Jan 16, 2018 City Council on 2018-01-16 1:00 PM

Tuesday January the 16th 2018 call the meeting to order we do have a quorum our first order of business is to move into executive session so we will now convene an executive session at 101 p.m. on Tuesday January 16 2008 to consult with attorneys under Texas Government Code section 551.071 and also to deliberate regarding personal matters under Texas Government Code section 551.074 Good afternoon wanted to welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council Tuesday January 16 2018 we've just adjourned our executive session we're now going to be convening in a work session to consider the following items work session report a is over the time is 4 45 receive report and hold a discussion to give staff direction regarding current and near-term Texas Department of Transportation projects in Denton good afternoon mayor members of council my name is Mark Nelson director of transportation pleasure to visit with you this afternoon as stated about some current projects that we're working on and in concert with text dot as well as another local project that we're working on really just wanted to get in front of council with respect to you know some of the impacts associated with this with these projects and some of the things that we're trying to do in terms of mitigating and then getting out in front of our residents and business community stakeholders etc on how we can better communicate some of the the impacts so with that I'll jump right into this got a number of slides here a lot of them are just pictures to try to walk us through this so again primary projects we're going to discuss this afternoon is the I 35 e phase 1b project which is really a continuation of the AGL project the text I just completed which is the large project from Dallas 635 in Dallas all the way up to 380 it 's that segment basically from business 77 south to Mayhill then we'll talk a little bit about the Mayhill Road project which is a local project and then FM 21 81 T's Lee which is a text up project and then an upcoming project US 377 and as I mentioned earlier we'll conclude on on some of the communications efforts and plans that we've been working on so again a lot of words here with some photos try to walk you through this fairly quickly but really what we're trying to show here is the the yellow dashed line here is again just south of the Goodwill store so the intersection with 288 is up here where the cursor is up on the top part northern part of this picture this is the shopping center here but this is the new the new southbound frontage road and so again what this overall project is going to do is create additional capacity on 35 35 e from that project limits I mentioned earlier business 77 northbound exit down to Mayhill this will create the additional general purpose lane in each direction but to get there so what we had to do or what we're doing is working with through text dot and their local or their contractor which is OHL they're constructing this segment here in the yellow dashed line which is the new southbound frontage road they started this back in March of last year a lot of work underground that had to take place moving some utilities drainage work and here within the last three to five weeks we've seen the actual pavement hit in the ground actually this photo was taken in December mid-De cember of last year so what will happen is essentially with the completion of this new segment of southbound frontage road in the yellow dash the existing southbound frontage road traffic will move to that new facility and then the southbound southbound main lanes or general purpose lanes and the red arrow will shift over to that southbound frontage road the existing southbound frontage road and then what text out will do is then move or shift the north bound general purpose lanes to the existing southbound main line so that's that's really the first first phase and kind of the second phase of that so where we are phase one and then step two will be then to construct the northbound general purpose lanes essentially what will happen is the construct that'll allow for the construction of the northbound general purpose lanes and then phase phase two would essentially be doing the same dance or shifting of traffic to move traffic over to those new general purpose lanes and allow for the construction of the northbound general purpose is that right by Buckeyes that is correct what you see here with some of the construction equipment and the dirt here that is where the Buckeyes side is located just now and so at what point is the is it the underpass Brinker Road yes is that is that on here or is that part of this process it will come in it will come in part of that phase two John that is correct yes sir these will these will be built to the ultimate and I've got a slide forthcoming no go ahead yeah we're just getting ahead of you sorry okay so again the the bridge is here the intersection with with 288 and 35 those those that bridge will be lengthened or widen ed if you will north to south to allow for a much larger intersection essentially doubling the capacity underneath 35 so going from what you see here and the existing in the existing condition which is basically two lanes in each direction with a southbound to northbound u-turn be moving to essentially doubling that capacity where we've got u-turns going in each direction and then two through lanes and two turn lanes in each direction we cannot emphasize this enough what what this is going to do for that intersection I mean a lot of people were concerned about traffic and all these things are going to create more traffic this right here will just revolutionize that whole intersection I mean I we can't even imagine and it's going to change how people shop in that area it's going to change who goes there so yeah I'm very good slide thank you I really wasn't quite sure on what the the the change was going to be but it's again you're you're saying it's doubling the capacity that currently exists in that in that exchange in terms of the actual lanes and again let me emphasize here too this is this is anticipated to be completed at least the schedule that we have now we think we can get some pull pushback on that a little bit but right now January of 2019 for that for that to be complete along with the Brinker intersection as well okay Councilmember Briggs and then so that answered one of my questions so it's 2019 do we have a date of an opening for Buc-E's do those coincide or one I don't have the specific date for Buc-E's we can work on that I understood it was going to be the late summer or fall timeframe and our desires to try and work with text dot and the and the OHL the contractor that's working on that particular project to pull that to pull that date back in fact text dot has not accepted that January 19th date January of 2019 but rather we're trying to get them probably in the October November timeframe I just have one comment about this intersection you mentioned the openness for the shopping but what I wanted to comment on is that the possibility to relieve 288 and Lillian Miller that is a very frustrating intersection and it backs up and up and so this can help relieve that pressure don't change it change that intersection just for the people watching at great observation as we roll through here it's actually an enhancement to the overall transportation system as you look at 288 Brinker and then the May Hill State school 2499 intersection all those are interconnected and increasing the capacity at each of these provides additional options for the for traffic to move to yeah I mean when I say shop I mean that's sort of secondary this is good people are gonna there's not gonna be the backup here you've got now Texas U-turns on each side you got it's just it'll be remarkable yeah it's gonna definitely create a much more better flow of traffic and mobility yeah so this is this is a similar graphic and slide showing some data points associated with the with the brinker intersection right now as you well know it's a T T intersection right in right out and essentially what this would do then is provide the northbound southbound U-turns well actually U-turns on the general purpose lanes northbound southbound and then southbound northbound as well as creating three lanes each direction going underneath and so here again this would be part of the phase two of that earlier slide I mentioned with the anticipated completion would be the January 2019 again trying to work to accelerate that project to get it to get that completed sooner yes sir break a road on the other side is that part of our mobility plan to extend that because I see two lanes going straight through under it would go it would go under and then it would it would go into yeah into the Buc- E's develop right it tees into the it brinker essentially would tee into the southbound frontage road and as I understand I think that's Buc-E's way which is the private road it's not a continuation of the other side any additional questions on the brinker intersection so the Mayhill Mayhill intersection has a an improvement as well as a little bit less involved than the other two but this essentially provides a southbound the northbound you so relieves some traffic congestion that for folks that are maybe traveling southbound on the 35 corridor trying to get back into the brinker area as well as into the hospital Medical Center area along Colorado brinker Boulevard in that area again this would be this this particular intersection so I understand we're trying to get or they're trying to get traffic open to that in the March March of 2018 time frame and Mayhill is a city street in a city project that we're working on correct that is correct just missus in the text dot because it's tying into 35 right this is the u-turn portion that's the intersection that is that is that is a text on project and I'm going to be as stated here this last bullet point we've got some upcoming projects as well or an upcoming project that's in design that will further enhance this particular intersection okay what this particular slide is demonstrating is really the intersection of Dallas Drive Te asley the southbound on ramp to southbound 35 as you may have experienced is closed has been closed for just after or starting last month and so what what happens is the traffic goes down does the u-turn there at Calloway's nursery and heads back northbound on the on the frontage road and then utilizes the Teasley Lane intersection to you and come back southbound and get on 35 that'll be it's necessary to close that for the duration of the project so that they can have access and correct the you know construct the bridges there at 288 and 35 thank you is it possible that we put some type of sign age up there where Teasley intersects with Dallas Drive to indicate that if you're wanting to get on 35 you need to go on Teasley go right on Teasley we can do that but essentially what what's required of tech status to keep traffic as best as possible on a state roadway so having them loop around on the on the frontage road has been has been the direction in fact when they did the larger project if you recall with the AGL 35 Express project we would get substantial congestion in all essentially all directions but primarily if you would southwest bound coming from Shady Oaks and then certainly southbound Dallas Drive as everything was trying to push through the Teasley Lane rather than circling back around okay thanks so what we wanted to talk about here is again just highlighting some of some of the areas where we're going to experience some congestion construction congestion the trauma is kind of be there you know we'll do we'll do our dead-level best and working with text dot with our traffic engineer police police department to see how we can monitor the the the traffic impacts at that location but really what what I was just trying to demonstrate with this slide here are some of these intersections that are gonna that are gonna have that congestion and then you know certainly as you may have experienced traffic similar to water it's going to find a lot you know the less resistive course of action and they're going to find those secondary roadways and you know we experienced that specifically on Wind River when we had some shutdowns of I-35 during the 35 AGL project so we know that we need to be aware of those situations and try to to address that that traffic coming through those those neighborhoods so before I move on this is really the last slide I have as far as the 35 Express you know if you've got any additional questions on this phase 1b of the 35 e project take those now before I move on to Mayhill. So this is the the Mayhill project if if you've been out on the east side of town you know that that project is underway I know that started this project earlier this this past summer and again what this particular project will do is create a much more robust corridor for mobility connecting I-35 to US 380 and in fact connecting 2499 so at some point in time when Mayhill is completed and we complete the intersection an upgrade to the intersection 35 E and Mayhill and get the connectivity and open 2499 clearly that provides an alternative to 35 E if you're heading southbound to the mid cities or to the to the airport and those particular location but again wanted to point this out you see in the orange that's the limit of the project we recently you may recall seen in the Friday report the the letter from North Central Texas Council of Governments partnering with us to get that bridge to separate the to grade separate the rail line and the May hill project to further enhance the safety and mobility of that particular roadway I will tell you this now that one of the other things we're looking at too is then as part of this project and as part of the future project with 30 with the 35 E Mayhill intersection is that segment between Colorado Road Colorado Boulevard and 35 E reconstructing that as well so you have so you have a whole new roadway essentially from US 380 all the way to 35 E right now that 's not in there but we're working diligently to make that happen through one of the other projects any questions on that particular slide so this is that secondary project with Mayhill what we realized as we were finishing up the 2499 and 35 express project and the Mayhill project coming online is that we were pushing six lanes of traffic through this existing intersection and eventually four to six lanes coming through there this particular project because of the financial capability of the original 35 express project was was not included you may recall that was a 1.5 billion dollar project and unfortunately this is one of the intersections that was was not included in that phase one and so working with our transportation consultant mr. pollster local office here with text dot and the region we're able to identify some funding to make this happen so as stated here it's under design text dots engaged a consultant it's in design we don't have a construction schedule just yet on that but we anticipate to see that here in the next 90 to 180 days and provide a little more clarity on that particular project schedule but you see here again u-turns both directions as well as greatly enhancing the current intersection which is essentially two two lanes in each directions you see essentially five five in one direction and then five to four to five going in the other direction any questions on this particular side so 2181 Teasley lame excuse me this is a this is a second part of a of a two-part project we've been calling this the north-south segment there was a east-west segment which is essentially down on the Corinth corridor from 35 back up to or back west to the high school this is this is the project that runs generally north south from 2499 the new 2499 all the way up to the Teasley Wind River Lillian Miller intersection recently began construction on this on this project complete estimated in the January 2020 time frame I do want to point out in the backup material originally indicated that there would be a signal at Robeson Robinson my apologies I was a little focused on the 2499 project which does have a signal there as well but there's going to be a signal at Cedar Creek which is just north of the school and that was something that the school district had had requested and and again we're able to work through ITS and our traffic engineer and text dot to get that funded as part of this particular project so there'll be two signals and then the other signals up there at sundown there near station 6 and the South Branch library to provide some relief down there so as stated on the slide here it will have the sidewalk access we know we understand we know that there's some school campuses down through there and well-needed so have sidewalks on each side of that corridor we're going through any questions I can take on this particular slide so this is the upcoming project or we're calling the near- term project which is 377 Fort Worth Drive essentially from the intersection with 35 down to just south of the 1830 intersection and so be widening this particular project again providing substantial capacity in that area not only for the residents in our community but certainly in the Denton County area we know that we have folks that work work here in Denton that may live south of here and there's a lot of traffic coming up this way you know one of the key issues with this particular project has been working with the railroad there's a there 's a rail trussel rail bridge that going through there that has you know a lot of negotiations going back and forth on what that's going to look like and and quite frankly as is lengthen the schedule on the design side a little bit but we think we're we're very close to finalizing everything associated with this particular project and letting the project for construction in the late late spring early summer which would result in a construction schedule in the fall time frame so one of the things that we wanted to visit with you a little bit about here and I covered again in a subsequent slide but because this one hasn't gone to construction yet we'll be getting out and working with the with the business owners up and down the corridor there as well as hosting a public meeting for the residents once we once we get that construction schedule once the projects let and we know a little bit more about who's going to be doing when the when the project will start who the who the contractor is and again just be able to answer the more definitive terms what that schedule looks like this may be a silly question but so it's going to be now it's currently two lane and it's going to go six lane others correct for just two point point two six miles and then it'll go back to two lane that's correct is there a plan in the future to widen it all the way or if I may yes I understand that there is one looking over to our transportation consultant who works for the county I know that there's some work down on the southern end near Roanoke but my understand is pull is to pull that pull that up six lane to two lane that seems pretty drastic okay thank you I did want to indicate or let you know that as part of that there's a lot of traffic to that peels off and goes down to the 1830 and the Hobson Lane area so as part of this project we were fortunate to work with the county and hang additional modifications to that intersection in terms of getting a right turn lane there off of Hobson as part of this project any questions yes sir and this may be more for city management I'm curious when we do something like this it's not truly residential but those residences along there does is that automatically trigger planning and zoning or a zone and look at the zoning as the construct ions concluded or how do we manage that are you talking about in terms of potential reasons yes sir is it automatically kind of considered it already may be zoned appropriate I'm just not sure if we automatically once we have a road if we look at it or if that's a request no I think that's a good question and it's probably something we need to take a look at our general plan to make sure that it takes this into consideration see if the future land uses are with with the road and we'll definitely take a look at it but it's a good plan when you start changing the configuration of a road like that okay thank you yes John mark on on the Hobson 1830 interchange I know it's seen some drawings on that a while back can we get that added to our Friday report so that it gets out to the paper what's going to happen in there as well that's that's a major improvement in that intersection if it goes according to what I saw we'll endeavor to get that out this week if not this Friday we'll certainly have it by the following Friday for sure thank you so I'm gonna move on to our communication plan one of the reasons why we're in front of you this evening I know or you may be aware that our mobility committee gets these updates and and has a pretty decent read on what's taking place because we do we do a textile on system report on a monthly basis with the mobility committee unfortunately with these particular projects they're not quite as large as the 35 Express project that was recently completed with by a GLers in the in the very tail end of that so there there wasn't the communication efforts or there wasn't the budget to put put out and create a whole communications arm if you recall the 35 Express project 1.5 billion 28 mile touched multiple municipal organizations and impacted dozens upon dozens of businesses and certainly thousands of residents up and down the corridor and so point is is texts text out really doesn't have a strong communication plan with these particular projects as we're moving forward so we've we've reached out with with text dot and asked them to work with us as close as possible and their press releases and they've they agreed they understand that there's some opportunities where we can help each other out use our joint resources to get to get the word out and maybe not make the intersection the travel through the intersection easier but certainly let folks anticipate and understand that there's going to be some congestion a little bit of pain here for the next 12 to 24 months as these projects get completed but you know only these bullet points here just outline some of the things that we're doing I will tell you that we've already been meeting with with medical City Dent on you know as we start looking at doing some changes or with that you turn there at May Hill the Brinker intersection that impacts some of their their property but we've been out visiting with them you know again some of the other things we'll be doing is pushing this stuff out through our social media activities I've been in touch with with a public information office and certainly be pushing some stuff out through our public communications office through their DTV outlets one of the things that we're working on and in fact I was in touch with with Council of Governments today but you know first is this doing this listserv we talked to text on about that they they that's not something that they typically do but they're interested in working with us so we've we've internal staff been working together and working with our our tech services to see how we can create that so essentially something similar to what happened with the text out a GL project reach out get a contact at a neighborhood a neighborhood association and then that just kind of spurs other folks with the opportunity to add their name to the to the email that goes out whenever these press releases are pushed out by a text out which are usually 48 to 72 hours in advance one of the other things with with the Council of Governments is trying to do this whole interconnectivity and pushing data to ways essentially a navigation application and so you know we're going to see if we can explore that a little bit as well it can be simple as an email to them with the with the press release it could certainly get a little more complex than that but that's one of the things we're going to try and do and try to cast that net a little bit further out there so you know can't really just say we're going to notify everybody within a quarter mile of a particular intersection because folks from Northeast Denton use 32 88 to 35 to travel south bound and so you might miss a whole segment of your community by only focusing on a within a quarter mile of these particular intersections so as I mentioned earlier on the US 377 project since it has not gone to construction yet we'd like to get out there in advance of that with with the business owners that 's a little bit easier because they're they're there eight to five all day long we can go knock on doors and have those conversations there but certainly once we get the construction schedule we've talked with text out about hosting a meeting maybe over at the DNU rec center and putting that information out there give the give the presentation have text dot engineers have our our traffic engineer and city engineers as well as myself at that at that event to answer questions that may come up so with that that's really the the end of my presentation again wanted to get out in front of you as well as the rest of our citizens to start talking about these projects some of the mobility impacts that we'll have and and then some opportunities that we're we're pushing in terms of notifying the community that you know of those dated or particular time frames when these intersections are going to be impacted in the additional backup with us it talked about 2499 and it was back to the February date for that to open up is that correct because I got scared when I saw something come out a couple weeks ago with an April date so do we know when 2499 will open I'm hearing and I'm looking towards our traffic engineer as well as our consultant over there working with text out to try and get those get this the mast arms the signals up and so last I've heard is is that they were within 30 days to get those mast arms up and start working that intersection so I'm hopeful that it is the February time frame that's what I that's what's been communicated to me and that's what we'll endeavor to make happen yes I appreciate this update because I when you look at the Brinker project look 288 what what was the price of that do you remember what the we were right at 27 million I believe okay 27 so so you add to that eventually the May Hill bridge intersection for 22 377 1830 I mean you're looking at probably well past 50 to 55 million dollars you know in the next four or five years of infrastructure improvements road improvements continued road improvements for text on top of what's already come through with the current I-35 widening so there's been a tremendous amount of money committed to this area regionally for transportation and mobility so I just want to really thank those involved thank our consultants thank text I think cog for their willingness to help us with the May Hill Road project so it's really taken a regional effort and I just really appreciate your work and staff's work on this because that's that's huge I mean you've got you know on the back of an I-35 expansion you now have these projects coming to together so in you know three or four years we're gonna be looking very different mobility wise and then what we are now absolutely thank everybody involved we'll be ready to rack up the next round of projects well that's all right at least we've got these under our belts yes Councilmember Gregory and to build on the mayor's comments that's the best amount of money that's being supplied by text out and by the regional transportation council and there is some local contribution that's that's required isn't there correct certainly on the the exit the brinker 288 that's correct and the local contribution that was required of us was how much just over 2 million and and that actually the check was already written by Buc-E's for that and with that we're paying Buc- E's back through our reimbursement reimbursement the tax abatement reimburse ment program that's great the I think the other thing that's important to talk about is it sounds like for the next year there's going to be that frustration that we felt for several years during the construction of I-35e between Dent on and Dallas it was frustrating I had to drive that several times sometimes at night sometimes in bad weather but but now when I drive it it all feels worthwhile because it's been the first time in maybe 20 years that during the day I can get from Denton to Dallas in 45 minutes and I'm not even using the toll lanes and so I think it sounds like that that we have a year to 18 months more of pain in that section but as when we're done we're gonna have a lot of relief on one of the worst intersection in the city and and and that's a great thing and it's because of the work that's done by by staff and by text dot and especially by the fact that we have representatives from the Denton City Council on the Regional Transportation Council thank you Mayor Pro Tem and that we have had the foresight to hire a consultant that that knows all of the ins and outs and speaks the language that can represent Denton County thank you and I would just add our partners with the county who've been yes you know very very generous with their assistance on Mayhill and then as well as working with us on the upgraded intersection at Mayhill the future intersection enhancement at Mayhill and then also work with us closely on the 288 35e phase 1b project they're a critical partnership in his endeavor absolutely yes mayor Pro Tem I just wanted to specify special thanks to Commissioner E ads and Coleman who both took funds from their specific they took money from their specific construction funds and dedicated them to the Mayhill project so thanks for that yeah thank you any other questions comments I would just tell you that as we move forward there may be opportunities for us to come back before this body with any update significant updates but other than that we'll have those we look forward to it yes all right thank you okay our next work session report is agenda item 1b which is receive report hold discussion to give staff direction regard the city of Denton's policies for tax abatement and incentives and public improvement districts that's fine you bet and I think they did order sandwiches but they'll be here yeah 10 or 15 minutes okay you ready okay no that's okay good evening mayor and council members I'm Caroline Booth the director of economic development for the city of Denton and I am going to be talking to you about our city and Senate policy and our PID guidelines I'm gonna go pretty quickly through the first part of the slides in the interest of time but if anybody wants me to slow down or if you have questions please stop me I wanted to briefly show you that the state allows cities to use certain tools to do economic development and we we are granted those powers under the tax code and the local government code so these are the three items that we're going to be talking about today and the statutes that allow us to be able to use them specifically to our city's policies and guidelines first of all the city's economic development policy or the incentive policy was first approved in 1989 and under state statute in order for us to be able to use the tool of tax abatement the policy has to be reapproved by the council every two years and it was most recently approved in April of 2016 with no significant changes the PID guidelines which their official name is the public improvement district guidelines for mixed use or residential PIDs those were first approved in 2007 and they were amended in April of 2014 to add the option of bond sales for construction financing as a reminder the economic development partnership board reviews both the documents that are in question as well as individual incentive or PID applications first and then makes recommendations to the City Council and then the council has final approval over the policies as well as the applications themselves when we 're thinking about why we're doing this and talking about it we not only have the state statutes that instruct us to do it every two years but the KFAs under the city's strategic plan include a key focus area of economic development and then the Department of Economic Development strategic plan also includes an objective to revise the incentive policy this year and we feel like there's a strong tie in the conversation that we're having today and the decisions that y'all are gonna make to the city's core values of fiscal responsibility and transparency all right we're gonna dive on in to our policy for tax abat ement and incentives quickly our review and revision process has included several different steps we've been thinking about the incentives that we have in play right now agreements that have been made and how we are moving through the administration of those agreements we've reviewed incentive policies from comparable North Texas communities and by comparable I mean those communities that do not have EDC's like Denton doesn't have so we're talking about communities like Frisco well they do have an EDC but we reviewed Garland Flower M ound Louisville Plano and Frisco we've incorporated our new analysis tool into the application process it gives us a different view on these kinds of projects and of course we've discussed our policy and our proposed changes with our finance legal and city managers departments and we did a work session with the Economic Development Partnership Board on this particular topic last week and I've got their feedback for you here I'm going to start with the format changes and these are more to clean the document up improve its organization clarity and readability we're proposing to expand the general provisions and better define our economic development goals and target industries the E DP board had a clarification on that in that they were concerned that the policy not be viewed as excluding potential incentive applications if they were not within a target industry so when we look at actually drafting the policy we're going to make sure that that's clear so they were concerned that people would be discouraged from applying if they were not in the target industry we're also going to expand the definitions section to make sure that we all have the same understanding of the terms that we're using and finally we want to bring all of the existing incentive policies under one umbrella policy which would be the one that we're talking about tonight because as you'll recall we also have an economic development investment fund policy and what we call the based aircraft incentive policy that are separate and we would like to roll all those under one policy so that it's easy for applicants to see what resources are there any questions about format changes okay moving into the proposed content changes before I get into the specifics here I want to reiterate that the existing policy specifies that the council reviews each incentive request on a case-by-case basis and that no applicant is entitled to receive an incentive it's all at the discretion of the council and the council can also opt to improve and approve an incentive that's outside of the guidelines that are specified in the policy as long as it complies with state law so there are there are guidelines but the council ultimately has a discretion to do what they think is best with any particular project and we're not proposing changes to that aspect of the policy but to start off our first proposed change to the content is to specify a maximum term of ten years for chapter 380 agreements we do have some current chapter 380 agreements that go as long as 25 years and we're recommending this for a couple of different reasons one of which is that the ten-year term is the maximum limit on tax abat ements under state law so a tax abatement cannot go longer than ten years and our suggestion is that we have a basic guideline in our policy that our chapter 380 rebates are not given for longer than ten years another reason for that is that the reliability of an analysis of a project really declines beyond a ten- year time horizon and so when we're using our analysis software we set it to look at the project on a ten-year time horizon the economic development partnership board had some concerns with that suggestion they really wanted to preserve the flexibility for chapter 380s to go into terms beyond ten years they didn't want to limit the options on that some of their suggestions were having an option to grant more than one ten-year chapter 380 kind of a ph ased approach so there could be two ten-year chapter 380s but there would be a threshold that would be required to initiate the second phase of the incentive and then there was another suggestion to if you were going to have an incentive that was longer than ten years as a chapter 380 to do a sliding scale and reduce the incentive percentage over time those were two suggestions and I'll stop there for any questions or feedback that comments feedback yes Mary Pro Tem do we know what our retail leakage areas are is that to be defined we need to get an updated retail leakage report the one the last one that we have is a few years old and we we have we're looking into getting that right now there are several different sources and we want to make sure we get the best one that we can get and I'll talk a little bit about that second part about retail projects so we had proposed excluding retail projects except those that address retail leakage or so retail leakage is you don't have that particular store or that particular type of good in your community so your citizens are going outside of the city limits to purchase it somewhere else you're losing that sales tax it's kind of a simplified definition of it but we can get leakage reports that show us where those areas are so that you can target your recruitment and your consideration of retail projects to address that we're also suggesting that if a retail project were to be considered for an incentive it must generate at least 15 million dollars in annual tax able sales to be considered and we propose that sales tax rebates be capped at 50% of the sales tax receipts these again this is based on some of the projects that we have on the ground and frankly the changing conditions in the community we're in a different spot now than we were five ten fifteen years ago and we're getting approached by a lot of retail projects that we wouldn't consider incentivizing maybe because they're not coming close to generating that kind of sale we already have plenty of that type of business in the community we would be incentivizing competition against existing businesses so those are some of the reasons behind those suggestions the EDP board expressed a preference to reword that change to say prioritize retail projects that address leakage in the city of Denton and we had some requests to include in our updated definitions a definition of retail and a definition of leakage I just wanted to make a comment because the the board yes there and I asked the question if there was a cap currently and there is not a cap currently that's correct so that is something new that we would be adding and you're talking about the cap on the the retail side the rebates would be capped at 50% and again as I mentioned there's flexibility for the council built into the policy should the council choose to use it sure councilmember Hudson thank you is there a type of algorithm that would allow Canada to estimate so 1 million dollars into a retail or into a yeah into retail would then translate into X amount of dollars in the community recite is there any kind of oh you mean like that you do that yeah the extension of the dollar into into how much does it circulate through the community for from a certain type of business we do have that and it it's different for different types of businesses obviously is there something in particular a particular type that you're interested retail in general or no just I'll get with you I guess okay and we'll look at the whole thing and then I'll try to figure it out but I was just curious with that yeah actually in our in our total impact analysis there is a feature of that that depending on the type of business say you know it's manufacturing well it will generate spin-off jobs it will generate this many spin-off jobs to you know say at a restaurant like server jobs to serve those people that are there working the retail or working the manufacturing so we can talk about it yeah there are definitely formulas for that okay thank you I mean I'm okay with the EDP board comments I think I would rather have flexibility because you can always adhere to the staff proposed changes in principle you just never know what's coming down the line and you certainly want to have the opportunity to be able to shift if you need to and if you want to you know if there's a way to if somebody wants to put a more onerous kind of maybe voting mechanism as far as you know what's it take is it just simple majority but I would like the option for flexibility but with as in the recommendations hey you have an option to grant but you have to really prove up those things after that 10-year period and if you can't then and and I'm okay with the rew ording of prioritize instead of just totally foreclosing that yes help us to understand if a new business is considering locating here and they they think that it might make it more likely to locate here if they get some type of of an incentive or a rebate they probably come to the city come to your office and they ask what am I eligible for is that how it works that's correct and we look at the current policy and ask them questions about their project and give them an idea if they would be eligible or not and then if they are and they want to move forward with it we ask them to fill out the application because that gathers all of the data that we need to do our analysis that's then presented to the different bodies that make the decision and when you're when you're running these first numbers for them to say you you were you would be eligible we think it would be this amount you're basically you're basing that on the the low end of the terms of our current priority our current policy how does that work we we run several different scenarios we'll do sort of the low the mid the high you know we have the ability to kind of tweak those things and that 's just for our internal review and then to pass on up the chain but yeah we look at different scenarios in the analysis the the changes that we're talking about are they going to make it easier for you to communicate what you need to communicate to prospective businesses yes is the short answer I think that it's really going to provide more clarity as to what the council's priorities are or you know kind of what what their current or what the council's mindset is around incentives and again we've really reflected a lot on the kind of questions that we get asked when people first approach us the kind of things that we have realized oh you know we didn't know this was going to come up until where we've got one of these on the ground so it's I think it's going to streamline our ability to communicate and our ability to do the incentive administration and I hope help everyone's ability who's in a decision making role to feel comfortable with the decisions that are made and when we see something like in the second box on the left that the project must generate at least 15 million in annual taxable sales to be considered how do we know how do we how do we verify that so we verify that by getting sales tax data from the comptroller's office we work with our finance department to get that information and with the comptroller's office and we so we verify it we can get it on either a store or on a group of stores if we have an agreement with if yes that's right they have to give us permission to get it on an individual store basis but that would be a condition and then what happens if they only generate 14 million that depends on how the agreement is written it could terminate their agreement permanently if they don't meet their threshold it could mean if they have a multi-year agreement if they don't meet the threshold then they wouldn't get the incentive that year but they could try again the next year is that what you're asking sort of like what are what happens if that and the the thing and I'm gonna touch on this later is that when the applications are filled out it's their best estimate of how their project is gonna perform right and so we're gonna we're gonna touch on that a little bit later but it really that's when it comes to the strength and the quality of the agreements do we have do we generally write the agreements in the same way do we have a kind of a standard boilerplate that we use for something we are going to have we're gonna have those very soon we're we're working on that okay yes because I'm just curious is because I've seen lately that we've that we've had a couple of agreements that we have ended because a promise of an increase of X amount in property tax value and they didn't hit that right and I'm gonna touch on that later to some suggestions no those are all great questions and definitely things that we've been thinking about the ones that we canceled though they weren't retail projects that's correct right and so generally when you have this amount I think you touched on it before they're gonna be more realistic in their in their amount because they don't want to lose that incentive right if they know if it's very clear and and we 've been reiterating this with people what you put in your application is the basis for your contract right so don't don't try to over inflate things to make it look good because you're gonna be held to numbers that are based on what you put in your incentive application as they should be right yeah yes just question on the maximum of 10-year term is that from the date the agreement is entered into or from the date that because quite often it's three or four years before project is it's from the it would be from the date of initiation they would they would say the incentive was granted by the council it took them 12 months to get open and then their incentive would start the first tax year after they got their co and so it would be from that first year and then right right it does it doesn't start from the date of the agreement starts from the date of initiation so what I'd like to do is because I know I'm in your presentation you have several slides that have staff proposed change EDP port EDP board comments so I just like to take them instead of you asking at the end what's direction slide by slide because you're asking for direction if there's any change of direction we need to leave it the same or staff proposed changes or EDP board comments so on this particular part of the incentive because I think they're independent it's not like the next slide relies upon this one correct right it's just the staff change and the EDP comments about it okay I've already expressed my views I'm okay with the EDP board comments recommended modifications so I didn't know what how everybody else felt yes so I have a question about the 15 million annual taxable sales for instance a grocery store wouldn't have as high of taxable sales because food products aren't taxable so are we essentially saying okay we're not really doing grocery stores that's an interesting example because we have been approached by numerous grocery stores that already have several stores on the ground in in the community so that's a good example of a project that wouldn't necessarily be bringing anything new to the community the other thing to consider is that when we're talking about incentivizing retail projects generally they're part of a of a larger development it's not the it's not just a grocery store by itself but it would be a grocery store that is located inside of another development so I don't know if I'm answering your question correctly it's not really intended to be biased against grocery stores but we already have a lot of those things on the ground and that's not really something that is going to be feeling a leakage situation so okay I have another question about how we prioritize our retail projects I mean are are we saying in certain areas we want are we looking at the what they're selling are we looking at the area that it's going in because one of the complaints I get a lot is that for instance in the Denia neighborhood there's no longer a grocery store I actually get a lot of complaints about what's happening in the Denia area and the services that they have mm-hmm so I mean are we approaching this as the product that's being sold or the location or right now it's really the product and not the location but if that's something that you would like us to consider including we're happy to do that it really is the product at this point okay that helps clarify things and we definitely have I mean just to reassure the folks in Denia or maybe not reassure them but we have not these stores that have approached us are going in where there are already plenty of grocery stores in the vicinity yeah is that something that our our staff could do would be to go out in target incentivize like to do grocery stores in a certain area that's definitely something that we can do many communities do that and it's often larger communities that are you know have seen development sort of move around and out of certain areas and they want to focus on bringing it back to certain areas so that's absolutely a possibility and I want to make a comment to you retail is not a target for Denton right now it was 15 years ago but the the EDP board and the council the most recent list of targeted industries or targeted projects for our department to work on has not included retail I just want to mention that too it 's not been a focus of recruitment question my thoughts specifically is on the 10 10 year component I like the logic of it but I do kind of echo what the board was some on the board were saying that it it kind of gives a inclination that you're going above and beyond like to to go above and beyond 10 years as an exception which I understand that's kind of what's being intimated but if I had my preference it would be a little softer language something along the lines of it's it follows the state guidelines or that sort of thing it's are suggested to follow state guidelines which is 10 years but I don't know if anyone shares that but I guess the thought is if you go it almost makes it and again I guess that's the intent makes it extraordinary but at the same time I don't know that we have many that are under that and if the right equation came I think it then shines a light on that like oh well you kind of broke the rules for this company you know type thing it kind of gives that that feel to it again so it's not that's just a preference so I don't know if anyone else so of those two what does that well what is what you just communicated where does it fit more so mostly in yes so the word says step go ahead well I'm trying to find it where it says the ten years is the first sentence of understaffed proposed changes yes a maximum of ten years so for me I think if I you're asking what I would have it read or no does the EDP board comments like if we incorporated those like you know desire to preserve the flexibility beyond ten years but it has to be extraordinary and thresholds and things such as that so I'm trying to understand trying to get an idea of what direction we want to give staff on this well my understanding was it wouldn't read like the board comments so I'm assuming it would read still that first sentence would be the same with some caveats underneath or so my intention is to incorporate the direction when we're actually drafting the policy and so I would soften that language about specifying maximum term or you know kind of say but we would like to retain flexibility or flexibility as an option so that that's that 's the way I was approaching it if you all are okay with the EDP board comments I would sort of mesh them yeah the EDP staff is saying cut it off at ten years EDP saying let's be a little softer let's have a little bit more flexibility so those are some who on here is on the EDP board okay but okay all right so that's what my understanding is is that's not necessarily the verbiage it 's more of the concept and they would bring back that's right with you okay yes to follow up on that the the board just didn't want to have the maximum term in there to turn anyone off if they were looking at it but we were told that council and the board does currently and will continue to have the flexibility they just wanted to make sure that it was in the policy sure another time right and because it's in the general policy that we have the flexibility to extend it but just that it's also mentioned in in this policy as well that was the reason okay all right so is what I'm hearing that staff direction is to incorporate in the actual language the concepts as presented in the EDP board comments as compared to the staff proposed changes is that yes yes except with respect to the EDP board comments for the retail leakage if you put prioritized retail projects that address retail leakage and city of Dunn I think it could be read to say that the city has a policy of prioritizing retail projects which would be different than what we do maybe I can try to find a different word besides prioritize they just didn't like they felt like this was sort of negative language here and a little too strong or stronger than they wanted but I understand your concern about saying prioritize if that's not actually a targeted priority I'm okay with the staff changes but if everybody wants to incorporate the EDB board changes that's fine as well I just want to make sure that we're not presenting a policy a certain way that doesn't actually exist okay all right so we okay is that a nod that incorporate the staff changes and I mean I'm sorry EDP board comments and then if we need the words miss it when it comes back we can do that is that yeah okay okay okay this is gonna get back to something that Dalton was kind of asking I'm sorry councilmember Gregory was asking about earlier staff is proposing to remove the existing capital investment based framework and the additional factors that are currently included in the policy while at the same time retaining the five million dollar minimum value of structure and business personal property that's required to be considered for a tax incentive the reason why we are suggesting removal of the existing framework for that length and percentage of incentives is it allows us more frecks it allows me to not be able to talk it allows us more flexibility to look at a project on its merits when we put it through our incentive analysis versus someone thinking if they invest at this amount they're entitled to an incentive at this certain percentage and for this length of time the existing framework and the additional factors have also been confusing to applicants in the past and we really have struggled with people feeling like they might be entitled to something when it's really at the discretion of the council based on that chart that we have in there the EDP board was fine with removing the capital incentive framework but they did want to retain some of that list of additional factors and what those additional factors were actually are actually used for is so you can check up to five of these additional factors if you're gonna hire local people or if you say that you're gonna make a commitment to be involved with community nonprofits an applicant can check those and then it will allow them to gain an additional five percent on the percentage of their incentive for each of those boxes that they check some of those additional factors are definitely things that are priorities in the community such as using green technology that hiring local being involved with the community but they're very difficult to hold people to in an agreement because it's difficult to document whether they're doing some of those things or not and so the board wanted to retain the factors to allow the companies to talk about the things that they do in those areas but not tie them to receiving additional percentages of an incentive does that I see faces that sound like I'm not making sense I'm gonna go with Councilmember Braves and Councilmember Gregory I had issue with removing some of them because for me when I do look at an incentive using green technologies community these are these are local hiring I think even one of them is occupying a building that's been vacant for at least two years I mean these are pretty significant things that a company can bring to our community and so I I hesitated getting rid of that percentage okay because I'm looking at the actual policy and there's gosh how many of them are there there about 18 I think there there are a lot of them on page 11 yeah and and as I said you know something that I've struggled with since I've been in this role is you know we're we're granting people something additional based on their promise that they're gonna do these things but none of this is specified in the contract that you know we're gonna verify that you do this and if you don't there's gonna be a consequence so I really that's something that I'm not comfortable with personally can we go to councilmember unless you have a follow-up to your initial question I think if people are going to get additional consideration for a grant or for a rebate by because they say they're going to do some things we they have to be measurable and we have to measure and if we don't if we're unable to measure them then we shouldn't there should be no more it shouldn't give them an edge up on getting the rebate or it shouldn't give them an edge up on getting more so I think it all it really has to be verifiable but and verifiable in some pretty objective non subjective way right yes that's and that I think the board the ADP board generally agreed with that but did express the preference for allowing people to talk about how they their company does these things in their application so that we can you know bring that information forward but just not connecting it with the incentive itself unless it's something that really can be verifiable and verified independently and I think about that mirror if I may go on I think about that in terms of we've heard some times for some businesses will say yeah we're going to we're gonna really have a big involvement community presence and contribute to to community efforts and and they don't or if they do they do in a non verifiable way that they don't tell anybody about right and therefore it's all empty talk and I'm not interested in there's we could put in some clawback measures on that there are some things here that can be measured but there's some that of course can't really be so I just want to counsel to look at these and and see if any of those were for discussion mayor pro-10 so two things you mentioned that it's hard to actually enforce some of these and I think looking at the items on page 3 & 4 you 're right some of them are just too vague but in the negotiating process could we put contractual provisions to then enforce them yes and that's what we would want to move to if if they are to be retained and used as a mechanism for determining the percentage of of an incentive in my staff opinion we would have to do that right so then I think you'd have to do that on some items but some of them for instance like the formation of a business park headquarters some of those things you could probably verify without more specificity so is the idea that we would just get rid of all of these factors or what is the proposal I think that internally we talked about do we condense the list to things that are really the council's top priorities and you know what kind of feedback do we get about that do we condense the list to top priorities that can be independently verified as part of contract compliance I think there are a couple different ways that it can be approached or you know do we just allow people to speak to some of these things in their application but not tie it directly to anything that we would try to enforce in a contract I'm kind of surprised that there's no I mean when you said that there's no contractual enforcement I was really additional factors yeah never has been I would assume I can tell I would assume that the additional factors are then manifested into a contract so I'm definitely in favor of you know solidifying whatever requirements we put on people and if we need to get rid of some of them I think that's fine I mean some of these could really be beneficial to the community though and if we could just detail them a little bit better okay I think it would be we can beneficial we'll work on that and we have some ideas if that's what the general direction is I mean for me my concern here is that we've gone from because they haven't been placed under a contractual obligation and that seems to be at least what you communicated was that may be some of the rationale to remove some of these because well we haven't enforced it well I would rather go through this list I mean when I read through this list some of them you can get pretty specific on you know you can verify either through our own measures or through measures with having a contractual obligation from the company to provide certain information one that says a substantial relationship with either University DW or UNT well who knows what that means so there's several of these that don't that are very vague I would rather come at it from this perspective of let's look at the ones that we that are important that we can actually enforce and if there's some that are vague instead of saying we're just gonna throw them all out because we can't enforce them there's some certainly some very important factors here that to me would be a dispositive in giving an additional incentive so I'd rather take an incremental approach okay instead of saying we're not enfor cing it therefore we're not gonna do anything let's go back to saying let's start with the foundation of we're gonna enforce them all now council of these 18 or so that are listed which ones do you think are enforceable based upon either a definition we can create under this factor or some type of data verification either by ourselves or some contractual obligation because because what I'm hearing is we've been giving incentives based upon something that we had no effort or any intention of enforcing because we can't because it's not in the contract and I would rather start there and then if we have some that we've got to eliminate then we can do that councilmember Briggs did you have a question do you have an idea of how many contracts that we have done and given this extra incentive to that we are not enforcing I mean without knowing an exact number I'm gonna say most of the contracts that we have have included these additional factors that have allowed for additional incentive percentage just okay having read through them thank you yeah we need to clean that up yeah yeah okay so then I think how that relates to your slide at least on that first set I think we basically read restated the entire direction of so if you don't mind share with me back what we think the direction from council so we can have an understanding you would like to retain additional factors that are important to the council as far as further ing community goals but they have to be measurable in an enforceable in the contract yes and so we are tying them to additional incentive percentage still as long as they can be in first yes that's that's where I would like to start and if it's not working then we can come back so we're sort of taking a big leap here would you would you like me to take a look at the list and make sure that we have ways to verify you know look at which ones we really can independently verify and then when I bring back the document for your review keep those in there I mean we could go through the list now if y'all wanted to I don't have the list in front of me no I think that's for another discussion I think we do need to have a work session on the list and are there ways that we can advise definitions or the like to to provide some metrics or some measurements we can bring you some yeah a list like that yeah so we can sort of pair it down and we can take it back to the EDP board I guess you got to take it back to the EDP board and get their blessing on it so I think that that would be the next step in this conversation I think that's how I see it anyway I mean okay great okay we ready to move on or do y' all want to do y'all want to take it we got sandwiches out there y'all want to grab a quick sandwich let's take five or ten yeah you already did let's take five or ten right quick yeah we'll take five or ten minutes and we'll grab us a quick sandwich so Tuesday January 16 2018 it is ten after six and we are moving through our work session reports we are on we will resume work session report 1b okay diving back in to the staff proposed change of the addition of a jobs-based incentive for businesses that do not meet the five million dollar minimum value of structures or business personal property or the five million fifteen million dollar minimum and annual taxable sales to receive an incentive we're suggesting this because Dunn is kind of at a disadvantage with other cities that can offer jobs based incentives to companies and always tech companies are the best example of this in that their assets are in their highly educated employees and the kinds of salaries that they pay those highly educated employees but they do not have a lot of capital investments they don't have a building they don't have a lot of business personal property or they're not selling something that's going to generate that much in annual taxable sales but this would be an option to move us closer to one of the city's long-term strategic goals which is increasing the percentage of jobs in the community that pay over seventy five thousand dollars so that's the basis where we think we have a gap this is a way to address it and to be able to target and incentivize desirable companies as basically as called out in our long-term strategic goals the edp board did have some concern regarding incentivizing businesses with no significant capital investment in the community because they are mobile and they could quickly decide to leave the community and then you might be in a situation where you would be trying to clawback an incentive that was given they also expressed perhaps there should be a minimum threshold number of jobs created to be able to apply for such an incentive and I thought that was an interesting suggestion and then someone also suggested using total payroll as a threshold instead of the salary the individual salary numbers for the jobs but look at the total payroll and it would need to be above a minimum threshold so those are just some of the things that they expressed and you know I think we're we're not at the point here in my mind where we would make a decision about all of the details but what I'm generally after is from a policy standpoint are you all interested in considering this and can we bring it back to you with some further details in it so to kind of simplify this would be instead of having a company with a hundred maybe minimum wage jobs or lower paying jobs it's one company that maybe not doesn't actually have or invest in a building to stay but they have like maybe eight to ten seventy to eighty thousand dollar a year paying jobs so that's I'm in favor of that I think that's something we want in our community is incentivizing those higher wage jobs the higher wage knowledge based knowledge jobs jobs right because you know the kind of the the older model of economic development is you want to create a whole bunch of jobs all at once and that's that can still be a good thing and but this is just kind of bringing it up into the way the economy is now and what we want to encourage in the community in terms of quality and and high pay and just from the board I don't think that anyone was generally against this I just think that they had some concerns about the ability for that company to get the incentive and then leave our community fairly easily that's correct yeah so share again what's your thoughts work because I'm not quite sure where you what you shared fits into one of the two of those comments there under the staff proposed changes or EDB board comments oh on the job based incentive yes yes yeah because I'm trying to figure out no no I knew that but you said you don't know if they were the board but for you you're saying if it would fit more in the comments under staff proposed changes or the EDB board comments oh well I'm okay with with some of the comments I think if we were to address some of those concerns in a certain way it would be favorable I'm just I'm generally okay with the incentive and if I if I could restate what I heard you say is that you felt like the EDP board was also generally okay with it but these were some of the things they wanted us to consider as we were actually drafting the policy language and I do know that they wanted to make sure that once council made a decision regarding this that they were able to talk about this one specific one again which is yeah yes that's absolutely right and of course we will as Mayor Watts said earlier we will be bringing your feedback draft policy bring it back to the EDP board so everyone will have a chance to review again I mean I'm okay with I guess my thought is if you how do you give an incentive to people who are just bringing jobs but have no real property or any business in other words there's no we're not receiving any tax revenue off of it right if they don't own the building and if they're just bringing intellectual capital what do you what are you incentivizing and where do you get the money to do that I mean so there's this thing called the economic development incentive fund that's basically already set up to do this but it's not called a jobs based incentive yeah and if we were rolling if we were rolling that policy into this one it would sort of it there's a tie there already it would just be stating it as a job is based incentive and the the important well one of the important parts about this too is that we're we're saying that if you can qualify to get an incentive based on your capital investment you're we're not gonna consider you for a jobs based incentive to okay does that it does I guess my thought on that is with this what would you the economic development investment fund which is a new fund we created that was created for above and beyond extraordinary so somebody's coming in with eight or ten jobs or so I don't see that as part of that is something that's really a there were criteria right I think for criteria under that fund policy one was it had to be a target industry right going back to the technology example technology is one of our target industries it would have to be higher skilled or higher wage jobs which is defined it would have to have a 15 million dollar minimum capital investment and there's one other one but basically they would have to meet two of the criteria so a jobs based incentive would work for a small technology company because it's a target industry as long as they are their salaries and their employment met that higher salary or higher skilled jobs as we define it I guess my only thought about that maybe I'm getting too much in the weeds but when I think about so what we're saying is we're gonna pay people to bring jobs here and let's say they don't have any if they don't have to have a capital investment what you're saying is that criteria they have to meet two of them and so they could not have to have a capital investment right so we would be writing a check back to a company for these jobs but do these are these people required to live here yes that's something that okay we thought about because tech company distributed employees folks who work for them but they live somewhere else well that doesn't do anything so yes there would have to be that kind and we'd have to figure out a way to verify and as far as and you said that the jobs the higher wage is defined in the what is that do you recall that off the top your head is it median or median times a percentage I don't recall it off the top of my head but I can follow up because to me you you want to bring substantially well-paying jobs and how we define that but I don't know if just the median income or the median wage here would necessarily be that no it's it's the definition is more than that like one and a half or something like that if I remember correctly yeah yeah I mean I think there's some things to flush out here okay some specific criteria because there's a lot of questions that if you're writing checks back to companies that don't that aren't producing any revenue from the standpoint of our traditional revenue sources which are sales tax and property taxes then if we're saying we're basing it on jobs how can we build into the process or the program that those jobs if if they're living somewhere else most likely there yeah they're not gonna I mean yeah gasoline and lunch and but right that's not gonna nearly cover what I think the the multiplier effect that councilmember HUD Smith was asking about earlier of a type of job or a salary at a certain rate you know that might be something that we want to look at a little more detail we need a little yeah at least I need a little bit more detail on this everyone's generally okay with us looking into this further about a job based incentive based upon certain criteria and maybe a you 're saying that to continue to have a minimum value or business property or you're saying no not have to have that well I guess our base criteria are you okay with us further exploring and bringing back to you more details about a jobs based incentive and how we could make that work sure and then are you okay with the jobs based incentive not being available to companies that are eligible for other types of incentives or would you want it to be I don't know if I would want to foreclose that I think it would depend I think it would be a higher threshold possibly because I mean how do you I mean if let's say if some big company comes in who's a you know one of the world's biggest companies and deliveries of goods and they want to move you know different headquarters here I just want to be able to have some flexibility I mean doesn't mean we have to approve it okay yeah is that okay is that okay with counsel yes go ahead I'm actually what comes to my mind it's like like a just Saudi type company I mean they lease their space I think I've been here they're invested in the community bring in a lot of CEOs that sort of thing and give us a lot of exposure and there's no avenue to to reward that investment my understanding so that's kind of what I envision right or wrong when we talk about this type need so yeah I'm in favor of I think that's a great example okay I want to comment on that but I think we need to measure we need to keep in mind that we're constantly trying to create an environment it's going to attract people here notwithstanding we offer them money on its in it I mean the whole goal is yes this community has a tremendous amount to offer in and of itself and so you know companies like just audience and the like certainly want to encourage them certainly want to provide what we can but let's not overlook people come here because they see the opportunity in Denton because of the talent pool because the environment the culture so I just want to make sure we balance those things that we have a lot to if we said we 're not gonna offer any incentives I think people would still come because of what the city has to offer in the sense of quality of life the culture the diversity and things such as that so it's a balancing of the of the interest so I certainly understand that but it is and I appreciate you bringing that up because we're my office is focusing more on encouraging workforce development encouraging our you know the things that contribute to our sense of place and what can we do as economic developers to focus on those things too in addition to these kinds of things like incentive policies because it has to be holistic so you're absolutely right this is one aspect yes my one of my comments was that this is one of the goals for us or for me it was to help retain the college graduates from the community from the universities with high-paying jobs as an option here and which is really honestly lacking we have people leaving our community for those jobs and if we can just start getting some of those in maybe more will come kind of like retail I mean you have to get something started before people actually want to start coming here with those jobs well if I remember up venture moved from Frisco to here for the very reason you're talking about and that is the talent pool so good all right fantastic yeah I think all these comments are good and we can find a way to incorporate them in okay okay we are also proposing an addition of minimum thresholds into the policy itself and when I'm talking about minimum thresholds what we're discussing is setting setting some parameters around the valuation that's placed on a property by the Denton Central Appraisal District the valuation of a project must be at least 80% of the eligible investment that was submitted in the incentive application so in an incentive application for a new developments a company could say we're going to spend 20 million dollars we're going to invest 20 million dollars in our project and so what we would want to see in a DCAT valuation is that the project is actually valued at at least 80% of 20 million dollars in order for them to be able to receive their incentive and you know we've definitely had the question come up of well why shouldn't it just be a hundred percent and what we have found through experience is that again going back to the application that's a business's best estimate of what their investment is going to be and what their hiring projections are going to be at the time that they're submitting the application but sometimes from the approval of an incentive as we were talking about earlier it could take maybe up to 24 months for a business to actually be open on the ground have their building built have their employees hired and as we all know things can happen that are outside of our control that affect what we end up doing there could be economic downturns there could be industry specific fluctuations there could be a change you know in in contracts or that a business thought they might get at the time that they applied for an incentive and and that doesn't end up happening so they have to hire fewer people so what we want to do is give them a reasonable amount of flexibility while still holding the company to a minimum requirement and we're asking for consideration of 80% for new developments and 80% of jobs if jobs is a factor in the incentive but then as we've seen with these expansion or redevelopment projects that have had to terminate recently expansion and redevelopment projects are valued by DCAD a lot lower than a new development project and then you also have the factor of depreciation of plant equipment or you know airplanes or other things over time that some of these companies are not accounting for in their application and their total value from DCAD comes back and they miss their their valuation projections so we're bringing this up obviously to have the conversation with you all about if this is something that you want to do we've included this in a contract once for Sally Beauty we required them to meet 80% even though they were an expansion project that was the first and only time that we ever included in the contract and I thought that was you know a good thing to include but this would be adding these kinds of minimum thresholds to the policy itself again to provide some clarity to people when they're applying this is what the expectation would be so the EDP board there were there were a lot of comments and a lot of discussion around this they wanted to make sure that the un-incentivized company would have a chance to come back and ask for an amendment if they weren't gonna meet their threshold people our companies can in fact do that if they want to that they already can do that there was discussion about allowing for a proportional reduction in the incentive if a threshold is missed and we do have that in a couple of contracts so you miss your projection by 10% while your incentive is reduced by 10% that's only in some contracts not in all of them and then there was a suggestion of not terminating the incentive if a company doesn't meet the threshold in in a given year that they could try again the next year for the term of the incentive and again we've got that in one agreement right now but the agreements that terminated because of not meeting the threshold obviously didn't have that so this is an attempt to standardize what the expectation is and you know with that that's kind of the reasoning behind it and what some of the EDP board concerns were regarding this thank you you know we've seen a couple of those reports coming to us recently that incentives were canceled because of this and I don't recall in my nine years on council seeing a lot of those so I'm wondering if something has changed or if they are just not doing a good job of projecting what it's really going to be or did they really just not spend as much on new equipment as they said they were going to spend the depreciation for two of the three that have had to be terminated it was a depreciation issue unexpected depreciation unexpected well and yeah just for whatever reason DCAD the DCAD valuation based on information that was submitted by the company itself it just fell off in plant plant equipment and that kind of business personal property another thing that we have observed is that sometimes people submitting the applications are not the finance department or the CPAs who are doing the tax submissions so that's another thing that when we realize that you know we can talk to people about it but this has really been a learning experience for all of us as to how these things actually happen on the ground so on these kinds of agreements incentives that we have my guess is is that they're asking for an incentive of a reduction of their property taxes but if they're if the if the Denton County Appraisal District isn't increasing their taxes significantly to reflect all of this new capital equipment that they placed then it seems like they're winning either way we have had some strange conversations about well you can go do an ARB review and ask for your valuation to be raised I mean that's a very strange conversation to have with someone you're absolutely right I mean ultimately their tax burden was lower with the reduced valuation and not getting the incentive so that's that's awful for them it's very it's been an interesting situation yeah this is the challenge with personal property look every company goes down they hire consultants to go reduce their valuations at the at the appraisal district so when you see valuations drop off in fact I think we had an example of that I can't remember what it was but where all the sudden something was valued at X and then the next year and it's because they do this so on I'm not really inclined to necessarily go with these percentages simply because that's what we're basing it on unless we somehow have the opportunity to go revisit and reduce the incentive not necessarily proportional but because we're we're giving the incentive based upon what we're told they're going to do I mean so all of a sudden if it's different why are we the party having to bear most of that risk so they can always come back and ask for an amendment we've had several people who have we've certainly had one that has just because of the passage of time and so I'm not inclined necessarily to to I mean if people make an application and we in good faith give them an incentive based upon what they've asked if we have a policy that's pretty I don't say loosey-goosey but it's like well you really don't have to be accurate on your application because what will happen is if you don't come up with except 80% or 50% well we're just gonna reduce the incentive here and and but that sort of defeats our whole purpose and so I'm I'm not inclined to necessarily give that flexibility as a policy I don't think there's a problem with on a case-by-case basis people you know petitioning the council to ask for some you know accommodation and then we can look at all the facts at that timeframe okay because otherwise our applications will sort of be meaningless as far as what people are saying they're gonna do and we're not I mean if the company that I think everybody's referring to the one we've gotten recently about well they didn't make it so we the incentive term inated well if that's the agreement so what I'm hearing in all this discussion is what what what we're really trying to address here is in some ways our I'm gonna our lack of diligence in the contracting process with these incentives because what we're discussing are things that all could be taken care of contractually the well you don't get your incentive this year only but and those contracts are not just one way I mean those are those are negotiated between the applicant and the city and so they can ask for those things I mean so I don't want to try to put in a policy to try to correct our deficiency in contracting okay I mean that's that's where I am I mean our policy should be fairly general but then if we if somebody you know and it gives the flexibility for some additional contracting but that that's where I am probably on just from a general perspective on most of what you're presenting is I mean the other ones I've spoken about it this one I'm really sort of opposed to because we can address that during contracting give them some flexibility and and if they don't meet the thresholds well the contract will either address it or if it doesn't you can always come back and ask for an amendment but gosh if I mean we're talking about small numbers here but let's say somebody said we're gonna build a hundred million dollar facility with 200 jobs and 50 million dollars worth of personal property apply this they only have to do a hundred what I say 200 million 160 million 200 jobs they only have to 160 jobs that's 40 less jobs that's that's a lot and 50% is only instead of 50 million it's 25 million well that's a very different project than what we base the incentive on so it just seems like it gives the understand the change of circumstances but the contract can address that that's where I am on it I think you had a comment yes well and I was not here but I'll give you an example and ask you to shine some light on it so outside looking in and it may not apply holistically but but so outside looking in before I was elected you had Golden Triangle Mall the razor ranch they both have incentives of some degree and razor ranch got an extension Golden Triangle did I don't know what went into that but I'll just say outside looking in it looks uneven handed and so I think that would be my concern here is if we don't I understand you make a very good point that hey it can be addressed but I don't know what the language needs to be to communicate to the to the person that's not in the meetings that may not be up to speed it just looks as though we're picking and choosing because there's no guiding language that says hey this is available or here's here's what's gonna disqualify you so I don't know the answer to that again I wasn't in those meetings but that would be my concern and that that would be my ask is that this be set up such that we're even-handed yeah well and I 'll and I won't go into too much detail to address your example there 's a lot of facts behind that that it's not as doesn't sound as and those facts were pretty much vetted as those people came before us and and I'm you 're right we want to give predictability and understand ability to our policies I totally understand that so I think we can fit obviously we're gonna have to have another conversation but you know how do we do that how do we meet your objective and then at the same time not make it so loose that nobody's tied to anything that the city is the one really bearing all the risk that's really my concern is I don't think the city should be the one bearing all the the the transaction risk in this and I we can find that common ground I think pretty easily yeah okay anything else on this one any more comments questions okay I just wanted to show you a quick graphic of what the incentive application process is like and kind of how it flows so of course the application is received by my office first and it's vetted based on the policy and the content of the application if it can actually stop at that point and if it is we offer other business assistance to the applicant in the absence of being able to help them further on through the process then if it does keep moving forward there's further analysis review by different departments review by the EDP board recommendation to council it could stop at that point by the EDP board not recommending it to council if it does go forward council would review and vote on it council could not approve the incentive or it council could approve the incentive and at that point it is an agreement that's active and is administered by our office and obviously this is pretty simplified view of the process there's negotiation and back and forth that occurs here but I just wanted to give everybody an overview of how that works there any questions about that so if EDP does not recommend it then it does not come forward to council this it's not like not unless not unless the developer or the applicant the applicant can request it to be brought forward that's my understanding I've never had that happen but I think it has happened once that I know of at the meeting I requested or asked for maybe a scorecard and I think right before when it comes to you guys that scorecard before it comes to the board or City Council will have all of the criteria and then just a simple box yes or no checked that would be and I think that's a great idea and we can develop that after I think after we get the policy settled on I mean I think that would make sense to then comb through it and develop that kind of a device after that right okay okay we're gonna move on into PIDs now y'all excited oh yes so fast okay it was on the board too all right so we're gonna start with some basic information about PIDs they are an economic development tool sort of definitionally intended to fund public improvements or municipal services within a defined geographic area and they are funded by special assessments or fees that are paid by the landowners who benefit from them PID projects can be pay-as-you-go or bonds can be issued by a city the main benefit to cities is typically an increase in the quality of development through better amenities or you know upsizing of infrastructure those kinds of things the main benefit to developers is that they get to use tax tax exempt debt to provide funding for their public infrastructure and reduce their capital requirements and ultimately increase their rate of return what was the last one increase developer rate of return okay did y'all know that did y'all know that's what they do with it am I telling you something brand new all right so we did some research into different communities in Texas with PIDs in place 12 are in the North Texas region three are in other areas and I'm gonna step out from behind the oh yeah somebody yes yeah okay yep this is a work in progress chart that started out as sort of an internal reference but I thought I would just share it with you all so that you can see the different communities that we've been looking at mayor Watts did you have a question about something no no good I did no okay so as I said we reviewed 15 Texas cities that have PIDs in place 12 were in the North Texas area three are in the Austin area eight of those 15 had PID policies or guidelines in place and five of those policies stated rationales for PID creation the rationales were very general in the policies that had them they included encouraging higher quality development like we mentioned funding infrastructure some of them wanted to promote tourism enhanced maintenance of public property or meet community needs one observation that we came to really quickly is that the rationales for the PID creation were based on each community's policy objective so they vary from community to community and I want to again state that the rationales were very general meeting community needs was not defined promoting tourism was not defined in detail in these policies that we reviewed in the policies that we reviewed most of them had some of this long list of elements over here I'm not going to read through all of them but there's nothing surprising here in this list it deals with administration limitations the process for application and then over on the other side I kind of did a comparative list of the things that Denton's current PID policy contains and you can see it's a number of the same types of things that are in other policies a number of inquiries have been made for PIDs in Denton our office gets them development services gets them I know that you all as council members get them only one PID has actually been established to date in Denton the razor ranch PID number one which is a mixed-use PID was established in March of 2014 the reimbursement agreement was approved by council in March 2016 and the service and assessment plan and finance plans that are required under the state statutes have not been submitted yet by the developer when are those do they have to submit those before March or April of 2019 okay so they have a little bit of time the review and revision process that we've done with the PID policy has been similar to what we did with the incentive policy so I won't belabor that our list of proposed changes is a little bit shorter than with the incentive policy but again this is kind of a starting point and I'm gonna put some policy questions to you all in a couple of slides because what we really need is is feedback and policy direction from the council in order to to bring you a more substantive document to review our proposed changes include developing an actual PID application we reference an application in our current policy but we don't have an application we recommend establishing an interdepartmental task force to review such applications that would include economic development development services legal and finance we propose requiring a service and assessment plan and finance plan prior to the establishment of a PID and also requiring a developer funded city administered fiscal impact analysis prior to establishment of a PID and then this is this is based on what the current policy is but could change depending on policy direction is that we recommend requiring a minimum home value threshold in the policy which addresses residential PIDs currently and there are some options for how we we would arrive at the minimum threshold that don't necessarily have to be decided today the EDP board agreed with all of those proposed changes the only item that they had comments on was that minimum home value threshold one of the comments was that development of lower-end housing creates a burden on the city and DISD and that we need to better define what we're looking for when we're talking about residential PIDs and and what kind of homes we would want them to contain and then someone suggested using market value or current average new home value basis for the threshold instead of what we had suggested over here one more general concern that was expressed was about home buyers not being fully aware of why they're required to pay a PID assessment especially as the house subsequently changes hands after the first owner sells it that it becomes something that people don't are not clear about why do I have to pay this extra fee and it could create a whole set of people in a neighborhood who are very resistant to approving things like municipal bond packages or school bond packages because they feel like I'm already paying these extra fees on my house in addition to my taxes so that was discussed at length during the EDP board meeting just wanted to bring that up to you all that's really all I have in terms of the changes and my next slide is about our policy questions to you so would be glad to take questions here I protein so I just wanted to comment on the minimum home value threshold I know that that's been something that we've discussed before I just I don't I'm really not comfortable with the idea of requiring a certain home price because I think the market dictates what home prices people can afford in Denton and that's not just with respect to pids it's just in general I don't like that engineering aspect and I think and if anything we need to have more median homes as opposed to pushing up the median so I just wanted to comment on that and then also I try to find some of the pit policies but for the different cities and I was only able to find Fort Worth's which is really comprehensive I mean I was surprised by how many I mean they had they had like sewer pipe inches and arterial roads etc etc and I think that is a more value than the median home price if you're looking at what value is provided to the city it's what is the nature of the infrastructure that's being provided so I would be more in favor of something that really closely resembles Fort Worth's policies that really specifically delineate the size of the roads the size of the infrastructure and also a year cap on our pit I don't do we have an annual cap right now a cap on how long the pig can last yes it's 30 years in the current policy which that is one place where Denton was an outlier nobody else no other policy that we found went beyond 25 years I mean it's just five years but 30 years was is the longest term that we saw and that was in our policy yeah Fort Worth's was 20 and I mean I think reducing the timeline of how long it can last and then as far as the notice took to potential buyers I don't I mean can we add a requirement by ordinance or something that would require any pit developer to provide additional like City of Denton notice is that something that's a possibility we could add it as a notification requirement yes okay so that could potentially take out some of the heartburn because I agree most people that I've discussed his with the first complaint is we didn't know we were purchasing in a pit and that's something that as a council I think we can address there was some discussion during the ADP board meeting that that's something that's it is supposed to be disclosed at closing real estate folks would know but I mean oh but yeah that was talked about it is but I think that people don't see it you know can I ask question because I'm not sure I'm understanding when you're talking about the notification so that would go that would go when the notice notification from the city would go well I mean I think that's a good question and it would be up for discussion we need to figure out when it is that people are actually paying attention to the fact that they're moving into a pit so I don't know when when the answer to that is but I think the state required notification is probably insufficient is what I'm saying and that's the state requires that notification at closing correct yeah okay and I don't know exactly what it looks like it's probably a rider is like it's like a one-page really fine print type thing and then the pit application one thing I wanted to note was in Fort Worth they have a pretty hefty fee it's like thirty five thousand dollar fee with a hundred fifty thousand dollars of reimbursable expenses to the city and if the city is spending a lot of time on these projects there there needs to be a recouping of costs and that's something that I would be very much in favor of right that is something that again we were outlier on the low end of that our specifies $2,500 fee so that's definitely something to consider no not for now if you could and I'm gonna if you could just flash up on the screen what your policy questions are so if if if we have questions or we have comments we at least you can okay I'm curious when Mayor Pro Tem Vigari was talking about Fort Worth and these specific requirements for infrastructure sizes are those how did those compare with the the regular requirements for development infrastructure typically they'll be linked to your criteria manuals if there's over one of the things that says will do with pids is just to justify them is there some benefit to the city residents and neighboring residents to oversizing things that sort of thing so they'll want to don't want to contractually bind them to the criteria manuals and there be there could be times they could actually bind them to oversizing on his question yeah and then we'll come back to my assumption was that it's oversizing to allow for future development on the periphery that's not in a pit because that's really that extra public value yeah to me if I was would be ever to consider a residential development pit it would be because they are providing a product that has been identified by the city as something severely needed so if if we have look at the inventory of residential and we are low we don't have enough inventory in a particular area that we want whether it's high-end or low-end then then that might be appropriate might or or if they're bringing a adding a lot of amenities to this development that could be enjoyed by everybody in the you know by everybody in that development plus plus more I might but what I'm hearing basically is is this is simply a tool that's being proposed to cover the cost because my development is a long way from the rest of this infrastructure of the city and it's going to cost me a lot of money to extend lines water lines or or wastewater and sewer lines to do that you know my thought is well then you probably ought to wait on that development because because part of our goals in our in our comprehensive plan are to we're not we're not encouraging sprawl we're trying to discourage sprawl and it seems to me that that if we if we were to approve P IDs to cover those kinds of infrastructures cost because it caused more to develop when you're far away from from the rest of the infrastructure then we're offering a PID that's actually working against our comprehensive plan and what our goals are and I'm particularly concerned I'm not sure that it's possible to to provide a good way of informing people that they bought a house in a in a residential development that has a PID I don't know I don't know how you can really do it because the stack of papers I know lots of lawyers that have bought houses and didn't read that whole stack of papers when they were signing and and got surprised and and I think as you pointed out if I realize when tax bill comes around holy cow you know the average home in my development is three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars and I've got a forty cents per hundred thousand dollars I've got a thirteen hundred dollar extra tax that I didn't know and I lived in another part of town with the three hundred and twenty five thousand dollar house and I didn't have that and and and they're gonna certainly have misgivings then about voting for the next city bond election or the next school bond election because they're already paying significantly more in what appears to them property taxes for for the same kind of house so you know I'm I'm not sure that that we need it as a tool for residential development because I'm seeing I'm seeing a lot of residential development that's filling in right now around schools and extending streets that we have and those folks are nesting for kids and they're able to make a I'm suspecting that they're turning a dollar on it knowing some of the developers I am absolutely certain they're turning a dollar we did have some interesting conversations with some of these communities that have pids residential pids in particular could we hold that for a second we got several council members sorry I want to be able to get their comments in and then we can we can go into that because that's gonna probably be part of the I 'm gonna go with a council member Duffin then you kill if that's okay well there they're actually two very large thousand acre tracks that probably within the next five years are going to be developed hunter ranch and coal ranch and the numbers I've seen for coal ranches is probably over a hundred million dollars that they're going to need for infrastructure and it's I suspect it's going to be pretty unlikely that anybody is going to come in and and do that that have the money to put the infrastructure in they're not like ropes and ranch because ropes and wrench didn't do it they didn't take they didn't have anything they did it all as far as the notification when you bought the house you should have had a good realtor you know anybody like that I'm just kidding go ahead yeah councilmember well just to that point I know that council member was knee always used ropes and as as an example for when somebody in a residential wanted to come in and ask for a pitch she said well we did it all on our own they don't need one just to that to that point on your community a PID from what I recall from our discussion on the board was that it was created when there was a financial downturn and that it's not necessarily needed now it was just a tool that was created that people are still trying to capital capitalize on when it was difficult for developers to get commercial loans after the economic downturn that that's when you saw an upswing in requests for an implementation of pids the market has caught back up and it from our community seemed to be doing okay at this point so my answer to number two would be no personally anybody else I got a couple comment yes yeah so first correct me if I'm wrong but I understand Robeson Ranch went in but but I think there's water a water train treatment plant there's something out there that we we're now helping with what is that what am I the wastewater treatment plant okay which we're working on making we've actually been working on a plan with ropes and to size our infrastructure for their ultimate build out okay and then my understanding is they didn't although they they are such they didn't tap into are they on the they run the infrastructure from the city out and there's some additional capacity needs that are necessary for that development they're actually they are contributing to fund their portion of those capacity increases as well so so that is that is accurate that that they have funded their infrastructure needs and they are contributed for their future needs so then help me so much the short answer for me is a infrastructure focus so I don't see it up there but that would be my my motivation for a pit is because if it costs us three- quarters of a million dollars for a parking lot infrastructure is expensive and so if someone's willing to to kind of spur growth in that area then in an area that is not developed yet then I can see that as a plus to kind of be the to kickstart that but I guess two questions well one thought first we currently have DCTA right and running buses to Fort Worth for for comm uters that sort of thing and and so my point is we need to that area if it's developed helps that ridership or we need to I don't know if we reevaluate that but I'm just saying we need to be succinct in our in our goals right so it can 't be we don't want to sprawl that way but at the same time we want to fund a bus that goes that way you know those two are inconsistent in my opinion if we can put more riders out there by investing in a pit that then benefits DCTA then I think that's a good thing when you have the the shopping centers and that sort of thing along I 35 W so that that's my thought regarding being succinct as a city but the development is is is key to me the infrastructure development is key to me but I guess the question is why can't we just tap into what a development on 35 W have to be run from scratch or can they just tap into or modify what razor ranch has already run I guess that's my Robeson's I'm assuming he's met Robeson yeah yeah they're their infrastructure is sized to accommodate their development and there is some partnering going on as I understand with the new wastewater infrastructure to accommodate one of the adjacent subdivisions but typically when the development takes place the developer will will pay to get all the off sites the water sewer roads to the site as well as the internal infrastructure and they will build those costs into each lot each home sale and that's what's happened in Denton historically what we're seeing now is Caroline stated is this desire to utilize a PID to subsidize a good portion of those costs to make sure that the developers are maximizing our return on investment you know in just as in with the idea being well the homeowners are paying for and I think as Councilmember Gregory stated our concern has been where you can end up with a PID assessment each year as high as your city tax bill or getting getting close to it now about two- thirds so the city's that I'm familiar with that have used the the PIDs for residential development having a desire to piggyback on it to oversized to help with their own infrastructure problems perhaps they've under built infrastructure there are communities that believe that rooftops will being retail and that is not necessarily been a problem in Denton in terms you know their rooftops are occurring and you know in terms of the additional diversity and housing where this that's the difficult thing that I think the council been having communication and having debates on over the last two or three years as you start seeing housing appreciate in the community what does that really mean in terms of diversifying your housing mix because the economy 's soaring of doing it for you and we there's not a residential development that comes in that isn't unique and offering interesting amenities in their opinion it really gets down to is it is this the right development to start saying okay we're gonna allow you to subsidize the you know the infrastructure where everybody else has paid their own way and baked into the home price so it really is an important question for the council because when it gets down to it our our criteria with regards to PIDs in general but residential are fairly vague and if it's not something that's really on the table for residential we just need to know it if there's something that's really special then tell us what you think that might be I think we'll take care of that question tonight actually yes as far as residential I don't see any use for them in our present economy I do think we might want to have a additional work session just on our current ordinance because there are some things in here that make me kind of wonder eligible expenses include library improvements but yet on desired product we have ongoing operation and many maintenance costs for amenities or public facilities where the city borne the cost may eliminate a project from consideration so it's it's it's almost like it's fighting within itself we spell out specifically PIDs may also be considered for redevelop ment areas such as downtown I think we want to call out just downtown this is if we're going to allow it for commercial at all it needs to be just a general citywide policy not something that's specific to to that area but as far as residential now I don't see any reason all it does is create a if you try and use it for low income you're creating a hidden cost that those low-income people are going to have to pay down the road in and for a higher income well then the house just needs to be able to sell from or if they need to cover their costs that way because we're definitely that's try to wrap this up I got a few comments I want to make but we're gonna wrap up this discussion I think I think if we if one of these huge developments comes in I think it's we're going to be negotiating the whole thing probably regardless of what kind of thing we you know we come up with but I'm just talking about the I'm talking about something that's really huge and if that happens it'll be up it'll be up the council decide what they're gonna do no to residential pit I don't think it's needed I think in some ways the only reason they're justified is off-site you know utilities coming to the site we want to include those costs in a pit well then that means quite honestly which is what either the developers have been paying for up front or what we've had bond packages to do if we have some infrastructure needs we issue a bond package with the citizens and if we need to add a 52 inch water line down 35 to help open up that western side then we can put that to the voters otherwise the people who are living in the pit are paying double they 're they're paying double they're paying for their own infrastructure costs and they're also paying bearing they're solely bearing the cost of the city to bring that infrastructure out there I can't do that we don't we don't need a I think there's other ways that we can accomplish our goals so no to the residential pit quite frankly I want to make the pit policy as lease specific as possible because I don't think that they're really at a point I mean when the razor ranch was passed in 2014 of April 2014 I don't I wasn't here but I think it's for like how was it six million dollars or something you remember what the razor ranch pit it's it's pretty it's pretty low it's not a it's not a to me that is the last resort of funding that the city or instrument because the city technically doesn't pay for it we just put it on the burden and the backs of either the commercial the commercial tenant owners or commercial building owners and or the residential so I don't like them I think that they're not necessary I think they changed the market I think they artificially create a change in the market if the lands too high negotiate lower if you can't make you the only way you can make your project work is because you're gonna get a pit and throw an additional assessment on the backs of even though we had a developer stand and sit in front of us and say well it's not the city's incentive y'all aren't paying it they're paying it fair enough but we're good we're charged with governing the growth of this city and if everybody else had to pay their way then I just feel very strongly against them except unless it's in an area that is no way going to be developed and I wouldn't even say out there by razor by ropes and ranch is one of those areas I mean the city if we want to we could pass a bond package and we can get the water out there that's needed to expand that so I I like Fort Worth the only thing I like about Fort Worth is it says their use and under use it says only used for projects that are related to a public purpose require to demonstrate a benefit to the district and entire city in other words they they're not they're not wanting it to be for the enhancement of the rate of return of the developer they're wanting it to be something that truly does benefit but again those participants in the pit are the ones paying for it when the whole city typically benefits from it we get the tax dollars from that additional development but we're not having to pay for it so I mean I guess if you get somebody else to pay for it that's the best thing to do but in the context of city governments I'm not sure that's the best policy I'm gonna go with councilmember Briggs and then we're gonna we're gonna have one more really brief round so yes the city's name is attached though to the pit right because of the bonds or the right the the city has a response well the bonds would be issued through the city the city has a responsibility in the administration of the pit I mean or to contract it to someone else so yes I mean the city does have a lot of responsibilities yeah if a pit is created yeah may I pretend so I guess from somebody who can differentiate what is and I'm fine with removing pids for residential as well although I think we have four votes already but what is the reasoning for having it for commercial developments versus residential and what's the value of it for a commercial and then the second part of that is if there's a consensus to move forward with commercial pids I think we need to consider if we want them within the ETJ or not like Fort Worth's policy doesn't allow it and the ET J we can okay and I think that speaks to councilmember Gregory's point of we have policies that encourage density and creating kids in the ETJ is not going to be in coordination with that so I think the only justification really is it's a it for a commercial development it's almost a similar argument to a TIF you're creating jobs EAV that's where I think somebody wanted to build a business park and just needed some gap financing whatever but you could do the same thing with the TURS so it really gets down to what are your policy you know goals and all this if somebody wanted to self assess themselves to to bring a bring a new business park in is that something you'd consider so I mean I guess I'm of the same opinion regarding residential side it's really just to help somebody's bottom line and their return on investment so we're not gonna do it for residential we probably shouldn't do it for commercial is my opinion don't necessarily disagree with that anybody else so I'm not sure what the direction is I know no pits the residential yes because I guess we're supposed to be answering to all of those things I can't I don't even I can 't envision a tool for redevelopment how a pit would work as a tool for redevelop ment do you have any examples of that I do have an example Arlington has a pending redevelopment pit in which an old area full of multifamily housing like sort of aging multifamily housing a developer is interested in in rede veloping that and and having a pit be in play I don't really have many more details about exactly how it would work but that was an example that Ar lington gave us and they haven't approved that that's something that they're being asked to consider well I'm inclined to say no because I would think that a tip would do the same thing and anything where it's you know residential apartments or for single-family I just am pretty sure that the cost ends up being a hidden cost or at least at the time that they agree to move into this area it's hidden and then they discover it I think if it's commercial development it's not going to necessarily be hidden because if it's commercial development they're paying lawyers to look at all the contracts and all of the contingencies and so it's more likely that it's not going to be hidden that they're going to be aware of it and as a tool for new developments again if it 's residential no if it's commercial maybe so I guess obviously residential no so I'm okay I mean I think we need to have the ability if we want to to issue a PIT so I'm not saying that we remove all ordinances and therefore we have no opportunity I'm saying though that it needs to be very clear that our default is no unless you have a huge demonstration of a need but even if we decided let's just take it all out all together and there's not even any question about it I'm okay with that too but I don't hear that that's necessarily I think you're you're okay with that I don't know who else would be okay with that so a number of communities just don't have a policy as you can see in the spreadsheet they don't have them they have PIDs but they don't have a policy they govern it case by case flower mound is a good example of this they have their PID just papered up all kinds of ways but there is not a general policy I think I would prefer that because if it's a policy then they could always argue well we meet your policy guidelines and then we've got to somehow defend that or so I mean so what you're saying is we can have no policy but that doesn't exclude us from considering a PIT based upon certain circumstances that's yeah I'm okay with that anybody other comments that councilmember Briggs you're shaking your head I'm not sure okay I'm okay with it I do see a few possibilities on commercial I don't see it as something that have to be a case-by-case basis I see Dallas has get the Preston would be which I'm guessing it's the old Preston would mall so you've got a large single building development that so let me ask you so you're okay with not necessarily having a policy but the opportunity to consider it on a case-by- case basis exactly I think we got four votes right there but for directions for for direction but go ahead yeah I'm good with that because I think just excluding residential why do we want to do that because somebody may come in with a huge one and we may want to consider it so when you say you're okay with what what are you saying I'm okay well we don't I don't see that on the policy we don't need a policy it's a case-by-case basis so are we so yeah hey for once it doesn 't matter okay all right we as you're the one always expounding as long as I get the board then we're okay okay so what I'm understanding is that we so there there we need to be language that there's a demonstrable public benefit is that is it well no what I'm hearing know what I'm hearing is they just want to have the policy and we'll just take it on a case-by-case basis yeah you don 't even really have to have a public benefit is what you're saying for a commercial head no what I think I'm hearing is with no policy that gives us pretty much clean latitude to do to construct one or not construct one based upon whatever criteria that we want to just ad hoc criteria based on that council case-by- case basis but I know but you mentioned that you're one of the things that was important was a public have you public component to it so I'm saying if we had a policy Fort Worth's right says that okay with their policy I was just saying that I agreed with if we had a policy to really restrict it to a public purpose requirement to demonstrate a benefit to the district and entire city so yeah if you wanted just a policy that said a pit has to demonstrate whatever good yeah I'm writing that down can I just voice my like strong disagreement with not having an actual delineated policy about what is needed or what sure I just feel like that's our job to create policy so that's my nae vote I thought you just agreed with yeah I thought you so you're changing already okay that's fine yeah no policy but ad hoc basis yes right no no yeah go ahead yeah I I agree with that I would like to not do any pits but I think having some basic guidelines for future councils for us to create something as far as a public good just some kind of general statement that something could fit into having nothing is kind of frightening for what could happen down the road for other councils to decide well but if we have a very general policy they're gonna be have so much flexibility and pretty much decide what they want to decide so it doesn't matter to me I'm not for him period so as long as I'm on council they'll be at least probably unless there's a demonstrable huge public benefit so so correct you've heard the direction try to bring back something that mirrors that direction no I thought they were forward in favor of no policy if I if I can say if you if you go down the road of not having a policy on p ids to a developer that's like saying you've got a policy on bids it's sort of there's a chance so I think I think what's fair is if it's something that you 're not going to consider for certain types of developments it would probably be helpful for us to provide that guidance otherwise you haven't accomplished really much they're gonna be right back in here saying we don't have a pig policy let us be the first one which is what we're encountering now okay so you're saying so I'm hearing no to residential pits that's one policy right what's the second policy no to redevelopment well I don't yeah yeah I mean I did yeah because we got to wrap this up and if we can't we're gonna have to come back again to talk about it so what I'm hearing is that there has to be a demonstrable public benefit either I mean to the city all right is that and that can fit in anything yes I'm a yes to most of that and I'm absolute no to that which you just said because that is so ambiguous it makes my head hurt I mean there's just I mean public benefit to whom to that that that varies based on where you live how you grew up I mean that's just how do you equate that you know so if that is the if that's a soul I mean I get it but that just that is so ambiguous we're coming back on this work I'm I'm we're I mean we're not gonna be able to craft enough direction for you guys to understand this and we've got some other things we've got to consider people been waiting here a long time so because what you're talking about is you want it very specific so there's predictability I'm saying make it somewhat general so that you have some flexibility and so it's okay that where it's sort of different ends we're not gonna resolve that tonight okay and so everybody okay with these if we're not eliminating the policy these changes can give us some additional clarity on individual requests if we do requiring service plan requiring the fiscal impact analysis to help us make a decision if we're moving more towards a case -by-case basis sure we're gonna have a good policy we need to have those particular things in there okay so we'll come back again yep and we'll have you something to look at I just want to be clear that we had four in favor of commercial pids because I did not track so we had four people who wanted to continue commercial pids I don't I mean I'm not gonna dispute that I don't think the only thing that I've heard that we don't want to continue is residential pits okay but I just wasn't clear that we had four people to continue commercial pids but I'm just trying to make sure well I don't know what other kind of p ids there are besides commercial if there's not residential well I know so we could have no pids at all is what I'm saying but that's that's off the table from what I've heard the council wants a policy on pids for commercial pids for something other than residential and if that's commercial yes now what that looks like is the further discussion I think that we have to have if we're gonna have specific policy guidelines outside of the ones that are here and the ones that are currently in our policy I just didn't count for that's all you didn't count for yeah I didn't see that there were four okay well then who wants commercial pids yeah that's I don't see I don't see a need for commercial p ids you lost I left the conversation at residential so you have a need for residential yes okay you're probably the outlier absolutely okay so residential as far as direction from what I understand or are not on so commercial pits you don't see a need for commercial pits no no I don't see a need at this time but I am in favor of keeping a policy open for commercial kids okay so now I'm really confused and we're fixing this is gonna end real quick because I'm hearing there's there's there's no need for it there's no desire for residential kids and I'm counting direction for there's no desire for commercial kids what does that leave well that means a policy that we don't have kids yeah but it's a policy okay we're gonna get it okay crap that direction and we're moving on yep all right thank you you bet okay all right we're going to move it we're okay we're gonna break no no no we're going we're gonna we got some people that we need to we need to move through yeah oh no I'm fine okay we are now moving into our special called meeting at seven oh yeah yeah seven twenty seven and I think people were saying we're gonna get out here four or five o' clock we're going to move we're going to move an agenda item up its agenda item C which is I'm gonna go ahead and call it it's consideration of approval of a resolution approving the issuance of revenue bonds by new hope cultural education facilities finance corporation on behalf of CHF collegiate housing and this is has something to do with some revenue bonds issued by Texas woman's University and we will have a slight brief presentation on how the city has no obligation no liability or anything so yes sir yes sir go ahead Tony point the director finance mayor council this item is to consider approval of the issuance of revenue bonds of a hundred million dollars by the new hope cultural education facilities finance corporation long name the proceeds of the sale are going to be used to build a 900 approximately 900 bed student housing facility with a thirty two thousand square foot dining hall right behind pioneer hall and the existing campus right with the soccer field if you're familiar with that the city has no obligations on this debt the issuer has compl ied with the required public hearing notice and also the public hearing and that 's all I have for you if you have any questions I do have a question because I was very curious in the backup that apparently some small community just east of McKinney is somehow involved how does that work is it just that they need a municipality or some you know taxing district or something that that issues these that's correct they do need a governmental sponsor in most cases at the city new hope Texas is in Collin County the other requirement is they have to be bank qualified so in other words they can't issue more than ten million dollars a year in debt and so new hope certainly falls within that category as a matter of fact you hope also charges for those approvals and it ranges anywhere from fifteen to twenty five thousand new hope is a has a population about six hundred folks couldn't get a lot of detail about the budget but you know that's type of revenue can be kind of substantial that's that's a that's basically there in the business of doing this issuing this to generate some revenue for their small city that's correct interesting , all right George Morrow general manager of DME good evening mayor and council as was just explained here to get approved the NAIS P agreement with enterprise products purpose of the agreement is to provide gas for the debt and energy center operational tests are scheduled to start as early as February 10. I want to take a little of the mystery out of what NAIS P stands for it's a North American Energy Standards Board very recognized and accepted name in the gas business in this country a lot of states and federal agencies recognize the NAISP there's over 300 corporate members subscribing to their gas agreements now the NAISP document itself is protected under copyright law we were able to provide copies to the council and to the public utility board in your role as a government official but no further distribution or use is allowed and we were fortunate we were able to get an authorization and understanding to do a redacted version of the contract which has been available for the since last week in the city secretary office no reproduction though allowed so the NAISP itself is just a general agreement it provides it's like an enabling or an umbrella agreement providing terms for transactions specific transactions down the road for gas will come under city ordinance number 2014 - 60 which is your approved energy risk management policy and in that confirmation under that policy you can deal with specific price terms quantity duration etc for future transactions so you might ask why are we doing this first NAISP with enterprise products it's basically because of the nature of that organization they're associated with the pipeline company the physical pipeline and the gas that we're going to be requesting under this is extremely limited unknown quantities little or no notice and we had an outside consultant go and survey a number of entities and concluded this was the best arrangement for us because the marketing company associated with the physical pipeline has the best chances of being able to do the kind of scheduling that we need to do on a short-term notice so this is just for test energy down the road we're looking at moving forward to issue an RFP that's in the final stages of going through the city issuance process for long-term gas and we're hoping we'll get lots of offers for that for commercial gas for for the project so you'll probably see other NAISPs come forward one would be maybe for this longer-term gas supply and we're thinking of doing some agreements with other entities just to give us additional redundancy and reliability for the long run of that project so there's an ordinance before you tonight some key terms of that ordinance is to author ize execution of the NAISP and other related documents confirming that you know we have authority under that ordinance 2014 - 60 to do the eventual transactions to procure the molecules of gas determining that certain information in these gas transactions are competitive electric matters as defined by the Texas government code and also allowing inspection but not reproduction of the redacted NAISP so here tonight recommending that ordinance and would note that the public utility board did in concur unanimously with this recommendation yes councilmember Gregory so the the contract is copyrighted correct and because of that we can't print it correct we could we may were able to make it available to the utility board in the council but beyond that it's for viewing only no production but it's not hidden if somebody wants to see it they can come and see it it's just inconvenient it's inconvenient it's redacted now that so the version we're able to provide has some special terms in it that were necessary to be redacted and but it is available the rest of the document okay thank you any other questions comments okay chair would entertain action on this motion councilmember Gregory I would move approval of the ordinance all right that's my Ryan I'll second we have a motion and second for agenda item 1a all in favor please signify by raising your right hand all opposed by like sign motion carries five to two and make sure the record reflects each council members vote because I know on the board it does but here it didn't so city secretary could ensure that thank you very much you bet thank you agenda item 1b consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton Texas authorizing the expenditure of funds for payment by the city of Denton for the annual consolidated water quality fee to the Texas Commission on environmental quality good evening mayor and council Kenny banks general manager of utilities the item before you this evening is for the consolidated water quality fee that we are required to pay to the Texas Commission on environmental quality annual fee and it is based on the total amount of wastewater discharge volume that we have here in the city of Denton mainly based on pe can Creek or 21 in million gallon per day plant total fee is a hundred and ten thousand two hundred fifty seven ninety three and as I stated it is paid on an annual basis these fees just very briefly are requested by the state they go into a specific fund known as the state water resources management account that particular account is used for water quality administration which includes the inspection of our wastewater treatment plant and any enforcements under water code the Texas clean rivers program which monitors and assesses water quality around the state and then other water resource management programs that would be related to activities of anyone that is permitted under TWC Texas water code 260 to 91 you have an ordinance before you this evening to cover the fee and the amount that was stated and staff recommends adoption of that ordinance authorizing that expenditure in the amount of a hundred and ten thousand two fifty seven ninety three be glad to answer any questions anyone else any questions for dr. banks saying none thank you thank you got some right I'll move approval mayor Pro Tem seconds all right we have a motion and a second for agenda item 1c all right no 1b I'm sorry let's vote on board please for agenda item vote on the board all in favor please signify by raising your right hand all opposed by like sign carries unanimously agenda item now 1d as in David consider adoption of an ordinance approving an employment agreement for the city auditor and authorizing the mayor to execute said agreement setting the compensation terms of that employment authorizing expenditures and actions and providing an effective date yes councilmember Gregory well I'm assuming we don't have a presentation no I don't believe we do yeah I'm moving approval of the contract as provided for us by our human resources department this afternoon yes councilmember Briggs um does the does the public know who it is that we're hiring has that name been no but we released I mean is that something we can say right now for who we're voting for please thank you yeah Carla could you Carla could you just come up and just give us a brief presentation please I mean just who it is and start date and the like hi um the candidate that the council's choosing to hire his name is umesh DeLau he'll be starting February 26 to your contract yep okay any other questions on that thank you all right thank you appreciate that so yeah we had a motion we haven't had a second yet I don't believe did we oh I'll second all right we have a motion and a second for agenda item 1d all in favor please signify by raising your right hand all opposed by like sign but it passes unanimously so all right concluding items anybody I thought you said you didn't have any I didn't but I well with talk of the the TW you I guess can I can I go oh yeah I'm sorry yes sure they approached us a while back with their master plan and we're talking about getting completely rid of their golf course and there was some outcry in the community because it's affordable it's located in Denton it's not a country club and there were a lot of citizens who wanted that to stay and since that conversation it has been I guess released that they are going to keep part of it is it nine holes or something so just ask just would like an update to see if that is going to stay that way and just an update on the golf course please all right great yes may protein yeah I think at some point in the near future after we received the auditors independent report about Parks Foundation we'll be having a policy discussion about you know what our continuing relationship will look like and before we get there I'd like to have some information from city staff that I believe won't be provided in the audit a final audit report namely the total number of scholarships provided by Denton Parks Foundation to the city of Denton the fee assessment agreement for Denton youth sports and the city of Denton the total amount of staffing services that were provided to Denton Parks Foundation on a year-over-year basis by the city of Denton and any other vendor contracts that may have been paid for by the city of Denton for Denton Parks Foundation okay may protein could I just ask a question of clarification sure on the total number of scholarships are really any of the are you talking about is there a year limitation going back or is it from the inception or are there any kind of parameters as far as a time frame I'm assuming we have at least five years available to us I don 't want to burn in staff but it may be just be a situation where they can pull the years really easily if that's the case then great five years but if it's very easy to pull additional years I wouldn't mind if we had some additional years in there okay great I know that I believe our funding began in 2013 of the staff position okay so I guess coinciding with one our funding yes council member Ryan I've got two items one is I'd like to request a I'm guessing this would be a closed session item on releasing the document 2014 desk 6o we received some briefing on that this last week that it was voted on in a closed session and requires the council to approve it to be released to the public so I'd like to look at that and then the other item it came to my attention earlier today that the item numbers on our agendas do not match up with the ordinance numbers and I'm just like an informal staff report on if it's not possible to get it where our item numbers match our ordinances why that would be oh you mean the long number on the item number yes okay like ID 18 - agenda ID number okay if there's any way possible that we could get that to match up with our ordin ances so that when you're looking back you know an ordinance and you know it was passed on such-and-such date you don't have to read the entire back or maybe even cross-reference somehow that ordinance with a ID member yeah okay yeah all right anybody else I've got a couple but wanted to give my colleagues an opportunity anybody else wanted to make the announcement and I'm it's going out and we'll get a little bit more information about it and publicity but state of the city address is on February the 15th from I think it was 6 to 830 at the new Convention Center the embassy Suites Hotel so certainly want to invite everybody to come out and and participate with us and and see some of the what the departments are doing in the city and and here a great state of the city address and and just a real quick staff report on and it's probably not been there for a while but I had a wound I found myself at the intersection of Fulton and Crescent Street where there used to be a signal light there in front of DHS and it's not there anymore I was just curious when that happened because I was told I thought I was lost actually so yeah just just an email or something just curiosity anything else thank y'all so much for your patience we will stand adjourned at 745 you