their own and put the phones down while operating a vehicle, we wouldn't even be discussing this tonight. But people are not doing the right thing and they won't do the right thing without a nudge or a better defined, easier to understand, more enforceable hands-free ordinance. That is why I will be voting for this ordinance as it is written tonight. - Okay, a couple things. We've had several of you up here that have talked about as it's written. As it's written, it means either the draft that we came in before we sat down or with the tweak that I and Council Member Gregory had suggested with his changing, initiating in Section 1838A to the word answering. So whoever makes a motion, I've got Council Member Wozni, you're gonna be up for that motion. So I wanted to make sure I make that clear, yes. - Before that motion is made. - We've got a couple other requests to speak as well. - I would endorse and support the Mayor Pro Tem's suggestion on that whereas clause. I think it is clearer to speak to public roadways within the city rather than the city's public roadways so that we do not encounter even the question that it might not be enforceable on state highways or such. So I would certainly make that suggestion as well. - Council Member Hawkins. - I would be fine with that. - Council Member Gregory. - What I was hoping is we'll see what the motion is and I may move for an amendment to improve it and if it gets the votes it does and if it doesn't then we'll have a different ordinance. - Thank you. I remember the last time we had this, there was a report on the local news about this meeting and I believe part of the report was a ride along with Officer Kaiser. And I found it very funny, not funny, too bad, sad actually that during that ride along, literally pulled up beside somebody who was on their phone talking, or I don't think they were talking because there was too much involvement, driving at the same time. So I thought that was very appropriate for the issue that we're talking about at that time and this time. Council Member Wasney. - I make a motion to approve item five, A with the following revisions. I'm sorry, five B. Under the whereas right at the beginning to delete operating on the city's public roadways to read within the city's roadways and also under section 18-38A, striking the word initiating and adding the word answering. And I believe that's the only, those are two revisions and I make this motion. - Mayor Pro Tem, I will recognize you before I recognize the second. Did you have a question? - I just wanted to clarify the motion if I could based on the whereas clause 'cause I think the way you read it, you said within the city's roadways and I think maybe what you were attempting to do was to say what the attorney was suggesting which I think was within the public roadways of the city. Correct? - While operating on the public roadways within the city was my suggestion. - You're okay with that? - So moved. - Okay, great. All right. - Council Member Hawkins. - Yeah, before I second, I wanted to publicly thank Councilwoman Wasney for championing this and good job, so I second. - We have a motion and a second with the changes as enumerated in the motion. And I presume Madam City Attorney, you have those changes, you made a notation of those changes. - I have those, yes, sir. - We have a motion and a second for agenda item 5B. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries six to one. It's about 755, let's take a real quick break about five or 10 minutes, come back around eight or 8.05. All right, we're back, we're gonna reconvene. This meeting of the Denton City Council on December the 6th, 2016, it is 8.09. We are now on agenda item 5C, which is consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton, Texas, adopting the City of Denton's 2017 state legislative. - Thank you, Mayor. Lindsay Baker, Intergovernmental Relations PIO Officer, will address this particular item. - Thank you, Howard. Good evening, Mayor, Council members. Here this evening to present to you for your consideration the 2017 state legislative program for the 85th Texas legislature, which begins in January. So it's basically a freight train coming at us. It's gonna be here before we know it. So what I'm gonna do on this presentation very briefly is go through just some quick facts about the legislature in general, talk about our partners and stakeholders and our delegation members who we primarily communicate with in Austin, briefly go over the purpose of the program, why we're here, why we're discussing this to begin with, and how we put this program together, and then talk about the various revisions and additions that staff has made for council's consideration. You'll also notice up at your dais or up at your seats, I placed the draft legislative agenda or program. You can see that, that Public Communications Office designed for us. I think they did a phenomenal job in kind of representing the spirit of Denton on that. And so that is what we'll be handing out once this is approved to all of our stakeholders and the members down in Austin. So just to start off here, some quick numbers. You can see here in the Senate going into the next session, there was no change to the Senate makeup. We've got 20 Republicans, 11 Democrats. On the House side though, the Republicans lost three seats. So they're down from 98 to 95 Republicans and the Democrats went from 52 to 55. So that doesn't make that much of a difference really at the end of the day since most of the bills required a simple majority pass. I just wanted you to be aware of that. Legislature gavels in on January 10th and then closes up shop on May 29th. More than 6,400 bills were filed last session in the 84th legislature, which more than 1,600 of those were related to cities. And the city of Denton alone, we were monitoring almost 900 bills that could have impacted our organization and our operations in some way or another. And I think we all know very clearly that as a full service city, we face a lot more risk than some of the cities out there. So we do tend to track a lot more bills than some of the other cities that we work with. And we are already in a record setting session as we go into the 85th legislature. Pre-filing began on November 14th. And as of today, 774 bills have been filed, which is hard to imagine, quite honestly. So next here we have our Denton County legislative delegation. And I refer to the Denton County delegation as opposed to the city of Denton delegation. We maintain relationships with all of the members who represent the Denton County area, not just the city limits. So you'll see here are the senior members in the Senate, Senator Nelson and Senator Estes. Senator Nelson will continue to chair the Senate Finance Committee as we go into the next session . And we don't yet obviously know who is going to be appointed to what committees and chairmanships, but I'm pretty certain that Senator Estes, given his seniority in the Senate, will be appointed some significant chairmanships. Then on the House side, we have now much more senior member, Representative Parker, with the departure of Representative Crownover recently. We work with him quite a bit. And of course we have Dr. Lynn Stuckey, who is now in Representative Crownover's previous seat. So we're very excited to have the opportunity to work with him, a new member in the House. And it'll be a good experience, I think, for everybody involved. And then of course the other two here that I have, their districts do not have any of the city necessarily. However, they are in Denton County. And so again, we like to maintain those relationships because we view anything beneficial to the county is great for the city and vice versa. So we like to continue to keep those relationships intact. Representative Fallon and Representative Simmons have been very good friends to us. So next very briefly, what is the purpose of the program that's in front of you? I'm sure you're wondering why we do this every year. Essentially it serves as a guiding principles for advocacy as we go into this legislative session. This program is essentially my marching orders and what I need to talk about to our delegation, committee members and other stakeholders when we go down to Austin, as it relates to the issues that are important to us and to you as a governing body. And you'll notice on page six of the program that you have in front of you as the general legislative policy. And so we go through there and we provide our statement of purpose, statement of preservation. This is basically where we say, regardless of all the positions that we have in here that are specific to bills that we believe are gonna be filed, this is the meat of the program, saying that we will oppose anything that tries to erode your authority as a governing body, erode home rule authority and your ability to raise revenue and manage growth. So this again is kind of the meat of the program at the end of the day. And in developing this program and the multitude of policy positions that are in here, I've worked with you, I've listened to you, I've worked with Texas Municipal League, worked with other cities and speaking with them and what their priorities are, as well as our legislative consultants and of course our community stakeholders like the Chamber of Commerce, the universities, school district, nonprofits and others. So this program was not developed in a vacuum, it was very much developed as a community oriented type of document. So as we get further into it, what I'm gonna do here is just kind of go over the key issues and then I'll get into the specifics of the revisions and additions that we've made. But on page seven, we have the priority legislative agenda. These are the top three issues that we are likely going to be facing in the next session and what staff considers our priorities, probably where the legislature will try and hit us the most. So obviously as we talked at length yesterday in the meeting with the school district with Mr. Hill present and providing that briefing, we absolutely have to protect our revenue sources and your budget setting authority. We also need to be able to protect your land use authority, ability to regulate growth, manage growth. I mean as we see the city of Denton growing by leaps and bounds, you all need to be able to retain your current authority as it relates to land management, zoning regulations, all of that that's critical. And then finally our top priority is going to be preserving DME as a community owned and operated entity and not turning that over to some other regulatory entity that's not elected and responsive to the public and the community it serves. So next what we have in our legislative agenda, oh and also just so you know, each of those top priority issues have white papers associated with them. It gives very detailed information as it relates to each of those items in the program. So then we have in our general legislative agenda, this is what's broken down into topical areas under which fall a number of different policy statements related to those. I'm not gonna go through these individually since we're gonna be going into a little bit more detail on what we're adding, but we break this down into the revenue taxation, land use resources, utilities, transportation, public safety and general government where we kinda, that's sort of the catch all where we have a variety of policy statements that don't necessarily fall into the other categories. So here we get into the additions, the proposed additions for your consideration in this program. The first one, this one is replacing a statement that we had in there in the last session as it related to oil and gas regulation. We wanted to be able to acknowledge the impact of HB 40 that was enacted last session. I feel like that's a four letter word when I say that loud, but we wanna be able to oppose legislation that would erode local control of existing authority and regulations of gas well operations as articulated in HB 40, again, which was passed in the 84th legislature. That's found on page 13 of the draft program. There are other position statements and they're related to your authority and oil and gas operations, so this is not the only one, but this is one that we are recommending that we add into it. The second one is a DME item and this is to oppose legislation that would restrict MOUs. Yes, sir. Yeah, yes. - The landscape of proposed bills up to this point are what we expect. Reading the tea leaves will happen as it relates to that number one. Given how much of a live issue that is, and I think all of us, those of us that were here at least, advocated how strongly we opposed HB 40, as it put us in a very difficult situation as a city, certainly, and I wonder the strength of this number one, given the unique situation of Denton, because there very well may not be any legislation. HB 40 was pretty sufficient to meet the needs of the oil and gas industry, and so if we're just simply opposing any future legislation, HB 40's not opened up, assuming, then I don't know that that's a very proactive or active response. And I know some of us have, in the course of this last election cycle, have held the candidates' feet to the fire as to what their position was on that and what they might do to actively oppose HB 40. So at what point, and I know we've done this as a city, in different situations where we have initiated legislation ourselves, or we have found a legislator to partner with us in initiating legislation. I guess I'm opening up this for a council discussion on this, at what point do we take a more direct hit at HB 40 as a city, because it seems to me that the overwhelming calls of our citizens has been along those lines, and I think we've stated that publicly ourselves at various points along this discussion. So at what point do we decide just to state our position on something in this versus taking an active step towards actually writing legislation and finding a sponsor? - Well, that is entirely up to the city council, but I can tell you right now, I think the stage where we're at as it relates to something, this technical, this controversial, we're probably a little bit behind the eight ball on that to get something rolling. Also, I don't know if the political will would be there as it relates to the state legislature being willing to take any action on this. I mean, because we saw the sausage making that took place last session, and I don't know if they're gonna be willing to do that as it relates to HB 40 and doing anything on that. I don't know specifically what you would want to see. I mean, we can have that discussion, and if there's something that's viable there that we feel we could get sponsored and passed, then of course we wanna pursue that. But I think again, something this technical that could open up another can of worms, we just really need to be cautious in that. - Well, and we can discuss our strategy, I think as a council as we think about this session coming up. And we'll have more time to discuss this. We're gonna all go down to Austin and things like that. I just think to simply say, and I agree with you, there's not gonna be much political will to get something like this through, but that doesn't mean we can as a city make a statement. And we'd have to decide whether or not we think that's worth our political capital to do, or whether or not we think our citizens are asking for that . So I'll leave that for further discussion. I just wanted to put that out there as you pointed out. I just think that that's, in my opinion, about as weak as a statement as we could possibly put, given what Denton was just subject to. That's just my-- - We do have two other statements on page 12 under land use and resources that do relate to oil and gas operations. And these are support statements that would allow, for example, support legislation that would allow local governments to enact ordinances related to health and safety regulations as applied to gas drilling and production activities, and to reduce the effects of oil and gas development on city residents. So maybe that gets more direct to your point. And if you are uncomfortable with this proposed statement, we can certainly take that out, massage it a little bit. We're certainly open to discussion. - Council Member Gregory. - I guess my concern about that statement, the new item, item number one, that's found on the top of page 12, is that one might read it in one way to say that we don't want the legislature to mess with House Bill 40. So I'm certainly not going to try to wordsmith it from the dais, but it almost looks like we're saying, don't mess with this any more than you already have. We're okay with House Bill 40. And I don't think that's the message that we're wanting to send at all. So that's my concern about it. While I'm opposed to House Bill 40, I would be glad to say to every one of them down there, I think you guys ought to repeal it. In a situation where our battle really is going to be, do we continue to have the authority to raise local revenue as seen appropriate by our local citizens? This is probably not the fight to have or the year to have it. But I am a little bit concerned about the wording that it might be construed by someone as House Bill 40 is enough, don't do any more to us, or that we even are okay with House Bill 40. - Well, I'm seeing some head nods up here on the dais. So if we want to take this statement out and just go with what was in here, then we can certainly do that. - I think that the support statements say an awful lot that already really explained what we want. - Then I will remove that from the draft. - Or oppose legislation that would do any more to erode local control. - Council Member Gary. - I kind of have a process comment slash question. I have a ton of questions about the legislative agenda and I don't know that up here is really the place to ask all these questions. I have questions about regional mobility authorities. Really technical type of questions that I would like to have a more in-depth conversation about. Understand this is substantially similar to all of the other legislative agendas that we've had over the years. This is my first year here. I didn't have the benefit of learning what all these various terms were last year or the year before. So with that, once it comes time, I'll probably move to postpone this so that we can have a work session item on it and then come back with any changes that we might want to make. - Sure and that was sort of my thought and I'd mentioned it to you, Ms. Baker, when we were out in the halls that I was surprised to see this on the dias agenda instead of a work session report. But yeah, so we'll get through the presentation but we're probably going to need to have some more discussion about it in a work session. But yeah, I understand. Council Member Gregory. - Just a question for staff in regard to this. Is there time sensitivity in when we need to have finished this document? I'm perfectly okay with having more discussion. I'm just wondering in terms of setting agendas and giving the time necessary, if we're going to have the time to do that, when does this, in terms of our ability to communicate with our legislative representatives, what do we need in terms of timing? - Well, and that is why it was placed on the item as an item for individual consideration on this particular meeting date because of the time of it all. With the legislature starting on January 10th, we want to be able to start having these conversations mid-December, beginning of January, before they gavel in and sharing this document with our delegation and others before all of that happens. And so the intent was to bring this to you, have the discussion. If there were any changes, we could certainly make those. Of course, as staff, my hope is always gonna be that we get it approved tonight, understanding fully well that that might not be the will this evening, but if we need to bring this back to a work session, we can certainly do that. Or if we want to discuss it this evening and then bring it back for another item for individual consideration, we can certainly do that. - Then I would only ask, Mayor, if we postpone it, that the agenda committee consider setting it for action on the day that we have a work session, because January is real close. - Yes, Council Member Briggs. - Well, I was going to ask a question about this, so if we're going to have a work session on it, I can withhold my discussion. - Okay, well, and I mean, this is after the fact, but next year, we need to see this sooner, because I don't even know if I remember seeing this in the agenda committee, it appeared, and if it's that time sensitive, we don't need to be seeing this in December. We need to see it sooner than that. So, but we're gonna go ahead and move forward with your presentation, and if we have questions that we can answer here, but if not, then we'll go ahead and save them for the work session. Now, I don't know, is December the, do we have work session on December the 13th? Okay, we'll get that on that work session, and so be sure and have your questions at that time. And if you need to ask questions offline to sort of get a head start on it, that's okay too. - Okay, would you like me to continue this evening and we can flesh anything out, or do you want to wait until we do the work session? - Well, it doesn't seem like there's really reason to do that. - I mean, that's-- - Yeah, we'll take that up in the work session. - Okay, we can do that. Absolutely, thank you. - Okay. Council Member Briggs, did you have a question? - I have a question, is this the same thing you sent us in an email? - It is. - And you asked us to look at it? - Yes, it is. - Okay. - And so we, you know, there were a few changes from that email that I had sent from, I guess it was a couple weeks ago, and so I tried to include any of those changes in the backup that was provided to you, and then would talk about it this evening. - Thank you. - Thanks. - Okay, all right, so Mayor Pro Tem. - I'd like to move that we postpone this to December 13th, which would be next week, if we could have a work session on that, and have an action item posted the same day to be able to take action if need be. And I understand that might be a special called session in order to do it, correct? Or do we already have a regular meeting scheduled for December 13th? - It's a regular meeting, I believe. - Not just work session? - It's a special call. - It already is a special call, so we can add it as an action, okay. That's my motion. - Council Member Wasney. - I second the motion. - Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries, we postpone till December the 13th. So be sure and get your questions in that you have ahead of time, so that the staff can address them, and then any that come up during that time. And we'll go ahead and put it on also as an action item. Well, we'll discuss that later. Okay, moving on then to agenda item. Is public hearing? Oh, oh, I'm sorry, yep. You don't wanna speak? Okay. Sorry about that, Mr. Hesbeth. Agenda item 6A, public hearing. So hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas amending sub-chapter 35.7.5, the Fry Street overlay district. - Thank you, Mayor Ron Mangata, our long-range planning administrator will handle this public hearing. - Thank you, Ms. Martin. Mayor, members of the council, members of staff, brought forward to you today is a consideration for a case to consider amending sub-chapter 35.7.5 of the Denton Development Code, the Fry Street overlay district, to create a new sub-area, as well as associated redevelopment, I'm sorry, development standards. The Fry Street overlay district is outlined here in orange. It is bounded by Oakton and North Avenue B to the west, Welch to the east, and Mulberry and Hickory to the south. In 2010, the city approved the sub-area B of the overlay district. This amendment to the overlay district allowed the facilitation of a development, which is now called U Center. The sub-district or sub-area created new development regulations, again, to allow for that type of, that development. The applicant is proposing something similar in proposing a new sub-area, sub-area C. Associated with that are also development standards that will facilitate their development for a five-story mixed-use development. This is a closer look of the parcels that will be combined in order for the proposed development to develop. It's roughly, again, between Oak and Hickory, and also Avenue B and Fry Street. Overlaid on here is the footprint of the proposed development. You have retail on the Hickory side, a parking structure in the middle with the residential units wrapping the parking structure and built atop both the retail units here. There is a driveway that travels north-south and exits Oak. The entrance to the parking structure is in this general vicinity here. They have some parking in this area here, five spaces to be exact, and also they're proposing additional parking, which is across the street on Oak and Bryan. Just by way of background, earlier this year, the Planning and Zoning Commission on January 27th, 2016, considered a zoning case to amend the same subsection. That case back then was Z1529. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended a denial, six to one. Prior to City Council considering this case, it was placed on the agenda. However, the applicant requested that the item be postponed , and it's my understanding it was postponed several times. Ultimately, before it was even considered, the applicant withdrew the application. So that case never came to City Council or never was considered by City Council. On April 8th, 2016, the applicant submitted a new application, Z167, and the difference between the first application and this application, which you are considering this evening, is the additional parking spaces, again, which is located north of Oak Street, shown here in this general vicinity. The five-story mixed-use development is a student living apartment. It comprises of approximately 111,000 square feet, where individual bedrooms will be leased to students. It will also comprise, or will comprise, of 83 dwelling units, nine two-bedrooms, 14 three-bedrooms, and 64-bedroom unit apartments. That totals 300 bedrooms. The building height proposed is 62.05 feet. It also, again, as mentioned earlier, will include a parking garage, which will include 217 parking spaces, and the height of the parking garage is 69.2 feet. The proposed development will also, as mentioned earlier, will include retail. The bottom retail, the majority of it, which is approximately 10,766 square feet, will be comprised of the Vortmans Bookstore. As we all know, there is, the bookstores, they're currently there. The plan is to relocate and reestablish the bookstore in that same general location. There is also approximately 1,600 square feet of retail/restaurant, and as of today, my understanding is that Subway will be occupying that space. And again, five parking spaces on site, 36 surface parking spaces off site. Presented in this slide is a summary of the development standards for not just the proposed sub-area, but also sub-area A and sub-area B, to illustrate the difference in their requirements. Force is the maximum building height. For sub-area A, it's requirement of a maximum of three stories, 45 feet tall. That's the maximum building height. Sub-area B, which is the U Center, has a maximum building height of four stories and 55 feet. The applicant is proposing a height limit for the new sub-area C of five stories at 62.05 feet. In relation to the building height, the parking garage height for sub-area B is 45. Sub-area B is five stories, 60 feet tall. The proposed for sub-area C is six stories at approximately 69.2 feet. The density proposed for the sub-area C is 86 dwelling units per acre, where the U Center, they were approved at 72.5. And generally for sub-area A, it's based on development standards such as lot coverage and parking requirements. Parking ratio for two bedrooms or more. In sub-area A, it's one space. It's also one space per bedroom in sub-area B. The applicant is proposing a 0.76 parking space per bedroom for the new sub-area C. Building coverage for sub-area A is 50, as well as sub-area B. The proposed for sub-area C is 70%. Minimum landscape for A and B is 15%. The applicant is proposing a reduction to 10.7%. And last, rear yard setback for A and B is 10 feet. The applicant is proposing a reduction to five feet for sub-area C. I wanted to illustrate, because I think parking has been a discussion, not only with the Planning Zoning Commission, but with the community as well. And this is to illustrate how the proposed parking requirement of 0.76 would equate to, in comparison to the regular or the current parking requirements. And you see here, the only difference is the units above two-bedroom units, I'm sorry, two bedrooms or more units. And because they only are proposing two-bedroom units or more, and they are approximately 300 bedrooms in total, it's one space per bedroom that equates to 300 spaces, where if they were to get approved with the 0.76, their requirements for the same 300-bedroom units or bedrooms, that is, would be 228 spaces. And again, to illustrate, if this amendment were to be approved, their requirement would be 260 spaces as opposed to what would be 332, a difference in 72 parking spaces. So moving forward, staff has prepared a number of considerations for the council. We acknowledge that the proposed development will encourage uses that are in close proximity to other businesses and uses that will encourage walking and bicycling. The proposed development will extend, or does provide extended setbacks from the minimum requirements along Hickory and Oak Street. And the proposed development does provide commercial uses along Hickory Street, again, the Vortmans and the proposed retail restaurant use, which at this time is considered to be Subway. But also to consider, as we review this, the Frye Street Overlay District, when it was developed or when it was approved back in 2000, did ask or did propose, or I'm sorry, did approve a parking requirement to provide adequate parking for residents, but also relaxed the parking for retail and restaurant. The chart here below tries to illustrate that. Here, the first one under retail, in the Frye Street Overlay, the requirement is one space per 400 versus if you were outside the overlay, it's one space per 300. The restaurant requirement is one space per six or one space for each 400 square feet, where if you were in the-- or outside the Frye Street Overlay District, it's one space per four seats or one space per 100 square feet. Now, the reverse, in multifamily, the current Frye Street Overlay District required more parking that would-- than what is required outside of the overlay district. As an example, two bedrooms would require two bedrooms in the Frye Street Overlay District. If you were outside, a two-bedroom unit would only require 1.75. Three bedrooms in the Frye Street Overlay District would require three spaces, while if you were outside the overlay district, you would only be required two spaces. Other consideration, the height and density of the development is not compatible with the surrounding area. The height is approximately 60 feet or so. As you all are familiar with the area, a majority of the surrounding properties to the north are no more than two stories. There are larger, taller buildings along Hickory on the UNT property. Those buildings, on average, are around 45 feet, as measured from the ground. A solution to the solid waste requirement still has not been met. Our engineering department has been working with the applicant to come up with a solution, but have not come to a solution as of today. Also, contingent on the approval of this project-- of the site plan, that is-- a 10-foot clearance is required on the west side to obtain that fire requirement of 10 feet to provide the adequate service. That agreement still has not been provided to the city and has not been obtained as of my understanding of today. Other consideration is that the Fry Street Overlay District standards, if continued to be amended, would compromise the effect of the Fry Street Overlay. Compatibility is one, as well as the other, in the form of scale and form. The proposed amendment and associated development standards are not consistent with the Denton development-- I'm sorry, the Denton Plan 2030 in regards to gradual transition, maintenance of the character of the area, as well as addressing the potential impact to adjacent neighborhoods. Notifications were sent out to property owners surrounding the Fry Street Overlay District. We received four in total through mail. Two are in opposition and two are in favor, shown here in the illustration on the slide. Recommendations from the Planning Zoning Commission was a 4 to 1. Recently, October 26, I believe, was the time of the date of the meeting. So they recommended denial. Staff is recommending denial of the requests for the following reasons-- not consistent with the Denton Plan 2030, it compromises the effectiveness of the existing overlay district, the compatibility with the surrounding area, as well as development standards are not consistent with the site plan as proposed, and as discussed earlier, solid waste approval is still pending and a boundary agreement with the property to the west has not yet been obtained. With that, that concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any question that you may have. The applicant is here as well if you have any questions for the applicant. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ron. Am I understanding this right? There's 175 notifications are sent out, and we only got four back? Correct. What? Why? We do receive some-- we're not able to send to sender, and that equated to maybe 20 at the most. What time of year that happened? Or I'm just really curious about that. That is not a very good percentage. I mean, out of the 175 or so, like I said, approximately 20 were sent back because the address was incorrect or the postman wasn't able to deliver the mail. OK. Thanks, Ron. Mayor Pro Tem. Couple of questions for you. In the proposals, are anything that would tie-- require-- I know the proposal is to do first floor retail fronting hickory. Is there anything that would require that, or is that just what the proposal is? That's what the proposal is. There's nothing in terms of how this is set up that would tie the project to that sort of-- Correct. I'm sorry. Their site plan is, if it was to be approved, is tied to the ordinance. So whatever's shown on the site plan, I don't know if that was the question. They would have to provide-- So if they have retail and restaurant on the first floor, that would tie the project to that. Correct. That's correct. The other question is, one thing that-- well, I'll reserve my opinions. But the question is, the new curb cut that seems to be in place with this. So right now, you can walk from Avenue B-- I think it's Avenue B-- all the way to Fry Street. Well, that's not true, because there is-- Jack in the Box has that. And then there's a parking lot right beside Subway. But there's an addition now of a curb cut between this property and to the east, what is previously Big Mike's Coffee. Is that correct? A new curb cut with a drive that goes all the way back, connecting it to Oak Street? This right here, Councilman Rodin? Is that a new curb cut? That would be a new curb cut. And is that because of a requirement in the debt and code that requires that sort of thoroughfare? So what is it that's triggering that? I don't know exactly. Our DRC engineer manager, Earl Esquire, is here that may be able to answer that, if that's a requirement or not. But my understanding is to just allow for access to the parking structure. Yeah. So I'll be curious at some point to know whether that's our doing their request-- Or the proposal. --for the-- OK. Because at some point, you look at dense urban areas, and they're able to kind of keep buildings connected, even when you're adding density to it, for the sake of the form of your street. And I'm just curious as to what in our code would or would not allow that sort of development. Sure. OK. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. That dry valve that connects Hickory to Oak Street is actually a fire code requirement. Because since the structure is so tall, the fire code requires a fire lane and the width of, I believe, is 26 feet along the length side of the building. OK. That answers my question. One other question, then, is I know when you talk about whether or not it's in line or not in line with the 2030 plan, there's a little bit of interpretation going into that. So specifically, what is it that you're calling out that's not in line with 2030 plan about this? Let me get to the slide real quick. In the 2030 plan, and it's referenced in page 62 of the plan, there are development standards that pertain to what we call the neighborhood university compatibility area. And in that area, it calls out certain standards requirements. And it states that there shall be, in this general area, again, the neighborhood university compatibility area, that there should be a gradual transition in scale, character, and form. And because of the height and because of the character of what is currently out there, we feel that they didn't meet that gradual transition. Maintenance of the character of the area with regards to, again, scale and form, we felt that it was more of a massing difference than what could be potentially there. Is there a line at which-- I mean, whether this gets approved or not, the interest in multifamily and more student housing all around the university is going to only increase. So to give some sense of direction to potential developers or whatnot, as we're talking about what we think the debt and plan is encouraging or not encouraging, you're not saying it wouldn't encourage multifamily here. Your concern is with height and scale. And so outside of what, of course, the overlay says, is there anything the 2030 plan gives us direction on as to what you would say would be acceptable versus not acceptable? Not as detailed as a set of development standards. And maybe that's where the overlay district set of standards will take a little bit more the teeth to really implement. So the debt and plan 2030 just sets the guidance. And then the overlay district or standards that follow it should follow that. I know I said this last one, finally. As it relates to form, because to me, that's a huge part of how you preserve character, especially in these sorts of walkable areas. What is in our toolbox that allows us to help shape form as it relates to what buildings look and so as to encourage what we want in these places versus just saying no to things we don't want? I think it boils down to the development standards that we have, the setbacks, the height, the articulation, all the architectural requirements that play into it, all feed into what that type of form should be for that area. All right, thank you. Council Member Begayre. I had a couple of comments. First, I just wanted to point out that in the four responses that were provided for public comment, the 200 feet radius, I found it interesting that the two that were opposed were business owners in the area. And they specifically noted parking. So I'm very cognizant of-- first of all, I think it's a good idea to have more density in this area. A lot of people might disagree with me, but I do think it's the appropriate location for it. It just seems like the actual details of this particular plan could end up being to the detriment of surrounding business owners as it's currently configured. If there is some tweaking, it looks like it could possibly work, especially in terms of parking . But it's hard to have a large development come in like that . That sucks up the parking when you're running a business that's already constricted so much with parking. So that was my comment in that regard. I'm really concerned that that Western property owner hasn 't allowed whatever agreement it is regarding safety, fire safety. Seems like that's a really crucial missing piece that we need to get to. Because without that and without a solid waste plan, I think it's not timely yet. And overall, again, going back to the scale of the project, with this many beds, this much square feet, it seems tight in that space given the standards that we have. So I don't know if it's possible to scale it by 8% or 10% down, but that may be how you get it into this particular space. Again, I'm not a zoning or any type of expert on how to configure these. It's just looking at everything as it's presented. It seems like it's about 9% too big. Council Member Wasney. So quick question. And in a nutshell, does this project or does it not comply with the Fry Street overlay? It does not. It does not. And staff recommends denial and planning a zoning commission voted denial. That's correct. Thank you. OK, seeing no more questions for staff, we will now open the public hearing to take public comment. We've got about 12 or 14 cards. So I'm going to give the applicant an opportunity. If the applicant wants to speak, go ahead and take their time on the front end, if that's OK. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Rob Baldwin. Your Honor, I like that. [LAUGHTER] Sorry. [INAUDIBLE] Go ahead. I'm new here. Now you're not. My office is 3904 Elm Street Suite B in Dallas. And I'm here representing EDR, Residential Trust, who's the developer on this project. My client is Rodney King. Unfortunately, he had a family emergency and stuck in Memphis. And he sends his apologies for not being here. So you got Plan B here. And so I'm going to do my best to do as well as Rodney would do. I do have letters of support that I understand were emailed to you all. I have 10 copies. If you guys need more paper in your life, I can-- Sure. You just hand them to her, and she'll get them to us. OK. Thank you. These are mostly from business owners in the area and the church we're next to. Ron, can you help me get out of this? I have a brief presentation showing who EDR is. So EDR, Residential Trust, is the second largest collegiate housing provider in the United States. Let's see. Oops. That's us. And they would like to put a high density residential development on the site where Vortmans is. We think it's a win-win situation, because we are keeping the historic uses on the ground floor and building above it. Mayor Pro Tem's comments about the Denton plan being kind of open to interpretation, I agree with you. The Denton plan identifies this as neighborhood university compatibility area. And it says it wants mixed use development there, that is compact development with a mix of uses, provides additional housing choices, and complements the thriving university area. I think having lots of students right across the street from the university makes a lot of sense in a mixed use environment where they will not have to get up and drive and go to class. If you have-- the farther away you are from the university, the more likely you'll have cars and students in cars that will cause more traffic, the need for more parking rather than parking them on site here. I think that Ron did a very good job giving you the base facts of what we're asking for. But before I get too far ahead of myself, I just want to say this company is 52 years old. It owns and operates more than 40,000 bedrooms in the United States. Six of those are in Texas. They just got finished doing a good project in TCU and in Texas State. They have something down in Texas A&M, University of Texas and Texas Tech as well. These are examples of their projects in other cities, Texas TCU, Arizona State, Texas Tech, University of Minnesota. They specialize in having mixed use projects. They know how to operate them, and they do a good job of the design and operation of these. I won't bore you with our history. We've been doing this a long time. We started, I guess, we met late last year when we started this. And we've been going through iterations. We're trying to get the parking to work. That's our big problem, I think, is that right now we're proposing 0.76 parking spaces per bedroom. We think that's reasonable and appropriate. The Denton Unified Development Code says that parking for a project should be adequate and reasonable to support the use. The Unified Development Code goes further to state that where literal interpretation of the off-st reet parking standards would not clearly achieve the purposes and intent of the standards, the developer can seek a variance to those standards. And that's what we're asking for. Unfortunately, so far no one supported our request for the reduced parking. We know that the Youth Center at Fry Street, they have a parking garage where they never use the top floor. The management of their facility estimates they use about 70% of their parking at any one time. 33 degrees north, the one off Eagle, when it was approved, it only had to provide 70% of its parking, and all of that's not being used. They're located right across the street from the university , and it keeps people from having to bring cars to campus. So if parking is the issue, we have worked out deals with adjacent property owners. We can get additional parking, and we can enter into those agreements if that's the issue that this turns on. University of North Texas has a parking garage within 1,000 feet of this property that we will pay to have our excess students park there. So if parking's the issue, we can solve the parking problem . The issue with the fire protection along our west border, we have met with the neighbors. Jay West has gone out to Gainesville to meet with the neighbor. He will sign an agreement, but we don't want to encumber his property until we know it's needed. So we can solve that issue, and I'm confident we can solve the issue with the solid waste as well. The big issue is, do you think this is an appropriate project in the location and the way it's designed? We think it is. We hope that you would too. What I'd like to do is save any time I have remaining for rebuttal and answer any questions you may have. Is that-- yeah, OK. Any questions? Mayor Pro Tem. So I want to ask a couple questions about the layout of this. And first of all, do you have anything that-- I see your mock-ups there, but is there anything that shows it in connection with the existing street gate? No, sir. This shows what it would look like there, but doesn't show our neighbors on the other side. It's not in context. Of course, it's jack-in-the-box on the one side, so there's nothing of any interest. But if that's something that would help, it's something we could bring back to you. We're talking about things like form and scale and things like that that kind of helps. But from a retail perspective, so currently, in the entire footprint that you plan to develop, what is the current retail restaurant square footage capacity? Because we're not just talking Subway and Vortmans. We're also talking about the old Joe's Coffee's, which was a sushi place. I don't even know what it is now. I'm going to have to call for a-- You know what I'm talking about. So there's Vortmans, Subway, and then there's that spot, which I don't know what it-- is there anything else? Used to be Sushi Cafe. If you could come to the mic, yeah, I don't want to have a conversation. He's the owner of Vortmans and the property. Well, that's not Subway. Say your name and address, please. My name is Brent Erskine, and I'm property owner and business owner of 1314 West Hickory. And in that space used to be Sushi Cafe. Sushi has then since moved down to a new development down the road, which-- so that's where they are now. Previously, Joe's Coffee's. Correct. So what's the previous current retail restaurant footprint of the entire that you're building on? And then what is the proposed retail restaurant footprint of this project? It's approximately 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurant. 24,000 plus is what Vortmans is currently occupying, which is over probably double what we need, which is part of the reason that we're seeking something of this nature. So 30,000 currently to what is it-- what's being proposed in this project? It's going to be 12. Yeah. You know, part of-- to me-- and I guess there's a question. I'm going to form this into a question. The value of this area, and I think why students want to go, is because of the services there. They like having restaurant, retail. That's what makes this such a vibrant area, right across from where they have to go to school. I am a bit concerned about that restriction of retail in this area. Because in one sense, we're kind of taking away some front-edge retail on Oak, which down the street, the Sterling development kind of did too, a little bit. There was Corkscrew. There used to be what the music venue down there. There was a coffee shop for a while, which is, I think, taking away from the value. Is there any thought about the ability to expand that footprint of retail? Well, you expand the footprint of retail, you expand the parking requirements. And as you can see, that's where we're running into difficulty right now. Retail and restaurant park at a greater rate than you would for residential. So that's the problem. And it would increase traffic in the area as well. Thanks. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. And the issue with the solid waste requirement is strictly just the location of the containers. You haven't figured out the design layout quite yet, or-- Yes, sir. Right now, the way the Hickory Street, the Fry Street overlay is, you have to have a pad for dumpsters. And so you have a pen where you keep your dumpsters in, and a garbage truck comes in there and pulls them up. All the state of the art for garbage collection in apartments is that garbage is collected in chutes, comes down into dumpsters, the dumpsters are rolled out, and then loaded into the trucks. And that's what we're proposing. And if you go throughout the Metroplex, that's how apartments take care of it, because that keeps the garbage in a semi-conditioned space inside the garage and out of view. And you're not using valuable land outside the building for garbage collection. And I'm confident that we can work something out with the solid waste people. In fact, the EDR people would even consider, by then, a proper truck that would accommodate this. But we haven't spent a lot of time doing that because we still haven't gotten over the issue and concern with the parking. OK, thank you. This is one of these things that, if we get an indication from the council that try to go solve these, and come back and visit us, and show us how we solved them, we will do that. But what we're trying not to do is keep having everybody have to come on down, given that we need to get your support for this. Just a concern of mine-- Just go ahead, sure. --is just how long this has been going on. It just slightly concerns me that some of these things have not been figured out. Yeah, so there's lots of reasons why it's been going on a long time. And a lot of moving parts, and we've been trying to secure parking, trying to get with the people with our next door neighbor to solve the fire issue. It's taken a long time. And city staff-- I appreciate that. --wants to do a major study on this. And it took us a while to get scheduled for P&Z, because they wanted to do a study of the whole Frye Street area. OK, thank you. You're welcome. Councilmember Begayre. So you're saying that you are willing to enter into a parking agreement with the University of North Texas to purchase overflow parking? Yes, ma'am. For your residents? OK. That's the first I heard about that. Well, it's relatively new. We don't think it's needed, but we're willing to do it if that's what it takes to get this project approved. OK, thank you. Councilmember Gregory. Well, has the University of North Texas said that they will enter into that agreement with you? I understand that my client has spoken with them, and they have excess spaces they're willing to lease out to us. The University of North Texas has access parking spaces. In their parking garage, yes, sir. Oh, in the parking garage. Yes, sir. Yeah, because it's costing too much for people to pay to rent that to go in there. I understand any student that goes to North Texas is entitled to park on campus for a price, and we would pay their price. OK. The other question along that line is you've given us some anecdotal information about the parking that's not being used at a couple of the other facilities. Do we have any documentation of that? We have our conversations with the operators, and I understand when-- well, we know that when 33 North-- 33 North was approved, they were only required to provide 70% of the required parking. Yes, sir. Jay, if you-- Jay, if you-- Could you come up and introduce yourself? Yes. This is Jay West. Yeah, I just want to make sure if you're going to speak, you need to come forward to the mic, because it's being televised, and they can't pick you up if you're out in the gallery. I'm Jay West. I live in Dallas, Texas, 2606 Shelby Avenue, and I'm representative of Education and Realty Trust. And I can give some detailed information with regard to the parking situation at 33 degrees North, and I have that via a leasing report from March 1, 2015. The property was on the market for sale at that time, and this information was available to people who were interested in purchasing. So the project is 427 beds. It has 348 parking spaces provided, mostly in their garage. That's actually 80% of the total units. So they provided parking for 80% of the units, not 100%. They have leased at that time-- the project was 95.5% occupied at that time, so it was full . And they had leased 275 parking spaces to their resident users, the people that live there. So that results in a utilization rate of 275 spaces leased for 427 beds, which is 64.4%. So the arrangement in these kind of facilities is you rent a room, but it doesn't come with a parking space. You have to rent a parking space, too. Typically, in a project like this, some people bring their cars. A lot of students, much to my surprise, but commonly, the students today coming to campus don't bring cars. How much do they charge for the rental of the parking space ? I think it varies, and I don't know specifically. It might be $25 a month is a number that comes to my mind, but it could vary depending on what's deemed by the owner and the manager to be the best policy. It's possible, then, that some of those folks have cars, they don't want to pay for the parking space, and they just park on the street, down the street a little bit. Well, that would not be typical. I mean, these places are not-- Well, my question was, it's possible, right? It's possible. It's possible. These places are not inexpensive. You're going to get the highest rents in the city of Denton at this project in U Center at Fry Street. So the budget doesn't tend to be as constraining a factor as it is for a lot of college students. So most of these kids, their parents can afford to pay for them for a parking place if they want one. So. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for the speaker? Seeing none, thank you. Appreciate it. We've got a few cards. You'll come up and state your name and address. Gina Andrews, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Sorry. I don't want to break it. My name is Gina Andrews, and I live at 616 East Hickory Street, apartment 341. OK. I wanted to make a couple of points that were said. For one, I feel that I support it, that there should be this apartment built there. For one, I am a student at the University of North Texas, and I didn't get a car until I was a senior. And I'm about to graduate in December, so it's like four and a half years. So I know the struggle of, oh, dang, I got to catch the bus . What time does the bus stop running? Stuff like that. So I feel that it's best if they have this apartment complex next to the campus, because if I were to live there , I can just walk downstairs, go get my books, go get a sandwich from Subway. I can walk to Chipotle. If I need groceries, there's a CBS. If I did have a car, all apartment complexes have spots for you to park. You don't have to pay for extra parking. So that's also something that's-- if I wanted to grab a coffee, I can go to Big Mike's or whatever it's called now. So I don't think that there's a problem. And also, earlier when I was here, I guess a man that was opposed to it, he was saying that the apartment should be closer to the highway or something like that. I also don't agree with that, because like I said, buses, they run to certain places. They stop at certain times. So what if I have to meet with my group? I can't meet with my group because I can't catch the bus to go to the apartment-- I mean, to go to the campus. However, if I lived at whatever this would be called, where Burmans would be, then I could just walk to campus. And then also, I feel that it's safer because it's right by campus than students having to walk around. And I also feel that it's 2016. I feel that there are two colleges, and then we should be kind of more up to date, like not all old looking-- sorry. This is me being like a young kid. Are you talking about the city or the people up here on the dais? Oh, no. Not you guys. Not you guys. Not you guys. I'm just talking about the city, like for instance, the streets. Everyone gets happy when the streets are new and better looking. They don't want all bumpy streets messing up your car. You don't want all ugly buildings. You want new buildings. Yeah. Yeah. I'm done. Thank you. Any questions? Councilmember Briggs, we have a question. You said you lived in an apartment or a single-- do you live in an SRO, just a single bedroom or an apartment? Oh, yeah. I live in an apartment with two other people. OK. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Elaine Davis. You'll come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. I'm Elaine Davis. I live at 2418 K. Wood Street here in Denton. And I moved to Denton over 40 years ago. And it was a great place to live then. And it's a great place to live now. And it's obviously a very different city. But I don't really have a problem with that. Because I believe that growth and change is the lifeblood of any city, especially when it's carefully and thoughtfully managed. So I not only respect that we are going to have businesses come here, but I welcome businesses to come. They need to come to Denton and help us grow. However, I would expect those businesses to also respect and comply with all the ordinances, the regulations, the plans, and the guidelines that have been put in place to enhance and protect the quality of life for citizens of Denton. I don't expect that quality of life to be a high priority for the business. But I do expect that as our city council, that would be a very number one priority in any decision that you guys are called upon to make. So I'm here tonight, up late, sticking it out. Because it's very important for me to tell you that I am not opposed to businesses at all. But I would ask you very strongly urge you to please say no to any business that is requesting variances to the plans that have been put in place. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Brett Erskine. State your name and address. Your time will begin. Like I said, my name is Brett Erskine. I'm the owner of Verpens 1314 West Hickory, also the property owner. And I want to thank you, mayor and council members, for your time and looking over the facts of this. I know that you guys spend a lot of time, and we appreciate your time to the city. Those letters that were handed to you guys or sent to you guys via email are of business owners. They're represented of 18 business owners in the area. They also represented the student ministry next door to us in the village church down the road. These are all businesses that are small businesses. They're businesses that would appreciate having a denser area with more students for their business. I feel that this development was originated, like I stated before, because our space is too big. Our space, we are either going to have to cut down the space and add more businesses to the area. And I understand your point about having more businesses. However, I would encourage us to go down the street to the new development that was down the road that Sushi is in. And there are three open spots there and have been for since the development started a year and a half, two years ago. So adding more businesses to convoluted area, I'm not sure is the answer. I think adding more business to the area does help. Also, I think we've all seen the reports of our air quality around here. And I think that making sure that we have walkable space to the school is a benefit. I think making sure that we have students that aren't driving in from 288 and student housing that are not driving in from Brahms, Chuck E. Cheese area to student housing is going to help reduce that carbon footprint. Student housing is something that is not just for Denton. It is something that's going on at every campus, whether it's large or small. They have student housing going in. Students are demanding student housing. So that's what the public is providing. I think there's no better spot than to put student housing directly across the street from where they go, they work, their social life is. I hope that you guys can support small business and put a vote in for us to continue and to help preserve a legacy that was established in 1925. And that's what we're trying to do, is trying to make sure that that name lives on past textbooks. And this is one way that it'll help us do that. Mayor Pro Tem, I see you're reaching. As it relates to-- as a business owner-- and it sounds like there's some difference of opinion among business owners in the area. Some have said they're concerned about parking, somewhat more business. What does the impact-- since you'd be putting yourself under the same restraints that every other business would be impacted by as it relates to this supposed parking pressure. What does that mean for you as a business owner in that area? Understood. A lot of businesses in this area, the city has granted variances for. So they have zero parking. This project actually has parking for all the businesses there. If we go to-- even if this project was parked one to one, so it was just like you, Senator, we're just adding concrete. There's people not parking there. And it's not open to the public because these guys don't want the liability of having people in the middle of the night up and around their apartment. So if there are not residents in those spaces, we're just adding parking just to say and to fulfill a requirement by the city, not necessarily because it's used. I think that's important to recognize that if we go to the top of the youth center, it's not being used as a for guest. You can't just go in there and go up to the top floor and park your vehicle to open to the public. So as a business owner in the area that says, hey, I'm not against parking, I would be curious to know if they have parking at all. But if they did, they're not getting the benefit of youth center being one to one anyways. Does that make sense? OK. Thank you. Mary Anderson? I don't think Mary's here. Mary, I think she left. But she made some comments. She was in opposition, no more SROs. Keep our zoning and neighborhoods intact, or zoning rules and neighborhoods intact. Next speaker will be Alan Feltman. If you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. My name's Alan Feltman. I'm from Plano. But we own Caddy Corner to where this project's going to be , which would be Avenue A in Hickory. It's the Speedy Pizza, the garage, and Peter Pit. So we own the 6,000 square feet. And a couple years ago when the new apartment came in, actually it helped increase the business of the people. The walk-in traffic is what-- and I'm getting ready to have a small vacancy. But the walk-in traffic is the reason those people are there. None of the people that want to lease our property and have for 30 years have really cared about parking. Because it's the paid parking in front. They come to this area because of the walk-in and the density in the area. So both of you all have asked earlier, I'm really shocked that people are worried about parking. Because it's mostly the students that they drive their business from. And the businesses that come to us and want to lease our properties are definitely tailored to the students and the walk-in traffic. I mean, they're there for a reason. I took a call the other day. And I said, there's no parking. I said, no. And it's a company that doesn't need parking. They want the density. And interestingly enough, the space is probably a little too small for them. But they're working. They've already seen it. And they're going to try to make it work. So that's the lure of that area, the quaintness of it, the being around the students. And so I'll be happy to answer any questions about that. But that's the experience I've had in 30 years being property owner here in Denton. Any questions? Seeing none. Thank you. You bet. Next speaker will be Kim McKibbin. State your name and address, and your time will begin. Good evening. My name's Kim McKibbin, and I own the property at 1306 West Hickory Street adjacent to the Vordman Properties. I have been here. I was here a little bit over a year ago, met some of you then, presented you with the current Fry Street ordinances, and requested at that point that you very seriously consider not making any adjustments to those ordinances. And we went over the same reasons then that we've heard some people talk about recently, about the integrity of the community, as the planning and zoning gentleman explained, that the ordinances were put there for a reason. I think that when the U Center, or whatever it was when it got started, was allowed, that was a mistake . And we don't have to repeat that mistake. You've heard a lot about parking here this evening. Yes, parking is a concern. But the parking that's a concern is not only for the people who would be living in that building, but also for the people who live in the building surrounded that. Because of the late hour, we have lost some of our supporters this evening from the historic district of Long Hickory and the historic districts that move back and around the area. So I would ask you to reconsider-- I would ask you consider the multiple community meetings that we have had, the comments that have been made to these developers. The community does not want this. We really would like to have something that fits within the overlay district, something that is applicable to more than just students. It's not just the students that want to live close to the university. The teachers want to live close to the university. They have families. And this single room occupancy is not appropriate for families. They are expensive. I don't know what the young lady who spoke earlier pays for her apartment. But I don't know if she could pay $750 to $800 a month just for a bedroom. The overall massiveness of this building will basically keep my building in the shade quite a bit. I do not believe that the property will never be developed. I think it can be developed responsibly. This particular developer has had multiple opportunities. Over and over again, we told him what our concerns were from the community. We told him what our concerns were from the businesses surrounding it. And over the past year, they have not made significant changes. And the reason they have given for that is that they have a certain amount of profit that they have to have to make this a profitable business. They have a business model in this particular development that demands a certain amount. I have spoken to a lot of the business owners and the people that work in the businesses, not necessarily the property owners, but the people that work in the businesses around there. I'm really curious as to who these 18 supporters are, if it's the property owners or if it's the business owners. Once Fry Street went in, there was not a lot of business increase in some of the areas down there. And maybe some places went up and others didn't. I don't know that for sure. But I know that given the surrounding, giving the community that is surrounding this area and what the Fry Street overlay initially intended for this area to be, that this particular development does not fit that overlay. And it does not fit in this specific area, not even for our new 2030 development ideas. So I'm asking you to follow the lead and the wisdom of the planning and zoning people and deny this. They have put this one off coming to you, I think, three or four times because I've been watching it pretty closely. So they had nothing to bring you. And I still don't think they have a viable project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker will be-- and you'll have to help me with the name. Is it Tim? Right. It starts with a R-A-I-E-T-P-R-V-E-I-R. Is Tim? Rate, par? He's gone? OK. In support. Kale Ward, come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. My name is Kale Ward. I live in 1607 West Oak Street, apartment 211. So I'm right by the CVS. I also work at Vertmans for Mr. Erskine. And let me put it this way. It's surprising to me that it's brought up that there's families wanting to move into these apartment complex. If I were a parent, I would not want to move near a college anywhere by any means across the street, for that matter. So I don't see why that's a concern, especially with a bunch of kids like there's going to be in there. Now, a lot of the cars, the car situation, there's a lot of my friends, a lot of students that I go to school with that also do not have a vehicle. They don't want a vehicle, nor do they want to drive. They don't want to have anything to do with it. One, that's gas money. We can't afford that. We're college kids. Two, that's just another parking spot you have to worry about. Parking around here is terrible. A lot of friends coming into class an hour late sometimes. And the professors are like, why are you coming? And they're like, because I had to find a parking spot. But that's UNT's problem. That's not anything with the apartment complexes. And the apartment complexes, my car, my truck stays parked for months on end. Because I don't need it. I don't need to walk anywhere. I don't need to drive anywhere. I walk everywhere I go. School, work, shopping, it doesn't matter. Also, with the apartments being across the street for safety, also with the bars being right there, let's be honest, it's on a Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, college kids are going to go out there. Well, that's taking 600-- well, that's-- I don't know, however many kids are in that apartment complex, that's taking them off of the road. They get a walk to and from there. And that saves with DWIs, DUIs, drunk driving accidents, stuff like that. So I think that that aspect will be very nice to have. Other than that, that's pretty much all I have to say. Any questions? Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker will be Alyssa Nash. If you'll come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Alyssa Nash. Alyssa indicates support. We've got some yellow cards wishing not to speak. And so we will enter those into the record, but I'll give you the tally, at least as far as those support and non-support. We had nine in support and 14 in opposition. So city secretary, those will be up here for the record. Those are the cards we have, but this is a public hearing. So anybody wishing to speak, please come down and state your name and address, and your time will begin. I'm Paul Meltzer. I live at 1914 West Oak Street. I'm speaking in opposition. And I'm sorry to be doing so. I think that the dynamic is regrettable, that we have very good institutions that have been put in place-- the 2030 plan, planning and zoning , places for our developer here tonight to have gotten input and initiated a dialogue. And that's what really should have truly happened. Denton is a special place, as we all know. And you can't just plop an alien concept in and expect it to work. To really do Denton well requires collaboration with a lot of stakeholders. So what I hope council does is by saying no, I hope you send a message to encourage collaboration. I think it is entirely possible to develop in this space in a way that's suitable and that will be embraced. And so that the next development that this developer brings would be supported by the very same people who are here opposing it. It's done in a wise and sensitive way. Thank you. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come down and state your name and address, and your time will begin. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Because you were rebuttal or you just answer questions? Yes, sir. You can. State your name and address, please. And I'm Jay West. And I'm here as a representative of the developer. And I just wanted to address a few points that have been mentioned by some of those as opposed. Principally, there's been a label placed on this project of an SRO. And I don't know. I wondered when I first heard this, what is an SRO? But I looked it up. And apparently, SROs originated in New York City and Chicago in the '30s and '40s. And they were sort of older rundown buildings that were rented to transients for low rent, because that's what they could afford. And so they were sort of slum-like places. So I really have to say, having been in the student housing business for 10 years and seeing these type projects built at Texas A&M, at Texas State, at TCU, great universities, University of Texas, this project, nor any other similar lease by the bed project. And I would call this a lease by the bed project. And it represents really the state of the art in student housing. And you'll see it proliferating near all the campuses, because it's what the students want. They come to school. They got the private bedroom, a private bath. And they share a kitchen and living room. So it's a little privacy and a little socialness as well. So I would say that it would be more apt to describe this project and others as a lease by the bedroom projects. And they are popular with parents in particular. If in the old days, you lease a two-bedroom apartment, you had a roommate. If your roommate moved out, you were suddenly responsible for all the rent. If in a lease by the bed project, if one of the other occupants moves out, you're not responsible for their rent. So dad likes that. When I send my kids to school, I like knowing that I'm still only liable for a certain amount each month. So that's one reason, and it's just popular with students. It's not an SRO. So I would request it. I think that's somewhat demonizing the project to call it that. So I don't think it's appropriate. It's been indicated or it's been mentioned that the project is massive. And I think one of the earlier speakers that-- before we even got into this presentation-- said there were 600 beds. Well, just to clarify, there are only 300 beds in this project. By comparison, U Center at Fry Street had 615 beds. So this project is half the size. It is about the same density. It does have slightly smaller setbacks. It achieves-- it works because nowadays, six years after U Center at Fry Street was built, it's clear that you don't need 100% parking for residents of these type projects when they're across the street from a campus. The retail in the building meets code 100%. So 100% of the required spaces are being provided. Furthermore, I guess I would say that when the Fry Street Overlay District was created-- and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that was about the year 2000, 2001-- most of the students who had occupied this building were not born yet. So things change. And the pace of change is accelerating, as we all know. So to say that for all time to come that you shouldn't violate any of the ordinances of the Fry Street Overlay District, I think it's a little short-sight ed. I think 10 years from now, if nothing gets built on this project, a developer will come in here and ask to build a 20-story building. So I'd say you might be better off with a five-story building that this developer is proposing. Because one of the things you're getting with this developer is one of the two top student housing owners and operators in the United States. They're a real estate investment trust that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They're at least a billion-dollar company. They're very well capitalized. They intend to hold their projects for a long time. I will say also, in defense of U Center and Fry Street, you've got the largest real estate investment trust that operates student housing in the country at that project. And it's being operated very well. Thank you. We have a couple questions. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you very much. My question is kind of about the economics of the project. And probably, in my mind, it seems if we were to knock down some of the height of the project and have not as many units, what's making this project so expensive? Is the parking garage is out, in my understanding? Everything makes the project expensive. The cost of construction in the last five years have probably gone up 30% for all types of buildings. And you ask anybody in the construction business, it's somewhat staggering. So what worked five years ago, frankly, does not work today . So it's not my job to do the economic equation that figures out exactly what the yield or the return is on this project to investment. But I'm going to guess that it's in the range of 6%, which is fairly typical for these type projects nowadays. And that's not an excessive return. That's kind of a minimum that someone would want who's willing to take the kind of risk that's involved in spending $35, $40 million on a nice new facility. I think what I'm struggling with is the height of the building. It seems the UNT buildings, I think, were 45 feet, if I'm remembering that correctly. I mean, I think there's two UNT buildings, as I recall, on Hickory. And I believe they're four story. They're older style buildings. There's one newer one as you go further west. I think it's a science building or environmental building. And as I recall, those are all four and five story buildings. And of course, there are taller buildings on the campus. But right there along Hickory, there are four and five story buildings, if I'm not mistaken. And those are very similar in height to this building. This building might be five or 10 feet taller, but it's not significantly taller in scale. It's not greater in mass. It's similar in size. It's half the mass of U Center and Fry Street. Sure. I was just going off what staff had presented earlier. Sure. Let's clarify that a little bit. Because if I raid the Fry Street overlay district ordinance , which I've done, the allowed height for the U Center Fry Street garage is 65 feet. Now, it was presented tonight as 60 feet by Mr. Mangida. I think it's 65 feet, unless it's changed. And I don't think it's changed. And it was put in place specifically for that project. But I'm sure their garage is 65 feet tall. Our garage would be-- 9? Council Member Hopkins is-- So our garage would be 4 feet taller. I guess I want to make sure we just don't get off into a whole different dialogue. Sure. OK, Dalton. Was he able to answer your question? Yeah. I just wanted to bring up the issue of the height of the building. OK. I'm good. Thank you. I guess it's our view that the height of the building is very diminimously greater than U Center and Fry Street, which seems to fit quite nicely in the area to be to an appropriate scale, just to an outside observer. OK. Thank you very much. I have a question for you, sir. And this has to do with density. So a little bit of background. One of my daughters had a lapse in judgment and attended Texas Tech for a while. I'm sorry. And she lived in a private dorm rent by the bedroom. It was a two-bedroom, two-bath. And her sweet roommate-- I don't know what it is-- had had the other bedroom and the other bath. She thought-- my daughter thought that's what she was getting. But the boyfriend of the other girl was there all the time. Right. I've heard that happens. Yes. So the question is-- It didn't happen in my year. It didn't happen with my daughter. So the question is, is there something with the rental contract that would prohibit that from happening? Or could the density be even greater than the number of bedrooms that's there? I mean, I'm not a representative of the management company and the owner. Well, I am a representative. But I don't get involved in the day-to-day management. But I know from my 35 years in the apartment business that you can limit the number of people by law who can occupy a given facility. That's legal, I think. Is that correct, Mayor? You're over on the problem. We have codes here. But also, you can contract. But it's enforcement is the problem. Well, my question is, does the property management company control that and limit that? Well, they could if they knew. Well, I'm not saying-- I'm not asking if they could. I'm asking, do they? Oh, OK. Apparently, EDR has a rule that no guests can stay over two nights. OK, thank you. So that's a rule that they seek to enforce. Question answered. OK, thank you. See no more questions. Thank you, Mr. West. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, come down, state your name and address, your time. We'll begin. We've got someone here. And then you'll be up next, sir. Hi, my name is Joni Young. I live at 1402 West Hickory. Where I live is in those apartments right next to Verbans. My apartment complex would be torn down in order to build this development. And I am still in support of this decision. I'm a graduate of UNT. And when I attended UNT, it was not the same as it is now. There was no CVS. There wasn't the youth center. The 33 North apartments weren't there yet. I had to live in an apartment that was across the highway. And I had to come into school, deal with trying to get parking spaces. And I can just imagine how great a benefit that would have been when I was in school, to be able to walk across the street to go to school, to be able to walk to the pharmacy that was right there, to be able to get my books that were just right next to campus, right next to where I lived, and to be able to go out and eat and enjoy time with friends and family. I just wanted to say that I am in support of this. And change is good. And it's kind of time for us to start thinking. We want to grow Denton. And we want to be a part of the new century. And it's kind of time to think of what is the younger generation looking for. So thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Good evening. My name is Tom Nelson. I live at 338 Meadow Road in Highland Village. My wife and I own the building-- If you could speak a little bit closer to the mic. Thank you. My name is Tom Nelson. I live at 338 Meadow Road in Highland Village, Texas. My wife and I own the building that Big Mike's is in, adjacent to the Burtmans property. This has been touted as student housing. But it's renting single rooms to anybody. They can't say, are you a student? Well, then you can't live here. You have your children in one of the rooms. A roommate moves out. They don't know who's coming in. They don't know what's going to be going on. And they don't control that. Five years from now, this building may be undergoing the same level of restoration, repairs, due to questionable construction that the one down the street has been in. That's not a benefit to the community. There is no transition from the neighborhood to a solid brick wall that goes straight up five feet off the sidewalk. There's no need for five stories. And there's no need to disrespect all of the ordinances. They must be asking for 10 different variances to build one building for profit. Thank you. Councilmember Gary has a question. No, I don't have a question. I was waiting for discussion. OK, I'm sorry. So I'm just putting my name up there. OK. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Come down and state your name and address. You said-- oh, yes, Mr. Hesbeth. Yes, I did. OK. I was trying to go to sleep. My name's Willie Hesbeth. I live at 623 Newton. My question that I'm wondering after hearing all of the debate and the different points of view is aren't there places where students can live close to the university? Or is it too high? What's the problem? I know there don't. There are apartments close by. My business is there. And my workers would like to live close to the college. One of them goes to school, and the others just would like to live there. And there are vacancies. Aren't there? What is the-- I don't know what the problem is with some who've come to the mic tonight. Then I guess they'll tell me in a minute-- I hope they're nice-- about why this large building needs to be put there. The building seems to be causing some problems to the people, the residents who live there right now. It would cause me a problem if I lived there. I was thinking when the gentleman who spoke first, he said, if you have that many single people living in a building, and then you have spaces for that number of rooms, imagine how crowded and congested it would be if they each had, say, half of them had a friend come over. He's right that the area would be very congested. So there's a problem. But I also understand the investment part. Well, you could build a building, and some of the students would like to live there. But there are problems with it. I'm glad you're sitting there, because that is a problem. I don't know if there's a way to decide-- well, there's no way. You just have to decide and see what's best. But my original question is that, what is wrong with the housing that's there? Is it not available, or is it too high? Which one is it? I don't know. So I just wouldn't make that comment. Thank you. Mr. Public, anybody else wishing to speak? Robert, you said you wanted some time for rebuttal. Madam City Secretary, how much time does he have for rebut tal? I'm sorry? Four minutes, OK. OK, yes, sir. Thank you very much for your time on this. We think it's a good project. We think it's a reasonable project. We think it's the exact right place for this type of project. I understand we need a super majority on the council to get this approved. I sense we may not have that. I would ask that if you think that this is worth fine-t uning, we'd be happy to come back and address some fine-tuning points. If the will of the council is to deny it, I would ask that you deny it without prejudice so we don't make Brett any worse off than he was when we came into his life. So with that, I'm here to answer any questions you may have . Any questions? Thank you, Robert. Appreciate it. You bet. I've asked for-- this is my last call for anybody else wishing to speak. If I don't see any movement, we will now close the public hearing. Public hearing is now closed. Council Member Begheri. At the risk of sounding like Council Member Gregory, I have a story to tell, which is-- It's tin-tilting time. --cozy up. Well, listening to all of this, I realized-- which I don't know why I hadn't thought of it-- I lived in one of these properties when I was at the University of Texas at Austin. It was rent by the bed. And the reason that we had that was because there was so-- there was no place to live. And the struggle is real if you're a freshman or a sophomore. My sister's been living at our house for three years because one bedroom in this town cost $650 in a very, very bad place. So-- [INAUDIBLE] --300 beds will probably end up helping the neighborhood around UNT. That's 300 people that aren't going to be renting in single-family homes. And I realize the impact that it's going to have on that Oak Street and Hickory Street area. I think we can address that if the developer will bring forward a plan for parking overflow with UNT. I think we can address that with changing our parking requirements on that city-- on the city street. Maybe we ought to not have so much parking allowed on that city street. It's congested. These are things that we can do ourselves here at the same time allowing the market to work, which the market is demanding some student housing close to-- it is. It really is. And there's really not denying that because I've seen it firsthand. So I'm in favor of this project if we can amend it. And we can say, you're going to have an agreement with UNT about overflow parking over that 273 to make it one-to-one. And if you can give us something in writing with the Western Property Agreement-- and obviously, you have to address solid waste. So those three things have to happen. If those can happen, then I'm in favor of going forward. Councilmember Hawkins. Well, I agree with you on most of things you said. I mean, this is a needed project. What I'm struggling with is, is this the right size building for that space? It feels like it's just too big. It's too tall. And I'm just concerned about that. I'm concerned about how long this project's been going on. And I know there's been moving parts. But it seems like some things haven't been buttoned up yet. So I don't want to kill it or anything. I'm trying to-- I agree with things you're saying. This is needed here. But it just feels like we're trying to fit this wrong-shaped peg in the wrong-shaped hole at that spot. Councilmember Wasney. We're talking about Fry Street here. And it's not long ago when it was a real emotional discussion on changes on Fry Street. And that's what created the Fry Street overlay. Stakeholders in the neighborhood came together. And they created the Fry Street overlay. And the overlay creates development standards. If we as a city are going to pursue good development, solid development, you have to plan. And you have to stick to your plan to take the Fry Street overlay and say, well, we're going to make another exception here. And we're going to make another exception there. This has been going on for 14 months. I've hosted an event here. I attended one at Bortmans. Of all the projects that have come across my desk as a representative of this city, this one project has generated more phone calls and more emails than any single project. They have all been against this project. It abuts two historic neighborhoods-- the West Oak and the Oak Hickory. And those neighborhoods are adamant about not having this project violate the Fry Street overlay. I asked the developer, can you build a shorter building, less stories? And I was told, no, it's not economically viable to build fewer stories. So I'm not in favor of this project. EDR, I think, is a fine company. I did my research on the company. And you're building all over the country. The buildings are beautiful. This is the wrong project for this location. If it was coming forward in a different location, I would feel differently about this project. But to try to squeeze it in and ask for an exception on almost every single line, it's the reason our planning staff said no. It's the reason the planning commission said no. I listened to those planning and zoning commission meetings . If we as a city-- and I come back to that-- don't plan well, then what's the point of a planning and zoning commission? What's the point of coming to council? I'm adamantly opposed to this project in this location. I understand Vortman's desire to size down and would encourage you to look at some other projects that meet the Fry Street overlay. Think how easy this would have been had you come forward with a project that met that overlay. You wouldn't have run into staff saying no. You wouldn't have run into planning and zoning saying no. And this is my district. Those are my historic neighborhoods. And I will come back to all the projects. And we have had a lot of projects that have generated a lot of citizen input. This one project, phone calls and emails and meetings with neighbors and neighborhoods who are adamantly against this project and violating the Fry Street overlay. So I've done my due diligence as a council person in reaching out to my constituents. And I understand that students want more student housing. I get that. But I am really, really listening to the stakeholders who own houses. And I understand you have businesses that have said they approved the project. But for 14 months, I've been listening to residents who are saying no. And in terms of that 200, 500 foot mail process around this particular location, look at the map. No one's there. It's UNT across the street. You have some businesses. You have another student housing project. You have parking over-- I mean, there are no people. The people I'm listening to are the West Oak and the Oak Hickory neighborhoods that surround this project. And they have said no to this project. And as their representative, I'm going to be true to them. And I'm going to just say no to this project and ask the council to stand with me on behalf of West Oak and Oak Hickory and say no to this project. May I approach him? You all right? Yeah, I just had terminal-- Thank you. No, really not. But don't go ahead. I mean, the question should be who gets to decide the fate of the Frey Street overlay? Is it other adjacent neighborhoods, or is it the property owners and residents who live in the Frey Street area who own businesses? I would think the people who own businesses in that area should have more of a say than even adjacent neighborhoods. So it seems like we have a number of people chiming in who own businesses, who own property in that area, who seem comfortable with these changes. And it seems odd that we would give preference to other neighborhoods. So philosophically, I have that question. I want to ask a question of staff, because it seems like almost a year ago, when this project first surfaced, there was a proposal from staff to put together a team specifically to look at this. I think it's been a year now. Maybe I'm wrong. I know one of the things I said at the time was, I was concerned about putting that together because of how long that might take. And in the meantime, we've got development pressure. We've got-- and I agree with Councilmember Begarry-- I think a lot of our affordable housing issues throughout town is simply due to supply and demand. And you've got houses that are renting beyond what families can afford, because students can go in there and put four and five students in there and raise the rents. Unless we relieve the pressure by putting student housing where students want to go. The reason downtown is booming with people is because people want density. Young people are moving back into the inner cities. They want to live, work, play, do all that stuff without getting out of their car. Same thing's happening in the Fry Street area. For us to just leave vacant lots, one-story buildings in there and think that that's the future of this, when students are saying, we're not owning cars anymore. The trend lines nationally are showing that what they're telling us is the case. And for us to keep waiting and listening to people in single-family homes six blocks away as to what they prefer, we're really going to be shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of smart growth in this city, in my opinion. So all I have to say, my question for you is, what is the status of this Fry Street overlay re-examination? Update, yes. Thank you for bringing that up. I did mention that we are proposing or putting together a small area plan study. And this will be the first one after the Den Plan 2030 having been approved. This is our first area. We felt that this was an important area to study. We have developed a scope. We've got the technical advisory committee set up. We're ready to move forward. We're just working on a little bit more of the logistics. But that's something that's in our very important project list priority right now moving forward. We are hoping to provide a status to the city council, hopefully, in the near future. And that's where we are today. We don't have any studies or any recommendations at this point, but just a status that we will bring something to you in the near future. And that was my concern, I think, a year ago-- correct me if I'm wrong-- was that we were being asked to put off this sort of development, waiting for that sort of study. And it sounds like the stakeholders group hasn't even met yet. Am I correct? I'm going to pick up from here, if you don't mind, when I'm all done. Two factors are at play here. Yes, we did come to you approximately one year ago to discuss a small area plan associated with this area. Obviously, the parameters associated with that, as it relates to the scope of work, has been established. Committee nominations were made to establish a committee. We haven't completely vetted that yet for a reason, because we wanted to establish our technical advisory committee associated with that. Now, going back to where are we with this application, the specificity associated with this application, the reason why the planning division has recommended denial on this application is purely based on the dilution of the overlay district. So we are not denying this request, because we're saying the use is inappropriate. The recommendation from staff, based on the analysis, is that the amendments being requested to the existing development criteria associated with that existing overlay district, that dilution of, is the issue or the concern. Should the applicant choose to comply with those requirements, they wouldn't even be before PNZ or city council. So we have no objection to the use. We have objection to the conditions associated or the parameters associated with the overlay district. And yes, absolutely, it has taken a while to bring together this small area plan. Ron mentioned it is the first, but we want to get it right the first time. So we're very anxious to bring that forward to you through an ISR, as Ron mentioned, and you will see some rapid movement associated with that eminently. Yeah, and the only reason I ask is because if we're being asked right now to provide some exceptions to the current overlay, and that task force, or whatever we're calling it, would have helped kind of at least give us some sense of what's on the ground. I mean, what we have now is a lot of property owners and business owners. And to me, again, I would say, just like the owners of West Oak Historic District, they should be ones that decide the regulations for their place. Oak Hickory Historic District, they should be the ones that should be able to allow the regulations and the criteria for their district. Same thing with Fry Street. And so I have no way to really ascertain that other than the anecdotes we've gotten so far. And I do concur with you. And ironically, both these programs, the small area plan and this application were pretty much running on a parallel track. So what we did is we excluded that from the Fry Street small area study, yet we wanted to apprise our leaders, as well as our boards and commissions, that we do have this program that's going to kick off very, very soon. - Yep, thank you. - Thank you. - Council Member Gregory. - Well, I'm thinking back a few years ago when the other amendment to the Fry Street overlay district came before council, and I supported it. I thought that student housing next to the university made sense. And I was particularly impressed because the developer did a textbook job of working with staff and of working with the neighbors in the adjoining neighborhoods. I think the adjoining neighborhoods do have a stake in this . And certainly not the same stake as the folks right in the Fry Street area, but they do have a stake in it. And they did a masterful job of working with the neighbors, working with the folks in the Oak Street Historic District to obtain a lot of buy-in, a lot of buy-in. It was an amazing feat. And a few years before that, we had said no to another development on that site, and we came up with something that I thought was much better and more appropriate. The opposition that I've heard, some of it is put in the context of we're just opposed to single room occupancy or rent by the bedroom. SRO doesn't have the same kind of negative connotations to me that it does to one of our speakers. But some people have said that they're against that. Some people have said they're opposed to privately owned student housing. But we live in a town with one of the top, one of the largest universities, top 50 in the United States in terms of size. And then there's another university. You're going to have privately owned student housing. So just to be opposed to any student housing that's privately owned, that just doesn't work in Denton. But my concern about this particular development and this particular location at this time has to do with the scope and with the scale. Now, if you look to the south where the university is, it fits. But if you look to the north where the neighborhood is, it doesn't fit. It's a little too abrupt. It's a little too tall. It's a little too heavy. And so I think for me, that's the problem and why I would not be able to support it. A revision that came back that was more sensitive to the neighborhood to the north and to the northeast and to the northwest, I think I could live with. Because I don't mind student housing. I especially don't mind student housing close to the university because that means those students don't come into my neighborhood and rent the house behind mine and have parties till all hours of the night. That's not where they need to be. And that means that they have cars that are driving all the way across town because there's no bus that comes through our neighborhood. So I'm not opposed to student housing and I'm not opposed to renting by the bedroom. But this is too heavy. The scope and scale is too great. It doesn't allow for the gradual transition that our plan calls for. - Council Member Begheri. - Question for Ms. Molodad. Regarding some of the things that we heard about today regarding the waste receptacles and obtaining parking from UNT, what are your thoughts on that? - Ideally, when you have a site plan that is associated or attached with an ordinance in this case because it is an overlay district, you have an opportunity to do that. Those elements have to be vetted. So what we have, the scenario before you tonight is we've got three outstanding or two outstanding, three technically outstanding issues. We don't know what the resolution is to that. Now, is there a condition that could be placed potentially if I'm not mistaken from a legal perspective? But I think in this instance with the variances or the amendments that are being requested and then having three outstanding items as to what is the resolution associated with the trash pickup, which is something that is ongoing in terms of discussion, the fire lane issue and acquiring that additional access and making sure that the agreement with the excess parking or the additional parking area, off-site parking area is addressed. There's some fluidity associated with that. So assuming that that didn't work out, would they come back then for an amendment or a revision to the approved site plan? We don't know. - Any more comments, questions? I've just got a couple, make it brief. I don't oppose student housing. I mean, that's part of what I do as well. I don't have the same renting paradigm, but the basis for my decision on this, I think I'm gonna concur with Council Member Gregory, even though the reason for my basis is very different because we were on different sides of the apartment building on Bernard 33 North or whatever it's called. I remember when that came before council, it was the largest, it was the most dense apartment building that we were gonna build. It's two acres, I don't know how many units it is compared to, I guess you all recalling the one at the corner of Frye and all that. What is it, the use? It's the use center of Frye Street. That's on four acres, it's about to double your size, but it doesn't look massive. I mean, it's got good setbacks on most of the three sides. It's shorter, it was heavily vetted with the neighborhood. To me, it's about scale for this project. I'm just gonna tell you honestly, you got a five-story, you got all these beds in there. And then to rent out parking 1,000 feet away from, I'm assuming you're meaning the small, the old parking garage that's there right across from the student union. Is that the one you're talking about as far as parking garage? It's the little two-story or something like that. - It's a new parking garage. - Oh, the new one that's further south. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's too far away. I mean, yeah. So I'm not opposed to student housing. I think when you get on, when we talk about it needing to be close to the university , we have to look at what else is around there. I was down at Texas A&M about two months ago. Explosive growth down around the Texas A&M campus. There's one development going on, I can't remember what it is. Huge retail, massive multifamily, but it's also on a six-lane divided highway or divided road, I think it's University Drive to afford it . And it's got massive offsets from the university. You've got the big green space there at the front of the university. So to put a five-story building in that small footprint, and it's really a catch-22. I understand the parking issue 'cause this is what we do. We require parking, all right? So you're not gonna do surface parking because you don't have enough space. I mean, to do 300 surface parking spots is a tremendous amount of space. So you're forced to do a parking garage. The parking garage is $20,000 of space or whatever it is up to right now. So now you've added a tremendous amount of cost to your residential project, which means now you've gotta go to the density level in order to even make the economies work on it. So this is something that we've really gotta take a comprehensive look at. But for me, right now, at that location, and if Eagle Drive came up again, I'd vote the same way on Eagle Drive. There's to me a line of density that the city of Denton right now, I don't want 10-story dormitories around the campus nor Texas even proposing that. I don't think over there off of Eagle Drive where they're building a new dormitory, a resident facility there. So I'm not gonna be able to support it in its current configuration. And that's why the catch-22 is. You can't reduce the number of units because the corresponding reduction in parking that you get really doesn't make up in the economies for when you do that. And I don't know what the answer is to that. It may be market forces will drive that later on down the line. Maybe our regulation as we continue down this. So it's regret that I express that sentiment because I think, you're right, we do need student housing, but I will tell you, renting to students, I rent to students all over the city. So it's not just that they're wanting to live. And they do have bus routes at most of these complexes now that are outside of sort of the close proximity to the campus. In fact, the university contracts with DCTA specifically for bus routes so that students can live off campus and don't necessarily have to have the requirement of a car , but you do have to have a schedule and be disciplined about it. So those are my thoughts on that. I'm not opposed if there's some things that happen, but my hunch is because this has been an ongoing issue and we met, I don't know, six months or eight months ago, and this was the same recurring issue that we had talked about. And if something can be done, that's great. I just don't know if that's in the cards at this time based upon the economics of the project. So I don't see anybody else wishing to speak. Council Member Gregory. - I move denial of 6A without prejudice. - Madam City Attorney, I think it's gonna weigh in on that. Do you wanna do that now or wait for the recognition of the second, Madam City Attorney? - Your call, Mayor. - Okay, we'll wait. - It's a pleasure. - Yeah, just so we'll. Well, I'll tell you what, he made it as part of the motion. Let's go ahead and get that clarified now. So if we need to change that, we can. - Mayor and Council, we have a provision that is resident in our Denton Development Code. And what that provision says is if an application is denied , then the subject property shall not be eligible for resubmission for 12 months unless the applicant can show a substantial change in circumstances to justify a resubmittal. There is a little bit of latitude in that provision if there is a substantial change in circumstances. This provision is in our DDC as a result of codified processes by which we amend our Denton Development Code. And that would include review by the Planning and Zoning Commission with a recommendation to Council. So this provision sits in our code as a result of that proper process by which we have placed it in the code, including PNZ looking at it. To change that process by not requiring that or allowing the developer under these circumstances to not be bound by it, I think is going to be problematic. And so I would suggest then that by reading this provision, it would appear that if there is a substantial change, the developer can come back in any event. - Then I move to deny. Well, or do I wanna move to table? I mean, I don't wanna, I'm not opposed to some type of student housing in this location. The density is the issue. And I don't know that reducing the density significantly, what would constitute substantial change? - I think, whose call is that, Madam City Attorney? Is that staff's call or eventually does that become a policy issue also for Council? - I think that would ultimately be a question that would be determined by the head of the planning commission, or excuse me, the planning department. I think that would be appropriately something that's actually codified in our rules. I don't have it before me, but I think that will be her call. - Council Member Gregory. So what is the appropriate motion for me to make in order to stop this particular proposal, give them an answer to the question that they want, but allow for them to come back with a significant change? - Well, a possibility would be to not act upon it tonight and see if they want to scale this back, continue it to another date, give them a little additional time to see if they come back addressing these three matters that I am hearing are of concern. That would be a possibility, of course, as this matter sits before the Council tonight. It would take six affirmative votes, it's three fourths of the Council, in order to approve this . And so that would be where this issue currently stands. Of course, on the other hand, a denial, a simple denial would require bar chart for affirmative votes to deny. So that's currently how we're configured as we're looking at this issue right now. - Well, I'm gonna withdraw my motion and somebody smarter can come up with a better motion. - Council Member, Mayor Pro Temrodin. - Let me wait for motions to be. - Okay, Council Member Gary. - I move to table. - May I clarify the motion? If a motion to table would mean that you would remove it from the table at this meeting or the next meeting, so I'm assuming you probably mean to-- - Postpone. - Postpone it. - But not to a time certain. - Then possibly to some event in the future that you would like to tie that to. - Of course, here's the thing. If we-- - You're smarter. - If we postpone it to a date certain, if we postpone this to a date certain, that means it's gonna come back on the agenda. That doesn't mean that you can't postpone it once again. - I will postpone it to, we'll do six months from today and I think that would be sufficient time. - Mayor Pro Tem. - Second. - Council Member Riggs. - I mean, I'm just curious if there's even a willingness to address the density. I mean, if that's not even, I mean. - We'd like to take a look at it. - Uh-oh. - We have a motion and a second to postpone. Till when? Six months. Yeah, let's vote on the board, please. The motion to postpone carries four to three. Madam City Secretary, oh, there it is up there. I just, it flashes off the screen really fast, so nevermind, I got the specifics of the vote. Okay, that ends this particular item at 6A. We will now move to concluding items. Council Members, any concluding items? Yes, Council Member Riggs. - I have a couple. One, I would like to ask for a staff report. We approved a substation for DME on Spencer. - Hold on a second, Council Member Riggs. If we could, excuse me, if people out in the gallery, if y'all wanted to have a conversation, could you please go ahead and step outside, 'cause we're trying to wrap up our meetings. Thank you very much. - Okay, so I would like to ask for a staff report or something to give to us from the Urban Forester on a tree count or the types of trees on the 35 acres that we approved for the DME substation that they're gonna clear cut. I think just after hearing the presentation today on the trees, I'd like to know what types of trees and how old they are that we're going to be losing just to know what we might need to replace. And also, there was a speaker earlier, Mr. Donnelly, he spoke about the agendas, and I wondered who decides on putting the amount on the actual hard copy agenda rather than just in the backup. - Mayor Pro Tem. - A couple things as well. Seeing the motion in the tax freeze for over 65, residents here in the city, property owners, I'd like to at some point, I know we had kind of a 30,000 feet discussion when this came to council as to whether or not we wanted to unilaterally implement that about the budget implications of that, now that it is perhaps going to go to the voters for us to kind of look out a good six months prior to budget, understanding what those budget implications might be, to revisit that discussion, to perhaps have a little bit more in-depth budgetary discussion so that we can plan out accordingly as that's coming down the pipe, perhaps. And the other thing is, as this, I guess there are plenty of people left, they're tired, I really want us to take a look at the parking requirements in these dense areas. I mean, if you look at this area, there's a lot of open parking space, CVS virtually, I can go on and go on about really high valuable property in that area because of these parking requirements that are just really causing us to struggle to figure out how to develop them, and it's in an urban area, and so hopefully the overlay will address that, but I want to make sure we put an emphasis on that particular issue. - Council Member McGarry. - Our charter commitment, our charter committee is meeting, I believe on the 14th, will be their first meeting. I know that their charge was open-ended to some extent. There is a catch-all at the end there. Okay, well, to the extent that the charge was not open- ended, I'd like to have a discussion about what can be added to their charge, and specifically, the item that I'd like to have a council discussion about is increasing the amount of the ROI that comes from DME to the city general fund. I believe that's a charter requirement, and any type of change to that would require a charter amendment, since we do have a convened charter committee, it seems like an appropriate time to bring that up. So I'd like that pretty rapidly to come up for discussion, if at all possible. - Council Member Gregory. - Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to ask our staff to come back to us at our first meeting in February, with an update on progress with the county on the agreement, the interlocal agreement for the sidewalks, or if we don't call them sidewalks, the concrete pathways around the courthouse. Oh, lawyers have issues with those. - Anyone else? I've got just a couple, so I'm gonna give everybody a chance, opportunity. Want to be sure and add to the legislative, that's so late, I'm forgetting, state legislative program work session, an action item for that on that same day. We typically do not do that, but I think based upon what we heard, it's expedient that we do that in a timely manner, so let's make sure that we have that opportunity. And just sort of as an update to the council, agenda committee, I asked so that everybody will know, and in light of the issues with the Dallas Fire and Pension , I'd like to, we're gonna have a discussion and a work session on just pensions in general with the city and what are our requirements, what are our rates of return, what are our contributions, what are the total contributions compared to other cities, and my understanding was, and I'd like to also bring back at the time, we had a salary survey done, where we compared salaries with other cities to see where we are in that range, and it's my understanding that I don't think that pension benefits were taken into consideration when looking at those, and from what I understand, depending on what those pension benefits are, people would be willing either to accept a lower or a greater salary, so it would be good to know those cities or those salaries that we were comparing ourselves to, what's the totality of that benefit package, so we'll be comparing similar plans so we can make a better informed choice as we move forward. So I say that just as a way to let everybody know what I'd asked for another meeting, I think it's coming up with the use it or lose it type of discussion and the severance discussion all in one day. Council Member Hawkins? - Yeah, I was out of town when everybody was interviewing the city managers, and I just wanted to publicly welcome Todd Heilman as our new city manager, and I look forward to meeting you and working with you, and it was interesting that we hired him and I didn't get to meet him, so anyway. - All right. - Welcome. - Okay, seeing no other requests, we will adjourn our meeting at 10.25.