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 That was withdrawn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.