Welcome you to the City of Denton planning and zoning work
session.
This meeting's been duly posted and we have a quorum
present and I call our meeting to order.
At this time, our first item of business is going to be
clarification of agenda items and
I will turn that over to Ron for presentation.
>> Thank you, Chair.
This is an opportunity for the commission to ask questions
on the plat.
I don't know if we have a presentation for the plat.
If you have any questions, we can certainly address them.
The other item is the public hearing item and
that is being requested to be continued to date certain.
So again, I don't know if we, I don't believe we have a
presentation prepared for that.
>> Okay.
Okay, well then I'll move to our second item which is going
to be our work session reports.
And, sorry.
>> No, it's good.
Is this- >> Commissioner Rossell.
>> Thank you.
Is this the opportunity to talk about the consent agenda
items?
>> Yes.
>> Yes, if you have any- >> Yeah, can I delay the other
stuff for
a second and talk about PP 1521?
The plat for Beaver Creek edition?
>> Sure.
So I have a couple questions of clarification just maybe to
enlighten my ignorance.
But also I have maybe some, not concerns obviously if it's
happening,
but maybe to express some thoughts I had about this.
So first on the, I'm going to get my directions mixed up,
but
on the plat on the bottom right, which I guess is the
northeast corner.
That road doesn't have a curb cut.
What's happening at the termination of that road into
Stewart?
>> Right here?
>> No, opposite corner.
Down, all the way, right there.
>> Right here?
>> Yeah.
What's happening to that road?
Yeah, is it just, it's not entering into Stewart.
Is there a gate there?
Usually there's like a cul-de-sac and then a fence or
something.
>> Let's rotate it.
Hold on.
>> This way's north.
>> The other way.
>> This way.
>> Upside down.
>> Am I upside down?
Yes, I am.
>> Yeah, you're upside down.
>> Yeah, that's oriented, right?
>> This road right here?
>> Yeah.
>> It's tying into Stewart?
>> There is a Stewart Road pavement along at that
intersection and
they are actually improving Stewart Road along their entire
frontage.
>> Okay.
>> And they're tying that street to the.
>> Into Stewart.
Because the other entrances to the south actually have like
curve,
looks like more cutouts.
You see the design of those two into Stewart?
Those look different than the one to the north.
Is there a reason that those look significantly different?
>> Okay, it looks like it was a minor oversight.
But the final plot, the final plot is in and they will have
those curb cuts.
>> So it will kind of branch out.
And thank you.
And then on the west, there's two cul-de-sacs that aren't
on the actual property.
How does that work?
>> They'll have to obtain easements.
>> And is that a foregone conclusion that they'll obtain
easements or
what's the process of doing that?
>> We won't approve the final plot unless those easements
are in place.
Otherwise, if they can't get the easements, we'll have to
alter the design of the plot.
>> Okay, perfect.
And then the last question I have, and this kind of goes
into a larger road impact
fee conversation, so maybe this is just a process of me
understanding it.
If I understand this correctly, the road impact fees
assessed under current
regulation will only apply to phase 1A.
Is that correct?
>> So it's broken into phase 1A, phase 1B, phase 2, phase 3
.
>> When the roadway impact fees are adopted,
the roadway impact fees will be assessed during the
building permit for
those laws as they apply for building permits.
>> But just only phase 1A, right?
>> Yes, just for phase 1A.
>> Because the new road impact fee would actually,
the impact wouldn't be the entire plat per rooftop.
Am I understanding that correct in terms of the proposed
change?
>> The roadway impact fees will be assessed by single
family equivalent.
So it'll be consistent as each phase comes along.
Say it's $3,000 per lot.
Phase 1A will be charged $3,000 as they pull their building
permit.
And then when phase 1B comes in, they'll be assessed the
same fee.
>> That's under the new regulations, right?
The current regulations would only apply to that first
phase.
>> The new regulations that's in process right now.
>> But would this be under the old regulations if we
approve it tonight?
>> This would be under the old regulations because I
believe there's a 12 month
grace period after adoption of the impact fees.
>> That's what I was about to say.
And I'm sorry I didn't watch the council meeting last night
.
Was it adopted?
>> The ordinance was tabled?
>> No, it was not.
>> It was not, okay.
So if we- >> It was put up.
>> Right, so if we approve this tonight, I don't think that
will have any effect.
Because I think it has to be a final plat.
But there will be a 12 month grace period and the amount
might be assessed.
But it will not be collected per building permits for 12
months.
>> Gotcha, I guess my point would be, is this an example of
making a phase one
extremely small and having subsequent phases much larger to
reduce
the road impact fee of the developer?
Does that question, am I making sense with that question?
Because it seems like under the new regulations, the new
road impact fee,
when it's adopted, every rooftop would be assessed at a
building permit.
That's not the case under the current rules.
Maybe I'm muddling the waters.
I'm just trying to understand the implications,
how this would look different under the different road
impact.
Because phase one looks extremely small and it just seems
like it's conveniently really small.
I was wondering if that was the motivation.
>> If I can chime in, and again, correct me if I'm wrong
here.
We currently don't have impact fees when you say-
>> The exactions.
>> Okay. >> Right.
That's the right word.
I apologize.
Sorry about that guys.
>> The exactions are only to phase one, right?
>> Yes. >> Thank you, Ron.
>> The exactions that we would apply for phase 1A would
just be along the frontage of phase 1A.
>> So when phase 1B comes in, there's not any additional
exactions?
>> That is correct.
There would be some exactions, but in terms of signal cost
participation rather than
perimeter street improvements along existing roadways
because they don't have frontage on, say, Stewart Road.
>> Yeah. >> Which is existing.
>> So they would construct all the interior road network.
>> Yeah, I guess this just illustrates to me the need for
the road impact fees rather than the exactions because
it seems like the city's missing out on a lot of potential
fees under the current setup and
the way these developers designed this plot.
Thanks for that diatribe.
One last thing.
I'm concerned about adding this many homes on Stewart Road
when it's serviced by engine five.
So fire engine five is what services this plot of land.
The station five is at the corner of Bonnie Bray and Winds
or.
And there's not a cross over 288 at Stewart.
So if there's a fire in one of these homes, the fire engine
would come out of station five,
head north on Bonnie Bray.
Bonnie Bray hits Luke 288.
They would have to drive past the actual fire and do a U-
turn to come back to the fire.
And so I guess if you buy a home there, you understand that
there's going to be a delay,
but it raises some concerns putting that many houses in a
way in which the main thoroughfare doesn't even cross over
Luke 288.
Station five.
Yeah, I think four.
Yeah, this is coming from a firefighter.
I'm relaying their concerns about that.
But even if it was station four, there's...
[inaudible]
It was reviewed by our fire department within the DRC
committee.
Okay.
Yeah, that's good.
That's all of the thoughts I had about this.
Thanks.
Commissioner Bruegel.
Thank you, Chair.
Commissioner Rossell, that was impressive just now.
Thank you for that.
It was very insightful.
I have a couple of clarifications on the minutes.
Can we talk about that now?
Or do we talk about that in the regular session?
I'm not sure.
I'm going to ask staff for direction on that.
I think we have that on the agenda to consider as an item,
so we should probably wait till...
No problem.
I'll hold that thought.
Thank you.
These are for just clarification on consideration items.
Okay.
Any other questions on the plats?
You have a plaque question?
Commissioner Detowitz.
Just a point of clarification on the size of phase one A
and two others.
I've been involved in some of these developments in the
past, it may be because of the impact
fee or it may be because the investment to complete a phase
is less, but smaller, and
then it attracts more capital after it's been started.
So they may start small for that purpose.
Jim, who's been in the development stage, may be able to
speak to it more, but that
might be the other alternative in a multi-phase development
.
They start smaller.
That's a great point.
I don't know the actual savings or...
Yeah.
I'm not saying the developers trying to manipulate the
system.
It just raised the thought about that conversation we've
had recently.
Yeah.
I would agree with your comment and observation that
because it does abut Stuart, they're
having to do all that perimeter street paving, and so they
're absorbing all of that infrastructure
cost that has to then be rolled in over the lots, whereas
some of that other development
down the road will not have some of that cost, and that's
probably why they've pulled it
back a little bit.
No, that makes sense.
Be just a guess.
Any other questions on the plats?
Okay.
Do we want, at this time in our work session, you want to
address your item on the minutes,
and then we'll come back and do our two staff reports?
Sure.
We'll wait until the regular session to discuss the minutes
.
Not in work session at all?
Okay.
All right.
Seeing that we don't have any other discussion on minutes,
on plats, then we'll move on into
our work session reports, and I'll turn that over to Ron
for introduction.
Thank you, Chair.
We have Beverly Zant, our DRC administrator, present this
item.
And with this presentation, we passed out, staff passed out
an email from a citizen,
and the questions posed will be addressed by Beverly as
well.
So with that, turn it over to Beverly.
Good evening, Mr. Chairman and commissioners.
In response to some questions and requests for information
that were given to staff,
we have two presentations this evening.
The first presentation has to do with notification of
public hearings and public meetings.
This is basically addressing our requirements, our policies
and procedures.
Generally, there are two state statutes that guide staff in
their public notification procedures.
Section 211-006 has to do with the publication of
notification to the public.
It requires the 15th day before the day of the hearing that
notice be published in a
newspaper of general circulation.
For us, that's the Denton Record Chronicle.
Although it does say 15, the standard for staff is 17 days,
and we typically anticipate
getting those notices out to the paper three weeks in
advance to make sure that we hit
that 17-day mark.
So we have a three-week lead time in getting those
publication notifications set.
The second one has to do with the property owner
notification, which calls for before
the 10th day of the hearing.
Written notice shall be provided to property owners within
200 feet of the proposed change
in zoning.
Again, this is another example of staff getting ahead of
that.
We usually require 12 days, so that's our goals to get
those posted before the 12th
day.
These are these two guiding principles that we use in most
of our public notification
procedures, and what state law calls for.
Just to add some additional detail to what state law asks
for, it calls for property
owner notification to be based on the recently approved
municipal tax roll of real property
within 200 feet of the property for which the rezoning is
proposed, and it calls for
it to be addressed with postage paid in U.S. mail.
Our debt and development code calls for an additional
standard that we utilize certified
mail for that 200-foot notification procedure.
And if you see, we have an example of what our -- and most
of you have probably seen
these as we get the return notices -- of what our notices
look like and what -- that are
sent out.
Again, this is what the minimum requirements are for the
Texas local government code for
zoning changes, replats, and residential replats.
For published notices, all three are required.
And for zoning change and residential replats, notification
to property owners is also required.
In addition to that, the City of Denton does a mailed
notice to residents within 500 feet
as a courtesy.
This doesn't count towards the ultimate 20% requirement
that would trigger a supermajority,
but is a courtesy notice to residents.
The -- occasionally these are often -- probably more often
than not, these are duplicated,
and it's very possible that residents get both the 200-foot
response and also the courtesy
notice within 500 feet.
In addition to that, for variances, only a public meeting
is required.
The City of Denton does published notice, mailed notice to
property owners, and also
mailed notice to residents within 500 feet, exceeding the
local government code in all
categories.
In addition to the posting -- in addition to the
publication and the notification of
property owners within 200 feet, staff also posts a sign on
the subject tract.
Here's an example of a sign that was provided by one staff
member, and this is called for
in Denton Development Code, Section 3544, requiring the
posting of a sign on the subject
property.
But we have taken it still a step further, and we usually
get out way ahead of notification
by putting on our current projects page anticipated action
and items that would be for consideration.
We update that, I believe, weekly.
So we usually are way ahead as we start to get closer to
the anticipated date that information
is updated fairly regularly.
So on our current project page, we also have just
information to the general public.
In looking at this, you know, we really took this
opportunity, and we appreciate the commission
bringing this to our attention, and we are looking at ways
that we can continue to improve
this.
We understand occasionally we have folks who come up here
and say, "I didn't get my notice,"
or, "I wasn't aware of it."
And there's always -- I think everywhere I've worked, there
's always been that sort of issue
that has come up with the public.
So we took a look around at some of the surrounding cities
and what their local practices are.
We looked, as you can see, at Denton, Plano, Frisco, McKin
ney, and Lewisville.
Where there's a check, it indicates that the jurisdiction
participates in that sort of notification.
As you can see, Denton and Plano are the only two cities
that do the 500-foot courtesy notice
to residents.
All jurisdictions post signs, which is the standard
practice these days in most cities,
but only the city of Denton actually takes the sign out and
posts it for the applicant.
All the other jurisdictions require that the applicant pay
for, purchase, pick up, post,
and certify the sign was posted.
So we do an extra step to assist our applicants in getting
that notification information out
and making it noticed by area residents as they drive past
it by posting that sign.
And here's just a couple of other notification -- you can
see a notification buffer that
looks very much like ours.
I believe it's from the city of Plano, and then below I
have just posted an example of
the posting requirements City of Frisco provides to their
community -- I mean, to their applicants
as they are required to follow directions for sign posting.
In addition to those requirements in the local government
code, we have additional requirements,
I think, as you all are aware of, that are in the Texas
government code as they relate
to open meetings.
And the information is in chapter 551.
I pulled some information from the open meetings handbook
that was posted on the attorney general's
website.
And generally, I think you are familiar with most of these
provisions that the meeting
be open to the public, be posted at least 72 hours before
the scheduled time of the
meeting.
We typically get those agendas posted Friday well in
advance of the meeting and certainly
more than 72 hours.
It be posted on the city's website and also physically
posted in a particular location,
and be sufficient to apprise the general public of the
subjects to be considered during the
meeting.
And I think we take great care and have revised
occasionally some of our captions to make
sure that the public understands what is actually being
considered.
This is a -- I think a pretty standard practice for, I
think, more seasoned planners as we
look at those.
It is very important for us to understand -- to make sure
that we understand it and
that a general layperson looking at the caption could
understand what was being considered.
Denton also does not have this requirement, but strongly
encourages and certainly we would
bring it to your attention, I think have brought to your
attention, when an applicant does
not want to have a neighborhood meeting or has decided not
to have a neighborhood meeting.
Usually the neighbors will bring it to your attention as
well if they haven't because
I think most of our residents are aware of this practice.
Here's a recent one that was done on the United Way project
that you may recall.
But in addition to that, in scouring some of our materials
in our notification folder
that we all share, I found some handouts that we have
typically handed out, but somehow
I think that practice has fallen away.
I was talking to staff.
I said, these are so great.
Where did these come from?
And Mike Bell said, oh, I did those.
They look terrific.
And certainly it's something that we have taken to
explaining the process to the attendees
that attend those neighborhood meetings, but I think as a
general practice it would be
useful to also distribute these, kind of letting them know
this is not the public hearing.
This is a neighborhood meeting and here's when the public
hearing is and here's how
that goes and here's what a hearing is.
Here's what a public hearing is because as germane as that
is to our daily conversation
and what we talk about, I don't know that everyone always
understands that that is their
opportunity to speak and so we try and articulate that and
make that clear that there is multiple
opportunities for them to give input.
And so this certainly helps with that and I hope to reutil
ize these in those neighborhood
meetings.
We typically also give the applicants some guidance about
how those meetings should go
and they are almost invariably attended by a staff member
or case manager and I also
attend many of those meetings in addition to the staff
member.
Just to talk and this actually will address some of the
questions that were provided from,
I think, the citizen who had submitted some questions that
you all have before you and
it has to do with how we notify and how we come up with
that list and what does that
list come from.
Essentially these are, I think, I probably am dating myself
but I remember in very old
times using the little protractor to draw the circles but
we are much more sophisticated
these days and we use GIS to identify the 200 foot buffer
and the 500 foot courtesy
buffer and if you look at the image on the left you will
see the subject track in cyan
blue.
We then run a query to GIS asking it to select all
properties within 200 feet.
If the buffer even touches the property line in any way,
then that subject track, that
piece of property is included in the database and you can
see in this case there is a 200
foot and a 500 foot.
What ends up happening after that is that a table is
generated off that buffer.
It selects all the parcels and populates a spreadsheet and
that spreadsheet is then exported
to Excel and we now have a database for both the 200 foot
and the 500 foot.
How accurate are they?
I did a little research into this and I understand I think
it's pretty typical.
We get the plats, the city receives those and our GIS team
updates the parcels based
on the plats.
They look at those, they work with the meets and balance
descriptions and they basically
update the parcels based on the subdivision plat that is
provided and then work with existing
tracks to make sure that they are as accurate as we can get
them for existing subdivisions.
We provide that information, we share that information with
the tax appraisal district
and they utilize that for their parcel layer.
So it's the most accurate, it's as accurate as the county
has and I think probably a higher
degree of accuracy than we've probably ever seen in the
public notification process by
means of GIS.
So this is how those are selected.
From there, that list that's generated, that spreadsheet
which is essentially an Excel,
we can export to an Excel spreadsheet, that is sent to the
planner who is managing the
case.
That planner takes that list, scrubs it a little to make
sure there's no duplications
within the list and cleans it up to make sure that
everything is there and then sends it
to Athenia who usually sends that out to ClickToMail which
is our mail service provider who mails
those out.
The 200 foot notifications as you're aware are through
certified mail and the 500 foot
notification are by US mail.
Again, in looking at this, we look at how many returned
certified mail we get, we look
at how many returns we get in general and how we can
improve the process because I think
it always is something that requires evaluation and
certainly there's some questions I think
that occasionally come up.
So I think in looking at our process evaluation, we talked
about the effectiveness of certified
mail.
It's called for in our ordinance but if you receive
certified mail and you're busy and
if you don't know what it's about, you may not take the
time to go to the post office
and pick that up and you may not do it in a timely fashion
either.
So certainly for some of our more busy property owners,
this might present an impediment if
they aren't there to sign for it.
They've got to go now and make a special trip to get it and
if they're not sure what it
is, they may not take the time to do that.
We are looking at the idea of maybe looking at more
frequent updates to city parcel data
set.
We essentially are working with a data set that's posted by
the tax appraisal district
once a year in July when they certify the property valu
ations, they post that list on
their website.
We work with that list of property owner notifications but
we get monthly supplements.
And so we can, we have historically interpreted that
recently approved tax roll language to
mean the certified list but now we're looking at that and
we're saying maybe we can use
those supplementals and we'll work with legal if we can use
those monthly supplementals
because that really reflects what has been filed and
recorded by the county and they
give us those updates monthly.
Maybe that would be a more effective list to use in the
future as we go forward if that
certainly meets the requirements of local government code.
It has in other communities I've worked with but we would
want to be as correct as possible
in looking at those updates.
Keeping in mind that also that the tax appraisal district
has a lag of their own.
Just because it's filed doesn't mean it jumps on to the
website the next day or jumps on
to their GIS parcel list the next day.
Sometimes there's a two or three month lag there as well.
So trying to make sure that we are working with as current
as we can, as current as what
they have on their website is I think probably our highest
goal and probably meets the intent
of local government code more than arguing between what's
certified and what's not.
And then evaluate return notices.
Some staff members have looked at those, some that have
come from other communities and
said well there's a whole list of items they have to fill
out and maybe it would be better
if the applicant's name was automatically populated on that
return notice.
I know there's been occasions where we're like we got it
but they didn't put their name.
We're trying to figure out who it's from.
It certainly counts but we need to figure out where it
counts.
And maybe taking a look at simplifying that response sheet
is something that we could
do in the near future I think and update that.
And then make neighborhood meetings mandatory for rezoning
cases, perhaps for specific use
permits as well.
This would be something that we could consider with some of
the code updates that are coming
if should that be your direction to give us.
We certainly have that expectation and we don't usually, I
don't think it always presents
well to the commission if that step is skipped.
So I think maybe given your direction we could consider
integrating that as well.
And I'm glad to answer any questions regarding the
notification procedures that you might
have.
Commissioner Beck.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much for your presentation.
I will readily concede the City of Dent does a great job of
trying to get the word out
in some cases above and beyond.
But having said that, obviously we're getting some
complaints that they're not hearing about
this.
Did I understand you correctly to say that these
neighborhood meetings are not mandatory
currently?
They're not.
We strongly encourage it, but it's not a call for in the
development code.
But we would always, as you know, we always make a point of
noting that to you.
It's so strongly encouraged, I think, that it's routinely
followed.
But it might be a better idea to just make it mandatory.
So that's something we could look at and consider.
Absolutely.
And I think the updates more, I think a couple things will
help that.
Some of the things that I presented, I think all of those
could potentially help that notification
effectiveness.
The 200 feet and the 500 foot, where is that measured from?
From the outer property line, from the center of the
property?
It's measured from the boundary of the subject track.
So it's 200 feet out from each boundary of the subject
track.
It's not from a point.
It's measured from a polygon.
So it's not measured from the center point.
It's measured from the polygon, which is the subject track
itself.
Great.
Okay.
One of the things I discussed with them in all, that this
list that we create from the
appraisal district, as you mentioned, it's based on a year
to year basis, but there's
these monthly supplements.
But you all are viewing just the annual report, is that
correct, when you make the list?
A couple different data sets.
We have a data set that's maintained by the city, our own
parcel data set.
And those monthly supplements come in.
We basically merge those based on the property ID or new
ones.
But the one that is being used by our GS team is the
certified role that is posted on the
tax appraisal website that I think they call it the
certified land value, and they do that.
They issue that once a year in July.
I tried to get more information about that from them, but I
was -- no one would return
my call, but I did look on their website, and it is posted
yearly, and it's the role
that the valuations are based on.
But I don't know that a more regular look at that, if we
use the monthly updates, or
at least every couple months if we had updates, because,
you know, running through some scenarios
with the GIS team, I said if something is -- let's just say
, for example, something
is subdivided in May and filed in May, that may not make
the certified tax roll list by
July -- it may not make the website, you know, or the
certified tax roll list by that time,
and updates to the parcels may not occur until, you know,
maybe four months later, then we
wouldn't see that updated property ownership until over a
year later.
So the supplemental updates, we are looking at that.
I've had a preliminary conversation with legal, but I think
we want to sort of make sure that
we are in the strictest compliance with local government
code, but thinking of the spirit
of the local government code, which is to get the notice
out in an effective way, I
think that it's probably time for us to maybe see how -- if
we can update that more often.
Let me suggest maybe an easy fix to this, and you correct
me if I'm wrong, but why not
go ahead and send two letters out?
And I -- you know, we can debate the certified issue, not
-- you bring up an interesting
point why people would avoid that altogether, but why not
send one letter to the person
that's on the tax appraisal rolls and one to the address
itself?
And perhaps we wouldn't know the name.
I almost defeat the purpose of putting occupant on
something, you know, because people toss
it, but perhaps stamping that envelope somehow with
important notice, you know, in bold red
letters or something, sending it to both the address where
probably a new owner does live
and to the one that's on the appraisal district.
Is that a conceivable -- I think we do it.
I think with the 500 foot, we take the same polygon, we
shoot out 500 feet, and it goes
to the resident.
So the goal is to -- the local government code says you
have to send to the property
owner, but we have said, okay, we'll do that, but we also
want the resident to know because
just because they don't own the property doesn't mean they
don't care.
So you do that for the 200 and 500?
We do it for the 200 and the 500, so it's very likely that
if you own the house you
live in and you're within the buffer, you're going to get
two notices.
So but you would -- for the official sort of response that
counts towards our 20%, we
always are looking for that return notice, so I don't --
but they usually are getting
both -- and I ask the planners who look at the list, I say,
do you eliminate the duplications?
They said, no, we don't do that.
Two notices go out.
Is the owner's name on the appraisal district's list on
both letters?
I mean, because, again, if a new owner's there and sees the
old owner's name, they're going
to write return to sender on it.
So do we make that distinction when we send it to the
address?
I'm guessing and I'm sure that staff can add something to
this, but if it's based on GIS,
which comes from the tax appraisal district, we don't have
the resident's names.
We usually just have the CITUS address and then we have the
mailing address.
And so probably it says -- I'm imagining that it says
resident, but tell me --
Resident, okay.
It says resident on it.
So it may not be the name because we're working off the
data set and the -- as you know, the
tax appraisal district doesn't really care who lives there.
They care who's paying the taxes.
Right.
And as we mentioned, that's probably going to --
So it comes into them as resident.
Okay.
So probably one way to curb the intent or somebody wanting
to just toss it may be, again, signifying
on the envelope itself the importance of --
Or rezoning notification or something.
Definitely that's something we could add to our list that
could be on the envelope.
If we have standard printed envelopes, it seems that a
little note could be added to
that rezoning considered or public hearing involving your
property or something like
that.
Okay.
I've got some other questions, but I'll defer for now.
You have a floor.
Go ahead.
This has been an item that's important and we'll make sure
you get your questions answered.
The signs, how big are they?
I want to say they are not a lot bigger than a real estate
sign because I think we use
the real estate posting boards, but I want to say they're
probably 2 by 3 feet.
Is that probably about --
Yes.
What is it?
2 by 4?
2 by 3.
Okay.
And they're placed on the outer perimeters of the property
where somebody walking by,
driving, you see it, rather than --
Generally I think it's been my practice when I've had to
post signs, and I would imagine
it's the staff's practice here as well.
I can confirm.
But generally you want them to be visible from the driving
right away so that people
driving by, it catches their attention.
So it really is so that folks who live in the general area
who pass that site in their
cars can see it.
So I would post it on a hard corner if it was a sign that
was --
So is a corner a lot?
You still just have the one sign?
If I posted it on a hard corner, I would probably post it
so it's visible from the more traveled
roadway.
The goal is to try and -- I think we all try and maximize
exposure of it as much as we
can.
Maybe an extra one though where we put it on --
I don't know if we've ever done dual posting, but that's
certainly -- if it's a hard corner,
that would make sense.
Okay.
I thought you did.
Do too?
Okay.
Do too if it's a hard corner.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
And I thought I had one other.
I think that's it.
Thank you.
Okay.
Commissioner Bruegel.
Commissioner Beck stole most of my questions, but I still
have a couple left.
So I think that's great.
I didn't know that the city sent a certified letter to the
property owner and a separate
letter also to the resident.
Does the city do that for multifamily housing as well?
I'm thinking like a big apartment building.
We've had a lot of things come up kind of in that Eagle and
Welch sort of area.
Are the residents who live in some of those apartment
buildings notified or is it just
the owner of the apartment?
I don't know if it would just be sent to the office or if
it would be sent to each individual
property owner.
Ron, I don't know if you can answer that question.
We typically send that to the site address and so it's just
to the property address.
So it most likely would be to the property management that
's on site that would receive
that, but we do not send it to individual units within that
multifamily complex.
Okay.
So the answer to your question is we don't send it to all
the different.
And do we require the property manager to maybe post that
in a public space in their
building so that the residents would see it?
I'm thinking that that's not our requirement.
So it really is, you know, it's a multifaceted notification
procedure.
So we try and get the residents and we try and satisfy the
government code with the property
owners.
And then we thinking that we still haven't got everyone, we
post the sign.
So there is sort of the first safety net and then the
second safety net, but we don't require
that they-- and I'm not sure that-- I would have to defer
legal but I'm not sure how we
could make them do that.
Right.
But certainly if it's something that the property
management firm is concerned about, there
is nothing to preclude them from getting that information
out.
I think that addresses another question that was in the
list that was provided that if
it's in a council member's district, should he notify all
his constituents?
Certainly these are things that if there's concern, that is
sometimes the way things
get around is by folks sharing information with other folks
that if there is something
that is of grave concern that they certainly could get that
information out by whatever
means is available to them.
So the answer to that-- the short answer is no, we don't
require that, but it certainly
wouldn't-- there's nothing that prevents them from dissemin
ating that information.
Okay.
Two critiques that we often hear is that the-- and I think
it's wonderful that the city does
at least have the courtesy notice because other cities,
many cities don't do that, but
one of the critiques that I often hear is that 500 feet isn
't far enough.
Has the city looked into expanding that to 750 feet or 1,
000 feet and how much more that
might cost also the city to notify people when you double
that, the size of the notification
circle?
Has the city looked into that?
I think it's come up.
I think that staff looks for additional direction on that
as a planner has worked in other cities,
the 500 foot is the most generous I've ever seen and the--
certainly it is not the practice,
but that doesn't mean that we can't have a practice that
exceeds everybody.
And so I would say we'd look to additional guidance.
It certainly is more than is required.
It certainly is more than most other communities are doing,
but we would look from direction
of this commission and the council should they decide that
it isn't sufficient, then
that would be something that could be considered.
That's your discretion.
And I suppose that the-- by having the neighborhood meeting
then too, we're really reaching the
entire, that entire neighborhood and not just-- I mean,
because the people in the 200 and
500 foot will have gotten that notification, but then they
'll be talking to their neighbors
as well.
Right.
So it just might be something to look into.
I'd be kind of curious to see that.
I would look for some direction.
The other one too that I often hear is that the signs are
too small because-- and I know
that they're clearly visible from the street, but you're
passing by at 30 miles an hour.
What was that?
So is there-- so what size are the signs in the other
cities and can we get something
bigger?
I think I have worked with bigger signs.
I also-- our signs were bright yellow and I don't know that
our-- I think our signs
are white here.
So there's a couple of things that I think could be done to
improve that-- to make them
a little bit bigger.
I think that it's always a challenge to find a sign that is
, you know, that we can tote
to the site and that we can-- I think that I had worked
with larger frame signs.
I think this community also worked with larger frame signs
that had like some wrought iron
and bigger that weren't the standard ones that you could
buy and the wrought iron was
getting stolen.
But I think they are small and I think they're small
because they're just easy to act-- to
get a hold of.
But I think we can look at maybe ways we could improve that
sign face and--
Yeah.
Maybe the color because I think-- when I first saw it, I'm
like, "Well, it should be like
brighter, so like a yellow or something.
You can really see it."
Right.
Yeah.
I'd like to increase the visibility of the signs for sure.
It sounds like I've already thought of some ideas to
improve that.
Yeah.
I actually didn't think that just now but you're right.
That is one thing that catches their eye and they may come
back and try and figure out
what that is.
Right.
Well, that was my question.
Those are my questions.
Thank you.
Commissioner Hudgebeth.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for your presentation.
Kim, let's see.
I'll see if I need that.
I guess for me to focus in on the issue, it really isn't
who's noticed more than it is
they say they weren't noticed.
How do we then rebuff that?
And so nothing in the guidelines that you cited mentioned
tracking but my experience
in the legal field tells me that even now bankruptcy fil
ings are all done online.
You don't have to, your notifications are done via email or
online.
You don't have to send actual packages anymore.
So my question is the mail house that we're using, are they
tracking those?
Deliverable.
Yes.
And who signed for them, who didn't sign for them.
And then so part B to that question is where is that
information?
So if Bill Jones comes up at 100 Jones Street and says he
didn't get noticed, is there a
way to quickly say here it is, here's the notice, where are
you and even if it's not
in paper form electronically for us to then rebuff that and
say.
It was sent.
Yes.
We have I think a couple things might be happening but we
have the, it's certified mail.
So we have a way and a lot of times how we find out who
didn't sign for to get it is
the ones that come back because we get those returned.
We don't always get them probably in a timely manner but we
get them back if they don't
ever come pick them up or if they were undeliverable for
some reason we get those back.
So there is a way to track it.
It's just the typical certified mail process.
And I think it's kind of a little bit of a conundrum
because while I think the certified
mail process allows us to have some, to be able to say oh
no you did, we sent it and
we have some evidence of that.
It also prevents a little bit of a barrier.
So it kind of becomes a challenge to us to have the same
accountability because once
it goes to, when it goes to certified, when it goes to
regular mail we, there's not like
that impediment now to go to the post office.
It's going to come in your mailbox but then we don't have
the same level of accountability.
So it really is kind of a call.
But certainly the certified mail process and I can check to
see if they maintain a list
but I think once it goes out the way we find out that it
wasn't ever delivered is the
typical way that certified mail, it just eventually just
comes back to us.
But we could look to see if there's a way to get a sense of
the ones that weren't signed
for.
I don't know.
There's got to be some electronic tracking like there is
for everything else when you
mail a package.
You can get a sense of where it is, where it's going, what
time it arrived.
So we can look and see if there's a way to look and see if
that was actually taken to
your house at 305 on the 15th and no one was there and then
no one ever signed for it.
I don't know, I don't know that level of detail that's
available but we don't mind looking
in to see if we can have that tracked.
Yeah, I'll, from my personal experience, I've got to go to
the post office this evening
and so I've got to send someone a notice that they've been
sued and then I'm going to track
it before and when I send my client an invoice, it has a
tracking number for them to track
it and then once I make sure it's cleared and it's received
by the party or it's not
signed for whatever, then I'll send them an additional
notice.
And so I think as a mail house, and again my experience
with different mail houses,
I think that's pretty, it's not that intrusive into their
practices to then, because I'll
answer one question, the post office does provide all the
detail you want.
Now, does it get lost?
Absolutely, I mean which amazes me that I sort of on mail
get, but anyway, so, but it
gives you that information and it's all on the website so I
would be shocked if that
mail house cannot provide that and so, and for me, that's
the only thing, the key focus,
there's other questions, but that's the key focus of mine
to quickly, and even if it's
just when it was sent for now, I personally would like to,
if Bill Jones comes up and
says it was not received to be able to have a date that it
was mailed and to whom it was
addressed and this is the address and then we'll circle
back, I'm happy to if it's
someone in my area or anywhere and say hey, you know, I
followed back up and here's the
proof that it was never picked up, but it was posted on
this date, I'm happy to do
that and understanding that can't be as instantaneous, but
the fact that it was mailed, I would like
to have that tangibly, and so maybe that's part of the
packet or, and again, if it's
electronically, it's coming up to the iPad, there's no
paper lost, it's just a way for
me to know when it was sent.
Sure, and I mean, just like you said, it's tracked, that's
the point of certified mail
is that it's tracked, so it's probably just a matter of us
saying hey, how can we get
that, at least the mail date and whether or not it was
signed for at that point, that
would, it seems like we should be able to get that, so we
definitely can inquire about
that.
Okay, and then my, so that's my main focus, so then I have
suggestions after that, so
one suggestion is potentially a separate tab on the website
or a second, separate page,
if you will, that only deals with notices by address, by,
you know, maybe alphabetical
or something like that where it's, if I'm on the website
and I'm, I don't know how
to navigate it, but I have a specific interest or if I'm
out in a meeting and I want to
spread the word about these notices, they're readily
available, they have their separate
page versus a projects page that may, and I know that the
projects page is great, but
just in case it's a thought that it comes up as much maybe
if there's an easy way to
get access to it or for me to point someone to it, because
I don't know that I would
know without clicking around on the website to find the
projects page and where it's
listed, but.
You mean like a list of those that were within the 200 feet
and a sort of a spreadsheet saying
this was the buffer and here's the property that was in 200
feet, is that what you're
saying should be on the website or?
Yes, something like that, so for example, there's a sign
place at the corner of Smith
and Jones and so there's just a site on the web page that
says sign here, if you think
you're within 200 feet of this address, you know, maybe it
takes you to a different place,
so I don't want it to be too labor intensive, I guess is my
point, just a quick here's all
our sign placements because we have to go out and place the
signs or we're as a courtesy
replacing the signs anyway, here's all the sign locations.
I think that's definitely something that I think could be
made a little bit more clear
and accessible, keep in mind that the number of the cases
usually posted on the sign and
that usually becomes the trackable point where they can
look on the current projects page
and take a look and see what that's about, but I believe
that a number, a city number
is also posted a contact number so that they can also say,
hey, I saw this sign, these
are the kinds of calls I've gotten, I've signed the sign,
it's Z, you know, 150530, can you
help me with that?
And so there's a couple mechanisms if they're truly, but I
think that there is, I think
that we would all agree that there's certain enhancements
that could be done to the website
just to make that a little cleaner, I think we would not
post names of property owners
but it's possible we could put the list somehow, I just
would have to see the practicality
of that.
Yeah, and not even, I think you're, again, the spirit of it
is to be lean and not labor
intensive.
Or the map maybe because the map will show you if it's your
house or not, you know.
Yes, yeah, if you kind of, but I think kind of the spirit
of it is exactly what you said,
someone driving by seeing a sign and wanting to call for
information, so here's sign locations,
you know, just listed and if you have, if you think this is
near your house or you're
curious about it, then call this number type thing just
because the sign is so difficult
to read, it's just a thought.
And then if we could, in your presentation, did you have an
example of what we send out
by chance?
I did actually.
I'm curious if...
There's this one, it's, I think it's a 200 foot
notification buffer and then the response
sheet that accompanies that.
Okay, and I'm curious and I guess there's not because they
have to reply back but maybe
that too.
Is there any, have we looked at a postcard to send versus
an envelope?
Because I'm not as concerned about people throwing it away
but at the same time, costwise,
it's a little cheaper just to put it and...
Just to put it in the envelope.
Right, well just to put it on a postcard and mail it and
then you eliminate that, it says
resident on it and they, they may at all, it all may get
recycled anyway but we saved
the envelope and you can't say you didn't see what was in
it because it's printed on
it.
What you threw away is all the information.
I think some cities do have postcards.
I think for us, I think the challenge always is and it's
kind of a balancing of things.
It's balancing of information provision and a balancing
just like with the certified mail.
We're trying to balance the, kind of like making sure that
we have evidence that we
did mail it just to have that at our hand but we're also
trying to balance convenience.
I think if you look at what the kind of information, I mean
just looking at the website, there
is two full pages of information so they can fully
understand what's being considered and
then there's the notification letter so I think it's
possible.
I'm trying to think if I've, where I've seen, most of the
times I have seen letters but
I've heard rumor of postcards but I think usually when
there's a postcard, it's in the
envelope with the larger explained to them so it's kind of
a balance between enough information
that they understand so maybe the answer is a little bit of
both.
I think if you send a postcard it's going to be hard to get
it all on there but maybe
not.
I don't know if we can see how to look at that but I think
postcards within an envelope
is one easy way to kind of get it thrown back to us.
Yeah I would be very tempted to see, even if it's a larger,
maybe it's a custom sized
postcard.
Maybe that would be the answer, a bigger postcard.
But then maybe just for the 500 feet courtesy notice, one
you save the, I mean I think the
postage is cheaper, you save it on the envelope and then
also you can't say you didn't see
it because.
Yeah I guess that's what I'm thinking.
I guess when I first thought postcard I thought postcard.
But you're right, if it was on the bigger things that you
typically get in the mail,
you could probably get all the information on that and then
have it on both sides.
So that might be something that I think that probably would
be a good suggestion.
Yeah I mean because, and I'll move on to my last deal,
because none of the political ads
I didn't have to open.
They were all right.
Yeah there is something to be said.
That is a really good argument.
Yeah there it is.
You can't throw it away.
And sometimes if they see it from the city they may think,
oh I think for a second I
think from the city.
I hate recycling faces but it's okay.
So then there's the last thing is I think it's important
for us as a body to kind of
maybe spend some time understanding what is important.
Because for example, Ms. Sullivan is so kind of right in
and she has and she points out
Buc-E's, but Buc-E's isn't important to everyone.
I mean it's not a red flag to everyone.
So when you're talking about notice how far for specific
issues, for specific building
types, that's not unified.
So when we're talking about putting a process in place or
amending a process that has a
serve all projects, I think it's a little difficult to then
start earmarking specific
projects and if we're going to, what does that mean?
What is that threshold to say, okay this project is unique
because it meets these three or
four qualifications?
And so that's just kind of a general question for down the
road.
If we were going to look at specific projects and adjusting
the process for and a particular
item, I would want to spend some time talking about what
qualifies for that.
For larger buffers.
Exactly.
But thank you very much.
Great presentation.
You're welcome.
I've got a full board.
I'm just going to make kind of a couple observations before
I recognize our next request to speak.
We've got one other item to hear in our work session.
I'm told it's a 10 to 15 minute presentation.
And then we cannot eat in this room.
So we'll have to go downstairs to eat.
So in looking at the time, we can always continue this item
if we need to bring it back for
another work session.
I'm going to say we'll go about another 10 minutes on this
topic.
If we're not able to get through, we're going to table it
and bring it back.
We'll take a break and go get some food and then come back
and hear our last presentation.
And so next request to speak, Commissioner Taylor.
Thank you, Chair.
So I believe this is the third major presentation I've seen
on notification in five years I've
been on this commission.
Because it's a major issue.
It comes up in a lot of public hearings.
So it's an important issue.
And I'd just like to run through what I think are the most
important and potentially the
best options.
The multifamily has been an intractable issue.
Things go in next to an apartment complex.
There are 100 units.
And one notice gets sent to the office and one notice gets
sent to the owner in California.
And so we've had complaints about that in the past perenn
ially.
And there's not an easy solution.
I'd love to keep looking at creative ideas, but I realize
that that's also a very hard
problem to solve.
I do agree that certified mail actually becomes a barrier.
If it just had tracking to know it was delivered, that
would be reasonable.
Or even I think most first class mail, it's good enough.
But I think that the barrier of you get a sticky note on
your door, which may or may
not be there when you get home.
You may or may not use the front door, so forth and so on.
And then you have to take time, usually for me on a
Saturday morning, to go to the post
office and pick up the letter.
It's just a lot harder than just first class mail.
The large postcard idea I think is also really good.
At lower cost, and you can have all the information right
there.
You don't have to -- a lot of people don't want to open
resident.
They assume it's junk mail.
But if it has -- there's a rezoning case at this address,
they either care or don't, and
they'll have the information right there.
I think that more can be done through the website.
I know Southlake has changed the website now, but they used
to feature on the home page
of Southlake every single public hearing they had scheduled
.
The current projects page is really great.
I was just browsing through it.
But it is like five clicks deep, and I didn't know it
existed until you mentioned it.
So if there was a way to make the current projects page
more visible to city residents,
this stuff gets shared on Facebook now.
More people see public hearings on Facebook and Nextdoor
than they do in the Net and Record
Chronicle.
So if there was an easy way for somebody to repost it,
because normally what you see is
photos of the letter instead of, you know, a nice little
informational web page that
we've already built on the current projects site.
So if there's a way to increase the visibility of the web
aspect, I think that would be beneficial,
and it would end up letting citizens do your work for you
because they'll share it among
their friends, they'll email it or put it on social media
and so forth.
And you won't have so many people saying they hadn't heard
about it or they had to hear
it from a neighbor who knocked on their door or something
like that.
Thank you.
Commissioner Dudowitz.
A lot of good comments.
Ticking them off also.
I have been a participant of a number of zoning requests
and changes.
I can tell you a certified mail comes, but I also get a
letter in the mail and duplicate.
What I would suggest is in that letter that gets mailed to
me personally or to say the
certified letter has been mailed and this is a duplicate,
therefore I don't have to
go down to the post office.
I already know I have gotten notice.
Another question is we all know newspapers are becoming a
dying dinosaur.
And I head out here to social media as the way to put this
out there.
I think we could do a better job of that and especially on
the city's web page to where
it is.
Somebody has mentioned already a specific web or touch or
some notification there.
I think that's a great, great idea.
Also the city does send out yearly a, I call it the state
of the city.
We got one in the mail, nice little brochure, talks about
all the accolades the city has
done.
There could be a flyer put in there.
There could be another section that says here's how you
find out about what's going on in
your city with regards to meetings and/or changes and here
's what you can do.
Similar to that other piece that you had there.
On the apartment side, I was going through that too.
The issue there is just signs and if you could on that
property put the signs that their
entrances are in the parking lots, multiple signs.
Now is that the responsibility of the property owner or the
city?
I don't know.
I don't think that's the responsibility that could be taken
up as we go forward here.
Now in the newspaper, that's in the back section back there
and the classified and it says
notice.
It wouldn't hurt that once in a while that you post
someplace else in a newspaper that
you do that so that people say okay, that's another way of
communicating.
So these are just again suggestions.
But I think notification is always going to be an issue and
the only way to solve it is
to note more of the, I call it the social media Facebook
and that kind of stuff.
Agreed.
I can't remember any time ever hearing from a respondent or
citizen.
I read this in the newspaper.
I don't think it is the most.
I think that it's just maybe left over from I think the way
we used to mostly communicate
and the local government code has updated requiring
allowing for website publication
but still has that published notice requirement.
I think until there's a universal sort of way that they'll
probably stay with that.
But I agree that social media is probably the most
effective way.
It's something we can add to it easily and test it.
As far as the 750 foot, which is not a bad idea, but I
think it could be tested in the
sense of how many respondents do we get from the 500 and
the 200?
I don't think the 500 have a way of even responding but it
would be a mechanism by putting it
in there to say hey check this off and send it back in with
hey you're going to come or
not to come and then take it out and test it and see how
many more responses you get.
If you don't get any responses people aren't interested in
that far out.
Just don't do it.
We could also look at folks who spoke at public hearings
and we can take a look at, you know,
but they do typically give us their addresses and we can
sort of gauge.
That might be a quick way to sort of research who's getting
the notice and who cares.
That's another thing in my little notes here.
Notification of neighborhood meetings and just meetings in
general come the same way,
certified mail and letters.
Are those also posted in the newspaper and on the website?
The neighborhood meetings I do not believe are posted on
the website.
We require that they send that out to 500 residents within
500 feet but since it is,
no we don't ask for that extra step.
Is that done by the city and/or the developer?
We provide the list and the applicant is the one who does
the mailing and usually they
provide us a courtesy copy of the mailed notice.
They provide, okay here's the notice we sent out and here's
the list of people.
We give them the list and then usually we ask for, they
provide us a copy of what the
flyer looked like.
Okay.
Just in so we have some of those.
It's not required but and we attend the meetings as I
stated earlier, we the case manager and
also myself attend those meetings as well.
And in the presentations that we get, do we, is it part of
the presentation that the developer
did not have a neighborhood meeting or he did?
We usually know your reports.
I don't know if it's always in the presentation but it's
usually in the reports the developer
had a meeting, neighborhood meeting on such and such date.
I think that if they did not have a meeting that would also
be in the report as well.
Okay.
Thank you.
Commissioner Rossell.
I'll keep it short because I know we're on a time crunch.
I appreciate your presentation and all the commissioner's
input to this.
I would definitely echo the social media.
Does Didn't Plan In Zoning have a page on Facebook?
I do not believe you do.
I think the closest thing you have is our development
website.
It seems like low hanging fruit to make it Didn't Plan In Z
oning page.
People like it and they can share whatever gets posted.
That's as far as I know free.
A couple thoughts I had on some of the suggestions listed
today.
Just for clarification, the 500 foot notice is being dupl
icated to the 200 foot, correct?
Yes.
It goes to the resident.
The 500 foot is just the folks who live in the house and
the 200 foot is to satisfy local
government code to the property owner.
And the 500 foot is not a certified?
It is not.
So when we talk about certified being a barrier, that dupl
icated letter that they potentially
get wouldn't be certified.
It wouldn't be.
So they should be getting it.
They wouldn't have the response form.
But they certainly would be notified of the -- and I think
it probably is a good idea
to put Commissioner Dudowitz's comment about saying if you
are within 200 feet, the 200
feet, you have also been sent a certified list.
I don't think you'd have to -- I think you could just put
it on every single 500 foot
notification because they would put both buffers and say if
you also are within the 200 feet
buffer, you have also been sent a certified note.
Sure.
Because they would get that one without the --
That way they know and they don't have to go pick it up.
But they do have that little response sheet.
But I know at least on one occasion, a case that I was
presented, that somebody just showed
up and they didn't have a response, but they said I'm in
opposition.
And then when that went to counsel, it was noted that there
was a property owner in opposition.
So it's not -- they don't have to submit the form if they
are at a public meeting and say
we're in opposition, then it's counted as opposition if
they're within the 200 feet.
Sure.
And then the last thing I have is in the discussion between
envelope and postcard, strangely enough,
I've read studies about this.
And letters that are in an envelope, the response rate for
those are exponentially higher than
postcards.
Postcards are just easy to throw away.
And there's a personal buy-in when someone actually opens a
letter.
So the response to letters is if we're looking at a poor
response rate, I think using postcards
is actually less than that.
I don't know about you, but you can think through how many
postcards just throw away
when, at any rate, the studies show that letters have a
higher response rate.
So I wouldn't be an advocate for postcards considering the
studies have already been
out there.
That's all I got.
I have one final comment and we'll get on.
On the certified mail, I think there's a process you can
use at the post office called a certificate
of mailing.
And it's the same type of process.
It's a certification that the letter's been mailed, but it
doesn't require a response
from the person that the letter is sent to.
Just certifies it was physically mailed.
Yeah, you just get a stamp and it says, "Yep, send them a
letter."
So that's maybe another option that-- Maybe that's the
compromise, yeah.
So anyway, thank you for a great presentation.
I know we've had a lot of questions and I think the city
knows--
Just to get some clarification, I'm sorry, just to get some
clarification.
Would the commission like us to further go forward with the
idea of moving away from
certified?
It would require an ordinance change and getting-- Is the
general feeling of the commission that
that is a barrier, I guess is what I'm asking.
Okay.
I'm indifferent, so.
Yeah, I think it's made some tracking mechanism certified.
It doesn't have to be.
I think that is-- As long as we have a tracking mechanism
so that answers the question when
somebody-- I didn't get notice, well, it was mailed.
But in a certified situation, you do have a signature.
Well, he may not have gotten it, but his wife got it or his
other partner got it or somebody
got it because there is a signature.
We would have that with the option provided by--
Yeah.
So that's something to think about in going forward without
the certified certification.
Thank you.
Great presentation.
I guess the pleasure of the commission, you guys want to
break and try to eat or you want
to go ahead on and let Beverly make her next presentation
and then we'll eat and if we
just-- I think we have a very short agenda this evening.
If we are just going to get a light start on our meeting,
would you rather prefer to
do that?
Her presentation is three minutes.
As much time as she needs, I was told 10 to 15 kind of is
just a--
There you go.
If you don't mind, please proceed on to our next workshop
session item in your next presentation.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
This is in response to Commissioner Bruegel's request for
information about conservation
development.
And so staff kind of-- we've been kind of want to present
this and I think that was
a-- we appreciate that invitation to present this
information.
So I'll just kind of get right into that presentation.
I thought I would start with this quote.
I did some research because there's a lot of information
out there and a lot of websites
and a lot of pros and cons.
But I like this and there's some typos in here but it's a
direct quote.
Most of the development in the United States, 90% or
something like that and this is from
the Milwaukee mayor, John Norquist, it was in 2003, is
about new development on the edge.
If we ignore that and just concentrate on infill, the edge
city will never repair itself.
It'd be a mistake for people who care about cities and
urban design to assume that green
field development is bad because it is going to happen.
And if it doesn't improve it, it will overwhelm whatever
infill we are doing in the cities.
And kind of what I got from that and why I started with
that because it talks about edge
development which is also what our comprehensive plan talks
about is edge development.
And so I like this because it essentially says is that edge
development's coming.
We have constant pressure for residential subdivisions on
the edge.
Every city that I have worked in has a great deal of
pressure about new higher density subdivisions
occurring on the edge of town.
This is a trend I've asked two or three developers, most
recently a local developer, why?
Why are we seeing density increases?
The state development which is a zoning category that every
city I've worked in for the past
10 years has and I've yet to see any new estate development
.
It seems to be this constant pressure for higher density
development and it is occurring
in green fields typically because that's where it makes the
most sense.
So this is where it's going.
This is where we see it going on a regular basis and most
of the subdivisions we're presenting
to you are typically edge developments.
And so I think this is a really appropriate time to take a
look at how we can address
that as we move forward and what are some guiding
principles that we want to take forward
based on our comprehensive plan.
This is directly from the Denton Plan 2030.
It's a direct quote from that.
It says as much of the edge of Denton is characterized as
rural land that possesses a character of
Denton's past and natural environment that is cherished.
Conservation development is recommended as the primary
means for managing the interface
of the edge and they also talk about the edge of our
community.
Conservation development is an approach to the design of
rural residential subdivision
which is highly suited to agricultural fringe areas and
also I think to add to that natural
resource protection where the retention of rural character
in open space is desired.
So this just is an image and we'll talk a little bit about
conservation development.
And I'll try and talk about some of the pros and cons and
challenges with it as well.
Essentially a concept is applied by permitting smaller cl
ustered lots in return for preservation
of generous open space, amounts of open space.
It involves density bonuses, typically lot size reductions
and then ultimately open space
preservation.
And this is what we would typically see as a typical subdiv
ision.
And this is sort of what that subdivision might look like
if we applied some conservation
development principles to it.
And then just another illustration of a raw tract of land
and how a typical subdivision
could -- this looks fairly large estate development could
potentially be laid out and then a conservation
development and how that might look like -- how that might
look on the same tract of land.
There's been I think a lot of discussion about cluster
development, conservation development.
Cluster literature sometimes uses them interchangeably, but
it seems like the more thoughtful and
thoroughly researched literature seems to suggest there is
a difference.
Cluster development is something that is generally
encouraged.
It is a type of development.
Conservation development is much more specific and tied to
certain processes.
Cluster development calls for a set aside of open space,
but doesn't really apply any
development criteria, design criteria to that.
There is a higher standard for conservation development for
quantity, quality, and the
configuration of what that open space looks like.
Cluster development is often in conditional use.
It could be done through planned development or specific
use permit or conditional use
permits.
Conservation development, like smart codes, are by right.
So there are development and design criteria assigned to
them.
You can do it by right.
It is an argument that basically makes it a little bit
easier for the developer to embrace
it rather than having to run through a process or run the
gauntlet through a planned development
or a conditional use permit.
It is allowed by right.
If you do these things, you can do it.
There's no approval to it.
It's very much like a lot of the things that we're trying
to move towards in terms of our
code development.
That if these are the standards, we all agree to the
standards.
You can do it by right if you meet the standards.
Cluster development usually calls for 25, 30 percent of the
gross tract area.
Conservation development usually looks at the net buildable
land area that's not constrained
by wetlands and floodplain.
That can be in some cases onerous, but definitely there's a
difference there.
Conservation development allows for noncommon open space.
I think they had some examples that they had provided of
community gardens that could be
privately owned and some other open space areas that could
be not necessarily owned
by the public or the park system or maybe the HOA as well.
Conservation development incentivized conservation design
with density.
It depends on how far a city would want to go with this
sort of thing.
I think that what conservation development typically will
do is say you can only do density
through conservation development.
If you want to do typical standard lot layout, that is
going to have to be done at a lower
density, the standard sort of tract layout that we see.
That would only be allowed for lower density.
If you want to do higher density, it would have to be
conservation development.
Cluster development allows for the same density for
standard subdivision layout and conservation
development.
It does take away that sort of disincentive to conservation
development.
Then again, going back to the idea of the configuration and
the resulting open space,
conservation development usually calls for connectivity at
some point to the larger open
space system that the city provides and ultimately to
trails and trying to establish those connections.
Those open space connections aren't typically called for in
cluster development.
It's basically just a you can do this if you increase the
open space by this percentage
and you can drop your lot sizes by this percentage.
I think conservation takes just one step further.
I think as typically when I see a city moving towards a new
concept, there's usually a
hybrid process that you kind of as you work towards
something, trying to meet the needs
of the community but also achieve the spirit of a different
type of land development pattern.
Our Denton Plan 2030 has some very, very specific guidance
about this and actually calls for
it when it talks about the city's edge.
It calls for promotion of conservation development as an
alternative for large lot development.
It calls for revision of rural residential commercial
districts to allow for conservation.
It tells us like take a look at your zoning districts and
see how you can promote this
in your rural areas and see if you can rezone those areas
to encourage and make this happen
in our community.
It calls for the expansion of the rural open space.
There is a great deal of guidance in our comp plan and I am
a little ashamed to admit that
I kind of went to the comp plan as an afterthought.
I should have started with that because there really is a
great deal of information in our
comp plan really pointing us in this direction and saying
this is really in the rural areas,
this is the development, land development pattern that we
should be trying to promote
in the rural areas, allowing for that density to come but
allowing for that thoughtful planning
of density to occur.
Some of the benefits, it reduces the cost of public
services.
Ultimately can reduce storm runoff, narrower, shorter
streets, larger amounts of open space,
allow for more natural filtration, preserves natural areas
and wildlife, less costs associated
with clearing and grading and depending on the site those
can be significant.
Same number of homes in theory, provides access to green
space, allows for smaller less expensive
homes while still creating a sense of place and livable
communities.
It can provide buffers between neighborhoods and one of the
other arguments that I did
not list is that it provides an open space that does not
become part of what is maintained
by the public generally.
That's a positive and also can be a negative as well.
Is it practical?
I spoke with a local developer recently and said why don't
we see this?
Why don't we see this happening?
I think there's a few reasons.
It's not a common practice.
It's not the standard subdivision layout that usually our
developers are working with.
It is different and maybe additional education is required,
not just in the development community
but on the part of staff as well.
During planning phases, lot and home layout may take extra
work to ensure that that open
space connectivity is maintained.
You're not starting with a blank sheet.
You're working with a topography.
You're trying to establish those connections and you're
sort of moving the houses around
to make it work on the site a little bit more.
Methods to protect the open space have to be developed and
implemented and carefully.
I think that the mechanism that we're all thinking is HOA
but certainly that's going
to impact the cost to the homeowner.
That always is kind of a staff default.
Well, HOA maintained but there's a cost to maintenance of
open space.
So we don't have land trust options.
I haven't seen many of those utilized in the state of Texas
.
So that always falls to the HOA at this point.
Not always.
Even in easement, there's still somebody owns it and
somebody's maintaining it.
And so there is that sort of question or impediment that
could ultimately impact the bottom line
for the homeowner.
Obviously challenges the provision of onsite sanitary sewer
septic.
We typically require an acre for that.
This becomes a little problematic.
That type of estate development really doesn't work well
with this principle of conservation
development.
And then here's the big one.
I scoured and looked at aerials and just looked at found
the name of a conservation.
There's plenty of them out there.
And then we'd go to the aerials and look at them.
I had a hard time finding ones that really have that sort
of affordable housing density
that we're saying is one of the pluses, one of the positive
things.
I think that it's out there.
I think that in theory that is the point.
You get the same yield off the same land except that you
just basically drop your density.
You drop your lot area and you get the same ultimate yield
off the land.
But I had a hard time -- mostly what I found were larger,
higher price point houses that
were occurring in these types of development projects.
But I was looking really hard to find some lower price
point because I think that is
ultimately where the beauty of it is if we can make that
happen.
And just taking a look at our general development
regulations that we have on the books right
now, when a subdivision is more than two acres, we have
some different requirements.
And if you look down at general regulations, these are the
regulations for all subdivisions
that are -- for all subdivisions.
But they don't apply to subdivisions that are greater than
two acres.
They can apply but they don't apply to subdivisions that
are greater than two acres.
In lieu of that, if you exceed two acres, the one in the
top left corner that has the
two rows is what applies to you.
So essentially minimum lot size we place with maximum
density in the second table if you're
more than two acres.
And side yard increases for -- the side yard will increase
for most of the districts.
And then all other setbacks are eliminated.
So for our residential districts greater than two acres, we
have some different standards.
Side yards look a little different.
And we move away from lot size and move into density.
There are no requirements.
I think this was a swipe, a sort of effort to try encourage
conservation development.
It was our sort of our first attempt.
But I think it fell a little short.
We don't have any requirements for corresponding open space
.
So if you can't for some reason achieve your density
because it's encumbered by floodplain
or environmentally sensitive areas, you certainly are able
to drop that lot size and get a higher
density on your project counting that total acreage.
So there's a little gap there that ultimately could result
in higher density.
Because we're moving -- if it's encumbered and it's not
developable, we're looking at
the entire site, you don't have minimum lot size anymore,
you can increase your density.
So there's a little loophole there or that sort of moved
away.
But you are still conserving that FEMA area or that area
that's encumbered by environmental
sensitive areas.
So it does achieve a goal to a certain degree, but
certainly not in the cleanest way.
And then again, there's no requirements for open space that
are in there with just the
density changes.
Encourage the thoughtful siting of dwellings, but not a
thoughtful application of open space.
So when you say that you can -- that we now move from the
average -- I mean the required
minimum lot area of 32,000 square feet and we move away now
to a maximum density of one
unit per acre, it's -- and then you basically increase your
side yard.
It's sort of encouraging open space within the site, but it
's encouraging sort of maybe
a thoughtful placement of buildings with consideration to
open space.
But it really isn't calling for any clear direction for
what that open space should
look like, what those common areas could be, how those
could be ultimately connected, and
doesn't establish any minimum percentages.
So we have kind of given away a few things with our code,
and I'm not sure that we have
achieved the desired result, which is ultimately conserved.
There's certainly a more direct route to get there.
One tool for conservation development is planned
development.
And when I talked earlier about that interim phase, that
walking before you can run, before
you want to embrace full on disincentives for density, it
could be a planned development.
And I think you're aware that staff is hoping to bring
something forward and reintroduce
the idea of planned development to the community.
I mean to the commission for consideration at some point.
It was here, it's gone, we're thinking it's maybe time to
bring it back, but in a better
way.
You remember that I presented this at the previous
presentation, talked about that a
planned development is integrated development that
essentially takes a look at a single
track that allows us to facilitate smart growth,
sustainable land use practices including conservation
development, and mixed use development.
It allows mixing of residential types.
It allows flexibility within the lot sizes, setbacks, all
that to achieve an overall unified
and superior design.
And so I had a couple examples, and I remember mentioning
to you that these examples could
not be done in the city of Denton, that they would not meet
our minimum acreage requirements
for a master plan community.
Ultimately planned development, just to recap, can promote
flexibility in land use design,
allows for innovative land use designs, integration of dens
ities, achieves a more balanced community.
I think it's the whole point of these master plan
developments is that you see, and the
ones that I've seen done well in different parts of the
country, do integrate different
price points.
So you don't have pockets of this is where the state
housing is, and this is where the
little houses are, and the two shall never come near each
other.
It integrates, creates a community that integrates a lot of
different price points, and done
really beautifully with great deal of success in other
communities through master plan communities
or plan development mechanisms.
Promotes more compact development, effective integration of
open space, and allows site
specific regulations in response to mitigate offsite
impacts.
So on a smaller level, plan development can help us to, I
think of some projects that
have been before you recently where smaller project, there
's offsite impacts, we just
have straight zoning, and all they can do to maybe raise
the roof or go a little higher
would be to get to the next zoning category, but we don't
want that because we don't know
what else that will bring.
So developers are caught in a conundrum.
All I can do is go to the higher zoning category to make
this happen, and we really don't want
to see that.
We want to see, we'll give you that, but then we want this
other thing.
We don't have a tool for basically managing some of those
things through the conventional
zoning restrictions that we're dealing with right now.
This is just a recap from a previous presentation that was
provided to the commission by another
staff member, but there were reasons why it didn't work in
Denton, and part of it, and
I think the biggest one of these that, there's two I think
really big ones in here, is that
they, plan development weren't achieving that higher design
component, that elevated integrated
site development component that we're trying to achieve
through plan development.
That can be worked on.
I think that can be improved through the ordinance.
And then ultimately, and this is in so many communities
across the entire state of Texas,
is that plan development is often used as a remedy for
variance.
So you don't want to do your setbacks, do a PD, and you can
drop your setbacks, but
if you're not achieving what the comp plan asks you to
achieve, if you're not achieving,
similar to our alternative development plan, some sort of
integrated, elevated, and higher
urban design with your project, then really it has not met
the intent of what a plan development
should do.
We should get something for it.
And so there's, and then tracking them is always difficult.
But these are some things I think that we are prepared to,
I think, work on in a more
comprehensive way and put some fail safes into our
ordinance to prevent sort of this
type of lower quality development or less than, development
that's not quite consistent with
our comp plan.
Some ways to do that are authorized, and these could be
tailored specifically for conservation
development, so we could essentially authorize density
bonuses as an incentive for the use
of plan developments, or PUDs in this case, to encourage
open space protection.
Minimum acreage for eligible projects.
These may be different for infill thresholds of something
that is in the city that we're
trying to mitigate offsite impacts, might have a different
threshold, but certainly
I've seen pros and cons to the idea of a 25 acre minimum
plan development where you might
be encouraging conservation development through that
mechanism.
And then standards for reservation, dedication of open
space might be a way to condition
that approval for the plan development that's trying to
achieve conservation development.
You could integrate what those standards are for dedication
on the space, what kind of
connectivity you're looking for, maybe special provisions
for multi-track developments that
encourage that connection and larger tracks of open space
that's shared between the two
tracks.
So just some things that could be integrated into a plan
development ordinance to allow
conservation to development or cluster development to move
forward in a more measured way as
we sort of branch out into this new idea.
I'd be glad to answer any questions you have.
Commissioner Taylor.
Thank you, Chair.
So I just wanted to comment that this is, I think this
solves a lot of the problems we've
looked at before with NR2 lot coverage and other low
density lot coverage issues.
The density transfers exist now and those occur, but then
you end up with a constrained lot
that has to have 60% landscape or something like that and
it's hard to fit what everybody
wants on that lot there.
This allows that green space to be just across the back
fence in a publicly shared area and
permanently preserved area and so people should be able to
build out there lots more.
And especially in South Denton, we have a lot of NR2 and a
lot of NR1 that's undeveloped
and it's an ordeal to get it rezoned and the easiest method
is usually density transfers,
but then they run into all these barriers when they try and
build three houses per acre
densely in an NR1 area and then have a bunch of preserved
area behind it.
So I think that expanding this and making it more holistic
and addressing things like
lot coverage and other things will make that density
transfer more useful and end up with
better development overall.
Plan developments.
You can look all over Fort Worth and see some beautiful
plan developments that are this area
is zoned to be an auto body storage facility and that's the
only use that's allowed on
a 10 acre parcel.
I don't know how we would control PDs because when Denton
had them and when other cities
in the area have had them, they become the I'm going to
write my own zoning category
and usually they're not well thought out, they're not like
an MPC, they're I want to
do this one thing here and I'm going to find a way to get
it through.
I can get it through with plan development, right?
That's the default, right?
So whenever, like moving forward with PDs, I think it's
they need to have safeties on
them.
They do provide a valuable tool for flexible development,
but there need to be safeties
to prevent them from just being the loophole generator.
And the conservation development, I think we can take the
idea, like you said, that's
in our code about density transfer and expand on it and
make it better and encourage more
development to go that way, like you said, lower
infrastructure costs.
It's better for everybody, even the people that don't live
in that neighborhood, less
infrastructure that their taxes have to support, more open
space that they can enjoy across
the other side of the fence, so to speak.
I have a couple comments and observations.
I think the idea and the concept is great.
I think the issues are going to come into the application
of it from my experience.
And just a couple things that may have already been
considered by staff is that in my development
career, run into this before trying to do creative projects
, you run into street design
criteria, the curve data doesn't work, the slope data doesn
't work, you can't design
the streets based on what our minimums are to be able to do
those things.
And then same thing with your utilities.
You end up with a lot of dead end utilities and the
inability to loop and all the things
that engineering can design the platform.
You go trying to go sit down with those guys and say, "It's
going to be a straight line.
It's got to tie here and tie here."
Well, this is a really creative idea and I'd love to do
this.
Well, it doesn't meet our design criteria.
And then the only way to do that is to then try to do it
private streets and an HOA and
then all the additional costs and who's going to maintain
it and all the other things that
we've talked about here.
So I would champion those things and I just want to is that
's the direction that we're
going.
This is going to be, in my opinion, an integral part in
that conversation to take it from
it looks great on a board or on a piece of paper to how do
we actually go out there and
put it in the ground and engineer it and it's accepted by
the city to make it a reality.
And those would be my couple of comments to help add to
that to make it more of a reality
for the city of Denton.
Any other comments on this item?
Thank you for a great presentation.
We've run a little long on our work session and our meeting
looks to be fairly short.
I know we talked about possibly taking a break to eat.
I don't know if it'd be this commission's purview to let's
just press on and have our
meeting and I think it will go reasonably quickly based on
it's just a consent agenda
and then those that like to stay can eat.
Is that acceptable to everybody?
Okay.
With that at 634, I'm going to close our work session for
Planning and Zoning Commission
and I'm going to move right on into...
We need to pause.
Sorry.
We need to pause to reset the tape.
Two minutes.
Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton Planning and
Zoning Commission meeting for
April 27th.
It is 637 and our meeting has been duly posted and a quorum
in present and I call our meeting
to order at this time.
Our first order of business is going to be to stand and
give a pledge to the US and the
Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for
which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.
On earth, Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the city of
Texas, one state, under God,
one individual.
Our next item on our agenda tonight is going to be to
consider the approval of the Planning
and Zoning Commission minutes and I'm going to call for two
separate motions.
I'll take our March 23rd minutes first.
Commissioner Bribble.
Thank you, Chair.
I had a clarification I'd like to make to the minutes.
It's on page three.
When we were talking about the tree ordinance, I had asked
a question somewhere in there
about penalties and fines and making sure that we had stric
ter standards when someone
was found to be cutting down trees illegally.
That didn't make it into the minutes.
Additionally, line 28, when legal is talking about the, it
says Jennifer de Curtis, deputy
city attorney, stated although the attorney general is a
state law requirement.
I think you meant to say the ag, we're talking about the ag
exemption.
So that needs to be cleaned up and if we could somehow add
that line of questioning back
into the minutes, I would appreciate that.
But that was my only correction.
Thank you.
Do you like to make a motion?
Commissioner Roselle.
I motion to approve the March 23rd minutes.
With the correction.
Yes, with the corrections from Commissioner Bribble.
Commissioner Beck.
Second.
Okay.
First and a second to approve.
Call for a vote on the board.
Motion carries seven zero and I want to clarify that motion
was with to approve with the corrections
on it.
We'll take our next item will be our minutes for April 13th
.
Commissioner Bribble.
Thank you, Chair.
I have another correction in these minutes as well.
It's on page six, lines 20 through 24.
I was speaking about the matrix and I had suggested the
last one was says the third
item requested is in regards to the true ordinance.
Actually the third item that I requested was an update on
conservation development, which
we did tonight.
But I just want the minutes to reflect that that was my
third request.
Thank you.
Okay.
Oh, and oh.
Keep going.
You're good.
Can I make a motion to approve the minutes?
You beat me to it, Jim.
Well, I beat you to it because I have one other.
Okay.
In addition to the corrections from Commissioner Bribble,
there was one other on page six,
line 10.
Frank Connor is listed and I think it should have been
based on clarification is Frank
Dudowitz.
So give Connor a pass.
He didn't make the meeting.
So anyway, the chair have a second.
Commissioner Roselle.
I second.
Okay.
Have a first and a second to approve the minutes with the
two corrections, Commissioner Bribble
and Commissioner Strange.
And I call for a vote on the board.
And motion passes 6-0 with one abstain.
Moves to our third item on our agenda tonight will be our
consent agenda.
Commissioner Beck.
I move we approve the consent agenda.
Okay.
Commissioner Dudowitz.
I second.
Okay.
We have a first and a second.
Is there some discussion?
Commissioner Roselle.
Yes, we mentioned in work session that the final plat would
have the curb cuts.
So that will come back or do we approve it with that or is
that the assumption that that
would already be done?
Will you clarify which item that going to be?
It's an item PP150021.
In work session we talked about the north curb cut into
Stewart not represented correctly.
Okay.
I'll ask for clarification of staff if we can go ahead with
as is since it's a preliminary
plat and that can be addressed at the final plat or if we
need to do something different.
That's something we can require during the final plat.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Okay.
Commissioner Dudowitz.
For a point of clarification, when we see plats like this,
I'm going to ask the staff,
and they had that detail, is it just there for their
convenience but we're not really
looking at that at this point in time.
The detail comes in the final plat?
It does come in the final plat.
I think it was just a slight oversight that it didn't have
the 15 foot on each side for
the site requirements and I think they missed it by chance.
I assumed when I saw it as a preliminary plat I didn't get
too over excited about all that.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I just was going to make sure in the future I went through
it real quickly and saying
okay it's a preliminary and then ignored those types of
things.
There was one on the south side too that looked like that.
Thank you.
So we have a first and second to approve the consent agenda
.
Seeing no other request to speak, I'll call for a vote on
the board.
Motion carries 7-0.
That moves us to item four, our public hearing section.
And I'm at this time going to open public hearing Z16-003
and I will go ahead and make
a motion based on I believe a request by the applicant that
this item will be continued
to date certain of May the 11th, 2016.
Commissioner Dudowitz?
I second the motion.
Okay.
Any discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board.
That motion carries 7-0 and that moves us to our final
couple of items, our project
matrix and our concluding items.
Seeing no request on those two items, I will close our
meeting at 646.
Thank you very much.