This is our work session and with the quorum present, I will call us to order at 5 05 PM.
First item on the agenda for the work session is citizen comment on consent agenda items.
Tyler, are you there? And do we have anyone on the phone?
Thank you.
First item on the agenda for the work session is citizen comment on consent agenda items. Tyler, are you there? And do we have anyone on the phone?
Hey, this is Tyler Smith with Parks and Recreation. We have no one on the phones currently.
Okay, very good.
Then I think we will move on to our next work session item, which is our work session reports.
We will have a presentation to hold a discussion.
Various City of Denton programs and regulatory requirements that promote sustainable development. Hello, Sean.
Hello, lovely. So I'm just going to pull up my presentation here and we'll get rolling.
Let me see here.
All right.
Good evening, Chair and members of Planning and Zoning Commission, Sean Jacobson, Associate Planner.
I'm here with three colleagues to continue our Platting Boot Camp series.
Tonight, we're going to focus on a subject that's very important to City of Denton, our citizens and our policymakers, which is sustainability.
How we can preserve and enhance the natural environment of Denton so that it continues to benefit our residents for the future, both near and far.
I want to start by looking at, for my section, how we promote sustainability through development, how we regulate development and how we plan that.
So one of the big things with sustainability in Denton is tree canopy and green space. And we can see that if we look at the policy documents that guide us.
Denton Plan 2030, our comprehensive plan, set specific goals for preserving and increasing our tree canopy and preserving and increasing our green space.
We also commissioned a state of the Denton Urban Forest to determine exactly how much tree canopy we had. And based on that, we approved an Urban Forest Master Plan that laid out goals for improving that canopy.
From that, our Denton Development Code actually takes those policy goals and gives teeth to them.
It lays out key standards and protections related to tree canopy, both preserving it and increasing it in our landscape areas.
And it actually sets that 30% canopy goal right in the standards. That's something we want to reach and maintain.
Because of the importance of that, then sustainability actually gets built into our development review process.
Four key ways. So tree preservation and planting. So how many trees do you have to preserve on your site?
And we set a goal of essentially a floor of 30% of your protected trees or 20% if you mitigate the additional 10% removed at a higher rate.
We require now all protected trees to be mitigated if they're removed, which was not the case before.
With that, we also have standards for tree canopy as a whole.
So where you may need to plant additional trees in addition to what you're preserving to meet that standard within your zoning district.
Landscape is a key part of it. How much green space we're protecting or requiring you to plant on the site, as well as environmentally sensitive areas, which Christy Upton will touch on after me.
And stormwater management, which looks at both how much stormwater is being produced from a site and how that's managed and also looking at addressing the quality of that runoff.
So because it's an important part of our standards and our policy documents, it's built into our review process from the very beginning.
Can even be at the zoning stages. Y'all are aware our plan developments and our specific use permits come in with very detailed plans.
And so we're looking at that as planning reviewers. Are they meeting those minimum standards for landscaping and tree canopy tree preservation?
But also, are they looking at doing above and beyond that? Is the PD providing better landscaping, better tree canopy?
Are the alternatives they're proposing getting us closer to our goals as a city?
And is there mitigation proposed? Are they using that landscaping trees to mitigate specific things at the platting stage?
And as you can see there, we have an example of one of our very detailed tree preservation plans.
Thankfully, y'all don't actually have to review those. We review those.
But we look through and we have to see is every tree on site that's not in an environmentally sensitive area, those are protected separately, but every other tree is that documented?
Do we know what type of tree it is, what size of tree it is, and has the applicant shown that they're preserving the correct number of trees?
And do we have a note on the plat stating this is how many trees need to be preserved so that's memorialized so in the future someone doesn't come back and think they can cut down those trees?
And so y'all play a very important role in that because when we say this isn't adequate due to tree preservation and you deny the plat on that basis, you're protecting those trees through us.
And of course, we continue through site plans, civil plans, and building permit to continue to check to make sure that those standards are followed, those minimums are met.
In addition, y'all, besides that role at Platten, you play an important role in this at the PD and the SEP stage because, of course, we do a detailed analysis of any alternatives that are proposed,
see that minimums are met, and to see that in many cases applicants are going above and beyond.
But then it's your job to look at our analysis and say, hey, is what's being proposed truly getting us closer to those sustainability goals, getting us more tree canopy, better landscaping,
and then deciding to approve and deny in part on that basis.
So that's just kind of in a nutshell looking at some key ways that we can promote sustainability through the development process and how y'all play a role in that.
I did also add a link there to the Trees of Texas page.
Texas A&M has a great resource if you ever want to look up a type of tree based on, say, the type of leaves.
It's a pretty cool site.
But with that, I want to invite up Christy Upton to talk about our environmentally sensitive areas. And at the end, all four speakers will be here if you have additional questions.
Good evening. I'm going to provide an overview of the environmentally sensitive areas.
This is a code or regulation that's unique to Denton and is something that Denton had identified as important back in the early 2000s.
The City Council at that time had agreed with the public that there was ecological services and natural areas that these natural areas offers that were that are important to the health of our community.
And in the early 1990s, there was a group of researchers who identified areas that they considered environmentally sensitive. And in 2002, with the adoption of the Denton Development Code, revised Denton Development Code, the map was adopted that the researchers had created.
And in addition to that, they adopted a set of regulations to go along with that map to protect and preserve the environmentally sensitive areas.
The regulations are designed to create that framework for the city to protect these green spaces while at the same time respecting the private property owners' rights and encouraging the use of these environmentally sensitive areas in a responsible manner.
I wanted to briefly describe some of these environmentally sensitive areas. When I present to this body, you often see these in a kind of piecemeal manner. I thought this would help kind of describe what all these environmentally sensitive areas are.
We, and I'm excited about this, we just republished the map today on the interactive map. And with that republishing, there's new information that you'll be able to identify with each one of these environmentally sensitive areas, especially where we have been there and performed an ESA field assessment or have reviewed what is on the ground.
So first of all, we have water related habitats, riparian buffers and undeveloped flood plains. These are areas that are in their natural state, predominantly in their natural state, and are really mostly located around these waterways and helps protect those waterways.
You know, one of the ecological services that's incredibly important is protecting those waterways and the water quality, because all of that drains to Lake Louisville, which is our drinking water supply.
With the water related habitats, those are waters of the US, per the Clean Water Act, wetlands, so they're identified wetlands, or they could be isolated wetlands, or bottomland harvest forests.
The riparian buffers is really defined by the distance from the centerline of the channel, and is typically either 50 or 100 feet from the centerline of the channel depending on the drainage area.
The flood plains, these are areas that are flood plains and they remain in their natural state, and as identified by the 1% FEMA floodplain, so we are marrying the floodplain management program here and by marrying it we also are complementing the FEMA, I mean the city's floodplain management system.
And lastly, we have the cross timbers upland habitat, and these are areas that are unique, a unique forest to the North Texas area, these are remnants of what was a whole ecosystem that traversed this area, and is dominated by post oaks and blackjack oaks, and has an understory of native vegetation, vines, shrubs, and grasses.
In 2017, the City Council made some tweaks to the Environmental License of Area Code, and with that tweak they had also requested that environmental services put together a criteria manual, so this ESA criteria manual then evolved into more of a guidance document, and so we rebranded it as the ESA primer, and the goal of the ESA primer is to help landowners, private property owners,
and developers to understand how to go from a concept plan to the complete project within the framework of the planning department, and then also there's also some guidance for landowners, private landowners, and how to protect and preserve what is on their property.
And then we have, lastly, well, for this, for the planning process, lastly, the alternative ESA plan, when a developer cannot identify a way to comply with the ESA regulations, there is a procedure in the Denton Development Code for the developer to propose an alternative plan.
Typically, those plans include some or all of the criteria that you see here, and this procedure then requires that the project be presented to this body for a recommendation, and then the City Council makes the final decision on whether the alternative ESA plan is something that they
will want to allow for this development to encroach into those environmentally sensitive areas.
And I have a picture here of a project that was recently completed.
And then my last slide here, I wanted to let you know that we have been working with the Parks Department. The Parks Department has an ongoing Trails Master Plan that is a part of their overall Master Parks Plan.
And this Trails Plan includes taking more advantage of the green spaces, and through taking advantage of these green spaces that are created by setting aside these environmentally sensitive areas, we also recognize that there needs to be more interaction with those environmentally sensitive areas.
And environmental services will be proposing these amendments to the code to facilitate more trails within the environmentally sensitive areas.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Gary. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Gary Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation.
I wanted to talk to you about how we are contributing to sustainability, as well as trying to achieve greater awareness appreciation in the integration of people into those sensitive areas so they can cohabitate.
We're planning to now for today and tomorrow we've over the past three years we've done a significant amount of planning efforts. We're currently updating our Parks, Recreation and Trails System Master Plan.
That's our 10 year guiding document. It's really the Bible that we work from from that perspective for our department.
We just completed an Urban Forest Master Plan that was mentioned in a prior slide in regards to how we're going to preserve and grow and maintain our urban forest and as well as educate the community.
Park design standards and manual so where we're going to plant trees where we're going to put benches those types of things how thick the concrete will be or we're not going to have a concrete trail it's going to be natural trail those types of things.
Has a mind its own work on its own land acquisition, which will get into a slide, as well as our ADA transition plan to make sure we have accessibility for the entire community throughout our park system.
Some of the things that we've been working on this one picture we had goats out of Lake Forest Park to eat privet and poison ivy. That was an experiment, it worked.
We need a herd really to deal with some of the privet that we have.
It was it was an experiment. These two goats were born on property. While they are out there.
A lot of cities are doing it as an experiment, especially in some areas where they're the train might be difficult.
This week we are last week we gave away a significant amount of trees that people pre registered for for our tree giveaway.
So we're going to be having that in the near future that we had 700 people sign up in a few hours.
Solar lighting, we're doing a lot more solar solar lighting in our park system we're going to be putting in lights at Quaker town and Carl Young.
This fall, we put some out at our dog park.
Last, I guess, last December. So those are functioning very well. And then this is a robotic painter that we use.
It's run through GIS. We fill it with paint and it has a pre-designed, I don't know why slides are automatically going here.
It automatically lays out the park in the soccer fields. So we basically fill with paint.
Come back in 30 minutes when it needs filled up with paint and we can go do other things and it's down to the inch in regards to the lines.
So it provides a better product and allows us to be a little more flexible with our time. We don't have equipment running out there.
Our goal is to get autonomous mowers at one point in time. Commercial level aren't really there yet from that perspective.
So we're still waiting for that to really catch up. The technology kept up to catch up to the industry so we could have robotic mowers in the system.
Our open space preservation. About two years ago, City Council adopted a 10 minute walk for every resident. That's a half mile radius around every one of our parks.
We're at about 48 percent reach for our residents. National average is 55 percent. Our ultimate goal is 100 percent.
So we use that as a strategic way to identify where we need to buy land.
We look at the density of where the densest populations are and that's the highest focus and then work from there.
Obviously, it's easier to buy land the cheaper it is. So we're trying to buy land as soon as we can and then plan for the future generations throughout the city.
So this the blue areas around the parks give you an idea of that 10 minute walk bubble or half mile radius and you can see where some of those park deserts are.
The parks that aren't highlighted are undeveloped. So those that count towards our initiatives. So the easiest way to move that percentage would be to develop the parks that are undeveloped at this time.
Creating connections is a major part for our parks, to our schools, to our downtown, to our business, to our neighborhoods. Our major ways that we're looking from our trails perspective.
How we can connect people safely from one part of the city to the other. Ultimately, our goal was to have over 300 miles of trails throughout the entire city.
That way you could get from Robeson Ranch all the way up to Clear Creek on a trail.
And that's really a spider web throughout the city. It's a very aggressive plan.
This thing has a mind of its own. It's a very aggressive plan in regards to that. Some of those trails may not happen, but that's the plan that we're putting forward.
We've been to council a few times and I hope to get that adopted later this year.
One of those aspects is a paddling trail. We're currently working with all the lakefront communities around Lake Louisville and planning a hundred mile paddling trail around the perimeter of the lake, as well as up to Lake Ray Roberts.
At this point in time, we do have some some blockages in the creek that are a little bit of an obstacle for a kayak that we need to work on.
But we're, we're gathering all those lakefront communities and working together with Texas Parks and Wildlife and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to strategically plan that as a recreational opportunity for entire North Texas.
And that's a quick summary of our parks.
Right now, we have a 5,000 acres of park land in the city, majority that is Clear Creek, obviously, but we're trying to identify those spaces that we can preserve trees, whether it's the Post Oaks, the Black Oaks, Black Jacks, as well as provide recreational opportunities
and create those connectivity opportunities and fill in those 10 minute walk gaps are some of our main priorities.
Moving forward, we did fortunate to have some funding for the 2019 bond program so working on utilizing that as well as working with the developers in the city that are developing neighborhoods to make sure we have parkland, as well as connectivity opportunities
throughout those developments.
So, I'll turn it over to Catherine and be available for any questions.
Good evening Catherine Barnett sustainability manager for the city of Denton.
We started with our sustainability department more than 10 years ago so we have a sustainability plan adopted in 2012. We operated using that plan until 2020 when the new sustainability framework was adopted.
To give you a quick overview we have eight focus areas in the sustainability framework so we have a lot of areas that we get to touch on we work internally with our departments to help promote sustainability and we work with the community for education
and for programs for sustainability.
With the new 2020 plan, the sustainability framework Advisory Committee was established, so we have a seven member citizen committee that is advising on the implementation of the plan.
We have met with them about half dozen times now so just getting rolling with it and looking for lots of recommendations coming out of that group going forward.
Just a few of the programs that we touch on that are important to the city so our annual greenhouse gas inventory the contribution analysis so that we know where those emissions are coming from where we need to focus our education efforts what we can do as a community to try to
increase that course community engagement for sustainable living recycling education is one of the tasks that we're charged with energy efficiency water conservation, local food programs, the bee city the monarch city, working on a bird city application.
Those all fall under our realm.
Our conservation programs so both energy water and habitat conservation, so really simply sustainable is pretty all encompassing it would be a lot to cover and just a few minutes but I would love to answer any questions and then sustainable denton calm has the full plan,
you can find that there, if you want to delve into it and shoot us any questions we'll be happy to answer.
Then, city of denton email is sustainable didn't at city didn't calm. So lots of ways to reach us, we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it we're there.
They told me to be brief so I was.
But I will answer any questions.
Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you for a great presentation all of you.
Commissioner print.
Thank you, Chair. Yes, thank you for great presentation I really appreciated how it tied the history of where we've been, as well as where we're going together.
I look forward to seeing some of those those focus areas, I saw transportation and land use on there and that's two things that we on this commission really hear about a lot, and so it'll be interesting to see how there's some tie ins can come together.
Do you have one question about the easiest, if you would please. I, I noticed in in your presentation you mentioned that some of the riparian eases are 50 feet, and some of them are 100 feet.
Depending on the drainage area. Okay, so it's it's basically larger creeks have 100 foot buffer and smaller ones are 50 foot buffer.
Okay.
I think I'll be eager to go check out the map that you mentioned that was just updated to see, you know where those two things change and everything because in, in trying to understand this I was, I was reviewing the, the Denton County green belt plan that I think we adopted
that a year or two ago.
Again, history, and, and it was mentioning 100 foot minimum recommended for water quality but I'm sure there's other factors that go into that, can you explain kind of what goes behind the thought process of how wide that riparian ESA should be.
Yeah, I actually think it comes from FEMA, so FEMA has identified these drainage areas based upon whether it was the drainage areas greater than one square mile so you also see other regulations that kind of tie into that same concept of if the drainage areas greater
than one square mile. And so, um, I think that's, that's really kind of where it came from.
And, and it may be that that didn't County plan is focused on some of the larger waterways as well, and not so much of the smaller ones.
That's a very large system there so right. Okay, thank you.
Any other questions.
I just have one with regard to focus on recycling. So Catherine I don't know if maybe that's yours but many years ago that I had brought up an issue with our multifamily and recycling and how it's not, not there, or not there enough.
Is that something that your group is focusing on at all.
The comprehensive solid waste management strategy is looking at that.
We have some challenges you know with some of our older complexes and having room. Most of the newer ones that are going in are including recycling.
And we're having a lot of issues with contamination from multifamily so it's, we have one position dedicated to residential outreach and she spends quite a bit of time with multifamily.
So it's been a real tough battle. So with the discussion with solid waste is that something sustainable dentin is part of it is okay. Okay, awesome. Okay. Yeah, very good. Yeah, I know.
I know there's challenges with that I just don't want us to give up.
I think we can make it better. Yes, absolutely. Awesome. Thank you.
Any other questions.
Awesome. Thank you all for your time and efforts and putting that together for us. Much appreciated.
Okay, with that we will move on to our final work session item which is Claire clarification of tonight's agenda.
First thing is the minutes. Are there any questions on the minutes.
September 22.
Okay, seeing none, we will move to consent agenda. There's I believe just one item on the consent agenda preliminary plot. Any questions on that.
Okay, that will move us then to our items for individual consideration we have several. So we'll start with for a and bring up Haley.
Good evening.
It is a final plan for the extra edition number two.
This plan is for two industrial lots as you can see they're located at the corner of Jim Crystal and Western Boulevard.
At this time staff is recommending denial as the plot fails to meet all of the criteria outlined in exhibit two.
However, the applicant did submit an extension request that was emailed to you all, and they are specifically requesting extension to the October 20th meeting.
So the applicant has no objection to that.
Any questions on that one.
I don't see any Haley Thank you.
For be that is also Haley.
Yes, this is another final plot. This is the urban logistics edition located on the south side of the 35 frontage road.
The plan is for two residential lots as you can see there on the plot to those are remainders along the frontage road that would be for future commercial or possibly text on acquisition, and the other parcels would be for industrial development.
As, as with the other plot staff is recommending denial at this time for the reasons outlined in exhibit two, but the applicant did submit that extension request that was emailed to you all, and their extension would be to the November 3rd meeting.
Happy to answer any questions.
All right. Thank you, Chair. Just for my education, if you will, I noticed that this plot has a conservation easement located on it that was requested from previous bodies.
Is that just a reference to a docket number that will be filed as a separate instrument, as far as the meets and bounds and perimeter of that easement. How does that work and correct.
The easement was required as part of their alternative ESA plan for this development that easement will be recorded by separate instrument and is simply on this plat for reference. Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions for hailing on this one.
I don't see any Haley. Thank you.
Let's see for C is FP 21 0029 and Sean's item. Hi, Sean. Hello again.
All right.
This is final plan 21 29, and it is a proposed final plot or one lot, just on the west side of Teasley Lane.
At this time, it does not meet the established criteria for approval. However, and staff is recommending now but the staff has no objection to the proposed extension to the November 3rd meeting.
Thank you. Any questions for Sean on this one.
Thanks, Sean. For D is PP 21 0017 B and Karina's item.
All right.
All right. This is the preliminary plat for one lot located on the east side of South Loop 288 just south of East McKinney Street.
The preliminary plot does not meet the requirement does not meet the requirements for the development code. Therefore, staff is recommending denial of this plot.
With that, I can take any questions and Karina. They've already had an extension on this. Correct. Yes, that is correct. They've already had an extension on this item.
Are there any questions for Karina on this.
I don't see any Karina. Thank you.
For E is MP 21 0023 and Mark Laird.
Hi. Hey, good evening. My name is Mark Laird.
I'm planning on the development service department this evening for you have MP 21 0023.
It is a single family plot located on Johnson Street and about 60 feet from the intersection of Mill and Johnson Street.
Staff recommends denial of this plot as it does not meet the established criteria for approval.
I stand for any questions that you may have.
And that's another one that's already had an extension. Yeah, I see that. Okay. Any questions are.
I don't see any mark. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, for F is PP 21 0021.
It's Julie Wyatt's item. Hi, Julie. Hi, good evening. I'm Julie Wyatt, senior planner with the city. And this is for a preliminary plot for a section of roadway within the ropes and ranch development.
It does not meet all the criteria. They still have some items to correct on the plot. And so staff does recommend denial. However, they have requested an extension and staff has no objection to that extension.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Any questions for Julie. I do not see any. Thank you.
And you've got the next one, don't you? For GP 21 0023.
This is this is PP 21 0023. This is a preliminary plot for the Kingsway development.
It is a single family residential development situated on the northeast side of town.
Right now they have some corrections that they do have to make on the plot. And so staff does recommend denial. However, we have no objection to the requested extension to the November 3rd meeting and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thanks, Julie.
I do not see any questions. Thank you very much.
I bet that will move us to our public hearings for this evening. Five AZ 21 0011 B is Ron Mengita's item.
Hi, Ron. Good evening. Good afternoon. I'm chairman to the commission.
Second to pull up my presentation.
See it.
Great.
Ron Mengita principal planner with development services. This item you've seen before. It's been postponed a couple times.
It is a property located on University Drive north of University just west of Trinity Road.
The applicant submitted an application for rezoning from our to to ally by industrial at a meeting in September.
Couple meetings back. The discussion was to maybe adjust or think of another zoning district.
And so it was so the item was postponed. The applicant did have an opportunity to meet with her clients.
And they are now amending their zoning change requests to general office.
Again, the property, as you can see here on this slide, is shown in yellow.
Just a quick couple slides on background for for the viewing public. The property prior to 2002 was agricultural in 2002.
The zoning of the property was in our two and in 2019, it was transitioned to our two properties currently undeveloped.
The location of the property, as you can see in black, is in an area where we're seeing a development trend of light industrial.
Some commercial uses the area that is in red surround red is actually a zoning case that was trend zone are recommended for zoning that is for an ally zoning district.
So back to the G.O. in the L. I just wanted to give the commission just in a quick synopsis of the difference between the two zoning districts in terms of dimensional standards as well as development standards.
You can see that the G.O. is generally more restrictive in terms of dimensional standards in terms of land use residential uses are allowed in G.O. but not in L.I.
Some uses such as outdoor storage is allowed in L.I. but not in G.O. So again, if this were to be recommended for G.O., they would not be able to do outside storage.
However, just to illustrate many uses of the code is permitted in both zoning districts.
So somewhat very similar in how many zoning or how many uses are permitted in each zoning district.
I think the most important difference between the G.O. and the L.I. is that if this were to be industrial development in the L.I., they do not have to meet certain development standards if they are in a certain location.
However, if it is a G.O. zoning district, they do have development standards that they have to comply with.
And again, that's site and building design standards, development standards.
Notifications were sent out on these dates. We received one in opposition that didn't change from our last meeting.
The opposition is shown here a very small percentage of the area within the turn of feet.
With that, staff recommends approval of the zoning change, either L.I. or G.O.
Obviously, the G.O. is what the applicant is requesting as it does meet the development code sections that you see referenced here in terms of a zoning change request.
With that, I'll stand for any questions.
Thanks, Ron. Any questions for Ron on this one?
Ron, I've just got one. With that person in opposition, is that the same person from the original request?
Did anyone reach out to them about the G.O.?
I don't think so. I personally did not, but the applicant is here and she may be able to answer that question.
Okay. Yeah, I can ask them. Okay. Excellent. Thank you.
Okay. Next item is 5B, Z21-0003. Hi again, Karina.
Hello again. Let me pull up my presentation.
All right. Karina Maldonado, Associate Planner.
The item today is Z21-0003, 380 Business Park.
For the interest of time, I will give the abbreviated presentation. If you would like the expanded presentation, I can go ahead and do that as well.
I'm not seeing any shakes, so I'll go ahead with the summary.
So the request is to rezone approximately 88.71 acres from mixed use regional MR to general office G.O. district.
The applicant intends to develop 700,000 square feet of office warehouse.
The request is consistent with the business innovation and industrial commerce designations on site.
With that, staff is recommending approval of the request as it does comply with relevant criteria.
With that, I can answer any questions or provide clarification on any of the slides for the public presentation later.
Any questions for Karina?
I do not see any. Thank you.
Next public hearing item for tonight, 5C PD 21-0005.
Julie.
Good evening.
I will also share an abbreviated presentation here at work session, but we'll be happy to answer any questions or go over any details that you'd like.
So this is PD 21-0005. It's 2800 Bonnie Bray. It's for a horizontal multifamily development.
Just a summary of their proposal, the property is located off of Bonnie Bray just north of Windsor. They are proposing to rezone the property from R2 to a PD R7 district.
As I mentioned, it is to facilitate a horizontal multifamily use.
Denton Plan 2030 designates the property as a moderate density residential, so about 4 to 12 dwelling units per acre.
Given the densities of this proposal, it is consistent with the future land use designation.
Staff's analysis has concluded that it does comply with the criteria for approval in subchapter 2, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Julie. Any questions for Julie on this?
Julie, we had the definition of the horizontal multi-living on the docket, right? Is that still in the works, or did that get done?
Tina may want to jump in here. Right now, it is not part of the debt and development code, so it's still following this PD process.
I don't know in the future if that might be something that we want to add as part of the DDC.
Okay, so right now we're not pursuing any change with adding that, so we're just going to consider all of them PDs at the moment going forward?
At this time, we've had discussions regarding adding that to the list of potential amendments to the DDC because we have seen several of them.
We do think it's appropriate to potentially include that particular use in the DDC and establish appropriate standards so that we're not having to write plan development districts consistently for this.
If the market is telling us that there is a demand for this type of use, then it is appropriate to consider making amendments to the DDC.
I think Ron's got a list of a variety of amendments that we're going to be discussing here soon and getting direction on.
Yeah, it looks like we're getting the development review committee back up and running, so yeah, this would probably be good to put on their agenda to discuss.
Good. Okay, any other questions for Julie? I'm not seeing any. Thank you.
Our final hearing tonight is 5D DCA 210004.
Me again.
Hi, I'm Katrina Maldonado, associate planner. I'll give another abbreviated presentation and provide the expanded one at the regular meeting.
This item is DCA 210004 for data center use.
So just a brief summary. The request is a, I should say, city-initiated code amendment to add the data center modular and data center warehouse uses and associated development standards to the debt and development code.
The purpose of this request is to address the proposed use within the city in a consistent manner and address impacts to the community after increased interest in this proposed use.
Staff is recommending approval of the request. With that, I can take any questions.
We have questions for Karina on this one.
Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Chair.
Karina, did this go, has there been a DCRC meeting yet? No, there has not been.
This is an item that could potentially go to the DCRC. However, the current process was to go through PNC and then go to council.
And because of how the DCRC has been reworked, it'd go DCRC, then planning and zoning, and then council. If we had a DCRC, I see Ron nodding his head yes behind you. So basically we're just missing the DCRCs.
Yeah, at the time that this was being moved forward, there was, this was still up for city council's determination whether they wanted to keep DCRC and if they were going to appoint members.
So this had already moved forward in the process. However, I would say if it's PNC's request to take this back to DCRC, that is potentially something that you could do.
With it, is there a reason why it needs to be seen quickly or could be possibly as a commission remanded, not back, but remanded to the DCRC then they'll have it come back. Not trying to delay anything more than anything else.
I want to be able to let the CRC take a look at it first, but the, what that that that committee do their job. Yeah, absolutely. So I can answer that question. So the reason why this is kind of moving, or it seems as moving at an expedited pace.
I've addressed this in the regular session, but we have seen increased interest in the data center type uses, we've already seen this request come forward with the zoning case that was associated with DME, it was a rezoning of city owned property.
So when that moved forward, we kind of started seeing an uptick in interest in our pre application meetings as well as specific interest through DME specifically. So we've had a handful that are kind of pressing to move forward.
But we've identified that there's the code doesn't speak to how to specifically address this type of use and so staff wants to make sure that it's in place prior to any of these uses coming forward.
And Tina can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but if they were to try if an applicant or developer were trying to put this use in prior to these standards being in place, then they could go the route of PD. But in terms of the timeline.
I think that would be up to the commission and council as to how fast it should move forward and if it needs to be remanded back I think that's again up to the commission. I'll say a few things towards that but Ron, could you.
You could give an update on where the CRC is on next meetings and I have no clue what the latest is on that.
As the next CRC meeting so we're still ways away.
But that's the date that we have on our calendar and that's what we're scheduled for. Okay, awesome.
Sorry, I'm good. Okay, thank you.
We are a little concerned regarding that we might be exposed on this use particularly from a screening standpoint and I know Karina has in her presentation later on to also be able to talk to the commission and get your direction on screening requirements associated with us.
You know the challenge that we have is this use as Karina pointed out is not addressed in the DDC and with the interest we believe that we do need to get some standards put in place.
While the option to reason that I guess back to the DCRC could be an option, I would encourage the commission to go ahead and take action on this particular case, particularly given the fact that we've already initiated the public hearing process on this.
You know, Karina is right we could write quite a few PDs for them if they came about just like we're doing on the HML or the horizontal multifamilies, but we felt like this was a use that was important to move forward with also data centers, especially the warehouse type of data centers that they bring a lot of potential benefits to communities with respect to the the increase in property values, and they're a good use of warehouses particularly if we have vacant warehouses so there's an opportunity for adaptive reuse from that perspective.
But, um, so we just felt like this, this was an appropriate use to move forward with and going ahead and proceeding with the amendments, because we also know we have quite a few other amendments to be considered as well, but we just want to make sure that we're not exposing ourselves from from this type of development being proposed.
Sure. No, and I was getting more more than anything else save this for public but Tina you brought up so the only reason why I ever bring up the DC RC part of it is that I think what the council wanted and then what we gave input into the council and DC RC was created was so that there are three planning
zoning commissioners, three count three three council people who together on the DC RC come together with a unified vision of this is what we think our suggestion to go through the process then would look like giving us more unified and actually a faster process
from the CRC all the way through city council data centers to me I have no problem with I totally agree with you I think the benefits the property value increases everything else comes along with it is awesome.
I don't know how big of a pressing issue I know Korean you said it is and the team you said it is as well.
But if it's that pressing of an issue for us to see it. Is there any way for us to say hey we are working on a code to have this come in here.
We would, you know, I guess there's not much for us to deny on more than anything else I'm saying that I've seen we've seen projects lately, where this commission has made recommendation to council council we see when they lately where they've remanded it back,
this year has gotten denied at Council, and that DC RC was something as sensitive as data centers because there's all sorts of conversations about the, the energy usage the environmental impacts that has but then there's also the economic impact that has the positives
that DC RC might provide us a very well unified proposal, then this body can vote on and then the council can vote on that I feel like it would be a smoother process rather than possibly having disagreements between this body and the next.
So if that makes sense and really my, my question or my my expression here is that, is it something that if we were say we don't take action on that it would cause such a hiccup with having PDs or saying, essentially, we're building a, we're building a code for it
would be great if you just waited to submit your application for that, that we'd be that, that'd be that detrimental to us and that dimensional to the development department.
Yeah, I think if you wanted to press pause on this, I mean it potentially causes delay for prospective developers of warehouses for locating within the city whether they're the warehouse kind versus the, the modular.
You know our concern is more on the modular side and hence why we want to get the standards in place, you know with respect to the DC RC and I'm still learning it my understanding on the DC RC was more of evaluating the list of amendments that we've identified
and or that have collectively been identified whether it's been this body or the city council, and maybe prioritizing that list and and being able to identify which amendments that we move forward with.
If there's something more as to the role of the DC RC, then I'm going to have to ask Ron for some assistance and guidance on that and my apologies just one of the things I haven't learned yet.
Within the last 30 days, so, but, but if you can help provide some guidance on the purpose of the DC RC. Yes, I think you've hit one of the one of the purposes actually looking at our development code, you know, as playing zone commissioners that city council
members you know you, you, you deal with certain things that, you know, we're not privy to or, you know, not from your perspective, could be a potential code amendment, but also assess the code amendments that staffs prepared.
That's another part of the DC RC to identify which one should be brought forward sooner than later. But there's also the opportunity for the commission and the council as Commissioner Smith mentioned before that you know there is a discussion that can happen
you know during that meeting so that when it goes through the planning zoning Commission and City Council, there is a unified understanding between the three members of course the full Council and the full planning zoning Commission was still have to discuss it so there is that part two, so I see it threefold so there's there's a couple of responsibilities that the DC RC has for any code amendments.
Yeah, and we had quite a long pause with the DC RC because of, I mean I guess the coven world that we were in and then with the way elections were and we had some members drop off and it'll be good.
It's a good committee to get up and going again and it played a significant role in in our new code for sure. And it is an important role I think in these amendments, and does need to get back off the ground again.
It's has and it's been paused for quite a long time. We've, we've received nominations or appointments so right now that we have a full DC RC we've started that and, in fact, I believe Selena reached out to those members and identified November 17 as the next meeting date.
Okay, let's zero this back in and off of DC RC and back in on this item.
You're dumb commissioners with okay Commissioner per it. Thank you, Chair.
I guess just three short things I don't really need an answer to now, but just on the case that this does go forward and we make a recommendation on this item may help for our discussions later this evening.
One of those I think would be if staff could think about whether it's possible to have a DC RC meeting earlier than planned, just focused on this one item, so that we don't have to prepare a full agenda.
If it's feasible to get there before November 17, perhaps.
And then the other two are more specific to the, to the product or the, the proposal. One is, when I was reading the backup. There was a lot of, well, I'll just say that the 500 foot setback is fairly large compared to the rest of our code.
It seems like the two main concerns for suggesting that were noise and visual impacts visual impacts have some sort of screening that can abate that noise is different, right.
So, I guess I didn't see any backup information yet about how loud these things are, what other jurisdictions do, how this is being handled, etc.
So that would help me. And then the second thing would be the, sorry.
Oh, when I was doing some research on some of the companies that provide these solutions. It was suggested in some places that you could actually stack these.
And so some information about how we would propose regulating that if it would be the building height of the underlying zoning designation or if, if stacking would be allowed or not, that sort of thing.
Sure. So I can, I can kind of take those two questions. So the first one talking about the, the basically how loud these would be.
With a warehouse type use any any kind of infrastructure computing hardware software would be housed within the structure. So it would mitigate any type of sound.
However, for the modular type of data center, and I'm not sure if it helps to share what they look like at this point right now.
And I'm sure you might have come across some of them in your own research, but a lot of the concern that came up when staff was reviewing this was one, the visual appeal.
You can see on the right side, the right image is what we're seeing a lot of in our pre-application meetings. These are essentially storage containers.
These things that jet out on the side are the fans. So as you might imagine with just a normal computer, even the laptops that staff uses, sometimes those fans can get pretty loud.
It's a bit of white noise. Now multiply that by, you know, maybe I just use 50 as a number 50 servers within one container and then maybe 10 containers.
I don't have the specific decibel level that that would be, but staff did use that as an assumption to say, well, the amount of noise that would be generated would be significant enough to cause some sort of disturbance to residential.
As another basis or assumption was we can take the Dent Energy Center as an example. When the deck came in, there was a lot of discussion about noise levels and dust and sound. So what DME did at that point was provide some sort of buffering or separation distance.
So we kind of use that as a basis. You're right, our development code has some shorter setbacks and I think what we see in there is 200 feet as a just a way to mitigate that more.
We felt like it was more appropriate to increase that or double that setback to 500 feet. So there's no specific number we have.
We also looked at our noise ordinance, but it currently doesn't have a specific decibel level that you can, that you're limited to. So the spacing and that was kind of the assumptions that we went in with that. So hopefully I answered that question.
So the second question regarding stacking, I have seen where some of these, and I didn't put the image of it, but there are some modular structures where they could basically stack them on as two.
Our assumption is that one modular structure would be up to 10 feet based on the ISO standards for containers. So if you double that to 20 feet, that would be less than the 40 foot height limitation in most of our residential districts.
But again, this is being proposed and on residential. So I think you bring up a good point about height restrictions. I'm not sure that we looked at that specifically, but what we did look at was screening of those. So if you look at the standard about these would need to be screened from public view and from adjacent residential uses.
Based on our development code, that would be like fence structures, which are a maximum of eight feet. If they would still need to screen it from public view, they would need some additional landscape material to hide that because a 10 foot structure and an eight foot fence, there's obviously something that can be seen.
And that was part of some of the questions that we had for PNC to consider.
But it is a good point to bring up is a height restriction. And I don't know if Tina wants to jump in on this.
And I have lots of discussion about what's appropriate for the screening and the potential noise considerations of this. I'll be honest with you. I didn't think about it from the perspective that they might want to be able to stack the containers.
We did recognize that the containers themselves, if they just keep them single level, then they may project above any screening requirements. And so looking at a combination of landscaping and any fencing that we would have in place, which we welcome your feedback on that, especially for the modulars.
If we want to establish a maximum height limitation, particularly for the modular data centers, I mean, we could include that as part of the development regulations. I mean, that this is the time that with us working on the zoning amendment where we would include that.
Otherwise, it could be considered that they would be allowed to go whatever maximum height that is allowed within the zoning districts. And typically in our industrial districts, properties benefit from a taller height requirement.
You know, with the warehouse building, the warehouse data centers, the height is less of concern because it's a building, right? And it's all contained. But with the with the containers on this modular data center, I think establishing a maximum height requirement might be appropriate.
Again, I also didn't see necessarily even a size in the amendment either from the modular.
Right. We have not proposed a size associated with it as part of the amendments. Karina has proposed that particular for the modular data centers. We felt that the specific use permit was an appropriate means of regulating this particular use. In addition to the standards that we're proposing to include within the ordinance, because we recognize while this use might be appropriate in certain zoning districts that may not be appropriate for all properties that have the zoning.
And so the specific use permit gives you the ability as well as counsel to do a case by case site by site review so that you can take into consideration surrounding land uses and and whether or not the screening proposed is is effective or if there needs to be a more intensive screening requirement or or.
If there needs to be a more extensive screening requirement or if there needs to be an improved screening requirement, if you will associated with this. So that's why we felt the specific use permit was the most appropriate. You know, if you find that we do not establish a height limitation this time as as a development application for modular data centers is going through a specific use permit process. If this ordinance amendment were approved, then you have the ability to impose some limitations obviously through the specific use permit review. So we felt like that the specific use permit itself gives us some additional level protection just to ensure the best interest of the city and adjoining property owners.
Yeah, thank you. That helps. I think we'll see where it goes, but that does help. Thank you.
Well, and I know we've we've touched on the screening and if I may, one of the things that we are looking for direction from the commission on is, is the appropriateness of screening particular for the modular data centers right now as it's drafted.
It would rely upon our existing regulations that we have, which in our fence screening of walls section. We allow for masonry walls, but we also allow for wood fencing and also ornamental fencing.
Our concern is whether or not they need to be completely screened. So we have opaque screening associated with these. There may be differing opinions on whether or not the modular data centers are attractive in their raw form or not.
Initially, the staff level we thought about possibly requiring a much more restrictive screening requirement around all four sides, but then there was some concern regarding that it may be cost prohibitive.
We were also concerned as Corina mentioned about the noise aspect associated with it. We thought a masonry wall would be able to help provide a good strong buffer.
But then also, you know, not knowing potentially what other adjoining land uses could be, you know, if a modular data center was being proposed next to a warehouse distribution center that where all you see is the overhead doors and the trucks queued up and a lot of intense activity from that side, then maybe it's not appropriate to have a more intensive screening requirement where adjacent to certain land uses.
So hence why right now as it's proposed, we've relied upon the standards that are in the D. D. C. But if the commission feels that something needs to be modified, we welcome your feedback on that this evening.
And there was a few concerns I had as I was reading this just because I mean, one of the things I have on here is it needs more scrutiny and D. C. R. C. Which is already has been brought up just because trying to figure out what we're trying to do here.
I mean, clearly, this is a this is a big business going forward. I mean, this is a way that companies can save money on housing their data. And obviously, it's the modular data centers that we need to focus on because that's what's that's what's happening.
By definition, they're you know, they're portable by definition. So I'm confused with some of the wording we have here because in the world of data, data warehousing is not what we're talking. I mean, the way we're saying data center warehouse.
There's the term data warehouse, which is not anything physical that is structure of data.
So that kind of threw me was just the language that we decided to use because data centers a physical place, a data warehouse is not not a physical it's it's a conceptual data structure.
So, I think what we're trying to say is by warehouse you mean permanent building.
Right. That is that is correct. And we tried to draw upon some parallels of existing uses. And so and we were trying to draw upon a distinction between the modular form and the warehouse building form.
So, I mean, we could have called them enclosed, but then we get into a discussion of, well, if you put a masonry wall or a fence around it, is it considering closed.
So, and it has the standards and the definition and that have been proposed for the commission's consideration. So, you know, if you believe that there is a better term than warehouse, you could have data center, comma warehouse to make that distinction.
If you feel that there's some other terminology that may be more appropriate.
Obviously, we're welcome to receive your feedback on that as it relates to this but we looked at drawing the parallels between that data centers that are located within an enclosed building typically those buildings are more akin to a warehouse building.
So that that was our rationale behind that and in the parallels that we that we drew there in some other communities that I've worked in, especially when data centers are not a defined use in none of this occurred with our initial interpretation of associated with the data center.
Was that we even originally had considered them a warehouse use. I know with in some other communities I've worked in there typically accommodated as warehouse uses when the zoning ordinance is silent to them.
I've had the opportunity to work on some subsequent ordinance amendments to be able to specifically address it. So, the more common form, at least up until now it seems like is that they're typically enclosed in a building that looks.
That's typically concrete tilt wall construction looks much like a warehouse building so hence how we came about that but this this new modular format.
It does offer an opportunity for less of investment, if you will, on property improvements, it does provide some flexibility in terms of how long they choose to stay on the site.
I know we were one of the thinking or mindset that was presented to us that well these are really temporary uses well in the planning world.
And what we deal with temporary is at least 30 years and and so we have folks coming over this will just be temporary and and and temporary uses at least for what I've seen throughout my career have a tendency to remain and they become permanent.
So, hence why we want to be able to address these you know whether they, whether the perspective modular warehouse or season, a modular data center chooses to locate if their initial plan is to be here five years.
You know, they could change their mind and because of the success that they're having and decided to be here, you know, much longer so instead of trying to define what is meant by temporary, we felt it was most appropriate to recognize that.
If this use occurs, regardless of the length of time that it's on the property that we make sure that we put appropriate development regulations in place from a land use perspective so that.
But, you know, this use can successfully operate presumably and but also not be have any potential negative impacts on adjoining properties.
The name of time we're moving on the discussion.
Commissioner Smith did you have more.
Just gonna say I think this entire conversation points to the fact that the CRC needs to do their job on this piece that commission approve it, I believe, as a member of the CRC correct and so these types of items like stacking data centers I think this is the reason why
that it's not the reason it is a very good reason and having been a past member of that of that committee.
This is, this is, this is a point in where we've seen it before I've seen it before in my time on that committee of seeing suggested hard worked very well researched draft changes to the to the DDC come in front of that committee.
And then some inputs been given to change a small tweak of it right that some practicality some some some real real life applications some real life conversations that happen in the community that can then be shared with staff, and then staff does a beautiful
job of adjusting that into the suggested change to the code.
I just said that this isn't a small pay when you shove it in here now so about a bunch of requests. This is something that if we hurry this type of code change. We could do long term drastic impact to the city of Denton and opening up especially with this
infrastructure uses, opening up opportunities for raw land to be purchased, have a shipping container that's been turned into a server warehouse. Take this raw land and turn it into fields of shipping containers.
So, thank there's thoughts and processes that needs to be fleshed out a little bit sooner than the time that we have in the brain capacity we have tonight to then propose changes to a draft ordinance by by staff, but then goes to city council
to have a very small amount of time and brain power to devote to that type of conversation.
I just, I think this is more just me pointing now and work session to what public conversations going to be like later on tonight. So, that's all I got.
We will pick up the discussion there.
I'm pressing issues now with right now.
Okay, at 614 I will close our work session and we will reconvene here for our public meeting.
630
Good morning and welcome to the city of Denton planning and zoning Commission meeting for Wednesday October 6.
This is our regular public meeting and with a quorum present I will call us to order at 637 PM.
Please let the record show that commissioners McDade and Anderson are absent tonight.
That is to give the pledge of allegiance to the US and Texas flag.
To the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Our next item is the consideration of approval of the minutes from the PNC meeting of September 22 2021.
Their discussion or motion Commissioner Smith motion to approve.
Commissioner Villarreal second, we have a first and a second to approve the September 22 minutes. Any discussion.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion carries five zero that will move us to our consent agenda.
Their discussion or motion Commissioner Smith motion to approve we have a motion to approve the consent adjust.
To approve the consent agenda for this evening. Is there a discussion. Seeing none, let's vote on the board, please.
That motion carries five zero that will move us to our items for individual individual consideration.
Prior to bringing up our first presentation.
I just wanted to read a note regarding individual consideration items, namely plats that appear on that.
And that is tonight. We've had a significant amount of public input, which is fantastic.
On one of our plots. However, let me read this note because the purview of the planning and zone Commission is narrow with regard to plats.
So the commissioners role related to plat is dictated by state law and is strictly ministerial. Although public testimony may be heard on the item. The commission is not able to deny a plat due to neighborhood opposition.
The Texas local government code obligates the commission to approve a plot, approve the plot with conditions or deny the plan. If it does not meet all the local and state regulations and such action must be taken within 30 days of the plat being submitted to the city.
The commission is authorized by state law to approve a one time extension. If the applicant requests that and it will be an additional 30 days to review several applicants. You will see going forward on tonight's agenda have requested this extension.
So with that clarification, I will bring up Haley for our first item, which is for a FP 210027.
Good evening. This is item FP 210027. This is a final plat for the Denton Exeter edition number two. You can see the property location outlined in yellow on your screen.
At this time, staff is recommending denial of the plot as it fails to meet all of the established criteria outlined in your backup. However, the applicant did today submit an extension request, specifically requesting extension to the October 20th 2021 meeting.
I'm happy to stand for any questions. Thanks Haley.
Any questions for Haley? I do not see any Commissioner Smith. Make a motion to approve an extension and date certain November 3rd 2021.
I think the applicants request was October 20th. Okay, and Commissioner Cole. Second. Okay, we have a first and a second to approve the applicants request for an extension to a date certain of October 20th.
Discussion.
Let's call for a vote on the board, please.
That motion carries five zero.
Next item is for BFP 210028.
It is still Haley's item.
Good evening. This is item FP 2128. This is a final plat for the Urban Logistics Edition. Again, you can see the property outlined in yellow on your screen. It's located on the south side of I-35.
At this time, staff is recommending denial of the plat as it fails to meet all of the technical criteria outlined in your backup. However, again, the applicant did request an extension following the posting of the agenda that was emailed to the board.
And that extension would be to November 3rd 2021. And I am happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Haley. Any questions for Haley?
I don't see any Haley. Thank you. Commissioner Villareal. I move to approve the extension until November 3rd 2021. Okay, we have a first to approve that extension request. Commissioner Pruitt. Second.
Got a first and a second to approve that extension request to November 3rd. Discussion.
Let's call for a vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 5-0. Next item, 4C, FP 210029. That is Sean Jacobson's item. Hi, Sean. Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission.
I'm just going to pull up the presentation here.
Okay.
All right. So I'm presenting tonight a proposed final plat of the YOLO first edition, Block A, Lot 1. And that is a proposed plat of 1.842 acre property, the west side of Teasley Lane.
At this time, it does not meet the criteria for approval. Staff is recommending denial, but has no objection to the requested extension to the November 3rd 2021 meeting. With that, happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Sean. Any questions for Sean?
I do not see anything. Thank you. Commissioner Villarreal.
Move to approve the extension to November 3rd 2021. Commissioner Smith. Second. First and a second to approve extension request to November 3rd. Any discussion?
Seeing none, let's call for a vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 5-0. Next item is 4DPP210017B. It's Carina Maldonado's item.
Good evening. This is a preliminary plat for the Pebblebrook Parkside edition. It is a one lot located on the east side of South Loop 288, just south of East McKinney Street. Staff is recommending denial of this plat as it does not meet the established criteria for approval.
They have already received one extension for this item. With that, I can take any questions.
Thanks, Carina. Any questions for Carina? I do not see any. Carina, thank you. Commissioner Pruitt.
I'll move to deny based on the reasons staff has provided an exhibit to. Thank you, Commissioner Pruitt. Commissioner Smith. Second.
We've got a first and a second to deny.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, let's call for a vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 5-0. Next item is 4EMP210023. I'll invite Mark Laird up for that item.
Sure, I got this.
Sorry, guys.
Good evening. My name is Mark Laird. I'm the planner of development service department this evening for your reference and review.
I have the modern plat for Robert Hicks edition. It's a plat located on Johnson Street being approximately 60 feet from the intersection of Johnson and Mill Street.
Staff recommends denial of this plat as it does not meet the established criteria for approval. I stand for any questions that you may have.
Thank you, Mark. I do not see any questions at this time. Commissioner Smith. Make a motion to deny.
Commissioner Villarreal. Second.
We have a first and a second to deny.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I will call for a vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 5-0. Next item is 4FPP210021. I'll invite Julie Wyatt up.
Good evening. I'm Julie Wyatt. This is PP210021. It is for a preliminary plat within the Robeson Ranch development. It is for a section of their private road.
Right now, they still have some corrections they need to make on the plat, and so they're requesting an extension. Staff has no objection to that request to the November 3rd, 2021 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Thanks, Julie.
I do not see any questions. Commissioner Villarreal. Move to approve the extensions November 3rd, 2021. Commissioner Cole. Second.
We have a first and a second to approve the extension request to November 3rd. Any discussion?
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 5-0. Next item is 4GPP210023. It is Julie's.
All right. This is PP210023. It is for a preliminary plat for a single family residential development. They have additional corrections they need to make to the plat, and so staff does recommend denial. However, we have no objection to the request to extend consideration of the plat to the November 3rd, 2021 P&Z meeting.
Thanks, Julie. I do see a question. Commissioner Pruitt. Yeah, I just wonder if staff thinks it's appropriate. I think this area has an established neighborhood group very nearby.
Perhaps it would be worth reaching out to the organizers of that group to let them understand what the process of platting is and where the project is at this time so that there's less confusion as it comes back.
Absolutely. Yes, sir.
Thank you, Commissioner Pruitt. Any other questions for Julie?
Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Make a motion to approve the extension to date certain of November 3rd, 2021.
Commissioner Cole. Second. We have a first and a second to approve the extension to date certain of November 3rd. Prior to vote, I will make mention that we had 12 online comments filled out and those were shared with the commission and will be recorded on this item.
With that, I will call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries 5-0. That will take us to our public hearings tonight, the first being 5AZ210011B. I'll invite Ron Mengida up for presentation and open the public hearing.
Thank you, Chair, members of the commission.
Share my presentation.
Good evening. Ron Mengida, principal planner with Development Services. This item for your consideration this evening you've seen before. This is a previous rezoning change request. Initially, the applicant was requesting a zoning change from R2, residential 2 to LI, which is light industrial.
Back in September, there was some discussion as to the appropriate zoning district and the commission postponed this item several times. And after that actual meeting, there was some discussions between the applicant and her clients, that is.
And the applicant is now amending their request for a zoning change from R2 to GO, general office.
The site that you see here is outlined in yellow, generally located on the northwest corner of University Drive and Trinity Road.
Just a quick background, the subject property was zoned prior to 2002 as agriculture. In 2002, with that development code, it was zoned NR2. And then recently in 2019, the property rezoned or transitioned to an R2 zoning district.
And the site is currently undeveloped.
As part of our analysis, we looked at the area. The area that you see here has a development trend of light industrial or in similar uses of light industrial.
The subject property is actually outlined in black. The area outlined in red was a recent rezoning that the commission considered for light industrial.
Back to GO and LI to give the commission some understanding of the difference between the two, I've prepared a spreadsheet or a table that shows the dimensional standards difference between GO and LI.
You can see that between the maximum building coverage, the minimum landscape area, and the tree canopy coverage requirements between the GO and LI, the GO is more restrictive in terms of dimensional standards.
As far as uses, there are a number of uses, residential uses that are allowed in GO, but not allowed in LI.
Outside storage, as another example, is allowed in LI with a specific use permit, but is not allowed in the GO.
Looking at the table, in the table of allowed uses you have in your backup, many uses are allowed for both zoning districts, but there were some specific zoning uses that were not allowed in the LI and allowed in the GO.
But I think the most important bullet here is the last one. Any industrial use that's proposed in the LI, meaning a certain location, does not have to comply with development standards in terms of site and building requirements.
However, if it was in a GO zoning district, those industrial uses would have to comply with those development standards.
Just to illustrate the notification or share with the commission, there was one opposition response that we received.
This was the same one that you all presented back in September.
The area of that opposition is here. It's a very small area. It would not generate more than, obviously, the 20% that's required or that's needed for a supermajority.
It did have neighborhood meetings. There were two held, and at that meeting there were a number of comments related to traffic as well as setback requirements.
With that, staff recommends approval of the GO zoning district as it complies with the criteria of Section 245E as well as 272D of the DDC.
That concludes my presentation. The applicant is here, and I believe she has a presentation as well.
Thank you, Ron. Any questions for Ron right now?
I do not see any. Thank you, Ron.
I do have a card here. That's okay. I'm wishing to speak. Amy Bissett, how are you? Come on up.
Good evening, commissioners. Amy Bissett. Give me just a moment to get the presentation pulled up. It is on the desktop.
All right. Thank you for your patience. Amy Bissett, 109 North Elm, Denton, 76201.
As Ron mentioned, we have been here before you. It was about a month ago. I did watch the work session and heard Commissioner Ellis's question about the one person in opposition.
We were originally scheduled to come back on September 22nd, and so since we decided to request a further postponement, we did reach out to the gentleman who was here on September 8th to let him know that it was going to be postponed again to October 6th to make sure that he did not show up here to speak without being told that we weren't going to be hearing the item that night.
We left him a voicemail and we let him know at the same time that we were going to be changing our zoning request and gave him our information but did not hear back from him.
After the meeting on September 8th, I reached out to Ron to get his phone number off of the card that he had provided so that we could reach out.
So, I will be brief, but I do want to kind of recap the original request and what we're changing our request to and why. On September 8th, we did come and request a zoning change from R2 to LI.
This is kind of a zoomed out zoning map, and the reason that this was presented then and is being presented again is to see kind of the zoning pattern along the entire corridor from Loop 288 to our site, which has the red star on it.
As you can see, we selected originally the LI zoning district because we felt like it was the most consistent with the existing zoning pattern along that corridor, and through our conversations with staff, it was being supported at that point in time.
We believed, we saw a continued pattern of commercial and industrial development along this area since TexDOT is, or I'm sorry, 380 is a six-lane TexDOT highway.
We know that future residential development here is not appropriate and that it will be commercial or industrial at some point in the future, so our initial indication or thought was that LI was consistent with the corridor.
However, we did hear from you all in P&Z, hear from you all in the meeting on September 8th that you were concerned about a few things.
One, you were concerned about the visual impact of new developments as they were constructed coming in on 380 as a gateway to the city, and industrial zoning does not regulate a lot of the visual impact associated with development.
We also heard that you were concerned about the continued pattern of LI zoning, both for the visual impact that it would have with lower development regulations as well as specifically LI or industrial zoning adjacent to existing residential.
So with that, I did go back and speak with my client who owns the property today and is attempting to market it for commercial uses, and we looked at a number of zoning designations. We heard from you the suggestion of GEO or SC, and they selected GEO as being the one that provided them the flexibility.
And we also saw as we looked along the entire University Drive corridor, both east and west of downtown, that there are other areas of town where GEO is used as a buffer between industrial and single family.
And so because there was a precedent there for GEO, I felt like that was an appropriate zoning district, and the property owner felt like it was something that they could work with.
So that is why we have switched from LI to GEO. I do want to recap for you all that the purpose of the rezoning today is they have acquired the property for future development, and they're seeking an appropriate zoning designation to that end, with the intent of marketing the property for a zoning district that allows for a variety of uses.
And they also have the intent of developing to city standards rather than developing in the ETJ portion of the property only that would allow any use.
We did engage the neighborhood, we had two neighborhood meetings, and I have shown here the areas shaded in light green are the property owners that we spoke with. We heard a number of questions and concerns including jurisdictional authority, whether or not they can put whatever they wanted to because it was in the county instead of the city.
My client and the property owner wants to adhere to city zoning regulations. They were concerned about whether or not the client would be required to extend water and sewer from the west, which they of course will be and intend to do.
They had questions about what the possible land uses and tenants were. And then, of course, as would be the case on highway 380 concerns about traffic and access from Trinity and fish trap.
I've already reviewed these with you in terms of the feedback that we heard from you at the previous meeting. However, you did also bring up the traffic impact to 380 and Trinity and what impact the various potential uses would have on that.
And at this point in time because we don't have a proposed buyer or end user. We anticipate and know that when we do come in with an actual use the city will require us to do a trip generation memo.
And if warranted a full traffic study, which would then come with it requirements for improvements to try to mitigate for any of those traffic impacts right now. It's just a little nebulous since we don't know what's going there.
And this is, this is a zoning map on the other side of town, which will actually see on the next project that you hear, but this is the case that we took as an example the west side of 380.
This is I 35, and you'll see that this entire corridor, by and large as Li and hi zoning. However, when the city did a city wide rezoning, and two years ago, they made a deliberate decision to zone the parcels directly across the street from
ranch and states geo to provide a buffer between Li and in the existing single family so we took this as our example of something that we thought would be appropriate to apply on the other side of 380.
And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
Thanks Amy. Any questions.
Commissioner permit. Thank you, Jerry. Amy, I believe when you brought this back before us before there was a plan that would ensure somehow that access was taken off of 380 and not off of the backside of the property.
Is that still the plan. What's the thought on that. So, and the question was asked by both the neighbors and I believe you all.
And the property owner of my client intends to take access off of 380. Now, depending on what goes there and the results of a traffic study if required they may require more than one point of access.
Text that would control the distance between those points of access. So there's, I can't say for certain that nothing would know no secondary access would occur off of Trinity, but their intent is to have their primary access off of 380 sure and it's fair to say that the types of uses they would be looking for would benefit from direct access.
I think that's it. I do have a question for staff, just out of curiosity.
When we have these split parcels like this, and we have a development that goes on to their.
How does sales tax get apportioned if it's a sales use on that land. That is a good question. I personally don't know the answer. That's something probably would have to get from then county appraisal district. Okay, thank you.
And Commissioner proved I think you can get offline with Ron on that and get that answer, just because, yeah, I mean that's not anything we're discussing here with the zoning change but it's good question though.
Thank you.
Any other questions for the applicant or for Ron at this time.
Okay, this is a public hearing, I don't have any other cards, but is there anyone else wishing to speak.
I see.
Tyler is there anyone on the phones.
No, ma'am, there's no one on the phone.
I'm sorry I did not hear you.
My apologies. No, there's no one on the phone. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Tyler.
Okay, I will mention, as Ron did that there was one response in opposition. When we brought this item before, and that has been recorded.
Seeing no further comment here or on the phone, I will go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion or emotion.
Commissioner Smith, make a motion to approve. And in that, I would make a motion to approve with the zoning of geo with it now just say thank you to applicant for hearing us and bringing that back and finding a much more suitable from the concerns we brought
up much more suitable zoning for us so appreciate it.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
Okay, we have a first and a second, and I'm going to pause for just one second.
So commission, it's been brought to my attention that there's some concern as to whether or not we should have needed to take done a re notice on this and whether or not the commission has jurisdiction to actually take action on this this evening.
And it stems from a result of the public hearing being closed. Previously, when this item was considered, and then with the change in the application so it's been brought to my attention from our city attorney that we actually, the commission may need to postpone
any action on this and allow staff to be able to re notice this application.
Okay, thank you, Tina. So, with that, Commissioner Smith, I will.
So we are just like I asked, we are.
We are going to have to.
Yeah, it appears the recommendation is to take no action so would you like to amend your motion or pull your motion.
Motion to postpone the date certain committee give a staff to figure out what the date certain would be for us to be able to get that re re noticed and to put it on the agenda again.
We can do that or you can just postpone it and definitely with the understanding that we will get the notice issued and bring this back as soon as we can we're required to do a minimum 10 day mailed notice to surrounding property owners so we would get this
pulled back on the commission's agenda as soon as we can and we apologize for any inconvenience to the applicant. But this was just brought to our attention this momentarily ago.
Okay, then. Yeah, make a motion to postpone the date uncertain.
Commissioner Villarreal.
Second.
We have a first and a second to postpone the item.
Any discussion.
Seeing none, let's vote on the board please.
Motion carries five zero. Hopefully we can get that rectified soon.
Yes, we will.
We'll get that taken care of as soon as possible.
Thank you, Commissioner Smith.
I apologize, Commissioner Smith. Yep.
Because of the public here is because it's a change in the application. It has to be going back out as a public as a public hearing it won't come back out as an item item for individual consideration.
So it's a change in zoning and land use rights associated with the property owner's property that we make sure that we get the notification correct. So we'll need to send out a new mailed notice to all property owners at least within 200 feet of the property.
I believe we do a courtesy notice also within 500 feet. But we will get this put scheduled back on the commission's agenda as soon as we can and make sure that we coordinate with the applicant accordingly. Okay, it was because public hearing was closed and then the applicant requested that we make sure that we get the notification correct.
I believe we do a courtesy notice also within 500 feet. But we will get this put scheduled back on the commission's agenda as soon as we can and make sure that we coordinate with the applicant accordingly. Okay, it was because public hearing was closed and then the applicant requested a table because of the zoning or zoning conversations that were occurring after the public hearing was closed and then they they said they would like to consider possibly suggesting a different zoning.
Because we then table at that that that point in time because of change in the zoning. That's why it has to be come back as public hearing. The greater concern is the fact that the public hearing was closed. So, you know, the it's my understanding here in Denton, the way that we have allowed to occur is that if we have left the public hearing open, the applicant has the ability to modify the application to a lesser or excuse me, a more restrictive zoning, just like the commission has the ability, you know, for example, if an applicant requests.
Line industrial, but if the commission feels that GO is a more appropriate zoning district that you have the ability to be able to make that recommendation to City Council. But the key thing here is apparently is as a result of the public hearing was actually closed previously. So ideally, we should have left the public hearing open in hindsight allow for any changes to the application based upon the direction that the commission had given that time and then allowing that the applicant to have that continued conversation with the commission.
But it's all centered around the closure of the public hearing previously. So we just need to be careful to make sure that we keep the public hearing open anytime we postpone consideration of items, whether to date certain or even indefinitely, but particularly on the date certain items when we have a potential change in the application.
I should thank you. Okay. Moving on to five BZ twenty one zero zero zero three. I'm going to invite for presentation and public hearing.
Let me go ahead and pull up the presentation.
All right. Good evening. Karina Maldonado, associate planner and the request today is for Z twenty one dash zero zero zero three three eighty business Park.
So we're going to go ahead and pull up the presentation. So the request today is to rezone approximately eighty eight point seventy one acres from mixed use regional and more to general office. The subject property is located on the south side of West University Drive.
Just ninety feet east of Marshall Road. So you can see on the map at the top. This is the existing or the location of the subject property.
The property is located in the south side of Marshall Road, and it is in the south side of Marshall Road. So just a bit of history on this site. Previous use on the property was. A private educational institution, so many of you may be familiar with the
term private educational institution. And it was established until twenty seventeen. It did. Did suffer from a few fires, and so there was a sale of property in which the previous owner, not the owner today. Did requested a rezoning of that property, which was initially neighborhood residential or NR two to a regional commercial center downtown zoning district under our
name. So that is the zoning that was approved today. In the twenty nineteen zoning transition occurred that zoning changed to the M R mixed use regional district, and that is the zoning that is on the property today. So with the request, if it is approved today, any use permitted in the G O district could be developed.
The proposed G O district is consistent with both of these designations, first business innovation, which is intended for office parks, research and development, light, light manufacturing.
That is the intent of the business innovation district. Second, it is intended to be located near commercial use areas and employment hubs. So G O is consistent with both of those, whereas the primary use for G O is general office with other commercial uses.
And some light industrial, and it is located next to the regional mixed use area on the east side, which is razor ranch. The second designation industrial commerce is intended for light and heavy industrial, West of I thirty five. And as you can see from the boundary of this property, it is located on the east side of Razor Ranch.
And some light industrial, and it is located next to the regional mixed use area on the east side, which is razor ranch. The second designation industrial commerce is intended for light and heavy industrial, West of I thirty five. And as you can see from the boundary of the subject property, it is indeed in that location.
And so second, I also wanted to point out that within our debt plan, 2030, the subject property is located in two of our focus areas. So the deadline 2030 calls out certain areas or corridors where there should be enhanced development or hence site design characteristics.
So the first being the corridor focus area. So university drive West of I thirty five is identified as one of these areas. And second, this general corridor at this intersection is identified as a travel center focus area.
What that means is in our comprehensive plan, that area is identified as needing a small area plan to identify that or to indicate that that area would develop with travel center focused uses such as freight and commercial.
And so the geo district does provide the opportunity to meet that designation and offers enhanced site design and building design standards.
So the criteria for approval are shown on the screen. I won't go through everyone, but in summary, the project is consistent with the future land use designations and the goals of didn't plan 2030.
Second, the proposal is consistent with the geo purpose statement and provides appropriate transitional zoning in the area.
Third, the proposal is consistent with the current plan. Zoning is not expected to generate significant adverse environmental infrastructure or physical impacts. Um and last that infrastructure can be extended to serve the subject property and more intense analysis can be found in the agenda packet.
Um, the plans on the property were posted on August thirty fourth and notices were mailed out to those within two hundred and five hundred feet. As of today, we've not received any responses. However, the applicant did hold two neighborhood meetings, and I want to make a correction on this slide.
It says that none are in attendance. However, there was one in attendance. There was just no comments related to that item.
That staff is recommending approval of the requested rezoning as it complies with the criteria for approval. And with that, I can take any questions. Um, but before I do want to just make note before I forget that the applicant is here and does have a presentation ready.
Thank you, Karina. Are there any questions at this time for Karina?
I do not see any. I do have a card to speak and I'll invite Amy to sit back up here for this item.
Do you have your presentation open? Um, it is on the desktop. It's not on there. Okay.
I think there's an easier button here.
Good evening, commissioners. Amy Bissett again. Now you know why I showed you the site on the previous zoning case, because this is also mine.
I want to start by letting you know that my client and property owner is in the room with us today. We have George Billingsley and Kyle Nix who represent the ownership group.
And we have David Littleton with half associates. He is our engineer. In case you have any engineering specific questions, they're all sitting right here.
All right. So the current zoning map for this property, you can see that this property is currently zoned mixed use regional, and there's a big white star on the property. And along this corridor is primarily light industrial and heavy industrial zoning. As you know, everything in purple to the south and west of this property is our industrial park that is largely developed or spoken for at this point in time with industrial uses.
The future land use plan here does call for business innovation and industrial commerce, and I won't repeat what has already been presented, but we do believe that this zoning request is consistent with both of these.
The purpose of the zoning request is to develop a multi-tenant office and warehouse park. We do believe that the geo zoning request provides an appropriate buffer between the heavy industry to the south and west and the existing single family uses as well as zoning across the street.
And it is consistent with the geo zoning immediately to the west of us. And as, as you know, the geo zoning district does allow for or require the commercial design standards that we would also be looking for into the gateway of the city on this side as well.
Here's a concept plan just for you to briefly see, and some conceptual elevations that do show for you kind of the, the mix of building materials and building articulation, screening of docks, landscaping, that sort of thing.
These are conceptual at this point in time. They have not been approved by the city, but wanted you to see what the developer is intending.
We did have neighborhood meetings as Corina mentioned, and it says four attended, but we actually had four RSVP. There was some discussion about traffic and intent to develop.
And I did receive a follow-up phone call from the neighbor immediately to our west who represents the ownership group there. It's the Denton Wise County Association of Realtors.
And I sent him some additional information based on our phone call. And I will say that everyone that we've heard from on this project in terms of outreach, our other industrial related developers or neighbors to this property.
And that is all I have. Happy to ask or stand for any questions that you have.
Thank you, Amy. Any questions for the applicant? I do not see any. Thank you. This is a public hearing. I don't have any other cards. Is there anyone here wishing to speak on this item?
Tyler, are there any callers on the line for this item?
There are no callers on the line at this time. Okay. Thank you.
Seeing no callers on the line and no one else wishing to speak. I will go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor to discussion or a motion.
Commissioner Smith. Make a motion to approve. Commissioner Villarreal.
Second. We have a first and a second to approve the request. Any discussion? Seeing none, let's call for a vote on the board, please.
Motion carries five zero. Next item for discussion is five CPD twenty one zero zero zero five. I'll invite Julie Wyatt up and open the public hearing.
Good evening. Let me get my presentation pull up.
Good evening. I'm Julie Wyatt, senior planner with the City of Denton and I'm presenting PD twenty one dash zero zero zero five. Twenty eight hundred Bonnie Bray horizontal multifamily.
The request before you is to rezone twenty two point two acres from our two district to PD district with an R seven base zoning district. The intent of the request is to develop a horizontal multifamily living use. They are proposing two hundred and thirty dwelling units, and that includes both single family designed units as well as duplex designs.
And those are designed or intended to be all located on one lot, but would have private backyards. The subject property is located on the east side of Bonnie Bray. It is north of Windsor Drive. And this map on your screen is very colorful, but I just wanted to use this to talk about the surrounding land uses.
So the subject property is outlined in yellow. You're probably familiar with the property just west of the subject site that is in blue, and that is the Denton High School building under construction. We have a variety of residential uses surrounding the subject property.
There's single family to the southwest in the northwest. There's also some moderate density, some town homes and multifamily developments shown in orange to a little further southwest and then to the northeast of the subject site. North Lakes Park, which is one of our city's regional parks, is just to the west of the subject property.
You may be familiar with it. It has a lot of recreational uses. It has disc golf and a recreation center and a driving range and playgrounds and active recreation athletic fields. And then I did want to point out that it is near shopping areas on University.
In fact, it's about a 10 to 15 minute walk, a little less than a mile from the subject property you can get to that intersection of Bonnie Bray and University and those shops and restaurants there.
As I mentioned, the current zoning is R2. On this map, it is showing in yellow. The surrounding zoning is consistent with those surrounding uses, and they are proposing that PD, which would, if approved, would change that map to green.
The property just to the north of the subject site does have an R7 zoning, so this proposed rezoning with that base zoning of R7 is a logical extension of that existing zoning pattern.
The PD document in your backup has two components. It has those development standards that set written portion and then the development map.
The development standards includes the permitted uses and that includes all uses within the R7 zoning with that addition of this undefined use as of yet of horizontal multifamily living.
Also within their development standards, they do have within a parking reduction due to the area bike ped facilities that we'll be talking about a little bit later in the proposal.
And then they also have development standards for those individual units that are based upon our residential design standards, so more akin to what we see in our single family or duplex type neighborhoods.
With some exceptions, one would be that orientation, instead of being oriented to a public street, these units would be oriented inward toward public spaces and shared spaces within the community.
And then they also do have that minimum transparency for those front facades.
And then, as I mentioned, it also includes that development map and that's where all of the details to the proposal are housed.
So the site plan or actually this is the landscape plan as shown on your screen.
North is to the left, so it's this direction.
And it would take access, the site takes access from Bonnie Bray, as well as a public access area to the north of the subject site and that really does provide that access to the park right now.
It does have a loop drive aisle, so it allows cars to go move through the site in that looped manner with some roundabouts.
As I mentioned, it has those private backyards for the individual units with trees within those backyards. They also have trees planted throughout the development, both in common space areas and along the perimeter.
The proposal includes 425 parking spaces, and that does include that reduction due to the adjacency of a shared use path that will be constructed on Bonnie Bray with a capital improvement project that's moving forward.
So it will be a 10 foot shared use path that will accommodate both bicyclists and pedestrians.
Other amenities include a large amenity center with a pool, a dog park, and then they have courtyards outlined in green, and those are areas with tree plantings and benches and also pollinator gardens.
And then one thing we really wanted to talk to them about and what we worked with the applicant on was that we wanted this project to be really porous for pedestrians, so we wanted to make sure that there were a lot of pedestrian gates to that adjacent park. There are trails that they have access to, as well as that bike ped along Bonnie Bray.
So we wanted to make sure that there were a lot of opportunities for access. So all of those pedestrian gates are shown in the little hatch mark black circles there.
And then one other site feature to point out, there is a utility easement running along Bonnie Bray. If you've driven it in the last few years, you know that there are some large electric lines.
So the development for the project will be set back from Bonnie Bray, as well as their fencing will be set back.
Just one more thing to point out, or two more things to point out on your screen, there's sort of a blow up of what one of the individual pods would look like with that common courtyard and the orientation for the units, as well as samples of what the individual dwelling units would look like and that color scheme.
The criteria for approval in PDs is in subchapter two. I'm just going to provide a summary for it. One, it is consistent with the future land use map, and we will talk about that a little more in detail.
The development standards are intended to create a compact development pattern with that residential character. As I mentioned, those pedestrian connections, it is in an area that will have a lot of opportunity for walking and biking, and then there is adequate capacity to serve the development.
Denton Plan 2030 does designate the subject site as moderate density residential. That is intended for compact single family neighborhoods, as well as a variety of densities, including that low rise multifamily and townhomes.
We anticipate four to 12 dwelling units per acre. This project is in line with that, and the intent is to provide a variety of housing styles, also within areas where there would be a five to 10 minute walk to other community elements such as shopping or schools or parks.
This proposal does conform to that, not only with the density, but also the design standards that it's designed as that compact neighborhood, and that it is close to existing commercial there at University and Bonnie Bray, but also anticipate a future commercial.
If I could direct your attention to the map, you can see that across Bonnie Bray, just to the west of the subject property, there's some areas kind of in a salmon colored pink. Those are intended for neighborhood mixed use, so those are intended for a mix of uses and commercial uses.
So this proposal would provide residential densities near future commercial areas.
And this I want to take one moment to talk about Bonnie Bray. As you're aware, we've seen a few projects on Bonnie Bray recently, and it is subject of a capital improvement project that's going to be going forward.
We anticipate the construction to begin in 2022, and it will be expanded from the current two lane configuration to four lanes with a median.
And it will include six foot sidewalks on the west side of the street and then the 10 foot shared use path on on the east side so it will connect for the length of that street.
When public outreach was sent out in accordance with the development code we've received two letters, one in opposition, just across the street in this this location and then one in favor to the north of the subject property.
So based upon the criteria for approval staff does recommend approval of the request, I'll be happy to answer any questions and the applicant is here with a presentation.
Thanks Julie, Commissioner Smith.
Julie, the, the proximity on the southwest corner of this site to the fire station.
I know we can discuss it in a different project I think it was on the next item that our code doesn't really have a sound ordinance or decibel level.
Is that a concern or was that a concern whatsoever when looking at this about the proximity to some of these houses just looking at the site plan. There is that the tension pond that's there.
I don't know how wide how far of a setback, quote unquote that attention pond on top of the other setbacks from the property is but I would, I would hate to have a hate to be of somebody moves in there and not truly understanding maybe there's this fire department
here that might fire up at any time of the night and wake me and my kids up.
So that was a concern and it was something we did talk about with the applicant so that that was something that I was that that detention pond in that area was was it was a good thing.
And then also providing that tree, that tree line along that southern side was something that we talked about to allow that vegetation to mute any noise that would be would be generated by the fire department.
What measures are there in the base zoning of our seven for sound retention or sound protection within the form of walls or those kinds of things that could be put into this development plan.
The only portion of the code that has sound elements related to it are in our areas near the airport. So there aren't any minimum sound proofing.
What about just screening past landscaping and the code doesn't necessarily speak to that in terms of sound. I mean it is something that could be addressed with masonry walls or other types of physical barriers.
But it's not a requirement per the code. So masonry walls and masonry walls and those kinds of things could be possibly suggested for this in this scenario certainly got it.
You bet. Hey Julie I just had a quick question with regard to Bonnie Bray. This will end up being just a right out only right because there will be a meeting in there eventually and you won't be able to turn left out of this right.
So it'll be a right and then a U-turn if someone wanted to go south. You are correct. Okay. Okay. Thanks. You bet.
Any other questions for Julie. Commissioner Prout. Thank you chair. I certainly appreciate the provisions for allowing future residents to access the park more easily.
Is we've seen a few of these and they always have sort of this you know almost 100 percent perimeter fencing. Is that something that our code requires or is that something that these applicants ask for for some
benefit that they see. It is not a requirement in the code. It's typically something that the applicant has either just requested that they put on or or added to the project. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks Julie. Sure. I don't see any questions at this time. Okay. This is a public hearing. I don't have a card from the applicant but I understand that you have a presentation. So please come on up and just state your name and address and your time will begin.
That's it.
Good evening commissioners. My name is Felipe Castillo. This is Jess King. I reside at 7303 Campbell Road, Dallas, Texas. I am in Jess King or with Urban Moment.
We're a Texas based real estate development firm that solely concentrates on what we coin as a missing middle single family rental.
Communities. A quick history on single family rentals. They actually started in the Tucson area back in the 90s of which our founders one of three developers have expanded this from the Arizona area into Texas and hoping Denton becomes one of them.
I would also add that we're the second developer to actually have fully constructed and leased and stabilized communities. That's important because we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot from what our residents desire, what's important to them and how to really truly work our site plan and everything into the communities that we reside in, the cities we reside in.
As you mentioned before, we know that there's been other competitors I've presented before you, so I'll just concentrate on what I believe differentiates us from them. Just be considerate of your time.
Generally, we do about 15 to 30 acres and we provide about 250 to 300 single family units.
That's important because that then leads into kind of some operating questions that come with that.
One of the differentiators, we do single story and two story. We think that's extremely important. Not all of the competitors do that. We believe that second story adds to kind of the aesthetics and the dynamics of the community as you walk through it.
In addition, all our units, because they are cottages, everyone, all residents get a ground floor entrance with their backyard as mentioned. We have all the same horizontal multifamily amenities as pools.
I'm trying to skip through a lot of that dog park and fitness centers.
But one particular item that I really wanted to emphasize, and then Jess will do the exact same thing, is the sensitivity to open space and it does fall in the vein of our company principles.
I can comfortably say in here that we've calculated that we have 30% more open space than even the competitors that you had here present to you.
That is important to me. We're excited about the site because we are next to the park.
We know our residents well enough that we know that is something that they bring that is extremely important to them.
And I'll explain a little bit more on why I'm stating that.
You're seeing this product type so often because it's filling in a gap, a gap that we coin as the missing middle. Our residents today making salary between 55 to a little over $100,000, they're professionals, they have choices.
They're choosing not to be in traditional multifamily anymore, but they are also either deciding that they don't want to purchase traditional single family, or they're just saving up.
We actually understand from our own residents, it's more of the latter. They choose the city first because it's the city they want to be in.
They appreciate our product because it is like single family, right? But then they're saving up to try to move into the communities that they desire to be within.
Another component that's really super important to us, and then we've actually brought that into our company principles as well, is because we can survey our residents and better understand who they are.
Many of them are what we would coin the critical workforce heroes, right? Our cow product, we have several nurses and quite a few teachers in there.
We have a couple police in our good night location and even a firefighter.
We, we saw the kind of the importance of this and we've even brought it into our own operating processes to provide them discounts and even accelerated leasing application periods and kind of bring in more of these of these residents.
Here's our our Urbana community and good night. I got a better picture that I go through this a quick video today we have on top of those two locations. We have seven in the Austin area.
We have two in Dallas, Fort Worth, hoping this one to be our third. And we have one in San Antonio with a second on the way and we just entered into the Houston market.
And I'll give you a quick video and walk through it. We won't go through all of it to just be considerate of your time. This is our good night ranch location.
The just note the architectural style is was dictating more with the master plan community that we're within they wanted something a little bit more edgy with color.
It's in southeast Austin. That's that's our amenity center right there in our pole area. But while you look through these this video, you know, please pay attention to how the single store in the two story interact with each other.
Also, you can probably see in here how would just walk into also is how we address our front doors and the open space in between each of those.
Now, architectural style, we were sensitive to the community and make sure we fit within the architectural style. These are some other styles that we have for the other locations you have.
You see that we try to vary it to some degree and make sure this fits to what the community would prefer.
This is falls more in our kind of contemporary farmhouse is what we're calling where the good night location. We've only been able to do, you know, in one or two locations.
Last another differentiator is because we are two hundred and fifty to three hundred units. We have on site property management. We have security. We have valley trash to to your question. We actually ask all our all our residents to make sure that they separate their recycle with their trash.
And then we have valley service that comes and picks it up and make sure it gets in the right spot.
Here, because more than anything coven, you know, these are coven puppies, right? Or become another operating.
Nightmare, that's how to deal with all the paths that are there. But we know that's also very important to our residents, because that's why they're choosing the backyard. So we've even include that in our kind of operating income and and process.
I'll pass it on to you. But what I want to leave is that what we're trying to solve here and I think even all of them is this providing the sense of single family living, but without all the full on expenses, the expenses of maintenance and everything that goes on with that.
And I'll pass it over to Jess.
Thank you, Felipe.
My name is Jess King. I'm with Urbana.
I appreciate all the time Julie's taken to get us here tonight. We've worked a lot on this.
I've been looking forward though to being here this evening because, well, Denton is my hometown. I grew up here.
And in fact I'm bummed I didn't get here in time last week for arts and jazz so I hope you guys got to go. I heard it was good.
I'm proud though to be presenting this project to you all because I believe it will be of great benefit to the community here by providing this missing middle housing type.
And I'm going to focus on the key features that make our community here stand out.
Within our site plan.
We are providing 30% more open space, as Felipe mentioned.
We do that by offering one and two story products.
And the two stories have a smaller footprint.
You can see the two stories here on the site plan in the different shades of blue.
And that allows us to, to grab more open space throughout the entire site.
And what we're also able to do here is garner more courtyards that you see those are the courtyards are in the dark green.
And another benefit of us using the one and the two story products here is that we're able to achieve the more interesting.
The more interesting roof planes, when you're inside the site, you know whether you're a resident or you're, you're driving by, by having more to two stories throughout the site.
You can, you can begin to see more interesting, more interesting roof planes.
And if it was, if it was all one stories, it would appear very monoplane.
And that's, that's one of the things that we try to do when we're planning out the site is kind of pepper in the two stories throughout the site.
And we spend a lot of time doing that so that it gives a more interesting effect to the site.
And all of this is just a great example of how we carefully designer sites specific to each, each city and we don't just stamp out the same site plan, wherever we go.
But I'm going to move on to the next site plan. This, this focuses more on connectivity which Julie mentioned before.
So either, either side here you see these, these red lines. These are the public pedestrian paths the sidewalks that we're going to be building with our site, they're going to be outside of the gates that you mentioned.
These will be new pathways that will get anyone from Bonnie Bray to North Lakes Park. And then interior to the site we have sidewalks all throughout that orange line represents an internal pathway that will get residents as well and internal to the site to out to Bonnie Bray and then back to North Lakes Park.
And then those asterisks represent three of the five pedestrian gates that we have, they get our residents in and out of the site.
And it just speaks to how important we find connectivity for residents. And, and this is a great positioned site, as Julie pointed out on the aerial, you know, it's, it's a 10 minute walk to the corridor on 380. And it is also down down the way from DHS and Discovery Park for people that might be working there.
The other thing I'll point your attention to is in the center there's the amenity that's central to the entry there.
And, and then in the rear is, sorry I'll use the pointer, the dog park right here. And I have enlargements of those will go over in a second.
On the side here is this yellow hatched area. This is an offsite road. It's a secondary entrance to North Lakes Park today it exists today, and it is offsite to our project.
But we, we will be reconstructing it with our project.
The city has come back and asked us to reconstruct it due to its current conditions today and any future development that will occur north of us outside of our project so we will be doing that with our project, but it is offsite to us.
So moving on I wanted to show you an enlargement of the courtyards that Julie mentioned before. And again this just highlights some of the landscaping that we do we do different landscaping around in the courtyard which is a larger area for people to interact either
passively or actively, and then also the backyards that Felipe mentioned these are gated for each, each individual unit and access from their, the back of their house.
And then we also have these really nice, what we call pedestrian corridors and when we have the space. We do this nice seating area with it which I've highlighted here.
We call these kind of our pedestrian nodes. And these offer a really nice area of open space for the residents. And this is something we're adding in on our projects, when we have the, the opportunity, and our residents are really liking it and so our city staffs as well.
Moving on to architecture. This is architecture that we have submitted to the city for this project, it's different from other ones that we've done it in other cities.
And in fact our duplex here on the top left is a new plan that we developed for this site, it has a larger front porch.
So it's actually a usable front porch. And that was at the suggestion of city staff here. So we're excited to debut that project. This product here.
This is an enlargement of the amenity area which again was center central to the entire site plan. It provides nice connection points for the residents.
This is the leasing office the workout facility in the center, and then you have a open yoga lawn to the right and then of course the pool, but on either side it connects you to these courtyard spaces.
And then of course this this is the main central walkway for the residents to get back to North Lakes Park, and the dog park, which is at the rear, and the dog park is a nice buffer between between the houses and North Lakes Park.
So, that's why we placed it there and it is private to the to the residents.
So, in closing, you know as a developer. I feel it's our duty to be a good steward of the land. And if we aren't doing that we aren't doing our job right.
And I take that role very seriously, no matter what city I'm in.
But here on this project. It's personal. I have family here, and my friends are here, and I wouldn't be presenting this project to you all if I didn't think it was a great project for the didn't community.
Not only for today, but for the future.
So with that, I'm going to close the presentation, and Felipe and I will be here to answer any questions you might have. Thank you, Jess. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Chair. Just flip I think your presentation couple questions.
Site plan wise, or just the development plan I should say that that and on the southern, the right side of the of the development plan, the southern end of the property, the little stub out there is that just a turnaround lane for fire access.
Yes, okay, just want to confirm on that one. If you could answer him on the microphone that way television is okay.
The, the looking at your the development plan was provided in our backup building a is your single family, and then C and D are your two stories correct.
Yes, that's correct. Okay. And so those these are those building these are about 28 feet, almost 29 feet and a lot of height maximum height, correct.
I don't know. I think it says on here is that the building height on on D on building type D is 2626 10 Sorry, so almost 27 feet tall. Is that correct. That's, that's right then, right.
The, would you guys as an applicant, and they would end up having to require a postponement I'm assuming because this and Karina you can answer this quarter, whose presence Julie I'm sorry, Karina you're not getting drug into something sorry, Julie, if, if, if there was a conversation about asking to put in a masonry wall for sound mitigation for the fire department, would it be something that it would have to, because it's not in the site plan now and it's part of the PD that we'd have to come back.
Mr. Smith I'd like to weigh in on that so keep in mind the property currently has our two zoning with the single family residential and so if the property were developed as a typical single family residential neighborhood there's no masonry screening wall requirement.
Sure.
Also have two story buildings are within 80 feet of the fire department on. I'm sorry, say it again.
Not nothing.
Okay.
It just, it would have to come back though, because it would be a change to the development plan.
The requirement of are asking them to explore this commission were to vote on having some sort of screening there, we put in there, if the African was willing to discuss that and talk about it.
It has come back, because it'd be a change the development plan as it currently stands. Well since I mean you have two options if you want to give them an opportunity to amend the plan and allow the commission to see the modification to the plan, then I would
encourage a postponement and probably to the date certain if you were willing to say or you can condition your recommendation with the addition of the masonry screening wall or whatever additional change you're wanting.
And they could give him an opportunity to address it between PNC and gotcha. Awesome. That works. Yeah, so I think that was my, my question to you guys. My last question was, I think the project's awesome.
I really do think it's a thing it's, I think it's great looking. I'm a didn't boy myself so I'm glad to see some didn't folks come back around and hang out.
The. I'm just concerned how close the fire department is there that just putting a project there and having it so close for the noise issues that come from that.
I know masonry walls aren't cheap. I get it. We've had conversations on on the projects and the years I've been on PNC, but it'd be something that I know you have a public, you have a pedestrian gate access there and that will stub out turn around
fire lane section with having those two story buildings there.
It just feels like it's good, even though with the detention detention pond that it just feels like it's going to be a lot of sound issues from coming from the fire department.
Would you guys be opposed to either repositioning those two story buildings away, or having a masonry wall or something like that.
Hey, I would say we, we definitely would prefer not to postpone.
No, and I actually appreciate the sensitivity to this we, we actually looked at the fire station and we're contacting them because of back to our missing metal and we're trying to get with them so that something we hadn't yet considered we
were landscaping the trees that was kind of the conversation that started that I would, I would say easily. Let us look at the two stories and how we may be able to address those as in distance and you that's an easy fix.
I would even say we could probably be even more purposeful around how we do a combination of masonry with with landscape screening to make what you brought up a concern that would be ours as well.
Let us state that we'll address that and we have heard you have my question the staff was just more of, and make sure because these PDs are so weird that whenever, whenever it goes through it gets codified I want to make sure that wasn't something that we need to postpone it.
It's a recommendation within a vote if the body does so to move that way. Understood, glad we got that clarification for me and I appreciate that. Thank you for bringing it up.
Any other questions for the applicant.
I've just a quick question there's no covered parking here, correct. Yes ma'am we do we have both detached garages, and we have covered parking as well. Okay, it's spread through throughout okay throughout okay then that would just be like a separate amenity if somebody wanted
that everyone gets one covered spot and then the choice of the detached garage versus carport style is a fee based decision from the resident. Okay, understood. Great. Thank you.
Commissioner Perk. Thank you, just a quick question. I wonder in your other developments like this. Have you ever run across a situation where you have either co developed or worked with a partner chosen a site location such that these communities are
in close proximity to neighborhood services or retail or something that that really makes it feel more like a community that that you can walk down and get your dog groomed that you just got from COVID.
In other words, have you seen that before. If so or not, believe it or not I'm running underneath the actually that that's actually one of mine, us in a, how would I even say that one of my agendas right personally because I think you just got on something
right right now all the BTR developers are trying to find a site where they can, you know, maybe have already entitled if not getting entitled and create their little community. I've been developing in Dallas for 22 years now and all it's been is mixed use so I'm actually pursuing
exactly what you mentioned because I think our product type works perfectly in an infill location where you have a walkable community and you have retail nearby and other tree we're okay being even next to traditional multifamily.
This product type for for all of us all the developers are doing that it's a transitional development type right it transitions comfortably and it just feels good between even industrial to single family or whatever.
We've heard over and over again traditional multifamily that are 345 stories right we break that up and start creating that trend transitional kind of product I've been between so I hear you, we're trying to figure it out ourselves and I actually have a couple communities
that we're talking with other developers and see how we could go into a bigger parcel and do the exact same thing that you're mentioning.
Yeah, yeah, I would like to say the fact that we are a 10 to 15 minute walk from the commercial on university is actually a great win now it may not be the commercial that you and I would love to go walk down to but for some people, that's a great
opportunity, right. And oftentimes when we find a piece that we would like to develop. It's not zoned appropriately, right, so that's the issue it's it's zoned for a higher density than what we can do for this because it is relatively new.
And as you all mentioned before we came up, you're still, you're actually having to adapt, or city is trying to adapt their code to have an appropriate land use for us so I think we'll get there, but it's going to take time, right.
So, thank you.
Any other questions.
I do not see any at this time.
Thank you. This is a public hearing I don't have any cards here.
Is there anyone here wishing to speak on this item.
Tyler Do we have anyone on the phones for this item.
There's no one on the phones for this item. Okay, thank you.
I will mention we did have two online forms, filled out in mail to the commission in opposition of this item and those will be recorded.
Seeing no one wishing to speak I will close the public hearing and open discussion or emotion.
Commissioner Smith and make a motion to approve with the condition that between now and city council that applicant city staff work together on sound mitigation efforts, relocating the two story buildings been development plan, as well as incorporating masonry and landscape screening into the plan as well along the side next to the fire department.
Commissioner Cole.
Second.
Okay, and I think I will just defer to Hillary and Tina. Is that if we have a motion that's approved with a recommendation as such.
I mean is that is that appropriate or or.
Well, commissioner Smith coming from on but you said recommend approval with the condition that they provide this or are you offering that, are you.
My my understanding of your motion is that you're wanting us to work with the applicant for the repositioning of the two story homes elsewhere on the site plus working through providing additional screening on that south side correct.
That's correct. Okay, so it's a condition for approval so then I would say that's sufficient, and we can continue to work with the applicant, if I could offer some information for the commission's consideration.
If with the sound concern. We can explore a variety of options under the with two story structures, they have a tendency to provide some additional buffer. When you have a noise your use next to single family residential, for example, it's not uncommon.
In communities where you think of a highway, the highway generates a fair amount of noise, and typically you have commercial development allows for larger building taller building scale to which actually serves as a buffer, then next to single family
residential. So, you know, while the applicant expressed, you know, they're willing to work with repositioning the two story structures.
In all actuality, it does provide some additional noise support and buffering so and under the art to district that is present today.
Single family two story single family homes could be built on the property as well so just offering that for your consideration.
But obviously we have a motion in a second on the on the floor for consideration.
We say deficient, meaning that it.
I can make I can make the change the motion to make it a recommendation.
And if that's your wish then then so be it.
I'm in my motion to make it a recommendation that the staff staff and applicant be able to look at that be able to create some mitigation by the repositioning the two story building as well as incorporating masonry and landscaping against that southern.
Southern edge against the fire department.
I'll still second. Okay, very good.
We have a first and a second commission approved. Did you have comment. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of add some thoughts to the concern about the noise and I think it's good that we make it a recommendation and allow staff to really look at it as a holistic problem.
I don't really know what the procedure is when a fire truck pulls out of a fire bay. How soon they turn the siren on what direction they're heading when they turn it on all that kind of stuff, whether they're sirens on the building.
There's a lot of details that I don't really understand.
So I think working with our fire services to to make a plan, maybe a good option. I'll also just point out that it looks like there's about 20 feet between the north wall of that fire station and the north property boundary of the fire station property.
So, I don't know the. I don't know whether an agreement could explore some sort of sound buffer on the fire station property but that may be a way to not have to change the site plan quite so much and keep them on schedule.
I think you raise a good point. Let us get with the fire department to understand their operations better when they are located adjacent to residential neighborhoods because I would suspect that this is not the only fire station in town that we have that's located near residential neighborhoods so happy to visit with them further and understand their operations and, and, and then working with the applicant to see what additional options there may be from a mitigation standpoint.
And then just one other comment.
As I was in high school I think it was, I lived in a community.
A little bit different like this it was a townhome based system that was a condominium based instead of sole owner renting it.
And I think they, they offer something we don't see much anymore because we just didn't build a lot of it for decades.
I think they, the examples that we have such that we can see how they operate are more granular in nature in a in a neighborhood where it's it's not one solid block of a single owner.
And so, you know, that's a little different to me.
I think I look forward to how the areas around these developments grow and look forward to how, you know, maybe some surrounding properties around this one will want to take advantage of the proximity to these residents and provide them those services and, and the benefits of that proximity that they have to each other into the park.
Thank you Commissioner Perot. Any further discussion?
I'll just Commissioner Villarreal.
There we go. I just want to say reiterate a lot what Eric said. I'm a huge fan of the horizontal family living.
And I do appreciate the fact that it's walkable, both the North Lake Park and to commercial. I think it's a fantastic plan. I think it's exactly what Denton needs.
As we push to invite young professionals to stay here after they graduate college, as well as young families who are we're trying to move back here to Denton.
So I'm very excited to vote yes for this for this recommendation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Any further comments. I'll just say thank you all for your work and your great presentations Julie applicant. Yeah, really wonderful information for all of us to understand exactly what's going on here and I do think you have a missing piece to do some housing needs that we have for sure.
With that I will call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries five zero.
Next and final public hearing item is five D DCA 21 0004.
I will invite Karina up for presentation and open the public hearing.
Good evening Karina Maldonado associate planner.
The item for you is a DCA 21-0004.
A data use center.
So I mentioned before the request is a city initiated code amendment to add the data center modular and data center warehouses, warehouse use and associate development standards.
Staff is recommending approval and I will go over the remaining slides.
So as a general background for how this came about.
So on August 17th 2021 city council approved a city initiated rezoning of city owned property from public facilities to light industrial. This was to allow for a proposed data warehouse center on the off of Jim Chris road just near the deck center on August 24th city council then approved an associated ground lease and power purchase agreement.
This was to allow for a third party to develop the data warehouse center on city owned property.
And then lastly on August 25th and we then received a request and had a meeting with a private party through a pre application conference to discuss a possible modular data center near Geesling and East University Drive.
So, before I go into the amendments just to add on to some of the background. Again, so, as I mentioned before there was the request through to work with the city for a warehouse type development.
As we're starting to see more requests for this modular type stuff felt that the two different uses were inconsistent with our code and this proposed city initiated amendment strives to ensure that we're planning for how these uses will come into the city, especially when they're adjacent to residential.
So the request is city initiated. It is to add a data modular, a data center modular excuse me, and a data center warehouse with those associated development standards. More specifically, this is to amend the following sections of the debt and development code.
First would amend sub chapter 9.2 which is the definitions to include include both of these uses. Second, it would be to amend table 5.2 dash a which is the table of allowed uses to include each use and identify the appropriate zoning districts.
Third, to amend sub chapter 5.3.6 which are the use specific standards for industrial uses to include each use and their associated use specific standards. And then last to amend table 7.9 I, which is a minimum required off street parking for each use presented today.
So just to break it down a little bit further. First, we wanted to talk about the data center modulars. So the proposed definition for this use is that as a principal use the long term, which would be more than 24 hour storage of specialized computing systems and hardware within a modular structure, including but not limited to pods, shipping containers, cargo containers and similar storage that are used for the sole purpose of remote storing gathering.
Processing and or analyzing large amounts of data. Accessory uses would include any office or electrical equipment for localized distribution. This proposed definition excludes accessory storage of computer systems and hardware within or outside of an existing building where the primary uses residential commercial or institution in nature.
And as an example, that would be something like if one of our regional hospitals needed additional servers and needed to house that in a outside storage type pod, this would be excluded from this definition.
I have provided some images of the types of modular data centers that we have been seeing. So on the left, you can see essentially this would look like a pod farm to use rough language. And in the rear, you would see what's being proposed is that associated electrical equipment that would power these facilities.
And on the right is the these sort of pods that we're starting to see with this use.
So as indicating the staff analysis staff is proposing that if this use were to be added into our code that it would be limited to the following zoning districts, which would be the light industrial heavy industrial and public facilities.
However, we are proposing that these be limited to a specific use permit with additional use specific standards. Associated parking would be limited to one space per employee at peak shift.
This is intended as these sites tend to have less than 20 employees. So rather than following traditional parking standards that you would see in our code now for warehouse, which would be one per 1000 square feet of gross floor area, which would generate significant amount of parking.
This would then reduce that amount to just what is needed to service the site.
So moving on to the data center warehouse use the definition you'll see is very similar, with the exception being that this is specific to a building or buildings for this type of storage.
So as you can see what the image is provided. This is an example of a data center through a warehouse structure in Fort Worth. This is a Facebook hub that they that is constructed. I believe it's along alliance. I might have the address wrong.
But this is the aerial showing warehouse structures and it's a little bit difficult to see. But these kind of little structures on the side are their electrical equipment.
So you do see electrical equipment associated with this use due to the high demand for electricity. These are just some street view images showing that as you can see from the right away. These are more of a warehouse building.
So all of this equipment is housed within the building structure, whereas a modular structure is more of those, those pods of storage containers.
So because this is within a building for this use staff is proposing that it stays similar to our existing warehouse use. However, that there are some changes.
So that would be well, while we are proposing that is allowed in the M.R. corridor districts and non industrial non residential districts that the M.R. S.C. and H.C. be limited to a specific use permit with that all uses their all zoning districts would require you specific standards.
So the parking you'll see is similar. And this is just additional images of another data center in Plano. Same same concept warehouse building with on site electrical associated parking screening and landscaping.
So the last time we'll go over are the amendments to create you specific standards for each use.
You'll see that they are similar, but slightly designated to each specific use. So whether it's in a building with on site electrical or without.
So more importantly, is a data center modular staff is proposing that first modular structures on site electrical equipment and any associated outdoor storage shall be screened from view of the public right of way.
And be screened from any adjacent residential uses or zoning districts, pursuant to subsection seven point seven point eight.
Second, that modular structures on site electrical equipment and any outdoor storage be set back no less than 500 feet from an adjacent residential zoning district or use that's again to add more of a buffer between those uses.
And then last at least one element from section a of table seven point E, which is our landscape standards be provided along public rights of way, regardless of whether front parking or drive aisles are proposed.
That is because our landscape table is based on the point system, which requires two elements from section a which is right away screening that is intended to screen from parking and drive aisles.
If that is not existing, they could request an alternative landscape plan. This is to ensure that that screening is then provided.
So moving on to data center warehouses.
The limitation in use for MR and SC is that these warehouses would be limited to a maximum of 55,000 square feet of gross floor area per lot.
And that all buildings comply with our design standards in section seven point 10 five, which is specific to non residential building site and building buildings and site design.
So you'll see a repetition of the onsite electrical screening. I'm going back to section seven point seven point eight, as well as being set back another 500 feet from adjacent residential uses or zoning.
And so I've highlighted two sections on this slide related to screening as it's proposed today. Staff is just sticking to what the code requires.
However, we did pose the question within our staff report to indicate if it is the preference of PNC to provide more stringent screening requirements that that is something that we would request that you take a look at and provide consideration of.
With that staff is recommending approval of this code amendment, as it does meet the intent of the comprehensive plan and all criteria. And with that, I can take any questions.
Thank you, Karina.
Let my screen come up here to see if we've got any questions.
Any questions for Karina on this.
Commissioner Perret. Thank you, Chair.
Couple things that just kind of hit with the longer presentation.
One is on the screening proposed language of the public right of ways or adjacent residential. I think in most places our code says just from public view and that means the right of ways.
The way that's written, is that intended to cover backyards and things that might back up against it, too? Or would there be something additional in order to cover adjacent properties that are not on a right of way?
Yeah, so, so, of course, the language for right of ways being specifically called out, like you mentioned, usually our language is public view.
In this case, we wanted to make sure that there was that additional layer of mitigation when this is adjacent to some sort of residential use or zoning district.
So, for example, let's say that this was proposed in an L.I. district, which happened to a, but an existing long standing single family neighborhood in that case, especially for the modular type, we would require that they use some sort of screening.
On top of that, since any of these proposed uses would still have to comply with our current development standards on top of the use specific standards, that would ensure that they were providing that screening plus whatever buffering is required plus that setback.
So, it's just an added layer of mitigation. And again, a part of that is that request to whether what type of materials would be appropriate for screening, whether that be the materials already allowed in the code, which would include rod, iron fences and would share other materials.
But hopefully I answered that question. I think so. Let me just double confirm somebody. I'm not confused here. So the way the language is proposed, it, it would require.
It would require a buffer that we may talk about what that is between private property and the adjacent property of this use, even if there is no right public right of way there. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay.
And then second question on the fifty five thousand square foot limit. Maybe I just am not versed enough to understand where that comes from. Is that something that's common with other light industrial warehouse uses for some other reason? Yes.
So what we didn't want to just, you know, kind of we wanted there to be a rationale for pulling that number. So, as I mentioned earlier, we kind of use the warehouse use as a starting point, you know, aside from the on site electrical and things like that.
So our existing code does have a limitation for the amount of square footage of warehouse in the M.R. And S.E. District. So we carry that forward with the data center warehouse use. Okay. Thank you.
Any further questions with.
Okay. This thank you for seeing me right now. This is a public hearing. I don't have any cards in front of me, but is there anyone wishing to speak on this item?
Tyler, do we have anyone on the phone for this item? No, ma'am, we do not have anyone on the phone for this item. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no one here to speak on this item and no one on the phone.
I will go ahead and close the public hearing and open the floor for discussion or a motion. Commissioner Smith. I want to make a motion to remand this to the D.C.R.C. I think my points I made during the work session still carry forward through this.
Karina, you did a great job in the presentation. Thank you for going in depth. You guys definitely gave a lot of thought to it, but I think there are points that are brought up in the work session, such as height on the modular pieces.
Some of the questions are brought up about screening that I think that this needs more time and consideration and conversation than just a few minutes here at PNC and just a few minutes at City Council.
I would love to have the D.C.R.C. in that committee as it's formed to be able to look at this as well, because that's what they are formed for. There's one of the reasons they're formed for.
So I know that it's a pressure to get it out because there are pre-meeting conversations that are happening now with other applicants.
But this type of use being added to the code is something that has long-term repercussions environmentally from an energy standpoint, as well as through some development of some of our areas that are already in that S.C., H.C., and above that could possibly entice a lot of folks coming in and developing towards this use.
I think it's pretty clear to see that a city-initiated rezoning, a city-initiated on-city property third-party agreement to be able to do data centers, then predicated a lot of other people contacting the planning department about this, probably just shows you that if we just rubber-stamp something without some good thought behind it, it probably won't be the best possible thing.
And lastly, I'll say this, I agree with the S.U.P. I think it's great to have that as being the precautionary measure within this code, this section of the D.D.C., but being that an S.U.P., unless we can tie it directly to where there's a violation in our criteria or a problem within the criteria, it doesn't really give us a lot of leeway at this body to be able to say,
"No" to an S.U.P. And so I think the S.U.P. is the right mechanism.
I just think we need to have some more thought, some better questions brought up there to make sure there's no holes in it before we move it forward.
So that is a long-winded way to say I motion to refer.
Commissioner Cole.
I second. I believe this thing should, I mean, because the D.C.R.C. is representation from us, representation from council, and it, you know, I think that's where this should get ironed out and then come back.
So I believe I second and I agree with everything Commissioner Smith said.
Thank you, Commissioner Cole.
We have a first and a second.
I guess I'm trying to understand this from a legal as we're supposed to make a recommendation to city council.
So is this something that we need to my suggestion would be to you could postpone this item indefinitely and request that staff present this code amendment to the D.C.R.C.
For additional consideration and just like I know you've postponed some items in the past or maybe council has requesting neighborhood meetings.
When we've had projects being brought forth, you know, such as a private development.
So I kind of hold this akin to that if given the direction and from the work session and the motion here on the floor would be to.
Well, the motion on the floor is to refer this to the D.C.R.C., which that would be the recommendation to city council and then city council would still be hearing this item.
That recommendation or that that's the clarification that I'm requesting.
Hillary any thoughts.
I do.
You can't we can't do that.
We can't ask for it to be referred to the D.C.R.C. and functionally that would be an indefinite postponement.
Okay.
So so it would not then go to council.
Correct.
Okay.
Understood.
Thank you for the clarification.
Commissioner Pruitt.
Yeah, I'll try to keep it brief because I think we had a good discussion earlier in work session.
I I'm in line with this with this motion.
I think it it's wise to be prudent.
With that said, I think that there's a lot of things happening fast and and we owe it to ourselves to try to be as efficient as possible.
So I'm just going to share a few things that when I see the proposal, I think of that that maybe warrants more discussion.
And I'd be interested in other thoughts as well, just so we can kind of get the ball rolling, if you will.
One of those, I guess, is this market is fairly new.
It's developing at a very rapid pace.
In my reading, you know, it started with standard, you know, shipping container sized things.
And then some of the companies have started to bridge out and have, you know, what they call modular solutions that they build their own metal boxes that are slightly different sizes.
And there's a lot of things happening right now.
So it's the type of thing where if we are a little bit too narrow minded about what we think is happening, we can easily forget something we're not looking at, if you will.
So I think we need to take a broad view of understanding it's developing quickly.
I also think that maybe this is an example of something that would warrant some sort of performance requirement as opposed to specific dimensional requirements because that technology is changing.
There may be many other ways of mitigating a sound issue than a pure separation. And if we just encode a separation in the statute, then we could be here 20 years later with a lot of unused, inefficient land that could have been put to a better use without there really being a noise issue at all.
And then just as a minor point, and I'm sure we'll get into this, but the proposal in the definition section mentioned storage of specialized computing equipment.
I believe the intention is for this to be operational. So perhaps that could be amended in the future to be storage or operation of that equipment.
Thank you, Commissioner Pruitt, and I'll just add to that. That's, I think, exactly the reason that most of us want this to be further discussed with the DCRC is just so things like even definitions can get flushed out a little bit better.
I appreciate the work that staff has done Karina specifically, and I understand where you were going with the SUP. I think there's still too many unanswered questions and it's leaving the SUP process really laborious at this point, because we don't have enough information.
So then every SUP process between staff and then getting it before us and then getting it before council is just, you know, kind of recreating every piece.
And while we want to do that specific to each property without the full knowledge of really what these modular data centers are and what they actually do with regard to noise, with regard to the environment.
I mean, that's the kind of information that we need that would help us then when we do want welcome these to, you know, if we welcome these to our city.
We'll just have a better way of working with a developer and a better way to process these requests.
Certainly the data world is not getting smaller. This is a definite thing and it's not going away. It saves companies money. It is. It's a thing. I think we need to understand it better before we make the recommendation before us.
So with that, is there any further discussion? If not, the motion on the floor is to refer this to the DCRC. I'll call for a vote on the board.
That motion carries five zero. That will move us to our planning and zoning commission matrix. And I'm going to give the floor at the moment to Tina.
Thank you. Chairwoman. So with respect to it was brought to my attention that I failed to achieve one objective that the last time I gave this presentation to you and that was discussion regarding previous action taken by city council on some of the development cases that they've considered here recently in addition to if there's any discussion on the on the matrix itself.
So going back and looking at past agendas. So back on September 14th, I know city council had considered the zoning amendment to the DDC or Denton development code to address the height correction that needed to take place for the H I district.
So city council did approve that DDC amendment.
We also had back on the 21st of September, city council approved a plan development district request for horizontal multifamily living request.
This was over there on Bonnie Bray just south of US 77. I believe the applicant was the Christopher Todd development project. So that did get approved.
Then the Robertson forplex rezoning has had an interesting process. But but it was originally supposed to be considered on the 21st and council was having some challenges that evening with technology.
So they had postponed that to the 28th. They made a motion and it was approved four to three for and zoning district at that meeting. Then at the subsequent consideration or the subsequent council meeting on October 4th, there was a request to have it.
The action or council's consideration reconsidered and due to lack of emotion, the reconsidering did not move forward. So the MN zoning prevails and ends up being the approved zoning for that particular development.
We also had another zoning case that was scheduled for consideration that we were having to re notice for the 10 19 meeting. If you recall, there was the rezoning request for single related to single family residential property.
I haven't spent the no gas rezoning, but it was over at Miller Road and near Mosh Branch Road. And so that one has not made it to council and will be moving forward on the 19th. So those are the more recent cases that have crossed the dais in your consideration.
But I offer that update to you. And then with respect to the matrix itself, Commissioner Smith, you had requested us give consideration on the organization of items on the planning and zoning commission agenda. So we took that to heart and how we organized the agenda this evening.
So we will continue to do so and move forward with that. So hopefully that was met to the satisfaction of the commission this evening and and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Well, if I could just on the note of an agenda and thank you for organizing it as such. Could we I don't know where the disconnect was in today's item agenda.
But can we please make sure we have legal look over our agenda before we take the time that we've taken and just about get to a vote on something and then it has to be pulled out from under us.
I mean, it's I mean, we look awful in front of the applicant. For one thing, it's also a complete waste of time that none of us have enough of.
So I'm not sure what the disconnect was, but please let's try to vet that the best we can, because that was incredibly embarrassing. And I I would rather not have it repeated.
I understand and can totally respect your comments on that. I feel the same. And also because of the delay, it causes the applicant. So we'll definitely make sure that we continue to work with our legal team.
And if there's any question regarding any potential notification situations and or the fact that the public hearing was closed on how that affects an application also is moving forward.
I appreciate that. Thank you. Our apologies for that, but we'll make sure we stay on top of that. OK, so we are on the matrix discussion to add to the matrix commission for it.
Yeah, nothing to add to the matrix. Just a question. I think earlier this year, sometime around the May, June time frame, we had an update that said that the the fiscal analysis tool would be coming before us in work session sometime in August.
And I completely understand there's been many changes in the department since then. So it'd be nice to know, you know, what the process is and how soon we think that might be coming forward.
Sure thing. We can bring that back and have a discussion on that. Just yeah, just an update to know when to expect it. OK, yes, absolutely. Thank you. Commissioner Smith.
I just want to echo chairs comments about the the motion on the floor and us putting up in the last second there. That wasn't wasn't wasn't a viable motion because the public hearing was closed.
And just to carry on to that, the conversation we just had on that last item with a motion being made after the public hearing was closed by the chair and then a recommendation that possibly a postponement on a public hearing item like that.
Those types of recommendations might end up having more of those types of issues in the future.
Where, you know, a referral down to the DCRC makes sense in that scenario. But if we were to postpone to date on certain a change to the city, city initiated DDC amendment might make it's where it needs to be re re noticed republished again.
I think that's where we can have those issues come up. So I just want to echo the chair's comments and bring that to attention to. So thank you.
Thanks, Commissioner Smith. Um, anything else for the matrix.
Tina, if I could add, you know, with our discussion today with regard to emergency vehicles sound and all of that. Do you think there's a way that maybe we could have a work session with with someone from from emergency services that just maybe discusses
what we discussed today, like, you know, if, if, if the firehouse is adjacent to a residential neighborhood. I mean, if we could have maybe a short presentation on on that on what the noise level is, I think that would help us going forward in the future.
Plus, it would be an interesting, I think, work session item, at least, I think it would be.
So a work session discussion regarding operational considerations that the fire department employees when adjacent to residential developments.
Well, not only residential but yeah, I mean that well because and noise in general yes residential namely but yes noise in general.
Yeah, chair, if I may, Commissioner Perot. I think having it broader might might be good to it's not often that we hear from our emergency services personnel, and we make many decisions that impact them.
I think some history on this maybe a year to a year and a half ago there was a, I'm going to miss remember the actual name of it but there was some sort of review specifically for fire services on their needs in the future and their operation as far as response
times and that sort of thing. And most of what we see when we see applications is a judgment of whether we fit within an eight minute response time, but I think adding some more
background to what the fire services personnel really want to see in the city.
Beyond just that hard requirement would be helpful.
Yeah, thank you, Commissioner Perot. Yeah, I think if we just invite a work session with emergency services they can kind of figure out.
I think how the, how the discussion can go the presentation can go and then we can ask them questions.
I don't think, I don't think it has to be narrowed down to a specific thing but we'll tell you what we understand what you're asking, and we'll invite them to come and make a presentation, we will need to provide some level of specificity
for purposes of posting the agenda, and, and to help focus the conversation but you're definitely willing to work with them and have that conversation, or at least invite them to come to have the conversation with the commission.
Okay, thank you. Also, I guess this isn't for the matrix as much as it is. Let me put this out there, but I'm getting maybe the horizontal multifamily living discussion on.
Maybe on the top of the agenda to as far as making it easier for these developments like whether that be included in multifamily in the code or I'm not sure. And we might actually even have that on the matrix already.
Okay, to have a further discussion about the horizontal multi living yet just so that maybe everything's not a PD, like it has to be now which is fine. But maybe we streamline it.
So maybe we have that discussion so we can get things moving along with that.
And more for the matrix. That brings us to concluding items. Anyone have any concluding items.
I will just ask a question. Do we know if we're ever going to get back in the work session room.
That is a good question. We can follow up on that.
I'll tell you the reason I asked I mean that's going to be two in two meetings in a row where we really don't have time for dinner when we're in the work session room we actually can take a break and still have our meeting.
I mean staff didn't get dinner. Most of us didn't get dinner and again I mean we're not just here for dinner and I understand that but if we can get back into the work session room that might just offer our work session a little bit more flexibility with regard to that.
And so we're not wasting food as well that Selena's ordering for us. So yeah, let me check with the manager's office on on what our protocol is on that and we can follow up with the commission. Awesome. Thank you very much on that.
And I guess with that I will just say welcome Hillary to the dance. Nice to have you here and thank you for being here.
And with that I will close our meeting at eight forty three p.m. Thank you everyone.