May 25, 2016 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2016-05-25 5:30 PM

Planning and Zoning Commission City of Denton work session. It is 530 and this meeting has been duly posted and a quorum is present and I call our meeting to order at this time. Our first item of business in our work session is to receive a report of clarification of agenda items and at this time I'm going to turn that over to Manal for presentation. Thank you Chairperson Strange, members of the Commission. First item we have three plots on the agenda. The first one is for a preliminary plot of Cavender investment properties. Cindy if you want to come forward please and explain the minor rev isions that we've just received for the P&Z. Cindy Jackson, senior planner with the Planning Department. The revisions that you received are just hard copies that were in your packet. It's just they might be a little easier for you to look at. Basically what this is is their preliminary plotting two lots and the smaller of the lots will be developed with the Cavenders Boots City that the rezoning went through a few months ago for. The next step in this after the preliminary plot is approved will be the final plot of the Cavenders site. Thank you. Commissioner Beck. Thank you. Lot one is where is what we 're talking about. Lot one is where Cavenders is going to go. The entire site is the preliminary plot. Thank you. Thank you Cindy. We have a final plan for Buc-E's number 39 subdivision. Julie if you would please walk everybody through this plan I'd appreciate it. Good evening Julie Wyatt. All right so here is the final plot. I have a couple things I want you to take a look. We had a question earlier today about right here. So let me back up. This is a final plat for Buc-E's subdivision. Buc- E's is intended to be the anchor on lot one. It will be accessed with Buc-E's Boulevard which is going to be a public right-of-way and that that is going to connect to Nuggetway. There are out parcels, seven of them that will be developed . As you recall there was an invite there's an environmentally sensitive area in this area. There was an alternative ESA that came to y'all to have this road cross. That was withdrawn by the applicant. So if you notice when you when you zoom in the access easement ends at the environmentally sensitive area. However the 50-foot water, wastewater, and storm sewer easement does go across that that environmentally sensitive area. That is in order to loop the water line and sewer line. That is something that can be done as long as the ESA is not disturbed. So the applicant, this is from the construction plans, the applicant is actually going to bore under that environmentally sensitive area to go across it so they do not disturb it. So that is for all of the utilities that would be going in that easement. Commissioner Beck. Thank you. So no storm scepters? No sir. Okay. Okay and just to be clear that go back to the first slide you put up there. The plat? Yes. Okay. Where the road was going to be. It's a shaded area now. So is that design where sometime down the road they may come back and try and put a road in there? Is that option being left open? I don't know what their future plans are. It is something they could always come back forward with. It would go through the same process that they did before where it would have to come back. Staff would analyze it. It would have to come back to this Commission and then on to City Council for approval. So if they did do that you you would know about it. Okay and then one last question. Do we know what kind of commercial buildings to expect on lots two through eight? We don't. We don't know how they're going to define it. Probably going to be a chicken joint in there somewhere with nugget what? Well the Beaver Nuggets I think is there. Okay thank you. Sure. Commissioner Dedowitz. Thank you. Just another point that we had discussed and that was access to lot two. How was what's the plan? Have they discussed that? Thank you for bringing that up. I actually failed to discuss that. There is a right-of-way that runs adjacent to the property so the lot two will be accessed from this right-of-way that's adjacent to the property. Who owns that? I believe the City of Denton. It's the City of Denton right-of-way. Does that belong to the Shopping Center? No sir. It's a public right-of-way and right now it's just dirt. It 's not improved right now. I'm assuming it will become improved at some point. Question then if it is public right -of-way I guess for them to develop lot two they'll have to put that in develop and do the improvements and then deed those to the city? Yes sir. Yes sir. It's a city standards correct? Anybody else? Thank you Julie. We have another preliminary plan which is Country Club Village phase 2A. Chandrin is going to give a synopsis of that for us tonight as well. Thank you Chandrin. Chandrin Jarvis with Planey. This is the preliminary plan for section 2A of the Country Club Village. If you remember we you guys approved a general development plan in the last meeting so this is just the next step in that process and following this will probably be probably be a final flat. They are platting 25 lots zone in our in our two at the corner of well just just east of Fort Worth Drive and south of Brush Crutcher. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. I think last time when we were looking at the general development I raised the concern about there being no parks or anything like that and again I know they don't have to do that but we've got these developments going on way out there people moving in yet there's no recreational areas so can we can I bring this up can we raise this as an issue or is this beyond our scope? It's beyond the scope for this . I know that there is a park dedication fee that goes on every lot that's developed and if you want to go into that more maybe you can bring that up at the conclusion for a future agenda item if you want to talk some more about parks. Okay which would indicate that maybe they would put a park in there? I said no. I'll let Manal address that. Jennifer who ever wants to? Who wants it? Generally they can either dedicate the open space or they can pay a fee so if they did a fee in lieu of an open space then it would not be depicted on here as an open space but they have to do one or the other so long as they meet the requirements that that kick it in but as far as the preliminary plan is concerned we can't as long as they meet the technical requirements we can't make them go back. But that fee in lieu of would not necessarily affect that development then it would affect parks somewhere else within the city would benefit the park? That 's right. Just to piggyback on that just a little bit I know it's a little off topic but we do have on the matrix where we're trying to get the Parks Department and come into a presentation as it relates to parkland dedication and the mechanisms that they have in place so we 're working on that. These are fairly large larger lots anyway. I'm familiar with the development to the north and most of those people put in their own swing sets and and stuff there too but they're gonna find a lot of my golf balls in that one they start digging up over there. That's right to the side of the third hole and if the wind's blowing all those golf balls are going in there. But usually goes the other way into the lake. Thank you Shandrin. Next item Judy Wyatt will be discussing it's a request for a change in zoning and I'm gonna yield the floor to Judy to go over the case. All right. All right so this is Z-16-6 McCormick Apartments. The request before you is to consider making a recommendation to City Council regarding a rezoning from DR 1 to DR 2 on approximately a third of an acre. The location of the property it is on the corner of McCormick and Eagle. It is just south of the UNT campus and just to bring in Google again just to give you that their their aerials are a little more up to date than ours and it gives you a little bigger clarity on what's going on in the area. So we have the University of North Texas to the north and this really is a mixed-use kind of University District area and this is a residence hall and I think it has a thousand students. We have apartments interspersed in the area. We also have single-family homes and here's some religious institutions. So there's quite a mix. There's also some commercial development over here on Eagle and on Avenue C. Just south of the property there were once single-family dwellings that have since been demolished so the area is changing and it is evolving. The zoning corresponds to the mixed-use of the area. We have DCG which is the University area. DR2 is across the street from the property so a rezoning to DR2 for this property would really be a logical extension of that existing DR2. We have some DR1, the subject property as well as the adjacent properties, some DCN and then some DR2. So it really is a mix of zoning uses or zoning districts and the uses on the ground reflect that mix of zoning. Let me go back one. The applicant is proposing the DR2 in order to develop the property with multi-family. Now multi-family is permitted in DR2 as well as some small- scale commercial uses. So DR1 is primarily more of a single-family residential or du plex, the lower density residential uses. So that's why the applicant is coming forward the DR2 in order to develop the property with multi-family. When we look at the Denton Plan 2030 we see that this is a neighborhood university compatibility area and we can see that by what's on the ground. If you just look at the map you'll see that we have the government institutional future land use category here and that's where the University of North Texas is. We have the neighborhood university compatibility area that rings around UNT and that includes the subject property. When you get in this area you get more of the downtown and downtown compatibility area and then you get some more commercial uses on 35 and then toward Dallas Drive. The neighborhood university compatibility area is really those areas that are affected by the universities in our city and in this case it's UNT. The CO MP plan calls for a gradual transition from the real intense development of the universities to more of the neighborhoods and then they want a mix of uses. They really want to activate the public realm and encourage walkable and bicycling areas. So that's really what the COMP plan is calling for. The proposed DR2 does fit within this future land use designation. So the considerations that staff looked at when we were analyzing the case is first what was going on at the site and at the block level with the rede velopment that's going on. That's really signaling to us that this area is probably in transition and maybe single-family uses aren't entirely appropriate for this area especially the adjacency to the university and that the DR2 district is consistent with the future land use designation and it's consistent with the existing zoning pattern. The additional density and uses that are associated with DR2 district are desirable next to the university as it would contribute to the walkability of the area and it is consistent with the eclectic mixed use character of the neighborhood. However, the code does require for a gradual transition and so the redevelopment should be sensitive in scale to not only the university but also the established neighborhoods nearby. We feel like DR2 district meets this requirement because the height, you know, there's only a maximum height to 45 feet, maximum lot coverage of 75 feet, so it keeps the scale consistent with what you could expect in an urban residential neighborhood. And then DR2 district would allow the subject property to redevelop to provide the essential housing for students and also if it did develop that way, a neighborhood serving commercial uses while it's still, as I said, maintain that scale that is consistent or that transitions to those existing neighborhoods. Here are some pictures. Once again, I'm not good at taking the picture so don't expect a lot but here's the subject property and then you can see the adjacent properties that those are no longer there. This is the middle of the street and this is looking south toward the residential area and then this is looking north toward UNT. So you can see it really there's, you know, this really is transitioning from that university to the neighborhoods. We did send out a public notification. We received one notice that was neutral to the request and due to the considerations and the criteria for approval, staff does recommend approval of the request and I'll answer any questions. Commissioner Rossell. Thank you. The other two lots seem recently demolished based on the pictures. It looks relatively recent. It does. Has that owner or owners come before PNZ before my time with any kind of request for rezoning? Has there been any action on that, those two lots? There hasn't been any action. They are actually owned by a religious institution and so if they were to develop, religious institutions are permitted in any zoning district so you know if that actual owner was to develop they could buy right in the zoning, any zoning district they had. That owner owns both lots? Yes, I believe several lots within in this area. And that's a distinct different owner than the one the applicant who's applying this evening? Yes sir. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. That single house that sits there, the owner does he live in that? I don't believe so. The applicant is here. I see her. So she'll be able to answer questions at the regular meeting for you. Okay so I would gather too by the lack of input you got from notification. I'm thinking most of that area is rented out in the first place. Okay so now your first page had McCormick apartments on it. So is that in fact what we're looking at? Not that it makes any difference? She is. It's not going to be a fourplex or something? She is looking well a fourplex would be considered multifamily within the City of Denton. So she is looking to develop the property with multifamily. Of course staff when we look at a zoning case we don't just look at what they're wanting to do. We look at all of those uses and and how it could develop in accordance with that zoning district and make a determination based upon that. So that is her according to her application that's her intent right now. Okay is it okay to ask her order? She intends to build? Is that appropriate now? Staff says if you want to do that we could certainly do that during the public hearing but not during the work session. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Hussbett. Shocker. I was a little nervous about this one about the neighborhood. So this is an odd position for me but seeing updated pictures help and my question is for you though I did notice the apartment down into the other side of the street. No no same street on McC ormick there about midway there's an right there. Yes sir. Yes sir. Any issues there that we're aware of or any thing that's arisen because that's there? I I'm not aware of any. Okay. Commissioner Dedowitz. What I find amusing is that we could put a fraternity or a sorority house there by an SUP. You know so yeah to your point I'm just saying is that you know there are other alternatives here it's a mixed use area and it's changing it's going to change and it's done correctly I think as by the future use map it would be compatible. Commissioner Taylor. Thank you Chair. I had two questions one's more about paperwork. We used to get permitted uses comparisons in a tabular format where it would show dr 1 in one column dr2 in the other column and maybe like red where things get denied you know no longer permitted and green where things are now permitted and it's a little more readable format than going into like a text list and then having to leave that document go into another text list I don't know if that's something we can do. We can go back to doing tabular. Well we just have one disc repancy with legislature but that's an adminstural issue let's see what we can do to mitigate that. Yeah just in that way it's a lot easier because it's like so single families allowed and duplexes are allowed and you know you have to back out look you know remember that list while you look at the second list where you can see all the red ones are no longer allowed and all the green ones are you know now allowed and the second question I had is what were the dr1 owners and in the area that demolished area notified and to see if they want to participate in this rezoning? We did not do that. So this is one of the areas of town that is changing and we are we aren't reasonably expecting a single lot on a block that's all dr2 and DCG DCN to probably stay dr1 so I'd like to see as much block rezoning as possible you know consistent rezoning and then we also solve the conflict problem because if we do it one at a time we're going to have a potential conflict on all five lots in the block where if we just do the block we know that there isn't a conflict within the block. That was discussed in our subcommittee. Commissioner Dudowitz. That was discussed in our sub committee meeting of trying to make sense of it so not to do a patchwork situation here and if we can see something like this we know what's going to happen there and it's already dr2 or surrounded it let's do a block. Is this an area that I know I think you're chair that committee? Devon? You want to add that area to your list? Do you have a list that you're already looking at? So I was looking for Ron over there I believe that... Oh so I believe this is on the list to look at. Yes okay. Commissioner Hussbett. One other question I know they're currently reconstructing Eagle I think it's going to two lanes two bike lanes is that right? Yes sir. So is there a way for us to manage or work with them one fatal swoop to kind of make sure we're not duplicating efforts or is there any way to kind of direct it that way or are we kind of at the property owners discretion? Typically when we're when a property is redeveloped that property owner puts in the sidewalks and and make sure this I'm answering your question so jump in if I'm not so typically that is the property owner of that individual property would would put in the infrastructure for that that of the streets and and and sidewalks that abut that property. So I guess do we give the property owner direction because I don't know that the property owner would would have the foresight of know who to contact to try to okay that was my question to make sure we're... Engineering reviews all cases and so they give them and and they really try to give them direction as early in the process as possible just just to so people know what's coming so so I know that's something that a DRC engineering really tries to do to set the set the groundwork. That's why I have sidewalks to nowhere in front of my building because of the future potential. Any other questions on this case? Thank you. Okay that is all the items that we have on our work session for this evening so at 553 I'm going to close our work session and we'll recon vene in council chambers at 630 for our public meeting. Good evening and welcome to our City of Denton Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for May the 25th. It is 630 and this meeting has been duly posted and a quorum is present and I'm calling our meeting to order at this time. Our first order of business tonight is going to be to stand and give the pledge to the US and the Texas flag. With liberty and justice for all. On the Texas flag, our pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. Our next order of business is going to be to consider the approval of our P&Z Commission meeting minutes for April the 27th. Commissioner Hutsbitt. Move approval. Commissioner Dudowitz . I second. We have a first and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board. Motion passes six to zero. That moves us to our consent agenda. I do have one card from Ken Gold for agenda item 3B. This is a consent agenda item so it's not a public hearing but did want to acknowledge that you brought in a card but we will not be calling for you to speak on this particular item. Commissioner Rozelle. I move to approve the consent agenda item. Commissioner Dudowitz. I second. Motion. We have a first and a second. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the board. Motion carries six to zero. Moves us to item number four, our public hearing. At this time I'm going to open the public hearing for Z16-0006 . We'll call on the applicant to present your project. Please come forward and state your name and address and present your project. Grace Chang. I live in 204 Park Haven Drive, McKinney, Texas. Thank you. The project is going to be on 903 McCormick, Denton, Texas. Do you have a presentation of your project you'd like to present or just speak? I don't have any presentations. I have some pictures of the streets but it seems like you guys been discussing the project in detail in the prior meeting so you're familiar with the neighborhood. It's already mostly apartments or people wanting to build apartments. So I would like to answer any questions you have and I'd like to share my building philosophy if anyone wants to hear about it. Sure. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. Thank you for coming and I do just have one question because I there's always some concern by people out there that we're building a lot of apartments and I don 't have a particular problem with apartments there but do you mind if I ask what your intention is to build? Are you building, it's obviously multifamily, but were you looking at something along like a four-plex or are you gonna do? I think by building code I can have maximum of 16 bedrooms in any combination. I think that's true. That's the limitation. I am looking for, I'm looking to build the best apartment possible so not necessarily maximizing the square footage or the number of bedrooms or the number of units but the best apartment possible. I own the house for over 10 years now so I'm in a fortunate position of not having any debt on the house so I have a lot of equity so I can afford to sit on it and think about this. There's a reason I haven't tear down the house the last 10 years because I want to think about this and really build the right apartment for the site. Whenever I'm engaged in a building project I want to minimize the ultimate environmental impact. So by minimizing environmental impact it's not just say increasing the energy efficiency of a place which I do. I'm waiting to put in say solar lights which I did in my last project, phone insulation, tankless water heater, all of all of them actually exceed the building code, the current building code. So my goal is not just to satisfy the current code but to do the best project possible. So the best project may allow me only to build say four units but four very good units. It may allow me to do six units. I don't really know but I plan to work with the local architect Mark Martin and we will work together to think of something in the next one or two years. I don't think I'm in the building stage yet. I think it's going to be two years of planning this out so when I have more concrete idea I'll present it to you. Very good. Okay thank you so much. Any other questions for the applicant? Seeing none thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. I'll call on Julie for staff presentation. All right just to provide a summary of the request before you. The request is to rezone about a third of an acre from DR1 to DR2. It's on Eagle and McCormick on that corner. The findings are that staff that the proposed DR2 district does conform to the future land use designation and it's also compatible with the existing land uses and the zoning. So staff does recommend approval of the request and I'll answer any questions. All right thank you. No questions thank you Julie. Again this is a public hearing. Anyone who would like to speak on this item please come forward at this time. I do have one card from Grace Chen. I believe spoke already obviously in support of the project so thank you for that. Again public hearing if there's anyone who would like to speak on this item please come forward at this time. Seeing none I will close the public hearing and I will open the floor for discussion or a motion. Commissioner Dudowitz. Having had a great presentation during our work session and noting that this rezoning is compatible with long range planning I would move to approve as recommended by staff. Commissioner Beck. I concur and second the motion. Second. Okay have a first and a second for approval. Any further discussion? Seeing none we'll call for a vote on the board. The motion to approve carries six to zero. That moves us to our final item on our agenda tonight our project matrix. So open the floor at this time for anyone who would like to put an item on our agenda consider in the future. Commissioner Beck you had a question during our work session about parks. You were asking about park dedications. We had talked about bringing it up at this time I don't know if you want to bring. I would like to raise an external development. Do I direct it at this one development or just in general? In general. Okay in general yeah about future housing development especially the further out they are about access to public parks and bike paths things like that. Okay and I think one of the other questions you'd ask about was park fees. Whether they make a contribution in dollars or a contribution in land and then any subsequent park fees that may be paid at building permit stage I think was another item that we discussed briefly to come back to this evening. Thank you so much for helping me. You did great. Anybody else have an item we would like to to put on our future agenda items? Just to clarify Chair person Strange regarding the park dedication park land requirements associated with development within the city. We do have an item on our agenda as to what are the park dedication plans throughout the city that is a comprehensive study and what we can do is provide the additional information that you've requested through that. We are trying to coordinate a date and time if you recall in your matrix it states that the Parks Department Parks and Rec Department is currently in the process of updating their master plan and we are hopeful to have a scope of services or study presented to you eminently and we will coordinate that activity with them shortly to make sure we have something that we can present. Anybody else? Okay seeing none I'm going to close our P&Z meeting tonight at 642. Thank you for coming.