Oct 26, 2016 Planning and Zoning Commission on 2016-10-26 4:30 PM

Planning and Zoning Commission Work Session for October the 26th. This meeting has been duly posted and we do have a quorum present. I'm gonna call it to order at 435. Our first order of business is going to receive clarification on agenda items this evening and I will turn that over to Manal for presentation. Thank you Chairperson Strange. I was wanting to seek the opinion of the Commission tonight to see if the items for public hearing for A and for B could be flipped please in the interest of anticipated viewers and audience. Maybe we could flip the two items so just wanted to bring that forward and from here we can proceed with our first item which is going to be the preliminary plat for Ranchview Surgical Hospital. I'll ask Julie Wyatt to come and present that or answer any questions since it's relatively self-explanatory. I'll answer any questions. I know you all have seen this site a few times but I'll be happy to show you anything or okay thank you. Thank you Julie. That was easy. We have another preliminary plat and Mike Bell is handling this for Eagle Heights. If there are any questions I'll ask Mike to come forward. Commissioner Begg. Thank you Chair. The only question I have is we're approving the plat but is it established that there will be multifamily dwelling built there? That's what the Alkin has expressed their intent to develop. Okay but there's nothing in stone on that. Okay that's all. Thank you. Moving along to the public hearing items. As I mentioned we 'll deal with item 4B first which is an alternative ESA for Ryan Meadows edition and Mike Bell is going to walk us through this. Thank you Mike Bell, senior planner. Also have Debra of Environmental Services who will be supportive on this case since it's environmentally sensitive area. The case is to consider recommendation to City Council regarding an environment and alternative environmentally sensitive area plan for Ryan Meadows phase two. The property is shown here in yellow it's south of Ryan Elementary, south side of Ryan Road, east of Country Club and to show you on the right side this is the lot layout that was approved with the preliminary plat. So we're really just talking about the southern half. Commissioner Begg. Thank you Chair. So that road maybe you do it with your cursor down there in Creekdale is going to do an arc through that subdivision? Right well this is Creekdale here. Right. I'll show you how it relates to the mobility plan and just a right okay I'm just trying to a couple slides. Okay thanks. So it is just the south side of the subdivision. This is the combination of the ESA map and our city's mobility plan. You can see this is Creekdale Drive which you were referring to. That's our mobility plan as a collector street on the developers required to construct it. This is all of Ryan Meadows outlined in yellow so you can see where it comes through and eventually continue on east to the existing Creekdale and further on all the way to Teasley. There are also three environmentally sensitive areas in this tract. There's unde veloped floodplain, there's some riparian buffer and embedded within that rip arian buffer is also some water related ESA. I'll be happy to let Debra go over those in more detail if you have questions about what those entail. But you can see the mobility plan cut straight through them and there's really no there 's no way around that. So that's the purpose of this request and again I'll show you the highlighted in white here is Creekdale Drive from that mobility plan and we'll focus in on this southern part here which you'll see is the actual ESAs and there are two areas of encroachment shown in red here and then where the road crosses down at the south part. It encapsulates 0.36 acres of floodplain, 0.07 of water related and 0.39 of riparian buffer. So for mitigation of that, the encroachment of those areas the African is proposing to plant 25 trees which are those trees shown right there. Again we did send notification it is a public hearing we received nothing in favor or in opposition. Staff is supportive of the request as for the considerations in your backup but we do have three recommended conditions. One that we you know kind of specify the limitations so that it 's not exceed 0.45 acres is that was subject to the alternative ESA plan that 's in your backup. There will be 25 trees planted to mitigate the removal of the ESAs and those shall be three inches diameter at planning and lastly that all disturbed areas shall be revegetated using native plants and with that I'll be happy to answer any questions. Commissioner Rossell. Thank you chair . I think I have two questions to start. First question is this is can you walk me through the the balance between this being a city road and them being required to mitigate if they're providing the road on our mobility plan? Right so the the alignment of Creekdale is conceptually drawn on the mobility plan. Does not necessarily have to be this curve but generally they have to get from up here to down here through their property and that's required of them by the city mobility plan. The exact alignment is not deterrent so essentially they could you know curve it through the side how they please as long as they get to the to the southern half and it meets our requirements and there is nothing that exempts city roads from not having to do an alternative ESA plan. Okay. So that's really why we're here there's no exemption from that and I think there could be why are we making them do an ESA plan if we're making them put the road in but because that alignments not fixed I think there could be an argument made that if we didn't require these so they could run their road straight through it. Sure. And not have to do any mitigation. That makes sense. The other question I had was it's almost a point four acres of riparian buffer. Last time I saw the riparian buffer come into question we actually had photographs of the condition of the riparian buffer. Has anyone walked the area to know what condition the riparian buffer is in or health of it? Good evening Commission. We did an assessment in 2014 for those four three ESAs and the riparian buffer ranked as a fair. Okay so it is heavily vegetated. We only provide protection to the first hundred feet of the riparian buffer however the actual buffer extends 200 feet wide. So we wanted to make that the distinction of what is being protected under the ESA regulation what is out there. So it is a fair condition it is an undeveloped flood plain the water related was confirmed so we have a better understanding of what is out there based on the field assessments. Is there any creek or water to your knowledge standing there right now? Well I went to the site and actually there were there was no evidence of water flowing but definitely some stagnant water so I think that is intermittent type of a stream where flows only to certain times of the year. Thank you. Commissioner Black. Thank you Chair . So you feel comfortable with what little work they're going to be doing through which is again less than 0.4 that there's not going to be any loss of any significant wildlife there is there any there to lose? Well the this request is a little bit compound. First we have the ESA the disturbance to the ESA that they are doing okay and also we look into what they are offering as a mitigation. In this case they have offered to provide additional planting adjacent to the ESA not within the ESA but adjacent to the ESA and the reason is because they went through a conditional letter of my revision through FEMA which allows them to modify that floodplain okay and that have been already approved by FEMA subject to work start being done and then the conditional letter of my revision becomes a permanent through a letter of my revision. If they start putting more trees within the floodplain that actually invalid all the parameters that they have modeled the floodplain and have determined the boundary of the new floodplain so what they're doing is they understand that mitigation is needed but they are willing to provide that mitigation adjacent to it. Just keep in mind the same as this riparian buffer is 200 feet even though only the first hundred feet is protected the same happened with that year is heavily vegetated so adding to it adding the mitigation next to it you will make the area greater. I don 't think that exactly answer my question though is there any essential wildlife there that would lose from this? Well we don't have any endangered species identified by parks and wildlife in that area. Wildlife yes definitely there would be when when you have those urban forests and those riparian buffer they're definitely refuge for wildlife so they there would still be a riparian buffer there and the disturbance might made those species to relocate temporarily but hopefully they will come back. Okay now you mentioned and I realize this cloner CLOMR when they can't do you're talking about the trees the mitigation part with the trees that's outside of this area but you also mentioned that the applicant offers as mitigation revegetating all disturbed areas with native vegetation so is that going to be within that cloner region and what kind of vegetation? Well mainly would be grasses and what we are looking is we specify native because they have a better chance to acclimate and get established faster just keep in mind that we are close to a creek so any area that get und isturbed that means that that soil have a chance to reach to the creek in a rain event so we're looking for primarily grasses who keep the soil in place and protected. Thank you. Commissioner Rosale. Thank you one more question the the ph asing chart that I have here lots 142 and 143 is where they're planning on putting trees is lots 142 and 143 going away or are they actually mitigating in an area that a house is going to be built? Those are common area lots the HOA maintenance. Okay okay thank you. Commissioner Sullivan. Thank you I'm concerned that how much water is gonna be coming through that area because right now anytime it's a heavy rain Hickory Creek is pretty well closed most of the time both from River Pass and off of 1830 and we've got a street that's coming from Creekdale on to Hickory Creek and then we have Creekdale coming through here plus a lot of houses being built with a lot of concrete is all that gonna be draining into that floodplain area that's then gonna flood Hickory Creek even more or are there plans to do something with Hickory Creek Road to make it not flood as often? Earl would you care to address that one? Earl Escobar engineering. What the intent with Hickory Creek Road oops is to realign it. Currently Hickory Road is within the floodplain itself and so it does flood during heavy rain events and so there should be a CIP project in the future that realigns it outside the floodplain here in red. Okay I thought that's where it was now. No no no it right now it goes straight. Okay where's this Hickory Creek? Right. That's the road and that's the road. Okay somewhere in this area. Okay I see so that is a change to Hickory Creek. Yes. Gotcha okay thank you. I have a couple questions. Do we have a map without the ESA on it that we can zoom in on what that area currently is? I know that's been farmland I think for many years back and behind the school. Well maybe I have one aerial here. Does that work for what you need? I guess as close as we can get. Can you turn ESA on that or not? Let me just go ahead and get the interactive maps I'll pull that up real quick. I apparently not. Well I was hoping to be able to look and see what the current conditions and what it's been because I know and and the reason I know is my kids went to school there at that elementary school so Fall Festival and all the things that went on and out in that field just to get an idea of and for the rest of Commission an idea of what the current conditions are out there that that's mostly been just a plowed and farmland for many years versus I don't know when the ESA got established on there and then the second point which goes back to the map that you had up that does show the ESA I know we've had quite a bit of conversation in the past about roads impacting the essays and when you look at that map right there Ryan already impacts it in at least two or three places Hickory Creek is through it 1830 is through it we have this all over town and I know we've had a lot of discussions in the past that we can't put any roads or we don't want roads crossing ESA's and they are all over already and that's just a fact of mobility and getting around our city and so I just want to draw that to attention because we've had a lot of conversation the past about it and we see it in this map that it exists probably in at least 20 30 places just in this one area that this happens all the time and it's not a very oddball thing that comes before us it's pretty normal and so those are just my two comments on this particular one and then the other one that final comment is on Commissioner Roselle 's point which was going to be my question about when it's on the mobility and it has to go in there why a developer has to come in and mitigate that when they have to put that roadway in there's really not a place for them to put Creek dale in that it's not going to end up impacting the essay certainly I think that's a fair point something we discussed internally but ultimately there's nothing in the code that exempts those requirements and so that's what the ESA plan came into about what's it take to make it exempt because if they've got to go expense of putting it in things like it's kind of somewhat punitive to then have to mitigate for a road that's being told you're going to put it here when this application came forward it's one of the issues that we grappled with saying that there is a right of way that's required based on our thoroughfare plan slash mobility plan and we looked we also weighed the the concern on what do we do as it relates to mitigation even though we've seen the scenario in multiple areas within our city and as a result it is something that we've pinpointed or highlighted and are keen to work internally with our teams our engineering our environmental team and ourselves to see if there's an opportunity where do we revisit the mobility plan or do we then figure out an alternative solution as it relates to public right-of-way requirements so where does that stand so at this point hopefully we do intend within the next few months is to get some working groups together to understand what the opportunities are that are available to us again the Commission also has the opportunity to make a request if I'm not mistaken to have this evaluated or reevaluated or assessed that broad question or this particular broad question well I'll make that recommendation that we look at that because I know this happens in multiple places and any time that these impacts that's basically on the not only is the developer having to put the the utilities or the road or whatever in but if it does then impact an ESA then they have to mitigate it and have the additional expense based on being said this is where it has to go and got to mitigate it also so I don't know if we need a first or a second or just a general effect comes on at the very end of the very end is an item that needs to be addressed matrix anybody else have any questions on this item is a great presentation thank you Mike I'm going to ask Ron Menguita our long-range planning administrator to make the next presentation for z16 0 0 0 7 thank you chair members of the Commission this item brought forward to you today is a code amendment to our development code regarding a fry overlay district the request by the applicant is to amend the overlay district to create a separate sub area which is what they're calling sub area C and also provide additional associated development standards that would only apply to that particular sub area as a way of reference this is the fry Street overlay district it 's possibly 12.8 0 acres or so the youth center which is here and shown in sub area B was carved out for a lack of better term in 2010 to allow for that development to occur they proposed again a sub area they proposed development standards again to allow them to build their development the same similar request is being asked of this particular area which is shown in red and this is again sub area C and the applicant has proposed certain criteria or design standards that will allow their development to occur if this were to move forward and get approved by City Council look closer look of the area this is the area approximately 4.7 acres I'm sorry 1.75 acres I stand corrected of the area where currently Vortmans bookstore is located as well as the subway along Hickory Street the applicant is proposing to construct a five-story multi- level mixed-use development that will include again the retail Vortmans bookstore as well as a restaurant it's my understanding that subway will be occup ying that space it may not necessarily be subway but it will be a restaurant in addition to that student living apartments above those commercial uses quick background of the project in 2015 there was an application that was submitted z-15 29 that went through development review committee it was then forwarded to the planning zoning Commission for their consider your consideration at that meeting with the planning zoning Commission the Commission recommended denial 6 to 1 of that request following that planning zoning Commission it was then scheduled to go to City Council and after several meetings of postpon ement of the applicant requested that the item be withdrawn on April 8th of 2016 earlier this year the applicant chose to reapply for another amendment requests of the overlay and that occurred on April 8th of 2016 and that new case number is z-16 7 which is in front of you today for your consideration the only difference between the first submittal and the second submittal is that the applicant has identified an additional 36 parking spaces which is located just north of the subject property north of Oak Street on this on the north east corner of Bryan and Oak Street so what does this mixed-use development comprise of it's a five-story mixed-use development it has student living apartments as you can see here just above the the commercial uses it compr ises of approximately 111,000 square feet each bedroom will be le ased out to individual students there are a total of 83 dwelling units nine two bedrooms 14 three bedrooms and 64 bedroom units if you were to multiply that and add that all up that that calculates up to 300 bedrooms is what this proposed development is going to have the building height of the development is 62 feet roughly from ground level to the top of the main building they're also proposing a parking garage which is going to be wrapped around except for an area to the west this area here will be visible it will not have anything in front of it so this is again the parking structure and the height of the parking commissioner that is 69 feet tall thank you chair I noticed it said that if this sub area see is approved that it could be up to six stories for the garage is that correct five stories at six stories you're correct for the garage oh yeah just for the garage okay so that options there later if they want to stack on that is what they're proposing now is my understanding so five story six story for the garage for the garage okay thank you so again the parking garage will have 217 parking spaces and the height of that garage will be 69.2 feet and that's measured right here where the people will be able students and other folks will be able to access an elevator as mentioned earlier retail will be allowed or not allowed but be part of this development boardman's as shown here will be located on the ground floor along Hickory Street this is Hickory here also subway or a restaurant will be part of this development that's approximately 1600 square feet of restaurant space in addition there will be five surface parking which is in just general area here just to the east of development and then again mentioned earlier 36 surface parking to the north of the project along north of Oak Street off-site so here are the standards that is being proposed currently we have two sub areas we have a sub area a which is everything outside of sub area B so anything that was in place with the five Street area is sub area a and then again in 2010 with the creation of sub area B they came up with their own standards and that's reflected here in this column what the applicant is proposing is sub area C and we'll start from left to right maximum building height sub area B I'm sorry sub area A is three stories with a maximum height of 45 feet the applicant is proposing five stories with the maximum height of 62.05 feet. Ron question for you please sir when was sub area A originally done? I want to say 2000 around the update of the development code okay I know there was a small area plan in 99 and I believe that the overlay district followed soon after okay and then B was done when? 2010. 2010 okay so we're 15 years down the road and five years after B and we're getting taller each time correct okay the parking garage for sub area A is 45 feet the applicant is proposing six stories as Commissioner Beck alluded up to 69.2 feet the the density as calculated in sub area A. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair. Hi Ron thanks quick question just so I understand is sub area B simply that youth center development? Correct. That is that outline that I showed earlier is the youth center development. Is sub area B? Correct. And there is no sub area C? There is not. They're trying to create sub area C with this proposal? That's correct. Okay thank you thank you. Maximum density for sub area A is based on development standards you know meeting parking requirements the lock coverage all that and that will dictate what that dwelling per acre unit count would be. Sub area proposed sub area C is proposing up to 86 dwelling units per acre. Again the the total acreage for that development is 1.75 acres with roughly a number of dwelling units associated with that project. Park ing ratio the parking ratio for sub area A is one space per bedroom for units that have two bedrooms or more so if they have a two-bedroom unit they need to provide two parking spaces if they have a three-bedroom unit they would have to provide three parking spaces up to four and four units of course would have to provide four parking spaces. The applicant is proposing that that ratio be reduced to 0.76 spaces per bedroom. Commissioner Rossell. Is there a parking ratio for one bedrooms there's no one bedrooms allowed? There is one bedroom in the current standards and let me see if I can find that for you. It's one bedroom would be 1.5 space per unit. Okay thank you. One other question on the parking room is the parking figured on all of the surface parking so the five spaces the 36 spaces and then whatever is internal as well? Correct whatever total they have that they're providing would be a factor in that calculation. So even though the five spaces are more than likely kind of serving the retail they're including that in this calculation? Correct and I've got a slide that explains how that's all broken. It's hard to get ahead of you. No that's fine. Commissioner Sullivan. Will the off-site parking be somewhat restricted? I mean would it be restricted to apartment people only? That is. Or will it be open for anyone like on the surface the five lots how are they going to regulate that? That is a question I had with the applicant and they may want to clarify that during the public hearing but my understanding is it's going to be gated and there'll be only used by the people that occupy that space or that development. A couple other things that they're proposing either increase or decrease. Building coverage going from 50 to 70 for residential mixed-use building coverage 80 to 81. Minimum landscape area. The requirement for the sub area A is 15 percent. They're proposing a 10.7 percent landscape area and then a rear set backyard would be a reduction from 10 to 5 feet for sub area C. So this is the parking slide. Commissioner Strange regarding what is going to be required for each type of use. The first one is what's currently required as part of sub area A. With retail at four one space per 400 they're required 27. With the restaurant again one space per 400 that's five and then the 300 bedrooms would require one space per bedroom and obviously that would be 300 so a total 332. With the proposed changes in the parking requirement similar they're not proposing to change anything with regards to retail or restaurant but they are dropping the requirement for bedrooms again two bedrooms or more from 1 to 0.76 space per bedroom that will equates to 100 I'm sorry 228. You total that up that's 62 I 'm sorry 260 spaces and the difference there is 72 spaces from the two requirements. Does anybody have any questions on the parking requirements before I move on to consideration? I have one other follow-up. Do we know and this may be need to go to the applicant are the parking spaces included in their standard rental agreement or parking space is going to be an additional charge? I don't know that. If not we can wait till public hearing I'll ask that question. Sounds good. Thank you. Back to the availability of the parking area so the retail and restaurant are going to be able to use the parking garage just like the occupants of the apartments. That's correct. So that anyone basically could go in park and say I'm gonna go to the bookstore go to the bookstore and then have all four classes for four or five hours. That's something we can ask the applicant I know another student living apartments especially that have parking garages they limit the use of that from just for the first floor and then maybe the upper floor parking garage is allowed it's gated so that it would only be allowed to the residents but you're correct if it is available for the public that could be a possibility but we certainly can ask and verify that with the applicant. Okay. So as far as consideration the development does encourage you know walking and bicycling it's it's obviously improving the the site what it is currently it's also providing extended building setbacks from Oak and Hickory so they're setting back the building I think they were trying to mimic what the youth center did in Hickory. The proposed development would keep some commercial uses which is something that's a positive thing again board members would be on Hickory as well as the the restaurant use would be adjacent to Hickory Street as well. However the height and density of the development it's not compatible with surrounding areas the height of the youth center is at 55 it's four stories other developments in the area are roughly three stories you know so less than what they're proposing. Parking requirements in the Fry overlay overlay street district is purposely and purpose and intent is to have parking for residents and so that was an increase compared to other areas in the city. It also the purpose of the Fry Street overlay district is also to reduce the parking requirements for retail and restaurant and it is compared to other parts of the city. As far as solid waste there is a requirement that the solid waste trucks be access the either the containers themselves or if it's a compactor without having to have any assistance by the management. We haven't gone to a solution or gone a solution yet the site plan does not reflect a solution and that's that's one consideration we need to be mindful of. Ron I'm sorry to interject would you just specify what they're proposing in terms of their rollout carts? Yes it is my understanding that they're proposing containers and that they're going to be stored in the parking garage. The amount I'm not sure I can I can verify that I think it's four containers and what they're proposing is they would roll those out to the either the driveway or the fire lane or parking space and during the hours of when the park of when the trash trucks would be servicing that development and then rolling them back in after they have been emptied. That is currently what's proposed our solid waste department has reviewed that and is still considering other options but again there's solid waste requirements have not been met at this point. Commissioner Bec. Thank you Chair. Dimensionally how big are these rollout trash barrels are they for the whole apartment complex? Correct. Do we know how big they are? I know they fit in an integral do you correct me if I'm wrong they're roughly four by six. I guess where I'm going with this too would they sit out on the street easily without being an obstruction of any kind? The ones that I 've seen of the Frye Street development one block over has a similar concept where they have the apartments themselves have chutes that drop down to the garage level and into a rollout dumpster container and they're about two to maybe two cubic yards at the most or not too big because you know they're not going to be able to roll it out to the compactor that they do have on site to unload onto that but solid waste is concerned is that they're not adequate to withstand abuse that the dumpster vehicles can can apply on to them. I actually I noticed at the Frye Street apartment site this morning was that they have a little area that's like we call it the dumpster graveyard where there's a bunch of rollout containers that are damaged the wheels are missing they're damaged and they just lay it on the side so and that's just you know damage from rolling it out to their compactor and unloading it doesn't even account for. Are they metal or plastic? They're metal. Okay but again are they and they're going to be rolled out to the street for the trucks to pick up? I believe that's their intent. And you don't think they're gonna they're too big? The issue that we have is that if they do roll it out well that's the primary access to the parking garage so there's gonna be a lot of traffic having to weave around there and you know it's a coordination nightmare with solid waste because there could be instances where there's issues with the dumpster vehicle and they can 't you know service it at that time well for whatever reason or they're running behind schedule or not and then there's also potential damage to the container themselves and who's liable to replace them. Is it the city or is it you know the management company? Thank you. And Commissioner Beck just to add on to that again this whole site plan has been routed through the relevant department such as solid waste engineering. Earl has been kind enough to fill that information in but again the the resolution to that has to come from the solid waste department as well so there are some contingencies that would have to be evaluated should the site plan move forward. Just to clarify Commissioner Beck the proposal is to roll those containers to the drive aisle that's just east of the property not on to Hickory or Oak it's the drive out next to the on the property. Correct. Another consideration is the need for a 10-foot clearance around the entire building. Right now the building as it is proposed on the site plan sits five feet from the property line to the west and that is something that the fire department needs is a 10-foot clearance. Now the fire department has allowed developments occur five feet but with some sort of agreement by the property adjacent stating that they will not build up to that property so that again the purpose is to make sure that the fire department has adequate access to all sides of the building and that still has not been a receiver obtained as of today and that's my understanding. Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. Are these particular problems inherent with this particular building its size and dimensions or would sub area A and B run into similar problems? I don't think sub area A I'm sorry sub area B that development had this issue with with the the property because it obviously surround and the whole development is surrounded by streets. The as far as the solid waste I think they designed their development to have adequate access so that was not a concern or an issue at that time of that review of that property. So in part these problems are inherent with this design? I would say that's a fair assessment. Thank you. Some other considerations is that the the continuous amendment of the Fry Street overlay district would compromise the compatibility of adjacent land uses but also would compromise really the purpose and intent of the the district itself I think it was done back in 2000 however you know we we recognize that there is change in the market but again the district was established back then and I think there's some merits to keeping the purpose and intent . The proposed amendment and associate development standards are not consistent with the Denham plan 2030 in regards to gradual transition the scale and character of the area. Again addressing potential impacts adjacent neighborhood such as parking or shade issues that may arise from the proposed development. Not ifications were sent out to property owners 200 feet and 500 feet from the overlay district boundary. We felt that it was important to notify the entire overlay district because it does impact them. We sent out 51 notification through certified and 124 through regular mail. As of this afternoon we received two in favor and two in opposition and you should have copies of the responses in front of you for consideration. Ron could I stop you? Will you go back one slide on the where this is not consistent with Denham 2030? Yes sir. Do we have any specifics of where it's not consistent with 2030? Well the maintaining of the character of the area I think there's language in the Denham plan 2030 that talks about compatibility of an area and this area is actually designated as the neighborhood and university compatibility area and it calls out for certain guidelines to to make sure that the area is compatible with the surrounding areas and I felt that this was a little bit over what the compatibility should be for a project in this area. Okay well let me follow up a little more then . Area B is in place prior to 2030 being adopted. Correct. I mean this is it's not exactly the same but it's very similar we're talking a few feet height differences and maybe some other things on parking percentages so if it's okay in sub area B and we have that in place and we do 2030 why is this such a difference or what is the main difference between this and B that makes it such a no longer consistent with Denham plan 2030? Well that that youth center is just one development obviously that was approved and recommended approval for that development occur. We also have to look at the other areas around there. Now the difference between the two one is four stories this is five stories you know the parking that they have there is one to one this is not so there's some differences may not be significant but there's enough significance that warrants the difference between the two is significant to not meet the character of the area. Okay thank you. Yes I'm sorry Commissioner Rosse au. I think I have several questions and I hope I get them all straight so forgive me if I don't but a couple things part of this proposal includes area outside the Fry Street overlay district correct? Does that correct? Yes to the north. Are we able to what's the implications of something outside the district overlay being part of a sub area of that district overlay? Are we now including that in the district? No the the the overlay district itself has built in a requirement or a standard that allows for additional parking to be off site of the project and it has to be within a thousand feet so it meets that requirement so any additional parking could be located outside the subject area. Okay. Why was it not included in the notification map? Should that off-site parking should the neighbors of that not be told that that could be parking? Well they well they're they're kind of but you're again we're looking at the overlay we're mending the overlay district and again any development within the overlay district if they were required parking spaces and they needed additional parking spaces they can get parking spaces again as far as a thousand feet from that subject parcel. So if they did move it a thousand feet away that surrounding area the 200 feet around that parking spot would not be notified within this proposal? Correct. They all we're all we're trying to do is what's being proposed that is is an amendment to the overlay district and what's required of this area here and again in the overlay district there is language that speaks to that additional parking spaces can be from any property as long as it's within a thousand feet of that subject project. Okay I understand you're saying that it doesn't resonate with me necessarily that the notification map doesn't get bumped out a little bit for land being changed. Right let me try and address that that's because the overlay district the Fry Street overlay district is a zoning category in itself. Okay. The parking the proposed off-site parking that is shown or reflected the additional 36 wrong spaces. 36 yes. That the one the use is permitted off-site regardless so there's no issue with that there is no change to the boundary of that zoning district of the overlay district so let's use an example where there wasn't an overlay district and an applicant came in to change a zoning on a property and the zoning was permitted but they also needed X amount of parking and they located an off-site if that off-site parking area was permitted by the existing zoning district it wouldn't warrant any type of notification. I got you thank you and then separately from this can you go back to the proposed ratio of parking that they're wanting to amend to or proposed to. This bottom right bottom row here? Yes that's 76 so this is a good slide because on their narrative they identify two main components but the city has nine changes and so it seems like they simplified it to two main components but the two main components say that they're wanting to increase the permitted height to 58 feet which is not what 's up here and it says they want to reduce their off-site parking or the required off-street parking to 0.84% which is not right here so can where's the discrepancy between these two reports? That and they'll probably be able to answer that during the public hearing the the submittal changed obviously with with the the addition of the 36 parking spaces and they happen to upload probably the same narrative that may be the reason why you have that discrepancy but the actual code amendment that they supply and that we reviewed is reflected in this slide here and that's what's being proposed. So they just submitted the same narrative? That's something maybe we can clarify but that's okay that could be the case. Okay thank you. Commissioner Sullivan back to the parking it appears that Bryan and Oak Street there's already a parking lot there correct is that you understand that is correct that is so they're just going to be buying using leasing whatever is that parking space that's already there? They've actually yes I've checked the then Parasol district and the property owner that owns that sub the sub property also owns that property. Okay so Mr. Roselle's point probably why they didn't need to have the notification is that it's already parking lot. Does that make sense? That's part of it yes. But as Manal mentioned you know it's a requirement not a requirement but rather an opportunity to to look at additional parking it can be as far as a thousand feet. Okay just wanted to clarify that. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair okay so the additional parking lot is a parking lot now used for whom? My understanding it's used by Fortman's bookstore that's my understanding we can certainly clarify that with the applicant. Right because if we're taking away a parking lot and dedicating it to this development then we're taking away parking right we're actually not adding parking. Right well yes I mean it's it's it's parking now and it's being used by Fortman employees is my understanding and that would then be again part of the parking lot. It's only being used by Fortman employees now? That's my understanding there may be some other users of that but we can clarify that again with the applicant during the public hearing. Okay thank you. So with that staff's recommending denial of the subject request for the following reasons again not meeting the deadline 2030 it compromises the effectiveness of the existing overlay district compatibility with the surrounding area there are certain things in their proposed code amendment that is not consistent with their site plan and those are something that we need to address of course solid waste approval is still pending and the boundary agreement with the property owner to the West has not yet been obtained and for those reasons staff is recommending denial of this proposed amendment. Commissioner Rossell. I think this will be my last one I appreciate this is more work session so yes this is more this is more information about the process of what happens behind the scenes before it gets here you've had a conversation with the applicant that you are going to recommend denial they knew that coming in can you talk about what happens to get this point where I don't make any assumptions but it sounds like you sit down with them you outline your issues and they make the decision to go forward or keep talking about that yes so we've met with the applicant either face to face or over the phone and have several discussions with them we were just not able to address everything and you know they chose to move forward with the application we we really wanted to you know get it to where we can recommend approval but we were just not able to they chose to move forward with the application as is okay thank you I'll follow up on that I know sometimes these things are timing issues if this was to move forward from P &Z this these issues are still going to then be addressed by City Council and if solid waste is enabled to address them the boundary agreement is enabled to be obtained it doesn't really matter so what may be going on is they're aware of the issues and they are just in the process of still trying to get those ironed out and trying to keep their project on a whatever timeline self- imposed or not right but until these things get addressed City Council more than likely will not move this forward is essentially where we are at this particular point in time as I recall when this came before us before there were a lot more issues than this that were outstanding at that time I think there were issues with the fire lane and ladder trucks not being able to get in there were some other issues I think the height was still roughly about it was yeah just to recap real quick for the commissioners that weren't at the prior meeting the TIA traffic impact analysis was something that staff requested since then they've submitted it's been reviewed and accepted by engineering department the fire lane separation distance that also was an item that was not addressed at the time of January 27th however that has been addressed now and they have the appropriate distance for their fire lane to be placed where it is so you're correct Chair strange we we've addressed some but we have not addressed all were there a follow-up what were some of the other issues seem like there was a pretty good list and I think I think it was the it was the parking the main thing and I know traffic was the big question now is a big discussion during the public hearing but because we didn't have a TIA we were not able to address those certain concerns but we do have that now and obviously that's something that some answers to we can certainly discuss it but they do have a TIA traffic impact analysis that has been accepted by a city engineers do you remember what the parking was before the first time it came it seemed like it was even lower than this well I think it was it was it was 0.7 maybe it was just slightly lower by by by adding the 36 it bumped it up a little bit more all right okay great thank you Commissioner Ellis I'm sorry thank you chair okay last one I think okay so just for some background this was denied last time by a different Commission so I'm trying to get some history here what is different with this proposal today than the last time that you all saw it essentially it's the additional 36 parking spaces which is the parking lot the parking lot we don't know what it's currently used for that we're gonna clarify that's the biggest yes yes okay okay thank you I will follow up I was on the Commission at that time and I voted against it at that time because the TIA wasn't done the issues with the fire lane weren't even addressed yet and it got to be kind of that snowball of there are so many issues that are outstanding it kind of for me broke the place of hey there's a couple that probably are reasonably done these are some biggies and I wasn't comfortable in voting for it at that time because those were some big issues that I felt like should have been addressed before it got to our Commission so that's why I voted against it at that time I don't know if I guess Devin would have been here to have been nobody else is gonna be able to chime in here but Devin so okay great that's why I voted against it just to provide some clarification on the fire lane issue they are still researching the ability to secure an additional five feet from the adjacent property correct not not for the fire lane but for access and that's still under review by them to by the applicant to ascertain if they either secure it and provide us copy so that we are sure that that site plan the way it's currently designed meets the fire department's requirements Commissioner Alice work session thank you chair there was discussion I believe I remember hearing about the building itself Bortman's and and it being historical in some nature was that ever addressed I don't with anybody I don't recall that discussion with this Commission okay I might be making that up or it was just being talked about out and out in public maybe because I think it's a it's a Mount Miller build isn 't it it's not okay we don't know we'll try and get you some info if we can prior to but otherwise it would have to follow the meeting correct all right that's it that concludes my presentation okay any other questions for Ron thank you very good presentation and lots of information and lots of questions thank you I know we have one other item for our work session it's going to be to continue on notifications I think at this time just in essence of time that we can have as much as we need on notifications I 'm gonna call a recess and let's go ahead and get food at 533 and then we 'll reconvene here and here our next item which will be the notifications good evening and welcome back to our work session I'll call it back to order at 540 and I think our next item is going to be to receive a report and hold discussion on our current notification practices and that's gonna be Cindy Jackson and Ron Magida thank you Commissioners as you'll recall at our last meeting we held a discussion regarding the proposed notification hearing changes and the Commission had a lot of questions and a lot of good suggestions this is a follow-up to that meeting to talk about the feedback that we received just to cut to recap currently City of Denton follows the procedures of the ordinance which was repealed in 2002 which require public notice of the scheduled public hearing in the official newspaper a legal notice sent to property owners within 200 feet of the site sent via certified mail courtesy notice of the public hearing sent to residents living within 500 feet of the subject site and a post notice in the form of a sign posted by the city on the subject property the proposed revisions that we talked about were to mail out public hearing notices to property owners within 200 feet of the property via regular mail instead of certified mail mail out courtesy notices within 500 feet to residents within the 500 foot radius of the site via postcard and to track public notices and courtesy notices that are returned to the city in addition we were going to enlarge the sign that we post on the site from 2 feet by 3 feet to 4 by 4 feet we are also going to require the applicant to purchase post maintain and remove the notification signs from the site and we are going to create a link on the planning division web page dedicated for public hearing notices questions any thank you go back to me Commissioner back okay so that I'm clear here the 200 foot notice and the 500 foot notice both of those could go to one individual the owner and the 10th as well yes okay because the object here is to make sure who's ever living in that house gets a notice on but that you couldn't duplicate it which would be okay that is correct if the property owner lives on the property they 'll get you know okay good deal thank you Commissioner Sullivan since it seems like other cities do things different and you said this was a legal issue I mean what are the minimums and the maximums and I guess I'm trying to decide where it says Fr isco they send out mail notices regular mail yes courtesy notices no do they go by different law is it their law or and this is our law or is there some overriding state law there is an overriding state law that actually dictates the public hearing notification process and that requires the 200 foot notice sent via regular mail and a legal notice put published in the newspaper signs are not included and courtesy notices aren't included each city then decides if they want to go beyond what's required so the 500 feet isn't required it 's just something that the city of Denton does the city of Plano does that and the city of Fort Worth does that right right I would just want to if we were following some legal issue how come now other ones aren't following the same we 're going above and beyond what's required gotcha that's all I needed okay okay now we received some some good feedback from the planning and zoning Commission both at the meeting and via email subsequent to the meeting I'm going to go through these one by one the next few slides will cover these suggestions the first one is to provide a self-addressed stamped envelope with the 20 for 200 foot mailing notice now it's possible to send a envelope a return envelope right now via our mail service however we cannot have it stamped if that 's not possible right now the the city's mailing service click to net to mail has it has indicated they are working on that they hope to provide that service in the future however we don't have that available right now the create a link on the city of Denton home page to the planning division web page dedicated to public hearing notices now we've been working with the public communications office and they have indicated to us that they are in the process of redesigning the city's website they have told us that the city's website the home page of the city's website will only be utilized for announcements there's going to be no links on it to to link to other pages at this time from my understanding so what they suggested that we place the link to the notices on the planning divisions home page instead and that would link directly to the public hearing page we're going to keep working with with the public communications office or PCO office however to to see what we can do about increasing the visibility of that that site commissioner Ellis thank you chair question regarding though the new website are you I noticed the agenda for the committee on citizen engagement came up in the website is on that are you attending that meeting I actually I was not aware of that meeting but now that I'm aware of it I will I will make the point to attend that thank you I'll look into that thank you another suggestion was to include City Council notice on on the same web page as the planning and zoning Commission public hearings and that's not that's no problem we can easily put them both on to all active notices for PNC and City Council onto a public notice page another one was to start an email notification list by neighborhood for residents to sign up for notifications of activity in their neighborhood we looked at this and determined that the creation and maintenance of this kind of proposed list it would take up a great deal of staff time and wouldn't be possible because of that additional time would also be needed to generate an email for each individual request received by the city development request the proposal to create a public notice page on our on the planning department's website is actually a more efficient way to have all of the notices in one place easily visible and interested citizens can just click on that and see if there's anything happening in their neighborhood that way utilize electronic text alerts well we have been working with PCO or public communications office on this too and currently the city does not have this this kind of technology available we have asked them to research it and we will consider continue to discuss this with the PCO and see what we need to do in order to develop this feature commissioner back thank you chair this would relate to the sign on the property number that's correct okay thanks the use of postcards for both the 200 and 500 foot mailing using the template from the mail service I would prepared a mock-up of the 200 foot notice as a postcard and the letter notice cost the city 242 to mail out and the postcard with a perforated reply card would cost 227 which be a savings of approximately 15 cents here you can see a standard notification letter for comparison and here you can see how it would look before we put it together this is why I made a mock-up looking like this it doesn't really it's not too impressive and this is a standard courtesy notice that we mail to residents within 500 feet of the subject site we actually received a courtesy notice from the city of Fort Worth so we were using that as an example of a post card notification and then here's our standard courtesy notice notification so you can see the differences again the letter notice cost the city 242 to mail out and the postcard I'm sorry I don't have that let me look that up standard postcard is 227 as well okay based on the comments at the last meeting regarding how we would track the posting of the signs and who would be responsible for paying for the signs I went ahead and and I contacted the cities that I had researched previously to find out how they did that and Fort Worth of course they have and didn't we we actually have put out the signs ourselves we don't have the applicants put out the signs Frisco requires his date stamped photograph be submitted and it can be submitted via either email or fax or it can be brought in by the applicant individually the signs are all purchased by the applicant Lewisville excuse me requires a date stamp photograph submitted actually all of them requires date stamp photograph submitted either via email via via fax via in person bringing it in as well as the sign affidavit really the only difference would be Plano Plano requires the applicant to actually post the sign 28 days before the public hearing so the applicant purchases the sign and posts it and then brings in the affidavit and the photograph with their their zoning application so it's actually posted before they've even submitted their application typically with regards to who posted signs the applicant will have a choice of either having the sign made and posting it themselves or having the sign company post the sign that sign company will offer that service of installing the sign as well these are some examples of sign specification sheets from other cities the city of Denton of course we will prepare the same type of specifications sheet once we've determined the new sign design and the size it will be included along with a list of sign contractors that they can't the applicant can go to to have the sign actually manufactured I put these two on to point out to you that if you look right here it actually these two actually require a double-sided sign and they post the sign perpendicular to the street that makes it easier for people who are driving by to see the sign rather than having the sign parallel to the street some of the cities I saw actually did not require this being posted perpendicular they just wanted it visible from the street that was their criteria well that concludes my presentation we will be moving this forward to City Council in the near future and I'll answer any questions you have Commissioner back that postcard for the 200 foot notice did it have postage on it it would it would okay so that's not a problem with the postcard that that that the top part of that would be the reply and it would be a postage page page the business reply postcard but we have problems putting a self-add ressed stamped envelope in notices well because of the fact that the mail service that we use they don't provide that service right now okay they hope to in the future and they're working on it but it's not provided right now okay the signs right now the city of Denton is putting the signs up this we are okay do we have any idea what developers cost what kind of costs they will incur at this time we have not gone to the point of actually calling sign companies in the city to find out how much they would cost we're first going to need to develop the specs for the sign exactly and to get a good idea of what they would cost okay thank you Commissioner Hatchbeth thank you chair yeah no I'm perfectly fine more than fine just me I don't know if we need to kick it around but there's no need to ever add a self-addressed stamp the just the losses on a stamp that would never be used are monumental I mean it just I mean not to say that someone wouldn't get used not to say that someone wouldn't appreciate the the the effort right but the bad outweighs the good in that so I'm I'm I'm happy with and I think you'll see an increase in response with the postcard just because you see what it is you don't you know you you kind of it automatically engages you versus I see it's from the city and I just toss it or you know that that sort of thing so I think it'll immediately at least get some extra attention this way so that's our hope very well done thank you thank you Commissioner Sullivan the regarding the postage on the on the postcard this is only paid if they send it back that's correct and I'm assuming that'd be the same thing with the envelope that would only be paid if that yes what they're developing is the same kind of system where it would be business reply post its page only if they respond and send it back well having gone to a public meeting today out at the the ranch there was a lot of talk about the the notices and I think most people were very upset over having go to the post office to get their certified mail only to find out that they still didn 't know what was going on so I think the postcards if we can eliminate the certified mail and just do everything postcard I think that would be a great help for people just to at least get the notice my other question is is there a time limit where information is available to see what's going on because that's you know that's really that was my frustration when I got my notice is that I couldn't go to the website to see exactly what was going on right and so you know having it available after Friday 5 o'clock for the meeting Wednesday really is not much time for a person to find out more about sure this hearing is all about what one option would be what most people do is they call the city if they get a nose they call the city if they don't understand what what is in their letter they just call the city and talk to the project manager and the project managers more than happy to tell them what the request is wouldn't be more efficient though to put all that on the website earlier than the Friday after five o'clock before the meeting well typically that that is when the the staff reports are ready they're not ready before that time it could be if somebody said now shout and I'm just wondering you know is there other than that's just the way it's always been done but because people I think want more information than just what you know what they get in this obviously you can't go into much detail and so I'm just curious to give people more time to look at what it is that's being proposed just curious thank you Commissioner Roselle sorry got you a couple questions I think maybe to be helpful for me to better understand the purpose of the notification at a high level is it to notify the public or is it to get a response of how they feel about the change there is a we do want them to respond yay or nay that is an intense of the notice actually they and and according to the the state law the response has to be in writing so that it can be calculated so that is why we provide a return notification for them to fill out and send back to a stating yes I'm for it yes I'm no I'm not for it and why sure legal purpose for that is because if 20% or more of Jack that it requires super enjoy perfect that's helpful so I have a couple more questions the legal notice that has to be sent to the 200 obviously it's legally demanded or required of us within that requirement it does not say it has to be certified it just says that we notice there's not any further it actually says via regular mail dropped in a post off in the post the mailbox okay that's the minimum requirement there okay perfect other thing that Fort Worth postcard has a cue card reader on the front do you know where that goes to no I don't I tried to scan it and it didn't nothing came up so great that makes perfect I was curious if there 's like a website that that actually scans to it's that's actually not a bad idea that they're putting on there third along with information gathering Facebook's free and we talked about the last time but they didn't come up here why there's not a dent in planning and zoning Facebook and when we post on the website you know that automatically pushed to Facebook or that person logs in and puts a notice on Facebook people can subscribe to see it on the timeline they could prioritize it on the timeline they would actually have the empowerment apart from neighborhood newsletters or anything like that which is a time for the staff and a cost it seems like Facebook is a low-h anging fruit in terms of notifications there are some Facebook groups out there that that do very well and I know one particular Commissioner on this Commission tries to push that information out there but there could be a centralized planning zoning page that people could like and so I'm in favor of of the effort that that might take to start lastly and I brought this up last time not me last time but the first time this came up in terms of postcard verse letters I find post cards to be super convenient I think a lot of us do however I have intimate knowledge my brother owns a company that sends out tens of thousands of mailers across the state of Texas throughout the year and he's done a be testing on postcard responses verse letter responses and there is such a massive significant difference on the number of responses he gets from sending a letter out verse a postcard and so if the intent is to get a response and if I could look into his data and bring it to y'all it the response comes from a letter there's a there's a buy-in to opening or taking off the little sticker that encloses it there's there's some sort of perceived okay I'm committed to figuring out what this is and once they're in there it seems like there's a mental process to continue that step where postcard is flip it over throw it away and so as much as a postcard is convenient it allows for that business reply which is is great I'm still hesitant if the intent as stated is to get a response is if there's if there's been research to know what would better get as a response and I'm not sure if the staff's looked into that there has to be without with the number of mailers that go out politically or otherwise there's got to be research out there for conversion rates from letters to postcards and so I'd be interested in seeing that to make a the best intellectual decisions about what would be more effective in getting their response because I agree I want the response day or nades it's helpful for our discussions and if a postcard is not the best way of doing that that I wouldn't be in favor of it if we know that it's not gonna yield good responses. Sure, thank you. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. Chicken or egg question here. What is the individual out there in the community see first the sign or the notice? That's really hard to say we get calls on all of them. Well I guess what's the intent do we try and get the sign up before they get their notices? They get they usually get posted around the same the sign gets posted a few days after the notice goes out so that they're received hopefully at the same time the sign goes out. Well I'm wondering if it wouldn't in part answer our address Commissioner Rose ll's concern about if the sign went up early enough then the homeowners would be in anticipation of some kind of mailing from the city and would be less inclined to throw it away. Sure. Okay. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair. Commissioner Rosell I just wanted to ask you if what kind of what was the data that your brother had I mean what kind of mailers was it marketing or? Yeah I mean solicited marketing mailers and he's done closed envelope with a loose leaf inside he's done brochures double tabbed where the address is printed right on the actual collateral and he's also done postcards and measured conversion rates from that solicited material. So I guess my my question is we're trying to get things noticed so I'm wondering to me a postcard is more noticeable in the mail especially with that Fort Worth one where it's kind of printed on that so I don't know you know I don't know how that data interprets to a public notice. I don't know either I think a postcard is definitely easier to be noticed I think more eyes would see that but if part of the intent is to actually get a response from what I've learned and read postcards aren't the best avenue to get a response so that's why I was asking the question about notice versus response. A postcard is very easy to throw away. Yeah I suppose that 's true. Commissioner Sullivan. I'm curious about the main issue being getting a response. Yes. Because what we currently get what I got there's nothing to respond to. What you had was a courtesy notice. If you look at what we've got what I handed out there is you got a courtesy notice and you got the regular 200 foot required notice. The 200 foot required notice does have a response sheet on it. Okay but if we don't know what it's about how are people going to respond? I get back to the same thing. That 's when they call the city. The information and not just the notice but the real information. Yeah. Even with something like this where you have a map that you really can't read. Mm-hmm. Spend more less time on a map and more time on verbiage. Right and see and you with the postcards we don't have room for a map so it's all verbiage. Well I did notice on the Fort Worth they said the side in request 15 800 block of double eagle boulevard variants to model home within 300 feet of occupied residents. Mm-hmm. I've got an idea what that's about. Right. But we don't even have that kind of a description. It can be something real specific and very short just to let people know what's going on so they know whether or not to be concerned. Right and we try to be as specific as we can. It's just sometimes people just don't understand what we're trying to say. I understand. Okay thank you. I may have missed this in the presentation. Are we taking a step back from the certified mailers to just regular mail now? Is that correct? Yes. That's what our proposal is. The certified if I remember I were six something dollars a piece. You were five seventy-seven. Okay so I'm on six and we're gonna be down around 242. Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you. Okay that's our last item on our work session. So at this time unless we have any other questions or any other housekeeping I'm going to close our work session at 6 0 7 and we'll reconvene in council chambers at 6 30. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the City of Denton Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for October the 26th. This meeting has been duly posted and we do have a quorum present and I will call our meeting to order at 6 32. Our first order of business will be to stand and give the pledge to the US and the Texas flag. [Pledge of Allegiance] The next item on our agenda this evening will be to consider our minutes of a meeting for October the 12th. The chair will entertain a motion. Commissioner Rizel. I move to accept the minutes. Commissioner Beck. Okay. The first and a second any discussion? Seeing none we'll call for a vote on the board. Motion carries 6 to 0. Next item on our agenda will be our consent agenda. Commissioner Beck. I move we approve consent. Okay. Commissioner Hudspeth. Second. Okay. We have a first and a second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none we'll call for a vote on the board. That motion carries 6 to 0. That will take us to our public hearing section this evening. As a point of order because of the number of cards that we have this evening we are going to make or the chair is going to make a change in order and we're going to hear item B first. That is going to be so I'm going to open the public hearing for item B which will be AESA 16-0002 and I will call on Mike Bell for that presentation. Thank you chair, members of the Commission. This request is for an alternative environmentally sensitive area plan for the Ryan Meadows edition phase 2. In a nutshell there is a roadway Creekdale Drive that is on the city of Denton mobility plan that the developers is required to construct and that roadway cuts across some environmentally sensitive areas about a little less than half an acre. There is no exemption for our mobility plan roadways from our ESA regulations therefore that's why this plan is required. They are proposing some mitigation to plan additional 25 trees just outside the boundaries of the ESA to mitigate for for that disturbance. Staff does recommend approval with conditions 1 through 3 that the limit that the disturbance shall not exceed 0.45 acres and shall be consistent with the alternative ESA plan. That 25 trees shall be planted 3 inch diameters at planting and then all areas disturbed shall be re-vegetated using native plants. With that I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? Thank you Mike. I have one card on this item Thomas Fletcher speaking in support. Good evening my name is Thomas Fletcher 5750 Genesis Court Frisco Texas 75034. I'm the engineer for the applicant and really just here to answer any questions if there are any. As Mike has pointed out the the request is for the construction of Creekdale Drive which is on the mobility plan. As part of that we've gone through and done engineering plans to look at the disturbances in order to calculate that. Because there's undeveloped floodplain we've also gone through the drainage analysis. We've done a flood study on the project. We've also done a clomer conditional letter of map revision that has also been approved by FEMA. So just give you some additional background and would be glad to answer any questions on behalf of the owner. I've got a question for you. You may or may not have been in our work session there was a little discussion about some of the ESA requirements because this road is required at part of mobility plan. Just for my own purposes as we look at this a little bit deeper in some future work sessions can you give me an idea how much time and cost y'all have spent dealing with this particular issue and what the 25 trees and the native planting and all those things just a ballpark. So the the 25 trees you're probably looking at with a three-inch tree probably five to six hundred dollars a piece installed so you're looking at probably twelve to fifteen thousand dollars for the trees. As part of the city's requirement we have to go through and do an ESA assessment assessment anyway. So whether we had to come before you with a with an alternate ESA plan or not we we had to go through that process. Through the process of making the submittal and so forth I think we've been working with the city city staff for probably the last three months just kind of going through going through the assessment kind of looking at the impacts and how the impacts affect the ESA with the road the design of the road how it impacts or how it interacts with the clomer and showing that it meets the clomer but as far as the impacts to the development really the only additional impacts because since the road is a requirement everything associated with the construction of the road is already required by the city so really looking at maybe an additional fifteen thousand dollars for the additional plantings in the open space. Plus the time. Plus the time correct. How much is the engineering time approximately for the alternate ESA if you didn't have to deal with that issue? For the alternate ESA I would say that are you asking as far as hours or fees or dollars? Dollars I mean I would say it's under a ten thousand dollar fee expense. So somewhere twenty twenty five thousand dollars for this particular issue on this project. That's correct. Great that's correct . Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Thank you. Appreciate it. Again this is a public hearing so anyone who would like to speak on this item please come forward at this time and give your name and address. Seeing none we will close the public hearing on this item and open the floor for discussion or a motion. Commissioner Hudspeth. I move approval with the three bullets that staff identified as requirements. Okay. Commissioner Beck. I second. Okay. We have a first and second for approval with the three conditions that are in our backup as part of this project. Any other discussion or comments? Seeing none I'll call for a vote on the board. Motion carries six to zero. We will now hear item A. So I'm going to open the public hearing to Z16-0007 and we'll call on Ron Magida to make this presentation. Thank you chair, members of the Commission, members of staff. This item brought forward to you today is a consideration for a code amendment to the Fry Street overlay district which is in sub chapter 357 of the Denton Development Code. The request brought forward is to amend the overlay district to create a new sub area which is sub area C and associated development standards that go along with just that sub area. For reference this is the entire Fry Street overlay district outlined here in orange. As you recall or as you are familiar with the sub area B is an area that was carved out in 2010 to allow for the development of a student housing or student living apartment the youth center and associated commercial uses and again this was approved in 2010. The area here in red identifies the area that the current proposal to amend the Fry Street overlay district again sub area C and this is the subject area where this particular project will go if the code amendment was to be approved. A little closer look of what the area looks like currently there's an existing bookstore, Wortmans bookstore is located in this area as well as a subway restaurant and parking. The applicant is proposing to construct a multi-level mixed-use development five stories to be exact. The area use or the illustration you see here shows landscaping along both Oak and Hickory and associated parking spaces with this project. By way of background for those commissioners that work here on January 27th of this year the Planning Zoning Commission considered this similar project it was a prior project Z1529 for this project. The Planning Zoning Commission at that time recommended denial of this request to amend the code 621. It then was forwarded to City Council for their consideration following that meeting. It was put on the agenda several times and at one point the applicant withd rew the application and so that application was withdrawn. On April 8th of this year the applicant resubmitted a new application which is Z167 which is what we're considering tonight. The difference between the previous application and the current application is an additional 36 additional parking spaces which you see shown here just north of the subject property. The subject development the five-story mixed-use development comprises of the following . It mainly comprises of a student living apartment which is approximately 111,000 square feet. The rooms will be leased out individually to students. The development comprises of 83 dwelling units, 9 two bedrooms, 14 three bedrooms, and 64 bedroom units. If you were to multiply that and add that all together that comes up to 300 bedrooms in total. The building height as proposed will be approximately 62.05 feet. The development also has a parking garage that is proposed that will be completely wrapped except for an area to the west which will still be able to see the parking garage. The parking garage has 217 spaces and the height of that parking garage is approximately 69.2 feet. In addition to the student living apartment it will also include some commercial uses a retail development of approximately 10,766 square feet which will be the Vortman bookstore location. In addition there is a restaurant proposed of approximately 1,600. Currently Sub way is the proposed user however that's not been confirmed. There is also parking on site five parking spaces to be exact and that's just going to be just east of the property and again as mentioned earlier there will be an additional 36 parking spaces which is off-site and that's across Oak Street. The table that you see here is a summary of what is required in each of the zoning I'm sorry each of the sub areas sub area A as I'm sorry Mr. Benguita if we could just pause for a moment I think that we had a member here who was going to recuse himself on this matter due to a conflict so he'll be leaving the room while we discuss this and then we'll invite him back in after this item is over. Thank you. This chart here illustrates the requirements per the sub areas sub area A as illustrated earlier is everything that is not sub area B which was created again in 2002 I'm sorry 2010. So I'm going to go through these through these requirements one by one. The first one is the maximum building height in the current sub area where this property is located the maximum height is three stories 45 feet they are proposing a maximum height of five stories 62.05 feet. The parking garage in sub area A is 45 feet they are proposing a six- story 69.2 feet tall parking garage. Maximum density for sub area A is based on the development standards parking lot coverage all that that will dictate the amount of dwelling units per acre. The applicant is proposing that there be a set amount up to 86 dwelling units per acre for the proposed sub area C. Parking ratio for two bedrooms or more in sub area A it's one space per bedroom in proposed sub area C the applicant is proposing 0.76 parking space per bedroom. A couple other standards that are different from sub area A building coverage an increase up to 20% from 50 to 70 building coverage for mixed use a 1% increase. Minimal landscape area they're requesting that that be decreased from 15% to 10.7 and a rear yard setback a decrease from 10 foot to 5 foot of setback. For the benefit of the public the subject parking requirements as it's currently required under sub area A would require that the property provide 332 parking spaces that's with one space per bedroom for the units that have two bedrooms or more as opposed to what's currently being proposed which they're reducing that parking requirement or parking ratio down to 0.76 that equates to approximately 228 parking spaces and if they were to be approved under the current proposal they would only be required to provide 260 spaces a difference of 72 spaces. For your consideration the following development does encourage walk walking as well as biking it also provides extended building setbacks from Oak and Hickory as well as it does provide commercial uses along Hickory in the form of the retail V ortman bookstore as well as the restaurant which in this current state is Sub way. Also other consideration to consider is that the height and density the development is not compatible with surrounding area there are other buildings in the area that are much less. The Friday Street overlay district was put in place and when it was put in place there was an intent to relax I'm sorry to provide adequate parking for residents in fact the parking requirements for two units or more in this overlay district is much higher than any parts of the others other parts of the city it also relaxes parking for the retail and residential uses the requirements for the overlay district is less here than it is for other parts of the city. Other consideration the solid waste requirement that is required by our solid waste department is still being discussed and a resolution has not yet been reached. An approved agreement has not been received from the applicant this agreement is to ensure that there is a 10-foot clearance around the entire building as it is currently proposed on the site plan they are five feet from the property line on the west they can propose that as long as there's an agreement with the property owner adjacent to the site if they were to get that agreement then our fire department would accept that but again we would have to have an agreement in order to confirm that. The continuous amendment to the Fry Street overlay district compromises the compatibility of the uses around the area and also really compromises the purpose and intent of the district as it was first proposed or first adopted. Lastly the proposed amendment and associate development standards is not consistent with the dam plan 2030 in regards to scale character and as well as the potential impact to adjacent neighborhoods. Notifications were sent out to property owners within 200 and 500 foot there were 51 male certified males that were sent out and 124 regular male within properties within 500. We've received four responses two in favor and in tune opposition . With that staff is recommending denial of the subject requests for the following reason the proposed development or proposed code amendment is not consistent with the dam plan 2030 it compromises the effectiveness of the overlay district it's not compatible with the surrounding area and the development standards are inconsistent with the proposed site plan. I just want to state that we've been working with the applicant for several months now trying to get a product or a code amendment that is acceptable by staff we've been working on it for several times we were just not able to get there and the applicant chose to move forward with the application as is and that's why you're hearing it today. A couple other reasons again our solid waste requirement has not been met and a pending solution is still being worked out as well as the boundary adjustment which I described earlier has not yet been obtained and that's something that we look forward to getting soon. With that that concludes my presentation I will be happy to answer any question that the Commission may have. A couple questions Commissioner Roselle. Thank you chair appreciate the presentation I have a couple questions you mentioned that the parking requirements for the Frye Street overlay district are less than other parts of the city what is the general parking requirement ratio for two-bedroom or more apartments in the city? Let me clarify that for the residential it's actually more than other parts of the city where it is less it's in the commercial uses the retail and the restaurant so for example a two-bedroom we'll go back to residential a two-bedroom unit would require 1.75 spaces where in this is this area is it's one space per bedroom. So it's already been lowered a little bit almost by half for this overlay already for residential? It's actually I'm sorry if I didn't clarify that it actually increased because the 1.75 is per unit I didn't clarify that so a two-bedroom would be required 1. 75 parking spaces outside the overlay but because this is in the overlay a two-bedroom unit would require two parking spaces so it's higher in the overlay district for the residential component. Perfect I appreciate the clarification and then on your slide that was actually providing background there is a image and it was entitled UNT student housing at the bottom is that an official designation that they have to get approved by UNT to be a student housing king? I'm not sure if that is intended I think that was just for either purpose of putting together the rendering I don't think that's something that they have obtained through the University but we can certainly ask the applicant if that's the case. Perfect thank you. Commissioner Beck. Thank you chair. Thanks for your presentation. There were about four items I think you mentioned they're still not resolved with this there was a list of things back in January we dealt with that hadn't been resolved then so for the benefit of our audience could you convey what EDR has addressed? Sure back in January of this year one of the things that wasn't addressed at the time was the submittal and review of a traffic impact analysis a TIA that has since been submitted and reviewed and accepted by our engineering department. The other item that we discussed at the January 27th meeting was the fire lane separation from the building the applicant was able to address that and they do now meet the requirements of the fire department. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Thank you Ron. Got quite a few cards wishing to speak I'm gonna start with I'm gonna start with the applicant I have actually two cards I don't know who would like to go first. Thank you very much Mr. Chair ladies and gentlemen my name is Rob Baldwin I was at 3904 Elm Street Suite B here in Dallas and I'm I'm representing EDR in this in processing this application . Thank you very much for your time I know some of you it's deja vu again because you saw us here in January. There is we were back in the process because we secured more parking and then when we resubmitted we thought that we tried to take an avenue of reducing parking administratively through to the planning department which did not work out so we our application is about the same as it was but with additional parking the the heights are actually the same as they were when you saw in January the difference was we were in our initial submittal we were to talk about average grade for measuring our heights as the city code requires but when working through Ron Ron wanted us to add the maximum height that it would be from existing grade rather than average grade so that's why it looks like we've increased the height but we really haven't. The two items that are really outstanding that the last two items one the the part of solid waste I do a lot of zoning for apartments and a lot of most of the apartments that I do right now they do have the system where the garbage is wheeled out during collection days and wheeled back in that way they don't have a dumpster area which attracts rodents and and smells and everything and it works really fine and it works well and I'm confident we can work something out with the city but until we get the issue with the zoning solved we didn't want to spend a whole lot of time and aggravation going through that. The same thing with the five-foot boundary agreement we've met with our neighboring property owners and we're we're confident we can reach an agreement on that but they would be in a form of a deed restriction to get recorded in the deed records and until we get zoning in place we didn't want to go through the all that exercise as well. We fully understand that until those two things get solved even if this gets approved we couldn't move forward until those were solved and and we're confident we can get those solved so that's two things. Can I stop you a sec? Did you say you do have an agreement reached with the neighbor? We're confident we're going to be able to get one. We've met with them and they've showed interest in entering into an agreement with us. Okay great thank you. Okay this really boils down to parking I think. Our heights really not any different from from Fry the U Center Fry Street. The difference between those two is that we're proposing less parking for the residential portion of 0.7 parking spaces per bed versus the one per bed that they do. Rodney King will who's my client will come up and go through this whole presentation. I'll just take a minute though. What we're proposing is actually consistent in our mind with the comprehensive plan. There's a provision of the Denton 2030 plan that says if you're adjacent to the University you you're a good candidate to have reduced parking because you're putting students right across the street from where they're going to school. I am a father of one daughter who 's in college and one is about and the son is about to go to college and I've been to the colleges and kids don't drive as much as they did when I was a kid. It's too convenient to take uber bicycles other ways to get around especially in a college town and we're confident that that would be recognized by the students who live here. Rodney will go into more details on that but I do think that in the state of the art planning in the United States right now increasing density next to colleges and reducing parking is is common and accepted and it's something Rodney will go into a little bit more detail with. I do thank you for your time I'll turn over Rodney. Yes sir. One other question have you considered what DCTA services would be providing for this facility possibly as well as another means of transportation for students? Yes sir Rodney had spoken to some folks over DCTA to talk about altering schedules to accommodate and none of this is gonna be zip cars here on campus if you know what a zip car is where you people can get like a fractional ownership of car just use it when they need it. So he will go into that a little more detail but it's not it's not like it was when I was in college there's a lot more options. May have one other question. Commissioner Beck did you have a question? Yes thank you chair thank you Mr. Baldwin for your presentation. I would beg to disagree with you though on the height issue probably nothing's changed but that would mean that the taller height was always there in the first place in my opinion. Well I was I was at the briefing session we talked about the sixth floor the sixth floor of a parking garage is the same height as a five-story a six-story parking garage the same height as a five-story residential structure because they have lower heights between floors. Okay but standing side-by-side to sub area A and B are you saying we wouldn't see any difference in height? Not with A because A has a much shorter height A is 35 feet I believe between us and the youth center we're within two feet of each other. Okay let me put you on the spot a little bit here. Okay that's what I'm here for. You in your opinion what do you think were the top two things that the residents were opposed to? Could you? Parking and height. Okay yeah and you've made it advance a little bit on the parking yet you're still under that and the height really hasn't changed at all so I'm just curious other than you made a couple of changes what brings you back here thinking that there's going to be a change of? We really believe this is a good project and I understand the position you're in it's hard to to go against neighborhood opposition but we think from a an urban design standpoint this project makes sense and it made sense for the youth center to go there and at that height I don't see why it would make less sense for us to come in so it really boils down in my mind to parking and Rodney will go into research he's done where the youth center parking is not utilized at 100%. There's there's plenty of extra spaces as are the 33 degrees north there's lots of spaces in their parking garages that are not used because the students just don't bring the cars in it so to speak to your point I thought that when we resubmitted I thought that we're gonna get a lot closer to meeting the parking requirement based on a administrative reduction in parking that we thought we were going to get which we didn't but when we were in the system we still think it's a good project. Thank you sir. You're welcome. One more question. Commissioner Ellis. Thank you chair. Good evening. Question with regard to the securing of the extra parking spaces which I understand is now a current parking lot is that correct? Yes ma'am. And what is it being used for now? I'm sorry? What is it currently being used for now? I understand it's being used I'll let Rodney speak to it as well but it's being used for Vortman's employee parking it's what I understand. Okay thank you. But when he comes up grill him he'll know for sure. I'm gonna turn over this is Rodney King with EDR out of Memphis he's here as the developer. Great thank you. Thank you guys. Not a short presentation but I'll skip through most of it since. Sorry you got ten minutes so. Take your time. Well just to give you guys a little bit of background about EDR we're based in Memphis Tennessee with the nation's second largest student housing REIT. We're a public company we've been around in business for 52 years we have about 40 thousand beds nationwide. We also have six properties in Texas ranging located in Lubbock all the way down to Texas A&M Commerce what not all the way down that that marker is wrong all the way down to San Marcos Texas. Here just a few of our projects in glance as you'll see the project at the bottom right is it in Fort Worth. We pride ourselves on trying to complement the existing architecture while improving the site. Here's our project at University of Minnesota and also Texas Tech. This is Yukon and Austin. Here's a little bit of project overview as you guys can see we've been you know pursuing this project for quite a while now over a year. We've had several public meetings we've tried to intake the public's comments and adjust the plans as necessary. We think we've come to a final point of the plans that's why we're back here today to kind of bring a conclusion to this matter. I believe we've made the project better once we initially started out with the project before we even got to P&Z we're about 60% park so we've made material increases in the parking we've reduced the density quite a bit. And Rob alluded to this earlier we actually believe this project supports the DEN plan 2030. One of the items in the plan is supports mixed use projects and close proximity to the university. In our opinion you can't get any closer to the university than this project it is literally right across the street and it is it is a mixed use project the majority of the first floor is commercial spaces and also one of the tenants of the plan is to create a buffer zone between the university and the historic neighborhoods and Frye Street and Hickory and Oak is that buffer zone in our opinion. The scale of the project comes down from the university I think you have about eight nine-story university buildings right across the street so this gradually brings down the scale of the university into the to the neighborhoods and also just and collegiate housing in general purpose-built colleg iate housing draws from the shadow market in our opinion it takes away from those students renting houses that are five six seven people in a single-family house and puts them in a project and a product that is specifically geared toward them. And the then 2030 plan also supports relaxed parking and close proximity to the university. As I said we believe this project is consistent with the plan and we hope you guys do too. Just a little bit of information on the project is 300 beds 222 spaces about 77 76.7 percent part is located at 13 14 Hickory Street obviously right across the street from the university. This is just a comparison to a couple other purpose-built student housing projects. We believe this project is extremely similar to the youth center at Fry Street. They are one-to-one park which is probably a block away but according to our research and according to the manager on site they're not utilizing all of their parking. So we didn't feel like it was prudent or market the market wasn't suggesting we needed more parking to satisfy the need. The last thing we want to do is build a project that's not successful. If we believe that we needed more parking we would we would we would obviously do it. Here's a comparison of 33 degrees north which is on the south side of campus. It's 427 beds about two 348 spaces about 275 are utilized. That's between half and three quarters. So the market is telling us what the parking demand is for these types of projects in our opinion. Here's just a quick comparison of the project. Rob alluded to the height earlier. The height did not grow the way we measured height is the difference between now and when we present it back in January. We also have our engineers here for the traffic study. I don't know if you guys want us to go into detail with it now or we could kind of reserve that for questions. I leave it up to you Mr. Chair. Let's do for questions. I'm sorry. If there's questions in the essence of time. Sure sure. Sure if you want to go. If you're asking if I understood your question you wanted to see if we need to have your engineers correct. And I think you said if we had questions I could come forward. I was agreeing with you. If we have questions for them then yes we'll bring them forward at that time. Sorry if that wasn't clear. No problem. And some of the amenities that will be included in the project is obviously zip car. As Rob said there's a fractional share of a car. We're students who don 't own a car but need a car on a per trip basis. We will offer that amenity in the project. Well also we also have a unique relationship with a company called Gotcha Bike. It's very similar to zip car but it's revolving around bikes. You can rent a bike. You can rent a bike for a day. You can rent a bike for a week and you're charged for that. And also Uber obviously. I think everybody's pretty familiar what Uber is. Same thing with site capacity and utilities. If there's any questions revolving around it we have our engineers here to do that. Some of the advantages of the project in our opinion is it's within steps of the University. We believe this is the highest and best use of this site. It is purpose-built collegiate housing right across the street from the core of UNT's campus. UNT is obviously growing and the demand for purpose -built student housing is here in the community and we're trying to satisfy that need. Also based on our multiple properties across the country students and when you are in this close proximity to campus students don't drive their cars to class. They get out of bed and they walk to class from this type of location. If we're in a garden style sprawling project two miles away we believe they would drive to class but in this type of project we don't believe they will. And also this creates an entertainment district that is within proximity of the University. You have the first floor commercial use in a fry street and you have the majority of our first floor commercial uses. So you're creating this vibrant walkable district within the University within the University's edge. If you measure the building from its average grade from its prevailing grade the average height of the buildings about 58 feet and we're asking for a height variance of however you guys want to measure. We want five stories and however you want to measure in our opinion is 58 feet. I think the way Ron is measuring is 62 feet. We're asking for a parking ratio down from 75 to 76 percent from the one-to-one. And with that I'll take the Commissioner's questions. And a couple questions for a Commissioner Beck. Thank you Chair. Good seeing you again Mr. Keene. I would like to say you do have an excellent product. I went on your site and looked at it. You've got a remarkable staff, a laundry list of your developments are it's awesome. So regardless of what the vote turns out to be here tonight I hope that Denton does see you here and building this because I think you've got a good quality product. Now you mentioned that this you felt that this site was the highest and best use for it. But and I don't disagree that we need this type of building there but again why five stories why not stay within the limits that are already set there with this overlay district. I think we covered this in January but if you would reiterate that for us please. Sure what's driving to be frank what's driving the height of the building is purely economics. Denton without going to an elaborated finance you know model. Denton is a high property tax municipality and land values here are rising. So you have to get a certain amount of density for any project to pencil so to speak. So that's what's driving the height of the building. If we could build more we would like to on this site because we think this site is irreplaceable in our opinion. But to be compatible with the neighborhood and you know it's a balancing act between you know economics and the land values and property taxes. So that's what's really driving the height. We believe if the amendment this is you know not a front to the residents but if the zoning doesn't change and the land value and the property taxes don't change the only other variable is land value. So if you can't get density where you need it you can't pay the same amount for the land. So you're saying anything less than five stories and wouldn 't be profitable. Correct. Not profitable but not feasible. Okay thank you. Commissioner Rossell. Thank you chair. I have several questions and hopefully I can get through these efficiently. I'm trying to figure out how many parking spaces there are proposed in the plan and I can't count the parking garages but to your understanding how many proposed spaces are in your site plan. I understand it's 260 spaces that means the residential I mean that means the retail is parked to code. Both uses are parked to code and we're asking for a variance on the residential piece to 0.76. Okay so in your narrative submitted to us it says 252. Correct. In our city backup it says the requirements 260 but you have 258 leaving you short of the proposed that you had of 260. I'm not sure where that discrepancy comes in but additionally in the backup exhibit 3575F it outlines the additional 36 parking spaces but on this site plan there's 45 parking spaces not 36 and so I hope you can understand my confusion. I'm trying to understand what actual parking is being presented to us to vote on this evening so maybe we can start with this. In this exhibit for sub area C site plan can you help me understand what these nine parking spots to the east are? I 'm not I don't hear you. You're more than welcome to. Yeah can you set it on the felt? I've got an overhead there. Those nine parking spots to the east are technically within our survey but they're being used by adjacent property owner. We are not counting those spaces too in the project but we are legally entitled to them but we didn't want to go through the legal process of claiming those. Okay. There 's another apartment complex outside the outside of the site map. So they have like a lease agreement or some sort of? Actually they're just encroaching. Okay so I'm understanding why when parking is so much of an issue you wouldn't include those as some that y'all could take back in this. That is certainly an avenue we may want to pursue but in order to keep the project on a certain timeline that's a legal process that could take a long time. Okay I certainly understand the timing of it but it seems like low-hanging fruit as we're talking so much about parking that there's nine spots just sitting on your land. Correct. And so I guess to end my point on the parking there is 260 not 258 maybe someone from City can tell me where the 258 is on our backup. Commissioner Rezell the 258 is the calculation that the applicant has specified in their site plan but the way we calculated it made me two parking spaces off I think what we did was we rounded up and they just rounded it to the nearest number so that's the difference of the two parking spaces. So it's feasible if this project goes forward they actually could build 260? The way that the site plan is currently designed they show 258 so that's what they I believe can produce is 258. Okay thank you. So my other two two questions and you heard my question earlier about the UNT student housing is this a designation that's official from the University and do you have it? No that was just one of our consultants labeling it we are no way an affiliated with the University of North Texas we believe that the market dynamics the majority of our tenants will be students of the University by way of a type of leasing we're instituting here but we're not affiliated with the University and to kind of put a bow in your parking conversation we've been in discussions with the University of North Texas you know over the last year and they do have an underutilized parking garage and we and UNT students are entitled to park in that garage so we've made the agreement and we're certainly willing to agree to this subject to approval that if our parking exceeds capacity and a UNT student needs parking we are willing to pay the difference in that garage for our students so that effectively brings us well more than a hundred percent parking and that garage is within a block and a half of our site. Do you know how many feet that is? I don't know how many feet. I think it is within the 1000 feet. I think our requirements within a thousand. It is within 1000 feet. I don't know if staff can clarify that point for us during this hearing that this particular garage would be within a thousand that we may or may not be able to consider that. We would actually have to measure that to discern the distance so we wouldn't be able to just look at a map right now we would have to get into our GIS system and measure that. Okay. So I have one more question slash maybe point. Both Mr. Baldwin and you Mr. King have talked about really the only difference here we're talking about is parking how the height is very similar. Correct. We were provided from the considerations of staff differences in what is currently in sub A and sub B and what is being proposed by EDR and so if I understand this correctly there is a change to maximum building height requested, a change to maximum parking garage height requested, a change of maximum density requested, a change or an increase to building coverage for residential, an increased change to building coverage for mixed use, there 's a decrease requirement for minimum landscape area and there is a request to reduce the rear yard setback. Y'all are asking for more than parking. All those requests are particularly driven by height. If we took a story off the building obviously the density per acre goes down so the primary drivers of those requests are height in our opinion. Okay thank you. Commissioner Hesbeth . Thank You Chair. Mr. King. So I have a functional question following up from our previous conversation. So I'm gonna use and I forget his name the first presenter. Mr. Baldwin. Thank you. So using that example so Mr. Baldwin sends his son to UNT and there at your facility right and so my question is if he's leasing a room or an apartment in that in a quad if you will what controls do you have understanding you're limited legally and who else fills those other three spaces so for example I have all daughters right so if my daughter's in one of those locations what controls do you have about 45 50 60 year old man renting an apartment in that same quad as a 20 year old girl? First we must abide by all fair housing laws you know that 's supreme but the type of programs and the type of leasing that we implement in these projects I would venture to say that 99% of our tenants are students to the adjacent universities so from a control standpoint we lease by the bed which automatically draws a certain type of clientele in their opinion. We also if your daughter and three of her friends wanted to come and lease at our project if she brought four of her friends and wanted to rent a four-bedroom we would obviously place those people together. We have several management type of programs from roommate matching to you pick your own unit so we have controls and incentives to put people where they want to be. But to cut to the quick you can't prevent that from happening just legally there's I understand not saying it's it's it's your fault I'm just saying it is a reality. We can't steer we can't discriminate against any group. Right thank you. Any other question? Commissioner Alice. I'm sorry thank you I'm gonna go back to that parking lot question do you have an answer for me? Could you remind me of the question? Sorry. So that off-site parking the 36 spaces on Bryan Street there? Currently Vortmans is using that parking spot for employee parking and also the owner of the project is not here but he also leases some of those spaces to professors and whomever he could generate cash from. But the majority of it in my from my interpretation of it is employee parking. Okay and then I guess my concern with it is then those people who are currently using it won't be able to use it because it's going to be designated for this project. Well based on Vortmans square footage of his establishment is being cut in half basically. He owns about a 24,000 square foot building it's being reduced down to 12,000 square feet and based on our plan we're parking that square footage of that type of use to code. In the garage. Yeah I understand that I'm trying to wrap my head around are really increasing spaces if we're taking spaces away from people who are utilizing them now not affiliated with this project. I think for the type of use obviously for the type of use I think is within code but the the retail square footage is being reduced so that parking may not need to be utilized as it is currently today because the the retail usage has been cutting ahead. Well the professors have to park somewhere. Well the UNT does have an underutilized garage. Thank you. Commissioner Hesm uth. One and I you may not have it ready now but I am very much interested in the site you make to the 2030 plan. If someone can give me I have I had a PDF if someone can give me the page that you're referencing on the administrative hearing that allows for a reduction near university or mixed use. You both you have cited it but I don't I don't I'd like to read it. That I I would have to defer to staff. No no I mean yes thank you. We're gonna wait for an answer we're gonna okay do we have any other any other questions for the applicant? Thank you sir. Thank you Mr. Chairman. This is a public hearing I have a stack of cards and we're gonna go through these but anyone who wishes to speak this evening on this item please fill out a card when you come forward if you'll state your name and address and then you'll have four minutes. The first card first card that I have is Donna Morris on Oak Street speaking in opposition and that will be she will be followed by looks like Kim McKibbin. I'm Donna Morris I live at 918 West Oak we have owned that house for since 2004 when we first moved there you could walk up and down Oak Street and cross the street be safe and as things have changed Fry Street changed the big apartment complex went in with all the students and we were told that it really wouldn't affect the traffic that much but now if you try to back your car out on Oak Street any time other than seven o'clock on Sunday morning you have to wait five to ten minutes to back out. You've spent a lot of time on the parking situation but nobody's mentioned the traffic increase that that would cause and it will those cars don't stay parked in those lots all week let me tell you. UNT does have a underutilized parking garage up there it's underutilized because they charge too much for the students to park there they park all the way down Oak Street practically to Carroll Boulevard all the way down Hickory Street to Carroll Boulevard they park on the streets the small streets behind us Amarillo, Gregg, Anderson all of those their parks so full that it's routine for us to go out and have to put a note on a car you've blocked my car in the parking in the driveway again. You're considering a lot on parking and thank you I understand that but please consider what you're doing to the traffic. Okay have a couple questions for you before you go . Commissioner Ozil. Thank you I appreciate you coming tonight and speaking your concerns I have a question about traffic are you I want to make sure I understand what you're requesting or what you're stating to us are you not wanting the project at all or what do you? Well I understand that times change and we get older and so forth but we as the residents of Oak Hickory were told when that first apartment complex went up there were all kinds of traffic surveys done most of them were done when the students weren't there nothing has been done to do anything about traffic on Oak and Hickory streets nothing the streets are the same size right now if you come down Hickory Street and cross Carroll Boulevard you don't know what lane you're supposed to be in and most people are in the wrong lane and you have squeezed a bicycle lane a left lane only a right lane only and lane ahead only and a thing that sticks out in the middle of the street that makes it look beautiful and there 's no room for cars my husband in August was hit by a car that was backing out on Oak Street because he was so busy watching for traffic he didn't see my husband and the traffic is so bad we have to figure out where we're going to cross that we get enough space that we're able to have time to get across before all those cars come either I'm willing to pay for a toll gate that goes across Oak Street to slow them down or something I certainly appreciate the feedback on the traffic I'm trying to understand is in accordance to this proposed project how would you what would you like to with the project to have I I would like the project not to happen until the city makes a real commitment to do something about the traffic there the city made a commitment several years ago and nothing happened okay and they they do their surveys in the middle of August or the middle of January and tell us oh you don't have a problem we'll come out and sit there for a while and look at it sure and that's definitely on the city to do yes yes that portion of it I but in terms of the developers but if you're looking at this project and saying oh they've met everything and so forth you're not doing what you should be doing for the citizens of the city I absolutely agree and I take that responsibility seriously on how to vote that's why I'm just wanting to give you an opportunity to express are you saying that there should be less parking there should be more parking at the building I'm trying to understand in relation to the project relation to the project I'm not worried about the parking I'm telling you that those cars won't stay parked there all week they go up and down the street you as the city would be putting 300 more cars in the traffic on Oak Street in an area that's not equipped to take it now okay thank you couple more questions for you Commissioner back thank you thank you miss Morris for coming down speaking let me ask you a question I want to pose this to every other individual that comes down and speaks tonight you say you've been in on your Oak Street house since 2004 so you were there you weren't there when they did sub area a which was in 2000 but you were there when they did sub area B which is 2010 at that time did you agree with the changes were you part of the process we were part of the people that were saying you've got to do something about the traffic okay I did we did not agree with it we didn't agree with it when they were putting trying to put three or four fast food restaurants in there when they were trying to put the CVS pharmacy in there we we feel I understand that the city moves forward and you have to make changes and so forth but I feel that over and over again we have been told one thing and given nothing okay so you feel like that you were opposed to it essentially the both of the changes there and your feeling is what now if this one goes up my feeling now is don't build anything else don't put anything else in there until you take care of the traffic problems you have now okay okay thank you Commissioner Hesworth thank you chair one quick I have a question but I want to get make sure I have my boundaries right but all what where does city of Denton versus you and T fall on this particular area as far as control just give me some direction there are you referencing in terms of ownership in terms of who manages the road and who has ability to widen the road that those restrictions okay I'm actually going to ask Earl to come down and speak to some of the traffic issues he's present in terms of the right-of-way that is city owned right-of-way but there are some I believe as it relates to parking mechanisms perhaps not in this area but further down the street but if you have any specificity associated with well specifically I want to try to focus focus on her concern being the development bringing more traffic to Oak fry Street Oak in general Hickory Street in general specifically with this project that corner fry Street Oak right there but I don't know that that's fall I don't know if we have any control over that we city have any control over that particular segment of street sure if Earl can come down and perhaps shed some light on the TIA that was submitted because that those parameters reflected in the TIA okay so don't I want to I have a question thank you thank you Earl can we also get the date on the TIA when it was performed please yes let me backtrack to the T IA that was performed for the fry Street development it was performed back in 2010 and when they came in they projected the development by making certain percentage of assumptions of modes of transportation because it's a single single resident or single room occupancy type development geared towards students and so when the TIA came in they made assumptions on which mode of transportation this development take whether it's pedestrian or pedestrian and bicycle vehicle or buses and so based on that they projected the vehicle trips to be 79 in the morning during the peak hours which is your seven to nine and 143 in the afternoon which is your four to six time slot and that's usually the peak hours of the background itself when everybody's most likely going to work during those times we're coming back from work and so what we did as staff earlier this week as we went out there and actually observed the traffic flow that fry Street development just to see how it matched up to the TIA and we calculated or recounted 63 in the morning and 156 in the afternoon so it's it's almost some almost spot-on to what the TIA was was assuming and so going back to the going to the Hickory Street development that was performed I can find the cover sheet and June of this year this development is half the size in terms of number of bedrooms fry Street has 620 beds this development has 300 the retail component is a little bit larger than their fry Street but the businesses that are going into the retail component of this development are the same businesses that are being torn out the warm ins and the subway so the traffic counts for the commercial component should be awash so that increase in traffic is primarily the multifamily component or the student bedrooms and so they projected a peak a.m. of 75 and a peak p.m. of 108 which is somewhat proportionate to the fry Street development in terms of scale and size and so you know given the background traffic right now there's about 800 trips in a peak hour on oak and similar amount along Hickory and so I mean percentage wise it's really not that much of an increase less than 10% there are some when we were out there observing the traffic there are some speed issues that can be addressed they're just traffic just flying through through Oak Street primarily that's where the main entrance to the fry Street development is now so there are some mechanisms or processes that we can implement to slow that traffic down whether it's police at first and you know if that can't be resolved then maybe there's some traffic calming devices that could be inserted along oak through our traffic department so so is that our is that under our city of Denton purview to so traffic calming the those type mechanisms or is that you and tease that would be the city of Denton okay so that's our roadway thank you that is so if I may sure continues thank you okay thank you so miss Morris understanding we're looking at this particular project I want to I want to try to I think we can agree that you and T in and of itself is growing and more students and they have a Dallas campuses commuting in and they have the satellite campus there near Luke 28 that's growing and so I think overall I don't want to hold this particular applicant responsible for being next to a university that's growing that's that's the goal right and so I'm curious they make the point okay someone's closer to the university they're gonna walk they experience the same traffic headaches that everyone else does so they say hey I'm motivated just to walk or ride a bike or you zip car does that resonate with you I'm just curious does that make sense that they're gonna experience the same traffic and they would look to avoid that by being close to campus and using other modes of transportation well I don't know that they I understand that they would not be using their cars to go to school you and T is growing there are other areas farther west of UNT you look at the apartments that have gone in near the hospital complex the the road the roads and infrastructure there are far better for the density that it's going in that has gone in there then the infrastructure on Oak Street for the density that you're talking about putting in there got it okay well thank you thank you one more question ma'am Commissioner Rizzo thank you this is actually for our all thank you thank you very much this might just be for the edification of all involved it's my understanding mobility plan has three basic types of roads major artilleries secondary arteries and then collector streets and Oak Street is on the ability plan designated as a secondary artery keys it's considered more like a one-way couplet so between the combination of Hickory on the south side and oak on the north side kind of serves as that secondary arterial can type can you tell me what what the expectation is of a secondary arterial street what is what does that mean what is what is the secondary arterial mean secondary arterial it's I mean essentially the principle of an arterial is to move traffic from one side of town to the other and a quick as possible manner now the difference between a secondary arterial and primary arterial is just the volume of traffic the because a primary arterial has six lanes that are divided in a secondary only has two lanes okay and if I understand this the front west of Carroll there's a major artery arterial at University and then their secondary is at Eagle and Oak is that the general flow from Carroll West Eagle Oak University that are your major quiz in you west okay corridors that's correct okay thank you mm-hmm thank you our next speaker is Kimmy McKibbin at Hickory Street speaking in opposition to be followed by Anderson Mary or Manny good evening this makes the fourth time that I've been a community hearing about this particular project my name is Kim McKibbin and I own the building and the business at 1306 West Hickory that is adjacent to this property and I think it's very interesting that this was brought up and he talked to you about adjacent properties having already been talked to and agreeing I'm not sure what that is if it's because I do kind of share a wall with one that they're going to tear down those little six spaces there on Hickory and no they have not talked to me so I'm not sure what they're referring to about about that a lot of people have talked about the parking here parking is an issue they have not brought up the fact that they are removing 68 parking places from account walking around in the parking lot including the only three handicapped spaces in that section to build the building so they're taking away 68 spaces and I am including the ones along the front on Hick ory Street that are currently public parking and have meters so yeah that's what they're taking away traffic is is pretty much a nightmare I can tell you that coming down Hickory Street it's very dangerous I can tell you that the traffic backs up from the red light at Fry Street to the red light up at CVS and past that so you're literally waiting for the lights to change to come through but I don 't think that it's I think that the argument about the traffic is a distractor in the case for this building this building does not fit the current ordinance this contractor is asking you to change your city ordinance to change your city laws so that they can make a bigger profit something about that irritates me just a little bit I came back to the Fry Street area I bought the building I bought the business I want to be there to stay I'm aware of what the 2030 plan is and the understanding that this area is a buffer zone between the university that does not mean that is a big stone wall that means that you have a way to gradually move from the university back into the neighborhood and I understand the university's growing but the city of Denton and the citizens of Denton are not completely responsible for supporting the growth of the University of North Texas and sometimes that's what we have to look at is what's happening now another thing about this particular building is that it 's real pretty here on this picture and the this car that's here is sitting with its nose in where my building would be so there's there's some things like that that are happening also these buildings these apartments mr. Husspeth asked I 've got four girls what's to keep them from putting a gentleman in there that 's not so much the problem mr. Husspeth from what I talked to the students about that have these apartments as much as it is there's four people in the department and then there's somebody's boyfriend with a child somebody's girlfriend with a child if you've got a room in an apartment that you're paying over $700 for sometimes you're gonna have split that room and it turns into more people in the building than what they ever anticipated and yes it does happen you know they bring in the boyfriend the boyfriend brings in the the child and then you have a whole assortment of things going on I think that using Sterling house and Fry Street and 33 North are bad examples in these cases they've made for bad neighbors and they've changed the the feeling of the neighborhood they've changed the purpose of the neighborhood in a lot of ways so you have to consider that comparing just because one got built doesn't mean they shouldn't build a bigger one one's enough one's really enough and the property can be utilized in a more community oriented way it can also be have more housing not housing but retail in it when he says that most the first floor is retail I disagree because there's a pool and there 's a patio and all those amenities on the first on the first level of this apartment complex there's so many things that I'd really like to talk to you guys about about this but one other thing that I want to bring up very quickly is to get the fire lane that they wanted they have a two-lane street that comes down the east side of this building and it comes in and out on Hick ory and I can't speak oh I know people really go really fast on oak but I know people go really fast on Hickory too so to get in and out on the Hickory coming down that street they're going to be dealing with all the traffic with the speed with the hill it's going to be a dangerous situation so I'm just concerned about that when I look at this particular diagram for things so I'm asking that this project not be built unless it can conform to our ordinances to what the original Fry Street ordinance was and I don't think they have any intention of doing that because it's not profitable for them I think it's a lovely project I don't I think this is the wrong place to put it got a question for you yes sir Commissioner Beck thank you chair thank you miss Kevin for your presentation and to my question to miss Morris how long have you been at your location on Hickory Street I bought the building three years ago the building in the business I have been on the front in the Fry Street area and in Denton since 1981 okay so were you part of the process when sub area a and B were developed and if so how were you about this change I wasn't okay with this change I think that when they raised all the buildings there in sub area a that we lost a piece of history in Denton the historical buildings that we lost the character of those buildings the community that was there and at that time you know they basically said don't worry it'll just move down the street well it did it all moved down the street to Main Street and on past that and into the industrial area so now we've got a big mess down there too but no I think that didn't really lost some of its character when they lost those buildings and I felt for these people because that live in the historic buildings around it because this is not what they bargained for when they bought those houses that's not what it was and you know to have a building that big go up four stories it overpowers anything that's across the street on the campus so there's not really a transition you've got a wall there the businesses that are there are a lot of them had gone out of business recently because of different various things the parking that's there they have parking for the public on the bottom floor so you know so you want to compare that you feel like your worst fears have been realized in with these the two buildings that are already there are you concerned that this is are you talking about the one building that's there well both you got the student building and then the apartment complex sub area a was the first one yeah to 2000 sub area B was 2010 so well it's 2010 the the one that was fry Street sterling house yeah those things I think you have to really take into consideration what it did for the whole neighborhood or what it didn't do for the neighborhood so if you focus on parking and you focus on traffic and you don't focus on the the people that live there those of us that work there you're kind of missing the ball for us because that's what the ordinances were originally written for was to protect that certain area okay thank you you're welcome one more question for you Commissioner Hesbeth so I want to you own the young the coffee shop there I mean right okay and so I want to kind of explore that with you a little bit because you have a unit you have a unique insight to that so there's a business out of the business that we all get I mean you understand just like anyone would I mean I wouldn't be able to come in a coffee shop and say a coffee bean cost this so extrapolate hot water and I should be able to pay that I mean there's other other factors in there so I'm curious though with this project specifically I think miss Morris brings a good point there's a lot of development off campus that I think generates a lot of traffic on campus I mean because specifically that that complex near the near Presbyterian Hospital is huge and growing and they're developing those different areas and they use and it I think that's oak or hickory and so it leads you know and so and with University being in the shape it is it almost motivates people to go through oak so I want to set aside the traffic for a second just the business it would enhance the area because you have that little corner right where they park their bikes it's kind of dark and I think there's a stairway they next year yeah that is part of my building yeah so it enhances the area by by default just kind of along fordman's I'm assuming that's more like that sort of thing but can you see the good I guess to start there can you see the good that it would bring your business or are you willing to set that aside for the because I think the traffic is going to be there regardless right I mean if it's coming from off-site I don't think there's a way around the traffic so I want to kind of set that aside that's what I'm saying that's not necessarily the major focus right and so I think if we're talking more if they come in the code with the parking does that make you okay because I don't know that helps I want to help the neighborhood and the fact that they can add more parking to come one to one I don't think that makes an impact on the day-in-day-out lives of the people living in that overlay area and then no I don't I think that it's absolutely necessary that they have at least one-to-one parking but we go back to the issue again if you build a 60-foot building next to my two- story building on the west side I'm gonna be in the dark most of the day I mean just that's the reality of it the other buildings that are there are not that height this one's going to be definitely out of place the density of the people that are in there and the kids that will be crossing the street they 're not going to go to the corner and cross with the light they're gonna go right across Hickory Street now the business side of it and I think somebody at one point asked me oh you'll have you know all these new people no that's not necessarily what's going to happen because in the summertime and in holidays those those kids leave they're gone what it will bring is what Sterling has brought to us with people you know up on balconies and just missing your head sometimes with a beer bottle because they're aiming at the trash cans one of the receptacles that they want to put is adjacent to my building so the people my balcony will look into their trash can so that's a little disconcerting for me I don't see anything that this size and density of a building can bring to the Fry Street area that is going to be beneficial if they bring it down they increase the retail underneath it and they do something that that works for the community that works for the scale I could understand that but right now you know they're they 're not really looking at that they're just looking at their profit margin well and I have a question specifically with a retail though we we can agree that hadn 't worked at Sterling I can't you can't get in there the businesses that have been in and out of there correct and these businesses that they're proposing have been staples as long as I can remember that Jack in the Box has been there the subway's been there Vortman's have been there I born and raised here I don't remember when they weren't there and so but yet you mentioned increase retail right if you look at the if you look at what they're trying to do with the 2030 plan and where they're trying to move the amount of retail in relationship to the size of the building here is small and you know I'm I'm sorry that the the owner of Vortman's isn't here tonight because it's it's his desire just to reduce his footprint you know he just wants to to make profit he gets to keep his bill he gets to keep his building and that kind of stuff I'm not sure how that works but the I think that there's something better that could be done with this it could be in more open area there is nothing that's being offered to the community through this building he talks about zip cars where you gonna park those zip cars he talks about bicycles there's not even a bicycle rack on this plan so you know when you start looking at alternative means once again you're you're pulling some things and like I said 68 parking spaces the only three handicapped parking spaces in the block how does all that gonna work I'm just not real sure I mean the laws mandate that they'll have enough I know yeah there's no way around that but what are you I guess that kind of if it's okay if I ask you a question when you talk about the business side of it are you talking about my business no just general so we're gonna have people come up and say it's a business decision and my point is just to neutralize that and say they all are right I mean yeah no I mean everyone does that that that's the price of being in business you know there's employees there's insurance there's taxes so I so that I just kind of want to normalize the conversation so that we can all kind of be on the same even level playing field and have tangible actionable items to consider so yeah but what happens to my building I mean what happens to the building what happens to the traffic and everything to during the construction phase of all this if you start moving dirt around my building my building was built in 1942 as a boarding house it's all galvanized pipe it's got you know I've got the and you start shaking that ground you're gonna start shaking the building and things are gonna move around and come down and I have not gotten a stable answer out of that the engineers say oh yeah there's plenty of capacity for the sewage there's plenty of capacity for the water but I actually heard one of them stand here and say well if our water pressure drops we'll just turn on the fire pumps to get the water to our building what do you do with the rest of the buildings that are there you know what do you do with the people up the street that were dependent upon that water so you know it's a nice project it needs to be someplace other than that one point whatever it is acres in the middle of the block even when you when they took the the other the the first overlay district the first sub district it took the whole block it didn't just take the center of a block sure thank you mm- hmm one more question Commissioner Brazil just a clarification you know the coffee shop next to Kush and the copy center there what yes that's your property yes it's two stories okay is the majority of your traffic by foot bike card have you measured that could you provide some insight into your customers routine a lot of it's by foot the reason I don't have a lot of car traffic is there's no place to park recently and I don't know who or how this happened but I was very grateful the parking spaces were marked retail parking I mean they put stickers on them when people come in it you know they they have to pay we get lots of tickets from the University of North Texas if you're there for more than an hour and sticker goes out so I would say that basically mine is is probably more foot traffic bicycle traffic and during the week but I'll still have I mean the people will park their cars and I don't know where they park their cars I'm not gonna admit that I know where they park their cars they go early to get a parking space you know on one of the feeder streets they come to my shop they get something some coffee they work on their homework and then they go to class and they come back over where I am or they go to the Union so the streets are being used as as the parking areas sure does your business have parking spots available what is your parking interesting you should ask that question I have an agreement with workman's my employees park in there a lot okay so I will have to get a variance to have a place for my employees to park or they will be taking up the parking spaces I have ten employees they're not there all the time but and then I rent for parking spaces from Fort man's okay and so potentially your your business can be negatively impacted by losing those parking spots yes not potentially I mean I guess if it goes forward it would be impacted yeah okay and go back again to the 68 public parking spaces that are currently now on that lot if people go into Vortman's they come through Bortman's you know do their thing at Bortman come over grab a cup of coffee and go back out they know they had a place to park at Fort man's so I you know when I when I walked that and got to looking at it it was a concern sure and and just as I as I continue my train of thought in this the majority of your business is morning coffee drinkers in the morning or in the afternoon is there also issues yeah there's issues at both times because as the people are coming in and out just like with the traffic the the highest peak is between 9 and 11 in the morning that's when the most number of people come through the shop it goes up again between 3 and 4 in the afternoon okay so if you do a traffic study you may be missing I mean you may be thinking about when people go in and out to work but not when they go in and out to class sure now that makes sense thank you I don't see any other questions thank you very much thank you next speaker will be Anderson many Mary Mary followed by K ale Ward Mary Anderson 924 West Oak the Morris's and I moved in the same time on West Oak we were attracted to the area because of its historic character the charm the low-rise buildings we were promised much on the Frey Street development but I want to thank Ron for doing a good job I'd like to thank you for asking very nice questions they've been very eye-opening I've been to some of these community meetings frankly they're nothing but the same old presentation over and over again I believe I believe I believe today was the first day I saw data about parking January 6 2016 Dean does anybody know when classes are in UNT and TWU not January 6th the parking statistics they believe ask for the data it's not there it's a belief they already told us 33 North was very it wasn't very used they didn't December well that's fine everybody had already left after exams you need to run the parking when people are actually going to school there's so many things wrong with this plan and I know that most of you identified with them it's an SRO project shouldn't we stop and think about this do you know how many other apartments are planned in this area I'm sure you do there's the scripture one we'll see you then right all these other apartments the one right next to where they're talking about parking have you noticed there's not many people parking there not many of those apartments are rented what do you think is gonna happen next another one that's gonna seek the same variants as they've gotten this is crazy that's a traffic issue the real issue is the character of their neighborhood is going down I really don 't like thinking in my home being the buffer I live in a historic district and they said mr. King said that UNT had eight nine story buildings yes on the west side of campus nowhere near where they're planning to build in fact the best place is what Kim said was someplace else either match the restrictions that are given or move on to the other side of campus where the heights are higher closer to 35 the term is starting to go downhill and I just spent a lot of money renovating my house and pretty much I'm pretty sad to see all the development it's these guys and it'll be their next plan down the street and you know they pride themselves on the architecture that matches the neighborhood I don't know any of those that look like a historic neighborhood what about you not one they don't care nothing's coming into this neighborhood they're only gonna raise the value of my property because they're going to put on a big building and then claim student discounts on rents we need more family oriented things we need to have growth elsewhere not just here we don't need something that big if they could match the requirements but nothing has changed there are so much wrong the part that's too many it's too high there's not enough parking they've taken some away their surveys on everything are dated at the wrong time the coverage of the land does more than I can build on my house they want to have 70 % coverage drainage water traffic the hospital traffic how are you gonna get to the hospital anymore when you put this one up and the next one up and the next one up at any rate I'd like to thank you all and I hope certainly hope you go with what planning and zoning is suggested not to approve thank you I don't see any questions at this time do you have a question Larry you are ringing okay thank you Kale Ward followed by Randy hunt thank you I actually have some of these for you guys these are from I'm speaking on behalf of Brent Erskine owner and property owner of Vert mans so would you guys like these now or would you like me to hang them out sure please pass them out and then give us your name and address or if you're representing someone else I sure can okay my name is Kale Ward I am speaking on behalf of Brent Erskine who is the property owner and business owner of Vertmans bookstore on 1314 West Hickory so I'm gonna begin I want to apologize for my absence on for the October 26 2016 meeting I hope it is not interpreted as a lack of care or belief in the positive impact this development would have on the business businesses in the Fry Street overlay I want to start by explaining our intent by having EDR present this project the Vertmans building is over 90 years old and has been added on to four times for different business models our business model now is much different than several of the business models of the Vertmans family ran in the 1920s and 1990s we are neither we're neither as sophisticated nor we as diversified as mr. Vertman to run a department store however we do well it what we do well is create college stores with books apparel and our supplies since we understand who we are and who we are not we know we need to cut down on the 2000 or 24,000 plus square feet we operate Vertmans out of to become more efficient we can do this one of two ways subdivide our building adding more businesses to the area or sell to a student living company since the new development down the road has empty businesses business space for a lease we believe selling to a unit to a student living company is better for the Fry Street area EDR will add businesses or add business to the area instead of businesses create a new better looking space for our retail business which we will own and allow us to make sure the Vertmans name continues on as a store business in this community outside of the positive impact this will have on my business I believe there are many reasons this project should be approved increase in property tax for the city increase in city municipalities income for trash to electricity and clean up several older buildings in the overlay I understand that these older buildings are mine however they need to major updating and there is no better way than to do that than to add more year-round customers for the business businesses in the area even my friends who own businesses with zero parking will benefit from this however there are two main reasons I would like to look at in detail next page with the increase in enrollment at the University of North Texas there needs to be a serious consideration for zoning changes and the increase in revenue for small locally owned businesses when the Fry Street overlay was created in 1999 the University of North Texas had approximately 27,000 students in the fall of 2000 now this same university has 37 over 37,000 students in the fall of 2015 that is a 37.4 percent increase in the student population yet EDR is only asking for 25 percent increase in the number of stories think about this the tentative date this project will open would be fall 2018 and the income the incoming freshmen were not even born when the city created this overlay as the time goes time goes on buildings get old and they are replaced with new buildings that make that makes sense economically in the space and fit the surrounding buildings but the youth center at fry being 225 feet away having a similar configuration and the prevalent height of our proposed building is two feet taller than the parking deck at youth center suggests that our part that our project would fit perfectly in the environment from the standpoint of height the language auditorium and chemistry buildings across the street are also close in comparison these buildings are large enough that our proposed building would appropriately match the environment I understand that there is a parking issue at UNT like there is every other major university my suggestion is that even if EDR adds another 30 spaces again there will still be parking issue at UNT we should not make the private sector responsible for the parking issue UNT has created it is a very hard for me to understand that we don't believe there is enough walking traffic for EDR not to have one one -on-one parking when we have more than five businesses within 300 feet that don 't have any customer parking besides meter parking in addition to that with what little meter parking there is we have put bike racks and loading zones for the owners to park in please understand I don't have a problem with the loading zones or bike racks in fact we started at when we started at 103 Avenue a and Fry Street we paid for a loading zone and I used it to park my vehicle the problem is this city should have a consistent philosophy we receive a negative recommendation from the city and if we are honest it is for two reasons they think it is too too tall and there is not enough parking yet there is a building a half a block away that has a parking deck 60 feet tall they think there is not enough parking that yet we let our parking places go to loading zones and bike racks these loading zones are just used for business owners to park their vehicles put bike put bike racks bike racks business owners choice and for the fast food delivery employees to park their cars as a business owner on Fry Street since November 2017 I have seen several changes and have put built relationships with many of the business owners in the district all of which are positive for those that I have spoken with and have owned businesses before the youth center was built until now excluding lunch businesses have all said their sales have increased since the new development with EDR's proposal adding student housing and not adding any new businesses we are sure to increase the sales of all the small businesses on this street books copies coffee beer and food our hope is that we drop that we will drive enough business to keep businesses in the two new developments down the street I hope you can see that the apartment the apparent apparent benefit to small business and evidence of how the building fits in fits the environment the lack of consistency by the city could make a local business owner feel unsupported as a local business owner who has started three businesses in Denton created over two point five million dollars in sales tax paid several hundred thousands in property tax and employs over ten fold over ten full-time 20 part-time and a hundred plus temporary people the decision by the city PNC and City Council could give up me pause before reinvesting more money back into didn't I sincerely ask that you place a small vote for small businesses so they can continue to grow and invest back into didn't and if there are any questions I will try to answer them best on his behalf okay any questions thank you thank you Randy hunt to be followed by Aaron Knight my name is Randy hunt I'm at 722 West Oak it's at the corner of Oak and Mounts can you raise the microphone or speak closer to thank you sure I'm glad to be cooperative with the people that need that request well that's something here it on the record too so gotcha okay so obviously I'm at 22 West Oak we've been there since 2004 and I did go to the first meeting by these people that were asking for these variances and I think one of the things that we're really proud that we've been able to almost achieve we have a little bit more information to do but we're going to get a national register district for a big chunk of the area like from Hickory Street all the way to panhandle from Carroll all the way over to probably ponder Street it's about 350 houses the reason we're getting that is because we have a large percentage of homes that have not been disturbed but the major reason we're getting that is because we still have a cultural area that represents why that neighborhood was built in the first place so every time that there is some structure coming in that's you know like five-story building compared to structures that have been there for over a hundred years doesn't complement what we 're trying to do in fact we have visited with the Texas Historic Commission about another proposed area from ponder Street all the way up to Avenue C that's already been identified as potential National Register District as well so every time that something comes in and starts disturbing the cultural area it's disruptive five stories is disruptive I have no problem seeing you know changes I have no problem with you know the way it's zone right now and if people want to come into our area the city that was built the reason that UNT is here and work with the neighborhood that'd be a good reason to do that so really I think the focus of my issue with this development is that it's not an apartment it's a single single-room occupancy that by itself is not complementary to why the district is there why are the buildings there if I as a family wanted to move into one of those couldn't do it do you think that after this you know the current buildings can be built and some new owner comes in well it ever be switched to apartments no I think what we need to be working on is apartments that will support families that will support a community that will support you know the reason that the people are here we don't need any more single occupancy rooms have a question for you Commissioner Beck thank you chair thank you mr. on for coming down and speaking how long have you been in the neighborhood we bought in 2004 okay so you were there after sub area a yes before sub area B the neighborhood is evidently may get compromised with the city and University of North Texas allowing these bigger buildings there that could be considered an encroachment so what is it about this building that all of a sudden there's not a willingness to compromise going forward does that is that an assumption that the neighborhood was supporting it well you tell me I think that's an assumption okay okay because I think you're a number of people that were living in the Hoke and Hickory and other areas that were not supportive of that five-story building okay that's what I wanted to hear yeah okay now we're living with it but just because we lived with one doesn't mean we want to live with two and the biggest threat is that there's a proposal for a five-story single occupancy room and sro on scripture Street and that's just offensive because so anyway okay if we were at three stories the way it's owned right now I wouldn 't I would I create a compromise you could live with it I can live with that and I understand that the compromise may have been done so reluctantly I do but that seems to be the sense here and that what I'm hearing from most people so far is that the envelopes are being pushed and it puts us in kind of a slippery slope situation would that be a fair assessment by if we built a five-story building there I'm sorry I don't know if I got your question okay there's a sense that the envelope is being pushed now we've already allowed a three and a four story building there allowed a five-story is this a slippery slope situation in your opinion it really is because you know in the way that I count the stories on the on the building is there is this you know maybe we go back and look at it or maybe I need to go back and look at it but it looks like it 's more of a four story and not a five story so every time that there's a variance that's just offensive you know it's zoned for a reason and it's zoned because there's a whole bunch of neighborhoods that are right around the university why should we be willing to compromise on neighborhoods to accommodate businesses who want to make a profit okay thank you very much one more question Commissioner has with thank you thank you for your comments I'm gonna try to be succinct so help me help me quantify the bad experiences with the sterling or the current new developments there what what experiences have you had that that have left you with a negative impression are you familiar with the Evers house is the is the big yes to story on the corner yes sir so one of the comments was you know where students are packed into those rooms so they hang out on the balconies and you know some take sport with what can they throw but there are a number of conversations that are not g-rated sure and so there's just a lot of impact when you have that many you know people that are geared towards students because they're SRO is only that you know wouldn't be those same kind of problems if they were actually family units one would hope but if you're trying so let's let's narrow it down let's say I mean because I have two twenty-year-olds right there dynamically different than when they lived at my house right I mean it's life just as a way if they figure it out I hope I'll get back to you but but my point is I don't want to hold this development to what college kids right I mean there's just it's in the news every day college kids do this there you know there's athletes that make poor decisions at that age bad decisions are made I don't want to hold this development to that I don't hold sterling to that my my point is and I'm curious to get your insight do you think the fact that they do have a monopoly on that type development in that area emboldens them so if you're trying if you're trying to get a point across to sterling and they know they have a monopoly and the neighborhood comes out against anybody else that would challenge their area their business model maybe maybe these people do great work I've never released for them I'm not trying to represent that to you but I am trying to represent that there's something to be said for competition and the fact that hey we're losing students and we've got to be better about it to to get our rooms back full is there does that resonate I just want to get your thoughts on that doesn't resonate okay let me give you a different scenario absolutely let's talk about real competition okay you know let's talk about if I'm looking for a place to rent why would I want to be packed in to a five-story structure as if I could get to a three-story structure which probably would be a little less noisy and maybe is not so dominated by students can I answer sure okay so now you reflect back right so even within the past year so technology has jumped so now let's say they can offer Apple TV I can tell you now every plug on a planet has USB connections which they didn't before and so there's there's flat screens there's 4k TVs there's a myriad of technical reasons for a college kid that's gonna sit in his dorm room and play games watch TV and do homework that you could have add a whole bunch of amenities a whole bunch of new furniture a whole bunch of new stuff that would motivate me to want to live in that place versus someplace else is three stories that's been there a while that may not have USB connections may not have electric reclining couches you know I mean it's just so yes technology I think again having to 220 year olds that understands there's just been a lot happen that would motivate that change sure so I have to 20 years old as well great minds think alike yeah sometimes it gets challenging yes but here's here's the real question sure do we respect our own city right do we respect the culture that brought everyone here do we respect that there's a historic area that was worth preserving I think so that's what the question is sure and if we're going to complement why people are here in our town part of it is that we have a cultural area that's fun to be in we really need to be thinking beyond as to fry street area we need to be thinking about a cultural zone area that might follow the original city limits let's say that were the city limits a hundred years ago sure and let's celebrate that together let's not destroy what we have by putting more and more and more high rises around here perfect thank you thank you I see no other questions Aaron Knight to be followed by Anna petchening my name is Aaron Knight I am the general manager of vermin and I was originally here to speak on behalf of Brent and answer any questions that you might have had that kill couldn't answer okay we have any additional questions for represent Commissioner Rizal thank you chair there's been a lot of mention about your parking spaces in particular can you confirm that you use the 36 across the street we do not actually that is something I wanted to clear up those are all rented to students actually on a per semester basis the employees for vertman's park in the same parking lot as the customers and as the employees of other businesses in the area perfect this might be outside of your purview but who is renting to those students is it the owner of the property is the property not a vortman's vertman's doesn't have any affiliation with that lot Brent is the owner of the business and the property and the other lot yes yes as part of the perfect and then has there been any discussions about other businesses continuing to rent potential future parking spaces that this development will be building that I do not know okay that's it thanks thank you thank you the last card I have wishing to speak on this item is going to be Anna pitching me and if there's anyone else that would like to speak please fill out a card and get that to us up front and then we do have a couple other cards not wishing to speak but this will be our last card that we have wishing to speak hi if you don't mind I took notes so I wanted to could you give us your name and address yes my name is Anna Pichinina I live on Fry Street 224 Fry Street I do not own anything I don't own a property I rent I cannot afford to buy a house with this development the prices are going to go up higher I will not be able to afford a house in this area ever I've been taking notes I agree with most of the people that are speaking against this development there are several reasons why first of all market somebody said market is telling them that the parking spots are not being used therefore they need to have fewer well rec local residents may not use the parking spots in sterling therefore their garages could be utilized by people that are using both businesses they cannot because we're not allowed in there and from the previous meeting earlier in this year somebody mentioned that actually there was a talk about sterling development allowing residents parking in the sterling development and yet they were not afterwards another point being the parking is terrible all the way to the scripture you can see cars there any time of the day I leave for work at 750 because I am lucky I get to work on campus and I had the traffic so 750 this is when the traffic starts it's really it takes me 10 minutes instead of five normally another thing that nobody really talked about is the sunlight access because on the street Oak Street currently the sterling development is so high that the road next to it freezes in the wintertime and does not go out everything else does but that road does not like and that it just means that most of the day that area gets no sunlight whatsoever so if we build another development that 's this tall it's going to impact the houses directly behind it because the road is not that far I mean it's not that white so we're not gaining additional shopping places or businesses we also practically have a food desert and by food desert I mean that there is no grocery stores that you can get food from in a walking distance of campus you can go to get macaroni and cheese and chips and fries and burgers and beer and some you know sandwiches from CVS but you're not going to get fresh produce organic produce you have to take a car another which which is responsible students we have a lot of responsible students at UNT I'm a student at UNT and a full-time employee at UNT as well they will try to get food access to that food and they will drive they will use their vehicles so even though you're trying to minimize the amount of traffic these people will still need to get around and I don't know anyone who wants to go and carry sacks of food on the bus or on a bicycle I mean I've seen people do it it's just not convenient speaking of bicycles roads are in terrible condition bicycles are riding everywhere if they don't have a lane they go on a sidewalk they run over people and the cars don't respect they don't respect the people riding bicycles I myself own a bicycle I'm afraid to ride the roads on that bicycle so saying that people on bicycles will be living in this building is also a little bit funny to me I need an additional point I wanted to make is that we do need community spaces currently we are building so many developments around the area there is no additional parks and there is no community gardens or anything like that so there is actually more and more people but fewer and fewer places for these people to socialize in a free manner say it because right now if you want to socialize you go to bars and pay money to participate in that and another distinction I wanted to make in terms of business this is business that's not locally grown these are people coming from outside of town telling us how it is in the real world and what it should be and based on their research it's going to be great but we also have local business representatives that are telling you well what workmen's telling you that they want this but other people are telling you that they don't because obviously they have their own reasons and this development is going to be hurting them thank you very much right thank you again this is a public hearing anyone who would like to speak please come forward at this time you can hand it right here over the top yes sir next I'm Jay West and I'll start off by saying I'm your address 2606 Shelby Avenue in Dallas okay I represent the developer I'm as a consultant to the developer so I'll start by saying that I really just wanted to address one thing that Commissioner Roselle asked about whether the business of Vortmans was renting any of their parking spaces or the new project would be able to rent parking spaces to other businesses and I think the answer is no that they would not because they're providing what the code requires within the garage 31 spaces in the garage which a lot you know a lot of retail spaces very convenient out of the weather but there are there is a place in the Fry Street area and I don't know if any of other others have noticed it where there's a lot of unused parking I might go out on the limb a little bit but it is within the youth center Fry Street building they put in a lot of retail parking but if you go if you go over there and park to visit their facility you'll park in their little garage area their employees park there then if you weave your way around you come to this very large retail spot and I think at one point they intended it for it to be metered but basically it's just empty because no one knows it's there because the access is so circuitous but it 's probably it might be possible now I'm not going to say who's nickel this should be on but at the city for instance wanted to go to you Center Fry Street and say how about we pay to create a better access for these parking spaces and then you can get the revenue from it when students or when patrons of those businesses up and down the street want to use their parking spaces if you provide better access and better signage there's probably 40 parking spaces in there that go unused on a regular basis so that's that's all I had to say okay just yes I've got a question for you sir okay Commissioner Hesb eth so I'm trying to pull up you the the lot you're referencing so orient me again well it's within you Center of Fry Street's building it's not the building that we're discussing tonight building was built in 2010 they have I don't have a you know that there's a they have a building that's a long fry street that runs from fried hickory then there's an open space which is a drive- through area yes a cell tower in that area yes and on the one side of that open space is the five story parking structure yes within that parking structure on the first level and actually it goes down below grade slightly there is some parking that's hidden in there that's designed for retail students don't park in it and it's empty I've been I've driven in there myself it's very difficult to find it's very difficult to get to and it's blocked for view from the street because they have a little retail space there which they've had difficulty leasing on a regular basis since they've had a number of tenants that have failed so if the city this is just I'm just trying to think out of the box the city were to go to them and say you know what what would it cost to get rid of this little retail space and create a driveway to allow parking access in and out to access this lot if we paid for it would you be willing to do it because it probably would be happy to do it because I'll make money you might even negotiate with them and get them to pay some of the cost but you'd have to give them the permission to get rid of one retail space that they're they 've had difficulty leasing anyway on a regular basis sure it's right across the street from Lucky Looz I'm with you where Lucky Looz is yes sir pretty much right across the street from Lucky Looz okay thank you okay this is a public hearing so anyone who would like to come forward and speak on this item please do so at this time I'm Patrice like I live at 1109 Egan and I put in a card that was a yes a non-speaking card but I got to speak okay okay so like I said I live at 1109 Egan which I'm an 11-minute walk from my office I teach at UNT my office is in the auditorium building which will be then is right across from Vertmans one thing I think we have to remember while we're thinking about anything that is going to change the current fry Street small area plan is that it is surrounded by neighborhoods you've got the West Oak historic district you've got Oak Hickory and then you have my bungalow neighborhood that is behind that now my neighborhood is going to be part of the National Registry and it's also has been eligible to be a conservation or historic district for a number of years we just keep not doing it that's all I have to say about that however with the more that development goes outside the boundaries that are already in place like false small area plans the more we whittle away at the integrity of these historical neighborhoods my concern is of course for precedent being set that when I one developer comes in and of course when we do give a variance to one developer we're not giving that a variance to a developer who then has pinky sworn with us to only do what they say they're going to do that developer can turn around sell it to anybody else and any type of verbal agreements we feel like we're getting from those developers are just completely out the window every SRO builder in Denton since I have been paying attention it has built and sold every developer has said we are a build and hold company I live three houses away from the City Park and when the rail family came in 15 years ago maybe to develop that SRO what what used to be the flow hospital site they said we're building hold we will be here forever you want to call us if we have any problems within a couple of years they were gone what the sterling development is at fry Street currently the dinner steam people came through and they said we're building hold we will do anything you say they're now you center they've been sold so it's a myth when a developer says oh we're going to be here we're the ones who you're going to talk to for the next 50 to 100 years so I think we should take that into consideration that we can like what they're saying about where they're going to put their plan ters but it doesn't matter in the long run because they can sell it to somebody 's going to do whatever they want with those planters this might be false free fry Street small-area plan is built to protect the fry Street area it is built to protect the neighborhoods that are surrounding this fry Street area you know the city of Denton is not in the business of having to provide collegiate housing the University of North Texas still has space and they are extending their boundaries they're squaring off a little bit I've seen some of the master plan they're squaring off some of their boundaries to the east and yeah to the east and of course to the south they have room if they want to provide housing but it's not our job as a city to provide housing for college students remembering that I teach at UNT and I like my students but it's not our job and secondly if a developer comes in and creates a parking mass or a street mess a traffic mess then it's not Denton's responsibility to go clean up after developers who are creating more traffic that should all of that is the should be on the onus of a developer who is following the rules of the fry Street small-area plan as handed down by the Denton Development Code so that's all I have to say about that thank you very much okay I have one card from Laurie Weller at 2297 Wood Hollow Road here in Denton and she did not want to wish I did not wish to speak and she is in opposition to the fry Street overlay I have another card from Jennifer Lane at 1526 Willowood Street she does not wish to speak and she is in opposition I have a card from Kathleen Barnett at 607 Pearl Street she is in opposition card from William Barnett at 607 Pearl Street he is in opposition and then we had one other letter from Michael Martin at 2909 Seabright Court in League City Texas and he is opposed doesn't wish to speak okay and then have one other card from Aaron Piper at 1006 West Hickory and she is in opposition as well those are all the cards that we have this is a public hearing so anyone else that would like to come forward and speak please come do so at this time if you're going to speak only to come to the microphone and I think you've already spoke so we have a rule that you don't have one opportunity to speak unless someone would like to ask you a question and it looks like Commissioner Beck wants to ask you a question there's something you forgot to tell us earlier I did receive one of the 500 foot cards I did not reply to that so my reply was not one of the four that you had because I knew I was going to be here in person okay okay great thank you again this is a public hearing this will be our last call anyone else that would like to speak please come forward at this time seeing none I'm going to close the public hearing on this item and open the floor for discussion I just need to make we do have an announcement as well from staff thank you I just need to make some clarifications for the record the councilmember that did recuse himself is mr. errs mr. Steve Sullivan and I need to briefly state the reason for his request and that was because his wife did have a conflict she had an interest in the business of the seller of the property so he has recused himself in this case that leaves us five members because we do have mr. Devin Taylor out because of that we have a rule in the the City Council rules of procedures seven point five five that requires an affirmative vote of four members in order to pass an item so this is going to take four out of the five members present here tonight in order to pass this thank you okay Commissioner Beck thank you chair I have a comment then I'd like to make a motion but I'll hold off on my motion if other people want to make comments too so I want to thank everybody for coming down and I appreciate your input and that goes for EDR as well what we 've heard from EDR and the people who support it is not surprising and I agree with it totally there's there's a need for student housing they build an excellent product and I'd love to see them build here and didn't there's no question about that and I hope they do but not at this spot and there's a reason for that and I think the people of the neighborhood have adequately stated that that it diminishes what all of us have enjoyed for years the historical area has a lot of significance not just for the people who live there but for the people who live in them I've been here since the early 70s and I've watched this encroachment take place so I realized that we all understand that the city's going to grow and we've got to make changes and I think the residents of that area have done that I think they've compromised they 've allowed sub area a and sub area B and and for sub area C to come in and just keep building it bigger the last speaker you know made the good point that nothing's ever permanent it is a slippery slope for me and I think for everybody else there so again nothing against EDR again great company hope they do build here but I have to oppose it so my motion is that we deny request for this okay so we have a motion on the floor for denial commissioner Ellis I'll second that motion okay we have a first and a second okay we have a first and second any discussion commissioner Hudson yes so by the indication of the first and second this is all just conjecture so but my thought is looking back four people came back from from the January meeting there was four people that were against that returned and then there's another handful of new people that were against and so and I was the wolf pack of one on the first trip and so I I think understanding respecting the neighborhoods request is I'm trying to balance that with I don't know that it fixes what we're trying to do and I think it also is a little short-sighted because what if they just decide to get under the threshold and you've lost your ability to curtail what goes there right and so it's like it's almost like I wish there was a way me personally just to go meet with the neighborhood and say there's got to be a medium ground where you can at least have a say so and what goes there because if they 're if they're sold out on building there then you're absolutely going to have zero say so you're gonna you're gonna have this document and this that was everything I can find says that this overlay was created in 2010 and they're gonna get under that threshold and and you and so you don't have an opportunity to modernize that document and curtail it to something you want your and so that's my concern for the neighborhood is the you know this is twice and so at some point there's going to be a meeting someplace and they're going to say hey we'll just do this and so now they don't have to come before us and you you don't get a chance to to have a neighborhood meeting have a neighborhood say so and that's my concern for the neighbors I want them to have an ability to partake and be a part of the process but you the developer is in a corner where they're either going to decide hey we're going to move on or we'll get under threshold and now you have this monster building anyway and you have no say so and your pipes are rattled and everything and and and so I don't I don't know of a way around it I mean I wish him the best and I agree with the Commissioner Beck it's great project I disagree with him in that I think it doesn 't this project not being there doesn't fix the traffic it doesn't fix the road it doesn't ignore the fact that Eagle Drive one of the major thoroughfares that you and T just redid they took away a lane so what's the real it was two lanes each side now it's one lane in a center median and so that that adds to the problem on oak with Bonnie Bray being expanded that's going to add to the problem with oak razor-rance developing and the convention center going on board adds to the problem and so I think there's a lot of stuff going down the road that that you will wish you had a say so in the project versus they build it by right but you have to put purse I'll put personal feelings aside and and and there's just too many people that have spoken against it to kind of ignore it a second time I did that first time so thank you Commissioner Roselle thank you chair so when I was here in January and I listened to the presentation and I did vote to not approve then with great expectation and hope that EDR would come back with just a no-brainer we can get this through because it seems like there is a track record there is a history to the company and like Commissioner Beck said their product is of high quality from what I can tell and I feel like their history is a testament that they might not be so inclined as to flip the property they haven't done that in their in their past and so I really wanted this project to come forward to to us with just some strength and clarity and to be honest I didn 't see either to have the same narrative resubmitted to us nine months later is a little concerning that it wasn't even changed to show the changes that was made to us and it increased the ambiguity of what was trying to be achieved here and so I'm disappointed in that the parking spaces as I mentioned earlier seem to be completely all over the place I still I I feel maybe confident there was 260 parking spaces but there's so many different documents that have different numbers I have concerns with that so in terms of of the the the proposal we got forth tonight not to discredit any work that's put forth of the money involved it just seemed a little haphazard and it doesn't instill a lot of confidence for the project going forward considering some of the discrep ancies that we've seen throughout the presentation and some of the concerns brought up I do agree with the Commissioner Hudspeth in terms of traffic unfortunately for residents of Oak that streets is getting worse I wish they 'd redo Hickory that that traffic and they can like Hickory's is a terrible street to drive on period but Oak is going to get worse it's going to increase traffic if this project goes forward or it doesn't or it ever goes forward on this piece of property razor ranch is still going to hope oak is the natural incl ination from Carroll or downtown to get to raise a ranch and so there's most likely probably gonna be a bike lane if there's gonna be issues with oak going forward and so I hope individuals who live on oak or in that area know that that's kind of an evil coming and and us not moving this forward potentially tonight doesn't solve that issue unfortunately oak is developed to be a secondary artery it's meant to take people from Carroll West to Bonnie Braids it 's kind of the natural progression I used to live on Egan and so I know very well the neighborhood and in the character of it and oak is what it is and again to Commissioner Hudspeth's point I feel like when when a company or project comes to us asking for things it gives the position of power to the city to to ask for things in return and so to what I believe was his point is if they just meet everything to code then by right they can build whatever they want and so I wish there's an opportunity where they were coming and asking for things that we could have had a dialogue to find a compromise because we saw this with Buc-E's we tried to interact with Buc-E's to agree on something nothing ever happened they built by right and the city lost some opportunities I feel to ask for things from that development because they just built by right and so that's a legitimate worry here is some other developer come in see the the ordinances and just build and we won't have any say in it we won't be able to ask anything and so I guess it goes back to my first point I just wish it was stronger when it came that we could say yes this this is good for the development this is good for the the city area but I just didn't see it tonight and so those are my thoughts I like Commissioner Beck said I hope EDR builds in Denton I just don't know if this is the property or the project that's gonna happen Commissioner Ellis thank you chair just wanted to say a couple words since I haven't said much thank you all for sharing your thoughts and and that's everybody for or against this development I guess I just to give my reasoning for denial is sub area a I believe was put in place for a reason this is a special part of Denton and I think it was put in place to try to keep some of that specialness about that corner sub area B was approved I was not on the Commission when it was approved now this is sub C that's asking for even more than B did with regard to what sub a already has in place which was put in place again to keep the area special this opens up the door if this is approved a little bit more for sub area D and E and F etc and you know the project is great you know to again echo sentiments already given it looks like a wonderful development for student housing it's just being proposed in the wrong location Commissioner back thank you chair just a couple of statements and again both Commissioner Roselle and Husper the correct you know oak is invariably gonna you know pick up traffic that's unavoid able but I think an EDR can't control the traffic they can't control student activity but by default just the fact that they're building there it's gonna enhance these and by not building it maybe we've got a little time here to work out traffic situations I think Bonnie Bray actually will help people work around these residential streets can't say that for sure but I think that's a positive aspect of that so thank you I'll throw a couple of comments I think before we run closes for a vote understand the complexity of this particular area I guess one of the things that strikes me considerably is that the the main property owner apartments is in support of this project they're looking to they've been there since early 20s and it's almost 100 years and looking to continue to stay in business and you know when you look at the time frame of when this overlay was originally put in place it was done in 2000 and then it was updated in 2010 which is essentially 15 years ago it's essentially a zoning case and this body this Commission here zoning cases all over our city and we have many groups that come before us that have very deep concerns about properties surrounding them and what property owners are wanting to do with their property and wanting to have their properties rezoned and most of those are very similar to this case which is a up zoning which is going from an NR 2 to an NR 3 or in our 2 to NR 4 in our 4 to NR 6 that's because there is going to be more and more density in our city that is part of our 2030 plan is to have greater density it's to have density inside the loop and with that that's essentially where these projects in my opinion are going to continue to come before this Commission and our city is going to have to deal with them is because there is going to be greater density here our city is growing the university is growing when you look at the student growth of North Texas of 27,000 in 2000 to now 37,000 that is a huge increase and not only is it just students but it is staff at the university to support them and all the other things that go into that and that is just the reality that we're faced with and being right across the street from the university versus in other areas and all of the other transportation issues that come place of if this is built six blocks away from the university or half a mile away from the university and all these students in half to get from where they live to the university the traffic issues that the university is going to deal with are going to be significantly more than them walking across the street and going to campus so I may be the lone wolf this evening who will pack that you know I understand that there's a hesitation for a change that things want neighbors want to see things stay the same but this is a commercial area it is right across the street from North Texas the traffic there has more to do with the number of students that go to the university that in my opinion what are going to be coming for this particular project so I'm not going to vote this evening on the motion as far as to firm I'll be against the denial because I think this project long term or another project behind it to Commissioner Hudspeth point will change a couple of feet and then there will be no say and it will be built and that will be the end of it and those things may that may just be what happens on this particular piece of property I do want to echo all of my fellow commissioners I appreciate everybody who has come out time and time and time again on this particular issue it takes a lot of time to do that it takes a lot of time to study the issue go to the neighborhood meetings and I appreciate you coming out this evening to share your voice and so with that if there's not anyone else to speak I'm going to call for a vote on this issue seeing that we will call for a vote on the board and the motion before us and we have a first and a second for denial do we need to do by hand or you got it okay that we may be having some technical difficulties clarification so if we vote for it go ahead if we vote for this we're voting for the approval of the denial correct about four is a vote for denial no would be against denial right okay please vote on the board motion for to denial carries four to one that will take us to our final thank you everyone for coming out again Commissioner Sullivan if you're out in the foyer watching online please come back to join us or we'll send somebody to come get you here is you're good come in come join us all right that will move us to our final item this evening which is going to be our project matrix and concluding items Commissioner Roz elle thank you first I just want to thank staff for getting minutes to us quickly I know we talked about that like nine months ago how there was a delay it's really easy for me to think back this is what I said last meeting and confirm and so I just wanted to publicly thank you all for getting the minutes to us timely much appreciated and and I will probably give the the balance my time to the chair on this but I do want to advocate first off some sort of reevaluation for having them pay $25,000 for a road that the city is requiring I don't know how to put that into place to review but that's yeah the ESA the mobility plan going through ESA and having the developer foot that bill that's mind-bogg ling to me so I'd love to see that discussion go further anybody else do we have the I may have missed it on the matrix on where things yep I'll catch it on my own time sorry thank you Commissioner Rozelle I will take that balance of time and I would like to see added to our matrix the point that I addressed in our work session about staff which I think is already on the agenda to take a look at this ESA mitigation on things that are required for either mobility plan or utility improvements there may be even some other areas that staff would have some more insight than I would that these things come up and to Commissioner Rozelle's point and my point of asking to quantify it some of these things are not only very expensive in dollars but also the amount of land that is lost for a developer to develop their projects on top of the fact that they're already putting in roads and infrastructure that the city is has drawn on a map and so this needs to go here so I think it does add to a significant cost burden and I appreciate staff being willing to take a look at that and bring that back to us so with that I'm going to close our meeting at 903 thank you everyone