Nov 04, 2015 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2015-11-04 5:00 PM

Commission work session. This meeting has been duly posted and we have a quorum present and I'm going to call the work session to order at five o'clock. Our first item this evening is going to be to receive clarification of agenda items and I'll turn to Manal for the presentation of those. Thank you Commissioner Strange. We're going to go ahead and start with our plots. We have two plots on the consent agenda and Mike Bell is going to present them and explain why they're before us tonight. Yeah these might look familiar to you. We've seen this plat before. It was previously approved by the P&Z but it turns out that the owner of this parcel here actually had ownership claim to a strip of about 30 feet in between where Alamo Place ends and where they want to extend it. So the developer had to go purchase that 30 feet and now they've included in this plat and are dedicating it as public right of way. So the whole purpose of this was just to dedicate this little patch a public right of way. But nothing else has changed. It is in the historic district so they'll be coming before the HLC to do any building permits. Mike would you just go over access on how these lots will be accessed? Yes sure. These six plots here facing Oak Street will get access directly from Oak Street but through shared access driveways and then these four lots in the back will get each get their own access off of the Alamo Place cul-de-sac. Commissioner back. Thank you. What is block A? Is that just for maybe future use to break down into smaller lots or has that got a purpose now? No the entire subdiv ision is block A. So if they were typical symbology for plats is if there's a road way dividing two pieces of property one be block A and one be block B and each lot within that block has a number. So block A lot 1 through 10, block B lot 1 through 10. Okay so they can be broken down into smaller plots. Thanks. For clarification. Commissioner Rossell. Were you speaking specifically of the larger lot 10 within block A? Yes. Block A yeah the big. You're speaking specifically of lot 10. Is there a reason why lot 10 is so much more sizable? This is the original owner and he's keeping it for himself. Gotcha. Thank you Mike and then of course this is the preliminary plot and then you have the final plot that follows. We're just hearing them. We also have we can move forward with our SUP request a specific use permit for a multifamily development. Mike is going to walk us through this one and address all the questions that you may have regarding this request. Thank you. This is S- 15-9 for McKinney Denton Apartments. It is a request for a specific use permit so essentially it's a request to allow this specific use in this district and the request is for a multifamily development. The developer is NRP Apartments. They're doing this in cooperation with the Denton Housing Authority. Will be 100% subsidized units. No market rate units as part of the low income housing tax credit. The subject property is shown here in yellow on the south side of McKin ney Street. This is Woodrow here to the west. It is a 16 acre site heavily forested. You know McKinney Street is currently a two-lane undivided roadway. To the left we have the DME substation. Some of y'all sell that SUP and then further to the left is the recently approved SUP for the majestic at McKinney Apart ments. To the south down here is property that's undeveloped but it's zoned for single-family. To the west there's actually a parcel in between the subject property and then Mack Park and it's undeveloped but zoned for mixed-use. It has the same zoning as our site of NRMU. And then to the north their collection of properties Mack Park, the Summerwind single-family neighborhood. There's a law office here. F ountains of Denton apartment complex, some single-family and then a small patch of mixed-use zoning that's also undeveloped. As I stated the current zoning is NRMU. This whole site used to be with the 2002 citywide rezoning was all NRMU 12 and in the past we had a developer come in who wanted to develop the site in 2008 and he rezoned it all to NRMU and actually had an SUP for multi-family approved but he never developed and so our code says if you didn't develop within two years it's expired so that SUP has expired and now that's why we need a new one. Completely new developer, completely new applicants, completely new project. This is the site plan here. I'll break it down for you in just a minute but there are 11 apartment buildings that consist of 322 units. They have two community centers and some amenities, business center, fitness center, pool, after-school program. The applicants for Denton Housing Authority or the representatives for Denton Housing Authority and the developer will go into a little bit more about the programming. They should be here for the regular session so if you have questions about how their operations are going to run I would like to leave that for them and I'll answer the specific site plan related questions. There are several building types. There are three type A which are three story buildings with 30 units each. Two type B buildings also with three stories with 30 units each. One type C three stories with 12 units. Two type D buildings two stories with 10 units. There are two type E buildings these were very similar at first. We worked with the applicant to change up their elev ations so they were they'll look different from the street and those are also two stories with 12 units and then lastly they had to go vertical four stories 116 units in this one and this was probably their biggest change from their original application because there are a large number of trees which are going to in a minute but they had to go vertical so they could preserve the amount of trees they needed to meet our tree code. And lastly there's two amenity centers shown here and here as well as they did provide 35 bike racks one for each building and then they also provided some enhanced sidewalk along the street which I'll go to in here in a minute as well. I'm not going to show you all the elevations but these are generally what all the buildings are going to look like. This kind of design style with stucco and the stone and wood s iding or hardy board siding. Generally they'll all follow this design scheme. I did provide the actual elevations in your backup in case you have questions on that. In terms of access it is located off McKinney Street which is a two- lane undivided roadway owned and maintained by TexDOT. It's currently planned to be widened to a four-lane divided road. Current date is anticipated 2018 that could get pushed back further. Because it is a, I should go back and say that currently the capacity of McKinney Street is about 9,000 trips per day and recent counts by the city estimated we're about 14,000 trips per day so it already is kind of over capacity as it stands but we do anticipate that once it's widened it'll hold about 24,000 which is enough to hold this development as well as Majestic and the other developments along McKinney. But in the meantime to kind of mitigate some of those impacts the applicant will be required to construct a left turn lane in this location to turn into the site as well as a right turn lane in McKinney and this aligns with the future median opening once it's widened. The purpose of this is that we can keep the through traffic flowing, people aren't stacked waiting to turn left and people are waiting behind them who intend to go straight. And the secondary access is on the west side this will be emergency access only. The reason for that is in the current state is just two yellow stripes on the road and we want to force people to use these turn lanes as well as they didn't align with the drive across the street. When the road is widened there'll be a median here with no median opening and so at that time it can be changed into a full right in right out for the residents to use. Like we said 2018 so it may be just a temporary situation. Here's the landscape plan a little. Can I just ask you a question for clarification purposes? You said that there was going to be a right turn lane and that was a condition that you're placing but I don't see it in your conditions here is it just the first one where it has to substantially comply with the site plan? No I believe in the recommendations at the bag it states there are four criteria. Are you seeing in recommendation section? Yes. Number? Number three is the emergency access but we do need to include this element as well. Well turn lanes are required if I'm plotting. It wasn't really something that we they're gonna build now. The reason we put the western access in there for a condition is so that when people pull the ordinance they know it's there it's not hidden it's not a surprise if say this train changes hands and another developer wants to build it and they say we didn't know it 's had to be emergency only. Well it's clearly written in the ordinance everybody will know. But you're saying that the right lane needs to be added to the conditions? No. I just want to make sure for a vote time. Because of the requirements that they're going to have to follow again this site plan is tied to the SSUP so that is reflected there and with the plotting and with the engineering requirements they have to meet that. What we're conditioning is the emergency access that it will be it's a temporary access and so should the conditions once the conditions change from McKinney Street there will be a change and so when people do research for recordation purposes they know what happened with that. Yeah it's important to clarify this is a requirement anyway so we're asking you to make it a condition but really we're asking for that reason just so it's stated in the ordinance everybody knows it's there but if you don't approve the condition it's a requirement anyway so it's really just to benefit everybody in the long run. Going back here's the landscape plan I'll zoom in on this a little bit. As I said this is a heavily forested site they completely redesigned their site a number of times to work with the trees. Here in this kind of light green are all the trees that are existing on site that they're preserving and they've clumped a large number of trees here in the open space around building F, around the playground and the pool, along the open space this area and along McKinney Street as well as they've incorporated where they can into the buffers that are required. You can see it as a large amount trees. Our tree code requirements are not in canopy acreage it's by cal per inch so this may seem like it's you know based on the entire site being an aerial looks like it's a lot of trees when they're clustered close together there may be a lot of inches right next to each other and so they 're meeting the inch requirement even though when you look at it in an aerial the canopy may not seem like it's 20% or whatever does that does that make sense to you? Yeah so one of the questions I had... Commissioner Bruegel. Thank you thank you Mr. Chair. So I had I had emailed earlier today to ask specifically about the trees and I think I saw somewhere in the narrative that they were going to exceed the tree requirements for this development. Can you can you get into that a little bit more? Yes they are required to preserve a certain amount of trees in cal per inches based on the number of existing trees on site. They can also choose to to remove half of those if they pay into the tree fund but they're not even going to use that option they're going to preserve above the minimum amount that is required by our tree code and they design their site specifically around those trees because it would have been very expensive to cut them down. They could have took they could have cut down more honestly and paid for them but it was going to be very expensive. So the trees that they are cutting down are smaller and they don't have to pay for those or they don't have to mitigate? They do they do anything under six inches they don't have to mitigate but there are some between six and 18 that are certain species that are less expensive to mitigate than others. It's kind of a complicated formula. I can say that they work diligently to save as many trees as possible. If we if we want to I can probably delve a little deeper into the tree preservation plan that's actually the kind of next stage in the process we didn't we didn't count every single tree for this site today we just did inventory and they just showed us where they were saving. That really comes with the final plat when we actually dig down deeper in the numbers and give you an actual percentage. Okay so you're saying that they they're preserving more trees than they're necessarily required to with this and then with this the smaller trees they are and whatever trees they are cutting down they are paying into the tree fund in addition? Correct there's just preservation requirement and a mitigation requirement. They are required to preserve so many amount of trees for certain species. They are meeting that preservation and actually going to exceed it. There are other species where if you cut them down you have to pay for them. It's not you don't have to preserve a certain amount of them. If you cut them down you pay for them and all the ones that they are moving in that category they are paying for. Or planning back on site. And then the very small ones that are less than six inches those don't have to be paid? Correct. Okay thank you . Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. Let me get back on hers. Once they're in there are they responsible for maintaining the trees, making sure they're trimmed properly, watching for disease and stuff like that? Yes they are and they are required to irrigate them for three years and we can go out and do inspections on that anytime. Okay thanks. Then maybe let me show you the next slide here before if we have more questions. So the light green trees on here are what they're preserving from the existing trees on site and in addition to that they're also planning a substantial number of trees along the streets. They do have a 15 foot buffer to the substation on the east and a 10 foot buffer to the residential zoning on the south. So they're actually exceeding the tree canopy coverage requirements for the zoning district as well and the reason for all these trees is our code requires private street system with street trees for multi-family development and so you can see all the trees around the street that they in combination with the existing trees that they've provided. So it's very heavily treed. They also saved a bunch of trees along McKinney Street and kind of routed their sidewalk through them to make it more scenic and pretty and it's a little bit wider sidewalk. That was something that we kind of when we met with them initially we said you know there's been problems on McKinney with sidewalks maybe a little bit further east but you know it's addressed the problem here as well. And Mike are there? Commissioner Bruegel. Thank you chair. Oh I'm sorry did I jump in Andrew? You got the floor. Thank you. Are there are there many trees on the west side of the west side of that property? I don't recall seeing many on the area. I was just kind of curious. I'll go back to the area we can show you. There's like it's patchy right through here. Okay. So they're really preserving the bulk amount right here and what's great is a lot of times we see people shoving to the corner and they're not really usable. These guys actually designed them into their open spaces so the residents can use them. So we thought that was great. Thank you. I'm sorry Commissioner Bruegel. Commissioner Bruegel. Thank you. I have a question about new tree planting. It might be ignorant. What is the requirement for a new tree? Is this a certain inch that has to be planted or it could it be a seed or how does that work for new trees? I want to say it's a two inch tree. I can confirm that for you. You're required to plant a young tree that way it grows into a more mature size. Okay. Thank you. All right if there's no more questions on the landscape plan. Just the comprehensive plan does call this area shown here in black as moderate residential. That's a change from what it previously was. It was more neighborhood mixed-use and now with the compound we wanted to add more density downtown and within the loop and so this was one of the few large undeveloped areas in town that we could squeeze in some moderate residential. So that's why it changed. Also we have a center at McKinney and Woodrow and a center at McKinney and Loop and so just having a neighborhood strip we could kind of lead towards strip development. So that was kind of the purpose of changing this. Now moderate residential is typically single -family six to twelve units per acre but the DIN plan does say that apartments could be allowed as long as they're high quality design and maintained well. So it's this one is a little bit higher I think it's about 20 units per acre if you you count it but it's well below the 30 that's permitted in the current zoning district that they're entitled to now until the zoning is changed. So I think it's a it's a fair compromise between the two. Just some considerations we did review the site plan landscape and elevations they are compliant with all requirements the DDC and no nu isances are anticipated. We did preliminary review of public infrastructure and determine the site will be served adequately with transportation, water, sewer, drainage. We talked on this a little bit but we did they did design the site to reserve existing trees. The minimum tree code requirements will be met or exceeded and again we'll determine exact numbers upon platting. That's to be determined. They did provide bicycle and pedestrian facilities. They provided a wider six foot side of Oklahoma Kini as well as 35 bike racks. It is moderate residential but like as I said it is a fair balance between the current zoning and the future land use plan. We'll be required to construct turn lanes to mitigate any access or mitigate any transportation issues until McKinney is widen ed and we're going to have that access point on the west to be emergency only. Lastly the Dinton Plan 30 has a lot of providing your backup a lot of information about the shortage of affordable housing in Dinton. I'll let Dinton Housing Authority can really elaborate that a lot more so we have a big shortfall and this site was was chosen by Dinton Housing Authority for several specific reasons. Again I'm gonna let them elaborate on them on that more than I can but the site was specifically chosen for several reasons. Lastly we did like are they going to do that presentation here in work session or in it was our intent that they be here for work session perhaps they got caught in traffic or something and are late but if they come in maybe we can squeeze it in. Okay thank you. We did send out notices to property owners been 200 feet and the physical address has been 500 feet. I did provide you with the one response that we got today but they didn't list the address that was within 200 feet. I got that today so I'll do a little research and I could probably find out who it is but I don't have it on the map because the form was incomplete. We'll do a little digging on that. Based on the consideration. Another question Mike. Was there any feedback from Majestic since they have been recently approved? I know they're in the 500 feet but not the 200. I know they can't. I'm not aware of any. Okay so no feedback from them whatsoever. Okay thank you. And lastly just based on everything I've covered and the considerations listed in your staff report we do recommend approval subject to the following conditions. One that the site plan shall substantially comply with or that the development shall comply with the site plan landscape plan provided. The maximum number of units shall be capped at 322 units. In restating the western access is for emergency access only until the street is widened and the median is installed. And lastly we would like to add a condition that the building facades facing McKinney Street shall have a minimum of 60% masonry building materials and that gables windows doors and related trim may be excluded from this percentage. That's that's standard code language. Our minimum requirement in the code is 40. We'd like to dress that up a little bit on McKinney and do 60%. And Mike we've spoken to the applicant about this. That's correct. And they're amenable to this commission. I'll ask one other question on that. Is that similar to what we did with majestic or this above and beyond what we required of them? I have to look into that I'm not sure we did from majestic. I think they exceeded on certain they were higher. If I'm not mistaken. Yes. Okay follow-up question. Why if our code is 40% are we requesting that they do 60? To enhance the I'll show you the sides facing McKinney. So this is an example of a side facing McKinney. What the comp plan stresses is high quality materials for buildings and moderate for apartments and moderate residential. We initially met with them we wanted to enhance the entire side up to 60% and they said you know well they had cost concerns with the knob trees they have to save as well. And so we said okay well I think the most important side is that we get it on McKinney Street enhance that visual corridor along McKinney. Provide a little bit more stone a little less stucco and siding. So that was really the request. Well I guess thank you for the answer. I'll follow up my question again. If our code says 40 why are we requiring 60? Mike if you'd allow me to answer that question. We have had several meetings with the applicant to discuss their elevations and we have worked through many iterations of elevations because the facade the front facades there were concerns where they weren't complying with the ordinance in terms of relief and providing that relief to those elevations. Secondly when you look at the congregation and the conglomeration of the buildings we needed to provide the additional relief and to reflect this as a prize project as well. And we sat and we discussed with the applicant and in order to provide the relief especially along McKinney Street we suggested we said could you consider increasing the masonry requirement and they looked at it and they thought about it and they were amenable to that. And that's why it wasn't staff's recommendation saying you must comply with this we actually had discussion on what do we do with the elevations how do we break the elevations up how do we decrease the monotony of the building elevations. So the code does require that you have relief in these elevations and it was just through conversation that we came up with the 60% so it was in constant communication with the applicant. If I can kind of just summarize I guess what I heard the compromise to go from 40 to 60 has more to do with the elevation that they presented based upon more of an aesthetic how it overall looks and staff's opinion was that there wasn't enough relief and how the elevations were and so rather than them redesigning the project to provide that to meet staff's interpretation or opinion of that they elected to trade off to upgrade from 40 to 60 percent the building materials and accomplish the look by upgrading the materials rather than redesigning the architectural part of the building. We didn't want them to have to go back and do numerous iterations just to try to meet the intent of the ordinance so we worked together to come up with a solution. I think that's a good solution and that answers my question as to why we required obviously an entity that's trying to provide services at a cost-effective manner to go from 40 to 60. It makes us not in my opinion sound good to require them to go from 40 to 60 when our code requires 40 but the explanation makes that more to me reasonable as to why that's taking place so thank you for the explanation. Commissioner Hertzmith. Thank you. First I am I'm excited about this project just because one it's in my neck of woods and two for someone to put something next to a substation you know is promising. My question is the and just as an aside because I think this maybe jump-starts that area what is the access to that the large area behind it but how does that become developed what's the access to it I see kind of a path on the other side so what is that never eat so the east side of the substation but I'm not sure how that works. Sure and I'm gonna pull up our mobility plan here for you because I don 't have a map big enough far enough out but the short answer is that Dutchess Drive to the south is going to extend between lip 288 and Woodrow and now provide the primary access to those properties so I'll turn on the zoning so you can see what we're referencing so the NRMU here is our subject property it's our site and if I turn don't do that sorry if I turn on the mobility plan here you'll see Dutchess Drive extending to the south off from Woodrow to look 288 and that would be their primary access. And then another question so they're putting in the sidewalk does that get lost when they widen McKinney and then replaced what is the the plan for sort of putting in the sidewalk McKinney's obviously gonna go you know double its size I'm assuming that gobbles up the sidewalk is text art committed to not that we haven't say so I'm just curious what's the the plan after it's widened for the sidewalk correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the plans have a sidewalk in them that text out was gonna build since there's already be a sidewalk here they'll either move it or try to design where they can keep it is that correct girl so the plans are to have a sidewalk either way text on if they if this development come in text out was gonna build it well but I guess my question is will the sidewalk they're putting in survive the street widening that's that's a question I honestly don't have the answer to it may be impacted by the widening we can what's probably gonna be more in fact not the writing of the widening of the road but the movement of utilities further outside of the road when they have to remove some trees to to do those utilities but that's standard with any easement along all our text off right away Commissioner Rozelle thank you a couple questions about the mobility plan in terms of traffic it says in the information no date has been set for the widening of this project regarding McKinney I thought I heard a 2018 was this confirmed that text lots plans are always three years out so the current date is 2018 but they can typically push back and push back and push back so no firm date like no the design plans haven't been bated out to contractors to start building in 2018 that's just the tentative date and then can you speak to 4,000 strips per day on a road over the capacity of 9,000 that sounds like a significant amount to me is that deemed a significant amount of extra traffic or is that is that feasible I have a question because there's a fire station not a half a mile to the east of this property and if so if there's a lot of traffic build up on this road specifically that is the main thoroughfare for station two and so I have some concerns about how that looks our engineering manager is over here so he probably better to answer that than I would the 4,000 excess amount of traffic it's not really a major concern there is some fluff when we say a street has a capacity of a certain amount and the actual traffic is a little bit above that the key issues really is the auxiliary lanes to keep that traffic away from the through lanes and so when we when we look at a development we look into that in terms of possible mitigation items to to compensate for the impact that they 're going to have on those travel lanes and also on we also evaluate intersections as well because those are the major bottleneck areas whether it be that turn lane movements or the intersections so it's not a really a concern in terms of the through lane traffic in terms of capacity okay and I'm not sure this is a question for you or mr. Bell is the apartments required to have both a right and left turn lane on exiting because it seems like a left turn across McKin ney could be created back up so is there a way that someone could turn right directly from the property I didn't I don't know on the site map if it exists in the property or entering the property exiting so if someone's come out and there's a car needing to turn left across traffic with the car behind them be able to turn right instead of waiting or is there gonna be a backup into the apartment complex there will most likely be a backup I don't know if you have a copy of a site plan but there is there are two lanes exiting the site one for right turn movements and one for left okay perfect thank you Commissioner back thank you chair first let me commend the staff on the way they put this together I had questions as I started going through it and before I got done they were all answered so excellent job and I assume y'all always do that but I just I need to highlight some kudos thank you the only thing I didn't find and I thought you're gonna hit on it when you talked about the widening of the wall and now I see the trees are gonna be there too at night that darkens that area are they required to do any extra lighting along that walkway for nighttime or is there ample lighting there now yes and what we'll do at the building permit stage it's a little bit too detailed for this stage but we do have requirements for lighting for pedestrian areas a minimum of I believe it's one of states of foot and a half one and a half foot candles of all pedestrian areas and so the street lights will be provided either by them or potentially by textile at some point okay good thank you Commissioner Hatchbeth thank you chair and I think just to touch on your concern I I think well I know I know read that they're putting a park in on the property so I'm assuming that too they'll illuminate the area for that purpose as well just so their safety of their residents get into the park so I think a lot of that will be captured there as well if you all just information we have in our code a requirement for minimum requirement for where you have pedestrian areas sidewalks parking areas and then we have a maximum lighting at the property lines that there's not too bright to impact adjacent neighbors so that's the balance of the two all right any other questions for staff that takes care of those I guess we have one other item it looks like it's to be continued yes the amendment to the razor ranch overlay district that item will be continued to the November 18th planning and zoning Commission meeting do we need to have a motion for that no course I'd already been taking care of continued to the next meeting we don't need to do anything on that we're going to cover the project matrix or we're going to come back up here to the work session report if I can go back to the work session report the Commission would choose I just wanted to note that there's an item to discuss regarding the planning and zoning Commission city initiated rezoning committee we provide some informational information for the PNC specifically indicating or iterating what the roles and responsibilities would be Ron if you wouldn't mind just a brief two minute update on what we're anticipating and can be when we'll be convening and all the sure thank you for the opportunity really sounds like or looks like Commissioner Rizal since you're the only member that's up committee you can make all the decisions the opportunity tonight is related to let the Commission know that we're going to be meeting soon at that meeting we'll go over the roles and responsibilities we'll also select the chair and vice chair and also start beginning work on identifying some locations which staff has already developed some ideas and some locations that we would like to target with the help of the subcommittee we can hopefully move forward when we meet at that meeting the subcommittee will be making recommendations to the planning zoning Commission so that we come back with a rezoning effort that the Commission can then recommend to City Council for their ultimate decision and approval of that ordinance really don't have any more than that maybe a question to the Commission I may have to reach out to the individual subcommittee members to find out what time and date they would prefer to meet I know some of them specifically commutes from Fort Worth I believe so we may have to identify a date maybe coinciding with the planning zoning Commission meeting or maybe some other date that that we can all meet and can meet on a regular basis it may not be every or twice a month maybe once a month however we can decide on on those dates so okay really since they're not here and except for you I'll probably reach out to you all individually and then we'll schedule a time for the subcommittee to convene thank you okay Commissioner Griggle thank you chair are these are these meetings of the sub committee going to be posted in accordance with the Open Meetings Act and all that yes okay yeah that was it I just was just curious because it was only three people but I guess still has to be posted okay thank you do we have anything else we're gonna close our work session we can close it unless the Commission would leave it open because the housing authority shows up to make a presentation okay we have food okay at this time it's 5 35 and the work session this time is going to be a pause for recess and for food and we will be back shortly thank you it's 6 13 and we're going to be back in session following our recess and I think we have a presentation from the housing authority thank you don't mind when you get started if you'll give us your name and address and anybody else that would like to speak after you the same thing sure sure thank you again mr. chairman members of the Commission for this time to before you tonight my name is Lance Vanzant address 512 West Hick ory Street in in Denton Texas I'm the representative of the applicant the N RP group in partnership with the Denton Housing Authority for this project that mr. Bell is summarized in his staff report and summarized for you tonight as you may know we kind of began our pre-application process in late spring early summer and filed our formal application in July for a specific use permit for our project on on McKinney Street in McKin ney Denton Denton apartments and we've been through several iterations of our of our initial plan one of the primary challenges that we'll have some some folks here that can answer specific questions if you have any one of our primary challenges for that side is if you've seen it at all you see it's a it's a really a beautiful forested area the entire 16 acre site so we've and we wanted to utilize that to our advantage to have a really a unique looking multifamily project there and protect as much of the forest canopy as we could that presented some challenges for our engineers and architects but after you know several revisions we were able I believe to really come up with a product that the city and and the clientele who will be served by the project will be really proud of I think that that was that was summarized well and in mr. Bell staff report and that was the one of the primary issues that we had to deal with but once we once we got through some of those issues it's been a it's been a really good process to go through I did want to thank Mike Bell and his staff and a lot of the departments who came to many of the review meetings it's you know any project of this size is fairly complex and we had a lot of code compliance that we had to get through and and and mr. Bell and his staff and everyone involved was just really went out of the way to if we needed a meeting on short notice we were able to get that and meet all our deadlines and we just appreciate them in working with us it was really a it was really a good process and I know that you're probably an important element of the staff report that you have before you you have a recommendation for approval with four conditions and just wanted to let the Commission know that we're we're happy to comply with those conditions so we're not we're not asking for anything inconsistent with what his staff is recommending I guess and we have a PowerPoint presentation here that I'm going to introduce N RP's representative Deborah Guerrero and and Sherry McDade with the Denton Housing Authority if either one or both of them want want to speak to this and take you through the project they can kind of describe the partnership between Denton Housing Authority and the NRP group so thank you again for your time. Good evening my name is Sherry McDade I'm the CEO for Dent on Housing Authority our address is 1225 Wilson Street I just wanted to tell you a little bit about the Housing Authority and what we've experienced with affordable housing the Housing Authority currently administers 1,526 rental vouch ers and those vouchers allow our families to search for housing within the community we're currently the families use those vouchers to pay about 30% of their income towards their renting utilities and we're about 95 to 98 percent leased up on that program excuse me the Housing Authority also owns and operates two senior housing properties which is about 138 units total we have a newly built Renaissance Court which is a low-income housing tax credit property that's 150 units that's on Roodale Street and if some of you may remember that property replaced the old Phoenix apartments that was there and again that property is at about a hundred percent leased up we've been continuing to serve the community for the last 45 years by providing housing and housing assistance and this summer we opened up our waiting list for one week and we received over 3,500 applications for assistance over 1,700 of those applicants or families had a preference which is they were elderly handicapped or disabled they were a veteran they were homeless or they were a victim of domestic violence and so as you can see there is a big need for housing here in Denton we continue to look for ways to expand our housing stock and our programs and one way for us to do that is to build or develop affordable housing along with partners like NRP group they are a professional development company that assist housing authorities and building and developing affordable housing and the main thing is to building it's building quality affordable housing and making it affordable for low-income families and the community one problem that we're having with our section 8 program is when families are looking for rental housing it's hard to find a landlord that will accept the voucher and then once they find that it's hard for them to come up with security deposits and also for the rents to be within the fair market rent that the voucher program that will cover so this development will assist us in helping those families but also the many families that are on our waiting list and so we just ask for your support and your approval of our permit to do the development and I'll answer any questions that you may have. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair I just like to make one comment I the Dent housing authorities come a long way. Yes sir. In fact I was one of the first section 8 inspectors back in the early 80s. Norm Schroeder was the director and we officed out of what's the Cracker Barrel store over on Bell and Coronado. I've heard that story. So you guys have grown and you've done an outstanding job. Thank you very much. Thank you. Commissioner Bruegel. Thank you chair. This is a really exciting project it really is. Thank you. Can you elaborate a bit on why these particular 16 acres were chosen for the site given that there are the challenges with the future widening of McKinney the fact that it's next to a substation that's a heavily treed why this particular site? For a housing authority to even be able to find a piece of land in the city of Denton that meets all the qualifications for the low-income housing tax credits that's one of the big things for us so NRP came to us with the site already in hand. The housing authority has for the last five years tried to develop other sites that we currently own here in town and we've not been able to meet the criteria for the low-income housing tax credit to even qualify for and so when they came to us and already had the site that worked much better for us. Another question too about the attendance at Lee Elementary and I see that Dr. Wilson you could have a great lineup here of letters of support great job. But I was kind of curious how that might impact the attendance at Lee Elementary usually when we see cases of large-scale projects like this there's something in the backup that will say you know there's going to be projected these many students at these particular schools and I didn't see anything that like that in the backups I just wanted you to talk about I'm sure you've been in conversation with the principal there at Lee Elementary how's this going to affect attendance there? If I'm not mistaken Lee Elementary is not the elementary school it would be it would be Rivera Tomas Rivera and and my developers do have some information for you regarding the school school district so I'm sorry. That's all right and I'm sorry I got that school wrong. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Good evening my name is Deborah Guerrero I work with the N RP group and we are very proud to be in partnership with the Denton Housing Authority on this particular development and do I just press oh good and just to let you know a little bit about ourselves. Yes ma'am. My name is Deborah Guerrero San Antonio Texas 200 Concord Plaza Suite 900 San Antonio sorry. Again I'm with the NRP group my colleague Jason Arrechiga is here as well as our entire team that have been working on this development very proud of our partnership with the Denton Housing Authority. The NRP group we've been here in Texas for over 11 years we've built over 10,000 units in Texas our company itself was created back in 1995 that's when it was founded but we got smart and came down here I was already here so they came to me but this is where all the growth is in southwest of the United States and we really felt like this was a great opportunity to bring in a quality company into Texas. Since 2004 NRP group has developed over 2100 units of affordable housing in partnership with Texas Housing Authorities and we're very proud of that because we provide not only development services quality construction and quality management and as you know management is really the key to a lot of this not only do you create a sustainable development construction wise but then you need to make sure that it's managed properly. The good thing is that all three of those entities are under one umbrella. Again as Sherry just mentioned with over 3,000 families on the waiting list we felt that it was a great opportunity to partner with Denton Housing Authority why we chose this particular site it was zoned with the exception of course going through this process for the specific use permit. It is its proximity to amenities is absolutely fantastic especially for the families living there. When we did visit with the school districts and in fact one of the commission ers Miss English here was was very instrumental in that. They were very supportive I mean they were supportive of it as long as we met the characteristics that they outlined and ordinarily just to answer your question on the number of school-aged children that usually live in our residence we average about one per unit school-aged children because we do see that a lot of our families are young families with kids that that haven't yet gone to school and we have a lot of seniors too so so that's why it averages about one per unit . What we are proposing over here on 2105 East McKinney are 322 units at a cost of about 45 million dollars in investment 44.6 but I'll round up. It'll include one to four bedroom units with rents ranging from 569 to 1,035 a month. We do another reason that this particular site was located is because of the financing. It lies within a qualified census tract which allows us to boost up the amount of equity that can we can receive to actually finance a community like this. So that's another reason that this particular site was selected. We as Lance mentioned we've been working very closely with your city staff to be consistent with the city code. We've taught we we worked really hard to make sure that we were consistent with the letter and spirit of your plan and your guidelines and one of our highest priorities was preserving so many of the existing trees and we did that in by where we located and sited buildings the way that we had our parking lots and driveways meander through the site and and just I'm sure a lot of other a lot of other ways that that Mike will go into in more detail later but we're very proud that we were able to to keep so many trees and honestly not only because we wanted to exceed the tree ordinance but because it makes for a nice property it makes for a nice place for families to live. Sorry we're also more than just housing as Sherry mentioned there are so many families that are really just looking for a great place to live for their kids so we provide more than just a roof over their heads. We have a number of amenities or it is a gated community we have a swimming pool a health and fitness center again the on-site property management we also because the Housing Authority and it was a priority of theirs added an additional community conference space an additional space for families to gather together. We have a children's playground, multiple laundry areas and again that natural green open space that's all complemented by the trees the the mature trees that exist there. We have a business center that is available to and equipped with Wi-Fi computers and printers that are available to our residents free of charge and we also have a resident service program because again it's more than just housing it's about sometimes being able to help families when they just want to step up whether it's through financial literacy whether it's through computer training and one of our most important programs is our homework first program where we actually have somebody that's available to tutor after school every day and then even during the summer somebody that's there so that children are not left as latchkey children just at home that they have somewhere safe and that their parents know that they are somewhere safe and so we're very proud of our resident service program especially the homework first program and our community housing resource partners which provides these resident services all over the United States I'm sorry all over the state of Texas they actually connect with local entities and serve as that clearinghouse that referral service because nobody wants to replicate what you already have here we just want to connect families and people to all the great programs you have here this is a site plan that again I'm sure Mike will go into more detail about as we mentioned it's 16 acres 322 units the density is at 20 units per acre our parking ratio at 1.94 with a total number of parking spaces 626 and a total bike parking of 35 again community support because that's absolutely essential in in any development that's coming into neighborhoods we we just we just built upon the goal of DHA which was to meet the need of working families in the city of Denton and to provide quality affordable housing through their board meetings through meetings with elected and community leaders and a formal public meeting we provided information about the development and we've received letters of support from the United Way friends of the family Denton County MHMR and Denton ISD as was mentioned previously and and and as we mentioned the students the the children of the residents the students will be attending Tomas Rivera elementary school Betty Myers middle school and Ryan High School again we want to thank staff for working with us so closely and we are proud to be here as a member of a partnership with the Denton Housing Authority and we're asking the city of Denton now to join us in supporting excellent housing opportunities and we're asking you to approve our specific use permit and we actually have our engineers and architects here to answer any questions you might have as well as anybody else from the Denton Housing Authority and from the NRP group thank you thank you any questions Commissioner Beck thank you chair that those rent figures you gave this does that include any utilities at all or is that just strictly rent that's strictly rent okay but all the other amenities you were talking about the services and everything that's free I mean that's part of what you provide absolutely okay absolutely very good thank you not nothing is at an additional cost no parking no anything else Commissioner H ussbaston thank you chair I just have a general question I'm not sure if it's but with respect how will the once it's built how the is there a selection process is it that current residents will get an option to transition how's that going to be managed I'm going to let Sherry address that but just in general though what happens is because of fair housing everybody anybody that wants to live there can come and apply there's an application process and everybody has to go through anybody that's over 18 in any unit even if they're not the name on the lease they they have to go through a criminal background check they have to go through a credit check and they have to make at least two and a half times the amount of rent I mean that because these are for this is for working families this is not any public housing free housing I mean this is working working families and people and so so they'll they'll go through that screening process now Sherry can speak more specifically to how the vouchers work but those vouchers are counted towards the income towards that two and a half times two and a half time need a requirement for the rent a family who's a current voucher holder they will be able to move into this development but they would still have to meet those same guidelines and qualifications in order to move in so it's the same background check on everyone and we're not going to take the first 322 people from the top of the waiting list again it's whoever it's open for anyone in the community to apply for but Commissioner Hotspeth will be able to go to them though and market and we can specifically market along with Denton Housing Authority to those very families so that they know the minute everything opens up that they can come and apply how the opportunity to apply probably before other folks know about it sure sure okay thank you sure yes Commissioner back for sure thank you chair I meant to ask you all ago will y'all have an on-site manager 24/7 and what about security yes there will be on-site management at the property there won't be on-site security but there'll be there it's a gated community and so one proper one at our property and Renaissance courts we have a police officer who actually lives in a unit so that's something that we'll probably look into also yes we have courtesy officer programs and and some of our other residential communities and that's something we definitely would want to work with housing authority to create that opportunity great thank you very much thank you thank you it is 633 and that's our final presentation in our work session so we're gonna close the work session again at 633 and we'll reconvene in council chambers thank you good evening and welcome to the city of Denton planning and zoning Commission for November 4th 2015 it is 643 this meeting has been duly posted in a quorum and is present and I'm gonna call the meeting to order and our first item of business is going to be to give the pledge of allegiance to the US flag and the Texas flag to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all first order of business is going to be the consent agenda and chair would entertain a motion the first from mr. Brubel would you like to make your motion thank you chair I move approval of the consent agenda items Commissioner H odge but thank you second okay I have a first and a second any discussion saying none I'll call for a vote on the board motion passes six to zero that moves us to our public hearings I'm going to make a change in the order of our public hearings we have one item item B that we will hear first this particular item has been continued and it will be heard on our November 18th meeting okay with that note we will then so anybody that was here for that particular item just for your information that will not be heard tonight so if you're here for that item they will not be heard tonight that will move us back to our item a s-15 - 0 0 9 and I'm going to open the public hearing for that item and a column and all for presentation thank you mr. chair I'm going to ask Mike Bell our senior planner to make this presentation thank you been all mr. chairman members of the commission this project is s-15 9 for the McKinney Denton apartments the request before you tonight tonight is to consider making a recommendation to City Council regarding a specific use permit for a multifamily development on 16 acres on the south side of McKinney Street this is a multifamily project the African is NRP group and partnership with the Denton Housing Authority this will be a low-income housing tax credit development the site here is outlined in yellow you can see it's undeveloped but heavily forested it's a located along the south side of McK inney Street Woodrow Lane is to the west loop 288 is further on down to the east it's located along McKinney Street which is currently a two-lane undivided roadway owned and maintained by text dot we'll get into that a bit more in a bit to the east is the recently constructed DME substation and the recently approved majestic at McKinney Apartments that received its SUP approval a couple months ago to the south is some undeveloped properties owned for single- family to the west is Mac Park City Park in between the park and the subject property is actually another parcel it's undeveloped and zoned for mixed use and to the north we have Mac Park we have the summer wind neighborhood of my law office the fountains of Denton Apartments some additional single- family and may believe homes and some undeveloped mixed-use zoning property currently the property is owned neighborhood residential mixed use that's the color here in red this site as well as some additional parcels along with it were originally zoned in our mutual which is the orange you see here but in 2008 a developer came in with a multifamily project rezone the site to NRM you and had an SUP approved they never ended up developing and so that SUP has expired this project is a new applicant a new developer and now they're coming in for the SUP under the current NRM you zone this is the proposed site plan and I 'll go into a bit more detail but it does include 11 apartment buildings 322 units two community centers some amenities including a business center fitness center swimming pool after-school program as well some additional amenities will get into there are a number of building types the first is the a type which is three stories and 30 units will also be to type B which are also three stories and 30 units one type C building which is three stories and 12 units to type D buildings which are two stories with ten units and then to type E buildings which were two stories and 12 units there was some discussion in the work session about the 60% recommendation that we'll be talking about for the purpose of that really was these two buildings up front were very similar when we started and we've kind of worked with the applicant to differentiate with them to meet the intent of the code and part of the 60% was to help us meet that intent and then lastly we have a type F building which was a which is a four story building with 116 units this was probably the biggest change from their original plans they they went vertical so that they could save a large number of trees in this area we'll get into that with a landscape plan but that's the reason for four stories there also as I said there are two amenity centers one here and this is a laundry slash community room they'll also be providing 35 bike racks and enhanced sidewalk along McKinney Street this is what a typical elevation would look like each building type has a different elevations but they'll all be generally consistent with this kind of design scheme which is the masonry masonry here siding and stucco wall again they vary in height and in dimensions but they're all generally this design scheme access to the property will be from McKinney Street it's currently a two lane undivided roadway owned and maintained by text dot it is planned for widening in the future the current date is estimated at 2018 but that may change it's estimated that the capacity of the road and current condition is around somewhere around 9,000 trips per day city counts estimated around 14,000 but once it's wide we will have capacity for up to 24,000 so maybe in a few years we'll have that needed capacity but in the meantime we're proposing some mitigation measures here and that's at their primary access on the east east side of the property we will require a left turn lane into the site and a right turn lane into the site and this lines up with the future median opening once the road is widened the purpose for these turn lanes is so that people entering the development can can sit and stack without blocking the through traffic as they move east and west across McKinney Street the secondary access is on the west side and it will be an emergency access only the reason for this is we really there's without a median just the center strap people could cross illegally to the left or cross illegally coming into the side crossing those stripes so to prevent that and to force people down to the turn lanes and help help the traffic situation this will be emergency only once Teasley or excuse me once McKinney is widened then then there's a median placed here they can change that from emergency access to a fully operating right in right out for use by the residents this is the landscape plan I'm going to a bit more detail we the most challenging part of this side was it was without doubt the the tree code requirements that is heavy very heavily forested side the trees shown here in green are the existing trees that they're planning to preserve and these tree these trees do exceed the tree code requirement for preservation and mitigation you can see that they clustered preserved a lot of trees clustered inside the type F building inside the open spaces and along McKinney Street so that they're not just preserving the trees but there's preserving them in areas that are useful to the residents in these open spaces and create a unique field unique tree site in addition to the trees are preserving they're also adding quite a bit a few new trees the one shown in the darker green and those trees include a 15 foot planted buffer adjacent to the substation and a 10 foot landscaping strip adjacent to the single-family zoning to the south as well as a large number of what are being named street trees along the interior streets of the development future land use plan for this area the site here is kind of outlined in black is for moderate residential moderate residential's plan for primarily residential uses primarily single-family from 6 to 12 units per acre but it does the comp plan does say that apartments should be allowed if they're of high quality and maintained just to summarize some of the considerations we talked about here staff did review the site plan landscaping elevations and all are compliant with the requirements of the DDC we don't anticipate any impacts on adjacent uses we did review preliminary infrastructure and deemed that they will be adequate under future conditions we also found that the the athlete design the site to preserve the existing trees and our minimum tree code requirements will be met and we wanted to stress the design aspect of how they designed around those trees really made it a solid effort they also are providing some bicycle pedestrian facilities by providing enhanced sidewalk along McKinney as well as 35 back bike racks within the site although the side is moderate residential under the current zoning they can add up to 30 units per acre so this is kind of a good compromise between what is currently zoned and what the future might hold to mitigate some of those impacts with McKinney in the interim they're required to construct those turn lanes at the primary entrance and make the secondary access emergency only again once it's widened that can become a full fully servicing right in right out access and lastly didn't plan 2030 has a lot of good good things to say about a lot of good information about the shortage of affordable housing and in it's one of the goals of our comp plan to help increase the the amount of affordable housing that we can provide in the city and to go in more information about this project in housing authority and how their program in the side I will I will recommend you reserve those questions for didn't housing authority I think they 're very well equipped to answer those questions we did send out notices to property owners than 200 feet and physical addresses within 500 feet as of creating this presentation I did receive one notice in opposition you'll receive that in your backup they did not provide an address so we have to do some further research to see exactly where they were we did receive that notice and it's been provided to you lastly based on everything we've talked about and the requirements of our didn't development code staff does recommend approval of this SUP subject to the following conditions first is that it shall substantially comply with the site plan and landscape plan attached second the maximum number of units shall be 322 units third has discussed the Western access shall be emergency access only until McKinney Street is widened in the median is installed and lastly that building facades facing McKinney Street shall have a minimum of 60% Mason you building building materials gables windows doors and related trims may be excluded from this percentage calculation with that I've concluded my presentation and I 'll stand for any questions the applicant is also here to answer any questions any questions for staff thank you Mike this is a public hearing if there's anyone that would like to speak we'll need you to fill out a yellow card I would invite you if you would like to come up and speak please fill out a yellow card especially if you're going to speak in opposition we would like to get that card in as well I'm gonna go ahead and call first card that we have hope you got that back in the back this is a public hearing I'm gonna call the first card we have to speak which is going to be I believe it is Rob or Bob Rain er at South Locust thank you mr. chair commissioners I represent the owner that owns the land immediately to the west of the desired property runs the full length of the west side and also the full length of the south side of the property concerns that they have are as they were looking at and I had very nice meeting with mr. Van Zandt concerning this and I presented the information to them they were a little apprehensive with the number of units being 3 22 with approximately roughly give or take maybe as many as 1200 people could be out on 16 acres and they're going to be using one curb cut possibly two after the development or the widening of McKinney Street this concerns our client my client in that his property merely to the west might be affected as far as being able to get a curb cut on his property because of the curb cut on Mac Park and then this curb cut looking at the distances and all we would be violating the curb cut distances and we we can't allow that the development that we have is approximately 400 acres and that is south of that of that about 135 of it is residential which is north of the creek and we're looking at having development being done and we've always looked at that particular track as a major arterial leaving of that property going on to McKin ney Street we also are concerned about the two back buildings that are four stories if this is approved we would like to see that those story four stories be moved over to the substation side since nobody's going to see that when they have their yard built and they're grilling and they look back and they see the four story apartments by having them moved I think it helps us with marketing that we will be doing with our residential developments as they come along that primarily takes care of what our concerns are at this time and I'd be glad to answer any questions that you may have just for clarification could we get the map pulled up and you would you mind pointing out which pieces of property you're representing happy to thank you can you point it out that track and then would you also just push that it's this track also so does that help you all seen what we're talking about now so it's not only this one but it's also the track and that runs the entire south side of the property okay just for our clarification is there one owner that owns that or yes there is one owner okay yes yes ma'am question commissioner Dudowitz yes sir you mentioned the four-story building yes I'm not mistaken I think that's if I read the maps correctly it's on the far east side of this property but enough against the electric station I hope that's the case I thought I saw it on the south side when they were talking could you clarify please yes the only four-story building is right here correct all right that was my understanding thank you once again it there is it is a budding on that south side we'd like to see it moved a little further on the east side so that it isn't so that it is not as visible on the south side of the property that we have and I think I heard staff recommend that position because it saves more of the current trees on the property remember your comes your presentation right correct the applicant and originally had several buildings here but needed to go needed to combine them into one to save the trees so this design was you've been with landscape plan there's a large cluster of trees here so it's designed around those trees I also might add the benefit of everybody's knowledge we do have in our code of residential proximity slope requirement for when multifamily is next to excuse me single-family and this does meet the meeting exceeds the requirement for the minimum slope Mr. Reiner and follow up the plan development and to that west side is single-family multiple family are you talking about our track on the west side sir it's a NRM you I believe zoning as well correct thank you can I just ask for clarification purposes are you making an objection we are today or are you just seeking clarification of some of the items that you mentioned my instructions are to object to the SUP today I'm working with mr. van Zandt on some other information and I'm sure that I'll have that as soon this is is approved and I don't know if it will be or not but right now my instructions are we are not we're asking for not approval of this because of issues that adversely we feel like adversely affect our land which is around it and do you have something from the owner just showing your representation or authority to speak or their their actual objection I believe I furnished when we received the public hearing I had the owner's sign okay so mr. McCormick is the owner yes okay okay we'll have that put into the record thank you my pleasure I think there's some more questions on certainly come on Commissioner Rizzo I'm not sure who the best person to address this question is but you you brought up the issue of curb cutting yes and that there might be a fear that a curb cut would not be permissible based on the the applicants construction is that correct and this is concerning our land that we have to the west of this track understood can someone speak to the requirements would that be precluded given the current curb cutting I'm not sure who could best answer that I think Earl Escobar can address that question the city cannot deny access to a property to a public right away so whenever this property to the west does develop they will be permitted access to McKinney Street there is actually a proposed future median opening on at the intersection of Mack Drive and McKinney Street anyway so that the ideal location for this curb cut for this property to the west would be at that median opening lined up with Mack Drive to the north thank you our concern on that simply was there's more than one access for this land also Woodrow is another one and that was the concern that we've had with not obviously you all but previous commissioners and City Council we've had some issues with curb cuts on tracks of land because there is access elsewhere so the view at least at that time I'm glad to hear it different that it's quite possible that a curb cut could not be allowed on that track because we do have access to move traffic elsewhere so I'm glad to at least get this on record so that we can be assured to have a curb cut on this track okay well that fit attorneys without fit legal counsel's view you can put what you like on the record but you're still objecting correct even with that information that you just received yes ma'am but that didn't answer my question I'm sorry what was your question does that with the city staff making that comment do you feel that within the city's third the attorney legal side that a curb cut would not be denied our track to the West well I don't think that I can make that determination here I didn't think so either that's why we still object to it okay commissioner back yes - thank you chair follow-up on Commissioner Donahue which is question the two areas you own to the West and to the South it is your intention to build single-family homes was that my I find that whenever I make a statement like that I've been in real estate for 30 years I usually have to crawfish eat cold crow something of that magnitude will follow the zoning's that we have and right now we're looking at doing a residential use to the south primarily and then to the west side whatever the zoning and the market will let us do okay but in residential use multi-family single-family we'd love to get whatever we can some of the developers that we are currently talking to some are doing single-family some duplex multi-use like that just for the maximum use of the land that we have okay thank you my pleasure commissioner husband thank you chair thank you for your input I guess my question kind of is in line there's no plans concrete plans in place am I hearing that right and there's nothing that you're working towards so obviously this projects been in the works for a while been up to speed at some point early on but there's no plans for your the party you represent to build anything there's no concrete plans in place we have no contracts okay and what is your clients thought on there's a substation right at the back of your property as well and so I find that to be harder on the eyes than a four-story building that's that's well maintained if you will would you agree the substations on the extreme east side of the property where this is more this property is centered closer center to the bulk of the land that we have to the south of you so I'm sorry do you agree that the substation I'm just curious if what your clients position on a substation do they agree that that is more that's harder on eyes than a maintained building or do you disagree I can't answer that I don't know I would I would I would like to interject something about fracking at this point but I won't do that either but the substation obviously is something different from residential's but I can't address that fair enough thank you Commissioner Brigham thank you chair I have quick question for you I don't think I heard you state your address for the record oh I'm sorry it was 607 South Locust and Denton 76201 thank you and a question for staff and for legal I guess we're tasked with making a recommendation on this particular project and I know that one of the things that we look at in in our final vote is how it will affect the neighborhood how do how does a future proposal go into it because there you just admitted there were there were no final contracts there was nothing you are not moving dirt yet to develop anything so I understand your your clients opposition and concern to a large development like this but how might that play into our final decision since this isn't an established neighborhood that were that this project would be affecting this is a this is somewhere down the line how does that affect you have to work with the property adjacent properties as they exist at the time of the hearing so it can't be a speculative thing that happens later on in the future that's my understanding as well yes and just to add on to that Commissioner Brigham when we receive a zoning change request a request for a specific use permit we look at the surrounding zoning we look at the built-out pattern we understand the compatibility of the uses and our analysis as you've seen in your report addresses the surrounding zoning and land uses it addresses the compatibility with surrounding zoning and those land uses but the report goes further to explain to yourselves and of course the community that the analysis also requires assessment of the current development code and in this instance Mike Bell also iterated that we have specific multifamily development requirements and standards such as if you know adjacency to residential your sloping requirements of that multifamily unit so that you 're not literally leaning into the backyard of potentially of existing residential homes or if there is a single-family zoning designation what if that builds out in that manner so those interests are looked at in the term in terms of access and infrastructure those elements are also addressed and we address them with this site and obviously our DRC manager engineering manager has also indicated that we do not deny access to two properties and there is existing a median opening or curb cut excuse me so we look at all those parameters and we don't single out the site and just look at the site in a vacuum of what's in and around the area right that's very helpful thank you very much I don't see any other questions thank you for your time this is a this is a public hearing so I'll go ahead and call on Dick Kelsey just a point of order just a second for the record do we need to get something else from this gentleman about yes actually sir could you get with our planning staff mr. Mike Bell I don't know if you've met and let him know mr. McCormick's company name or the name in which he holds his property please thank you thank you sir please state your name and address thank you my name is Dick or Richard H. Kelsey I live at 206 Richcrest Circle Denton Texas now for last 48 years we own the property which is immediately to the north law office there's approximately four acres in there about 80 percent 85 percent we believe of the traffic that comes to see us comes from Denton downtown to our property and turns left into our parking lot if we cannot get some relief on the proposed raised median problem then people who are trying to come to our property will have to go almost an entire mile before there's a place to turn around that's on other than private property what what I'm addressed is I'm in favor of the project I think it's a great project something the city needs it's been well planned we did go to the neighborhood meeting and I was pleased with what we heard but they're going to turn loose somewhere around 300 or to 600 cars and there is no way out of this to turn left into town there is no light there is no double lane there's no center lane to turn left you cannot get out of this property at 8 o'clock in the morning the traffic is already backed up past the fountain apartments on our East and you can't the people cannot get out of Mack Drive I can't get into our office property it's a mess and what we would like to ask you to do and I know this may not be appropriate I don't know if it is or not but if you could make some kind of notation we would love to have the two lanes put in east and west I mean would be fine and we would like to have a non raised median because if you could have the yellow marked median like we have on Dallas Drive seems to work well all of these properties front on McKinney and there are no backstreets there is no way to get to any of these properties without coming off of Mack Drive so if you look at the actual if we could pull up and I don't know how to do this sorry I'm not very technical staff will help you thank you want to see the over yes there you can see where the law office is the open area which is on the oh is our parking lot if you can see to the northeast corner of this property that and it's across from the fountain apartments that is the only access to this piece of property and there is not planned to be a light there how are these colors going to get out of there going to them and there will be a lot of them and if you go right which you can do if you think about you know that area you can't get back to Denton without going extremely up to north which would be Audre line wandering your way back that way or extremely south down to Spencer Road and then that area is an extremely difficult problem and what we would like to have you do is make the notation on this that that is a problem and do what you can I know that this is a state highway I know that there's a limited amount of input the city can have on a state highway however it's been my experience before that when you have something like this that you can get fairly good cooperation because we've got raised mediums all over town they create problems number one the maintenance issues the cost issue they plant them and they die they plant them and they die if you go down on Teasley you can look at the stumps where they've all been planted and now cut off it's a very big expense to the city to build and to maintain those raised those raised mediums so rather than I understand you can't just put a curb cut because we want a curb cut I understand that but if we had the center lane which was like doubt designed like Dallas Drive where you could mark your left turn areas that would solve almost all of the problems of all of the properties that are fronting on McKinney so this is a major problem I would ask you to address it if you can't address it here if nothing else at least make some kind of notation I have talked to traffic for the city we get a kind of attitude well there's nothing we can do well that's what I was going to point to you I think we have a gentleman here if he'll raise his hand mr. Earl Escobar yes and I believe Earl can get with you if you'd like to get with him obviously you've presented that he's here with the city to hopefully address your concern on the curb cut or the yellow striping and that would be a great point of contact for you on that item thank you very much he was courteous enough to call me back we have had a discussion great but his basic attitude is there's nothing I can do it's a text-up road I think it 's a text-up road well I know from other experiences in town that there can be input from the city so you can't I'd ask the city not just ignore this problem because if you put those raised medians in that's going to be a continuous problem whereas if you put the painted medians in problem goes away and the cost factor would be much less thank you for your patience thank you sir thank you chair I have a question of Earl please yes yes it was stated that you mentioned that there's nothing the city can do in what reference was that made and why I don't believe I said that there's nothing we can do I just informed him that is a text out right away okay the text dot already has a design for that road and it does show a median design and so it's also my understanding that you have conversations with text dot and that you with all people within the department are most noted to have more discussions and with text and other city staff members the city has a I guess you can call him a liaison and represents his gentleman's name is John Polster okay and so have you directed any anybody to him at all on this issue I wasn't aware that the citizen wanted to pursue a stripe I guess a continuous left turn light is what he's referring to versus a medium design not to put you on the spot but sure is this Commission has been been sitting through a number of these situations if we get thrown up against text odd issues Teece Lee and Geyer High School and a number of other major arterials and it's become a constant problem and I've been very vocal about trying to get someone from the city to address us on the issues of the liaison situation and what we can do in certain circumstances and how we can escalate issues that our citizens bring to us where it goes it's a text on it's a county's County Road and these these issues are going to come up more and more as we expand and there are some other other things going on that have always come up against this so that's why I'm asking him put it on the record and there's there's also talks about the city possibly taking ownership and responsibility for for McKinney Street anyway from Woodrow to the east side of town or just east of Ryan Road Ryan High School and what's the I don't know what the status is on that I think it's could you find out and report back to us please thank you information to mr. Kelsey so they'll have another point of contact right if you'll take a look going east where we would have to where people would have to come all the way past this law office you can see there is no place to turn around it's not on private property unless you get into the back streets and then you'd have to get in front of us driveway or do a circular turn at an intersection none of which is a good idea thank you very much thank you for your input I'm sorry mr. Commissioner Hudson apologize thank you mr. Kelsey so I have a question I think and then but you first what are your thoughts just as a as a stopgap Matt Park is there to the right so assuming I'm coming from Luke 288 trying to find your law firm and I see it I miss it that is a perfect you turn if you will because it's a straight shot I turn in turn left and I can turn out of there get back on the road and then make a left turn into your law firm and if I miss it going the other way then there's an opportunity at the signal light which is a few blocks down as a as a stopgap but my question to I guess for Earl or staff is when we say text on are we talking about the future road that's 2018 ish and if so what is the what's what bridges the gap between now and then what's going to be there or is the city going to put a fixture in until Texan expands the highway may I respond to that Commissioner husband yes sir if you'll look it's actually double yellow all the way from the light double yellow line that is don't cross over it all the way from the light all the way down past us passed before Mack Park and so all these businesses that you see on the corner there where the light is on Audra and Woodrow yes sir if you go east that is all a double yellow line and people pull into those businesses over the double yellow lines right now okay just but people are patient they just drive around them on the right I mean people are very nice and very courteous but right now if you're trying to get out of Mack Park to go to work either right or left if the if the courteous drivers don't give you a gap you cannot get out of there thank you very much thank you okay this is a public hearing well do you follow up yes well no I didn't get a I was curious if the tech stop curb we're discussing is at a later date who's responsible for the cut the turns that will be affecting this property is my question I think to answer your question I think at this particular time there's there's nothing for text I believe in our presentation part of the improvements are is for there to be a left turn in line and then also a right turn in line that are part of the improvements for this particular project that were presented in the presentation if I'm if I'm incorrect please correct me on that that's correct the left turn lane and right turn lane will be built by the applicant at this time whenever they construct the apartment built being curb or painted I mean because that's the issue right if are they gonna put in a curb no I think at this point it'll be a temporary guy that's what I thank you sure Commissioner back yes Mike when you say the applicants gonna create this left turn they actually doing are they paying the city to do that that development loop will be responsible for the financial for the financial but the city will actually be doing the work no no they'll hire a contractor okay work okay so they'll be financially responsible to put in both the left turn and the right turn lines to serve their development okay that kind of negates my second part so thanks I don't see any other requests for this particular yellow card so we will move forward again this is a public hearing if there's anyone that would like to speak please fill out a yellow card and come down we have next Yolanda Vela at 2201 Geneva Circle and she is in support yes please come down and as you approach the mic if you'll give us your name and address and your comments and you'll have three minutes thank you thank you my name is Yolanda Vela Voral I reside at 2201 Geneva Circle in Denton Texas Mr. Chairman Commissioners I'm here representing the Vela family we're very excited about this project and you've heard the presentation from NRP I'd like to add a couple of things we've heard a lot about traffic tonight I was kind of curious myself and so I contacted the director of transportation had a little conversation with him he did say that TechStop has this on schedule McKinney widening for 2019 but he also stated that the city was in fact in negotiations and exploring the possibility of taking this widening on themselves for several reasons I can assume that's the need of her sidewalk and because we have schools and down that road I do understand that the city will have to take on the maintenance at that time but I think it's much needed in this area I do understand the issues that mr. Kelso has it is a dangerous road to drive I drive it frequently but I'm hoping that the city will take this on and I hope that you guys will support them in that decision I also have a lot of experience in presenting projects to the city and this is an infill lot and there's good reason why we develop infill lots and that's for revenue I have not kept up with any of the tax incentives that may benefit this project but I need to know for a fact that the ad valerian taxes will be more than they are now for a vacant piece of property I also know that the city will benefit from the revenues of this project DME water and wastewater solid waste and parks parks will gain some development funds for parks and parks amenities that are much needed in that area these are just a few of the things on the list that I've heard over the presentation tonight and I wanted to add to that we would as a family like to join NRP and asking you to support this SUP we do feel that it meets the spirit and the codes the DDC and we would ask for your support and lastly I would really like to thank all of you for your time and effort in our community thank you thank you for your comments we have another card Lance and Vans and 512 West Hickory in support thank you mr. chairman just if I could just briefly speak to a couple of points that were brought up in the opposition the first the first item that the adjacent owner had an issue with were the number of units and I'll just point out in that and I 'll try not to be too repetitive I think some of these questions have been answered but within the within your staff report you'll see that this was that the number of units we have was well within range of the moderate residential as indicated on your future land use map regarding the curb cut we obviously positioned our curb cuts in a way as you saw from the site development that would maximize the number of trees we could save and just simply to be in compliance with with curb cuts there on to onto state highways this doesn't prec lude any the adjacent owner or any other adjacent owner from accessing their property in the future but I think as Commissioner Hudson and Commissioner Brighill pointed out any development that might occur on that property is purely speculative and we have before you tonight and an application that is in full compliance with the spirit and intent of your of your of the Denton code and of your of your development code we haven't asked for any variances and we are not asking for anything inconsistent with staff recommendations we're willing to comply with all the conditions requested by staff in their report thank you very much thank you again this is a public hearing there's anyone else that would like to speak please come down at this time while we're waiting if anyone else would like to speak we have some other letters of support I want to just acknowledge those and read those as part of the record we have one letter of support from the Denton Independent School District from dr. Jamie Wilson a day in October excuse me August the 12th in support we have also from Denton County MHMR Center Pam Gut ierrez letter stated June 16th in support we have a third letter from friends of the family dated June the 3rd from Tony Johnson Simpson that is a letter of support and we have another letter from in support this is from Gary Henderson of the United Way dated May the 29th again this is a public hearing if there 's anyone else that would like to speak please come down at this time with a yellow card I'm not seeing any additional requests to speak at this time we're going to close I'm sorry we have one other Commissioner Briegel no please go ahead and continue I'll wait for you to finish okay this is a point of order I want to confirm we're going to close the public hearing at this time yep we're going to close the public hearing at this time and due to some of the letters that have come in since this was originally before our meeting we're going to need to take a short recess 10 minutes 15 10 to 15 minutes max to do some recalculations to see how much opposition we have on this project so at 730 we are going to take a short 10 to 15 me that minute recess and then we will recon vene in these chambers thank you good evening we're back from our recess it is 745 and I'm going to call on staff to to give us their new calculations on opposition I'm going to ask all commissioners to make sure your mics are back on thank you chair since we have determined on break that mr. McCormick does own the property to the west and the south the amount of area that falls within the 200 foot buffer for the purposes of chapter 211 of the Texas Local Government Code has exceeded 20 percent in its objection which means that that does call for a super majority vote and since we are missing a member tonight that means all of the people present would have to vote in favor for this SUP to pass Commissioner Bruegel thank you chair I am very excited about this project for a number of reasons first I would like to talk about the the traffic concerns that were brought up they're valid concerns but I would like to remind this Commission that we often approve developments along Teasley even though we have many traffic concerns along that road it also is a text dot road where uncertain when construction is going to begin and so I would hope that we would not single out affordable housing because of a traffic concern whereas we we regularly approve large housing projects along in a more affluent part of town so I just would like to put that out to the Commission I think this development does meet the requirements of the Denton development code fact it exceeds them in many ways though I am I will say I'm heart broken to see the loss of so many trees I am encouraged by the number of trees that were saved in this project you saved more than than we require you to in addition planting many trees along the perimeter of the property and in the parking lots and it's it's very promising so I'm very excited about that it is a it's a good project Commissioner Hudspeth and I served together on the Community Development Advisory Board for a couple of years in fact I think Commissioner Hudspeth you chaired it for a while I'm not correct yeah and and when we go to these public hearings prior to when we meet to determine how to allocate these these federal block grant dollars the number one concern we always hear always is affordable housing affordable housing and we there's clearly a need in this community this addresses this need it's just a drop in the bucket I understand that there are thousands more that are in need but it is a step in the right direction I'm in favor of this project and I would like to make a motion to approve it with the staff recommendations as listed in our backup Commissioner Dunwoody's I too would like to support this this motion and and that since we have to have a super majority that I find the opposition has very little little merit in with regard to what what we're looking at here so I second the motion I have a first and a second Commissioner Rozelle thank you chair I too echo the the excitement for this project I'm in favor of it and and sure hope that it passes tonight what I wanted to just go on record stating as the council looks to approve this as well is whether or not it's it's noted or acknowledged there's a measurable homeless community that currently resides in that property even if on Google Maps you can kind of see the trails that the homeless community has built in those woods and their makes hift houses and so as we look to displace those individuals I just urge the city to take note of that that there is a plan in place for the taking care of those individuals as as they're not already displaced enough they're going to be further displaced with this and so I just hope that there is plans in place to address that concern going forward okay we have a first and a second we have any other discussion just for a point of order and clarification do you have all four of the conditions yes what you would like we have a first and second no more discussion I'll call for a vote on the board the motion carries six zero that will move us to our item number four we have our planning and zoning Commission project matrix or future that it's purely for reference and if the Commission wishes to add complement or delete any items we can do that with the future agenda items that's fine with chair we will then move on to item number five concluding items Commissioner Bruegel thank you chair I was just wondering if we could get an update from staff about our upcoming meeting for the mobility the mobility plan thank you Commissioner Bruegel we anticipate the agenda and associated reports with the mobility plan discussion that we had from last week we anticipate to have the meeting on November the 11th tentative start date time at 530 p.m. and as soon as we have the packet ready we will make sure that everybody gets it I'm sorry what was that date November 11th tentatively for 530 p.m. anyone else if not at 852 excuse me 752 excuse me 752 I close the planning and zoning Commission meeting thank you